[Poesia]

Thomas Hardy
At the Word " Farewell "
She looked like a bird from a cloud
On the clammy lawn,
Moving alone, bare-browed
In the dim of dawn,
The candles alight in the room
For my parting meal
Made all things withoutdoors loom
Strange, ghostly, unreal.

The hour itself was a ghost,
And it seemed to me then
As of chances the chance furthermost
I should see her again.
I beheld not where all was so fleet
That a Plan of the past
Which had ruled us from birthtime to meet
Was accomplished at last.

No prelude did I there perceive
To a drama at all,
Or foreshadow what fortune might weave
From beginnings so small;
But I rose as if quicked by a spur
I was bound to obey,
And stepped through the casement to her
Still alone in the gray.

"I am leaving you. . . . Farewell!" I said,
As I followed her on
By an alley bare boughs overspread;
"I soon must be gone!"
Even then the scale might have been turned
Against love by a feather,
--But crimson one cheek of hers burned
When we came in together.

@темы: 20, h, 19, hardy, thomas, english-british

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[Poesia]

Theodore Stephanides
He should not have been killed at all;
But fate just gave her head a shake
and murmured "Clerical Mistake!"
(from “Cities of the Mind” 1969)

@темы: s, english, 20, theodore stephanides, helenike

---

[Poesia]

Theodore Stephanides
Tanagra Figurine

You trip so gayly, head flung back
And laughter in your eyes,
You seem to leave this earthly track
And dance into the skies.

So light and billowy your hair,
So jubilant your dress,
No one would think, to see you there,
No one could ever guess

That you had danced, when you were found,
Two thousand years beneath the ground!
(from "The Golden face", 1965)

Танагрская статуэтка женщины

Танагрская статуэтка женщины


Терракотовые статуэтки (примерно 10-30 см) из беотийского города Танагра времен эллинистической эпохи были найдены впервые в 19 веке.

@темы: s, english, antiquity, 20, theodore stephanides, helenike

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[Poesia]

28.03.2013 в 12:01

Пишет  Lika_k:

Однако
Максимилиан Волошин
...И мир, как море пред зарею,
И я иду по лону вод,
И подо мной и надо мною
Трепещет звездный небосвод...
1902

Theodore Stephanides
Nightscape
(Lake of Jannina, September, 1938)

Night-bound upon a lake
I sail through waters dark;
The muffled ripples make
Hushed murmurs round my barque.
Dark trees across the land
A darker shadows throw,
Like sentinels they stand
To guard the lake below,
And from the lake's dark moat
Bright star reflections peer.

With stars above me high
And stars beneath my boat,
A course I seem to steer
Across a star-bound sky.
(from "The Golden Face", 1965)

@темы: s, english, repost, 20, в, symbolism, theodore stephanides, helenike, russian

---

[Poesia]

D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)
In Trouble and Shame
I LOOK at the swaling sunset
And wish I could go also
Through the red doors beyond the black-purple bar.

I wish that I could go
Through the red doors where I could put off
My shame like shoes in the porch,
My pain like garments,
And leave my flesh discarded lying
Like luggage of some departed traveller
Gone one knows not where.

Then I would turn round,
And seeing my cast-off body lying like lumber,
I would laugh with joy.

@темы: 20, lawrence, d. h., english-british, l

---

[Poesia]

09.05.2013 в 08:03

Пишет  Lika_k:

@темы: s, repost, 20, english-american

---

[Lika_k]

D H Lawrence
The Song of a Man Who has Come Through
Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!
A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.
If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!
If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift!
If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed
By the fine, fine wind that takes its course though the chaos of the world
Like a fine, and exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted;
If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge
Diven by invisible split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the Hesperides.

Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,
I would be a good fountain, a good well-head,
Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.

What is the knocking?
What is the knocking at the door in the night?
It's somebody wants to do us harm.

No, no, it is the three strange angels.
Admit them, admit them.

@темы: 20, lawrence, d. h., english-british, l

---

[Lika_k]

D H Lawrence
The Ship of Death
I

Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion.

