Lonesome Poplar Tree

Though Murn’s oeuvre ranges from erotic pieces to poems about the countryside, from atmospheric and reflective to narrative poems, the boundaries between these categories are often blurred. His most acclaimed works are his countryside lyric poems and atmospheric pieces. The former, seemingly echoing the simplicity of folk songs, render the townsman’s dream of a bucolic idyll. Murn plays through a vast repertory of metres and rhymes, sometimes harking back to traditional folk forms, such as ballads or romances, sometimes even switching to free verse. His atmospheric poems, on the other hand, paint miniature impressions – usually melancholy ones – of natural scenes. Noteworthy is Murn’s masterful use of sound devices, from general euphony to expressive sound repetition.



The oeuvre of Josip Murn (pen name Aleksandrov, 1879–1901) belongs to the Slovene variant of neo-romanticism, the moderna period (1899–1918). It rests on subjectivity with its moods, emotions and dreams, a subjectivity which finds its impressionistic voice in short atmospheric or confessional poems with symbolic undertones. The poet published no book in his short lifetime: his début collection, Pesmi in romance (Songs and Romances), was published posthumously in 1903. The contents were selected by the poet’s friend and renowned literary historian, Ivan Prijatelj, whose introduction was the first aesthetic evaluation of the author’s work. Murn’s popularity rose after the Great War and peaked after World War II, when his poetry decisively influenced the poets of Slovene intimism. Today Murn is considered a major national lyric poet, the one who salvaged Slovene poetry from the grip of national and social ideologies, internalising it completely (https://litteraeslovenicae.si/).



Contents

Songs and Romances

A Spring Romance

A Hint of Spring

The Counterpart

I Know Not Which Is Sadder

At Twilight

Two Pretty Doves

Romance

Woodlands Growing Dark

July: The Month of Hay

I Have Mused on Days Gone By

The Fair

Song

Field Carnations

No, I Will Not Cross the Plains

Would I Knew Your Mother, Dear

A Pilgrim's Song

In Springtime

Hey, I Shall Buy a Pipe

Rustle of Chestnuts

Song

In the Field Grow Slender Hops

Mary

Wormwood

You Flow among the Willows

Again Have Willows Sprouted

In the Evening

Melancholy

Breeze Came Drifting

Under You I Stand Again

Long, oh Long the Winter Night

Still the Past Spreads Out Her Cloak

We Loved Each Other

When You No Longer Tremble

Leave Me, Leave Me, Pray, My Youth

With Concepts, Words

I'm Not Backing Up

A Spell

The Eagle

Yearning

A Country Song

Fate

A Morning on Sunday, with Cloudy

Wisps Floating

Why Sunk in Deep Thought and Such Woe

Longing for a Bride

Matchmakers

A Wedding Song

The Mother in Law Greets the Bride with Goblet in Hand

Saint John's Eve

A Song of the Ear of Corn

Saint Ambrose

A Song of Buckwheat

The Autumn's Come and We Are Getting Wed

And a Witch

A Scottish Tale

A Winter Country Song

Vlachs

An Embertide Ballad

The Miller and the Devil

The Spectre

Wishes

Now Are Come the Days of Yuletide

A Ballad

On the Plain

The Vale

There's Much I've Forgotten, Dear Girl

Yes, I Would Get Married

Come Is the Autumnal Night

The One Who Loves You

Empty Lies the Open Road

A Song of Saint Martin

Before All Hallows' Eve

An Inner Carniolan Song

A High Prayer

Like a Venus's Sculpted Form

As from Still, Forsaken Chapels

Evening

A Winter Song

A Winter Song

Snow

A Latvian Motif, I

A Latvian Motif, II

A Latvian Folk Song

A Slovak Song

Good Morn to You, oh Mary

In Voiceless Night

Song

Tinka

Out There

A Flash

Homecoming

Blarney Stone

Lyric Poems

Sky, Oh Sky

Spruce

By the Raibl Lake

A Winter Morning

Ah My Pines

In the Silent Field

In the Park

Peace

The Night Walk

In the Evening

Song

An Autumn Song

An Autumn Song

A Lady

In the Park

Autumn

Wood

Barren Fields

The Pine

The Crow

Winter

Drinkers

A Folk Song

Good Day, Mother of the House

Fifteen Years

On the Knoll

Ever So Shyly

Nights

January: The Wolf Month

Wherever You Tarry

Evening

Morning

Girlish Sorrow

Song

I Passed My Garden Countless Times

Song

Fin de Siècle

An Angel High

A Dove

Foreboding

A Berry on a Juniper Tree

Song

A Question

On the Platform

Where Are You, Silent Home

A Fool Is He Who Moans

How Lovely

Faraway Melody

Before My Mary

Open!

Night Wind

No Longer

A Hunting Horn

Verses

It Was But Glamour

Freedom

Freedom

Alone

One Last Moment

I Shall Go

Bells Are Ringing on Saint Mary's Day

Stars

Fate

Chords

An Infant

In Equanimity

The Walnut Tree

He Died

Epitaph

Nada Grošelj

Neo-Romanticism in the Time of Josip Murn

Brane Senegačnik

A Huge Sigh – of an Unknown World

Selected Bibliography

Litteræ Slovenicæ 1991-2016