From 5f5cb3562696d3b1cee41b84bbde327dbc29c888 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Thomas Morris Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2024 16:14:31 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] add more tsvetaeva --- README.rst | 2 +- poems/data/flags.csv | 2 +- poems/data/poems.json | 13604 ++++++++++++++++++++++++---------- poems/poem.py | 9 +- poems/tests/test_context.py | 7 +- 5 files changed, 9582 insertions(+), 4042 deletions(-) diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst index 285aec3..e7ad991 100644 --- a/README.rst +++ b/README.rst @@ -1 +1 @@ -All of the poems in here are good, or interesting. There are currently 8,821 poems in 42 languages by 571 authors from 54 countries. \ No newline at end of file +All of the poems in here are good, or interesting. There are currently 8,902 poems in 43 languages by 572 authors from 55 countries. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poems/data/flags.csv b/poems/data/flags.csv index 0a4c70c..f32e9e2 100644 --- a/poems/data/flags.csv +++ b/poems/data/flags.csv @@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ eritrea,đŸ‡ȘđŸ‡·,Eritrea,Eritrean,:flag-er:,1f1ea-1f1f7,🇪🇷,Flags spain,đŸ‡Ș🇾,Spain,Spanish,:flag-es:,1f1ea-1f1f8,🇪🇸,Flags (country-flag),2258,spain ethiopia,đŸ‡ȘđŸ‡č,Ethiopia,Ethiopian,:flag-et:,1f1ea-1f1f9,🇪🇹,Flags (country-flag),2259,ethiopia european-union,đŸ‡ȘđŸ‡ș,European Union,European Unionn,:flag-eu:,1f1ea-1f1fa,🇪🇺,Flags (country-flag),2260,european-union -finland,đŸ‡«đŸ‡ź,Finland,Finlandn,:flag-fi:,1f1eb-1f1ee,🇫🇮,Flags (country-flag),2261,finland +finland,đŸ‡«đŸ‡ź,Finland,Finnish,:flag-fi:,1f1eb-1f1ee,🇫🇮,Flags (country-flag),2261,finland fiji,đŸ‡«đŸ‡Ż,Fiji,Fijin,:flag-fj:,1f1eb-1f1ef,🇫🇯,Flags (country-flag),2262,fiji falkland-islands,đŸ‡«đŸ‡°,Falkland Islands,Falkland Islands,:flag-fk:,1f1eb-1f1f0,🇫🇰,Flags (country-flag),2263,falkland-islands micronesia,đŸ‡«đŸ‡Č,Micronesia,Micronesian,:flag-fm:,1f1eb-1f1f2,🇫🇲,Flags (country-flag),2264,micronesia diff --git a/poems/data/poems.json b/poems/data/poems.json index 7b95679..c103ade 100644 --- a/poems/data/poems.json +++ b/poems/data/poems.json @@ -26,7 +26,9 @@ "body": "The man cut his throat and left his head there.\nThe others went to get it.\nWhen they got there they put the head in a sack.\nFarther on the head fell out onto the ground.\nThey put the head back in the sack.\nFarther on the head fell out again.\nAround the first sack they put a second one that was thicker.\nBut the head fell out just the same.\nIt should be explained that they were taking the head to show to the others.\nThey did not put the head back in the sack.\nThey left it in the middle of the road.\nThey went away.\n\nThey crossed the river.\nBut the head followed them.\nThey climbed up a tree full of fruit\nto see whether it would go past.\n\nThe head stopped at the foot of the tree\nand asked them for some fruit.\nSo the men shook the tree.\nThe head went to get the fruit.\nThen it asked for some more.\n\nSo the men shook the tree\nso that the fruit fell into the water.\nThe head said it couldn’t get the fruit from there.\nSo the men threw the fruit a long way\nto make the head go a long way to get it so they could go.\nWhile the head was getting the fruit\nthe men got down from the tree and went on.\n\nThe head came back and looked at the tree\nand didn’t see anybody\nso went on rolling down the road.\n\nThe men had stopped to wait\nto see whether the head would follow them.\nThey saw the head come rolling.\n\nThey ran.\nThey got to their hut they told the others that the head\nwas rolling after them and to shut the door.\n\nAll the huts were closed tight.\nWhen it got there the head commanded them to open the doors.\nThe owners would not open them because they were afraid.\n\nSo the head started to think what it would turn into.\nIf it turned into water they would drink it.\nIf it turned into earth they would walk on it.\nIf it turned into a house they would live in it.\nIf it turned into a steer they would kill it and eat it.\nIf it turned into a cow they would milk it.\nIf it turned into a bean they would cook it.\nIf it turned into the sun\nWhen men were cold it would heat them.\nIf it turned into rain the grass would grow and the animals would crop it.\n\nSo it thought, and it said, “I will turn into the moon.”\nIt called, “Open the doors, I want to get my things.”\nThey would not open them.\n\nThe head cried. It called out, “At least give me\nmy two balls of twine.”\nThey threw out the two balls of twine through a hole.\nIt took them and threw them into the sky.\n\nIt asked them to throw it a little stick too\nto roll the thread around so it could climb up.\n\nThen it said, “I can climb, I am going to the sky.”\nIt started to climb.\n\nThe men opened the doors right away.\nThe head went on climbing.\nThe men shouted, “You going to the sky, head?”\nIt didn’t answer.\n\nAs soon as it got to the Sun\nit turned into the Moon.\nToward evening the Moon was white, it was beautiful.\nAnd the men were surprised\nto see that the head had turned into the Moon.", "metadata": { "language": "Kashinawa", - "translator": "W. S. Merwin", + "translators": [ + "W. S. Merwin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -35,7 +37,9 @@ "body": "One night as I lay on my bed,\nAnd sleep on fleeting foot had fled,\nBecause, no doubt, my mind was heavy\nWith concern for my last journey:\n\nI got me up and called for water,\nThat I might wash, and so feel better;\nBut before I wet my eyes so dim,\nThere was Death on the bowl’s rim.\n\nI went to church that I might pray,\nThinking sure he’d keep away;\nBut before I got on to my feet,\nThere sat Death upon my seat.\n\nTo my chamber then I hied,\nThinking sure he’d keep outside;\nBut though I firmly locked the door,\nDeath came from underneath the floor.\n\nThen to sea I rowed a boat,\nThinking sure Death can’t float;\nBut before I reached the deep,\nDeath was captain of the ship.", "metadata": { "language": "Welsh", - "translator": "Aneirin Talfan Davies", + "translators": [ + "Aneirin Talfan Davies" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -43,12 +47,14 @@ "title": "“Do you remember that night 
”", "body": "Do you remember that night\nWhen you were at the window,\nWith neither hat nor gloves\nNor coat to shelter you?\nI reached out my hand to you,\nAnd you ardently grasped it;\nI remained in converse with you\nUntil the lark began to sing.\n\nDo you remember that night\nThat you and I were\nAt the foot of the rowan tree,\nAnd the night drifting snow?\nYour head on my breast,\nAnd your pipe sweetly playing?\nLittle thought I that night\nThat our love ties would loosen!\n\nBeloved of my inmost heart,\nCome some night and soon,\nWhen my people are at rest,\nThat we may talk together,\nMy arms shall encircle you\nWhile I relate my sad tale,\nThat your soft, pleasant converse\nHath deprived me of heaven.\n\nThe fire is unraked,\nThe light unextinguished,\nThe key under the door,\nDo you softly draw it.\nMy mother is asleep,\nBut I am wide awake,\nMy fortune in my hand,\nI am ready to go with you.", "metadata": { + "language": "Gaelic", "time": { "year": 1800, "circa": true }, - "language": "Gaelic", - "translator": "George Petrie", + "translators": [ + "George Petrie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -59,8 +65,10 @@ "title": "“Eadwacer”", "body": "It is to my people as if someone would give him a gift.\nThey will consume him if he comes into their troop.\nIt is different with us.\n\nWulf is on an island, I on another.\nThat island is secure, surrounded by fen.\nThere are bloodthirsty men on the island.\nThey will consume him if he comes into their troop.\nIt is different with us.\n\nI pursued in my hopes the far journeys of Wulf,\nwhen it was rainy weather, and I sat, sorrowful.\nThen the battle-bold one laid his arms around me:\nto was joy to me in that; yet it was also hateful to me.\n\nWulf, my Wulf, my hopes of you\nhave made me sick, your rare visits,\na mourning mind, and this is not at all from lack of food.\n\nDo you hear me, Eadwacer?\nA wolf bears our wretched whelp to the woods.\n\nThat may be easily separated which was never bound,\nthe riddle of us two together.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Elaine Treharne", "language": "Old English", + "translators": [ + "Elaine Treharne" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -69,7 +77,9 @@ "body": "_From the Orthodox service for the burial of priests._\n\nThou only art immortal, who hast created and fashioned man. For out of the earth were we mortals made, and unto the earth shall we return again, as thou didst command when thou madest me, saying unto me: For earth thou art, and unto the earth shalt thou return. Whither, also, we mortals wend our way, making of our funeral dirge the song: Alleluia.\n\nIn thought I implore ye, hearken unto me: For with difficulty do I announce these things. For your sakes have I made moan; perchance it may profit one of you. But when ye shall sing these things make mention, now and then, of me whom ye have known. For often have we walked together, and together in the house of God have sung: Alleluia.\n\nRise now, all ye, and make ready, and when ye are set, hearken ye unto the word. Terrible, my brethren, is the judgment Seat before which all we must appear. There is neither bondman nor freeman there; there is neither small nor great; but we shall all stand naked there. Wherefore, it is good to sing together the psalm: Alleluia.\n\nLet us all be consumed with tears, when we behold the earthly remains lying low; and when we shall all draw near to kiss, and peradventure to utter such things as these: Lo l thou hast abandoned us who love thee. Why speakest thou no more with us, o friend? Why speakest thou not, as thou wert wont to speak, but holdest thus thy peace who before with us didst say: Alleluia.\n\nWhy these bitter words of the dying, O brethren, which they utter as they go hence? I am banished, brethren. All my friends do I abandon, and go hence. But whither I go, that understand I not, neither what shall become of me yonder; but only God, who hath summoned me knoweth. But make commemoration of me with the song: Alleluia.\n\nBut whither now go the souls? How dwell they now together there? This mystery have I desired to learn, but none can impart aright. Do they call to mind their own people, as we do them? Or have they already forgotten those who mourn them and make the song: Alleluia?\n\nAccompany ye the dead, o friends, and come ye to the grave with heed, and there gaze ye steadfastly, with understanding; and make ready your feet. All youth is fallen to dissolution there; there all the flower of life is faded; there are dust, and ashes, and worms; there all is silent; and there no man saith: Alleluia.\n\nLo! now behold we him who lieth here, but ne’er shall lie before us more. Lo! already is his tongue stilled, and lo! his mouth hath ceased to speak. Fare ye well, o my friends, my children. Fare ye well, o brethren! Fare ye well, o my comrades; for I go forth upon my way. But make commemoration of me with the song: Alleluia.\n\nNone of the dwellers yonder have returned to life to tell us howthere they fare, our erstwhile brethren and our offspring gone before us to the Lord. Wherefore, again and oft we say: Shall we see each other there? Shall we see our brethren there? Shall we there again together say the psalm: Alleluia?\n\nWe go forth on the path eternal, and as condemned, with downcast faces, present ourselves before the only God. Where then is comeliness? Where then is wealth? Where then is the glory of this world? There shall none of these things aid us, but only to say oft the psalm: Alleluia.\n\nWhy dost thou untimely vex thyself, O man! Yet one hour, and all things shall pass away. For in Hell there is no repentance, nor further remission there. There is the worm that sleepeth not; there is the land, all dark and gloomy, where I must be judged. For I made not haste to say the psalm: Alleluia.\n\nNaught is so easily forgot as mortal from his brother mortal parted. If for a brief space we call to mind, yet straightway forget we Death, as we had not ourselves to die. Parents, also, are utterly forgotten of their children, whom from their own bodies they have borne and reared; and they have dropped tears with the song: Alleluia.\n\nI remind ye, O my brethren, my children, and my friends: Forget me not, when unto the Lord ye pray. I entreat, I beseech, I implore, that ye learn by heart this thing, and mourn for me night and day. As said job unto his friends, so sayI also unto you: Sit ye again and say: Alleluia.\n\nLeaving all things behind us, forth we go, and naked and grieving must present ourselves to God. For like the grass doth beauty fade, and man is but allured therewith. Naked wast thou born, O wretched one, and naked there must every man appear. Dream not, O mortal, of sweetness in this life, but only groan ever with the moan: Alleluia.\n\nIf thou hast shown mercy unto man, O man, that same mercy shall be shown thee there; and if on an orphan thou hast shown compassion, the same shall there deliver thee from want. If in this life the naked thou hast clothed, the same shall give thee shelter there, and sing the psalm: Alleluia.\n\nToilsome the way in which I must go hence, the which, in truth, I never yet have trod; and unknown is that land, and thereof knoweth no one anywhere. Awesome is it to behold my guides; most terrible he who hath called me. the Ruler of life and death, who also calleth us, when he willeth, thither: Alleluia.\n\nIf journeying from a homeland we stand in need of guides, what shall we do when forth we fare to a land to us still all unknown? Many leaders wilt thou then require, many prayers to accompany thee, to save the wretched sinner’s soul; until thou come to Christ and say to him: Alleluia.\n\nThey who are in thrall to the material passions shall find no pardon whatsoever there. For there are the dread accusers; there, also, the books are opened. Where, then, around about thee wilt thou gaze, O man? And who then shall succour thee? Unless thou hast led an upright life, and hast done good to the needy, singing: Alleluia.\n\nYouth and the beauty of the body fade at the hour of death, and the tongue then burneth fiercely, and the parched throat is inflamed. The beauty of the eyes is quenched then, the comeliness of the face all altered, the shapeliness of the neck destroyed; and the other parts have become numb, nor often say: Alleluia.\n\nHush, then; be dumb. Henceforward keep ye silence before him who lieth there, and gaze upon the mighty mystery; for terrible is this hour. Be silent, that the soul may issue forth in peace. For it to a great ordeal is constrained, and in fear doth oft petition make to God: Alleluia.\n\nI have beheld a dying child, and I have mourned my life. He was all agitated, and trembled greatly when the hour was come, and cried, O father, help me! O mother, save me! And no one then could succour him, but only pined away as they gazed on him, and wept for him in the grave: Alleluia.\n\nHow many suddenly are snatched even from the plighting of their troth, and united by a bond eternal; and without avail have made their moan unending, and have not risen from that bridal chamber! But there was both marriage and the grave, both union and disunion, both laughter and weeping, and the psalm: Alleluia.\n\nWith ecstasy are we inflamed if we but hear that there is light eternal yonder; that there is the fountain of our life, and there delight eternal; that there is Paradise, wherein every soul of Righteous Ones rejoiceth. Let us all, also, enter into Christ, that all we may cry aloud thus unto God: Alleluia.", "metadata": { "language": "Greek", - "translator": "Isabel Hapgood", + "translators": [ + "Isabel Hapgood" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -88,12 +98,14 @@ "title": "“The Old Woman of Beare”", "body": "The sea crawls from the shore\nLeaving there\nThe despicable weed,\nA corpse’s hair.\nIn me,\nThe desolate withdrawing sea.\n\nThe Old Woman of Beare am I\nWho once was beautiful.\nNow all I know is how to die.\nI’ll do it well.\n\nLook at my skin\nStretched tight on the bone.\nWhere kings have pressed their lips,\nThe pain, the pain.\n\nI don’t hate the men\nWho swore the truth was in their lies.\nOne thing alone I hate--\nWomen’s eyes.\n\nThe young sun\nGives its youth to everyone,\nTouching everything with gold.\nIn me, the cold.\n\nThe cold. Yet still a seed\nBurns there.\nWomen love only money now.\nBut when\nI loved, I loved\nYoung men.\n\nYoung men whose horses galloped\nOn many an open plain\nBeating lightning from the ground.\nI loved such men.\n\nAnd still the sea\nRears and plunges into me,\nShoving, rolling through my head\nImages of the drifting dead.\n\nA soldier cries\nPitifully about his plight;\nA king fades\nInto the shivering night.\n\nDoes not every season prove\nThat the acorn hits the ground?\nHave I not known enough of love\nTo know it’s lost as soon as found?\n\nI drank my fill of wine with kings,\nTheir eyes fixed on my hair.\nNow among the stinking hags\nI chew the cud of prayer.\n\nTime was the sea\nBrought kings as slaves to me.\nNow I hear the face of God\nAnd the crab crawls through my blood.\n\nI loved the wine\nThat thrilled me to my fingertips;\nNow the mean wind\nStitches salt into my lips.\n\nThe coward sea\nSlouches away from me.\nFear brings back the tide\nThat made me stretch at the side\nOf him who’d take me briefly for his bride.\n\nThe sea grows smaller, smaller now.\nFarther, farther it goes\nLeaving me here where the foam dries\nOn the deserted land,\nDry as my shrunken thighs,\nAs the tongue that presses my lips,\nAs the veins that break through my hands.", "metadata": { + "language": "Gaelic", "time": { "year": 800, "circa": true }, - "language": "Gaelic", - "translator": "Brendan Kenneally", + "translators": [ + "Brendan Kenneally" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101,8 +113,10 @@ "title": "“The Seafarer”", "body": "May I for my own self song’s truth reckon,\nJourney’s jargon, how I in harsh days\nHardship endured oft.\nBitter breast-cares have I abided,\nKnown on my keel many a care’s hold,\nAnd dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent\nNarrow nightwatch nigh the ship’s head\nWhile she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted,\nMy feet were by frost benumbed.\nChill its chains are; chafing sighs\nHew my heart round and hunger begot\nMere-weary mood. Lest man know not\nThat he on dry land loveliest liveth,\nList how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,\nWeathered the winter, wretched outcast\nDeprived of my kinsmen;\nHung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew,\nThere I heard naught save the harsh sea\nAnd ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,\nDid for my games the gannet’s clamour,\nSea-fowls, loudness was for me laughter,\nThe mews’ singing all my mead-drink.\nStorms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern\nIn icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed\nWith spray on his pinion.\nNot any protector\nMay make merry man faring needy.\nThis he little believes, who aye in winsome life\nAbides ’mid burghers some heavy business,\nWealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft\nMust bide above brine.\nNeareth nightshade, snoweth from north,\nFrost froze the land, hail fell on earth then\nCorn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now\nThe heart’s thought that I on high streams\nThe salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.\nMoaneth alway my mind’s lust\nThat I fare forth, that I afar hence\nSeek out a foreign fastness.\nFor this there’s no mood-lofty man over earth’s midst,\nNot though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed;\nNor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful\nBut shall have his sorrow for sea-fare\nWhatever his lord will.\nHe hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having\nNor winsomeness to wife, nor world’s delight\nNor any whit else save the wave’s slash,\nYet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water.\nBosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries,\nFields to fairness, land fares brisker,\nAll this admonisheth man eager of mood,\nThe heart turns to travel so that he then thinks\nOn flood-ways to be far departing.\nCuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,\nHe singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow,\nThe bitter heart’s blood. Burgher knows not--\nHe the prosperous man--what some perform\nWhere wandering them widest draweth.\nSo that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock,\nMy mood ’mid the mere-flood,\nOver the whale’s acre, would wander wide.\nOn earth’s shelter cometh oft to me,\nEager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,\nWhets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly,\nO’er tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow\nMy lord deems to me this dead life\nOn loan and on land, I believe not\nThat any earth-weal eternal standeth\nSave there be somewhat calamitous\nThat, ere a man’s tide go, turn it to twain.\nDisease or oldness or sword-hate\nBeats out the breath from doom-gripped body.\nAnd for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after--\nLaud of the living, boasteth some last word,\nThat he will work ere he pass onward,\nFrame on the fair earth ’gainst foes his malice,\nDaring ado, 
\nSo that all men shall honour him after\nAnd his laud beyond them remain ’mid the English,\nAye, for ever, a lasting life’s-blast,\nDelight mid the doughty.\nDays little durable,\nAnd all arrogance of earthen riches,\nThere come now no kings nor Caesars\nNor gold-giving lords like those gone.\nHowe’er in mirth most magnified,\nWhoe’er lived in life most lordliest,\nDrear all this excellence, delights undurable!\nWaneth the watch, but the world holdeth.\nTomb hideth trouble. The blade is layed low.\nEarthly glory ageth and seareth.\nNo man at all going the earth’s gait,\nBut age fares against him, his face paleth,\nGrey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions,\nLordly men are to earth o’ergiven,\nNor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth,\nNor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,\nNor stir hand nor think in mid heart,\nAnd though he strew the grave with gold,\nHis born brothers, their buried bodies\nBe an unlikely treasure hoard.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ezra Pound", "language": "Old English", + "translators": [ + "Ezra Pound" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -113,11 +127,11 @@ "title": "“The Unquiet Grave”", "body": "“The wind doth blow today, my love,\nAnd a few small drops of rain;\nI never had but one true-love;\nIn cold grave she was lain.”\n\n“I’ll do as much for my true-love\nAs any young man may;\nI’ll sit and mourn all at her grave\nFor a twelvemonth and a day.”\n\nThe twelvemonth and a day being up,\nThe dead began to speak:\n“Oh who sits weeping on my grave,\nAnd will not let me sleep?”--\n\n“’Tis I, my love, sits on your grave,\nAnd will not let you sleep;\nFor I crave one kiss of your clay-cold lips,\nAnd that is all I seek.”--\n\n“You crave one kiss of my clay-cold lips;\nBut my breath smells earthy strong;\nIf you have one kiss of my clay-cold lips,\nYour time will not be long.”\n\n“’Tis down in yonder garden green,\nLove, where we used to walk,\nThe finest flower that ere was seen\nIs wither’d to a stalk.”\n\n“The stalk is wither’d dry, my love,\nSo will our hearts decay;\nSo make yourself content, my love,\nTill God calls you away.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1500, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -128,15 +142,18 @@ "title": "“The Words of the All-Wise”", "body": "“Bestrew the benches: for my bride and me\n It is time to be turning homeward.\nI am eager for this wedding: they are wondering there\n Why I linger so long.”\n\n“Of what race are you, White-Nose?\n Were you clasped in the night by a corpse?\nI think you must be Thurse-begotten:\n You were never born for a bride.”\n\n“All-Wise I am called: under the ground\n I dwell in the dark among stones.\nFrom the Lord-of-chariots I look for good faith:\n It is ill to break an oath.”\n\n“I never swore one: I was not at home\n When the gods gave you this pledge.\nThe bride’s father has the best right:\n Permission is for me to give.”\n\n“Declare your name, who claim to be\n The father of the fair maid.\nFar-wanderer, few know you:\n Whose arm-rings do you wear?”\n\n“The lord Ving-Thor, Longbeard’s son,\n Who has travelled wide in the world:\nUnless I agree, give my consent,\n You shall never marry the maid.”\n\n“You will agree, give your consent\n That I shall marry the maid,\nThe snow-white woman I desire to have\n Rather than live alone.”\n\n“Wise guest, I give you my promise:\n I will not deny you her hand,\nIf you know what I wish to know concerning\n All the worlds there are.”\n\n“Say, Dwarf, for it seems to me\n There is nothing you do not know:\nWhat is earth called, the outstretched land,\n In all the worlds there are?”\n\n“Earth by men, The Fold by gods,\n Vanes call it The Ways,\nGiants Ever-green, elves Growing,\n High gods call it Clay.”\n\n“What is heaven called, that all know,\n In all the worlds there are?”\n\n“Heaven by men, The Arch by gods,\n Wind-Weaver by Vanes,\nBy giants High-Earth, by elves Fair-Roof,\n By dwarves The Dripping Hall.”\n\n“What is the moon called, that men see,\n In all the worlds there are?”\n\n“Moon by men, The Ball by gods,\n The Whirling Wheel in Hel,\nThe Speeder by giants, The Bright One by dwarves,\n By elves Tally-of-Years.”\n\n“What is sol called, that is seen by men,\n In all the worlds there are?”\n\n“Sol by men, Sun by gods,\n By dwarves Dvalin’s Doll,\nBy giants Everglow, by elves Fair-Wheel,\n All-Bright by sons of gods.”\n\n“What are clouds called, that carry rain,\n In all the worlds there are?”\n\n“Clouds by men, Hope-of-Showers by gods,\n Wind-Ships by Vanes,\nBy giants Drizzle-Hope, by elves Weather-Might,\n In Hel Helmet-of-Darkness.”\n\n“What is wind called, that widely fares,\n In all the worlds there are?”\n\n“Wind by men, Woe-Father by gods,\n By holy powers The Neigher,\nThe Shouter by giants, Travelling-Tumult by elves,\n Squall-Blast they call it in Hel.”\n\n“What is calm called, that cannot stir,\n In all the worlds there are?”\n\n“Calm by men, Stillness by gods,\n Idle-Wind by Vanes,\nOver-Warmth by giants, by elves Day-Quiet,\n And Day-Rest by dwarves.”\n\n“What is sea called, that is crossed by men,\n In all the worlds there are?”\n\n“Sea by men, Still-Main by gods,\n The Vanes call it Wave,\nEel-Home by giants, by elves Water-Charm,\n The Dark Deep by dwarves.”\n\n“What is fire called, so fierce to men,\n In all the worlds there are?”\n\n“Fire by men, Flame by gods,\n The Flickering One by Vanes,\nThe Wolfish by giants, All-burner by elves,\n In Hel The Corpse-Destroyer.”\n\n“What is forest called, that flourishes for men,\n In all the worlds there are?”\n\n“Forest by men, Field’s-Mane by gods,\n By heroes Mountain Sea-Weed,\nFire-Wood by giants, Fair-Bough by elves,\n By Vanes Wand-of-Charms.”\n\n“What is night called, that Nor fathered,\n In all the worlds there are?”\n\n“Night by men, The Dark by gods,\n By holy powers The Hood,\nUnlight by giants, by elves Sleep-Pleasure,\n By dwarves Spinner-of-Dreams.”\n\n“What is the seed called, that is sown by men,\n In all the worlds there are?”\n\n“Brew by men, Barley by gods,\n Vanes call it The Growth,\nOats by giants, by elves Water-Charm,\n In Hel they call it The Drooping.”\n\n“What is ale called, that is quaffed by men,\n In all the worlds there are?”\n\n“Ale by men, Beer by gods,\n The Vanes call it Strength,\nWater-Pure by giants, Mead in Hel,\n Feast by Suttung’s Sons.”\n\n“Never have I met such a master of lore\n With such a wealth of wisdom.\nI talked to trick you, and tricked you I have:\n Dawn has broken, Dwarf,\n Stiffen now to stone.”", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 900, - "circa": true - }, "language": "Icelandic", - "translator": "W. H. Auden & Paul Taylor", "source": { "title": "The Elder Edda" }, + "time": { + "year": 900, + "circa": true + }, + "translators": [ + "W. H. Auden", + "Paul Taylor" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -179,7 +196,9 @@ "body": "> _Job:_\n\nPerish the day’s fire in where I was born, and that night’s joy crying ‘A boy!’\nThat day let God enquire not down for, no brightness burn there,\nBut a dark of midnight claim, a black cloud seize it wholly,\nLet all that stains & shrouds terrify that day.\nDisjoin from its fellow days it, exiled from the toil of the months.\nStony that night turn, joyless, empty of all song;\nEnchanters mark it curst, whose baleful power calls up Leviathan;\nIts twilight stars be darkt, unseen the eyelids of its dawn;\nFor it shut not the hole of my womb, but let me out to trouble.\n\nWhy died not I from the womb, incht-out still-born,\nOr fail aborted, carelessly buried, like children who never saw light?\nWhy my father’s knee accepting, breasts giving me suck,--\nWhen now I should have lain still, and slept, and slept at rest,\nWith kings and the world’s counsellors, who built up ruins to their glory,\nWith princes heavy with gold, who houses filled with silver;\nWhere the wicked cease from raging, where the exhausted rest,\nWhere prisoners glad together hear not the voice of the guard,\nWhere small & great are the same, and the slave free from a master.\nWherefore is light to the miserable, wherefore living to the bitter\nWho long for a death unforthcoming, and dig for it like treasure,\nWhose hearts leap at a mound, a small mound, strain toward a grave,\nWhose way is lockt off, who are hedged in by God himself?\nTo me moans came for food, my roars poured forth like drink.\nI fear a fear: it comes. That which I dread comes to me.\nNo ease was mine, no quiet, no rest; yet trouble came.\n\n\n> _Eliphass:_\n\nWill it do if we speak to you? for who can here be still?\nLo, you admonisht many, and to the frail sprang support,\nYour speech arrested those falling, you stiffened the folding knees.\nNow it comes on, and you faint; touches you, fear.\nIs not good fear your boldness, this your integrity hope?\nWho perished ever,--remember?--pure? Where were the good destroyed?\nEvil ones I have seen pluckt up, reaping an empty house,\nTheir children cast away justiceless in the gates courts;\nI have seen a sowing of evil, until the wind-blast of God.\nThe old hoarse lions roar, assailed, and the young lions teeth are broken,\nAnd starve do old & young, and the lady’s cubs are crusht forth.\n\nNow secretly a word came, and I gathered a little of it,\nIn piecemeal visions of the night, when deep sleep takes men;\nEntered me fear, and trembling, and all my bones shook,\nBefore my face a spirit passed, my head’s hair shuddered,\nIt stood still, no part of that appearance clear to me,\nA form was before my eyes, in silence, and I heard a voice:\n(_word unclear_) men can be just before God? Can a man be pure as his maker?\nWho can place trust in His servants? His angels fail to you;\nThen what in those whose houses are mud, whose foundations are mud.\n\nWho crunch like a moth, between the dawn and evening,\nWho are shattered, so, and unseen perish for ever.\nRage is the foolish man’s enemy, resentment doubles his woe;\nI have seen him taking root, and curst his house suddenly,\nFor his children are unsafe, and suffer in the gate, unaided.\nTheir harvest any hungry eat--even from thorns, and the snare gapes.\nFrom the dust woe comes not, nor shoots from the ground.\nBut man is born to trouble, as the angels fly off.\nWere it mine, I would seek Shaddai and put the case there,\nWho ancient enigmatic great deeds does, marvellous at, numberless,\nRain-donor here, prolific of waters elsewhere, anywhere,\nPlace-alterer, lifting up the low, restoring the mourning,\nWho moves on the crafty’s schemes, emptying their hands,\nWho takes the wise in their own devices, the wily’s counsels blows away;\nDarkness at noon abruptly they meet, and grope, and grope:\nThe Good from their mouths he snatches, the poor from their power,\nSo that the poor have hope, and evil shuts its mouth.\n\nLo, happy a man whom God corrects, who Shaddai’s training takes;\nFor first He hurts, then heals; wounds, and His hands make whole;\nOut from six woes He saves you,--seven, and He saves;\nIn famine keeps you from dying, in war from the sword’s power.\nFrom spells you sheltered, scathless when demons come:\nAt them and hunger laugh, look upon beasts without fear,\nFor you be in league with the satyrs of the fields, at peace with the wild beasts.\nAnd your tent shall be at peace, your home-place whole.\nMany your seed, in your confidence, your offspring like the grass.\nYou shall die unimpaired, & old, as a shock of corn in its season.\nSo: here is our knowing, & truth, & proven: hear it in your heart.", "metadata": { "language": "Hebrew", - "translator": "John Berryman", + "translators": [ + "John Berryman" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -1530,11 +1549,13 @@ "title": "“Dawn and rain 
”", "body": "Dawn and rain. A dense fog in the park,\nAnd in the window--an unneeded candle,\nAn open and forgotten trunk,\nHer shoulders that barely tremble.\n\nNo word about us, no word about the past.\nIt’s such a trifle--what happened at the end!\nWhen solitude for two--it is so sad 
\n--The sun, with a slanting ray, at last,\nTurned into gold the silver tress.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Elena Dubrovina", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Elena Dubrovina" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -1542,11 +1563,13 @@ "title": "“For the word you remembered once 
”", "body": "For the word you remembered once\nAnd then forgot forever,\nFor all that in the burning sunset\nYou looked for and you never found,\n\nAnd for despair of your dreams,\nAnd for the cold that grew inside your chest,\nAnd for a slow-growing death\nWithout any hope of moving on,\n\nAnd for the “rescue,” dressed in white,\nAnd for the somber name of love\nAll sins will be forgiven,\nAnd all your crimes.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Elena Dubrovina", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1930 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Elena Dubrovina" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -1554,11 +1577,13 @@ "title": "“Life! What do I need from you 
”", "body": "Life! What do I need from you--I do not know.\nMy grief cooled down, a lot of infancy.\nBut longing, as much as I’m longing now,\nThe merciful God will not allow.\n\nAnd if somewhere he exists and breathes,\nThe one, who finally was brought to me by fate,\nWhy doesn’t he come to me and doesn’t hear\nThe voice of mine that didn’t fade as yet?\n\nAnd only my eyes, dark, misty, big,\nThe two enormous and mournful wings\nThrew shadows from the Caucasian hills\nOn life of mine and on my all ordeals.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Elena Dubrovina", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Elena Dubrovina" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -1566,11 +1591,13 @@ "title": "“O, you, my life, enough of fuss 
”", "body": "O, you, my life, enough of fuss,\nEnough complaints,--it’s all just void.\nAnd peace descends into the world--\nYou, too, search for your rest.\n\nI want the heavy snow to fall,\nThe sky, transparent blue, to stretch,\nAnd that I could forever sense\nIce in my heart and on the trees--some frost.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Elena Dubrovina", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Elena Dubrovina" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -1581,11 +1608,13 @@ "title": "“Speak to no one 
”", "body": "Speak to no one. Do not drink wine.\nLeave home behind. Leave brother, wife.\nFrom people depart. Your soul must come\nTo feel--the past is forever gone.\n\nWhat’s past one must unlove. Then time\nWill come to lose love for the wild,\nIndifferent ever more: the day after,\nFrom week to week, year in and year out.\n\nAnd gradually your hopes expire.\nDarkness swallows all. A new life\nYou will find then, clear and reborn:\nThe wooden cross, the crown of thorns.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alex Cigale", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alex Cigale" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -1596,11 +1625,13 @@ "title": "“Thank you for everything 
”", "body": "Thank you for everything. For the war,\nFor the revolution and exile.\nFor the indifferent bright country\nWhere we now “drag out our existence”.\nThere is no sweeter destiny than to lose everything.\nThere is no happier fate than to become a vagabond.\nAnd you’ve never been closer to heaven\nThan here, tired of boredom\nTired of breathing,\n Without strength, without money,\n Without love,\n In Paris 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Maria Rubins", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1931 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Maria Rubins" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -1660,10 +1691,10 @@ "title": "“Description of Elysium”", "body": "_There: far, friends our dear dominion:_\n\nWhole health resides with peace,\nGladness and never harm,\nThere not time turning,\nNor fear of flower of snow\n\nWhere marbling water slides\nNo charm may halt of chill,\nAir aisling the open acres,\nAnd all the gracious trees\n\nSpout up their standing fountains\nOf wind-beloved green\nAnd the blue conclaved mountains\nAre grave guards\n\nStone and springing field\nWide one tenderness,\nThe unalterable hour\nSmiles deathlessness:\n\nNo thing is there thinks:\nMind the witherer\nWithers on the outward air:\nWe can not come there.\n\nSure on this shining night\nOf starmade shadows round,\nKindness must watch for me\nThis side the ground.\n\nThe late year lies down the north.\nAll is healed, all is health.\nHigh summer holds the earth.\nHearts all whole.\n\nSure on this shining night I weep for wonder wandering far alone\nOf shadows on the stars.\n\nNow thorn bone bare\nSilenced with iron the branch’s gullet:\nRattling merely on the air\nOf hornleaved holly:\n\nThe stony mark where sand was by\nThe water of a nailed foot:\nThe berry harder than the beak:\nThe hole beneath the dead oak root:\n\nAll now brought quiet\nThrough the latest throe\nQuieted and ready and quiet:\nStill not snow:\n\nStill thorn bone hare\nIron in the silenced gully\nRattling only of the air\nThrough hornleaved holly.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "christmas_eve" @@ -1674,10 +1705,10 @@ "title": "“The Happy Hen”", "body": "_(To Dr. Marie Stopes et al., and to all scientific lovers)_\n\nHis hottest love and most delight\nThe rooster knows for speed of fear\nAnd winds her down and treads her right\nAnd leaves her stuffed with dazzled cheer,\n\nRumpled allwhichways in her lint,\nWho swears, shrugs, redeems her face,\nAnd serves to mind us how a sprint\nHeads swiftliest for the state of grace.\n\nI loitered weeping with my bride for gladness\nHer walking side against and both embracing\nThrough the brash brightening rain that now the season changes\nWhite on the fallen air that now my fallen the fallen girl her grave effaces.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -1688,10 +1719,10 @@ "title": "“Knoxville, Summer of 1915”", "body": "It has become that time of evening\nWhen people sit on their porches\nRocking gently and talking gently\nAnd watching the street\nAnd the standing up into their sphere\nOf possession of the trees,\nOf birds’ hung havens, hangars.\nPeople go by; things go by.\nA horse, drawing a buggy,\nBreaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt:\nA loud auto: a quiet auto:\nPeople in pairs, not in a hurry,\nScuffling, switching their weight of aestival body,\nTalking casually,\nThe taste hovering over them of vanilla,\nStrawberry, pasteboard, and starched milk,\nThe image upon them of lovers and horsement,\nSquared with clowns in hueless amber.\n\nA streetcar raising into iron moan;\nStopping;\nBelling and starting; stertorous;\nRousing and raising again\nIts iron increasing moan\nAnd swimming its gold windows and straw seats\nOn past and past and past\nThe bleak spark crackling and cursing above it\nLike a small malignant spirit\nSet to dog its tracks;\nThe iron whine rises on rising speed;\nStill risen, faints; halts;\nThe faint stinging bell;\nRises again, still fainter;\nFainting, lifting lifts,\nFaints foregone;\nForgotten.\nNow is the night one blue dew;\nMy father has drained,\nHe has coiled the hose.\nLow on the length of lawns,\nA frailing of fire who breathes.\nParents on porches:\nRock and rock.\nFrom damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces.\nThe dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air\nAt once enchants my eardrums.\nOn the rough wet grass\nOf the backyard\nMy father and mother have spread quilts\nWe all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt,\nAnd I too am lying there.\nThey are not talking much, and the talk is quiet,\nOf nothing in particular,\nOf nothing at all.\nThe stars are wide and alive,\nThey all seem like a smile\nOf great sweetness,\nAnd they seem very near.\nAll my people are larger bodies than mine,\nWith voices gentle and meaningless\nLike the voices of sleeping birds.\nOne is an artist, he is living at home.\nOne is a musician, she is living at home.\nOne is my mother who is good to me.\nOne is my father who is good to me.\nBy some chance, here they are,\nAll on this earth;\nAnd who shall ever tell the sorrow\nOf being on this earth, lying, on quilts,\nOn the grass,\nIn a summer evening,\nAmong the sounds of the night.\nMay God bless my people,\nMy uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father,\nOh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble;\nAnd in the hour of their taking away.\nAfter a little\nI am taken in\nAnd put to bed.\nSleep, soft smiling,\nDraws me unto her;\nAnd those receive me,\nWho quietly treat me,\nAs one familiar and well-beloved in that home:\nBut will not, oh, will not,\nNot now, not ever;\nBut will not ever tell me who I am.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -1702,10 +1733,10 @@ "title": "“On the Word Asleep”", "body": "Asleep, perfected, you would never believe\nHarm of a one of them. That stirring hand,\nThat leg, might clasp, endear, be brought across\nAn enemy, as gently as a wife.\nHow God must grieve,\nWatching in all this shadow land\nThe flinching vigil candles of this countless loss\nIn night’s nave each a life:\nWho groans, smiles, murmurs, quiets; then on the horn\nTranspierced, assembles upward, and reborn,\nBy all that skill and bravery crowns him with\nWorks, while he wakes, to put himself to death.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -1713,10 +1744,10 @@ "title": "“On the Word Kingdom”", "body": "In that kingdom no one cries.\nNo one doubts, for no one lies.\nNo son ever dreads his mother,\nNor no brother envies brother.\n\nFamilies, there like nearby trees\nSpring and shelter, and the bees\nGroan among the cloudy flowers;\nAngels, each a soul devours.\n\nThere continually the smile\nOf the heart that knows no guile.\nThere, untroubled, people greet,\nDeath like an old friend in the street.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -1727,10 +1758,10 @@ "title": "“Our Doom is in Our Being”", "body": "Our doom is in our being. We began\nIn hunger eager more than ache of hell:\nAnd in that hunger became each a man\nRavened with hunger death alone may spell:\nAnd in that hunger live, as lived the dead,\nWho sought, as now we seek, in the same ways,\nNobly, and hatefully, what angel’s-bread\nMight ever stand us out those short few days.\nSo is the race in this wild hour confounded:\nAnd though you rectify the big distress,\nAnd kill all outward wrong where wrong abounded,\nYour hunger cannot make this hunger less\nWhich breeds all wrath and right, and shall not die\nIn earth, and finds some hope upon the sky.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -1738,10 +1769,10 @@ "title": "“Outskirts of Knoxville, Tennessee”", "body": "There, in the earliest and chary spring, the dogwood flowers.\n\nUnharnessed in the friendly Sunday air\nBy the red brambles, on the river bluffs,\nClerks and their choices pair.\n\nThrive by, not near, masked all away by shrub and juniper,\nThe Ford V8, racing the Chevrolet.\n\nThey can not trouble her:\n\nHer breasts, helped open from the afforded lace,\nlie like a peaceful lake;\nAnd on his mouth she breaks her gentleness:\n\nOh, wave them awake!\n\nThey are not of the birds. Such innocence\nBrings us whole to break us only:\nTheirs are not happy words.\n\nWe that are human cannot hope.\nOur tenderest joys oblige us most.\nNo chain so cuts the bone; and sweetest silk most\nshrewdly strangles.\n\nHow this must end, that now please love were ended,\nIn kitchens, bedfights, silences, women’s-pages,\nSickness of heart before goldlettered doors,\nStale flesh, hard collars, agony in antiseptic corridors,\nSpankings, remonstrances, fishing trips, orange juice,\nPolicies, incapacities, a chevrolet,\nScorn of their children, kind contempt exchanged,\nRecalls, tears, second honeymoons, pity,\nShouted corrections of missed syllables,\nHot water bags, gallstones, falls down stairs,\nStammerings, soft foods, confusion of personalities,\nOldfashioned christmases, suspicions of theft,\nArrangements with morticians taken care of by sons in law,\nSmall rooms beneath the gables of brick bungalows,\nThe tumbler smashed, the glance between daughter and husband,\nThe empty body in the lonely bed\nAnd, in the empty concrete porch, blown ash\nGrandchildren wandering the betraying sun\n\nNow, on the winsome crumbling shelves of the horror\nGod show, God blind these children!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -1754,10 +1785,10 @@ "title": "“A Parable of Doors”", "body": "All things of life I term as many doors:\nEntrance to each or all, that man may win\nWho neither questions, nor no more implores\nBut that with mindless ease he be let in.\n\nSuch men are myriad and the door swings wide\nAnd smoothly they swarm through, who care not why,\nInitiate to those mysteries most denied\nThose who most seek them: such a man am I.\n\nI would expound those truths unalterably\nFlayed to strict harmonies no mind has sung.\nMindful that truths are founded axially,\nBy too much mind all hinges I have sprung:\n\nFor it was thus: I lunged the brutal mind\nShoulder to hinge post, since the truth stood there;\nWhich neither yielded nor have I repined,\nBut lunge and batter and am in despair.\n\nI cramped all gates of love forever shut,\nAll beauty is for ever wrecked for me,\nAnd God all spiked with brain, and here is but\nOne door, whose certitude the others flee.\n\nThat door is death: and though my chief assault\nAnd shrewdest labor I’ve assemble there,\nDark hinges no conjecture may default\nSoon shall devolve me on a doorless air.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -1765,10 +1796,10 @@ "title": "“Permit Me Voyage”", "body": "Take these who will as may be: I\nAm careless now of what they fail:\nMy heart and mind discharted lie\nAnd surely as the nerved nail\n\nAppoints all quarters on the north\nSo now it designates him forth\nMy sovereign God my princely soul\nWhereon my flesh is priestly stole:\n\nWhence forth shall my heart and mind\nTo God through soul entirely bow,\nTherein such strong increase to find\nIn truth as is my fate to know:\n\nSmall though that be great God I know\nI know in this gigantic day\nWhat God is ruined and I know\nHow labors with Godhead this day:\n\nHow from the porches of our sky\nThe crested glory is declined:\nAnd hear with what translated cry\nThe stridden soul is overshined:\n\nAnd how this world of wildness through\nTrue poets shall walk who herald you:\nOf whom God grant me of your grace\nTo be, that shall preserve this race.\n\nPermit me voyage, Love, into your hands.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -1776,10 +1807,10 @@ "title": "“The Rendezvous”", "body": "The horn of resurrection\nGlobes world and skull with jubilance of sound:\nPerfect, my soul and flesh\nResolve from living sky and deathly ground.\n\nAh, true to our appointment\nYou join me, that together we may rise\nTo love’s eternity 
\nBut tell me: what has saddened, so, your eyes?\n\n“Only that you, who loved me\nHave waited long in vain new love to share:\nBefore the blazing God\nThat cloudy love has burned to clearest air.”\n\n“Be sad no more; forget me\nAs now I can you: lost in God your soul:\nMe, love’s thin fever\nCould not beguile from death’s white ruinous coal!”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -1787,10 +1818,10 @@ "title": "“Season of Change”", "body": "Season of change the sun for distaff bearing\nIn your right hand and in the left large rains\nAnd writhen winds and noiselessly forth faring\nThe earth abroad, and streaming wide your skeins,\nWhen in unfathomed fairness you have clothed\nThe sea with quiet, the land with painless wealth,\nTurn you to those who changelessly have loathed\nAll and their kind, and grant them peace and health:\nThe proud stone-parting ardor of the tree,\nThe glee of ice relaxed against new earth,\nJoy of the lamb and lust of bloom-struck bee\nGrant to the sick, stiff, spiteful, like fresh birth.\nLet this new time no natural wheel derange:\nBe ever changeless, thus: season of change.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -1801,10 +1832,10 @@ "title": "“So It Begins”", "body": "So it begins. Adam is in his earth.\nTempted, and fallen, and his doom made sure\nOh, in the very instant of his birth:\nWhose deathly nature must all things endure.\nThe hungers of his flesh, and mind, and heart,\nThat governed him when he was in the womb,\nThose ravenings multiply in every part:\nAnd shall release him only to the tomb.\nMeantime he works the earth, and builds up nations,\nAnd trades, and wars, and learns, and worships chance,\nAnd looks to God, and weaves the generations\nWhich shall his many hungerings advance\nWhen he is sunken dead among the sins.\nAdam is in the earth. So it begins.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -1812,10 +1843,10 @@ "title": "“A Song”", "body": "I had a little child was born in the month of May.\nHe croaked and he crowed from early in the day.\nHe sang like a bird and he delighted to play\nAnd before the night time he was gone away.\n\nLittle child, take no fright,\nIn that shadow where you are\nThe toothless glowworm grants you light.\nSure your mother’s not afar.\n\nBrave, brave, little boy,\nAngels wave you round with joy.\nSoon through the dark she runs to you,\nSoon, soon your mother comforts you.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -1826,10 +1857,10 @@ "title": "“Sonnet”", "body": "I have been fashioned on a chain of flesh\nWhose ancient lengths are immolate to dust:\nFrail though that dust be as the dew’s mesh\nThe morning mars, it holds me to a trust:\nMy flesh that was, long as this flesh knew life,\nStrove, and was valiant, still strove, and was naught:\nNow it is mine to wage their valiant strife\nAnd failing seek still what they ever sought.\nI have been given wings they never wore.\nI have been given hope they never knew.\nAnd they were brave, who can be brave no more.\nAnd they that live are kind as they are few.\n’Tis mine to touch with deathlessness their clay:\nAnd I shall fail, and join those I betray.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -1837,10 +1868,10 @@ "title": "“Strengthless They Stand”", "body": "Strengthless they stand assembled in the shadow,\nBlind to all strife and all to sorrow blind\nWho reared the tower, who scored the April meadow:\nSheltered, they overshade my strengthless mind.\nThose hands that gave their kind ungentle power\nTo summer’s travail, autumn did not spare:\nThat mind which knew the clear, the intact hour,\nNow is disparted on a changeful air.\n\nThe hands that ached to help are pithless bone\n(Mind, mind, the harsh pain and the unalloyed:\nWhat fruit you bear, that must you bear alone!)\nThe broken helmet nods around its void:\nSo I disclothe me of this shadow’s blight;\nAnd stand the axis of swift noon, sure night.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -1851,10 +1882,10 @@ "title": "“Summer Evening”", "body": "Bandstands every Tuesday evening\nBring us to the drawling square:\nBraid, glad horn, blunt drum, commend us\nEach another, shed of care.\n\nLocusts with enthusiasm\nCelebrate the spended day:\nIn the dappling shadowed porchswing\nLove finds out the usual way.\n\nChildren are composed this season.\nThere is hope among us yet.\nHope can cut the roots of reason:\nAnd the sorrowful man forget.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer", @@ -1866,10 +1897,10 @@ "title": "“Sun Our Father”", "body": "Sun our father while I slept\nYou lifted like a field of corn\nThe smiling and the peaceful strength\nOf those that are the race new born:\n\nThe infant future waked in you\nOnce more, and the world’s rich breast\nDrank the day’s courage and lay down\nIn fearless and refreshing rest:\n\nAnd while the russian field you raised\nDreams in the starflung shadow’s keep\nYou wake these backward lands to work:\nGood work to do before we sleep.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -1880,10 +1911,10 @@ "title": "“Sure on This Shining Night”", "body": "Sure on this shining night\nOf star made shadows round,\nKindness must watch for me\nThis side the ground.\nThe late year lies down the north.\nAll is healed, all is health.\nHigh summer holds the earth.\nHearts all whole.\nSure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand’ring far alone\nOf shadows on the stars.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -1894,10 +1925,10 @@ "title": "“The Wide Earth’s Orchard”", "body": "The wide earth’s orchard of your time of knowing,\nShine of the springtime pleasures into bloom\nAnd branched throes of health: but soon the snowing\nAnd tender foretaste of your afterdoom,\nOf fallen blossoming air persuades the air\nIn hardier practices: and soon dilate\nFruits and the air together that shall bear\nEarthward the heavied boughs and to their fate:\nWrung of the wealth and wonder they unfurled\nBy that same air: which air the sun deranges\nTo slope the living season from the world\nAnd charge the world with snow that all estranges.\nWatch well this sun, and air, and orchard green:\nNone stay these changes every man has seen.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -2419,8 +2450,11 @@ "title": "“Along the Hard Crust of the Deep Snows”", "body": "Just because the girl Nastas’ya\nran out barefoot in the rain\nto provide another’s pleasure\nvodka for the aged man\n\nshe deserved a lovely god\nin a palace drenched with sun\nelegant and just and good\nin a robe of old gold spun.\n\nBut to him where drunkards snore\nwhere all round is poverty\nthe two blackened icons bore\nlittle similarity.\n\nJust for this the chicory flowered\nsuddenly the pearls were splendid:\nlike a church choir then was heard\nthe plain name of the intended.\n\nHe appeared above the fencing\noffered her a yellow medal:\nthis way he was quite convincing\nas a god in youthful fettle.\n\nAnd her heart sang holy holy\nfor the dulcet light divine\nfor the blue shirt, for the jolly\nconcertina, for the wine.\n\nAnd he lifted off her muslin\nkerchief and (deceitful beast)\nsetting all the hayloft rustling\ncrumpled up her feeble breast 
\n\nAnd Nastas’ya combed her hair\ntook the kerchief by its corners\nand Nastas’ya in despair\nsang with gestures like a mourner’s:\n\n“Oh, alas, you have undone me\nyou have wrought me many woes\nWhy oh why did you last Monday\noffer me a white white rose!\n\nWillow, willow, do not wither\nwait, oh make me not bereft.\nAll my faith has gone--ah, whither?\nOnly this small cross is left.”\n\nThrough the sunlight laughed the rain\nand the god laughed at the girl.\nNothing happened. All was vain.\nAnd the god was not at all.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Keith Bosley, Dimitry Pospielovsky & Janis Sapiets", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Keith Bosley, Dimitry Pospielovsky", + "Janis Sapiets" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -2431,11 +2465,13 @@ "title": "“April”", "body": "Here’re the girls--they wish to love,\nHere’re the boys--they wish to wander,\nAll changes in that April just unite,\nConsolidate the people with each other.\n\nO, the new month, the new such Lord,\nYou seek in such a way new favour,\nYou may be generous in your words,\nLetting amnesty to calendar.\n\nYes, you’ll free rivers from the shackles,\nWill set the distant quiet close,\nA crazy will get blooming, an oldman\nWill get the healing one time, certainly.\n\nMe only won’t have your mercy either,\nAnd I’m not greedy of that luck.\nYou ask, but I’m late with answer,\nI switch off light, my room turns dark.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lyudmila Purgina", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1960 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Lyudmila Purgina" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -2447,11 +2483,15 @@ "title": "“Fifteen Boys”", "body": "Fifteen boys--maybe more\nmaybe less than fifteen\nwith frightened voices\nsaid to me:\n“Let’s go to the cinema or the museum of Fine arts.”\nI answered them more or less as follows:\n“I haven’t got the time.”\nFifteen boys gave me snowdrops\nFifteen boys with broken voices said to me:\n“I’ll never stop loving you.”\nI answered them more or less as follows:\n“We’ll see.”\n\nFifteen boys live quietly now.\nThey’ve done their hard duty\nof snowdrops, despair and letters.\nThey’ve got girls--\nsome prettier than me\nsome less pretty.\nFifteen boys brashly, sometimes smugly\ngreet me when they meet me\ngreet in me when they meet me\ntheir deliverance, normal sleep and food 
\n\nYou’re wasting your time, latest boy.\nI’ll put your snowdrops in a tumbler\nand their sturdy stems will grow\nsilver bubbles 
\nBut never mind, you’ll stop loving me too\nand after conquering yourself you’ll talk down to me\nas if you’d conquered me\nand I’ll walk on down the street, on down the street.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Keith Bosley, Dimitry Pospielovsky & Janis Sapiets", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1950 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Keith Bosley", + "Dimitry Pospielovsky", + "Janis Sapiets" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -2462,11 +2502,13 @@ "title": "“The Hospital Christmas Tree”", "body": "They have set a Christmas tree up in a hospital ward.\nIt clearly feels out of place in a cloister of suffering.\nThe moon over Leningrad comes to my window ledge\nbut does not stay long--many windows, much waiting.\n\nThe moon moves on to a spry, independent old woman;\noutside you can hear the sussurous sound of her trying\nto hide from her neighbors and from her own shallow sleep\nher breaking the norm--the blunder of illegal crying.\n\nAll the patients are worse; still, it is a Christmas Eve.\nTomorrow will some get news; some gifts; some, calls.\nLife and death remain neighbors: the stretcher is always loaded;\nthrough the long night the elevator squeaks as it falls.\n\nRejoice eternally, Virgin! You bore the Child at night.\nThere is no other reason for hope, but that matters so much,\nis so huge, so eternally endless, that it\nconsoles the unknown, underground anchorite.\n\nEven here in the ward where the tree makes some people cry\n(did not want it; a nurse, in fact, ordered it brought)\nthe listening heart beats, and you hear people say,\n“Hey, look! The Star of Bethlehem’s in the sky!”\n\nThe only sure facts are the cattle’s lament in the shred,\nthe Wise Men’s haste, the inexperienced mother’s elbow\nmarking The Child with a miraculous spot on His brow.\nAll the rest is absurd, an age-old but fugitive lie.\n\nWhat matters more or brings more joy to sick flesh\nwasted by work and by war than so simple a scene?\nBut they reproach you for drinking or some other fault\nand stuff your brain with the bones of a system picked clean.\n\nI watched the day begin breaking some time past nine;\nit was a drop, a black light shining absurdly\nonto the window. People dream that they heard\na little toy bell-ringer ringing the bell on the tree.\n\nThe day as it downed was week, not much of a sight.\nThe light was paler than pink, pastel, not harsh,\nthe way an amethyst shimmers on a young girl’s neck.\nAll looked down, once they had seen the sad, humble cross.\n\nAnd when they arose, reluctantly opening their eyes,\na trolley flew by through the snowstorm, gold trim inside it.\nThey crowded the window like children: “Hey, look at that car!\nLike a perch that’s gotten away, all speckled with fire!”\n\nThey sat down for breakfast; they argued, got tired, lay down.\nThe view from the window was such that Leningrad’s secrets\nand splendors brought tears to my eyes, filled me with love.\n“Isn’t there something you want?” “No, there’s nothing.”\n\nI have long been accused of making frivolous things.\nFrivolity maker, I look at those here around me:\nO Mother of God, have mercy! And beg your Son, too.\nOn the day of His birth, pray and weep for us each.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Elaine Feinstein", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1985 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "christmas_eve" @@ -2477,11 +2519,13 @@ "title": "“Incantation”", "body": "Don’t weep for me--I’ll live on\nas a happy beggar, a convict with goodwill,\nas a southerner frozen in the north,\nas a consumptive and ill-tempered Petershurger\nin the malarial south I’ll live on.\n\nDon’t weep for me--I’ll live on\nas that lame girl who came out on the church porch,\nas that drunkard slumped on the tablecloth,\nas that one who paints the Mother of God,\nas a wretched icon dauber I’ll live on.\n\nDon’t weep for me--I’ll live on\nas that young girl taught to read and write,\nwho in the blurred future light\n(her bangs red as mine) like a fool\nwill know my poems. I’ll live on.\n\nDon’t weep for me--I’ll live on\nmore merciful than a sister of mercy\nin the preslaughter recklessness of war,\nand tinder the Most Blessed Marina’s star\nsomehow, nonetheless, I’ll live on.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Albert C. Todd", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1968 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Albert C. Todd" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -2539,12 +2583,14 @@ "title": "“All is despoiled, abandoned, sold 
”", "body": "All is despoiled, abandoned, sold;\nDeath’s wing has swept the sky of color;\nAll’s eaten by a hungry dolor.\nWhat is this light which we behold?\n\nOdors of cherry blossom sigh\nFrom the rumored forest beyond the town.\nAt night, new constellations crown\nThe high, clear heavens of July.\n\nCloser it comes, and closer still,\nTo houses ruinous and blind:\nSome marvelous thing still undivined.\nSome fiat of the century’s will.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921, "month": "june" }, - "translator": "Richard Wilbur", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Richard Wilbur" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -2555,11 +2601,13 @@ "title": "“And once more the autumn blasts like Tamerlane 
”", "body": "And once more the autumn blasts like Tamerlane,\nThere is silence in the streets of Arbat.\nBeyond the little station or beyond the haze\nThe impassable road is dark.\n\nSo here it is, the latest one! And the rage\nSubsides. It’s as if the world had gone deaf 
\nA mighty, evangelical old age\nAnd that most bitter Gethsemane sigh.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -2570,14 +2618,16 @@ "title": "“And the whole town is encased in ice 
”", "body": "And the whole town is encased in ice.\nTrees, walls, snow, as if under glass.\nTimidly, I walk on crystals.\nGaily painted sleds skid.\nAnd over the Peter of Voronezh--crows,\nPoplar trees, and the dome, light green,\nFaded, dulled, in sunny haze,\nAnd the battle of Kulikovo blows from the slopes\nOf the mighty, victorious land.\nAnd the poplars, like cups clashed together,\nRoar over us, stronger and stronger,\nAs if our joy were toasted by\n\nA thousand guests at a wedding feast.\nBut in the room of the poet in disgrace,\nFear and the Muse keep watch by turns.\nAnd the night comes on\nThat knows no dawn.", "metadata": { + "place": "Voronezh", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1936, "month": "march", "day": 4 }, - "place": "Voronezh", - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -2589,14 +2639,16 @@ "title": "“As a white stone in the well’s cool deepness 
”", "body": "As a white stone in the well’s cool deepness,\nThere lays in me one wonderful remembrance.\nI am not able and don’t want to miss this:\nIt is my torture and my utter gladness.\n\nI think, that he whose look will be directed\nInto my eyes, at once will see it whole.\nHe will become more thoughtful and dejected\nThan someone, hearing a story of a dole.\n\nI knew: the gods turned once, in their madness,\nMen into things, not killing humane senses.\nYou’ve been turned in to my reminiscences\nTo make eternal the unearthly sadness.", "metadata": { + "place": "Slepnevo", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1916, "month": "june", "day": 5 }, - "place": "Slepnevo", - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -2608,13 +2660,15 @@ "title": "“As if on the rim of a cloud 
”", "body": "As if on the rim of a cloud,\nI remember your words,\n\nAnd because of my words to you,\nNight became brighter than day.\n\nThus, torn from the earth,\nWe rose up, like stars.\n\nThere was neither despair nor shame,\nNot now, not afterward, not at the time.\n\nBut in real life, right now,\nYou hear how I am calling you.\n\nAnd that door that you half opened,\nI don’t have the strength to slam.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1945, "month": "november", "day": 26 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november", @@ -2626,11 +2680,13 @@ "title": "“Behind the lake the moon’s not stirred 
”", "body": "Behind the lake the moon’s not stirred\nAnd seems to be a window through\nInto a silent, well-lit house,\nWhere something unpleasant has occurred.\n\nHas the master been brought home dead,\nThe mistress run off with a lover,\nOr has a little girl gone missing,\nAnd her shoes found by the creek-bed
\n\nWe can’t see. But feel some awful thing,\nAnd we don’t want to talk.\nDoleful, the cry of eagle-owls, and hot\nIn the garden the wind is blustering.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "translator": "Donald Michael Thomas", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Donald Michael Thomas" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -2638,13 +2694,15 @@ "title": "“Bitter woman, you speak of things to come 
”", "body": "Bitter woman,\nyou speak of things to come;\nyour arms hang limp,\na lock of hair sticks to your bloodless brow.\nYou smile, and--o, those rosy lips\nenticed many a bee for honeyed sips\nand dazzled many a butterfly!\n\nYour moon-eyes shine,\nyour gaze is bent on things afar.\nAnd is your gentle chiding\nfor a man now dead?\nOr do you grant pardon to the living for\nyour weariness\nand for the shame upon your head?", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921, "month": "august", "day": 27 }, - "translator": "Graham J. Harrison", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Graham J. Harrison" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -2656,12 +2714,14 @@ "title": "“The boy said me: ‘how painful it is!’”", "body": "The boy said me: “how painful it is!”\nAnd I feel guilty somehow.\nNot long ago, he was living in bliss\nAnd knew no sadness till now.\n\nBut at this moment he surely knows sorrow\nNo less than the wise and the old.\nIt seems that his eyes have begun to grow narrow,\nAnd their once blinding light is now cold.\n\nI know: that his pain will soon be too much,\nThe pain of first love is intense.\nSo helpless and feverish was his touch\nAs he was stroking my hands.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1913, "month": "october" }, - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -2672,13 +2732,15 @@ "title": "“Bury me, bury me, wind! 
”", "body": "Bury me, bury me, wind!\nNone of my kin had arrived,\nAbove me, the evening dimmed\nAnd the earth indistinctly sighed.\n\nLike you, I was free and of course,\nI couldn’t resist life’s charms\nAnd now, wind, you see my corpse,\nWith no one to fold my arms.\n\nLet this black wound recede\nAs the shroud of darkness spreads,\nAnd command azure mist to read\nPsalms up above my head.\n\nTo ease me, alone, on the brink\nOf sleep for the final time,\nMake the sedges rustle of spring,\nOf the spring that used to be mine.", "metadata": { + "place": "Kiev", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1909, "month": "december" }, - "place": "Kiev", - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -2689,13 +2751,15 @@ "title": "“But I warn you, I am living for the last time 
”", "body": "But I warn you,\nI am living for the last time.\nNot as a swallow, not as a maple,\nNot as a reed nor as a star,\nNot as water from a spring,\nNot as bells in a tower--\nShall I return to trouble you\nNor visit other people’s dreams\nWith lamentation.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1940, "month": "november", "day": 7 }, - "translator": "Donald Michael Thomas", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Donald Michael Thomas" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november", @@ -2707,11 +2771,13 @@ "title": "“Cleopatra”", "body": "She had already kissed Antony’s dead lips,\nAnd on her knees before Augustus had poured out her tears 
\nAnd the servants betrayed her. Victorious trumpets blare\nUnder the Roman eagle, and the mist of evening drifts.\n\nThen enters the last captive of her beauty,\nTall and grave, and he whispers in embarrassment:\n“You--like a slave 
 will be led before him in the triumph 
”\nBut the swan’s neck remains peacefully inclined.\n\nAnd tomorrow they’ll put the children in chains. Oh, how little remains\nFor her to do on earth--joke a little with this boy\nAnd, as if in a valedictory gesture of compassion,\nPlace the black viper on her dusky breast with an indifferent hand.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1940 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -2719,12 +2785,14 @@ "title": "“Crucifix”", "body": "_Do not cry about me, Mother, seeing me in the grave._\n\nThis greatist hour was hallowed and thandered\nBy angel’s choirs; fire melted sky.\nHe asked his Father: “Why am I abandoned 
?”\nAnd told his Mother: “Mother, do not cry 
”\n\nMagdalena struggled, cried and moaned.\nPiter sank into the stone trance 
\nOnly there, where Mother stood alone,\nNone has dared cast a single glance.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1940, "circa": true }, - "translator": "Tanya Karshtedt", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Tanya Karshtedt" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "good_friday" @@ -2735,14 +2803,16 @@ "title": "“The cuckoo I asked 
”", "body": "The cuckoo I asked\nHow many years I would live
 The\nPine tops shivered,\nA yellow shaft fell to the grass.\nIn the fresh forest depths, no sound
\nI am going\nHome, and the cool wind\nCaresses my hot brow.", "metadata": { + "place": "Tsarskoe Selo", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1919, "month": "june", "day": 1 }, - "place": "Tsarskoe Selo", - "translator": "Donald Michael Thomas", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Donald Michael Thomas" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -2754,12 +2824,14 @@ "title": "“Delightful, after all the wind and frost 
”", "body": "Delightful, after all the wind and frost\nto warm myself beside the fire;\nbut there I failed to guard my heart\nand someone stole it in desire.\n\nThe New Year celebrations linger,\nthe roses’ stems are soft and moist;\nbut in my breast no longer sings\nthe whirring of dragonflies’ wings.\n\nO, it’s not hard to guess the thief:\nI knew him straightway by his eyes.\nMy fear is that he’ll come back soon\nand return his purloined prize.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1914, "month": "january" }, - "translator": "Graham J. Harrison", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Graham J. Harrison" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -2771,14 +2843,16 @@ "title": "“Do not speak of the north and its sadness 
”", "body": "Do not speak of the north and its sadness\nAnd a dread and malevolent fate.\nSurely this is a festive occasion:\nYou and I, we are parting today.\nNever mind that the moon will not haunt us,\nAnd the dawn you and I will not meet.\nI will shower you with gifts, my beloved,\nOf a kind that have never been seen.\nTake my wavering, dancing reflection\nIn the shimmery glass of a stream;\nTake my gaze that the great, swooning stars\nAs they fall from the heavens arrests;\nTake my voice, take its spent, broken echo,\nOnce so summery, youthful and fresh 
\nTake my gifts: they will help you to listen\nWithout pain to the gossiping birds\nIn the wet of a Moscow October,\nAnd will turn autumn’s gloom to the languor\nAnd the sweetness of May 
 O, my angel,\nThink of me, think of me till the first\nFlakes of snow start to waltz in the air 
", "metadata": { + "place": "Yaroslavskoe Shosse", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1959, "month": "october", "day": 15 }, - "place": "Yaroslavskoe Shosse", - "translator": "Irina Zheleznova", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Irina Zheleznova" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -2790,11 +2864,13 @@ "title": "“Don’t be afraid--I can still portray 
”", "body": "_I abandoned your shores, Empress, against my will._\n --Aeneid, Book 6\n\nDon’t be afraid--I can still portray\nWhat we resemble now.\nYou are a ghost--or a man passing through,\nAnd for some reason I cherish your shade.\n\nFor a while you were my Aeneas--\nIt was then I escaped by fire.\nWe know how to keep quiet about one another.\nAnd you forgot my cursed house.\n\nYou forgot those hands stretched out to you\nIn horror and torment, through flame,\nAnd the report of blasted dreams.\n\nYou don’t know for what you were forgiven 
\nRome was created, flocks of flotillas sail on the sea,\nAnd adulation sings the praises of victory.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1962 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -2802,13 +2878,15 @@ "title": "“Don’t pine your heart with fleeting worldly bliss 
”", "body": "Don’t pine your heart with fleeting worldly bliss,\nNever be used to your sweet wife and house,\nTake a last piece from your child’s dear mouth\nTo give to somebody, who needs.\n\nAnd be a slave, submissive to a word\nOf him, who was your foe--the sworn, rather,\nAnd call a beast of wilderness your brother,\nAnd wait for nothing from the Lord.", "metadata": { + "place": "Saint Petersburg", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921, "month": "december" }, - "place": "Saint Petersburg", - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -2819,14 +2897,16 @@ "title": "“The door is half open 
”", "body": "The door is half open,\nthe lime trees wave sweetly 
\nOn. the table, forgotten--\na whip and a glove.\n\nThe lamp casts a yellow circle 
\nI listen to the rustling.\nWhy did you go?\nI don’t understand 
\n\nTomorrow the morning\nwill be clear and happy.\nThis life is beautiful,\nheart, be wise;\n\nYou are utterly tired,\nyou beat calmer, duller 
\nYou know, I read\nthat souls are immortal.", "metadata": { + "place": "Tsarskoe Selo", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1911, "month": "february", "day": 17 }, - "place": "Tsarskoe Selo", - "translator": "Richard McKane", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Richard McKane" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -2838,11 +2918,13 @@ "title": "“Dream”", "body": "I knew you were dreaming of me,\nthat’s why I couldn’t get to sleep.\nThe murky lamp hazed blue\nand showed me the road.\n\nYou saw the Tsaritsa’s garden,\nthe intricate white palace,\nthe black tracery of the fences\nby the echoing stone steps.\n\nYou walked, not knowing the way,\nand thought, “Quicker, quicker.\nIf only I could find her.\nI must not wake before I meet her.”\n\nThe sentry by the great gates\ncalled out: “Where are you going?”\nThe ice crackled and broke,\nwater blackened under foot.\n\nThis lake--you thought--\nthere is a little island in the lake
\nSuddenly a blue flame\ngleamed out of the darkness.\n\nIn the harsh light of naked day\nyou woke up and groaned,\nand for the first time\nloudly called me by my name.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "translator": "Richard McKane", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Richard McKane" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -2850,14 +2932,16 @@ "title": "“Drink my soul, as if with a straw 
”", "body": "Drink my soul, as if with a straw\nI know it’s bitter, intoxicating taste.\nI won’t disturb the torment with pleading,\nOh, for weeks now I’ve been at peace.\n\nTell me, when you’re done. No sadness,\nThat my soul’s no more of this world.\nI’ll walk down that road nearby\nAnd see how children play.\n\nThe gooseberries are in flower,\nAnd they’re carting bricks by the fence,\nWho are you, my brother, my lover,\nI don’t know now, or need to know.\n\nHow bright it is here, and bare,\nMy body, tired, rests 
\nThe passers-by thinking vaguely:\nYes, she was widowed yesterday.", "metadata": { + "place": "Tsarskoe Selo", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1911, "month": "february", "day": 11 }, - "place": "Tsarskoe Selo", - "translator": "A. S. Kline", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -2869,11 +2953,13 @@ "title": "“The earthly glory is like smoke 
”", "body": "The earthly glory is like smoke,\nI wanted much more than this.\nIn all my lovers I evoked\nThe feelings of joy and bliss.\nOne is still in love somewhere\nWith a friend from long ago,\nThe other stands in the city square,--\nA statue of bronze in the snow.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -2884,11 +2970,13 @@ "title": "“Echo”", "body": "All the ways to past are now closed,\nWhat the past for me today, what for?\nWhat do you see there?--The bloody stones,\nOr the bricked up surely so heavy door?\nOr the echo, which is still repeating\nWords, and never could this action stop,\nI am asking it to end, but really\nIt is carrying weight, as in my heart, for long.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1960 }, - "translator": "Lyudmila Purgina", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Lyudmila Purgina" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -2896,14 +2984,16 @@ "title": "“Eulogy Of the Spring’s Eve”", "body": "_
 toi qui m’as consolĂ©_\n --Gerard de Nerval\n\nThe blizzard had calmed in pine groves,\nBut, tipsy without any wines,\n--Ophelia over her waters--\nWhite silence all night sang to us.\n\nAnd he, who’d been seemed not still clear,\nWas then with this silence engaged,\nAnd, gone, he stayed graciously here\nWith me till the end of my Age.", "metadata": { + "place": "Komarovo", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1963, "month": "march", "day": 10 }, - "place": "Komarovo", - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -2915,26 +3005,32 @@ "title": "“Evening and slanting 
”", "body": "Evening and slanting,\nDownward goes my way.\nYesterday in love still,\n“Don’t forget” you prayed.\nNow there’s only shepherds’\nCry, and glancing winds,\nAnd the worried cedars\nStand by clear springs.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Spring", + "season": "spring", "year": 1914 }, - "translator": "Ilya Shambat", - "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "spring" + } } }, "every-evening-i-receive": { "title": "“Every evening I receive 
”", "body": "Every evening I receive\nLetter like a bride\nTo my dear friend I give\nResponse late at night.\n\n“I’ll be guest of the white death\nOn my journey down.\nYou, my tender one, don’t do\nHarm to anyone.”\n\nAnd there stands a giant star\nBetween two wood beams,\nWith such calmness promising\nTo fulfil your dreams.", "metadata": { + "place": "HyvinkÀÀ", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "place": "HyvinkÀÀ", - "translator": "Ilya Shambat", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -2942,11 +3038,13 @@ "title": "“Everything promised him to me 
”", "body": "Everything promised him to me:\nthe fading amber edge of the sky,\nand the sweet dreams of Christmas,\nand the wind at Easter, loud with bells,\n\nand the red shoots of the grapevine,\nand waterfalls in the park,\nand the two large dragonflies\non the rusty iron fencepost.\n\nAnd I could only believe\nthat he would be mine\nas I walked along the high slopes,\nthe path of burning stones.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1916 }, - "translator": "Richard McKane", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Richard McKane" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -2954,11 +3052,13 @@ "title": "“The fifth act of the drama 
”", "body": "The fifth act of the drama\nBlows in the wind of autumn,\nEach flower-bed in the park seems\nA fresh grave, we have finished\nThe funeral-feast, and there’s nothing\nTo do. Why then do I linger\nAs if I am expecting\nA miracle? It’s the way a feeble\nHand can hold fast to a heavy\nBoat for a long time by the pier\nAs one is saying goodbye\nTo the person who’s left standing.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "translator": "Donald Michael Thomas", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Donald Michael Thomas" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -2969,11 +3069,13 @@ "title": "“The first lighthouse flashed over the jetty 
”", "body": "The first lighthouse flashed over the jetty,\nThe precursor of many--\nAnd the sailor who had sailed seas packed with death,\nAlongside death and on the way to death,\nTook off his cap and wept.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1944 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -2981,13 +3083,15 @@ "title": "“Forbidden Rose”", "body": "You will think about her as about your first bride,\nTo the point of tears in your dreams.\nWe did not inhale her fragrance together,\nAnd you did not bring her to me.\n\nShe was brought to me\nBy that winged ruler of gods and muses,\nWhen the peals of the first thunder\nGlorified our terrible union.\n\nThat union that is called separation\nAnd is torment to the hundredth power,\nThat is the purest and blackest of all.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1964, "month": "october", "day": 10 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -2999,11 +3103,13 @@ "title": "“Fragment”", "body": "And it seemed to me those fires\nWere about me till dawn.\nAnd I never learnt--\nThe colour of those eyes.\nEverything was trembling, singing;\nWere you my friend or enemy,\nAnd winter was it, or summer?", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1959 }, - "translator": "A. S. Kline", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3011,14 +3117,16 @@ "title": "“The Gray-Eyed King”", "body": "Hail to thee, everlasting pain!\nThe gray-eyed king died yesterday.\n\nScarlet and close was the autumn eve,\nMy husband, returning, said calmly to me:\n\n“They brought him back from the hunt, you know,\nThey found his body near the old oak.\n\nPity the queen. So young! 
\nOvernight her hair has turned gray.”\n\nThen he found his pipe on the hearth\nAnd left, as he did every night, for work.\n\nI will wake my little daughter now,\nAnd look into her eyes of gray.\n\nAnd outside the window the poplars whisper:\n“Your king is no more on this earth 
”", "metadata": { + "place": "Tsarskoe Selo", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1910, "month": "december", "day": 10 }, - "place": "Tsarskoe Selo", - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december", @@ -3030,13 +3138,16 @@ "title": "“The Guest”", "body": "Nothing is changed: against the dining-room windows\nhard grains of whirling snow still beat.\nI am what I was,\nbut a man came to me.\n\n“What do you want?” I asked.\n“To be with you in hell,” he said.\nI laughed. “It’s plain you mean\nto have us both destroyed.”\n\nHe lifted his thin hand\nand lightly stroked the flowers:\n“Tell me how men kiss you,\ntell me how you kiss.”\n\nHis torpid eyes were fixed\nunblinking on my ring.\nNot a single muscle stirred\nin his clear, sardonic face.\n\nOh, I see: his game is that he knows\nintimately, ardently,\nthere’s nothing from me he wants,\nI have nothing to refuse.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1914, "month": "january", "day": 1 }, - "translator": "Max Hayward & Stanley Kunitz", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Max Hayward", + "Stanley Kunitz" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_day" @@ -3047,11 +3158,13 @@ "title": "“He whispers, I’m not sorry”", "body": "He whispers, “I’m not sorry\nFor loving you this way--\nEither be mine alone\nOr I will kill you.”\nIt buzzes around me like a gadfly,\nIncessantly, day after day,\nThis same boring argument,\nYour black jealousy.\nGrief smothers--but not fatally,\nThe wide wind dries my tears\nAnd cheerfulness begins to soothe,\nTo smooth out this troubled heart.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3059,14 +3172,16 @@ "title": "“Heart’s memory of sun grows fainter 
”", "body": "Heart’s memory of sun grows fainter.\nSallow is the grass,\nA few flakes toss in the wind\nScarcely, scarcely.\n\nThe narrow canals no longer flow,\nThey are frozen over.\nNothing will ever happen here.\nOh, never!\n\nIn the bleak sky the willow spreads\nIts bare-boned fan.\nMaybe I’m better off as I am,\nNot as your wife.\n\nHeart’s memory of sun grows fainter.\nWhat’s this? Darkness?\nPerhaps! This very night will bring\nThe winter.", "metadata": { + "place": "Kiev", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1911, "month": "january", "day": 30 }, - "place": "Kiev", - "translator": "Stanley Kunitz", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Stanley Kunitz" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -3078,11 +3193,13 @@ "title": "“Here the loveliest of young women fight 
”", "body": "Here the loveliest of young women fight\nfor the honour of marrying the hangmen;\nhere the righteous are tortured at night\nand the resolute worn down by hunger.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1924 }, - "translator": "Robert Chandler", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3090,13 +3207,15 @@ "title": "“Here we’re all drunkards and whores 
”", "body": "Here we’re all drunkards and whores,\nJoylessly stuck together!\nOn the walls, birds and flowers\nPine for the clouds and air.\n\nThe smoke from your black pipe\nMakes strange vapours rise.\nThe skirt I wear is tight,\nRevealing my slim thighs.\n\nWindows tightly closed:\nWho’s there, frost or thunder?\nYour eyes, are they those\nOf some cautious cat, I wonder?\n\nO, my heart how you yearn!\nIs it for death you wait?\nOr that girl, dancing there,\nFor hell to be her sure fate?", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1913, "month": "january", "day": 1 }, - "translator": "A. S. Kline", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_day" @@ -3107,11 +3226,13 @@ "title": "“How many demands the beloved can make 
”", "body": "How many demands the beloved can make!\nThe woman discarded, none.\nHow glad I am that today the water\nUnder the colorless ice is motionless.\nAnd I stand--Christ help me!--\nOn this shroud that is brittle and bright,\nBut save my letters\nSo that our descendants can decide,\nSo that you, courageous and wise,\nWill be seen by them with greater clarity.\nPerhaps we may leave some gaps\nIn your glorious biography?\nToo sweet is earthly drink,\nToo tight the nets of love.\nSometime let the children read\nMy name in their lesson book,\nAnd on learning the sad story,\nLet them smile shyly 
\nSince you’ve given me neither love nor peace\nGrant me bitter glory.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3119,11 +3240,13 @@ "title": "“I am listening to the orioles’ ever mournful voice 
”", "body": "I am listening to the orioles’ ever mournful voice\nAnd saluting the splendid summer’s decline.\nAnd through grain pressed tightly, ear to ear,\nThe sickle, with its snake’s hiss, slices.\n\nAnd the short skirts of the slender reapers\nfly in the wind, like flags on a holiday.\nThe jingling of bells would be jolly now,\nAnd through dusty lashes, a long, slow gaze.\n\nIt’s not caresses I await, nor lover’s adulation,\nThe premonition of inevitable darkness,\nBut come with me to gaze at paradise, where together\nWe were innocent and blessed.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3131,12 +3254,15 @@ "title": "“I am not one those who left the land 
”", "body": "I am not one those who left the land\nto the mercy of its enemies.\nTheir flattery leaves me cold,\nmy songs are not for them to praise.\n\nBut I pity the exile’s lot\nLike a felon, like a man half-dead,\ndark is your path, wanderer;\nwormwood infects your foreign bread.\n\nBut here, in the murk of conflagration,\nwhere scarcely a friend is left to know,\nwe, the survivors, do not flinch\nfrom anything, not from a single blow.\n\nSurely the reckoning will be made\nafter the passing of this cloud.\nWe are the people without tears,\nstraighter than you 
 more proud 
", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1922, "month": "july" }, - "translator": "Max Hayward & Stanley Kunitz", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Max Hayward", + "Stanley Kunitz" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -3147,14 +3273,16 @@ "title": "“I came here, in idleness 
”", "body": "I came here, in idleness.\nWhere I’m bored: all the same to me!\nA sleepy hilltop mill, yes,\nHere years pass silently.\n\nOver convolvulus gone dry\nThe bee swims past, ahead,\nI call to that mermaid by\nThe pond: the mermaid’s dead.\n\nThick with mud, and rusted,\nThe wide pond’s shallows:\nOver the trembling aspen\nA weightless moon glows.\n\nI see everything freshly.\nThe poplars smell moist.\nI’m silent. Silent, ready\nTo be yours again, earth.", "metadata": { + "place": "Tsarskoe Selo", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1911, "month": "february", "day": 23 }, - "place": "Tsarskoe Selo", - "translator": "A. S. Kline", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -3166,11 +3294,13 @@ "title": "“I don’t know if you’re living or dead 
”", "body": "I don’t know if you’re living or dead--\nWhether to look for you here on earth\nOr only in evening meditation,\nWhen we grieve serenely for the dead.\n\nEverything is for you: my daily prayer,\nAnd the thrilling fever of the insomniac,\nAnd the blue fire of my eyes,\nAnd my poems, that white flock.\n\nNo one was more intimate with me,\nNo one made me suffer so,\nNot even the one who consigned me to torment,\nNot even the one who caressed and forgot.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3178,12 +3308,14 @@ "title": "“I dream of him less often now, thank God 
”", "body": "I dream of him less often now, thank God,\nHe doesn’t appear everywhere anymore.\nFog lies on the white road,\nShadows start to run along the water.\n\nAnd the ringing goes on all day.\nOver the endless expanse of ploughed fields,\nEver louder sound the bells\nFrom Jonah’s Monastery far away.\n\nI am clipping today’s wilted branches\nFrom the lilac bushes;\nOn the ramparts of the ancient fortress,\nTwo monks stroll.\n\nRevive for me, who cannot see,\nThe familiar, comprehensible, corporeal world.\nThe heavenly king has already healed my soul\nWith the peace of unlove, icy cold.", "metadata": { + "place": "Kiev", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "place": "Kiev", - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -3194,13 +3326,16 @@ "title": "“I drink to our ruined house 
”", "body": "I drink to our ruined house,\nto the dolor of my life,\nto our loneliness together;\nand to you I raise my glass,\nto lying lips that have betrayed us,\nto dead-cold, pitiless eyes,\nand to the hard realities:\nthat the world is brutal and coarse,\nthat God in fact has not saved us.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1934, "month": "june", "day": 27 }, - "translator": "Stanley Kunitz & Max Hayward", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Stanley Kunitz", + "Max Hayward" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -3212,11 +3347,13 @@ "title": "“I have come to take your place, sister 
”", "body": "--“I have come to take your place, sister,\nAt the high fire in the forest’s heart.\n\nYour eyes have grown dull, your tears cloudy,\nYour hair is grey.\n\nYou don’t understand the songs birds sing\nAnymore, nor stars, nor summer lighting.\n\nDon’t hear it when the women strike\nThe tamborine; yet you fear the silence.\n\nI have come to take your place, sister,\nAt the high fire in the forest’s heart”
\n\n--“You’ve come to put me in the grave.\nWhere is your shovel and your spade?\nYou’re carrying just a flute.\nI’m not going to blame you,\nSadly a long time ago\nMy voice fell mute.\n\nHave my clothes to wear,\nAnswer my fears with silence,\nLet the wind blow\nThrough your hair, smell of the lilac.\nYou have come by a hard road\nTo be lit up by this fire.”\n\nAnd one went away, ceding\nThe place to another, wandering\nLike a blind woman reading\nAn unfamiliar narrow path,\n\nAnd still it seemed to her a flame\nWas close
 In her hand a tamborine
\nAnd she was like a white flag,\nAnd like the light of a beacon.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "translator": "Donald Michael Thomas", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Donald Michael Thomas" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3224,13 +3361,15 @@ "title": "“I hid my heart from you 
”", "body": "I hid my heart from you\nAs if I had hurled it into the Neva 
\nWingless and domesticated,\nI live here in your home.\nOnly 
 at night I hear creaking.\nWhat’s there--in the strange gloom?\nThe Sheremetev lindens 
\nThe roll call of the spirits of the house 
\nApproaching cautiously,\nLike gurgling water,\nMisfortune’s black whisper\nNestles warmly to my ear--\nAnd murmurs, as if this were\nIts business for the night:\n“You wanted comfort,\nDo you know where it is--your comfort?”", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1936, "month": "october", "day": 30 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -3242,11 +3381,13 @@ "title": "“I pray to the ray from the window-pane 
”", "body": "I pray to the ray from the window-pane--\nIt’s pale, thin, and straight.\nAll morning I was silent,\nMy heart--split in two.\nThe copper of my wash-basin\nIs green with verdigris,\nBut sunlight plays there,\nHow joyously.\nSo simple it is, so innocent,\nIn evening quiet,\nYet in this bare shrine,\nIt’s a gold celebration,\nA consolation, I find.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1909 }, - "translator": "A. S. Kline", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3254,11 +3395,13 @@ "title": "“I rarely think of you now 
”", "body": "I rarely think of you now,\nNot captured by your fate,\nBut our insignificant meeting’s trace\nHas not vanished from my soul.\n\nI purposely avoid your red house,\nThat red house on its muddy river,\nBut I know I bitterly disturb\nYour sunlit heart at rest.\n\nThough you never bent to my lips,\nImploring love,\nNever immortalised my longing\nIn verse of gold--\n\nI secretly conjure the future,\nWhen evening shines clear and blue,\nAnd foresee the inevitable meeting,\nA second meeting, with you.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "translator": "A. S. Kline", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3266,11 +3409,13 @@ "title": "“I stood for long before the hell’s gates, heavy 
”", "body": "I stood for long before the hell’s gates, heavy,\nBut in the hell all was just dark and calm 
\nOh, even Devil does not need my levy.\nWherever shall I come?", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3278,11 +3423,13 @@ "title": "“I was born in the right time, in whole 
”", "body": "I was born in the right time, in whole,\nOnly this time is one that is blessed,\nBut great God did not let my poor soul\nLive without deceit on this earth.\n\nAnd therefore, it’s dark in my house,\nAnd therefore, all of my friends,\nLike sad birds, in the evening aroused,\nSing of love, that was never on land.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3290,11 +3437,13 @@ "title": "“I won’t beg for you love: it’s laid 
”", "body": "I won’t beg for you love: it’s laid\nSafely to rest, let the earth settle
\nDon’t expect my jealous letters\nPouring in to plague your bride.\nBut let me, nevertheless, advise you:\nGive her my poems to read in bed,\nGive her my portraits to keep--it’s wise to\nBe kind like that when newly-wed.\nFor it’s more needful to such geese\nTo know that they have won completely\nThan to have converse light and sweet or\nHoneymoons of remembered bliss
\nWhen you have spent your kopeck’s worth\nOf happiness with your new friend,\nAnd like a taste that sates the mouth\nYour soul has recognized the end--\nDon’t come crawling like a whelp\nInto my bed of lonliness.\nI don’t know you. Nor could I help.\nI’m not yet cured of happiness.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "translator": "Donald Michael Thomas", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Donald Michael Thomas" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3302,14 +3451,16 @@ "title": "“I wrung my hands under my dark veil 
”", "body": "I wrung my hands under my dark veil
\n“Why are you pale, what makes you reckless?”\n--Because I have made my loved one drunk\nwith an astringent sadness.\n\nI’ll never forget. He went out, reeling;\nhis mouth was twisted, desolate 
\nI ran downstairs, not touching the banisters,\nand followed him as far as the gate.\n\nAnd shouted, choking: “I meant it all\nin fun. Don’t leave me, or I’ll die of pain.”\nHe smiled at me--oh so calmly, terribly--\nand said: “Why don’t you get out of the rain?”", "metadata": { + "place": "Kiev", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1911, "month": "january", "day": 8 }, - "place": "Kiev", - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -3321,11 +3472,13 @@ "title": "“Imitation from the Armenian”", "body": "I shall come into your dream\nAs a black ewe, approach the throne\nOn withered and infirm\nLegs, bleating: “Padishah,\n\nHave you dined well? You who hold\nThe world like a bead, beloved\nof Allah, was my little son\nTo your taste, was he fat enough?”", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1931 }, - "translator": "Donald Michael Thomas", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Donald Michael Thomas" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3333,13 +3486,15 @@ "title": "“An Inscription on a Book”", "body": "_What I have given is yours._\n --Shota Rustaveli\n\nI speak from underneath the ruins here,\nFrom underneath the landslide I am shrieking,\nAs if in quicklime now I disappear\nBeneath a cellar’s arches, where it’s reeking.\n\nAnd in the winter, silence I will feign,\nFor good I’ll slam the everlasting portals,\nAnd still they’ll recognise my tongue’s refrain,\nAgain they will believe, those foolish mortals.", "metadata": { + "place": "Leningrad", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1959, "circa": true }, - "place": "Leningrad", - "translator": "Rupert Moreton", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Rupert Moreton" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -3350,11 +3505,13 @@ "title": "“It drags on forever this heavy, amber day 
”", "body": "It drags on forever--this heavy, amber day!\nHow unsufferable is grief, how futile the wait!\nAnd once more comes the silver voice of the deer\nFrom the menagerie, telling of the northern lights.\n\nAnd I, too, believed that somewhere there was cold snow,\nAnd a bright blue font for the poor and the ill,\nAnd the unsteady dash of little sleighs\nUnder the ancient droning of distant bells.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -3365,26 +3522,32 @@ "title": "“It is simple, it is easy 
”", "body": "It is simple, it is easy.\nEveryone can understand it;\nNot the smallest love you bear me,\nYou will never long for me.\nWhy should I be full of longing\nFor a man who is a stranger?\nWhy should I kneel every evening\nTo put up a prayer for you?\nWhy should I forsake mv comrade\nAnd my curly-headed baby,\nThrow away my native country\nAnd the town that I love best,\nAnd just like a dirty beggar\nWander through a foreign city?\nOh, how glad I am to think that\nI shall soon be seeing you!", "metadata": { + "place": "Slepnevo", + "language": "Russian", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1917 }, - "place": "Slepnevo", - "translator": "Cecil Maurice Bowra", - "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "translators": [ + "Cecil Maurice Bowra" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "ive-learned-to-live-simply-wisely": { "title": "“I’ve learned to live simply, wisely 
”", "body": "I’ve learned to live simply, wisely,\nTo look at the sky and pray to God,\nAnd to take long walks before evening\nTo wear out this useless anxiety.\n\nWhen the burdocks rustle in the ravine\nAnd the yellow-red clusters of rowan nod,\nI compose happy verses\nAbout mortal life, mortal and beautiful life.\n\nI return. The fluffy cat\nLicks my palm and sweetly purrs.\nAnd on the turret of the sawmill by the lake\nA bright flame flares.\n\nThe quiet is cut, occasionally,\nBy the cry of a stork landing on the roof.\nAnd if you were to knock at my door,\nIt seems to me I wouldn’t even hear.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3392,12 +3555,14 @@ "title": "“I’ve written down the words 
”", "body": "I’ve written down the words\nThat I’ve not dared to speak.\nMy body’s strangely dumb.\nDully my head beats.\n\nThe horn cries have died.\nThe heart’s still confused.\nOn the croquet lawn, light\nAutumn snowflakes fused.\n\nLet the last leaves rustle!\nLet last thoughts torment!\nI don’t wish to trouble\nThose used to happiness.\n\nI forgive those lips, eyes\nOf yours, their cruel jest 
\nOh, tomorrow we’ll ride\nThat first wintry sledge.\n\nDrawing-room candles will glow\nMore tenderly in the day.\nOf conservatory roses,\nI’ll bring a whole bouquet.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1910, "month": "august" }, - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -3408,14 +3573,16 @@ "title": "“July 1914”", "body": "# 1.\n\nIt smells of burning. For four weeks\nThe dry peat bog has been burning.\nThe birds have not even sung today,\nAnd the aspen has stopped quaking.\n\nThe sun has become God’s displeasure,\nRain has not sprinkled the fields since Easter.\nA one-legged stranger came along\nAnd all alone in the courtyard he said:\n\n“Fearful times are drawing near. Soon\nFresh graves will be everywhere.\nThere will be famine, earthquakes, widespread death,\nAnd the eclipse of the sun and the moon.\n\nBut the enemy will not divide\nOur land at will, for himself:\nThe Mother of God will spread her white mantle\nOver this enormous grief.”\n\n\n# 2.\n\nThe sweet smell of juniper\nflies from the burning woods.\nSoldiers’ wives are wailing for the boys,\nThe widow’s lament keens over the countryside.\n\nThe public prayers were not in vain,\nThe earth was yearning for rain!\nWarm red liquid sprinkled\nThe trampled fields.\n\nLow, low hangs the empty sky\nAnd a praying voice quietly intones:\n“They are wounding your sacred body,\nThey are casting lots for your robes.”", "metadata": { + "place": "Slepnevo", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1914, "month": "july", "day": 20 }, - "place": "Slepnevo", - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -3427,11 +3594,13 @@ "title": "“The land though not mine 
”", "body": "The land though not mine,\nBut forever in my memory,\nAnd in the sea,\nTender icy and unsalted water.\n\nOn the bottom the sand is whiter than chalk,\nAnd the air is drunk, like wine,\nAnd the rosy body of the pine trees\nIs naked at the sunset hour.\n\nAnd the sunset itself in the waves of ether\nIs such that cannot say\nIf it’s the day’s end, the world’s end,\nIf it’s mysteries mystery within me.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "translator": "Ljubov V. Kuchkina", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ljubov V. Kuchkina" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3439,12 +3608,14 @@ "title": "“Let any, who will, still bask in the south 
”", "body": "Let any, who will, still bask in the south\nOn the paradisal sand,\nIt’s northerly here--and this year of the north\nAutumn will be my friend.\n\nI’ll live, in a dream, in a stranger’s house\nWhere perhaps I have died,\nWhere the mirrors keep something mysterious\nTo themselves in the evening light.\n\nI shall walk between black fir-trees,\nWhere the wind is at one with the heath,\nAnd a dull splinter of the moon will glint\nLike an old knife with jagged teeth.\n\nOur last, blissful unmeeting I shall bring\nTo sustain me here--\nThe cold, pure, light flame of conquering\nWhat I was destined for.", "metadata": { + "place": "Komarovo", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "place": "Komarovo", - "translator": "Donald Michael Thomas", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Donald Michael Thomas" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "autumn_equinox" @@ -3455,11 +3626,13 @@ "title": "“Like someone deaf, blind and mute 
”", "body": "Like someone deaf, blind and mute,\nFor whom, the only thing left\nIs the sense of smell, I breathe in\nDampness, mold, inclement weather\nAnd fleeting, transient smoke 
", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1959 }, - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3467,11 +3640,13 @@ "title": "“Lot’s Wife”", "body": "The just man followed then his angel guide\nWhere he strode on the black highway, hulking and bright;\nBut a wild grief in his wife’s bosom cried,\n_Look back. it is not too late for a last sight_\n\n_Of the red towers of your native Sodom, the square\nWhere once you sang, the gardens you shall mourn,\nAnd the tall house with empty windows where\nYou loved your husband and your babes were born._\n\nShe turned, and looking on the bitter view\nHer eyes were welded shut by mortal pain;\nInto transparent salt her body grew.\nAnd her quick feet were rooted in the plain.\n\nWho would waste tears upon her? Is she not\nThe least of our losses, this unhappy wife?\nYet in my heart she will not be forgot\nWho, for a single glance, gave up her life.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1924 }, - "translator": "Richard Wilbur", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Richard Wilbur" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3479,14 +3654,16 @@ "title": "“March Elegy”", "body": "I have enough treasures from the past\nto last me longer than I need, or want.\nYou know as well as I 
 malevolent memory\nwon’t let go of half of them:\na modest church, with its gold cupola\nslightly askew; a harsh chorus\nof crows; the whistle of a train;\na birch-tree haggard in a field\nas if it had just been sprung from jail;\na secret midnight conclave\nof monumental Bible-oaks;\nand a tiny rowboat that comes drifting out\nof somebody’s dreams, slowly foundering.\nWinter has already loitered here,\nlightly powdering these fields,\ncasting an impenetrable haze\nthat fills the world as far as the horizon.\nI used to think that after we are gone\nthere’s nothing, simply nothing at all.\nThen who’s that wandering by the porch\nagain and calling us by name?\nWhose face is pressed against the frosted pane?\nWhat hand out there is waving like a branch?\nBy way of reply, in that cobwebbed corner\na sunstruck tatter dances in the mirror.", "metadata": { + "place": "Leningrad", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1964, "month": "march", "day": 11 }, - "place": "Leningrad", - "translator": "Stanley Kunitz", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Stanley Kunitz" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -3498,12 +3675,14 @@ "title": "“Michal”", "body": "_But David was loved 
 by the daughter of Saul, Michal. Saul thought: I will give her to him, and she will be a snare for him._\n --First Book of Kings\n\nAnd the youth plays for the mad king,\nAnd annihilates the merciless night,\nAnd loudly summons triumphant dawn\nAnd smothers the specters of fright.\nAnd the king speaks kindly to him:\n“In you, young man, burns a marvelous flame,\nAnd for such a medicine\nI will give you my daughter and my kingdom.”\nAnd the king’s daughter stares at the singer,\nShe needs neither songs nor the marriage crown;\nHer soul is full of grief and resentment,\nNevertheless, Michal wants David.\nShe is paler than death; her mouth is compressed,\nIn her green eyes, frenzy;\nHer garments gleam and with each motion\nHer bracelets ring harmoniously.\nLike a mystery, like a dream, like the first mother, Lilith 
\nShe speaks without volition:\n“Surely they have given me drink with poison\nAnd my spirit is clouded.\nMy shamelessness! My humiliation!\nA vagabond! A brigand! A shepherd!\nWhy do none of the king’s courtiers,\nAlas, resemble him?\nBut the sun’s rays 
 and the stars at night 
\nAnd this cold trembling 
”", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1960, "circa": true }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3511,11 +3690,13 @@ "title": "“Muse”", "body": "When at night I’m waiting her arrival,\nLife, it seems, is hanging by a thread.\nGlory, youth and freedom cannot rival\nThe joy she brings me, with a flute in hand.\n\nShe enters, and before I can discern her,\nShe stares at me with an attentive eye.\n“Were you”, I ask, “the cause of the Inferno\nFor Dante?”--And she answers: “I!”", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1924 }, - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3523,11 +3704,13 @@ "title": "“Music”", "body": "Something of heavens ever burns in it,\nI like to watch its wondrous facets’ growth.\nIt speaks with me in fate’s non-seldom fits,\nWhen others fear to approach close.\n\nWhen the last of friends had looked away\nFrom me in grave, it lay to me in silence,\nAnd sang as sing a thunderstorm in May,\nAs if all flowers began to talk in gardens.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1958 }, - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -3539,11 +3722,13 @@ "body": "My night--I think of you obsessively,\nMy day--indifferent: let it be!\nI turned and smiled at my destiny\nThat brought me only misery.\n\nThe fumes of yesterday are dire,\nThe flames that burn me will not die,\nIt seems to me, this blazing fire\nWill not become a sunlit sky.\n\nShall I endure without conceding,\nAnd curse you for not being there? 
