[Lika_k]

Edna St Vincent Millay
Witch-Wife
She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun 'tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of coloured beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.

@темы: m, 20, millay, edna st. vincent, english-american

---

[Lika_k]

Kurt Vonnegut Jr
Requiem
The crucified planet Earth,
should it find a voice
and a sense of irony,
might now well say
of our abuse of it,
"Forgive them, Father,
They know not what they do."

The irony would be
that we know what
we are doing.

When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done."
People did not like it here.

@темы: v, 20, english-american

---

[Lika_k]

Jack Gilbert (1925–2012)
Homesteading
It would be easy if the spirit
was reasonable, was old.
But there is a stubborn gladness.
Summer air idling in the elms.
Silence hunting in the towering
storms of heaven. Thirty-two
swans in a København dusk.
The swan bleeding to death
slowly in a Greek kitchen.
A man leaves the makeshift
restaurant plotting his improvidence.
Something voiceless flies lovely
over an empty landscape.
He wanders on the way
to whoever he will become.
Passion leaves us single and safe.
The other fervor leaves us
at risk, in love, and alone.
Married sometimes forever.

@темы: g, 20, 21, english-american

---

[Lika_k]

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Wild Swans
I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over.
And what did I see I had not seen before?
Only a question less or a question more;
Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.
Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,
House without air, I leave you and lock your door.
Wild swans, come over the town, come over
The town again, trailing your legs and crying!

@темы: m, 20, millay, edna st. vincent, english-american

---

[Lika_k]

W.H.Auden
Archaeology
The archaeologist's spade
delves into dwellings
vacancied long ago,

unearthing evidence
of life-ways no one
would dream of leading now,

concerning which he has not much
to say that he can prove:
the lucky man!

Knowledge may have its purposes,
but guessing is always
more fun than knowing.

We do know that Man,
from fear or affection,
has always graved His dead.

What disastered a city,
volcanic effusion,
fluvial outrage,

or a human horde,
agog for slaves and glory,
is visually patent,

and we're pretty sure that,
as soon as palaces were built,
their rulers

though gluttoned on sex
and blanded by flattery,
must often have yawned.

But do grain-pits signify
a year of famine?
Where a coin-series

peters out, should we infer
some major catastrophe?
Maybe. Maybe.

From murals and statues
we get a glimpse of what
the Old Ones bowed down to,

but cannot conceit
in what situations they blushed
or shrugged their shoulders.

Poets have learned us their myths,
but just how did They take them?
That's a stumper.

When Norsemen heard thunder,
did they seriously believe
Thor was hammering?

No, I'd say: I'd swear
that men have always lounged in myths
as Tall Stories,

that their real earnest
has been to grant excuses
for ritual actions.

Only in rites
can we renounce our oddities
and be truly entired.

Not that all rites
should be equally fonded:
some are abominable.

There's nothing the Crucified
would like less
than butchery to appease Him.

CODA:
From Archaeology
one moral, at least, may be
drawn,
to wit, that all

our school text-books lie.
What they call History
is nothing to vaunt of,

being made, as it is,
by the criminal in us:
goodness is timeless.
August 1973

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

---

[Lika_k]

@темы: e, 20, eliot, t. s., english: anglo-american

---

[Poesia]

11.10.2013 в 12:50

Пишет  Lika_k:

Когда читала "Маунтолива", при чтении описания Мемлик-Паши, когда упоминается ослепленение и шутка Мемлика про хороших певцов, сразу вспомнилось одно стихотворение Томаса Гарди. Как раз из этого стихотворения когда-то узнала о жуткой практике Vinkensport (не знаю, как это называется по-русски) и до сих пор трясет при каждой мысли об этом.

Thomas Hardy
The Blinded Bird
So zestfully canst thou sing?
And all this indignity,
With God's consent, on thee!
Blinded ere yet a-wing
By the red-hot needle thou,
I stand and wonder how
So zestfully thou canst sing!

Resenting not such wrong,
Thy grievous pain forgot,
Eternal dark thy lot,
Groping thy whole life long;
After that stab of fire;
Enjailed in pitiless wire;
Resenting not such wrong!

Who hath charity? This bird.
Who suffereth long and is kind,
Is not provoked, though blind
And alive ensepulchred?
Who hopeth, endureth all things?
Who thinketh no evil, but sings?
Who is divine? This bird.
1916

@темы: repost, d, 20, h, hardy, thomas, english-british, durrell, lawrence

---

[Lika_k]

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)
A Ballad of Death
Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears,
Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth
Upon the sides of mirth,
Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears
Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing;
Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs
Upon the flesh to cleave,
Set pains therein and many a grievous thing,
And many sorrows after each his wise
For armlet and for gorget and for sleeve.

