Know’st thou that happy land, by the Sudeten banded,
where East and West betrothed are oh so nicely blended,
it’s Paradise on Earth, a land of milk, honeycomb crunch,
as by the Allies given to the cannibal for lunch –
behold, a transformation, faerie land freshly passed,
for where spring once blossomed, now Ministries bloom, vast,
where people, lion-like, marched, waved the torch about,
there section chiefs and national administrators now grow stout,
while it’s true no grass grows where the Germanic hordes stormed through,
the consequences of propaganda there most certainly do,
what Žižka’s mace back then, right now the demagogue’s mouth can trash,
while on the national front, four battling parties clash,
and now we celebrate, the once-famed Slavs of old,
the meadow the girl sickled, now by brigades patrolled,
the field Vitoušek ploughed, the farmer scythed for rye,
now marks the ‘strife for grain’, for swill-troughs in the sty,
the shoemaker, at Lysá hung, now tomes of words is stringing,
and on the beech tree, for a change, an intellectual’s swinging,
honouring toil rhetorically, orators are sweat raising,
and fanfares trumpet out the fact it’s cobblers that they’re praising,
within two years a-plenty more milk, honey, – a proclamation,
with border-legend prophecy … sweet self-congratulation,
and all the Clods of old have felt the wrath of the revolution,
behold, avengers galloping, suitcase-packed retribution,
the barbarian now stains the ground, by the red army trampled,
while Hussite descendents run around to sweep apartments ample,
and now the Clod is born again in fulsome pride, extatic,
a belt across his paunch, fur coat lapel star-emblematic,
those who worked for the underground now come out of the cellar,
medals across their chests and conscience pangs under the collar,
a brand new spirit blows through now, around the swill-troughs surging,
at his best, Czech-the-lad is seen only when truly gorging,
the nightingale once sang to roses, May lost in love’s blooming,
now the state(ly) poets bask at banquets, all-consuming,
so let there be a housing glut, construction at full kilter,
the nation builder fills the gaze with superficial shelter,
a cottage without thatch, a roof the carpenter’s left gaping,
and let the state satire be wrapped in gift-wrap of red taping,
the builder goes lassoing for bricklayers where he can,
the wood-keeper has now become Robin the highwayman,
film’s now an institution, all heads, nor head nor tail,
as way over the democrat the bureaucrats have prevailed,
figures of history and lore have now become the dregs,
folk artists learn the craft of pulling at the nation’s leg,
tap your feet, brother, kitsch, for that is now the art to fashion,
dancing red pleated skirts adorning the state radio station,
whether west, east, or north or south, the people heed the call,
wretchedly groping round to drown bad taste in alcohol,
only the student nation still in jollity entertains,
although four parties try to get each one of them in their reins,
and yet the Czech college kid, hardened by six good years,
to slogans pays no heed, nought of their trumpeting he hears,
he will outlive alarms, fears banded round – of that make bets –
having indeed survived both Goebbels and Moravec,
no dose of human folly nor of atoms has the mass critical,
he’ll withstand education, even if it’s political.
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