MY PRAYER

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Oh, you, my God, my fair God,
who doesn't live in Heaven up,
but you, who are in me, my God,
into my soul and in my heart.

Not you to whom the monks and priests
make their bows and bend, not you
whom all the ortodoxal beasts
light up the sacred tapers to.

Not you who made of mud and dirt
the man, the woman, but forsakes
the human being on the Earth
to be its everlasting slave.

Not you who's consecrated kings,
the patriarchs and every Pope,
not you who's left in misery
my poor brothers in the woe.

Not you, who teaches slaves to pray,
to cry for mercy and to bear
the suffering until the grave
with their hopes in vain to cherish.

Not you, oh, God of liars, who
has blessed dishonest tyrants all,
not you, an idol of the fools,
an idol of the human foes.

But you, oh, God of sense and mind,
oh, God, defender of the slaves,
whose day the people and mankind
are going soon to celebrate.

Inspire everyone, oh, God
with love alive for freedom, then
each one will struggle as he could
with all the enemies of men.

And at the end support my arms,
when rises the revolt of slaves,
in rows of their fight at last
to find also my only grave.

Don't let abroad this vigour heart
lost in youth cool down at present.
Don't let my voice unlikely pass
silently as through the desert.

© Hristo Botev
© Temenuga Marinova - translated from bulgarian
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© E-magazine LiterNet, 16.07.2011, № 7 (140)