Hristo Smirnenski

Hristo Smirnenski Poems

Hristo Smirnenski Biography

Hristo Smirnenski born as Hristo Izmirliev, (September 29, 1898 - June 18, 1923) was a Bulgarian poet and prose writer. His hometown was Kukush in Macedonia, Ottoman Empire, (today Kilkis, Greece), which had militant traditions and an enterprising population. Hristo spent a happy childhood in a friendly and understanding patriarchal home. He was a free, witty and playful child with a vivid imagination and keen sense of humour. He wrote songs, stories about birds and animals and rhyming jokes. He made his literary debut in 1915 during his second year at College in the satirical newspaper "K'vo da e" ("Anything Goes"). Hristo first called himself "Smirnenski" in the magazine "Smyah i salzi" ("Laughter and Tears"). His hard tireless work and deprivations undermined the 25 year-old poet's health and he died on 18 June 1923 from tuberculosis, "the yellow visitor". He had followed political events and kept his faith, optimism and sense of humour right until his last breath. In the eight brief years of his prolific career Hristo Smirnenski penned thousands of pieces of poetry and prose in various genres using more than 70 pseudonyms.)

The Best Poem Of Hristo Smirnenski

Coalminer

Go down and deeper down, down!
Go down into the chilly pit,
Where shining bodies writhe and pound
Upon a wall by blackness lit -
A life of toil in darkness drowned,
Suffocating and unholy lands.
In twisting tunnels blows resound
Of picks held firm by sinewy hands,
They ring in protest and in hope
For open skies and sunny days,
Go down and deeper down, down!
into spaceless space.

Go down into the lightless womb
Of rapacious mother Earth,
Where men are doomed to constant gloom,
Deprived of their human worth
And the glimmer of your lamp
Will light this temple of toil,
Sinister rugged and damp,
Build of props, black stone and simple soil.
There monster idols twitch and frown
Upon the worshippers of dayless time.
Go down and deeper down, down!
into a climeless clime.

Here the countless years have piled
Layers upon layers of black
And stony rugs of patterns wild,
Boundless Nature's bounty stack
of power locked in smoke and flame,
Rough and cold like human pain.
Go down to this fountain of shame,
Of hope and despair, of sweat and gain.
Go down along the narrow track,
And storm the dark abysmal caves
To break the layers thick and black
and the chains of slaves.

Shove the shining mass of coal
Into the raging furnace of the fight,
And out of the leaden clouds will roll
An ever-flowing river bright,
Luminous streams and waves of fire
Rushing through the weary night,
In fury and rightful ire,
The Earth will bathe with joyous flares,
With rainbow-coloured blazing arks,
With flaming fires every where,
and myriads of sparks.

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