O Love's lute heard about the lands of death,
Left hanged upon the trees that were therein;
O Love and Time and Sin,
Three singing mouths that mourn now underbreath,
Three lovers, each one evil spoken of;
O smitten lips wherethrough this voice of mine
Came softer with her praise;
Abide a little for our lady's love.
The kisses of her mouth were more than wine,
And more than peace the passage of her days.

O Love, thou knowest if she were good to see.
O Time, thou shalt not find in any land
Till, cast out of thine hand,
The sunlight and the moonlight fail from thee,
Another woman fashioned like as this.
O Sin, thou knowest that all thy shame in her
Was made a goodly thing;
Yea, she caught Shame and shamed him with her kiss,
With her fair kiss, and lips much lovelier
Than lips of amorous roses in late spring.

By night there stood over against my bed
Queen Venus with a hood striped gold and black,
Both sides drawn fully back
From brows wherein the sad blood failed of red,
And temples drained of purple and full of death.
Her curled hair had the wave of sea-water
And the sea's gold in it.
Her eyes were as a dove's that sickeneth.
Strewn dust of gold she had shed over her,
And pearl and purple and amber on her feet.

Upon her raiment of dyed sendaline
Were painted all the secret ways of love
And covered things thereof,
That hold delight as grape-flowers hold their wine;
Red mouths of maidens and red feet of doves,
And brides that kept within the bride-chamber
Their garment of soft shame,
And weeping faces of the wearied loves
That swoon in sleep and awake wearier,
With heat of lips and hair shed out like flame.

The tears that through her eyelids fell on me
Made mine own bitter where they ran between
As blood had fallen therein,
She saying; Arise, lift up thine eyes and see
If any glad thing be or any good
Now the best thing is taken forth of us;
Even she to whom all praise
Was as one flower in a great multitude,
One glorious flower of many and glorious,
One day found gracious among many days:

Even she whose handmaiden was Love—to whom
At kissing times across her stateliest bed
Kings bowed themselves and shed
Pale wine, and honey with the honeycomb,
And spikenard bruised for a burnt-offering;
Even she between whose lips the kiss became
As fire and frankincense;
Whose hair was as gold raiment on a king,
Whose eyes were as the morning purged with flame,
Whose eyelids as sweet savour issuing thence.

Then I beheld, and lo on the other side
My lady's likeness crowned and robed and dead.
Sweet still, but now not red,
Was the shut mouth whereby men lived and died.
And sweet, but emptied of the blood's blue shade,
The great curled eyelids that withheld her eyes.
And sweet, but like spoilt gold,
The weight of colour in her tresses weighed.
And sweet, but as a vesture with new dyes,
The body that was clothed with love of old.

Ah! that my tears filled all her woven hair
And all the hollow bosom of her gown—
Ah! that my tears ran down
Even to the place where many kisses were,
Even where her parted breast-flowers have place,
Even where they are cloven apart—who knows not this?
Ah! the flowers cleave apart
And their sweet fills the tender interspace;
Ah! the leaves grown thereof were things to kiss
Ere their fine gold was tarnished at the heart.

Ah! in the days when God did good to me,
Each part about her was a righteous thing;
Her mouth an almsgiving,
The glory of her garments charity,
The beauty of her bosom a good deed,
In the good days when God kept sight of us;
Love lay upon her eyes,
And on that hair whereof the world takes heed;
And all her body was more virtuous
Than souls of women fashioned otherwise.

Now, ballad, gather poppies in thine hands
And sheaves of brier and many rusted sheaves
Rain-rotten in rank lands,
Waste marigold and late unhappy leaves
And grass that fades ere any of it be mown;
And when thy bosom is filled full thereof
Seek out Death's face ere the light altereth,
And say "My master that was thrall to Love
Is become thrall to Death."
Bow down before him, ballad, sigh and groan.
But make no sojourn in thy outgoing;
For haply it may be
That when thy feet return at evening
Death shall come in with thee.

@темы: s, 19, english-british, ballad

---

[Lika_k]

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)
A Ballad of François Villon, Prince of All Ballad-Makers
Bird of the bitter bright grey golden morn
Scarce risen upon the dusk of dolorous years,
First of us all and sweetest singer born
Whose far shrill note the world of new men hears
Cleave the cold shuddering shade as twilight clears;
When song new-born put off the old world's attire
And felt its tune on her changed lips expire,
Writ foremost on the roll of them that came
Fresh girt for service of the latter lyre,
Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name!

