How vast this world in which we move,
And thou, how small thou art, my dove!
But if thou didst belong to me,
The world I would not take for thee.
Thou art the sun, but I the night,
Full of deep gloom, deprived of light.
But should our hearts together meet,
A glorious dawn my life would greet.
Ah! look not on me, close thine eyes,
My soul beneath thy glances dies;
Yet, since thou can’st not love me, dear,
Let my bereft soul perish here.
In the poems of the Hungarian poet Petöfi Sandor, the immense flatness of the great Eastern European Steppe, the Puszta, is a place of breathing, of grandeur, beauty and freedom. A place both humbling and inspiring, instilling patriotic pride and devotion, but, at the same time, passionate love.
Petöfi wrote love poems to his wife Julia, rendering his love inseparable from his love for the steppe. He dedicated his life to the Magyar struggle for independence from the Austrian Empire, both in word and deed: he composed the National song and joined the Hungarian Revolutionary Army. He vanished on the battlefield at only 26.
I’ll be a tree, if you are its flower
Or a flower, if you are the dew
I’ll be the dew, if you are the sunbeam
Only to be united with you.
My little girl, if you are the heaven
I shall be a star above on high.
My little girl, if you are hell-fire,
To unite us, damned I shall die.
Petöfi’s body was never found. Some Hungarians believe that he resurrected, like a Messiah. Some say, that he never died, that he is only asleep, somewhere in the endless planes of the Puszta.
