Comfort of Hair

 

I watched you last night. Dreaming. Sad. Dead.

In a deadly hall, within an idyll of flowers,

High on a catafalque, surrounded by candles’ agony,

Ready to offer you my life like a sacrifice.

I did not cry. I did not. Mesmerized I stood

In that deadly hall, filled with glorious death,

Doubting that those dark eyes were clear

Wherefrom once a better life shone at me.

Everything, everything was dead, eyes, breath, hands,

Everything I tried to awaken with my lament

In blind passion and passionate pain,

In that deadly hall, my thoughts were grey.

Only your hair was yet alive,

Speaking to me: Be at peace. In death you dream.

Allow me to introduce this poem to you, kind reader. It was written by one of Croatia’s most distinguished writers, Antun Gustav Matoš (1873-1914), a poet, journalist, essayist, and one I particularly love. This poem is my favourite – and I beg your pardon for my most clumsy translation.

For me, there is so much sadness here, but also the splendour of hope… and that even death, however dark it might be, does own beautiful nuances. There is peace. And though we suffer when we lose someone dear, kind reader, the memories in our hearts preserve a warm fire.

When I have lost people dear to my heart I often thought I would not be capable of surviving. The pain was immense, and it seemed to engulf me in the most agonizing grey cloud. But when I realized that this pain was nothing else than love, I learned to survive. It is nothing but love, only love has taken on a more sombre colour. And deep within it there still lives that glow which enriched my life by knowing my lost ones. And that not even death can take from me.

I find something of that in this beautiful poem. And perhaps you might, too.

Oh, and the picture is a detail of Oxford’s Shelley memorial.