UNDER THE CROWD

Babits and Arany stood guard

 over his prestigious desk like two living,

 otherworldly princes.

 The two prophet-heralds on the tired, 

weathered mountain of culture,

 the serious-minded Babits,

 cherishing his humanism of humanity,

 as Rippl-Rónai understood

 and saw him, 

and the already autumn-eyed Arany,

 sitting on his favourite Margaret Island:

 Incongruously, bearded 

Waiting and receiving the hasty

 decrees of his age, like the ever modest!

 - To my nervous musings - well,

 what more can I say?

 - suddenly the starry-eyed

 and proud-faced eminence

 of the literary history theatre enthusiast,

 pulls his bushman-brows

 together before me, 

pointing his finger in his face 

"Well, that's a four you've said so far!

 Do you want to go on?"

 I said, "Go ahead and ask!"

 - And now the bell-ringing bell-end

 smiles and laughs, 

and continues to testify like

 the examining magistrate of his case.

 - But he is so 

"How can I choose the most

 ideal among so many immortal, translucent lines?

 "Just tell me what comes to your mind!"

 - And suddenly I don't realize it myself,

 but I'm already telling a story:

 according to the law of the strophes,

 a thousand strange and strange things!

 And the old eminence is already

Under his invisible moustache smiles proudly,

 "They do your reading!

 Look at your index out there!"

 - And then you are quickly dismissed

 from the Pantheon of knowledge!

 - It so happened that I got the A mark that day,

 - and though the doubting humility

 was gnawing at me, 

as one who is guilty and has made a mistake

 - I was still in the grip of it!

 So, with the happy shame of knowing

 I had not deliberately failed myself that day,

 I could still know myself a success!