Hanging on the gallows. Dry as coarse hay. Hanging on the prison wall. A wall of shame. Black villainous pit under it, of ill fame, Place of ******, dark as the foulest play.
I saw that hem somewhere, one rural day, For my mother's face had that kind of a frame, And similar eyes I had seen on a dame: To what a place had I been led astray!
And in her stead I jumped in that fatal hole And with her bloodied sweat wet as a dark shoal, As with tears, my insolent cheek I drowned.
For my sweet Croatia they hanged and disgraced, Like a common thief, as her name is erased, For the sake of who knows who, by lawmen in bounds!
Translation of a patriotic poem by Antun Gustav MatoΕ‘, a Croatian modernist poet, written on the hundred year anniversary of the birth of Ljudevit Gaj. The poem is said to be inspired by a somber dream. I tried to keep the rhyming system and the number of syllables; hopefully that hasn't damaged the poem's quality.