Arany János poems

Which poem is it?

'Then game and fish and ev'ry dish 

That lures the taste and sight     

A hundred hurrying servants bear 

To please the appetite.'

Which poem?

'For her son,

held in Prague,

were these fair words she wrote,

harshly keptin prison cell;

good news to him it brought.'

As far as the eye can see on bleak earth and sky,

one workman alone on his feet.

A whopping side-rail sways on his browny shoulder ligthly, and still

not a trace of beard on his chin.

I have no shame, no regret

That born Hungarian, I write

As one, that I can never let

My words beyond this soil take flight.

This was no mere prize won in a competition…

More than good fortune, it is my divine destiny!

To be the winner - how could such be my ambition?

I nearly gave to the fire my humble poetry.

From day to day, year to year, summer and winter

she will ceaselessly keep on washing the linen and splinter,

Her pale face would burn in flames under the hot summer sun,...

The evening comes and everything is hushed,

while darkly nods the leafy mulberry tree;

a buzzing insect strikes against the wall,

a loud crash follows, there is heard no more.

The lark's aloft from bough to bough,

the song is passed from lip to lip.

Green grass grows o'er old heroes now

but song revives their fellowship...

My orphaned song, what are you now?

The soul of ballads long deceased?

What ghost comes forth to mop and mow?

Whose spirit has the grave released?

Two youths are kneeling with lutes in their hands-

looks as if there were a cross struck to the spear's stem -

with victory shouts proud Ali cheers his band

sand he dances and praises and feasts them.