\nYou’re far away. You’ll never see me\nImprisoned in my awful snare.", "metadata": { "place": "Kiev", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1909 }, - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3551,13 +3736,15 @@ "title": "“My youth was hard to endure 
”", "body": "My youth was hard to endure.\nWith so much sorrow to bear.\nHow can a soul this poor\nBe returned to You rich and fair?\nA song of praise, long and elegant,\nThe flattering fate sings fervent.\nLord, Almighty! I’m negligent,\nAlways Your miserly servant.\nNot a rose, not a blade of grass\nWill I be Your garden, Father.\nI tremble at every speck of dust,\nAt each word that a fool may utter.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912, "month": "december", "day": 19 }, - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december", @@ -3569,25 +3756,31 @@ "title": "“The mysterious spring was still enjoying itself 
”", "body": "The mysterious spring was still enjoying itself,\nAbout the mountains the revealing wind was wandering,\nAnd the deep blue lake was being blue--\nThe temple of the Baptist not by hands made.\n\nYou were frightened by our first meeting,\nBut I was praying for a second one,\nAnd again tonight there is a hot evening 
\nAnd the sunset so low above the mountain.\n\nYou are not with me, but it is not farewell:\nAnd every moment is triumphant news for me.\nI know that there is such anguish in you,\nThat you cannot utter a word.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1914 }, - "translator": "Ljubov V. Kuchkina", - "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "translators": [ + "Ljubov V. Kuchkina" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "the-new-years-ballad": { "title": "“The New Year’s Ballad”", "body": "In cloudy darkness, the bored crescent-sable\nHad sent to our room its grim shine.\nSix sets are installed on the white of the table,\nAnd empty of them--only one.\n\nWe wait--I, my husband and few friends of mine--\nFor time the New Year to be met.\nBut, just like a poison, burns me a red wine,\nMy fingers--like sunk in blood red.\n\nThe host was all solemn, immovable, strained,\nWhile raising his filled to rims glass:\n“I drink to the soil of our native land,\nIn which every one of us lies!”\n\nMy friend then exclaimed in a loud, gay voice,\nWhile thinking of something naĂŻve,\n“I drink to her songs, to her beautiful songs,\nIn which we eternally live!”\n\nBut the third, which till now hadn’t known, I think,\nWhen He had closed his eyes,\nAnswered my thoughts at once,\n“I’m sure that we all have right now to drink\nTo him, who isn’t still with us.”", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_eve" @@ -3598,11 +3791,13 @@ "title": "“No, no, I did not love you 
”", "body": "No, no, I did not love you,--gladly\nScorched though I was by such a flame;\nAnd yet explain the strength that sadly\nStill lingers for me in your name.\n\nIn front of me I saw you kneeling,\nLike one who waited for a crown;\nAnd round your youthful head was wheeling\nDeath’s silent shade to strike you down.\n\nYou went,--but not to triumph going;\nYou went to death. Oh empty night l\nMy Angel, may you stay not knowing,\nNot seeing my despairing plight.\n\nBut if white suns from Paradises\nShine on the pathway in the spring,\nBut if the meadow bird arises\nAmong the spiked sheaves, on the wing.\n\nOh this is you, I know it, trying\nTo converse with me from the grave;\nI see the shot-scarred hillock lying\nAbove the Dniester’s bloody wave.\n\nDays of renown and love forgetting.\nForgetting days of youth gone by.\nAnd crafty ways, and soul’s dark fretting.\nYet still your face, your fame unsetting\nI shall remember till I die.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "translator": "Cecil Maurice Bowra", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Cecil Maurice Bowra" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3610,12 +3805,14 @@ "title": "“Not thus, from cursed lightness having disembarked 
”", "body": "Not thus, from cursed lightness having disembarked,\nI look with worry on the chambers dark?\nAlready used to ringing high and raw,\nAlready judged not by the earthly law,\nI, like a criminal, am being drawn along\nTo place of shame and execution.\nI see the glorious city, and the voice most dear,\nAs though there is no secret grave to fear,\nWhere day and night, in heat and in cold bent,\nI must await the Final Judgment.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917, "month": "january" }, - "translator": "Ilya Shambat", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january" @@ -3626,11 +3823,13 @@ "title": "“O let the organ, many-voiced, sing boldly 
”", "body": "O let the organ, many-voiced, sing boldly,\nO let it roar like spring’s first thunderstorm:\nMy half-closed eyes over your young bride’s shoulder\nWill meet your own just once and then no more.\n\nGoodbye, be very happy, I relieve you\nOf all your vows-but, dearest heart, take care\nLest my most sacred words, my ravings fevered\nYou breathe in your enamoured partner’s ear.\n\nKnow this: they’ll poison and corrode your ardent\nAnd blessed union 
 I go forth to seek--\nTo seek and claim the lovely magic garden\nWhere grasses softly sigh and Muses speak.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "translator": "Irina Zheleznova", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Irina Zheleznova" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3638,11 +3837,13 @@ "title": "“One goes in straightforward ways 
”", "body": "One goes in straightforward ways,\nOne in a circle roams:\nWaits for a girl of his gone days,\nOr for returning home.\n\nBut I do go--and woe is there--\nBy a way nor straight, nor broad,\nBut into never and nowhere,\nLike trains--off the railroad.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1940 }, - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3650,11 +3851,13 @@ "title": "“The one people once called 
”", "body": "The one people once called\nKing in jest, God in fact,\nWho was killed, and whose implement of torture\nWas heated by the warmth of my breast 
\nThe disciples of Christ tasted death,\nAnd the old gossips, and the soldiers,\nAnd the procurator from Rome--all gone.\nThere, where once the arch rose,\nWhere the sea splashed, where the cliff turned black,\nThey were imbibed with the wine, inhaled with the stifling dust\nAnd the fragrance of immortal roses.\nGold rusts and steel decays,\nMarble crumbles away. Everything is on the verge of death.\nThe most reliable thing on earth is sorrow,\nAnd the most enduring--the almighty Word.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1945 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "annunciation" @@ -3665,11 +3868,13 @@ "title": "“The park was filled with light mist 
”", "body": "The park was filled with light mist,\nAnd the gaslight flared at the gate.\nI remember only a certain gaze\nFrom ingenuous, tranquil eyes.\n\nYour sorrow, unperceived by all the rest,\nImmediately drew me close,\nAnd you understood that yearning\nWas poisoning and stifling me.\n\nI love this day and I’m celebrating,\nI will come as soon as you invite me.\nAnd sinful and idle, I know\nThat you alone will not indict me.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -3680,12 +3885,14 @@ "title": "“Prayer”", "body": "Grant me years of sickness and fever;\nmake me sleepless for months at a time.\nTake away my child and my lover\nand the mysterious gift of rhyme.\nAs the air grows ever more sultry,\nthis is the prayer I recite:\nand may the storm cloud over my country\nbe shot through with rays of light.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915, "month": "may" }, - "translator": "Robert Chandler", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -3697,11 +3904,13 @@ "title": "“Rachel”", "body": "A man met Rachel, in a valley. Jacob\nBowed courteously, this wanderer far from home.\nFlocks, raising the hot dust, could not slake their\nThirst. The well was blocked with a huge stone.\nJacob wrenched the stone from the well\nOf pure water, and the flocks drank their fill.\n\nBut the heart in his breast began to grieve,\nIt ached like an open wound.\nHe agreed that in Laban’s fields he should serve\nSeven years to win the maiden’s hand.\nFor you, Rachel! Seven years in his eyes\nNo more than seven dazzling days.\n\nBut silver-loving Laban lives\nIn a web of cunning, and is unknown to grace.\nHe thinks: every deceit forgives\nItself to the glory of Laban’s house.\nAnd he led Leah firmly to the tent\nWhere Jacob took her, blind and innocent.\n\nNight drops from on high over the plains,\nThe cool dews pour,\nAnd the youngest daughter of Laban groans,\nTearing the thick braids of her hair.\nShe curses her sister and reviles God, and\nBegs the Angel of Death to descend.\n\nAnd Jacob dreams the hour of paradise:\nIn the valley the clear spring,\nThe joyful look in Rachel’s eyes,\nAnd her voice like a bird’s song.\nJacob, was it you who kissed me, loved\nMe, and called me your black dove?", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "translator": "Donald Michael Thomas", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Donald Michael Thomas" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3709,11 +3918,13 @@ "title": "“Reading Hamlet”", "body": "A barren patch to the right of the cemetery.\nBehind it a river flashing blue.\nYou said: “All right then, get thee to a nunnery,\nOr go get married to a fool 
”\n\nIt was the sort of thing that princes always say,\nBut these are words that one remembers.\nMay they flow a hundred centuries in a row\nLike an ermine mantle from his shoulders.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1909 }, - "translator": "Stanley Kunitz", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Stanley Kunitz" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3722,8 +3933,11 @@ "body": "Not under foreign skies\nNor under foreign wings protected--\nI shared all this with my own people\nThere, where misfortune had abandoned us.\n\n\n# _Instead of a Preface_\n\nDuring the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I\nspent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in\nLeningrad. One day, somehow, someone ‘picked me out’.\nOn that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,\nher lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never in\nher life heard my name. Jolted out of the torpor\ncharacteristic of all of us, she said into my ear\n(everyone whispered there)--“Could one ever describe\nthis?” And I answered--“I can.” It was then that\nsomething like a smile slid across what had previously\nbeen just a face.\n\n\n# _Dedication_\n\nMountains fall before this grief,\nA mighty river stops its flow,\nBut prison doors stay firmly bolted\nShutting off the convict burrows\nAnd an anguish close to death.\nFresh winds softly blow for someone,\nGentle sunsets warm them through; we don’t know this,\nWe are everywhere the same, listening\nTo the scrape and turn of hateful keys\nAnd the heavy tread of marching soldiers.\nWaking early, as if for early mass,\nWalking through the capital run wild, gone to seed,\nWe’d meet--the dead, lifeless; the sun,\nLower every day; the Neva, mistier:\nBut hope still sings forever in the distance.\nThe verdict. Immediately a flood of tears,\nFollowed by a total isolation,\nAs if a beating heart is painfully ripped out, or,\nThumped, she lies there brutally laid out,\nBut she still manages to walk, hesitantly, alone.\nWhere are you, my unwilling friends,\nCaptives of my two satanic years?\nWhat miracle do you see in a Siberian blizzard?\nWhat shimmering mirage around the circle of the moon?\nI send each one of you my salutation, and farewell.\n\n\n# _Introduction_\n\nIt happened like this when only the dead\nWere smiling, glad of their release,\nThat Leningrad hung around its prisons\nLike a worthless emblem, flapping its piece.\nShrill and sharp, the steam-whistles sang\nShort songs of farewell\nTo the ranks of convicted, demented by suffering,\nAs they, in regiments, walked along--\nStars of death stood over us\nAs innocent Russia squirmed\nUnder the blood-spattered boots and tyres\nOf the black marias.\n\n\n# i.\n\nYou were taken away at dawn. I followed you\nAs one does when a corpse is being removed.\nChildren were crying in the darkened house.\nA candle flared, illuminating the Mother of God 
\nThe cold of an icon was on your lips, a death-cold sweat\nOn your brow--I will never forget this; I will gather\n\nTo wail with the wives of the murdered streltsy\nInconsolably, beneath the Kremlin towers.\n\n\n# ii.\n\nSilent flows the river Don\nA yellow moon looks quietly on\nSwanking about, with cap askew\nIt sees through the window a shadow of you\nGravely ill, all alone\nThe moon sees a woman lying at home\nHer son is in jail, her husband is dead\nSay a prayer for her instead.\n\n\n# iii.\n\nIt isn’t me, someone else is suffering. I couldn’t.\nNot like this. Everything that has happened,\nCover it with a black cloth,\nThen let the torches be removed 
\nNight.\n\n\n# iv.\n\nGiggling, poking fun, everyone’s darling,\nThe carefree sinner of Tsarskoye Selo\nIf only you could have foreseen\nWhat life would do with you--\nThat you would stand, parcel in hand,\nBeneath the Crosses, three hundredth in\nline,\nBurning the new year’s ice\nWith your hot tears.\nBack and forth the prison poplar sways\nWith not a sound--how many innocent\nBlameless lives are being taken away 
\n\n\n# v.\n\nFor seventeen months I have been screaming,\nCalling you home.\nI’ve thrown myself at the feet of butchers\nFor you, my son and my horror.\nEverything has become muddled forever--\nI can no longer distinguish\nWho is an animal, who a person, and how long\nThe wait can be for an execution.\nThere are now only dusty flowers,\nThe chinking of the thurible,\nTracks from somewhere into nowhere\nAnd, staring me in the face\nAnd threatening me with swift annihilation,\nAn enormous star.\n\n\n# vi.\n\nWeeks fly lightly by. Even so,\nI cannot understand what has arisen,\nHow, my son, into your prison\nWhite nights stare so brilliantly.\nNow once more they burn,\nEyes that focus like a hawk,\nAnd, upon your cross, the talk\nIs again of death.\n\n\n# vii. _The Verdict_\n\nThe word landed with a stony thud\nOnto my still-beating breast.\nNevermind, I was prepared,\nI will manage with the rest.\n\nI have a lot of work to do today;\nI need to slaughter memory,\nTurn my living soul to stone\nThen teach myself to live again 
\n\nBut how. The hot summer rustles\nLike a carnival outside my window;\nI have long had this premonition\nOf a bright day and a deserted house.\n\n\n# viii. _To Death_\n\nYou will come anyway--so why not now?\nI wait for you; things have become too hard.\nI have turned out the lights and opened the door\nFor you, so simple and so wonderful.\nAssume whatever shape you wish. Burst in\nLike a shell of noxious gas. Creep up on me\nLike a practised bandit with a heavy weapon.\nPoison me, if you want, with a typhoid exhalation,\nOr, with a simple tale prepared by you\n(And known by all to the point of nausea), take me\nBefore the commander of the blue caps and let me glimpse\nThe house administrator’s terrified white face.\nI don’t care anymore. The river Yenisey\nSwirls on. The Pole star blazes.\nThe blue sparks of those much-loved eyes\nClose over and cover the final horror.\n\n\n# ix.\n\nMadness with its wings\nHas covered half my soul\nIt feeds me fiery wine\nAnd lures me into the abyss.\n\nThat’s when I understood\nWhile listening to my alien delirium\nThat I must hand the victory\nTo it.\n\nHowever much I nag\nHowever much I beg\nIt will not let me take\nOne single thing away:\n\nNot my son’s frightening eyes--\nA suffering set in stone,\nOr prison visiting hours\nOr days that end in storms\n\nNor the sweet coolness of a hand\nThe anxious shade of lime trees\nNor the light distant sound\nOf final comforting words.\n\n\n# x. _Crucifixion_\n\nWeep not for me, mother.\nI am alive in my grave.\n\nA choir of angels glorified the greatest hour,\nThe heavens melted into flames.\nTo his father he said, “Why hast thou forsaken me!”\nBut to his mother, “Weep not for me 
”\n\nMagdalena smote herself and wept,\nThe favourite disciple turned to stone,\nBut there, where the mother stood silent,\nNot one person dared to look.\n\n\n# _Epilogue_\n\n# i.\n\nI have learned how faces fall,\nHow terror can escape from lowered eyes,\nHow suffering can etch cruel pages\nOf cuneiform-like marks upon the cheeks.\nI know how dark or ash-blond strands of hair\nCan suddenly turn white. I’ve learned to recognise\nThe fading smiles upon submissive lips,\nThe trembling fear inside a hollow laugh.\nThat’s why I pray not for myself\nBut all of you who stood there with me\nThrough fiercest cold and scorching July heat\nUnder a towering, completely blind red wall.\n\n\n# ii.\n\nThe hour has come to remember the dead.\nI see you, I hear you, I feel you:\nThe one who resisted the long drag to the open window;\nThe one who could no longer feel the kick of familiar\nsoil beneath her feet;\nThe one who, with a sudden flick of her head, replied,\n\n“I arrive here as if I’ve come home!”\nI’d like to name you all by name, but the list\nHas been removed and there is nowhere else to look. So,\nI have woven you this wide shroud out of the humble words\nI overheard you use. Everywhere, forever and always,\nI will never forget one single thing. Even in new grief.\nEven if they clamp shut my tormented mouth\nThrough which one hundred million people scream;\nThat’s how I wish them to remember me when I am dead\nOn the eve of my remembrance day.\nIf someone someday in this country\nDecides to raise a memorial to me,\nI give my consent to this festivity\nBut only on this condition--do not build it\nBy the sea where I was born,\nI have severed my last ties with the sea;\nNor in the Tsar’s Park by the hallowed stump\nWhere an inconsolable shadow looks for me;\nBuild it here where I stood for three hundred hours\nAnd no-one slid open the bolt.\nListen, even in blissful death I fear\nThat I will forget the Black Marias,\nForget how hatefully the door slammed and an old woman\nHowled like a wounded beast.\nLet the thawing ice flow like tears\nFrom my immovable bronze eyelids\nAnd let the prison dove coo in the distance\nWhile ships sail quietly along the river.", "metadata": { "published": "1963", - "translator": "Stanley Kunitz & Max Hayward", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Stanley Kunitz", + "Max Hayward" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3731,12 +3945,14 @@ "title": "“The road is black by the beach 
”", "body": "The road is black by the beach--\nGarden. Lamps yellow and fresh.\nI’m very calm.\nI’d rather not talk about him.\n\nI’ve a lot of feelings for you. You’re kind.\nWe’ll kiss, grow old, walk around.\nLight months will fly over us.\nLike snowy stars.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1914, "month": "march" }, - "translator": "Donald Michael Thomas", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Donald Michael Thomas" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -3747,11 +3963,13 @@ "title": "“Slander”", "body": "And everywhere with me the foul slander was.\nHer almost-crawling step I felt in my dreams’ worst,\nAnd in the town, dead under the merciless heaven,\nWhile seeking, by a chance, some bread and place to live in.\nReflections of her flames are seen in all men eyes--\nSometimes as treachery, as simple fear, sometimes.\nI am not feared by it. To every challenge here\nI always have my word, the descent and severe.\nThe day, I can’t avoid, I now foresee:\nIn light of early dawn, my friends will come to me\nTo steer my pleasant dream with their lamenting, endless,\nTo put an icon on my breast, that’s now breathless.\nThen, known by none, it’ll enter my room, sad:\nIn my cooled blood, its mouth will be set\nTo count ceaselessly the offences, imagined,\nTo plait its low voice into laments, emerging.\nAnd all will understand its shameful, crazy lies,\nWhich will forbid each one to look in others’ eyes,\nAnd draw in emptiness my whole body, dying,\nAnd, in the last time, fill my soul, now flying\nIn the dawn’s haze, with burning helplessness\nAnd with great pity for abandoned Earth.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3759,13 +3977,15 @@ "title": "“Some gaze into tender faces 
”", "body": "Some gaze into tender faces,\nOthers drink until morning light,\nBut all night I hold conversations\nWith my conscience who is always right.\n\nI say to her: “You know how tired I am,\nBearing your heavy burden, many years.”\nBut for her, there is no such thing as time,\nAnd for her, space also disappears.\n\nAnd again, a black Shrove Tuesday,\nThe sinister park, the unhurried ring\nOf hooves, and, flying down the heavenly\nSlopes, full of happiness and joy, the wind.\n\nAnd above me, double-horned and calm\nIs the witness 
 O I shall go there,\nAlong the ancient well-worn track,\nTo the deathly waters, where the swans are.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1935, "month": "november", "day": 3 }, - "translator": "Donald Michael Thomas", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Donald Michael Thomas" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november", @@ -3777,14 +3997,16 @@ "title": "“Somewhere there is a simple life and a world 
”", "body": "Somewhere there is a simple life and a world,\nTransparent, warm and joyful 
\nThere at evening a neighbor talks with a girl\nAcross the fence, and only the bees can hear\nThis most tender murmuring of all.\nBut we live ceremoniously and with difficulty\nAnd we observe the rites of our bitter meetings,\nWhen suddenly the reckless wind\nBreaks off a sentence just begun--\nBut not for anything would we exchange this splendid\nGranite city of fame and calamity,\nThe wide rivers of glistening ice,\nThe sunless, gloomy gardens,\nAnd, barely audible, the Muse’s voice.", "metadata": { + "place": "Slepnevo", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915, "month": "june", "day": 23 }, - "place": "Slepnevo", - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -3796,14 +4018,16 @@ "title": "“The Song of the Last Meeting”", "body": "Then helplessly my breast grew cold,\nBut my steps were light.\nI pulled the glove for my left hand\nOnto my right.\n\nThere seemed to be many steps,\nBut I knew--there were only three!\nThe whisper of autumn in the maples\nWas pleading: “die with me!\n\nI am betrayed by my doleful,\nFickle, evil fate.”\nI answered: “Darling, darling!\nI too. I will die with you 
”\n\nThis is the song of the last meeting.\nI glanced at the dark house.\nCandles were burning only in the bedroom,\nWith an indifferent-yellow flame.", "metadata": { + "place": "Tsarskoe Selo", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1911, "month": "september", "day": 29 }, - "place": "Tsarskoe Selo", - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september", @@ -3815,13 +4039,15 @@ "title": "“Sounds die away in the ether 
”", "body": "Sounds die away in the ether,\nAnd darkness overtakes the dusk.\nIn a world become mute for all time,\nThere are only two voices: yours and mine.\nAnd to the almost bell-like sound\nOf the wind from invisible Lake Ladoga,\nThat late-night dialogue turned into\nThe delicate shimmer of interlaced rainbows.\n\nFor so long I hated\nTo be pitied,\nBut one drop of your pity\nAnd I go around as if the sun were in my body.\nThat’s why there is dawn all around me.\nI go around creating miracles,\nThat’s why!", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1945, "month": "december", "day": 20 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december", @@ -3833,14 +4059,15 @@ "title": "“Such days may meet you just before the springtime 
”", "body": "Such days may meet you just before the springtime:\nBeneath the snow the meadow lies in peace;\nThe treetops wobble with a dainty rhythm;\nBenevolent and balmy is the breeze.\nAnd you can feel the lightness in your body,\nAnd you do not quite recognize your home,\nAnd eagerly you find yourself intoning\nThat song you thought you’d tired of long ago.", "metadata": { + "place": "Slepnevo", + "language": "Russian", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Spring", + "season": "spring", "year": 1915 }, - "place": "Slepnevo", - "translator": "Robin Kallsen", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robin Kallsen" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -3852,12 +4079,14 @@ "title": "“Terror, lingering things in the dark 
”", "body": "Terror, lingering things in the dark,\nLeads the moonbeam to an ax.\nBehind the wall there’s an ominous knock--\nWhat’s there, a ghost, a thief, rats?\n\nIn the sweltering kitchen, water drips,\nCounting the rickety floorboards.\nSomeone with a glossy black beard\nflashes by the attic window--\n\nAnd becomes still. How cunning he is and evil,\nHe hid the matches and blew out the candle.\nHow much better would be the gleam of the barrels\nOf rifles leveled at my breast.\n\nBetter, in the grassy square,\nTo be flattened on the raw wood scaffold\nAnd, amid cries of joy and moans,\nPour out my life’s blood there.\n\nI press the smooth cross to my heart:\nGod, restore peace to my soul.\nThe odor of decay, sickeningly sweet,\nRises from the clammy sheets.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921, "month": "august" }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -3868,23 +4097,27 @@ "title": "“There are the words that couldn’t be twice said 
”", "body": "There are the words that couldn’t be twice said,\nHe, who said once, spent out all his senses.\nOnly two things have never their end--\nThe heavens’ blue and the Creator’s mercy.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1916 }, - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [] } }, - "there-is-a-sacred-boundary-between-those-who-are-close": { - "title": "“There is a sacred boundary between those who are close 
”", + "there-is-a-sacred-boundary": { + "title": "“There is a sacred boundary 
”", "body": "There is a sacred boundary between those who are close\nAnd it cannot be crossed by passion or love--\nThough lips fuse in dreadful silence\nAnd the heart shatters to pieces with love.\n\nFriendship is helpless here, and years\nOf exalted and ardent happiness,\nWhen the soul is free and a stranger\nTo the slow languor of voluptuousness.\n\nThose who strive to reach it are mad, and those\nWho reach it--stricken by grief 
\nNow you understand why my heart\nDoes not beat faster under your hand.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3892,11 +4125,13 @@ "title": "“There was such inexpressible sorrow 
”", "body": "There was such inexpressible sorrow\nin the music in the garden.\nThe dish of oysters on ice\nsmelt fresh and sharp of the sea.\n\nHe said to me ‘I am a true friend!’\nHe touched my dress.\nThere is no passion\nin the touch of his hands.\n\nThis is how one strokes a cat or a bird,\nthis is how one looks at a shapely horsewoman.\nThere is only laughter in his eyes\nunder the light gold of his eyelashes.\n\nThe violins’ mourning voices\nsing above the spreading smoke:\n‘Give thanks to heaven:\nyou are alone with your love for the first time.’", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "translator": "Richard McKane", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Richard McKane" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3904,11 +4139,13 @@ "title": "“There’s none equal to me he used to cite 
”", "body": "There’s none equal to me--he used to cite.\nFor him, I’m not a woman of the real,\nBut winter sun’s always relieving light,\nAnd a wild song of his land, so dear.\nWhen I am dead, he would not feel a grief,\nThe crazy, would not cry, “Return, my sole!”\nBut understand: a body cannot live\nWithout a sun, without a song--a soul 
\nAnd what is now?", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3916,11 +4153,13 @@ "title": "“They didn’t bring me a letter today 
”", "body": "They didn’t bring me a letter today:\nHe forgot to write, or he went away;\nSpring is like a trill of silver laughter,\nBoats are rocking in the bay.\nThey didn’t bring me a letter today
\n\nHe was still with me just recently,\nSo much in love, affectionate and mine,\nBut that was white wintertime.\nNow it is spring, and spring’s sadness is poisonous.\nHe was still with me just recently 
\n\nI listen: the light, trembling bow of a violin,\nLike the pain before death, beats, beats,\nHow terrible that my heart will break\nBefore these tender lines are complete
", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3928,11 +4167,13 @@ "title": "“Three Autumns”", "body": "The smiles of summer are lost on me,\nI find no secrets in winter\nBut I have observed almost without fail\nThree autumns in every year.\n\nThe first--a holiday madness\nThumbing its nose at summer\nLeaves fly, like pages from notebooks\nthe smell of smoke is incense-sweet\nand everything’s moist, dappled, bright\n\nFirst to dance are the birches\nThrowing on threadbare garments\nShaking off momentary tears\nOnto their neighbours over the fence\n\nBut this is just the beginning\nA second passes, a minute, and then\nComes another, aloof as conscience\nAs ominous as an air raid\n\nEverything now seems paler, and older,\nthe comfort of summer cast out\ndistant marches of golden trumpets\ndrift in on the fragrant mist\n\nand the cold waves of its incense\ncover the high vault of heaven;\nbut the wind rushes in, the sky gapes wide,\nit’s suddenly clear the drama is ending:\nthis is no third autumn, this is death.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1943 }, - "translator": "Mary Besemeres", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Mary Besemeres" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -3943,12 +4184,14 @@ "title": "“To awake when dawn is breaking 
”", "body": "To awake when dawn is breaking,\nJust because joy stops me sleeping,\nAnd to look out through the port-hole\nWhere the green waves beat outside,\nOr on deck with the rain falling\nTo sit wrapped with furs around me,\nListen to the engine throbbing,\nAnd to have thoughts at all,\nBut expecting soon to meet him.\nHim who is the star that guides me,\nWith the wind and salt spray blowing\nTo grow younger every hour.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917, "month": "july" }, - "translator": "Cecil Maurice Bowra", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Cecil Maurice Bowra" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -3959,8 +4202,10 @@ "title": "“To Death”", "body": "You’ll surely come. So why wait anymore?\nI’m waiting for you. I am through.\nMy light is out. My doors are open for\nThe simple wonder that is you.\nSo take whatever guise might strike your fancy:\nBlast chemical weapons through my room,\nCome quiet as the nightstick of a gangster,\nDisease my throat with typhus fume,\nOr be the bedtime story you once told\n(The one we’re sick of every night)\nThat I may see the law’s blue cap, the cold\nHouse-porter’s face in livid fright.\nI could care less. The Yenisey swirls by,\nThe North Star glimmers overhead,\nAnd the blue glint in a beloved eye\nGoes dark against the final dread.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. Z. Foreman", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. Z. Foreman" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3968,25 +4213,31 @@ "title": "“To fall ill as one should, deliriously 
”", "body": "To fall ill as one should, deliriously\nHot, meet everyone again,\nTo stroll broad avenues in the seashore garden\nFull of the wind and the sun.\n\nEven the dead, today, have agreed to come,\nAnd the exiles, into my house.\nLead the child to me by the hand.\nLong I have missed him.\n\nI shall eat blue grapes with those who are dead,\nDrink the iced\nWine, and watch the grey waterfall pour\nOn to the damp flint bed.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Spring", + "season": "spring", "year": 1922 }, - "translator": "Donald Michael Thomas", - "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "translators": [ + "Donald Michael Thomas" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "spring" + } } }, "to-the-many": { "title": "“To the Many”", "body": "I--am your voice, the warmth of your breath,\nI--am the reflection of your face,\nThe futile trembling of futile wings,\nI am with you to the end, in any case.\n\nThat’s why you so fervently love\nMe in my weakness and in my sin;\nThat’s why you impulsively gave\nMe the best of your sons;\n\nThat’s why you never even asked\nMe for any word of him\nAnd blackened my forever-deserted home\nWith fumes of praise.\n\nAnd they say--it’s impossible to fuse more closely,\nImpossible to love more abandonedly
\nAs the shadow from the body wants to part,\nAs the flesh from the soul wants to separate,\nSo I want now--to be forgotten.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -3994,11 +4245,13 @@ "title": "“Turmoil”", "body": "# 1.\n\nIt was sultry from blazing light\nAnd his every glance--like a flame.\nI only started: that is right.\nMe--only this one can tame.\nHe bent,--in a casual, low tone 
\nThe blood sharply left my hot face.\nLet love stop--like a tombstone--\nMy life’s even, measured pace.\n\n\n# 2.\n\nYou do not love me? Will not even see?\nO cursed be your looks--so charming.\nAnd I cannot soar up, free.\nI, who was born for flying.\nI bite my quivering lip,\nThings and faces grow misty and roll,\nAnd only one thing--the tulip,\nThe tulip in your buttonhole.\n\n\n# 3.\n\nAs the rules of decorum do say\nYou came up to me, eyebrow arched,\nHalf-caressingly, in your lazy way\nWith a kiss my hand lightly touched--\nThe mysterious, deep ancient eyes\nOf an icon looked right into mine 
\nTen years of the heart’s dyings and cries,\nOf my long, sleepless nights and all sighs\nI put in a short quiet word,\nAnd I said it in vain.\nOff you went as if you had not heard,\nAnd the soul got empty and clear again.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "translator": "Lyubov Fedotova", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Lyubov Fedotova" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -4006,12 +4259,14 @@ "title": "“The twenty-first. Night. Monday 
”", "body": "The twenty-first. Night. Monday.\nThe outlines of the capital are in mist.\nSome idler invented the idea\nThat there’s something in the world called love.\n\nAnd from laziness or boredom,\nEveryone believed it and here is how they live:\nThey anticipate meetings, they fear partings\nAnd they sing the songs of love.\n\nBut the secret will be revealed to the others,\nAnd a hush will fall on them all 
\nI stumbled on it by accident\nAnd since then have been somehow unwell.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917, "month": "january" }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "monday", @@ -4024,12 +4279,14 @@ "title": "“Upon the hard crest of a snow-drift 
”", "body": "Upon the hard crest of a snow-drift\nWe tread, and grown quiet, we walk\nOn towards my house, white, enchanted;\nOur mood is too tender for talk.\n\nAnd sweeter than music, this dream now\nCome true, the low boughs of the firs\nThat sway as we brush them in passing,\nThe slight silver clink of your spurs.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917, "month": "march" }, - "translator": "Babette Deutsch", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -4040,13 +4297,15 @@ "title": "“The Verdict”", "body": "And the stone word has fallen down\nOn my breast, being alive, awhile 
\nNo matter, I was ready, almost 
\nI’ll cope, overcome this time.\n\nI’m today completly borrowed, rather,\nIt is need to kill the memory to end.\nIt is need for my soul--to harden,\nIt is need--again to live, as well.\n\nOr 
 The hot rumble of near summer\nIs outside my window as a feast 
\nI’ve fore-feeled this long ago: coming\nOf this bright day and my house--left.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1939, "month": "june", "day": 22 }, - "translator": "Lyudmila Purgina", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Lyudmila Purgina" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -4058,11 +4317,13 @@ "title": "“We had thought we were beggars 
”", "body": "We had thought we were beggars,\nwith nothing at all,\nbut as loss followed loss\nand each day\nbecame a day of memorial,\nwe began to make songs\nabout the Lord’s generosity\nand our bygone wealth.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "translator": "Robert Chandler", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -4070,13 +4331,15 @@ "title": "“We hadn’t breathed the poppies’ somnolence 
”", "body": "We hadn’t breathed the poppies’ somnolence,\nAnd we ourselves don’t know our sin.\nWhat was in our stars\nThat destined us for sorrow?\n\nAnd what kind of hellish brew\nDid the January darkness bring us?\nAnd what kind of invisible glow\nDrove us out of our minds before dawn?", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1946, "month": "january", "day": 11 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -4088,11 +4351,13 @@ "title": "“We noiselessly walked through the house 
”", "body": "We noiselessly walked through the house,\nNot waiting for anything.\nThey showed me way to the sick man,\nAnd I did not recognize him.\n\nHe said, “Now let God have the glory”\nAnd became more thoughtful and blue.\n“It’s long time that I hit the road,\nI’ve only been waiting for you.\n\nSo you bother me in my fever,\nI keep those words from you.\nTell me: can you not forgive me?”\nAnd I said, “I can do.”\n\nIt seemed, that the walls were shining\nFrom floor to the ceiling that day.\nUpon the silken blanket\nA withered arm lay.\n\nAnd the thrown-over predatory profile\nBecame horribly heavy and stark,\nAnd one could not hear the breathing\nThrough the bitten-up lips turned dark.\n\nBut suddenly the last bit of strength\nCame alive in the eyes of blue:\n“It is good that you released me,\nNot always kind were you.”\n\nAnd then the face became younger,\nAnd I recognized him once more.\nAnd then I said, “Holy Father,\nAccept a slave of yours.”", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "translator": "Ilya Shambat", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -4100,28 +4365,34 @@ "title": "“We shall not sip from the same glass 
”", "body": "We shall not sip from the same glass,\nNo water for us, or sweet wine;\nWe’ll not embrace at morning,\nNot gaze from the same sill at night;\nYou breathe the sun, I the moon,\nYet the one love keeps us alive.\n\nAlways with me, tender, true friend,\nAnd your smiling friend’s with you.\nBut I know the pain in your grey eyes,\nAnd my sickness is down to you, too.\nIn short, we mustn’t meet often,\nTo be certain of peace of mind.\n\nYet it’s your voice sings in my poems,\nAnd in your poems my breath sighs,\nO, beyond the reach of distance or fear,\nThere is a fire 
\nAnd if you knew how dear to me\nAre those dry, pale lips of yours now.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Autumn", + "season": "autumn", "year": 1913 }, - "translator": "A. S. Kline", - "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "autumn" + } } }, "when-the-moon-lies-like-a-piece-of-chardush-melon": { "title": "“When the moon lies like a piece of Chardush melon 
”", "body": "When the moon lies like a piece of Chardush melon\nOn the windowsill and it’s hard to breathe,\nWhen the door is shut and the house bewitched\nBy an airy branch of blue wisteria,\nAnd there is cool water in the clay cup,\nAnd a snow-white towel, and the wax candle\nIs burning, as in my childhood, attracting moths,\nThe silence roars, not hearing my words\nThen from comers black as Rembrandt’s\nSomething rears and hides itself again,\nBut I won’t rouse myself, won’t even take fright 
\nHere loneliness has caught me in its net.\nThe landlady’s black cat stares like the eye of centuries,\nAnd the double in the mirror doesn’t want to help me.\nI will sleep sweetly. Good night, night.", "metadata": { + "place": "Tashkent", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1944, "month": "march", "day": 28 }, - "place": "Tashkent", - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -4133,14 +4404,16 @@ "title": "“White Night”", "body": "Oh, I’ve not locked the door,\nI’ve not lit the candles,\nYou know I’m too tired\nTo think of sleep.\n\nSee, how the fields die down,\nIn the sunset gloom of firs,\nAnd I’m drunk on the sound\nOf your voice, echoing here.\n\nIt’s fine, that all’s black,\nThat life’s--a cursed hell.\nO, that you’d come back--\nI was so certain, as well.", "metadata": { + "place": "Tsarskoe Selo", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1911, "month": "february", "day": 6 }, - "place": "Tsarskoe Selo", - "translator": "A. S. Kline", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -4152,11 +4425,13 @@ "title": "“Wild honey the scent of freedom has 
”", "body": "Wild honey the scent of freedom has,\nDust--the sunshine beam,\nViolet--the mouth of a girl,\nAnd gold--has nothing.\n\nMinionette, the scent of water\nAnd love--the apple.\nBut forever we learnt,\nThat blood has but the scent of blood.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "translator": "Ljubov V. Kuchkina", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ljubov V. Kuchkina" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -4164,14 +4439,16 @@ "title": "“Willow”", "body": "And I grew up in patterned tranquillity,\nIn the cool nursery of the young century.\nAnd the voice of man was not dear to me,\nBut the voice of the wind I could understand.\nBut best of all the silver willow.\nAnd obligingly, it lived\nWith me all my life; it’s weeping branches\nFanned my insomnia with dreams.\nAnd strange!--I outlived it.\nThere the stump stands; with strange voices\nOther willows are conversing\nUnder our, under those skies.\nAnd I am silent 
As if a brother had died.", "metadata": { + "place": "Leningrad", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1940, "month": "january", "day": 18 }, - "place": "Leningrad", - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -4183,13 +4460,15 @@ "title": "“With pride your spirit is darkened 
”", "body": "With pride your spirit is darkened\nFor this you won’t know world at all.\nYou say that this faith is a dream\nAnd mirage is this capital.\n\nYou say that my country is sinful,\nYour country is godless, I scream.\nMay the guilt still lie upon us--\nWe can correct and redeem.\n\nAround you are water and flowers\nWhy seek a beggar and sinner, my dear?\nI know that you’re sick very badly:\nYou seek death and the end you fear.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917, "month": "january", "day": 1 }, - "translator": "Ilya Shambat", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_eve" @@ -4200,13 +4479,15 @@ "title": "“You know yourself that I’m not going to celebrate 
”", "body": "You know yourself that I’m not going to celebrate\nThe most bitter day of our meeting.\nWhat to leave you in remembrance?\nMy shade? What good is a ghost to you?\nThe dedication to a burnt drama\nOf which not an ash remains,\nOr the terrible New Year’s portrait\nSuddenly hurled from its frame.\nOr the barely audible\nSound of birch embers.\nOr that they didn’t have time to tell me of\nAnother’s love.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1946, "month": "january", "day": 6 }, - "translator": "Judith Hemschemeyer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Judith Hemschemeyer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -4218,12 +4499,14 @@ "title": "“You thought I was that type 
”", "body": "You thought I was that type:\nThat you could forget me,\nAnd that I’d plead and weep\nAnd throw myself under the hooves of a bay mare,\n\nOr that I’d ask the sorcerers\nFor some magic potion made from roots and send you a terrible gift:\nMy precious perfumed handkerchief.\n\nDamn you! I will not grant your cursed soul\nVicarious tears or a single glance.\n\nAnd I swear to you by the garden of the angels,\nI swear by the miracle-working icon,\nAnd by the fire and smoke of our nights:\nI will never come back to you.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921, "month": "july" }, - "translator": "Anonymous", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Anonymous" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -4234,11 +4517,13 @@ "title": "“You’ll live, but I’ll not; perhaps 
”", "body": "You’ll live, but I’ll not; perhaps,\nThe final turn is that.\nOh, how strongly grabs us\nThe secret plot of fate.\n\nThey differently shot us:\nEach creature has its lot,\nEach has its order, robust,--\nA wolf is always shot.\n\nIn freedom, wolves are grown,\nBut deal with them is short:\nIn grass, in ice, in snow,--\nA wolf is always shot.\n\nDon’t cry, oh, friend my dear,\nIf, in the hot or cold,\nFrom tracks of wolves, you’ll hear\nMy desperate recall.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1959 }, - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -4246,11 +4531,13 @@ "title": "“Your palms are fiery 
”", "body": "“Your palms are fiery,\nThe Easter bells ring loud,\nYou’re tempted, like St. Anthony,\nBy visions all around.”\n\n“How was such day’s affair\nMixed with the holy days,\nLike thick and tangled hair\nOf Magdalenes half-crazed.”\n\n“Thus only children love,\nJust once, and then it dies.”\n“No light is strong enough--\nTo match those tranquil eyes.”\n\n“This is the devil’s bluff,\nSuch longing--an offense.”\n“No white is white enough--\nTo match that of her hands.”", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "eastertide" @@ -4311,10 +4598,10 @@ "title": "“A Divine Sonnet”", "body": "Jesu, thy love within me is so main,\nAnd my poor heart so narrow of content,\nThat with thy love my heart wellnigh is rent,\nAnd yet I love to bear such loving pain.\nO take thy Cross and nails and therewith strain\nMy heart’s desire unto his full extent,\nThat thy dear love may not therein be pent,\nBut thoughts may have free scope thy love to explain.\nO now my heart more paineth than before,\nBecause it can receive and hath no more.\nO fill this emptiness or else I die.\nNow stretch my heart again and now supply;\nNow I want space, now grace. To end this smart,\nSince my heart holds not thee, hold thou my heart.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1628 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -4325,10 +4612,10 @@ "title": "“The earth, which in delicious paradise 
”", "body": "The earth, which in delicious paradise\nDid bud forth man like cedars stately tall,\nFrom barren womb accursĂšd by the fall\nDoth thrust forth man as thorns in arm engravĂšd wise,\nDarting the points of sin against the skies.\nWith those thorns plaited was Christ’s coronal,\nWhich crowned him then with grief, but after all\nIn heaven shall crown him, crown themselves with glory.\nFor with the purple tincture of his blood,\nWhich out the furrows of his brows did rain,\nHe hath transformed us thorns from baser wood\nTo raise our nature and odĂłrant strain,\nThat we, who with our thorny sins did wound him,\nHereafter should with roseal virtues crown him.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1628 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -4336,10 +4623,10 @@ "title": "“Eternity, the womb of things created 
”", "body": "Eternity, the womb of things created,\nThe endless bottom of duration,\nWhose half was always past, yet unbegun,\nAnd half behind still coming unabated;\nWhose thread conjoinĂšd, both unseparated,\nIs time, which dated is by motion;\nEternity, whose real thoughts are one\nWith God, that is everness actuated:\nO tie my soul unto this endless clew,\nThat I may overfathom fate and time\nIn all my actions which I do pursue,\nAnd bound my thoughts in that unbounded clime:\nFor soul and thoughts, designs and acts, are evil,\nThat under compass of this life do level.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1628 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -4347,21 +4634,21 @@ "title": "“The first beginning of creation 
”", "body": "The first beginning of creation\nWas God; the end thereof in man was set;\nEnd and beginning were together met;\nSo God and man became one person.\nThus nature’s circle as a ring doth run,\nChrist is the pale within whose circulet\nThe seal of the divinity is knit,\nWhich seal doth stand the Godhead’s ring upon.\nSo stand two rings upon one diamond;\nThe knot of both and either, where are met\nFinite and infinite, more and one\nAlpha and Omega in that fair tablet\nWherein is drawn the angels’ alphabet,\nJesus. If he were learnt, need more be known?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1628 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, - "jesus-is-risen-from-the-infernal-mire-e": { - "title": "“Jesus is risen from the infernal mire 
e”", + "jesus-is-risen-from-the-infernal-mire": { + "title": "“Jesus is risen from the infernal mire 
”", "body": "Jesus is risen from the infernal mire:\nBut who art thou that say’st Jesus arose?\nSuch holy words are only fit for those\nWhose souls with Christ above the heavens aspire.\nBut if thou hast not raisĂšd thy desire\nFrom earth to heaven, but in the world dost close\nThy love which unto heaven thou shouldst dispose,\nSay not that Christ is yet ascended higher,\nBut yet within thy heart he lieth dead,\nAnd by the devil is impoisonĂšd.\nRejoice not then in vain of his ascent;\nFor as his glorious rise doth much augment\nAll good men’s hopes, so unto those that tread\nFalse paths, it is a dreadful argument.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1628 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "ascension" @@ -4372,10 +4659,10 @@ "title": "“Lord, I have left all and myself behind”", "body": "Lord, I have left all and myself behind:\nMy state, my hopes, my strength, and present ease,\nMy unprovokĂšd studies’ sweet disease,\nAnd touch of nature and engrafted kind,\nWhose cleaving twist doth distant tempers bind;\nAnd gentle sense of kindness that doth praise\nThe earnest judgments, others’ wills to please;\nAll and myself I leave, thy love to find.\nO strike my heart with lightning from above,\nThat from one wound both fire and blood may spring;\nFire to transelement my soul to love,\nAnd blood as oil to keep the fire burning;\nThat fire may draw forth blood, blood extend fire,\nDesire possession, possession desire.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1628 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -4383,10 +4670,10 @@ "title": "“My friends, whose kindness doth their judgments blind 
”", "body": "My friends, whose kindness doth their judgments blind,\nKnow you, say they, the dangers where you run,\nWhich zeal hides from you, but compassion\nTells us? You feel the blow, the smart we find.\nI know it well, and as I call to mind,\nThis is the bill: dearness, affection,\nFriends, fortune, pleasure, fame, hope, life undone,\nWant, prison, torment, death, shame--what behind?\nIs then my sense transel’mented to steel,\nThat neither this, nor that, nor all, can feel,\nNor can it bend my mind, which theirs doth break?\nNot so, nor so; for I am not insensate,\nBut feel a double grief that for Christ’s sake\nI have no more to spend, nor have spent that.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1628 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -4394,10 +4681,10 @@ "title": "“O wretched man, the knot of contraries 
”", "body": "O wretched man, the knot of contraries,\nIn whom both heaven and earth doth move and rest,\nHeaven of my mind, which with Christ’s love is blest,\nDeath of my heart, which in dull languor lies!\nYet doth my moving will still circulize\nMy heaven about my earth with thoughts’ unrest,\nWhere reason as a sun from east to west\nDarteth his shining beams to melt this ice.\nAnd now with fear it southward doth descend,\nNow between both is equinoctial,\nAnd now to joys it higher doth ascend,\nAnd yet continues my sea glacial.\nWhat shall I do, but pray to Christ the Son?\nIn earth as heaven, Lord, let thy will be done.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1628 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -4405,10 +4692,10 @@ "title": "“Over the brook of Cedron Christ is gone 
”", "body": "Over the brook of Cedron Christ is gone,\nTo entertain the combat with his death,\nWhere David fled beforetime void of breath\nTo scape the treacheries of Absalon.\nGo, let us follow him in passion,\nOver this brook, this world that walloweth,\nA stream of cares that drown our thoughts beneath,\nAnd wash away all resolution.\nBeyond the world he must be passĂšd clear,\nThat in the world for Christ will troubles bear:\nLeave we, O leave we then this miry flood,\nFriends, pleasures, and unfaithful good.\nNow we are up, now down, but cannot stand;\nWe sink, we reel; Jesu, stretch forth thy hand.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1628 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -4416,10 +4703,10 @@ "title": "“Though all forsake thee, Lord, yet I will die 
”", "body": "Though all forsake thee, Lord, yet I will die;\nFor I have chainĂšd so my will to thine\nThat I have no will left my will to untwine,\nBut will abide with thee most willingly.\nThough all forsake thee, Lord, yet cannot I;\nFor love hath wrought in me thy form divine\nThat thou art more my heart than heart is mine:\nHow can I then from myself, thyself, fly?\nThus thought Saint Peter, and thus thinking, fell;\nAnd by his fall did warn us not to swell.\nYet still in love I say I would not fall,\nAnd say in hope, I trust I never shall;\nBut cannot say in faith what might I do\nTo learn to say it, by hearing Christ say so.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1628 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -4427,10 +4714,10 @@ "title": "“Up to Mount Olivet my soul ascend 
”", "body": "Up to Mount Olivet my soul ascend\nThe mount spiritual, and there supply\nThy fainting lamp with oil of charity\nTo make the light of faith the more extend.\nGo by this tract which thither right doth tend,\nWhich Christ did first beat forth to walk thereby,\nAnd sixteen ages of posterity\nHave gone it over since from end to end.\nBut strike not down to any new-found balk,\nWhich hunters have begun of late to chalk:\nFor whether ’twere the glow-worm faith went out,\nOr want of love did pine them in the way,\nOr else the cruel devils rob or slay,\nNo news comes back of one of all that rout.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1628 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "ascension" @@ -4441,10 +4728,10 @@ "title": "“Upon the Motions of the Fiend”", "body": "With heat and cold I feel the spiteful fiend\nTo work one mischief by two contraries,\nWith lust he doth me scorch, with languor freeze,\nBut lust and languor both one Christ offend.\nLet contraries with contraries contend,\nLet fear of blame and love of Christ arise,\nHot love of Christ to melt in tears mine eyes,\nCold fear of just reproach my shame to extend,\nThat shame with heat may cool my looser thought,\nAnd tears with cold heat my heart’s sluggish deep.\nO happy I if that such grace were wrought!\nTill then, shame blush because tears cannot weep,\nAnd tears weep you because shame cannot blush,\nTill shame from tears, and tears from shame do flush.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1628 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -4510,10 +4797,10 @@ "title": "“My Kingdom”", "body": "A little kingdom I possess\nwhere thoughts and feelings dwell,\nAnd very hard I find the task\nof governing it well;\nFor passion tempts and troubles me,\nA wayward will misleads,\nAnd selfishness its shadow casts\nOn all my words and deeds.\n\nHow can I learn to rule myself,\nto be the child I should,\nHonest and brave, nor ever tire\nOf trying to be good?\nHow can I keep a sunny soul\nTo shine along life’s way?\nHow can I tune my little heart\nTo sweetly sing all day?\n\nDear Father, help me with the love\nthat casteth out my fear;\nTeach me to lean on thee, and feel\nThat thou art very near,\nThat no temptation is unseen\nNo childish grief too small,\nSince thou, with patience infinite,\nDoth soothe and comfort all.\n\nI do not ask for any crown\nBut that which all may win\nNor seek to conquer any world\nExcept the one within.\nBe thou my guide until I find,\nLed by a tender hand,\nThy happy kingdom in myself\nAnd dare to take command.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1845 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -4818,7 +5105,6 @@ "title": "“Creatures in the Dawn”", "body": "You knew the rich full light of innocence.\nEach morning from the flowers of the woods you plucked\nthe last, the pallid echo of a fading star.\nYou drank the limpid radiance that like a most pure hand\nsays farewell to men from beyond the fabled presence of the mountains.\nUnderneath the nascent blue,\namong the new stars, among the first pure breezes\nthat by their very candor vanquished night,\nyou dawned each day, because each day the barely\nmoist tunic rended itself like a virgin,\nunclad, pure, inviolate, to love you.\n\nBetween the sloping hillsides you appeared,\nthere where the tender grass has felt since time began the moon’s instantaneous kiss.\nGentle eye, a sudden glance toward a trembling world\nthat stretches out ineffably beyond its own appearance.\n\nThe melody of rivers, the quietness of wings,\nthose feathers that, still remembering the day, folded back for love, as though for sleep,\nintoned their wholly silent ecstasy\nbeneath the magic gust of light,\nthe fervent moon that once it has appeared up in the sky\nseems to ignore its ephemeral transparent destiny.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Hugh A. Harter", "language": "Spanish", "source": { "title": "Shadow of Paradise", @@ -4827,6 +5113,9 @@ "year": 1944 } }, + "translators": [ + "Hugh A. Harter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -4834,7 +5123,6 @@ "title": "“No Star”", "body": "Who said that a body\ncarved from kisses shines\nresplendently, an orb\nof happiness? Oh star of mine,\ndescend! May your light finally\nbe flesh, be body, here upon\nthe grass. May I at last\npossess you, throbbing in the reeds,\nstar fallen to the earth,\nwho for my love would sacrifice\nyour blood or gleam. No, never,\nheavenly one! Here, humble\nand tangible, the earth awaits you.\nHere, a man loves you.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Hugh A. Harter", "language": "Spanish", "source": { "title": "Shadow of Paradise", @@ -4843,6 +5131,9 @@ "year": 1944 } }, + "translators": [ + "Hugh A. Harter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -4858,8 +5149,10 @@ "title": "“Without Faith”", "body": "You have dark eyes.\nGleams there that promise darkness.\nOh, how certain is your night,\nhow uncertain my doubt.\nI see the light in the depths, and alone, I believe.\nAlone then, you exist.\nTo exist is to live with knowledge blindly.\nFor you approach darkly\nand in my eyes more lights\nare felt without my observing that they are shining in them.\nThey do not shine, for they were aware.\nIs awareness knowledge?\nI do not know you and was aware.\nTo be aware is to breathe with open eyes.\nTo doubt 
? One who doubts exists. Only death is knowledge.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. M. Cohen", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "J. M. Cohen" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -5016,8 +5309,10 @@ "title": "“All my thoughts always speak to me of love 
”", "body": "All my thoughts always speak to me of love,\nYet have between themselves such difference\nThat while one bids me bow with mind and sense,\nA second saith, “Go to: look thou above”;\nThe third one, hoping, yields me joy enough;\nAnd with the last come tears, I scarce know whence:\nAll of them craving pity in sore suspense,\nTrembling with fears that the heart knoweth of.\nAnd thus, being all unsure which path to take,\nWishing to speak I know not what to say,\nAnd lose myself in amorous wanderings:\nUntil (my peace with all of them to make),\nUnto mine enemy I needs must pray,\nMy lady Pity, for the help she brings.", "metadata": { - "translator": "D. G. Rossetti", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "D. G. Rossetti" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -5025,8 +5320,10 @@ "title": "“For certain he hath seen all perfectness 
”", "body": "For certain he hath seen all perfectness\nWho among other ladies hath seen mine:\nThey that go with her humbly should combine\nTo thank their God for such peculiar grace.\nSo perfect is the beauty of her face\nThat it begets in no wise any sigh\nOf envy, but draws round her a clear line\nOf love, and blessed faith, and gentleness.\nMerely the sight of her makes all things bow:\nNot she herself alone is holier\nThan all; but hers, through her, are raised above.\nFrom all her acts such lovely graces flow\nThat truly one may never think of her\nWithout a passion of exceeding love.", "metadata": { - "translator": "D. G. Rossetti", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "D. G. Rossetti" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -5034,8 +5331,10 @@ "title": "“I felt a spirit of love begin to stir 
”", "body": "I felt a spirit of love begin to stir\nWithin my heart, long time unfelt till then;\nAnd saw Love coming towards me fair and fain\n(That I scarce knew him for his joyful cheer),\nSaying, “Be now indeed my worshipper!”\nAnd in his speech he laughed and laughed again.\nThen, while it was his pleasure to remain,\nI chanced to look the way he had drawn near,\nAnd saw the Ladies Joan and Beatrice\nApproach me, this the other following,\nOne and a second marvel instantly.\nAnd even as now my memory speaketh this,\nLove spake it then: “The first is christened Spring;\nThe second Love, she is so like to me.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "D. G. Rossetti", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "D. G. Rossetti" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -5046,8 +5345,10 @@ "title": "“Sestina of the Lady Pietra degli Scrovigni”", "body": "I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow,\nto the short day and to the whitening hills,\nwhen the colour is all lost from the grass,\nthough my desire will not lose its green,\nso rooted is it in this hardest stone,\nthat speaks and feels as though it were a woman.\n\nAnd likewise this heaven-born woman\nstays frozen, like the snow in shadow,\nand is unmoved, or moved like a stone,\nby the sweet season that warms all the hills,\nand makes them alter from pure white to green,\nso as to clothe them with the flowers and grass.\n\nWhen her head wears a crown of grass\nshe draws the mind from any other woman,\nbecause she blends her gold hair with the green\nso well that Amor lingers in their shadow,\nhe who fastens me in these low hills,\nmore certainly than lime fastens stone.\n\nHer beauty has more virtue than rare stone.\nThe wound she gives cannot be healed with grass,\nsince I have travelled, through the plains and hills,\nto find my release from such a woman,\nyet from her light had never a shadow\nthrown on me, by hill, wall, or leaves’ green.\n\nI have seen her walk all dressed in green,\nso formed she would have sparked love in a stone,\nthat love I bear for her very shadow,\nso that I wished her, in those fields of grass,\nas much in love as ever yet was woman,\nclosed around by all the highest hills.\n\nThe rivers will flow upwards to the hills\nbefore this wood, that is so soft and green,\ntakes fire, as might ever lovely woman,\nfor me, who would choose to sleep on stone,\nall my life, and go eating grass,\nonly to gaze at where her clothes cast shadow.\n\nWhenever the hills cast blackest shadow,\nwith her sweet green, the lovely woman\nhides it, as a man hides stone in grass.", "metadata": { - "translator": "D. G. Rossetti", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "D. G. Rossetti" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -5058,8 +5359,10 @@ "title": "“There is a gentle thought that often springs 
”", "body": "There is a gentle thought that often springs\nto life in me, because it speaks of you.\nIts reasoning about love’s so sweet and true,\nthe heart is conquered, and accepts these things.\n“Who is this” the mind enquires of the heart,\n“who comes here to seduce our intellect?\nIs his power so great we must reject\nevery other intellectual art?”\nThe heart replies “O, meditative mind\nthis is love’s messenger and newly sent\nto bring me all Love’s words and desires.\nHis life, and all the strength that he can find,\nfrom her sweet eyes are mercifully lent,\nwho feels compassion for our inner fires.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "D. G. Rossetti", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "D. G. Rossetti" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -5123,8 +5426,10 @@ "title": "“The Virgin’s Tears”", "body": "Forth welling from the breast of sapphire lakes,\nOh, tell my jocund heart why from their shore\nOf emerald do those pairs of wandering pearls\nLike rain upon the rosy plains downpour?\n\nLess pure, less tender, are the twilight dews,\nAt eve descending on the crimson rose\nAnd on the lily’s petals, fine and frail,\nThan those twin drops in which thy sorrow flows.\n\nSpeak, why do founts of shining tears descend,\nMary, from thy love-dropping virgin eyes\nTo thy cheek’s edge, and there hang tremulous,\nAs the stars twinkle in the evening skies?\n\nAs the heart-piercing pupil of the eye,\nSo sensitive each tear-drop seems to be;\nLike the unwinking pupil of the eye,\nCharming my soul, the bright drops look at me.\n\nThe heart throbs hard, the gazer holds his breath.--\nAh, now I know the truth! Oh, woe is me!\nFor me those tears have risen to thine eyes,\nTo heal my spirit’s wounds eternally.\n\nBut still of my unconsecrated heart\nDistrustful, they half-fallen linger there,\nAnd do not dare to drop and moisten me.\nNo, Mary! No, O Virgin Mother fair!\n\nI am a land uncultured, rough and wild;\nBut, underneath those tender tears of thine,\nLet rose and saffron bloom there! With thy love\nWater and cheer this sorrowing heart of mine!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alice Stone Blackwell", "language": "Armenian", + "translators": [ + "Alice Stone Blackwell" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "our_lady_of_sorrows" @@ -5135,8 +5440,10 @@ "title": "“Weep Not”", "body": "Why art thou troubled, wandering heart?\nWhy dost thou sigh with pain?\nFrom whom do all thy sufferings come?\nOf whom dost thou complain?\n\nIs there no cure for wounds, no friend\nTo lend a pitying ear?\nWhy art thou troubled, wandering heart?\nWeep not! See Jesus near!\n\nSorrow and hardship are for all,\nThough differing forms they wear.\nThe path he gave us teems with thorns.\nThe feet must suffer there.\n\nWhat life, though but a day’s brief span,\nIs free from pain and woe?\n’T is not for mortals born in grief\nTo live at ease below.\n\nNot for the transient joys of earth\nThy heart to thee was given,\nBut for an instrument of grief,\nTo raise thy life toward heaven.\n\nIf joys be few, if pains abound,\nIf balms bring slow relief,\nIf wounds be sore and nature weak,\nThy earthly life is brief.\n\nThis is the vale of death and pain,\nOrdained for ancient sin;\nExcept through anguish, Eden’s gate\nNo soul shall enter in.\n\nJustice ordained it; mercy then\nMade it more light to bear.\nUnasked by thee, Christ sweetened it,\nHis love infusing there.\n\nFrom heaven’s height he hastened down,\nPitying thy trouble sore;\nWith thee a servant he became,\nHimself thy wounds he bore.\n\nHe filled his cup celestial\nFull of thy tears and pain,\nAnd tremblingly, yet freely,\nHe dared the dregs to drain.\n\nRemembering this, wilt thou not drink\nThy cup of tears and care?\n’T is proffered by thy Saviour’s hand,\nHis love is mingled there.\n\nHe feels and pities all thy woes,\nHe wipes away each tear;\nLove he distils into thy griefs;\nWeep not, for he is near!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alice Stone Blackwell", "language": "Armenian", + "translators": [ + "Alice Stone Blackwell" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -5191,8 +5498,10 @@ "title": "“O come, Redeemer of the earth 
”", "body": "O come, Redeemer of the earth, and manifest thy virgin-birth.\nLet every age in wonder fall: such birth befits the God of all.\nBegotten of no human will but of the Spirit, Thou art still the Word of God in flesh arrayed, the promised fruit to man displayed.\nThe Virgin’s womb that burden gained, its virgin honor still unstained.\nThe banners there of virtue glow; God in his temple dwells below.\nProceeding from His chamber free that royal home of purity a giant in twofold substance one, rejoicing now His course to run.\nO equal to the Father, Thou! gird on Thy fleshly mantle now; the weakness of our mortal state with deathless might invigorate.\nThy cradle here shall glitter bright, and darkness breathe a newer light where endless faith shall shine serene and twilight never intervene.\nAll praise, eternal Son, to Thee, whose advent sets Thy people free, whom, with the Father, we adore, and Holy Ghost, for evermore. Amen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. M. Neale", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "J. M. Neale" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "christmas_eve" @@ -5203,8 +5512,10 @@ "title": "“O splendour of God’s glory bright 
”", "body": "O splendour of God’s glory bright,\nO thou that bringest light from light,\nO Light of light, light’s living spring,\nO Day, all days illumining,\n\nO thou true Sun, on us thy glance\nLet fall in royal radiance,\nThe Spirit’s sanctifying beam\nUpon our earthly senses stream.\n\nThe Father, too, our prayers implore,\nFather of glory evermore;\nThe Father of all grace and might,\nTo banish sin from our delight:\n\nTo guide whate’er we nobly do,\nWith love all envy to subdue,\nTo make ill-fortune turn to fair,\nAnd give us grace our wrongs to bear.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Seymour Bridges", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Robert Seymour Bridges" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_ambrose" @@ -5286,8 +5597,11 @@ "title": "“The First Rain”", "body": "The first rain reminds me\nOf the rising summer dust.\nThe rain doesn’t remember the rain of yesteryear.\nA year is a trained beast with no memories.\nSoon you will again wear your harnesses,\nBeautiful and embroidered, to hold\nSheer stockings: you\nMare and harnesser in one body.\n\nThe white panic of soft flesh\nIn the panic of a sudden vision\nOf ancient saints.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Benjamin & Barbara Harshav", "language": "Hebrew", + "translators": [ + "Benjamin", + "Barbara Harshav" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -5406,8 +5720,10 @@ "title": "“Quick and Bitter”", "body": "The end was quick and bitter.\nSlow and sweet was the time between us,\nslow and sweet were the nights\nwhen my hands did not touch one another in despair but in the love\nof your body which came\nbetween them.\n\nAnd when I entered into you\nit seemed then that great happiness\ncould be measured with precision\nof sharp pain. Quick and bitter.\n\nSlow and sweet were the nights.\nNow is bitter and grinding as sand--\n“Let’s be sensible” and similiar curses.\n\nAnd as we stray further from love\nwe multiply the words,\nwords and sentences so long and orderly.\nHad we remained together\nwe could have become a silence.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Assia Gutmann", "language": "Hebrew", + "translators": [ + "Assia Gutmann" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -5423,8 +5739,11 @@ "title": "“What Kind of a Person”", "body": "“What kind of a person are you,” I heard them say to me.\nI’m a person with a complex plumbing of the soul,\nSophisticated instruments of feeling and a system\nOf controlled memory at the end of the twentieth century,\nBut with an old body from ancient times\nAnd with a God even older than my body.\nI’m a person for the surface of the earth.\nLow places, caves and wells\nFrighten me. Mountain peaks\nAnd tall buildings scare me.\nI’m not like an inserted fork,\nNot a cutting knife, not a stuck spoon.\n\nI’m not flat and sly\nLike a spatula creeping up from below.\nAt most I am a heavy and clumsy pestle\nMashing good and bad together\nFor a little taste\nAnd a little fragrance.\n\nArrows do not direct me. I conduct\nMy business carefully and quietly\nLike a long will that began to be written\nThe moment I was born.\n\nNow I stand at the side of the street\nWeary, leaning on a parking meter.\nI can stand here for nothing, free.\n\nI’m not a car, I’m a person,\nA man-god, a god-man\nWhose days are numbered. Hallelujah.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Benjamin & Barbara Harshav", "language": "Hebrew", + "translators": [ + "Benjamin", + "Barbara Harshav" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -5497,10 +5816,10 @@ "title": "“Things tell less and less 
”", "body": "Things tell less and less:\nThe news impersonal\nAnd from afar; no book\nWorth wrenching off the shelf.\nLiquor brings dizziness\nAnd food discomfort; all\nMusic sounds thin and tired,\nAnd what picture could earn a look?\nThe self drowses in the self\nBeyond hope of a visitor.\nDesire and those desired\nFade, and no matter:\nMemories in decay\nAnnihilate the day.\nThere once was an answer:\nUp at the stroke of seven,\nA turn round the garden\n(Breathing deep and slow),\nThen work, never mind what,\nHow small, provided that\nIt serves another’s good\nBut once is long ago\nAnd, tell me, how could\nSuch an answer be less than wrong,\nBe right all along?\nVain echoes, desist.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1978 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -5710,11 +6029,13 @@ "title": "“The Anguish of a Mirage”", "body": "They faded, the last bands of reddish,\nLike whispers of prayers in night,\nO tale, such seductive and maddish,\nWhat else do you want of this heart?\n\nAre not, beyond measure and count,\nSo hard in the snows my ways?\nAren’t gray empty spaces around?\nIsn’t husky the ring of the bells?\n\nAnd why, every minute and instant,\nMy heart is divided in two?\nI know that she is in distance,\nBut feel her right near me, too.\n\nHere they are, the snowy clouds,\nI can’t take my eyes from all that:\nRight now, shall merge our routs\nIn snows, so white and so dead.\n\nRight now will be silently bound\nAnd newly unbound our sleighs.\nWe’ll hear the bell’s common sound\nIn an instant of sadness and pains 
\n\nWe’d heard 
 But we’ll not any more\nHave meeting in this hazy night 
\nIn the circle of anguish and woe\nI wander on my path of blight 
\n\nThey faded, the last bands of reddish,\nLike whispers of prayers in night,\nO tale, such seductive and maddish,\nWhat else do you want of this heart?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -5725,11 +6046,13 @@ "title": "“Autumnal Romance”", "body": "I watch you as coldly as ever,\nBut can’t keep this pine in my breast,\nToday sun’s in smoke of havens,\nAnd sadness makes heavy a breath.\n\nI know, I breed just a fable--\nAt least, trust to fables,--but you? 
\nLike needless oblations, in alleys,\nLeaves fall in the mournful hue.\n\nWe’re joined by the fate that was blinded:\nWould God join us ‘there’--behind sky? 
\nDon’t laugh, if in spring days, delighted,\nYou’ll step on the lives that here die.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -5740,13 +6063,15 @@ "title": "“Black Spring”", "body": "A half-holiday for the burial. Of course, they punish\nthe provincial copper bells for hours;\nterribly the nose tilts up like a tallow candle\nfrom the coffin. Does it wish to draw breath\nfrom its torso in a mourning suit? The last snow\nfell sombrely--white, then the roads were bread-crumbed with pebbles.\nPoor winter, honeycombed with debts,\npoured to corruption. Now the dumb, black springtime\nmust look into the chilly eye 
 from under the mould\non the roof-shingles, the liquid oatmeal\nof the roads, the green stubble of life\non our faces! High in the splinter elm,\nshrill the annual fledglings with their spiky necks.\nThey say to man that his road is mud,\nhis luck is rutted--there is nothing\nsorrier than the marriage of two deaths.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Lowell", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1906, "month": "march", "day": 19 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Lowell" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -5758,11 +6083,13 @@ "title": "“Child’s Insomnia”", "body": "From the smothering soot of the earth\nThe fiery speck got out,\nAnd the shadows began to flow gently,\nMerging strange contours.\n\nI knew that I couldn’t sleep:\nWhile my lips prayed,\nThose importunate words began\nShifting in the brain.\n\nI lay, and the shadows drifted,\nProbably knowing and hiding,\nHow a mushroom emerges from the earth\nAnd how the hour-hand ticks.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Linda Southby", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1904 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Linda Southby" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -5770,11 +6097,13 @@ "title": "“Ennui”", "body": "There are the delicate pink ovals\nOn which the mists of morning flood,\nAnd in unique bouquets unwinding\nSteel-colored flowers bloom and bud.\n\nFor nomad flies they are temptation;\nTheir gloss hides poisons’ virulence 
\nIntrusive, variegated, idle,\nThe bare facets of existence.\n\nBut when exhausted from a fever\nAnd bed-ridden, as weeks progress,\nYou understand the pleasant hashish\nConcealed within their dull sameness.\n\nYou understand--frugally counting\nThe strokes upon each rose you see 
\nAs you build diamonds, willy-nilly,\nBetween the stations of ennui.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Markov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1904 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Markov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -5782,11 +6111,13 @@ "title": "“For what purpose, when dreams betray 
”", "body": "For what purpose, when dreams betray,\nThat words brim over with delusions?\nFor what purpose, on a forgotten grave,\nGrass grows greener and emits a noise?\n\nFor what purpose these lunar heights,\nIf my garden is silent and dark?\nAnd the tails of her plaits are untied,\nAnd I hear their breath 
 for what?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alex Cigale", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1902 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alex Cigale" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -5794,11 +6125,13 @@ "title": "“July”", "body": "Scorched by the fire of the sky’s unmoving body,\nThe pick-ax stops clanging out its accursed lesson.\nAnd nailed onto the earth, the piled autumnal haystacks\nOf sleeping working-men are black as any downpour.\n\nThe last decision of some dark and savage forces,\nA vertical ray’s call, inaudible to people,\nAnd those lines of lean legs amidst smoky confusion.\nOf the disheveled beards, of torn and tattered headgear.\n\nIs not this whirling world many times terrifying\nDoes not one want to run away and hide so quickly?\nJust think: In the arms of their mothers\nAll these were once lovely pink children.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Markov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1900 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Markov" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -5809,13 +6142,15 @@ "title": "“Nocturne”", "body": "Select a dark night and in a field,\nunpeopled, naked, dip into gray twilight 
\nMay the air, having fanned, becalm,\nMay the stars, winking, in the cold sky slumber on\nTell the heart not to count its thumps 
\nStop in mid-step and listen! You’re not alone 
\nThe wings of a bird, heavy, sodden, drift through the fog.\nListen 
 it’s the flight of a predator, a sovereign avian,\nThey call that bird Time, and on its wings is your will,\nA passing dream of happiness, hopes’ golden rags 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alex Cigale", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1890, "month": "february", "day": 26 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alex Cigale" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -5827,13 +6162,15 @@ "title": "“Oh, no, not your waist 
”", "body": "Oh, no, not your waist, though it be so\nTender and lively, will I save from your\nTemptations, not the moist shine of crimson\nSmiles, the cold serpent of suffering.\n\nThus at times in the banal, motley hall, where\nThe waltz rings out, disturbing and beseeching,\nI summon up in reverie the sounds of Parsifal\nAnd the shadow, and Death over the king’s mask 
\n\nLeave me 
 Boredom makes my bed. What do I\nNeed that paradise for, of which all dream? And\nIf dirt and baseness are only tormented longing\nFor the beauty that is shining somewhere there 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. H. Morrison", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1906, "month": "may", "day": 19 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "R. H. Morrison" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -5845,13 +6182,15 @@ "title": "“Pace”", "body": "Among the gilded bath-houses and obelisks of glory\nIs a white maiden, with thick grass all around.\n\nNo thyrsus pleases her, she strikes no cymbals.\nAnd the white marble Pan does not love her.\n\nOnly the cold fogs have caressed her,\nLeaving black wounds from their moist lips.\n\nBut the maid is as proud of her beauty as\nEver, and they never cut the grass round her.\n\nI do not know why the sculpture of the goddess\nHolds a sweet enchantment for my heart 
\n\nI love the hurt in her, her dreadful nose, and\nThe compressed feet, and the braids’ rough knot.\n\nEspecially when cold rain is drizzling\nAnd her nakedness shows helplessly white 
\n\nO grant me eternity, and I will give back eternity\nFor unconcern towards hurts and the years.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. H. Morrison", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1905, "month": "august", "day": 2 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "R. H. Morrison" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -5863,11 +6202,13 @@ "title": "“September”", "body": "The gardens full of gold and decay,\nWith lure of purple of the swelling ailments,\nAnd tardy heat of sun in curves of sunbeam’s remnants,\nUnable to distil into the fragrant spray.\n\nThe carpets’ yellow silk and traces, roughly laid,\nAnd the avowed false of the preceding meeting,\nAnd ponds of parks, extinguished, deep and sad,\nAnd ready long ago for suffering and missing 
\n\nBut ones’ hearts only seek past beauty in decays,\nJust the allurement of enchanted forces,\nAnd they, who’ve tested the unearthly lotus,\nAre thrilled by fragrance of autumnal days.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1904 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "autumn_equinox" @@ -5932,8 +6273,10 @@ "title": "“Ailing Autumn”", "body": "Autumn ailing and adored\nYou will die when the wind storm blows in rose gardens\nWhen it snows\nIn orchards\n\nPoor autumn\nDies in the whiteness and richness\nOf snow and ripe fruit\nDeep in the sky\nThe sparrow hawks glide\nAbove the tiny gentle green-haired water nymphs\nWho have never loved\n\nAt the distant forest edges\nStags have been bellowing\n\nAnd how I love O season how I love your murmurs\nThe fruits falling without being picked\nThe wind and the forest that weep\nAll their tears in autumn leaf by leaf\n Leaves\n That are trampled\n A train\n That passes\n Life\n That slips away", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Cobley", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "John Cobley" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -5944,8 +6287,10 @@ "title": "“Autumn”", "body": "Into the fog go a knock-kneed peasant\nAnd his ox slowly into the autumn fog\nThat hides the poor and miserable villages\n\nAnd as he moves away the peasant intones\nA song of love and infidelity\nWhich tells of a ring and a broken heart\n\nOh! autumn autumn has made summer die\nInto the fog go two grey silhouettes", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Cobley", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "John Cobley" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -5956,8 +6301,10 @@ "title": "“Clotilde”", "body": "Anemone and columbine\nWhere gloom has lain\nOpened in gardens\nBetween love and disdain\n\nMade somber by the sun\nOur shadows meet\nUntil the sun\nIs squandered by night\n\nGods of living water\nLet down their hair\nAnd now you must follow\nA craving for shadows", "metadata": { - "translator": "Donald Revell", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Donald Revell" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -5968,8 +6315,10 @@ "title": "“The Lady”", "body": "Knock knock He has closed his door\nThe garden’s lilies have started to rot\nSo who is the corpse being carried from the house\n\nYou just knocked on his door\n And trot trot\n\nTrot goes little lady mouse", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ron Padgett", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Ron Padgett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -5980,8 +6329,10 @@ "title": "“Le Pont Mirabeau”", "body": "Under the Mirabeau Bridge there flows the Seine\nMust I recall\nOur loves recall how then\nAfter each sorrow joy came back again\nLet night come on bells end the day\nThe days go by me still I stay\n\nHands joined and face to face let’s stay just so\nwhile underneath\nThe bridge of our arms shall go\nWeary of endless looks the river’s flow\nLet night come on bells end the day\nThe days go by me still I stay\n\nAll love goes by as water to the sea\nAll love goes by\nHow slow life seems to me\nHow violent the hope of love can be\nLet night come on bells end the day\nThe days go by me still I stay\n\nThe days the weeks pass by beyond our ken\nNeither time past\nNor love comes back again\nUnder the Mirabeau Bridge there flows the Seine\nLet night come on bells end the day\nThe days go by me still I stay", "metadata": { - "translator": "Richard Wilbur", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Richard Wilbur" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -5989,8 +6340,10 @@ "title": "“Les Cloches”", "body": "My handsome gypsy my love\nListen to the bells that ring\nWe loved each other unbridled\nThinking no one could see us\n\nBut we were poorly hidden\nAll the bells everywhere\nHave seen us from steeples\nAnd they’re telling everyone\n\nTomorrow Cyprien and Henri\nMarie Ursule and Catherine\nThe baker’s wife and her husband\nAnd then my cousin Gertrude\n\nWill smile when I walk by\nI won’t know where to put myself\nYou’ll be far away I’ll cry\nI’ll die of it maybe", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrea Cohen", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Andrea Cohen" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -6006,8 +6359,10 @@ "title": "“Palace”", "body": "In deepest dream towards Rosemonde’s palace\nMy barefoot brain inclined for the evening\nLike a naked king the walls are waking\nBeaten flesh and fresh-cut roses\n\nYou can see my thoughts immersed in roses\nSmiling at the concert of the toads\nThey are in the mood for cypress bedposts\nThe sun is a broken mirror of the rose\n\nWhat badly wounded bowman opened\nStigmata of palms on the windowpane\nAt the white lamb’s love-feast I have tasted\nResins that bitter the Cyprian wine\n\nOn the jagged lap of the lascivious king\nIn the May-time of her age and finest frock\nMysterious Madame Rosemonde rolls\nHer little round eyes like a Hun\n\nLady of my thoughts your pearly asshole\nIs unrivalled by anything Oriental\nFor whom are you waiting\nDeepest dreams en route to the Orient\nAre my loveliest neighbors\n\nKnock knock Come into the forecourt night is coming\nIn shadow the night-light is toasted tinsel\nHang your heads by the hair on the hat-rack\nThe evening sky is aglimmer with pins\n\nWe entered the dining room our noses\nCaught a whiff of grease and mucus\nOf twenty soup bowls three were urine\nThe king ate two poached eggs in bouillon\n\nAnd then the scullions brought in the meat dishes\nA standing roast of thoughts deceased in my brain\nMy lovely still-born dreams in slices still bloody\nAnd gamy little meatballs of memory\n\nDead for millennia now these thoughts\nHad a flavorless taste of frozen mammoth\nBones or visionaries danced out of ossuaries\nThe dance of death in the folds of my brain\n\nAnd all those meats pronounced revelations\nBut Holy Christ!\nA famished belly has no hearing\nThe guests continued their best mastications\n\nAh Holy Christ! cried out the rib-eyes\nThe huge pĂątĂ©s the marrow and hot-pots\nTongues of fire o where is the pentecost\nOf my thoughts for all places nations and times", "metadata": { - "translator": "Donald Revell", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Donald Revell" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "pentecost" @@ -6018,8 +6373,10 @@ "title": "“Poem for Lou”", "body": "If I should die out there on the battle-front,\nYou’d weep, O Lou my darling, a single day,\nAnd then my memory would die away\nAs a shell dies bursting over the battle-front,\nA beautiful shell like a flowered mimosa spray.\n\nAnd then this memory exploded in space\nWould flood the whole wide world beneath my blood:\nThe mountains, valleys, seas and the stars that race,\nThe wondrous suns that ripen far in space,\nAs golden fruits round General Baratier would.\n\nForgotten memory, living in all things,\nI’d redden the nipples of your sweet pink breasts,\nI’d blush your mouth, your hair’s now blood-like rings.\nYou wouldn’t grow old at all; these lovely things\nWould ever make you young for their brave behests.\n\nThe fatal spurting of my blood on the world\nWould give more lively brightness to the sun,\nMore color to flowers, to waves more speedy run.\nA marvelous love would descend upon the world,\nWould be, in your lonely flesh, more strongly grown.\n\nAnd if I die there, memory you’ll forget--\nSometimes remember, Lou, the moments of madness,\nOf youth and love and dazzling passion’s heat--\nMy blood will be the burning fountain of gladness!\nAnd be the happiest being the prettiest yet,\n\n_O_ my only love and my great madness!\n\n_L_ ong night is falling,\n_O_ n us foreboding\n_U_ shers a long, long fate of blood.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Hubert Creekmore", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Hubert Creekmore" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -6195,12 +6552,14 @@ "title": "“Elsa’s Eyes”", "body": "Your eyes are so deep that leaning down to drink\nTo them I saw all mirrored suns repair\nAll desperate souls hurled deathward from their brink\nYour eyes are so deep my memory is lost there\n\nIn the shadow of birds now the ocean roars\nThen suddenly the day clears and your eyes change\nSummer carves the cloud on the angels’ pinafore\nThe sky’s never blue as it is above grain\n\nIn vain the winds pursue the azure’s griefs\nWhen they sparkle with tears your limpid eyes make\nEnvious the heavens less bright after showers\nGlass is never so blue as it is when it breaks\n\nMother of seven sorrows O watery light\nSeven blades have pierced the color prism\nLight is the more poignant which pricks between tears\nThe iris bored black is bluer by its grief\n\nYour eyes in misfortune form a double breach\nWhere the miracle of the Kings is again revealed\nWhen with beating hearts they all three saw\nMary’s mantle caught in the crib of the child\n\nA mouth may well suffice in the merry May\nOf words for all the songs and for all the sighs\nThere’s too little firmament for all the stars\nWith their secret Twins they had need of your eyes\n\nThe child who holds pictures before him for hours\nWill strain his eyes less immoderately\nWhen you stare from yours I know not if you lie\nOne would think the rain were opening wild flowers\n\nDo they hide lightning in that lavender where\nInsects give deliverance to their lusts\nI am caught in the net of the falling stars\nLike a sailor near death at sea in August\n\nThis radium from pitchblende I have obtained\nMy fingers I have burned on this forbidden fire\nO paradise regained relost and regained\nMy Peru My Golconda My Indies your eyes\n\nOne beautiful evening the universe broke\nOn the reefs where the signal fires did arise\nI looked and saw glittering above the sea\nElsa’s eyes Elsa’s eyes Elsa’s eyes", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Jay Smith", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1945, "month": "october" }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Jay Smith" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -6211,7 +6570,6 @@ "title": "“I Wait for Her Letter in the Twilight”", "body": "Under a satin sky\nPompadour, and how,\nA little car steers by\nAnd Echo tells its lie.\nAnd what is this song arising\nIn the sleeping wood at evening\nIn the monotonous park\nWhere the regiment is dreaming\nIn the bivouac of the shade\nIn the heart of the lovely fall\n\nHow the wounded hours\nWar at Crouy-sur-Ourcq\nGo to their lingering death\nYou are my core and pith\nYou are my bird of prey\nO steaming camion\nO melancholy love\nAlong the great highway\nLeave for the mist and cloud\nThe agitated ground:\nAnd do you see my love\nIn the sadness in the dream?\n\nAnd is this golden tint\nThis treasure turned to rust\nThe way she wore her hair?\nWhat does she tell me, wind?\nWhat does she tell me say:\nStay, as in other days;\nStay, as it was before\nThe battles in the East.\n\nNothing, the mailman says.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rolfe Humphries", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -6221,6 +6579,9 @@ "month": "march" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rolfe Humphries" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -6231,7 +6592,6 @@ "title": "“Speak to me of love waves 
”", "body": "Speak to me of love waves little waves\nThe heart in shadow still has its song and its cry\nAh, speak to me of love. These are the days\nOf doubt and dread where one is alone in writing\nAh, speak to me of love Letters How far it is\nFrom Paris to this outpost in the desert.\n\nYou will speak of love. The novel and the waltz\nWill mock at space and absence. A formal dance\nWith neither of us present is beginning\nThe violins will make the poets jealous\nNight and the sky unfold to the two-cent songs.\n\nDo not speak of love I hear the beating heart\nConceal the meaningless confusing themes\nSpeak no more of love What is she doing there\nSo near, so far, O Time of martyrdom,\nSpeak no more of love Fire hums on the hearth\nAnd the flames set the fragrance of kisses there\n\nBut speak of love again and let love rhyme\nWith old familiar words or nothing at all\nSpeak of love for all the rest is crime\nAnd men gone mad frighten the birds among\nThe bare black boughs that pallid winter leaves\nWhere the nests resemble pleasures stolen away\n\nTo speak of love is to speak of her and she\nIs all the music and the forbidden garden\nWhere Renaud fell in love with Armide and\nSaid nothing about his love O foolish knight\nJust as we used to be in days before\nWe warred upon the prince of infidels\n\nWe will speak of love as long as day returns\nAnd spring comes back and the sparrows make their song\nI will speak of love in bed with a pillow of dreams\nWhere the two of us will be like the gold of a ring\n\nAnd you will tell me Put the paper down.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rolfe Humphries", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -6241,6 +6601,9 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rolfe Humphries" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -7585,8 +7948,10 @@ "title": "“Caudal”", "body": "To give is to love,\nTo give prodigiously:\nFor every drop of water\nTo return a torrent.\n\nWe were made that way,\nMade to scatter\nSeeds in the furrow\nAnd stars in the ocean.\n\nWoe to him, Lord,\nwho doesn’t exhaust his supply,\nAnd, on returning, tells you:\n“Like an empty satchel\nIs my heart.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Manuel A. Tellechea", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Manuel A. Tellechea" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -7956,7 +8321,7 @@ "date": { "year": 430, "month": "august", - "day": 23 + "day": 28 }, "place": { "city": "Hippo Regius", @@ -7989,6 +8354,16 @@ "body": "“And what is this?” I asked the earth, and it answered me, “I am not He”; and whatsoever are in it confessed the same.\n\nI asked the sea and the deeps, and the living creeping things, and they answered, “We are not thy God, seek above us.”\n\nI asked the moving air; and the whole air with his inhabitants answered, “Anaximenes was deceived, I am not God.”\n\nI asked the heavens, sun, moon, stars, “Nor (say they) are we the God whom thou seekest.”\n\nAnd I replied unto all the things which encompass the door of my flesh: “Ye have told me of my God, that ye are not He; tell me something of Him.”\n\nAnd they cried out with a loud voice, “He made us.” My questioning them, was my thoughts on them: and their form of beauty gave the answer.\n\nAnd I turned myself unto myself, and said to myself, “Who art thou?” And I answered, “A man.” And behold, in me there present themselves to me soul, and body, one without, the other within. By which of these ought I to seek my God?\n\nI had sought Him in the body from earth to heaven, so far as I could send messengers, the beams of mine eyes. But the better is the inner, for to it as presiding and judging, all the bodily messengers reported the answers of heaven and earth, and all things therein, who said, “We are not God, but He made us.”\n\nThese things did my inner man know by the ministry of the outer: I the inner knew them; I, the mind, through the senses of my body. I asked the whole frame of the world about my God; and it answered me, “I am not He, but He made me.”", "metadata": { "language": "Latin", + "source": { + "title": "Confessions", + "type": "book", + "published": { + "year": 398 + } + }, + "translators": [ + "J. G. Pilkington" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_augustine" @@ -8011,6 +8386,16 @@ "body": "Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!\nLo, you were within,\nbut I outside, seeking there for you,\nand upon the shapely things you have made\nI rushed headlong--I, misshapen.\nYou were with me, but I was not with you.\nThey held me back far from you,\nthose things which would have no being,\nwere they not in you.\nYou called, shouted, broke through my deafness;\nyou flared, blazed, banished my blindness;\nyou lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you;\nI tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst;\nyou touched me, and I burned for your peace.", "metadata": { "language": "Latin", + "source": { + "title": "Confessions", + "type": "book", + "published": { + "year": 398 + } + }, + "translators": [ + "J. G. Pilkington" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_augustine" @@ -8018,11 +8403,13 @@ } }, "light-of-the-minds-that-know-him": { - "title": "“Light of the Minds that Know Him”", + "title": "“Light of the minds that know him 
”", "body": "Light of the minds that know him,\nmay Christ be light to mine!\nmy sun in risen splendour,\nmy light of truth divine;\nmy guide in doubt and darkness,\nmy true and living way,\nmy clear light ever shining,\nmy dawn of heaven’s day.\n\nLife of the souls that love him,\nmay Christ be ours indeed!\nthe living bread from heaven\non whom our spirits feed;\nwho died for love of sinners\nto bear our guilty load,\nand make of life’s brief journey\na new Emmaus road.\n\nStrength of the wills that serve him,\nmay Christ be strength to me,\nwho stilled the storm and tempest,\nwho calmed the tossing sea;\nhis Spirit’s power to move me,\nhis will to master mine,\nhis cross to carry daily\nand conquer in his sign.\n\nMay it be ours to know him\nthat we may truly love,\nand loving, fully serve him\nas serve the saints above;\ntill in that home of glory\nwith fadeless splendour bright,\nwe serve in perfect freedom\nour strength, our life, our light.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Timothy Dudley-Smith", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Timothy Dudley-Smith" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_augustine" @@ -8030,7 +8417,7 @@ } }, "love-never-disappears": { - "title": "“Love Never Disappears”", + "title": "“Love never disappears 
”", "body": "Love never disappears for death is a non-event.\nI have merely retired to the room next door.\nYou and I are the same; what we were for each other, we still are.\nSpeak to me as you always have, do not use a different tone, do not be sad.\nContinue to laugh at what made us laugh.\nSmile and think of me.\nLife means what it has always meant.\nThe link is not severed.\nWhy should I be out of your soul if I am out of your sight?\nI will wait for you; I am not here, but just on the other side of this path.\nYou see, all is well.", "metadata": { "language": "Latin", @@ -8159,11 +8546,13 @@ "title": "“Autumn”", "body": "The drumming swans have fallen silent far away,\nBeyond the sultry meadows cranes have ceased their whooping,\nAbove the ruddy ricks a hawk is circling, swooping,\nAnd in the reedbed autumn rustles with its sway.\n\nOn broken wattle fence the agile hop now trains,\nThe apple droops, the scent of morning plum is wafting,\nIn cheerful inns the beer into the kegs they’re drafting.\nFrom darkened hush of fields comes quiver of pipe’s strains.\n\nAbove the pond the light and pearly clouds drift by,\nAnd lilac and translucent, western skies are gleaming.\nAnd, bush-concealed, the boys to catch the birds are scheming--\nTheir snares they’ve set where needles’ green blots out the sky.\n\nFrom fields of gold, from where a haze of blue smoke reeks,\nBehind the laden wagons moves the girls’ procession--\nWith swaying thighs concealed by skirts of skimpy hessian,\nAnd sunburnt, almost honeyed gleam of golden cheeks.\n\nIn autumn meadows, where the vastness has no bound,\nThe hunters hurry under wraiths of misty lacing.\nAnd in the drizzly dampness, where the pack’s been chasing,\nSpin sharp and horrid howls of hounds who prey have found.\n\nAnd from the gloomy thickets drunken Autumn tramps,\nHis frigid hands now clasp the darkened bow and tighten,\nAnd aims it at the Summer as the fields his dances brighten,\nOn swarthy back a yellow raincoat as he stamps.\n\nAnd dallying sunset on the forest altar slab\nSets fire to blackened nard and bloody crimson’s splashes,\nAnd flies the chilly sound of falling apples’ crashes\nTowards the summer turf, the headboard’s crown to dab.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "translator": "Rupert Moreton", - "language": "English", + "translators": [ + "Rupert Moreton" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -8174,11 +8563,13 @@ "title": "“Because of black bread and faithful wives 
”", "body": "Because of black bread and faithful wives,\nPernicious anaemia has poisoned our lives.\n\nBy hoof and by stone the years have been tried,\nWith wormwood immortal the waters are dyed--\nThe bitterness lingers, it won’t be forgotten 
\nWe can’t handle knives,\nThe pen is a worry,\nThe pick-axe demeans us,\nOur glory’s no glory,\nWe’re just rotten leaves\nOn oak-trees gone rotten 
\n\nA breath\nFrom the North,\nAnd off we all fly.\nOn whose path like a carpet are we going to lie?\nWhose feet will pass over our rot and disease?\nAre we to be trampled on by the young trumpeters?\nAre strange constellations about to rise over us?\nWe’re the windblown shelter of rotten oak-trees 
\nWith homeless cold we’ll put comfort to flight 
\nWe go into the night!\nWe go into the night!\nLike fully ripe stars, at random we fly 
\nWe hear them roar past overhead, the young trumpeters,\nAnd strange constellations begin to rise over us,\nAnd alien banners are filling the sky 
\nA breath\nFrom the North--\nQuick, ride in pursuit of them.\nRace in pursuit of them.\nChase in pursuit of them\n\nOver the steppes,\nAnd sing out in the plains!\nGo after the bayonet glittering bright,\nThe drumming of hooves in the forest retreat,\nThe call of the trumpet that waxes and wanes 
", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1927 }, - "translator": "Alex Miller", - "language": "English", + "translators": [ + "Alex Miller" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8186,11 +8577,13 @@ "title": "“February”", "body": "Here I am back again in this land.\nI pass by\nAgain under the young planetrees,\nAgain, children run amid the parkbenches,\nAgain, the sea lies covered in the smoke of ships 
\nHere I am, a volunteer, in epaulets,\nEdged in colored piping,--\nHere I am, a warrior, the hero of Stokhod,\nThe strongman of the Ìàzovian mires, morosely\nPlodding along in my crooked boots,\nAnd my half-fallen cap 
\nI am on furlough, so that my every muscle,\nMy every cell could take in the movement of the\nwind tangled up in foliage,\nPigeonlike warmth of breath\nOf tanned youths, the sun playing tag\nIn the sand, the sea’s salty caress 
\nI’m used to anything: the world\nFrom which I broke free\nwas burnt through by the shells,\nPierced by bayonets, tightly wound in\nBarbed wire, obnoxiously\nReeked of sweat and sour bread 
\nI now must find a corner in this world,\nWhere a clean towel hangs on its nail,\nWhere it smells of mother, the soap--by the faucet,\nAnd the Sun, running through the window,\nDoesn’t burn my face like embers 
\nHere I am again on the boulevard.\n\nAgain\n\nPansies are in bloom on all the lawns,\nA man in a naval cap is reading\nA crimson-covered book;\nA girl, her skirt cut just above the knee\nPlays diabolo; on some balcony\nA parrot screams in his silver cage.\nAnd I am now like an equal among all these,\nWhen I want--I sit, when I want--I stroll,\nWhen I want (if no officer in sight)--\nI smoke, observing how a graceful\nLeaf floats over the benches, how fly the\nWrens past the townhall’s clock 
\nThe most important would\nOccur at four.\nFrom behind the kiosk\nThere will appear a cloaked girl,--\nSwinging her striped rucksack,\nShe’d be flung open, like breath,\nTo the cool sea, sunbeams and birds,\nIn her green dress made of weightless\nwool, she swims, into a dance--\nInto a vortex of leaves and heaves of\nFlowers and butterflies above the lawn.\nShe’s walking home from school 
\nAlong with her--From a forgotten world,\nIn circles, fly school-bells,\nGirlfriends’ whispers, a notebook angel\nAnd teachers’ clatter in the corridors.\nThe planetrees sing before her, and the sea,\nHoarsely, walks her along 
\nI never loved according to the rules 
\nA small Judean boy--\nI, perhaps, the only one in town\nWas to shiver nightly from the steppe’s winds.\nI, like a somnambulist, plodded along the railroad\nToward quiet summer cottages, where in thistles,\nGooseberries or wild rowan\nMurmur hedgehogs and vipers hiss,\nÀnd in the thick, where it’s the most impassable,\nDarts the red-headed birdie\nWhose song is hairpin thin,\nIt is known as “Oxeye” 
\nHow I, born to a Jew, and\nCircumcised on the seventh day,\nBecame a birdcatcher--I don’t know!\nHarder that Ìayne-Reid I loved Alfred Brem!\nMy hands shook from passion,\nWhen blindly I opened the book 
\nAnd from its pages birds flew at me\nBirds, like strange letters,\nSabers and horns, spheres and diamonds.\nIt seems the constellation of Sagittarius got\nStuck over the blackness of my abode,\nOver a despiccable Jewish babe,\nGoose-schmalz, over the rote\nOf tedious prayers, over the beards\nOn family daguerrotypes 
\nI didn’t peep, like others,\nThrough the bathhouse cracks.\nI didn’t ever try\nTo furtively pinch a classmate 
\nTimidity and dizziness\nPlagued me.\nI made myself run sideways\nAcross the garden, where\nGirls in uniforms sang choruses 
\nOnly having lost my vigilance, oblivious to\nmyself, could I give in to\nBluntly ogling a maiden’s\nNaked calves.\nUp on a chair,\nShe wiped the panes with a rag 
\nSuddenly the glass whistled like a bird--\nAnd before me flew forth\nYellowhammers, dry leaves,\nMurky puddles full of forget-me-nots,\nWomen’s shoulders and birds’ wings,\nWhistle of flight, murmur of skirts,\nNightingales’ clicks, the song of a\nYoung neighbor from across the street,--\nAnd finally, more clearly, more cleanly,\nIn the world of habits, customs,\nUnder the streetlamp near my hovel--\nNightingale’s eye in a maiden’s face 
\nJust like now, looking under the bonnet,\nIn the weak shadow I saw eyes.\nThey were full of a nightingale’s tremble,\nThey, rocking, floated by\nTo the rhythm of her heels, over them hung\nA lock of hair, golden against the skin 
\nAlong the alley, past the lawn,\nWalked the liceum dress,\nAnd a hundred paces behind, like an assasin,\nStumbling over benches and bumping into\nPeople and trees, whispering curses,\nI walked in my tall boots, a greasy\nOlive tunic, hair closely\nCropped as befits a military man,\nStill not without an old habit of haunching--\nThe platoon’s sharp, a little jewboy 
\nShe peered into vitrines,\nAnd there, amid transparent silks and jars\nMysterious, unhuman,\nWas reflected her watery face 
\nShe paused by flowergirls,\nAnd her fingers chose a rose, that\nWas swimming in an enameled pot,\nLike a little terrycloth fish.\nThe colonial shop\nSmelled of burnt coffee, cinnamon,\nAnd in that odor, mixed with the wet rose,\nOver heaps of leaves in baskets,\nShe seemed a wonderbird\nEscaped from Brem’s compendium 
\nI now did my best to get out of active duty.\nHow many banknotes flew\nInto the hands of the platoon scrivener!\nI plied my captains with the best of vodkas,\nBrought them tobacco and cured sides of pork 
\nLike a nomad,\nCoughing in asthmatic throes,\nI wandered between the districts.\nI huffed and puffed,\nSpat into bottles, drank my medication,\nI stood naked, skinny and anshaved,\nUnder the stetoscopes of medical committees 
\nAnd when I succeeded, with\nMerit or without--who shall remember this?--\nTo obtain another furlough pass,\nI shined my boots to gleam,\nStraightened my tunic--and sprightly\nMarched to the boulevard, where among the planetrees\nAn oriole sang in terracotta voice,\nAnd the familiar dress greened\nOver the alley’s sand,\nCurving, like smoke 
\nAgain I stalked her, melting,\nCursing, stumbling into benches 
\nShe went into the cinema,\nInto the chattering darkness, into the tremble\nOf a green light in the square frame,\nWhere a woman wrung her alabaster hands\nOver an extinguished fireplace\nAnd a man in a granite plastron\nShot out of a mute revolver 
\nI knew her friends by face,\nI knew their habits, smiles, gestures.\nTheir slow pace, when one deliberately tries\nWith his chest, thigh, hand\nTo feel through the fragile cloth\nÒhe alarmed softness of maiden’s skin 
\nI knew it all 
\nBirds flew away 
\nGrass withered 
\nStars perished 
\nThe maiden walked across the light,\nPicking flowers, her eyelashes lowered 
\nAutumn 
\nThe air is soaked with rain,\nAutumn 
\nGrieve, perish and lament!\nI’ll approach her today.\nI will stand\nBefore her.\nI will not let her veer off.\nNo empty bustle.\nTake all courage!\nGet hold of yourself.\nNo slacking off!\nThe kiosk is boarded up 
\nBy the townhall clock\nThe pigeons teem.\nSoon--four.\nShe was an hour early,--\nBonnet in her hand 
\nReddish hair,\nTransparent with the heatless sun,\nSways by her cheeks 
\nSilence.\nAnd the voice of\nA titmouse, lost in this world 
\nI must approach her.\nI must\nApproach her without fail.\nI must\nApproach her by all means necessary.\nDon’t think,\nShake up--into pursuit.\nEnough horsefeathers! 
\nBut my feet wouldn’t move,\nAs if they were made of stone.\nAnd the torso\nFeels chained to the parkbench.\nGetting up--impossible 
\nA lout! A fool!\nThe girl by now was in the middle of the square,\nAnd in the dark-gray circle of museums\nHer dress, borne by the wind,\nSeemed finer and greener still 
\nI rose with such effort,\nAs if I were permanently bolted\nTo the bench.\nNow I tear myself off--without looking back\nI run after the girl into the square.\nAll I have nightly read about,\nSick, hungry, and halfclad,--\nAbout birds with strange un-Russian names,\nAbout people from an unknown planet,\nA world, in which inhabitants play tennis,\nDrink orangeade, kiss women,--\nAll this moved before me,\nDressed in a woolen dress,\nAflame with red curls,\nSwinging a striped rucksack,\nMincing heels 
\nOn her shoulder I’d put my hand:\n“Look at me!\nI am your grief!\nI sentence you to the unheard\nTorment of nightingales’ passion!\nStay!”\nAround the corner--\nIn twenty paces her green dress.\nIn a moment I’d overtake her.\nA bit more\neffort--we would walk abreast 
\nI give her an officer’s salute,\nWhat shall I say? My tongue\nMutters some nonesense:\n--Allow me 
\nDon’t run away 
 Say, may I\nWalk with you? I was in trenches! 
\nShe is silent.\nShe wouldn’t blink\nAn eye.\nShe speeds\nHer pace.\nBeggarlike I run along,\nPolitely bent.\nI wasn’t meant\nTo be her equal! 
\nLike an imbecile\nI mutter more daft words 
\nThen: sudden halt 
\nShe silently\nTurns her head--I see\nRed hair, a blue-green\nEye and a purple vein\nOn her temple, atremble from tension 
\n“Leave, right away”,--and points\nHer hand at the intersection 
\nHere he is--\nInstalled as a protector of tranquility--\nHe stand at crossroads, like a regnum of\nBelts, shined badges, medals,\nThrust into his boots, and above--\nCovered by a regulation cap,\nAround which pigeons circle in a halo,\nYellow and inbearable like a torture,\nPigeons out of the Holy Scripture\nAnd clouds, twisted snaillike 
\nPotbellied, shiny, in greasy sweat--\nA gendarme.\nSince morning to the rim\nPumped up with vodka, stuffed with lard 
\n\n~*~\n\nStudents’ blue caps;\nSoldiers’ hats, porkpies, peaked caps;\nSteam, escaping frozen throats;\nTobacco smoke, traveling in columns 
\nTurmoil of furcoats, peacoats,\nTrenchcoats, reeking of sour bread,\nAnd on the pulpit, by a large decanter--\nCompletely unexpected in this smoke--\nAn excited man in unlined\nSheepskin, worn over a torn blouse,\nScreams in a voice broken from tension,\nAnd with a free upswing\nÎpens his embrace 
\nLarge doors\nFling open.\nOut of a February night\nMen enter, grimacing from the light,\nThey stomp, shake the frost\nFrom their coats--now they are with us,\nThey speak, yell, raise their arms,\nCurse and cry.\nSnore, cough,\nÒurmoil.\nIn the choir the banisters are cracking\nUnder the tide of shoulders.\nAnd, ascending,\nHigh-fives covered in dirt and clotted blood\nRise, like soiled heavenly bodies 
\nThat night we went to take the Headquarters 
\nI, a comrade-student, and the third--\nRedhaired privat-docent from the “SR”.\nThe blood of manliness fills the body,\nThe wind of manliness inflates the shirt.\nMy youth is over 
\nMaturity begins 
\nBang the gunstock on the stone! Cap off!\nThe face of the world has changed.\nEarlier this morning\nThe planetrees hummed goodneturedly.\nThe sea\nResided in the bay.\nIn quiet cottages\nGirls sang in circles.\nIn the book\nDoctor Brem was resting, having leaned his staff\nAgainst the boulder.\nÌy parental house was aglow\nWith candles’ tongues and biblical cuisine 
\nThe face of the world is changing 
\nTonight\nThe trees will be iced over,\nTheir knots poke at my eyes, as if alive.\n\nThe sea\nSpilled over the emptied boulevard.\nThe hoarse steamers shriek,\nCottages are\nBoarded up.\nOn empty stoops\nRats dance.\nAnd Brem, having escaped the book,\nRaises his rifle at me with menace 
\nThe thieves have emptied my parental house.\n\nThe cat\nOn the cold stove lifts her legs 
\nToday my youth is over 
 The repose is distant 
\nFeet plod in water.\nCurse!\nNow, raise the collar, cover the shoulders!\nWell, then! I must go on!\nGrieve not, my friend!\nRain!\nBustling reparte\nOf crows in the acacias.\nRain.\nFrom an abyss\nMotorcyclists roll\nAglow in acetylene.\nAnd, again, black\nTunnels--no beginning, no end.\nWind,\nBlowing in unknown direction.\nAlong the puddles--\nMarching patrols.\nAnd again--\nRain.\nWe are alone--in this soaked world.\nBumping into planters in the alleyways,\nStumbling over each other,\nFalling to the pavement, by midnight\nWe reached the Headquarters 
\nHere it is,\nThe iron box, locked with a hundred\nRusty chains and leaden hooks,--\nThe box, filled to the rim with\nFevers, typhoid chills, delirium\ntremens, muttering prayers and songs 
\nCherubs, in Turkish pants,\nStood watch at the front gate,\nLike mustachioed teakettles,\nOne fatter, redder than the other 
\nOut of nowhere, from an abyss,\nHissing with rain, broke out a round\nHorseneigh and an eerie,\nKeening, rooster’s call 
\nThe doorman\nCracked open a passage.\nThen again\nThundered the locks, barring the exit.\nWe walked along the corridors that resembled\nDreams.\nCrooked lamps\nSwung over us.\nCrooked shadows\nRan up in tangles and spirals\nAlong the walls, above,\nLeading to the sagging ceiling.\nOn long benches,\nThe gendarmes\nSnored, resting their chins on sabers’ hilts 
\nAnd this labyrinth came together\nAt the oak gates, on which\nHung the square plaque: “Inspector”!!.\nÐink, with azure sideburns,\nThat a slightest wind could\nRouse into flight,\nLike a notebook angel,\nHe fleeted above the scribal desk,\nThe penholder made of shrapnel casing,\nHe smiled, melted with abandon,\nFrom hospitality, kindness, and bliss\nOf meeting with us, Committee members 
\nAnd we stood there,\nShifting weight\nFrom foot to foot,\nLeaving dirty footprints\nOn the exotic horses, parrots,\nEmbroidered on the rug 
\nWe had no time for courtesies.\nEnough 
\nThe keys are handed over--off to the devil!\nAll talk is done.\nGood bye 
\nWe took over the affairs.\nWe sniffed\nout all the nooks.\nIn one room\nIn the corner, piled like potatoes\nBrownings and revolvers in a mound.\nWe counted up our take.\nIn the morning,\nHalf-awake, dizzy from the worknight,\nBesmudged in warehouse dust,\nWe fetched a prisoner’s kettle,\nBeaten up and rusty, and drank\nWith burned and smacking lips,\nOur first tea of Liberty 
\nBlue rains washed the earth,\nAnd in the night there was already starting\nThe clandestine and manly blooming\nOf chestnut trees.\nThe land was drying 
\nThe coast was blowing\nIts heated salt 
\nIn the bandshell\nLost amid the planetrees’--\nMarseillaise, held aloft by bows,\nDispersed among the leaves and streetlamps.\nOur street, washed sparkling-clean\nWith summer showers, flew down to the bay,\nThe planetrees’ formations stood like a fence,\nWondrous and green.\nAbove all that, in the curlicues of foam\nThe battleship “Sinop”\nSwayed ever-so-lightly,\nAnd in the steel-gray cloud\nSlithered the fireworm, its banner.\nAcĂ cias molted.\nInvisible\nFragrance of rotting flowers seeped into the sea,\nAnd the sailors danced away\nWith the buxom wenches from the outskirts\nIn their arms.\nBeyond the fishermen’s fires, on the slopes\nOvergrown with mottled mint,\nUnder broken sloops, by half-demolished\nBathhouses, desperados--\nDeserters in loose insignia--\nPlayed poker, whist, or pinochle,\nAnd in the cave, calflike,\nSnored the moonshiner’s still.\nI remained in the district 
\nI went to work\nAs a deputy commissioner 
\nEarly on\nI whiled my nights away in dank armories,\nObserving the passing world, the passerbys,\nStrange to me, like manifestations of foreign nature.\nFrom slanted lampposts, from the thick smoke,\nEmerged the freaks not ever seen before 
\nI practiced omnipresence 
\nIn a cart\nAlong the country lanes I chased\nHorsethieves.\nLate at night\nI would take a cutter\nInto the bay, black like a horn,\nAmid the crags and dunes.\nI broke into thieves’ lairs\nThat stunk of overfried fish.\nI would appear, like the Angel of Death,\nWith a flashlight and a pistol, surrounded\nBy four sailors from the battleship 
\n(They were young. Still pink with happiness.\nJust underslept a bit, a mere hour.\nCaps--sideways, peacoats--open.\nCarbines on the arm. And eyes--against the wind.)\nMy Judean pride sang,\nLike a string stretched to its limit 
\nI would pay a lot, so my ancestor\nIn a long robe and a foxfur hat,\nFrom under which gray\nSidelocks spiral down and a flurry of dead skin\nAscends over his square beard 
\nI would pay a lot\nSo this ancestor could discern an heir\nIn this towering hulk\nThat rules over the headlights, the bayonets,\nThe engine that scuttles the midnight hour 
\nI shuddered.\nA ringing phone\nScreeches by the ear 
\n“The comissar? ’Tis he. What do you want?”\nThe voice, hidden in the tube,\nTold me that in the Richelieu street,\nIn the teahouse of the general’s widow Clemenz,\nWill gather Simon Rabinovich,\nPete the Flounder and Monya the Dimondcutter,\nThe scourge of railroads,\nCinematographic heroes,--\nBandits with suitcases, containing\nDiamond drills and saws,\nA soporific opium fag for an unsuspecting neighbor 
\nThey flew along the pullman roofs\nIn storm-blown cloaks,\nRevolvers hidden in tuxedo sleeves,\nA 100 rouble wench in tow,\nTonight at the teahouse--They’d be done with.\nBasta!\nAt the barracks the battleship boys\nDrank tea, amid the game of checkers.\nTheir striped shirts\nWrinkled along their musculature 
\nTheir faces were pink with the pinkness of a child,\nLargehanded, with blue eyes,\nThey moved the pawns\nWith exaltation between the squares,\nBlinked, moved their lips,\nThoughtfully, without a grin\nHummed, stomped their heels 
\nWe boarded the cart,\nHolding onto each other’s showlders,\nAnd the angular nag\nDragged us off into the warm darkness 
\nIt took a revolver’s barrel\nThrust into the cracked gate\nTo rouse the concierge,\nWho, yawning and holding up his pants,\nDid finally let us in.\nIn silence\nUp we went\nAlong the crimson carpet\nThat lined the staircase.\nAlone\nI approach the door.\nThe lads, holding the carbines\nTightly between their knees,\nWere flat against the wall.\nAll--like in a decent house 
\nA lamp topped with a deep-blue shade\nOver the family table.\nGardines,\nChairs plushly upholstered.\nAn upright piano,\nA bookcase, on it--Tolstoy, a plaster bust.\nKindness and comfort\nIn the warm air.\nSteam\nOver the samovar.\nThe cozy of woven wool\nis on the kettle, perfect order 
,\nWe enter like a storm, like breath\nOf blackened streets, our boots unwiped,\nNot taking off the peacoats.\nA madam, bewigged and\nwhite with powder,\nRings on nervous fingers,\nRolled forth to greet us,\nBowing, wringing her hands.\nFat, with drooping cheeks 
\n“Antonina Clemenz!\nAre you her?--A warrant”,--\nI said, flinging open the doors.\nA conversation was taking place\nAround the table.\nThree gentlemen\nIn land-hussar uniforms,\nDamsels, laughing politely.\nSweets and pastries--on the table.\nI stood in awe 
\nDamn it! Must be a wrong address!\nThis is no teahouse!\nSome friends, together for tea.\nWho am I to interfere? 
