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Van Gogh's Prayer

By János Pilinszky Janos Pilinszky

Translated By Clive Wilmer and George Gömöri Read the translator's notes

A battle lost in the cornfields

and in the sky a victory.

Birds, the sun and birds again.

By night, what will be left of me?

By night, only a row of lamps,

a wall of yellow clay that shines,

and down the garden, through the trees,

like candles in a row, the panes;

there I dwelt once and dwell no longer—

I can't live where I once lived, though

the roof there used to cover me.

Lord, you covered me long ago.

Source: Poetry (March 2008).

Biography

János Pilinszky (1921 – 1981) served with the Hungarian army in WWII. Harmadnapon (On the Third Day, 1959) established him as a courageous witness to the horrors of mid-twentieth century Europe. Two selections of his work have appeared in English: Selected Poems, translated by Ted Hughes and János Csokits (Carcanet, 1976) — which was later expanded into The Desert of Love (Anvil, 1989)— and Crater, translated by Peter Jay . . .

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