The Corrupt Young Men Poem by Peter Mamara

by M. Eminescu (1850-1889)

Now I climb down to you, delusional souls,
To burn the gall out of you, oh you dizzy spirits.
I invoke the man-hating curse, with its blue claw.
So I can mark you like cattle, with the red-hot iron from the fire.

Even though I know that my lyre shall waste its time in vain
Around your minds drunk by desires,
Around your lust for cravings,
Around your minds tired by orgies
And wasted by love, and burned by drunkenness
And fallen to pieces by spasms.

Oh, may your anger boil, in your clogged veins,
In your watery eyes on bluish brows caused by loss,
Caused by rotten blood.
Since the Prophet, forever shall not be concerned
For the weakened hand, and spent power
— Of the corrupt young men.

What do I have to select from your ineffective beings?
To tell you the truth, it is a fire that can't be stifled.
Oh, lifeless men you, while alive,
In the spilled wines and in smashed bottles
With filthy young women that yell, in orgies,
Shall I admire your courage?
Or the brutes that keep this day in chains?

I see that you lay on your youth's bed, which you had defiled.
I also see you breath coming out your mouth,
With the disease of the life you've followed,
And you are burned to your bowels.
I see you how you flatter the sterile and bitter gaze.
I see you how you fall on your knees.

Wake up. Since the years of the past form ranks
And unwind the flag in triumphal lines,
Because Rome has been restored to life.
Again the people, step through glories, with heir faces deified as emperor.
With torches forever on fire — for, the former emperor's rule has been unkind.

Wake up. As the whirlwind that carries demise,
Like a scared lion, with it's mournful voice
It roars to the nations.
Everything that breathes is free. The world belongs to everyone.
The right and the liberty are not just a name.
Everyone observes them.

Gird up your sword, in a dance of death,
The wind shall carry you how it can.
So you can hop into the fight.
There you go in waves of thousand of battalions,
Like a deluge of flames
That is carried by the storms.

See how the ashes come back to life when the urn splits,
How the Roman people's past, murmurs with cry of war.
How the shadows dress up in protective gear,
And a Trajan or a Cesar,
He raises from afar his grey haired head.

The Royal thrones fall rotten in the sea of wrath
— At the same time with the chain of slavery.
The iron sceptres fall to pieces.
The inferno opens its gates on sides,
So the hideous souls of the executed tyrants
Can be counted by the thousands.

To no avail my voice repeats again
It comes back in a recurrent sound.
The bell startles your numbed ear
And your' passed out vigilance,
And the virtue came undone.
And our motherland's goddess isn't able
— To stir up a single sparkle in your icy soul.

I sit alone and I seek, like the eagle that tries
To find in the heart of today's young guys devoid of life,
A carcass so it can greedily eat.
Like the bird in its flight in the sky comes to its senses…
Like the mountain that on its top lined up by clouds,
It copes a thunderbolt…

But at least do not say that you have feelings.
Since the sacred mystery,
Forever doesn't dress up in tarnished clothes.
Since your voice sounds like a cry at a wedding:
Or like a laugh at the last resting place,
Or like a word of warning that repeats a song of bliss.

(1869 January 31/ February 11)

Translated by