\nI should be sitting in this comfort,\nTalking of Gumilev,\nInstead of beating about the night, like a detective,\nBreaking up quiet families\nIn search of some unknown bandits 
\nOne of my sailors\nApproached the table,\nAnd blurted in gloomy bass:\n“I know these three.\nHands up!\nTake ’em, boys!”\nWhere is the fourth? Ladies, aside!.\nAll hell\nBroke loose.\nFrom the luxurious landhussars we took\nRevolvers in the holsters.\nOf course, they were\nThe ones that we were after 
\nWe locked them in the pantry.\nLocked up--\nAnd left a sailor on watch.\nWe pushed open the doors.\nWe entered\nThe rooms filled with rabble 
\nThe air was stained with choking powder,\nHuman seed and sweet\nLiqueurous stupor.\nThrough the mass\nOf this blue fog\nThe barely visible\nStreetlamps’ puddled reflection\nWas limply breaking through 
\nIn beds, narrow bodies\nMoved like fish under the blankets 
\nA man’s head rises\nOut of the circular foam of pillows 
\nWe check the paperwork,\nWe close the door, apologize,\nWe go further.\nAgain sweet\nTidal wave of fragrance.\nAgain\nHeads rise from pillows\nAnd dive again into the silken spray 
\nThe third room. We’re met by\nA lad in blue longjohns.\nHe stands, with firmly planted feet,\nHis torso rocking slowly\nAnd swinging, like a glove,\nA Browning 
 He winks at us:\n“Îh! The whole fleet is here! This cannon\nCouldn’t take you all. So I surrender 
”\nBehind him, a blanket thrown aside,\nBarelegged, a nightgown\nSliding from the shoulder, in her teeth a fag,\nHalfawake, silently sat\nShe, the one, my torment,\nA nightingale’s glance and flight\nOf shoes on slippery asphalt 
\n“Go back!--I told the sailors 
--\nThe search is done! Take the lad away!\nI’ll stay with her!”\nThe awkward gunstocks\nClinked, my boys\nSqueezed into the doors.\nI remained.\nIn stuffy twilight, in hot dozing\nThe girl was seated on the bed 
\n“-Recognize me?”--she didn’t say a word,\nHer weightless hands over\nHer ashen face.\n“Now, do you recognize me?”\nSilence.\nThen in ire I blurt:\n“What price a session?”\nAnd softly,\nBarely having moved her lips, she said:\n“Take pity! Money isn’t needed 
”\nI threw the wad at her.\nAnd forth I went,\nNot taking off my boots, not taking of the holster,\nNot unbuttoning my tunic,\nStraight into the down eddy, on the blanket,\nUnder which shook and panted\nAll my predecessors,--into that dark,\nIllegible torrent of phantoms,\nShrieks, unbound motions,\nDarkness and unstoppable light 
\nI am taking you, for the reticence\nOf my age, for my timidity,\nThe shame of my ancestral vagrants,\nThe chirping of a random bird!\nI am taking you, as my retribution to the world\nThat I could not shake off!\nTake me into your vacant innards,\nThat couldn’t grow grass,-\nMaybe, my nocturnal seed\nWill fertilize your desert.\nThere will be showers, a southern wind,\nAnd calls of swans in love.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "translator": "Roman Turovsky-Savchuk", - "language": "English", + "translators": [ + "Roman Turovsky-Savchuk" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -8202,11 +8595,13 @@ "title": "“The Origin”", "body": "I cannot remember--at just which nightstop\nthe itch of future life has crawled through me.\nThe world did shudder.\nA star tripped on its run,\nand fell into a blue-enameled basin.\nI reached for it 
 But, it has washed away,\nbetween my fingers--a red-scaled ide.\nThe rusty Jews above my crib\nHave crossed the slanted blades of their beards.\nAnd then all turned inside-out.\nAll turned the way it shouldn’t be.\nThe burbot knocked at my pane;\nThe stallion chirped; the hawk\nwas falling into my palms;\nThe tree was dancing.\nAnd my infancy was passing,\nDesiccated with leavening,\nAnd cheated with the candle.\nSquizeed point-blank between the stone tablets--\nUnopenable gates.\nJewish peacocks on the unholstery,\nJewish cream on the verge of souring,\nMy father’s cane, and my mother’s cap--\nthey all were muttering at me:\n--You scoundrel! Scoundrel!--\nAnd only at nighttime, only on my pillow\nMy world was not dissected by the beard.\nAnd slowly, like coins of copper,\nthe water fell into the kitchen sink.\nIt congealed. It shrouded me.\nHoned its streaming blade 
\n--Just how, tell me, would my Jewish unbelief\ntrust in this fliud world?\nI was taught: The roof is just that.\nThe stool is crude. The floor is killed by soles.\nYou must see, perceive, and hear.\nLean your elbows onto the table of this world.\nBut carpenter-beetle’s hourly precision\nalready gnaws on buttresses of being.\n--Just how, tell me, would my Jewish unbelief\nhave any trust in the durability of all this?\nLove?\nBraids eaten away by lice.\nSlanted protrusion of the collar-bone.\nPimples, herring-smeared mouth,\nNeck’s horselike turn.\nParents?\nBut, aging in twilight, the rusty Jews,\nhunchbacked, knotty, wild,\nfling at me their bristle-covered fists.\nThe door! Fling open!\nThe foliage rocks outside,\nHalf-gnawed by stars!\nThe moon’s asmoke in a puddle!\nThe blackbird shrieks, not knowing his kin.\nAnd all my love running toward me\nand all the keening of my forebears\nand all the heavenly bodies\nthat arrange the evening,\nand all the trees\nthat tear at my face\nbarricaded the tha passageway\nof my ill wheezing lungs:\n--You outcast!\nTake your lowly belongings,\nyour damnation, your contempt!\nLeave!--\nAnd so I leave the old bed:\n--Leave?\nSo leave I shall!\nBetter still!\nI spit in spite!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1930 }, - "translator": "Roman Turovsky-Savchuk", - "language": "English", + "translators": [ + "Roman Turovsky-Savchuk" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8214,11 +8609,13 @@ "title": "“Silence and dreams, and a languid boredom 
”", "body": "Silence and dreams, and a languid boredom\nHave left me sweetly enervated,\nI’m fond of the roosters on white dishtowels\nAnd of ancient soot on austere icons.\n\nDay after day goes by to the hot rustle of flies,\nEach day replete with the most pious humility,\nA quail murmurs beneath the low ceiling,\nAnd on festive days there’s the aroma of raspberry jam.\n\nAnd at night you languish in soft goose-down feathers,\nThe stifling icon lamp blinks agonizingly,\nAnd the embroidered rooster on the dishtowel\nStretches out his neck and crows at length.\n\nAnd so, O Lord, you’ve given me a modest hideaway,\nBeneath a soothing roof that knows not agitation,\nWhere the heavy days, as jam from a spoon,\nIn thick droplets go dripping, dripping, dripping.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "translator": "U. R. Bowie", - "language": "English", + "translators": [ + "U. R. Bowie" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8226,11 +8623,13 @@ "title": "“TVS”", "body": "Dust fills the nostrils--the horses neigh.\nAcacias molt over the firewood stacks.\nIn the wind the red hemp is asway.\nThe sun stands in the middle of the backyard,\nThe lunch-break arrives, having gnawed\nits way through the growling soot of the day.\n\nI’m home, til dusk. All is quiet.\nThe sun’s aboil in every flint.\nBut bluntly, from the deep, from the heart\nThe Caugh’s foreboding is coming to me.\n\nThe world is prickly and naked again:\nStones--angles, and houses--are angles;\nThe grass is so green that its aftertaste is caustic.\nThe roads are white to the point of screeching.\nImprobably prodding each other along\nSprouts and Celcius shoot for the sun.\n\nThis means that the mucus in the larynx has dried,\nThat the air is well-fried and it’s sinking down,\nAnd in a low rumble from beneath,\nAlong the vines, rises the tubercular mould.\n\nThe earth is getting hoarse from the heat.\nThe thermometer explodes. And onto me\nThunderously collapse other worlds\nIn cascades of mercurial flames.\nThey burn me, they seep into my lips.\nAnd the road too flows like mercury.\nIn the evening I’m off to the reporter’s club,\nFor a lecture and a movie,\nA get-together of the reporter’s workshop.\nAt home it’s all drowsy and dusky:\nSuch is the milk’s modest testament.\n\nThe same old emasculated view in the windows,\nThe same feline and infantile world\nThat crawls through the veins and chokes them,\nIt is dear to me to the point of disgust,\nIts soot fills the nostrils, the mouth,\nLarinx and lungs--all are full,\nIt calls to attention with a\nFrying pans’ hissing voice, to remind:\n“Sleep more, while the world is still orderly. Sleep, sonny-boy.”\n\nThe hand grows heavy and cold,\nThe sinew beats in the temple.\n\nThis means the following: the lungs\nSuck the air drop by drop, in tandem;\nThis means the following: the fabric rusts;\nThis means the following: chills, stifling heat.\n\nThe sinew beats in the temple.\nContracts behind the eyelids\nAs if it were a finger, sharply pointed,\nKnocking ever so slightly at the door.\nI must rise to unlock it!\n\nEnter!--And so he does:\nSharply angular face,\nGoatee sharply angled.\nHe steps off the wall, out of the mass\nOf inflamed banners, or does he?\nGoatee forward, the eye squinting\nCaustically from under the visor.\nI say--“are you here for me,\nFelix? I am unwell.”\n\nThe sun descends along the wall\nTo give supper to the gutter cats.\nThe sunset is suffused with boiled fruit.\nThe famous silence covers all.\nAnd over the wooden out-house\nThe Moon comes out in its full uncouthness.\n\nHe says--“Just came for a chat.”\nAnd sits down on the side of my bed.\n\nHe seems to continue an old argument,\nSays: “The yard under the windows\nIs full of prickly cats and dead grass,\nCan’t tell which century is on.\nBut the century lies in wait on the pavement,\nSharp-focused like a sentry.\nGo,--and fear not to stand near him.\nYours and century’s solitudes are the same.\nLook around--enemy everywhere.\nOffer your hand--no friend in sight;\nIf the century says ‘Lie!’, then you lie.\nIf the century says ‘Kill!’, then you kill.\nI have also felt the heavy load\nOf the hand on my shoulder, and the coarseness\nOf soldierly-cut wisker on my cheek.\nThe table was open wide, just like the country,\nThe tablecloth was smeared in blood, in ink,\nIn the rust of pen-nibs, strewn with papershards--\nAll this stood guard over friend and enemy.\nSo when the enemy came--he would sit in the same chair,\nSit and then collapse into oblivion.\nThe dirt sucked out his gentle bones,\nAnd moats closed over them.\nThe signature on the warrant slithered\nlike blood streaming from a bullet-hole in the temple.\nRevolution, Mother! It is no small weight--\nthe three-sided sincerity of the bayonet;\nIt rears out of bloody dregs,\nthe aged workings of the soil.\nSteam-roll it. Hit it with a song.\nEgg it on with a shovel, prick with a hoe!\nIt rears over your head--\ntake it up on a pitchfork and tip it over.\nLet your fate be esteemed;\nDie--in victory, the way I died.”\nSilence. The sinew in the temple\nIs calmer and beats more cautiously.\nThis means that the sweat is slowly\nAnd coldly seeps from the pores.\nThe wind is in my face, thick like water out of a bucket,\nLike the messenger of Victory, like snow, like chill.\nThe leicocyte of the Moon hangs over the round backyard.\nThe stars are round, and so are the bushes.\nEntire nine hours are poured off into the barrel by the window.\nI exit. The bolt shuffles behind my back\nAnd locks. Silence again.\nThe Earth floats out of the darkness,\nIt has the texture of a raw plank\nReady for the saw’s light dance and\nThe hammer’s heavy gait.\nAnd I exit (the darkness around me)\nTo the reporter’s club, for a lecture and a movie,\nA get together of the reporter’s workshop.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "translator": "Roman Turovsky-Savchuk", - "language": "English", + "translators": [ + "Roman Turovsky-Savchuk" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -8335,11 +8734,13 @@ "title": "“Death”", "body": "Departed brother, who has disturbed your sleep\nAnd trampled on the sanctity of the tomb?\nInto your house, all dug up, I stepped down--\nI took your skull in my hands, dusty and yellow.\n\nThe remnants of your hair--it wore them still.\nI saw the slow course of decay upon it.\nHorrible sight! How powerfully it struck\nThe sensible inheritor of that ruin.\n\nAlong with me a crowd of mindless youths\nAbove the open pit laughed mindlessly.\nIf only then, if only in my hands\nYour head had burst forth into prophecy!\n\nIf only it had taught us--rash, in bloom,\nAnd menaced hourly by the hour of death--\nThe truths that lie within the ken of tombs,\nUttering them in its impassive voice!\n\nWhat am I saying? A hundred times is blessed\nThat law which has embalmed its lips in silence.\nAnd righteous is that custom which demands\nRespect for the solemn sleep of the departed.\n\nLet the living live! Let the dead decay in peace!\nO man, worthless creation of the Almighty,\nRecognize finally that you were made\nNeither for wisdom nor for omniscience!\n\nWe need our passions as we need our dreams.\nThey are the law and nourishment of our being:\nYou will not bring under the selfsame laws\nThe noise of the world and the silence of the graveyard.\n\nWise men will not extinguish natural feelings.\nThe answer they search for no grave shall supply.\nLet life bestow its joys upon the living--\nAnd death itself will teach them how to die.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1824 }, - "translator": "Ilya Bernstein", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ilya Bernstein" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8347,11 +8748,13 @@ "title": "“Kiss”", "body": "That kiss you gave me, soft and light,\nPursues me in my fancy still.\nThrough noisy day, through quiet night\nI feel your touch, I feel its thrill!\n\nI fall asleep, my eyes I close\nAnd dream of you, and dream of bliss.\nDeceptive joy!--the sweet dream goes.\nTo leave but love and weariness.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "translator": "Dorian Rottenberg", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dorian Rottenberg" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8359,11 +8762,13 @@ "title": "“Of what use are you, days? 
”", "body": "Of what use are you, days? There can be nothing\n New for the mind to greet;\nThe world is full of things and all familiar,\n And time can but repeat.\n\nNot vainly did you strive in your impatience,\n O frantic soul, to gain\nYour full development before the body,\n Which cannot slip its chain.\n\nSince you have long since locked the sorry circle\n Of sights beneath the moon,\nYou drowse, fanned by recurrent dreams; the body,\n Accorded no such boon,\n\nMust stupidly watch dawn arrive, relieving\n The night for naught, and mark\nA barren dusk, crown of a day that’s empty,\n Drop down into the dark.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1840 }, - "translator": "Babette Deutsch", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -8517,8 +8922,10 @@ "title": "“The Night”", "body": "
 The architect of the world ordered that in turn\nDay followed night, night followed day.\nThe night can temper the drought from the day,\nHumidifies our sky and encroaches our guerets;\nNight is the one that with its dark wings\nOn the mute world made with only shadows\nTaste the silence, and sink into the bones\nAnimal recreus a slumbering rest.\nO sweet Night, without toy, without toy the human life\nWould only be a hell, where sorrow, envy,\nPain, greed and a hundred ways of death\nEndlessly torment both our walls and our bodies.\nO Night, you go omitting the mask and the nonsense\nOf which on the human theater in vain we disguise ourselves,\nWhile the day shines: O Night alm, by you\nThe herdsman and the king are made equal at all,\nThe poor and the opulent, the Greek and the Barbarian,\nThe judge and the accused, the learned and the ignorant,\nThe master and the valet, the deformed and the beautiful:\nBecause, Night, you cover everything with your dark coat 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Josuah Sylvester", "language": "Gascon", + "translators": [ + "Josuah Sylvester" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -8572,8 +8979,10 @@ "title": "“At a hermitage 
”", "body": "At a hermitage:\n A cool fall night;\ngetting dinner, we peeled\n eggplants, cucumbers.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Hass", "language": "Japanese", + "translators": [ + "Robert Hass" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -8584,8 +8993,10 @@ "title": "“Awake at night 
”", "body": "awake at night--\nthe sound of a water jar\n cracking in the cold", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Hass", "language": "Japanese", + "translators": [ + "Robert Hass" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -8607,8 +9018,11 @@ "title": "“Four Haiku”", "body": "spring:\na hill without a name\nveiled in morning mist\n\nthe beginning of autumn:\nsea and emerald paddy\nboth the same green\n\nthe winds of autumn\nblow: yet still green\nthe chestnut husks\n\na flash of lightning:\ninto the gloom\ngoes the heron’s cry.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Geoffrey Bownas & Anthony Thwaite", "language": "Japanese", + "translators": [ + "Geoffrey Bownas", + "Anthony Thwaite" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -8619,8 +9033,10 @@ "title": "“Snowy morning 
”", "body": "snowy morning--\nby myself,\n chewing on dried salmon.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Hass", "language": "Japanese", + "translators": [ + "Robert Hass" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -8631,8 +9047,10 @@ "title": "“The temple bell stops 
”", "body": "The temple bell stops--\nbut the sound keeps coming\nout of the flowers.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Japanese", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -8698,11 +9116,13 @@ "title": "“Albatross”", "body": "Often, to amuse themselves, sailors\nsnare that great seabird, the albatross,\nthat flies with these indolent companions as their ship\nglides over the depths of boredom and despair.\n\nOnce they have set their captive on the deck,\nthe king of the sky, awkward and in shame,\npiteously drags along his great white wings,\nlike idle oars bouncing useless on the foam.\n\nThe winged voyager looks foolish now and weak--\nyesterday he was beautiful; today, ugly and ridiculous.\nOne tries to force a burning pipe into his beak.\nAnother mimes the limp of one that used to fly.\n\nThe Poet resembles this prince from the clouds:\nEach hangs in the tempest and laughs at the archer,\nand finds his exile in a circle of hooting humans\nwhere his wide wings are impediments.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Eli Siegel", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1859 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Eli Siegel" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8710,11 +9130,13 @@ "title": "“All of Her”", "body": "The Devil into my high room\nThis morning came to pay a call,\nAnd trying to find me in fault\nSaid: “I should like to know,\n\nAmong all the beautiful things\nWhich make her an enchantress,\nAmong the objects black or rose\nThat compose her charming body,\n\nWhich is the sweetest.”--O my soul!\nYou answered the loathsome Creature:\n“Since in Her all is dittany,\nNo single thing can be preferred.\n\nWhen all delights me, I don’t know\nIf some one thing entrances me.\nShe dazzles like the Dawn\nAnd consoles like the Night;\n\nAnd the harmony that governs\nHer whole body is too lovely\nFor impotent analysis\nTo note its numerous accords.\n\nO mystic metamorphosis\nOf all my senses joined in one!\nHer breath makes music,\nAnd her voice makes perfume!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8722,11 +9144,13 @@ "title": "“The Bad Monk”", "body": "Cloisters in former times portrayed on their high walls\nThe truths of Holy Writ with fitting pictures\nWhich gladdened pious hearts and lessened the coldness,\nThe austere appearance, of those monasteries.\n\nIn those days the sowing of Christ’s Gospel flourished,\nAnd more than one famed monk, seldom quoted today,\nTaking his inspiration from the graveyard,\nGlorified Death with naive simplicity.\n\n--My soul is a tomb where, bad cenobite,\nI wander and dwell eternally;\nNothing adorns the walls of that loathsome cloister.\n\nO lazy monk! When shall I learn to make\nOf the living spectacle of my bleak misery\nThe labor of my hands and the love of my eyes?", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8734,11 +9158,13 @@ "title": "“Be Drunk”", "body": "You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it--it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.\n\nBut on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.\n\nAnd if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking 
 ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: “It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Louis Simpson", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Louis Simpson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8746,11 +9172,13 @@ "title": "“Beatrice”", "body": "One day as I was making complaint to nature\nIn a burnt, ash-gray land without vegetation,\nAnd as I wandered aimlessly, slowly whetting\nUpon my heart the dagger of my thought,\nI saw in broad daylight descending on my head\nA leaden cloud, pregnant with a tempest,\nThat carried a herd of vicious demons\nWho resembled curious, cruel dwarfs.\nThey began to look at me coldly,\nAnd I heard them laugh and whisper to each other,\nExchanging many a sign and many a wink\nLike passers-by who discuss a fool they admire:\n\n--“Let us look leisurely at this caricature,\nThis shade of Hamlet who imitates his posture\nWith indecisive look, hair streaming in the wind.\nIs it not a pity to see this bon vivant,\nThis tramp, this queer fish, this actor without a job,\nBecause he knows how to play skillfully his role,\nWish to interest in the song of his woes\nThe eagles, the crickets, the brooks, and the flowers,\nAnd even to us, authors of that hackneyed drivel,\nBellow the recital of his public tirades?”\n\nI could have (my pride as high as mountains\nDominates the clouds and the cries of the demons)\nSimply turned away my sovereign head\nIf I had not seen in that obscene troop\nA crime which did not make the sun reel in its course!\nThe queen of my heart with the peerless gaze\nLaughing with them at my somber distress\nAnd giving them at times a lewd caress.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8758,11 +9186,13 @@ "title": "“BĂ©nĂ©diction”", "body": "When, after a decree of the supreme powers,\nThe Poet is brought forth in this wearisome world,\nHis mother terrified and full of blasphemies\nRaises her clenched fist to God, who pities her:\n\n--“Ah! would that I had spawned a whole knot of vipers\nRather than to have fed this derisive object!\nAccursed be the night of ephemeral joy\nWhen my belly conceived this, my expiation!\n\nSince of all women You have chosen me\nTo be repugnant to my sorry spouse,\nAnd since I cannot cast this misshapen monster\nInto the flames, like an old love letter,\n\nI shall spew the hatred with which you crush me down\nOn the cursed instrument of your malevolence,\nAnd twist so hard this wretched tree\nThat it cannot put forth its pestilential buds!”\n\nThus she gulps down the froth of her hatred,\nAnd not understanding the eternal designs,\nHerself prepares deep down in Gehenna\nThe pyre reserved for a mother’s crimes.\n\nHowever, protected by an unseen Angel,\nThe outcast child is enrapt by the sun,\nAnd in all that he eats, in everything he drinks,\nHe finds sweet ambrosia and rubiate nectar.\n\nHe cavorts with the wind, converses with the clouds,\nAnd singing, transported, goes the way of the cross;\nAnd the Angel who follows him on pilgrimage\nWeeps to see him as carefree as a bird.\n\nAll those whom he would love watch him with fear,\nOr, emboldened by his tranquility,\nEmulously attempt to wring a groan from him\nAnd test on him their inhumanity.\n\nWith the bread and the wine intended for his mouth\nThey mix ashes and foul spittle,\nAnd, hypocrites, cast away what he touches\nAnd feel guilty if they have trod in his footprints.\n\nHis wife goes about the market-places\nCrying: “Since he finds me fair enough to adore,\nI shall imitate the idols of old,\nAnd like them I want to be regilded;\n\nI shall get drunk with spikenard, incense, myrrh,\nAnd with genuflections, viands and wine,\nTo see if laughingly I can usurp\nIn an admiring heart the homage due to God!\n\nAnd when I tire of these impious jokes,\nI shall lay upon him my strong, my dainty hand;\nAnd my nails, like harpies’ talons,\nWill cut a path straight to his heart.\n\nThat heart which flutters like a fledgling bird\nI’ll tear, all bloody, from his breast,\nAnd scornfully I’ll throw it in the dust\nTo sate the hunger of my favorite hound!”\n\nTo Heav’n, where his eye sees a radiant throne,\nPiously, the Poet, serene, raises his arms,\nAnd the dazzling brightness of his illumined mind\nHides from his sight the raging mob:\n\n--“Praise be to You, O God, who send us suffering\nAs a divine remedy for our impurities\nAnd as the best and the purest essence\nTo prepare the strong for holy ecstasies!\n\nI know that you reserve a place for the Poet\nWithin the blessed ranks of the holy Legions,\nAnd that you invite him to the eternal feast\nOf the Thrones, the Virtues, and the Dominations.\n\nI know that suffering is the sole nobility\nWhich earth and hell shall never mar,\nAnd that to weave my mystic crown,\nYou must tax every age and every universe.\n\nBut the lost jewels of ancient Palmyra,\nThe unfound metals, the pearls of the sea,\nSet by Your own hand, would not be adequate\nFor that diadem of dazzling splendor,\n\nFor that crown will be made of nothing but pure light\nDrawn from the holy source of primal rays,\nWhereof our mortal eyes, in their fullest brightness,\nAre no more than tarnished, mournful mirrors!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8770,11 +9200,13 @@ "title": "“Beyond Redemption”", "body": "# I.\n\nAn Idea, a Form, a Being\nWhich left the azure sky and fell\nInto a leaden, miry Styx\nThat no eye in Heaven can pierce;\n\nAn Angel, imprudent voyager\nTempted by love of the deformed,\nIn the depths of a vast nightmare\nFlailing his arms like a swimmer,\n\nAnd struggling, mortal agony!\nAgainst a gigantic whirlpool\nThat sings constantly like madmen\nAnd pirouettes in the darkness;\n\nAn unfortunate, enchanted,\nOutstretched hands groping futilely,\nLooking for the light and the key,\nTo flee a place filled with reptiles;\n\nA damned soul descending endless stairs\nWithout banisters, without light,\nOn the edge of a gulf of which\nThe odor reveals the humid depth,\n\nWhere slimy monsters are watching,\nWhose eyes, wide and phosphorescent,\nMake the darkness darker still\nAnd make visible naught but themselves;\n\nA ship caught in the polar sea\nAs though in a snare of crystal,\nSeeking the fatal strait through which\nIt came into that prison;\n\n--Patent symbols, perfect picture\nOf an irremediable fate\nWhich makes one think that the Devil\nAlways does well whatever he does!\n\n\n# II.\n\nSomber and limpid tĂȘte-Ă -tĂȘte--\nA heart become its own mirror!\nWell of Truth, clear and black,\nWhere a pale star flickers,\n\nA hellish, ironic beacon,\nTorch of satanical blessings,\nSole glory and only solace\n--The consciousness of doing evil.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8782,11 +9214,13 @@ "title": "“A Carcass”", "body": "My love, do you recall the object which we saw,\nThat fair, sweet, summer morn!\nAt a turn in the path a foul carcass\nOn a gravel strewn bed,\n\nIts legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,\nBurning and dripping with poisons,\nDisplayed in a shameless, nonchalant way\nIts belly, swollen with gases.\n\nThe sun shone down upon that putrescence,\nAs if to roast it to a turn,\nAnd to give back a hundredfold to great Nature\nThe elements she had combined;\n\nAnd the sky was watching that superb cadaver\nBlossom like a flower.\nSo frightful was the stench that you believed\nYou’d faint away upon the grass.\n\nThe blow-flies were buzzing round that putrid belly,\nFrom which came forth black battalions\nOf maggots, which oozed out like a heavy liquid\nAll along those living tatters.\n\nAll this was descending and rising like a wave,\nOr poured out with a crackling sound;\nOne would have said the body, swollen with a vague breath,\nLived by multiplication.\n\nAnd this world gave forth singular music,\nLike running water or the wind,\nOr the grain that winnowers with a rhythmic motion\nShake in their winnowing baskets.\n\nThe forms disappeared and were no more than a dream,\nA sketch that slowly falls\nUpon the forgotten canvas, that the artist\nCompletes from memory alone.\n\nCrouched behind the boulders, an anxious dog\nWatched us with angry eye,\nWaiting for the moment to take back from the carcass\nThe morsel he had left.\n\n--And yet you will be like this corruption,\nLike this horrible infection,\nStar of my eyes, sunlight of my being,\nYou, my angel and my passion!\n\nYes! thus will you be, queen of the Graces,\nAfter the last sacraments,\nWhen you go beneath grass and luxuriant flowers,\nTo molder among the bones of the dead.\n\nThen, O my beauty! say to the worms who will\nDevour you with kisses,\nThat I have kept the form and the divine essence\nOf my decomposed love!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8794,11 +9228,13 @@ "title": "“Confession”", "body": "One time, once only, sweet, amiable woman,\nOn my arm your smooth arm\nRested (on the tenebrous background of my soul\nThat memory is not faded);\n\nIt was late; like a newly struck medal\nThe full moon spread its rays,\nAnd the solemnity of the night streamed\nLike a river over sleeping Paris.\n\nAnd along the houses, under the porte-cocheres,\nCats passed by furtively,\nWith ears pricked up, or else, like beloved shades,\nSlowly escorted us.\n\nSuddenly, in the midst of that frank intimacy\nBorn in the pale moonlight,\nFrom you, sonorous, rich instrument which vibrates\nOnly with radiant gaiety,\n\nFrom you, clear and joyful as a fanfare\nIn the glistening morning light,\nA plaintive note, a bizarre note\nEscaped, faltering\n\nLike a puny, filthy, sullen, horrible child,\nWho would make his family blush,\nAnd whom they have hidden for a long time\nIn a secret cellar.\n\nPoor angel, it sang, your discordant note:\n“That naught is certain here below,\nThat always, though it paint its face with utmost care\nMan’s selfishness reveals itself,\n\nThat it’s a hard calling to be a lovely woman,\nAnd that it is the banal task\nOf the cold and silly danseuse who faints away\nWith a mechanical smile,\n\nThat to build on hearts is a foolish thing,\nThat all things break, love, and beauty,\nTill Oblivion tosses them into his dosser\nTo give them back to Eternity!”\n\nI’ve often evoked that enchanted moon,\nThe silence and the languidness,\nAnd that horrible confidence whispered\nIn the heart’s confessional.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8806,11 +9242,13 @@ "title": "“Conversation”", "body": "You are a lovely autumn sky, clear and rosy!\nBut sadness rises in me like the sea,\nAnd as it ebbs, leaves on my sullen lips\nThe burning memory of its bitter slime.\n\n--In vain does your hand slip over my swooning breast;\nWhat it seeks, darling, is a place plundered\nBy the claws and the ferocious teeth of woman.\nSeek my heart no longer; the beasts have eaten it.\n\nMy heart is a palace polluted by the mob;\nThey get drunk there, kill, tear each other’s hair!\n--A perfume floats about your naked breast! 
\n\nO Beauty, ruthless scourge of souls, you desire it!\nWith the fire of your eyes, brilliant as festivals,\nBum these tatters which the beasts spared!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -8821,11 +9259,13 @@ "title": "“The Dancing Serpent”", "body": "Indolent darling, how I love\nTo see the skin\nOf your body so beautiful\nShimmer like silk!\n\nUpon your heavy head of hair\nWith its acrid scents,\nAdventurous, odorant sea\nWith blue and brown waves,\n\nLike a vessel that awakens\nTo the morning wind,\nMy dreamy soul sets sail\nFor a distant sky.\n\nYour eyes where nothing is revealed\nOf bitter or sweet,\nAre two cold jewels where are mingled\nIron and gold.\n\nTo see you walking in cadence\nWith fine abandon,\nOne would say a snake which dances\nOn the end of a staff.\n\nUnder the weight of indolence\nYour child-like head sways\nGently to and fro like the head\nOf a young elephant,\n\nAnd your body stretches and leans\nLike a slender ship\nThat rolls from side to side and dips\nIts yards in the sea.\n\nLike a stream swollen by the thaw\nOf rumbling glaciers,\nWhen the water of your mouth rises\nTo the edge of your teeth,\n\nIt seems I drink Bohemian wine,\nBitter and conquering,\nA liquid sky that scatters\nStars in my heart!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8833,11 +9273,13 @@ "title": "“Dawn”", "body": "They were sounding reveille in the barracks’ yards,\nAnd the morning wind was blowing on the lanterns.\n\nIt was the hour when swarms of harmful dreams\nMake the sun-tanned adolescents toss in their beds;\nWhen, like a bloody eye that twitches and rolls,\nThe lamp makes a red splash against the light of day;\nWhen the soul within the heavy, fretful body\nImitates the struggle of the lamp and the sun.\nLike a tear-stained face being dried by the breeze,\nThe air is full of the shudders of things that flee,\nAnd man is tired of writing and woman of making love.\n\nHere and there the houses were beginning to smoke.\nThe ladies of pleasure, with eyelids yellow-green\nAnd mouths open, were sleeping their stupefied sleep;\nThe beggar-women, their breasts hanging thin and cold,\nWere blowing on their fires, blowing on their fingers.\nIt was the hour when amid poverty and cold\nThe pains of women in labor grow more cruel;\nThe cock’s crow in the distance tore the foggy air\nLike a sob stifled by a bloody froth;\n\nThe buildings were enveloped in a sea of mist,\nAnd in the charity-wards, the dying\nHiccupped their death-sobs at uneven intervals.\nThe rakes were going home, exhausted by their work.\n\nThe dawn, shivering in her green and rose garment,\nWas moving slowly along the deserted Seine,\nAnd somber Paris, the industrious old man,\nWas rubbing his eyes and gathering up his tools.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -8848,11 +9290,13 @@ "title": "“Dawn of the Spirit”", "body": "When with revelers the white crimson dawn\nComes to join the persistent Ideal,\nThrough the operation of an avenging mystery\nAn angel is awakened in the sated brute.\n\nThe inaccessible blue of Spiritual Skies,\nFor the crushed man who still dreams and suffers,\nOpens and sinks down with the attraction of the abyss.\nThus, dear Goddess, lucid pure Being,\n\nOver the smoky wrecks of stupid orgies\nYour memory more clear, roseate, and charming,\nCeaselessly hovers before my wide-opened eyes.\n\nThe sun has darkened the flame of the candles;\nThus, always conquering, your phantom is like\nThe immortal sun, O soul of splendor!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Wallace Fowlie", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Wallace Fowlie" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8860,11 +9304,13 @@ "title": "“The Death of the Lovers”", "body": "We shall have beds full of subtle perfumes,\nDivans as deep as graves, and on the shelves\nWill be strange flowers that blossomed for us\nUnder more beautiful heavens.\n\nUsing their dying flames emulously,\nOur two hearts will be two immense torches\nWhich will reflect their double light\nIn our two souls, those twin mirrors.\n\nSome evening made of rose and of mystical blue\nA single flash will pass between us\nLike a long sob, charged with farewells;\n\nAnd later an Angel, setting the doors ajar,\nFaithful and joyous, will come to revive\nThe tarnished mirrors, the extinguished flames.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8872,11 +9318,13 @@ "title": "“The Death of the Poor”", "body": "It’s Death that comforts us, alas! and makes us live;\nIt is the goal of life; it is the only hope\nWhich, like an elixir, makes us inebriate\nAnd gives us the courage to march until evening;\n\nThrough the storm and the snow and the hoar-frost\nIt is the vibrant light on our black horizon;\nIt is the famous inn inscribed upon the book,\nWhere one can eat, and sleep, and take his rest;\n\nIt’s an Angel who holds in his magnetic hands\nSleep and the gift of ecstatic dreams\nAnd who makes the beds for the poor, naked people;\n\nIt’s the glory of the gods, the mystic granary,\nIt is the poor man’s purse, his ancient fatherland,\nIt is the portal opening on unknown Skies!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8884,11 +9332,13 @@ "title": "“Destruction”", "body": "The Demon is always moving about at my side;\nHe floats about me like an impalpable air;\nI swallow him, I feel him burn my lungs\nAnd fill them with an eternal, sinful desire.\n\nSometimes, knowing my deep love for Art, he assumes\nThe form of a most seductive woman,\nAnd, with pretexts specious and hypocritical,\nAccustoms my lips to infamous philtres.\n\nHe leads me thus, far from the sight of God,\nPanting and broken with fatigue, into the midst\nOf the plains of Ennui, endless and deserted,\n\nAnd thrusts before my eyes full of bewilderment,\nDirty filthy garments and open, gaping wounds,\nAnd all the bloody instruments of Destruction!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8896,11 +9346,13 @@ "title": "“Don Juan in Hell”", "body": "When Don Juan descended to the underground sea,\nAnd when he had given his obolus to Charon,\nThat gloomy mendicant, with Antisthenes’ proud look,\nSeized the two oars with strong, revengeful hands.\n\nShowing their pendent breasts and their unfastened gowns\nWomen writhed and twisted under the black heavens,\nAnd like a great flock of sacrificial victims,\nA continuous groan trailed along in the wake.\n\nSganarelle with a laugh was demanding his wage,\nWhile Don Luis with a trembling finger\nWas showing to the dead, wandering along the shores,\nThe impudent son who had mocked his white brow.\n\nShuddering in her grief, Elvira, chaste and thin,\nNear her treacherous spouse who was once her lover,\nSeemed to implore of him a final, parting smile\nThat would shine with the sweetness of his first promises.\n\nErect in his armor, a tall man carved from stone\nWas standing at the helm and cutting the black flood;\nBut the hero unmoved, leaning on his rapier,\nKept gazing at the wake and deigned not look aside.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8908,11 +9360,13 @@ "title": "“The Enemy”", "body": "My youth was a dark storm,\nCrossed here and there by brilliant suns;\nThunder and rain have caused such quick ravage\nThat there remain in my garden very few red fruits.\n\nNow I have touched the autumn of my mind,\nAnd I must use the spade and rakes\nTo assemble again the drenched lands,\nWhere the water digs holes as large as graves.\n\nAnd who knows whether the new flowers I dream of\nWill find in this soil washed like a shore\nThe mystic food which would create their strength?\n\n--О grief! О grief! Time eats away life,\nAnd the dark Enemy who gnaws the heart\nGrows and thrives on the blood we lose.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Wallace Fowlie", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Wallace Fowlie" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8920,11 +9374,13 @@ "title": "“The Flawed Bell”", "body": "It is bitter and sweet on winter nights\nTo listen by the fire that smokes and palpitates,\nTo distant souvenirs that rise up slowly\nAt the sound of the chimes that sing in the fog.\n\nHappy is the bell which in spite of age\nIs vigilant and healthy, and with lusty throat\nFaithfully sounds its religious call,\nLike an old soldier watching from his tent!\n\nI, my soul is flawed, and when, a prey to ennui,\nShe wishes to fill the cold night air with her songs,\nIt often happens that her weakened voice\n\nResembles the death rattle of a wounded man,\nForgotten beneath a heap of dead, by a lake of blood,\nWho dies without moving, striving desperately.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -8935,11 +9391,13 @@ "title": "“Gambling”", "body": "In faded armchairs aged courtesans,\nPale, eyebrows penciled, with alluring fatal eyes,\nSmirking and sending forth from wizened ears\nA jingling sound of metal and of gems;\n\nAround the gaming tables faces without lips,\nLips without color and jaws without teeth,\nFingers convulsed with a hellborn fever\nSearching empty pockets and fluttering bosoms;\n\nUnder dirty ceilings a row of bright lusters\nAnd enormous oil-lamps casting their rays\nOn the tenebrous brows of distinguished poets\nWho come there to squander the blood they have sweated;\n\nThat is the black picture that in a dream one night\nI saw unfold before my penetrating eyes.\nI saw myself at the back of that quiet den,\nLeaning on my elbows, cold, silent, envying,\n\nEnvying the stubborn passion of those people,\nThe dismal merriment of those old prostitutes,\nAll blithely selling right before my eyes,\nOne his ancient honor, another her beauty!\n\nMy heart took fright at its envy of so many\nWretches running fiercely to the yawning chasm,\nWho, drunk with their own blood, would prefer, in a word,\nSuffering to death and hell to nothingness!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8947,11 +9405,13 @@ "title": "“The Giantess”", "body": "At the time when Nature with a lusty spirit\nWas conceiving monstrous children each day,\nI should have liked to live near a young giantess,\nLike a voluptuous cat at the feet of a queen.\n\nI should have liked to see her soul and body thrive\nAnd grow without restraint in her terrible games;\nTo divine by the mist swimming within her eyes\nIf her heart harbored a smoldering flame;\n\nTo explore leisurely her magnificent form;\nTo crawl upon the slopes of her enormous knees,\nAnd sometimes in summer, when the unhealthy sun\n\nMakes her stretch out, weary, across the countryside,\nTo sleep nonchalantly in the shade of her breasts,\nLike a peaceful hamlet below a mountainside.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8959,11 +9419,13 @@ "title": "“Grieving and Wandering”", "body": "Tell me, does your heart sometimes fly away, Agatha,\nFar from the black ocean of the filthy city,\nToward another ocean where splendor glitters,\nBlue, clear, profound, as is virginity?\nTell me, does your heart sometimes fly away, Agatha?\n\nThe sea, the boundless sea, consoles us for our toil!\nWhat demon endowed the sea, that raucous singer,\nWhose accompanist is the roaring wind,\nWith the sublime function of cradle-rocker?\nThe sea, the boundless sea, consoles us for our toil!\n\nTake me away, carriage! Carry me off, frigate!\nFar, far away! Here the mud is made with our tears!\n--Is it true that sometimes the sad heart of Agatha\nSays: Far from crimes, from remorse, from sorrow,\nTake me away, carriage, carry me off, frigate?\n\nHow far away you are, O perfumed Paradise,\nWhere under clear blue sky there’s only love and joy,\nWhere all that one loves is worthy of love,\nWhere the heart is drowned in sheer enjoyment!\nHow far away you are, O perfumed Paradise!\n\nBut the green Paradise of childhood loves\nThe outings, the singing, the kisses, the bouquets,\nThe violins vibrating behind the hills,\nAnd the evenings in the woods, with jugs of wine\n--But the green Paradise of childhood loves,\n\nThat sinless Paradise, full of furtive pleasures,\nIs it farther off now than India and China?\nCan one call it back with plaintive cries,\nAnd animate it still with a silvery voice,\nThat sinless Paradise full of furtive pleasures?", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8971,11 +9433,13 @@ "title": "“I am like the king of a rainy land 
”", "body": "I am like the king of a rainy land,\nWealthy but powerless, both young and very old,\nWho contemns the fawning manners of his tutors\nAnd is bored with his dogs and other animals.\nNothing can cheer him, neither the chase nor falcons,\nNor his people dying before his balcony.\nThe ludicrous ballads of his favorite clown\nNo longer smooth the brow of this cruel invalid;\nHis bed, adorned with fleurs-de-lis, becomes a grave;\nThe lady’s maids, to whom every prince is handsome,\nNo longer can find gowns shameless enough\nTo wring a smile from this young skeleton.\nThe alchemist who makes his gold was never able\nTo extract from him the tainted element,\nAnd in those baths of blood come down from Roman times,\nAnd which in their old age the powerful recall,\nHe failed to warm this dazed cadaver in whose veins\nFlows the green water of Lethe in place of blood.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8983,11 +9447,13 @@ "title": "“I have more memories than if I’d lived a thousand years 
”", "body": "I have more memories than if I’d lived a thousand years.\n\nA heavy chest of drawers cluttered with balance-sheets,\nProcesses, love-letters, verses, ballads,\nAnd heavy locks of hair enveloped in receipts,\nHides fewer secrets than my gloomy brain.\nIt is a pyramid, a vast burial vault\nWhich contains more corpses than potter’s field.\n--I am a cemetery abhorred by the moon,\nIn which long worms crawl like remorse\nAnd constantly harass my dearest dead.\nI am an old boudoir full of withered roses,\nWhere lies a whole litter of old-fashioned dresses,\nWhere the plaintive pastels and the pale Bouchers,\nAlone, breathe in the fragrance from an opened phial.\n\nNothing is so long as those limping days,\nWhen under the heavy flakes of snowy years\nEnnui, the fruit of dismal apathy,\nBecomes as large as immortality.\n--Henceforth you are no more, O living matter!\nThan a block of granite surrounded by vague terrors,\nDozing in the depths of a hazy Sahara\nAn old sphinx ignored by a heedless world,\nOmitted from the map, whose savage nature\nSings only in the rays of a setting sun.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -8995,11 +9461,13 @@ "title": "“I love the naked ages long ago 
”", "body": "I love the thought of those old naked days\nWhen Phoebus gilded torsos with his rays,\nWhen men and women sported, strong and fleet,\nWithout anxiety or base deceit,\nAnd heaven caressed them, amorously keen\nTo prove the health of each superb machine.\nCybele then was lavish of her guerdon\nAnd did not find her sons too gross a burden:\nBut, like a she-wolf, in her love great-hearted,\nHer full brown teats to all the world imparted.\nBold, handsome, strong, Man, rightly, might evince\nPride in the glories that proclaimed him prince--\nFruits pure of outrage, by the blight unsmitten,\nWith firm, smooth flesh that cried out to be bitten.\n\nToday the Poet, when he would assess\nThose native splendours in the nakedness\nOf man or woman, feels a sombre chill\nEnveloping his spirit and his will.\nHe meets a gloomy picture, which be loathes,\nWherein deformity cries out for clothes.\nOh comic runts! Oh horror of burlesque!\nLank, flabby, skewed, pot-bellied, and grotesque!\nWhom their smug god, Utility (poor brats!)\nHas swaddled in his brazen clouts ‘ersatz’\nAs with cheap tinsel. Women tallow-pale,\nBoth gnawed and nourished by debauch, who trail\nThe heavy burden of maternal vice,\nOr of fecundity the hideous price.\n\nWe have (corrupted nations) it is true\nBeauties the ancient people never knew--\nSad faces gnawed by cancers of the heart\nAnd charms which morbid lassitudes impart.\nBut these inventions of our tardy muse\nCan’t force our ailing peoples to refuse\nJust tribute to the holiness of youth\nWith its straightforward mien, its forehead couth,\nThe limpid gaze, like running water bright,\nDiffusing, careless, through all things, like the light\nOf azure skies, the birds, the winds, the flowers,\nThe songs, and perfumes, and heart-warming powers.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Roy Campbell", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Roy Campbell" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -9010,11 +9478,13 @@ "title": "“I worship you as I worship the firmament of night 
”", "body": "I worship you as I worship the firmament of night,\nO urn of sadness, great silent woman,\nAnd love you, beautiful one, the more you flee from me,\nAnd seem to me, ornament of my nights,\nTo accumulate ironically the leagues\nWhich separate my arms from the expanse of blue.\nI advance to the attack, and I climb to the assault,\nAs a chorus of worms climb over a corpse,\nAnd I cherish, O implacable cruel beast,\nEven that coldness by which you are for me more beautiful!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Wallace Fowlie", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Wallace Fowlie" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9022,11 +9492,13 @@ "title": "“The kind-hearted servant of whom you were jealous 
”", "body": "The kind-hearted servant of whom you were jealous,\nWho sleeps her sleep beneath a humble plot of grass,\nWe must by all means take her some flowers.\nThe dead, ah! the poor dead suffer great pains,\nAnd when October, the pruner of old trees, blows\nHis melancholy breath about their marble tombs,\nSurely they must think the living most ungrateful,\nTo sleep, as they do, between warm, white sheets,\nWhile, devoured by gloomy reveries,\nWithout bedfellows, without pleasant causeries,\nOld, frozen skeletons, belabored by the worm,\nThey feel the drip of winter’s snow,\nThe passing of the years; nor friends, nor family\nReplace the dead flowers that hang on their tombs.\n\nIf, some evening, when the fire-log whistles and sings\nI saw her sit down calmly in the great armchair,\nIf, on a cold, blue night in December,\nI found her ensconced in a corner of my room,\nGrave, having come from her eternal bed\nMaternally to watch over her grown-up child,\nWhat could I reply to that pious soul,\nSeeing tears fall from her hollow eyelids?", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -9037,11 +9509,13 @@ "title": "“Lethe”", "body": "Come, lie upon my breast, cruel, insensitive soul,\nAdored tigress, monster with the indolent air;\nI want to plunge trembling fingers for a long time\nIn the thickness of your heavy mane,\n\nTo bury my head, full of pain\nIn your skirts redolent of your perfume,\nTo inhale, as from a withered flower,\nThe moldy sweetness of my defunct love.\n\nI wish to sleep! to sleep rather than live!\nIn a slumber doubtful as death,\nI shall remorselessly cover with my kisses\nYour lovely body polished like copper.\n\nTo bury my subdued sobbing\nNothing equals the abyss of your bed,\nPotent oblivion dwells upon your lips\nAnd Lethe flows in your kisses.\n\nMy fate, hereafter my delight,\nI’ll obey like one predestined;\nDocile martyr, innocent man condemned,\nWhose fervor aggravates the punishment.\n\nI shall suck, to drown my rancor,\nNepenthe and the good hemlock\nFrom the charming tips of those pointed breasts\nThat have never guarded a heart.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9049,11 +9523,13 @@ "title": "“Meditation”", "body": "Be quiet and more discreet, O my Grief.\nYou cried out for the Evening; even now it falls:\nA gloomy atmosphere envelops the city,\nBringing peace to some, anxiety to others.\n\nWhile the vulgar herd of mortals, under the scourge\nOf Pleasure, that merciless torturer,\nGoes to gather remorse in the servile festival,\nMy Grief, give me your hand; come this way\n\nFar from them. See the dead years in old-fashioned gowns\nLean over the balconies of heaven;\nSmiling Regret rise from the depths of the waters;\n\nThe dying Sun fall asleep beneath an arch, and\nListen, darling, to the soft footfalls of the Night\nThat trails off to the East like a long winding-sheet.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9061,11 +9537,13 @@ "title": "“My Former Life”", "body": "For a long time I dwelt under vast porticos\nWhich the ocean suns lit with a thousand colors,\nThe pillars of which, tall, straight, and majestic,\nMade them, in the evening, like basaltic grottos.\n\nThe billows which cradled the image of the sky\nMingled, in a solemn, mystical way,\nThe omnipotent chords of their rich harmonies\nWith the sunsets’ colors reflected in my eyes;\n\nIt was there that I lived in voluptuous calm,\nIn splendor, between the azure and the sea,\nAnd I was attended by slaves, naked, perfumed,\n\nWho fanned my brow with fronds of palms\nAnd whose sole task it was to fathom\nThe dolorous secret that made me pine away.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9073,11 +9551,13 @@ "title": "“Out of the Depths Have I Cried”", "body": "I beg pity of Thee, the only one I love,\nFrom the depths of the dark pit where my heart has fallen,\nIt’s a gloomy world with a leaden horizon,\nWhere through the night swim horror and blasphemy;\n\nA frigid sun floats overhead six months,\nAnd the other six months darkness covers the land;\nIt’s a land more bleak than the polar wastes\n--Neither beasts, nor streams, nor verdure, nor woods!\n\nBut no horror in the world can surpass\nThe cold cruelty of that glacial sun\nAnd this vast night which is like old Chaos;\n\nI envy the lot of the lowest animals\nWho are able to sink into a stupid sleep,\nSo slowly does the skein of time unwind!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -9088,11 +9568,13 @@ "title": "“Owls”", "body": "Under the dark yews which shade them,\nThe owls are perched in rows,\nLike so many strange gods,\nDarting their red eyes. They meditate.\n\nWithout budging they will remain\nTill that melancholy hour\nWhen, pushing back the slanting sun,\nDarkness will take up its abode.\n\nTheir attitude teaches the wise\nThat in this world one must fear\nMovement and commotion;\n\nMan, enraptured by a passing shadow,\nForever bears the punishment\nOf having tried to change his place.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9100,11 +9582,13 @@ "title": "“Poison”", "body": "Wine knows how to adorn the most sordid hovel\nWith marvelous luxury\nAnd make more than one fabulous portal appear\nIn the gold of its red mist\nLike a sun setting in a cloudy sky.\n\nOpium magnifies that which is limitless,\nLengthens the unlimited,\nMakes time deeper, hollows out voluptuousness,\nAnd with dark, gloomy pleasures\nFills the soul beyond its capacity.\n\nAll that is not equal to the poison which flows\nFrom your eyes, from your green eyes,\nLakes where my soul trembles and sees its evil side 
\nMy dreams come in multitude\nTo slake their thirst in those bitter gulfs.\n\nAll that is not equal to the awful wonder\nOf your biting saliva,\nCharged with madness, that plunges my remorseless soul\nInto oblivion\nAnd rolls it in a swoon to the shores of death.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9112,11 +9596,13 @@ "title": "“Punishment for Pride”", "body": "In that marvelous time in which Theology\nFlourished with the greatest energy and vigor,\nIt is said that one day a most learned doctor\n--After winning by force the indifferent hearts,\nHaving stirred them in the dark depths of their being;\nAfter crossing on the way to celestial glory,\nSingular and strange roads, even to him unknown,\nWhich only pure Spirits, perhaps, had reached,--\nPanic-stricken, like one who has clambered too high,\nHe cried, carried away by a satanic pride:\n“Jesus, little jesus! I raised you very high!\nBut had I wished to attack you through the defect\nIn your armor, your shame would equal your glory,\nAnd you would be no more than a despised fetus!”\n\nAt that very moment his reason departed.\nA crape of mourning veiled the brilliance of that sun;\nComplete chaos rolled in and filled that intellect,\nA temple once alive, ordered and opulent,\nWithin whose walls so much pomp had glittered.\nSilence and darkness took possession of it\nLike a cellar to which the key is lost.\n\nHenceforth he was like the beasts in the street,\nAnd when he went along, seeing nothing, across\nThe fields, distinguishing nor summer nor winter,\nDirty, useless, ugly, like a discarded thing,\nHe was the laughing-stock, the joke, of the children.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9124,11 +9610,13 @@ "title": "“Reversibility”", "body": "Angel full of gaiety, do you know anguish,\nShame, remorse, sobs, vexations,\nAnd the vague terrors of those frightful nights\nThat compress the heart like a paper one crumples?\nAngel full of gaiety, do you know anguish?\n\nAngel full of kindness, do you know hatred,\nThe clenched fists in the darkness and the tears of gall,\nWhen Vengeance beats out his hellish call to arms,\nAnd makes himself the captain of our faculties?\nAngel full of kindness, do you know hatred?\n\nAngel full of health, do you know Fever,\nWalking like an exile, moving with dragging steps,\nAlong the high, wan walls of the charity ward,\nAnd with muttering lips seeking the rare sunlight?\nAngel full of health, do you know Fever?\n\nAngel full of beauty, do you know wrinkles,\nThe fear of growing old, and the hideous torment\nOf reading in the eyes of her he once adored\nHorror at seeing love turning to devotion?\nAngel full of beauty, do you know wrinkles?\n\nAngel full of happiness, of joy and of light,\nDavid on his death-bed would have appealed for health\nTo the emanations of your enchanted flesh;\nBut of you, angel, I beg only prayers,\nAngel full of happiness, of joy and of light!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9136,11 +9624,13 @@ "title": "“Sepulcher”", "body": "If on a dismal, sultry night\nSome good Christian, through charity,\nWill bury your vaunted body\nBehind the ruins of a building\n\nAt the hour when the chaste stars\nClose their eyes, heavy with sleep,\nThe spider will make his webs there,\nAnd the viper his progeny;\n\nYou will hear all year long\nAbove your damned head\nThe mournful cries of wolves\n\nAnd of the half-starved witches,\nThe frolics of lustful old men\nAnd the plots of vicious robbers.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9148,11 +9638,13 @@ "title": "“Song of Autumn”", "body": "# I.\n\nSoon we shall plunge into cold darkness;\nFarewell, strong light of our too brief summers!\nI already hear falling, with funereal thuds,\nThe wood resounding on the pavement of the courtyards.\n\nAll of winter will gather in my being: anger,\nHate, chills, horror, hard and forced labor,\nAnd, like the sun in its polar hell,\nMy heart will be only a red icy block.\n\nI listen shuddering to each log that falls;\nThe scaffold which is being built has not a hollower echo.\nMy mind is like the tower which falls\nUnder the blows of the indefatigable heavy battering ram.\n\nIt seems to me, lulled by the monotonous thuds,\nThat somewhere a casket is being nailed in great haste.\nFor whom? Yesterday it was summer; here is autumn!\nThis mysterious noise sounds like a departure.\n\n\n# II.\n\nI love the green light of your long eyes,\nSweet beauty, but everything today is bitter for me,\nAnd nothing, neither your love, nor the boudoir, nor the hearth,\nIs worth as much to me as the sun shining over the sea.\n\nBut despite all that, love me, tender heart! be maternal,\nEven for an ingrate, even for a wicked man;\nLover or sister, be the passing tenderness\nOf a glorious autumn or of a setting sun.\n\nA brief task! The grave is waiting; it is avid!\nMy head resting on your knees, let me\nEnjoy, as I grieve for the white torrid summer,\nThe yellow gentle ray of the earlier season!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Wallace Fowlie", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Wallace Fowlie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -9163,11 +9655,13 @@ "title": "“To an Auburn-Haired Beggar-Maid”", "body": "Pale girl with the auburn hair,\nWhose dress through its tears and holes\nReveals your poverty\nAnd your beauty,\n\nFor me, an ailing poet,\nYour body, young and sickly,\nSpotted with countless freckles,\nHas its sweetness.\n\nYou wear with more elegance\nYour wooden clogs than the queen\nIn a romance her sandals\nTrimmed with velvet.\n\nInstead of a scanty rag,\nLet a glittering court dress\nTrail with its long, rustling folds\nOver your heels;\n\nIn place of stockings with holes,\nLet, for the eyes of rouĂ©s,\nA golden poniard glisten\nIn your garter;\n\nLet ill-tied ribbons give way\nAnd unveil, so we may sin,\nYour two lovely breasts, radiant\nAs shining eyes;\n\nLet your arms demand entreating\nTo uncover your body\nAnd repel with saucy blows\nRoguish fingers,\n\nPearls of the finest water,\nSonnets by Master Belleau\nConstantly offered by swains\nHeld in love’s chains,\n\nPlebeian versifiers\nOffering first books to you\nAnd ogling your slippered foot\nFrom under the stair;\n\nMany a page fond of love’s chance,\nMany a Ronsard and lord\nFor amusement would spy on\nYour chilly hut!\n\nYou could count in your beds\nMore kisses than fleurs-de-lis\nAnd subject to your power\nMany Valois!\n\n--However, you go begging\nSome moldy refuse lying\nOn the steps of some VĂ©four\nAt the crossroads;\n\nYou go furtively eyeing\nBaubles at twenty-nine sous,\nOf which I can’t, oh! pardon!\nMake you a gift.\n\nGo, with no more adornment,\nPerfume or pearl or diamond,\nThan your slender nudity,\nO my beauty!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9175,11 +9669,13 @@ "title": "“Twilight”", "body": "Behold the sweet evening, friend of the criminal;\nIt comes like an accomplice, stealthily; the sky\nCloses slowly like an immense alcove,\nAnd impatient man turns into a beast of prey.\nO evening, kind evening, desired by him\nWhose arms can say, without lying: “Today\nWe labored!”--It is the evening that comforts\nThose minds that are consumed by a savage sorrow,\nThe obstinate scholar whose head bends with fatigue\nAnd the bowed laborer who returns to his bed.\n\nMeanwhile in the atmosphere malefic demons\nAwaken sluggishly, like businessmen,\nAnd take flight, bumping against porch roofs and shutters.\nAmong the gas flames worried by the wind\nProstitution catches alight in the streets;\nLike an ant-hill she lets her workers out;\nEverywhere she blazes a secret path,\nLike an enemy who plans a surprise attack;\nShe moves in the heart of the city of mire\nLike a worm that steals from Man what he eats.\nHere and there one hears food sizzle in the kitchens,\nThe theaters yell, the orchestras moan;\n\nThe gambling dens, where games of chance delight,\nFill up with whores and cardsharps, their accomplices;\nThe burglars, who know neither respite nor mercy,\nAre soon going to begin their work, they also,\nAnd quietly force open cash-boxes and doors\nTo enjoy life awhile and dress their mistresses.\n\nMeditate, O my soul, in this solemn moment,\nAnd close your ears to this uproar;\nIt is now that the pains of the sick grow sharper!\nSomber Night grabs them by the throat; they reach the end\nOf their destinies and go to the common pit;\nThe hospitals are filled with their sighs.--More than one\nWill come no more to get his fragrant soup\nBy the fireside, in the evening, with a loved one.\n\nHowever, most of them have never known\nThe sweetness of a home, have never lived!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9187,11 +9683,13 @@ "title": "“Unslakeable Lust”", "body": "Singular deity, brown as the nights,\nScented with the perfume of Havana and musk,\nWork of some obeah, Faust of the savanna,\nWitch with ebony flanks, child of the black midnight,\n\nI prefer to constance, to opium, to nuits,\nThe nectar of your mouth upon which love parades;\nWhen toward you my desires set out in caravan,\nYour eyes are the cistern that gives drink to my cares.\n\nThrough those two great black eyes, the outlets of your soul,\nO pitiless demon! pour upon me less flame;\nI’m not the River Styx to embrace you nine times,\n\nAlas! and I cannot, licentious Megaera,\nTo break your spirit and bring you to bay\nIn the hell of your bed turn into Proserpine!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9199,11 +9697,13 @@ "title": "“The Vampire”", "body": "You who, like the stab of a knife,\nEntered my plaintive heart;\nYou who, strong as a herd\nOf demons, came, ardent and adorned,\n\nTo make your bed and your domain\nOf my humiliated mind\n--Infamous bitch to whom I’m bound\nLike the convict to his chain,\n\nLike the stubborn gambler to the game,\nLike the drunkard to his wine,\nLike the maggots to the corpse,\n--Accurst, accurst be you!\n\nI begged the swift poniard\nTo gain for me my liberty,\nI asked perfidious poison\nTo give aid to my cowardice.\n\nAlas! both poison and the knife\nContemptuously said to me:\n“You do not deserve to be freed\nFrom your accursed slavery,\n\nFool!--if from her domination\nOur efforts could deliver you,\nYour kisses would resuscitate\nThe cadaver of your vampire!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "halloween" @@ -9214,11 +9714,13 @@ "title": "“A Voyage to Cythera”", "body": "My heart like a bird was fluttering joyously\nAnd soaring freely around the rigging;\nBeneath a cloudless sky the ship was rolling\nLike an angel drunken with the radiant sun.\n\nWhat is this black, gloomy island?--It’s Cythera,\nThey tell us, a country celebrated in song,\nThe banal Eldorado of old bachelors.\nLook at it; after all, it is a wretched land.\n\n--Island of sweet secrets, of the heart’s festivals!\nThe beautiful shade of ancient Venus\nHovers above your seas like a perfume\nAnd fills all minds with love and languidness.\n\nFair isle of green myrtle filled with full-blown flowers\nEver venerated by all nations,\nWhere the sighs of hearts in adoration\nRoll like incense over a garden of roses\n\nOr like the eternal cooing of wood-pigeons!\n--Cythera was now no more than the barrenest land,\nA rocky desert disturbed by shrill cries.\nBut I caught a glimpse of a singular object!\n\nIt was not a temple in the shade of a grove\nWhere the youthful priestess, amorous of flowers,\nWas walking, her body hot with hidden passion,\nHalf-opening her robe to the passing breezes;\n\nBut behold! as we passed, hugging the shore\nSo that we disturbed the sea-birds with our white sails,\nWe saw it was a gallows with three arms\nOutlined in black like a cypress against the sky.\n\nFerocious birds perched on their feast were savagely\nDestroying the ripe corpse of a hanged man;\nEach plunged his filthy beak as though it were a tool\nInto every corner of that bloody putrescence;\n\nThe eyes were two holes and from the gutted belly\nThe heavy intestines hung down along his thighs\nAnd his torturers, gorged with hideous delights,\nHad completely castrated him with their sharp beaks.\n\nBelow his feet a pack of jealous quadrupeds\nProwled with upraised muzzles and circled round and round;\nOne beast, larger than the others, moved in their midst\nLike a hangman surrounded by his aides.\n\nCytherean, child of a sky so beautiful,\nYou endured those insults in silence\nTo expiate your infamous adorations\nAnd the sins which denied to you a grave.\n\nRidiculous hanged man, your sufferings are mine!\nI felt at the sight of your dangling limbs\nThe long, bitter river of my ancient sorrows\nRise up once more like vomit to my teeth;\n\nBefore you, poor devil of such dear memory\nI felt all the stabbing beaks of the crows\nAnd the jaws of the black panthers who loved so much\nIn other days to tear my flesh to shreds.\n\n--The sky was charming and the sea was smooth;\nFor me thenceforth all was black and bloody,\nAlas! and I had in that allegory\nWrapped up my heart as in a heavy shroud.\n\nOn your isle, O Venus! I found upright only\nA symbolic gallows from which hung my image 
\nO! Lord! give me the strength and the courage\nTo contemplate my body and soul without loathing!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9226,11 +9728,13 @@ "title": "“What will you say tonight, poor solitary soul 
”", "body": "What will you say tonight, poor solitary soul,\nWhat will you say, my heart, heart once so withered,\nTo the kindest, dearest, the fairest of women,\nWhose divine glance suddenly revived you?\n\n--We shall try our pride in singing her praises:\nThere is nothing sweeter than to do her bidding;\nHer spiritual flesh has the fragrance of Angels,\nAnd when she looks upon us we are clothed with light.\n\nBe it in the darkness of night, in solitude,\nOr in the city street among the multitude,\nHer image in the air dances like a torch flame.\n\nSometimes it speaks and says: “I am fair, I command\nThat for your love of me you love only Beauty;\nI am your guardian Angel, your Muse and Madonna.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9238,11 +9742,13 @@ "title": "“When a heavy lid of low sky 
”", "body": "# I.\n\nFebruary, peeved at Paris, pours\na gloomy torrent on the pale lessees\nof the graveyard next door and a mortal chill\non tenants of the foggy suburbs too.\n\nThe tiles afford no comfort to my cat\nthat cannot keep its mangy body still;\nthe soul of some old poet haunts the drains\nand howls as if a ghost could hate the cold.\n\nA churchbell grieves, a log in the fireplace smokes\nand hums falsetto to the clock’s catarrh,\nwhile in a filthy reeking deck of cards\n\ninherited from a dropsical old maid,\nthe dapper Knave of Hearts and the Queen of Spades\ngrimly disinter their love affairs.\n\n\n# II.\n\nSouvenirs?\nMore than if I had lived a thousand years!\n\nNo chest of drawers crammed with documents,\nlove-letters, wedding-invitations, wills,\na lock of someone’s hair rolled up in a deed,\nhides so many secrets as my brain.\nThis branching catacombs, this pyramid\ncontains more corpses than the potter’s field:\nI am a graveyard that the moon abhors,\nwhere long worms like regrets come out to feed\nmost ravenously on my dearest dead.\nI am an old boudoir where a rack of gowns,\nperfumed by withered roses, rots to dust;\nwhere only faint pastels and pale Bouchers\ninhale the scent of long-unstoppered flasks.\n\nNothing is slower than the limping days\nwhen under the heavy weather of the years\nBoredom, the fruit of glum indifference,\ngains the dimension of eternity 
\nHereafter, mortal clay, you are no more\nthan a rock encircled by a nameless dread,\nan ancient sphinx omitted from the map,\nforgotten by the world, and whose fierce moods\nsing only to the rays of setting suns.\n\n\n# III.\n\nI’m like the king of a rainy country, rich\nbut helpless, decrepit though still a young man\nwho scorns his fawning tutors, wastes his time\non dogs and other animals, and has no fun;\nnothing distracts him, neither hawk nor hound\nnor subjects starving at the palace gate.\nHis favorite fool’s obscenities fall flat\n--the royal invalid is not amused--\nand ladies in waiting for a princely nod\nno longer dress indecently enough\nto win a smile from this young skeleton.\nThe bed of state becomes a stately tomb.\nThe alchemist who brews him gold has failed\nto purge the impure substance from his soul,\nand baths of blood, Rome’s legacy recalled\nby certain barons in their failing days,\nare useless to revive this sickly flesh\nthrough which no blood but brackish Lethe seeps.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nWhen skies are low and heavy as a lid\nover the mind tormented by disgust,\nand hidden in the gloom the sun pours down\non us a daylight dingier than the dark;\n\nwhen earth becomes a trickling dungeon where\nTrust like a bat keeps lunging through the air,\nbeating tentative wings along the walls\nand bumping its head against the rotten beams;\n\nwhen rain falls straight from unrelenting clouds,\nforging the bars of some enormous jail,\nand silent hordes of obscene spiders spin\ntheir webs across the basements of our brains;\n\nthen all at once the raging bells break loose,\nhurling to heaven their awful caterwaul,\nlike homeless ghosts with no one left to haunt\nwhimpering their endless grievances.\n\n--And giant hearses, without dirge or drums,\nparade at half-step in my soul, where Hope,\ndefeated, weeps, and the oppressor Dread\nplants his black flag on my assenting skull.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Richard Howard", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1859 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Richard Howard" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -9253,11 +9759,13 @@ "title": "“You would take the whole world to bed with you 
”", "body": "You would take the whole world to bed with you,\nImpure woman! Ennui makes your soul cruel;\nTo exercise your teeth at this singular game,\nYou need a new heart in the rack each day.\nYour eyes, brilliant as shop windows\nOr as blazing lamp-stands at public festivals,\nInsolently use a borrowed power\nWithout ever knowing the law of their beauty.\n\nBlind, deaf machine, fecund in cruelties!\nRemedial instrument, drinker of the world’s blood,\nWhy are you not ashamed and why have you not seen\nIn every looking-glass how your charms are fading?\nWhy have you never shrunk at the enormity\nOf this evil at which you think you are expert,\nWhen Nature, resourceful in her hidden designs,\nMakes use of you, woman, O queen of sin,\nOf you, vile animal,--to fashion a genius?\n\nO foul magnificence! Sublime ignominy!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Aggeler", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "William Aggeler" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -9302,7 +9810,9 @@ "body": "all right all right there’s a land\nwhere forgetting where forgetting weighs\ngently upon worlds unnamed\nthere the head we shush it the head is mute\nand one knows no but one knows nothing\nthe song of dead mouths dies\non the shore it has made its voyage\nthere is nothing to mourn\n\nmy loneliness I know it oh well I know it badly\nI have the time is what I tell myself I have time\nbut what time famished bone the time of the dog\nof a sky incessantly paling my grain of sky\nof the climbing ray ocellate trembling\nof microns of years of darkness\n\nyou want me to go from A to B I cannot\nI cannot come out I’m in a traceless land\nyes yes it’s a fine thing you’ve got there a mighty fine thing\nwhat is that ask me no more questions\nspiral dust of instants what is this the same\nthe calm the love the hate the calm the calm", "metadata": { "language": "French", - "translator": "Philip Nikolayev", + "translators": [ + "Philip Nikolayev" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -9364,8 +9874,10 @@ "title": "“They Closed Her Eyes”", "body": "They closed her eyes,\nThey were still open;\nThey hid her face\nWith a white linen,\nAnd some sobbing,\nOthers in silence,\nFrom the sad bedroom\nAll came away.\n\nThe nightlight in a dish\nBurned on the floor;\nIt threw on the wall\nThe bed’s shadow,\nAnd in that shadow\nOne saw some times\nDrawn in sharp line\nThe body’s shape.\n\nThe dawn appeared.\nAt its first whiteness,\nWith its thousand noises,\nThe town awoke.\nBefore that contrast\nOf light and darkness,\nOf life and strangeness,\nI thought a moment.\n _My God, how lonely\n The dead are!_\n\nOn the shoulders of men\nTo church they bore her,\nAnd in a chapel\nThey left her bier.\nThere they surrounded\nHer pale body\nWith yellow candles\nAnd black stuffs.\n\nAt the last stroke\nOf the ringing for the souls\nAn old crone finished\nHer last prayers.\nShe crossed the narrow nave,\nThe doors moaned,\nAnd the holy place\nRemained deserted.\n\nFrom a clock one heard\nThe measured ticking,\nAnd from a candle\nThe guttering.\nAll things there\nWere so dark and mournful,\nSo cold and rigid,\nThat I thought a moment--\n _My God, how lonely\n The dead are!_\n\nFrom the high belfry\nThe tongue of iron\nClanged, giving out\nA last farewell.\nCrape on their clothes,\nHer friends and kindred\nPassed by in line\nIn homage to her.\n\nIn the last vault,\nDark and narrow,\nThe pickaxe opened\nA niche at one end;\nThey laid her away there.\nSoon they bricked the place up,\nAnd with a gesture\nBade grief farewell.\n\nPickaxe on shoulder,\nThe gravedigger,\nSinging between his teeth,\nPassed out of sight.\nThe night came down\nIt was all silent.\nAlone in darkness,\nI thought a moment--\n _My God, how lonely\n The dead are!_\n\nIn the dark nights\nOf bitter winter,\nWhen the wind makes\nThe rafters creak,\nWhen the violent rain\nLashes the windows,\nLonely I remember\nThat poor girl.\n\nThere falls the rain\nWith its noise eternal\nThere the north wind\nFights with the rain.\nStretched in the hollow\nOf the damp bricks,\nPerhaps her bones\nFreeze with the cold.\n\nDoes the dust return to dust?\nDoes the soul fly to heaven?\nOr is all vile matter,\nRottenness, filthiness?\nI know not, but\nThere is something--something--\nSomething which gives me\nLoathing, terror,\nTo leave the dead\nSo alone, so wretched.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Masefield", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "John Masefield" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -9807,12 +10319,14 @@ "title": "“Alone”", "body": "The windows steamed up.\nIn the yard the moon hangs.\nAnd you stand aimlessly\nbefore the window.\n\nThe wind dies down arguing\nwith the row of gray birches.\nThere has been much sorrow 
\nThere have been many tears 
\n\nBefore you arises involuntarily\nthe row of abandoned years.\nThe heart is pained; it hurts.\nI am all alone.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alex Cigale", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1900, "month": "december" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alex Cigale" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -9823,11 +10337,13 @@ "title": "“Autumn”", "body": "My fingers slipped out of your hands.\nYou’re walking away with a frown.\nLook how the birch trees have strewn\nred leaves with the rain of their blood.\n\nPale autumn, cold autumn has spread\nitself over us, reaching up high.\nA barren plain stretching around us\nbreathes a cloud into clear sky.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Max Thompson", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1906 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Max Thompson" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -9838,11 +10354,13 @@ "title": "“The Convict”", "body": "He ran. Bid farewell to the guards,\nThe earth purpled in the forest.\nHe skulked above the eternal calm,\nSlaking ruthless vengeance.\n\nHe skulked, lifeless staff\nIn cold clenching hand.\nHe stood on the Volga slopes\nAnd dropped to the dear river.\n\nFell on a rock, white-incandescent,\nBundled up in a grey robe.\nLooked at the disheveled clouds.\nLooked at the crimson sunset.\n\nIn spaces, lashed by a flame,\nHung the orphaned smoke,\nCaressing both earth and stone,\nAnd the rusty annuli around feet.\n\nThe iron annuli rang\nAs they fell on the river slope.\nAs they sang on the green slope,\nRattling with dear familiar weeping.\n\nHe was parting for good with Siberia:\nForgive me, my dear gaol,\nWhere years over watery vastness\nI spent exhausted by iron chains.\n\nYears on a stony, naked floor\nWhere he lay as if by habit.\nDown, behind the blind stockade,\nSwayed the gleaming spit;\n\nWhere for years he met with dread\nThe barely trudging days,\nWhere for years with a heavy swing\nHe flung his mallet on flint;\n\nWhere for years so strangely agape\nWas the grin of dying mouths,\nAnd storms splashed and tossed\nThe trembling leafless shrub;\n\nThey cast the clangoring logs,\nBerating, on top of a barge\nAnd close to the shore, evenly,\nThey hauled them, falling to ropes.\n\nWhere he cast life, cursing,\nTo the daring, seething blizzard,\nAnd the biting frost moaned,\nScathing the Taiga with winds,\n\nTearing clothes to tatters,\nCrackling and beating in shrubs;\nShrieking and twisting, entwining,\nSmacking shaved cheeks.\n\nWhere blood showed in foggy cold,\nTo cries and calls of lament,\nFrom the air fell, whistling\nAnd biting, the furious whip,\n\nCleaving to the back, and tearing\nRaw pieces of skin 
\nAnd the clouds scowled more gravely\nAnd more gravely sang the sands.\n\nThe crushed shoulders till now\nYou ate away, scar of lead.\nMake way, ye lowery fir trees!\nGo dark, evening scarlet!\n\nThere, nests, like black eyes,\nStaring from a scarp,\nInto the fog of hanging night\nScreechingly shot out swallows.\n\nFitfully with the sign of the cross\nHe blessed his wide forehead.\nDashed through precipitous steeps,\nChurning the leaden waters.\n\nAnd the icy stream clung\nTo the body as prickling glass.\nA lump of muddy earth\nCrumbled above with yellow sand.\n\nLights appeared. And for long\nGlowed from the distant rafts;\nSternly the tenebrous Volga\nCrushed them in foaming surges.\n\nThere, sparks, breezing wearily,\nAscended to drown in the night;\nAnd a wailful song was heard\nThere, in the deep blue mud.\n\nThere, the dark disappeared in a gallop,\nAnd the wind played with wavelets.\nAnd someone shooting a glance\nFrom the clouds winked to the east.\n\nAnd now, quietly over a wave\nHe swayed with a yellow face.\nThe whining gulls languidly\nBrushed against him with their wings.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrew Stempton", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1908 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrew Stempton" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -9853,12 +10371,14 @@ "title": "“A Hooligan’s Little Song”", "body": "Once there lived both he and I;\nTo be friends we had to die.\n\nSkeleton, he’d visit me 
\nWinters, summers 
 frequently.\n\nSimple heart and solid bone;\nWe strolled this graveyard alone.\n\nAnd with laughter he’d recall\nThat gay day: our funeral.\n\nHow they bore box behind box 
\nHow the priest tagged 
 over rocks 
\n\nCenser smoke filled up the nose.\nFat coachmen made coffin rows.\n\n“Rest with all saints and the Lord”\nThey pressed us down with a board.\n\nOnce there lived he and I 
 long 
\nTil-ly, til-ly, til-ly dong.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Markov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1906, "month": "july" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Markov" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -9869,11 +10389,14 @@ "title": "“Messengers”", "body": "In fields hopeless and dumb\nDroops the pale-bladed grain;\nIt is dozing and numb\nAmid dreams that are vain 
\nWith a high sudden hum\nThe field tosses its mane:\n“Unto us Christ is come!”\nThe wild news shakes the plain.\nLike a wind-beaten drum\nShouts the quivering grain.\n\nThe bells ring soft and slow,\nThere is clamor and pain\nIn the church, and a low\nVoice is lifted again\nThat reiterates: “Woe!”\nTo the poor folk and plain\nAre brought candles aglow:\n“Christ is coming again!”\nBut with voices of woe\nThey file doorward, in pain.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Babette Deutsch & Avrahm Yarmolinsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch", + "Avrahm Yarmolinsky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -9884,12 +10407,15 @@ "title": "“On the Mountains”", "body": "Wedding wreaths crown the mountains.\nI’m ecstatic 
 I’m young.\nAnd all over my mountains\nSuch a pure chill is hung.\n\nAnd behold--to my rock\nCame a gray-haired hunchback, shuffling-stumbling.\nAnd the gift that he brought\nWas pineapples from an underground dungeon.\n\nO he danced--wearing bright crimson-red.\nPraised the sky’s azure glow.\nHe swept up with his beard\nWhirlwinds of silver-blizzarding snow.\n\nWith a cry\nDeep as gravel\nHe threw into the sky\nThe pineapple.\n\nAnd then arching a line.\nLighting up its environs,\nThe pineapple fell--brilliant with shine\nThrough the unknown,\n\nRadiating a glow\nAs if dew of gold ducats were falling 
\nThey agreed down below:\n“It’s a disk of pure flame--a sun shining.”\n\nGolden fountains of fire,\nOr else heavenly dew,\nDew like crystal and red as a pyre,\nBrightly Hew\nDown and bathed the rocks too.\n\nThen I poured out some wine in a glass,\nSneaked aside for a moment,\nAnd I drenched the hunchback\nWith a light, foamy torrent.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Markov & Merrill Sparks", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1906, "month": "july" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Markov", + "Merrill Sparks" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -10101,8 +10627,10 @@ "title": "“Asters”", "body": "Asters--sweltering days\nold adjuration/curse,\nthe gods hold the balance\nfor an uncertain hour.\n\nOnce more the golden flocks\nof heaven, the light, the trim--\nwhat is the ancient process\nhatching under its dying wings?\n\nOnce more the yearned-for,\nthe intoxication, the rose of you--\nsummer leaned in the doorway\nwatching the swallows--\n\none more presentiment\nwhere certainty is not hard to come by:\nwing tips brush the face of the waters,\nswallows sip speed and night.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hofmann", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hofmann" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -10113,7 +10641,6 @@ "title": "“Cycle”", "body": "The solitary molar of a whore\nwho had died incognito\nwore a gold filling,\n(The rest had decamped\nas if by silent agreement.)\nThat filling was swiped by the mortician’s mate\nand pawned, so he could go to a dive\nand dance, for, as he put it:\n“Earth alone should return to earth.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Francis Golffing", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -10123,6 +10650,9 @@ "month": "august" } }, + "translators": [ + "Francis Golffing" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -10130,8 +10660,10 @@ "title": "“Divergences”", "body": "One says: please no inner life,\nmanners by all means, but nothing affective,\nthat’s no compensation\nfor the insufferable\ndifficulties of outward-directed expression--\nthose cerebralized\ncity-Styxes\n\nwhen my little prince\npokes his chubby little legs through the bars of his cot\nit melts my heart, it was like that with Otto Ernst,\nand it’s no different now\n\nthe contraries are not easy to reconcile\nbut when you survey the provinces\nthe inner life\nhas it by a neck.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hofmann", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hofmann" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -10139,8 +10671,10 @@ "title": "“Express Train”", "body": "Brown. Brandy-brown. Leaf-brown. Russet.\nMalayan yellow.\nExpress train Berlin-Trelleborg and the Baltic resorts.\n\nFlesh that went naked.\nTanned unto the mouth by the sea.\nDeeply ripened for Grecian joys.\nHow far along the summer, in sickle-submissiveness!\nPenultimate day of the ninth month!\n\nParched with stubble and the last corn-shocks.\nUnfurlings, blood, fatigue,\nderanged by dahlia-nearness.\n\nMan-brown jumps on woman-brown.\n\nA woman is something for a night.\nAnd if you enjoyed it, then the next one too!\nO! And then the return to one’s own care.\nThe not-speaking! The urges!\n\nA woman is something with a smell.\nIneffable! To die for! Mignonette.\nShepherd, sea, and South.\nOn every declivity a bliss.\n\nWoman-brown drapes itself on man-brown:\n\nHold me! I’m falling!\nMy neck is so weary.\nOh, the sweet last\nfevered scent from the gardens.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hofmann", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hofmann" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september", @@ -10152,11 +10686,13 @@ "title": "“Fragments”", "body": "A day without tears is a rare occurrence\nculpable absent-mindedness\npractically an episode\n\nwhen men still wore starched collars,\nand stuffed cotton wool between their toes\nhobbled about in pain, pedicure hadn’t been invented,\nbut you would see faces that were worth a second look\nthose were years when something whispered", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hofmann", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1953 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hofmann" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -10172,8 +10708,10 @@ "title": "“Left the House”", "body": "# I.\n\nLeft the house shattered, it hurt so bad,\nso many years as a man, compromise,\nin spite of partial success in intellectual tussle\nhe was never anyone of Olympian allure.\n\nHe walked slowly through the dreamscape\nof the late autumn day, barely distinguishable\nfrom early spring, with young willows\nand a patch of waste ground where blue jays screamed.\n\nDreamy exposure to phenomena\nthat to nature in its administration\nof various cycles--young and old alike--\nare inseparably part of a single order--:\n\nso he drank his gin and accepted a dish\nof sausage soup, free on Thursdays\nwith a beverage and so found the Olympian balance\nof sorrow and pleasure.\n\n\n# II.\n\nHe had been reading on the park bench\nand stared into the gray of the last roses,\nthere were no titans, just shrubs\nthinned out by fall.\n\nHe put down his book. It was a day like any other\nand the people were like all people everywhere,\nthat was how it would always be, at least\nthis mixture of death and laughter would persist.\n\nA scent is enough to change things,\neven small flowers stand in some relation to a cedar of Lebanon,\nthen he walked on and saw the windows of the furriers\nwere full of warm things for the winter ahead.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAll very well, a gin and a few minutes\nin the park at noon, with the sun shining,\nbut what when the landlord comes by, there are problems\nwith your tax return, and the girlfriend’s in tears?\n\nShattered: how far are you allowed to push your I,\nand see peculiar things as somehow symptomatic?\nShattered: to what extent are you obliged to play by the rules--\nas far as a Ludwig Richter canvas?\n\nShattered: no one knows. Shattered and you turn\nequally pained to singular and universal--\nyour little experiment with destiny will end\ngloriously and forever, but quite alone.\n\nDamned evergreens! Vinyl whines!\nGin, sun, cedars--what use are they\nto help the self reconcile landlord, God, and dream--\nvoices warble and words mock--\nleft the house and closed his reverie.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hofmann", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hofmann" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december", @@ -10186,8 +10724,10 @@ "title": "“No Tears”", "body": "Roses, Christ knows how they got to be so lovely,\ngreen skies over the city\nin the evening\nin the ephemerality of the years!\n\nThe yearning I have for that time\nwhen one mark thirty was all I had,\nyes, I counted them this way and that,\nI trimmed my days to fit them,\ndays, what am I saying days: weeks on bread and plum mush\nout of earthenware pots\nbrought from my village,\nstill under the rushlight of native poverty,\nhow raw everything felt, how tremblingly beautiful!\n\nWhat good is the luster conferred by European pundits,\nthe great name,\nthe _pour le merite_,\npeople who shoot their cuffs and tool on,\n\nit’s only the ephemeral that’s beautiful,\nlooking back, the poverty,\nthe frowstiness that didn’t know what it was,\nsobs, and stands in line for its dole,\nwhat a wonderful Hades\nthat takes away the frowst,\nand the pundits both--\nplease, no tears,\nno one say: oh, I was so lonesome.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hofmann", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hofmann" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -10198,8 +10738,10 @@ "title": "“Restaurant”", "body": "The gentleman over there orders another pint,\nwell, that’s nice, then I don’t need to worry\nif I have another myself in due course.\nTrouble is, one straightaway thinks one is addicted,\nI even read in an American magazine\nthat every cigarette you smoke takes thirty-six minutes off your life,\nI don’t believe that, presumably it’s the chewing gum industry\nthat’s behind that, or Coca-Cola.\n\nA normal life and a normal death--\nI don’t know what they’re good for. Even a normal life\nends in an unhealthy death. Altogether death\ndoesn’t have a lot to do with health and sickness,\nit merely uses them for its own purposes.\n\nWhat do you mean: death doesn’t have a lot to do with sickness?\nI mean this: a lot of people get sick without dying,\nso what we have before us is something different,\nthe introduction of a variable,\na source of uncertainty,\nnot an open and shut case,\nnot the grim reaper mounted on a bag of bones,\nbut something that observes, sees round corners, exercises restraint,\nand musically plays a different tune.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hofmann", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hofmann" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -10210,8 +10752,10 @@ "title": "“A Shadow on the Wall”", "body": "A shadow on the wall\nboughs stirred by the noonday wind\nthat’s enough earth\nand for the eye\nenough celestial participation.\n\nHow much further do you want to go? Refuse\nthe bossy insistence\nof new impressions--\n\nlie there still,\nbehold your own fields,\nyour estate,\ndwelling especially\non the poppies,\nunforgettable\nbecause they transported the summer--\n\nwhere did it go?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hofmann", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hofmann" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -10222,8 +10766,10 @@ "title": "“Static Poems”", "body": "Deafness to imperatives\nis profundity in the wise man,\nchildren and grandchildren\ndon’t bother him,\ndon’t alarm him.\n\nTo represent a particular outlook,\nto act,\nto travel hither and yon\nare all signs of a world\nthat doesn’t see clearly.\nIn front of my window\n--wise man says--\nis a valley\nwhere shadows pool,\ntwo poplars mark a path,\nleading you will know where to.\n\nPerspective\nis another word for stasis:\nyou draw lines,\nthey ramify\nlike a creeper--\ntendrils explode--\nand they disburse crows in swarms\nin the winter red of early dawns\n\nthen let them settle--\n\nyou will know--for whom.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hofmann", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hofmann" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -10234,8 +10780,10 @@ "title": "“They Are Human After All”", "body": "They are human after all, you think,\nas the waiter steps up to a table\nout of sight of you,\nreserved, corner table--\nthey too are thin-skinned and pleasure-seeking,\nwith their own feelings and their own sufferings.\n\nYou’re not so all alone\nin your mess, your restlessness, your shakes,\nthey too will be full of doubt, dither, shilly-shallying,\neven if it’s all about making deals,\nthe universal-human\nalbeit in its commercial manifestations,\nbut present there too.\n\nTruly, the grief of hearts is ubiquitous\nand unending,\nbut whether they were ever in love\n(outwith the awful wedded bed)\nburning, athirst, desert-parched\nfor the nectar of a faraway\nmouth,\nsinking, drowning\nin the impossibility of a union of souls--\n\nyou won’t know, nor can you\nask the waiter,\nwho’s just ringing up\nanother bock,\nalways avid for coupons\nto quench a thirst of another nature,\nthough also deep.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hofmann", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hofmann" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -10243,8 +10791,10 @@ "title": "“Think of the Unsatisfied Ones”", "body": "When despair--\nyou who enjoyed great triumphs\nand walked with confidence and the memory\nof many gifts of delirium and dawns\nand unexpected\nturns--\nwhen despair wants you in its grip,\nand threatens you from some unfathomable depth\nwith destruction\nand the guttering out of your flame:\n\nthen think of the unsatisfied ones,\nwith their migraine-prone temples and introverted dispositions,\nloyal to a few memories\nthat held out little hope,\nwho still bought flowers,\nand with a smile of not much luminosity\nconfided secret desires\nto their small-scale heavens\nthat were soon to be extinguished.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hofmann", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hofmann" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -10252,8 +10802,10 @@ "title": "“Tracing”", "body": "# i.\n\nO those years! The green light of morning\nand the still unswept pavements of pleasure--\nsummer yelled from every surface of the city\nand supped at a horn\nrefilled from above.\n\nSilent hour. Watery colors\nof a pale green eye’s diluted stream\npictures in that magic green, glass dances,\nshepherds and streams, a dome, pigeons--\nwoven, dispatched, shining, faded--\nmutable clouds of happiness!\n\nSo you faced the day: the font\nwithout bubbles, dawdling\nbuildings and staircases; the houses\nlocked up, it was for you to create\nthe morning, early jasmine,\nits yelps, its incipient aboriginal\nstream--still without end--O those years!\n\nSomething unquenchable in the heart,\ncomplement to heaven and earth;\nplaying to you from reeds and gardens,\nevening storms\ndrenched the brassy umbels,\ndarkly they burst, taut with seeds,\nand sea and strands,\nwimpled with tents,\nfull of burning sand,\nweeks bronzing, tanning everything\nto pelts for kisses landing\nindiscriminately like cloudbursts\nand soon over!\n\nEven then\na weight overhead\ngrapes bunching\nyou pulled down the boughs and let them bounce up,\nonly a few berries\nif you wanted\nfirst--\n\nnot yet so bulging and overhung with\nplate-sized fruit,\nold heavy grape flesh--\n\nO those years!\n\n\n# ii.\n\nDark days of spring,\nunyielding murk in the leaves;\ndrooping lilacs, barely looking up\nnarcissus color, and smelling strongly of death,\nloss of content,\nuntriumphant sadness of the unfulfilled.\n\nAnd in the rain\nfalling on the leaves,\nI hear an old forest song,\nfrom forests I crossed\nand saw again, but I didn’t return\nto the hall where they were singing,\nthe keys were silent,\nthe hands were resting somewhere\napart from the arms that held me,\nmoved me to tears,\nhands from the eastern steppes,\nlong since trampled and bloody--\nonly the forest song\nin the rain\ndark days of spring\nthe everlasting steppes.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hofmann", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hofmann" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -10264,8 +10816,10 @@ "title": "“What’s Bad”", "body": "Not reading English,\nand hearing about a new English thriller\nthat hasn’t been translated.\n\nSeeing a cold beer when it’s hot out,\nand not being able to afford it.\n\nHaving an idea\nthat you can’t encapsulate in a line of Hölderlin,\nthe way the professors do.\n\nHearing the waves beat against the shore on holiday at night,\nand telling yourself it’s what they always do.\n\nVery bad: being invited out,\nwhen your own room at home is quieter,\nthe coffee is better,\nand you don’t have to make small talk.\n\nAnd worst of all:\nnot to die in summer,\nwhen the days are long\nand the earth yields easily to the spade.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hofmann", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hofmann" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -13503,11 +14057,11 @@ "body": "With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,\nEngland mourns for her dead across the sea.\nFlesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,\nFallen in the cause of the free.\n\nSolemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal\nSings sorrow up into immortal spheres,\nThere is music in the midst of desolation\nAnd a glory that shines upon our tears.\n\nThey went with songs to the battle, they were young,\nStraight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.\nThey were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;\nThey fell with their faces to the foe.\n\nThey shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:\nAge shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.\nAt the going down of the sun and in the morning\nWe will remember them.\n\nThey mingle not with their laughing comrades again;\nThey sit no more at familiar tables of home;\nThey have no lot in our labour of the day-time;\nThey sleep beyond England’s foam.\n\nBut where our desires are and our hopes profound,\nFelt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,\nTo the innermost heart of their own land they are known\nAs the stars are known to the Night;\n\nAs the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,\nMoving in marches upon the heavenly plain;\nAs the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,\nTo the end, to the end, they remain.", "metadata": { "place": "Cornwall", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1914, "month": "august" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -13676,10 +14230,10 @@ "title": "“The Armadillo”", "body": "This is the time of year\nwhen almost every night\nthe frail, illegal fire balloons appear.\nClimbing the mountain height,\n\nrising toward a saint\nstill honored in these parts,\nthe paper chambers flush and fill with light\nthat comes and goes, like hearts.\n\nOnce up against the sky it’s hard\nto tell them from the stars--\nplanets, that is--the tinted ones:\nVenus going down, or Mars,\n\nor the pale green one. With a wind,\nthey flare and falter, wobble and toss;\nbut if it’s still they steer between\nthe kite sticks of the Southern Cross,\n\nreceding, dwindling, solemnly\nand steadily forsaking us,\nor, in the downdraft from a peak,\nsuddenly turning dangerous.\n\nLast night another big one fell.\nIt splattered like an egg of fire\nagainst the cliff behind the house.\nThe flame ran down. We saw the pair\n\nof owls who nest there flying up\nand up, their whirling black-and-white\nstained bright pink underneath, until\nthey shrieked up out of sight.\n\nThe ancient owls’ nest must have burned.\nHastily, all alone,\na glistening armadillo left the scene,\nrose-flecked, head down, tail down,\n\nand then a baby rabbit jumped out,\n_short_-eared, to our surprise.\nSo soft!--a handful of intangible ash\nwith fixed, ignited eyes.\n\n_Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry!\nO falling fire and piercing cry\nand panic, and a weak mailed fist\nclenched ignorant against the sky!_", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1979 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -13690,11 +14244,11 @@ "title": "“Arrival at Santos”", "body": "Here is a coast; here is a harbor;\nhere, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery;\nimpractically shaped and--who knows?--self-pitying mountains,\nsad and harsh beneath their frivolous greenery,\n\nwith a little church on top of one. And warehouses,\nsome of them painted a feeble pink, or blue,\nand some tall, uncertain palms. Oh, tourist,\nis this how this country is going to answer you\n\nand your immodest demands for a different world,\nand a better life, and complete comprehension\nof both at last, and immediately,\nafter eighteen days of suspension?\n\nFinish your breakfast. The tender is coming,\na strange and ancient craft, flying a strange and brilliant rag.\nSo that’s the flag. I never saw it before.\nI somehow never thought of there being a flag,\n\nbut of course there was, all along. And coins, I presume,\nand paper money; they remain to be seen.\nAnd gingerly now we climb down the ladder backward,\nmyself and a fellow passenger named Miss Breen,\n\ndescending into the midst of twenty-six freighters\nwaiting to be loaded with green coffee beans.\nPlease, boy, do be more careful with that boat hook!\nWatch out! Oh! It has caught Miss Breen’s\n\nskirt! There! Miss Breen is about seventy,\na retired police lieutenant, six feet tall,\nwith beautiful bright blue eyes and a kind expression.\nHer home, when she is at home, is in Glens Fall\n\ns, New York. There. We are settled.\nThe customs officials will speak English, we hope,\nand leave us our bourbon and cigarettes.\nPorts are necessities, like postage stamps, or soap,\n\nbut they seldom seem to care what impression they make,\nor, like this, only attempt, since it does not matter,\nthe unassertive colors of soap, or postage stamps--\nwasting away like the former, slipping the way the latter\n\ndo when we mail the letteres we wrote on the boat,\neither because the glue here is very inferior\nor because of the heat. We leave Santos at once;\nwe are driving to the interior.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1952, "month": "january" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january" @@ -13705,10 +14259,10 @@ "title": "“At the Fishhouses”", "body": "Although it is a cold evening,\ndown by one of the fishhouses\nan old man sits netting,\nhis net, in the gloaming almost invisible,\na dark purple-brown,\nand his shuttle worn and polished.\nThe air smells so strong of codfish\nit makes one’s nose run and one’s eyes water.\nThe five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs\nand narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up\nto storerooms in the gables\nfor the wheelbarrows to be pushed up and down on.\nAll is silver: the heavy surface of the sea,\nswelling slowly as if considering spilling over,\nis opaque, but the silver of the benches,\nthe lobster pots, and masts, scattered\namong the wild jagged rocks,\nis of an apparent translucence\nlike the small old buildings with an emerald moss\ngrowing on their shoreward walls.\nThe big fish tubs are completely lined\nwith layers of beautiful herring scales\nand the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered\nwith creamy iridescent coats of mail,\nwith small iridescent flies crawling on them.\nUp on the little slope behind the houses,\nset in the sparse bright sprinkle of grass,\nis an ancient wooden capstan,\ncracked, with two long bleached handles\nand some melancholy stains, like dried blood,\nwhere the ironwork has rusted.\nThe old man accepts a Lucky Strike.\nHe was a friend of my grandfather.\nWe talk of the decline in the population\nand of codfish and herring\nwhile he waits for a herring boat to come in.\nThere are sequins on his vest and on his thumb.\nHe has scraped the scales, the principal beauty,\nfrom unnumbered fish with that black old knife,\nthe blade of which is almost worn away.\n\nDown at the water’s edge, at the place\nwhere they haul up the boats, up the long ramp\ndescending into the water, thin silver\ntree trunks are laid horizontally\nacross the gray stones, down and down\nat intervals of four or five feet.\n\nCold dark deep and absolutely clear,\nelement bearable to no mortal,\nto fish and to seals 
 One seal particularly\nI have seen here evening after evening.\nHe was curious about me. He was interested in music;\nlike me a believer in total immersion,\nso I used to sing him Baptist hymns.\nI also sang “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”\nHe stood up in the water and regarded me\nsteadily, moving his head a little.\nThen he would disappear, then suddenly emerge\nalmost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug\nas if it were against his better judgment.\nCold dark deep and absolutely clear,\nthe clear gray icy water 
 Back, behind us,\nthe dignified tall firs begin.\nBluish, associating with their shadows,\na million Christmas trees stand\nwaiting for Christmas. The water seems suspended\nabove the rounded gray and blue-gray stones.\nI have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same,\nslightly, indifferently swinging above the stones,\nicily free above the stones,\nabove the stones and then the world.\nIf you should dip your hand in,\nyour wrist would ache immediately,\nyour bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn\nas if the water were a transmutation of fire\nthat feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame.\nIf you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,\nthen briny, then surely burn your tongue.\nIt is like what we imagine knowledge to be:\ndark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,\ndrawn from the cold hard mouth\nof the world, derived from the rocky breasts\nforever, flowing and drawn, and since\nour knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1979 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -13719,10 +14273,10 @@ "title": "“Behind Stowe”", "body": "I heard an elf go whistling by,\nA whistle sleek as moonlit grass,\nThat drew me like a silver string\nTo where the dusty, pale moths fly,\nAnd make a magic as they pass;\nAnd there I heard a cricket sing.\n\nHis singing echoed through and through\nThe dark under a windy tree\nWhere glinted little insects’ wings.\nHis singing split the sky in two.\nThe halves fell either side of me,\nAnd I stood straight, bright with moon-rings.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1927 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -13839,10 +14393,10 @@ "title": "“Filling Station”", "body": "Oh, but it is dirty!\n--this little filling station,\noil-soaked, oil-permeated\nto a disturbing, over-all\nblack translucency.\nBe careful with that match!\n\nFather wears a dirty,\noil-soaked monkey suit\nthat cuts him under the arms,\nand several quick and saucy\nand greasy sons assist him\n(it’s a family filling station),\nall quite thoroughly dirty.\n\nDo they live in the station?\nIt has a cement porch\nbehind the pumps, and on it\na set of crushed and grease-\nimpregnated wickerwork;\non the wicker sofa\na dirty dog, quite comfy.\n\nSome comic books provide\nthe only note of color-\nof certain color. They lie\nupon a big dim doily\ndraping a taboret\n(part of the set), beside\na big hirsute begonia.\n\nWhy the extraneous plant?\nWhy the taboret?\nWhy, oh why, the doily?\n(Embroidered in daisy stitch\nwith marguerites, I think,\nand heavy with gray crochet.)\n\nSomebody embroidered the doily.\nSomebody waters the plant,\nor oils it, maybe. Somebody\narranges the rows of cans\nso that they softly say:\nESSO--SO--SO--SO\nto high-strung automobiles.\nSomebody loves us all.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1979 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -13869,10 +14423,10 @@ "title": "“Five Flights Up”", "body": "Still dark.\nThe unknown bird sits on his usual branch.\nThe little dog next door barks in his sleep\ninquiringly, just once.\nPerhaps in his sleep, too, the bird inquires\nonce or twice, quavering.\nQuestions--if that is what they are--\nanswered directly, simply,\nby day itself.\n\nEnormous morning, ponderous, meticulous;\ngray light streaking each bare branch,\neach single twig, along one side,\nmaking another tree, of glassy veins 
\nThe bird still sits there. Now he seems to yawn.\n\nThe little black dog runs in his yard.\nHis owner’s voice arises, stern,\n“You ought to be ashamed!”\nWhat has he done?\nHe bounces cheerfully up and down;\nhe rushes in circles in the fallen leaves.\n\nObviously, he has no sense of shame.\nHe and the bird know everything is answered,\nall taken care of,\nno need to ask again.\n--Yesterday brought to today so lightly!\n(A yesterday I find almost impossible to lift.)", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1974 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -13912,10 +14466,10 @@ "title": "“The Imaginary Iceberg”", "body": "We’d rather have the iceberg than the ship,\nalthough it meant the end of travel.\nAlthough it stood stock-still like cloudy rock\nand all the sea were moving marble.\nWe’d rather have the iceberg than the ship;\nwe’d rather own this breathing plain of snow\nthough the ship’s sails were laid upon the sea\nas the snow lies undissolved upon the water.\nO solemn, floating field,\nare you aware an iceberg takes repose\nwith you, and when it wakes may pasture on your snows?\n\nThis is a scene a sailor’d give his eyes for.\nThe ship’s ignored. The iceberg rises\nand sinks again; its glassy pinnacles\ncorrect elliptics in the sky.\nThis is a scene where he who treads the boards\nis artlessly rhetorical. The curtain\nis light enough to rise on finest ropes\nthat airy twists of snow provide.\nThe wits of these white peaks\nspar with the sun. Its weight the iceberg dares\nupon a shifting stage and stands and stares.\n\nThe iceberg cuts its facets from within.\nLike jewelry from a grave\nit saves itself perpetually and adorns\nonly itself, perhaps the snows\nwhich so surprise us lying on the sea.\nGood-bye, we say, good-bye, the ship steers off\nwhere waves give in to one another’s waves\nand clouds run in a warmer sky.\nIcebergs behoove the soul\n(both being self-made from elements least visible)\nto see them so: fleshed, fair, erected indivisible.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -13926,10 +14480,10 @@ "title": "“In the Waiting Room”", "body": "In Worcester, Massachusetts,\nI went with Aunt Consuelo\nto keep her dentist’s appointment\nand sat and waited for her\nin the dentist’s waiting room.\nIt was winter. It got dark\nearly. The waiting room\nwas full of grown-up people,\narctics and overcoats,\nlamps and magazines.\nMy aunt was inside\nwhat seemed like a long time\nand while I waited I read\nthe National Geographic\n(I could read) and carefully\nstudied the photographs:\nthe inside of a volcano,\nblack, and full of ashes;\nthen it was spilling over\nin rivulets of fire.\nOsa and Martin Johnson\ndressed in riding breeches,\nlaced boots, and pith helmets.\nA dead man slung on a pole\n--“Long Pig,” the caption said.\nBabies with pointed heads\nwound round and round with string;\nblack, naked women with necks\nwound round and round with wire\nlike the necks of light bulbs.\nTheir breasts were horrifying.\nI read it right straight through.\nI was too shy to stop.\nAnd then I looked at the cover:\nthe yellow margins, the date.\nSuddenly, from inside,\ncame an oh! of pain\n--Aunt Consuelo’s voice--\nnot very loud or long.\nI wasn’t at all surprised;\neven then I knew she was\na foolish, timid woman.\nI might have been embarrassed,\nbut wasn’t. What took me\ncompletely by surprise\nwas that it was me:\nmy voice, in my mouth.\nWithout thinking at all\nI was my foolish aunt,\nI--we--were falling, falling,\nour eyes glued to the cover\nof the National Geographic,\nFebruary, 1918.\n\nI said to myself: three days\nand you’ll be seven years old.\nI was saying it to stop\nthe sensation of falling off\nthe round, turning world.\ninto cold, blue-black space.\nBut I felt: you are an I,\nyou are an Elizabeth,\nyou are one of them.\nWhy should you be one, too?\nI scarcely dared to look\nto see what it was I was.\nI gave a sidelong glance\n--I couldn’t look any higher--\nat shadowy gray knees,\ntrousers and skirts and boots\nand different pairs of hands\nlying under the lamps.\nI knew that nothing stranger\nhad ever happened, that nothing\nstranger could ever happen.\n\nWhy should I be my aunt,\nor me, or anyone?\nWhat similarities--\nboots, hands, the family voice\nI felt in my throat, or even\nthe National Geographic\nand those awful hanging breasts--\nheld us all together\nor made us all just one?\nHow--I didn’t know any\nword for it--how “unlikely” 
\nHow had I come to be here,\nlike them, and overhear\na cry of pain that could have\ngot loud and worse but hadn’t?\n\nThe waiting room was bright\nand too hot. It was sliding\nbeneath a big black wave,\nanother, and another.\n\nThen I was back in it.\nThe War was on. Outside,\nin Worcester, Massachusetts,\nwere night and slush and cold,\nand it was still the fifth\nof February, 1918.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1979 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -14040,10 +14594,10 @@ "title": "“The Moose”", "body": "From narrow provinces\nof fish and bread and tea,\nhome of the long tides\nwhere the bay leaves the sea\ntwice a day and takes\nthe herrings long rides,\n\nwhere if the river\nenters or retreats\nin a wall of brown foam\ndepends on if it meets\nthe bay coming in,\nthe bay not at home;\n\nwhere, silted red,\nsometimes the sun sets\nfacing a red sea,\nand others, veins the flats’\nlavender, rich mud\nin burning rivulets;\n\non red, gravelly roads,\ndown rows of sugar maples,\npast clapboard farmhouses\nand neat, clapboard churches,\nbleached, ridged as clamshells,\npast twin silver birches,\n\nthrough late afternoon\na bus journeys west,\nthe windshield flashing pink,\npink glancing off of metal,\nbrushing the dented flank\nof blue, beat-up enamel;\n\ndown hollows, up rises,\nand waits, patient, while\na lone traveller gives\nkisses and embraces\nto seven relatives\nand a collie supervises.\n\nGoodbye to the elms,\nto the farm, to the dog.\nThe bus starts. The light\ngrows richer; the fog,\nshifting, salty, thin,\ncomes closing in.\n\nIts cold, round crystals\nform and slide and settle\nin the white hens’ feathers,\nin gray glazed cabbages,\non the cabbage roses\nand lupins like apostles;\n\nthe sweet peas cling\nto their wet white string\non the whitewashed fences;\nbumblebees creep\ninside the foxgloves,\nand evening commences.\n\nOne stop at Bass River.\nThen the Economies--\nLower, Middle, Upper;\nFive Islands, Five Houses,\nwhere a woman shakes a tablecloth\nout after supper.\n\nA pale flickering. Gone.\nThe Tantramar marshes\nand the smell of salt hay.\nAn iron bridge trembles\nand a loose plank rattles\nbut doesn’t give way.\n\nOn the left, a red light\nswims through the dark:\na ship’s port lantern.\nTwo rubber boots show,\nilluminated, solemn.\nA dog gives one bark.\n\nA woman climbs in\nwith two market bags,\nbrisk, freckled, elderly.\n“A grand night. Yes, sir,\nall the way to Boston.”\nShe regards us amicably.\n\nMoonlight as we enter\nthe New Brunswick woods,\nhairy, scratchy, splintery;\nmoonlight and mist\ncaught in them like lamb’s wool\non bushes in a pasture.\n\nThe passengers lie back.\nSnores. Some long sighs.\nA dreamy divagation\nbegins in the night,\na gentle, auditory,\nslow hallucination 
\n\nIn the creakings and noises,\nan old conversation\n--not concerning us,\nbut recognizable, somewhere,\nback in the bus:\nGrandparents’ voices\n\nuninterruptedly\ntalking, in Eternity:\nnames being mentioned,\nthings cleared up finally;\nwhat he said, what she said,\nwho got pensioned;\n\ndeaths, deaths and sicknesses;\nthe year he remarried;\nthe year (something) happened.\nShe died in childbirth.\nThat was the son lost\nwhen the schooner foundered.\n\nHe took to drink. Yes.\nShe went to the bad.\nWhen Amos began to pray\neven in the store and\nfinally the family had\nto put him away.\n\n“Yes 
” that peculiar\naffirmative. “Yes 
”\nA sharp, indrawn breath,\nhalf groan, half acceptance,\nthat means “Life’s like that.\nWe know it (also death).”\n\nTalking the way they talked\nin the old featherbed,\npeacefully, on and on,\ndim lamplight in the hall,\ndown in the kitchen, the dog\ntucked in her shawl.\n\nNow, it’s all right now\neven to fall asleep\njust as on all those nights.\n--Suddenly the bus driver\nstops with a jolt,\nturns off his lights.\n\nA moose has come out of\nthe impenetrable wood\nand stands there, looms, rather,\nin the middle of the road.\nIt approaches; it sniffs at\nthe bus’s hot hood.\n\nTowering, antlerless,\nhigh as a church,\nhomely as a house\n(or, safe as houses).\nA man’s voice assures us\n“Perfectly harmless 
”\n\nSome of the passengers\nexclaim in whispers,\nchildishly, softly,\n“Sure are big creatures.”\n“It’s awful plain.”\n“Look! It’s a she!”\n\nTaking her time,\nshe looks the bus over,\ngrand, otherworldly.\nWhy, why do we feel\n(we all feel) this sweet\nsensation of joy?\n\n“Curious creatures,”\nsays our quiet driver,\nrolling his r’s.\n“Look at that, would you.”\nThen he shifts gears.\nFor a moment longer,\n\nby craning backward,\nthe moose can be seen\non the moonlit macadam;\nthen there’s a dim\nsmell of moose, an acrid\nsmell of gasoline.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1979 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -14078,10 +14632,10 @@ "title": "“One Art”", "body": "The art of losing isn’t hard to master;\nso many things seem filled with the intent\nto be lost that their loss is no disaster.\n\nLose something every day. Accept the fluster\nof lost door keys, the hour badly spent.\nThe art of losing isn’t hard to master.\n\nThen practice losing farther, losing faster:\nplaces, and names, and where it was you meant\nto travel. None of these will bring disaster.\n\nI lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or\nnext-to-last, of three loved houses went.\nThe art of losing isn’t hard to master.\n\nI lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,\nsome realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.\nI miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.\n\n--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture\nI love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident\nthe art of losing’s not too hard to master\nthough it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1979 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -14275,10 +14829,10 @@ "title": "“Visits to St. Elizabeths”", "body": "This is the house of Bedlam.\n\nThis is the man\nthat lies in the house of Bedlam.\n\nThis is the time\nof the tragic man\nthat lies in the house of Bedlam.\n\nThis is a wristwatch\ntelling the time\nof the talkative man\nthat lies in the house of Bedlam.\n\nThis is a sailor\nwearing the watch\nthat tells the time\nof the honored man\nthat lies in the house of Bedlam.\n\nThis is the roadstead all of board\nreached by the sailor\nwearing the watch\nthat tells the time\nof the old, brave man\nthat lies in the house of Bedlam.\n\nThese are the years and the walls of the ward,\nthe winds and clouds of the sea of board\nsailed by the sailor\nwearing the watch\nthat tells the time\nof the cranky man\nthat lies in the house of Bedlam.\n\nThis is a Jew in a newspaper hat\nthat dances weeping down the ward\nover the creaking sea of board\nbeyond the sailor\nwinding his watch\nthat tells the time\nof the cruel man\nthat lies in the house of Bedlam.\n\nThis is a world of books gone flat.\nThis is a Jew in a newspaper hat\nthat dances weeping down the ward\nover the creaking sea of board\nof the batty sailor\nthat winds his watch\nthat tells the time\nof the busy man\nthat lies in the house of Bedlam.\n\nThis is a boy that pats the floor\nto see if the world is there, is flat,\nfor the widowed Jew in the newspaper hat\nthat dances weeping down the ward\nwaltzing the length of a weaving board\nby the silent sailor\nthat hears his watch\nthat ticks the time\nof the tedious man\nthat lies in the house of Bedlam.\n\nThese are the years and the walls and the door\nthat shut on a boy that pats the floor\nto feel if the world is there and flat.\nThis is a Jew in a newspaper hat\nthat dances joyfully down the ward\ninto the parting seas of board\npast the staring sailor\nthat shakes his watch\nthat tells the time\nof the poet, the man\nthat lies in the house of Bedlam.\n\nThis is the soldier home from the war.\nThese are the years and the walls and the door\nthat shut on a boy that pats the floor\nto see if the world is round or flat.\nThis is a Jew in a newspaper hat\nthat dances carefully down the ward,\nwalking the plank of a coffin board\nwith the crazy sailor\nthat shows his watch\nthat tells the time\nof the wretched man\nthat lies in the house of Bedlam.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1979 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -14494,10 +15048,10 @@ "title": "“Auguries of Innocence”", "body": "To see a world in a grain of sand\nAnd a heaven in a wild flower,\nHold infinity in the palm of your hand\nAnd eternity in an hour.\nA robin redbreast in a cage\nPuts all heaven in a rage.\nA dove-house filled with doves and pigeons\nShudders hell through all its regions.\nA dog starved at his master’s gate\nPredicts the ruin of the state.\nA horse misused upon the road\nCalls to heaven for human blood.\nEach outcry of the hunted hare\nA fibre from the brain does tear.\nA skylark wounded in the wing,\nA cherubim does cease to sing.\nThe game-cock clipped and armed for fight\nDoes the rising sun affright.\nEvery wolf’s and lion’s howl\nRaises from hell a human soul.\nThe wild deer wandering here and there\nKeeps the human soul from care.\nThe lamb misused breeds public strife,\nAnd yet forgives the butcher’s knife.\nThe bat that flits at close of eve\nHas left the brain that won’t believe.\nThe owl that calls upon the night\nSpeaks the unbeliever’s fright.\nHe who shall hurt the little wren\nShall never be beloved by men.\nHe who the ox to wrath has moved\nShall never be by woman loved.\nThe wanton boy that kills the fly\nShall feel the spider’s enmity.\nHe who torments the chafer’s sprite\nWeaves a bower in endless night.\nThe caterpillar on the leaf\nRepeats to thee thy mother’s grief.\nKill not the moth nor butterfly,\nFor the Last Judgment draweth nigh.\nHe who shall train the horse to war\nShall never pass the polar bar.\nThe beggar’s dog and widow’s cat,\nFeed them, and thou wilt grow fat.\nThe gnat that sings his summer’s song\nPoison gets from Slander’s tongue.\nThe poison of the snake and newt\nIs the sweat of Envy’s foot.\nThe poison of the honey-bee\nIs the artist’s jealousy.\nThe prince’s robes and beggar’s rags\nAre toadstools on the miser’s bags.\nA truth that’s told with bad intent\nBeats all the lies you can invent.\nIt is right it should be so:\nMan was made for joy and woe;\nAnd when this we rightly know\nThrough the world we safely go.\nJoy and woe are woven fine,\nA clothing for the soul divine.\nUnder every grief and pine\nRuns a joy with silken twine.\nThe babe is more than swaddling bands,\nThroughout all these human lands;\nTools were made and born were hands,\nEvery farmer understands.\nEvery tear from every eye\nBecomes a babe in eternity;\nThis is caught by females bright\nAnd returned to its own delight.\nThe bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar\nAre waves that beat on heaven’s shore.\nThe babe that weeps the rod beneath\nWrites Revenge! in realms of death.\nThe beggar’s rags fluttering in air\nDoes to rags the heavens tear.\nThe soldier armed with sword and gun\nPalsied strikes the summer’s sun.\nThe poor man’s farthing is worth more\nThan all the gold on Afric’s shore.\nOne mite wrung from the labourer’s hands\nShall buy and sell the miser’s lands,\nOr if protected from on high\nDoes that whole nation sell and buy.\nHe who mocks the infant’s faith\nShall be mocked in age and death.\nHe who shall teach the child to doubt\nThe rotting grave shall ne’er get out.\nHe who respects the infant’s faith\nTriumphs over hell and death.\nThe child’s toys and the old man’s reasons\nAre the fruits of the two seasons.\nThe questioner who sits so sly\nShall never know how to reply.\nHe who replies to words of doubt\nDoth put the light of knowledge out.\nThe strongest poison ever known\nCame from Caesar’s laurel crown.\nNought can deform the human race\nLike to the armour’s iron brace.\nWhen gold and gems adorn the plough\nTo peaceful arts shall Envy bow.\nA riddle or the cricket’s cry\nIs to doubt a fit reply.\nThe emmet’s inch and eagle’s mile\nMake lame philosophy to smile.\nHe who doubts from what he sees\nWill ne’er believe, do what you please.\nIf the sun and moon should doubt,\nThey’d immediately go out.\nTo be in a passion you good may do,\nBut no good if a passion is in you.\nThe whore and gambler, by the state\nLicensed, build that nation’s fate.\nThe harlot’s cry from street to street\nShall weave old England’s winding sheet.\nThe winner’s shout, the loser’s curse,\nDance before dead England’s hearse.\nEvery night and every morn\nSome to misery are born.\nEvery morn and every night\nSome are born to sweet delight.\nSome are born to sweet delight,\nSome are born to endless night.\nWe are led to believe a lie\nWhen we see not through the eye\nWhich was born in a night to perish in a night,\nWhen the soul slept in beams of light.\nGod appears, and God is light\nTo those poor souls who dwell in night,\nBut does a human form display\nTo those who dwell in realms of day.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1803 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -14853,14 +15407,14 @@ } }, "if-it-is-true-what-the-prophets-write": { - "title": "“If It is True What the Prophets Write”", + "title": "“If it is true, what the Prophets write 
