Fraternity-Testvériség, 1958 (36. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1958-04-01 / 4. szám
2 FRATERNITY IN THE GRAND CAFÉ, PARIS (A GRAND CAFÉBAN) By MICHAEL (MIHÁLY) SZABOLCSRA* A sobbing song, a Magyar air They play tonight to banish care, Here far away in foreign lands Where fairy lights and flashing hands In this proud hostel make display — The Grand Café! To how much passion, how much grief That quivering song once gave relief! I call to mind how its sad tune Once comforted beneath the moon A curly-headed shepherd lad — When he was sad! I see in this gay-lit salon A shepherd’s fire of days now gone . . . It lies beyond their careless ken, These dashing dames and gentlemen Pay no attention to the song — And do it wrong! They laugh and chat, blasé and bland; They hear, but cannot understand — And only God Almighty knows The secret of that shepherd’s woes Who with his flock beneath the sky Sang there, and watch’d with many a sigh, An inn, hard by. Translated by W. KIRKCONNELL * The author was a Calvinist clergyman, born Ókécske in the county of Pest. A follower of Petőfi, he wrote simple but sincere poems mostly in song form. From 1899 he was a clergyman at Temesvár in Transylvania. The Roumanian rulers interned him and later expelled him. He died October 30, 1930.
