Gyula Illyés

Five Years Later

Öt év múlva

 

Though five years dead, you still could find your way
from the graveyard - everything's the same -
to this old coffeehouse, here where I came
to wait for you, and you for me that day
of our last meeting in this corner's gloom.
You shivered, as in a shepherd's hut. It rained.
Our voices rose. By then you were "insane,"
but not even I could sense your doom.
I am sitting, silent and alone,
on the shore of vibrant time, now flown.
There's nothing that remains of you tonight.
You're gone. You've vanished. How absurd, as though
the whole world had gone mad since then, and you,
only you, are unalterably right.
(1942)

Translated by Daniel Hoffman

Gyula Illyés (1902-1983)
poet, essayist, playwright, editor, translator and diarist, author of the widely translated People of the Puszta (1936), was a close friend and rival of Attila József. He eventually married Flóra Kozmutza, József's last great love.