”", "body": "If it is true, what the Prophets write,\nThat the heathen gods are all stocks and stones,\nShall we, for the sake of being polite,\nFeed them with the juice of our marrow-bones?\n\nAnd if Bezaleel and Aholiab drew\nWhat the finger of God pointed to their view,\nShall we suffer the Roman and Grecian rods\nTo compel us to worship them as gods?\n\nThey stole them from the temple of the Lord\nAnd worshipp’d them that they might make inspirĂ©d art abhorr’d;\n\nThe wood and stone were call’d the holy things,\nAnd their sublime intent given to their kings.\nAll the atonements of Jehovah spurn’d,\nAnd criminals to sacrifices turn’d.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1810, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -14886,10 +15440,10 @@ "title": "“The Land of Dreams”", "body": "Awake, awake my little Boy!\nThou wast thy Mother’s only joy:\nWhy dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep?\nAwake! thy Father does thee keep.\n\n“O, what land is the Land of Dreams?\nWhat are its mountains, and what are its streams?\nO Father, I saw my Mother there,\nAmong the lillies by waters fair.\n\nAmong the lambs clothed in white\nShe walked with her Thomas in sweet delight.\nI wept for joy, like a dove I mourn--\nO when shall I return again?”\n\nDear child, I also by pleasant streams\nHave wandered all night in the Land of Dreams;\nBut though calm and warm the waters wide,\nI could not get to the other side.\n\n“Father, O Father, what do we here,\nIn this land of unbelief and fear?\nThe Land of Dreams is better far\nAbove the light of the Morning Star.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1803 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -15267,10 +15821,10 @@ "title": "“To Autumn”", "body": "O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain’d\nWith the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit\nBeneath my shady roof; there thou may’st rest,\nAnd tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,\nAnd all the daughters of the year shall dance!\nSing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.\n\nThe narrow bud opens her beauties to\nThe sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;\nBlossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and\nFlourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,\nTill clust’ring Summer breaks forth into singing,\nAnd feather’d clouds strew flowers round her head.\n\nThe spirits of the air live in the smells\nOf fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round\nThe gardens, or sits singing in the trees.\nThus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat,\nThen rose, girded himself, and o’er the bleak\nHills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1783 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -15322,14 +15876,6 @@ "tags": [] } }, - "to-the-muses": { - "title": "“To the Muses”", - "body": "Whether on Ida’s shady brow,\nOr in the chambers of the East,\nThe chambers of the sun, that now\nFrom ancient melody have ceas’d;\n\nWhether in Heav’n ye wander fair,\nOr the green corners of the earth,\nOr the blue regions of the air,\nWhere the melodious winds have birth;\n\nWhether on crystal rocks ye rove,\nBeneath the bosom of the sea\nWand’ring in many a coral grove,\nFair Nine, forsaking Poetry!\n\nHow have you left the ancient love\nThat bards of old enjoy’d in you!\nThe languid strings do scarcely move!\nThe sound is forc’d, the notes are few!", - "metadata": { - "language": "English", - "tags": [] - } - }, "to-winter": { "title": "“To Winter”", "body": "“O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:\nThe north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark\nDeep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,\nNor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.”\n\nHe hears me not, but o’er the yawning deep\nRides heavy; his storms are unchain’d, sheathĂ©d\nIn ribbĂ©d steel; I dare not lift mine eyes,\nFor he hath rear’d his sceptre o’er the world.\n\nLo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings\nTo his strong bones, strides o’er the groaning rocks:\nHe withers all in silence, and in his hand\nUnclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life.\n\nHe takes his seat upon the cliffs,--the mariner\nCries in vain. Poor little wretch, that deal’st\nWith storms!--till heaven smiles, and the monster\nIs driv’n yelling to his caves beneath mount Hecla.", @@ -15459,11 +16005,13 @@ "title": "“A Prayer for Cats and Dogs”", "body": "A prayer for cats and dogs,\nLittle outcasts of being\nThat live in gutters and garbage dumps,\nHomeless and stray, like me.\n\nA prayer for these hungry sighs 
\nHow many tears I have shed in life!\nBut beasts are silently displeased by God.\nThey don’t cry--just look into their angst.\n\nThey look and look so long, so long, so long\nAnd see a giant tear,\nAs if it were real, big as the Volga River,\nA tear of beasts swells, and they swim in it.\n\nThey swim and smell the taste of evil slime,\nThe whirlwind is getting steeper, wild--\nThose subtle paws have suffered so much pain\nThat one would like to touch death with them.\n\nTo touch it like one touches knees,\nEven perhaps to lick it secretly\nIn a somewhat hopeless frenzy\nWith their hot, rough tongues
\n\nA tear of beasts is as great as the Volga River,\nDeath will be drowned in it and so will doom,\nSo there is no more death, no God is here:\nThere’s only a feline Lord and dogs’ God.\n\nA feline God that plays around with grandeur\nAnd touches with its little paws its doom--\nA little skein of golden indifference\nWith entangled threads in the tomb.\n\nA dog’s God lives in a garbage dump.\nIt is wretched, bold, and lame.\nYet the world is pardoned by beast’s suffering.\nAll is forgiven in garbage dumps. Amen.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1963 }, - "translator": "Ian Probstein", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ian Probstein" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -15576,7 +16124,6 @@ "title": "“The Sword”", "body": "The lament of the sword. The first time the Spirit of Sabaoth spoke about me, it was to keep men from forgetting that I had been seen all aflame on the threshold of the lost Eden.\n\nAt once I became War, and my fearful Name everywhere became the sign of Majesty.\nI appeared as the sublime instrument of Providential blood-letting and, in my wonderful unawareness as the Elect of Fate, I espoused through the centuries every human feeling capable of speeding Fate on.\nAnger, Love, Enthusiasm, Greed, Fanaticism and Insanity I served in so perfect a fashion that the history books have been afraid to tell the whole story.\nDuring six thousand years I have made myself drunk, at all points of the globe, on massacre and throat-slitting.\n\nI have killed old men who were like palaces of Suffering. I have cut off the breasts of women who were like light, and I have run little children through who looked at me with eyes of moribund lions.\nDaily have I galloped on the pale Horse along the avenue of cypresses “from the womb to the grave,” and I have made a fountain of blood out of every son of man within my reach.\n\nThe world then was in ecstasy over my beauty. Christian lads dreamt of me. I was given the last kiss of dying monarchs, conquerors latticed in steel knelt with their eyes on me and whole continents were made to run with blood at the prayer I inspired.\nWhen enthusiasm for the Cross had died away, I condescended to become the badge of what men called _Honor_, and, in this lowered state, I still appeared sufficiently magnificent for the whole of Europe one day to throw itself at the feet of a single Master who had placed me in the monstrance of his heart.\nMost certainly he did not pray, this Emperor of Death, but all the same I strewed about him the ecumenical prayer of Sacrifice and Devotion--the dreadful red prayer that bellows forth in the slaughterhouses of nations.\nAh! it was not so splendid as the past! but who will say how beautiful it was? I know something about it, I, the Sword, of whom it is written that I shall devour everything at the end of ends!", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Coleman", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Devant les Cochons", @@ -15585,6 +16132,9 @@ "year": 1894 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Coleman" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -16618,8 +17168,10 @@ "title": "“Justice”", "body": "But you, but the wilderness! Spread lower\nYour surfaces of darkness.\nWork into this heart so that it will not stop\nYour silence like a legendary cause.\n\nCome. Here a thought breaks off.\nHere a beautiful country runs out of roads.\nGo forward on the rim of that frozen dawn\nWhich gives you an enemy sun as your share.\n\nAnd sing. You lament twice over what you lament\nIf you dare sing by great refusals.\nSmile, and sing. He needs your presence,\nDark light, on the waters of what he was.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Galway Kinnell", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Galway Kinnell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -16627,8 +17179,10 @@ "title": "“They Spoke to Me”", "body": "They said to me no, don’t take any, no, don’t touch, that is burning hot. No, don’t try to touch, to hold, that weighs too much, that hurts.\n\nThey said to me: Read, write. And I tried, I took up a word, but it struggled, it clucked like a frightened hen, wounded, in a cage of black straw, spotted with old traces of blood.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Mary Ann Caws", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Mary Ann Caws" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -16636,8 +17190,10 @@ "title": "“Truth”", "body": "Thus until death, faces reunited,\nThe heart’s clumsy gestures on the rediscovered body,\nOn which you die, absolute truth,\nThis body given over to your weakened hands.\nThe smell of blood will be the good you were seeking,\nFrugal good radiating in an orangery.\nThe sun will turn, with its bright agony\nLighting the place where all was laid bare.\n\nYou took a lamp and you open the door,\nWhat use is a lamp, it is raining, the day breaks.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Galway Kinnell", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Galway Kinnell" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -16681,8 +17237,10 @@ "title": "“Adam Cast Forth”", "body": "Was there a garden or was the garden a dream?\nI ask myself, slowly in the evening light,\nAlmost for consolation, without delight,\nIf that past was real or if it only seems\nReal to me now in misery, an illusion?\n No more than a magical show\n Of a god I do not know\nBut dreamed, and that Paradise, vague now, delusion?\n But I know that Paradise will be\n Even if it does not exist for me.\nThe warring incest of Cains and Abels is the tough earth’s way\nOf punishing me. Yet it is a good thing to have known of\nHappiness and to have touched love,\nThe living garden, even if only for a day.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Richard Eberhart", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Richard Eberhart" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -16690,8 +17248,10 @@ "title": "“A Compass”", "body": "All things are words belonging to that language\nIn which Someone or Something, night and day,\nWrites down the infinite babble that is, per se,\nThe history of the world. And in that hodgepodge\n\nBoth Rome and Carthage, he and you and I,\nMy life that I don’t grasp, this painful load\nOf being riddle, randomness, or code,\nAnd all of Babel’s gibberish stream by.\n\nBehind the name is that which has no name;\nToday I have felt its shadow gravitate\nIn this blue needle, in its trembling sweep\n\nCasting its influence toward the farthest strait,\nWith something of a clock glimpsed in a dream\nAnd something of a bird that stirs in its sleep.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Mezey", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Mezey" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -16699,8 +17259,10 @@ "title": "“Fragments from an Apocryphal Evangelist”", "body": "3. Cursed are the poor in spirit, for when they are under the ground, they will be about as they are now, above it.\n\n5. Blessed are those who know that suffering is not a crown of glory.\n\n6. It is not enough to be last, in the hope of someday being first.\n\n10. Blessed are they that do not hunger after righteousness, for they know that our fate, implacable or merciful, is the work of chance, and chance is unfathomable.\n\n14. There is no one who is the salt of the earth, and no one who, at some moment of his life, is not.\n\n24. Do not overdo the worship of truth; there is no man but who, at day’s end, has lied several times for good reason.\n\n27. I am not talking about vengeance or forgiveness; oblivion is the only forgiveness, the only vengeance.\n\n28. Doing good to one’s enemy can be a work of justice, and it isn’t hard; loving one’s enemy, ah, that is a job for angels, not for men.\n\n39. The door does the choosing, not the man.\n\n47. Blessed are the poor without bitterness and the rich without pride.\n\n50. Happy are the beloved, happy the lovers, and happy those who can do without love.\n\n51. Happy are the happy.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Mezey", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Mezey" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -16732,8 +17294,10 @@ "title": "“May 20, 1928”", "body": "Now he is invulnerable like the gods.\nNothing on earth can hurt him, not the coldness of a woman, nor tuberculosis, nor the troubles of verse, nor that white thing the moon, which he is no longer obliged to capture in words.\nHe strolls beneath the lindens; he looks at balustrades and doorways, but not to remember them.\nNow he knows how many nights and how many mornings he has left.\nHis will has imposed on him a precise discipline. He will perform specific acts, he will cross foreseen streetcorners, he will touch a tree or a grille, that the future might be as irrevocable as the past.\nHe behaves in that way so that the event which he desires and which he fears may be nothing else than the conclusive end of a series.\nHe walks down 49th Street; it strikes him that he will never go through this or that side door.\nWithout their suspecting it, he has taken leave now of many friends.\nHe thinks of what he will never know, whether the next day will be rainy.\nHe meets an acquaintance and cracks a joke. He knows that this incident will be, on some occasion, an anecdote.\nNow he is invulnerable like the dead.\nAt a set time, he will climb some marble stairs. (This will survive in the memories of others.)\nHe will go down to the men’s room; on the checkered floor the water will soon wash away the blood. The mirror is waiting for him.\nHe will slick back his hair, he will adjust the knot of his tie (he was always a bit of a dandy, as befits a young poet), and he will try to imagine that the other man, the one in the glass, is doing these things and that he, the double, is repeating them. His hand will not tremble when the end comes. Passively, magically, the pistol will by now have rested against the temple.\nThat, I believe, is how it happened.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Mezey", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Mezey" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -16753,8 +17317,10 @@ "title": "“Sleep”", "body": "If sleep is truce, as it is sometimes said,\nA pure time for the mind to rest and heal,\nWhy, when they suddenly wake you, do you feel\nThat they have stolen everything you had?\nWhy is it so sad to be awake at dawn?\nIt strips us of a gift so strange, so deep,\nIt can be remembered only in half-sleep,\nMoments of drowsiness that gild and adorn\nThe waking mind with dreams, which may well be\nBut broken images of the night’s treasure,\nA timeless world that has no name or measure\nAnd breaks up in the mirrors of the day.\nWho will you be tonight, in the dark thrall\nOf sleep, when you have slipped across its wall?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Mezey", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Mezey" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -16762,8 +17328,10 @@ "title": "“A Wolf”", "body": "Grey and furtive in the final twilight,\nhe lopes by, leaving his spoor along the bank\nof this nameless river that has quenched the thirst\nof his throat, these waters that repeat no stars.\nTonight, the wolf is a shade who runs alone\nand searches for his mate and feels cold.\nHe is the last wolf in all of Angle-land.\nOdin and Thor know him. In a commanding\nhouse of stone a king has made up his mind\nto put an end to wolves. The powerful\nblade of your death has already been forged\nSaxon wolf, your seed has come to nothing.\nTo be cruel isn’t enough. You are the last.\nA thousand years will pass and an old man\nwill dream of you in America. What use\ncan that future dream possibly be to you?\nTonight the men who followed through the woods\nthe spoor you left are closing in on you,\ngrey and furtive in the final twilight.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Mezey", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Mezey" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -17038,8 +17606,10 @@ "title": "“Concerning the Infanticide, Marie Farrar”", "body": "Marie Farrar, born in April,\nNo marks, a minor, rachitic, both parents dead,\nAllegedly, up to now without police record,\nCommitted infanticide, it is said,\nAs follows: in her second month, she says,\nWith the aid of a barmaid she did her best\nTo get rid of her child with two douches,\nAllegedly painful but without success.\nBut you, I beg you, check your wrath and scorn\nFor man needs help from every creature born.\n\nShe then paid out, she says, what was agreed\nAnd continued to lace herself up tight.\nShe also drank liquor with pepper mixed in it\nWhich purged her but did not cure her plight.\nHer body distressed her as she washed the dishes,\nIt was swollen now quite visibly.\nShe herself says, for she was still a child,\nShe prayed to Mary most earnestly.\nBut you, I beg you, check your wrath and scorn\nFor man needs help from every creature born.\n\nHer prayers, it seemed, helped her not at all.\nShe longed for help. Her trouble made her falter\nAnd faint at early mass. Often drops of sweat\nBroke out in anguish as she knelt at the altar.\nYet until her time had come upon her\nShe still kept secret her condition.\nFor no one believed such a thing had happened,\nThat she, so unenticing, had yielded to temptation.\nBut you, I beg you, check your wrath and scorn\nFor man needs help from every creature born.\n\nAnd on that day, she says, when it was dawn,\nAs she washed the stairs it seemed a nail\nWas driven into her belly. She was wrung with pain.\nBut still she secretly endured her travail.\nAll day long while hanging out the laundry\nShe racked her brains till she got it through her head\nShe had to bear the child and her heart was heavy.\nIt was very late when she went up to bed.\nBut you, I beg you, check your wrath and scorn\nFor man needs help from every creature born.\n\nShe was sent for again as soon as she lay down:\nSnow had fallen and she had to go downstairs.\nIt went on till eleven. It was a long day.\nOnly at night did she have time to bear.\nAnd so, she says, she gave birth to a son.\nThe son she bore was just like all the others.\nShe was unlike the others but for this.\nThere is no reason to despise this mother.\nYou, too, I beg you, check your wrath and scorn\nFor man needs help from every creature born.\n\nAccordingly I will go on with the story\nOf what happened to the son that came to be.\n(She says she will hide nothing that befell)\nSo let it be a judgment upon both you and me.\nShe says she had scarcely gone to bed when she\nWas overcome with sickness and she was alone,\nNot knowing what would happen, yet she still\nContrived to stifle all her moans.\nAnd you, I beg you, check your wrath and scorn\nFor man needs help from every creature born.\n\nWith her last strength, she says because\nHer room had now grown icy cold, she then\nDragged herself to the latrine and there\nGave birth as best she could (not knowing when)\nBut toward morning. She says she was already\nQuite distracted and could barely hold\nThe child for snow came into the latrine\nAnd her fingers were half numb with cold.\nYou, too, I beg you, check your wrath and scorn\nFor man needs help from every creature born.\n\nBetween the latrine and her room, she says,\nNot earlier, the child began to cry until\nIt drove her mad so that she says\nShe did not cease to beat it with her fists\nBlindly for some time till it was still.\nAnd then she took the body to her bed\nAnd kept it with her there all through the night:\nWhen morning came she hid it in the shed.\nBut you, I beg you, check your wrath and scorn\nFor man needs help from every creature born.\n\nMarie Farrar, born in April,\nAnd unmarried mother, convicted, died in\nThe Meissen penitentiary,\nShe brings home to you all men’s sin.\nYou who bear pleasantly between clean sheets\nAnd give the name _blessed_ to your womb’s weight\nMust not damn the weakness of the outcast,\nFor her sin was black but her pain was great.\nTherefore, I beg you, check your wrath and scorn\nFor man needs help from every creature born.", "metadata": { - "translator": "H. R. Hays", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "H. R. Hays" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -17098,8 +17668,10 @@ "title": "“Motto”", "body": "In the dark times, will there also be singing?\nYes, there will be singing.\nAbout the dark times.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Willett", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "John Willett" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -17195,12 +17767,15 @@ "title": "“To those born later”", "body": "Truly, I live in dark times!\nThe guileless word is folly. A smooth forehead\nSuggests insensitivity. The man who laughs\nHas simply not yet had\nThe terrible news.\n\nWhat kind of times are they, when\nA talk about trees is almost a crime\nBecause it implies silence about so many horrors?\nThat man there calmly crossing the street\nIs already perhaps beyond the reach of his friends\nWho are in need?", "metadata": { + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1937, "circa": true }, - "translator": "John Willett & Ralph Manheim", - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "John Willett", + "Ralph Manheim" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -17283,8 +17858,10 @@ "title": "“Freedom of Love”", "body": "My wife with the hair of a wood fire\nWith the thoughts of heat lightning\nWith the waist of an hourglass\nWith the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger\nMy wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude\nWith the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earth\nWith the tongue of rubbed amber and glass\nMy wife with the tongue of a stabbed host\nWith the tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes\nWith the tongue of an unbelievable stone\nMy wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child’s writing\nWith brows of the edge of a swallow’s nest\nMy wife with the brow of slates of a hothouse roof\nAnd of steam on the panes\nMy wife with shoulders of champagne\nAnd of a fountain with dolphin-heads beneath the ice\nMy wife with wrists of matches\nMy wife with fingers of luck and ace of hearts\nWith fingers of mown hay\nMy wife with armpits of marten and of beechnut\nAnd of Midsummer Night\nOf privet and of an angelfish nest\nWith arms of seafoam and of riverlocks\nAnd of a mingling of the wheat and the mill\nMy wife with legs of flares\nWith the movements of clockwork and despair\nMy wife with calves of eldertree pith\nMy wife with feet of initials\nWith feet of rings of keys and Java sparrows drinking\nMy wife with a neck of unpearled barley\nMy wife with a throat of the valley of gold\nOf a tryst in the very bed of the torrent\nWith breasts of night\nMy wife with breasts of a marine molehill\nMy wife with breasts of the ruby’s crucible\nWith breasts of the rose’s spectre beneath the dew\nMy wife with the belly of an unfolding of the fan of days\nWith the belly of a gigantic claw\nMy wife with the back of a bird fleeing vertically\nWith a back of quicksilver\nWith a back of light\nWith a nape of rolled stone and wet chalk\nAnd of the drop of a glass where one has just been drinking\nMy wife with hips of a skiff\nWith hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathers\nAnd of shafts of white peacock plumes\nOf an insensible pendulum\nMy wife with buttocks of sandstone and asbestos\nMy wife with buttocks of swans’ backs\nMy wife with buttocks of spring\nWith the sex of an iris\nMy wife with the sex of a mining-placer and of a platypus\nMy wife with a sex of seaweed and ancient sweetmeat\nMy wife with a sex of mirror\nMy wife with eyes full of tears\nWith eyes of purple panoply and of a magnetic needle\nMy wife with savanna eyes\nMy wife with eyes of water to he drunk in prison\nMy wife with eyes of wood always under the axe\nMy wife with eyes of water-level of level of air earth and fire", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edouard Rodti", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Edouard Rodti" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -17402,10 +17979,10 @@ "title": "“Christmas Eve”", "body": "_Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis_\n\nA frosty Christmas Eve\nwhen the stars were shining\nFared I forth alone\nwhere westward falls the hill,\nAnd from many a village\nin the water’d valley\nDistant music reach’d me\npeals of bells aringing:\nThe constellated sounds\nran sprinkling on earth’s floor\nAs the dark vault above\nwith stars was spangled o’er.\nThen sped my thoughts to keep\nthat first Christmas of all\nWhen the shepherds watching\nby their folds ere the dawn\nHeard music in the fields\nand marveling could not tell\nWhether it were angels\nor the bright stars singing.\n\nNow blessed be the tow’rs\nthat crown England so fair\nThat stand up strong in prayer\nunto God for our souls\nBlessed be their founders\n(said I) an’ our country folk\nWho are ringing for Christ\nin the belfries to-night\nWith arms lifted to clutch\nthe rattling ropes that race\nInto the dark above\nand the mad romping din.\n\nBut to me heard afar\nit was starry music\nAngels’ song, comforting\nas the comfort of Christ\nWhen he spake tenderly\nto his sorrowful flock:\nThe old words came to me\nby the riches of time\nMellow’d and transfigured\nas I stood on the hill\nHeark’ning in the aspect\nof th’ eternal silence.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "christmas_eve" @@ -17674,10 +18251,10 @@ "title": "“Low Barometer”", "body": "The south-wind strengthens to a gale,\nAcross the moon the clouds fly fast,\nThe house is smitten as with a flail,\nThe chimney shudders to the blast.\n\nOn such a night, when Air has loosed\nIts guardian grasp on blood and brain,\nOld terrors then of god or ghost\nCreep from their caves to life again;\n\nAnd Reason kens he herits in\nA haunted house. Tenants unknown\nAssert their squalid lease of sin\nWith earlier title than his own.\n\nUnbodied presences, the pack’d\nPollution and remorse of Time,\nSlipp’d from oblivion reĂ«nact\nThe horrors of unhouseld crime.\n\nSome men would quell the thing with prayer\nWhose sightless footsteps pad the floor,\nWhose fearful trespass mounts the stair\nOr burts the lock’d forbidden door.\n\nSome have seen corpses long interr’d\nEscape from hallowing control,\nPale charnel forms--nay ev’n have heard\nThe shrilling of a troubled soul,\n\nThat wanders till the dawn hath cross’d\nThe dolorous dark, or Earth hath wound\nCloser her storm-spredd cloke, and thrust\nThe baleful phantoms underground.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1880 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -18014,8 +18591,10 @@ "title": "“At a Lecture”", "body": "Since mistakes are inevitable, I can easily be taken\nfor a man standing before you in this room filled\nwith yourselves. Yet in about an hour\nthis will be corrected, at your and at my expense,\nand the place will be reclaimed by elemental particles\nfree from the rigidity of a particular human shape\nor type of assembly. Some particles are still free. It’s not all dust.\n\nSo my unwillingness to admit it’s I\nfacing you now, or the other way around,\nhas less to do with my modesty or solipsism\nthan with my respect for the premises’ instant future,\nfor those afore-mentioned free-floating particles\nsettling upon the shining surface\nof my brain. Inaccessible to a wet cloth eager to wipe them off.\n\nThe most interesting thing about emptiness\nis that it is preceded by fullness.\nThe first to understand this were, I believe, the Greek\ngods, whose forte indeed was absence.\nRegard, then, yourselves as rehearsing perhaps for the divine encore,\nwith me playing obviously to the gallery.\nWe all act out of vanity. But I am in a hurry.\n\nOnce you know the future, you can make it come\nearlier. The way it’s done by statues or by one’s furniture.\nSelf-effacement is not a virtue\nbut a necessity, recognised most often\ntoward evening. Though numerically it is easier\nnot to be me than not to be you. As the swan confessed\nto the lake: I don’t like myself. But you are welcome to my reflection.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -18023,11 +18602,13 @@ "title": "“Belfast Tune”", "body": "Here’s a girl from a dangerous town\n She crops her dark hair short\nso that less of her has to frown\n when someone gets hurt.\n\nShe folds her memories like a parachute.\n Dropped, she collects the peat\nand cooks her veggies at home: they shoot\n here where they eat.\n\nAh, there’s more sky in these parts than, say,\n ground. Hence her voice’s pitch,\nand her stare stains your retina like a gray\n bulb when you switch\n\nhemispheres, and her knee-length quilt\n skirt’s cut to catch the squall,\nI dream of her either loved or killed\n because the town’s too small.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1983 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -18036,11 +18617,13 @@ "body": "The magi had come. The infant soundly slept.\nThe star shone brightly from the vaulted sky.\nA cold wind swept the snow up into drifts.\nThe sand rustled. A bonfire crackled nearby.\nSmoke plumed skyward. Flames hooked and writhed.\nThe shadows cast by the fire grew now shorter,\nnow suddenly longer. No one there yet realized\nthat on that very night life’s count had started.\nThe magi had come. The infant soundly slept.\nSteep arches loomed above the manger.\nSnow swirled about. White steam rose in wisps.\nWith gifts piled near him, the child slept like an angel.", "metadata": { "language": "Russian", - "translator": "Jamie Olson", "time": { "year": 1964, "month": "january" }, + "translators": [ + "Jamie Olson" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "epiphany" @@ -18051,8 +18634,10 @@ "title": "“Constancy”", "body": "Constancy is an evolution of one’s living quarters into\na thought: a continuation of a parallelogram or a rectangle\nby means--as Clausewitz would have put it--\nof the voice and, ultimately, the gray matter.\nAh, shrunken to the size of a brain-cell parlor\nwith a lampshade, an armoire in the “Slavic\nGlory” fashion, four studded chairs, a sofa,\na bed, a bedside table with\nlittle medicine bottles left there standing like\na kremlin or, better yet, manhattan.\nTo die, to abandon a family, to go away for good,\nto change hemispheres, to let new ovals\nbe painted into the square--the more\nvolubly will the gray cell insist\non its actual measurements, demanding\ndaily sacrifice from the new locale,\nfrom the furniture, from the silhouette in a yellow\ndress; in the end--from your very self.\nA spider revels in shading especially the fifth corner.\nEvolution is not a species’\nadjustment to a new environment but one’s memories’\ntriumph over reality, the ichthyosaurus pining\nfor the amoeba, the slack vertebrae of a train\nthundering in the darkness, past\nthe mussel shells, tightly shut for the night, with their\nspineless, soggy, pearl-shrouding contents.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -18060,8 +18645,10 @@ "title": "“December 24”", "body": "When it’s Christmas we’re all of us magi.\nAt the grocers’ all slipping and pushing.\nWhere a tin of halvah, coffee-flavored,\nis the cause of a human assault-wave\nby a crowd heavy-laden with parcels:\neach one his own king, his own camel.\n\nNylon bags, carrier bags, paper cones,\ncaps and neckties all twisted up sideways.\nReek of vodka and resin and cod,\norange mandarins, cinnamon, apples.\nFloods of faces, no sign of a pathway\ntoward Bethlehem, shut off by blizzard.\n\nAnd the bearers of moderate gifts\nleap on buses and jam all the doorways,\ndisappear into courtyards that gape,\nthough they know that there’s nothing inside there:\nnot a beast, not a crib, nor yet her,\nround whose head gleams a nimbus of gold.\n\nEmptiness. But the mere thought of that\nbrings forth lights as if out of nowhere.\nHerod reigns but the stronger he is,\nthe more sure, the more certain the wonder.\nIn the constancy of this relation\nis the basic mechanics of Christmas.\n\nThat’s what they celebrate everywhere,\nfor its coming push tables together.\nNo demand for a star for a while,\nbut a sort of good will touched with grace\ncan be seen in all men from afar,\nand the shepherds have kindled their fires.\n\nSnow is falling: not smoking but sounding\nchimney pots on the roof, every face like a stain.\nHerod drinks. Every wife hides her child.\nHe who comes is a mystery: features\nare not known beforehand, men’s hearts may\nnot be quick to distinguish the stranger.\n\nBut when drafts through the doorway disperse\nthe thick mist of the hours of darkness\nand a shape in a shawl stands revealed,\nboth a newborn and Spirit that’s Holy\nin your self you discover; you stare\nskyward, and it’s right there: a star.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "christmas_eve" @@ -18072,11 +18659,13 @@ "title": "“Elegy”", "body": "About a year has passed. I’ve returned to the place of the battle,\nto its birds that have learned their unfolding of wings\nfrom a subtle\nlift of a surprised eyebrow, or perhaps from a razor blade\n--wings, now the shade of early twilight, now of state\nbad blood.\n\nNow the place is abuzz with trading\nin your ankles’s remnants, bronzes\nof sunburnt breastplates, dying laughter, bruises,\nrumors of fresh reserves, memories of high treason,\nlaundered banners with imprints of the many\n who since have risen.\n\nAll’s overgrown with people. A ruin’s a rather stubborn\narchitectural style. And the hearts’s distinction\nfrom a pitch-black cavern\nisn’t that great; not great enough to fear\nthat we may collide again like blind eggs somewhere.\n\nAt sunrise, when nobody stares at one’s face, I often,\nset out on foot to a monument cast in molten\nlengthy bad dreams. And it says on the plinth “commander\nin chief.” But it reads “in grief,” or “in brief,”\nor “in going under.”", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1985 }, - "translator": "the author", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -18084,8 +18673,10 @@ "title": "“The End of a Beautiful Era”", "body": "Since the stern art of poetry calls for words, I, morose,\ndeaf, and balding ambassador of a more or less\ninsignificant nation that’s stuck in this super\npower, wishing to spare my old brain,\nhand myself my own topcoat and head for the main\nstreet: to purchase the evening paper.\n\nWind disperses the foliage. The dimness of old bulbs in these\nsorry quarters, whose motto’s “The mirror will please,”\ngives a sense of abundance supported by puddles.\nEven thieves here steal apples by scratching the amalgam first.\nYet the feeling one gets, from one’s own sweet reflection--this feeling I’ve lost.\n That’s what really puzzles.\n\nEverything in these parts is geared for winter: long dreams,\nprison walls, overcoats, bridal dresses of whiteness that seems\nsnowlike. Drinks. Kinds of soap matching dirt in dark corners.\nSparrow vests, second hand of the watch round your wrist,\npuritanical mores, underwear. And, tucked in the violinists’\npalms, old redwood hand warmers.\n\nThis whole realm is just static. Imagining the output of lead\nand cast iron, and shaking your stupefied head,\nyou recall bayonets, Cossack whips of old power.\nYet the eagles land like good lodestones on the scraps.\nEven wicker chairs here are built mostly with bolts and with nuts,\none is bound to discover.\n\nOnly fish in the sea seem to know freedom’s price.\nStill, their muteness compels us to sit and devise\ncashier booths of our own. And space rises like some bill of fare.\nTime’s invented by death. In its search for the objects, it deals\nwith raw vegetables first That’s why cocks are so keen on the bells\nchiming deafly somewhere.\n\nTo exist in the Era of Deeds and to stay elevated, alert\nain’t so easy, alas. Having raised a long skirt,\nyou will find not new wonders but what you expected.\nAnd it’s not that they play Lobachevsky’s ideas by ear,\nbut the widened horizons should narrow somewhere, and here--\nhere’s the end of perspective.\n\nEither old Europe’s map has been swiped by the gents in plain clothes,\nor the famous five-sixths of remaining landmass has just lost\nits poor infamous colleague, or a fairy casts spells over shabby\nme, who knows--but I cannot escape from this place;\nI pour wine for myself (service here’s a disgrace),\nsip, and rub my old tabby.\n\nThus the brain earned a slug, as a spot where an error occurred\nearns a good pointing finger. Or should I hit waterways, sort\n of like Christ? Anyway, in these laudable quarters,\neyes dumbfounded by ice and by booze\nwill reproach you alike for whatever you choose:\n traceless rails, traceless waters.\n\nNow let’s see what they say in the papers about lawsuits.\n“The condemned has been dealt with.” Having read this, a denizen puts\non his metal-rimmed glasses that help to relate it\nto a man lying flat, his face down, by the wall;\nthough he isn’t asleep. Since dreams spurn a skull\n that has been perforated.\n\nThe keen-sightedness of our era takes root in the times\nwhich were short, in their blindness, of drawing clear lines\ntwixt those fallen from cradles and fallen from saddles.\nThough there are plenty of saucers, there is no one to turn tables with\nto subject you, poor Rurik, to a sensible quiz;\nthat’s what really saddens.\n\nThe keen-sightedness of our days is the sort that befits the dead end\nwhose concrete begs for spittle and not for a witty comment.\nWake up a dinosaur, not a prince, to recite you the moral!\nBirds have feathers for penning last words, though it’s better to ask.\nAll the innocent head has in store for itself is an ax\nplus the evergreen laurel.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -18096,8 +18687,10 @@ "title": "“Folk Tune”", "body": "It’s not that the Muse feels like clamming up,\nit’s more like high time for the lad’s last nap.\nAnd the scarf-waving lass who wished him the best\ndrives a steamroller across his chest.\n\nAnd the words won’t rise either like that rod\nor like logs to rejoin their old grove’s sweet rot,\nand, like eggs in the frying pan, the face\nspills its eyes all over the pillowcase.\n\nAre you warm tonight under those six veils\nin that basin of yours whose strung bottom wails;\nwhere like fish that gasp at the foreign blue\nmy raw lip was catching what then was you?\n\nI would have hare’s ears sewn to my bald head,\nin thick woods for your sake I’d gulp drops of lead,\nand from black gnarled snags in the oil-smooth pond\nI’d bob up to your face as some Tirpitz won’t.\n\nBut it’s not on the cards or the waiter’s tray,\nand it pains to say where one’s hair turns gray.\nThere are more blue veins than the blood to swell\ntheir dried web, let alone some remote brain cell.\n\nWe are parting for good, my friend, that’s that.\nDraw an empty circle on your yellow pad.\nThis will be me: no insides in thrall.\nStare at it a while, then erase the scrawl.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -18105,8 +18698,10 @@ "title": "“The Funeral of Bobó”", "body": "# 1.\n\nBobĂł is dead, but don’t take off your hat.\nYou can’t explain why there’s no consolation.\nWe cannot pin a butterfly upon\nthe Admiralty spire--we’d only crush it.\nThe squares of windows no matter where\none looks on every side. And as reply\nto “what happened?” you open up\nan empty can: “Apparently, this did.”\nBobĂł is dead. Wednesday ends.\nOn streets devoid of spots to spend the night\nit’s white, so white. Only the black water\nin the night river does not retain the snow.\n\n\n# 2.\n\nBobĂł is dead--a line containing grief.\nThe squares of windows, archways’ semicircle.\nSuch freezing frost that if one’s to be killed,\nthen let it be from firearms.\nFarewell, BobĂł, my beautiful BobĂł.\nMy tear would suit sliced cheese.\nWe are too frail to follow after you,\nnor are we strong enough to stay in place.\nIn heat-waves and in devastating cold\nI know beforehand, your image will\nnot diminish--but quite to the contrary--\nin Rossi’s inimitable prospect.\n\n# 3.\n\n\nBobĂł is dead. This is a feeling which can\nbe shared, but slippery like soap.\nToday I dreamed that I was lying\nupon my bed. And so it was in fact.\nTear off a page, correct the date:\nthe list of losses opens with a zero.\nDreams without BobĂł suggest reality.\nA square of air comes in the window vent.\nBobĂł is dead. And, one’s lips somewhat\napart, one wants to say “it shouldn’t be”.\nNo doubt it’s emptiness that follows death.\nBoth far more probable, and worse than Hell.\n\n\n# 4.\n\nYou were everything. But because you are\ndead now, my BobĂł, you have become\nnothing--more precisely, a glob of emptiness.\nWhich, if one considers it, is quite a lot.\nBobĂł is dead. On rounded eyes\nthe sight of the horizon is like a knife,\nbut neither Kiki nor Zaza, BobĂł,\nwill take your place. That is impossible.\nThursday is coming. I believe in emptiness.\nIt’s quite like Hell there, only shittier.\nAnd the new Dante bends toward the page,\nand on an empty spot he sets a word.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Carl R. Proffer", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Carl R. Proffer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter", @@ -18118,8 +18713,10 @@ "title": "“Galatea Encore”", "body": "As though the mercury’s under its tongue, it won’t\ntalk. As though with the mercury in its sphincter,\nimmobile, by a leaf-coated pond\na statue stands white like a blight of winter.\nAfter such snow, there is nothing indeed: the ins\nand outs of centuries, pestered heather.\nThat’s what coming full circle means--\nwhen your countenance starts to resemble weather,\nwhen Pygmalion’s vanished. And you are free\nto cloud your folds, to bare the navel.\nFuture at last! That is, bleached debris\nof a glacier amid the five-lettered “never.”\nHence the routine of a goddess, nee\nalabaster, that lets roving pupils gorge on\nthe heart of color and the temperature of the knee.\nThat’s what it looks like inside a virgin.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -18130,8 +18727,10 @@ "title": "“The Hawk’s Cry in Autumn”", "body": "Wind from the northwestern quarter is lifting him high above\nthe dove-gray, crimson, umber, brown\nConnecticut Valley. Far beneath,\nchickens daintily pause and move\nunseen in the yard of the tumbledown\nfarmstead, chipmunks blend with the heath.\n\nNow adrift on the airflow, unfurled, alone,\nall that he glimpses--the hills’ lofty, ragged\nridges, the silver stream that threads\nquivering like a living bone\nof steel, badly notched with rapids,\nthe townships like strings of beads\n\nstrewn across New England. Having slid down to nil\nthermometers--those household gods in niches--\nfreeze, inhibiting thus the fire\nof leaves and churches’ spires. Still,\nno churches for him. In the windy reaches,\nundreamt of by the most righteous choir,\n\nhe soars in a cobalt-blue ocean, his beak clamped shut,\nhis talons clutched tight into his belly\n--claws balled up like a sunken fist--\nsensing in each wisp of down the thrust\nfrom below, glinting back the berry\nof his eyeball, heading south-southeast\n\nto the Rio Grande, the Delta, the beech groves and farther still:\nto a nest hidden in the mighty groundswell\nof grass whose edges no fingers trust,\nsunk amid forest’s odors, filled\nwith splinters of red-speckled eggshell,\nwith a brother or a sister’s ghost.\n\nThe heart overgrown with flesh, down, feather, wing,\npulsing at feverish rate, nonstopping,\npropelled by internal heat and sense,\nthe bird goes slashing and scissoring\nthe autumnal blue, yet by the same swift token,\nenlarging it at the expense\n\nof its brownish speck, barely registering on the eye,\na dot, sliding far above the lofty\npine tree; at the expense of the empty look\nof that child, arching up at the sky,\nthat couple that left the car and lifted\ntheir heads, that woman on the stoop.\n\nBut the uprush of air is still lifting him\nhigher and higher. His belly feathers\nfeel the nibbling cold. Casting a downward gaze,\nhe sees the horizon growing dim,\nhe sees, as it were, the features\nof the first thirteen colonies whose\n\nchimneys all puff out smoke. Yet it’s their total within his sight\nthat tells the bird of his elevation,\nof what altitude he’s reached this trip.\nWhat am I doing at such a height?\nHe senses a mixture of trepidation\nand pride. Heeling over a tip\n\nof wing, he plummets down. But the resilient air\nbounces him back, winging up to glory,\nto the colorless icy plane.\nHis yellow pupil darts a sudden glare\nof rage, that is, a mix of fury\nand terror. So once again\n\nhe turns and plunges down. But as walls return\nrubber balls, as sins send a sinner to faith, or near,\nhe’s driven upward this time as well!\nHe! whose innards are still so warm!\nStill higher! Into some blasted ionosphere!\nThat astronomically objective hell\n\nof birds that lacks oxygen, and where the milling stars\nplay millet served from a plate or a crescent.\nWhat, for the bipeds, has always meant\nheight, for the feathered is the reverse.\nNot with his puny brain but with shriveled air sacs\nhe guesses the truth of it: it’s the end.\n\nAnd at this point he screams. From the hooklike beak\nthere tears free of him and flies ad luminem\nthe sound Erinyes make to rend\nsouls: a mechanical, intolerable shriek,\nthe shriek of steel that devours aluminum;\n“mechanical,” for it’s meant\n\nfor nobody, for no living ears:\nnot man’s, not yelping foxes’,\nnot squirrels’ hurrying to the ground\nfrom branches; not for tiny field mice whose tears\ncan’t be avenged this way, which forces\nthem into their burrows. And only hounds\n\nlift up their muzzles. A piercing, high-pitched squeal,\nmore nightmarish than the D-sharp grinding\nof the diamond cutting glass,\nslashes the whole sky across. And the world seems to reel\nfor an instant, shuddering from this rending.\nFor the warmth burns space in the highest as\n\nbadly as some iron fence down here\nbrands incautious gloveless fingers.\nWe, standing where we are, exclaim\n“There!” and see far above the tear\nthat is a hawk, and hear the sound that lingers\nin wavelets, a spider skein\n\nswelling notes in ripples across the blue vault of space\nwhose lack of echo spells, especially in October,\nan apotheosis of pure sound.\nAnd caught in this heavenly patterned lace,\nstarlike, spangled with hoarfrost powder,\nsilver-clad, crystal-bound,\n\nthe bird sails to the zenith, to the dark-blue high\nof azure. Through binoculars we foretoken\nhim, a glittering dot, a pearl.\nWe hear something ring out in the sky,\nlike some family crockery being broken,\nslowly falling aswirl,\n\nyet its shards, as they reach our palms, don’t hurt\nbut melt when handled. And in a twinkling\nonce more one makes out curls, eyelets, strings,\nrainbowlike, multicolored, blurred\ncommas, ellipses, spirals, linking\nheads of barley, concentric rings--\n\nthe bright doodling pattern the feather once possessed,\na map, now a mere heap of flying\npale flakes that make a green slope appear\nwhite. And the children, laughing and brightly dressed,\nswarm out of doors to catch them, crying\nwith a loud shout in English, “Winter’s here!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -18142,8 +18741,10 @@ "title": "“History of the Twentieth Century”", "body": "_The Sun’s in its orbit,\nyet I feel morbid._\n\n# Act 1\n\n# _Prologue_\n\nLadies and gentlemen and the day!\nAll ye made of sweet human clay!\nLet me tell you: you are o’kay.\n\nOur show is to start without much delay.\nSo let me inform you right away:\nthis is not a play but the end of the play\n\nthat has been on for some eighty years.\nIt received its boos and received its cheers.\nIt won’t last for long, one fears.\n\nMen and machines lie to rest or rust.\nNothing arrives as quick as the Past.\nWhat we’ll show you presently is the cast\n\nof characters who have ceased to act.\nEach of these lives has become a fact\nfrom which you presumably can subtract\n\nbut to which you blissfully cannot add.\nThe consequences of that could be bad\nfor your looks or your blood.\n\nFor they are the cause, you are the effect.\nbecause they lie flat, you are still erect.\nCitizens! Don’t neglect\n\nhistory! History holds the clue\nto your taxes and to your flu,\nto what comes out of the blue.\n\nWe’ll show you battlefields, bedrooms, labs,\nsinking ships and escaping subs,\ncradles, weddings, divorces, slabs.\n\nFolks! The curtain’s about to rise!\nWhat you’ll see won’t look like a Paradise.\nStill, the Past may moisten a pair of eyes,\n\nfor its prices were lower than our sales,\nfor it was ruining cities: not blood cells;\nfor on the horizon it’s not taut sails\n\nbut the wind that fails.\n\n\n1900. A quiet year, you bet.\nTrue: none of you is alive as yet.\nThe ‘00’ stands for the lack of you.\nStill, things are happening, quite a few.\nIn China, the Boxers are smashing whites.\nIn Russia, A. P. Chekhov writes.\nIn Italy, Floria Tosca screams.\nFreud, in Vienna, interprets dreams.\nThe Impressionists paint, Rodin still sculpts.\nIn Africa, Boers grab the British scalps\nor vice versa (who cares, my dear?).\nAnd McKinley is re-elected here.\nThere are four great empires, three good democracies.\nThe rest of the world sports loin-cloths and moccasins,\nspeaking both figuratively and literally.\nUpstaging “Umberto’s” in Little Italy,\nin the big one Umberto the Ist’s shot dead.\n(Not all that’s written on walls is read).\nAnd marking the century’s real turn,\nFriedrich Nietzsche dies, Louis Armstrong’s born\nto refute the great Kraut’s unholy\n“God is dead” with “Hello, Dolly.”\n\nThe man of the year, though, is an engineer.\nJohn Browning is his name.\nHe’s patented something. So let us hear\nabout John’s claim to fame.\n\n\n> _John Moses Browning:_\n“I looked at the calendar, and I saw\nthat there are a hundred years to go.\nThat made me a little nervous\nfor I thought of my neighbors.\nI’ve multiplied them one hundred times:\nit came to them being all over!\nSo I went to my study that looks out on limes\nand invented this cute revolver!”\n\n\n1901. A swell, modest time.\nA T-bone steak is about a dime.\nQueen Victoria dies; but then Australia\nrepeats her silhouette and, inter alia,\njoins the Commonwealth. In the humid woods\nof Tahiti, Gauguin paints his swarthy nudes.\nIn China, the Boxers take the rap.\nMax Planck in his lab (not on his lap\nyet) in studying radiation.\nVerdi dies too. But our proud nation,\nrepresented by Mrs.Disney, awards the world\nwith a kid by the name of Walt\nwho’ll animate the screen. Off screen,\nthe British launch their first submarine.\nBut it’s a cake-walk or a Strindberg play\nor Freud’s “Psychopathology of Everyday\nLife” that really are not to be missed!\nAnd McKinley’s shot dead by an anarchist.\n\nThe man of the year is Signore Marconi.\nHe is an Italian, a Roman.\nHis name prophetically rhymes with “Sony”:\nthey have a few things in common.\n\n\n> _Guglieimo Marconi:_\n“In a Catholic country where the sky is blue\nand clouds look like cherubs’ vestiges,\none daily receives through the air a few\nwordless but clear messages.\nRegular speech has its boring spoils:\nit leads to more speech, to violence,\nit looks like spaghetti, it also coils.\nThat’s why I’ve built the wireless!”\n\n\n1902. Just another bland\npeaceful year. They dissect a gland\nand discover hormones. And a hormone\nonce discovered is never gone.\nThe Boer War (ten thousand dead) is over.\nElsewhere, kind Europeans offer\nrailroad chains to a noble savage.\nA stork leaves a bundle in a Persian cabbage\npatch, and the tag reads “Khomeini”. Greeks, Serbs, Croats,\nand Bulgars are at each others’ throats.\nClaude Monet paints bridges nevertheless.\nThe population of the U.S.\nis approximately 76\nmillion: all of them having sex\nto affect our present rent.\nPlus Teddy Roosevelt’s the President.\n\nThe man of the year is Arthur Conan Doyle,\na writer. The subjects of his great toil\nare a private dick and a paunchy doc;\noccasionally, a dog.\n\n\n> _Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:_\n“Imagine the worst: your subconscious is\nas dull as your conscience. And you, a noble\nsoul, grab a Luger and make Swiss cheese\nout of your skull. Better take my novel\nabout the Hound of the Baskervilles!\nIt’ll save a handful of your brain cells\nand beef up your dreams. For it simply kills\ntime and somebody else!”\n\n1903. You may start to spy\non the future. Old Europe’s sky\nis a little dim. To increase its dimness,\nThe Krupp Works in Essen erect their chimneys.\n(Thus the sense of Geld breeds the sense of guilt.)\nStill, more smoke comes from London, from a smoke-filled\nroom where with guile and passion\nBolsheviks curse Mensheviks in Russian.\nSpeaking of Slavs: The Serbian King and Queen\nare done by local well-wishers in.\nPainters Whistler, Gauguin, Pissarro are gone.\nPanama rents us its Canal Zone.\nWhile bidding their maidens bye-bye and cheerio,\nthe tommies sail off to grab Nigeria\nand turn it into a British colony:\nto date, a nation’s greatest felony\nis if it’s neither friend nor foe.\nMy father is born. So is Evelyn Waugh.\n\nMan of the year, I am proud to say\nis two men. They are brothers. Together, they\nsport two heads, four legs and four hands-which brings\nus to their bird’s four wings.\n\n\n> _The Wright Brothers:_\n“We are Orville and Wilbur Wright.\nOur name simply rhymes with ‘flight’!\nThis may partially explain\nwhy we decided to build a plane.\nOh there are no men in the skies, just wind!\nCities look like newspaper print.\nMountains glitter and rivers bend.\nBut the ultimate plane’d rather bomb than land!”\n\n\n1904. Things which were in store\nhit the counter. There is a war.\nJapan, ever so smiling, gnashes\nteeth and bites off what, in fact, in Russia’s.\nOther than that, in Milan police\ncrack local skulls. But more common is\nthe touch of the new safety razor blade.\nThe nuances of the White Slave Trade,\nMount St.Victoire by Monsieur Cezanne\nand other trifles under the sun\nincluding popular French disgust\nwith the Vatican, are discussed\nin every Partisan cafeteria.\nRadioactivity--still a theory--\nis stated by Rutherford (when a particle\nbrings you a lordship we call it practical).\nAnd as the first Rolls Royce engines churn,\nChekhov dies but Graham Greene is born,\nso is George Balanchine, to upgrade the stage,\nso too--though it’s sin to disclose her age--\nis Miss Dietrich, to daunt the screen.\nAnd New York hears its subway’s first horrid scream!\n\nThe man of the year is a Hottentot.\nSouth-West Africa’s where he dwells.\nIn a German colony. And is being taught\nGerman. So he rebels.\n\n\n> _A Hottentot:_\n“Germans to me are extremely white.\nThey are white in broad daylight and what’s more, at night.\nPlus if you try to win minds and hearts\nof locals, you don’t call a black guy ‘schwarz’--\n‘Schwarz’ sounds shoddy and worse than ‘black’.\nChange your language and then come back!\nFly, my arrow, and hit a Hans\nto cure a Hans of his arrogance!”\n\n\n1905. In the news: Japan.\nWhich means that the century is upon\nus. Diminishing the lifespan\nof Russian dreadnoughts to naught, Japan\ntells urbi et orbi it’s loathe to lurk\nin the wings of geography. In Petersburg\nthose whose empty stomachs churn\ntake to the streets. Yet they won’t return\nhome, for the Cossacks adore long streets.\nA salesman of the Singer sewing devices greets\nin Latvia the arrival of yet another\ndaughter, who is to become my mother.\nIn Spain, unaware of this clever ploy,\nPablo Picasso depicts his “Boy\nWith Pipe” in blue. While the shades of blonde,\nSwedes and Norwegians, dissolve their bond.\nAnd Norway goes independent; yet\nthat’s not enough to turn brunette.\nSpeaking of things that sound rather queer,\nE is equated to MC square\nby Albert Einstein, and the Fauvists\n(Les Fauves is the French for unruly beasts)\nunleash Henri Matisse in Paris.\n“The Merry Widow” by Franz Lehar is\nthe toast of the town. Plus Transvaal gets its\nconstitution called by the natives “the pits”.\nAnd Greta Garbo, La belle dame sans\nmerci, is born. So are neon signs.\n\nThe man of the year, our record tells,\nis neither Strindberg nor H.G.Wells,\nhe is not Albert Schweitzer, not Oscar Wilde:\nhis name is obscured by his own brain-child.\n\n\n> _Camouflage:_\n“I am what gentleman wear in the field\nwhen they are afraid that they may be killed.\nI am called camouflage. Sporting me, each creature\nfeels both safer and close to Nature.\nThe green makes your simper’s pupil sore.\nThat’s what forests and swamps are for.\nThe planet itself wears me: the design\nis as French as it is divine.”\n\n\n1906. Time stands at ease.\nHaving one letter in common with\nhis subject, Freud adds to our bookshelf\npreparing the century for itself.\nOn the whole, Europeans become much nicer\nto each other: in Africa. Still, the Kaiser\nwhen asked of the growth of his navy, lies.\nThe Japs, for some reason, nationalize\ntheir railroads of whose existence none,\nsave several spices, had known.\nAlong the same, so to speak cast-iron\nlines, aping the rod of Aaron,\nthe Simplon Tunnel opens to hit your sight\nwith a smoking non-stop Vis-a-vis. Aside\nfrom that the civilized world condemns\nnight shifts (in factories though) for dames.\nPrime ministers are leapfrogging in\nRussia, as though they’ve seen\nin a crystal ball that the future keeps\nno room for these kinds of leaps.\nThe French Government warily says “pardon”\nto Captain Dreyfus, a Jew who’s done\nten years in the slimmer on the charge of treason.\nStill, this distinction between a prison\nand a Jew has no prophetic air.\nThe U.S. troops have a brief affair\nwith the Island of Cuba: their first tete-a-tete.\nSamuel Beckett is born. Paul Cezanne is dead.\n\nThe man of the year is Herr von Pirquet.\nHe stings like honey-bee.\nThe sting screams like Prince Hamlet’s sick parakeet:\nTB or not TB.\n\n\n> _Dr. Clement von Pirquet:_\n“What I call allergy, you call rash.\nI’ll give you an analogy: each time you blush,\nit shows you’re too susceptible to something lurid,\nobscene and antiseptical to hope to cure it.\nThis, roughly, is the principle that guides my needle.\nTo prove you are invincible it hurts a little;\nit plucks from your pale cheeks the blooming roses\nand checks their petals for tuberculosis!”\n\n\nAs for 1907, it’s neither here\nnot there. But Auden is born this year!\nThis birth is the greatest of all prologues!\nStill, Pavlov gets interested in dogs.\nNext door Mendeleev, his bearded neighbor\nwho gave the universe the table\nof its elements, slips into a coma.\nThe Cubists’ first show, while Oklahoma\nbecomes the Union’s 46th\nstate. Elsewhere New Zeland seeks\nto fly the Union Jack. Lumiere\ndevelops the colored pictures ere\nanyone else (we all owe it to him!)\nThe Roman Pope takes a rather dim\nview of modernism: jealous Iago!\nHaving squashed (4-0) Detroit, Chicago\nforever thirsting for Gloria Mundi\nwins the World Series. In Swinemunde\nNicholas the IInd meets the German Kaiser\nfor a cup of tea. That, again, is neither\nhere not there, like Kalamazoo.\nAnd Carl Hagenbeck opens his careless zoo\nwhere walruses swim, lions pace, birds fly\nproving: animals also can live a lie.\n\nThe man of the year, you won’t believe,\nis Joseph Stalin, then just a tried.\nHe is young; he is twenty-eight;\nbut History’s there, and he cannot wait.\n\n\n> _Joseph Dzhugashvili, alias Stalin:_\n“My childhood was rotten, I lived in mud.\nI hold up banks ’cause I miss my dad.\nSo to help the party, for all my troubles\none day I took four hundred grand in roubles.\nThus far, it was the greatest heist\nin the Russian history after Christ.\nSome call me eager, some call me zealous;\nI just like big figures with their crowd of zeroes.”\n\n\n1908 is a real bore\nthough it provides a new high in gore\nby means of an earthquake in the Southern part\nof Calabria, Italy. Still, the world of art\ntries to replace those one hundred fifty\nthousand victims with things as nifty\nas Monet’s depiction of the Ducal Palace\nin Venice, or with Isadora’s galas,\nor with the birth of Ian Fleming: to fill the crater.\nIn the World Series Chicago’s again a winner.\nIn the Balkans, Bosnia and Herzegovina\nare taken by Austria (for what it took\nit will pay somewhat later with its Archduke).\nAnd the fountain pen is in vogue worldwide.\nThe gas of helium’s liquefied\nin Holland which means the rising of\nthat flat country a bit above\nsea level, which means thoughts vertical.\nThe king and the crown prince are killed in Portugal,\nfor horizontality’s sake no doubt.\nAlso, the first Model T is out\nin Dearborn to roam our blissful quarters\ntrailed by the news that General Motors\nis incorporated. The English Edward\nand Russia’s Nicholas make an effort\nto know each other aboard a yacht.\nThe Germans watch it but don’t react--\nor do, but that cannot be photographed.\nAnd the Republic calls on William Taft.\n\nThe man of the year is German scientist\nPaul Ehrlich. He digs bacterias\nand sires immunology. All the sapiens\nowe a lot to his theories.\n\n\n> _Paul Ehrlich:_\n“The world is essentially a community\nand to syphilis, nobody has immunity.\nSo what I’ve invented beefs up your arsenal\nfor living a life that’s a bit more personal.\nI’ve made Salvarsan. Oh my Salvarsan!\nIt may cure your wife, it may cure your son,\nit may cure yourself and your mistress fast.\nThink of Paul Ehrlich as you pull or thrust!”\n\n\n1909 trots a fine straight line.\nThree Lives are published by Gertrude Stein.\n(On the strength of this book, if its author vies\nfor the man of the year, she sure qualifies.)\nOther than that, there is something murky\nabout the political life in Turkey:\nin those parts, every man has a younger brother,\nand as Sultans they love to depose each other.\nThe same goes apparently in Iran:\nAhmed Shah tells Mohammed Ali: “I run\nthe show,” though he’s 12 years old.\nIn Paris, Sergei Diaghilev strikes gold\nwith his “Ballets Russes”. While in Honduras,\nscreaming the usual “God, endure us!”\npeasants slaughter each other: it’s a civil war.\nSigmund Freud crosses the waters for\nto tell our Wonderland’s cats and Alices\na few things about psychoanalysis.\nBut David Griffith of Motion Pictures,\nboggling one’s dreams, casts Mary Pickford.\nThe Brits, aping the Royal Dutch\nShell Company, too, legalize their touch\non the Persian oil. The Rockefeller\nFoundation is launched to stall a failure\nand to boost a genus. Leaving all the blight,\nglitter and stuff made of Bake light\n(that heralds the Plastic Age) far below, the weary\nbearded and valiant Captain Robert Peary\nreaches the North Pole, and thus subscribes\nvirginal white to the Stars and Stripes.\nAh those days when one’s thoughts were glued\nto this version of the Absolute!\n\nThe man of the year is the unknown\nnameless hairdresser in London Town.\nStirred either by its cumulous firmament\nor by the British anthem, he invents the permanent.\n\n\n> _A London hairdresser:_\n“The Sun never sets over this Empire.\nStill, all empires one day expire.\nThey go to pieces, they get undone.\nThe wind of history is no fun.\nLet England be England and rule the waves!\nAnd let those waves be real raves.\nLet them be dark, red, chestnut, blonde\nunruffled by great events beyond!”\n\n\n1910 marks the end of the first decade.\nAs such, it can definitely be okayed.\nFor there is clearly a democratic\ntrend. Though at times things take an erratic\nturn. Like when Egypt’s Prime Minister, through no fault\nof his, gets murdered. But the revolt\nin Albania is the work of masses\n(although how they tell their oppressed from their ruling class is\nanyone’s guess). Plus Portugal bravely rids\nitself of its king, and as he’s hugged by the Brits,\nbecomes a republic. As for the Brits themselves,\none more generation of them learns God saves\nno king, and mourning the sad demise\nof Edward the Seventh, they fix their eyes\non George the Fifth. Mark Twain and Tolstoy die too.\nBut Karl May has just published his Winnetou\nin German. In Paris, they’ve seen and heard\nStravinsky-cum-Diaghilev’s “Firebird”.\nThat causes some riot, albeit a tiny one.\nWhereas the twangs of the Argentinean\nTango do to the world what the feared and hailed\nHalley’s comet, thank heavens, failed\nto do. And our watchful Congress\nfinds it illegal if not incongruous\nto take ladies across state lines\nfor purposes it declines\nto spell out, while Japan moves nearer\nto Korea: a face that invades a mirror.\n\nThe man of the year is an architect.\nHis name is Frank Lloyd Wright.\nThings that he’s built still stand erect,\nnay! hug what they stand on tight.\n\n> _Frank Lloyd Wright:_\n“Nature and space have no walls or doors,\nand roaming at will is what man adores.\nSo, a builder of houses, I decide\nto bring the outside inside.\nYou don’t build them tall: you build them flat.\nThat’s what Nature is so good at.\nYou go easy on bricks and big on glass\nso that space may sashay your parquets like grass.”\n\n\n1911 is wholly given\nto looking balanced albeit uneven.\nIn Hamburg, stirring his nation’s helm\nthe German Kaiser (for you, Wilhelm\nthe Second) demands what sounds weird for some:\n“A Place for Germany in the Sun”.\nIt you were French, you would say C’est tout.\nYet Hitler is barely twenty-two\nand things in the sun aren’t so hot besides.\nThe activity of the sun excites\nthe Chinese to abolish pigtails and then\nproclaim a republic with Sun Yat-Sen\ntheir first President. (Although how three hundred\ntwenty-five millions can be handled\nby a Parliament, frankly, beats\nme. That is, how many seats\nwould they have had in that grand pavilion?\nAnd even if it’s just one guy per million\nwhat would a minority of, say, ten percent\nadd up to? This is like counting sand!\nFor this democracy has no lexicon!)\nAlong the same latitude, the Mexican\nCivil War is over, and saintly, hesitant\nFrancisco Madero becomes the President.\nItaly finding the Turks too coarse\nto deal with, resorts to the air force\nfor the first time in history, while da Vinci’s\nMona Lisa gets stolen from the Louver--which is\nwhy the cops in Paris grab Monsieur Guillaume\nApollinaire who though born in Rome,\nwrites in French, and has other energies.\nRilke prints his Duinese Elegies\nand in London, suffragettes poke their black\numbrellas at Whitehall and cry Alack!\n\nMan of the year is a great Norwegian.\nThe crucial word in their tongue is “Skol”.\nThey are born wearing turtlenecks in that region.\nWhen they go South, they hit the Pole.\n\n\n> _Roald Amundsen:_\n“I am Roald Amundsen. I like ice.\nThe world is my oyster for it’s capped twice\nwith ice: first, Arctical, then Antarctical.\nHuman life in those parts is a missing article.\nO! when the temperature falls subzero\nthe eyes grow blue, the heart sincere.\nThere are neither doubts nor a question mark:\nit’s the tails of your huskies which pull and bark”.\n\n\n1912. Captain Robert Scott\nreaches the South Pole also. Except he got\nthere later than Amundsen. He stares at ice,\nthinks of his family, prays, and dies.\nIce, however, is not through yet.\nS.S. Titanic hits an iceberg at\nfull speed and goes down. The bell grimly tolls\nat Lloyd’s in London. Fifteen hundred souls\nare lost, if not more. Therefore, let’s turn\nto Romania where Eugene Ionesco’s born\nor to Turkey and her Balkan neighbors: each\none of them feels an itch to reach\nfor the gun; on reflection, though, they abandon\nthe idea. It’s peace everywhere. In London\nby now there are five hundred movie theaters\nwhich makes an issue of baby-sitters.\nAt home, after having less done than said;\nWoodrow Wilson becomes the Prez. Dead-set\nto pocket the dizzy with flipping coin\nNew Mexico and Arizona join\nthe Union. For all its steel mills and farms\nthe Union keeps currently under arms\nonly one hundred thousand men. That’s barmy\nconsidering five million in the Russian Army,\nor four million in Germany, or the French\nwho, too, have as many to fill a trench.\nThis sounds to some like a lack of caution.\nBut then there is the Atlantic Ocean\nbetween the Continent and the U.S.,\nand it’s only 1912, God bless,\nand the hemispheres luckily seem unable\nto play the now popular Cain and Abel.\n\nThe man of the year is both short and tall.\nHe’s nameless, and well he should\nstay nameless: for spoiling for us free fall\nby using a parachute.\n\n> _Captain Albert Berry:_\n“Leaving home with umbrella? Take a parachute!\nWhen it rains from below, that is when they shoot\ndown a plane and its pilot objects to die,\nwhen you wand to grab Holland or drop a spy\nbehind enemy lines, you need parachutes.\nO, they’ll be more popular than a pair of shoes.\nIn their soft descent they suggest a dove.\nAye! it’s not only love that comes from above!”\n\n\n1913. Peace is wearing thin\nin the Balkans. Great powers try their pristine\nroutine of talks, but only soil white gloves:\nTurkey and the whole bunch of Slavs\nslash one another as if there is no tomorrow.\nThe States think there is; and being thorough\nintroduce the federal income tax.\nStill, what really spells the Pax\nAmericana is the assembly line\nFord installs in Michigan. Some decline\nof capitalism! No libertine or Marxist\ncould foresee this development in the darkest\npossible dream. Speaking of such a dream,\nCalifornia hears the first natal scream\nof Richard Nixon. However, the most\nloaded sounds are those uttered by Robert Frost\nwhose A Boy’s Will and North of Boston\nare printed in England and nearly lost on\nhis compatriots eyeing in sentimental\nrapture the newly-built Grand Central\nStation where they later would\nact as though hired by Hollywood.\nIn the meantime, M.Proust lets his stylus saunter\nthe Swann’s Way, H.Geyger designs his counter;\nprobing nothing perilous or perdu,\nStravinsky produces Le Sacre du\nPrintemps, a ballet, in Paris, France.\nBut the fox-trot is what people really dance.\nAnd as Schweitzer cures lepers and subs dive deeper,\nthe hottest news is the modest zipper.\nThink of the preliminaries it skips\ntiming your lips with you fingertips!\n\nThe man of the year is, I fear, Niels Bohr.\nHe comes from the same place as danishes.\nHe builds what one feels like when one can’t score\nor what one looks like when one vanishes.\n\n> _Niels Bohr:_\nAtoms are small. Atoms are nice. Until you split one, of course.\nThen they get large enough to play dice with your whole universe.\nA model of an atom is what I’ve built! Something both small and big!\nInside, it resembles the sense of guilt. Outside, the lunar dig.\n\n\n1914.\n\nNineteen-fourteen! Oh, nineteen-fourteen!\nAh, some years shouldn’t be let out of quarantine!\nWell, this is one of them. Things get raw:\nIn Paris, the editor of Figaro\nis shot dead by the wife of the French finance\nminister, for printing this lady’s--sans\nmerci, should we add?--steamy letters to\n--ah, who cares! 
 And apparently it’s c’est tout\nalso for a socialist and pacifist\nof all times, Jean Jaures. He who shook his fist\nat the Parliament urging hot heads to cool it,\ndies, as he dines, by some bigot’s bullet\nin a cafe. Ah, those early, single\nshots of Nineteen-fourteen! ah, the index finger\nof an assassin! ah, white puffs in the blue acrylic! 
\nThere is something pastoral, nay! idyllic\nabout these murders. About that Irish enema\nthe Brits suffer in Dublin again. And about Panama\nCanal’s grand opening. Or about that doc\nand his open heart surgery on his dog 
\nWell, to make these things disappear forever,\nthe Archduke is arriving at Sarajevo;\nand there is in the crowd that unshaven, timid\nyouth, with his handgun 
 (To be continued).", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -18151,8 +18752,10 @@ "title": "“I Sit by the Window”", "body": "I said fate plays a game without a score,\nand who needs fish if you’ve got caviar?\nThe triumph of the Gothic style would come to pass\nand turn you on--no need for coke, or grass.\nI sit by the window. Outside, an aspen.\nWhen I loved, I loved deeply. It wasn’t often.\n\nI said the forest’s only part of a tree.\nWho needs the whole girl if you’ve got her knee?\nSick of the dust raised by the modern era,\nthe Russian eye would rest on an Estonian spire.\nI sit by the window. The dishes are done.\nI was happy here. But I won’t be again.\n\nI wrote: The bulb looks at the flower in fear,\nand love, as an act, lacks a verb; the zer-\no Euclid thought the vanishing point became\nwasn’t math--it was the nothingness of Time.\nI sit by the window. And while I sit\nmy youth comes back. Sometimes I’d smile. Or spit.\n\nI said that the leaf may destory the bud;\nwhat’s fertile falls in fallow soil--a dud;\nthat on the flat field, the unshadowed plain\nnature spills the seeds of trees in vain.\nI sit by the window. Hands lock my knees.\nMy heavy shadow’s my squat company.\n\nMy song was out of tune, my voice was cracked,\nbut at least no chorus can ever sing it back.\nThat talk like this reaps no reward bewilders\nno one--no one’s legs rest on my sholders.\nI sit by the window in the dark. Like an express,\nthe waves behind the wavelike curtain crash.\n\nA loyal subject of these second-rate years,\nI proudly admit that my finest ideas\nare second-rate, and may the future take them\nas trophies of my struggle against suffocation.\nI sit in the dark. And it would be hard to figure out\nwhich is worse; the dark inside, or the darkness out.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -18161,10 +18764,12 @@ "body": "In villages God does not live only\nin icon corners, as the scoffers claim,\nbut plainly, everywhere. He sanctifies\neach roof and pan, divides each double door.\nIn villages God acts abundantly--\ncooks lentils in iron pots on Saturdays,\ndances a lazy jig in flickering flames,\nand winks at me, witness to all of this.\nHe plants a hedge, and gives away a bride\n(the groom’s a forester), and, for a joke,\nhe makes it certain that the game warden\nwill never hit the duck he’s shooting at.\nThe chance to know and witness all of this,\namidst the whistling of the autumn mist,\nis, I would say, the only touch of bliss\nthat’s open to the village atheist.", "metadata": { "language": "Russian", - "translator": "George L. Kline", "time": { "year": 1964 }, + "translators": [ + "George L. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn", @@ -18176,8 +18781,10 @@ "title": "“January 1, 1965”", "body": "The Wise Men will unlearn your name.\nAbove your head no star will flame.\nOne weary sound will be the same--\nthe hoarse roar of the gale.\nThe shadows fall from your tired eyes\nas your lone bedside candle dies,\nfor here the calendar breeds nights\ntill stores of candles fail.\n\nWhat prompts this melancholy key?\nA long familiar melody.\nIt sounds again. So let it be.\nLet it sound from this night.\nLet it sound in my hour of death--\nas gratefulness of eyes and lips\nfor that which sometimes makes us lift\nour gaze to the far sky.\n\nYou glare in silence at the wall.\nYour stocking gapes: no gifts at all.\nIt’s clear that you are now too old\nto trust in good Saint Nick;\nthat it’s too late for miracles.\n--But suddenly, lifting your eyes\nto heaven’s light, you realize:\nyour life is a sheer gift.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_day" @@ -18188,8 +18795,10 @@ "title": "“Letter to an Archaeologist”", "body": "Citizen, enemy, mama’s boy, sucker, utter\ngarbage, panhandler, swine, refujew, verrucht;\na scalp so often scalded with boiling water\nthat the puny brain feels completely cooked.\nYes, we have dwelt here: in this concrete, brick, wooden\nrubble which you now arrive to sift.\nAll our wires were crossed, barbed, tangled, or interwoven.\nAlso: we didn’t love our women, but they conceived.\nSharp is the sound of pickax that hurts dead iron;\nstill, it’s gentler than what we’ve been told or have said ourselves.\nStranger! move carefully through our carrion:\nwhat seems carrion to you is freedom to our cells.\nLeave our names alone. Don’t reconstruct those vowels,\nconsonants, and so forth: they won’t resemble larks\nbut a demented bloodhound whose maw devours\nits own traces, feces, and barks, and barks.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -18197,8 +18806,10 @@ "title": "“Letters to the Roman Friend”", "body": "_From Martial_\n\nNow is windy and the waves are cresting over\nFall is soon to come to change the place entirely.\nChange of colors moves me, Postum, even stronger\nThan a girlfriend while she’s changing her attire.\n\nMaidens comfort you but to a certain limit--\nCan’t go further than an elbow or a kneeline.\nWhile apart from body, beauty is more splendid--\nAn embrace is as impossible as treason.\n\nI’m sending to you, Postum-friend, some reading.\nHow’s the capital? Soft bed and rude awakening?\nHow’s Caesar? What’s he doing? Still intriguing?\nStill intriguing, I imagine, and engorging.\n\nIn my garden, I am sitting with a night-light\nNo maid nor mate, not even a companion\nBut instead of weak and mighty of this planet,\nBuzzing pests in their unanimous dominion.\n\nHere, was laid away an Asian merchant. Clever\nMerchant was he--very diligent yet decent.\nHe died suddenly--malaria. To barter\nBusiness did he come, and surely not for this one.\n\nNext to him--a legionnaire under a quartz grave.\nIn the battles, he brought fame to the Empire.\nMany times could have been killed! Yet died an old brave.\nEven here, there is no ordinance, my dear.\n\nMaybe, chicken really aren’t birds, my Postum,\nYet a chicken brain should rather take precautions.\nAn empire, if you happened to be born to,\nbetter live in distant province, by the ocean.\n\nFar away from Caesar, and away from tempests\nNo need to cringe, to rush or to be fearful,\nYou are saying procurators are all looters,\nBut I’d rather choose a looter than a slayer.\n\nUnder thunderstorm, to stay with you, hetaera,--\nI agree but let us deal without haggling:\nTo demand sesterces from a flesh that covers\nis the same as stripping roofs of their own shingle.\nAre you saying that I leak? Well, where’s a puddle?\nLeaving puddles hasn’t been among my habits.\nOnce you find yourself some-body for a husband,\nThen you’ll see him take a leak under your blankets.\n\nHere, we’ve covered more than half of our life span\nAs an old slave, by the tavern, has just said it,\n“Turning back, we look but only see old ruins”.\nSurely, his view is barbaric, but yet candid.\n\nI’ve been to hills and now busy with some flowers.\nHave to find a pitcher, so to pour them water.\nHow’s in Libya, my Postum, or wherever?\nIs it possible that we are still at war there?\n\nYou remember, friend, the procurator’s sister?\nOn the skinny side, however with those plump legs.\nYou have slept with her then 
 she became a priestess.\nPriestess, Postum, and confers with the creators.\n\nDo come here, we’ll have a drink with bread and olives--\nOr with plums. You’ll tell me news about the nation.\nIn the garden you will sleep under clear heavens,\nAnd I’ll tell you how they name the constellations.\n\nPostum, friend of yours once tendered to addition,\nSoon shall reimburse deduction, his old duty 
\nTake the savings, which you’ll find under my cushion.\nHaven’t got much but for funeral--it’s plenty.\n\nOn your skewbald, take a ride to the hetaeras,\nTheir house is right by the town limit,\nBid the price we used to pay--for them to love us--\nThey should now get the same--for their lament.\n\nLaurel’s leaves so green--it makes your body shudder.\nWide ajar the door--a tiny window’s dusty--\nLong deserted bed--an armchair is abandoned--\nNoontime sun has been absorbed by the upholstery.\n\nWith the wind, by sea point cape, a boat, is wrestling.\nRoars the gulf behind the black fence of the pine trees.\nOn the old and wind-cracked bench--Pliny the Elder.\nAnd a thrush is chirping in the mane of cypress.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -18209,8 +18820,10 @@ "title": "“Lines on the Winter Campaign”", "body": "_The scorching noon, the vale in Dagestan 
_\n --Mikhail Lermontov\n\n# I.\n\nA bullet’s velocity in low temperatures\ngreatly depends on its target’s virtues,\non its urge to warm up in the plaited muscles\nof the torso, in the neck’s webbed sinews.\nStones lie flat like a second army.\nThe shade hugs the loam to itself willy-nilly.\nThe sky resembles peeling stucco.\nAn aircraft dissolves in it like a clothes moth,\nand like a spring from a ripped-up mattress\nan explosion sprouts up. Outside the crater,\nthe blood, like boiled milk, powerless to seep into\nthe ground, is seized by a film’s hard ripples.\n\n\n# II.\n\nShepherd and sower, the North is driving\nherds to the sea, spreading cold to the South.\nA bright, frosty noon in a Wogistan valley.\nA mechanical elephant, trunk wildly waving\nat the horrid sight of the small black rodent\nof a snow-covered mine, spews out throat-clogging\nlumps, possessed of that old desire\nof Mahomet’s, to move a mountain.\nSummits loom white; the celestial warehouse\nlends them at noontime its flaking surplus.\nThe mountains lack any motion, passing\ntheir immobility to the scattered bodies.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThe doleful, echoing Slavic singing\nat evening in Asia. Dank and freezing,\nsprawling piles of human pig meat\ncover the caravansary’s mud bottom.\nThe fuel dung smolders, legs stiffen in numbness.\nIt smells of old socks, of forgotten bath days.\nThe dreams are identical, as are the greatcoats.\nPlenty of cartridges, few recollections,\nand the tang in the mouth of too many “hurrahs.”\nGlory to those who, their glances lowered,\nmarched in the sixties to abortion tables,\nsparing the homeland its present stigma.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nWhat is contained in the drone’s dull buzzing?\nAnd what in the sound of the aero-engine?\nLiving is getting as complicated\nas building a house with grapes’ green marbles\nor little lean-tos with spades and diamonds.\nNothing is stable (one puff and it’s over):\nfamilies, private thoughts, clay shanties.\nNight over ruins of a mountain village.\nArmor, wetting its metal sheets with oil slick,\nfreezes in thorn scrub. Afraid of drowning\nin a discarded jackboot, the moon\nhides in a cloud as in Allah’s turban.\n\n\n# V.\n\nIdle, inhaled now by no one, air.\nImported, carelessly piled-up silence.\nRising like dough that’s leavened,\nemptiness. If the stars had life-forms,\nspace would erupt with a brisk ovation;\na gunner, blinking, runs to the footlights.\nMurder’s a blatant way of dying,\na tautology, the art form of parrots,\na manual matter, the knack for catching\nlife’s fly in the hairs of the gunsight\nby youngsters acquainted with blood through either\nhearsay or violating virgins.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nPull up the blanket, dig a hole in the palliasse.\nFlop down and give ear to the _oo_ of the siren.\nThe Ice Age is coming--slavery’s ice age is coming,\noozing over the atlas. Its moraines force under\nnations, fond memories, muslin blouses.\nMuttering, rolling our eyeballs upward,\nwe are becoming a new kind of bivalve,\nour voice goes unheard, as though we were trilobites.\nThere’s a draft from the corridor, draft from the square windows.\nTurn off the light, wrap up in a bundle.\nThe vertebra craves eternity. Unlike a ringlet.\nIn the morning the limbs are past all uncoiling.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nUp in the stratosphere, thought of by no one,\nthe little bitch barks as she peers through the porthole:\n“Beach Ball! Beach Ball! Over. It’s Rover.”\nThe beach ball’s below. With the equator on it\nlike a dog collar. Slopes, fields, and gullies\nrepeat in their whiteness cheekbones\n(the color of shame has all gone to the banners).\nAnd the hens in their snowed-in hen coops,\nalso a-shake from the shock of reveille,\nlay their eggs of immaculate color.\nIf anything blackens, it’s just the letters,\nlike the tracks of some rabbit, preserved by a wonder.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -18222,11 +18835,13 @@ "body": "Twice I awoke this night, and went\nto the window. The streetlamps were\na fragment of a sentence spoken in sleep,\nleading to nothing, like omission points,\naffording me no comfort and no cheer.\nI dreamt of you, with child, and now,\nhaving lived so many years apart from you,\nexperienced my guilt, and my hands,\njoyfully stroking your belly,\nfound they were fumbling at my trousers\nand the light-switch. Shuffling to the window,\nI realized I had left you there alone,\nin the dark, in the dream, where patiently\nyou waited and did not blame me,\nwhen I returned, for the unnatural\ninterruption. For in the dark\nthat which in the light has broken off, lasts;\nthere we are married, wedded, we play\nthe two-backed beast; and children\njustify our nakedness.\nOn some future night you will again\ncome to me, tired, thin now,\nand I shall see a son or daughter,\nas yet unnamed--this time I’ll\nnot hurry to the light-switch, nor\nwill I remove my hand; because I’ve not the right\nto leave you in that realm of silent\nshadows, before the fence of days,\nfalling into dependence from a reality\ncontaining me--unattainable.", "metadata": { "language": "Russian", - "translator": "Daniel Weissbort", "time": { "year": 1964, "month": "january" }, + "translators": [ + "Daniel Weissbort" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january" @@ -18237,8 +18852,10 @@ "title": "“May 24, 1980”", "body": "I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages,\ncarved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters,\nlived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis,\ndined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles.\nFrom the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly\nwidth. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives rake my nitty-gritty.\nQuit the country the bore and nursed me.\nThose who forgot me would make a city.\nI have waded the steppes that saw yelling Huns in saddles,\nworn the clothes nowadays back in fashion in every quarter,\nplanted rye, tarred the roofs of pigsties and stables,\nguzzled everything save dry water.\nI’ve admitted the sentries’ third eye into my wet and foul\ndreams. Munched the bread of exile; it’s stale and warty.\nGranted my lungs all sounds except the howl;\nswitched to a whisper. Now I am forty.\nWhat should I say about my life? That it’s long and abhors transparence.\nBroken eggs make me grieve; the omelet, though, makes me vomit.\nYet until brown clay has been rammed down my larynx,\nonly gratitude will be gushing from it.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -18250,11 +18867,13 @@ "title": "“Nativity”", "body": "No matter what went on around them; no matter\nwhat message the snowstorm was straining to utter;\nor how crowded they thought that wooden affair;\nor that there was nothing for them anywhere.\n\nAbove their encampment, the sky. cold and idle,\nand leaning as big things will do over little,\nwas burning a star, which from this very instant\nhad no place to go, save the gaze of the infant.\n\nFirst, they were together. And--most of all--second,\nthey now were a threesome. Whatever was reckoned--\nthe stuff they were brewing, accruing, receiving--\nwas bound to be split into three, like this evening.\n\nThe campfire flared on its very last ember.\nThey all were asleep now. The star would resemble\nno other, because of its knack, at its nadir,\nfor taking an alien for its neighbor.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1990 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -18265,8 +18884,10 @@ "title": "“Odysseus to Telemachus”", "body": "My dear Telemachus,\nThe Trojan War\nis over now; I don’t recall who won it.\nThe Greeks, no doubt, for only they would leave\nso many dead so far from their own homeland.\nBut still, my homeward way has proved too long.\nWhile we were wasting time there, old Poseidon,\nit almost seems, stretched and extended space.\n\nI don’t know where I am or what this place\ncan be. It would appear some filthy island,\nwith bushes, buildings, and great grunting pigs.\nA garden choked with weeds; some queen or other.\nGrass and huge stones 
 Telemachus, my son!\nTo a wanderer the faces of all islands\nresemble one another. And the mind\ntrips, numbering waves; eyes, sore from sea horizons,\nrun; and the flesh of water stuffs the ears.\nI can’t remember how the war came out;\neven how old you are--I can’t remember.\n\nGrow up, then, my Telemachus, grow strong.\nOnly the gods know if we’ll see each other\nagain. You’ve long since ceased to be that babe\nbefore whom I reined in the plowing bullocks.\nHad it not been for Palamedes’ trick\nwe two would still be living in one household.\nBut maybe he was right; away from me\nyou are quite safe from all Oedipal passions,\nand your dreams, my Telemachus, are blameless.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -18274,8 +18895,10 @@ "title": "“A Part of Speech”", "body": "I was born and grew up in the Baltic marshland\nby zinc-gray breakers that always marched on\nin twos. Hence all rhymes, hence that wan flat voice\nthat ripples between them like hair still moist,\nif it ripples at all. Propped on a pallid elbow,\nthe helix picks out of them no sea rumble\nbut a clap of canvas, of shutters, of hands, a kettle\non the burner, boiling--lastly, the seagull’s metal\ncry. What keeps hearts from falseness in this flat region\nis that there is nowhere to hide and plenty of room for vision.\nOnly sound needs echo and dreads its lack.\nA glance is accustomed to no glance back\n\nA list of some observations. In a corner, it’s warm.\nA glance leaves an imprint on anything it’s dwelt on.\nWater is glass’s most public form.\nMan is more frightening than his skeleton.\nA nowhere winter evening with wine. A black\nporch resists an osier’s stiff assaults.\nFixed on an elbow, the body bulks\nlike a glacier’s debris, a moraine of sorts.\nA millenium hence, they’ll no doubt expose\na fossil bivalve propped behind this gauze\ncloth, with the print of lips under the print of fringe,\nmumbling “Good night” to a window hinge.\n\nI recognize this wind battering the limp grass\nthat submits to it as they did to the Tartar mass.\nI recognize this leaf splayed in the roadside mud\nlike a prince empurpled in his own blood.\nFanning wet arrows that blow aslant\nthe cheek of a wooden hut in another land,\nautumn tells, like geese by their flying call,\na tear by its face. And as I roll\nmy eyes to the ceiling, I chant herein\nnot the lay of that eager man’s campaign\nbut utter your Kazakh name which till now was stored\nin my throat as a password into the Horde.\n\nA navy-blue dawn in a frosted pane\nrecalls yellow streetlamps in the snow-piled lane,\nicy pathways, crossroads, drifts on either hand,\na jostling cloakroom in Europe’s eastern end.\n“Hannibal 
” drones on there, a worn-out motor,\nparallel bars in the gym reek with armpit odor;\nas for that scary blackboard you failed to see through,\nit has stayed just as black. And its reverse side, too.\nSilvery hoarfrost has transformed the rattling bell\ninto crystal. As regards all that parallel-\nline stuff, it’s turned out true and bone-clad, indeed.\nDon’t want to get up now. And never did.\n\nYou’ve forgotten that village lost in the rows and rows\nof swamp in a pine-wooded territory where no scarecrows\never stand in orchards: the crops aren’t worth it,\nand the roads are also just ditches and brushwood surface.\nOld Nastasia is dead, I take it, and Pesterev, too, for sure,\nand if not, he’s sitting drunk in the cellar or\nis making something out of the headboard of our bed:\na wicket gate, say, or some kind of shed.\nAnd in winter they’re chopping wood, and turnips is all they live on,\nand a star blinks from all the smoke in the frosty heaven,\nand no bride in chintz at the window, but dust’s gray craft,\nplus the emptiness where once we loved.\n\nIn the little town out of which death sprawled over the classroom map\nthe cobblestones shine like scales that coat a carp,\non the secular chestnut tree melting candles hang,\nand a cast-iron lion pines for a good harangue.\nThrough the much laundered, pale window gauze\nwoundlike carnations and kirchen needles ooze;\na tram rattles far off, as in days of yore,\nbut no one gets off at the stadium anymore.\nThe real end of the war is a sweet blonde’s frock\nacross a Viennese armchair’s fragile back\nwhile the humming winged silver bullets fly,\ntaking lives southward, in mid-July.\n\nAs for the stars, they are always on.\nThat is, one appears, then others adorn the inklike\nsphere. That’s the best way from there to look upon\nhere: well after hours, blinking.\nThe sky looks better when they are off.\nThough, with them, the conquest of space is quicker.\nProvided you haven’t got to move\nfrom the bare veranda and squeaking rocker.\nAs one spacecraft pilot has said, his face\nhalf sunk in the shadow, it seems there is\nno life anywhere, and a thoughtful gaze\ncan be rested on none of these.\n\nNear the ocean, by candlelight. Scattered farms,\nfields overrun with sorrel, lucerne, and clover.\nToward nightfall, the body, like Shiva, grows extra arms\nreaching out yearningly to a lover.\nA mouse rustles through grass. An owl drops down.\nSuddenly creaking rafters expand a second.\nOne sleeps more soundly in a wooden town,\nsince you dream these days only of things that happened.\nThere’s a smell of fresh fish. An armchair’s profile\nis glued to the wall. The gauze is too limp to bulk at\nthe slightest breeze 
 And a ray of the moon, meanwhile,\ndraws up the tide like a slipping blanket.\n\nThe Laocoön of a tree, casting the mountain weight\noff his shoulders, wraps them in an immense\ncloud. From a promontory, wind gushes in. A voice\npitches high, keeping words on a string of sense.\nRain surges down; its ropes twisted into lumps,\nlash, like the bather’s shoulders, the naked backs of these\nhills. The Medhibernian Sea stirs round colonnaded stumps\nlike a salt tongue behind broken teeth.\nThe heart, however grown savage, still beats for two.\nEvery good boy deserves fingers to indicate\nthat beyond today there is always a static to-\nmorrow, like a subject’s shadowy predicate.\n\nIf anything’s to be praised, it’s most likely how\nthe west wind becomes the east wind, when a frozen bough\nsways leftward, voicing its creaking protests,\nand your cough flies across the Great Plains to Dakota’s forests.\nAt noon, shouldering a shotgun, fire at what may well\nbe a rabbit in snowfields, so that a shell\nwidens the breach between the pen that puts up these limping\nawkward lines and the creature leaving\nreal tracks in the white. On occasion the head combines\nits existence with that of a hand, not to fetch more lines\nbut to cup an ear under the pouring slur\nof their common voice. Like a new centaur.\n\nThere is always a possibility left--to let\nyourself out to the street whose brown length\nwill soothe the eye with doorways, the slender forking\nof willows, the patchwork puddles, with simply walking.\nThe hair on my gourd is stirred by a breeze\nand the street, in distance, tapering to a V, is\nlike a face to a chin; and a barking puppy\nflies out of a gateway like crumpled paper.\nA street. Some houses, let’s say,\nare better than others. To take one item,\nsome have richer windows. What’s more, if you go insane,\nit won’t happen, at least, inside them.\n\n
 and when “the future” is uttered, swarms of mice\nrush out of the Russian language and gnaw a piece\nof ripened memory which is twice\nas hole-ridden as real cheese.\nAfter all these years it hardly matters who\nor what stands in the corner, hidden by heavy drapes,\nand your mind resounds not with a seraphic “do,”\nonly their rustle. Life, that no one dares\nto appraise, like that gift horse’s mouth,\nbares its teeth in a grin at each\nencounter. What gets left of a man amounts\nto a part. To his spoken part. To a part of speech.\n\nNot that I am losing my grip; I am just tired of summer.\nYou reach for a shirt in a drawer and the day is wasted.\nIf only winter were here for snow to smother\nall these streets, these humans; but first, the blasted\ngreen. I would sleep in my clothes or just pluck a borrowed\nbook, while what’s left of the year’s slack rhythm,\nlike a dog abandoning its blind owner,\ncrosses the road at the usual zebra. Freedom\nis when you forget the spelling of the tyrant’s name\nand your mouth’s saliva is sweeter than Persian pie,\nand though your brain is wrung tight as the horn of a ram\nnothing drops from your pale-blue eye.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -18286,11 +18909,13 @@ "title": "“Polar Explorer”", "body": "All the huskies are eaten. There is no space\nleft in the diary, And the beads of quick\nwords scatter over his spouse’s sepia-shaded face\nadding the date in question like a mole to her lovely cheek.\nNext, the snapshot of his sister. He doesn’t spare his kin:\nwhat’s been reached is the highest possible latitude!\nAnd, like the silk stocking of a burlesque half-nude\nqueen, it climbs up his thigh: gangrene.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1977 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -18298,11 +18923,13 @@ "title": "“Seaward”", "body": "Darling, you think it’s love, it’s just a midnight journey.\nBest are the dales and rivers removed by force,\nas from the next compartment throttles “Oh, stop it, Bernie,”\nyet the rhythm of those paroxysms is exactly yours.\nHook to the meat! Brush to the red-brick dentures,\nalias cigars, smokeless like a driven nail!\nHere the works are fewer than monkey wrenches,\nand the phones are whining, dwarfed by to-no-avail.\nBark, then, with joy at Clancy, Fitzgibbon, Miller.\nDogs and block letters care how misfortune spells.\nStill, you can tell yourself in the john by the spat-at mirror,\nslamming the flush and emerging with clean lapels.\nOnly the liquid furniture cradles the dwindling figure.\nMan shouldn’t grow in size once he’s been portrayed.\nLook: what’s been left behind is about as meager\nas what remains ahead. Hence the horizon’s blade.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1983 }, - "translator": "the author", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -18313,11 +18940,13 @@ "title": "“Seven Strophes”", "body": "I was but what you’d brush\nwith your palm, what your leaning\nbrow would hunch to in evening’s\nraven-black hush.\n\nI was but what your gaze\nin that dark could distinguish:\na dim shape to begin with,\nlater - features, a face.\n\nIt was you, on my right,\non my left, with your heated\nsighs, who molded my helix\nwhispering at my side.\n\nIt was you by that black\nwindow’s trembling tulle pattern\nwho laid in my raw cavern\na voice calling you back.\n\nI was practically blind.\nYou, appearing, then hiding,\ngave me my sight and heightened\nit. Thus some leave behind\n\na trace. Thus they make worlds.\nThus, having done so, at random\nwastefully they abandon\ntheir work to its whirls.\n\nThus, prey to speeds\nof light, heat, cold, or darkness,\na sphere in space without markers\nspins and spins.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1981 }, - "translator": "Paul Graves", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Graves" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -18325,8 +18954,10 @@ "title": "“A Song”", "body": "I wish you were here, dear,\nI wish you were here.\nI wish you sat on the sofa\nand I sat near.\nThe handkerchief could be yours,\nthe tear could be mine, chin-bound.\nThough it could be, of course,\nthe other way around.\n\nI wish you were here, dear,\nI wish you were here.\nI wish we were in my car\nand you’d shift the gear.\nWe’d find ourselves elsewhere,\non an unknown shore.\nOr else we’d repair\nto where we’ve been before.\n\nI wish you were here, dear,\nI wish you were here.\nI wish I knew no astronomy\nwhen stars appear,\nwhen the moon skims the water\nthat sighs and shifts in its slumber.\nI wish it were still a quarter\nto dial your number.\n\nI wish you were here, dear,\nin this hemisphere,\nas I sit on the porch\nsipping a beer.\nIt’s evening, the sun is setting;\nboys shout and gulls are crying.\nWhat’s the point of forgetting\nif it’s followed by dying?", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -18334,8 +18965,10 @@ "title": "“Star of the Nativity”", "body": "In the cold season, in a locality accustomed to heat more than\nto cold, to horizontality more than to a mountain,\na child was born in a cave in order to save the world;\nit blew as only in deserts in winter it blows, athwart.\n\nTo Him, all things seemed enormous: His mother’s breast, the steam\nout of the ox’s nostrils, Caspar, Balthazar, Melchior--the team\nof Magi, their presents heaped by the door, ajar.\nHe was but a dot, and a dot was the star.\n\nKeenly, without blinking, through pallid, stray\nclouds, upon the child in the manger, from far away--\nfrom the depth of the universe, from its opposite end--the star\nwas looking into the cave. And that was the Father’s stare.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -18346,8 +18979,10 @@ "title": "“Tornfallet”", "body": "There is a meadow in Sweden\nwhere I lie smitten,\neyes stained with clouds’\nwhite ins and outs.\n\nAnd about that meadow\nroams my widow\nplaiting a clover\nwreath for her lover.\n\nI took her in marriage\nin a granite parish.\nThe snow lent her whiteness,\na pine was a witness.\n\nShe’d swim in the oval\nlake whose opal\nmirror, framed by bracken,\nfelt happy, broken.\n\nAnd at night the stubborn\nsun of her auburn\nhair shone from my pillow\nat post and pillar.\n\nNow in the distance\nI hear her descant.\nShe sings “Blue Swallow,”\nbut I can’t follow.\n\nThe evening shadow\nrobs the meadow\nof width and color.\nIt’s getting colder.\n\nAs I lie dying\nhere, I’m eyeing\nstars. Here’s Venus;\nno one between us.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -18358,8 +18993,10 @@ "title": "“Transatlantic”", "body": "The last twenty years were good for practically everybody\nsave the dead. But maybe for them as well.\nMaybe the Almighty Himself has turned a bit bourgeois\nand uses a credit card. For otherwise time’s passage\nmakes no sense. Hence memories, recollections,\nvalues, deportment. One hopes one hasn’t\nspent one’s mother or father or both, or a handful of friends entirely\nas they cease to hound one’s dreams. One’s dreams,\nunlike the city, become less populous\nthe older one gets. That’s why the eternal rest\ncancels analysis. The last twenty years were good\nfor practically everybody and constituted\nthe afterlife for the dead. Its quality could be questioned\nbut not its duration. The dead, one assumes, would not\nmind attaining a homeless status, and sleep in archways\nor watch pregnant submarines returning\nto their native pen after a worldwide journey\nwithout destroying life on earth, without\neven a proper flag to hoist.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -18367,8 +19004,10 @@ "title": "“Tsushima Screen”", "body": "The perilous yellow sun follows with its slant eyes\nmasts of the shuddered grove steaming up to capsize\nin the frozen straits of Epiphany. February has fewer\ndays than the other months; therefore, it’s more cruel\nthan the rest. Dearest, it’s more sound\nto wrap up our sailing round\nthe globe with habitual naval grace,\nmoving your cot to the fireplace\nwhere our dreadnought is going under\nin great smoke. Only fire can grasp a winter!\nGolder unharnessed stallions in the chimney\ndye their manes to more corvine shades as they near the finish,\nand the dark room fills with the plaintive, incessant chirring\nof a naked, lounging grasshopper one cannot cup in fingers.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -18379,8 +19018,10 @@ "title": "“Two Hours in Reservoir”", "body": "# 1.\n\nI am an anti-fascist 
 anti-Faust\nIch liebe life and I admire chaos\nIch bin to wish, Genosse Offizieren,\nDem Zeit zum Faust for a while spazieren.\n\n\n# 2.\n\nWithout embracing Polish propaganda,\nIn Krakow he had missed his Vaterland, and\nHe dreamt of the philosopher’s true diamond\nAnd sometimes doubted his own talent.\nHe gently picked, off ground, ladies’ tissues,\nHe got excited with the gender issues,\nAlong, in school he played the polo’s virtues.\n\nHe studied deeply gambling catechismus,\nAnd learned to taste the sweetness of Cartesian.\nThen crawled deep down into the Artesian\nwell of ego-centrism. The military slyness\nFor which was famous Mr. Clausewitz,\nFor him remained apparently unknown,\nWhereas to Vater was a wood artisan.\n\nZum beispiel, in outbreak of glaucoma,\nThe plague, cholera und Tuberculosen,\nHe saved himself by schwarze Papierossen.\nAttracted by the Gypsies and the Moors.\nHe then became a bachelor alumnus.\nWas granted then a licentiate laurus\nAnd sang to students, “Cambrian 
 dinosaurs 
”\n\nA German man--a German cerebrum.\nWithout mentioning, Cogito ergo sum.\nUndoubtedly--Deutschland uber alles.\n(One’s ears can catch a famous Vienna’s waltz).\nHe parted with Krakow with some heart cheer,\nAnd took a carriage in a rush to sheer\nTo chair the school with honest glass of beer.\n\n\n# 3.\n\nA splendid C-moon shines out of the clouds.\nTremendous foliant. A man above it.\nA wrinkle darkens right ’twixt the eyebrows,\nHis eyes--the lacework devilry of Arabs.\nWith a Cordovan black chalk in his right hand\nAnd from the corner, he’s watched at profile length\nBy Meph-ibn-Stopheles: an Arab agent.\n\nThe candles burning. Screeches under clothes-bin.\n“Herr Doktor, midnight”. “Jawohl, schlafen, schlafen 
”\nTwo dark black muzzles open utter “meow,”\nFrom kitchen quietly comes a Yiddish Frau.\nShe holds a sizzling omelet with fried bacon.\nHerr doctor jots the address on the letter:\n“Gott Strafe. England. London. Francis Bacon”.\n\nConcerns and demons come and go further,\nThe years and guests do come and go further 
\nOne can’t recall then dresses, words, or weather.\nThat’s how all the years have passed and gone swift.\nHe knew the Arabic, but didn’t know Sanskrit.\nAnd yet quite late, hey, Faust had discovered\nBefore him, eine kleine Fraulein Margaret.\n\nAnd then to Cairo he had sent epistle\nBy which he voted back his soul from devil.\nMeph had arrived while he had changed his clothes.\nHe gazed into the mirrow and saw close\nThat he forever is metamorphosed.\nTo maiden’s boudoir, with flowers, kitschy\nHe then set off. Und veni, vidi, vici.\n\n\n# 4.\n\nIch liebe clearness. Ja. Ich liebe promptness.\nIch bin to ask to see here no vileness.\nYou’re hinting that he loved the flower lasses.\nIch understanden, das ist ganze swiftness.\nBut this transaction macht der grosse Minus.\nDie righte Sprache, macht der grosse Sinus:\nThe heart and spirit nein gehabt in surplus.\n\nIn vain you alles would expect from creatures:\n“Behold--said to the moment--you’re so gorgeous”\nThe devil all the time among us wanders\nAnd by the minute he awaits this phrase.\nNevertheless, a man, mein liebe Herren,\nIs so uncertain in his greatest darings,\nThat each time lies as if he sells the air\nAnd yet like Goethe could not goof by chance.\n\nUnd grosser Dichter Goethe made a blooper\nWith which subjected to a ganze risk that matter.\nAnd Thomas Mann had ruined his best seller\nAnd cher Gounod confused his lady actor.\nThe fine art is the fine art is the fine art 
\nI’d rather sing in skies than fib in concert.\nDie Kunst gehabt the need in truthful kind heart.\n\nBy all fair means, of death, he could be scared.\nFrom where the demons come, he was aware.\nHe fed der dog on all Galens, Ibn-Sinas.\nHe could das Wasser drain in knees and fingers.\nHe could define the tree age by the log rings,\nHe knew where to the stars’ ways lead us rightly.\n\nBut Doctor Faust nichts knew of Almighty.\n\n\n# 5.\n\nThere’s mystique. There’s faith. And there is God.\nThere’s difference between them. And there’s oneness.\nSome men are itched by flesh, while some are saved.\nUnfaith is sightlessness, or rather swine-ness.\n\nThe Lord looks down. Up above look men.\nYet everybody seeks his own profit 
\nGod’s infinite. Indeed. And what is man?\nAnd man, most probably, is very finite.\n\nA man has got his ceiling, which in fact\nCould always be up there, a little mobile.\nA flatterer will find his way to heart.\nAnd life no more is seen beyond the devil.\n\nThat’s how Doctor Faust was. Likewise\nMarlowe, and Goethe, Thomas Mann and masses\nof singers, intellectuals und, alas,\nThe readers in milieu of other classes.\n\nSame flow sweeps away their foot steps too,\nTheir retorts,--Donnerwetter!,--vibes and musings 
\nSo grant them, God, the time to scream “Where to?”\nAnd listen to the answers of their Muses.\n\nAn honest German for der Weg zuruck\nWon’t wait until he’s summoned by the others.\nHe takes his Walter out of his warm slacks\nAnd then forever leaves to a Walter-Closet.\n\n\n# 6.\n\nFraulein, please tell me was ist das “incubus”?\nIncubus das ist eine kleine globus.\nNoch grosser Dichter Goethe gave us rebus\nAnd Ibycus’s evil bearing cranes,\nWhen having fled off Weimar’s foggy cloud,\nThey, of the pocket, snatched a key right out,\nBy Eckermann’s insight, not being rescued.\nAnd now we got, Matrosen, in a fix.\n\nThere are spiritually thuthful queries.\nMystique is indication of a failure\nIn an attempt to handle them. However,\nIch bin--unworthy topic to debate--.\nZum beispiel: Ceiling starts the roofing layers;\nOne poem lavisher 
 one human--nietzsche-r.\nI can recall Godmother in a niche there.\nAbundant Fruhstuck served right into bed.\n\nAgain September, Boredom. Full moon’s blown.\nGray witch does “meow” at my feet below.\nI put a hatchet right beneath my pillow 
\nSome schnapps will do! Well this is apgemacht!\nJawohl, September. Character gets rotten\nAnd spinning, in a field a roaring tractor.\n\nIch liebe life and “Volkisch Beobachter”.\nGut Nacht, mein liebe Herren. Ja, gut Nacht.", "metadata": { - "translator": "the author", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "the author" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -18635,10 +19276,10 @@ "title": "“The Bean Eaters”", "body": "They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.\nDinner is a casual affair.\nPlain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,\nTin flatware.\n\nTwo who are Mostly Good.\nTwo who have lived their day,\nBut keep on putting on their clothes\nAnd putting things away.\n\nAnd remembering 
\nRemembering, with twinklings and twinges,\nAs they lean over the beans in their rented back room that\nis full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths,\ntobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1960 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -18646,10 +19287,10 @@ "title": "“The Children of the Poor”", "body": "# 1.\n\nPeople who have no children can be hard:\nAttain a mail of ice and insolence:\nNeed not pause in the fire, and in no sense\nHesitate in the hurricane to guard.\nAnd when wide world is bitten and bewarred\nThey perish purely, waving their spirits hence\nWithout a trace of grace or of offense\nTo laugh or fail, diffident, wonder-starred.\nWhile through a throttling dark we others hear\nThe little lifting helplessness, the queer\nWhimper-whine; whose unridiculous\nLost softness softly makes a trap for us.\nAnd makes a curse. And makes a sugar of\nThe malocclusions, the inconditions of love.\n\n\n# 2.\n\nWhat shall I give my children? who are poor,\nWho are adjudged the leastwise of the land,\nWho are my sweetest lepers, who demand\nNo velvet and no velvety velour;\nBut who have begged me for a brisk contour,\nCrying that they are quasi, contraband\nBecause unfinished, graven by a hand\nLess than angelic, admirable or sure.\nMy hand is stuffed with mode, design, device.\nBut I lack access to my proper stone.\nAnd plenitude of plan shall not suffice\nNor grief nor love shall be enough alone\nTo ratify my little halves who bear\nAcross an autumn freezing everywhere.\n\n\n# 3.\n\nAnd shall I prime my children, pray, to pray?\nMites, come invade most frugal vestibules\nSpectered with crusts of penitents’ renewals\nAnd all hysterics arrogant for a day.\nInstruct yourselves here is no devil to pay.\nChildren, confine your lights in jellied rules;\nResemble graves; be metaphysical mules.\nLearn Lord will not distort nor leave the fray.\nBehind the scurryings of your neat motif\nI shall wait, if you wish: revise the psalm\nIf that should frighten you: sew up belief\nIf that should tear: turn, singularly calm\nAt forehead and at fingers rather wise,\nHolding the bandage ready for your eyes.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1949 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -18657,10 +19298,10 @@ "title": "“The Life of Lincoln West”", "body": "Ugliest little boy\nthat everyone ever saw.\nThat is what everyone said.\n\nEven to his mother it was apparent--\nwhen the blue-aproned nurse came into the\nnortheast end of the maternity ward\nbearing his squeals and plump bottom\nlooped up in a scant receiving blanket,\nbending, to pass the bundle carefully\ninto the waiting mother-hands--that this\nwas no cute little ugliness, no sly baby waywardness\nthat was going to inch away\nas would baby fat, baby curl, and\nbaby spot-rash. The pendulous lip, the\nbranching ears, the eyes so wide and wild,\nthe vague unvibrant brown of the skin,\nand, most disturbing, the great head.\nThese components of That Look bespoke\nthe sure fibre. The deep grain.\n\nHis father could not bear the sight of him.\nHis mother high-piled her pretty dyed hair and\nput him among her hairpins and sweethearts,\ndance slippers, torn paper roses.\nHe was not less than these,\nhe was not more.\n\nAs the little Lincoln grew,\nuglily upward and out, he began\nto understand that something was\nwrong. His little ways of trying\nto please his father, the bringing\nof matches, the jumping aside at\nwarning sound of oh-so-large and\nrushing stride, the smile that gave\nand gave and gave--Unsuccessful!\n\nEven Christmases and Easters were spoiled.\nHe would be sitting at the\nfamily feasting table, really\ndelighting in the displays of mashed potatoes\nand the rich golden\nfat-crust of the ham or the festive\nfowl, when he would look up and find\nsomebody feeling indignant about him.\n\nWhat a pity what a pity. No love\nfor one so loving. The little Lincoln\nloved Everybody. Ants. The changing\ncaterpillar. His much-missing mother.\nHis kindergarten teacher.\n\nHis kindergarten teacher--whose\nconcern for him was composed of one\npart sympathy and two parts repulsion.\nThe others ran up with their little drawings.\nHe ran up with his.\nShe\ntried to be as pleasant with him as\nwith others, but it was difficult.\nFor she was all pretty! all daintiness,\nall tiny vanilla, with blue eyes and fluffy\nsun-hair. One afternoon she\nsaw him in the hall looking bleak against\nthe wall. It was strange because the\nbell had long since rung and no other\nchild was in sight. Pity flooded her.\nShe buttoned her gloves and suggested\ncheerfully that she walk him home. She\nstarted out bravely, holding him by the\nhand. But she had not walked far before\nshe regretted it. The little monkey.\nMust everyone look? And clutching her\nhand like that 
 Literally pinching\nit 
\n\nAt seven, the little Lincoln loved\nthe brother and sister who\nmoved next door. Handsome. Well-\ndressed. Charitable, often, to him. They\nenjoyed him because he was\nresourceful, made up\ngames, told stories. But when\ntheir More Acceptable friends came they turned\ntheir handsome backs on him. He\nhated himself for his feeling\nof well-being when with them despite--\nEverything.\n\nHe spent much time looking at himself\nin mirrors. What could be done?\nBut there was no\nshrinking his head. There was no\nbinding his ears.\n\n“Don’t touch me!” cried the little\nfairy-like being in the playground.\n\nHer name was Nerissa. The many\nchildren were playing tag, but when\nhe caught her, she recoiled, jerked free\nand ran. It was like all the\nrainbow that ever was, going off\nforever, all, all the sparklings in\nthe sunset west.\n\nOne day, while he was yet seven,\na thing happened. In the down-town movies\nwith his mother a white\nman in the seat beside him whispered\nloudly to a companion, and pointed at\nthe little Linc.\n“THERE! That’s the kind I’ve been wanting\nto show you! One of the best\nexamples of the specie. Not like\nthose diluted Negroes you see so much of on\nthe streets these days, but the\nreal thing.\n\nBlack, ugly, and odd. You\ncan see the savagery. The blunt\nblankness. That is the real\nthing.”\n\nHis mother--her hair had never looked so\nred around the dark brown\nvelvet of her face--jumped up,\nshrieked “Go to--” She did not finish.\nShe yanked to his feet the little\nLincoln, who was sitting there\nstaring in fascination at his assessor. At the author of his\nnew idea.\n\nAll the way home he was happy. Of course,\nhe had not liked the word\n“ugly.”\nBut, after all, should he not\nbe used to that by now? What had\nstruck him, among words and meanings\nhe could little understand, was the phrase\n“the real thing.”\nHe didn’t know quite why,\nbut he liked that.\nHe liked that very much.\n\nWhen he was hurt, too much\nstared at--\ntoo much\nleft alone--he\nthought about that. He told himself\n“After all, I’m\nthe real thing.”\n\nIt comforted him.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1987 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -18668,10 +19309,10 @@ "title": "“The Lovers of the Poor”", "body": "arrive. The Ladies from the Ladies’ Betterment League\nArrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting\nIn diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag\nOf proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting\nHere, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair,\nThe pink paint on the innocence of fear;\nWalk in a gingerly manner up the hall.\nCutting with knives served by their softest care,\nServed by their love, so barbarously fair.\nWhose mothers taught: You’d better not be cruel!\nYou had better not throw stones upon the wrens!\nHerein they kiss and coddle and assault\nAnew and dearly in the innocence\nWith which they baffle nature. Who are full,\nSleek, tender-clad, fit, fiftyish, a-glow, all\nSweetly abortive, hinting at fat fruit,\nJudge it high time that fiftyish fingers felt\nBeneath the lovelier planes of enterprise.\nTo resurrect. To moisten with milky chill.\nTo be a random hitching-post or plush.\nTo be, for wet eyes, random and handy hem.\n\nTheir guild is giving money to the poor.\nThe worthy poor. The very very worthy\nAnd beautiful poor. Perhaps just not too swarthy?\nperhaps just not too dirty nor too dim\nNor--passionate. In truth, what they could wish\nIs--something less than derelict or dull.\nNot staunch enough to stab, though, gaze for gaze!\nGod shield them sharply from the beggar-bold!\nThe noxious needy ones whose battle’s bald\nNonetheless for being voiceless, hits one down.\n\nBut it’s all so bad! and entirely too much for them.\nThe stench; the urine, cabbage, and dead beans,\nDead porridges of assorted dusty grains,\nThe old smoke, heavy diapers, and, they’re told,\nSomething called chitterlings. The darkness. Drawn\nDarkness, or dirty light. The soil that stirs.\nThe soil that looks the soil of centuries.\nAnd for that matter the general oldness. Old\nWood. Old marble. Old tile. Old old old.\nNot homekind Oldness! Not Lake Forest, Glencoe.\nNothing is sturdy, nothing is majestic,\nThere is no quiet drama, no rubbed glaze, no\nUnkillable infirmity of such\nA tasteful turn as lately they have left,\nGlencoe, Lake Forest, and to which their cars\nMust presently restore them. When they’re done\nWith dullards and distortions of this fistic\nPatience of the poor and put-upon.\n\nThey’ve never seen such a make-do-ness as\nNewspaper rugs before! In this, this “flat,”\nTheir hostess is gathering up the oozed, the rich\nRugs of the morning (tattered! the bespattered 
)\nReadies to spread clean rugs for afternoon.\nHere is a scene for you. The Ladies look,\nIn horror, behind a substantial citizeness\nWhose trains clank out across her swollen heart.\nWho, arms akimbo, almost fills a door.\nAll tumbling children, quilts dragged to the floor\nAnd tortured thereover, potato peelings, soft-\nEyed kitten, hunched-up, haggard, to-be-hurt.\n\nTheir League is allotting largesse to the Lost.\nBut to put their clean, their pretty money, to put\nTheir money collected from delicate rose-fingers\nTipped with their hundred flawless rose-nails seems 
