Miloš Crnjanski

Miloš Crnjanski (1893–1977) Serbian lyricist, modernist writer, and diplomat, educated in Vienna and Belgrade, he spent most of his life in foreign lands. A sense of tragic displacement of self and his role as part of the historically tragic Serbian destiny permeates Crnjanski’s passionately Romantic writings. In a lengthy and highly productive literary career he produced novels, dramas, travels, and poetry, some of which were lost or destroyed by the author. Among the best known are Lyrics of Ithaca (1918), Journals of Ćarnoević (1921), Migrations (1929), Migrations [II] (1968), A Novel about London (1968), and, most famously, Lament over Belgrade (1965).

LAMENT over BELGRADE

YAN MAYEN and my Srem Paris, my dead friends, cherries in China, visit me as apparitions, while here I am silent, sleepless and dying. Only, we are not these, anymore, life, or the stars either, but some monsters, polyps, and dolphins, tumbling over us, floating and riding, screaming: “Dust, ashes, and death it is” while shouting Russian “nyitchevo” and Spanish “nada.”

Meanwhile, you grow, with the bright morning star, and the blue Avala, in the distance, like a hill. You sparkle, even as the stars are fading here, melting like the Sun ice of tears and last-winter’s snow. There is no absurdity in you, no death. You shine like an old unearthed sword. In you all resurrects, dances, and keeps swirling, repeating like the day and a child’s cry. And when my voice, my eyes, and my breath lose life’s sap you will, I know, hold me in your lap.

ESPANA and our Hvar Dobrović deceased, a white sheik in the Sahara Desert, still visit me as ghosts, phantoms and flames. My Sibe gone mad, agape like a dead fish. Only, that is not us, anymore, neither in youth or in power, but some parrots, melancholic chimpanzees laughing at me and screaming in my solitude. One “Leiche! Leiche! Leiche!” hollers another “cadaver” mutters the third “Corpse, corpse, corpse.”

Meanwhile, you spread oblivion, like a swan its wings, over the rivers Danube and Sava, in their dream. You awaken glee, that once was mine, a giggle, here, in my cry, wail, and scream. No worm is in you, even from a grave You glimmer, as human laughter, through the tears. In you a plowman sings, even in winter, brave, pouring the blood, into a new vat, like the wine, And when my head drops marking my years’ end, you will, I know, kiss and touch me with the mother’s hand.

THE PAST and my world, youth, loves, gondolas, and Venice in the skies, a vivid vision, like a wave, or a beautiful bloom, in the company of masks that came to claim me. But it is not I, or Venice azure, but ruins, ghosts, and tombstones that stay behind us on the ground or in grass. They say: “Here lies a pasha! A beggar! A dog!” and shout in French “Tout passé,” And our “gone.”

Meanwhile, you stand above the wide river, over fertile plains, like a shield, raised and hard. Blissfully resonating with a distant thunder, weaving through ages, with lightning, your own line. There is no, in you, my human sadness. Like an archer’s, your look is mute and straight. Like rain, you turn tears to colorful rainbows and, inhaled, cool me, like a distant pine. And when the hour comes to still my old heart, your acacias will fall on me like the rain.

LISBOA, and my voyage into the world, castles in the air, and the ocean-foam appear to me still, while my candlewick shakes like a twig and I move the land and all into the dream, the dream,the dream. Only, these are neither women nor men alive, just shadows, helpless, weak and sad, telling me they are no beasts nor at fault that life has given them naught They murmur now “nao, nao, nao” and our “no. no.”

Meanwhile, in the still of the night breathing to the height of the stars, leading the Sun to your dream, You hark to the hum of your...