Blue Tomb (Plava Grobnica by Milutin Bojic)

Hail to you, imperial galleys! Restrain your
mighty rudders!
Stroke your oars silently!
I'm proudly officiating a sublime Requiem in the chill
of the night
Upon these sacred waters.

Here at the bottom, where seashells tire in sleep
And upon the dead algae peat falls,
Stretch the graves of the brave, couched brother
beside brother,
Prometheuses of Hope, Apostles of Pain.

Don't you feel the wafting sea,
That it may not trouble their holy repose?
From the deep abyss peaceful slumber ebbs,
And in tiring flight the moonlight slowly passes.

This is a mysterious temple and a sad graveyard
With decaying carcasses, unfathomably real.
Silent like the night on the tip of the Ionian Sea
Dark as a conscience, cold and despairing.

Don't you feel from your most depressing moods
That piety grows over this benediction
And the air fills with curious gentleness?
That great soul of the fallen roams

Hail to you, imperial galleys! Upon this tomb
my dear kindred ones
Veil the trumpets in mourning black.
Let your sentry, upright, chant the holy dirge
Here, where waves come to an embrace!

For the centuries will pass as the white foam
vanishes upon the sea without a trace,
And a new and great age will come in its place,
To create a splendid home upon this grave.

But these waters, in which was shrouded
the terrible mystery of the Epic,
these waters will be a cradle in Time of legends revealed,
Where the soul will seek out its Destiny.

Buried are here once ancient garlands
And the passing joy of more than one generation,
That's why this cemetery lies in the shadow of waves
Between the bosom of the sea and the vault celestial.

Hail to you, imperial galleys! Extinguish the torches,
Let the oars come to a blustering rest,
And when the Requiem prayers are said, steal away
into the dark night
inaudibly and with reverential awe.

I wish for the eternal silence to rule
and for the glorious dead to hear the noise of Battles,
And rejoice in our cries of victory, as we cast ourselves beneath
the wings of Glory upon the fields vermillion with blood.

For, there far away, battles sway
With the same blood that emanates from this resting-place:
Here above the eye of the resting lords,
There before the son's history is made.

That's why I seek peace, to officiate a Requiem
without words, without tears and quiet sighs,
Mingle with the odor of powder, the perfume of incense
As we hear resound the far noise of the cannon.

Hail to you, imperial galleys! In the name
of a conscientious fast
Glide lightly upon these sacred waters.
A Requiem I'm officiating, one that heavens
have yet to see upon these sacred waters!


Translated by Michael M. Petrovich