\n\nThey own Spode, Lowestoft, candelabra,\nMantels, and hostess gowns, and sunburst clocks,\nTurtle soup, Chippendale, red satin “hangings,”\nAubussons and Hattie Carnegie. They Winter\nIn Palm Beach; cross the Water in June; attend,\nWhen suitable, the nice Art Institute;\nBuy the right books in the best bindings; saunter\nOn Michigan, Easter mornings, in sun or wind.\nOh Squalor! This sick four-story hulk, this fibre\nWith fissures everywhere! Why, what are bringings\nOf loathe-love largesse? What shall peril hungers\nSo old old, what shall flatter the desolate?\nTin can, blocked fire escape and chitterling\nAnd swaggering seeking youth and the puzzled wreckage\nOf the middle passage, and urine and stale shames\nAnd, again, the porridges of the underslung\nAnd children children children. Heavens! That\nWas a rat, surely, off there, in the shadows? Long\nAnd long-tailed? Gray? The Ladies from the Ladies’\nBetterment League agree it will be better\nTo achieve the outer air that rights and steadies,\nTo hie to a house that does not holler, to ring\nBells elsetime, better presently to cater\nTo no more Possibilities, to get\nAway. Perhaps the money can be posted.\nPerhaps they two may choose another Slum!\nSome serious sooty half-unhappy home!--\nWhere loathe-love likelier may be invested.\n\nKeeping their scented bodies in the center\nOf the hall as they walk down the hysterical hall,\nThey allow their lovely skirts to graze no wall,\nAre off at what they manage of a canter,\nAnd, resuming all the clues of what they were,\nTry to avoid inhaling the laden air.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1963 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -18679,10 +19320,10 @@ "title": "“My Dreams, My Works, Must Wait till after Hell”", "body": "I hold my honey and I store my bread\nIn little jars and cabinets of my will.\nI label clearly, and each latch and lid\nI bid, Be firm till I return from hell.\nI am very hungry. I am incomplete.\nAnd none can tell when I may dine again.\nNo man can give me any word but Wait,\nThe puny light. I keep eyes pointed in;\nHoping that, when the devil days of my hurt\nDrag out to their last dregs and I resume\nOn such legs as are left me, in such heart\nAs I can manage, remember to go home,\nMy taste will not have turned insensitive\nTo honey and bread old purity could love.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1963 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -18690,10 +19331,10 @@ "title": "“A Penitent Considers Another Coming of Mary”", "body": "If Mary came would Mary\nForgive, as Mothers may,\nAnd sad and second Saviour\nFurnish us today?\n\nShe would not shake her head and leave\nThis military air,\nBut ratify a modern hay,\nAnd put her Baby there.\n\nMary would not punish men--\nIf Mary came again.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1963 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -18701,10 +19342,10 @@ "title": "“A Sunset of the City”", "body": "Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love.\nMy daughters and sons have put me away with marbles and dolls,\nAre gone from the house.\nMy husband and lovers are pleasant or somewhat polite\nAnd night is night.\nIt is a real chill out,\nThe genuine thing.\nI am not deceived, I do not think it is still summer\nBecause sun stays and birds continue to sing.\nIt is summer-gone that I see, it is summer-gone.\nThe sweet flowers indrying and dying down,\nThe grasses forgetting their blaze and consenting to brown.\nIt is a real chill out. The fall crisp comes.\nI am aware there is winter to heed.\nThere is no warm house\nThat is fitted with my need.\nI am cold in this cold house this house\nWhose washed echoes are tremulous down lost halls.\nI am a woman, and dusty, standing among new affairs.\nI am a woman who hurries through her prayers.\nTin intimations of a quiet core to be my\nDesert and my dear relief\nCome: there shall be such islanding from grief,\nAnd small communion with the master shore.\nTwang they. And I incline this ear to tin,\nConsult a dual dilemma. Whether to dry\nIn humming pallor or to leap and die.\nSomebody muffed it? Somebody wanted to joke.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1963 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -18715,10 +19356,10 @@ "title": "“Truth”", "body": "And if sun comes\nHow shall we greet him?\nShall we not dread him,\nShall we not fear him\nAfter so lengthy a\nSession with shade?\n\nThough we have wept for him,\nThough we have prayed\nAll through the night-years--\nWhat if we wake one shimmering morning to\nHear the fierce hammering\nOf his firm knuckles\nHard on the door?\n\nShall we not shudder?--\nShall we not flee\nInto the shelter, the dear thick shelter\nOf the familiar\nPropitious haze?\n\nSweet is it, sweet is it\nTo sleep in the coolness\nOf snug unawareness.\n\nThe dark hangs heavily\nOver the eyes.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1949 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -18726,10 +19367,10 @@ "title": "“When you have forgotten Sunday”", "body": "--And when you have forgotten the bright bedclothes on a Wednesday and a Saturday,\nAnd most especially when you have forgotten Sunday--\nWhen you have forgotten Sunday halves in bed,\nOr me sitting on the front-room radiator in the limping afternoon\nLooking off down the long street\nTo nowhere,\nHugged by my plain old wrapper of no-expectation\nAnd nothing-I-have-to-do and I’m-happy-why?\nAnd if-Monday-never-had-to-come--\nWhen you have forgotten that, I say,\nAnd how you swore, if somebody beeped the bell,\nAnd how my heart played hopscotch if the telephone rang;\nAnd how we finally went in to Sunday dinner,\nThat is to say, went across the front room floor to the ink-spotted table in the southwest corner\nTo Sunday dinner, which was always chicken and noodles\nOr chicken and rice\nAnd salad and rye bread and tea\nAnd chocolate chip cookies--\nI say, when you have forgotten that,\nWhen you have forgotten my little presentiment\nThat the war would be over before they got to you;\nAnd how we finally undressed and whipped out the light and flowed into bed,\nAnd lay loose-limbed for a moment in the week-end\nBright bedclothes,\nThen gently folded into each other--\nWhen you have, I say, forgotten all that,\nThen you may tell,\nThen I may believe\nYou have forgotten me well.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1945 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "sunday" @@ -18942,20 +19583,38 @@ "name": "Robert Browning", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1812 + "year": 1812, + "month": "may", + "day": 7 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Camberwell", + "state": "Surrey", + "country": "England" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1889 + "year": 1889, + "month": "december", + "day": 12 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Venice", + "state": "Veneto", + "country": "Italy" } }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ "poet" ], - "education": null, - "movement": [], + "education": { + "bachelors": "University College London" + }, + "movement": [ + "Victorian" + ], "religion": null, "nationality": [ "england" @@ -18966,7 +19625,8 @@ "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Browning", "favorite": false, "tags": [ - "English" + "English", + "Victorian" ] }, "poems": { @@ -19532,11 +20192,13 @@ "title": "“And Here Again, as Dusk Now Spreads 
”", "body": "And here again, as dusk now spreads,\nAloft and free in sky’s expanses\nThe birds’ formation sea-bound threads,\nAn arrow’s shade, its chain advances.\n\nThe dusk is limpid, steppe is hushed,\nThe reddening sunset now is blazing 
\nThe sky by mute formation’s brushed,\nBirds’ gentle wings its crimson grazing.\n\nHow far away and high they fly!\nYou gaze--the blueness escalating\nAs deepness of the autumn sky\nAbove you is evaporating.\n\nThis distance now extends embrace--\nThe soul to give herself is willing,\nShe looses from the earth a trace\nOf anguished new bright thinking’s spilling.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rupert Moreton", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1898 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Rupert Moreton" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -19555,13 +20217,15 @@ "title": "“At the gates of Zion 
”", "body": "At the gates of Zion, over Kedron,\nThere is a windswept hillock;\nAnd where the wall gives temporary shade,\nI happened to sit down beside a leper,\nWho was eating toxic seeds.\n\nHis stench was indescribable.\nThe fool was poisoning himself.\nBut he would smile, for all that,\nLooking blissfully around\nAnd muttering: “Praise be to Allah!”\n\nMerciful God, wherefore did you give us\nFeelings, thoughts, and cares,\nA thirst for action and amusement?\nHappy are the cripples and the idiots,\nAnd happiest of all--the leper!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Simon Franklin", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917, "month": "september", "day": 16 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Simon Franklin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september", @@ -19584,13 +20248,15 @@ "title": "“The day will come; I’ll disappear 
”", "body": "The day will come; I’ll disappear,\nWhile in this selfsame empty room,\nThat table, bench, icon austere\nThe same contours of space consume.\n\nAnd just as now will flutter in\nThat silken butterfly serene,\nTo rustle, palpitate and ding\nAgainst the ceiling’s bluish-green.\n\nAnd the sky’s horizon, cerulean glow\nWill peer in, gaze through this window,\nWhile the steady unruffled blue of the sea\nBeckons toward emptiness: “Come. Follow me.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "U. R. Bowie", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1916, "month": "august", "day": 10 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "U. R. Bowie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -19602,13 +20268,15 @@ "title": "“Endless Downpour”", "body": "Endless downpour; misty wood;\nFir trees swaying:\n“Oh, dear Lord!”--as if the wood were drunk,\nRain-sodden.\n\nAt the window of the dark lodge\nA child sits drumming with a spoon.\nMother sleeping soundly on the stove;\nA calf lowing in the damp passage.\nGloomy lodge; buzzing of flies 
\n\nWhy does the wood ring with birdsong,\nSprout with mushrooms, blossom with flowers\nAnd vegetation bright as grass snakes?\n\nWhy does a round-eyed child,\nWeary of the world and of his lodge,\nDrum his spoon on the windowsill\nTo the even patter of the rain?\nCalf lowing; dumb calf.\n\nAnd the mournful fir trees bow their green branches:\n“Oh, dear Lord! Oh, dear Lord!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Simon Franklin", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1923, "month": "march", "day": 10 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Simon Franklin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -19620,11 +20288,13 @@ "title": "“An Even, Hazy Hum Runs through the Glade 
”", "body": "An even, hazy hum runs through the glade,\nThe rustling leaves to laze and drowse incline 
\nThe roosters faraway in sun-specked shade,\nTheir vernal tidings sing, in crows benign.\n\nA quiet, hazy hum runs through the glade 
\nTo succor me and send my soul repose,\nI lie midst birch grove green, my worries fade,\nIn this enchanted realm where stillness flows.\n\nSo used I’ve come to live with grief and dole\nThat this clear lustrous day seems strange to me,\nAs if I needs must chide my self, my soul\nFor feeling joyful, light at heart and free.\n\nBut censure and rebuke on my smile fades 
\nThe woods hum on, the lacy shadows laze,\nThe leaves’ bright hum dissolves, in flight abrades\nThe quiet rustle of bright childhood days.", "metadata": { - "translator": "U. R. Bowie", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1900 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "U. R. Bowie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -19635,13 +20305,15 @@ "title": "“Evening”", "body": "We always only dream about happiness, however,\nIt’s everywhere. And perhaps it is\nThese trees behind the barn wrapped into autumn weather,\nAnd through my window a softly flowing breeze.\n\nIn the endless sky there rises white and wispy\nEdge of a shining cloud. Quite for long\nI’ve followed it. We see and know so little,\nBut to the knowledgeable happiness belongs.\n\nMy window’s open. With a squeaky cheer\nA bird perched on the sill. And for a bit\nI take away my tired eyes from the read.\n\nThe day’s declining now. The sky has cleared.\nThe thresher’s buzz is coming from the barn 
\nI see, I hear, happy. All is mine.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Liliya Garipova", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1909, "month": "august", "day": 14 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Liliya Garipova" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -19676,10 +20348,10 @@ "title": "“Flax”", "body": "She sits on tumulus Savoor, and stares,\nOld woman Death, upon the crowded road.\nLike a blue flame the small flax-flower flares\nThick through the meadows sowed.\n\nAnd says old woman Death: “Hey, traveler!\nDoes any one want linen, linen fit\nFor funeral wear? A shroud, madam or sir,\nI’ll take cheap coin for it!”\n\nAnd says serene Savoor: “Don’t crow so loud!\nEven the winding-sheet is dust, and cracks\nAnd crumbles into earth, that from the shroud\nMay spring the sky-blue flax.”", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1907 }, - "language": "Russian", "tags": [] } }, @@ -19687,13 +20359,16 @@ "title": "“The God of Noon”", "body": "Black goats I herded with my sister; they\nGrazed by red rocks; the grass rose stiff and stinging.\nWarming their backs, stones to the foot-hills clinging\nSlept dumbly on. And sheer blue shone the bay.\nBy the gnarled silver of an olive flinging\nMy drowsy limbs, in its dry shade I lay,--\nHe came--like a hot cobweb net, asway,\nOr like a cloud of flies about me singing.\n\nHe bared my knees. Kindled my quiet feet.\nThe silver on my shirt his white fire burned.\nHis hot embrace is heavy, ah, and sweet.\nHe laid me on my back. The whole sky turned.\nHe tanned my naked bosom to the teat.\nFrom him the cammomile’s kind use I learned.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Babette Deutsch & Avrahm Yarmolinsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912, "month": "august", "day": 18 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch", + "Avrahm Yarmolinsky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -19705,11 +20380,14 @@ "title": "“I’m a plain girl, whose hands are stained with earth 
”", "body": "I’m a plain girl, whose hands are stained with earth.\nHe is a fisherman he’s gay and keen.\nThe far white sail is drowning in the firth.\nMany the seas and rivers he has seen.\n\nThe women of the Bosphorus, they say,\nAre good-looking 
 and I--I’m lean and black.\nThe white sail drowns far out beyond the bay.\nIt may be that he never will come back.\n\nI shall wait on in good and evil weather.\nIf vainly, take my wage, go to the sea\nAnd cast the ring and hope away together.\nAnd my black braid will serve to strangle me.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Babette Deutsch & Avrahm Yarmolinsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1905 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch", + "Avrahm Yarmolinsky" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -19725,11 +20403,13 @@ "title": "“Loneliness”", "body": "The rain and the wind and the murk\nReign over cold desert of fall,\nHere, life’s interrupted till spring;\nTill the spring, gardens barren and tall.\nI’m alone in my house, it’s dim\nAt the easel, and drafts through the rims.\n\nThe other day, you came to me,\nBut I feel you are bored with me now.\nThe somber day’s over, it seemed\nYou were there for me as my spouse.\nWell, so long, I will somehow strive\nTo survive till the spring with no wife.\n\nThe clouds, again, have today\nReturned, passing, patch after patch.\nYour footprints got smudged by the rain,\nAnd are filling with water by the porch.\nAs I sink into lonesome despair\nFrom the vanishing late autumn’s glare.\n\nI gasped to call after you fast:\nPlease come back, you’re a part of me, dear;\nTo a woman, there is no past:\nOnce love ends, you’re a stranger to her;\nI’ll get drunk, I will watch burning logs,\nWould be splendid to get me a dog.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Maya Jouravel", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Maya Jouravel" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -19762,11 +20442,13 @@ "title": "“Rakhil’s Tomb”", "body": "“She passed away, and was interred by Jacob\nBeside the road 
” And on the tomb, no sight\nOf any name, inscription and no mark up.\n\nAt nighttime, there’s a gleaming feeble light,\nAnd whitewashed with chalk, the grave’s cupola\nWith enigmatic paleness is attired.\n\nI’m timidly approaching as the night falls\nAnd kiss the dust and chalk in awe and thrill\nOf this tombstone, artless, white, and cold\n\nThe sweetest of the earthly words! Rakhil!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Maya Jouravel", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1907 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Maya Jouravel" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -19774,13 +20456,15 @@ "title": "“The Sail”", "body": "Embroidered all in stars, my sail\nStands tall and white, both taut and frail;\nBetween the stars there glows the Face\nOf Mother Mary, full of grace.\n\nWhat do I care if shores and sphere\nAre fading, soon to disappear!\nMy soul’s replete, my soul’s austere,\nAnd horns of fresh moon in the skies\nIllume my path as sun’s glow dies.", "metadata": { - "translator": "U. R. Bowie", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915, "month": "september", "day": 14 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "U. R. Bowie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september", @@ -19792,11 +20476,13 @@ "title": "“Temdzhid”", "body": "_“He sleeps not, drowses not.”_\n --_The Koran_\n\nIn the placid ancient city of Skutari,\nAs evening wends its way into the night,\nFrom minarets that loom o’er Dede Efendi,\nResounds the pensive music of Temdzhid.\n\nAt witching time midway twixt gloaming hour\nAnd morning’s dawn the dervishes perform;\nThey stand and whirl on high Efendi’s tower,\nAnd sing their ageless hymn, revered Temdzhid.\n\nThe sepulchres at midnight, the lovely gardens sleep,\nSkutari sleeps in silence, its daylight cares dismissed,\nBut under starry skies floats down from minaret\nThat hymn designed for those who turn and twist.\n\nTheir anxious eyes are fixed, intent on midnight murk,\nThey gaze in secret torment as the shadows slowly creep,\nTheir lips voice desperate cries, but all in vain,\nThey plead and whisper prayers for blessed sleep.\n\nDark and filled with pitfalls is this earthly road of life,\nBut every human sigh below is reckoned up on high,\nSleep on, O mortal, sleep! God sleeps not, drowses not,\nHe thinks of you, his mercy’s rife, He watches from the sky.", "metadata": { - "translator": "U. R. Bowie", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1905 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "U. R. Bowie" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -19804,11 +20490,13 @@ "title": "“The tranquil gaze, your eyes so like a doe’s 
”", "body": "The tranquil gaze, your eyes so like a doe’s,\nAll in that gaze once loved so tenderly\nOn grievous days I cherish, keep, but slenderly,\nFor haze and mist your visage now enclose.\n\nThe day will come when even sadness fades,\nWhen reminiscence glitters, azure-blue,\nIn dreams with grief and happiness askew,\nWhere nothing’s left but all-absolving shades.", "metadata": { - "translator": "U. R. Bowie", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1901 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "U. R. Bowie" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -19816,11 +20504,13 @@ "title": "“Wakened by the shadows’ probing 
”", "body": "Wakened by the shadows’ probing\nSnowy windows with their arc--\nIsaac’s swarthy gold dome’s robing\nGlimmers, beautiful and dark.\n\nDoleful, snowy morning settles,\nIsaac’s cross wears misty shroud.\nAt the window pigeons nestle,\nSnug against the glass they crowd.\n\nAll is joy to me and novel:\nChandelier and coffee’s spice,\nRug on floor of cosy hovel,\nPapers’ soggy frosted ice.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rupert Moreton", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Rupert Moreton" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -19842,11 +20532,13 @@ "title": "“Warmth and light, buzzing bumblebees, wheat ears and grasses 
”", "body": "Warmth and light, buzzing bumblebees, wheat ears and grasses,\nAzure skies--of high summer the birth 
\nTo his prodigal son will the Lord say: “Confess, pray--\nHave you known true contentment on earth?”\n\nAnd forgetting all else save the golden and endless\nFields of wheat, the sereneness and peace,\nI will weep, and, my words choked by sweet tears of gladness,\nThankful fall at those merciful knees.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Irina Zheleznova", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Irina Zheleznova" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -19857,11 +20549,13 @@ "title": "“Why does the ancient grave in captivation 
”", "body": "Why does the ancient grave in captivation,\nhold all those dreams of what may once have been?\nWhy does the willow bend its frowning green\nTo cast its shadow as in veneration,\nSo mournful and so tender and so bright,\nAs if all things that now are ended might\nAlready know the joy of resurrection\nAnd in redemption’s bosom, dark perfection\nIn tangle of celestial blooms’ delight?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Irina Zheleznova", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Irina Zheleznova" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "holy_saturday" @@ -19872,11 +20566,13 @@ "title": "“You’d be always out 
”", "body": "You’d be always out\nIn villages around\nHaving fun at feasts\nI’d be on my own,\nIn the wood or home,\nWatching plants and trees.\n\nGirls were, sewing, spinning\nGrannies played with children\nI was all alone,\nGentle as a berry\nStill as captive birdie\nIn a flax-blue tone.\n\nDidn’t I love him dearly?\nDidn’t I pray sincerely,\nBegging God for hope?\nYears were flying over\nI was getting older 
\nAnd your bugle stopped.\n\nNow the sunset rambles\nRound the rooms and parlours\nBy the oaken pale.\nBut it’s cold and dumpy\nAnd my soul, held captive,\nCan’t escape the jail.", "metadata": { - "translator": "U. R. Bowie", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1906 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "U. R. Bowie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -19887,11 +20583,13 @@ "title": "“Youth”", "body": "A whip cracks in the wood, and cattle low\nAnd through the underbrush are heard to\nCrash heavily. Leaves rustle. Snowdrops show\nTheir blue heads here and there. A sudden, furtive\n\nWind starts to blow, and ashen clouds are swept\nAcross the skies, a cool, fresh rain presaging 
\nThe heart grieves and is glad that life is, strangely,\nVast like the steppe and empty like the steppe.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Irina Zheleznova", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1916 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Irina Zheleznova" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -20399,10 +21097,10 @@ "title": "“And Thou Art Dead, as Young and Fair”", "body": "And thou art dead, as young and fair\nAs aught of mortal birth;\nAnd form so soft, and charms so rare,\nToo soon return’d to Earth!\nThough Earth receiv’d them in her bed,\nAnd o’er the spot the crowd may tread\nIn carelessness or mirth,\nThere is an eye which could not brook\nA moment on that grave to look.\n\nI will not ask where thou liest low,\nNor gaze upon the spot;\nThere flowers or weeds at will may grow,\nSo I behold them not:\nIt is enough for me to prove\nThat what I lov’d, and long must love,\nLike common earth can rot;\nTo me there needs no stone to tell,\n’T is Nothing that I lov’d so well.\n\nYet did I love thee to the last\nAs fervently as thou,\nWho didst not change through all the past,\nAnd canst not alter now.\nThe love where Death has set his seal,\nNor age can chill, nor rival steal,\nNor falsehood disavow:\nAnd, what were worse, thou canst not see\nOr wrong, or change, or fault in me.\n\nThe better days of life were ours;\nThe worst can be but mine:\nThe sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,\nShall never more be thine.\nThe silence of that dreamless sleep\nI envy now too much to weep;\nNor need I to repine\nThat all those charms have pass’d away,\nI might have watch’d through long decay.\n\nThe flower in ripen’d bloom unmatch’d\nMust fall the earliest prey;\nThough by no hand untimely snatch’d,\nThe leaves must drop away:\nAnd yet it were a greater grief\nTo watch it withering, leaf by leaf,\nThan see it pluck’d to-day;\nSince earthly eye but ill can bear\nTo trace the change to foul from fair.\n\nI know not if I could have borne\nTo see thy beauties fade;\nThe night that follow’d such a morn\nHad worn a deeper shade:\nThy day without a cloud hath pass’d,\nAnd thou wert lovely to the last,\nExtinguish’d, not decay’d;\nAs stars that shoot along the sky\nShine brightest as they fall from high.\n\nAs once I wept, if I could weep,\nMy tears might well be shed,\nTo think I was not near to keep\nOne vigil o’er thy bed;\nTo gaze, how fondly! on thy face,\nTo fold thee in a faint embrace,\nUphold thy drooping head;\nAnd show that love, however vain,\nNor thou nor I can feel again.\n\nYet how much less it were to gain,\nThough thou hast left me free,\nThe loveliest things that still remain,\nThan thus remember thee!\nThe all of thine that cannot die\nThrough dark and dread Eternity\nReturns again to me,\nAnd more thy buried love endears\nThan aught except its living years.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1812 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -20413,10 +21111,10 @@ "title": "“Darkness”", "body": "I had a dream, which was not all a dream.\nThe bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars\nDid wander darkling in the eternal space,\nRayless, and pathless, and the icy earth\nSwung blind and blackening in the moonless air;\nMorn came and went--and came, and brought no day,\nAnd men forgot their passions in the dread\nOf this their desolation; and all hearts\nWere chill’d into a selfish prayer for light:\nAnd they did live by watchfires--and the thrones,\nThe palaces of crowned kings--the huts,\nThe habitations of all things which dwell,\nWere burnt for beacons; cities were consum’d,\nAnd men were gather’d round their blazing homes\nTo look once more into each other’s face;\nHappy were those who dwelt within the eye\nOf the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:\nA fearful hope was all the world contain’d;\nForests were set on fire--but hour by hour\nThey fell and faded--and the crackling trunks\nExtinguish’d with a crash--and all was black.\nThe brows of men by the despairing light\nWore an unearthly aspect, as by fits\nThe flashes fell upon them; some lay down\nAnd hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest\nTheir chins upon their clenched hands, and smil’d;\nAnd others hurried to and fro, and fed\nTheir funeral piles with fuel, and look’d up\nWith mad disquietude on the dull sky,\nThe pall of a past world; and then again\nWith curses cast them down upon the dust,\nAnd gnash’d their teeth and howl’d: the wild birds shriek’d\nAnd, terrified, did flutter on the ground,\nAnd flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes\nCame tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl’d\nAnd twin’d themselves among the multitude,\nHissing, but stingless--they were slain for food.\nAnd War, which for a moment was no more,\nDid glut himself again: a meal was bought\nWith blood, and each sate sullenly apart\nGorging himself in gloom: no love was left;\nAll earth was but one thought--and that was death\nImmediate and inglorious; and the pang\nOf famine fed upon all entrails--men\nDied, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;\nThe meagre by the meagre were devour’d,\nEven dogs assail’d their masters, all save one,\nAnd he was faithful to a corse, and kept\nThe birds and beasts and famish’d men at bay,\nTill hunger clung them, or the dropping dead\nLur’d their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,\nBut with a piteous and perpetual moan,\nAnd a quick desolate cry, licking the hand\nWhich answer’d not with a caress--he died.\nThe crowd was famish’d by degrees; but two\nOf an enormous city did survive,\nAnd they were enemies: they met beside\nThe dying embers of an altar-place\nWhere had been heap’d a mass of holy things\nFor an unholy usage; they rak’d up,\nAnd shivering scrap’d with their cold skeleton hands\nThe feeble ashes, and their feeble breath\nBlew for a little life, and made a flame\nWhich was a mockery; then they lifted up\nTheir eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld\nEach other’s aspects--saw, and shriek’d, and died--\nEven of their mutual hideousness they died,\nUnknowing who he was upon whose brow\nFamine had written Fiend. The world was void,\nThe populous and the powerful was a lump,\nSeasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless--\nA lump of death--a chaos of hard clay.\nThe rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,\nAnd nothing stirr’d within their silent depths;\nShips sailorless lay rotting on the sea,\nAnd their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp’d\nThey slept on the abyss without a surge--\nThe waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,\nThe moon, their mistress, had expir’d before;\nThe winds were wither’d in the stagnant air,\nAnd the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need\nOf aid from them--She was the Universe.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1816 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -20427,10 +21125,10 @@ "title": "“The Destruction of Sennacherib”", "body": "The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,\nAnd his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;\nAnd the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,\nWhen the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.\n\n Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,\nThat host with their banners at sunset were seen:\nLike the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,\nThat host on the morrow lay withered and strown.\n\n For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,\nAnd breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;\nAnd the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,\nAnd their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!\n\n And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,\nBut through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;\nAnd the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,\nAnd cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.\n\n And there lay the rider distorted and pale,\nWith the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:\nAnd the tents were all silent, the banners alone,\nThe lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.\n\n And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,\nAnd the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;\nAnd the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,\nHath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1815 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -20441,10 +21139,10 @@ "title": "“The Giaour”", "body": "
 Unquenched, unquenchable,\nAround, within, thy heart shall dwell;\nNor ear can hear nor tongue can tell\nThe tortures of that inward hell!\nBut first, on earth as vampire sent,\nThy corse shall from its tomb be rent:\nThen ghastly haunt thy native place,\nAnd suck the blood of all thy race;\nThere from thy daughter, sister, wife,\nAt midnight drain the stream of life;\nYet loathe the banquet which perforce\nMust feed thy livid living corse:\nThy victims ere they yet expire\nShall know the demon for their sire,\nAs cursing thee, thou cursing them,\nThy flowers are withered on the stem.\nBut one that for thy crime must fall,\nThe youngest, most beloved of all,\nShall bless thee with a father’s name--\nThat word shall wrap thy heart in flame!\nYet must thou end thy task, and mark\nHer cheek’s last tinge, her eye’s last spark,\nAnd the last glassy glance must view\nWhich freezes o’er its lifeless blue;\nThen with unhallowed hand shalt tear\nThe tresses of her yellow hair,\nOf which in life a lock when shorn\nAffection’s fondest pledge was worn,\nBut now is borne away by thee,\nMemorial of thine agony!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1813 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -20452,11 +21150,11 @@ "title": "“I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name 
”", "body": "I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name;\nThere is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame;\nBut the tear that now burns on my cheek may impart\nThe deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.\nToo brief for our passion, too long for our peace,\nWere those hours--can their joy or their bitterness cease?\nWe repent, we abjure, we will break from our chain,--\nWe will part, we will fly to--unite it again!\nOh! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt!\nForgive me, adored one!--forsake if thou wilt;\nBut the heart which is thine shall expire undebased,\nAnd man shall not break it--whatever thou may’st.\nAnd stern to the haughty, but humble to thee,\nThis soul in its bitterest blackness shall be;\nAnd our days seem as swift, and our moments more sweet,\nWith thee at my side, than with worlds at our feet.\nOne sigh of thy sorrow, one look of thy love,\nShall turn me or fix, shall reward or reprove.\nAnd the heartless may wonder at all I resign--\nThy lips shall reply, not to them, but to mine.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1814, "month": "may" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -20468,10 +21166,10 @@ "body": "Maid of Athens, ere we part,\nGive, oh give me back my heart!\nOr, since that has left my breast,\nKeep it now, and take the rest!\nHear my vow before I go,\n_Ζώη ÎŒÎżÏ…, σας Î±ÎłÎ±Ï€ÏŽ._\n\nBy those tresses unconfined,\nWood by each Aegean wind;\nBy those lids whose jetty fringe\nKiss thy soft cheeks’ blooming tinge;\nBy those wild eyes like the roe,\n_Ζώη ÎŒÎżÏ…, σας Î±ÎłÎ±Ï€ÏŽ._\n\nBy that lip I long to taste;\nBy that zone encircled waist;\nBy all the token-flowers that tell\nWhat words can never speak so well;\nBy love’s alternate joy and woe.\n_Ζώη ÎŒÎżÏ…, σας Î±ÎłÎ±Ï€ÏŽ._\n\nMaid of Athens! I am gone:\nThink of me, sweet! when alone.\nThough I fly to Istambol,\nAthens holds my heart and soul:\nCan I cease to love thee? No!\n_Ζώη ÎŒÎżÏ…, σας Î±ÎłÎ±Ï€ÏŽ._", "metadata": { "place": "Athens", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1810 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -20480,11 +21178,11 @@ "body": "# I.\n\nTitan! to whose immortal eyes\n The sufferings of mortality,\n Seen in their sad reality,\nWere not as things that gods despise;\nWhat was thy pity’s recompense?\nA silent suffering, and intense;\nThe rock, the vulture, and the chain,\nAll that the proud can feel of pain,\nThe agony they do not show,\nThe suffocating sense of woe,\n Which speaks but in its loneliness,\nAnd then is jealous lest the sky\nShould have a listener nor will sigh\n Until its voice is echoless.\n\n\n# II.\n\nTitan! to thee the strife was given\n Between the suffering and the will,\nWhich torture where they cannot kill;\nAnd the inexorable Heaven,\nAnd the deaf tyranny of Fate,\nThe ruling principle of Hate,\nWhich for its pleasure doth create\nThe things it may annihilate,\nRefused thee even the boon o die:\nThe wretched gift eternity\nWas thine--and thou hast borne it well.\nAll that the Thunderer wrung from thee\nWas but the menace which flung back\nOn him the torments of thy rack;\nThe fate thou didst so well foresee,\nBut would not to appease him tell;\nAnd in thy Silence was his Sentence,\nAnd in his Soul a vain repentance,\nAnd evil dread so ill dissembled,\nThat in his hand the lightnings trembled.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThy Godlike crime was to be kind,\n To render with thy precepts less\n The sum of human wretchedness,\nAnd strengthen Man with his own mind;\nBut baffled as thou wert from high,\nStill in thy patient energy,\nIn the endurance, and repulse\n Of thine impenetrable Spirit,\nWhich Earth and Heaven could not convulse,\n A mighty lesson we inherit:\nThou art a symbol and a sign\n To Mortals of their fate and force;\nLike thee, Man is in part divine,\n A troubled stream from a pure source;\nAnd Man in portions can foresee\nHis own funereal destiny;\nHis wretchedness, and his resistance,\nAnd his sad unallied existence:\nTo which his Spirit may oppose\nItself--and equal to all woes,\n And a firm will, and a deep sense,\nWhich even in torture can descry\n Its own concenter’d recompense,\nTriumphant where it dares defy,\nAnd making Death a Victory.", "metadata": { "place": "Diodata", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1816, "month": "july" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -20495,10 +21193,10 @@ "title": "“She Walks in Beauty”", "body": "She walks in beauty, like the night\nOf cloudless climes and starry skies;\nAnd all that’s best of dark and bright\nMeet in her aspect and her eyes;\nThus mellowed to that tender light\nWhich heaven to gaudy day denies.\n\nOne shade the more, one ray the less,\nHad half impaired the nameless grace\nWhich waves in every raven tress,\nOr softly lightens o’er her face;\nWhere thoughts serenely sweet express,\nHow pure, how dear their dwelling-place.\n\nAnd on that cheek, and o’er that brow,\nSo soft, so calm, yet eloquent,\nThe smiles that win, the tints that glow,\nBut tell of days in goodness spent,\nA mind at peace with all below,\nA heart whose love is innocent!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1815 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -20526,10 +21224,10 @@ "body": "A spirit passed before me: I beheld\nThe face of immortality unveiled--\nDeep sleep came down on every eye save mine--\nAnd there it stood,--all formless--but divine:\nAlong my bones the creeping flesh did quake;\nAnd as my damp hair stiffened, thus it spake:\n\n“Is man more just than God? Is man more pure\nThan He who deems even Seraphs insecure?\nCreatures of clay--vain dwellers in the dust!\nThe moth survives you, and are ye more just?\nThings of a day! you wither ere the night,\nHeedless and blind to Wisdom’s wasted light!”", "metadata": { "place": "Athens", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1810 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -20537,10 +21235,10 @@ "title": "“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods 
”", "body": "There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,\n There is a rapture on the lonely shore,\n There is society where none intrudes,\n By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:\n I love not Man the less, but Nature more,\n From these our interviews, in which I steal\n From all I may be, or have been before,\n To mingle with the Universe, and feel\nWhat I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.\n\n Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!\n Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;\n Man marks the earth with ruin--his control\n Stops with the shore;--upon the watery plain\n The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain\n A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,\n When for a moment, like a drop of rain,\n He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,\nWithout a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.\n\n His steps are not upon thy paths,--thy fields\n Are not a spoil for him,--thou dost arise\n And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields\n For earth’s destruction thou dost all despise,\n Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,\n And send’st him, shivering in thy playful spray\n And howling, to his gods, where haply lies\n His petty hope in some near port or bay,\nAnd dashest him again to earth:--there let him lay.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1818 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -20659,8 +21357,10 @@ "title": "“An Adieu to Tagus”", "body": "Waters of gentle Tagus, calmly flowing\nThrough these green fields ye freshen as ye flow,\nOn flocks and herds, plants, flowers, all things that grow,\nOn shepherds and on nymphs delight bestowing;\nI know not, ah! sweet streams, despair of knowing\nWhen I shall come again; for as I go,\nAnd ponder why, ye fill me with such woe,\nThat in my heart a deep distrust is growing.\nThe Fates have e’en decreed this sad adieu,\nAiming to change my joys into despair,\nThis sad adieu that weighs upon my years:\nOf them complaining, yearning after you,\nWith sighs I shall invade some distant air,\nAnd trouble other waters with my tears.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. J. Aubertin", "language": "Portuguese", + "translators": [ + "J. J. Aubertin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -20671,8 +21371,10 @@ "title": "“All hushed the heaven and earth, and wind the same 
”", "body": "_The fisher Ionio calls on the waves to restore to him his drowned love:_\n\nAll hushed the heaven and earth, and wind the same,\nThe waves all spreading o’er the sandy plain,\nWhile sleep doth in the sea the fish enchain,\nNocturnal silence brooding as a dream;--\nProstrate with love, Ionio, fisher, came\nWhere the breeze moved the waters of the main;\nWeeping, the well-loved name he called in vain,\nThat can no more be called but as a name;\nOh! waves, or ere love slay me, thus he cried,\nRestore to me my nymph who, ah! so soon,\nYe taught my soul was subject to the grave.\nNo one replies; from far beats ocean’s tide;\nAll softly moves the grove; and the wind’s moan\nBears off the voice that to the wind he gave.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. J. Aubertin", "language": "Portuguese", + "translators": [ + "J. J. Aubertin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -20683,8 +21385,10 @@ "title": "“Beholding Her”", "body": "When I behold you, Lady! when my eyes\nDwell on the deep enjoyment of your sight,\nI give my spirit to that one delight,\nAnd earth appears to me a Paradise.\nAnd when I hear you speak, and see you smile,\nFull satisfied, absorb’d, my centr’d mind\nDeems all the world’s vain hopes and joys the while\nAs empty as the unsubstantial wind.\nLady! I feel your charms, yet dare not raise\nTo that high theme the unequal song of praise,--\nA power for that to language was not given;\nNor marvel I, when I those beauties view,\nLady! that He, whose power created you,\nCould form the stars and yonder glorious heaven.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Southey", "language": "Portuguese", + "translators": [ + "Robert Southey" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -20692,8 +21396,10 @@ "title": "“Blighted Love”", "body": "Flowers are fresh, and bushes green,\n Cheerily the linnets sing;\nWinds are soft, and skies serene;\n Time, however, soon shall throw\n Winter’s snow\nO’er the buxom breast of Spring!\n\nHope, that buds in lover’s heart,\n Lives not through the scorn of years;\nTime makes love itself depart;\n Time and scorn congeal the mind,--\n Looks unkind\nFreeze affection’s warmest tears.\n\nTime shall make the bushes green;\n Time dissolve the winter snow;\nWinds be soft, and skies serene;\n Linnets sing their wonted strain:\n But again\nBlighted love shall never blow!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lord Strangford", "language": "Portuguese", + "translators": [ + "Lord Strangford" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -20704,8 +21410,10 @@ "title": "“The eyes where love in chastest fire would glow 
”", "body": "The eyes where love in chastest fire would glow,\nJoying to be consumed amidst their light,\nThe face whereon with wondrous lustre bright\nThe purple rose was blushing o’er the snow;\nThe hair whereof the sun would envious grow,\nIt made his own less golden to the sight;\nThe well-formed body and the hand so white,\nAll to cold earth reduced lies here below!\nIn tender age, a beauty all entire,\nE’en like a blossom gathered ere its time,\nLies withered in the hand of heartless death:\nHow doth not Love for pity’s sake expire?\nAh! not for her who flies to life sublime,\nBut for himself whom night extinguisheth.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. J. Aubertin", "language": "Portuguese", + "translators": [ + "J. J. Aubertin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -20716,8 +21424,10 @@ "title": "“His Insufficiency of Praise”", "body": "So sweet the lyre, so musical the strain,\nBy which my suit, BelovĂ«d! is expressed,\nThat, hearing them, no such indifferent breast\nBut welcomes Love and his delicious pain,\nAnd opes to his innumerable train\nOf sweet persuasions, lovely mysteries,\nBrief angers, gentle reconcilements, sighs\nAnd ardour unabash’d by proud disdain.\nYet, when I strive to sing what beauty dwells\nUpon thy brow, so oft in scorn array’d,\nMy song upon the unworthy lips expires.\nIt must be loftier verse than mine that tells\nOf loveliness like thine. My Muse, dismay’d,\nFolds her weak wing and silently retires.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Richard Garnett", "language": "Portuguese", + "translators": [ + "Richard Garnett" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -20725,8 +21435,10 @@ "title": "“Love”", "body": "Love is a fire that burns unseen,\na wound that aches yet isn’t felt,\nan always discontent contentment,\na pain that rages without hurting,\n\na longing for nothing but to long,\na loneliness in the midst of people,\na never feeling pleased when pleased,\na passion that gains when lost in thought.\n\nIt’s being enslaved of your own free will;\nit’s counting your defeat a victory;\nit’s staying loyal to your killer.\n\nBut if it’s so self-contradictory,\nhow can Love, when Love chooses,\nbring human hearts into sympathy?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Richard Zenith", "language": "Portuguese", + "translators": [ + "Richard Zenith" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -20734,8 +21446,10 @@ "title": "“The Shepherdess Nise”", "body": "Aurora with her new-born crystal ray\nArose the enamelled world again to dress,\nWhen Nise, fair and gentle shepherdess,\nDeparted whence her only true life lay.\nThe light of eyes that darkened those of day\nShe raised, while flowing anxious tears oppress,\nOf self, fate, time, all wearied to distress,\nAnd gazing heavenward thus did pensive say:\nRise, tranquil sun, once more all pure and shining,\nClear purple morn with new-born light be clad,\nAnd see sad souls with you their grief resigning;\nBut my poor soul, while others all are glad,\nYe know ye ne’er shall see but as repining,\nNor any other shepherdess so sad.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. J. Aubertin", "language": "Portuguese", + "translators": [ + "J. J. Aubertin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -20743,8 +21457,10 @@ "title": "“Sibella”", "body": "Within a wood nymphs were inhabiting,\nSibella, lovely nymph, was wandering free;\nAnd climbing up into a shady tree,\nThe yellow blossoms there was gathering.\nCupid, who thither ever turned his wing,\nCool in his shady mid-day sleep to be,\nWould on a branch, e’er sleeping, pendent see\nThe bows and arrows he was wont to bring.\nThe nymph, who now the moment fitting saw\nFor so great enterprise, in nought delays,\nBut flies the scorner with the arms she ta’en.\nShe bears the arrows in her eyes, to draw.\nOh! shepherds fly, for every one she slays,\nSave me alone, who live by being slain.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. J. Aubertin", "language": "Portuguese", + "translators": [ + "J. J. Aubertin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -22145,8 +22861,10 @@ "title": "“Drake in the Southern Sea”", "body": "I set out from the Port of Acapulco on the twenty-third of March\nAnd kept a steady course until Saturday, the fourth of April, when\nA half hour before dawn, we saw by the light of the moon\nThat a ship had come alongside\nWith sails and a bow that seemed to be of silver.\nOur helmsman cried out to them to stand off\nBut no one answered, as though they were all asleep.\nAgain we called out: “WHERE DID THEIR SHIP COME FROM?”\nAnd they said: Peru!\nAfter which we heard trumpets, and muskets firing,\nAnd they ordered me to come down into their longboat\nTo cross over to where their Captain was.\nI found him walking the deck,\nWent up to him, kissed his hands and he asked me:\n“What silver or gold I had aboard that ship?”\nI said, “None at all,\nNone at all, My Lord, only my dishes and cups.”\nSo then he asked me if I knew the Viceroy.\nI said I did. And I asked the Captain,\n“If he were Captain Drake himself and no other?”\nThe Captain replied that\n“He was the very Drake I spoke of.”\nWe spoke together a long time, until the hour of dinner,\nAnd he commanded that I sit by his side.\nHis dishes and cups are of silver, bordered with gold\nWith his crest upon them.\nHe has with him many perfumes and scented waters in crystal vials\nWhich, he said, the Queen had given him.\nHe dines and sups always with music of violins\nAnd also takes with him everywhere painters who keep painting\nAll the coast for him.\nHe is a man of some twenty-four years, small, with a reddish beard.\nHe is a nephew of Juan Aquinas, the pirate.\nAnd is one of the greatest mariners there are upon the sea.\nThe day after, which was Sunday, he clothed himself in splendid garments\nAnd had them hoist all their flags\nWith pennants of divers colors at the mastheads,\nThe bronze rings, and chains, and the railings and\nThe lights on the Alcazar shining like gold.\nHis ship was like a gold dragon among the dolphins.\nAnd we went, with his page, to my ship to look at the coffers.\nAll day long until night he spent looking at what I had.\nWhat he took from me was not much,\nA few trifles of my own,\nAnd he gave me a cutlass and a silver brassart for them,\nAsking me to forgive him\nSince it was for his lady that he was taking them:\nHe would let me go, he said, the next morning, as soon as there was a breeze;\nFor this I thanked him, and kissed his hands.\nHe is carrying, in his galleon, three thousand bars of silver\nThree coffers full of gold\nTwelve great coffers of pieces of eight:\nAnd he says he is heading for China\nFollowing the charts and steered by a Chinese pilot whom he captured 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Merton", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Merton" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -22159,8 +22877,10 @@ "title": "“Like Empty Beer Cans”", "body": "My days have been like empty beer cans\nand stubbed-out cigarette ends.\nMy life has passed me by like the figures who appear\nand disappear on a television screen.\nLike cars passing by at speed along the roads\nwith girls laughing and music from the radio 
\nAnd beauty was as transient as the models of those cars\nand the fleeting hits that blasted from the radios\nand were forgotten.\n\nAnd nothing is left of those days,\nnothing, besides the empty cans and stubbed-out dog-ends,\nsmiles on washed-out photos, torn coupons,\nand the sawdust with which, at dawn,\nthey swept out the bars.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ricardo Blanco", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Ricardo Blanco" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -22498,10 +23218,10 @@ "title": "“The Hunting of the Snark”", "body": "# I. _The Landing_\n\n\n“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,\nAs he landed his crew with care;\nSupporting each man on the top of the tide\nBy a finger entwined in his hair.\n\n“Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:\nThat alone should encourage the crew.\nJust the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:\nWhat I tell you three times is true.”\n\nThe crew was complete: it included a Boots--\nA maker of Bonnets and Hoods--\nA Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes--\nAnd a Broker, to value their goods.\n\nA Billiard-marker, whose skill was immense,\nMight perhaps have won more than his share--\nBut a Banker, engaged at enormous expense,\nHad the whole of their cash in his care.\n\nThere was also a Beaver, that paced on the deck,\nOr would sit making lace in the bow:\nAnd had often (the Bellman said) saved them from wreck,\nThough none of the sailors knew how.\n\nThere was one who was famed for the number of things\nHe forgot when he entered the ship:\nHis umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings,\nAnd the clothes he had bought for the trip.\n\nHe had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed,\nWith his name painted clearly on each:\nBut, since he omitted to mention the fact,\nThey were all left behind on the beach.\n\nThe loss of his clothes hardly mattered, because\nHe had seven coats on when he came,\nWith three pair of boots--but the worst of it was,\nHe had wholly forgotten his name.\n\nHe would answer to “Hi!” or to any loud cry,\nSuch as “Fry me!” or “Fritter my wig!”\nTo “What-you-may-call-um!” or “What-was-his-name!”\nBut especially “Thing-um-a-jig!”\n\nWhile, for those who preferred a more forcible word,\nHe had different names from these:\nHis intimate friends called him “Candle-ends,”\nAnd his enemies “Toasted-cheese.”\n\n“His form is ungainly--his intellect small--”\n(So the Bellman would often remark)\n“But his courage is perfect! And that, after all,\nIs the thing that one needs with a Snark.”\n\nHe would joke with hyĂŠnas, returning their stare\nWith an impudent wag of the head:\nAnd he once went a walk, paw-in-paw, with a bear,\n“Just to keep up its spirits,” he said.\n\nHe came as a Baker: but owned, when too late--\nAnd it drove the poor Bellman half-mad--\nHe could only bake Bridecake--for which, I may state,\nNo materials were to be had.\n\nThe last of the crew needs especial remark,\nThough he looked an incredible dunce:\nHe had just one idea--but, that one being “Snark,”\nThe good Bellman engaged him at once.\n\nHe came as a Butcher: but gravely declared,\nWhen the ship had been sailing a week,\nHe could only kill Beavers. The Bellman looked scared,\nAnd was almost too frightened to speak:\n\nBut at length he explained, in a tremulous tone,\nThere was only one Beaver on board;\nAnd that was a tame one he had of his own,\nWhose death would be deeply deplored.\n\nThe Beaver, who happened to hear the remark,\nProtested, with tears in its eyes,\nThat not even the rapture of hunting the Snark\nCould atone for that dismal surprise!\n\nIt strongly advised that the Butcher should be\nConveyed in a separate ship:\nBut the Bellman declared that would never agree\nWith the plans he had made for the trip:\n\nNavigation was always a difficult art,\nThough with only one ship and one bell:\nAnd he feared he must really decline, for his part,\nUndertaking another as well.\n\nThe Beaver’s best course was, no doubt, to procure\nA second-hand dagger-proof coat--\nSo the Baker advised it--and next, to insure\nIts life in some Office of note:\n\nThis the Banker suggested, and offered for hire\n(On moderate terms), or for sale,\nTwo excellent Policies, one Against Fire,\nAnd one Against Damage From Hail.\n\nYet still, ever after that sorrowful day,\nWhenever the Butcher was by,\nThe Beaver kept looking the opposite way,\nAnd appeared unaccountably shy.\n\n\n# II. _The Bellman’s Speech_\n\nThe Bellman himself they all praised to the skies--\nSuch a carriage, such ease and such grace!\nSuch solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,\nThe moment one looked in his face!\n\nHe had bought a large map representing the sea,\nWithout the least vestige of land:\nAnd the crew were much pleased when they found it to be\nA map they could all understand.\n\n“What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,\nTropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?”\nSo the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply\n“They are merely conventional signs!”\n\n“Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!\nBut we’ve got our brave Captain to thank”\n(So the crew would protest) “that he’s bought us the best--\nA perfect and absolute blank!”\n\nThis was charming, no doubt: but they shortly found out\nThat the Captain they trusted so well\nHad only one notion for crossing the ocean,\nAnd that was to tingle his bell.\n\nHe was thoughtful and grave--but the orders he gave\nWere enough to bewilder a crew.\nWhen he cried “Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!”\nWhat on earth was the helmsman to do?\n\nThen the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes:\nA thing, as the Bellman remarked,\nThat frequently happens in tropical climes,\nWhen a vessel is, so to speak, “snarked.”\n\nBut the principal failing occurred in the sailing,\nAnd the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,\nSaid he _had_ hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,\nThat the ship would _not_ travel due West!\n\nBut the danger was past--they had landed at last,\nWith their boxes, portmanteaus, and bags:\nYet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view,\nWhich consisted of chasms and crags.\n\nThe Bellman perceived that their spirits were low,\nAnd repeated in musical tone\nSome jokes he had kept for a season of woe--\nBut the crew would do nothing but groan.\n\nHe served out some grog with a liberal hand,\nAnd bade them sit down on the beach:\nAnd they could not but own that their Captain looked grand,\nAs he stood and delivered his speech.\n\n“Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears!”\n(They were all of them fond of quotations:\nSo they drank to his health, and they gave him three cheers,\nWhile he served out additional rations).\n\n“We have sailed many months, we have sailed many weeks,\n(Four weeks to the month you may mark),\nBut never as yet (’tis your Captain who speaks)\nHave we caught the least glimpse of a Snark!”\n\n“We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days,\n(Seven days to the week I allow),\nBut a Snark, on the which we might lovingly gaze,\nWe have never beheld till now!”\n\n“Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again\nThe five unmistakable marks\nBy which you may know, wheresoever you go,\nThe warranted genuine Snarks.”\n\n“Let us take them in order. The first is the taste,\nWhich is meagre and hollow, but crisp:\nLike a coat that is rather too tight in the waist,\nWith a flavour of Will-o-the-wisp.”\n\n“Its habit of getting up late you’ll agree\nThat it carries too far, when I say\nThat it frequently breakfasts at five-o’clock tea,\nAnd dines on the following day.”\n\n“The third is its slowness in taking a jest.\nShould you happen to venture on one,\nIt will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:\nAnd it always looks grave at a pun.”\n\n“The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,\nWhich it constantly carries about,\nAnd believes that they add to the beauty of scenes--\nA sentiment open to doubt.”\n\n“The fifth is ambition. It next will be right\nTo describe each particular batch:\nDistinguishing those that have feathers, and bite,\nFrom those that have whiskers, and scratch.”\n\n“For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,\nYet, I feel it my duty to say,\nSome are Boojums--” The Bellman broke off in alarm,\nFor the Baker had fainted away.\n\n\n# III. _The Baker’s Tale_\n\n\nThey roused him with muffins--they roused him with ice--\nThey roused him with mustard and cress--\nThey roused him with jam and judicious advice--\nThey set him conundrums to guess.\n\nWhen at length he sat up and was able to speak,\nHis sad story he offered to tell;\nAnd the Bellman cried “Silence! Not even a shriek!”\nAnd excitedly tingled his bell.\n\nThere was silence supreme! Not a shriek, not a scream,\nScarcely even a howl or a groan,\nAs the man they called “Ho!” told his story of woe\nIn an antediluvian tone.\n\n“My father and mother were honest, though poor--”\n“Skip all that!” cried the Bellman in haste.\n“If it once becomes dark, there’s no chance of a Snark--\nWe have hardly a minute to waste!”\n\n“I skip forty years,” said the Baker, in tears,\n“And proceed without further remark\nTo the day when you took me aboard of your ship\nTo help you in hunting the Snark.”\n\n“A dear uncle of mine (after whom I was named)\nRemarked, when I bade him farewell--”\n“Oh, skip your dear uncle!” the Bellman exclaimed,\nAs he angrily tingled his bell.\n\n“He remarked to me then,” said that mildest of men,\n“’If your Snark be a Snark, that is right:\nFetch it home by all means--you may serve it with greens,\nAnd it’s handy for striking a light.’”\n\n“’You may seek it with thimbles--and seek it with care;\nYou may hunt it with forks and hope;\nYou may threaten its life with a railway-share;\nYou may charm it with smiles and soap--’”\n\n(“That’s exactly the method,” the Bellman bold\nIn a hasty parenthesis cried,\n“That’s exactly the way I have always been told\nThat the capture of Snarks should be tried”)\n\n“‘But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,\nIf your Snark be a Boojum! For then\nYou will softly and suddenly vanish away,\nAnd never be met with again!’”\n\n“It is this, it is this that oppresses my soul,\nWhen I think of my uncle’s last words:\nAnd my heart is like nothing so much as a bowl\nBrimming over with quivering curds!”\n\n“It is this, it is this--” “We have had that before!”\nThe Bellman indignantly said.\nAnd the Baker replied “Let me say it once more.\nIt is this, it is this that I dread!”\n\n“I engage with the Snark--every night after dark--\nIn a dreamy delirious fight:\nI serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes,\nAnd I use it for striking a light:”\n\n“But if ever I meet with a Boojum, that day,\nIn a moment (of this I am sure),\nI shall softly and suddenly vanish away--\nAnd the notion I cannot endure!”\n\n\n# IV. _The Hunting_\n\nThe Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.\n“If only you’d spoken before!\nIt’s excessively awkward to mention it now,\nWith the Snark, so to speak, at the door!”\n\n“We should all of us grieve, as you well may believe,\nIf you never were met with again--\nBut surely, my man, when the voyage began,\nYou might have suggested it then?”\n\n“It’s excessively awkward to mention it now--\nAs I think I’ve already remarked.”\nAnd the man they called “Hi!” replied, with a sigh,\n“I informed you the day we embarked.”\n\n“You may charge me with murder--or want of sense--\n(We are all of us weak at times):\nBut the slightest approach to a false pretence\nWas never among my crimes!”\n\n“I said it in Hebrew--I said it in Dutch--\nI said it in German and Greek:\nBut I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much)\nThat English is what you speak!”\n\n“’Tis a pitiful tale,” said the Bellman, whose face\nHad grown longer at every word:\n“But, now that you’ve stated the whole of your case,\nMore debate would be simply absurd.”\n\n“The rest of my speech” (he explained to his men)\n“You shall hear when I’ve leisure to speak it.\nBut the Snark is at hand, let me tell you again!\n’Tis your glorious duty to seek it!”\n\n“To seek it with thimbles, to seek it with care;\nTo pursue it with forks and hope;\nTo threaten its life with a railway-share;\nTo charm it with smiles and soap!”\n\n“For the Snark’s a peculiar creature, that won’t\nBe caught in a commonplace way.\nDo all that you know, and try all that you don’t:\nNot a chance must be wasted to-day!”\n\n“For England expects--I forbear to proceed:\n’Tis a maxim tremendous, but trite:\nAnd you’d best be unpacking the things that you need\nTo rig yourselves out for the fight.”\n\nThen the Banker endorsed a blank cheque (which he crossed),\nAnd changed his loose silver for notes.\nThe Baker with care combed his whiskers and hair,\nAnd shook the dust out of his coats.\n\nThe Boots and the Broker were sharpening a spade--\nEach working the grindstone in turn:\nBut the Beaver went on making lace, and displayed\nNo interest in the concern:\n\nThough the Barrister tried to appeal to its pride,\nAnd vainly proceeded to cite\nA number of cases, in which making laces\nHad been proved an infringement of right.\n\nThe maker of Bonnets ferociously planned\nA novel arrangement of bows:\nWhile the Billiard-marker with quivering hand\nWas chalking the tip of his nose.\n\nBut the Butcher turned nervous, and dressed himself fine,\nWith yellow kid gloves and a ruff--\nSaid he felt it exactly like going to dine,\nWhich the Bellman declared was all “stuff.”\n\n“Introduce me, now there’s a good fellow,” he said,\n“If we happen to meet it together!”\nAnd the Bellman, sagaciously nodding his head,\nSaid “That must depend on the weather.”\n\nThe Beaver went simply galumphing about,\nAt seeing the Butcher so shy:\nAnd even the Baker, though stupid and stout,\nMade an effort to wink with one eye.\n\n“Be a man!” said the Bellman in wrath, as he heard\nThe Butcher beginning to sob.\n“Should we meet with a Jubjub, that desperate bird,\nWe shall need all our strength for the job!”\n\n\n# V. _The Beaver’s Lesson_\n\nThey sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;\nThey pursued it with forks and hope;\nThey threatened its life with a railway-share;\nThey charmed it with smiles and soap.\n\nThen the Butcher contrived an ingenious plan\nFor making a separate sally;\nAnd had fixed on a spot unfrequented by man,\nA dismal and desolate valley.\n\nBut the very same plan to the Beaver occurred:\nIt had chosen the very same place:\nYet neither betrayed, by a sign or a word,\nThe disgust that appeared in his face.\n\nEach thought he was thinking of nothing but “Snark”\nAnd the glorious work of the day;\nAnd each tried to pretend that he did not remark\nThat the other was going that way.\n\nBut the valley grew narrow and narrower still,\nAnd the evening got darker and colder,\nTill (merely from nervousness, not from goodwill)\nThey marched along shoulder to shoulder.\n\nThen a scream, shrill and high, rent the shuddering sky,\nAnd they knew that some danger was near:\nThe Beaver turned pale to the tip of its tail,\nAnd even the Butcher felt queer.\n\nHe thought of his childhood, left far far behind--\nThat blissful and innocent state--\nThe sound so exactly recalled to his mind\nA pencil that squeaks on a slate!\n\n“’Tis the voice of the Jubjub!” he suddenly cried.\n(This man, that they used to call “Dunce.”)\n“As the Bellman would tell you,” he added with pride,\n“I have uttered that sentiment once.”\n\n“’Tis the note of the Jubjub! Keep count, I entreat;\nYou will find I have told it you twice.\n’Tis the song of the Jubjub! The proof is complete,\nIf only I’ve stated it thrice.”\n\nThe Beaver had counted with scrupulous care,\nAttending to every word:\nBut it fairly lost heart, and outgrabe in despair,\nWhen the third repetition occurred.\n\nIt felt that, in spite of all possible pains,\nIt had somehow contrived to lose count,\nAnd the only thing now was to rack its poor brains\nBy reckoning up the amount.\n\n“Two added to one--if that could but be done,”\nIt said, “with one’s fingers and thumbs!”\nRecollecting with tears how, in earlier years,\nIt had taken no pains with its sums.\n\n“The thing can be done,” said the Butcher, “I think.\nThe thing must be done, I am sure.\nThe thing shall be done! Bring me paper and ink,\nThe best there is time to procure.”\n\nThe Beaver brought paper, portfolio, pens,\nAnd ink in unfailing supplies:\nWhile strange creepy creatures came out of their dens,\nAnd watched them with wondering eyes.\n\nSo engrossed was the Butcher, he heeded them not,\nAs he wrote with a pen in each hand,\nAnd explained all the while in a popular style\nWhich the Beaver could well understand.\n\n“Taking Three as the subject to reason about--\nA convenient number to state--\nWe add Seven, and Ten, and then multiply out\nBy One Thousand diminished by Eight.”\n\n“The result we proceed to divide, as you see,\nBy Nine Hundred and Ninety and Two:\nThen subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be\nExactly and perfectly true.”\n\n“The method employed I would gladly explain,\nWhile I have it so clear in my head,\nIf I had but the time and you had but the brain--\nBut much yet remains to be said.”\n\n“In one moment I’ve seen what has hitherto been\nEnveloped in absolute mystery,\nAnd without extra charge I will give you at large\nA Lesson in Natural History.”\n\nIn his genial way he proceeded to say\n(Forgetting all laws of propriety,\nAnd that giving instruction, without introduction,\nWould have caused quite a thrill in Society),\n\n“As to temper the Jubjub’s a desperate bird,\nSince it lives in perpetual passion:\nIts taste in costume is entirely absurd--\nIt is ages ahead of the fashion:”\n\n“But it knows any friend it has met once before:\nIt never will look at a bribe:\nAnd in charity-meetings it stands at the door,\nAnd collects--though it does not subscribe.”\n\n“Its flavour when cooked is more exquisite far\nThan mutton, or oysters, or eggs:\n(Some think it keeps best in an ivory jar,\nAnd some, in mahogany kegs:)”\n\n“You boil it in sawdust: you salt it in glue:\nYou condense it with locusts and tape:\nStill keeping one principal object in view--\nTo preserve its symmetrical shape.”\n\nThe Butcher would gladly have talked till next day,\nBut he felt that the Lesson must end,\nAnd he wept with delight in attempting to say\nHe considered the Beaver his friend.\n\nWhile the Beaver confessed, with affectionate looks\nMore eloquent even than tears,\nIt had learned in ten minutes far more than all books\nWould have taught it in seventy years.\n\nThey returned hand-in-hand, and the Bellman, unmanned\n(For a moment) with noble emotion,\nSaid “This amply repays all the wearisome days\nWe have spent on the billowy ocean!”\n\nSuch friends, as the Beaver and Butcher became,\nHave seldom if ever been known;\nIn winter or summer, ’twas always the same--\nYou could never meet either alone.\n\nAnd when quarrels arose--as one frequently finds\nQuarrels will, spite of every endeavour--\nThe song of the Jubjub recurred to their minds,\nAnd cemented their friendship for ever!\n\n\n\n6. _The Barrister’s Dream_\n\nThey sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;\nThey pursued it with forks and hope;\nThey threatened its life with a railway-share;\nThey charmed it with smiles and soap.\n\nBut the Barrister, weary of proving in vain\nThat the Beaver’s lace-making was wrong,\nFell asleep, and in dreams saw the creature quite plain\nThat his fancy had dwelt on so long.\n\nHe dreamed that he stood in a shadowy Court,\nWhere the Snark, with a glass in its eye,\nDressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending a pig\nOn the charge of deserting its sty.\n\nThe Witnesses proved, without error or flaw,\nThat the sty was deserted when found:\nAnd the Judge kept explaining the state of the law\nIn a soft under-current of sound.\n\nThe indictment had never been clearly expressed,\nAnd it seemed that the Snark had begun,\nAnd had spoken three hours, before any one guessed\nWhat the pig was supposed to have done.\n\nThe Jury had each formed a different view\n(Long before the indictment was read),\nAnd they all spoke at once, so that none of them knew\nOne word that the others had said.\n\n“You must know--” said the Judge: but the Snark exclaimed “Fudge!\nThat statute is obsolete quite!\nLet me tell you, my friends, the whole question depends\nOn an ancient manorial right.”\n\n“In the matter of Treason the pig would appear\nTo have aided, but scarcely abetted:\nWhile the charge of Insolvency fails, it is clear,\nIf you grant the plea ’never indebted.’”\n\n“The fact of Desertion I will not dispute:\nBut its guilt, as I trust, is removed\n(So far as relates to the costs of this suit)\nBy the Alibi which has been proved.”\n\n“My poor client’s fate now depends on your votes.”\nHere the speaker sat down in his place,\nAnd directed the Judge to refer to his notes\nAnd briefly to sum up the case.\n\nBut the Judge said he never had summed up before;\nSo the Snark undertook it instead,\nAnd summed it so well that it came to far more\nThan the Witnesses ever had said!\n\nWhen the verdict was called for, the Jury declined,\nAs the word was so puzzling to spell;\nBut they ventured to hope that the Snark wouldn’t mind\nUndertaking that duty as well.\n\nSo the Snark found the verdict, although, as it owned,\nIt was spent with the toils of the day:\nWhen it said the word “GUILTY!” the Jury all groaned,\nAnd some of them fainted away.\n\nThen the Snark pronounced sentence, the Judge being quite\nToo nervous to utter a word:\nWhen it rose to its feet, there was silence like night,\nAnd the fall of a pin might be heard.\n\n“Transportation for life” was the sentence it gave,\n“And _then_ to be fined forty pound.”\nThe Jury all cheered, though the Judge said he feared\nThat the phrase was not legally sound.\n\nBut their wild exultation was suddenly checked\nWhen the jailer informed them, with tears,\nSuch a sentence would have not the slightest effect,\nAs the pig had been dead for some years.\n\nThe Judge left the Court, looking deeply disgusted:\nBut the Snark, though a little aghast,\nAs the lawyer to whom the defence was intrusted,\nWent bellowing on to the last.\n\nThus the Barrister dreamed, while the bellowing seemed\nTo grow every moment more clear:\nTill he woke to the knell of a furious bell,\nWhich the Bellman rang close at his ear.\n\n\n# VII. _The Banker’s Fate_\n\nThey sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;\nThey pursued it with forks and hope;\nThey threatened its life with a railway-share;\nThey charmed it with smiles and soap.\n\nAnd the Banker, inspired with a courage so new\nIt was matter for general remark,\nRushed madly ahead and was lost to their view\nIn his zeal to discover the Snark.\n\nBut while he was seeking with thimbles and care,\nA Bandersnatch swiftly drew nigh\nAnd grabbed at the Banker, who shrieked in despair,\nFor he knew it was useless to fly.\n\nHe offered large discount--he offered a cheque\n(Drawn “to bearer”) for seven-pounds-ten:\nBut the Bandersnatch merely extended its neck\nAnd grabbed at the Banker again.\n\nWithout rest or pause--while those frumious jaws\nWent savagely snapping around--\nHe skipped and he hopped, and he floundered and flopped,\nTill fainting he fell to the ground.\n\nThe Bandersnatch fled as the others appeared\nLed on by that fear-stricken yell:\nAnd the Bellman remarked “It is just as I feared!”\nAnd solemnly tolled on his bell.\n\nHe was black in the face, and they scarcely could trace\nThe least likeness to what he had been:\nWhile so great was his fright that his waistcoat turned white--\nA wonderful thing to be seen!\n\nTo the horror of all who were present that day.\nHe uprose in full evening dress,\nAnd with senseless grimaces endeavoured to say\nWhat his tongue could no longer express.\n\nDown he sank in a chair--ran his hands through his hair--\nAnd chanted in mimsiest tones\nWords whose utter inanity proved his insanity,\nWhile he rattled a couple of bones.\n\n“Leave him here to his fate--it is getting so late!”\nThe Bellman exclaimed in a fright.\n“We have lost half the day. Any further delay,\nAnd we sha’n’t catch a Snark before night!”\n\n\n# VIII. _The Vanishing_\n\nThey sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;\nThey pursued it with forks and hope;\nThey threatened its life with a railway-share;\nThey charmed it with smiles and soap.\n\nThey shuddered to think that the chase might fail,\nAnd the Beaver, excited at last,\nWent bounding along on the tip of its tail,\nFor the daylight was nearly past.\n\n“There is Thingumbob shouting!” the Bellman said.\n“He is shouting like mad, only hark!\nHe is waving his hands, he is wagging his head,\nHe has certainly found a Snark!”\n\nThey gazed in delight, while the Butcher exclaimed\n“He was always a desperate wag!”\nThey beheld him--their Baker--their hero unnamed--\nOn the top of a neighbouring crag,\n\nErect and sublime, for one moment of time.\nIn the next, that wild figure they saw\n(As if stung by a spasm) plunge into a chasm,\nWhile they waited and listened in awe.\n\n“It’s a Snark!” was the sound that first came to their ears,\nAnd seemed almost too good to be true.\nThen followed a torrent of laughter and cheers:\nThen the ominous words “It’s a Boo-”\n\nThen, silence. Some fancied they heard in the air\nA weary and wandering sigh\nThat sounded like “-jum!” but the others declare\nIt was only a breeze that went by.\n\nThey hunted till darkness came on, but they found\nNot a button, or feather, or mark,\nBy which they could tell that they stood on the ground\nWhere the Baker had met with the Snark.\n\nIn the midst of the word he was trying to say,\nIn the midst of his laughter and glee,\nHe had softly and suddenly vanished away--\nFor the Snark _was_ a Boojum, you see.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1876 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "april_fools" @@ -22922,8 +23642,10 @@ "title": "“He to me like unto the Gods appeareth 
”", "body": "He to me like unto the Gods appeareth,\nHe, if I dare speak it, ascends above them,\nFace to face who toward thee attently sitting\n Gazes or hears thee\n\nLovely in sweet laughter; alas within me\nEvery lost sense falleth away for anguish;\nWhen as I look’d on thee, upon my lips no\n Whisper abideth,\n\nStraight my tongue froze, Lesbia; soon a subtle\nFire thro’ each limb streameth adown; with inward\nSound the full ears tinkle, on either eye night’s\n Canopy darkens.\n\nEase alone, Catullus, alone afflicts thee;\nEase alone breeds error of heady riot;\nEase hath entomb’d princes of old renown and\n Cities of honour.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robinson Ellis", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Robinson Ellis" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -22931,8 +23653,10 @@ "title": "“Learn to Play the Fool No More”", "body": "Ah poor Catullus, learn to play the fool no more.\nLost is the lost, thou know’st it, and the past is past.\n\nBright once the days and sunny shone the light on thee,\nStill ever hasting where she led, the maid so fair,\nBy me belov’d as maiden is belov’d no more.\n\nWas then enacting all the merry mirth wherein\nThyself delighted, and the maid she said not nay.\nAh truly bright and sunny shone the days on thee.\n\nNow she resigns thee; child, do thou resign no less,\nNor follow her that flies thee, or to bide in woe\nConsent, but harden all thy heart, resolve, endure.\n\nFarewell, my love. Catullus is resolv’d, endures,\nHe will not ask for pity, will not importune.\n\nBut thou’lt be mourning thus to pine unask’d alway.\nO past retrieval faithless! Ah what hours are thine!\nWhen comes a likely wooer? who protests thou’rt fair?\n\nWho brooks to love thee? who decrees to live thine own?\nWhose kiss delights thee? whose the lips that own thy bite?\nYet, yet, Catullus, learn to bear, resolve, endure.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robinson Ellis", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Robinson Ellis" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -22940,8 +23664,10 @@ "title": "“Living, Lesbia, we should e’en be loving 
”", "body": "Living, Lesbia, we should e’en be loving.\nSour severity, tongue of eld maligning,\nAll be to us a penny’s estimation.\n\nSuns set only to rise again to-morrow.\nWe, when sets in a little hour the brief light,\nSleep one infinite age, a night for ever.\n\nThousand kisses, anon to these an hundred,\nThousand kisses again, another hundred,\nThousand give me again, another hundred.\n\nThen once heedfully counted all the thousands,\nWe’ll uncount them as idly; so we shall not\nKnow, nor traitorous eye shall envy, knowing\nAll those myriad happy many kisses.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robinson Ellis", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Robinson Ellis" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -22949,8 +23675,10 @@ "title": "“Though, outworn with sorrow 
”", "body": "Though, outworn with sorrow, with hours of torturous anguish,\nOrtalus, I no more tarry the Muses among;\nThough from a fancy deprest fair blooms of poesy budding\nRise not at all; such grief rocks me, uneasily stirr’d:\n\nColdly but even now mine own dear brother in ebbing\nLethe his ice-wan feet laveth, a shadowy ghost.\nHe whom Troy’s deep bosom, a shore Rhoetean above him,\nRudely denies these eyes, heavily crushes in earth.\n\nAh! no more to address thee, or hear thy kindly replying,\nBrother! O e’en than life round me delightfuller yet,\nNe’er to behold thee again! Still love shall fail not alone in\nFancy to muse death’s dark elegy, closely to weep.\nClosely as under boughs of dimmest shadow the pensive\nDaulian ever moans Itys in agony slain.\n\nYet mid such desolation a verse I tender of ancient\nBattiades, new-drest, Ortalus, wholly for you.\nLest to the roving winds these words all idly deliver’d,\nSeem too soon from a frail memory fallen away.\n\nE’en as a furtive gift, sent, some love-apple, a-wooing,\nLeaps from breast of a coy maiden, a canopy pure;\nThere forgotten alas, mid vestments silky reposing,--\nSoon as a mother’s step starts her, it hurleth adown:\nStraight to the ground, dash’d forth ungently, the gift shoots headlong;\nShe in tell-tale cheeks glows a disorderly shame.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robinson Ellis", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Robinson Ellis" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -22958,8 +23686,10 @@ "title": "“Weep each heavenly Venus”", "body": "Weep each heavenly Venus, all the Cupids,\nWeep all men that have any grace about ye.\nDead the sparrow, in whom my love delighted,\nThe dear sparrow, in whom my love delighted.\n\nYea, most precious, above her eyes, she held him,\nSweet, all honey: a bird that ever hail’d her\nLady mistress, as hails the maid a mother.\n\nNor would move from her arms away: but only\nHopping round her, about her, hence or hither,\nPiped his colloquy, piped to none beside her.\n\nNow he wendeth along the mirky pathway,\nWhence, they tell us, is hopeless all returning.\n\nEvil on ye, the shades of evil Orcus,\nShades all beauteous happy things devouring,\nSuch a beauteous happy bird ye took him.\n\nAh! for pity; but ah! for him the sparrow,\nOur poor sparrow, on whom to think my lady’s\nEyes do angrily redden all a-weeping.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robinson Ellis", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Robinson Ellis" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -23022,10 +23752,10 @@ "title": "“Antinous”", "body": "With attributes of gods they sculptured him,\n Hermes, Osiris, but were never wise\nTo lift the level, frowning brow of him\n Or dull the mortal misery in his eyes,\nThe scornful weariness of every limb,\n The dust-begotten doubt that never dies,\nAntinous, beneath thy lids, though dim,\nThe curling smoke of altars rose to thee,\nConjuring thee to comfort and content.\n An emperor sent his galleys wide and far\nTo seek thy healing for thee. Yea, and spent\n Honour and treasure and red fruits of war\n To lift thy heaviness, lest thou should’st mar\nThe head that was an empire’s glory, bent\nA little, as the heavy poppies are.\n Did the perfection of thy beauty pain\nThy limbs to bear it? Did it ache to be,\n As song hath ached in men, or passion vain?\nOr lay it like some heavy robe on thee?\n Was thy sick soul drawn from thee like the rain,\nOr drunk up as the dead are drunk each hour\nTo feed the colour of some tulip flower?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -23036,10 +23766,10 @@ "title": "“Arcadian Winter”", "body": "Woe is me to tell it thee,\nWinter winds in Arcady!\nScattered is thy flock and fled\nFrom the glades where once it fed,\nAnd the snow lies drifted white\nIn the bower of our delight,\nWhere the beech threw gracious shade\nOn the cheek of boy and maid:\nAnd the bitter blasts make roar\nThrough the fleshless sycamore.\n\nWhite enchantment holds the spring,\nWhere thou once wert wont to sing,\nAnd the cold hath cut to death\nReeds melodious of thy breath.\nHe, the rival of thy lyre,\nNightingale with note of fire,\nSings no more; but far away,\nFrom the windy hill-side gray,\nCalls the broken note forlorn\nOf an aged shepherd’s horn.\n\nStill about the fire they tell\nHow it long ago befell\nThat a shepherd maid and lad\nMet and trembled and were glad;\nWhen the swift spring waters ran,\nAnd the wind to boy or man\nBrought the aching of his sires--\nSong and love and all desires.\nEre the starry dogwoods fell\nThey were lovers, so they tell.\n\nWoe is me to tell it thee,\nWinter winds in Arcady!\nBroken pipes and vows forgot,\nScattered flocks returning not,\nFrozen brook and drifted hill,\nAshen sun and song-birds still;\nSongs of summer and desire\nCrooned about the winter fire;\nShepherd lads with silver hair,\nShepherd maids no longer fair.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -23050,10 +23780,10 @@ "title": "“Autumn Melody”", "body": "In the autumn days, the days of parting,\n Days that in a golden silence fall,\nWhen the air is quick with bird-wings starting,\n And the asters darken by the wall;\n\nStrong and sweet the wine of heaven is flowing,\n Bees and sun and sleep and golden dyes;\nLong forgot is budding-time and blowing,\n Sunk in honeyed sleep the garden lies.\n\nSpring and storm and summer midnight madness\n Dream within the grape but never wake;\nBees and sun and sweetness,--oh, and sadness!\n Sun and sweet that reach the heart--and break.\n\nAh, the pain at heart forever starting,\n Ah, the cup untasted that we spilled\nIn the autumn days, the days of parting!\n Would our shades could drink it, and be stilled.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -23064,10 +23794,10 @@ "title": "“The Encore”", "body": "No garlands in the winter-time,\n No trumpets in the night!\nThe song ye praise was done lang syne,\n And was its own delight.\nO’ God’s name take the wreath away,\n Since now the music’s sped;\nYe never cry, “Long live the king!”\n Until the king is dead.\n\nWhen I came piping through the land,\n One morning in the spring,\nWith cockle-burrs upon my coat,\n ’Twas then I was a king:\nA mullein sceptre in my hand,\n My order daisies three,\nWith song’s first freshness on my lips--\n And then ye pitied me!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -23078,10 +23808,10 @@ "title": "“Evening Song”", "body": "Dear love, what thing of all the things that be\nIs ever worth one thought from you or me,\n Save only Love,\n Save only Love?\n\nThe days so short, the nights so quick to flee,\nThe world so wide, so deep and dark the sea,\n So dark the sea;\n\nSo far the suns and every listless star,\nBeyond their light--Ah! dear, who knows how far,\n Who knows how far?\n\nOne thing of all dim things I know is true,\nThe heart within me knows, and tells it you,\n And tells it you.\n\nSo blind is life, so long at last is sleep,\nAnd none but Love to bid us laugh or weep,\n And none but Love,\n And none but Love.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -23089,10 +23819,10 @@ "title": "“Fides, Spes”", "body": "Joy is come to the little\n Everywhere;\nPink to the peach and pink to the apple,\n White to the pear.\nStars are come to the dogwood,\n Astral, pale;\nMists are pink on the red-bud,\n Veil after veil.\nFlutes for the feathery locusts,\n Soft as spray;\nTongues of lovers for chestnuts, poplars,\n Babbling May.\nYellow plumes for the willows’\n Wind-blown hair;\nOak trees and sycamores only\n Comfortless, bare.\nSore from steel and the watching,\n Somber and old,\n(Wooing robes for the beeches, larches,\n Splashed with gold,\nBreath of love from the lilacs,\n Warm with noon,)\nGreat hearts cold when the little\n Beat mad so soon.\nWhat is their faith to bear it\n Till it come,\nWaiting with rain-cloud and swallow,\n Frozen, dumb?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -23103,10 +23833,10 @@ "title": "“The Gaul in the Capitol”", "body": "The murmur of old, old water,\nThe yellow of old, old stone,\nThe fountain that sings through the silence,\nThe river-god, dreaming alone;\nThe Antonine booted and mounted\nIn his sun-lit, hill-top place,\nThe Julians, gigantic in armour,\nThe low-browed Claudian race.\n\nThe wolf and the twin boys she suckled,\nAnd the powerful breed they bred;\nCaesars of duplicate empires,\nAll under one roof-stead.\nFronting these fronts triumphant,\nConquest on conquest pressed\nBy these marching, arrogant masters,\nWho could have hoped for the West?\n\nAt the feet of his multiple victors,\nBeaten and dazed and dumb,\nOne, from the wild new races,\nClay of the kings to come.\nHail, in the halls of the Caesars!\nHail, from the thrones oversea!\nSheath of the sword-like vigour,\nSap of the kings to be!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -23114,10 +23844,10 @@ "title": "“Going Home”", "body": "How smoothly the trains run beyond the Missouri;\nEven in my sleep I know when I have crossed the river.\nThe wheels turn as if they were glad to go;\nThe sharp curves and windings left behind,\nThe roadway wide open,\n(_The crooked straight\nAnd the rough places plain._)\n\nThey run smoothly, they run softly, too.\nThere is not noise enough to trouble the lightest sleeper.\nNor jolting to wake the weary-hearted.\nI open my window and let the air blow in,\nThe air of morning,\nThat smells of grass and earth--\nEarth, the grain-giver.\n\nHow smoothly the trains run beyond the Missouri;\nEven in my sleep I know when I have crossed the river.\nThe wheels turn as if they were glad to go;\nThey run like running water,\nLike Youth, running away 
\nThey spin bright along the bright rails,\nSinging and humming,\nSinging and humming.\nThey run remembering,\nThey run rejoicing,\nAs if they, too, were going home.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -23125,10 +23855,10 @@ "title": "“Grandmither, Think Not I Forget”", "body": "Grandmither, think not I forget, when I come back to town,\nAn’ wander the old ways again an’ tread them up an’ down.\nI never smell the clover bloom, nor see the swallows pass,\nWithout I mind how good ye were unto a little lass.\nI never hear the winter rain a-pelting all night through,\nWithout I think and mind me of how cold it falls on you.\nAnd if I come not often to your bed beneath the thyme,\nMayhap ’t is that I’d change wi’ ye, and gie my bed for thine,\n Would like to sleep in thine.\n\nI never hear the summer winds among the roses blow,\nWithout I wonder why it was ye loved the lassie so.\nYe gave me cakes and lollipops and pretty toys a score,--\nI never thought I should come back and ask ye now for more.\nGrandmither, gie me your still, white hands, that lie upon your breast,\nFor mine do beat the dark all night and never find me rest;\nThey grope among the shadows an’ they beat the cold black air,\nThey go seekin’ in the darkness, an’ they never find him there,\n An’ they never find him there.\n\nGrandmither, gie me your sightless eyes, that I may never see\nHis own a-burnin’ full o’ love that must not shine for me.\nGrandmither, gie me your peaceful lips, white as the kirkyard snow,\nFor mine be red wi’ burnin’ thirst, an’ he must never know.\nGrandmither, gie me your clay-stopped ears, that I may never hear\nMy lad a-singin’ in the night when I am sick wi’ fear;\nA-singin’ when the moonlight over a’ the land is white--\nAw God! I’ll up an’ go to him a-singin’ in the night,\n A-callin’ in the night.\n\nGrandmither, gie me your clay-cold heart that has forgot to ache,\nFor mine be fire within my breast and yet it cannot break.\nIt beats an’ throbs forever for the things that must not be,--\nAn’ can ye not let me creep in an’ rest awhile by ye?\nA little lass afeard o’ dark slept by ye years agone--\nAh, she has found what night can hold ’twixt sunset an’ the dawn!\nSo when I plant the rose an’ rue above your grave for ye,\nYe’ll know it’s under rue an’ rose that I would like to be,\n That I would like to be.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -23139,10 +23869,10 @@ "title": "“The Hawthorn Tree”", "body": "Across the shimmering meadows--\nAh, when he came to me!\nIn the spring-time,\nIn the night-time,\nIn the starlight,\nBeneath the hawthorn tree.\n\nUp from the misty marsh-land--\nAh, when he climbed to me!\nTo my white bower,\nTo my sweet rest,\nTo my warm breast,\nBeneath the hawthorn tree.\n\nAsk of me what the birds sang,\nHigh in the hawthorn tree;\nWhat the breeze tells,\nWhat the rose smells,\nWhat the stars shine--\nNot what he said to me!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -23153,10 +23883,10 @@ "title": "“I Sought the Wood in Winter”", "body": "I sought the wood in summer\n When every twig was green;\nThe rudest boughs were tender,\n And buds were pink between.\nLight-fingered aspens trembled\n In fitful sun and shade,\nAnd daffodils were golden\n In every starry glade.\nThe brook sang like a robin--\n My hand could check him where\nThe lissome maiden willows\n Shook out their yellow hair.\n\n“How frail a thing is Beauty,”\n I said, “when every breath\nShe gives the vagrant summer\n But swifter woos her death.\nFor this the star dust troubles,\n For this have ages rolled:\nTo deck the wood for bridal\n And slay her with the cold.”\n\nI sought the wood in winter\n When every leaf was dead;\nBehind the wind-whipped branches\n The winter sun set red.\nThe coldest star was rising\n To greet that bitter air,\nThe oaks were writhen giants;\n Nor bud nor bloom was there.\nThe birches, white and slender,\n In deathless marble stood,\nThe brook, a white immortal,\n Slept silent in the wood.\n\n“How sure a thing is Beauty,”\n I cried. “No bolt can slay,\nNo wave nor shock despoil her,\n No ravishers dismay.\nHer warriors are the angels\n That cherish from afar,\nHer warders people Heaven\n And watch from every star.\nThe granite hills are slighter,\n The sea more like to fail;\nBehind the rose the planet,\n The Law behind the veil.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -23167,10 +23897,10 @@ "title": "“In Media Vita”", "body": "Streams of the spring a-singing,\n Winds of the May that blow,\nBirds from the Southland winging,\n Buds in the grasses below.\nClouds that speed hurrying over,\n And the climbing rose by the wall,\nSinging of bees in the clover,\n And the dead, under all!\n\nLads and their sweethearts lying\n In the cleft of the windy hill;\nHearts that are hushed of their sighing,\n Lips that are tender and still.\nStars in the purple gloaming,\n Flowers that suffuse and fall,\nTwitter of bird-mates homing,\n And the dead, under all!\n\nHerdsman abroad with his collie,\n Girls on their way to the fair,\nYoung lads a-chasing their folly,\n Parsons a-praying their prayer.\nChildren their kites a-flying,\n Grandsires that nod by the wall,\nMothers soft lullabies sighing,\n And the dead, under all!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "memorial_day" @@ -23181,10 +23911,10 @@ "title": "“In Rose Time”", "body": "_Oh, this is the joy of the rose:\n That it blows,\n And goes._\n\nWinter lasts a five-month,\nSpring-time stays but one;\nYellow blow the rye-fields\nWhen the rose is done.\nPines are clad at Yuletide\nWhen the birch is bare,\nAnd the holly’s greenest\nIn the frosty air.\n\nSorrow keeps a stone house\nBuilded grim and gray;\nPleasure hath a straw thatch\nHung with lanterns gay.\nOn her petty savings\nNiggard Prudence thrives,\nPassion, ere the moonset,\nBleeds a thousand lives.\n\nVirtue hath a warm hearth--\nFolly’s dead and drowned;\nFriendship hath her own when\nLove is underground.\nAh! for me the madness\nOf the spendthrift flower,\nBurning myriad sunsets\nIn a single hour.\n\n_Oh, this is the joy of the rose:\n That it blows,\n And goes._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -23195,10 +23925,10 @@ "title": "“Lament for Marsyas”", "body": "Marsyas sleeps. Oh, never wait,\nMaidens, by the city gate,\nTill he come to plunder gold\nOf the daffodils you hold,\nOr your branches white with may;\nHe is whiter gone than they.\nHe will startle you no more\nWhen along the river shore\nDamsels beat the linen clean.\nNor when maidens play at ball\nWill he catch it where it fall:\nThough ye wait for him and call,\nHe will answer not, I ween.\n\nHappy Earth to hold him so,\nStill and satisfied and low,\nGiving him his will--ah, more\nThan a woman could before!\nStill forever holding up\nTo his parted lips the cup\nWhich hath eased him, when to bless\nAll who loved were powerless.\nAh! for that too-lovely head,\nLow among the laureled dead,\nMany a rose earth oweth yet;\nMany a yellow jonquil brim,\nMany a hyacinth dewy-dim,\nFor the singing breath of him--\nSweeter than the violet.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -23209,10 +23939,10 @@ "title": "“L’Envoi”", "body": "Where are the loves that we have loved before\nWhen once we are alone, and shut the door?\nNo matter whose the arms that held me fast,\nThe arms of Darkness hold me at the last.\nNo matter down what primrose path I tend,\nI kiss the lips of Silence in the end.\nNo matter on what heart I found delight,\nI come again unto the breast of Night.\nNo matter when or how love did befall,\n’Tis Loneliness that loves me best of all,\nAnd in the end she claims me, and I know\nThat she will stay, though all the rest may go.\nNo matter whose the eyes that I would keep\nNear in the dark, ’tis in the eyes of Sleep\nThat I must look and look forever more,\nWhen once I am alone, and shut the door.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -23220,10 +23950,10 @@ "title": "“A Likeness”", "body": "In every line a supple beauty--\n The restless head a little bent--\nDisgust of pleasure, scorn of duty,\n The unseeing eyes of discontent.\nI often come to sit beside him,\n This youth who passed and left no trace\nOf good or ill that did betide him,\n Save the disdain upon his face.\n\nThe hope of all his House, the brother\n Adored, the golden-hearted son,\nWhom Fortune pampered like a mother;\n And then--a shadow on the sun.\nWhether he followed Caesar’s trumpet,\n Or chanced the riskier game at home\nTo find how favour played the strumpet\n In fickle politics at Rome;\n\nWhether he dreamed a dream in Asia\n He never could forget by day,\nOr gave his youth to some Aspasia,\n Or gamed his heritage away--\nOnce lost, across the Empire’s border\n This man would seek his peace in vain;\nHis look arraigns a social order\n Somehow entrammelled with his pain.\n\n“The dice of gods are always loaded”;\n One gambler, arrogant as they,\nFierce, and by fierce injustice goaded,\n Left both his hazard and the play.\nIncapable of compromises,\n Unable to forgive or spare,\nThe strange awarding of the prizes\n He had no fortitude to bear.\n\nTricked by the forms of things material,--\n The solid-seeming arch and stone,\nThe noise of war, the pomp Imperial,\n The heights and depths about a throne--\nHe missed, among the shapes diurnal,\n The old, deep-travelled road from pain,\nThe thoughts of men, which are eternal,\n In which, eternal, men remain.\n\n_Ritratto D’ignoto_; defying\n Things unsubstantial as a dream--\nAn empire, long in ashes lying--\n His face still set against the stream--\nYes, so he looked, that gifted brother\n I loved, who passed and left no trace,\nNot even--luckier than this other--\n His sorrow in a marble face.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -23231,10 +23961,10 @@ "title": "“Macon Prairie”", "body": "She held me for a night against her bosom,\nThe aunt who died when I was yet a baby,\nThe girl who scarcely lived to be a woman.\nStricken, she left familiar earth behind her,\nMortally ill, she braved the boisterous ocean,\nDying, she crossed irrevocable rivers,\nHailed the blue Lakes, and saw them fade forever,\nHungry for distances;--her heart exulting\nThat God had made so many seas and countries\nTo break upon the eye and sweep behind her.\nFrom one whose love was tempered by discretion,\nFrom all the net of caution and convenience\nShe snatched her high heart for the great adventure,\nBroke her bright bubble under far horizons,--\nAmong the skirmishers that teased the future,\nPrecursors of the grave slow-moving millions\nAlready destined to the Westward-faring.\n\nThey came, at last, to where the railway ended,\nThe strange troop captained by a dying woman;\nThe father, the old man of perfect silence,\nThe mother, unresisting, broken-hearted,\nThe gentle brother and his wife, both timid,\nNot knowing why they left their native hamlet;\nGoing as in a dream, but ever going.\n\nIn all the glory of an Indian summer,\nThe lambent transmutations of October,\nThey started with the great ox-teams from Hastings\nAnd trekked in a southwesterly direction,\nBoring directly toward the fiery sunset.\nOver the red grass prairies, shaggy-coated,\nWithout a goal the caravan proceeded;\nAcross the tablelands and rugged ridges,\nThrough the coarse grasses which the oxen breasted,\nBlue-stem and bunch-grass, red as sea-marsh samphire.\nAlways the similar, soft undulations\nOf the free-breathing earth in golden sunshine,\nThe hardy wind, and dun hawks flying over\nAgainst the unstained firmament of heaven.\n\nIn the front wagon, under the white cover,\nStretched on her feather-bed and propped with pillows,\nNever dismayed by the rude oxen’s scrambling,\nThe jolt of the tied wheel or brake or hold-back,\nShe lay, the leader of the expedition;\nAnd with her burning eyes she took possession\nOf the red waste,--for hers, and theirs, forever.\n\nA wagon-top, rocking in seas of grasses,\nA camp-fire on a prairie chartless, trackless,\nA red spark under the dark tent of heaven.\nSurely, they said, by day she saw a vision,\nThough her exhausted strength could not impart it,--\nHer breathing hoarser than the tired cattle.\n\nWhen cold, bright stars the sunburnt days succeeded,\nShe took me in her bed to sleep beside her,--\nA sturdy bunch of life, born on the ocean.\nAlways she had the wagon cover lifted\nBefore her face. The sleepless hours till daybreak\nShe read the stars.\n\n“Plenty of time for sleep,” she said, “hereafter.”\n\nShe pointed out the spot on Macon prairie,\nTelling my father that she wished to lie there.\n“And plant, one day, an apple orchard round me,\nIn memory of woman’s first temptation,\nAnd man’s first cowardice.”\nThat night, within her bosom,\nI slept.\n Before the morning\nI cried because the breast was cold behind me.\n\nNow, when the sky blazes like blue enamel,\nBrilliant and hard over the blond cornfields,\nAnd through the autumn days our wind is blowing\nLike the creative breath of God Almighty--\nThen I rejoice that offended love demanded\nSuch wide retreat, and such self-restitution;\nForged an explorer’s will in a frail woman,\nAsked of her perfect faith and renunciation,\nHardships and perils, prophecy and vision,\nThe leadership of kin, and happy ending\nOn the red rolling land of Macon prairie.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -23245,10 +23975,10 @@ "title": "“Mills of Montmartre”", "body": "Upon the hill above the town--\nThe old town pale and gray--\nIn other days went up and down\nThe country lasses gay.\nBelow the humming mills it shone,\nAcross the fields of flowers,\nThe city, dreamlike, far away,--\nThe island, stream and towers.\n\nThe merry mills were going,\nThe country winds were blowing,\nAnd brave the miller sings;\n_“Bring in, bring in your yellow grain,\nMy weight is never light;\n(Oh tall my mill and swift her wings!)\nBring in, bring in your yellow grain\nAnd I will give you white.\nWhite is my hopper for your grist,\nMy mill-stones you may trust:\nBring in your harvest when you list\nAnd I will give you dust.”_\n\nUpon the hill above the town\nThey grind the corn no more;\nThe girls go tripping up and down\nFrom idle door to door.\nThe nights are terrible with mirth.\nThe days ashamed for song;\nAgainst the sky the crimson sails\nTurn all the night-time long.\n\nThe merry mills are going,\nThe country winds are blowing\nAnd brave the miller sings:\n_“Bring in, bring in your yellow grain,\nMy weight is never light;\n(Oh tall my mill and swift her wings!)\nBring in, bring in your yellow grain,\nAnd I will give you white.\nWide is my hopper for your grist,\nMy mill-stones you may trust:\nBring in your harvest when you list,\nAnd I will give you dust.”_", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1904 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -23259,10 +23989,10 @@ "title": "“The Palatine”", "body": "“Have you been with the King to Rome,\n Brother, big brother?”\n“I’ve been there and I’ve come home.\n Back to your play, little brother.”\n\n“Oh, how high is Caesar’s house,\n Brother, big brother?”\n“Goats about the doorways browse:\nNight hawks nest in the burnt roof-tree,\nHome of the wild bird and home of the bee.\nA thousand chambers of marble lie\nWide to the sun and the wind and the sky.\nPoppies we find amongst our wheat\nGrow on Caesar’s banquet seat.\nCattle crop and neatherds drowse\nOn the floors of Caesar’s house.”\n\n“But what has become of Caesar’s gold,\n Brother, big brother?”\n“The times are bad and the world is old--\nWho knows the where of the Caesars’ gold?\nNight comes black on the Caesars’ hill;\nThe wells are deep and the tales are ill.\nFire-flies gleam in the damp and mould,--\nAll that is left of the Caesars’ gold.\n Back to your play, little brother.”\n\n“What has become of the Caesars’ men,\n Brother, big brother?”\n“Dogs in the kennel and wolf in the den\nHowl for the fate of the Caesars’ men.\nSlain in Asia, slain in Gaul,\nBy Dacian border and Persian wall;\nRhineland orchard and Danube fen\nFatten their roots on Caesar’s men.”\n\n“Why is the world so sad and wide,\n Brother, big brother?”\n“Saxon boys by their fields that bide\nNeed not know if the world is wide.\nClimb no mountain but Shire-end Hill,\nCross no water but goes to mill;\nOx in the stable and cow in the byre,\nSmell of the wood smoke and sleep by the fire;\nSun-up in seed-time--a likely lad\nHurts not his head that the world is sad.\n Back to your play, little brother.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -23273,10 +24003,10 @@ "title": "“Paradox”", "body": "I knew them both upon Miranda’s isle,\n Which is of youth a sea-bound seigniory:\nMisshapen Caliban, so seeming vile,\n And Ariel, proud prince of minstrelsy,\nWho did forsake the sunset for my tower\n And like a star above my slumber burned.\nThe night was held in silver chains by power\n Of melody, in which all longings yearned--\nStar-grasping youth in one wild strain expressed,\n Tender as dawn, insistent as the tide;\nThe heart of night and summer stood confessed.\n I rose aglow and flung the lattice wide--\nAh, jest of art, what mockery and pang!\n Alack, it was poor Caliban who sang.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -23287,10 +24017,10 @@ "title": "“The Poor Minstrel”", "body": "_Does the darkness cradle thee\nThan mine arms more tenderly?_\nDo the angels God hath put\nThere to guard thy lonely sleep--\nOne at head and one at foot--\nWatch more fond and constant keep?\nWhen the black-bird sings in May,\nAnd the spring is in the wood,\nWould you never trudge the way\nOver hill-tops, if you could?\nWas my harp so hard a load\nEven on the sunny morns\nWhen the plumĂšd huntsmen rode\nTo the music of their horns?\nHath the love that lit the stars,\nFills the sea and moulds the flowers,\nWhose completeness nothing mars,\nMade forgot what once was ours?\nChrist hath perfect rest to give--\nStillness and perpetual peace;\nYou, who found it hard to live,\nSleep and sleep, without surcease.\n\nChrist hath stars to light thy porch,\nSilence after fevered song;--\nI had but a minstrel’s torch\nAnd the way was wet and long.\nSleep. No more on winter nights,\nHarping at some castle gate,\nThou must see the revel lights\nStream upon our cold estate.\nBitter was the bread of song\nWhile you tarried in my tent,\nAnd the jeering of the throng\nHurt you, as it came and went.\nWhen you slept upon my breast\nGrief had wed me long ago:\nChrist hath his perpetual rest\nFor thy weariness. But oh!\nWhen I sleep beside the road,\nThanking God thou liest not so,\nBrother to the owl and toad,\nCould’st thou, Dear, but let me know,\n_Does the darkness cradle thee\nThan mine arms more tenderly?_", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -23301,10 +24031,10 @@ "title": "“Poppies on Ludlow Castle”", "body": "Through halls of vanished pleasure,\n And hold of vanished power,\nAnd crypt of faith forgotten,\n I came to Ludlow tower.\n\nA-top of arch and stairway,\n Of crypt, and donjon cell,\nOf council hall, and chamber,\n Of wall, and ditch, and well,\n\nHigh over grated turrets\n Where clinging ivies run,\nA thousand scarlet poppies\n Enticed the rising sun,\n\nUpon the topmost turret,\n With death and damp below,--\nThree hundred years of spoilage,--\n The crimson poppies grow.\n\nThis hall it was that bred him,\n These hills that knew him brave,\nThe gentlest English singer\n That fills an English grave.\n\nHow have they heart to blossom\n So cruel gay and red,\nWhen beauty so hath perished\n And valour so hath sped?\n\nWhen knights so fair are rotten,\n And captains true asleep,\nAnd singing lips are dust-stopped\n Six English earth-feet deep?\n\nWhen ages old remind me\n How much hath gone for naught,\nWhat wretched ghost remaineth\n Of all that flesh hath wrought;\n\nOf love and song and warring,\n Of adventure and play,\nOf art and comely building,\n Of faith and form and fray--\n\nI’ll mind the flowers of pleasure,\n Of short-lived youth and sleep,\nThat drank the sunny weather\n A-top of Ludlow keep.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -23315,10 +24045,10 @@ "title": "“Prairie Dawn”", "body": "A crimson fire that vanquishes the stars;\nA pungent odor from the dusty sage;\nA sudden stirring of the huddled herds;\nA breaking of the distant table-lands\nThrough purple mists ascending, and the flare\nOf water-ditches silver in the light;\nA swift, bright lance hurled low across the world;\nA sudden sickness for the hills of home.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -23326,10 +24056,10 @@ "title": "“Prairie Spring”", "body": "Evening and the flat land,\nRich and somber and always silent;\nThe miles of fresh-plowed soil,\nHeavy and black, full of strength and harshness;\nThe growing wheat, the growing weeds,\nThe toiling horses, the tired men;\nThe long, empty roads,\nSullen fires of sunset, fading,\nThe eternal, unresponsive sky.\nAgainst all this, Youth,\nFlaming like the wild roses,\nSinging like the larks over the plowed fields,\nFlashing like a star out of the twilight;\nYouth with its insupportable sweetness,\nIts fierce necessity,\nIts sharp desire;\nSinging and singing,\nOut of the lips of silence,\nOut of the earthy dusk.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -23340,10 +24070,10 @@ "title": "“Provençal Legend”", "body": "On his little grave and wild,\nFaustinus, the martyr child,\nCandytuft and mustards grow.\nAh, how many a June has smiled\nOn the turf he lies below.\n\nAges gone they laid him there,\nQuit of sun and wholesome air,\nBroken flesh and tortured limb;\nLeaving all his faith the heir\nOf his gentle hope and him.\n\nYonder, under pagan skies,\nBleached by rains, the circus lies,\nWhere they brought him from his play.\nComeliest his of sacrifice,\nYouth and tender April day.\n\n“Art thou not the shepherd’s son?--\nThere the hills thy lambkins run?--\nThese the fields thy brethren keep?”\n“On a higher hill than yon\nDoth my Father lead His sheep.”\n\n“Bring thy ransom, then,” they say,\n“Gold enough to pave the way\nFrom the temple to the Rhone.”\nWhen he came, upon his day,\nSlender, tremulous, alone,\n\nMustard flowers like these he pressed,\nGolden, flame-like, to his breast,\nBlooms the early weanlings eat.\nWhen his Triumph brought him rest,\nYellow bloom lay at his feet.\n\nGolden play-days came: the air\nCalled him, weanlings bleated there,\nRoman boys ran fleet with spring;\nShorn of youth and usage fair,\nHope nor hill-top days they bring.\n\nBut the shepherd children still\nCome at Easter, warm or chill,\nCome with violets gathered wild\nFrom his sloping pasture hill,\nPlay-fellows who would fulfill\nPlay-time to that martyr child.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "eastertide", @@ -23355,10 +24085,10 @@ "title": "“A Silver Cup”", "body": "In Venice,\nUnder the Rialto bridge, one summer morning,\nIn a mean shop I bought a silver goblet.\nIt was a place of poor and sordid barter,\nA damp hole filled with rags and rusty kettles,\nFire-tongs and broken grates and mended bellows,\nAnd common crockery, coarse in use and fashion.\nEverything spoke the desperate needs of body,\nThe breaking up and sale of wretched shelters,\nThe frail continuance even of hunger.\nMisery under all--and that so fleeting!\nThe fight to fill the pots and pans soon over,\nAnd then this wretched litter left from living.\n\nThe goblet\nStood in a dusty window full of charcoal,\nThe only bright, the only gracious object.\nBecause my heart was full to overflowing,\nBecause my day to weep had not come near me,\nBecause the world was full of love, I bought it.\nFrom all the wreckage there I took no warning;--\nThose ugly things outlasting hearts and houses,\nAnd all the life that men build into houses.\nOut of the jaws of hunger toothed with iron,\nInto the sun exultantly I bore it.\nThen, in the brightness of the summer sunshine,\nI saw the loops and flourishes of letters,\nThe scattered trace of some outworn inscription,--\nSix lines or more, rubbed flat into the silver,\nDashes and strokes, like rain-marks in a snowdrift.\nWas it a prize, perhaps, or gift of friendship?\nWas its inscription hope, or recognition?\nNot heeding still, I bade my oarsman quicken,\nAnd once ashore, across the Square I hastened,\nPrecipitate through the idlers and the pigeons,\nBehind the Clock Tower, to a cunning craftsman,\nThere to exhort and urge the deft engraver,\nAnd crowd upon my cup another story;\nA name and promise in my memory singing.\n\nIn Venice,\nUnder the Rialto bridge, I bought you.\nNow you come back to me, such long years after,\nYour promise never kept, your hope defeated,\nYour legend now a thing for tears and laughter;--\nThough both your names are names of living people,\nCut by the steady hand of that engraver\nWhile I stood over him and urged his deftness.\nHe played the part; nor stopped to smile and tell me\nThat for such words his art was too enduring.\nHis living was to cut such stuff in silver!\nAnd now I have you, what to do, I wonder?\nThe names, another smith can soon efface them,--\nBut leave, so beautifully cut, the legend.\nNot from a poet’s book, but from the living\nSad mouth of a young peasant boy, I took it;\nFour words, which mean that life is sweet together.\n\nIn some dark junk-shop window I shall leave you,\nSome place of poor effects from broken houses,\nWhere desperate women go to sell a saucepan\nAnd frightened men to buy a baby’s cradle.\nHere, in New York, a city full of exiles,\nShort marriages and early deaths and heart-breaks:\nIn some such window, with the blue glass vases,\nThe busts of Presidents in plaster, gilded,\nPawned watches, and the rings and chains and bracelets\nGiven for love and sold for utter anguish,\nThere I shall leave you, a sole gracious object.\n\nAnd hope some blind, bright eye will one day spy you--\nSome boy with too much love and empty pockets\nMay read with quickening pulse your brief inscription,\nCut in his mother-language, half forgotten,\nFour words which mean that life is sweet together;\nRush in and count his coins upon the table,\n(A cup his own as if his heart had made it!)\nAnd bear you off to one who hopes as he does.\nSo, one day, may the wish, for you, be granted.\nThey will not know, these two, the names you cover;\nMine and another, razed by violence from you,\nNor his, worn down by time, the first possessor’s--\nWho had his story, which you never told me.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -23366,10 +24096,10 @@ "title": "“Sleep, Minstrel, Sleep”", "body": "Sleep, minstrel, sleep; the winter wind’s awake,\n And yellow April’s buried deep and cold.\nThe wood is black, and songful things forsake\n The haunted forest when the year is old.\nAbove the drifted snow the aspens quake,\n The scourging clouds a shrunken moon enfold,\nDenying all that nights of summer spake\n And swearing false the summer’s globe of gold.\n\nSleep, minstrel, sleep; in such a bitter night\n Thine azure song would seek the stars in vain;\nThy rose and roundelay the winter’s spite\n Would scarcely spare--O never wake again!\nThese leaden skies do not thy masques invite,\n Thy sunny breath would warm not their disdain;\nHow should’st thou sing to boughs with winter dight,\n Or gather marigolds in winter rain?\n\nSleep, minstrel, sleep; we do not grow more kind;\n Your cloak was thin, your wound was wet and deep;\nMore bitter breath there was than winter wind,\n And hotter tears than now thy lovers weep.\nUpon the world-old breast of comfort find\n How gentle Darkness thee will gently keep.\nThou wert the summer’s, and thy joy declined\n When winter winds awoke. Sleep, minstrel, sleep.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -23380,10 +24110,10 @@ "title": "“Song”", "body": "Troubadour, when you were gay,\nYou wooed with rose and roundelay,\nSinging harp-strings, sweet as May.\nFrom beneath the crown of bay\nFell the wild, abundant hair.\nScent of cherry bloom and pear\nWith you from the south did fare,\nBuds of myrtle for your wear.\nSoft as summer stars thine eyes,\nPlanets pale in violet skies;\nSummer wind that sings and dies\nWas the music of thy sighs.\n\nTroubadour, one winter’s night,\nWhen the pasture-lands were white\nAnd the cruel stars were bright,\nFortune held thee in despite.\nThen beneath my tower you bore\nRose nor rondel as of yore,\nBut a heavy grief and sore\nLaid in silence at my door.\nApril yearneth, April goes;\nNot for me her violet blows,\nI have done for long with those.\nAt my breast thy sorrow grows,\nNearer to my heart, God knows,\nThan ever roundelay or rose!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -23394,10 +24124,10 @@ "title": "“Sonnet”", "body": "Alas, that June should come when thou didst go;\nI think you passed each other on the way;\nAnd seeing thee, the Summer loved thee so\nThat all her loveliness she gave away;\nHer rare perfumes, in hawthorn boughs distilled,\nBlushing, she in thy sweeter bosom left,\nThine arms with all her virgin roses filled,\nYet felt herself the richer for thy theft;\nBeggared herself of morning for thine eyes,\nHung on the lips of every bird the tune,\nBreathed on thy cheek her soft vermilion dyes,\nAnd in thee set the singing heart of June.\nAnd so, not only do I mourn thy flight,\nBut Summer comes despoiled of her delight.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -23409,10 +24139,10 @@ "title": "“Spanish Johnny”", "body": "The old West, the old time,\n The old wind singing through\nThe red, red grass a thousand miles,\n And, Spanish Johnny, you!\nHe’d sit beside the water-ditch\n When all his herd was in,\nAnd never mind a child, but sing\n To his mandolin.\n\nThe big stars, the blue night,\n The moon-enchanted plain:\nThe olive man who never spoke,\n But sang the songs of Spain.\nHis speech with men was wicked talk--\n To hear it was a sin;\nBut those were golden things he said\n To his mandolin.\n\nThe gold songs, the gold stars,\n The world so golden then:\nAnd the hand so tender to a child\n Had killed so many men.\nHe died a hard death long ago\n Before the Road came in;\nThe night before he swung, he sang\n To his mandolin.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -23420,10 +24150,10 @@ "title": "“Street in Packingtown”", "body": "In the gray dust before a frail gray shed,\nBy a board fence obscenely chalked in red,\nA gray creek willow, left from country days,\nFlickers pallid in the haze.\n\nBeside the gutter of the unpaved street,\nTin cans and broken glass about his feet,\nAnd a brown whisky bottle, singled out\nFor play from prosier crockery strewn about,\nTwisting a shoestring noose, a Polack’s brat\nJoylessly torments a cat.\n\nHis dress, some sister’s cast-off wear,\nIs rolled to leave his stomach bare.\nHis arms and legs with scratches bleed;\nHe twists the cat and pays no heed.\nHe mauls her neither less nor more\nBecause her claws have raked him sore.\nHis eyes, faint-blue and moody, stare\nFrom under a pale shock of hair.\nNeither resentment nor surprise\nLights the desert of those eyes--\nTo hurt and to be hurt; he knows\nAll he will know on earth, or need to know.\n\nBut there, beneath his willow tree,\nHis tribal, tutelary tree,\nThe tortured cat across his knee,\nWith hate, perhaps, a threat, maybe,\nLithuania looks at me.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -23431,10 +24161,10 @@ "title": "“The Swedish Mother”", "body": "_“You shall hear the tale again--\n Hush, my red-haired daughter.”\nBrightly burned the sunset gold\n On the black pond water._\n\nRed the pasture ridges gleamed\n Where the sun was sinking.\nSlow the windmill rasped and wheezed\n Where the herd was drinking._\n\nOn the kitchen doorstep low\n Sat a Swedish mother;\nIn her arms one baby slept,\n By her sat another._\n\n“All time, ’way back in old countree,\nYour grandpa, he been good to me.\nYour grandpa, he been young man, too,\nAnd I been yust li’l’ girl, like you.\nAll time in spring, when evening come,\nWe go bring sheep an’ li’l’ lambs home.\nWe go big field, ’way up on hill,\nTen times high like our windmill.\nOne time your grandpa leave me wait\nWhile he call sheep down. By de gate\nI sit still till night come dark;\nRabbits run an’ strange dogs bark,\nOld owl hoot, an’ your modder cry,\nShe been so ’fraid big bear come by.\nLast, ’way off, she hear de sheep,\nLi’l’ bells ring and li’l’ lambs bleat.\nThen all sheep come over de hills,\nBig white dust, an’ old dog Nils.\nThen come grandpa, in his arm\nLi’l’ sick lamb dat somet’ing harm.\nHe so young then, big and strong,\nPick li’l’ girl up, take her ’long,--\nPoor li’l’ tired girl, yust like you,--\nLift her up an’ take her too.\nHold her tight an’ carry her far,--\n’Ain’t no light but yust one star.\nSheep go ‘bah-h,’ an’ road so steep;\nLi’l’ girl she go fast asleep.”\n\n_Every night the red-haired child\n Begs to hear the story,\nWhen the pasture ridges burn\n With the sunset glory._\n\n_She can never understand,\n Since the tale ends gladly,\nWhy her mother, telling it,\n Always smiles so sadly._\n\n_Wonderingly she looks away\n Where her mother’s gazing;\nOnly sees the drifting herd,\n In the sunset grazing._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -23442,10 +24172,10 @@ "title": "“The Tavern”", "body": "In the tavern of my heart\n Many a one has sat before,\nDrunk red wine and sung a stave,\n And, departing, come no more.\nWhen the night was cold without,\n And the ravens croaked of storm,\nThey have sat them at my hearth,\n Telling me my house was warm.\n\nAs the lute and cup went round,\n They have rhymed me well in lay;--\nWhen the hunt was on at morn,\n Each, departing, went his way.\nOn the walls, in compliment,\n Some would scrawl a verse or two,\nSome have hung a willow branch,\n Or a wreath of corn-flowers blue.\n\nAh! my friend, when thou dost go,\n Leave no wreath of flowers for me;\nNot pale daffodils nor rue,\n Violets nor rosemary.\nSpill the wine upon the lamps,\n Tread the fire, and bar the door;\nSo despoil the wretched place,\n None will come forevermore.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -23456,10 +24186,10 @@ "title": "“Thou Art the Pearl”", "body": "I read of knights who laid their armour down,\n And left the tourney’s prize for other hands,\nAnd clad them in a pilgrim’s sober gown,\n To seek a holy cup in desert lands.\nFor them no more the torch of victory;\n For them lone vigils and the starlight pale,\nSo they in dreams the Blessed Cup may see--\n Thou art the Grail!\n\nAn Eastern king once smelled a rose in sleep,\n And on the morrow laid his scepter down.\nHis heir his titles and his lands might keep,--\n The rose was sweeter wearing than the crown.\nNor cared he that its life was but an hour,\n A breath that from the crimson summer blows,\nWho gladly paid a kingdom for a flower--\n Thou art the Rose!\n\nA merchant man, who knew the worth of things,\n Beheld a pearl more priceless than a star;\nAnd straight returning, all he hath he brings\n And goes upon his way, ah, richer far!\nLaughter of merchants in the market-place,\n Nor taunting gibe nor scornful lips that curl,\nCan ever cloud the rapture on his face--\n Thou art the Pearl!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -23467,10 +24197,10 @@ "title": "“Winter at Delphi”", "body": "Cold are the stars of the night,\nWild is the tempest crying,\nFast through the velvet dark\nLittle white flakes are flying.\nStill is the House of Song.\nBut the fire on the hearth is burning;\nAnd the lamps are trimmed, and the cup\nIs full for his day of returning.\nHis watchers are fallen asleep,\nThey wait but his call to follow,\nAy, to the ends of the earth--\nBut Apollo, the god, Apollo?\n\nSick is the heart in my breast,\nMine eyes are blinded with weeping;\nThe god who never comes back,\nThe watch that forever is keeping.\nService of gods is hard;\nDeep lies the snow on my pillow.\nFor him the laurel and song,\nWeeping for me and the willow:\nEmpty my arms and cold\nAs the nest forgot of the swallow;\nBirds will come back with the spring,--\nBut Apollo, the god, Apollo?\n\nHope will come back with the spring,\nJoy with the lark’s returning;\nLove must awake betimes,\nWhen crocus buds are a-burning.\nHawthorns will follow the snow,\nThe robin his tryst be keeping;\nWinds will blow in the May,\nWaking the pulses a-sleeping.\nSnowdrops will whiten the hills,\nViolets hide in the hollow:\nPan will be drunken and rage--\nBut Apollo, the god, Apollo?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -23701,8 +24431,10 @@ "title": "“According to the Formulas of Ancient Grecosyrian Magi”", "body": "“What distillate can be discovered from herbs\nof a witching brew,” said an aesthete,\n“what distillate prepared according\nto the formulas of ancient Grecosyrian magi\nwhich for a day (if no longer\nits potency can last), or even for a short time\ncan bring my twenty three years to me\nagain; can bring my friend of twenty two\nto me again--his beauty, his love.”\n\n“What distillate prepared according\nto the formulas of ancient Grecosyrian magi\nwhich, in bringing back these things,\ncan also bring back our little room.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23710,8 +24442,10 @@ "title": "“Aemilianus Monae, Alexandrian”", "body": "With words, with countenance, and with manners\nI shall build an excellent panoply;\nand in this way I shall face evil men\nwithout having any fear or weakness.\n\nThey will want to harm me. But of those\nwho approach me none will know\nwhere my wounds are, my vulnerable parts,\nunder all the lies that will cover me.--\n\nBoastful words of Aemilianus Monae.\nDid he ever build this panoply?\nIn any case, he did not wear it much.\nHe died in Sicily, at the age of twenty-seven.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23719,8 +24453,10 @@ "title": "“Alexandrian Kings”", "body": "The Alexandrians were gathered\nto see Cleopatra’s children,\nCaesarion, and his little brothers,\nAlexander and Ptolemy, whom for the first\ntime they lead out to the Gymnasium,\nthere to proclaim kings,\nin front of the grand assembly of the soldiers.\n\nAlexander--they named him king\nof Armenia, Media, and the Parthians.\nPtolemy--they named him king\nof Cilicia, Syria, and Phoenicia.\nCaesarion stood more to the front,\ndressed in rose-colored silk,\non his breast a bouquet of hyacinths,\nhis belt a double row of sapphires and amethysts,\nhis shoes fastened with white\nribbons embroidered with rose pearls.\nHim they named more than the younger ones,\nhim they named King of Kings.\n\nThe Alexandrians of course understood\nthat those were theatrical words.\n\nBut the day was warm and poetic,\nthe sky was a light azure,\nthe Alexandrian Gymnasium was\na triumphant achievement of art,\nthe opulence of the courtiers was extraordinary,\nCaesarion was full of grace and beauty\n(son of Cleopatra, blood of the Lagidae);\nand the Alexandrians rushed to the ceremony,\nand got enthusiastic, and cheered\nin greek, and egyptian, and some in hebrew,\nenchanted by the beautiful spectacle--\nalthough they full well knew what all these were worth,\nwhat hollow words these kingships were.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23728,8 +24464,10 @@ "title": "“Anna Comnena”", "body": "In the prologue to her Alexiad,\nAnna Comnena laments her widowhood.\n\nHer soul is dizzy. “And with rivers\nof tears,” she tells us “I wet\nmy eyes 