The apples falling like great drops of dew
to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.

And it is time to go, to bid farewell
to one's own self, and find an exit
from the fallen self.

II

Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.

The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.

And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
Ah! can't you smell it?
And in the bruised body, the frightened soul
finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold
that blows upon it through the orifices.

III

And can a man his own quietus make
with a bare bodkin?

With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
a bruise or break of exit for his life;
but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?

Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder
ever a quietus make?

IV

O let us talk of quiet that we know,
that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet
of a strong heart at peace!

How can we this, our own quietus, make?

V

Build then the ship of death, for you must take
the longest journey, to oblivion.

And die the death, the long and painful death
that lies between the old self and the new.

Already our bodies are fallen, bruised, badly bruised,
already our souls are oozing through the exit
of the cruel bruise.

Already the dark and endless ocean of the end
is washing in through the breaches of our wounds,
Already the flood is upon us.

Oh build your ship of death, your little ark
and furnish it with food, with little cakes, and wine
for the dark flight down oblivion.

VI

Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul
has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises.

We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying
and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us
and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world.

We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying
and our strength leaves us,
and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood,
cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life.

VII

We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do
is now to be willing to die, and to build the ship
of death to carry the soul on the longest journey.

A little ship, with oars and food
and little dishes, and all accoutrements
fitting and ready for the departing soul.

Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
with its store of food and little cooking pans
and change of clothes,
upon the flood's black waste
upon the waters of the end
upon the sea of death, where still we sail
darkly, for we cannot steer, and have no port.

There is no port, there is nowhere to go
only the deepening blackness darkening still
blacker upon the soundless, ungurgling flood
darkness at one with darkness, up and down
and sideways utterly dark, so there is no direction any more
and the little ship is there; yet she is gone.
She is not seen, for there is nothing to see her by.
She is gone! gone! and yet
somewhere she is there.
Nowhere!

VIII

And everything is gone, the body is gone
completely under, gone, entirely gone.
The upper darkness is heavy as the lower,
between them the little ship
is gone

It is the end, it is oblivion.

IX

And yet out of eternity a thread
separates itself on the blackness,
a horizontal thread
that fumes a little with pallor upon the dark.

Is it illusion? or does the pallor fume
A little higher?
Ah wait, wait, for there's the dawn
the cruel dawn of coming back to life
out of oblivion

Wait, wait, the little ship
drifting, beneath the deathly ashy grey
of a flood-dawn.

Wait, wait! even so, a flush of yellow
and strangely, O chilled wan soul, a flush of rose.

A flush of rose, and the whole thing starts again.

X

The flood subsides, and the body, like a worn sea-shell
emerges strange and lovely.
And the little ship wings home, faltering and lapsing
on the pink flood,
and the frail soul steps out, into the house again
filling the heart with peace.

Swings the heart renewed with peace
even of oblivion.

Oh build your ship of death. Oh build it!
for you will need it.
For the voyage of oblivion awaits you.

@темы: 20, lawrence, d. h., english-british, l

---

[Lika_k]

D H Lawrence
A Winter's Tale
Yesterday the fields were only grey with scattered snow,
And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge;
Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go
On towards the pines at the hills’ white verge.

I cannot see her, since the mist’s white scarf
Obscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky;
But she’s waiting, I know, impatient and cold, half
Sobs struggling into her frosty sigh.

Why does she come so promptly, when she must know
That she’s only the nearer to the inevitable farewell;
The hill is steep, on the snow my steps are slow—
Why does she come, when she knows what I have to tell?

@темы: 20, lawrence, d. h., english-british, l

---

[Poesia]

Николай Гумилев
Песня о певце и короле
Мой замок стоит на утесе крутом
В далеких, туманных горах,
Его я воздвигнул во мраке ночном,
С проклятьем на бледных устах.

В том замке высоком никто не живет,
Лишь я его гордый король,
Да ночью спускается с диких высот
Жестокий, насмешливый тролль.

