Tag: poem

Klage / Rainer Maria Rilke / 1918 / Translation

O wie ist alles fern

und lange vergangen.

Ich glaube, der Stern,

von welchem ich Glanz empfange,

ist seit Jahrtausenden tot.

Ich glaube, im Boot,

das vorüberfuhr,

hörte ich etwas Banges sagen.

Im Hause hat eine Uhr

geschlagen …

In welchem Haus? …

Ich möchte aus meinem Herzen hinaus

unter den großen Himmel treten.

Ich möchte beten.

Und einer von allen Sternen

müßte wirklich noch sein.

Ich glaube, ich wüßte,

welcher allein

gedauert hat, –

welcher wie eine weiße Stadt

am Ende des Strahls in den Himmeln steht …

That tree whose leaves are trembling / is yearning for something. 

“Cossante,” by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1364—1404), in Introduction to Spanish Poetry, edited by Eugenio Florit. Trying to read Spanish poetry (in Spanish!) is one of my futile Don Quixote current projects. 

Best Society / Philip Larkin / 1951

When I was a child, I thought,
Casually, that solitude
Never needed to be sought.
Something everybody had,
Like nakedness, it lay at hand,
Not specially right or specially wrong,
A plentiful and obvious thing
Not at all hard to understand.

Then, after twenty, it became
At once more difficult to get
And more desired — though all the same
More undesirable; for what
You are alone has, to achieve
The rank of fact, to be expressed
In terms of others, or it’s just
A compensating make-believe.

Much better stay in company!
To love you must have someone else,
Giving requires a legatee,
Good neighbours need whole parishfuls
Of folk to do it on — in short,
Our virtues are all social; if,
Deprived of solitude, you chafe,
It’s clear you’re not the virtuous sort.

Viciously, then, I lock my door.
The gas-fire breathes. The wind outside
Ushers in evening rain. Once more
Uncontradicting solitude
Supports me on its giant palm;
And like a sea-anemone
Or simple snail, there cautiously
Unfolds, emerges, what I am.

Best Society / Philip Larkin / 1951

When I was a child, I thought,
Casually, that solitude
Never needed to be sought.
Something everybody had,
Like nakedness, it lay at hand,
Not specially right or specially wrong,
A plentiful and obvious thing
Not at all hard to understand.

Then, after twenty, it became
At once more difficult to get
And more desired — though all the same
More undesirable; for what
You are alone has, to achieve
The rank of fact, to be expressed
In terms of others, or it’s just
A compensating make-believe.

Much better stay in company!
To love you must have someone else,
Giving requires a legatee,
Good neighbours need whole parishfuls
Of folk to do it on — in short,
Our virtues are all social; if,
Deprived of solitude, you chafe,
It’s clear you’re not the virtuous sort.

Viciously, then, I lock my door.
The gas-fire breathes. The wind outside
Ushers in evening rain. Once more
Uncontradicting solitude
Supports me on its giant palm;
And like a sea-anemone
Or simple snail, there cautiously
Unfolds, emerges, what I am.

Sand Scribblings / Carl Sandburg / in Smoke and Steel, 1922

THE WIND stops, the wind begins.
The wind says stop, begin.
 
A sea shovel scrapes the sand floor.
The shovel changes, the floor changes.
 
The sandpipers, maybe they know.        
Maybe a three-pointed foot can tell.
Maybe the fog moon they fly to, guesses.
 
The sandpipers cheep “Here” and get away.
Five of them fly and keep together flying.
 
Night hair of some sea woman        
Curls on the sand when the sea leaves
The salt tide without a good-by.
 
Boxes on the beach are empty.
Shake ’em and the nails loosen.
They have been somewhere.

Sand Scribblings / Carl Sandburg / in Smoke and Steel, 1922

THE WIND stops, the wind begins.
The wind says stop, begin.
 
A sea shovel scrapes the sand floor.
The shovel changes, the floor changes.
 
The sandpipers, maybe they know.        
Maybe a three-pointed foot can tell.
Maybe the fog moon they fly to, guesses.
 
The sandpipers cheep “Here” and get away.
Five of them fly and keep together flying.
 
Night hair of some sea woman        
Curls on the sand when the sea leaves
The salt tide without a good-by.
 
Boxes on the beach are empty.
Shake ’em and the nails loosen.
They have been somewhere.