Alas the joy, the sorrow, and the scorn,
That clothed thy life with hopes and sins and fears,
And gave thee stones for bread and tares for corn
And plume-plucked gaol-birds for thy starveling peers
Till death clipt close their flight with shameful shears;
Till shifts came short and loves were hard to hire,
When lilt of song nor twitch of twangling wire
Could buy thee bread or kisses; when light fame
Spurned like a ball and haled through brake and briar,
Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name!

Poor splendid wings so frayed and soiled and torn!
Poor kind wild eyes so dashed with light quick tears!
Poor perfect voice, most blithe when most forlorn,
That rings athwart the sea whence no man steers
Like joy-bells crossed with death-bells in our ears!
What far delight has cooled the fierce desire
That like some ravenous bird was strong to tire
On that frail flesh and soul consumed with flame,
But left more sweet than roses to respire,
Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name?

Prince of sweet songs made out of tears and fire,
A harlot was thy nurse, a God thy sire;
Shame soiled thy song, and song assoiled thy shame.
But from thy feet now death has washed the mire,
Love reads out first at head of all our quire,
Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name.

@темы: 15, s, v, francaise, 19, english-british, ballad

---

[Lika_k]

Walter De La Mare
Gloria Mundi
Upon a bank, easeless with knobs of gold,
Beneath a canopy of noonday smoke,
I saw a measureless Beast, morose and bold,
With eyes like one from filthy dreams awoke,
Who stares upon the daylight in despair
For very terror of the nothing there.

This beast in one flat hand clutched vulture-wise
A glittering image of itself in jet,
And with the other groped about its eyes
To drive away the dreams that pestered it;
And never ceased its coils to toss and beat
The mire encumbering its feeble feet.

Sharp was its hunger, though continually
It seemed a cud of stones to ruminate,
And often like a dog let glittering lie
This meatless fare, its foolish gaze to sate;
Once more convulsively to stoop its jaw,
Or seize the morsel with an envious paw.

Indeed, it seemed a hidden enemy
Must lurk within the clouds above that bank,
It strained so wildly its pale, stubborn eye,
To pierce its own foul vapours dim and dank;
Till, wearied out, it raved in wrath and foam,
Daring that Nought Invisible to come.

Ay, and it seemed some strange delight to find
In this unmeaning din, till, suddenly,
As if it heard a rumour on the wind,
Or far away its freer children cry,
Lifting its face made-quiet, there it stayed,
Till died the echo its own rage had made.

That place alone was barren where it lay;
Flowers bloomed beyond, utterly sweet and fair;
And even its own dull heart might think to stay
In livelong thirst of a clear river there,
Flowing from unseen hills to unheard seas,
Through a still vale of yew and almond trees.

And then I spied in the lush green below
Its tortured belly, One, like silver, pale,
With fingers closed upon a rope of straw,
That bound the Beast, squat neck to hoary tail;
Lonely in all that verdure faint and deep,
He watched the monster as a shepherd sheep.

I marvelled at the power, strength, and rage
Of this poor creature in such slavery bound;
Fettered with worms of fear; forlorn with age;
Its blue wing-stumps stretched helpless on the ground;
While twilight faded into darkness deep,
And he who watched it piped its pangs asleep.

@темы: d, 20, georgian, english-british

---

[Lika_k]

Emily Dickinson
The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants
The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants -
At Evening, it is not
At Morning, in a Truffled Hut
It stop opon a Spot

As if it tarried always
And yet it’s whole Career
Is shorter than a Snake’s Delay -
And fleeter than a Tare -

’Tis Vegetation’s Juggler -
The Germ of Alibi -
Doth like a Bubble antedate
And like a Bubble, hie -

I feel as if the Grass was pleased
To have it intermit -
This surreptitious Scion
Of Summer’s circumspect.

Had Nature any supple Face
Or could she one contemn -
Had Nature an Apostate -
That Mushroom - it is Him!

@темы: d, 19, english-american, dickinson, emily

---

[Lika_k]

John Dryden
The Secular Masque
Enter JANUS
JANUS
Chronos, Chronos, mend thy pace,
An hundred times the rolling sun
Around the radiant belt has run
In his revolving race.
Behold, behold, the goal in sight,
Spread thy fans, and wing thy flight.

Enter CHRONOS, with a scythe in his hand, and a great globe on his back, which he sets down at his entrance
CHRONOS
Weary, weary of my weight,
Let me, let me drop my freight,
And leave the world behind.
I could not bear
Another year
The load of human-kind.