На дальнем утесе, труслив и смешон,
Он держит коварную речь,
Но чует, что меч для него припасен,
Не знающий жалости меч.

Однажды сидел я в порфире златой,
Горел мой алмазный венец —
И в дверь постучался певец молодой,
Бездомный, бродячий певец.

Для всех, кто отвагой и силой богат,
Отворены двери дворца;
В пурпуровой зале я слушать был рад
Безумные речи певца.

С красивою арфой он стал недвижим,
Он звякнул дрожащей струной,
И дико промчалась по залам моим
Гармония песни больной.

«Я шел один в ночи беззвездной
В горах с уступа на уступ
И увидал над мрачной бездной,
Как мрамор белый, женский труп.

«Влачились змеи по уступам,
Угрюмый рос чертополох,
И над красивым женским трупом
Бродил безумный скоморох.

«И смерти дивный сон тревожа,
Он бубен потрясал в руке,
Над миром девственного ложа
Плясал в дурацком колпаке.

«Едва звенели колокольца,
Не отдаваяся в горах,
Дешевые сверкали кольца
На узких, сморщенных руках.

«Он хохотал, смешной, беззубый,
Скача по сумрачным холмам,
И прижимал больные губы
К холодным, девичьим губам.

«И я ушел, унес вопросы,
Смущая ими божество,
Но выше этого утеса
Не видел в мире ничего».

Я долее слушать безумца не мог,
Я поднял сверкающий меч,
Певцу подарил я кровавый цветок
В награду за дерзкую речь.

Цветок зазиял на высокой груди,
Красиво горящий багрец…
«Безумный певец, ты мне страшен, уйди».
Но мертвенно бледен певец.

Порвалися струны, протяжно звеня,
Как арфу его я разбил
За то, что он плакать заставил меня,
Властителя гордых могил.

Как прежде в туманах не видно луча,
Как прежде скитается тролль,
Он бедный не знает, бояся меча,
Что властный рыдает король.

Попрежнему тих одинокий дворец,
В нем трое, в нем трое всего:
Печальный король и убитый певец
И дикая песня его.

@темы: 20, gumilev, nokolai, г (rus), russian

---

[Lika_k]

Edgar Allan Poe
A Dream Within A Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

@темы: p, 19, symbolism, romanticism, english-american

---

[Lika_k]

Николай Гумилев
Я откинул докучную маску,
Мне чего-то забытого жаль…
Я припомнил старинную сказку
Про священную чашу Грааль.

Я хотел побродить по селеньям,
Уходить в неизвестную даль,
Приближаясь к далеким владеньям
Зачарованной чаши Грааль.

Но таить мы не будем рыданья,
О, моя золотая печаль!
Только чистым даны созерцанья
Вечно радостной чаши Грааль.

Разорвал я лучистые нити,
Обручавшие мне красоту; —
Братья, сестры, скажите, скажите,
Где мне вновь обрести чистоту?

@темы: 20, gumilev, nokolai, г (rus), russian

---

[Lika_k]

D. H. Lawrence
Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923)
Baby Tortoise
You know what it is to be born alone,
Baby tortoise!

The first day to heave your feet little by little from
the shell,
Not yet awake,
And remain lapsed on earth,
Not quite alive.

A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.

To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would
never open
Like some iron door;
To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
And reach your skinny neck
And take your first bite at some dim bit of herbage,
Alone, small insect,
Tiny bright-eye,
Slow one.

To take your first solitary bite
And move on your slow, solitary hunt.
Your bright, dark little eye,
Your eye of a dark disturbed night,
Under its slow lid, tiny baby tortoise,
So indomitable.

No one ever heard you complain.

You draw your head forward, slowly, from your little
wimple
And set forward, slow-dragging, on your four-pinned toes,
Rowing slowly forward.
Wither away, small bird?
Rather like a baby working its limbs,
Except that you make slow, ageless progress
And a baby makes none.

