translated by Jaroslav Vajda
The original publisher of this work, Obrana Press, stopped operating in 1953.
Reprinted under fair use.
Who brought about this searing, this decline,
this bestializing of morality?
What dragged man’s soul from its sublime degree
and plunged it into mud? What vulturine
vampire or leech still sucks the blood divine
with an eternal thirst? What can it be?
Nothing but selfishness! And one can see
no force to bring this monster into line.
It vexes, wrongs, and flays for all it’s worth
whomever it is able to debase;
a world of such sufficient size and girth
it wants all for itself; with sober face
it claims the very limits of the earth
and pushes others somewhere into space…