Song for the Death of An Infant
Thou sleepest the eternal sleep, thine eyes are closed, so that
thou mayest think the better about thy mother and parents.
Thy sweet smile, which has not left thee, leaves me with hope.
Thou art alive, and thou art only playing a game with us,
isn’t it so, my lovely child?
Yes, Yes! For thou leavest with me and unparalleled cruelty
(wretchedness) because thou art in flower of thine age,
that age which is the most beautiful!
When thy father, brothers, sisters saw thy lovableness increasing
each day, they were happy in admiring thee; so dear
and so lovely; didst thou wish to leave them?
Hear me, my child, have pity on my sorrow. My voice, which
reaches as far as the heavens, should reach thy heart and
make it feel!
See how thy mother debates with herself, see how she despairs,
see her tears falling like a torrent. What, hast thou no longer
any pity for her!
O death, cruel death, without pity and without sense, thou hast
hardened the most tender of hearts and hast made it resist
the prayers of a desolate mother.
Song for a Child
Pitiless death, why didst thou snatch my child, why didst thou
tear him from my caress? O my dearly beloved child!
Thou wert too cruel in fulfilling thy function; since thou had
to take him with thee, why didst thou have him pass through
such prolonged and cruel sufferings? O my dearly beloved
child!
If it is true that thou, O death, art terrible in any form, thou went
most barbarous to a wretched mother in taking away her only
joy. O my dearly beloved child!
But then, my soul! my lost my lost hope! why didst thou no resist his
blows? O my dearly beloved child!
Didst thou no consider that by thine eternal departure, thou has
opened a wound in my heart that can never heal! O my
dearly beloved child!
Didst thou not consider the pains of thine unhappy mother, didst
thou not think of the cares we took to protect thee? O my
dearly beloved child!
What use, my dear treasure, that thou smilest among the angles,
when thou hast left me on earth, condemned to eternal tears?
O my dearly beloved child!
True, the angles in heaven dance with joy and sing hymns of
peace at the arrival of a new companion. O my dearly be-
loved child!
Meanwhile I, sad and inconsolable on this earth of sorrows, fix
mine eyes toward heaven, toward thee. O my dearly beloved child!
May thine innocent and pure soul become a star of hope and life
for me. O my dearly beloved child!
May my soul, when I, too, give my body to the earth, may my
soul meet thine so that we may never more leave each other
O, my dearly beloved child!
*Excerpted from the book: The Albanian Struggle in the Old World and New
Boston, MA 1939