The touch of sun excites you,
And the long ages, and the lingering chill
Make you pause to yawn,
Opening your impervious mouth,
Suddenly beak-shaped, and very wide, like some suddenly
gaping pincers;
Soft red tongue, and hard thin gums,
Then close the wedge of your little mountain front,
Your face, baby tortoise.

Do you wonder at the world, as slowly you turn your head
in its wimple
And look with laconic, black eyes?
Or is sleep coming over you again,
The non-life?

You are so hard to wake.

Are you able to wonder?
Or is it just your indomitable will and pride of the
first life
Looking round
And slowly pitching itself against the inertia
Which had seemed invincible?

The vast inanimate,
And the fine brilliance of your so tiny eye,
Challenger.

Nay, tiny shell-bird.
What a huge vast inanimate it is, that you must row
against,
What an incalculable inertia.

Challenger,
Little Ulysses, fore-runner,
No bigger than my thumb-nail,
Buon viaggio.

All animate creation on your shoulder,
Set forth, little Titan, under your battle-shield.
The ponderous, preponderate,
Inanimate universe;
And you are slowly moving, pioneer, you alone.

How vivid your travelling seems now, in the troubled
sunshine,
Stoic, Ulyssean atom;
Suddenly hasty, reckless, on high toes.

Voiceless little bird,
Resting your head half out of your wimple
In the slow dignity of your eternal pause.
Alone, with no sense of being alone,
And hence six times more solitary;
Fulfilled of the slow passion of pitching through
immemorial ages
Your little round house in the midst of chaos.

Over the garden earth,
Small bird,
Over the edge of all things.

Traveller,
With your tail tucked a little on one side
Like a gentleman in a long-skirted coat.

All life carried on your shoulder,
Invincible fore-runner.

@темы: 20, lawrence, d. h., english-british, l

---

[Lika_k]

Ахмед ибн Ваддах Аль-Букейра из Мурсии (ум. в 1135 г)
Пример вероломства являет нам лук.
С голубками в роще дружил этот сук.
Сегодня в подруг посылакт он стрелы.
Коварства такого немало вокруг!
пер. В Потаповой
из сборника "Андалусская поэзия, переводы с арабского" 1968

@темы: middle ages, в, eastern

---

[Lika_k]

Karin Boye (1900—1941)
Elementarandar
Vi, vi äro äldre än ni,
jordens barn, ni stolta, ni unga.
Kaos' uråldriga röst äro vi,
Kaos' oformliga sång vi sjunga.

Vi, vi äro moln på flykt,
vi äro vind, vi äro vatten,
klagande vekt, klagande skyggt
långt genom svarta senhöstnatten.

Vi, vi äro lögn och lek,
rolös ropande lek med tårar.
Månen, vår herre, står trånande blek.
Han, kung Vesäll, drar oss och dårar.

Jordbarn -- när regnet blir hårt,
härdar och ljusa hem ni bygga.
En makt ha ni, som skrämmer oss svårt:
hårda stålet i händer trygga.

Kom, drick oss ur månens skål,
smaka den bleke förtrollarens safter,
kasta vid vägen ert fasta stål,
sänk er i Kaos' formlösa krafter!

Men åt solen i stormande höst
bygga ni tempel till skydd mot natten.
Vi söka ve som en rusande tröst --
vi äro vind, vi äro vatten!

Karin Boye (1900—1941)
ELEMENTAL SPIRITS
We, we are older than you,
you earth's children, proud and young.
Chaos' age-old voice are we,
Chaos' formless song we sing.

We, we are wind, we are water,
we are clouds in flight,
lamenting softly, lamenting shyly
far through the black late autumn night.

We, we are falsehood and play,
with tears a restless, playing call.
The moon, our lord, stands piningly pale.
King Ves„ll, he attracts and bewitches us all.

Children of the earth - when the rain grows cruel,
hearths and bright homes you build.
A power you have that frightens us sore,
the hard steel in hands surely held.

Come, taste the pale enchanter's drink,
drink us out of the moon's bowl,
submerge yourselves in Chaos' formless power,
throw by the wayside your firm steel!

