A couple of words to poets to come

We had no time to write of love
Though we were impetuous lovers,
The country needed songs of freedom,
The country needed songs of grain ripening in the fields.
The country demanded of us poor poets
That we teach courses to fight illiteracy,
That we build dams on the rivers,
That we light the flame of socialism in the mountains.
Do not wonder, oh poets yet to be born,
And do not judge us for what we have not accomplished.
Compared to you, we will look like simple monks
Laden with grain and heavy iron chains.
We, who spent many a sleepless night,
We, who accomplished many a great deed,
Could we not at least have written a couple of love poems,
Could we not have stammered, 'Oh, my beloved?'
Do not believe we were heartless! If only you could have seen
The passions we felt for the girls we loved and heard
What sweet nothings we whispered in their ears on those radiant
Evenings! But we lacked the time to publish those sweet nothings.
Our printers were busy with more important things.

Dritero Agolli (1931 - )

translated by Robert Elsie from "An Elusive Eagle Soars" UNESCO/Forest Books

The Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha refused to recognise the "de-Stalinization" of the Soviet Union, for many reasons - out of fear for his own position, resentment of Russian interference, perhaps too out of stubborness and twisted principle.

Dritero Agolli was president of the Union of Writers and Artists, and a sincere communist. I think this poem is a fascinating marriage of "socialist realism" and emotional ambiguity.