Enter MOMUS Laughing
MOMUS
Ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha! well hast thou done,
To lay down thy pack,
And lighten thy back.
The world was a fool, e'er since it begun,
And since neither Janus, nor Chronos, nor I,
Can hinder the crimes,
Or mend the bad times,
'Tis better to laugh than to cry.

CHORUS OF ALL THREE
'Tis better to laugh than to cry

JANUS
Since Momus comes to laugh below,
Old Time begin the show,
That he may see, in every scene,
What changes in this age have been,

CHRONOS
Then Goddess of the silver bow begin.

Horns, or hunting-music within
DIANA
With horns and with hounds I waken the day,
And hie to my woodland walks away;
I tuck up my robe, and am buskin'd soon,
And tie to my forehead a waxing moon.
I course the fleet stag, unkennel the fox,
And chase the wild goats o'er summits of rocks,
With shouting and hooting we pierce thro' the sky;
And Echo turns hunter, and doubles the cry.

CHORUS OF ALL
With shouting and hooting, we pierce through the sky,
And Echo turns hunter, and doubles the cry.

JANUS
Then our age was in its prime,

CHRONOS
Free from rage,

DIANA
—And free from crime.

MOMUS
A very merry, dancing, drinking,
Laughing, quaffing, and unthinking time.

CHORUS OF ALL
Then our age was in its prime,
Free from rage, and free from crime,
A very merry, dancing, drinking,
Laughing, quaffing, and unthinking time.

Dance of Diana's attendants
MARS
Inspire the vocal brass, inspire;
The world is past its infant age:
Arms and honour,
Arms and honour,
Set the martial mind on fire,
And kindle manly rage.
Mars has look'd the sky to red;
And peace, the lazy good, is fled.
Plenty, peace, and pleasure fly;
The sprightly green
In woodland-walks, no more is seen;
The sprightly green, has drunk the Tyrian dye.

CHORUS OF ALL
Plenty, peace, |&|c.

MARS
Sound the trumpet, beat the drum,
Through all the world around;
Sound a reveille, sound, sound,
The warrior god is come.

CHORUS OF ALL
Sound the trumpet, |&|c.

MOMUS
Thy sword within the scabbard keep,
And let mankind agree;
Better the world were fast asleep,
Than kept awake by thee.
The fools are only thinner,
With all our cost and care;
But neither side a winner,
For things are as they were.

CHORUS OF ALL
The fools are only, |&|c.

Enter VENUS
VENUS
Calms appear, when storms are past;
Love will have his hour at last:
Nature is my kindly care;
Mars destroys, and I repair;
Take me, take me, while you may,
Venus comes not ev'ry day.

CHORUS OF ALL
Take her, take her, |&|c.

CHRONOS
The world was then so light,
I scarcely felt the weight;
Joy rul'd the day, and love the night.
But since the Queen of Pleasure left the ground,
I faint, I lag,
And feebly drag
The pond'rous Orb around.
All, all of a piece throughout;

pointing {}} to Diana {}}
MOMUS,
Thy chase had a beast in view;

to Mars
Thy wars brought nothing about;

to Venus
Thy lovers were all untrue.

JANUS
'Tis well an old age is out,
And time to begin a new.

CHORUS OF ALL
All, all of a piece throughout;
Thy chase had a beast in view;
Thy wars brought nothing about;
Thy lovers were all untrue.
'Tis well an old age is out,
And time to begin a new.

@темы: d, 17, dramaturgy, restoration, english-british

---

[Poesia]

Костас Варналис
Четыре ошибки “неизвестного”
Ошибка первая: ты — раб с начала жизни.
Вторая: рабский век владел твоей судьбой.
Ошибка третья: ты старался быть собой.
Четвертая: врагу не продавал Отчизны.
Когда б ты жил как все, — пусть даже нищим рваным, —
ты не был бы убит, не стал бы безымянным.
Ты не таскал бы на себе проклятья гири,
а мог бы стать подобным первому визирю!
Не оскорбляли бы тебя дельцы наживы,
кладя на гроб венок роскошный и фальшивый.
Но, сам палач, сам черный среди черных,
в наградах высших ты купался б — и позорных!
Любовь Якушева

@темы: 20, в, helenike

---

[Poesia]

