Crackling, crackling, crackling cricket on dark bark of cade
A deafening rasping trochee, an iambic drum…
The noon reigns. Over the silence a smooth wave, a swell,
Of the sunny dithyramb.

“I drank the flaming sun today,” it sings.
“My veins are swollen like a mountain stream.
In my entrails a dark sea bobs and swings.
My back’s a forest, startled by a chill.
Two rocks, two slopes become my sides, supreme
My head stands as the summit of the hill.”

Crackling, crackling, crackling cricket on dark bark of cade
While liquid fire of sun’s embers pours from the sky:
“Hark, Mortal: while I’m the anthem at the altar sung,
The proud temple mute stands nigh.

Come out! Why hide in the tree crown, in the hollows dark?
The snail is on the rock and the worm has left the mud
In the heat they revel, in the sun’s gold-glowing spark
Bright sky’s raining holy blood.

Come out, you, erupted from an angry dragon’s fang
To become the burning bush, a taut bow, a sword-flame,
But turned gentle in your soul when the May flowers sprang,
But to autumn waters’ cry gave ear, and turned tame.

With your bile you slather earth
Made mean by the pitch of night
But the same earth gave you health and strength by birth
In your bosom sits her gold key of delight.

I swallow Sun’s embers hot
And feel within me burbling rivers flow,
Where green groves susurrate with sunlight wrought,
A spring gurgles, the sea crashes stark,
Gray spruce berries ripen, blue wine grapes grow,
Resin oozes down the bark.

O, Mortal, I am drunk.
Give me sun, more sun, more sun.
To my soles the ice still clings
And still darkness my eyes stings.
In winter I have sunk.”

Relentlessly rasping on, with heavy beat he whips
The barrens hot, the forest dead, the air aswelter.
Like a silky tail of bunting on the wings of wind
Flicks the harsh song’s pelter.

And he sings: “Glory be to soil, to waves, to sunlight!
On the arid bark of ash I crave a drop of dew
A drop of yellow juice on a berry of a yew
But give my voice new might.

Sun’s strings span from the Heavens to the Earth,
Taut enough to sing. The vast harp glistens.
Many hands tug at it. — The heavens hum
And the whole Earth listens.

Peace over water, hush in the vale and grove lingers,
But in the fathoms I hear a vast heart beating strong:
You fear, o Mother Earth, that under careless fingers
A brittle string might break, silent fall the sunny song.

O, Mortal, do you hear it sing?
It simmers like a silver sea,
Or like a swarm of bees on wing.
It sings: “The world is grand, life’s a holy gift,
Let your thirst become a great and hot hunger,
So swallow my fire and suckle my milk,
Always to stay young, and younger.

O, give me sun, more sun, more still!
And sweet fragrance from the valley
And wind from the top of the hill!

O, Mortal, I am drunk with sun.
Look, behind the bush you can see,
Playing a frantic melody
On eerie flute, the naked Pan.”

Crackling, crackling, crackling cricket on dark bark of cade
A deafening rasping trochee, an iambic drum…
The noon reigns. Over the silence a smooth wave, a swell
Of the sunny dithyramb.

(Translated by Bruno Ogorelec)