Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 10/30/2019
You love your home, family home,
that every summer night, through silver mist,
with rustle of its linden trees accompanies your dreams,
and with silence soothes your tears?
You love your home, this old roof that tells a tale
about long-forgotten past and olden days,
family threshold of moss-covered entrance doors,
that warmly greets you after every long hard road?
You love your home, a refreshing aroma of golden grain
and grasses in the morning freshly cut,
of moist alders high and red roses wild,
that weave flowers into hawthorns' green thick hair?
You love your home, this forest dark,
that noise of its powerful songs
and ghosts moaning, and winds choir,
is pouring into your ever-restless blood?
You love your home, family home,
that amongst storms, in days of doubt,
when the thunder hits your soul,
with its memory saves you like a protective shield?
But if you truly love, and if you truly want
to live under this roof, to eat bread of grains,
guard thresholds so dear to you with your heart,
and lay your heart among beloved walls! ...
Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)
Maria Konopnicka's funeral was attended by almost 50,000 people, and to this day this great poet has her special place in the hearts of ordinary Polish people.
Konopnicka's poetry has a pinch of Hans Christian Andersen's warmth and magic to it, and this warmth and magic is not lost in free-verse translation.
Enjoy!