Костас Варналис
Сердце, держись
Смерть, меня корчуешь снова, —
Я как дерево стою.
Не набросишь ты покрова
на живую жизнь мою.
Не сведешь меня в могилу,
мне сраженье по плечу,
и пока еще есть силы,
я сдаваться не хочу.
Пусть немало почвой этой
Выпито кровавых рек,
но лишь вспыхнет искра света —
ждет спасенья человек.
Не хочу, чтобы другие
шли к вершине без меня,
чтоб боролись со стихией
без меня мои друзья.
Будем праздновать все вместе
первый солнечный восход,
и своих посланцев чести
к нам пришлет любой народ.
Враг людей ненасытимый,
прочь с пути, грядет Весна!
Все мы — словно ствол единый,
Вся Земля — одна Страна!
пер. Любовь Якушева

@темы: 20, в, helenike

---

[Lika_k]

@темы: s, 20, modernism, english-american, stevens, wallace

---

[Lika_k]

Theodore Stephanides
The Scarecrow
A thing is hanging on the wire out there,
A thing that was a man but yesterday,
A man who thought that life and love were fair...
Now he is but a scarecrow hanging there
And jerking to the bullets' impact yet.

A scarecrow that scares not the crows;
A merry merry scarecrow, for all night
It danced with every wind till morning light.

That Thing that was a man but yesterday
Had planned its future in the toilsome past;
And it had spent long hours at Wisdom's knees
In silence to perfect the mysteries
That but the few can ponder; and its mind
Held all the depths of of the remoter seas.

That Thing that was a man but yesterday
Had planned from eager youth its future lot;
But all the while, although it guessed it not,
It was but training down those arduous years
To be one day a scarecrow and to dance
With the winds merrily....
(from "The Golden face", 1965)

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

---

[Lika_k]

Lyrik: Franz Adolf Friedrich von Schober (1796 - 1882)
Musik: Franz Schubert
Tenor: Ian Bostridge
Klavier: Leif Ove Andsnes

Listen or download Pilgerweise "Ich bin ein Waller", for free on Pleer

@темы: s, music, deutsche, links, youtube, 19, lied, romanticism

---

[Lika_k]

Richard Aldington (1892-1962)
Sunsets
The white body of the evening
Is torn into scarlet,
Slashed and gouged and seared
Into crimson,
And hung ironically
With garlands of mist.
And the wind
Blowing over London from Flanders
Has a bitter taste.

@темы: a, 20, imagism, english-british

---

[Lika_k]

Josep Vicenç Foix (1893-1987)
Shadows behind the lilacs
A thousand pink wings covered up the sky. Doors and windows were closed, and flags and pennants fluttered at each street corner. The oval shadow escaped up the street with horrifying majesty. The next morning, all the statuettes of saints in the parish had been decapitated.

Boys and girls from my village, their pallid nudity barely concealed under tender gauze of subtle colors, played on the plaza at night. Their voice resounds there as in a cellar, and birds are gathering to explore the depth of the bluish ponds of their eyes with their beaks. The other day I tried to join them in play by imitating the voice with a megaphone; but the boys, girls and birds turned to shadows among shadows. Before me, between the deserted plaza and the sky, a wire spiral rose, tragic and treacherous.
(From: Ombres darrera els lilàs)
Translated from Catalan by Johannes Beilharz

@темы: espanol, 20, f

---

[Lika_k]

Guido Cavalcanti
Noi siàn le triste penne isbigotite,
le cesoiuzze e ’l coltellin dolente,
ch’avemo scritte dolorosamente
quelle parole che vo’ avete udite.
Or vi diciàn perché noi siàn partite
e siàn venute a voi qui di presente:
la man che ci movea dice che sente
cose dubbiose nel core apparite;
le quali hanno destrutto sì costui
ed hannol posto sì presso a la morte,
ch’altro non n’è rimaso che sospiri.
Or vi preghiàn quanto possiàn più forte
che non sdegn[i]ate di tenerci noi,
tanto ch’un poco di pietà vi miri.

Гвидо Кавальканти
Мы, грустное перо, и нож в волненье,
И ножницы точильные в печали,
Которые, тоскуя, начертали
Открытое пред вами сочиненье -

Мы вам изложим ныне объясненье,
Зачем пришли мы к вам из дальней дали:
Чтоб о сердечном рассказать накале,
О скорби, о тревоге и сомненье,

Что нашего владельца ввергли в муки
И довели почти что до могилы,
И в нем остались только стоны горя.

Мы изо всей вас умоляем силы:
Не презирайте нас, возьмите в руки,
Взгляните с милосердием во взоре.
пер. Шломо Крол (sentjao)

@темы: italian, c, middle ages, links, к (rus), krol, shlomo (sentjao), 13