English Translation: “The song of Pece”
Part one:
O you who wander blindly in the darkness of the earth,
Enough of your misery and heedlessness.
Carry, regretful, the torn limbs of your dead,
And weep long upon the graves.
Perfume them, wrap their remains
With canary blossoms and jasmine.
Chant around them a song of peace—
Let every sad soul rest in the grave.
Gather the children to sing
Melodies of purity and smiles.
Save the dead from the clamor of war
So they may feel the beauty of peace.
Why this conflict, O living souls?
Why the fighting? Why the blood?
Why did the youth, in the bloom of life,
Fall as victims? Why this hostility?
Is it the love of wealth? O how strange!
What is the value of perishing riches?
Tomorrow we journey—
Can wealth ease the loneliness of a shroud?
Every living soul will go to the grave—
Is there any wealth in death?
Open those graves, tell us:
Where is prosperity? Where is comfort?
Look! On thorns and sand
Lie the rich and the poor.
What difference remains—
Other than the silence of death above the sleepers?
Strange! What, then, has driven
This world to death, harm, and destruction?
What tempts nations with greedy ambition
That dances in the fire’s gleam?
Part Two:
The ecstasy of “victory”?
What mockery of words! What delusion!
O you deluded—enough illusions!
Rise from slumber and fantasy!
We are captives led by blind fate
Into the night of an unknown world.
None among us can escape—
We are but humiliated prisoners.
Always the nights command, and we obey.
Supplication and tears are useless.
Death fears not the might of tyrants—
Nor is it stirred by the cries of the weak.
Thus death always prevails—
And we, the crushed, the helpless, the lost.
He wins the victory and pride over us,
So mourn what you once called triumph.
O ruined world! War has revealed
A victory for destruction itself.
These graves testify to it—
Mercy to those poor victims!
So what now, dwellers of this sorrowful world?
What have you gained from fighting?
Did you reach the distant stars?
Did you escape the grip of suffering?
Did you defeat poverty, sorrow,
Or sickness, O you deluded ones?
Have you escaped sin? Or does life
Remain a place of vice and vanity?
Alas! Souls remain as they were—
Living in their eternal guilt.
The wine of delusion is still
Humanity’s hope in this miserable world.
The song of sorrow still echoes
In the mouths of the weak and hungry.
Still, the sick wander lost,
Forever haunted by pain.
Everything remains as before the war—
Except for the orphans and the dead.
Except for the shadow of sadness and confusion
Walking along the shores of life.
These orphans—yesterday they were
The faces of joy and laughter.
Under the shade of fathers,
They lived in sweet serenity.
But they awoke from their dream
To find fate was war, the world—fire and killing.
O eyes of children—do not ask the world
Why the flames? Why the destruction?
For the sake of false glory—this horror!
May their glory be cursed!
For the sake of their fake victory,
The beautiful world became smoke in flames.
These corpses on stone and thorn—
Youth, young men, and elders—
How they once were visions of hope,
Now faded, unremembered.
Part 3:
O miserable ones on earth!
You whom the bombs did not kill,
In vain you hope your beloveds
Will return to the homeland.
See the soldiers returning,
Alone, with broken limbs.
Ah, if not for the breath of life left in them,
They’d not be counted among the living.
In vain they search these ruins
For family and shelter.
In vain they ask passersby—
Alas, the fire of their sorrow!
How bitter their black disappointment
After all the pain and suffering.
Did they escape death and captivity,
Only to fall into the trap of misery?
O wretched ones! You multitudes of the living
In every village and valley—
It is time to revive the past of love,
Which is the key to our lost dream.
What hatred lies among us?
What was the cause of war and spite?
O you who avenge—
We are all adrift in a storm of hardship.
We live in a world
Whose mystery cannot be understood—
Each day the sun rises,
But what is the meaning of its light—or its setting?
What brings the stars to the sky at night?
What is this universe?
What is this space and its dark secrets?
Is there a boundary beyond it?
Are we anything more in this existence
Than ignorance in human form?
Everything in the cosmos governs us—
So what then is the secret of this tyranny?
Why do we oppress? Why do we forget
The powers of the universe—
When we are the weakest in it?
Worms devour what we build,
Volcanoes and winds leave nothing behind.
Why do we spend our lives in hatred,
And live our years in sorrow and despair?
How can we forget
That life is like a rose—
It quickly dies and withers?
The days will not last.
Time will not preserve
The existence of any human being.
So let us leave behind this hatred and spite,
And live in pure love and unity.