Anthologizing is a form of criticism, and the beloved Bulgarian poet Geo Milev had gone far and wide for his Anthology of the Yellow Rose: Lyrics on Blighted Love (1922). In it he included—and personally translated from the English, Russian, French and German—works by Yeats, Keats, Shakespeare, Wilde, Sologub, Régnier, Franko, and Platen. In an uncharacteristic move, he included several of his own poems, one of which is “Until We Meet Again,” or Dnevnik: literally, “diary.” Although the precise year of its writing is unknown, it is first anthologized in 1920 and it isn’t hard to imagine the poet writing it for a lover before being sent off to fight in the Great War in 1916 and losing part of his skull and his right eye fighting for his country on Germany’s side. The writer, translator, and editor is an expressionist and futurist, but above all, he is a consummate poet. The rhyme is unobtrusive, the imagery of blood—the symbol of life, or lack there of—unrelenting. His obsession with death foreshadows his own tragic end at age 30.
It is too late now. Adieu.
(Trust me, it’s because I love you!)
But in wreaths of passion I shall not adorn you.
(I’m pallid, too far gone.)
The dark has come. Adieu.
The day. The night. And I and you.
And that belated smile,
Spilt like sorrow
From the vases of your gaze…
A barren night!
No mystery awaits my heart.
(Is it I or this bloodless eve—
The pallid is unbound.)
I realize. I know. No mystery awaits.
It’s simply too late now.
Сега е твърде късно. Сбогом.
(Защото много те обичам!)
Но няма в страст да те обкича.
(Аз избледнял съм. Твърде много.)
Сега е вече късно. Всичко.
Денят. Нощта. И аз. И ти.
И закъснялата усмивка,
разляна в скръб из вазите
на твоя взор...
Безплодна вечер!
Сърцето ми не чака тайна.
(Аз или тази бледна вечер—
но бледнината е безкрайна!)
Разбирам. Зная. Няма тайна.
Сега е твърде късно вече.