English Translation by Jeanne Nemcová

That bit of filth in dirty walls,

And all around barbed wire,

And 30,000 souls who sleep

Who once will wake

And once will see

Their own blood spilled.

I was once a little child,

Three years ago,

That child who longed for other worlds.

But now I am no more a child

For I have learned to hate.

I am a grown-up person now,

I have known fear.

Bloody words and a dead day then,

That’s something different than bogeymen!

But anyway, I still believe I only sleep today,

That I’ll wake up, a child again, and start to laugh and play.

I’ll go back to childhood sweet like a briar rose,

Like a bell that wakes us from a dream,

Like a mother with an ailing child

Loves him with aching woman’s love.

How tragic, then, is youth that lives

With enemies, with gallows ropes,

How tragic, then, for children on your lap

To say: this for the good, that for the bad.

Somewhere, far away out there, childhood sweetly sleeps,

Along that path among the trees,

There o’er that house

That was once my pride and joy.

There my mother gave me birth into this world

So I could weep…

In the flame of candles by my bed, I sleep

And once perhaps I’ll understand

That I was such a little thing,

As little as this song.

These 30,000 souls who sleep

Among the trees will wake

Open an eye

And because they see

A lot

They’ll fall asleep again…