When you visit your forest this spring, you will see Thick, inscrutable mists as the dew madly seethes. You will hear how the earth trembles under your feet, Your reluctant return hungry vultures will greet - These are marks on the landscape that hatred bequeaths! Hatred, in burgeoning buds, sprouts around us; Hatred - it seeps with our sweat through our pores; Hatred - it penetrates us and surrounds us, Scorching our heart’s tender cores. Evil ruthlessly works its caprice in the land - Russet stains in the river betray us this news! Sword hilts - heavy, ornate - cool our passionate hands; Desperation adroitly our bodies commands, Every other emotion by hatred subdued! Hatred maims youth, mars its innocent luster; Hatred inundates the heart in a flood; Hatred - it yearns for, it thirsts for, it lusts for Black boiling enemy blood! Hatred does take men captive - it trammels and binds - But when heroes are wroth, is it blood that they lust? And the hatred in us - neither wicked nor blind: Bracing winds will dry tears from our eyes and our minds, These, the tears of a hatred both earnest and just! Hatred won’t long stay concealed or immobile; Drink, for the chalice of wrath overflows! But in our hearts, ruled by hate pure and noble, Love, too, unfailingly flows.
© Eugenia Fuchs. Translation, 2010