 alas for the waves” in her life,\n“alas for the revolts.” Pain burns her\n“to the the bones and the marrow and the cleaving of the soul.”\n\nBut it seems the truth is, that this ambitious woman\nknew only one great sorrow;\nshe only had one deep longing\n(though she does not admit it) this haughty Greek woman,\nthat she was never able, despite all her dexterity,\nto acquire the Kingship; but it was taken\nalmost out of her hands by the insolent John.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23737,8 +24475,10 @@ "title": "“Anna DalassenĂ©â€", "body": "In the golden bull that Alexios Comnenos issued\nto prominently honor his mother,\nthe very sagacious Lady Anna DalassenĂ©--\ndistinguished in her works, in her ways--\nthere are many words of praise:\nhere let us convey of them\na beautiful, noble phrase\n“Those cold words ‘mine’ or ‘yours’ were never spoken.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23746,8 +24486,10 @@ "title": "“As Much as You Can”", "body": "Even if you cannot shape your life as you want it,\nat least try this\nas much as you can; do not debase it\nin excessive contact with the world,\nin the excessive movements and talk.\n\nDo not debase it by taking it,\ndragging it often and exposing it\nto the daily folly\nof relationships and associations,\nuntil it becomes burdensome as an alien life.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23755,8 +24497,10 @@ "title": "“The Bandaged Shoulder”", "body": "He said that he had hurt himself on a wall or that he had fallen.\nBut there was probably another reason\nfor the wounded and bandaged shoulder.\n\nWith a somewhat abrupt movement,\nto bring down from a shelf some\nphotographs that he wanted to see closely,\nthe bandage was untied and a little blood ran.\n\nI bandaged the shoulder again, and while bandaging it\nI was somewhat slow; because it did not hurt,\nand I liked to look at the blood. That\nblood was a part of my love.\n\nWhen he had left, I found in front of the chair,\na bloody rag, from the bandages,\na rag that looked in belonged in garbage;\nwhich I brought up to my lips,\nand which I held there for a long time--\nthe blood of love on my lips.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23764,8 +24508,10 @@ "title": "“Caesarion”", "body": "Partly to verify an era,\npartly also to pass the time,\nlast night I picked up a collection\nof Ptolemaic epigrams to read.\nThe plentiful praises and flatteries\nfor everyone are similar. They are all brilliant,\nglorious, mighty, beneficent;\neach of their enterprises the wisest.\nIf you talk of the women of that breed, they too,\nall the Berenices and Cleopatras are admirable.\n\nWhen I had managed to verify the era\nI would have put the book away, had not a small\nand insignificant mention of king Caesarion\nimmediately attracted my attention 
\n\nBehold, you came with your vague\ncharm. In history only a few\nlines are found about you,\nand so I molded you more freely in my mind.\nI molded you handsome and sentimental.\nMy art gives to your face\na dreamy compassionate beauty.\nAnd so fully did I envision you,\nthat late last night, as my lamp\nwas going out--I let go out on purpose--\nI fancied that you entered my room,\nit seemed that you stood before me; as you might have been\nin vanquished Alexandria,\npale and tired, idealistic in your sorrow,\nstill hoping that they would pity you,\nthe wicked--who whispered “Too many Caesars.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23773,8 +24519,10 @@ "title": "“Candles”", "body": "The days of our future stand in front of us\nlike a row of little lit candles--\ngolden, warm, and lively little candles.\n\nThe days past remain behind us,\na mournful line of extinguished candles;\nthe ones nearest are still smoking,\ncold candles, melted, and bent.\n\nI do not want to look at them; their form saddens me,\nand it saddens me to recall their first light.\nI look ahead at my lit candles.\n\nI do not want to turn back, lest I see and shudder\nat how fast the dark line lengthens,\nat how fast the extinguished candles multiply.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23782,8 +24530,10 @@ "title": "“The City”", "body": "You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,\nfind another city better than this one.\nWhatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong\nand my heart lies buried like something dead.\n\nHow long can I let my mind moulder in this place?\nWherever I turn, wherever I look,\nI see the black ruins of my life, here,\nwhere I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”\nYou won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.\nThis city will always pursue you.\nYou’ll walk the same streets, grow old\nin the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.\nYou’ll always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:\nthere’s no ship for you, there’s no road.\nNow that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,\nyou’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23791,8 +24541,10 @@ "title": "“Dangerous Things”", "body": "Said Myrtias (a Syrian student\nin Alexandria; in the reign of\nAugustus Constans and Augustus Constantius;\nin part a pagan, and in part a christian);\n“Fortified by theory and study,\nI shall not fear my passions like a coward.\nI shall give my body to sensual delights,\nto enjoyments dreamt-of,\nto the most daring amorous desires,\nto the lustful impulses of my blood, without\nany fear, for whenever I want--\nand I shall have the will, fortified\nas I shall be by theory and study--\nat moments of crisis I shall find again\nmy spirit, as before, ascetic.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23800,8 +24552,10 @@ "title": "“Days”", "body": "I never found them again--the things so quickly lost 
\nthe poetic eyes, the pale\nface 
 in the dusk of the street 
\n\nI never found them again--the things acquired quite by chance,\nthat I gave up so lightly;\nand that later in agony I wanted.\nThe poetic eyes, the pale face,\nthose lips, I never found again.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23809,8 +24563,10 @@ "title": "“Desires”", "body": "Like beautiful bodies of the dead who had not grown old\nand they shut them, with tears, in a magnificent mausoleum,\nwith roses at the head and jasmine at the feet--\nthis is what desires resemble that have passed\nwithout fulfillment; with none of them having achieved\na night of sensual delight, or a bright morning.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23818,8 +24574,10 @@ "title": "“Envoys from Alexandria”", "body": "They had not seen, for ages, such beautiful gifts in Delphi\nas these that had been sent by the two brothers,\nthe rival Ptolemaic kings. After they had received them\nhowever, the priests were uneasy about the oracle. They will need\nall their experience to compose it with astuteness,\nwhich of the two, which of such two will be displeased.\nAnd they hold secret councils at night\nand discuss the family affairs of the Lagidae.\n\nBut see, the envoys have returned. They are bidding farewell.\nThey are returning to Alexandria, they say. And they do not ask\nfor any oracle. And the priests hear this with joy\n(of course they will keep the marvellous gifts),\nbut they also are utterly perplexed,\nnot understanding what this sudden indifference means.\nFor they are unaware that yesterday the envoys received grave news.\nThe oracle was given in Rome; the division took place there.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23827,8 +24585,10 @@ "title": "“Exiles”", "body": "It goes on being Alexandria still. Just walk a bit\nalong the straight road that ends at the Hippodrome\nand you’ll see palaces and monuments that will amaze you.\nWhatever war-damage it’s suffered,\nhowever much smaller it’s become,\nit’s still a wonderful city.\nAnd then, what with excursions and books\nand various kinds of study, time does go by.\nIn the evenings we meet on the sea front,\nthe five of us (all, naturally, under fictitious names)\nand some of the few other Greeks\nstill left in the city.\nSometimes we discuss church affairs\n(the people here seem to lean toward Rome)\nand sometimes literature.\nThe other day we read some lines by Nonnos:\nwhat imagery, what rhythm, what diction and harmony!\nAll enthusiasm, how we admired the Panopolitan.\nSo the days go by, and our stay here\nisn’t unpleasant because, naturally,\nit’s not going to last forever.\nWe’ve had good news: if something doesn’t come\nof what’s now afoot in Smyrna,\nthen in April our friends are sure to move from Epiros,\nso one way or another, our plans are definitely working out,\nand we’ll easily overthrow Basil.\nAnd when we do, at last our turn will come.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23836,8 +24596,10 @@ "title": "“The First Step”", "body": "The young poet Evmenis\ncomplained one day to Theocritus:\n“I’ve been writing for two years now\nand I’ve composed only one idyll.\nIt’s my single completed work.\nI see, sadly, that the ladder\nof Poetry is tall, extremely tall;\nand from this first step I’m standing on now\nI’ll never climb any higher.”\nTheocritus retorted: “Words like that\nare improper, blasphemous.\nJust to be on the first step\nshould make you happy and proud.\nTo have reached this point is no small achievement:\nwhat you’ve done already is a wonderful thing.\nEven this first step\nis a long way above the ordinary world.\nTo stand on this step\nyou must be in your own right\na member of the city of ideas.\nAnd it’s a hard, unusual thing\nto be enrolled as a citizen of that city.\nIts councils are full of Legislators\nno charlatan can fool.\nTo have reached this point is no small achievement:\nwhat you’ve done already is a wonderful thing.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23845,8 +24607,10 @@ "title": "“Footsteps”", "body": "On an ebony bed decorated\nwith coral eagles, sound asleep lies\nNero--unconscious, quiet, and blissful;\nthriving in the vigor of flesh,\nand in the splendid power of youth.\n\nBut in the alabaster hall that encloses\nthe ancient shrine of the Aenobarbi\nhow restive are his Lares.\nThe little household gods tremble,\nand try to hide their insignificant bodies.\nFor they heard a horrible clamor,\na deathly clamor ascending the stairs,\niron footsteps rattling the stairs.\nAnd now in a faint the miserable Lares,\nburrow in the depth of the shrine,\none tumbles and stumbles upon the other,\none little god falls over the other\nfor they understand what sort of clamor this is,\nthey are already feeling the footsteps of the Furies.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23854,8 +24618,10 @@ "title": "“For some people the day comes 
”", "body": "For some people the day comes\nwhen they have to declare the great Yes\nor the great No. It’s clear at once who has the Yes\nready within him; and saying it,\nhe goes from honor to honor, strong in his conviction.\nHe who refuses does not repent. Asked again,\nhe’d still say no. Yet that no--the right no--\ndrags him down all his life.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23863,8 +24629,10 @@ "title": "“The God Abandons Antony”", "body": "When suddenly, at midnight, you hear\nan invisible procession going by\nwith exquisite music, voices,\ndon’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,\nwork gone wrong, your plans\nall proving deceptive--don’t mourn them uselessly.\nAs one long prepared, and graced with courage,\nsay goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.\nAbove all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say\nit was a dream, your ears deceived you:\ndon’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.\nAs one long prepared, and graced with courage,\nas is right for you who were given this kind of city,\ngo firmly to the window\nAnd listen with deep emotion, but not\nwith whining, the pleas of a coward;\nlisten--your final delectation--to the voices,\nto the exquisite music of that strange procession,\nand say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23872,8 +24640,10 @@ "title": "“Half an Hour”", "body": "I never had you, nor will I ever have you\nI suppose. A few words, an approach\nas in the bar yesterday, and nothing more.\nIt is, undeniably, a pity. But we who serve Art\nsometimes with intensity of mind, and of course only\nfor a short while, we create pleasure\nwhich almost seems real.\nSo in the bar the day before yesterday--the merciful alcohol\nwas also helping much--\nI had a perfectly erotic half-hour.\nAnd it seems to me that you understood,\nand stayed somewhat longer on purpose.\nThis was very necessary. Because\nfor all the imagination and the wizard alcohol,\nI needed to see your lips as well,\nI needed to have your body close.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23881,8 +24651,10 @@ "title": "“He Came to Read”", "body": "He came to read. Two or three books\nare open; historians and poets.\nBut he only read for ten minutes,\nand gave them up. He is dozing\non the sofa. He is fully devoted to books--\nbut he is twenty-three years old, and he’s very handsome;\nand this afternoon love passed\nthrough his ideal flesh, his lips.\nThrough his flesh which is full of beauty\nthe heat of love passed;\nwithout any silly shame for the form of the enjoyment 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23890,8 +24662,10 @@ "title": "“He Vows”", "body": "Every so often he vows to start a better life.\nBut when night comes with her own counsels,\nwith her compromises, and with her promises;\nbut when night comes with her own power\nof the body that wants and demands, he returns,\nforlorn, to the same fatal joy.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23899,8 +24673,10 @@ "title": "“Hidden”", "body": "From all I’ve done and all I’ve said\nlet them not seek to find who I’ve been.\nAn obstacle stood and transformed\nmy acts and way of my life.\nAn obstacle stood and stopped me\nmany a time as I was going to speak.\nMy most unobserved acts,\nand my writitings the most covered--\nthence only they will feel me.\nBut mayhaps it is not worth to spend\nthis much care and this much effort to know me.\nFor--in the more perfect society--\nsomeone else like me created\nwill certainly appear and freely act.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23908,8 +24684,10 @@ "title": "“Hidden Things”", "body": "Let them not seek to discover who I was\nfrom all that I have done and said.\nAn obstacle was there that transformed\nthe deeds and the manner of my life.\nAn obstacle was there that stopped me\nmany times when I was about to speak.\nOnly from my most imperceptible deeds\nand my most covert writings--\nfrom these alone will they understand me.\nBut perhaps it isn’t worth exerting\nsuch care and such effort for them to know me.\nLater, in the more perfect society,\nsurely some other person created like me\nwill appear and act freely.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23917,8 +24695,10 @@ "title": "“I Went”", "body": "I did not restrain myself. I let go entirely and went.\nTo the pleasures that were half real\nand half wheeling in my brain,\nI went into the lit night.\nAnd I drank of potent wines, such as\nthe valiant of voluptuousness drink.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23926,8 +24706,10 @@ "title": "“In 200 B.C.”", "body": "“Alexander son of Philip, and the Greeks except the Lacedaemonians--”\n\nWe can very well imagine\nthat they were utterly indifferent in Sparta\nto this inscription. “Except the Lacedaemonians,”\nbut naturally. The Spartans were not\nto be led and ordered about\nas precious servants. Besides\na panhellenic campaign without\na Spartan king as a leader\nwould not have appeared very important.\nO, of course “except the Lacedaemonians.”\n\nThis too is a stand. Understandable.\n\nThus, except the Lacedaemonians at Granicus;\nand then at Issus; and in the final\nbattle, where the formidable army was swept away\nthat the Persians had massed at Arbela:\nwhich had set out from Arbela for victory, and was swept away.\n\nAnd out of the remarkable panhellenic campaign,\nvictorious, brilliant,\ncelebrated, glorious\nas no other had ever been glorified,\nthe incomparable: we emerged;\na great new Greek world.\n\nWe; the Alexandrians, the Antiocheans,\nthe Seleucians, and the numerous\nrest of the Greeks of Egypt and Syria,\nand of Media, and Persia, and the many others.\nWith our extensive territories,\nwith the varied action of thoughtful adaptations.\nAnd the Common Greek Language\nwe carried to the heart of Bactria, to the Indians.\n\nAs if we were to talk of Lacedaemonians now!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23935,8 +24717,10 @@ "title": "“In Harbor”", "body": "A young man, twenty eight years old, on a vessel from Tenos,\nEmes arrived at this Syrian harbor\nwith the intention of learning the perfume trade.\nBut during the voyage he was taken ill. And as soon\nas he disembarked, he died. His burial, the poorest,\ntook place here. A few hours before he died,\nhe whispered something about “home,” about “very old parents.”\nBut who these were nobody knew,\nnor which his homeland in the vast panhellenic world.\nBetter so. For thus, although\nhe lies dead in this harbor,\nhis parents will always hope he is alive.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23944,8 +24728,10 @@ "title": "“In the Same Space”", "body": "The surroundings of home, centers, neighorhood\nwhich I see and where I walk; for years and years.\n\nI have created you in joy and in sorrows:\nwith so many circumstances, with so many things.\n\nAnd you have become all feeling, for me.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23953,8 +24739,10 @@ "title": "“Interruption”", "body": "We interrupt the work of the gods,\nhasty and inexperienced beings of the moment.\nIn the palaces of Eleusis and Phthia\nDemeter and Thetis start good works\namid high flames and dense smoke. But\nalways Metaneira rushes from the king’s\nchambers, disheveled and scared,\nand always Peleus is fearful and interferes.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23962,8 +24750,10 @@ "title": "“Ionian”", "body": "Just because we’ve torn their statues down,\nand cast them from their temples,\ndoesn’t for a moment mean the gods are dead.\nLand of Ionia, they love you yet,\ntheir spirits still remember you.\n\nWhen an August morning breaks upon you\na vigour from their lives stabs through your air;\nand sometimes an ethereal and youthful form\nin swiftest passage, indistinct,\npasses up above your hills.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -23974,8 +24764,10 @@ "title": "“Ithaka”", "body": "As you set out for Ithaka\nhope your road is a long one,\nfull of adventure, full of discovery.\nLaistrygonians, Cyclops,\nangry Poseidon--don’t be afraid of them:\nyou’ll never find things like that on your way\nas long as you keep your thoughts raised high,\nas long as a rare excitement\nstirs your spirit and your body.\nLaistrygonians, Cyclops,\nwild Poseidon--you won’t encounter them\nunless you bring them along inside your soul,\nunless your soul sets them up in front of you.\n\nHope your road is a long one.\nMay there be many summer mornings when,\nwith what pleasure, what joy,\nyou enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;\nmay you stop at Phoenician trading stations\nto buy fine things,\nmother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,\nsensual perfume of every kind--\nas many sensual perfumes as you can;\nand may you visit many Egyptian cities\nto learn and go on learning from their scholars.\n\nKeep Ithaka always in your mind.\nArriving there is what you’re destined for.\nBut don’t hurry the journey at all.\nBetter if it lasts for years,\nso you’re old by the time you reach the island,\nwealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,\nnot expecting Ithaka to make you rich.\nIthaka gave you the marvelous journey.\nWithout her you wouldn’t have set out.\nShe has nothing left to give you now.\n\nAnd if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.\nWise as you will have become, so full of experience,\nyou’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -23983,8 +24775,10 @@ "title": "“Manuel Komninos”", "body": "One dreary September day\nEmperor Manuel Komninos\nfelt his death was near.\nThe court astrologers--bribed, of course--went on babbling\nabout how many years he still had to live.\nBut while they were having their say,\nhe remembered an old religious custom\nand ordered ecclesiastical vestments\nto be brought from a monastery,\nand he put them on, glad to assume\nthe modest image of a priest or monk.\n\nHappy all those who believe,\nand like Emperor Manuel end their lives\ndressed modestly in their faith.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -23995,8 +24789,10 @@ "title": "“Monotony”", "body": "One monotonous day is followed\nby another monotonous, identical day. The same\nthings will happen, they will happen again--\nthe same moments find us and leave us.\n\nA month passes and ushers in another month.\nOne easily guesses the coming events;\nthey are the boring ones of yesterday.\nAnd the morrow ends up not resembling a morrow anymore.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24004,8 +24800,10 @@ "title": "“Morning Sea”", "body": "Let me stop here. Let me, too, look at nature awhile.\nThe brilliant blue of the morning sea, of the cloudless sky,\nthe yellow shore; all lovely,\nall bathed in light.\n\nLet me stand here. And let me pretend I see all this\n(I really did see it for a minute when I first stopped)\nand not my usual day-dreams here too,\nmy memories, those images of sensual pleasure.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24013,8 +24811,10 @@ "title": "“Nero’s Term”", "body": "Nero was not worried when he heard\nthe prophecy of the Delphic Oracle.\n“Let him fear the seventy three years.”\nHe still had ample time to enjoy himself.\nHe is thirty. More than sufficient\nis the term the god allots him\nto prepare for future perils.\n\nNow he will return to Rome slightly tired,\nbut delightfully tired from this journey,\nfull of days of enjoyment--\nat the theaters, the gardens, the gymnasia 
\nevenings at cities of Achaia 
\nAh the delight of nude bodies, above all 
\n\nThus fared Nero. And in Spain Galba\nsecretly assembles and drills his army,\nthe old man of seventy three.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24022,8 +24822,10 @@ "title": "“An Old Man”", "body": "At the back of the noisy cafĂ©\nbent over a table sits an old man;\na newspaper in front of him, without company.\n\nAnd in the scorn of his miserable old age\nhe ponders how little he enjoyed the years\nwhen he had strength, and the power of the word, and good looks.\n\nHe knows he has aged much; he feels it, he sees it.\nAnd yet the time he was young seems\nlike yesterday. How short a time, how short a time.\n\nAnd he ponders how Prudence deceived him;\nand how he always trusted her--what a folly!--\nthat liar who said: “Tomorrow. There is ample time.”\n\nHe remembers the impulses he curbed; and how much\njoy he sacrificed. Every lost chance\nnow mocks his senseless wisdom.\n\n
 But from so much thinking and remembering\nthe old man gets dizzy. And falls asleep\nbent over the cafĂ© table.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24031,8 +24833,10 @@ "title": "“On an Italian Shore”", "body": "Kimos, son of Menedoros, a young Greek-Italian,\ndevotes his life to amusing himself,\nlike most young men in Greater Greece\nbrought up in the lap of luxury.\n\nBut today, in spite of his nature,\nhe is preoccupied, dejected. Near the shore\nhe watched, deeply distressed, as they unload\nships with booty taken from the Peloponnese.\n\n_Greek loot: booty from Corinth_\nToday certainly it is not right,\nit is not possible for the young Greek-Italian\nto want to amuse himself in any way.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24040,8 +24844,10 @@ "title": "“One of Their Gods”", "body": "When one of them passed through the market place\nof Seleucia, toward the hour that night falls\nas a tall and perfectly handsome youth,\nwith the joy of immortality in his eyes,\nwith his scented black hair,\nthe passers-by would stare at him\nand one would ask the other if he knew him,\nand if he were a Greek of Syria, or a stranger. But some,\nwho watched with greater attention,\nwould understand and stand aside;\nand as he vanished under the arcades,\ninto the shadows and into the lights of the evening,\nheading toward the district that lives\nonly at night, with orgies and debauchery,\nand every sort of drunkenness and lust,\nthey would ponder which of Them he might be,\nand for what suspect enjoyment\nhe had descended to the streets of Seleucia\nfrom the Venerable, Most Hallowed Halls.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24049,8 +24855,10 @@ "title": "“Pictured”", "body": "My work, I’m very careful about it, and I love it.\nBut today I’m discouraged by how slowly it’s going.\nThe day has affected my mood.\nIt gets darker and darker. Endless wind and rain.\nI’m more in the mood for looking than for writing.\nIn this picture, I’m now gazing at a handsome boy\nwho is lying down close to a spring,\nexhausted from running.\nWhat a handsome boy; what a heavenly noon\nhas caught him up in sleep.\nI sit and gaze like this for a long time,\nrecovering through art from the effort of creating it.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24058,8 +24866,10 @@ "title": "“Poseidonians”", "body": "The Poseidonians forgot the Greek language\nafter so many centuries of mingling\nwith Tyrrhenians, Latins, and other foreigners.\nThe only thing surviving from their ancestors\nwas a Greek festival, with beautiful rites,\nwith lyres and flutes, contests and wreaths.\nAnd it was their habit toward the festival’s end\nto tell each other about their ancient customs\nand once again to speak Greek names\nthat only few of them still recognized.\nAnd so their festival always had a melancholy ending\nbecause they remebered that they too were Greeks,\nthey too once upon a time were citizens of Magna Graecia;\nand how low they’d fallen now, what they’d become,\nliving and speaking like barbarians,\ncut off so disastrously from the Greek way of life.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24067,8 +24877,10 @@ "title": "“Remember, Body 
”", "body": "Body, remember not only how much you were loved,\nnot only the beds on which you lay,\nbut also those desires which for you\nplainly glowed in the eyes,\nand trembled in the voice--and some\nchance obstacle made them futile.\nNow that all belongs to the past,\nit is almost as if you had yielded\nto those desires too--remember,\nhow they glowed, in the eyes looking at you;\nhow they trembled in the voice, for you, remember, body.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24076,8 +24888,10 @@ "title": "“Return”", "body": "Return often and take me,\nbeloved sensation, return and take me--\nwhen the memory of the body awakens,\nand an old desire runs again through the blood;\nwhen the lips and the skin remember,\nand the hands feel as if they touch again.\n\nReturn often and take me at night,\nwhen the lips and the skin remember 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24085,8 +24899,10 @@ "title": "“The Satrapy”", "body": "What a misfortune, although you are made\nfor fine and great works\nthis unjust fate of yours always\ndenies you encouragement and success;\nthat base customs should block you;\nand pettiness and indifference.\nAnd how terrible the day when you yield\n(the day when you give up and yield),\nand you leave on foot for Susa,\nand you go to the monarch Artaxerxes\nwho favorably places you in his court,\nand offers you satrapies and the like.\nAnd you accept them with despair\nthese things that you do not want.\nYour soul seeks other things, weeps for other things;\nthe praise of the public and the Sophists,\nthe hard-won and inestimable Well Done;\nthe Agora, the Theater, and the Laurels.\nHow can Artaxerxes give you these,\nwhere will you find these in a satrapy;\nand what life can you live without these.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24094,8 +24910,10 @@ "title": "“Since Nine O’Clock”", "body": "Half past twelve. Time has gone by quickly\nsince nine o’clock when I lit the lamp\nand sat down here. I’ve been sitting without reading,\nwithout speaking. Completely alone in the house,\nwhom could I talk to?\n\nSince nine o’clock when I lit the lamp\nthe shade of my young body\nhas come to haunt me, to remind me\nof shut scented rooms,\nof past sensual pleasure--what daring pleasure.\nAnd it’s also brought back to me\nstreets now unrecognizable,\nbustling night clubs now closed,\ntheatres and cafes no longer here.\n\nThe shade of my young body\nalso brought back the things that make us sad:\nfamily grief, separations,\nthe feelings of my own people, feelings\nof the dead so little acknowledged.\n\nHalf past twelve. How the time has gone by.\nHalf past twelve. How the years have gone by.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24103,8 +24921,10 @@ "title": "“So Much I Gazed”", "body": "So much I gazed on beauty,\nthat my vision is replete with it.\n\nContours of the body. Red lips. Voluptuous limbs.\nHair as if taken from greek statues;\nalways beautiful, even when uncombed,\nand it falls, slightly, over white foreheads.\nFaces of love, as my poetry\nwanted them 
 in the nights of my youth,\nin my nights, secretly, met 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24112,8 +24932,10 @@ "title": "“Supplication”", "body": "The sea took a sailor to its depths.--\nHis mother, unsuspecting, goes and lights\n\na tall candle before the Virgin Mary\nfor his speedy return and for fine weather--\n\nand always she turns her ear to the wind.\nBut while she prays and implores,\n\nthe icon listens, solemn and sad,\nknowing that the son she expects will no longer return.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24121,8 +24943,10 @@ "title": "“They Should Have Provided”", "body": "I have almost been reduced to a homeless pauper.\nThis fatal city, Antioch,\nhas consumed all my money;\nthis fatal city with its expensive life.\n\nBut I am young and in excellent health.\nMy command of Greek is superb\n(I know all there is about Aristotle, Plato;\norators, poets, you name it.)\nI have an idea of military affairs,\nand have friends among the mercenary chiefs.\nI am on the inside of administration as well.\nLast year I spent six months in Alexandria;\nI have some knowledge (and this is useful) of affairs there:\nintentions of the Malefactor, and villainies, et cetera.\n\nTherefore I believe that I am fully\nqualified to serve this country,\nmy beloved homeland Syria.\n\nIn whatever capacity they place me I shall strive\nto be useful to the country. This is my intent.\nThen again, if they thwart me with their methods--\nwe know those able people: need we talk about it now?\nif they thwart me, I am not to blame.\n\nFirst, I shall apply to Zabinas,\nand if this moron does not appreciate me,\nI shall go to his rival Grypos.\nAnd if this idiot does not hire me,\nI shall go straight to Hyrcanos.\n\nOne of the three will want me however.\n\nAnd my conscience is not troubled\nabout not worrying about my choice.\nAll three harm Syria equally.\n\nBut, a ruined man, why is it my fault.\nWretched man, I am trying to make ends meet.\nThe almighty gods should have provided\nand created a fourth, good man.\nGladly would I have joined him.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24130,8 +24954,10 @@ "title": "“Understanding”", "body": "The years of my youth, my sensual life--\nhow clearly I see their meaning now.\n\nWhat needless repentances, how futile 
\n\nBut I did not understand the meaning then.\n\nIn the dissolute life of my youth\nthe desires of my poetry were being formed,\nthe scope of my art was being plotted.\n\nThis is why my repentances were never stable.\nAnd my resolutions to control myself, to change\nlasted for two weeks at the very most.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24139,8 +24965,10 @@ "title": "“Very Seldom”", "body": "He’s an old man. Used up and bent,\ncrippled by time and indulgence,\nhe slowly walks along the narrow street.\nBut when he goes inside his house to hide\nthe shambles of his old age, his mind turns\nto the share in youth that still belongs to him.\n\nHis verse is now recited by young men.\nHis visions come before their lively eyes.\nTheir healthy sensual minds,\ntheir shapely taut bodies\nstir to his perception of the beautiful.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24148,8 +24976,10 @@ "title": "“Waiting for the Barbarians”", "body": "What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?\n\n_The barbarians are due here today._\n\nWhy isn’t anything happening in the senate?\nWhy do the senators sit there without legislating?\n\n_Because the barbarians are coming today.\nWhat laws can the senators make now?\nOnce the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating._\n\nWhy did our emperor get up so early,\nand why is he sitting at the city’s main gate\non his throne, in state, wearing the crown?\n\n_Because the barbarians are coming today\nand the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.\nHe has even prepared a scroll to give him,\nreplete with titles, with imposing names._\n\nWhy have our two consuls and praetors come out today\nwearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?\nWhy have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,\nand rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?\nWhy are they carrying elegant canes\nbeautifully worked in silver and gold?\n\n_Because the barbarians are coming today\nand things like that dazzle the barbarians._\n\nWhy don’t our distinguished orators come forward as usual\nto make their speeches, say what they have to say?\n\n_Because the barbarians are coming today\nand they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking._\n\nWhy this sudden restlessness, this confusion?\n(How serious people’s faces have become.)\nWhy are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,\neveryone going home so lost in thought?\n\n_Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.\nAnd some who have just returned from the border say\nthere are no barbarians any longer._\n\nAnd now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?\nThey were, those people, a kind of solution.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24157,8 +24987,10 @@ "title": "“Walls”", "body": "Without consideration, without pity, without shame\nthey have built great and high walls around me.\n\nAnd now I sit here and despair.\nI think of nothing else: this fate gnaws at my mind;\n\nfor I had many things to do outside.\nAh why did I not pay attention when they were building the walls.\n\nBut I never heard any noise or sound of builders.\nImperceptibly they shut me from the outside world.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24166,8 +24998,10 @@ "title": "“The Windows”", "body": "In these darkened rooms, where I spend\noppresive days, I pace to and fro\nto find the windows.--When a window\nopens, it will be a consolation.--\nBut the windows cannot be found, or I cannot\nfind them. And maybe it is best that I do not find them.\nMaybe the light will be a new tyranny.\nWho knows what new things it will reveal.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -24377,8 +25211,10 @@ "title": "“Inventory of the Dark”", "body": "There are young girls wetting with the stupor of frogs\nAnd humid cadavers rotting alone\n_On moonless nights_\n\nThere are men born with a hole in their chest\nAnd bitter wax tapers to debilitate virgins\n_In the dark of the moon_\n\nThere are magnanimous torrents of tears that burn\nAnd wearying weepings like an eye on the floor\n_On moonless nights_\n\nThere are treacherous mattresses resembling purest crystal\nAnd poisonous friends like lizards at ease\n_In the dark of the moon_\n\nThere are women who gnaw the most tender violins\nAnd rusting irons as happy as wastrels\n_On moonless nights_\n\nThrough the hopes and through the hurricanes\nWith eyelids that sound and wrists that tremble\n_In the dark of the moon_\n\nThere is the heavy atmosphere of worn chemises\nClinging to our thighs like a frightened child\n_On moonless nights_\n\nThere are very deep wells with cries inside them\nLike the salt that imprisons the roots of dreams\n_In the dark of the moon_\n\nThere are bodies, radios, bottles, mares\nTo spurt in a welter like working manure\n_On moonless nights_\n\nAnd there is a hole in the ground, without measure or owner\nWith bridges of lichen and the sound of fright\n_In the dark of the moon_\n\nThere are bulls like fountains, flighty as horses\nWho enlace our legs in sudden lunges\n_On moonless nights_\n\nThere are telegraph forms with the news of births\nAnd missives of hoarfrost to kill the expectant\n_In the dark of the moon_\n\nSoft autumnal firewood, and these hands useless\nTo break the seals stamped on my hearing\n_On moonless nights_\n\nThere are atrocious cowbells and dyes that mire\nOur misty sleep like a young girl’s dying\n_In the dark of the moon_\n\nThe trees, the clovers, the vegetal oxen\nThe corners, the blows, the watery maidens\n_On moonless nights_\n\nThey come leaping along the ineffable lids\nAlong the hands frozen by death’s proximity\n_In the dark of the moon_\n\nAlong the rooftops and over the schoolbooks\nThrough the highest branches wounded with swallows\n_On moonless nights_\n\nFerocious winds blow from hated provinces\nAnd sustain the shadows we maraud alone\n_In the dark of the moon_", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anthony Kerrigan", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Anthony Kerrigan" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -24440,8 +25276,10 @@ "title": "“All Souls”", "body": "What did I\ndo?\nSeminated the night, as though\nthere could be others, more nocturnal than\nthis one.\n\nBird flight, stone flight, a thousand\ndescribed routes. Glances,\npurloined and plucked. The sea,\ntasted, drunk away, dreamed away. An hour\nsoul-eclipsed. The next, an autumn light,\noffered up to a blind\nfeeling which came that way. Others, many,\nwith no place but their own heavy centres: glimpsed and avoided.\nFoundlings, stars,\nblack, full of language: named\nafter an oath which silence annulled.\n\nAnd once (when? that too is forgotten):\nfelt the barb\nwhere my pulse dared the counter-beat.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "all_souls" @@ -24452,8 +25290,10 @@ "title": "“Ars Poetica 62”", "body": "The Big Secret--there it stood, next to the club moss,\nin the meadows.\nI could have plucked it, easily, with two toes.\n\nBut I was busy; I was teaching\nHyperion the language\nwe hymn-makers have come to expect.\n\nHe liked to learn, was so agreeable. At the word\nwhore\nbrown laurel grew quickly\naround his baton and his talon; he had\nwhat it took to rhyme, thanks to\nPindar and a few\nHungarians, Prussians and Finns.\n\nIn his verse\nTime stood in the light of its Swabian hours,\nmustachioed, young, and utterly mute.\n\nIngenious,\nI heard myself say,\ningenious--: my\nother neighbor, the one\ncut in half yesterday in the Black Forest, the man\nwith the jackdaw (and the stitched-up caesura!)\nwas lacking this gem of a word.\n(Or else the second half\nwould also have died\nand been\n laid\n bare.)", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24461,8 +25301,10 @@ "title": "“Ashglory”", "body": "Ashglory behind\nyour shaken-knotted\nhands at the threeway.\n\nPontic erstwhile: here,\na drop,\non\n\nthe drowned rudder blade,\ndeep\nin the petrified oath,\nit roars up.\n\n(On the vertical\nbreathrope, in those days,\nhigher than above,\nbetween two painknots, while\nthe glossy\nTatarmoon climbed up to us,\nI dug myself into you and into you.)\n\nAsh-\nglory behind\nyou threeway\nhands.\n\nThe cast-in-front-of-you, from\nthe East, terrible.\n\nNo one\nbears witness for the\nwitness.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24470,8 +25312,10 @@ "title": "“Below”", "body": "Led home into oblivion\nthe sociable talk of\nour slow eyes.\n\nLed home, syllable after syllable, shared\nout among the dayblind dice, for which\nthe playing hand reaches out, large,\nawakening.\n\nAnd the too much of my speaking:\nheaped up round the little\ncrystal dressed in the style of your silence.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24479,8 +25323,10 @@ "title": "“Flower”", "body": "The stone.\nThe stone in the air, which I followed.\nYour eye, as blind as the stone.\n\nWe were\nhands,\nwe baled the darkness empty, we found\nthe word that ascended summer:\nflower.\n\nFlower--a blindman’s word.\nYour eye and mine:\nthey see\nto water.\n\nGrowth.\nHeart wall upon heart wall\nadds petals to it.\n\nOne more word like this word, and the hammers\nwill swing over open ground.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -24491,8 +25337,10 @@ "title": "“Homecoming”", "body": "Snowfall, denser and denser,\ndove-coloured as yesterday,\nsnowfall, as if even now you were sleeping.\n\nWhite, stacked into distance.\nAbove it, endless,\nthe sleigh track of the lost.\n\nBelow, hidden,\npresses up\nwhat so hurts the eyes,\nhill upon hill,\ninvisible.\n\nOn each,\nfetched home into its today,\nand I slipped away into dumbness:\nwooden, a post.\n\nThere: a feeling,\nblown across by the ice wind\nattaching its dove- its snow-\ncoloured cloth as a flag.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -24503,8 +25351,10 @@ "title": "“Psalm”", "body": "No one kneads us again out of earth and clay,\nno one incants our dust.\nNo one.\n\nBlessĂšd art thou, No One.\nIn thy sight would\nwe bloom.\nIn thy\nspite.\n\nA Nothing\nwe were, are now, and ever\nshall be, blooming:\nthe Nothing-, the\nNo-One’s-Rose.\n\nWith\nour pistil soul-bright,\nour stamen heaven-waste,\nour corona red\nfrom the purpleword we sang\nover, O over\nthe thorn.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Felstiner", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "John Felstiner" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24512,8 +25362,10 @@ "title": "“Radix, Matrix”", "body": "As one speaks to stone, like\nyou,\nfrom the chasm, from\na home become a\nsister to me, hurled\ntowards me, you,\nyou that long ago\nyou in the nothingness of a night,\nyou in the multi-night en-\ncountered, you\nmulti-you:\n\nAt that time, when I was not there,\nat that time when you\npaced the ploughed field, alone:\n\nWho,\nwho was it, that\nlineage, the murdered, that looms\nblack into the sky:\nrod and bulb?\n\n(Root.\nAbraham’s root. Jesse’s root. No one’s\nroot-O\nours.)\n\nYes,\nas one speaks to stone, as\nyou\nwith your hands grope into there,\nand into nothing, such\nis what is here:\n\nthis fertile\nsoil too gapes,\nthis\ngoing down\nis one of the\ncrests growing wild.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24521,8 +25373,10 @@ "title": "“Think of It”", "body": "Think of it:\nthe bog soldier of Massada\nteaches himself home, most\ninextinguishably,\nagainst\nevery barb in the wire.\n\nThink of it:\nthe eyeless with no shape\nlead you free through the tumult, you\ngrow stronger and\nstronger.\n\nThink of it: your\nown hand\nhas held\nthis bit of\nhabitable\nearth, suffered up\nagain\ninto life.\n\nThink of it:\nthis came towards me,\nname-awake, hand-awake,\nfor ever,\nfrom the unburiable.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24530,12 +25384,14 @@ "title": "“Todesfuge”", "body": "Black milk of daybreak we drink it at dusk\nwe drink it at noon in mornings we drink it at night\nwe drink and we drink\nwe dig a grave in the sky there is plenty of room\nA man lives in the house he plays with his snakes he writes\nhe writes when it darkens in Deutschland your golden hair Margarete\nhe writes it and steps outside of the house and the strike of the stars he whistles his hounds\nhe whistles his Jews dig a grave in the ground\nhe commands us strike up for the dance\n\nBlack milk of daybreak we drink you at night\nwe drink you in mornings and midday we drink you at dusk\nwe drink and we drink\nA man lives in the house he plays with his snakes he writes\nhe writes when it darkens in Deutschland your golden hair Margarete\nyour ashen hair Sulamith we dig a grave in the sky there is plenty of room\n\nHe shouts you there dig deeper the rest of you sing you others play on\nhe raises the rod from his belt his eyes are blue\ndrive the spade deeper the rest of you sing you others play on for the dance\n\nBlack milk of daybreak we drink you at night\nwe drink you at midday and mornings we drink you at dusk\nwe drink and we drink\na man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete\nyour ashen hair Sulamith he plays with his snakes\n\nHe shouts make death sound sweeter death is a Master from Deutschland\nhe shouts strike the violin darker then rise as smoke in the air\nthen a grave in the clouds there is so much more room\n\nBlack milk of mornings we drink you at night\nwe drink you at midday death is a Master from Deutschland\nwe drink you at dusk in mornings we drink and drink\ndeath is a Master from Deutschland his eye is blue\nhis lead bullets strike you his aim is true\na man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete\nhe whistles his hounds he grants us graves in the sky\nhe plays with his snakes and he dreams death is a Master aus Deutschland\n\nyour golden hair Magarete\nyour ashen hair Sulamith", "metadata": { + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1945, "circa": true }, - "translator": "Dean Rader", - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Dean Rader" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -24546,8 +25402,10 @@ "title": "“Vinegrowers”", "body": "Vinegrowers dig up dig\nunder the darkhoured watch,\ndepth for depth,\n\nyou read,\nthe invisible\none commands the wind\nto stay in bounds,\n\nyou read,\n\nthe Open Ones carry\nthe stone behind the eye,\nit recognizes you,\non a Sabbath.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Pierre Joris", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Pierre Joris" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "sunday" @@ -24558,8 +25416,10 @@ "title": "“Where Am I”", "body": "Where am I\ntoday?\n\nThe dangers, all,\nwith their appliance,\nhickishly gamey,\n\npitchfork-high\nthe heavensfallow hoisted,\n\nthe losses, chalkmouthed--you\nupright mouths, you tables!--\nin the disangled town,\nharnessed to glimmerhackneys,\n\n--goldtrace, counterheaved\ngoldtrace!--,\n\nthe bridges, overjoyed by the stream,\n\nlove, up there in the branch,\nniggling at the coming-escaping\n\nthe Great Light\nelevated to a spark,\non the right of the rings\nand all gain.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Pierre Joris", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Pierre Joris" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -24567,8 +25427,10 @@ "title": "“Why This Sudden At-Homeness”", "body": "Why this sudden at-homeness, all-out, all-in?\nI can, look, sink myself into you, glacierlike,\nyou yourself slay your brothers:\nearlier than they\nI was with you, Snowed One.\n\nThrow your tropes\nin with the rest:\nSomeone wants to know,\nwhy with God I\nwas no different than with you,\n\nsomeone\nwants to drown in that,\ntwo books instead of lungs,\n\nsomeone who stabbed himself into\nyou, bebreathes the cut,\n\nsomeone, he was the one closest to you,\ngets lost to himself,\n\nsomeone adorns your sex\nwith your and his betrayal,\n\nmaybe\nI was both", "metadata": { - "translator": "Pierre Joris", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Pierre Joris" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -24687,8 +25549,10 @@ "title": "“CanciĂłn”", "body": "What makes me languish and complain?--Oh, ’tis disdain!\nWhat yet more fiercely tortures me?--’Tis jealousy.\nHow have I patience lost?--By absence crossed.\nThen hopes farewell, there’s no relief;\nI sink beneath oppressing grief;\nNor can a wretch, without despair,\nScorn, jealousy, and absence bear.\n\nWhat in my breast, this anguish drove?--Intruding love.\nWhat could such mighty ills create?--Blind fortune’s hate.\nWhat cruel powers my fate approve?--The powers above.\nThen let me bear and cease to moan;\n’Tis glorious thus to be undone;\nWhen these invade, who dares oppose?\nHeaven, love, and fortune are my foes. What shall I find a speedy cure?--Death is sure.\nNo milder means to set me free?--Inconstancy.\nCan nothing else my pains assuage?--Distracting age.\n\nWhat! die or change?--Lucinda lose?--\nOh, let me rather madness choose!\nBut judge, ye gods, what we endure\nWhen death or madness is the cure!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter Anthony Motteux", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Peter Anthony Motteux" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -24701,11 +25565,21 @@ "date": { "year": 1343, "circa": true + }, + "place": { + "state": "London", + "country": "England" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1400 + "year": 1400, + "month": "october", + "day": 25 + }, + "place": { + "state": "London", + "country": "England" } }, "gender": "male", @@ -24713,7 +25587,9 @@ "poet" ], "education": null, - "movement": [], + "movement": [ + "English Renaissance" + ], "religion": null, "nationality": [ "england" @@ -24724,7 +25600,8 @@ "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Chaucer", "favorite": false, "tags": [ - "English" + "English", + "English Renaissance" ] }, "poems": { @@ -25266,10 +26143,10 @@ "title": "“Modern Elfland”", "body": "I cut a staff in a churchyard copse,\nI clad myself in ragged things,\nI set a feather in my cap\nThat fell out of an angel’s wings.\n\nI filled my wallet with white stones,\nI took three foxgloves in my hand,\nI slung my shoes across my back,\nAnd so I went to fairyland.\n\nBut lo, within that ancient place\nScience had reared her iron crown,\nAnd the great cloud of steam went up\nThat telleth where she takes a town.\n\nBut cowled with smoke and starred with lamps,\nThat strange land’s light was still its own;\nThe word that witched the woods and hills\nSpoke in the iron and the stone.\n\nNot Nature’s hand had ever curved\nThat mute unearthly porter’s spine.\nLike sleeping dragon’s sudden eyes\nThe signals leered along the line.\n\nThe chimneys thronging crooked or straight\nWere fingers signalling the sky;\nThe dog that strayed across the street\nSeemed four-legged by monstrosity.\n\n‘In vain,’ I cried, ‘though you too touch\nThe new time’s desecrating hand,\nThrough all the noises of a town\nI hear the heart of fairyland.’\n\nI read the name above a door,\nThen through my spirit pealed and passed:\n‘This is the town of thine own home,\nAnd thou hast looked on it at last.’", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1927 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -25555,11 +26432,13 @@ "title": "“Green Verses”", "body": "The woods have turned green,\nThe pond has turned green.\nAnd green frogs\nCroak their songs.\n\nA fir-tree--a sheaf of green candles,\nMoss--a green carpet.\nAnd a green grasshopper\nConducts the song 
\n\nAbove a house’s green roof\nA green oak sleeps,\nAnd two green gnomes\nSit between its chimneys.\n\nAfter breaking a green leaf,\nThe younger gnome whispers:\n“You see, that red-haired student\nIn the window?\n\nWhy isn’t he green?\nIt’s May already 
 May!”\nThe older gnome yawns drowsily:\n“Why don’t you just shut up?”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Kevin Kinsella", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Kevin Kinsella" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -25662,11 +26541,13 @@ "title": "“The Stolen Sun”", "body": "The sun went strolling in the sky\nWhen suddenly a cloud came by.\nBunny took a look outside.\n“Oh, how dark it is!” he cried.\n\nAnd the magpies on the farm\nChattered loudly in alarm.\nThey hopped about the hills and plains\nAnd shouted to the storks and cranes:\n“Listen, listen, everyone,\nThe crocodile’s gobbled up the sun!”\n\nIt got dark as dark can be,\nNot a thing could people see\nHe who ventured in the lane\nWas never, never seen again.\n\nSo the timid little sparrow\nKept on sobbing in his sorrow:\n“Please, dear sun, come out again!\nWe can’t see to peck our grain!”\n\nAnd the rabbits wept\nAs they jumped and leapt:\nHome was still so far away\nAnd they couldn’t see their way.\n\nOnly in the murky swamp\nThe pop-eyed lobsters dared to romp\nAnd the wolves beyond the hill\nHowled and growled around their kill.\n\nEarly, early in the morning\nWhile the land was wrapped in mourning\nLoud and sharp came “Rat-tat-tat!”\nGoodness gracious, what was that?\n\nTwo black sheep were at the gate:\n“Come out, folks, before it’s late!\nCome and fight in heroes’ style\nAnd save the sun from the crocodile!”\n\nBut the shaggy folk were mute,\nAfraid to deal with such a brute.\n“Such great teeth! And he weighs a ton!\nHe’ll never give us back our sun!”\n\nSo they ran to the bear in his lair.\n“Now, Bruin, there’s no time to spare.\nCome, Lazy-Bones, leave off sucking your paw\nHelp us rescue the sun, let it shine as before.”\n\nBut, although he was big and mighty,\nThe bear didn’t feel like fighting.\nHe roared and sobbed and he sobbed and roared\nAs he called his cubs from the grassy sward:\n\n“Oh, children, come back to your poor old father!”\nHe wept and he wept, searching farther and farther.\n\nAnd his wife, Mrs. Bear,\nLooked around everywhere,\nUnder roots, under stumps, under stones, in despair:\n“Oh, my Eddy, Teddy and Pronto!\nWhere, o where have you gone to!\nHave you fallen into a ditch and drowned,\nOr been tom to bits by a mad stray hound?”\n\nShe wandered all day over marsh and scrub,\nBut there wasn’t a trace of a single cub.\nOnly the black owls stared from the wood\nWhen at last, tired out, at her lair she stood.\n\nBut then Mr. Bunny popped out\nAnd began to scold and to shout:\n“Stop whimpering like a hare!\nDon’t forget you’re a bear!”\n\n“Go on, Bandy-Legs, and grab him,\nBy the scaly collar nab him,\nBash him up and underneath,\nTear the sun from his ugly teeth.\n\nAnd as soon as it once more\nShines in heaven as before,\nAll your little ones,\nAll your pretty ones\nWill come running from afar:\n‘Hullo, Daddy, here we are!’”\n\nAnd the bear he reared\nAnd the bear he roared\nAnd the bear he ran\nTo the river ford.\n\nWhere the crocodile lay\nWith the sun, of course,\nShining away\nIn his dreadful jaws--\nThe golden sun,\nThe stolen sun.\n\nBruin crept up quietly\nAnd he poked him lightly:\n“Listen here, you ugly crook,\nGive us back that sun you took,\nOr I’ll take you by the scruff\nAnd I’ll pound you into snuff!\nYes, I’ll teach you how to steal,\nYou, cross between a toad and eel!\nAll the world’s gone upside-down\nAnd he won’t bother why or how!”\n\nBut all the rascal did was laugh\nTill he almost split in half.\n“Get away, you big baboon,\nOr I’ll gobble up the moon!”\n\n“That’s too much to bear!”\nRoared the angry bear,\nAnd his fangs went bare\nAt the enemy.\n\nHe hauled him up\nAnd he mauled him up:\n“Now, out with the sun, by golly!”\n\nAnd the crocodile\nSoon forgot his smile\nAnd he yelled in fright\nWith all his might.\n\nFrom his jaw.\nFrom his maw\nThe sun flew high\nTill it reached the sky,\nAnd its bright light fell\nOver hill and dell.\n\n“Welcome, welcome, golden sun!”\nGladly shouted everyone.\n\nAll the birds took wing\nAnd began to sing.\nAnd the rabbits started dancing,\nTurning somersaults and prancing\nOn the meadow by the spring.\n\nThen the bear-cubs came along\nAnd like jolly kittens\nTugged and pulled at their shaggy dad\nWith their soft brown mittens,\nShouting, calling Dad and Mum,\n“Hullo, parents, here we come!”\n\nEvery little girl and boy,\nEvery beast just beamed with joy.\nThey thanked old Bruin for the rescued sup\nAnd they all had lots and lots of fun.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1927 }, - "translator": "Dorian Rottenberg", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dorian Rottenberg" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -25842,21 +26723,35 @@ "name": "Paul Claudel", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1868 + "year": 1868, + "month": "august", + "day": 6 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Villeneuve-sur-FĂšre", + "country": "France" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1955 + "year": 1955, + "month": "february", + "day": 23 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Paris", + "country": "France" } }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ "poet" ], - "education": null, + "education": { + "bachelors": "Paris Institute of Political Studies" + }, "movement": [], - "religion": null, + "religion": "Catholic", "nationality": [ "france" ], @@ -25874,12 +26769,14 @@ "title": "From the “Art PoĂ©tique”", "body": "Once in Japan, as I was travelling from NikkĂŽ to Chuzenji, I saw, although widely separated, juxta- posed by the line of my vision, the green of a maple crown the pattern proposed by a pine tree. These pages are comments on this forest text, on the arboreal enun- ciation, in June, of a new poetics of the universe, of a new logic. The old logic had the syllogism as an organ, the new has the metaphor, the new word, the operation resulting from the joined simultaneous existence of two different things. The starting point of the first is a general and absolute affirmation, an attribution, for all time, to the subject, of a quality and a character. Without reference to time and place, _the sun shines, the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles._ It creates, by defining them, abstract indi- viduals, it establishes between them invariables. Its procedure is a naming. All the terms, once decided upon, classified by genre and species in the columns of its bookkeeping, by separate analysis, it applies to any subject proposed. I would compare this logic to the first part of grammar which determines the nature and function of different words. The second logic is like syntax which teaches the art of putting the words together, and this is practised before our eyes by na- ture itself. Science deals only with the general, and creation only with the particular. The metaphor, the basic iamb or the combination of a long and a short accent, are not manifested solely on the pages of books : they are part of the autochthonous art used by every- thing which comes into being. And do not speak of chance. The planting of this cluster of flowers, the form of that mountain are no more the effect of chance than the Parthenon or this diamond which ages the lapidary in cutting it, but the result of a treasury of plans certainly far richer and more scientific. I al- lege many proofs of geology and temperature, of na- tural and human history; our works and our means do not differ from nature’s. I understand that each thing does not exist alone in itself, but in an infinite set of relationships with all others 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Wallace Fowlie", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1955, "month": "december" }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Wallace Fowlie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -25890,8 +26787,10 @@ "title": "“Ballade”", "body": "We went many times before, but this time is good.\nFarewell, all of you that we are expensive, the train must we do not expect.\nWe repeated this scene many times, but this time is good.\nDid you think that I can not be separated from you for good? then you see that this is not the case.\nFarewell, mother. Why weep as those who have hope?\nThings that can not be otherwise not worth a tear us.\nDo not you know that I am a passing shadow, shade yourself and appearance?\nWe shall return to you.\nAnd we let all the women behind us, the real wives, and others, and brides.\nIt’s over the embarrassment of women and kids, we are all alone and light.\nYet even at this last moment, in this solemn hour and shaded,\nLet me see your face again, until I’m dead and abroad,\nBefore in a little while I am no longer, let me see your face again! before it is to another.\nAt least take good care when you will be the child, the child who was born from us,\nThe child who is my flesh and soul and give the name of father to another.\nWe shall return to you.\nFarewell, friends! We came too far to deserve your belief.\nJust a bit of fun and fright. But here the country never left the familiar and reassuring.\nWe must keep our knowledge to us, including, as a particular thing we have suddenly enjoyment\nThe futility of man and death in one who feels alive.\nYou remain with us some knowledge, possession consuming and useless!\n“The art, science, free life”--
 O brothers, what is there between us?\nLet me just go away, why do not you leave me alone?\nWe shall return to you.\nYou all stay, and we are on board, and the board is removed from us.\nThere are more than a little smoke in the sky, you will not see us more with you.\nThere are more than the eternal sunshine of God He created the waters.\nWe shall return to you.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anonymous", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Anonymous" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -25899,12 +26798,14 @@ "title": "“The Blessed Lady Who Listens”", "body": "In the church of my village of Brangues there is a chapel in the chateau:\nBecause it’s too warm outside, into its nave each day at five o’clock I go.\nA man can’t keep on walking all the time, so he might as well visit the Good Lord’s House:\nOutside the sun is blazing away, and the road screams across the square as if it wanted the whole world to arouse.\nBut inside, the Holy Mother before me, for me, she is like a glacier, so fresh and pure,\nAll white with her son in her lovely gown, all white, it’s so long I can see only the tips of her feet for sure.\nMary! Here is that fellow again, all overflowing with desire and worrying:\nAh, I’ll never have time enough to tell you everything.\nBut she, lowering her eyes, with a face tender and bland,\nLooks at the words on my mouth like someone who listens and gets ready to understand.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Eugene Jolas", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1940, "month": "august" }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Eugene Jolas" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "assumption" @@ -25915,8 +26816,10 @@ "title": "“The Day of Gifts”", "body": "It’s not true that Your saints have won everything: they left me with sins enough.\nSomeday I’ll lie on my deathbed, Lord, ill-shaven and yellow as a lifelong drunk.\nAnd I’ll make a general examination of myself, looking back over all my days,\nAnd I’ll see that I’m rich after all, ripe and rich with evil in its unnumbered paths and ways.\nI haven’t lost one single chance, Lord, to make matter for You to pardon.\nNow I hearten myself with vice, having long ago sloughed off virtue’s burden.\nEach day has its own kind of crime, plain to see, and I count them like some paranoid miser.\n\nIf what you need, Lord, are virgins, if what you need are brave men beneath your standard;\nIf there are people for whom to be Christian words alone would not suffice,\nBut who know rather that only in stirring themselves to chase after You is there any life,\nWell then there’s Dominic and Francis, Saint Lawrence and Saint Cecilia and plenty more!\nBut if by chance You should have need of a lazy and imbecilic bore,\nIf a prideful coward could prove useful to You, or perhaps a soiled ingrate,\nOr the sort of man whose hard heart shows up in a hard face--\nWell, anyway, You didn’t come to save the just but that other type that abounds,\nAnd if, miraculously, You run out of them elsewhere 
 Lord, I’m still around.\n\nAnd what kind of a man is so crude that he hasn’t held a little something back from You,\nHasn’t in his free time fashioned something special for You,\nHoping that one day the idea will come to You to ask it of him,\nAnd maybe this little that he’s made himself, kept back until then, though horrid and tortuous, will please Your whim.\nIt would be something that he’d put his whole heart into, something useless and malformed.\nJust like that my little daughter once, on my birthday, teetered forward with encumbered arms\nAnd offered me, her heart at once full of timidity and pride,\nA magnificent little duck she had made with her own two hands, a pincushion, made of red wool and gold thread.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jonathan Monroe Geltner", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Jonathan Monroe Geltner" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "sacred_heart_of_jesus" @@ -25927,7 +26830,6 @@ "title": "“December 25, 1886”", "body": "After all, you, my Lady, made the first move.\nFor I was only one of those “standing around” in the sullen inattentive crowd,\nOne element, “standing around,” lost in the center of the trampling crowded mob,\nThat mass of bodies of the people under their clothes and of flaccid hearts which held me pinned against that pillar.\nIt was the darkest day of winter, and the blackest rainy afternoon in Paris, vespers in the semi-night of Christmas,\nAnd the sanctuary in the middle lighted up with gold and linen, and the great carpet with the arrangement of celebrants gold and lace up to the altar,\nThe ceremony sideways from my position and the lighting up of that group of people in white singing and accomplishing something during the hour of time.\nThey sing, but it would be more accurate to say they recite and release something with animation and fervor,\nThe vociferation of a long powerful sentence which begins and grows and rolls and unfurls in a gigantic curve!\nAnd there is a moment just for the organ which meditates, and then again it’s the big sentence and the wave, the long irresistible sentence upright which rises and begins all over! The roar of Israel toward its God from the beginning of time to the end! in the smoke rising up and spreading,\nOur Lady, the Woman-Church, with cries, large with God, erecting Her own Magnificat!\nAnd that wretched child I was!--Yes, myself, I repeat!--what did I do to be so carried away?\nAnd whence comes the reservoir of powerful tears which collapses? the wild cry and the heart which suddenly is outside of me?\nAll that I was is over! and all I learned in school is over!\nWretch that you are, someone looked at in the crowds, all is over! and there is nothing to do to ward off the wild overflow of hope!\nNothing to do to ward off that eruption of Faith, like the world in the depths of my being!\nNothing to do to stop that voice before the world was which says to me: you are mine!\nNothing to do to fight the impulsiveness, like someone who splits himself open, of the beast who says: I believe!\nSo, my Lady, everything that has happened since, can’t help it, you are responsible!\nAll the groping search I have tried to carry out from one end of the world to the other through a terrible disorder and relentlessness and filth!\nThe groping search all alone through the glory of God’s justice!\nThe questioning with the Mother of the Father we have in heaven,\nThe questioning with the world, and with all that is and with sin,\nAnd with this end of deciphered and broken ground to the end of the horizon,\nOf this Someone who when you push Him to the wall is not embarrassed by an alibi,\nAnd it’s suddenly a smile for an answer in our arms that child who leaves us defenceless and speechless!\nAnd so, if I have not done better, it is not my fault!\nAnd let me tell you that probably you would have done just as well to go to someone else!\nAll this paper I have piled up behind me is good for tears and laughs!\nIf I had to reread it, you would see the face I would make!\nOh if it could come about that there might be between us an agreement,\nMy Lady, that all I have done and all I have written, you might be willing to consider it as nothing at all!\nAnd that I might come before you, blessedly intact and empty,\nBasically stripped of all my insipid literature!\nLet me pause and collect my thoughts in the expectation of what will not fail to happen in a short time,\nLike someone to whom something terrible is going to happen--for example, raising his eyes and seeing you! and pretending not to be afraid!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Wallace Fowlie", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Visages Radieux", @@ -25937,6 +26839,9 @@ "month": "december" } }, + "translators": [ + "Wallace Fowlie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "christmas_day" @@ -25947,12 +26852,14 @@ "title": "Dialogue from “La Ville”", "body": "> _Besme:_\nYou are like the tongue hidden in a dark place!\nIf it is true, as water gushes out of the earth,\nThat nature likewise from between the lips of the poet has opened up to us an abundance of words,\nTell me whence comes that breath made into words by your mouth.\nFor, when you speak, like a tree which with all its leaves\nTrembles in the silence of noon, peace gradually takes the place of thought in us.\nBy means of that song without music and that word without voice, we are fused with the melody of the world.\nYou explain nothing, O poet, but all things through you become understandable.\n\n> _Coeuvre:_\nO Besme, I do not speak as I wish, but I conceive in sleep.\nAnd I could not explain whence I draw that breath, for it is the breath drawn from me.\nDilating the hollow I have in me, I open my mouth,\nAnd, breathing the air, into that legacy of himself by which man each second breathes out the image of his death,\nI restore an intelligible word.\nAnd, having said it, I know what I said.\nThus I slowly succeed in making plain your suffering.\n\n> _Besme:_\nIs it not true, O Coeuvre, that every word is an answer or calls up an answer?\nAnd that is why every verse other than yours,\nMeter or rhyme, requires or contains\nAn element exterior to itself.\n\n> _Coeuvre:_\nThat is true.\n\n> _Besme:_\nBut who questions you or whom do you answer?\nWhere is that exchange, that mysterious respiration you speak of?\n\n> _Coeuvre:_\nIt is true, Besme, and you have appropriately discovered my suffering.\nI am surrounded by doubt and terrorized I feel the echo.\nEvery word is an explanation of love, but, although my heart is full,\nWho loves me, or who can say that I love?\nSuch is the wine of the grape which some drink sweet,\nAnd which one man puts in reserve in his cellar, and which another\nDistills into a burning brandy, by the transformation of sugar.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Wallace Fowlie", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1955, "month": "december" }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Wallace Fowlie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -25963,7 +26870,6 @@ "title": "“Heat of the Sun”", "body": "The day is harsher than the hellish regions.\nOutside, a sun strikes you down and a blinding splendor, so steady that it seems solid, devours every shadow. I perceive in what surrounds me less immobility than stupor, the arrest in the blow. For the Earth in her four moons has achieved her generation; it is time for the Bridegroom to kill her, and, uncovering the fires which consume him, to condemn her with a fatal kiss.\nWhat can I say for myself? If these flames are terrifying to my weakness, if my eyes turn away, if my body perspires, if I bend on the triple joints of my legs, I shall be accusing inert matter, but the mind of a man emerges from himself in heroic ecstasy! I feel it! My soul hesitates, but only something supreme can satisfy this enticing and horrible jealousy. Let others flee underground and carefully obstruct the cleft in their dwelling. But a noble heart, caught on the hard point of love, embraces fire and torture. Sun, redouble your flames. Burning is not enough, consume. My grief would be not to suffer enough. Let nothing impure be taken out of the furnace and nothing blind from the agony of light!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Wallace Fowlie", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Connaissance de l’Est", @@ -25972,6 +26878,9 @@ "year": 1900 } }, + "translators": [ + "Wallace Fowlie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -25982,7 +26891,6 @@ "title": "“The Infant Jesus of Prague”", "body": "It is snowing. The huge world is perhaps dead. This is December.\nBut how warm it is in the small room!\nThe fireplace filled with burning coals\nColors the ceiling with a drowsy reflection,\nAnd all you can hear is some water softly boiling.\nUp above, on the shelf, over the two beds,\nUnder his glass globe, a crown on his head,\nOne of his hands holding the world, the other ready\nTo protect those children who trust in it,\nKindly in his long solemn dress\nAnd magnificent under that large yellow hat,\nThe Infant Jesus of Prague reigns and rules.\nHe is all alone in front of the hearthside shining on him\nLike the host hidden within the sanctuary,\nThe Child-God watches over his small brothers until the day comes.\nUnheard like breath which is exhaled,\nEternal existence fills the room, equal\nTo all those innocent naive poor tots!\nWhen he is with us, no harm can come.\nWe can sleep, Jesus our brother, is here.\nHe is ours, and all these good things as well:\nThe marvellous doll, and the wooden horse,\nAnd the sheep, are there, all three of them in that corner.\nAnd we sleep, but all those good things are ours!\nThe curtains are pulled 
 Outside, somewhere\nIn the snow and the night a kind of hour rings.\nThe child in his warm bed contentedly understands\nThat he is sleeping and that someone who loves him is there,\nMoves a bit, murmurs indistinctly, puts his arm out,\nTries to wake up and cannot.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Wallace Fowlie", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Corona Benignitatis Anni Dei", @@ -25991,6 +26899,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Wallace Fowlie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "christmas_day" @@ -26001,7 +26912,6 @@ "title": "From the “Magnificat”", "body": "My soul doth magnify the Lord.\n\nThe long painful streets and the years when I was alone and one!\nThe walk in Paris, that long street which leads down to Notre-Dame!\nThen, like the young athlete moving toward the\nOval in the midst of the eager group of his friends and trainers,\nAnd one whispers to him, and another, taking his arm, tightens the band around his muscles,\nI walked among the hastening feet of my gods! Fewer sounds in the forest at the summer feast of St. John,\nThere is a less audible song in Damascus when to the story of the waters gushing down from the mountains\nIs joined the sigh of the desert and the rustling of the tall plane trees in the free evening air,\nThan there are words in this young heart filled with desire!\nO Lord, a young man and the son of woman is more pleasing to you than a young bull!\nAnd before your sight I was like a wrestler who bends,\nNot because he thinks himself weak, but because the other is stronger.\nYou called me by my name\nLike someone who knows it, you picked me from all those of my age.\nO Lord, you know how the heart of the young is full of affection and how it dislikes its defilement and its vanity!\nAnd behold, suddenly, you are someone!\nYou struck down Moses with your power, but in my heart you are a being without sin.\nO I really am the son of woman! for now reason, and the teachings of my masters, and absurdity, hold not a straw\nTo the violence of my heart and the extended hands of this small child!\nTears! O heart too weak! O mine of tears that explodes!\nCome, all ye faithful, and worship this new born child.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Wallace Fowlie", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Cinq Grandes Odes", @@ -26010,6 +26920,9 @@ "year": 1900 } }, + "translators": [ + "Wallace Fowlie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_john_the_baptist" @@ -26020,7 +26933,6 @@ "title": "“Parable of Animus and Anima”", "body": "All is not well with the couple Animus and Anima, the mind and the soul. The time is distant, the honeymoon was soon over, during which Anima had the right to speak as she wished and Animus listened to her with delight. After all, isn’t it Anima who brought the dowry and who supports the household? But Animus did not let himself be subjected for long to this subordinate position and soon he showed his real nature, vain, pedantic, tyrannical. Anima is an ignoramus and a fool, she never went to school, whereas Animus knows heaps of things, he has read heaps of things in books, he learned to speak with a small pebble in his mouth, and now, when he speaks, he speaks so well that all his friends say one can’t speak better than he does. You want to listen to him forever. But now Anima hasn’t the right to say a word. He takes, as you say, the words right out of her mouth. He knows better than she does whĂ€t she means, and with his theories and stories he turns it out and fixes it up so that the poor simple minded girl can’t make head or tail of it. Animus is not faithful, but that does not keep him from being jealous, for deep down he knows that Anima has all the money, and he is a tramp living only on what she gives him. So he doesn’t stop exploiting her and tormenting her to get a few francs. He pinches her to make her yell, he plays tricks, invents stories to hurt her and to see what she will say, and at night in the cafĂ© he tells it all to his friends. During this time, she stays at home, without a word, and cooks and cleans up as best she can after those literary gatherings which smell of vomit and tobacco. But that is exceptional. In reality Animus is a bourgeois, he has regular habits, he loves to be served always the same dishes. But something curious has just happened. One day when Animus came home unexpectedly, or perhaps he was taking a nap after dinner, or perhaps he was absorbed in his work, he heard Anima singing all alone, behind the closed door. An unusual song, something he didn’t know, and there was no way to find the music or the words or the key. A strange marvellous song. Since then he has tried slyly to make her repeat it, but Anima pretends not to understand. She shuts up as soon as he looks at her. The soul keeps silence as soon as the mind looks at it. Then, Animus hit on an idea. He is going to see to it that she thinks he isn’t there. He goes outside, speaks in a loud voice with his friends, whistles, plucks the lute, saws some wood, sings some foolish songs. Gradually Anima relaxes, looks about, listens, breathes, believes she is alone, and noiselessly goes to open the door to her divine lover. But the eyes of Animus, as they say, are in the back of his head.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Wallace Fowlie", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Positions and Propositions", @@ -26031,6 +26943,9 @@ "day": 23 } }, + "translators": [ + "Wallace Fowlie" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -26038,8 +26953,10 @@ "title": "“Resurrection”", "body": "This silence of all the centuries before me: there was no way,\n it had to be given up.\nNo way to say anymore of interrogated Earth:\n she shut herself up.\nThe stars set themselves to tell what they’ve seen,\n in tumult, each to each.\nThe ground’s broken silence and whatever it knows\n it sets itself to teach.\n\nThe sun’s not yet risen; before that immense solitude\n there’s an hour yet.\nFrom Pole to Pole, there’s nothing to guard the tomb\n but the vigil of the firmament.\nWhen suddenly by moonlight the bells--fat cluster of grapes\n hanging in the tower--\nthose benighted bells set themselves to sounding\n as if by their own power.\n\nIt’s no human word. It’s the outsize sidereal\n vintage swaying\nin triumph; and the Earth, delivered Godward blow by blow,\n urges this solemn baying.\nThe soul, already half-undressed, cries out\n craving delirium.\nAnd the dead, already half-living, mix with those bells’\n mumbled magisterium.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jonathan Monroe Geltner", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Jonathan Monroe Geltner" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "easter_sunday" @@ -26050,7 +26967,6 @@ "title": "“Saint Joseph”", "body": "When the tools are put in their places and the day’s work is done,\nWhen between Carmel and the Jordan, Israel falls asleep in the wheatfields and the night,\nAs when he was once a young boy and it began to get too dark for reading,\nJoseph enters with a deep sigh into conversation with God.\nHe preferred Wisdon and she had been brought to him for marriage.\nHe is as silent as the earth when the dew rises,\nHe feels the fullness of night, and he is at ease with joy and with truth.\nMary is in his possession and he surrounds her on all sides.\nIt is not in a single day that he learned how not to be alone any more.\nA woman won over each part of his heart which is now prudent and fatherly.\nAgain he is in Paradise with Eve!\nThe face which all men need turns with love and submission toward Joseph.\nIt is no longer the same prayer and no longer the ancient waiting since he has felt\nLike an arm suddenly without hate the pressure of this profound and innocent being.\nIt is no longer bare Faith in the night, it is love explaining and working.\nJoseph is with Mary and Mary is with the Father.\nAnd for us too, so that God at last may be allowed, whose works surpass our reason,\nSo that this light may not be extinguished by our lamp and His word by the noise we make,\nSo that man cease, and Your Kingdom come and Your Will be done,\nSo that we may find again the beginning with bound. less delight,\nSo that the sea may quiet down and Mary begin,\nShe who has the better part and who consummates the struggle of ancient Israel,\nInner Patriarch, Joseph, obtain silence for us!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Wallace Fowlie", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Feuilles de Saints", @@ -26059,6 +26975,9 @@ "year": 1925 } }, + "translators": [ + "Wallace Fowlie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_joseph" @@ -26069,12 +26988,14 @@ "title": "“Souvenir”", "body": "I remember that convent of women once upon a time, I think it was in Rio de Janeiro,\nAnd those fervent voices chanting and reciting the credo almost quite low.\nAnd that made me think of the desert, of the night of Bethlehem, in its enormous black veil,\nWith that cassocked group of shepherds who ask each other and tell each other many a tale;\nOne questions, the other answers, the young one lets the elder speak, he does not tire.\nThere is sometimes a moment of silence, it’s time to put wood in the fire.\nThus the degree of our salvation and that road leading to heaven’s throne\nAre told us humbly in a confidential tone.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Eugene Jolas", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1940, "month": "august" }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Eugene Jolas" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -26085,8 +27006,10 @@ "title": "“Tenebres”", "body": "I’m here, the other is elsewhere, and the silence is terrible:\nWe are unhappy and we Satan valve in its screen.\nI suffer, and the other suffers, and there is no way\nBetween her and me, the other me point voice or hand.\nNothing but the night is common and incommunicable\nThe night when there worketh and impractical terrible love.\nI listen, and I am alone, and terror came over me.\nI hear the resemblance of his voice and the sound of a scream.\nI hear a little wind and my hair stand up on my head.\nSave her from the danger of death and the mouth of the beast!\nHere again the taste of death between my teeth,\nThe trench, the urge to vomit and turning.\nI was alone in the press I have trodden grapes in my delirium,\nThat night when I walked from one wall to the other, laughing.\nWhoever has eyes, eyes did he not see me?\nWhoever has ears, does he not hear me without ears?\nI know that where sin abounds, there Thy mercy abounds.\nWe must pray, because it’s time for Prince of the world.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anonymous", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Anonymous" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -26094,7 +27017,6 @@ "title": "“The Virgin at Noon”", "body": "It is noon. The church is open. I must go in.\nMother of our Lord, I have not come to pray,\n\nI have nothing to give and nothing to ask.\nI am here, my Lady, only to look at you\n\nTo look at you, to cry for joy, to know\nThat I am your son and you are there.\n\nOnly for one moment when everything stops. Noon!\nTo be with you, Mary, in this place where you are.\n\nTo say nothing, to look at your face,\nTo let my heart sing in its own language,\n\nTo say nothing, but simply to sing because my heart is too full,\nLike the blackbird which repeats its idea in that species of swift couplets.\n\nBecause you are beautiful, because you are pure,\nWoman at last restored in Grace,\n\nCreature in her first honor and her final glory,\nAs she came from God in the morning of her original splendor.\n\nIntact ineffably because you are the Mother of Our Lord,\nWho is the truth in your arms, and the one hope and the one fruit.\n\nBecause you are woman, the Eden of the ancient forgotten tenderness,\nWhose eyes look suddenly into the heart and cause the pent-up tears to flow,\n\nBecause you saved me, because you saved France,\nBecause France too, like myself, was for you a thing to be considered,\nBecause at that moment when everything collapsed, you intervened,\nBecause you saved France once again,\nBecause it is noon, because we are at this moment of today,\n\nBecause you are there for always, simply because you are Mary, simply because you exist,\nMother of Our Lord, we gives thanks to you!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Wallace Fowlie", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "PoĂšmes de Guerre", @@ -26103,6 +27025,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Wallace Fowlie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "immaculate_conception" @@ -26113,14 +27038,16 @@ "title": "“The Virgin of Brangues”", "body": "I am at her feet and I am praying.\nBut she, well 
 you couldn’t exactly say she sees me or hears me.\nShe is reflecting.\nIn the way one says that calm, pure water reflects.\nThe infant she holds in her left arm is the one who hears me. His ear is turned toward me.\nHis heart beats 
\nAnd the proof that it beats is the long thin hand, raised over him, of his mother, who listens to him.\nShe listens to him listening.\nAnd the hand of the child in its turn rests on the mother’s arm.\nUpon the maternal artery.\nThe Virgin of Brangues is a virgin who works.\nAnd here I am, showing up at a job already well under way.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jonathan Monroe Geltner", "place": "Brangues", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1950, "month": "august", "day": 6 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Jonathan Monroe Geltner" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -26571,20 +27498,38 @@ "name": "Samuel Taylor Coleridge", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1772 + "year": 1772, + "month": "october", + "day": 21 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Ottery St Mary", + "state": "Devon", + "country": "England" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1834 + "year": 1834, + "month": "july", + "day": 25 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Highgate", + "state": "London", + "country": "England" } }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ "poet" ], - "education": null, - "movement": [], + "education": { + "bachelors": "Jesus College, University of Cambridge" + }, + "movement": [ + "Romanticism" + ], "religion": null, "nationality": [ "england" @@ -26595,7 +27540,8 @@ "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge", "favorite": false, "tags": [ - "English" + "English", + "Romanticism" ] }, "poems": { @@ -26603,10 +27549,10 @@ "title": "“A Christmas Carol”", "body": "The Shepherds went their hasty way,\nAnd found the lowly stable-shed\nWhere the Virgin-Mother lay:\nAnd now they checked their eager tread,\nFor to the Babe, that at her bosom clung,\nA Mother’s song the Virgin-Mother sung.\n\nThey told her how a glorious light,\nStreaming from a heavenly throng,\nAround them shone, suspending night!\nWhile sweeter than a Mother’s song,\nBlest Angels heralded the Saviour’s birth,\nGlory to God on high! and Peace on Earth.\n\nShe listened to the tale divine,\nAnd closer still the Babe she pressed;\nAnd while she cried, the Babe is mine!\nThe milk rushed faster to her breast:\nJoy rose within her, like a summer’s morn;\nPeace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born.\n\nThou Mother of the Prince of Peace,\nPoor, simple, and of low estate!\nThat Strife should vanish, Battle cease,\nO why should this thy soul elate?\nSweet Music’s loudest note, the Poet’s story,--\nDid’st thou ne’er love to hear of Fame and Glory?\n\nAnd is not War a youthful King,\nA stately Hero clad in Mail?\nBeneath his footsteps laurels spring;\nHim Earth’s majestic monarchs hail\nTheir Friend, their Playmate! and his bold bright eye\nCompels the maiden’s love-confessing sigh.\n\n“Tell this in some more courtly scene,\nTo maids and youths in robes of state!\nI am a woman poor and mean,\nAnd therefore is my Soul elate.\nWar is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled,\nThat from the aged Father tears his Child!”\n\n“A murderous fiend, by fiends adored,\nHe kills the Sire and starves the Son;\nThe Husband kills, and from her board\nSteals all his Widow’s toil had won;\nPlunders God’s world of beauty; rends away\nAll safety from the Night, all comfort from the Day.”\n\n“Then wisely is my soul elate,\nThat Strife should vanish, Battle cease:\nI’m poor and of a low estate,\nThe Mother of the Prince of Peace.\nJoy rises in me, like a summer’s morn:\nPeace, Peace on Earth, the Prince of Peace is born.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1799 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "christmas_day" @@ -26617,10 +27563,10 @@ "title": "“Frost at Midnight”", "body": "The Frost performs its secret ministry,\nUnhelped by any wind. The owlet’s cry\nCame loud--and hark, again! loud as before.\nThe inmates of my cottage, all at rest,\nHave left me to that solitude, which suits\nAbstruser musings: save that at my side\nMy cradled infant slumbers peacefully.\n’Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs\nAnd vexes meditation with its strange\nAnd extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,\nThis populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,\nWith all the numberless goings-on of life,\nInaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame\nLies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;\nOnly that film, which fluttered on the grate,\n\nStill flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.\nMethinks, its motion in this hush of nature\nGives it dim sympathies with me who live,\nMaking it a companionable form,\nWhose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit\nBy its own moods interprets, every where\nEcho or mirror seeking of itself,\nAnd makes a toy of Thought.\n\nBut O! how oft,\nHow oft, at school, with most believing mind,\nPresageful, have I gazed upon the bars,\nTo watch that fluttering _stranger_! and as oft\nWith unclosed lids, already had I dreamt\nOf my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,\nWhose bells, the poor man’s only music, rang\nFrom morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,\nSo sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me\nWith a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear\nMost like articulate sounds of things to come!\nSo gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,\nLulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!\nAnd so I brooded all the following morn,\nAwed by the stern preceptor’s face, mine eye\nFixed with mock study on my swimming book:\nSave if the door half opened, and I snatched\nA hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,\nFor still I hoped to see the _stranger_’s face,\nTownsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,\nMy play-mate when we both were clothed alike!\n\nDear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,\nWhose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,\nFill up the interspersĂ©d vacancies\nAnd momentary pauses of the thought!\nMy babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart\nWith tender gladness, thus to look at thee,\nAnd think that thou shalt learn far other lore,\nAnd in far other scenes! For I was reared\nIn the great city, pent ’mid cloisters dim,\nAnd saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.\nBut _thou_, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze\nBy lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags\nOf ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,\nWhich image in their bulk both lakes and shores\nAnd mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear\nThe lovely shapes and sounds intelligible\nOf that eternal language, which thy God\nUtters, who from eternity doth teach\nHimself in all, and all things in himself.\nGreat universal Teacher! he shall mould\nThy spirit, and by giving make it ask.\n\nTherefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,\nWhether the summer clothe the general earth\nWith greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing\nBetwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch\nOf mossy apple-tree, while the night-thatch\nSmokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall\nHeard only in the trances of the blast,\nOr if the secret ministry of frost\nShall hang them up in silent icicles,\nQuietly shining to the quiet Moon.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1798 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -26639,10 +27585,10 @@ "title": "“Kubla Khan”", "body": "_Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment._\n\nIn Xanadu did Kubla Khan\nA stately pleasure-dome decree:\nWhere Alph, the sacred river, ran\nThrough caverns measureless to man\nDown to a sunless sea.\nSo twice five miles of fertile ground\nWith walls and towers were girdled round;\nAnd there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,\nWhere blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;\nAnd here were forests ancient as the hills,\nEnfolding sunny spots of greenery.\n\nBut oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted\nDown the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!\nA savage place! as holy and enchanted\nAs e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted\nBy woman wailing for her demon-lover!\nAnd from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,\nAs if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,\nA mighty fountain momently was forced:\nAmid whose swift half-intermitted burst\nHuge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,\nOr chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:\nAnd mid these dancing rocks at once and ever\nIt flung up momently the sacred river.\nFive miles meandering with a mazy motion\nThrough wood and dale the sacred river ran,\nThen reached the caverns measureless to man,\nAnd sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;\nAnd ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far\nAncestral voices prophesying war!\nThe shadow of the dome of pleasure\nFloated midway on the waves;\nWhere was heard the mingled measure\nFrom the fountain and the caves.\nIt was a miracle of rare device,\nA sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!\n\nA damsel with a dulcimer\nIn a vision once I saw:\nIt was an Abyssinian maid\nAnd on her dulcimer she played,\nSinging of Mount Abora.\nCould I revive within me\nHer symphony and song,\nTo such a deep delight ’twould win me,\nThat with music loud and long,\nI would build that dome in air,\nThat sunny dome! those caves of ice!\nAnd all who heard should see them there,\nAnd all should cry, Beware! Beware!\nHis flashing eyes, his floating hair!\nWeave a circle round him thrice,\nAnd close your eyes with holy dread\nFor he on honey-dew hath fed,\nAnd drunk the milk of Paradise.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1797 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -26650,10 +27596,10 @@ "title": "“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”", "body": "_Argument_\n\n_How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country._\n\n\n# I.\n\nIt is an ancient Mariner,\nAnd he stoppeth one of three.\n“By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,\nNow wherefore stopp’st thou me?\n\nThe Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,\nAnd I am next of kin;\nThe guests are met, the feast is set:\nMay’st hear the merry din.”\n\nHe holds him with his skinny hand,\n“There was a ship,” quoth he.\n“Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!”\nEftsoons his hand dropt he.\n\nHe holds him with his glittering eye--\nThe Wedding-Guest stood still,\nAnd listens like a three years’ child:\nThe Mariner hath his will.\n\nThe Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:\nHe cannot choose but hear;\nAnd thus spake on that ancient man,\nThe bright-eyed Mariner.\n\n“The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,\nMerrily did we drop\nBelow the kirk, below the hill,\nBelow the lighthouse top.\n\nThe Sun came up upon the left,\nOut of the sea came he!\nAnd he shone bright, and on the right\nWent down into the sea.\n\nHigher and higher every day,\nTill over the mast at noon--”\nThe Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,\nFor he heard the loud bassoon.\n\nThe bride hath paced into the hall,\nRed as a rose is she;\nNodding their heads before her goes\nThe merry minstrelsy.\n\nThe Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,\nYet he cannot choose but hear;\nAnd thus spake on that ancient man,\nThe bright-eyed Mariner.\n\nAnd now the STORM-BLAST came, and he\nWas tyrannous and strong:\nHe struck with his o’ertaking wings,\nAnd chased us south along.\n\nWith sloping masts and dipping prow,\nAs who pursued with yell and blow\nStill treads the shadow of his foe,\nAnd forward bends his head,\nThe ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,\nAnd southward aye we fled.\n\nAnd now there came both mist and snow,\nAnd it grew wondrous cold:\nAnd ice, mast-high, came floating by,\nAs green as emerald.\n\nAnd through the drifts the snowy clifts\nDid send a dismal sheen:\nNor shapes of men nor beasts we ken--\nThe ice was all between.\n\nThe ice was here, the ice was there,\nThe ice was all around:\nIt cracked and growled, and roared and howled,\nLike noises in a swound!\n\nAt length did cross an Albatross,\nThorough the fog it came;\nAs if it had been a Christian soul,\nWe hailed it in God’s name.\n\nIt ate the food it ne’er had eat,\nAnd round and round it flew.\nThe ice did split with a thunder-fit;\nThe helmsman steered us through!\n\nAnd a good south wind sprung up behind;\nThe Albatross did follow,\nAnd every day, for food or play,\nCame to the mariner’s hollo!\n\nIn mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,\nIt perched for vespers nine;\nWhiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,\nGlimmered the white Moon-shine.\n\n“God save thee, ancient Mariner!\nFrom the fiends, that plague thee thus!--\nWhy look’st thou so?”--With my cross-bow\nI shot the ALBATROSS.\n\n\n# II.\n\nThe Sun now rose upon the right:\nOut of the sea came he,\nStill hid in mist, and on the left\nWent down into the sea.\n\nAnd the good south wind still blew behind,\nBut no sweet bird did follow,\nNor any day for food or play\nCame to the mariner’s hollo!\n\nAnd I had done a hellish thing,\nAnd it would work ’em woe:\nFor all averred, I had killed the bird\nThat made the breeze to blow.\nAh wretch! said they, the bird to slay,\nThat made the breeze to blow!\n\nNor dim nor red, like God’s own head,\nThe glorious Sun uprist:\nThen all averred, I had killed the bird\nThat brought the fog and mist.\n’Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,\nThat bring the fog and mist.\n\nThe fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,\nThe furrow followed free;\nWe were the first that ever burst\nInto that silent sea.\n\nDown dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,\n’Twas sad as sad could be;\nAnd we did speak only to break\nThe silence of the sea!\n\nAll in a hot and copper sky,\nThe bloody Sun, at noon,\nRight up above the mast did stand,\nNo bigger than the Moon.\n\nDay after day, day after day,\nWe stuck, nor breath nor motion;\nAs idle as a painted ship\nUpon a painted ocean.\n\nWater, water, every where,\nAnd all the boards did shrink;\nWater, water, every where,\nNor any drop to drink.\n\nThe very deep did rot: O Christ!\nThat ever this should be!\nYea, slimy things did crawl with legs\nUpon the slimy sea.\n\nAbout, about, in reel and rout\nThe death-fires danced at night;\nThe water, like a witch’s oils,\nBurnt green, and blue and white.\n\nAnd some in dreams assurĂšd were\nOf the Spirit that plagued us so;\nNine fathom deep he had followed us\nFrom the land of mist and snow.\n\nAnd every tongue, through utter drought,\nWas withered at the root;\nWe could not speak, no more than if\nWe had been choked with soot.\n\nAh! well a-day! what evil looks\nHad I from old and young!\nInstead of the cross, the Albatross\nAbout my neck was hung.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThere passed a weary time. Each throat\nWas parched, and glazed each eye.\nA weary time! a weary time!\nHow glazed each weary eye,\n\nWhen looking westward, I beheld\nA something in the sky.\n\nAt first it seemed a little speck,\nAnd then it seemed a mist;\nIt moved and moved, and took at last\nA certain shape, I wist.\n\nA speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!\nAnd still it neared and neared:\nAs if it dodged a water-sprite,\nIt plunged and tacked and veered.\n\nWith throats unslaked, with black lips baked,\nWe could nor laugh nor wail;\nThrough utter drought all dumb we stood!\nI bit my arm, I sucked the blood,\nAnd cried, A sail! a sail!\n\nWith throats unslaked, with black lips baked,\nAgape they heard me call:\nGramercy! they for joy did grin,\nAnd all at once their breath drew in.\nAs they were drinking all.\n\nSee! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!\nHither to work us weal;\nWithout a breeze, without a tide,\nShe steadies with upright keel!\n\nThe western wave was all a-flame.\nThe day was well nigh done!\nAlmost upon the western wave\nRested the broad bright Sun;\nWhen that strange shape drove suddenly\nBetwixt us and the Sun.\n\nAnd straight the Sun was flecked with bars,\n(Heaven’s Mother send us grace!)\nAs if through a dungeon-grate he peered\nWith broad and burning face.\n\nAlas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)\nHow fast she nears and nears!\nAre those her sails that glance in the Sun,\nLike restless gossameres?\n\nAre those her ribs through which the Sun\nDid peer, as through a grate?\nAnd is that Woman all her crew?\nIs that a DEATH? and are there two?\nIs DEATH that woman’s mate?\n\nHer lips were red, her looks were free,\nHer locks were yellow as gold:\nHer skin was as white as leprosy,\nThe Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,\nWho thicks man’s blood with cold.\n\nThe naked hulk alongside came,\nAnd the twain were casting dice;\n“The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!”\nQuoth she, and whistles thrice.\n\nThe Sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out;\nAt one stride comes the dark;\nWith far-heard whisper, o’er the sea,\nOff shot the spectre-bark.\n\nWe listened and looked sideways up!\nFear at my heart, as at a cup,\nMy life-blood seemed to sip!\nThe stars were dim, and thick the night,\nThe steersman’s face by his lamp gleamed white;\nFrom the sails the dew did drip--\nTill clomb above the eastern bar\nThe hornĂšd Moon, with one bright star\nWithin the nether tip.\n\nOne after one, by the star-dogged Moon,\nToo quick for groan or sigh,\nEach turned his face with a ghastly pang,\nAnd cursed me with his eye.\n\nFour times fifty living men,\n(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)\nWith heavy thump, a lifeless lump,\nThey dropped down one by one.\n\nThe souls did from their bodies fly,--\nThey fled to bliss or woe!\nAnd every soul, it passed me by,\nLike the whizz of my cross-bow!\n\n\n# IV.\n\n“I fear thee, ancient Mariner!\nI fear thy skinny hand!\nAnd thou art long, and lank, and brown,\nAs is the ribbed sea-sand.\n\nI fear thee and thy glittering eye,\nAnd thy skinny hand, so brown.”--\nFear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!\nThis body dropt not down.\n\nAlone, alone, all, all alone,\nAlone on a wide wide sea!\nAnd never a saint took pity on\nMy soul in agony.\n\nThe many men, so beautiful!\nAnd they all dead did lie:\nAnd a thousand thousand slimy things\nLived on; and so did I.\n\nI looked upon the rotting sea,\nAnd drew my eyes away;\nI looked upon the rotting deck,\nAnd there the dead men lay.\n\nI looked to heaven, and tried to pray;\nBut or ever a prayer had gusht,\nA wicked whisper came, and made\nMy heart as dry as dust.\n\nI closed my lids, and kept them close,\nAnd the balls like pulses beat;\nFor the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky\nLay dead like a load on my weary eye,\nAnd the dead were at my feet.\n\nThe cold sweat melted from their limbs,\nNor rot nor reek did they:\nThe look with which they looked on me\nHad never passed away.\n\nAn orphan’s curse would drag to hell\nA spirit from on high;\nBut oh! more horrible than that\nIs the curse in a dead man’s eye!\nSeven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,\nAnd yet I could not die.\n\nThe moving Moon went up the sky,\nAnd no where did abide:\nSoftly she was going up,\nAnd a star or two beside--\n\nHer beams bemocked the sultry main,\nLike April hoar-frost spread;\nBut where the ship’s huge shadow lay,\nThe charmĂšd water burnt alway\nA still and awful red.\n\nBeyond the shadow of the ship,\nI watched the water-snakes:\nThey moved in tracks of shining white,\nAnd when they reared, the elfish light\nFell off in hoary flakes.\n\nWithin the shadow of the ship\nI watched their rich attire:\nBlue, glossy green, and velvet black,\nThey coiled and swam; and every track\nWas a flash of golden fire.\n\nO happy living things! no tongue\nTheir beauty might declare:\nA spring of love gushed from my heart,\nAnd I blessed them unaware:\nSure my kind saint took pity on me,\nAnd I blessed them unaware.\n\nThe self-same moment I could pray;\nAnd from my neck so free\nThe Albatross fell off, and sank\nLike lead into the sea.\n\n\n# V.\n\nOh sleep! it is a gentle thing,\nBeloved from pole to pole!\nTo Mary Queen the praise be given!\nShe sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,\nThat slid into my soul.\n\nThe silly buckets on the deck,\nThat had so long remained,\nI dreamt that they were filled with dew;\nAnd when I awoke, it rained.\n\nMy lips were wet, my throat was cold,\nMy garments all were dank;\nSure I had drunken in my dreams,\nAnd still my body drank.\n\nI moved, and could not feel my limbs:\nI was so light--almost\nI thought that I had died in sleep,\nAnd was a blessed ghost.\n\nAnd soon I heard a roaring wind:\nIt did not come anear;\nBut with its sound it shook the sails,\nThat were so thin and sere.\n\nThe upper air burst into life!\nAnd a hundred fire-flags sheen,\nTo and fro they were hurried about!\nAnd to and fro, and in and out,\nThe wan stars danced between.\n\nAnd the coming wind did roar more loud,\nAnd the sails did sigh like sedge,\nAnd the rain poured down from one black cloud;\nThe Moon was at its edge.\n\nThe thick black cloud was cleft, and still\nThe Moon was at its side:\nLike waters shot from some high crag,\nThe lightning fell with never a jag,\nA river steep and wide.\n\nThe loud wind never reached the ship,\nYet now the ship moved on!\nBeneath the lightning and the Moon\nThe dead men gave a groan.\n\nThey groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,\nNor spake, nor moved their eyes;\nIt had been strange, even in a dream,\nTo have seen those dead men rise.\n\nThe helmsman steered, the ship moved on;\nYet never a breeze up-blew;\nThe mariners all ’gan work the ropes,\nWhere they were wont to do;\nThey raised their limbs like lifeless tools--\nWe were a ghastly crew.\n\nThe body of my brother’s son\nStood by me, knee to knee:\nThe body and I pulled at one rope,\nBut he said nought to me.\n\n“I fear thee, ancient Mariner!”\nBe calm, thou Wedding-Guest!\n’Twas not those souls that fled in pain,\nWhich to their corses came again,\nBut a troop of spirits blest:\n\nFor when it dawned--they dropped their arms,\nAnd clustered round the mast;\nSweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,\nAnd from their bodies passed.\n\nAround, around, flew each sweet sound,\nThen darted to the Sun;\nSlowly the sounds came back again,\nNow mixed, now one by one.\n\nSometimes a-dropping from the sky\nI heard the sky-lark sing;\nSometimes all little birds that are,\nHow they seemed to fill the sea and air\nWith their sweet jargoning!\n\nAnd now ’twas like all instruments,\nNow like a lonely flute;\nAnd now it is an angel’s song,\nThat makes the heavens be mute.\n\nIt ceased; yet still the sails made on\nA pleasant noise till noon,\nA noise like of a hidden brook\nIn the leafy month of June,\nThat to the sleeping woods all night\nSingeth a quiet tune.\n\nTill noon we quietly sailed on,\nYet never a breeze did breathe:\nSlowly and smoothly went the ship,\nMoved onward from beneath.\n\nUnder the keel nine fathom deep,\nFrom the land of mist and snow,\nThe spirit slid: and it was he\nThat made the ship to go.\nThe sails at noon left off their tune,\nAnd the ship stood still also.\n\nThe Sun, right up above the mast,\nHad fixed her to the ocean:\nBut in a minute she ’gan stir,\nWith a short uneasy motion--\nBackwards and forwards half her length\nWith a short uneasy motion.\n\nThen like a pawing horse let go,\nShe made a sudden bound:\nIt flung the blood into my head,\nAnd I fell down in a swound.\n\nHow long in that same fit I lay,\nI have not to declare;\nBut ere my living life returned,\nI heard and in my soul discerned\nTwo voices in the air.\n\n“Is it he?” quoth one, “Is this the man?\nBy him who died on cross,\nWith his cruel bow he laid full low\nThe harmless Albatross.\n\nThe spirit who bideth by himself\nIn the land of mist and snow,\nHe loved the bird that loved the man\nWho shot him with his bow.”\n\nThe other was a softer voice,\nAs soft as honey-dew:\nQuoth he, “The man hath penance done,\nAnd penance more will do.”\n\n\n# VI.\n\n> _First Voice:_\n“But tell me, tell me! speak again,\nThy soft response renewing--\nWhat makes that ship drive on so fast?\nWhat is the ocean doing?”\n\n> _Second Voice:_\n“Still as a slave before his lord,\nThe ocean hath no blast;\nHis great bright eye most silently\nUp to the Moon is cast--\n\nIf he may know which way to go;\nFor she guides him smooth or grim.\nSee, brother, see! how graciously\nShe looketh down on him.”\n\n> _First Voice:_\n“But why drives on that ship so fast,\nWithout or wave or wind?”\n> _Second Voice:_\n“The air is cut away before,\nAnd closes from behind.\n\nFly, brother, fly! more high, more high!\nOr we shall be belated:\nFor slow and slow that ship will go,\nWhen the Mariner’s trance is abated.”\n\nI woke, and we were sailing on\nAs in a gentle weather:\n’Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;\nThe dead men stood together.\n\nAll stood together on the deck,\nFor a charnel-dungeon fitter:\nAll fixed on me their stony eyes,\nThat in the Moon did glitter.\n\nThe pang, the curse, with which they died,\nHad never passed away:\nI could not draw my eyes from theirs,\nNor turn them up to pray.\n\nAnd now this spell was snapt: once more\nI viewed the ocean green,\nAnd looked far forth, yet little saw\nOf what had else been seen--\n\nLike one, that on a lonesome road\nDoth walk in fear and dread,\nAnd having once turned round walks on,\nAnd turns no more his head;\nBecause he knows, a frightful fiend\nDoth close behind him tread.\n\nBut soon there breathed a wind on me,\nNor sound nor motion made:\nIts path was not upon the sea,\nIn ripple or in shade.\n\nIt raised my hair, it fanned my cheek\nLike a meadow-gale of spring--\nIt mingled strangely with my fears,\nYet it felt like a welcoming.\n\nSwiftly, swiftly flew the ship,\nYet she sailed softly too:\nSweetly, sweetly blew the breeze--\nOn me alone it blew.\n\nOh! dream of joy! is this indeed\nThe light-house top I see?\nIs this the hill? is this the kirk?\nIs this mine own countree?\n\nWe drifted o’er the harbour-bar,\nAnd I with sobs did pray--\nO let me be awake, my God!\nOr let me sleep alway.\n\nThe harbour-bay was clear as glass,\nSo smoothly it was strewn!\nAnd on the bay the moonlight lay,\nAnd the shadow of the Moon.\n\nThe rock shone bright, the kirk no less,\nThat stands above the rock:\nThe moonlight steeped in silentness\nThe steady weathercock.\n\nAnd the bay was white with silent light,\nTill rising from the same,\nFull many shapes, that shadows were,\nIn crimson colours came.\n\nA little distance from the prow\nThose crimson shadows were:\nI turned my eyes upon the deck--\nOh, Christ! what saw I there!\n\nEach corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,\nAnd, by the holy rood!\nA man all light, a seraph-man,\nOn every corse there stood.\n\nThis seraph-band, each waved his hand:\nIt was a heavenly sight!\nThey stood as signals to the land,\nEach one a lovely light;\n\nThis seraph-band, each waved his hand,\nNo voice did they impart--\nNo voice; but oh! the silence sank\nLike music on my heart.\n\nBut soon I heard the dash of oars,\nI heard the Pilot’s cheer;\nMy head was turned perforce away\nAnd I saw a boat appear.\n\nThe Pilot and the Pilot’s boy,\nI heard them coming fast:\nDear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy\nThe dead men could not blast.\n\nI saw a third--I heard his voice:\nIt is the Hermit good!\nHe singeth loud his godly hymns\nThat he makes in the wood.\nHe’ll shrieve my soul, he’ll wash away\nThe Albatross’s blood.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nThis Hermit good lives in that wood\nWhich slopes down to the sea.\nHow loudly his sweet voice he rears!\nHe loves to talk with marineres\nThat come from a far countree.\n\nHe kneels at morn, and noon, and eve--\nHe hath a cushion plump:\nIt is the moss that wholly hides\nThe rotted old oak-stump.\n\nThe skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,\n“Why, this is strange, I trow!\nWhere are those lights so many and fair,\nThat signal made but now?”\n\n“Strange, by my faith!” the Hermit said--\n“And they answered not our cheer!\nThe planks looked warped! and see those sails,\nHow thin they are and sere!\nI never saw aught like to them,\nUnless perchance it were\n\nBrown skeletons of leaves that lag\nMy forest-brook along;\nWhen the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,\nAnd the owlet whoops to the wolf below,\nThat eats the she-wolf’s young.”\n\n“Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look--\n(The Pilot made reply)\nI am a-feared”--“Push on, push on!”\nSaid the Hermit cheerily.\n\nThe boat came closer to the ship,\nBut I nor spake nor stirred;\nThe boat came close beneath the ship,\nAnd straight a sound was heard.\n\nUnder the water it rumbled on,\nStill louder and more dread:\nIt reached the ship, it split the bay;\nThe ship went down like lead.\n\nStunned by that loud and dreadful sound,\nWhich sky and ocean smote,\nLike one that hath been seven days drowned\nMy body lay afloat;\nBut swift as dreams, myself I found\nWithin the Pilot’s boat.\n\nUpon the whirl, where sank the ship,\nThe boat spun round and round;\nAnd all was still, save that the hill\nWas telling of the sound.\n\nI moved my lips--the Pilot shrieked\nAnd fell down in a fit;\nThe holy Hermit raised his eyes,\nAnd prayed where he did sit.\n\nI took the oars: the Pilot’s boy,\nWho now doth crazy go,\nLaughed loud and long, and all the while\nHis eyes went to and fro.\n“Ha! ha!” quoth he, “full plain I see,\nThe Devil knows how to row.”\n\nAnd now, all in my own countree,\nI stood on the firm land!\nThe Hermit stepped forth from the boat,\nAnd scarcely he could stand.\n\n“O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!”\nThe Hermit crossed his brow.\n“Say quick,” quoth he, “I bid thee say--\nWhat manner of man art thou?”\n\nForthwith this frame of mine was wrenched\nWith a woful agony,\nWhich forced me to begin my tale;\nAnd then it left me free.\n\nSince then, at an uncertain hour,\nThat agony returns:\nAnd till my ghastly tale is told,\nThis heart within me burns.\n\nI pass, like night, from land to land;\nI have strange power of speech;\nThat moment that his face I see,\nI know the man that must hear me:\nTo him my tale I teach.\n\nWhat loud uproar bursts from that door!\nThe wedding-guests are there:\nBut in the garden-bower the bride\nAnd bride-maids singing are:\nAnd hark the little vesper bell,\nWhich biddeth me to prayer!\n\nO Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been\nAlone on a wide wide sea:\nSo lonely ’twas, that God himself\nScarce seemĂšd there to be.\n\nO sweeter than the marriage-feast,\n’Tis sweeter far to me,\nTo walk together to the kirk\nWith a goodly company!--\n\nTo walk together to the kirk,\nAnd all together pray,\nWhile each to his great Father bends,\nOld men, and babes, and loving friends\nAnd youths and maidens gay!\n\nFarewell, farewell! but this I tell\nTo thee, thou Wedding-Guest!\nHe prayeth well, who loveth well\nBoth man and bird and beast.\n\nHe prayeth best, who loveth best\nAll things both great and small;\nFor the dear God who loveth us,\nHe made and loveth all.\n\nThe Mariner, whose eye is bright,\nWhose beard with age is hoar,\nIs gone: and now the Wedding-Guest\nTurned from the bridegroom’s door.\n\nHe went like one that hath been stunned,\nAnd is of sense forlorn:\nA sadder and a wiser man,\nHe rose the morrow morn.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1798 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "halloween" @@ -26664,10 +27610,10 @@ "title": "“Youth and Age”", "body": "Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying,\nWhere Hope clung feeding, like a bee--\nBoth were mine! Life went a-maying\nWith Nature, Hope, and Poesy,\nWhen I was young!\n\nWhen I was young?--Ah, woful When!\nAh! for the change ’twixt Now and Then!\nThis breathing house not built with hands,\nThis body that does me grievous wrong,\nO’er aery cliffs and glittering sands,\nHow lightly then it flashed along:--\nLike those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,\nOn winding lakes and rivers wide,\nThat ask no aid of sail or oar,\nThat fear no spite of wind or tide!\nNought cared this body for wind or weather\nWhen Youth and I lived in’t together.\n\nFlowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;\nFriendship is a sheltering tree;\nO! the joys, that came down shower-like,\nOf Friendship, Love, and Liberty,\nEre I was old!\nEre I was old? Ah woful Ere,\nWhich tells me, Youth’s no longer here!\nO Youth! for years so many and sweet,\n’Tis known, that Thou and I were one,\nI’ll think it but a fond conceit--\nIt cannot be that Thou art gone!\n\nThy vesper-bell hath not yet toll’d:--\nAnd thou wert aye a masker bold!\nWhat strange disguise hast now put on,\nTo make believe, that thou are gone?\nI see these locks in silvery slips,\nThis drooping gait, this altered size:\nBut Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips,\nAnd tears take sunshine from thine eyes!\nLife is but thought: so think I will\nThat Youth and I are house-mates still.\n\nDew-drops are the gems of morning,\nBut the tears of mournful eve!\nWhere no hope is, life’s a warning\nThat only serves to make us grieve,\nWhen we are old:\nThat only serves to make us grieve\nWith oft and tedious taking-leave,\nLike some poor nigh-related guest,\nThat may not rudely be dismist;\nYet hath outstay’d his welcome while,\nAnd tells the jest without the smile.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1832 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -26897,8 +27843,11 @@ "title": "“Blind Man’s Cries”", "body": "The murdered eye is not dead\nA spike still splits it\nNailed up I am coffinless\nThey drove the nail in my eye\nThe nailed eye is not dead\nAnd the spike still enters it\n\n_Deus misericors_\n_Deus misericors_\nThe hammer pounds my wooden head\nThe hammer that will make the cross\n_Deus misericors_\n_Deus misericors_\n\nThe undertaker birds\nAre thus afraid of my body\nMy Golgotha is not over\n_Lama Lama sabacthani_\nDoves of Death\nBe thirsty for my body\n\nRed as a gun-port\nThe sore is on the edge\nLike the drooling gum\nOf a toothless laughing old woman\nThe sore is on the edge\nRed as a gun-port\n\nI see circles of gold\nThe white sun bites me\nI’ve two holes pierced by an iron bar\nReddened in the forge of hell\nI see a circle of gold\nThe sky’s fire bites me\n\nIn the marrow twists\nA tear which comes out\nI see inside paradise\n_Miserere de profundis_\nIn my skull twists\nA sulfur tear which comes out\n\nBlessed the good dead man\nThe saved dead man who sleeps\nHappy the martyrs the chosen\nWith the Virgin and her Jesus\nOh blessed the dead man\nThe judged dead man who sleeps\n\nA Knight outside\nReposes without remorse\nIn the hallowed cemetery\nIn his granite siesta\nThe man of stone outside\nHas two eyes without remorse\n\nOh I feel you still\nYellow moors of Armor\nI feel my rosary in my fingers\nAnd Christ in bone on the wood\nI gape at you still\nO dead Armor sky\n\nPardon for praying hard\nLord if it is fate\nMy eyes two burning holy-water fonts\nThe devil put his fingers inside\nPardon for crying loud\nLord against fate\n\nI hear the north wind\nWhich bugles like a hom\nIt is the hunting call for the kill of the dead\nI bay enough on my own\nI hear the north wind\nI hear the hom’s knell", "metadata": { - "translator": "Kenneth Koch & Georges Guy", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Kenneth Koch", + "Georges Guy" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -26909,8 +27858,11 @@ "title": "“Hours”", "body": "Alms to the highwayman in pursuit!\nEvil eye to the luring eye!\nBlade against blade with the avid swordsman!\n--My soul is not in a state of grace!--\n\nI am the fool of Pamplona,\nAfraid of the Moon’s laughter,\nHypocritical, in black crepe 
\nHorror! is everything, then, beneath a candle snuffer?\n\nI hear a noise like a rattle 
\nIt is the evil hour which calls me.\nIn the pit of nights falls: one knell 
 two knells.\n\nI have counted more than fourteen hours 
\nEach hour a tear. You are weeping,\nMy heart! 