But to the sun in storming autumn
you build temples to shield against the night.
We seek woe like a drunken solace -
we are water, we are wind in flight!
Translated into English by David McDuff in "Karin Boye: Complete poems".

@темы: scandinavian, b, links, 20, svenska

---

[Lika_k]

Karin Boye (1900—1941)
De mörka änglarna...
De mörka änglarna med blå lågor
som eldblommor i sitt svarta hår
vet svar på underliga hädarfrågor --
och kanske vet de var spången går
från nattdjupen till dagsljuset --
och kanske vet de all enhets hamn --
och kanske finns det i fadershuset
en klar boning, som har deras namn.

Karin Boye (1900—1941)
The Dark Angels
The dark angels with blue flames
like fire-flowers in their black hair
know the answers to wonderful blasphemer's
questions -
and perhaps they know where the foot-bridge
goes
from the deep of night to the light of day -
and perhaps they know the harbour of unity -
and perhaps in their Father's house there is
a clear abode, which has their name.
Transl. by Jenny Nunn

@темы: scandinavian, b, 20, svenska

---

[Lika_k]

A.E. Housman
Because I liked you better
Than suits a man to say,
It irked you, and I promised
To throw the thought away.

To put the world between us
We parted, stiff and dry;
`Good-bye,' said you, `forget me.'
`I will, no fear', said I.

If here, where clover whitens
The dead man's knoll, you pass,
And no tall flower to meet you
Starts in the trefoiled grass,

Halt by the headstone naming
The heart no longer stirred,
And say the lad that loved you
Was one that kept his word.

(XXXI from A Shropshire Lad)

@темы: h, 19, housman, a.e., english-british

---

[Lika_k]

A.E. Housman
Crossing alone the nighted ferry
With the one coin for fee,
Whom, on the wharf of Lethe waiting,
Count you to find? Not me.

The brisk fond lackey to fetch and carry,
The true, sick-hearted slave,
Expect him not in the just city
And free land of the grave.
(XXIII from More Poems)

А.Э. Хаусман
Преодолевши темную Лету
С медной монеткой в горсти,
Ты не меня ль на пристани этой
Ждешь увидать? Прости!

Раб твой проворный, слуга покорный,
В сердце тоска и сушь, -
Разве такого впустит дозорный
В царство свободных душ?

Пер. Марины Городицкой

@темы: h, 19, housman, a.e., english-british

---

[Poesia]

W. H. Auden
Lullaby
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's carnal ecstasy.
Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.
Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming
head Such a day of welcome show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find the mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness find you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.

@темы: a, 20, auden, w.h., english: anglo-american

---

[Lika_k]

Жак Брель
За густой пеленой
Наших будничных дел,
За больной маетой
Наших душ, наших тел,
Сквозь унылые тени
Обид и забот,
Сквозь тугое сплетенье
Житейских невзгод,
За уродливым миром
Пустой суеты,
За угрюмым и сирым
Лицом нищеты —
Мы увидеть должны,
Как прекрасна земля,
Как березы нежны
И легки тополя,
Сердце верного друга
Увидеть должны,
Зелень летнего луга
И трепет весны…
Сердце верного друга
Увидеть должны,
Зелень летнего луга
И трепет весны.
Сквозь ворчанье, и зов,
И рыданье, и брань,
И сквозь визг тормозов
В предрассветную рань,
За пронзительным плачем
Пожарных сирен,
За концертом кошачьим
Супружеских сцен,
И за воплем орущих
В саду малышей,
За истерикой ждущих
Войны торгашей —
Мы услышать должны
Шепот сонной травы,
Красоту тишины,
Птицу в гуще листвы,
Что во мраке лесном
Задремала, успев
Сочинить перед сном
Колыбельный напев,
И во мраке лесном
Чутко дремлет, успев
Сочинить перед сном
Колыбельный напев.
Пер. М. Ваксмахера

@темы: б, francaise, belgique, 20