Sandor Petofi, Considered the Hungarian national poet and most representative figure of the romanticismo, died On a day like today in 1849, during the Hungarian war of independence of the Austrian Empire. It was in circumstances never fully clarified and with the prediction of the author himself in one of his poems (A thought afflicts me) that he would on the battlefield. His best known title is Janos the Hero, but his work goes further and includes themes that the author introduced into Hungarian poetry, such as family life or the description of conjugal love. Furthermore, he addressed his readers using a understandable and simple language.
This is one selection of some poems to remember or discover it.
Sandor Petöfi — Selection of poems
I will be a tree if...
I will be a tree, if you are its flower.
If you are the dew: I, flower will be
Rocío I will be, if you are a ray of sun...
Just so we can come together.
If you, my girl, are heaven:
I become a star
If you, my girl, are hell:
To unite, I condemn myself.
at the end of september
The gardens in the valley still bloom;
The poplar greens before my window.
But… look there: do you see the winter kingdom?
A snowy mantle covers the mountain...
In my young heart the golden summer
Still reigns, with full spring,
But the icy hand of winter
Gray my dark hair.
Flowers wither... Life is extinguished...
Sit on my lap, darling!
If today your head rests on my chest
Maybe you will cry on my grave tomorrow...
Oh tell me: if I die first, will you cover
My remains with a tombstone, painful?
Would you leave my name if love returns?
Would you forget me for its fiery flame?
If, now a widow, your veil will one day fall
On my tombstone, put it as a dark flag;
I'll come out of my grave, taking it with me
At midnight, in the sad hour...
With your widow's veil I will dry my tears
For you, that so soon you have forgotten me;
I will bandage with him my bleeding heart
That still, from there, forever, continues to love you.
The plain
Romantic landscape of pine forests
in the rugged Carpathians,
your admirable valleys and mountains
They don't light up my dreams.
It is in the vast plain like the sea
where my home is
and my free soul flies like an eagle
through the infinite steppe.
My dreams fly over the broad land,
from the clouds I see
the smiling landscape that stretches
from the Tisza to the Danube.
Fat herds, to the sound of cowbells,
They walk under the sun.
The well awaits you in Kis-Kunság
with large drinkers.
The stud gallops, its roll
comes on wings of the wind,
the hooves resound between the screams
and the crack of the whip.
The wheat waves, next to the villages
under the soft breeze,
with its vivid emerald colors
the landscape shines.
From the neighboring cane field, at twilight,
timid geese arrive,
if the reeds shake with the wind
take flight soon.
Beyond the villages, in the steppe,
lonely inn
wait for the thirsty bandits
On the way to Kecskemet.
After the inn, a brief forest of poplars
stands on the sand,
free there dwells the kestrel squeaker
and no one is chasing him.
Sadly the mimosa vegetates
and the flowers of the thistle
shade and rest they give to the lizards
when noon burns
From distant fruit trees
the blue mist rises
and some remote towers are drawn
like churches of fog.
Beautiful plain, at least for my soul,
I was born here, my cradle
rocked here, when one day I die
here my grave remains.
The people
With one hand to the steva
and the other to the fired weapon,
goes the poor, good people walking,
spilling blood or sweat
as long as life lasts.
Why the sweat that runs?
if all i wanted
to cover or eat,
of itself, it can be
that mother earth gave him.
And if the enemy comes
why the blood, the sword?
For the country?... If it is a fact
that where there is a country there is a right
and the people have nothing!
the sea rebelled
The sea of the people rebelled,
he got out of his flow
and heaven and earth scares
when rough waves rise
his tremendous strength.
Do you see this party, this dance?
Do you hear loud music? Those of you who didn't know yet
now you could learn
how the people have fun.
The sea trembles and roars,
the ships, adrift,
sink into hell
the rudder without government,
the haughty sail broken.
You go crazy, deluge,
and snatches everything;
show your deep bottom
and to the clouds, wrathful,
launch your furious foam;
write with her to heaven
as an eternal truth:
although the galleon is above,
the water below is alive
And it is the water that rules!