 Keep singing, go on--Don’t count.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Kenneth Koch & Georges Guy", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Kenneth Koch", + "Georges Guy" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -27069,13 +28021,24 @@ "name": "Hart Crane", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1899 + "year": 1899, + "month": "july", + "day": 21 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Garrettsville", + "state": "Ohio", + "country": "USA" } }, "death": { "date": { "year": 1932 - } + }, + "place": { + "city": "Gulf of Mexico" + }, + "cause": "suicide" }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ @@ -27518,8 +28481,10 @@ "title": "“The Despairing Man Draws a Serpent”", "body": "I went up the hill\nAt moonrise.\n\nShe swore that she would come\nBy the south way.\n\nA dusky hawk\nCaught up the path\nIn his talons.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Merton", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Merton" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -27527,8 +28492,11 @@ "title": "“Manuscript in a Bottle”", "body": "I had seen coconut trees and tamarinds\nand mangos\nthe white sails drying in the sun\nthe smoke of breakfast across the sky\nat dawn\nand fish jumping in the net\nand a girl in red\nwho would go down to the shore and come up with a jug\nand pass behind a grove\nand appear and disappear\nand for a long time\nI could not sail without that image\nof the girl in red\nand the coconut trees and tamarinds and mangos\nthat seemed to live only\nbecause she lived\nand the white sails were white only\nwhen she lay down\nin her red dress and the smoke was blue\nand the fish and the reflection of the fish\nwere happy\nand for a long time I wanted to write a poem\nabout that girl in red\nand couldn’t find the way to describe\nthe strange things that fascinated me\nand when I told my friends they laughed\nbut when I sailed away and returned\nI always passed the island of the girl in red\nuntil one day I entered the bay of her island\nand cast anchor and leaped to land\nand now I write these lines and throw them into the waves in a bottle\nbecause this is my story\nbecause I am gazing at coconut trees and tamarinds\nand mangos\nthe white sails drying in the sun\nand the smoke of breakfast across the sky\nand time passes\nand we wait and wait\nand we grunt\nand she does not come with ears of corn\nthe girl in red.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Grace Schulman & Ann McCarthy de Zavala", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Grace Schulman", + "Ann McCarthy de Zavala" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -28176,8 +29144,10 @@ "title": "“The firm wishing that gets ingress 
”", "body": "The firm wishing that gets ingress\nTo my heart fears no cad’s beak or nail-tip\nOf cad who by false speech doth lose his soul’s hope,\nAnd if I dare assail him not with bough or osier\nOn quiet I, where one admits no uncle,\nWill get my joy in garden or in bower.\n\nWhen I remember the bower\nWhere to my spite I know that no man gets ingress,\nBut do no more than may brothers and uncles,\nI tremble all length, all save my nail-tips,\nAs does a child before a switch of osier,\nSo fear I lest I come not near my soul’s hope.\n\nOf body ’twas not of soul’s hope\nThat consenting she hid me in her bower.\nNow it hurts my heart worse than strokes of osiers\nThat where she now is, her slave gets no ingress.\nI cling mam to her as is the flesh to the nail-tip\nAnd take warning of neither friend nor uncle.\n\nNe’er love I sister of uncle\nAs I love her I love, by my soul’s hope.\nClose cling I as doth the finger to nail-tip\nAnd would be, and it please her, in her bower;\nLove that in my heart gets ingress\nCan shake me, as strong man not an osier.\n\nSince flower sprang on dry osier,\nSince Adam began this line of nephews and uncles,\nSuch fine love as to my heart hath ingress\nWas not to my belief in body or soul’s hope.\nIf she be in piazza nor bower,\nMy heart leave not by a nail-tip.\n\nThe heart roots and clings like the nail-tip\nOr as the bark clings that clings to the osier,\nFor she is joy’s palace, she is joy’s bower,\nNor love I so father, nor kinsman, nor kind uncle.\nDouble joy in Paradise, by my soul’s hope,\nShall I have if ere true love there win ingress.\n\nArnaut sends the song of nail and uncle\nWith thanks to her the soul of his osier,\nSon Dezirat, who to some purpose hath ingress in bower.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ezra Pound", "language": "Occitan", + "translators": [ + "Ezra Pound" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -28201,8 +29171,10 @@ "title": "“I am the one that knows the pain that flows 
”", "body": "I am the one that knows the pain that flows\nThrough loving hearts that suffer love’s excess,\nFor my will is ever so firm and whole\nI have never denied her, never wandered\nFrom one I so desired at once and ever:\nFar from her, now, I call to her urgently,\nThough when she’s here I know not what to say.\n\nMy blindness, my deafness to others shows\nThat only her I see, and hear, and bless,\nAnd I offer her no false flatteries so\nFor the heart more than the mouth gives word;\nThat in field, plain, hill, vale, though I go everywhere\nI discern all qualities in one sole body,\nOnly hers, where God sets them today.\n\nMany a goodly court my presence knows,\nYet in her there’s more that does impress,\nMeasure and wit and other virtues glow\nBeauty, youth, good manners, actions stir,\nOf courtesy she has well-learnt her share\nOf all displeasing things I find her free\nI think no good thing lacking anyway.\n\nNo joy for me was too brief that arose\nFrom her, I hope that she might guess,\nFor of me she’ll otherwise not know,\nSince the heart such words can scarce utter,\nThat the Rhone, its swollen waters there,\nNo fiercer than my heart flows inwardly,\nNor floods more with love, when on her I gaze.\n\nSolace and joy seem false from those\nOther girls, none share her worthiness,\nHer solace exceeds all others though,\nAy, alas, ill times if I do not have her,\nYet the anguish brings me joy so fair,\nFor thinking brings desire of her lustily:\nGod, if I might have her some other way!\n\nNo play ever pleased more, you may suppose,\nNothing could bring the heart more happiness,\nThan that from which no evil rumours grow\nAll publicly, to me alone its treasure;\nI speak too openly? Not if it brings no care:\nMy beauty, by God, I’d lose my tongue and speech,\nRather than trouble you by what I say.\n\nAnd I pray my song indeed brings you no care,\nFor if you like both words and melody\nWhat cares Arnaut whom it pleases or shall dismay.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "Occitan", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -28353,8 +29325,10 @@ "title": "“When the pale leaves descend 
”", "body": "When the pale leaves descend\nFrom the high crowns of trees\nAnd the cold airs ascend\nTo fill the wandering breeze\nWith melodies\nThe forest is then no friend,\nYet whoso flees\nI long for true Love again.\n\nThough cold it grows,\nI will not freeze forever,\nIn whom love rose\nThat will my heart deliver\nI’ll not shiver,\nLove hides me from head to toe,\nBrings strength rather\nAnd tells what way I must go.\n\nGood is this life\nThat my delight maintains\nThough he who knows strife\nMay otherwise complain\nI know no gain\nIn changing of my life\nAll free of pain,\nBy my faith’s, my share of strife.\n\nIn true love-making\nI find naught here to blame,\nThough others, playing,\nFind bad luck in the game,\nThere’s none the same\nAs her, there’s no repeating,\nShe’s one I name\nBeyond all equalling.\n\nI’d not go giving\nMy heart to another love\nLest I find her fleeing\nOr she her gaze remove;\nI fear not too\nThat Malspina’s rhyming,\nCan prove\nA nobler than her in seeming.\n\nThere’s nothing bad there\nIn she who is my friend;\nThis side Savoy here\nNone finer I contend;\nJoys without end\nShe gives and greater\nThan Paris gained\nIn Troy from his Helena.\n\nShe is more lovely\nShe who brings delight,\nThan the noble thirty\nFiner in every light,\nSo it is right\nThat she hear my melody\nFor she’s the height\nOf worth, wins all praise truly.\n\nMy song take flight,\npresent yourself to her sweetly,\nbut for her might\nArnaut might strive more lightly.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "Occitan", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -29313,11 +30287,13 @@ "title": "“A Declaration of Love”", "body": "Although all nature now is dormant,\nMy love alone it restless lies;\nIt heeds your breath and every movement\nAnd only you can hold its eyes.\n\nSo suffer then my conversation,\nTo me alone your dreams devote;\nReserve for me your adoration\nAnd, as you answer, on me dote.\n\nOh, answer that we’re in agreement\nAnd tell me what you think of this:\nWhat can compare with this contentment\nWhen two as single soul find bliss?\n\nImagine then this bliss before us\nAnd hasten to embrace its taste:\nWith love that’s sung by heav’nly chorus\nOur mortal journey will be graced.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rupert Moreton", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1770 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Rupert Moreton" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -29328,13 +30304,15 @@ "title": "“The river-time, in its fast currents 
”", "body": "The river-time, in its fast currents,\nBears away all people’s deals,\nAnd drowns kingdoms, kings, and countries,\nIn the forgetfulness’ abyss.\n\nAnd if, due pipes’ or lyres’ greatness,\nShall anything remain of that,\nIt shall be gobbled by the endless,\nAnd shall not dodge the common fate.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1816, "month": "july", "day": 6 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -29908,10 +30886,10 @@ "title": "“Ascension”", "body": "Salute the last, and everlasting day,\nJoy at the uprising of this Sun, and Son,\nYe whose true tears, or tribulation\nHave purely wash’d, or burnt your drossy clay.\nBehold, the Highest, parting hence away,\nLightens the dark clouds, which He treads upon;\nNor doth he by ascending show alone,\nBut first He, and He first enters the way.\nO strong Ram, which hast batter’d heaven for me!\nMild lamb, which with Thy Blood hast mark’d the path!\nBright Torch, which shinest, that I the way may see!\nO, with Thy own Blood quench Thy own just wrath;\nAnd if Thy Holy Spirit my Muse did raise,\nDeign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1610 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "ascension" @@ -29986,11 +30964,11 @@ "title": "“The Flea”", "body": "Mark but this flea, and mark in this,\nHow little that which thou deniest me is;\nIt sucked me first, and now sucks thee,\nAnd in this flea our two bloods mingled be;\nThou know’st that this cannot be said\nA sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,\nYet this enjoys before it woo,\nAnd pampered swells with one blood made of two,\nAnd this, alas, is more than we would do.\n\nOh stay, three lives in one flea spare,\nWhere we almost, nay more than married are.\nThis flea is you and I, and this\nOur marriage bed, and marriage temple is;\nThough parents grudge, and you, w’are met,\nAnd cloistered in these living walls of jet.\nThough use make you apt to kill me,\nLet not to that, self-murder added be,\nAnd sacrilege, three sins in killing three.\n\nCruel and sudden, hast thou since\nPurpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?\nWherein could this flea guilty be,\nExcept in that drop which it sucked from thee?\nYet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou\nFind’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;\n’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:\nJust so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,\nWill waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1590, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -30243,10 +31221,10 @@ "title": "“Hymn to God, My God, in my Sickness”", "body": "Since I am coming to that holy room,\nWhere, with thy choir of saints for evermore,\nI shall be made thy music; as I come\nI tune the instrument here at the door,\nAnd what I must do then, think here before.\n\nWhilst my physicians by their love are grown\nCosmographers, and I their map, who lie\nFlat on this bed, that by them may be shown\nThat this is my south-west discovery,\nPer fretum febris, by these straits to die,\n\nI joy, that in these straits I see my west;\nFor, though their currents yield return to none,\nWhat shall my west hurt me? As west and east\nIn all flat maps (and I am one) are one,\nSo death doth touch the resurrection.\n\nIs the Pacific Sea my home? Or are\nThe eastern riches? Is Jerusalem?\nAnyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar,\nAll straits, and none but straits, are ways to them,\nWhether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.\n\nWe think that Paradise and Calvary,\nChrist’s cross, and Adam’s tree, stood in one place;\nLook, Lord, and find both Adams met in me;\nAs the first Adam’s sweat surrounds my face,\nMay the last Adam’s blood my soul embrace.\n\nSo, in his purple wrapp’d, receive me, Lord;\nBy these his thorns, give me his other crown;\nAnd as to others’ souls I preach’d thy word,\nBe this my text, my sermon to mine own:\n“Therefore that he may raise, the Lord throws down.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1620 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -30370,10 +31348,10 @@ "title": "“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”", "body": "As virtuous men pass mildly away,\nAnd whisper to their souls, to go,\nWhilst some of their sad friends do say,\n“The breath goes now,” and some say, “No”:\n\nSo let us melt, and make no noise,\nNo tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;\n’Twere profanation of our joys\nTo tell the laity our love.\n\nMoving of th’ earth brings harms and fears;\nMen reckon what it did, and meant;\nBut trepidation of the spheres,\nThough greater far, is innocent.\n\nDull sublunary lovers’ love\n(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit\nAbsence, because it doth remove\nThose things which elemented it.\n\nBut we by a love so much refin’d,\nThat ourselves know not what it is,\nInter-assured of the mind,\nCare less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.\n\nOur two souls therefore, which are one,\nThough I must go, endure not yet\nA breach, but an expansion,\nLike gold to airy thinness beat.\n\nIf they be two, they are two so\nAs stiff twin compasses are two;\nThy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show\nTo move, but doth, if the’ other do.\n\nAnd though it in the centre sit,\nYet when the other far doth roam,\nIt leans, and hearkens after it,\nAnd grows erect, as that comes home.\n\nSuch wilt thou be to me, who must\nLike th’ other foot, obliquely run;\nThy firmness makes my circle just,\nAnd makes me end, where I begun.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1611 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -30664,14 +31642,14 @@ "title": "“A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”", "body": "From harmony, from Heav’nly harmony\nThis universal frame began.\nWhen Nature underneath a heap\nOf jarring atoms lay,\nAnd could not heave her head,\nThe tuneful voice was heard from high,\nArise ye more than dead.\nThen cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,\nIn order to their stations leap,\nAnd music’s pow’r obey.\nFrom harmony, from Heav’nly harmony\nThis universal frame began:\nFrom harmony to harmony\nThrough all the compass of the notes it ran,\nThe diapason closing full in man.\n\nWhat passion cannot music raise and quell!\nWhen Jubal struck the corded shell,\nHis list’ning brethren stood around\nAnd wond’ring, on their faces fell\nTo worship that celestial sound:\nLess than a god they thought there could not dwell\nWithin the hollow of that shell\nThat spoke so sweetly and so well.\nWhat passion cannot music raise and quell!\n\nThe trumpet’s loud clangor\nExcites us to arms\nWith shrill notes of anger\nAnd mortal alarms.\nThe double double double beat\nOf the thund’ring drum\nCries, hark the foes come;\nCharge, charge, ’tis too late to retreat.\n\nThe soft complaining flute\nIn dying notes discovers\nThe woes of hopeless lovers,\nWhose dirge is whisper’d by the warbling lute.\n\nSharp violins proclaim\nTheir jealous pangs, and desperation,\nFury, frantic indignation,\nDepth of pains and height of passion,\nFor the fair, disdainful dame.\n\nBut oh! what art can teach\nWhat human voice can reach\nThe sacred organ’s praise?\nNotes inspiring holy love,\nNotes that wing their Heav’nly ways\nTo mend the choirs above.\n\nOrpheus could lead the savage race;\nAnd trees unrooted left their place;\nSequacious of the lyre:\nBut bright Cecilia rais’d the wonder high’r;\nWhen to her organ, vocal breath was giv’n,\nAn angel heard, and straight appear’d\nMistaking earth for Heav’n.\n\nAs from the pow’r of sacred lays\nThe spheres began to move,\nAnd sung the great Creator’s praise\nTo all the bless’d above;\nSo when the last and dreadful hour\nThis crumbling pageant shall devour,\nThe trumpet shall be heard on high,\nThe dead shall live, the living die,\nAnd music shall untune the sky.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1679 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Troilus and Cressida", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1679 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november", @@ -30691,10 +31669,10 @@ "title": "“Veni, Creator Spiritus”", "body": "Creator Spirit, by whose aid\nThe world’s foundations first were laid,\nCome, visit ev’ry pious mind;\nCome, pour thy joys on human kind;\nFrom sin, and sorrow set us free;\nAnd make thy temples worthy Thee.\n\nO, Source of uncreated Light,\nThe Father’s promis’d Paraclete!\nThrice Holy Fount, thrice Holy Fire,\nOur hearts with heav’nly love inspire;\nCome, and thy Sacred Unction bring\nTo sanctify us, while we sing!\n\nPlenteous of grace, descend from high,\nRich in thy sev’n-fold energy!\nThou strength of his Almighty Hand,\nWhose pow’r does heav’n and earth command:\nProceeding Spirit, our Defence,\nWho do’st the gift of tongues dispence,\nAnd crown’st thy gift with eloquence!\n\nRefine and purge our earthly parts;\nBut, oh, inflame and fire our hearts!\nOur frailties help, our vice control;\nSubmit the senses to the soul;\nAnd when rebellious they are grown,\nThen, lay thy hand, and hold ’em down.\n\nChase from our minds th’ Infernal Foe;\nAnd peace, the fruit of love, bestow;\nAnd, lest our feet should step astray,\nProtect, and guide us in the way.\n\nMake us Eternal Truths receive,\nAnd practise, all that we believe:\nGive us thy self, that we may see\nThe Father and the Son, by thee.\n\nImmortal honour, endless fame,\nAttend th’ Almighty Father’s name:\nThe Saviour Son be glorified,\nWho for lost Man’s redemption died:\nAnd equal adoration be,\nEternal Paraclete, to thee.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1690 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "pentecost" @@ -32728,7 +33706,6 @@ "title": "“Euphoria”", "body": "You sit in the garden alone with your notebook, a sandwich, flask, and pipe.\nIt is night but so calm that the candle burns without flickeing,\nspreads its glow over the table of rough planks\nand gleams in bottle and glass.\n\nYou take a sip, a bite, and fill and light your pipe.\nYou write a line or two and give yourself pause and ponder\nthe thin streak of evening red slowly passing to the red of morning,\nthe sea of wild chervil, green-white foaming in the darkness of summer night,\nnot one moth around the candle but choirs of gnats in the oak,\nleaves so stillagaint the sky 
 And the aspen rustles in the stillness:\nAll nature strong with love and death around you.\n\nAs if were the last evening before a long, long journey:\nYou have the ticket in your pocket and finally everything is packed.\nAnd you can sit and sense the nearness of the distant land,\nsense how all is in all, both its end and its beginning,\nsense that here and mow is both your departure and retur\nsense how death and life are as strong as wine inside you!\n\nYes, to be one with the night, one with myself, with the candle’s flame\nwhich looks me in the eye still, unfathomable and still,\none with the aspen that trembles and whispers,\none with the crowds of flowers leaning out of darkness to listen\nto something I had on my tongue to say but never got said,\nsomething I don’t want to reveal even if I could.\nAnd that it murmurs inside me of purest happiness!\nAnd the flame rises 
 It is as though the flowers crowded nearer,\nnearer and nearer the light in a rainbow of shimmering points.\nThe aspen trembles and plays, the evening red passes\nand all that was inexpressible and distant is inexpressible and near\n\n\nI sing of the only thing that reconciles,\nonly of what is practical, for all alike.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Leonard Nathan & James Larson", "language": "Swedish", "source": { "title": "Ferryman’s Song", @@ -32737,6 +33714,10 @@ "year": 1941 } }, + "translators": [ + "Leonard Nathan", + "James Larson" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -32747,7 +33728,6 @@ "title": "“The flowers doze in the window 
”", "body": "The flowers doze in the window and the lamp gazes / light\nthe window gazes with thoughtless eyes out into the / dark\npaintings exhibit without soul the thought confided / to then\nand houseflies stand still on the walls and think\n\nthe flowers lean into the night and the lamp weaves / light\nthe cat in the corner weaves woolen yarn to sleep with\non the stove the coffeepot snores now and then with / pleasure\nthe children play quietly on the floor with words\n\nthe table set with white cloth is waiting for someone\nwhose feet never will come up the stairs\n\na train-whistle tunneling through the silence in the / distance\ndoes not find out what the secret of things is\nbut fate counts the strokes of the pendulum by / decimals", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Swedish", "source": { "title": "Late Arrival on Earth", @@ -32756,6 +33736,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -32763,8 +33746,10 @@ "title": "“The Shadow”", "body": "Five times I saw the Shadow\nAnd greeted her as we passed,\nBut the sixth time\nIn a narrow alley of the lower city\nSuddenly she stood before me\nBarring my way\nAnd began to revile me\nIn the coarsest language\nThen she asked:\n“Why have you rejected me?\nWhy have you not lain with your Shadow?\nAm I so repulsive?”\nTo which I answered:\n“How can a man lie with his Shadow?\nIt is customary\nTo let it walk two paces behind him\nUntil the evening.”\nShe smiled scornfully\nAnd pulled her black shawl tighter about her face:\n“And after sunset?”\n“Then a wanderer has two shadows,\nOne from the lantern he has just left behind him\nAnd one from the lantern he is just approaching:\nThey keep changing places.”\nShe smiled scornfully and laid her hand on the neighboring wall:\n“Then I am not your Shadow?”\nI said: “I do not know whose shadow you are”\nAnd meant to walk on\nBut, lifting her hand, she showed its black impression\nIn the moonlight on the white wall\nAnd said again:\n“Then I am not your Shadow?”\nTo which I answered:\n“I see who you are.\nIt is for you to take me\nNot for me to take you”\nShe smiled scornfully. “Beloved,” she said\n“At your place? Or at mine?”\n“At yours,” I answered.", "metadata": { - "translator": "W. H. Auden", "language": "Swedish", + "translators": [ + "W. H. Auden" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -32944,10 +33929,10 @@ "title": "“Animula”", "body": "‘Issues from the hand of God, the simple soul’\nTo a flat world of changing lights and noise,\nTo light, dark, dry or damp, chilly or warm;\nMoving between the legs of tables and of chairs,\nRising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys,\nAdvancing boldly, sudden to take alarm,\nRetreating to the corner of arm and knee,\nEager to be reassured, taking pleasure\nIn the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree,\nPleasure in the wind, the sunlight and the sea;\nStudies the sunlit pattern on the floor\nAnd running stags around a silver tray;\nConfounds the actual and the fanciful,\nContent with playing-cards and kings and queens,\nWhat the fairies do and what the servants say.\nThe heavy burden of the growing soul\nPerplexes and offends more, day by day;\nWeek by week, offends and perplexes more\nWith the imperatives of ‘is and seems’\nAnd may and may not, desire and control.\nThe pain of living and the drug of dreams\nCurl up the small soul in the window seat\nBehind the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.\nIssues from the hand of time the simple soul\nIrresolute and selfish, misshapen, lame,\nUnable to fare forward or retreat,\nFearing the warm reality, the offered good,\nDenying the importunity of the blood,\nShadow of its own shadows, spectre in its own gloom,\nLeaving disordered papers in a dusty room;\nLiving first in the silence after the viaticum.\n\nPray for Guiterriez, avid of speed and power,\nFor Boudin, blown to pieces,\nFor this one who made a great fortune,\nAnd that one who went his own way.\nPray for Floret, by the boarhound slain between the yew trees,\nPray for us now and at the hour of our birth.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1929 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -32961,10 +33946,10 @@ "tags": [ "favorite" ], + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1930 }, - "language": "English", "context": { "holiday": "ash_wednesday" } @@ -32982,10 +33967,10 @@ "title": "“Before Morning”", "body": "While all the East was weaving red with gray,\nThe flowers at the window turned toward dawn,\nPetal on petal, waiting for the day,\nFresh flowers, withered flowers, flowers of dawn.\n\nThis morning’s flowers and flowers of yesterday\nTheir fragrance drifts across the room at dawn,\nFragrance of bloom and fragrance of decay,\nFresh flowers, withered flowers, flowers of dawn.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1908 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -32996,10 +33981,10 @@ "title": "“The Boston Evening Transcript”", "body": "The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript\nSway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.\nWhen evening quickens faintly in the street,\nWakening the appetites of life in some\nAnd to others bringing the Boston Evening Transcript,\nI mount the steps and ring the bell, turning\nWearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld,\nIf the street were time and he at the end of the street,\nAnd I say, “Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston Evening Transcript.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33007,10 +33992,10 @@ "title": "“Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar”", "body": "_Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire--nil nisi divinum stabile\nest; caetera fumus--the gondola stopped, the old\npalace was there, how charming its grey and pink--\ngoats and monkeys, with such hair too!--so the\ncountess passed on until she came through the\nlittle park, where Niobe presented her with a\ncabinet, and so departed._\n\n\nBurbank crossed a little bridge\nDescending at a small hotel;\nPrincess Volupine arrived,\nThey were together, and he fell.\n\nDefunctive music under sea\nPassed seaward with the passing bell\nSlowly: the God Hercules\nHad left him, that had loved him well.\n\nThe horses, under the axletree\nBeat up the dawn from Istria\nWith even feet. Her shuttered barge\nBurned on the water all the day.\n\nBut this or such was Bleistein’s way:\nA saggy bending of the knees\nAnd elbows, with the palms turned out,\nChicago Semite Viennese.\n\nA lustreless protrusive eye\nStares from the protozoic slime\nAt a perspective of Canaletto.\nThe smoky candle end of time\n\nDeclines. On the Rialto once.\nThe rats are underneath the piles.\nThe jew is underneath the lot.\nMoney in furs. The boatman smiles,\n\nPrincess Volupine extends\nA meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand\nTo climb the waterstair. Lights, lights,\nShe entertains Sir Ferdinand\n\nKlein. Who clipped the lion’s wings\nAnd flea’d his rump and pared his claws?\nThought Burbank, meditating on\nTime’s ruins, and the seven laws.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33018,10 +34003,10 @@ "title": "“Burnt Norton”", "body": "Time present and time past\nAre both perhaps present in time future,\nAnd time future contained in time past.\nIf all time is eternally present\nAll time is unredeemable.\nWhat might have been is an abstraction\nRemaining a perpetual possibility\nOnly in a world of speculation.\nWhat might have been and what has been\nPoint to one end, which is always present.\nFootfalls echo in the memory\nDown the passage which we did not take\nTowards the door we never opened\nInto the rose-garden. My words echo\nThus, in your mind.\nBut to what purpose\nDisturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves\nI do not know.\nOther echoes\nInhabit the garden. Shall we follow?\nQuick, said the bird, find them, find them,\nRound the corner. Through the first gate,\nInto our first world, shall we follow\nThe deception of the thrush? Into our first world.\nThere they were, dignified, invisible,\nMoving without pressure, over the dead leaves,\nIn the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,\nAnd the bird called, in response to\nThe unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,\nAnd the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses\nHad the look of flowers that are looked at.\nThere they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.\nSo we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,\nAlong the empty alley, into the box circle,\nTo look down into the drained pool.\nDry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,\nAnd the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,\nAnd the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,\nThe surface glittered out of heart of light,\nAnd they were behind us, reflected in the pool.\nThen a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.\nGo, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,\nHidden excitedly, containing laughter.\nGo, go, go, said the bird: human kind\nCannot bear very much reality.\nTime past and time future\nWhat might have been and what has been\nPoint to one end, which is always present.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1945 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -33035,20 +34020,20 @@ "tags": [ "favorite" ], + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 - }, - "language": "English" + } } }, "circes-palace": { "title": "“Circe’s Palace”", "body": "Around her fountain which flows\nWith the voice of men in pain,\nAre flowers that no man knows.\nTheir petals are fanged and red\nWith hideous streak and stain.\nThey sprang from the limbs of the dead.--\nWe shall not come here again.\n\nPanthers rise from their lairs\nIn the forest which thickens below,\nAlong the garden stairs\nThe sluggish python lies;\nThe peacock’s walk, stately and slow\nAnd they look at us with the eyes\nOf men whom we knew long ago.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1908 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33056,10 +34041,10 @@ "title": "“Conversation Galante”", "body": "I observe: “Our sentimental friend the moon!\nOr possibly (fantastic, I confess)\nIt may be Prester John’s balloon\nOr an old battered lantern hung aloft\nTo light poor travellers to their distress.”\nShe then: “How you digress!”\n\nAnd I then: “Some one frames upon the keys\nThat exquisite nocturne, with which we explain\nThe night and moonshine; music which we seize\nTo body forth our vacuity.”\nShe then: “Does this refer to me?”\n“Oh no, it is I who am inane.”\n\n“You, madam, are the eternal humorist,\nThe eternal enemy of the absolute,\nGiving our vagrant moods the slightest twist!\nWith your air indifferent and imperious\nAt a stroke our mad poetics to confute--”\nAnd--“Are we then so serious?”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33067,10 +34052,10 @@ "title": "“A Cooking Egg”", "body": "_En l’an trentiesme de mon aage\nQue toutes mes hontes j’ay beues 
_\n\n\nPipit sate upright in her chair\n Some distance from where I was sitting;\nViews of the Oxford Colleges\n Lay on the table, with the knitting.\n\nDaguerreotypes and silhouettes,\n Her grandfather and great great aunts,\nSupported on the mantelpiece\n An Invitation to the Dance.\n\n\nI shall not want Honour in Heaven\n For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney\nAnd have talk with Coriolanus\n And other heroes of that kidney.\n\nI shall not want Capital in Heaven\n For I shall meet Sir Alfred Mond:\nWe two shall lie together, lapt\n In a five per cent Exchequer Bond.\n\nI shall not want Society in Heaven,\n Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride;\nHer anecdotes will be more amusing\n Than Pipit’s experience could provide.\n\nI shall not want Pipit in Heaven:\n Madame Blavatsky will instruct me\nIn the Seven Sacred Trances;\n Piccarda de Donati will conduct me.\n\n\nBut where is the penny world I bought\n To eat with Pipit behind the screen?\nThe red-eyed scavengers are creeping\n From Kentish Town and Golder’s Green;\n\nWhere are the eagles and the trumpets?\n\n Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps.\nOver buttered scones and crumpets\n Weeping, weeping multitudes\nDroop in a hundred A.B.C.’s", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -33081,10 +34066,10 @@ "title": "“Cousin Nancy”", "body": "Miss Nancy Ellicott Strode across the hills and broke them,\nRode across the hills and broke them--\nThe barren New England hills--\nRiding to hounds\nOver the cow-pasture.\n\nMiss Nancy Ellicott smoked\nAnd danced all the modern dances;\nAnd her aunts were not quite sure how they felt about it,\nBut they knew that it was modern.\n\nUpon the glazen shelves kept watch\nMatthew and Waldo, guardians of the faith,\nThe army of unalterable law.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -33095,10 +34080,10 @@ "title": "“The Cultivation of Christmas Trees”", "body": "There are several attitudes towards Christmas,\nSome of which we may disregard:\nThe social, the torpid, the patently commercial,\nThe rowdy (the pubs being open till midnight),\nAnd the childish--which is not that of the child\nFor whom the candle is a star, and the gilded angel\nSpreading its wings at the summit of the tree\nIs not only a decoration, but an angel.\n\nThe child wonders at the Christmas Tree:\nLet him continue in the spirit of wonder\nAt the Feast as an event not accepted as a pretext;\nSo that the glittering rapture, the amazement\nOf the first-remembered Christmas Tree,\nSo that the surprises, delight in new possessions\n(Each one with its peculiar and exciting smell),\nThe expectation of the goose or turkey\nAnd the expected awe on its appearance,\n\nSo that the reverence and the gaiety\nMay not be forgotten in later experience,\nIn the bored habituation, the fatigue, the tedium,\nThe awareness of death, the consciousness of failure,\nOr in the piety of the convert\nWhich may be tainted with a self-conceit\nDispleasing to God and disrespectful to children\n(And here I remember also with gratitude\nSt.Lucy, her carol, and her crown of fire):\n\nSo that before the end, the eightieth Christmas\n(By “eightieth” meaning whichever is last)\nThe accumulated memories of annual emotion\nMay be concentrated into a great joy\nWhich shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion\nWhen fear came upon every soul:\nBecause the beginning shall remind us of the end\nAnd the first coming of the second coming.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1954 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "christmastide" @@ -33109,10 +34094,10 @@ "title": "“The Death of Saint Narcissus”", "body": "Come under the shadow of this gray rock--\nCome in under the shadow of this gray rock,\nAnd I will show you something different from either\nYour shadow sprawling over the sand at daybreak, or\nYour shadow leaping behind the fire against the red rock:\nI will show you his bloody cloth and limbs\nAnd the gray shadow on his lips.\n\nHe walked once between the sea and the high cliffs\nWhen the wind made him aware of his limbs smoothly passing each other\nAnd of his arms crossed over his breast.\nWhen he walked over the meadows\nHe was stifled and soothed by his own rhythm.\nBy the river\nHis eyes were aware of the pointed corners of his eyes\nAnd his hands aware of the pointed tips of his fingers.\n\nStruck down by such knowledge\nHe could not live men’s ways, but became a dancer before God.\nIf he walked in city streets\nHe seemed to tread on faces, convulsive thighs and knees.\nSo he came out under the rock.\n\nFirst he was sure that he had been a tree,\nTwisting its branches among each other\nAnd tangling its roots among each other.\n\nThen he knew that he had been a fish\nWith slippery white belly held tight in his own fingers,\nWrithing in his own clutch, his ancient beauty\nCaught fast in the pink tips of his new beauty.\n\nThen he had been a young girl\nCaught in the woods by a drunken old man\nKnowing at the end the taste of his own whiteness,\nThe horror of his own smoothness,\nAnd he felt drunken and old.\n\nSo he became a dancer to God,\nBecause his flesh was in love with the burning arrows\nHe danced on the hot sand\nUntil the arrows came.\nAs he embraced them his white skin surrendered itself to the redness of blood, and satisfied him.\nNow he is green, dry and stained\nWith the shadow in his mouth.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33128,10 +34113,10 @@ "title": "“The Difficulties of a Statesman from Coriolan”", "body": "Cry what shall I cry?\nAll flesh is grass: comprehending\nThe Companions of the Bath, the Knights of the British Empire, the Cavaliers,\nO Cavaliers! of the Legion of Honour,\nThe Order of the Black Eagle (1st and 2nd class),\nAnd the Order of the Rising Sun.\nCry cry what shall I cry?\nThe first thing to do is to form the committees:\nThe consultative councils, the standing committees committees and sub-committees\nOne secretary will do for several committees.\nWhat shall I cry?\n\nArthur Edward Cyril Parker is appointed telephone operator\nAt a salary of one pound ten a week rising by annual increments of fiveshillings\nTo two pounds ten a week; with a bonus of thirty shillings at Christmas\nAnd one week’s leave a year.\nA committee has been appointed to nominate a commission of engineers\nTo consider the Water Supply.\nA commission is appointed\nFor Public Works, chiefly the question of rebuilding the fortifications.\nA commission is appointed\nTo confer with a Volscian commission\nAbout perpetual peace: the fletchers and javelin-makers and smiths\nHave appointed a joint committee to protest against the reduction of orders.\nMeanwhile the guards shake dice on the marches\nAnd the frogs (O Mantuan) croak in the marshes.\nFireflies flare against the faint sheet lightning\nWhat shall I cry?\nMother mother\nHere is the row of family portraits, dingy busts, all looking remarkably Roman,\nRemarkably like each other, lit up successively by the flare\nOf a sweaty torchbearer, yawning.\n\nO hidden under the 
 Hidden under the 
 Where the dove’s foot rested and locked for a moment,\nA still moment, repose of noon, set under the upper branches of noon’s widest tree\nUnder the breast feather stirred by the small wind after noon\nThere the cyclamen spreads its wings, there the clematis droops over the lintel,\nO mother (not among these busts, all correctly inscribed)\nI a tired head among these heads\nNecks strong to bear them\nNoses strong to break the wind\nMother\nMay we not be some time, almost now, together,\nIf the mactations, immolations, oblations, impetrations,\nAre now observed\nMay we not be\nO hidden\nHidden in the stillness of noon, in the silent croaking night.\nCome with the sweep of the little bat’s wing, with the small flare of thefirefly or lightning bug,\n‘Rising and falling, crowned with dust’, the small creatures,\nThe small creatures chirp thinly through the dust, through the night.\nO mother\nWhat shall I cry?\nWe demand a committee, a representative committee, a committee of investigation\nRESIGN RESIGN RESIGN", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1931 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33139,10 +34124,10 @@ "title": "“The Dry Savages”", "body": "# I.\n\nI do not know much about gods; but I think that the river\nIs a strong brown god--sullen, untamed and intractable,\nPatient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;\nUseful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;\nThen only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.\nThe problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten\nBy the dwellers in cities--ever, however, implacable.\nKeeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder\nOf what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unpropitiated\nBy worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting.\nHis rhythm was present in the nursery bedroom,\nIn the rank ailanthus of the April dooryard,\nIn the smell of grapes on the autumn table,\nAnd the evening circle in the winter gaslight.\n\nThe river is within us, the sea is all about us;\nThe sea is the land’s edge also, the granite\nInto which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses\nIts hints of earlier and other creation:\nThe starfish, the horseshoe crab, the whale’s backbone;\nThe pools where it offers to our curiosity\nThe more delicate algae and the sea anemone.\nIt tosses up our losses, the torn seine,\nThe shattered lobsterpot, the broken oar\nAnd the gear of foreign dead men. The sea has many voices,\nMany gods and many voices.\n The salt is on the briar rose,\nThe fog is in the fir trees.\n The sea howl\nAnd the sea yelp, are different voices\nOften together heard: the whine in the rigging,\nThe menace and caress of wave that breaks on water,\nThe distant rote in the granite teeth,\nAnd the wailing warning from the approaching headland\nAre all sea voices, and the heaving groaner\nRounded homewards, and the seagull:\nAnd under the oppression of the silent fog\nThe tolling bell\nMeasures time not our time, rung by the unhurried\nGround swell, a time\nOlder than the time of chronometers, older\nThan time counted by anxious worried women\nLying awake, calculating the future,\nTrying to unweave, unwind, unravel\nAnd piece together the past and the future,\nBetween midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,\nThe future futureless, before the morning watch\nWhen time stops and time is never ending;\nAnd the ground swell, that is and was from the beginning,\nClangs\nThe bell.\n\n\n# II.\n\nWhere is there an end of it, the soundless wailing,\nThe silent withering of autumn flowers\nDropping their petals and remaining motionless;\nWhere is there and end to the drifting wreckage,\nThe prayer of the bone on the beach, the unprayable\nPrayer at the calamitous annunciation?\n\n There is no end, but addition: the trailing\nConsequence of further days and hours,\nWhile emotion takes to itself the emotionless\nYears of living among the breakage\nOf what was believed in as the most reliable--\nAnd therefore the fittest for renunciation.\n\n There is the final addition, the failing\nPride or resentment at failing powers,\nThe unattached devotion which might pass for devotionless,\nIn a drifting boat with a slow leakage,\nThe silent listening to the undeniable\nClamour of the bell of the last annunciation.\n\n Where is the end of them, the fishermen sailing\nInto the wind’s tail, where the fog cowers?\nWe cannot think of a time that is oceanless\nOr of an ocean not littered with wastage\nOr of a future that is not liable\nLike the past, to have no destination.\n\n We have to think of them as forever bailing,\nSetting and hauling, while the North East lowers\nOver shallow banks unchanging and erosionless\nOr drawing their money, drying sails at dockage;\nNot as making a trip that will be unpayable\nFor a haul that will not bear examination.\n\n There is no end of it, the voiceless wailing,\nNo end to the withering of withered flowers,\nTo the movement of pain that is painless and motionless,\nTo the drift of the sea and the drifting wreckage,\nThe bone’s prayer to Death its God. Only the hardly, barely prayable\nPrayer of the one Annunciation.\n\n It seems, as one becomes older,\nThat the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence--\nOr even development: the latter a partial fallacy\nEncouraged by superficial notions of evolution,\nWhich becomes, in the popular mind, a means of disowning the past.\nThe moments of happiness--not the sense of well--being,\nFruition, fulfilment, security or affection,\nOr even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination--\nWe had the experience but missed the meaning,\nAnd approach to the meaning restores the experience\nIn a different form, beyond any meaning\nWe can assign to happiness. I have said before\nThat the past experience revived in the meaning\nIs not the experience of one life only\nBut of many generations--not forgetting\nSomething that is probably quite ineffable:\nThe backward look behind the assurance\nOf recorded history, the backward half-look\nOver the shoulder, towards the primitive terror.\nNow, we come to discover that the moments of agony\n(Whether, or not, due to misunderstanding,\nHaving hoped for the wrong things or dreaded the wrong things,\nIs not in question) are likewise permanent\nWith such permanence as time has. We appreciate this better\nIn the agony of others, nearly experienced,\nInvolving ourselves, than in our own.\nFor our own past is covered by the currents of action,\nBut the torment of others remains an experience\nUnqualified, unworn by subsequent attrition.\nPeople change, and smile: but the agony abides.\nTime the destroyer is time the preserver,\nLike the river with its cargo of dead negroes, cows and chicken coops,\nThe bitter apple, and the bite in the apple.\nAnd the ragged rock in the restless waters,\nWaves wash over it, fogs conceal it;\nOn a halcyon day it is merely a monument,\nIn navigable weather it is always a seamark\nTo lay a course by: but in the sombre season\nOr the sudden fury, is what it always was.\n\n\n# III.\n\nI sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant--\nAmong other things--or one way of putting the same thing:\nThat the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray\nOf wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret,\nPressed between yellow leaves of a book that has never been opened.\nAnd the way up is the way down, the way forward is the way back.\nYou cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure,\nThat time is no healer: the patient is no longer here.\nWhen the train starts, and the passengers are settled\nTo fruit, periodicals and business letters\n(And those who saw them off have left the platform)\nTheir faces relax from grief into relief,\nTo the sleepy rhythm of a hundred hours.\nFare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past\nInto different lives, or into any future;\nYou are not the same people who left that station\nOr who will arrive at any terminus,\nWhile the narrowing rails slide together behind you;\nAnd on the deck of the drumming liner\nWatching the furrow that widens behind you,\nYou shall not think ‘the past is finished’\nOr ‘the future is before us’.\nAt nightfall, in the rigging and the aerial,\nIs a voice descanting (though not to the ear,\nThe murmuring shell of time, and not in any language)\n‘Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;\nYou are not those who saw the harbour\nReceding, or those who will disembark.\nHere between the hither and the farther shore\nWhile time is withdrawn, consider the future\nAnd the past with an equal mind.\nAt the moment which is not of action or inaction\nYou can receive this: “on whatever sphere of being\nThe mind of a man may be intent\nAt the time of death”--that is the one action\n(And the time of death is every moment)\nWhich shall fructify in the lives of others:\nAnd do not think of the fruit of action.\nFare forward.\n O voyagers, O seamen,\nYou who came to port, and you whose bodies\nWill suffer the trial and judgement of the sea,\nOr whatever event, this is your real destination.’\nSo Krishna, as when he admonished Arjuna\nOn the field of battle.\n Not fare well,\nBut fare forward, voyagers.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nLady, whose shrine stands on the promontory,\nPray for all those who are in ships, those\nWhose business has to do with fish, and\nThose concerned with every lawful traffic\nAnd those who conduct them.\n\n Repeat a prayer also on behalf of\nWomen who have seen their sons or husbands\nSetting forth, and not returning:\nFiglia del tuo figlio,\nQueen of Heaven.\n\n Also pray for those who were in ships, and\nEnded their voyage on the sand, in the sea’s lips\nOr in the dark throat which will not reject them\nOr wherever cannot reach them the sound of the sea bell’s\nPerpetual angelus.\n\n\n# V.\n\nTo communicate with Mars, converse with spirits,\nTo report the behaviour of the sea monster,\nDescribe the horoscope, haruspicate or scry,\nObserve disease in signatures, evoke\nBiography from the wrinkles of the palm\nAnd tragedy from fingers; release omens\nBy sortilege, or tea leaves, riddle the inevitable\nWith playing cards, fiddle with pentagrams\nOr barbituric acids, or dissect\nThe recurrent image into pre-conscious terrors--\nTo explore the womb, or tomb, or dreams; all these are usual\nPastimes and drugs, and features of the press:\nAnd always will be, some of them especially\nWhen there is distress of nations and perplexity\nWhether on the shores of Asia, or in the Edgware Road.\nMen’s curiosity searches past and future\nAnd clings to that dimension. But to apprehend\nThe point of intersection of the timeless\nWith time, is an occupation for the saint--\nNo occupation either, but something given\nAnd taken, in a lifetime’s death in love,\nArdour and selflessness and self-surrender.\nFor most of us, there is only the unattended\nMoment, the moment in and out of time,\nThe distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,\nThe wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning\nOr the waterfall, or music heard so deeply\nThat it is not heard at all, but you are the music\nWhile the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,\nHints followed by guesses; and the rest\nIs prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.\nThe hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.\nHere the impossible union\nOf spheres of existence is actual,\nHere the past and future\nAre conquered, and reconciled,\nWhere action were otherwise movement\nOf that which is only moved\nAnd has in it no source of movement--\nDriven by daemonic, chthonic\nPowers. And right action is freedom\nFrom past and future also.\nFor most of us, this is the aim\nNever here to be realised;\nWho are only undefeated\nBecause we have gone on trying;\nWe, content at the last\nIf our temporal reversion nourish\n(Not too far from the yew-tree)\nThe life of significant soil.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1945 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -33153,10 +34138,10 @@ "title": "“East Coker”", "body": "# I.\n\nIn my beginning is my end. In succession\nHouses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,\nAre removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place\nIs an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.\nOld stone to new building, old timber to new fires,\nOld fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth\nWhich is already flesh, fur and faeces,\nBone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.\nHouses live and die: there is a time for building\nAnd a time for living and for generation\nAnd a time for the wind to break the loosened pane\nAnd to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots\nAnd to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.\n\nIn my beginning is my end. Now the light falls\nAcross the open field, leaving the deep lane\nShuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon,\nWhere you lean against a bank while a van passes,\nAnd the deep lane insists on the direction\nInto the village, in the electric heat\nHypnotised. In a warm haze the sultry light\nIs absorbed, not refracted, by grey stone.\nThe dahlias sleep in the empty silence.\nWait for the early owl.\n\n In that open field\nIf you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,\nOn a summer midnight, you can hear the music\nOf the weak pipe and the little drum\nAnd see them dancing around the bonfire\nThe association of man and woman\nIn daunsinge, signifying matrimonie--\nA dignified and commodiois sacrament.\nTwo and two, necessarye coniunction,\nHolding eche other by the hand or the arm\nWhiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire\nLeaping through the flames, or joined in circles,\nRustically solemn or in rustic laughter\nLifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,\nEarth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth\nMirth of those long since under earth\nNourishing the corn. Keeping time,\nKeeping the rhythm in their dancing\nAs in their living in the living seasons\nThe time of the seasons and the constellations\nThe time of milking and the time of harvest\nThe time of the coupling of man and woman\nAnd that of beasts. Feet rising and falling.\nEating and drinking. Dung and death.\n\nDawn points, and another day\nPrepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind\nWrinkles and slides. I am here\nOr there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.\n\n\n# II.\n\nWhat is the late November doing\nWith the disturbance of the spring\nAnd creatures of the summer heat,\nAnd snowdrops writhing under feet\nAnd hollyhocks that aim too high\nRed into grey and tumble down\nLate roses filled with early snow?\nThunder rolled by the rolling stars\nSimulates triumphal cars\nDeployed in constellated wars\nScorpion fights against the Sun\nUntil the Sun and Moon go down\nComets weep and Leonids fly\nHunt the heavens and the plains\nWhirled in a vortex that shall bring\nThe world to that destructive fire\nWhich burns before the ice-cap reigns.\n\nThat was a way of putting it--not very satisfactory:\nA periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,\nLeaving one still with the intolerable wrestle\nWith words and meanings. The poetry does not matter.\nIt was not (to start again) what one had expected.\nWhat was to be the value of the long looked forward to,\nLong hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity\nAnd the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us\nOr deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,\nBequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?\nThe serenity only a deliberate hebetude,\nThe wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets\nUseless in the darkness into which they peered\nOr from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,\nAt best, only a limited value\nIn the knowledge derived from experience.\nThe knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,\nFor the pattern is new in every moment\nAnd every moment is a new and shocking\nValuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived\nOf that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.\nIn the middle, not only in the middle of the way\nBut all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,\nOn the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,\nAnd menaced by monsters, fancy lights,\nRisking enchantment. Do not let me hear\nOf the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,\nTheir fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,\nOf belonging to another, or to others, or to God.\nThe only wisdom we can hope to acquire\nIs the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.\n\nThe houses are all gone under the sea.\n\nThe dancers are all gone under the hill.\n\n\n# III.\n\nO dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,\nThe vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,\nThe captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,\nThe generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,\nDistinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,\nIndustrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark,\nAnd dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha\nAnd the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors,\nAnd cold the sense and lost the motive of action.\nAnd we all go with them, into the silent funeral,\nNobody’s funeral, for there is no one to bury.\nI said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you\nWhich shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,\nThe lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed\nWith a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,\nAnd we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama\nAnd the bold imposing façade are all being rolled away--\nOr as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations\nAnd the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence\nAnd you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen\nLeaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;\nOr when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing--\nI said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope\nFor hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,\nFor love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith\nBut the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.\nWait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:\nSo the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.\nWhisper of running streams, and winter lightning.\nThe wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,\nThe laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy\nNot lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony\nOf death and birth.\n\n You say I am repeating\nSomething I have said before. I shall say it again.\nShall I say it again? In order to arrive there,\nTo arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,\n You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.\nIn order to arrive at what you do not know\n You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.\nIn order to possess what you do not possess\n You must go by the way of dispossession.\nIn order to arrive at what you are not\n You must go through the way in which you are not.\nAnd what you do not know is the only thing you know\nAnd what you own is what you do not own\nAnd where you are is where you are not.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nThe wounded surgeon plies the steel\nThat questions the distempered part;\nBeneath the bleeding hands we feel\nThe sharp compassion of the healer’s art\nResolving the enigma of the fever chart.\n\nOur only health is the disease\nIf we obey the dying nurse\nWhose constant care is not to please\nBut to remind of our, and Adam’s curse,\nAnd that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.\n\nThe whole earth is our hospital\nEndowed by the ruined millionaire,\nWherein, if we do well, we shall\nDie of the absolute paternal care\nThat will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.\n\nThe chill ascends from feet to knees,\nThe fever sings in mental wires.\nIf to be warmed, then I must freeze\nAnd quake in frigid purgatorial fires\nOf which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.\n\nThe dripping blood our only drink,\nThe bloody flesh our only food:\nIn spite of which we like to think\nThat we are sound, substantial flesh and blood--\nAgain, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.\n\n\n# V.\n\nSo here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years--\nTwenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres\nTrying to use words, and every attempt\nIs a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure\nBecause one has only learnt to get the better of words\nFor the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which\nOne is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture\nIs a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate\nWith shabby equipment always deteriorating\nIn the general mess of imprecision of feeling,\nUndisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer\nBy strength and submission, has already been discovered\nOnce or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope\nTo emulate--but there is no competition--\nThere is only the fight to recover what has been lost\nAnd found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions\nThat seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.\nFor us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.\n\nHome is where one starts from. As we grow older\nThe world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated\nOf dead and living. Not the intense moment\nIsolated, with no before and after,\nBut a lifetime burning in every moment\nAnd not the lifetime of one man only\nBut of old stones that cannot be deciphered.\nThere is a time for the evening under starlight,\nA time for the evening under lamplight\n(The evening with the photograph album).\nLove is most nearly itself\nWhen here and now cease to matter.\nOld men ought to be explorers\nHere or there does not matter\nWe must be still and still moving\nInto another intensity\nFor a further union, a deeper communion\nThrough the dark cold and the empty desolation,\nThe wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters\nOf the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1945 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "good_friday" @@ -33183,10 +34168,10 @@ "title": "“Gerontion”", "body": "_Thou hast nor youth nor age\nBut as it were an after dinner sleep\nDreaming of both._\n\n\nHere I am an old man in a dry month\nBeing read to by a boy waiting for rain.\nI was neither at the hot gates\nNor fought in the warm rain\nNor knee deep in the salt marsh heaving a cutlass\nBitten by flies fought.\nMy house is a decayed house\nAnd the jew squats on the window sill the owner\nSpawned in some estaminet of Antwerp\nBlistered in Brussels patched and peeled in London.\nThe goat coughs at night in the field overhead;\nRocks moss stonecrop iron merds.\nThe woman keeps the kitchen makes tea\nSneezes at evening poking the peevish gutter.\n\n I an old man\nA dull head among windy spaces.\n\nSigns are taken for wonders. “We would see a sign”:\nThe word within a word unable to speak a word\nSwaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year\nCame Christ the tiger\n\nIn depraved May dogwood and chestnut flowering Judas\nTo be eaten to be divided to be drunk\nAmong whispers; by Mr. Silvero\nWith caressing hands at Limoges\nWho walked all night in the next room;\nBy Hakagawa bowing among the Titians;\nBy Madame de Tornquist in the dark room\nShifting the candles; Fraulein von Kulp\nWho turned in the hall one hand on the door. Vacant shuttles\nWeave the wind. I have no ghosts\nAn old man in a draughty house\nUnder a windy knob.\n\nAfter such knowledge what forgiveness? Think now\nHistory has many cunning passages contrived corridors\nAnd issues deceives with whispering ambitions\nGuides us by vanities. Think now\nShe gives when our attention is distracted\nAnd what she gives gives with such supple confusions\nThat the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late\nWhat’s not believed in or if still believed\nIn memory only reconsidered passion. Gives too soon\nInto weak hands what’s thought can be dispensed with\nTill the refusal propagates a fear. Think\nNeither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices\nAre fathered by our heroism. Virtues\nAre forced upon us by our impudent crimes.\nThese tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.\n\nThe tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last\nWe have not reached conclusion when I\nStiffen in a rented house. Think at last\nI have not made this show purposelessly\nAnd it is not by any concitation\nOf the backward devils.\nI would meet you upon this honestly.\nI that was near your heart was removed therefrom\nTo lose beauty in terror terror in inquisition.\nI have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it\nSince what is kept must be adulterated?\nI have lost my sight smell hearing taste and touch:\nHow should I use it for your closer contact?\n\nThese with a thousand small deliberations\nProtract the profit of their chilled delirium\nExcite the membrane when the sense has cooled\nWith pungent sauces multiply variety\nIn a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do\nSuspend its operations will the weevil\nDelay? De Bailhache Fresca Mrs. Cammel whirled\nBeyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear\nIn fractured atoms. Gull against the wind in the windy straits\nOf Belle Isle or running on the Horn\nWhite feathers in the snow the Gulf claims\nAnd an old man driven by the Trades\nTo a sleepy corner.\n\n Tenants of the house\nThoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33194,10 +34179,10 @@ "title": "“The Hippopotamus”", "body": "_Similiter et omnes revereantur Diaconos ut\nmandatum Jesu Christi; et Episcopum ut Jesum\nChristum existentem filium Patris; Presbyteros\nautem ut concilium Dei et conjunctionem\nApostolorum. Sine his Ecclesia non vocatur; de\nquibus suadeo vos sic habeo.\n\nS. IGNATII AD TRALLIANOS.\n\nAnd when this epistle is read among you cause\nthat it be read also in the church of the\nLaodiceans._\n\n\nThe broad-backed hippopotamus\nRests on his belly in the mud;\nAlthough he seems so firm to us\nHe is merely flesh and blood.\n\nFlesh-and-blood is weak and frail\nSusceptible to nervous shock;\nWhile the True Church can never fail\nFor it is based upon a rock.\n\nThe hippo’s feeble steps may err\nIn compassing material ends\nWhile the True Church need never stir\nTo gather in its dividends.\n\nThe ’potamus can never reach\nThe mango on the mango-tree;\nBut fruits of pomegranate and peach\nRefresh the Church from over sea.\n\nAt mating time the hippo’s voice\nBetrays inflexions hoarse and odd\nBut every week we hear rejoice\nThe Church at being one with God.\n\nThe hippopotamus’s day\nIs passed in sleep; at night he hunts;\nGod works in a mysterious way--\nThe Church can sleep and feed at once.\n\nI saw the ’potamus take wing\nAscending from the damp savannas\nAnd quiring angels round him sing\nThe praise of God in loud hosannas.\n\nBlood of the Lamb shall wash him clean\nAnd him shall heavenly arms enfold\nAmong the saints he shall be seen\nPerforming on a harp of gold.\n\nHe shall be washed as white as snow\nBy all the martyr’d virgins kiss\nWhile the True Church remains below\nWrapt in the old miasmal mist.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33208,20 +34193,20 @@ "tags": [ "favorite" ], + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1925 - }, - "language": "English" + } } }, "hysteria": { "title": "“Hysteria”", "body": "As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her\nlaughter and being part of it, until her teeth were\nonly accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. I\nwas drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at each momentary\nrecovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her\nthroat, bruised by the ripple of unseen muscles. An\nelderly waiter with trembling hands was hurriedly\nspreading a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty\ngreen iron table, saying: “If the lady and gentleman\nwish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and\ngentleman wish to take their tea in the garden 
” I\ndecided that if the shaking of her breasts could be\nstopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might\nbe collected, and I concentrated my attention with\ncareful subtlety to this end.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33229,10 +34214,10 @@ "title": "“If Time and Space, as sages say 
”", "body": "If Time and Space, as sages say,\nAre things which cannot be,\nThe sun which does not feel decay\nNo greater is then we.\nSo why, Love, should we ever pray\nto live a century?\nThe butterfly that lives a day\nHas lived eternity.\n\nThe flowers I gave thee when the dew\nWas trembling on the vine,\nWere withered ere the wild bee flew\nTo suck the eglentine.\nSo let us haste to pluck anew\nNor mourn to see them pine,\nAnd though our days of love be few\nYet let them be divine.\n\nIf Space and Time, as sages say,\nAre things which cannot be,\nThe fly that lives a single day\nHas lived as long as we.\nBut let us live while yet we may,\nWhile love and life are free,\nFor time is time, and runs away,\nThough sages disagree.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1907 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33240,10 +34225,10 @@ "title": "“The Journey of the Magi”", "body": "A cold coming we had of it,\nJust the worst time of the year\nFor a journey, and such a long journey:\nThe ways deep and the weather sharp,\nThe very dead of winter.\nAnd the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,\nLying down in the melting snow.\nThere were times we regretted\nThe summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,\nAnd the silken girls bringing sherbet.\nThen the camel men cursing and grumbling\nand running away, and wanting their liquor and women,\nAnd the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,\nAnd the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly\nAnd the villages dirty and charging high prices:\nA hard time we had of it.\nAt the end we preferred to travel all night,\nSleeping in snatches,\nWith the voices singing in our ears, saying\nThat this was all folly.\n\nThen at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,\nWet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;\nWith a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,\nAnd three trees on the low sky,\nAnd an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.\nThen we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,\nSix hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,\nAnd feet kicking the empty wine-skins.\nBut there was no information, and so we continued\nAnd arriving at evening, not a moment too soon\nFinding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.\n\nAll this was a long time ago, I remember,\nAnd I would do it again, but set down\nThis set down\nThis: were we led all that way for\nBirth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly\nWe had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,\nBut had thought they were different; this Birth was\nHard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.\nWe returned to our places, these Kingdoms,\nBut no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,\nWith an alien people clutching their gods.\nI should be glad of another death.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1927 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "epiphany" @@ -33254,10 +34239,10 @@ "title": "“La Figlia Che Piange”", "body": "_O quam te memorem Virgo 
_\n\nStand on the highest pavement of the stair--\nLean on a garden urn--\nWeave weave the sunlight in your hair--\nClasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise--\nFling them to the ground and turn\nWith a fugitive resentment in your eyes:\nBut weave weave the sunlight in your hair.\n\nSo I would have had him leave\nSo I would have had her stand and grieve\nSo he would have left\nAs the soul leaves the body torn and bruised\nAs the mind deserts the body it has used.\nI should find\nSome way incomparably light and deft\nSome way we both should understand\nSimple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.\n\nShe turned away but with the autumn weather\nCompelled my imagination many days\nMany days and many hours:\nHer hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.\nAnd I wonder how they should have been together!\nI should have lost a gesture and a pose.\nSometimes these cogitations still amaze\nThe troubled midnight and the noon’s repose.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -33268,10 +34253,10 @@ "title": "“Little Gidding”", "body": "# I.\n\nMidwinter spring is its own season\nSempiternal though sodden towards sundown,\nSuspended in time, between pole and tropic.\nWhen the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,\nThe brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,\nIn windless cold that is the heart’s heat,\nReflecting in a watery mirror\nA glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.\nAnd glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,\nStirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire\nIn the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing\nThe soul’s sap quivers. There is no earth smell\nOr smell of living thing. This is the spring time\nBut not in time’s covenant. Now the hedgerow\nIs blanched for an hour with transitory blossom\nOf snow, a bloom more sudden\nThan that of summer, neither budding nor fading,\nNot in the scheme of generation.\nWhere is the summer, the unimaginable\nZero summer?\n\n If you came this way,\nTaking the route you would be likely to take\nFrom the place you would be likely to come from,\nIf you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges\nWhite again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.\nIt would be the same at the end of the journey,\nIf you came at night like a broken king,\nIf you came by day not knowing what you came for,\nIt would be the same, when you leave the rough road\nAnd turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade\nAnd the tombstone. And what you thought you came for\nIs only a shell, a husk of meaning\nFrom which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled\nIf at all. Either you had no purpose\nOr the purpose is beyond the end you figured\nAnd is altered in fulfilment. There are other places\nWhich also are the world’s end, some at the sea jaws,\nOr over a dark lake, in a desert or a city--\nBut this is the nearest, in place and time,\nNow and in England.\n\n If you came this way,\nTaking any route, starting from anywhere,\nAt any time or at any season,\nIt would always be the same: you would have to put off\nSense and notion. You are not here to verify,\nInstruct yourself, or inform curiosity\nOr carry report. You are here to kneel\nWhere prayer has been valid. And prayer is more\nThan an order of words, the conscious occupation\nOf the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.\nAnd what the dead had no speech for, when living,\nThey can tell you, being dead: the communication\nOf the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.\nHere, the intersection of the timeless moment\nIs England and nowhere. Never and always.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAsh on and old man’s sleeve\nIs all the ash the burnt roses leave.\nDust in the air suspended\nMarks the place where a story ended.\nDust inbreathed was a house--\nThe walls, the wainscot and the mouse,\nThe death of hope and despair,\n This is the death of air.\n\nThere are flood and drouth\nOver the eyes and in the mouth,\nDead water and dead sand\nContending for the upper hand.\nThe parched eviscerate soil\nGapes at the vanity of toil,\nLaughs without mirth.\n This is the death of earth.\n\nWater and fire succeed\nThe town, the pasture and the weed.\nWater and fire deride\nThe sacrifice that we denied.\nWater and fire shall rot\nThe marred foundations we forgot,\nOf sanctuary and choir.\n This is the death of water and fire.\n\nIn the uncertain hour before the morning\n Near the ending of interminable night\n At the recurrent end of the unending\nAfter the dark dove with the flickering tongue\n Had passed below the horizon of his homing\n While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin\nOver the asphalt where no other sound was\n Between three districts whence the smoke arose\n I met one walking, loitering and hurried\nAs if blown towards me like the metal leaves\n Before the urban dawn wind unresisting.\n And as I fixed upon the down-turned face\nThat pointed scrutiny with which we challenge\n The first-met stranger in the waning dusk\n I caught the sudden look of some dead master\nWhom I had known, forgotten, half recalled\n Both one and many; in the brown baked features\n The eyes of a familiar compound ghost\nBoth intimate and unidentifiable.\n So I assumed a double part, and cried\n And heard another’s voice cry: ‘What! are you here?’\nAlthough we were not. I was still the same,\n Knowing myself yet being someone other--\n And he a face still forming; yet the words sufficed\nTo compel the recognition they preceded.\n And so, compliant to the common wind,\n Too strange to each other for misunderstanding,\nIn concord at this intersection time\n Of meeting nowhere, no before and after,\n We trod the pavement in a dead patrol.\nI said: ‘The wonder that I feel is easy,\n Yet ease is cause of wonder. Therefore speak:\n I may not comprehend, may not remember.’\nAnd he: ‘I am not eager to rehearse\n My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten.\n These things have served their purpose: let them be.\nSo with your own, and pray they be forgiven\n By others, as I pray you to forgive\n Both bad and good. Last season’s fruit is eaten\nAnd the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.\n For last year’s words belong to last year’s language\n And next year’s words await another voice.\nBut, as the passage now presents no hindrance\n To the spirit unappeased and peregrine\n Between two worlds become much like each other,\nSo I find words I never thought to speak\n In streets I never thought I should revisit\n When I left my body on a distant shore.\nSince our concern was speech, and speech impelled us\n To purify the dialect of the tribe\n And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight,\nLet me disclose the gifts reserved for age\n To set a crown upon your lifetime’s effort.\n First, the cold friction of expiring sense\nWithout enchantment, offering no promise\n But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit\n As body and soul begin to fall asunder.\nSecond, the conscious impotence of rage\n At human folly, and the laceration\n Of laughter at what ceases to amuse.\nAnd last, the rending pain of re-enactment\n Of all that you have done, and been; the shame\n Of motives late revealed, and the awareness\nOf things ill done and done to others’ harm\n Which once you took for exercise of virtue.\n Then fools’ approval stings, and honour stains.\nFrom wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit\n Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire\n Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.’\nThe day was breaking. In the disfigured street\n He left me, with a kind of valediction,\n And faded on the blowing of the horn.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThere are three conditions which often look alike\nYet differ completely, flourish in the same hedgerow:\nAttachment to self and to things and to persons, detachment\nFrom self and from things and from persons; and, growing between them, indifference\nWhich resembles the others as death resembles life,\nBeing between two lives--unflowering, between\nThe live and the dead nettle. This is the use of memory:\nFor liberation--not less of love but expanding\nOf love beyond desire, and so liberation\nFrom the future as well as the past. Thus, love of a country\nBegins as attachment to our own field of action\nAnd comes to find that action of little importance\nThough never indifferent. History may be servitude,\nHistory may be freedom. See, now they vanish,\nThe faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them,\nTo become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern.\n\nSin is Behovely, but\nAll shall be well, and\nAll manner of thing shall be well.\nIf I think, again, of this place,\nAnd of people, not wholly commendable,\nOf no immediate kin or kindness,\nBut of some peculiar genius,\nAll touched by a common genius,\nUnited in the strife which divided them;\nIf I think of a king at nightfall,\nOf three men, and more, on the scaffold\nAnd a few who died forgotten\nIn other places, here and abroad,\nAnd of one who died blind and quiet\nWhy should we celebrate\nThese dead men more than the dying?\nIt is not to ring the bell backward\nNor is it an incantation\nTo summon the spectre of a Rose.\nWe cannot revive old factions\nWe cannot restore old policies\nOr follow an antique drum.\nThese men, and those who opposed them\nAnd those whom they opposed\nAccept the constitution of silence\nAnd are folded in a single party.\nWhatever we inherit from the fortunate\nWe have taken from the defeated\nWhat they had to leave us--a symbol:\nA symbol perfected in death.\nAnd all shall be well and\nAll manner of thing shall be well\nBy the purification of the motive\nIn the ground of our beseeching.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nThe dove descending breaks the air\nWith flame of incandescent terror\nOf which the tongues declare\nThe one discharge from sin and error.\nThe only hope, or else despair\n Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre--\n To be redeemed from fire by fire.\n\nWho then devised the torment? Love.\nLove is the unfamiliar Name\nBehind the hands that wove\nThe intolerable shirt of flame\nWhich human power cannot remove.\n We only live, only suspire\n Consumed by either fire or fire.\n\n\n# V.\n\nWhat we call the beginning is often the end\nAnd to make and end is to make a beginning.\nThe end is where we start from. And every phrase\nAnd sentence that is right (where every word is at home,\nTaking its place to support the others,\nThe word neither diffident nor ostentatious,\nAn easy commerce of the old and the new,\nThe common word exact without vulgarity,\nThe formal word precise but not pedantic,\nThe complete consort dancing together)\nEvery phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,\nEvery poem an epitaph. And any action\nIs a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea’s throat\nOr to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.\nWe die with the dying:\nSee, they depart, and we go with them.\nWe are born with the dead:\nSee, they return, and bring us with them.\nThe moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree\nAre of equal duration. A people without history\nIs not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern\nOf timeless moments. So, while the light fails\nOn a winter’s afternoon, in a secluded chapel\nHistory is now and England.\n\nWith the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling\n\nWe shall not cease from exploration\nAnd the end of all our exploring\nWill be to arrive where we started\nAnd know the place for the first time.\nThrough the unknown, unremembered gate\nWhen the last of earth left to discover\nIs that which was the beginning;\nAt the source of the longest river\nThe voice of the hidden waterfall\nAnd the children in the apple-tree\nNot known, because not looked for\nBut heard, half-heard, in the stillness\nBetween two waves of the sea.\nQuick now, here, now, always--\nA condition of complete simplicity\n(Costing not less than everything)\nAnd all shall be well and\nAll manner of thing shall be well\nWhen the tongues of flame are in-folded\nInto the crowned knot of fire\nAnd the fire and the rose are one.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1945 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january" @@ -33285,15 +34270,15 @@ "tags": [ "favorite" ], - "time": { - "year": 1915, - "month": "june" - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Poetry", "type": "magazine" }, + "time": { + "year": 1915, + "month": "june" + }, "context": { "month": "june" } @@ -33303,10 +34288,10 @@ "title": "“Morning at the Window”", "body": "They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,\nAnd along the trampled edges of the street\nI am aware of the damp souls of housemaids\nSprouting despondently at area gates.\nThe brown waves of fog toss up to me\nTwisted faces from the bottom of the street,\nAnd tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts\nAn aimless smile that hovers in the air\nAnd vanishes along the level of the roofs.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33322,10 +34307,10 @@ "title": "“Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service”", "body": "Look look master here comes two religious\ncaterpillars.\n The Jew of Malta.\n\n\nPolyphiloprogenitive\nThe sapient sutlers of the Lord\nDrift across the window-panes.\nIn the beginning was the Word.\n\nIn the beginning was the Word.\nSuperfetation of Greek text inserted here\nAnd at the mensual turn of time\nProduced enervate Origen.\n\nA painter of the Umbrian school\nDesigned upon a gesso ground\nThe nimbus of the Baptized God.\nThe wilderness is cracked and browned\n\nBut through the water pale and thin\nStill shine the unoffending feet\nAnd there above the painter set\nThe Father and the Paraclete.\n\n\nThe sable presbyters approach\nThe avenue of penitence;\nThe young are red and pustular\nClutching piaculative pence.\n\nUnder the penitential gates\nSustained by staring Seraphim\nWhere the souls of the devout\nBurn invisible and dim.\n\nAlong the garden-wall the bees\nWith hairy bellies pass between\nThe staminate and pistilate\nBlest office of the epicene.\n\nSweeney shifts from ham to ham\nStirring the water in his bath.\nThe masters of the subtle schools\nAre controversial polymath.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "sunday" @@ -33336,10 +34321,10 @@ "title": "“The Naming of Cats”", "body": "The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,\n It isn’t just one of your holiday games;\nYou may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter\nWhen I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.\nFirst of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,\n Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo, or James,\nSuch as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey--\n All of them sensible everyday names.\nThere are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,\n Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:\nSuch as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter--\n But all of them sensible everyday names,\nBut I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,\n A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,\nElse how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,\n Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?\nOf names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,\n Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,\nSuch as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum--\n Names that never belong to more than one cat.\nBut above and beyond there’s still one name left over,\n And that is the name that you never will guess;\nThe name that no human research can discover--\n But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.\nWhen you notice a cat in profound meditation,\n The reason, I tell you, is always the same:\nHis mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation\n Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:\n His ineffable effable\n Effanineffable\nDeep and inscrutable singular name.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1939 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33347,10 +34332,10 @@ "title": "“Nocturne”", "body": "Romeo, _grand sĂ©rieux_, to importune\nGuitar and hat in hand, beside the gate\nWith Juliet, in the usual debate\nOf love, beneath a bored but courteous moon;\nThe conversation failing, strikes some tune\nBanal, and out of pity for their fate\nBehind the wall I have some servant wait,\nStab, and the lady sinks into a swoon.\n\nBlood looks effective on the moonlit ground--\nThe hero smiles; in my best mode oblique\nRolls toward the moon a frenzied eye profound,\n(No need of “Love forever?”--“Love next week?”)\nWhile female readers all in tears are drowned:--\n“The perfect climax all true lovers seek!”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1909 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33366,10 +34351,10 @@ "title": "“Portrait of a Lady”", "body": "_Thou hast committed--\nFornication: but that was in another country\nAnd besides the wench is dead.\nThe Jew of Malta._\n\n\n# I.\n\nAmong the smoke and fog of a December afternoon\nYou have the scene arrange itself--as it will seem to do--\nWith “I have saved this afternoon for you”;\nAnd four wax candles in the darkened room\nFour rings of light upon the ceiling overhead\nAn atmosphere of Juliet’s tomb\nPrepared for all the things to be said or left unsaid.\nWe have been let us say to hear the latest Pole\nTransmit the Preludes through his hair and finger-tips.\n“So intimate this Chopin that I think his soul\nShould be resurrected only among friends\nSome two or three who will not touch the bloom\nThat is rubbed and questioned in the concert room.”\n--And so the conversation slips\nAmong velleities and carefully caught regrets\nThrough attenuated tones of violins\nMingled with remote cornets\nAnd begins.\n\n“You do not know how much they mean to me my friends\nAnd how how rare and strange it is to find\nIn a life composed so much so much of odds and ends\n(For indeed I do not love it 
 you knew? you are not blind!\nHow keen you are!)\nTo find a friend who has these qualities\nWho has and gives\nThose qualities upon which friendship lives.\nHow much it means that I say this to you--\nWithout these friendships--life what cauchemar!”\nAmong the windings of the violins\nAnd the ariettes\nOf cracked cornets\nInside my brain a dull tom-tom begins\nAbsurdly hammering a prelude of its own\nCapricious monotone\nThat is at least one definite “false note.”\n--Let us take the air in a tobacco trance\nAdmire the monuments\nDiscuss the late events\nCorrect our watches by the public clocks.\nThen sit for half an hour and drink our bocks.\n\n\n# II.\n\nNow that lilacs are in bloom\nShe has a bowl of lilacs in her room\nAnd twists one in her fingers while she talks.\n“Ah my friend you do not know you do not know\nWhat life is you should hold it in your hands”;\n(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)\n“You let it flow from you you let it flow\nAnd youth is cruel and has no remorse\nAnd smiles at situations which it cannot see.”\nI smile of course\nAnd go on drinking tea.\n“Yet with these April sunsets that somehow recall\nMy buried life and Paris in the Spring\nI feel immeasurably at peace and find the world\nTo be wonderful and youthful after all.”\n\nThe voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune\nOf a broken violin on an August afternoon:\n“I am always sure that you understand\nMy feelings always sure that you feel\nSure that across the gulf you reach your hand.\n\nYou are invulnerable you have no Achilles’ heel.\nYou will go on and when you have prevailed\nYou can say: at this point many a one has failed.\n\nBut what have I but what have I my friend\nTo give you what can you receive from me?\nOnly the friendship and the sympathy\nOf one about to reach her journey’s end.\n\nI shall sit here serving tea to friends 
”\n\nI take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends\nFor what she has said to me?\nYou will see me any morning in the park\nReading the comics and the sporting page.\nParticularly I remark An English countess goes upon the stage.\nA Greek was murdered at a Polish dance\nAnother bank defaulter has confessed.\nI keep my countenance I remain self-possessed\nExcept when a street piano mechanical and tired\nReiterates some worn-out common song\nWith the smell of hyacinths across the garden\nRecalling things that other people have desired.\nAre these ideas right or wrong?\n\n\n# III.\n\nThe October night comes down; returning as before\nExcept for a slight sensation of being ill at ease\nI mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door\nAnd feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees.\n\n“And so you are going abroad; and when do you return?\nBut that’s a useless question.\nYou hardly know when you are coming back\nYou will find so much to learn.”\nMy smile falls heavily among the bric-Ă -brac.\n\n“Perhaps you can write to me.”\nMy self-possession flares up for a second;\nThis is as I had reckoned.\n\n“I have been wondering frequently of late\n(But our beginnings never know our ends!)\nWhy we have not developed into friends.”\nI feel like one who smiles and turning shall remark\nSuddenly his expression in a glass.\nMy self-possession gutters; we are really in the dark.\n\n“For everybody said so all our friends\nThey all were sure our feelings would relate\nSo closely! I myself can hardly understand.\nWe must leave it now to fate.\nYou will write at any rate.\nPerhaps it is not too late.\nI shall sit here serving tea to friends.”\n\nAnd I must borrow every changing shape\nTo find expression 
 dance dance\nLike a dancing bear\nCry like a parrot chatter like an ape.\nLet us take the air in a tobacco trance--\nWell! and what if she should die some afternoon\nAfternoon grey and smoky evening yellow and rose;\nShould die and leave me sitting pen in hand\nWith the smoke coming down above the housetops;\nDoubtful for quite a while\nNot knowing what to feel or if I understand\nOr whether wise or foolish tardy or too soon 
\nWould she not have the advantage after all?\nThis music is successful with a “dying fall”\nNow that we talk of dying--\nAnd should I have the right to smile?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -33380,10 +34365,10 @@ "title": "“Preludes”", "body": "# I.\n\nThe winter evening settles down\nWith smell of steaks in passageways.\nSix o’clock.\nThe burnt-out ends of smoky days.\nAnd now a gusty shower wraps\nThe grimy scraps\nOf withered leaves about your feet\nAnd newspapers from vacant lots;\nThe showers beat\nOn broken blinds and chimney-pots\nAnd at the corner of the street\nA lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.\nAnd then the lighting of the lamps.\n\n\n# II.\n\nThe morning comes to consciousness\nOf faint stale smells of beer\nFrom the sawdust-trampled street\nWith all its muddy feet that press\nTo early coffee-stands.\n\nWith the other masquerades\nThat time resumes\nOne thinks of all the hands\nThat are raising dingy shades\nIn a thousand furnished rooms.\n\n\n# III.\n\nYou tossed a blanket from the bed\nYou lay upon your back and waited;\nYou dozed and watched the night revealing\nThe thousand sordid images\nOf which your soul was constituted;\nThey flickered against the ceiling.\nAnd when all the world came back\nAnd the light crept up between the shutters\nAnd you heard the sparrows in the gutters\nYou had such a vision of the street\nAs the street hardly understands;\nSitting along the bed’s edge where\nYou curled the papers from your hair\nOr clasped the yellow soles of feet\nIn the palms of both soiled hands.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nHis soul stretched tight across the skies\nThat fade behind a city block\nOr trampled by insistent feet\nAt four and five and six o’clock;\nAnd short square fingers stuffing pipes\nAnd evening newspapers and eyes\nAssured of certain certainties\nThe conscience of a blackened street\nImpatient to assume the world.\n\nI am moved by fancies that are curled\nAround these images and cling:\nThe notion of some infinitely gentle\nInfinitely suffering thing.\n\nWipe your hand across your mouth and laugh;\nThe worlds revolve like ancient women\nGathering fuel in vacant lots.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -33394,10 +34379,10 @@ "title": "“Rhapsody on a Windy Night”", "body": "Twelve o’clock.\nAlong the reaches of the street\nHeld in a lunar synthesis\nWhispering lunar incantations\nDisolve the floors of memory\nAnd all its clear relations\nIts divisions and precisions\nEvery street lamp that I pass\nBeats like a fatalistic drum\nAnd through the spaces of the dark\nMidnight shakes the memory\nAs a madman shakes a dead geranium.\n\nHalf-past one\nThe street lamp sputtered\nThe street lamp muttered\nThe street lamp said\n“Regard that woman\nWho hesitates toward you in the light of the door\nWhich opens on her like a grin.\nYou see the border of her dress\nIs torn and stained with sand\nAnd you see the corner of her eye\nTwists like a crooked pin.”\n\nThe memory throws up high and dry\nA crowd of twisted things;\nA twisted branch upon the beach\nEaten smooth and polished\nAs if the world gave up\nThe secret of its skeleton\nStiff and white.\nA broken spring in a factory yard\nRust that clings to the form that the strength has left\nHard and curled and ready to snap.\n\nHalf-past two\nThe street-lamp said\n“Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter\nSlips out its tongue\nAnd devours a morsel of rancid butter.”\nSo the hand of the child automatic\nSlipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along\nthe quay.\nI could see nothing behind that child’s eye.\nI have seen eyes in the street\nTrying to peer through lighted shutters\nAnd a crab one afternoon in a pool\nAn old crab with barnacles on his back\nGripped the end of a stick which I held him.\n\nHalf-past three\nThe lamp sputtered\nThe lamp muttered in the dark.\n\nThe lamp hummed:\n“Regard the moon\nLa lune ne garde aucune rancune\nShe winks a feeble eye\nShe smiles into corners.\nShe smooths the hair of the grass.\nThe moon has lost her memory.\nA washed-out smallpox cracks her face\nHer hand twists a paper rose\nThat smells of dust and old Cologne\nShe is alone With all the old nocturnal smells\nThat cross and cross across her brain.\nThe reminiscence comes\nOf sunless dry geraniums\nAnd dust in crevices\nSmells of chestnuts in the streets\nAnd female smells in shuttered rooms\nAnd cigarettes in corridors\nAnd cocktail smells in bars.”\n\nThe lamp said\n“Four o’clock\nHere is the number on the door.\nMemory!\nYou have the key\nThe little lamp spreads a ring on the stair\nMount.\nThe bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall\nPut your shoes at the door sleep prepare for life.”\n\nThe last twist of the knife.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33413,10 +34398,10 @@ "title": "“A Song for Simeon”", "body": "Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and\nThe winter sun creeps by the snow hills;\nThe stubborn season has made stand.\nMy life is light, waiting for the death wind,\nLike a feather on the back of my hand.\nDust in sunlight and memory in corners\nWait for the wind that chills towards the dead land.\n\nGrant us they peace.\nI have walked many years in this city,\nKept faith and fast, provided for the poor,\nhave given and taken honour and ease.\nThere went never any rejected from my door.\nWho shall remember my house, where shall live my children’s children?\nWhen the time of sorrow is come?\nThey will take to the goat’s path, and the fox’s home,\nFleeing from foreign faces and the foreign swords.\n\nBefore the time of cords and scourges and lamentation\nGrant us thy peace.\nBefore the stations of the mountain of desolation,\nBefore the certain hour of maternal sorrow,\nNow at this birth season of decease,\nLet the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,\nGrant Israel’s consolation\nTo one who has eighty years and no to-morrow.\n\nAccording to thy word.\nThey shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation\nWith glory and derision,\nLight upon light, mounting the saints’ stair.\nNot for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer,\nNot for me the ultimate vision.\nGrant me thy peace.\n(And a sword shall pierce thy heart, Thine also).\nI am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,\nI am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.\nLet they servant depart,\nHaving seen thy salvation.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "candlemas" @@ -33427,10 +34412,10 @@ "title": "“Spleen”", "body": "Sunday: this satisfied procession\nOf definite Sunday faces;\nBonnets, silk hats, and conscious graces\nIn repetition that displaces\nYour mental self-possession\nBy this unwarranted digression.\n\nEvening, lights, and tea!\nChildren and cats in the alley;\nDejection unable to rally\nAgainst this dull conspiracy.\n\nAnd Life, a little bald and gray,\nLanguid, fastidious, and bland,\nWaits, hat and gloves in hand,\nPunctilious of tie and suit\n(Somewhat impatient of delay)\nOn the doorstep of the Absolute.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "sunday" @@ -33441,10 +34426,10 @@ "title": "“Sweeney among the Nightingales”", "body": "Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees\nLetting his arms hang down to laugh,\nThe zebra stripes along his jaw\nSwelling to maculate giraffe.\n\nThe circles of the stormy moon\nSlide westward toward the River Plate,\nDeath and the Raven drift above\nAnd Sweeney guards the hornĂšd gate.\n\nGloomy Orion and the Dog\nAre veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;\nThe person in the Spanish cape\nTries to sit on Sweeney’s knees\n\nSlips and pulls the table cloth\nOverturns a coffee-cup,\nReorganized upon the floor\nShe yawns and draws a stocking up;\n\nThe silent man in mocha brown\nSprawls at the window-sill and gapes;\nThe waiter brings in oranges\nBananas figs and hothouse grapes;\n\nThe silent vertebrate in brown\nContracts and concentrates, withdraws;\nRachel nĂ©e Rabinovitch\nTears at the grapes with murderous paws;\n\nShe and the lady in the cape\nAre suspect, thought to be in league;\nTherefore the man with heavy eyes\nDeclines the gambit, shows fatigue,\n\nLeaves the room and reappears\nOutside the window, leaning in,\nBranches of wisteria\nCircumscribe a golden grin;\n\nThe host with someone indistinct\nConverses at the door apart,\nThe nightingales are singing near\nThe Convent of the Sacred Heart,\n\nAnd sang within the bloody wood\nWhen Agamemnon cried aloud,\nAnd let their liquid droppings fall\nTo stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -33455,10 +34440,10 @@ "title": "“Sweeney Erect”", "body": "_And the trees about me,\nLet them be dry and leafless; let the rocks\nGroan with continual surges; and behind me\nMake all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!_\n\n\nPaint me a cavernous waste shore\nCast in the unstilted Cyclades,\nPaint me the bold anfractuous rocks\nFaced by the snarled and yelping seas.\n\nDisplay me Aeolus above\nReviewing the insurgent gales\nWhich tangle Ariadne’s hair\nAnd swell with haste the perjured sails.\n\nMorning stirs the feet and hands\n(Nausicaa and Polypheme),\nGesture of orang-outang\nRises from the sheets in steam.\n\nThis withered root of knots of hair\nSlitted below and gashed with eyes,\nThis oval O cropped out with teeth:\nThe sickle motion from the thighs\n\nJackknifes upward at the knees\nThen straightens out from heel to hip\nPushing the framework of the bed\nAnd clawing at the pillow slip.\n\nSweeney addressed full length to shave\nBroadbottomed, pink from nape to base,\nKnows the female temperament\nAnd wipes the suds around his face.\n\n(The lengthened shadow of a man\nIs history, said Emerson\nWho had not seen the silhouette\nOf Sweeney straddled in the sun).\n\nTests the razor on his leg\nWaiting until the shriek subsides.\nThe epileptic on the bed\nCurves backward, clutching at her sides.\n\nThe ladies of the corridor\nFind themselves involved, disgraced,\nCall witness to their principles\nAnd deprecate the lack of taste\n\nObserving that hysteria\nMight easily be misunderstood;\nMrs. Turner intimates\nIt does the house no sort of good.\n\nBut Doris, towelled from the bath,\nEnters padding on broad feet,\nBringing sal volatile\nAnd a glass of brandy neat.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -33469,10 +34454,10 @@ "title": "“Triumphal March”", "body": "Stone, bronze, stone, steel, stone, oakleaves, horses’ heels\nOver the paving.\nAnd the flags. And the trumpets. And so many eagles.\nHow many? Count them. And such a press of people.\nWe hardly knew ourselves that day, or knew the City.\nThis is the way to the temple, and we so many crowding the way.\nSo many waiting, how many waiting? what did it matter, on such a day?\nAre they coming? No, not yet. You can see some eagles.\nAnd hear the trumpets.\nHere they come. Is he coming?\nThe natural wakeful life of our Ego is a perceiving.\nWe can wait with our stools and our sausages.\nWhat comes first? Can you see? Tell us. It is\n\n5,800,000 rifles and carbines,\n102,000 machine guns,\n28,000 trench mortars,\n53,000 field and heavy guns,\nI cannot tell how many projectiles, mines and fuses,\n13,000 aeroplanes,\n24,000 aeroplane engines,\n50,000 ammunition waggons,\nnow 55,000 army waggons,\n11,000 field kitchens,\n1,150 field bakeries.\nWhat a time that took. Will it be he now? No,\nThose are the golf club Captains, these the Scouts,\nAnd now the societe gymnastique de Poissy\nAnd now come the Mayor and the Liverymen. Look\nThere he is now, look:\nThere is no interrogation in his eyes\nOr in the hands, quiet over the horse’s neck,\nAnd the eyes watchful, waiting, perceiving, indifferent.\nO hidden under the dove’s wing, hidden in the turtle’s breast,\nUnder the palmtree at noon, under the running water\nAt the still point of the turning world. O hidden.\n\nNow they go up to the temple. Then the sacrifice.\nNow come the virgins bearing urns, urns containing\nDust\nDust\nDust of dust, and now\nStone, bronze, stone, steel, stone, oakleaves, horses’ heels\nOver the paving.\n\nThat is all we could see. But how many eagles! and how many trumpets!\n(And Easter Day, we didn’t get to the country,\nSo we took young Cyril to church. And they rang a bell\nAnd he said right out loud, crumpets.)\nDon’t throw away that sausage,\nIt’ll come in handy. He’s artful. Please, will you\nGive us a light?\nLight\nLight\nEt les soldats faisaient la haie? ILS LA FAISAIENT.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1931 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -33480,10 +34465,10 @@ "title": "“The Waste Land”", "body": "1. _The Burial of the Dead_\n\nApril is the cruellest month breeding\nLilacs out of the dead land mixing\nMemory and desire stirring\nDull roots with spring rain.\nWinter kept us warm covering\nEarth in forgetful snow feeding\nA little life with dried tubers.\nSummer surprised us coming over the Starnbergersee\nWith a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade\nAnd went on in sunlight into the Hofgarten\nAnd drank coffee and talked for an hour.\nBin gar keine Russin stamm’ aus Litauen echt deutsch.\nAnd when we were children staying at the archduke’s\nMy cousin’s he took me out on a sled\nAnd I was frightened. He said Marie\nMarie hold on tight. And down we went.\nIn the mountains there you feel free.\nI read much of the night and go south in the winter.\n\nWhat are the roots that clutch what branches grow\nOut of this stony rubbish? Son of man\nYou cannot say or guess for you know only\nA heap of broken images where the sun beats\nAnd the dead tree gives no shelter the cricket no relief\nAnd the dry stone no sound of water. Only\nThere is shadow under this red rock\n(Come in under the shadow of this red rock)\nAnd I will show you something different from either\nYour shadow at morning striding behind you\nOr your shadow at evening rising to meet you;\nI will show you fear in a handful of dust.\n _Frisch weht der Wind\n Der Heimat zu\n Mein Irisch Kind\n Wo weilest du?_\n“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;\nThey called me the hyacinth girl.”\n--Yet when we came back late from the Hyacinth garden\nYour arms full and your hair wet I could not\nSpeak and my eyes failed I was neither\nLiving nor dead and I knew nothing\nLooking into the heart of light the silence.\n_Oed’ und leer das Meer_.\n\nMadame Sosostris famous clairvoyante\nHad a bad cold nevertheless\nIs known to be the wisest woman in Europe\nWith a wicked pack of cards. Here said she\nIs your card the drowned Phoenician Sailor\n(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)\nHere is Belladonna the Lady of the Rocks\nThe lady of situations.\nHere is the man with three staves and here the Wheel\nAnd here is the one-eyed merchant and this card\nWhich is blank is something he carries on his back\nWhich I am forbidden to see. I do not find\nThe Hanged Man. Fear death by water.\nI see crowds of people walking round in a ring.\nThank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone\nTell her I bring the horoscope myself:\nOne must be so careful these days.\n\nUnreal City\nUnder the brown fog of a winter dawn\nA crowd flowed over London Bridge so many\nI had not thought death had undone so many.\nSighs short and infrequent were exhaled\nAnd each man fixed his eyes before his feet.\nFlowed up the hill and down King William Street\nTo where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours\nWith a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.\nThere I saw one I knew and stopped him crying “Stetson!\nYou who were with me in the ships at Mylae!\nThat corpse you planted last year in your garden\nHas it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?\nOr has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?\nOh keep the Dog far hence that’s friend to men\nOr with his nails he’ll dig it up again!\nYou! hypocrite lecteur!--mon semblable--mon frĂšre!”\n\n\n2. _A Game of Chess_\n\nThe Chair she sat in like a burnished throne\nGlowed on the marble where the glass\nHeld up by standards wrought with fruited vines\nFrom which a golden Cupidon peeped out\n(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)\nDoubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra\nReflecting light upon the table as\nThe glitter of her jewels rose to meet it\nFrom satin cases poured in rich profusion.\nIn vials of ivory and coloured glass\nUnstoppered lurked her strange synthetic perfumes\nUnguent powdered or liquid--troubled confused\nAnd drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air\nThat freshened from the window these ascended\nIn fattening the prolonged candle-flames\nFlung their smoke into the laquearia\nStirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.\nHuge sea-wood fed with copper\nBurned green and orange framed by the coloured stone\nIn which sad light a carvĂšd dolphin swam.\nAbove the antique mantel was displayed\nAs though a window gave upon the sylvan scene\nThe change of Philomel by the barbarous king\nSo rudely forced; yet there the nightingale\nFilled all the desert with inviolable voice\nAnd still she cried and still the world pursues\n“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.\nAnd other withered stumps of time\nWere told upon the walls; staring forms\nLeaned out leaning hushing the room enclosed.\nFootsteps shuffled on the stair.\nUnder the firelight under the brush her hair\nSpread out in fiery points\nGlowed into words then would be savagely still.\n\n“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes bad. Stay with me.\nSpeak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.\nWhat are you thinking of? What thinking? What?\nI never know what you are thinking. Think.”\n\nI think we are in rats’ alley\nWhere the dead men lost their bones.\n\n“What is that noise?”\n The wind under the door.\n“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”\n Nothing again nothing.\n“Do\nYou know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember\nNothing?”\n\nI remember\nThose are pearls that were his eyes.\n“Are you alive or not? Is there nothing in your head?”\n But\nO O O O that Shakespeherian Rag--\nIt’s so elegant\nSo intelligent\n“What shall I do now? What shall I do?”\nI shall rush out as I am and walk the street\n“With my hair down so. What shall we do tomorrow?\nWhat shall we ever do?”\n The hot water at ten.\nAnd if it rains a closed car at four.\nAnd we shall play a game of chess\nPressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.\n\nWhen Lil’s husband got demobbed I said--\nI didn’t mince my words I said to her myself\nHURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME\nNow Albert’s coming back make yourself a bit smart.\nHe’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you\nTo get yourself some teeth. He did I was there.\nYou have them all out Lil and get a nice set\nHe said I swear I can’t bear to look at you.\nAnd no more can’t I I said and think of poor Albert\nHe’s been in the army four years he wants a good time\nAnd if you don’t give it him there’s others will I said.\nOh is there she said. Something o’ that I said.\nThen I’ll know who to thank she said and give me a straight look.\nHURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME\nIf you don’t like it you can get on with it I said.\nOthers can pick and choose if you can’t.\nBut if Albert makes off it won’t be for lack of telling.\nYou ought to be ashamed I said to look so antique.\n(And her only thirty-one.)\nI can’t help it she said pulling a long face\nIt’s them pills I took to bring it off she said.\n(She’s had five already and nearly died of young George.)\nThe chemist said it would be all right but I’ve never been the same.\nYou _are_ a proper fool I said.\nWell if Albert won’t leave you alone there it is I said\nWhat you get married for if you don’t want children?\nHURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME\nWell that Sunday Albert was home they had a hot gammon\nAnd they asked me in to dinner to get the beauty of it hot--\nHURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME\nHURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME\nGoonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.\nTa ta. Goonight. Goonight.\nGood night ladies good night sweet ladies good night good night.\n\n\n3. _The Fire Sermon_\n\nThe river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf\nClutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind\nCrosses the brown land unheard. The nymphs are departed.\nSweet Thames run softly till I end my song.\nThe river bears no empty bottles sandwich papers\nSilk handkerchiefs cardboard boxes cigarette ends\nOr other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.\nAnd their friends the loitering heirs of city directors;\nDeparted have left no addresses.\nBy the waters of Leman I sat down and wept 
