The Hope Poem by Peter Mamara

by M. Eminescu (1850-1889)

How the hope tenderly touches
And gently cheers up all the mortals.
Sadness, pain, tears and love
Find protection at its desired bosoms,
And vanish like clouds in the wind.

Similar to a traveller, who,
Lost in the dark of thick woods,
And who runs like being carried by the wind,
To a spot where he sees a faint light,
So he can get out of the dark.
So is hope, which with a gentle glint
And its feeble quenching light,
It brings to life, the once shaky legs.
So a person misses the burdens and fails to see the clouds.
And were does a piece of news rushes?

To the guy that desperately cries in prison
And he curses Heavens, and his luck.
The hope puts a stop to his depressing angst.
The hope arranges, so the world' s paranymph (death)
May come to him with a sinister finality.

And to the mother, who cuddles her baby,
And whose gaze is full of tears and agony,
The hope calms down her sadness,
After she sees how the spirit of death descends
— Over her baby's head, with pain and seizures.

She sees how hope smiles,
And she forgets the great danger.
She brings the baby closer to her lily-bosom
And she covers his face with her black hair.
She holds the baby closer to her bosoms.

And so the sailors crossing the seas,
Being tossed by waves and by storms,
Being tossed by the blast and by the icy ocean,
The hope makes them forget the storm
And they wish for finer weather.
And so the virtuous, while dying don't despair.

The hope brightens up their heads.
With the sweet hope of reward in Heavens
They shall forget death's pain
And close their eyes in peace.

The how hope sweetly cuddles
And slowly soothe all souls,
The wretchedness is in pain, in tears.
Love offers asylum at its desired bosom too,
Where difficulties vanish, how the breeze or the clouds do.

(1866 September 11/23)

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