\nSweet Thames run softly till I end my song\nSweet Thames run softly for I speak not loud or long.\nBut at my back in a cold blast I hear\nThe rattle of the bones and chuckle spread from ear to ear.\nA rat crept softly through the vegetation\nDragging its slimy belly on the bank\nWhile I was fishing in the dull canal\nOn a winter evening round behind the gashouse\nMusing upon the king my brother’s wreck\nAnd on the king my father’s death before him.\nWhite bodies naked on the low damp ground\nAnd bones cast in a little low dry garret\nRattled by the rat’s foot only year to year.\nBut at my back from time to time I hear\nThe sound of horns and motors which shall bring\nSweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.\nO the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter\nAnd on her daughter\nThey wash their feet in soda water\n_Et O ces voix d’enfants chantant dans la coupole!_\n\nTwit twit twit\nJug jug jug jug jug jug\nSo rudely forc’d.\nTereu\n\nUnreal City\nUnder the brown fog of a winter noon\nMr. Eugenides the Smyrna merchant\nUnshaven with a pocket full of currants\nC.i.f. London: documents at sight\nAsked me in demotic French\nTo luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel\nFollowed by a weekend at the Metropole.\n\nAt the violet hour when the eyes and back\nTurn upward from the desk when the human engine waits\nLike a taxi throbbing waiting\nI Tiresias though blind throbbing between two lives\nOld man with wrinkled female breasts can see\nAt the violet hour the evening hour that strives\nHomeward and brings the sailor home from sea\nThe typist home at teatime clears her breakfast lights\nHer stove and lays out food in tins.\nOut of the window perilously spread\nHer drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays\nOn the divan are piled (at night her bed)\nStockings slippers camisoles and stays.\nI Tiresias old man with wrinkled dugs\nPerceived the scene and foretold the rest--\nI too awaited the expected guest.\nHe the young man carbuncular arrives\nA small house agent’s clerk with one bold stare\nOne of the low on whom assurance sits\nAs a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.\nThe time is now propitious as he guesses\nThe meal is ended she is bored and tired\nEndeavours to engage her in caresses\nWhich still are unreproved if undesired.\nFlushed and decided he assaults at once;\nExploring hands encounter no defence;\nHis vanity requires no response\nAnd makes a welcome of indifference.\n(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all\nEnacted on this same divan or bed;\nI who have sat by Thebes below the wall\nAnd walked among the lowest of the dead.)\nBestows one final patronising kiss\nAnd gropes his way finding the stairs unlit 
\n\nShe turns and looks a moment in the glass\nHardly aware of her departed lover;\nHer brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:\n“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”\nWhen lovely woman stoops to folly and\nPaces about her room again alone\nShe smooths her hair with automatic hand\nAnd puts a record on the gramophone.\n\n“This music crept by me upon the waters”\nAnd along the Strand up Queen Victoria Street.\nO City city I can sometimes hear\nBeside a public bar in Lower Thames Street\nThe pleasant whining of a mandoline\nAnd a clatter and a chatter from within\nWhere fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls\nOf Magnus Martyr hold\nInexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.\n\n The river sweats\n Oil and tar\n The barges drift\n With the turning tide\n Red sails\n Wide\n To leeward swing on the heavy spar.\n The barges wash\n Drifting logs\n Down Greenwich reach\n Past the Isle of Dogs.\n Weialala leia\n Wallala leialala\n Elizabeth and Leicester\n Beating oars\n The stern was formed\n A gilded shell\n Red and gold\n The brisk swell\n Rippled both shores\n Southwest wind\n Carried down stream\n The peal of bells\n White towers\n Weialala leia\n Wallala leialala\n\n“Trams and dusty trees.\nHighbury bore me. Richmond and Kew\nUndid me. By Richmond I raised my knees\nSupine on the floor of a narrow canoe.”\n\n“My feet are at Moorgate and my heart\nUnder my feet. After the event\nHe wept. He promised ‘a new start’.\nI made no comment. What should I resent?”\n“On Margate Sands.\nI can connect\nNothing with nothing.\nThe broken fingernails of dirty hands.\nMy people humble people who expect\nNothing.”\n la la\n\nTo Carthage then I came\n\nBurning burning burning burning\nO Lord Thou pluckest me out\nO Lord Thou pluckest\n\nburning\n\n\n4. _Death by Water_\n\nPhlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,\nForgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell\nAnd the profit and loss.\n A current under sea\nPicked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell\nHe passed the stages of his age and youth\nEntering the whirlpool.\n Gentile or Jew\nO you who turn the wheel and look to windward,\nConsider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.\n\n\n5. _What the Thunder Said_\n\nAfter the torchlight red on sweaty faces\nAfter the frosty silence in the gardens\nAfter the agony in stony places\nThe shouting and the crying\nPrison and palace and reverberation\nOf thunder of spring over distant mountains\nHe who was living is now dead\nWe who were living are now dying\nWith a little patience\n\nHere is no water but only rock\nRock and no water and the sandy road\nThe road winding above among the mountains\nWhich are mountains of rock without water\nIf there were water we should stop and drink\nAmongst the rock one cannot stop or think\nSweat is dry and feet are in the sand\nIf there were only water amongst the rock\nDead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit\nHere one can neither stand nor lie nor sit\nThere is not even silence in the mountains\nBut dry sterile thunder without rain\nThere is not even solitude in the mountains\nBut red sullen faces sneer and snarl\nFrom doors of mudcracked houses\n\nIf there were water\nAnd no rock\nIf there were rock\nAnd also water\nAnd water\nA spring\nA pool among the rock\nIf there were the sound of water only\nNot the cicada\nAnd dry grass singing\nBut sound of water over a rock\nWhere the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees\nDrip drop drip drop drop drop drop\nBut there is no water\n\nWho is the third who walks always beside you?\nWhen I count there are only you and I together\nBut when I look ahead up the white road\nThere is always another one walking beside you\nGliding wrapt in a brown mantle hooded\nI do not know whether a man or a woman\n--But who is that on the other side of you?\n\nWhat is that sound high in the air\nMurmur of maternal lamentation\nWho are those hooded hordes swarming\nOver endless plains stumbling in cracked earth\nRinged by the flat horizon only\nWhat is the city over the mountains\nCracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air\nFalling towers\nJerusalem Athens Alexandria\nVienna London\nUnreal\n\nA woman drew her long black hair out tight\nAnd fiddled whisper music on those strings\nAnd bats with baby faces in the violet light\nWhistled and beat their wings\nAnd crawled head downward down a blackened wall\nAnd upside down in air were towers\nTolling reminiscent bells that kept the hours\nAnd voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.\n\nIn this decayed hole among the mountains\nIn the faint moonlight the grass is singing\nOver the tumbled graves about the chapel\nThere is the empty chapel only the wind’s home.\nIt has no windows and the door swings\nDry bones can harm no one.\nOnly a cock stood on the rooftree\nCo co rico co co rico\nIn a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust\nBringing rain\n\nGanga was sunken and the limp leaves\nWaited for rain while the black clouds\nGathered far distant over Himavant.\nThe jungle crouched humped in silence.\nThen spoke the thunder\nDA\n_Datta:_ what have we given?\nMy friend blood shaking my heart\nThe awful daring of a moment’s surrender\nWhich an age of prudence can never retract\nBy this and this only we have existed\nWhich is not to be found in our obituaries\nOr in memories draped by the beneficent spider\nOr under seals broken by the lean solicitor\nIn our empty rooms\nDA\n_Dayadhvam:_ I have heard the key\nTurn in the door once and turn once only\nWe think of the key each in his prison\nThinking of the key each confirms a prison\nOnly at nightfall aetherial rumours\nRevive for a moment a broken Coriolanus\nDA\n_Damyata:_ The boat responded\nGaily to the hand expert with sail and oar\nThe sea was calm your heart would have responded\nGaily when invited beating obedient\nTo controlling hands\n\nI sat upon the shore\nFishing with the arid plain behind me\nShall I at least set my lands in order?\nLondon Bridge is falling down falling down falling down\n_Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina\nQuando fiam ceu chelidon_--O swallow swallow\n_Le Prince d’Aquitaine Ă  la tour abolie_\nThese fragments I have shored against my ruins\nWhy then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.\nDatta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.\nShantih shantih shantih", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -33494,10 +34479,10 @@ "title": "“When we came home across the hill 
”", "body": "When we came home across the hill\nNo leaves were fallen from the trees;\nThe gentle fingers of the breeze\nHad torn no quivering cobweb down.\n\nThe hedgerow bloomed with flowers still,\nNo withered petals lay beneath;\nBut the wild roses in your wreath\nWere faded, and the leaves were brown.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1909 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -33508,10 +34493,10 @@ "title": "“Whispers of Immortality”", "body": "Webster was much possessed by death\nAnd saw the skull beneath the skin;\nAnd breastless creatures under ground\nLeaned backward with a lipless grin.\n\nDaffodil bulbs instead of balls\nStared from the sockets of the eyes!\nHe knew that thought clings round dead limbs\nTightening its lusts and luxuries.\n\nDonne I suppose was such another\nWho found no substitute for sense;\nTo seize and clutch and penetrate\nExpert beyond experience\n\nHe knew the anguish of the marrow\nThe ague of the skeleton;\nNo contact possible to flesh\nAllayed the fever of the bone.\n\n\nGrishkin is nice: her Russian eye\nIs underlined for emphasis;\nUncorseted her friendly bust\nGives promise of pneumatic bliss.\n\nThe couched Brazilian jaguar\nCompels the scampering marmoset\nWith subtle effluence of cat;\nGrishkin has a maisonette;\n\nThe sleek Brazilian jaguar\nDoes not in its arboreal gloom\nDistil so rank a feline smell\nAs Grishkin in a drawing-room.\n\nAnd even the Abstract Entities\nCircumambulate her charm;\nBut our lot crawls between dry ribs\nTo keep our metaphysics warm.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -33554,8 +34539,10 @@ "title": "“Beauty and the Illiterate”", "body": "Often, in the Repose of Evening her soul took a lightness from\nthe mountains across, although the day was harsh and\ntomorrow foreign.\n\nBut, when it darkened well and out came the priest’s hand over\nthe little garden of the dead, She\n\nAlone, Standing, with the few domestics of the night--the blowing\nrosemary and the murmur of smoke from the kilns--\nat sea’s entry, wakeful\n\nOtherly beauty!\n\nOnly the waves’ words half-guessed or in a rustle, and others\nresembling the dead’s that startle in the cypress, strange\nzodiacs that lit up her magnetic moon-turned head.\nAnd one\n\nUnbelievable cleanliness allowed, to great depth in her, the real\nlandscape to be seen,\n\nWhere, near the river, the dark ones fought against the Angel,\nexactly showing how she’s born, Beauty\n\nOr what we otherwise call tear.\n\nAnd long as her thinking lasted, you could feel it overflow the\nglowing sight bitterly in the eyes and the huge, like an\nancient prostitute’s, cheekbones\n\nStretched to the extreme points of the Large Dog and of the Virgin.\n\n“Far from the pestilential city I dreamed of her deserted place\nwhere a tear may have no meaning and the only light be\nfrom the flame that ravishes all that for me exists.”\n\n“Shoulder-to-shoulder under what will be, sworn to extreme silence\nand the co-ruling of the stars,”\n\n“As if I didn’t know yet, the illiterate, that there exactly, in extreme\nsilence are the most repellent thuds”\n\n“And that, since it became unbearable inside a man’s chest, solitude\ndispersed and seeded stars!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Olga Broumas", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Olga Broumas" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -33566,8 +34553,10 @@ "title": "“I know the night no longer 
”", "body": "I know the night no longer, the terrible anonymity of death\nA fleet of stars moors in the haven of my heart\nO Hesperos, sentinel, that you may shine by the side\nOf a skyblue breeze on an island which dreams\nOf me anouncing the dawn from its rocky heights\nMy twin eyes set you sailing embraced\nWith my true heart’s star: I know the night no longer\nI know the names no longer of a world which disavows me\nI read seashells, leaves, and the stars clearly\nMy hatred is superfluous on the roads of the sky\nUnless it is the dream which watches me again\nAs I walked by the sea of immortality in tears\nO Hesperos, under the arc of your golden fire\nI know the night no longer that is a night only.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Kimon Friar", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Kimon Friar" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -33578,8 +34567,11 @@ "title": "“The Mad Pomegranate Tree”", "body": "In these all-white courtyards where the south wind blows\nWhistling through vaulted arcades, tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree\nThat leaps in the light, scattering its fruitful laughter\nWith windy wilfulness and whispering, tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree\nThat quivers with foliage newly born at dawn\nRaising high its colours in a shiver of triumph?\n\nOn plains where the naked girls awake,\nWhen they harvest clover with their light brown arms\nRoaming round the borders of their dreams--tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree,\nUnsuspecting, that puts the lights in their verdant baskets\nThat floods their names with the singing of birds--tell me\nIs it the mad pomegranate tree that combats the cloudy skies of the world?\n\nOn the day that it adorns itself in jealousy with seven kinds of feathers,\nGirding the eternal sun with a thousand blinding prisms\nTell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree\nThat seizes on the run a horse’s mane of a hundred lashes,\nNever sad and never grumbling--tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree\nThat cries out the new hope now dawning?\nTell me, is that the mad pomegranate tree waving in the distance,\nFluttering a handkerchief of leaves of cool flame,\nA sea near birth with a thousand ships and more,\nWith waves that a thousand times and more set out and go\nTo unscented shores--tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree\nThat creaks the rigging aloft in the lucid air?\n\nHigh as can be, with the blue bunch of grapes that flares and celebrates\nArrogant, full of danger--tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree\nThat shatters with light the demon’s tempests in the middle of the world\nThat spreads far as can be the saffron ruffle of the day\nRichly embroidered with scattered songs--tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree\nThat hastily unfastens the silk apparel of day?\n\nIn petticoats of April first and cicadas of the feast of mid-August\nTell me, that which plays, that which rages, that which can entice\nShaking out of threats their evil black darkness\nSpilling the sun’s embrace intoxicating birds\nTell me, that which opens its wings on the breast of things\nOn the breast of our deepest dreams, is that the mad pomegranate tree?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley", + "Philip Sherrard" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -33590,8 +34582,10 @@ "title": "“The Presence”", "body": "> _Maria Nefele:_\nI walk in thorns in the dark\nof what’s to happen and what has\nwith my only weapon my only defense\nmy nails purple like cyclamens.\n\n> _Antiphonist:_\nI saw her everywhere. Holding a glass and staring in space. Lying down\nlistening to records. Walking the streets in wide trousers and an old\ngabardine. In front of children’s-store windows. Sadder then. And in\ndiscotheques, more nervous, eating her nails. She smokes innumerable\ncigarettes. She is pale and beautiful. But if you talk to her she doesn’t hear\nat all. As if something is happening--she alone hears it and is frightened.\nShe holds your hand tight, tears, but is not there. I never touched her and I\nnever took from her anything.\n\n> _Maria Nefele:_\nHe understood nothing. He kept asking all the time “Remember?” What’s to\nremember? My dreams alone I remember because I see them at night. Days\nI feel bad--how to say: unprepared. I found myself so suddenly, in life--\nwhere I’d hardly expected. I’d say “Bah, I’ll get used to it.” And everything\naround me ran. Things and people ran, ran--until I set myself to run like\ncrazy. But, it seems, I overdid. Because--I don’t know--something strange\nhappened in the end. First I’d see the corpse and then the murder. First\ncame the blood and then the blow and cry. And now, when I hear rain I don’t\nknow what’s waiting 
\n\n> _Antiphonist:_\n“Why don’t they bury people standing up like archbishops?”--that’s what\nshe’d say to me. And once, I remember, summer on the island, all of us\ncoming from a party, dawn, we jumped over the bars of the museum’s\ngarden. She danced on the stones and she saw nothing.\n\n> _Maria Nefele:_\nI saw his eyes. I saw some old olive groves.\n\n> _Antiphonist:_\nI saw a column on a grave. A girl in relief on the stone. She seemed sad\nand held a small bird in her cupped hand.\n\n> _Maria Nefele:_\nHe was looking at me, I know, he was looking at me. We both were looking\nat the same stone. We looked at each other through the stone.\n\n> _Antiphonist:_\nShe was calm and in her palm she held a small bird.\n\n> _Maria Nefele:_\nShe was sitting and she was dead.\n\n> _Antiphonist:_\nShe was sitting and in her palm she held a small bird.\nYou’ll never hold a bird like that--you aren’t able.\n\n> _Maria Nefele:_\nOh if they let me, if they let me.\n\n> _Antiphonist:_\nIf who let you?\n\n> _Maria Nefele:_\nThe one who lets nothing.\n\n> _Antiphonist:_\nHe, he who lets nothing\nis cut by his shadow and walks away.\n\n> _Maria Nefele:_\nHis words are white and unspeakable\nhis eyes deep and without sleep 
\n\n> _Antiphonist:_\nBut the whole upper part of the stone was taken. And with it her name.\n\n> _Maria Nefele:_\nARIMNA--as if I could still see the letters carved inside the light 
\nARIMNA EFE EL 
\n\n> _Antiphonist:_\nGone. The whole top gone. There were no letters at all.\n\n> _Maria Nefele:_\nARIMNA EFE EL--there, on the EL the stone had cut and broken. I remember\nit well.\n\n> _Antiphonist:_\nShe must have seen it in a dream since she remembers.\n\n> _Maria Nefele:_\nIn my dreams, yes. In a large sleep that will come sometimes all light and\nheat and small stony steps. The children will walk in the streets arm in arm\nlike in some old Italian movies. Song everywhere and enormous women in\nsmall balconies watering their flowers.\n\n> _Antiphonist:_\nA large blue balloon will take us high then, here and there, the wind will beat\nus. The silver domes will stand out first, then the belfries. The streets will\nappear narrower and straighter than we imagined. The terraces with the\nwhite television antennas. And all around the hills, and the kites--so close\nwe’ll just shave past them. Until one moment we’ll see the whole sea. On it\nthe souls will be leaving small white steams.\n\n> _Maria Nefele:_\nI have lifted my hand against the mountains, the dark and the demonic of\nthis world. I’ve asked love “Why?” and rolled her on the floor. War and war\nand not one rag to hide deep in our things and forget. Who listens? Who\nlistened? Judges, priests, police, which is your country? One body is left me\nand I give it. On it those who know cultivate the holy, as the gardeners in\nHolland, tulips. And in it drown who never learned of sea or swimming 
 Flux\nof the sea and you stars’ distant influx--stand by me!\n\n> _Antiphonist:_\nI have lifted my hand against the\nunexorcised demons of the world\nand from the place of illness I have exited\nto the sun and to the light self-exiled!\n\n> _Maria Nefele:_\nAnd from too many storms I’ve exited\nself among humans exiled!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Olga Broumas", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Olga Broumas" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -33608,6 +34602,11 @@ "year": 1803, "month": "may", "day": 25 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Boston", + "state": "Massachusetts", + "country": "USA" } }, "death": { @@ -33615,13 +34614,20 @@ "year": 1882, "month": "april", "day": 27 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Concord", + "state": "Massachusetts", + "country": "USA" } }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ "poet" ], - "education": null, + "education": { + "bachelors": "Harvard University" + }, "movement": [], "religion": "unitarian", "nationality": [ @@ -33644,10 +34650,6 @@ "title": "“The Adirondacs”", "body": "_Wise and polite,--and if I drew\n Their several portraits, you would own\n Chaucer had no such worthy crew,\n Nor Boccace in Decameron._\n\nWe crossed Champlain to Keeseville with our friends,\nThence, in strong country carts, rode up the forks\nOf the Ausable stream, intent to reach\nThe Adirondac lakes. At Martin’s Beach\nWe chose our boats; each man a boat and guide,--\nTen men, ten guides, our company all told.\n\n Next morn, we swept with oars the Saranac,\nWith skies of benediction, to Round Lake,\nWhere all the sacred mountains drew around us,\nTahĂĄwus, Seaward, MacIntyre, Baldhead,\nAnd other Titans without muse or name.\nPleased with these grand companions, we glide on,\nInstead of flowers, crowned with a wreath of hills.\nWe made our distance wider, boat from boat,\nAs each would hear the oracle alone.\nBy the bright morn the gay flotilla slid\nThrough files of flags that gleamed like bayonets,\nThrough gold-moth-haunted beds of pickerel-flower,\nThrough scented banks of lilies white and gold,\nWhere the deer feeds at night, the teal by day,\nOn through the Upper Saranac, and up\nPĂšre Raquette stream, to a small tortuous pass\nWinding through grassy shallows in and out,\nTwo creeping miles of rushes, pads and sponge,\nTo Follansbee Water and the Lake of Loons.\n\n Northward the length of Follansbee we rowed,\nUnder low mountains, whose unbroken ridge\nPonderous with beechen forest sloped the shore.\nA pause and council: then, where near the head\nDue east a bay makes inward to the land\nBetween two rocky arms, we climb the bank,\nAnd in the twilight of the forest noon\nWield the first axe these echoes ever heard.\nWe cut young trees to make our poles and thwarts,\nBarked the white spruce to weatherfend the roof,\nThen struck a light and kindled the camp-fire.\n\n The wood was sovran with centennial trees,--\nOak, cedar, maple, poplar, beech and fir,\nLinden and spruce. In strict society\nThree conifers, white, pitch and Norway pine,\nFive-leaved, three-leaved and two-leaved, grew thereby,\nOur patron pine was fifteen feet in girth,\nThe maple eight, beneath its shapely tower.\n\n “Welcome!” the wood-god murmured through the leaves,--\n“Welcome, though late, unknowing, yet known to me.”\nEvening drew on; stars peeped through maple-boughs,\nWhich o’erhung, like a cloud, our camping fire.\nDecayed millennial trunks, like moonlight flecks,\nLit with phosphoric crumbs the forest floor.\n\n Ten scholars, wonted to lie warm and soft\nIn well-hung chambers daintily bestowed,\nLie here on hemlock-boughs, like Sacs and Sioux,\nAnd greet unanimous the joyful change.\nSo fast will Nature acclimate her sons,\nThough late returning to her pristine ways.\nOff soundings, seamen do not suffer cold;\nAnd, in the forest, delicate clerks, unbrowned,\nSleep on the fragrant brush, as on down-beds.\nUp with the dawn, they fancied the light air\nThat circled freshly in their forest dress\nMade them to boys again. Happier that they\nSlipped off their pack of duties, leagues behind,\nAt the first mounting of the giant stairs.\nNo placard on these rocks warned to the polls,\nNo door-bell heralded a visitor,\nNo courier waits, no letter came or went,\nNothing was ploughed, or reaped, or bought, or sold;\nThe frost might glitter, it would blight no crop,\nThe falling rain will spoil no holiday.\nWe were made freemen of the forest laws,\nAll dressed, like Nature, fit for her own ends,\nEssaying nothing she cannot perform.\n\n In Adirondac lakes\nAt morn or noon, the guide rows bareheaded:\nShoes, flannel shirt, and kersey trousers make\nHis brief toilette: at night, or in the rain,\nHe dons a surcoat which he doffs at morn:\nA paddle in the right hand, or an oar,\nAnd in the left, a gun, his needful arms.\nBy turns we praised the stature of our guides,\nTheir rival strength and suppleness, their skill\nTo row, to swim, to shoot, to build a camp,\nTo climb a lofty stem, clean without boughs\nFull fifty feet, and bring the eaglet down:\nTemper to face wolf, bear, or catamount,\nAnd wit to trap or take him in his lair.\nSound, ruddy men, frolic and innocent,\nIn winter, lumberers; in summer, guides;\nTheir sinewy arms pull at the oar untired\nThree times ten thousand strokes, from morn to eve.\n\n Look to yourselves, ye polished gentlemen!\nNo city airs or arts pass current here.\nYour rank is all reversed; let men or cloth\nBow to the stalwart churls in overalls:\n_They_ are the doctors of the wilderness,\nAnd we the low-prized laymen.\nIn sooth, red flannel is a saucy test\nWhich few can put on with impunity.\nWhat make you, master, fumbling at the oar?\nWill you catch crabs? Truth tries pretension here.\nThe sallow knows the basket-maker’s thumb;\nThe oar, the guide’s. Dare you accept the tasks\nHe shall impose, to find a spring, trap foxes,\nTell the sun’s time, determine the true north,\nOr stumbling on through vast self-similar woods\nTo thread by night the nearest way to camp?\n\n Ask you, how went the hours?\nAll day we swept the lake, searched every cove,\nNorth from Camp Maple, south to Osprey Bay,\nWatching when the loud dogs should drive in deer,\nOr whipping its rough surface for a trout;\nOr, bathers, diving from the rock at noon;\nChallenging Echo by our guns and cries;\nOr listening to the laughter of the loon;\nOr, in the evening twilight’s latest red,\nBeholding the procession of the pines;\nOr, later yet, beneath a lighted jack,\nIn the boat’s bows, a silent night-hunter\nStealing with paddle to the feeding-grounds\nOf the red deer, to aim at a square mist.\nHark to that muffled roar! a tree in the woods\nIs fallen: but hush! it has not scared the buck\nWho stands astonished at the meteor light,\nThen turns to bound away,--is it too late?\n\n Our heroes tried their rifles at a mark,\nSix rods, sixteen, twenty, or forty-five;\nSometimes their wits at sally and retort,\nWith laughter sudden as the crack of rifle;\nOr parties scaled the near acclivities\nCompeting seekers of a rumored lake,\nWhose unauthenticated waves we named\nLake Probability,--our carbuncle,\nLong sought, not found.\n\n Two Doctors in the camp\nDissected the slain deer, weighed the trout’s brain,\nCaptured the lizard, salamander, shrew,\nCrab, mice, snail, dragon-fly, minnow and moth;\nInsatiate skill in water or in air\nWaved the scoop-net, and nothing came amiss;\nThe while, one leaden got of alcohol\nGave an impartial tomb to all the kinds.\nNot less the ambitious botanist sought plants,\nOrchis and gentian, fern and long whip-scirpus,\nRosy polygonum, lake-margin’s pride,\nHypnum and hydnum, mushroom, sponge and moss,\nOr harebell nodding in the gorge of falls.\nAbove, the eagle flew, the osprey screamed,\nThe raven croaked, owls hooted, the woodpecker\nLoud hammered, and the heron rose in the swamp.\nAs water poured through hollows of the hills\nTo feed this wealth of lakes and rivulets,\nSo Nature shed all beauty lavishly\nFrom her redundant horn.\n\n Lords of this realm,\nBounded by dawn and sunset, and the day\nRounded by hours where each outdid the last\nIn miracles of pomp, we must be proud,\nAs if associates of the sylvan gods.\nWe seemed the dwellers of the zodiac,\nSo pure the Alpine element we breathed,\nSo light, so lofty pictures came and went.\nWe trode on air, contemned the distant town,\nIts timorous ways, big trifles, and we planned\nThat we should build, hard-by, a spacious lodge\nAnd how we should come hither with our sons,\nHereafter,--willing they, and more adroit.\n\n Hard fare, hard bed and comic misery,--\nThe midge, the blue-fly and the mosquito\nPainted our necks, hands, ankles, with red bands:\nBut, on the second day, we heed them not,\nNay, we saluted them Auxiliaries,\nWhom earlier we had chid with spiteful names.\nFor who defends our leafy tabernacle\nFrom bold intrusion of the travelling crowd,--\nWho but the midge, mosquito and the fly,\nWhich past endurance sting the tender cit,\nBut which we learn to scatter with a smudge,\nOr baffle by a veil, or slight by scorn?\n\n Our foaming ale we drank from hunters’ pans,\nAle, and a sup of wine. Our steward gave\nVenison and trout, potatoes, beans, wheat-bread;\nAll ate like abbots, and, if any missed\nTheir wonted convenance, cheerly hid the loss\nWith hunters’ appetite and peals of mirth.\nAnd Stillman, our guides’ guide, and Commodore,\nCrusoe, Crusader, Pius Aeneas, said aloud,\n‘Chronic dyspepsia never came from eating\nFood indigestible’:--then murmured some,\nOthers applauded him who spoke the truth.\n\n Nor doubt but visitings of graver thought\nChecked in these souls the turbulent heyday\n’Mid all the hints and glories of the home.\nFor who can tell what sudden privacies\nWere sought and found, amid the hue and cry\nOf scholars furloughed from their tasks and let\nInto this Oreads’ fended Paradise,\nAs chapels in the city’s thoroughfares,\nWhither gaunt Labor slips to wipe his brow\nAnd meditate a moment on Heaven’s rest.\nJudge with what sweet surprises Nature spoke\nTo each apart, lifting her lovely shows\nTo spiritual lessons pointed home,\nAnd as through dreams in watches of the night,\nSo through all creatures in their form and ways\nSome mystic hint accosts the vigilant,\nNot clearly voiced, but waking a new sense\nInviting to new knowledge, one with old.\nHark to that petulant chirp! what ails the warbler?\nMark his capricious ways to draw the eye.\nNow soar again. What wilt thou, restless bird,\nSeeking in that chaste blue a bluer light,\nThirsting in that pure for a purer sky?\n\n And presently the sky is changed; O world!\nWhat pictures and what harmonies are thine!\nThe clouds are rich and dark, the air serene,\nSo like the soul of me, what if ’t were me?\nA melancholy better than all mirth.\nComes the sweet sadness at the retrospect,\nOr at the foresight of obscurer years?\nLike yon slow-sailing cloudy promontory\nWhereon the purple iris dwells in beauty\nSuperior to all its gaudy skirts.\nAnd, that no day of life may lack romance,\nThe spiritual stars rise nightly, shedding down\nA private beam into each several heart.\nDaily the bending skies solicit man,\nThe seasons chariot him from this exile,\nThe rainbow hours bedeck his glowing chair,\nThe storm-winds urge the heavy weeks along,\nSuns haste to set, that so remoter lights\nBeckon the wanderer to his vaster home.\n\n With a vermilion pencil mark the day\nWhen of our little fleet three cruising skiffs\nEntering Big Tupper, bound for the foaming Falls\nOf loud Bog River, suddenly confront\nTwo of our mates returning with swift oars.\nOne held a printed journal waving high\nCaught from a late-arriving traveller,\nBig with great news, and shouted the report\nFor which the world had waited, now firm fact,\nOf the wire-cable laid beneath the sea,\nAnd landed on our coast, and pulsating\nWith ductile fire. Loud, exulting cries\nFrom boat to boat, and to the echoes round,\nGreet the glad miracle. Thought’s new-found path\nShall supplement henceforth all trodden ways,\nMatch God’s equator with a zone of art,\nAnd lift man’s public action to a height\nWorthy the enormous cloud of witnesses,\nWhen linkĂšd hemispheres attest his deed.\nWe have few moments in the longest life\nOf such delight and wonder as there grew,--\nNor yet unsuited to that solitude:\nA burst of joy, as if we told the fact\nTo ears intelligent; as if gray rock\nAnd cedar grove and cliff and lake should know\nThis feat of wit, this triumph of mankind;\nAs if we men were talking in a vein\nOf sympathy so large, that ours was theirs,\nAnd a prime end of the most subtle element\nWere fairly reached at last. Wake, echoing caves!\nBend nearer, faint day-moon! Yon thundertops,\nLet them hear well! ’tis theirs as much as ours.\n\n A spasm throbbing through the pedestals\nOf Alp and Andes, isle and continent,\nUrging astonished Chaos with a thrill\nTo be a brain, or serve the brain of man.\nThe lightning has run masterless too long;\nHe must to school and learn his verb and noun\nAnd teach his nimbleness to earn his wage,\nSpelling with guided tongue man’s messages\nShot through the weltering pit of the salt sea.\nAnd yet I marked, even in the manly joy\nOf our great-hearted Doctor in his boat\n(Perchance I erred), a shade of discontent;\nOr was it for mankind a generous shame,\nAs of a luck not quite legitimate,\nSince fortune snatched from wit the lion’s part?\nWas it a college pique of town and gown,\nAs one within whose memory it burned\nThat not academicians, but some lout,\nFound ten years since the Californian gold?\nAnd now, again, a hungry company\nOf traders, led by corporate sons of trade,\nPerversely borrowing from the shop the tools\nOf science, not from the philosophers,\nHad won the brightest laurel of all time.\n’Twas always thus, and will be; hand and head\nAre ever rivals: but, though this be swift,\nThe other slow,--this the Prometheus,\nAnd that the Jove,--yet, howsoever hid,\nIt was from Jove the other stole his fire,\nAnd, without Jove, the good had never been.\nIt is not Iroquois or cannibals,\nBut ever the free race with front sublime,\nAnd these instructed by their wisest too,\nWho do the feat, and lift humanity.\nLet not him mourn who best entitled was,\nNay, mourn not one: let him exult,\nYea, plant the tree that bears best apples, plant,\nAnd water it with wine, nor watch askance\nWhether thy sons or strangers eat the fruit:\nEnough that mankind eat and are refreshed.\n\n We flee away from cities, but we bring\nThe best of cities with us, these learned classifiers,\nMen knowing what they seek, armed eyes of experts.\nWe praise the guide, we praise the forest life:\nBut will we sacrifice our dear-bought lore\nOf books and arts and trained experiment,\nOr count the Sioux a match for Agassiz?\nO no, not we! Witness the shout that shook\nWild Tupper Lake; witness the mute all-hail\nThe joyful traveller gives, when on the verge\nOf craggy Indian wilderness he hears\nFrom a log cabin stream Beethoven’s notes\nOn the piano, played with master’s hand.\n“Well done!” he cries; “the bear is kept at bay,\nThe lynx, the rattlesnake, the flood, the fire;\nAll the fierce enemies, ague, hunger, cold,\nThis thin spruce roof, this clayed log-wall,\nThis wild plantation will suffice to chase.\nNow speed the gay celerities of art,\nWhat in the desert was impossible\nWithin four walls is possible again,--\nCulture and libraries, mysteries of skill,\nTraditioned fame of masters, eager strife\nOf keen competing youths, joined or alone\nTo outdo each other and extort applause.\nMind wakes a new-born giant from her sleep.\nTwirl the old wheels! Time takes fresh start again,\nOn for a thousand years of genius more.”\n\n The holidays were fruitful, but must end;\nOne August evening had a cooler breath;\nInto each mind intruding duties crept;\nUnder the cinders burned the fires of home;\nNay, letters found us in our paradise:\nSo in the gladness of the new event\nWe struck our camp and left the happy hills.\nThe fortunate star that rose on us sank not;\nThe prodigal sunshine rested on the land,\nThe rivers gambolled onward to the sea,\nAnd Nature, the inscrutable and mute,\nPermitted on her infinite repose\nAlmost a smile to steal to cheer her sons,\nAs if one riddle of the Sphinx were guessed.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1858, - "month": "august" - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "May-Day and Other Pieces", @@ -33656,6 +34658,10 @@ "year": 1867 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1858, + "month": "august" + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -33684,14 +34690,14 @@ "title": "“The Bell”", "body": "I love thy music, mellow bell,\n I love thine iron chime,\nTo life or death, to heaven or hell,\n Which calls the sons of Time.\n\nThy voice upon the deep\n The home-bound sea-boy hails,\nIt charms his cares to sleep,\n It cheers him as he sails.\n\nTo house of God and heavenly joys\n Thy summons called our sires,\nAnd good men thought thy sacred voice\n Disarmed the thunder’s fires.\n\nAnd soon thy music, sad death-bell,\n Shall lift its notes once more,\nAnd mix my requiem with the wind\n That sweeps my native shore.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1823 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Poems of Youth and Early Manhood", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1823 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -33717,16 +34723,16 @@ "title": "“Boston Hymn”", "body": "The word of the Lord by night\nTo the watching Pilgrims came,\nAs they sat by the seaside,\nAnd filled their hearts with flame.\n\nGod said, I am tired of kings,\nI suffer them no more;\nUp to my ear the morning brings\nThe outrage of the poor.\n\nThink ye I made this ball\nA field of havoc and war,\nWhere tyrants great and tyrants small\nMight harry the weak and poor?\n\nMy angel,--his name is Freedom,--\nChoose him to be your king;\nHe shall cut pathways east and west\nAnd fend you with his wing.\n\nLo! I uncover the land\nWhich I hid of old time in the West,\nAs the sculptor uncovers the statue\nWhen he has wrought his best;\n\nI show Columbia, of the rocks\nWhich dip their foot in the seas\nAnd soar to the air-borne flocks\nOf clouds and the boreal fleece.\n\nI will divide my goods;\nCall in the wretch and slave:\nNone shall rule but the humble.\nAnd none but Toil shall have.\n\nI will have never a noble,\nNo lineage counted great;\nFishers and choppers and ploughmen\nShall constitute a state.\n\nGo, cut down trees in the forest\nAnd trim the straightest boughs;\nCut down trees in the forest\nAnd build me a wooden house.\n\nCall the people together,\nThe young men and the sires,\nThe digger in the harvest-field,\nHireling and him that hires;\n\nAnd here in a pine state-house\nThey shall choose men to rule\nIn every needful faculty,\nIn church and state and school.\n\nLo, now! if these poor men\nCan govern the land and sea\nAnd make just laws below the sun,\nAs planets faithful be.\n\nAnd ye shall succor men;\n’Tis nobleness to serve;\nHelp them who cannot help again:\nBeware from right to swerve.\n\nI break your bonds and masterships,\nAnd I unchain the slave:\nFree be his heart and hand henceforth\nAs wind and wandering wave.\n\nI cause from every creature\nHis proper good to flow:\nAs much as he is and doeth,\nSo much he shall bestow.\n\nBut, laying hands on another\nTo coin his labor and sweat,\nHe goes in pawn to his victim\nFor eternal years in debt.\n\nTo-day unbind the captive,\nSo only are ye unbound;\nLift up a people from the dust,\nTrump of their rescue, sound!\n\nPay ransom to the owner\nAnd fill the bag to the brim.\nWho is the owner? The slave is owner,\nAnd ever was. Pay him.\n\nO North! give him beauty for rags,\nAnd honor, O South! for his shame;\nNevada! coin thy golden crags\nWith Freedom’s image and name.\n\nUp! and the dusky race\nThat sat in darkness long,--\nBe swift their feet as antelopes.\nAnd as behemoth strong.\n\nCome, East and West and North,\nBy races, as snow-flakes,\nAnd carry my purpose forth,\nWhich neither halts nor shakes.\n\nMy will fulfilled shall be,\nFor, in daylight or in dark,\nMy thunderbolt has eyes to see\nHis way home to the mark.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1863, - "month": "january", - "day": 1 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "May-Day and Other Pieces", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1863, + "month": "january", + "day": 1 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "juneteenth" @@ -33760,9 +34766,6 @@ "title": "“Dirge”", "body": "I reached the middle of the mount\n Up which the incarnate soul must climb,\nAnd paused for them, and looked around,\n With me who walked through space and time.\n\nFive rosy boys with morning light\n Had leaped from one fair mother’s arms,\nFronted the sun with hope as bright,\n And greeted God with childhood’s psalms.\n\nKnows he who tills this lonely field\n To reap its scanty corn,\nWhat mystic fruit his acres yield\n At midnight and at morn?\n\nIn the long sunny afternoon\n The plain was full of ghosts;\nI wandered up, I wandered down,\n Beset by pensive hosts.\n\nThe winding Concord gleamed below,\n Pouring as wide a flood\nAs when my brothers, long ago,\n Came with me to the wood.\n\nBut they are gone,--the holy ones\n Who trod with me this lovely vale;\nThe strong, star-bright companions\n Are silent, low and pale.\n\nMy good, my noble, in their prime,\n Who made this world the feast it was\nWho learned with me the lore of time,\n Who loved this dwelling-place!\n\nThey took this valley for their toy,\n They played with it in every mood;\nA cell for prayer, a hall for joy,--\n They treated Nature as they would.\n\nThey colored the horizon round;\n Stars flamed and faded as they bade,\nAll echoes hearkened for their sound,--\n They made the woodlands glad or mad.\n\nI touch this flower of silken leaf,\n Which once our childhood knew;\nIts soft leaves wound me with a grief\n Whose balsam never grew.\n\nHearken to yon pine-warbler\n Singing aloft in the tree!\nHearest thou, O traveller,\n What he singeth to me?\n\nNot unless God made sharp thine ear\n With sorrow such as mine,\nOut of that delicate lay could’st thou\n Its heavy tale divine.\n\n“Go, lonely man,” it saith;\n “They loved thee from their birth;\nTheir hands were pure, and pure their faith,--\n There are no such hearts on earth.”\n\n“Ye drew one mother’s milk,\n One chamber held ye all;\nA very tender history\n Did in your childhood fall.”\n\n“You cannot unlock your heart,\n The key is gone with them;\nThe silent organ loudest chants\n The master’s requiem.”", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1838 - }, "place": "Concord", "language": "English", "source": { @@ -33772,6 +34775,9 @@ "year": 1847 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1838 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -33898,14 +34904,14 @@ "title": "“Good Hope”", "body": "The cup of life is not so shallow\nThat we have drained the best,\nThat all the wine at once we swallow\nAnd lees make all the rest.\n\nMaids of as soft a bloom shall marry\nAs Hymen yet hath blessed,\nAnd fairer forms are in the quarry\nThan Phidias released.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1827 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Poems of Youth and Early Manhood", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1827 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -33929,15 +34935,15 @@ "title": "“Hymn”", "body": "There is in all the sons of men\nA love that in the spirit dwells,\nThat panteth after things unseen,\nAnd tidings of the future tells.\n\nAnd God hath built his altar here\nTo keep this fire of faith alive,\nAnd sent his priests in holy fear\nTo speak the truth--for truth to strive.\n\nAnd hither come the pensive train\nOf rich and poor, of young and old,\nOf ardent youth untouched by pain,\nOf thoughtful maids and manhood bold.\n\nThey seek a friend to speak the word\nAlready trembling on their tongue,\nTo touch with prophet’s hand the chord\nWhich God in human hearts hath strung.\n\nTo speak the plain reproof of sin\nThat sounded in the soul before,\nAnd bid you let the angels in\nThat knock at meek contrition’s door.\n\nA friend to lift the curtain up\nThat hides from man the mortal goal,\nAnd with glad thoughts of faith and hope\nSurprise the exulting soul.\n\nSole source of light and hope assured,\nO touch thy servant’s lips with power,\nSo shall he speak to us the word\nThyself dost give forever more.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1831, - "month": "june" - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Poems of Youth and Early Manhood", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1831, + "month": "june" + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -34016,17 +35022,17 @@ "title": "“A Mountain Grave”", "body": "Why fear to die\nAnd let thy body lie\nUnder the flowers of June,\n Thy body food\n For the ground-worms’ brood\nAnd thy grave smiled on by the visiting moon.\n\nAmid great Nature’s halls\nGirt in by mountain walls\nAnd washed with waterfalls\nIt would please me to die,\n Where every wind that swept my tomb\n Goes loaded with a free perfume\nDealt out with a God’s charity.\n\nI should like to die in sweets,\nA hill’s leaves for winding-sheets,\nAnd the searching sun to see\nThat I am laid with decency.\nAnd the commissioned wind to sing\nHis mighty psalm from fall to spring\nAnd annual tunes commemorate\nOf Nature’s child the common fate.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1831, - "month": "june", - "day": 1 - }, "place": "Williamstown, Vermont", "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Poems of Youth and Early Manhood", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1831, + "month": "june", + "day": 1 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -34038,16 +35044,16 @@ "title": "“Music”", "body": "Let me go where’er I will,\nI hear a sky-born music still:\nIt sounds from all things old,\nIt sounds from all things young,\nFrom all that’s fair, from all that’s foul,\nPeals out a cheerful song.\n\nIt is not only in the rose,\nIt is not only in the bird,\nNot only where the rainbow glows,\nNor in the song of woman heard,\nBut in the darkest, meanest things\nThere alway, alway something sings.\n\n’T is not in the high stars alone,\nNor in the cup of budding flowers,\nNor in the redbreast’s mellow tone,\nNor in the bow that smiles in showers,\nBut in the mud and scum of things\nThere alway, alway something sings.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1832, - "month": "october", - "day": 9 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Poems of Youth and Early Manhood", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1832, + "month": "october", + "day": 9 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -34118,16 +35124,16 @@ "title": "“Ode”", "body": "O tenderly the haughty day\n Fills his blue urn with fire;\nOne morn is in the mighty heaven,\n And one in our desire.\n\nThe cannon booms from town to town,\n Our pulses beat not less,\nThe joy-bells chime their tidings down,\n Which children’s voices bless.\n\nFor He that flung the broad blue fold\n O’er-mantling land and sea,\nOne third part of the sky unrolled\n For the banner of the free.\n\nThe men are ripe of Saxon kind\n To build an equal state,--\nTo take the statute from the mind\n And make of duty fate.\n\nUnited States! the ages plead,--\n Present and Past in under-song,--\nGo put your creed into your deed,\n Nor speak with double tongue.\n\nFor sea and land don’t understand,\n Nor skies without a frown\nSee rights for which the one hand fights\n By the other cloven down.\n\nBe just at home; then write your scroll\n Of honor o’er the sea,\nAnd bid the broad Atlantic roll,\n A ferry of the free.\n\nAnd henceforth there shall be no chain,\n Save underneath the sea\nThe wires shall murmur through the main\n Sweet songs of liberty.\n\nThe conscious stars accord above,\n The waters wild below,\nAnd under, through the cable wove,\n Her fiery errands go.\n\nFor He that worketh high and wise.\n Nor pauses in his plan,\nWill take the sun out of the skies\n Ere freedom out of man.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1857, - "month": "july", - "day": 4 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "May-Day and Other Pieces", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1857, + "month": "july", + "day": 4 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "independence_day" @@ -34162,15 +35168,15 @@ "body": "And I behold once more\nMy old familiar haunts; here the blue river,\nThe same blue wonder that my infant eye\nAdmired, sage doubting whence the traveller came,--\nWhence brought his sunny bubbles ere he washed\nThe fragrant flag-roots in my father’s fields,\nAnd where thereafter in the world he went.\nLook, here he is, unaltered, save that now\nHe hath broke his banks and flooded all the vales\nWith his redundant waves.\nHere is the rock where, yet a simple child,\nI caught with bended pin my earliest fish,\nMuch triumphing,--and these the fields\nOver whose flowers I chased the butterfly\nA blooming hunter of a fairy fine.\nAnd hark! where overhead the ancient crows\nHold their sour conversation in the sky:--\nThese are the same, but I am not the same,\nBut wiser than I was, and wise enough\nNot to regret the changes, tho’ they cost\nMe many a sigh. Oh, call not Nature dumb;\nThese trees and stones are audible to me,\nThese idle flowers, that tremble in the wind,\nI understand their faery syllables,\nAnd all their sad significance. The wind,\nThat rustles down the well-known forest road--\nIt hath a sound more eloquent than speech.\nThe stream, the trees, the grass, the sighing wind,\nAll of them utter sounds of ’monishment\nAnd grave parental love.\nThey are not of our race, they seem to say,\nAnd yet have knowledge of our moral race,\nAnd somewhat of majestic sympathy,\nSomething of pity for the puny clay,\nThat holds and boasts the immeasurable mind.\nI feel as I were welcome to these trees\nAfter long months of weary wandering,\nAcknowledged by their hospitable boughs;\nThey know me as their son, for side by side,\nThey were coeval with my ancestors,\nAdorned with them my country’s primitive times,\nAnd soon may give my dust their funeral shade.", "metadata": { "place": "Concord", - "time": { - "year": 1827, - "month": "june" - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Poems of Youth and Early Manhood", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1827, + "month": "june" + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -34196,16 +35202,16 @@ "title": "“Self-Reliance”", "body": "Henceforth, please God, forever I forego\nThe yoke of men’s opinions. I will be\nLight-hearted as a bird, and live with God.\nI find him in the bottom of my heart,\nI hear continually his voice therein.\n\nThe little needle always knows the North,\nThe little bird remembereth his note,\nAnd this wise Seer within me never errs.\nI never taught it what it teaches me;\nI only follow, when I act aright.\n\nAnd when I am entombed in my place,\nBe it remembered of a single man,\nHe never, though he dearly loved his race,\nFor fear of human eyes swerved from his plan.\n\nOh what is Heaven but the fellowship\nOf minds that each can stand against the world\nBy its own meek and incorruptible will?\n\nThe days pass over me\nAnd I am still the same;\nThe aroma of my life is gone\nWith the flower with which it came.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1832, - "month": "october", - "day": 9 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Poems of Youth and Early Manhood", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1832, + "month": "october", + "day": 9 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -34265,15 +35271,15 @@ "title": "“Thought”", "body": "I am not poor, but I am proud,\n Of one inalienable right,\nAbove the envy of the crowd,--\n Thought’s holy light.\n\nBetter it is than gems or gold,\n And oh! it cannot die,\nBut thought will glow when the sun grows cold,\n And mix with Deity.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1823 - }, "place": "Boston", "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Poems of Youth and Early Manhood", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1823 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -34337,16 +35343,16 @@ "title": "“We are what we are made 
”", "body": "We are what we are made; each following day\nIs the Creator of our human mould\nNot less than was the first; the all-wise God\nGilds a few points in every several life,\nAnd as each flower upon the fresh hillside,\nAnd every colored petal of each flower,\nIs sketched and dyed, each with a new design,\nIts spot of purple, and its streak of brown,\nSo each man’s life shall have its proper lights,\nAnd a few joys, a few peculiar charms,\nFor him round in the melancholy hours\nAnd reconcile him to the common days.\nNot many men see beauty in the fogs\nOf close low pine-woods in a river town;\nYet unto me not morn’s magnificence,\nNor the red rainbow of a summer eve,\nNor Rome, nor joyful Paris, nor the halls\nOf rich men blazing hospitable light,\nNor wit, nor eloquence,--no, nor even the song\nOf any woman that is now alive,--\nHath such a soul, such divine influence,\nSuch resurrection of the happy past,\nAs is to me when I behold the morn\nOpe in such law moist roadside, and beneath\nPeep the blue violets out of the black loam,\nPathetic silent poets that sing to me\nThine elegy, sweet singer, sainted wife.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1833, - "month": "march" - }, "place": "Naples", "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Poems of Youth and Early Manhood", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1833, + "month": "march" + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -34523,21 +35529,39 @@ "name": "William Everson", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1912 + "year": 1912, + "month": "september", + "day": 10 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Sacramento", + "state": "California", + "country": "USA" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1994 + "year": 1994, + "month": "june", + "day": 3 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Santa Cruz", + "state": "California", + "country": "USA" } }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ "poet" ], - "education": null, - "movement": [], - "religion": null, + "education": { + "bachelors": "California State University, Fresno" + }, + "movement": [ + "San Francisco Renaissance" + ], + "religion": "Catholic", "nationality": [ "united-states" ], @@ -34547,8 +35571,10 @@ "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Everson_(poet)", "favorite": false, "tags": [ + "Dominican", "American", - "English" + "English", + "San Francisco Renaissance" ] }, "poems": { @@ -34811,7 +35837,9 @@ "body": "Before you came,\nthings were as they should be:\nthe sky was the dead-end of sight,\nthe road was just a road, wine merely wine.\n\nNow everything is like my heart,\na color at the edge of blood:\nthe grey of your absence, the color of poison, of thorns,\nthe gold when we meet, the season ablaze,\nthe yellow of autumn, the red of flowers, of flames,\nand the black when you cover the earth\nwith the coal of dead fires.\n\nAnd the sky, the road, the glass of wine?\nThe sky is a shirt wet with tears,\nthe road a vein about to break,\nand the glass of wine a mirror in which\nthe sky, the road, the world keep changing.\n\nDon’t leave now that you’re here--\nStay. So the world may become like itself again: so the sky may be the sky,\nthe road a road,\nand the glass of wine not a mirror, just a glass of wine.", "metadata": { "language": "Arabic", - "translator": "Naomi Lazard", + "translators": [ + "Naomi Lazard" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -34820,7 +35848,9 @@ "body": "My beloved,\nMy own,\nDo not demand the love\nI gave you once.\n\nFor a moment, I really believed\nThat you alone gave meaning\nTo my withered life;\nThat the accelerating pain\nOf my unrequited love,\nWould make me forget\nAll other torments\nOf this troubled world;\nThat your face lent stability\nTo the restless spring;\nThat nothing else mattered\nIn this empty world\nBut your deep, seductive eyes.\n\nFor a moment, I really believed\nThat if I could only possess you,\nI could conquer Fate itself.\n\nBut all that was false,\nA mere illusion.\n\nThis world of ours bleeds\nWith more pains than just the pain of love;\nAnd many more pleasures beckon us all the time\nThan just this fleeting pleasure of a reunion with you.\n\nFor untold centuries,\nThe affluent have always woven many webs of intrigue,\nDark and cruel and mysterious,\nAnd dressed them up in silks and brocades.\nAnd for all those years,\nOn every street and in every bazaar,\nHuman bodies have been brazenly sold,\nDressed in dust and bathed in blood,\nMalnourished, misshapen and baked by disease.\n\nTime and time again,\nMy eyes are diverted\nTo this tragic scene,\nYour beauty is alluring as ever,\nYour arms inviting as always:\nBut how can I ever ignore\nAll this ugliness, all this pain?\n\nYes, my love,\nThis world of ours bleeds\nWith more pains than just the pain of love;\nAnd many more pleasures beckon us all the time\nThan just the fleeting pleasure of a reunion with you.\n\nMy beloved,\nMy own,\nDo not demand the love\nI gave you once.", "metadata": { "language": "Urdu", - "translator": "Mahbub-ul-Haq", + "translators": [ + "Mahbub-ul-Haq" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -34831,19 +35861,35 @@ "name": "William Faulkner", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1897 + "year": 1897, + "month": "september", + "day": 25 + }, + "place": { + "city": "New Albany", + "state": "Mississippi", + "country": "USA" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1962 + "year": 1962, + "month": "july", + "day": 6 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Byhalia", + "state": "Mississippi", + "country": "USA" } }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ "poet" ], - "education": null, + "education": { + "attended": "University of Mississippi" + }, "movement": [], "religion": null, "nationality": [ @@ -34855,6 +35901,7 @@ "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Faulkner", "favorite": false, "tags": [ + "Nobel Prize", "American", "English" ] @@ -34886,14 +35933,14 @@ "title": "“Love Song”", "body": "Shall I walk, then, through a corridor of profundities\nCarefully erect ( I am taller that [than?] I look)\nTo a certain door--and shall I dare\nTo open it? I smoothe my mental hair\nWith an oft changed phrase that I revise again\nUntil I have forgotten what it was at first;\nSettle my tie with: I have brought a book,\nThen seat myself with: We have passed the worst.\n\nThen I shall sit among careful cups of tea,\nAware of a slight perspiring as to brow,\n(The smell of scented cigarettes will always trouble me);\nI shall sit, so patently at ease,\nStiffly erect, decorous as to knees\nAmong toy balloons of dignity on threads of talk.\n\nAnd do I dare\n(I once more stroke my hand across my hair )\nBut the window of my mind flies shut, I am in a room\nOf surcharged conversation, and of jewelled hands;\n--Here one slowly strips a flower stalk.\nIt is too close in here, I rise and walk,\nFirmly take my self-possession by the hand.\n\nNow, do I dare,\nWho sees the light gleam on her intricate hair?\nShall I assume a studied pose, or shall I stand--\nOh, Mr. 
? You are so kind 
\nAgain the door slams inward on my mind.\n\nNot at all!\n\nReplace a cup,\nReturn and pick a napkin up.\n\nMy tongue, a bulwark where a last faint self-possession hides,\nFails me: I withdraw, retreat,\nConscious of the glances on my feet,\nAnd feel as if I trod in sand.\n\nYet I may raise my head a little while.\nThe world revolves behind a painted smile.\nAnd now, while evening lies embalmed upon the west\nAnd a last faint pulse of life fades down the sky,\nWe will go alone, my soul and I,\nTo a hollow cadence down this neutral street;\nTo a rhythm of feet\nNow stilled and fallen. I will walk alone,\nThe uninvited one who dares not go\nWhither the feast is spread to friend and foe,\nWhose courage balks the last indifferent gate,\nWho dares not join the beggars at the arch of stone.\n\nChange and change: the world revolves to worlds,\nTo minute whorls\nAnd particles of soil on careless thumbs.\nNow I shall go alone,\nI shall echo streets of stone, while evening comes\nTreading space and beat, space and beat.\nThe last left seed of beauty in my heart\nThat I so carefully tended, leaf and bloom,\nFalls in darkness.\n\nBut enough. What is all beauty? What, that I\nShould raise my hands palm upward to the sky,\nThat I should weakly tremble and fall dumb\nAt some cryptic promise or pale gleam;--\nA sudden wing, a word, a cry?\nEvening dies, and now that night has come\nWalking still streets, monk-like, grey and dumb;\nThen softly clad in grey, lies down again;\nI also rise and walk, and die in dream,\nFor dream is death, and death but fathomed dream.\n\nAnd shall I walk these streets while passing time\nSoftly ticks my face, my thinning hair?\nI should have been a priest in floorless halls\nWearing his eyes thin on a faded manuscript.\n\nThe world revolves. High heels and scented shawls,\nPainted masks, and kisses mouth and mouth:\nGesture of a senile pantaloon\nTo make us laugh.\n\nI have measured time, I measured time\nWith span of thumb and finger\nAs one who seeks a bargain: sound enough\nI think, but slightly worn;\nThere’s still enough to cover me from cold,\nMomentous indecisions, change\nAnd loneliness. Does not each fold\nRepeat--the while I measure time, I measure time--\nThe word, the thought, the soundless empty gesture\nOf him that it so bravely once arrayed?\n\nSpring 
 shadowed walls, and kissing in the dark.\nI, too; was young upon a time, I too; have felt\nAll life, at one small word, within me melt;\nAnd strange slow swooning wings I could not see\nStirring the beautiful silence over me.\n\nI grow old, I grow old.\nCould I walk within my garden while the night\nComes gently down,\nAnd see the garden maidens dancing, white\nAnd dim, across the flower beds?\n\nI would take cold: I dare not try,\nNor watch the stars again born in the sky\nEternally young.\n\nI grow old, I grow old.\nSubmerged in the firelight’s solemn gold\nI sit, watching the restless shadows, red and brown\nFloat there till I disturb them, then they drown.\n\nI measure time, I measure time.\nI see my soul, disturbed, awake and climb\nA sudden dream, and fall\nAnd whimpering, crowd near me in the dark.\n\nAnd do I dare, who steadily builds a wall\nOf hour on hour, and day, then lifts a year\nThat heavily falls in place, while time\nTicks my face, my thinning hair, my heart\nIn which a faint last long remembered beauty hides?\n\nI should have been a priest in floorless halls\nWhose hand, worn thin by turning endless pages,\nLifts, and strokes his face, and falls\nAnd stirs a dust of time heaped grain on grain,\nThen gropes the book, and turns it through again;\n\nWho turns the pages through, who turns again,\nWhile darkness lays soft fingers on his eyes\nAnd strokes the lamplight from his brow, to wake him, and he dies.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1921 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Vision in Spring", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1921 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -35106,8 +36153,10 @@ "title": "“That blessed sunlight, that once showed to me 
”", "body": "That blessed sunlight, that once showed to me\nMy way to heaven more plain, more certainly,\nAnd with her bright beams banished utterly\nAll trace of mortal sorrow far from me,\nHas gone from me, has left her prison sad,\nAnd I am blind and alone and gone astray,\nLike a lost pilgrim on a desert way\nWanting the blessed guide that once he had.\n\nThus with a spirit bowed and mind a blur\nI trace the holy steps where she has gone\nBy valleys and by meadows and by mountains,\nAnd everywhere I catch a glimpse of her,\nShe takes me by the hand and leads me on,\nAnd my eyes follow her, my eyes made fountains.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Masefield", "language": "Portuguese", + "translators": [ + "John Masefield" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -35150,11 +36199,13 @@ "title": "“At a fireplace”", "body": "At dusk a dying out coal\nIs twinkling with transparent blinks,\nThe way a moth on a poppy’s bowl\nFlaps azure with its weightless wings.\n\nSuccessions of mixed apparitions\nAttract the tired out eye,\nSome images as premonitions\nAlong the ash are flying by.\n\nThe bygone happiness, unprompted,\nArises tender with ardours;\nAnd soul lies that all’s not wanted\nFor what it so deeply mourns.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vyacheslav Chistyakov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1856 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vyacheslav Chistyakov" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -35176,11 +36227,13 @@ "title": "“Do not elude 
”", "body": "Do not elude--I will not sue\nFor your heart pain, nor secret worrying,\nI want to plunge myself in mourning\nAnd to repeat that I love you.\n\nIt is suffice for me to fly\nTo you like waves run by the water--\nTo kiss cold granite I have gotten,\nTo kiss and after that to die.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vyacheslav Chistyakov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1862 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vyacheslav Chistyakov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -35188,13 +36241,15 @@ "title": "“Forgive! My hazy memory 
”", "body": "Forgive! My hazy memory\nShows me one night time and again:\nYou sitting alone and silently\nIn front of your fireplace’s flame.\n\nWatching it, I was lost in thought,\nMagic around caused heaviness,\nAnd bitter was felt in that lot\nOf my vigour and happiness.\n\nI wavered near my goal, but why?\nWhat did my madness lead me to?\nTo what storms and thickets did I\nTake away your warmth, away from you?\n\nWhere are you? Is that really so,\nThat, seeing not a thing around,\nStunned, frozen and whitened with snow,\nI’m knocking on your heart aloud?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Pavel Efremov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1888, "month": "january", "day": 22 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Pavel Efremov" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -35206,11 +36261,13 @@ "title": "“I come to you with daybreak greeting 
”", "body": "I come to you with daybreak greeting,\nTo tell you of the risen sun,\nOf how its rays, with shade competing,\nAcross the glints of foliage run;\n\nTo tell you that the woods have woken,\nWith every branch and twig that sing,\nEach feather-flit of bird a token\nOf nature’s yearning thirst for spring;\n\nTo say that, just as yesterday,\nWith fervidness I come to you,\nThat steeped in glee and bliss at play,\nMy soul will palliate your rue;\n\nTo tell you that from God knows where\nContentment wafts through all my veins,\nI know not yet what song I’ll air,\nBut deep inside I nurse refrains.", "metadata": { - "translator": "U. R. Bowie", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "U. R. Bowie" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -35226,8 +36283,10 @@ "title": "“Why am I too amicable with others 
”", "body": "Why am I too amicable with others\nFeeling that of all he is the farthest?\nWhy can’t I though shunning him elsewhere\nStill not run him into, here and there?\nWhy on seeing him do I get angry,\nAt all exasperated, all and sundry?\nWhy when I am left with him in private\nDo I scoff at him offended by it?\nAfterwards the night through I’ll be crying.\nWho can tell the answer, who is prying?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vyacheslav Chistyakov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vyacheslav Chistyakov" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -35893,12 +36952,26 @@ "name": "F. S. Flint", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1885 + "year": 1885, + "month": "december", + "day": 19 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Islington", + "state": "London", + "country": "England" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1960 + "year": 1960, + "month": "february", + "day": 28 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Islington", + "state": "London", + "country": "England" } }, "gender": "male", @@ -35906,7 +36979,9 @@ "poet" ], "education": null, - "movement": [], + "movement": [ + "Imagism" + ], "religion": null, "nationality": [ "england" @@ -35917,7 +36992,8 @@ "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._S._Flint", "favorite": false, "tags": [ - "English" + "English", + "Imagism" ] }, "poems": { @@ -36268,8 +37344,10 @@ "title": "“Salutation of the Virtues”", "body": "Hail, queen wisdom! May the Lord save thee with thy sister holy pure simplicity!\nO Lady, holy poverty, may the Lord save thee with thy sister holy humility!\nO Lady, holy charity, may the Lord save thee with thy sister holy obedience!\nO all ye most holy virtues, may the Lord, from whom you proceed and come, save you!\nThere is absolutely no man in the whole world who can possess one among you unless he first die.\nHe who possesses one and does not offend the others, possesses all; and he who offends one, possesses none and offends all; and every one of them confounds vices and sins.\nHoly wisdom confounds Satan and all his wickednesses.\nPure holy simplicity confounds all the wisdom of this world and the wisdom of the flesh.\nHoly poverty confounds cupidity and avarice and the cares of this world.\nHoly humility confounds pride and all the men of this world and all things that are in the world.\nHoly charity confounds all diabolical and fleshly temptations and all fleshly fears.\nHoly obedience confounds all bodily and fleshly desires and keeps the body mortified to the obedience of the spirit and to the obedience of one’s brother and makes a man subject to all the men of this world and not to men alone, but also to all beasts and wild animals, so that they may do with him whatsoever they will, in so far as it may be granted to them from above by the Lord.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paschal Robinson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Paschal Robinson" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_day" @@ -37913,12 +38991,25 @@ "name": "ThĂ©ophile Gautier", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1811 + "year": 1811, + "month": "august", + "day": 11 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Tarbes", + "state": "Occitanie", + "country": "France" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1872 + "year": 1872, + "month": "october", + "day": 23 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Neuilly-sur-Seine", + "country": "France" } }, "gender": "male", @@ -37926,7 +39017,10 @@ "poet" ], "education": null, - "movement": [], + "movement": [ + "Parnassianism", + "Romanticism" + ], "religion": null, "nationality": [ "france" @@ -37937,7 +39031,9 @@ "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThĂ©ophile_Gautier", "favorite": false, "tags": [ - "French" + "French", + "Parnassianism", + "Romanticism" ] }, "poems": { @@ -39792,15 +40888,38 @@ "name": "Louise GlĂŒck", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1943 + "year": 1943, + "month": "april", + "day": 22 + }, + "place": { + "city": "New York City", + "state": "New York", + "country": "USA" + } + }, + "death": { + "date": { + "year": 2023, + "month": "october", + "day": 13 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Cambridge", + "state": "Massachusetts", + "country": "USA" } }, - "death": null, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ "poet" ], - "education": null, + "education": { + "attended": [ + "Sarah Lawrence College", + "Columbia University" + ] + }, "movement": [], "religion": null, "nationality": [ @@ -40127,11 +41246,13 @@ "title": "“Song of the Falcon”", "body": "The sea is vast--breathing lazily by the shore line,--and, in the distance, it is almost dormant and strangely still in the moonlight glow. There, far away on the horizon, the silvery sea softly fuses with the blue southern sky and is sound asleep, covered in lacy reflections of spindrift clouds whose gossamer fabric is motionless and does not obscure the golden glitter of stars. Over the dark waters, the sky hovers very low as if trying to hear the waves’ unsettled whisper as they slowly roll to shore.\n\nOn the shore’s forested mountains, ugly trees are misshapen by the nor’easter, their jagged, stiff tops project into the blue vastness above; yet, below, their gloomy outlines are relaxed and lush in the warmth and languor of the southern night.\n\nThe mountains are solemn as if suspended in thought. They throw dark shadows on the spongy, greenish crests of the waves below, enveloping them as if to arrest their singular motion, to muffle their incessant splashing and the sighs of their foam--all the sounds that disturb the mysterious fusion of the air’s calm and the silver-blue shine of the moon still hidden by the mountain tops.\n\n--Al-la-a-Akhba-a-ar!
--quietly exhales Nadyr-Raghim-Ogly, a gray-haired, old and wise Crimean herder, tall and withered, his skin deeply burnt by the southern sun.\n\nHe and I are lying on the sand by a huge stone that broke off from the nearest mountain, still under its shadow and overgrown with moss;--the stone looks glum and severe. The waves knurl over the sea side of it, depositing slime and algae; and the rock so adorned seems tethered by the narrow strip of sand that separates sea from mountains. The other side of the rock, the side that faces the mountain, is lit by our campfire, and each time the flames shiver, murky shadows dazzle the old stone’s surface deeply indented with cracks and scratches.\n\nRaghim and I are cooking fish soup from our fresh catch, and we both are in such a surreal mood when everything seems animate, inspires and opens your soul to deep feelings; the heart is pure, and the lightness of being expels all desires except the desire to think.\n\nAnd the sea caresses the shore, and the waves splash at it with such tenderness as if begging us to let them warm up by the campfire. At times, in the unified harmony of the waves’ sounds, one can distinguish a higher note, like a playful pitch,--that’s when one of the waves, the boldest of them, creeps up and almost touches us.\n\nRaghim lies with his chest in the sand and his face turned seaward, absorbed in thought and watching the sea; his elbows are planted in the sand and he holds his head in his palms, looking into the hazy distance as if transfixed. A shaggy goat-fur hat nearly slid off his head, and the sea breeze cools his high and deeply wrinkled brow. He seems to be conversing with the sea, and starts philosophizing without caring if I am even listening to him:\n\n--The one who is faithful to God, he goes to paradise. And the one who serves not God nor the Prophet?
 Maybe, he is--in that sea foam. And those silver spots on the water, who knows? 
 maybe it’s him, too.\n\nThe dark expanse of the mighty sea brightens, and sporadically, like scattered glitter, there appear some patches of reflected moonlight. The moon has finally risen up from the disheveled mountain tops, and it now pours its pensive light over the waters which calmly breathe toward it, over the shore, and over the rock by which we lie.\n\n--Raghim! 
 Tell me a story.--I ask of the old man.\n\n--What for?--answers Raghim without turning to look at me.\n\n--
 ’cause 
! I love your tales.\n\n--I’ve already told you all of them. Don’t know any more.--He is just saying this because he wants me to beg him. So, I beg.\n\n--Want me to tell you a song?--says Raghim, agreeably.\n\nI do want to hear the old song; and, in sonorous cantillation, trying to preserve the peculiar melody, he begins.\n\n\n# I.\n\nHigh up the mountain crawled a snake and lay there in a slimy crevice, all curled up tightly and looking seaward.\n\nHigh in the sky the sun shone brightly, rocks breathing heat, and ocean waves were breaking stones beneath the mountain 
\n\nCutting a canyon into the mountain, grinding the stones, a stream was rushing, all dark and foamy, toward the ocean 
\n\nAll of a sudden into the crevice where Snake was resting there fell a falcon, blood on her feathers, and deeply wounded 
\n\nHer cry was piercing; she fell and tumbled, crushing her breast in helpless anger upon the stones 
\n\nFirst, Snake was frightened, crawled shrewdly backwards, but soon he figured that poor Falcon perhaps had only a few brief minutes of life remaining 
\n\nHe slithered close to the wounded Falcon, and hissed directly into her ear:\n\n--Hey, are you dying?\n\n--Yes, I am dying!--responded Falcon with a heavy sigh.--I had a good life!
 I knew fulfillment of dreams and hopes!
 I saw the sky 
 I touched it, soared!
 You’ll never know it so high and close!
 You poor creature!\n\n--What is the sky to me? Nothing and empty 
 One cannot crawl there. I like it here 
 so warm and humid!\n\nSnake answered thus the bird of freedom, and deep inside he even chuckled at her delusions. And thought like this: “We fly or crawl, but in the end we know what happens: we all turn to dust, all end up buried in sand or soil 
”\n\nBut wounded Falcon just shook herself, lifted her head up, and looked around the seeping crevice. Indeed, the stone around there was wet and slimy, the air was stifling and smelled of scavenge.\n\nAnd Falcon gathered all her strength remaining, and let out a cry of pain and yearning:\n\n--Oh, if I only could rise up flying--one last time only, while I’m still living--in the deep air of lucid heaven! 
\n\nSnake heard, and whispered: “Why would she, dying, be so driven to grieve for flying? 
 This lucid air that bears flyers, indeed, may turn out to be delightful for living creatures.”\n\nHe said to Falcon, the dying dreamer: “Come on, move close to the cliff’s edge there, and throw down your wounded body. For 
 who would know?! 
 your wings and air might lift you upward, and once again let you enjoy the thrill of flying amidst your element.”\n\nAnd Falcon shuddered; with a loud cry, she labored to gain the canyon’s bluff, slipping and falling and yet still rising. But then she made it to the utmost edge and spread out her wings; inhaling deeply, she looked around with a flaming glare--and downward fell.\n\nAnd like a stone she rolled and tumbled, and slipped and scattered, breaking her wings and losing feathers 
\n\nThe stream below caught her, all beaten, washed off her bleeding, covered with foam and gently carried her into the ocean.\n\nThe ocean waves were crushing stones with mournful roaring 
 The corpse of Falcon was never found in the vast expanses of rocks and water 
\n\n\n# II.\n\nLaying in his crevice, Snake contemplated the death of Falcon, her love of flying. He lay a long time in the narrow crevice, staring into this puzzling air that teases the eyes of the misguided with silly dreams.\n\n--What did she see there, in total emptiness, without bottom or edge or cover? The likes of her, in death as living, why do they dare confuse one’s soul with their passion for skyward flying? What do they see there? What do they hear? And might not I grasp all its meanings if I could fly there for just one moment?\n\nSnake said--and did it! His body tightened, he fast uncoiled, cutting through the air, like a flash of lightning.\n\nThose born to crawl--will never fly!
 Forgetting that, Snake hit the stones; not hurt, however, he thought, elated:\n\n--So, that’s the beauty of skyward flying! It is--in falling!
 Birds are so foolish! Not knowing earth, depressed when grounded, they feel the calling to rise to heaven and seek life’s pleasures in empty vastness. It is but empty. It is filled with light but void of food and of protection for us the living. Why, then, was Falcon so bold and proud? Just to conceal the sheer madness of her desires and lack of fitness among the living. Birds are so foolish!
 But I am wiser! I shan’t be bullied by their tattles. I know now! I saw their heaven, the sky of flying. I launched into it, its depths I measured; endured falling, but did not shudder, and gained much confidence from this endeavor. Let those wretches who cannot love this solid ground live in delusion. I know the truth. I won’t be fooled. Of earth created--by earth I’m living.\n\nAnd feeling proud, he coiled tightly, and was quite happy.\n\n* * *\n\nIn sunlit glory the ocean glittered, and waves crushed stones with thunderous roaring. And in that roaring one could just hear the song, or ballad, of the proud Falcon; the rocks were trembling from waves’ hard beating, and heaven echoed words of the ballad:\n\n“We praise the daring of valiant dreamers!”\n\n“Creation’s wisdom is in their boldness. Oh, blessed Falcon! You were defeated, and died pursuing your dream of freedom, of flying skyward. And yet 
 Oh, Falcon! Yours is the future--the blood you spilled, like sparks of fire, will light the darkness of grim existence, igniting hearts of countless many with thirst for living! And in this ballad, the song composed for the strong of spirit, you will be always the shining symbol, the proud caller to light and freedom!”\n\n“Praised be the daring of all bold dreamers!”\n\n* * *\n\n
 Quiet is the opalescent remoteness of the sea, the waves roll over sand with rustling melodies, and I am silent, watching the distant horizon. The silver patches of moonlight on the sea surface are abundant now 
 Our cauldron is boiling slowly.\n\nOne of the waves rolls playfully out on the shore, and, with a defiant rattle, crawls straight toward Raghim’s head.\n\n--What the 
? Get off!--Raghim brandishes his hand at it, and it obediently rolls back into the sea.\n\nRaghim’s treatment of waves as animate is neither funny nor troubling to me. In fact, everything around us looks mysteriously alive, soft, and tender. The sea is profoundly quiet, so quiet it is, that one feels its immense power--even in the refreshing breeze from the sea to the mountains still feverish from the day’s swelter--one feels the hidden, contained but all-mighty force. The sky, dark-blue and adorned by the golden lace of stars, evokes exultation that is all but enchanting, bewitching the soul, confusing the mind, as a sweet precursor of some awesome revelation.\n\nAll around, the world is in a slumber, but a slumber so tense and fragile, and so delicate that it seems any moment to shake it off and break into a melody of sublime and powerful harmony. This tune can tell of the secrets of the universe, bring reason to the mind and then extinguish it just as quickly as one puts out a candle; and entice your soul away, high up into the dark-blue abyss of the skies where the tremulous veil of the stars will welcome it with the exquisite, heavenly music of revelation 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Janna Kaplan", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1895 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Janna Kaplan" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -40139,11 +41260,13 @@ "title": "“Song of the Stormy Petrel”", "body": "Alongside the grey-haired sea plain\nWind is gathering the clouds.\nBetween clouds and the sea plain\nThere’s a proud petrel flying,\nAs a black flicker of lightning.\nOnce he is touching the sea wave’s edge,\nThen is flying up to heavens\nAs an arrow, and he cries 
\nThe clouds hear joy in his brave shout.\n\nIn this scream--the thirst for gale,\nForce of anger, flame of passion,\nAnd the certainty of triumph\nHear the clouds in his shout.\n\nSea gulls moan before the storming,\nMoan, rush above the sea plain,\nThey are ready to a bottom\nHide their horror before gale.\n\nAnd the loons are also scared,\nThey can’t catch the battle enjoyment,\nThey are frightened by a thunder.\n\nA silly penguin is shyly hiding\nHis fat body in the cliffs 
 Only\nThe proud petrel hovers bravely\nAbove the sea, covered with foam.\n\nDarker, darker are the clouds,\nClose they have come to sea plain,\nAnd the waves are singing, longing\nTo the height to meet a thunder.\n\nThunder’s rolling. In a wrath’s foam\nWaves are moaning, to wind resisting.\nWind embraces the flocks of waves and\nIn wild spite to cliffs them throws,\nBreaking into sprays and splashes\nBulks of the emerald-green waves hard.\n\nThe stormy petrel, screaming, hovers,\nAs the black lightning in heavens,\nAs an arrow, he is piercing\nThe grey clouds, with his wing\nHe is picking up the wave’s foam.\n\nHere flies he, as a demon,\nThe proud, black demon of gale,--\nAnd he is laughing, he is crying 
\nAt the clouds he is laughing,\nFrom the joy he’s surely crying!\n\nIn thunder’s whirl--he’s the heedful demon,\nHe, for long, feels there the tiredness,\nHe’s aware, that the clouds\nCan’t hide sun forever, though!\n\nWind is howling 
 Thunder’s rolling 
\n\nAs a blue flame the clouds’re blazing\nAbove the sea chasm. The sea is picking\nThe arrows of lightnings and extinguishes\nthem in depth. As the fiery snakes,\nthe reflections of lightnings\nWrithe in sea and disappear!\n\nGale! Soon it will be surely gale!\n\nThis is the brave petrel flying\nproudly among the lightnings,\nAbove the roaring sea in anger;\nthis is the prophetic shout:\n\n--Stronger be a coming gale!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lyudmila Purgina", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1901 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Lyudmila Purgina" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -40151,11 +41274,13 @@ "title": "“A Wallachian Legend”", "body": "A fairy once dwelt in a forest,\nAnd bathed in its silvery streams;\nOne day she was caught by the fishers,\nWhile morning was shedding its gleams.\n\nThe fishers all scattered, affrighted,\nBut Marco, a fisherman young;\nHe kissed her, embraced, and caressed her,\nSo vigorous, youthful, and strong.\n\nThe fairy entwined like a serpent,\nSeductively tender and mild,\nAnd gazing upon him intently,\nShe silently, silently smiled.\n\nAll day she embraced and caressed him,\nBut--happiness ever is brief--\nWith nightfall the fairy had vanished\nAnd left him alone with his grief.\n\nAt daylight, at starlight he wanders,\nAnd seeks her, and withers, and craves,\n“Oh, where is my fairy?”--“We know not,”\nAre laughing the treacherous waves.\n\n“Be silent!” he cries to the wavelets.\n“Yourselves with my fairy you play!”\nAnd into the waters deceitful\nHe plunged, there to seek his sweet fay 
\n\nThe fairy still dwells in the forest,\nStill beautiful, charming, and young 
\nBut Marco is dead 
 Yet forever\nHe’ll live in the glory of Song.\n\nWhile you, self-contented and dormant,\nLike worms you will crawl on your way;\nNo tale shall relate of your doings,\nNo poet shall sing you a lay!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Elbert Aidline", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1892 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Elbert Aidline" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -40270,8 +41395,10 @@ "title": "“Don’t Turn Around”", "body": "Don’t go into the wood,\nin the wood is the wood.\nWhoever walks in the wood,\nlooks for trees,\nwill not be looked for later in the wood.\n\nHave no fear,\nfear smells of fear.\nWhoever smells of fear\nwill be smelled out\nby heroes who smell like heroes.\n\nDon’t drink from the sea,\nthe sea tastes of more sea.\nWhoever drinks from the sea\nhenceforth feels\na thirst only for oceans.\n\nDon’t build a home,\nor you’ll be at home.\nWhoever is at home\nwaits for\nlate callers and opens the door.\n\nWrite no letters,\nletters that vex us end up in Texas.\nWhoever writes the letter\nlends his name\nto the posthumous paper game.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -40279,8 +41406,10 @@ "title": "“Family Matters”", "body": "In our museum--we always go there on Sundays--\nthey have opened a new department.\nOur aborted children, pale, serious embryos,\nsit there in plain glass jars\nand worry about their parents’ future.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "sunday" @@ -40291,8 +41420,10 @@ "title": "“Folding Chairs”", "body": "How sad these changes are.\nPeople unscrew the nameplates from the doors,\ntake the saucepan of cabbage\nand heat it up again, in a different place.\n\nWhat sort of furniture is this\nthat advertises departure?\nPeople take up their folding chairs\nand emigrate,\n\nShips laden with homesickness and the urge to vomit\ncarry patented seating contraptions\nand their unpatented owners\nto and fro.\n\nNow on both sides of the great ocean\nthere are folding chairs;\nhow sad these changes are.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -40300,8 +41431,10 @@ "title": "“Happiness”", "body": "An empty bus\nhurtles through the starry night.\nPerhaps the driver is singing\nand is happy because he sings.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -40309,8 +41442,10 @@ "title": "“Hymn”", "body": "As complicated as a nightingale,\nas tinny as,\nkind-hearted as,\nas cease-proof, as traditional,\nas green grave sour, as streaky,\nas symmetrical,\nas hairy,\nas near the water, true to the wind,\nas fireproof, frequently turned over,\nas childishly easy, well-thumbed as,\nas new ans creaking, expensive as,\nas deeply cellared, domestic as,\nas easily lost, shiny with use,\nas thinly blown, as snow-chilled as,\nas independent, as mature,\nas heartless as,\nas mortal as,\nas simple as my soul.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -40318,8 +41453,10 @@ "title": "“In the Egg”", "body": "We live in the egg.\nWe have covered the inside wall\nof the shell with dirty drawings\nand the Christian names of our enemies.\nWe are being hatched.\n\nWhoever is hatching us\nis hatching our pencils as well.\nSet free from the egg one day\nat once we shall make an image\nof whoever is hatching us.\n\nWe assume that we’re being hatched.\nWe imagine some good-natured fowl\nand write school essays\nabout the color and breed\nof the hen that is hatching us.\n\nWhen shall we break the shell?\nOur prophets inside the egg\nfor a middling salary argue\nabout the period of incubation.\nThey posit a day called X.\n\nOut of boredom and genuine need\nwe have invented incubators.\nWe are much concerned about our offspring inside the egg.\nWe should be glad to recommend our patent\nto her who looks after us.\n\nBut we have a roof over our heads.\nSenile chicks,\npolyglot embryos\nchatter all day\nand even discuss their dreams.\n\nAnd what if we’re not being hatched?\nIf this shell will never break?\nIf our horizon is only that\nof our scribbles, and always will be?\nWe hope that we’re being hatched.\n\nEven if we only talk of hatching\nthere remains fear that someone\noutside our shell will feel hungry\nand crack us into the frying pan with a pinch of salt.\nWhat shall we do then, my brethren inside the egg?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -40327,8 +41464,10 @@ "title": "“Open Wardrobe”", "body": "The shoes are at the bottom.\nThey are afraid of a beetle\nOn the way out,\nOf a penny on the way back,\nOf a beetle and a penny on which they might tread\nTill it impresses itself.\nAt the top is the home of the headgear.\nTake heed, be wary, not headstrong.\nIncredible feathers,\nWhat was the bird called,\nWhere did its eyes roll\nWhen it knew that its wings were too gaudy?\nThe white balls asleep in the pockets\nDream of moths.\nHere a button is missing,\nIn this belt the clasp grows weary.\nDoleful silk,\nAsters and other inflammable flowers,\nAutumn becoming a dress.\nEvery Sunday filled with flesh\nAnd the salt of folded linen.\nBefore the wardrobe falls silent, turns into wood,\nA distant relation of pine-trees,--\nWho will wear the coat\nOne day when you’re dead?\nWho move his arm in the sleeve,\nAnticipate every movement?\nWho will turn up the collar,\nStop in front of the pictures\nAnd be alone under the windy cloche?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -40336,8 +41475,10 @@ "title": "“Saturn”", "body": "In this big house--\nfrom the rats\nwho know about the drains,\nto the pigeons\nwho know nothing--\nI live and suppose much.\n\nCame home late,\nopened the house\nwith my key\nand noticed as I hunted for my key\nthat I needed a key\nto enter my own home.\n\nWas quite hungry,\nate a chicken\nwith my hands\nand noticed as I ate the chicken\nthat I was eating a chicken\nwhich was cold and dead.\n\nThen stooped,\ntook off both shoes\nand noticed as I took off my shoes\nthat we have to stoop\nif we want to take\nshoes off.\n\nI lay horizontal,\nsmoked the cigarette,\nand in the darkness was certain\nthat someone held out his open hand\nwhen I knocked the ashes\nfrom my cigarette.\n\nAt night Saturn comes\nand holds out his hand.\nWith my ashes, he\ncleans his teeth, Saturn.\nWe shall climb\ninto his jaws.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -40345,8 +41486,10 @@ "title": "“Sudden Fright”", "body": "When in summer in an easterly wind\nSeptember dust whirls and in the belated paper\neditorials are almost mystical,\n\nwhen the powers want to change beds\nand are allowed to beget openly\nnew instruments for control,\n\nwhen around footballs holiday makers camp\nand the playful glance of the nations\nmirrors weighty decisions,\n\nwhen columns of figures put one to sleep\nand through dreams a camouflaged enemy\nbreathes ans crawls nearer,\n\nwhen in conversations always the same word\nis backhandedly held in reserve\nand a match can strike terror,\n\nwhen from the backstroke position in swimming\nskyward only the sky seems to tower,\nfrightened people hurry back to the shore,\n\na sudden fright hangs in the air.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -40357,8 +41500,10 @@ "title": "“Transformation”", "body": "Suddenly the cherries were there\nalthough I had forgotten\nthat they exist\nand caused to be proclaimed: There never have been cherries--\nthey were there, suddenly and dear.\n\nPlums fell on me;\nbut whoever thinks\nthat I was transformed\nbecause something fell and hit me\nhas never been hit by falling plums.\n\nOnly when they poured nuts into my shoes\nand I had to walk\nbecause the children wanted the kernels\nI cried out for cherries, wanted plums\nto hit me--and was transformed a little.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Hamburger", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Michael Hamburger" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -40721,12 +41866,14 @@ "title": "“A Ballad”", "body": "My friend, Lucifer gave five horses to me,\nAnd a radiant ruby-stone beautiful ring,\nSo that I could go down to marvelous caves,\nAnd could see there heaven’s celestial face.\n\nSnorted horses, and zealous, they hoofed, and they begged\nTo race over and over the space of the earth,\nI believed that the sun rose exactly for me,\nShining crazy like ruby of that golden ring.\n\nWandered endlessly during the days and the nights\nUnder sun in the day and the night full of stars,\nI was laughing at horses so eager to race\nAnd the light of the ring as a heavenly grace.\n\nThere’s madness and snow at the heights of my mind\nBut I’ve hurried the horses with furious cries\nSo that they reach these heights in the violent run\nAnd a virgin with sad face I saw having come.\n\nAnd a music of string her quite voice produced\nThere question and answer were mixed and reduced\nTo the touches of shades of her heir all strewn,\nSo I gave ruby-ring to that virgin or Lune.\n\nMocking, laughing at me, having me in contempt,\nBroken open the gates for a wasted attempt\nTo the darkness, He gave me the horse number six\nLucifer named Despair this horse as a gift.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alexander Bondar", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1918, "month": "june" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alexander Bondar" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -40737,13 +41884,15 @@ "title": "“Cain’s Descendants”", "body": "He didn’t deceive us, that sad, somber spirit\nWho wears the morning star as pseudonym\nAnd said: “Shun not the highest gain, nor fear it:\nTaste of the fruit and you will equal Him.”\n\nInstantly, for the youth, all roads lay open,\nAnd for old men, all mysteries to know,\nAnd to the maids, amber fruits came bespoken\nAnd gallant unicorns as white as snow.\n\nThen why do we stoop low, drained of all strength,\nSensing that Someone has forgotten us,\nAnd feel the terror of that ancient loss\n\nWhen by some chance a hand picks up and joins\nTwo staffs, two flagpoles or two blades of grass\nDistinctly in the manner of a cross?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Philip Nikolayev", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1909, "month": "november", "day": 26 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Philip Nikolayev" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november", @@ -40755,13 +41904,16 @@ "title": "“The Choice”", "body": "He who builds the tower will fall.\nHe will fall straight down, terribly,\nand at the deep bottom of the world’s well\nhe will curse himself for his madness.\n\nHe who pulls the tower down will be crushed,\nflattened by stone shards;\nand left to lie there, by All-Seeing God,\nhe will howl his torment.\n\nAnd he who went into the caverns of night,\nand he who went to the backwaters of a quiet river,\nwill suddenly confront the awful eyes\nof the bloodthirsty panther.\n\nFate is inescapable,\neveryone on earth has his own destiny.\nBut hush! The one incomparable right\nis to choose your death for yourself.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alla Burago & Burton Raffel", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1908, "month": "april", "day": 22 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alla Burago", + "Burton Raffel" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -40773,12 +41925,14 @@ "title": "“Constantinople”", "body": "The sailors near the port\nshouted in chorus, demanding wine,\nand over Stambul and over the Bosphorus\nthe full moon shone.\n\nTonight they will hurl an unfaithful wife\nto the bottom of the bay,\na wife who was too beautiful\nand looked like the moon.\n\nShe loved her daydreams,\nthe summer-house in the reed thicket,\nold women fortune-tellers and their fortune-telling\nand everything the Pasha did not like.\n\nFather was sad, but understands\nand whispers to the husband: “Well, is it time?,”\nbut the younger sister does not lift\nher stubborn eyes and muses:\n\n“Many, many other lovers\nlie in the deep bays,\nintertwined, languid and silent 
\nWhat happiness to be among them!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Richard McKane", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1911, "month": "june" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Richard McKane" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -40789,13 +41943,15 @@ "title": "“Don Juan”", "body": "My fantasy is proud and plain:\nTo grasp the crop, leap the stirrup,\nOutrace sluggish time,\nAnd always kiss fresh lips;\n\nAnd in old age before Christ’s grace,\nWith ash on head and eyes cast down\nBreast burdened by an iron cross,\nAt last to take salvation’s burden.\n\nFor only then, released from orgy,\nLike sleepwalkers, night done,\nScared white by a silent stalker,\n\nMight wake, so I recall this paltry atom\nHad neither child from any woman\nNor help from any human brother.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Don Mager", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1910, "month": "april", "day": 16 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Don Mager" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -40807,13 +41963,16 @@ "title": "“The Forest”", "body": "White trunks\nwere stark, suddenly, against the haze,\n\nRoots wound up out of the ground\nlike corpses’ arms.\n\nThe leaves’ bright fire\nhid giants, dwarves, lions;\n\nFishermen saw in the sand\nthe print of a six-fingered hand.\n\nNo French noble, no knight of the Round Table,\never walked here.\n\nNo robber slept in these bushes,\nno monk dug caves in these hills.\n\nOnce, one stormy night,\na woman with a cat’s head came out of this forest,\n\nWearing a silver crown,\nbut she moaned all night\n\nAnd died at dawn\nbefore a priest could save her soul.\n\nAh, but that was so long ago\nthat no one remembers,\n\nThat--that was in a land\nyour dreams won’t take you to.\n\nAnd I invented all this, staring\nat your braids, the coils of a flaming snake,\n\nYour green eyes\nlike round Persian turquoise.\n\nThat forest--it might be your soul.\nThat forest--it might be my love--\n\nOr maybe, when we die,\nthat forest is where we’ll go, together.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Burton Raffel & Alla Burago", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1919, "month": "april", "day": 31 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Burton Raffel", + "Alla Burago" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -40825,13 +41984,15 @@ "title": "“Front of statue of Madonna 
”", "body": "Front of statue of Madonna\nIn a dark and simple place\nHe swore be faithful to the Donna\nWho was glorious and chaste.\n\nThen, forgetting secret knot,\nHe was pleasing many women.\nOnce while fighting he was slaughtered.\nCame to holy gates of Eden.\n\nSpoke virtuous Madonna:\n“Did you swear to my face\nTo be faithful to the Donna.\nWho is glorious and chaste?\n\nGo now! Not these crops\nKing of Heaven gathers here.\nOne who has forsaken oath--\nHe is dying unforgiven.”\n\nKnelt front feet of sweet Madonna,\nSad and stubborn asked for grace:\n“Nowhere met I Donna,\nWho is glorious and chaste.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Kristina Kamaeva", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1910, "month": "may", "day": 8 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Kristina Kamaeva" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -40843,13 +42004,15 @@ "title": "“I have languished, not lived 
”", "body": "I have languished, not lived\nThrough half of my earthly life,\nAnd now. Lord, You appear to me\nIn the shape of an impossible dream.\n\nI see the light on Mount Tabor\nAnd I feel a great remorse\nThat I have so loved the land and the sea.\nThe whole deep sleep of existence;\n\nThat my youthful powers\nHave not submitted to Yours,\nThat the beauty of Your daughters\nSo acutely torments my heart.\n\nBut really, is love but a little red flower\nThat has only a moment to live,\nBut really, is love but a small flame\nThat is easily extinguished?\n\nWith this quiet, melancholy thought\nI will somehow drag out this life;\nBut You look to the next one,\nI’ve ruined one as it is.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Earl D. Sampson", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921, "month": "april", "day": 3 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Earl D. Sampson" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "transfiguration" @@ -40860,12 +42023,15 @@ "title": "“I loved the great meadows 
”", "body": "I loved the great meadows\nand their honey scent\nand clumps of trees, and dry grass\nand bull’s horns in the grass.\n\nEvery dusty bush along the road\nshouted, “I’m playing with you!\nWalk around me, watch out,\nand you’ll see who I really am!”\n\nOnly the fierce autumn wind, roaring,\ncould stop my games:\nmy heart would thump, it was heaven itself,\nI felt sure I would die\n\nWith my friends, never alone,\nwith soft warm flowers, with cool cold flowers,\nand up over those far-off skies\nI would guess it all, all at once.\n\nIf I love this new game, this war\nand its big bangs,\nit’s simply that human blood is no more sacred\nthan the emerald juice from a blade of grass.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Burton Raffel & Alla Burago", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1916, "month": "march" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Burton Raffel", + "Alla Burago" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -40876,13 +42042,15 @@ "title": "“I trusted, I thought 
”", "body": "I trusted, I thought and the light for me shone at last.\nFor ever Creator let fate have my soul, forever.\nI am sold and alone! My god went away so fast.\nMy buyer is looking at me--he is mocking and clever.\n\nMy Yesterday rushes at me like a big flying hill\nAnd like an abyss before me my Tomorrow goes.\nI am on my way 
 But some day by abyss’ cruel will\nThe hill disappears 
 My road is useless, I know.\n\nAnd if by my will and desire I conquer the men,\nAnd if in the night’s flying down to me inspiration,\nIf I am a poet, sorcerer--now and then\nThe Lord of the Universe--harder will be my damnation.\n\nAnd I had a dream that my heart, free of pain, didn’t cry,\nIn yellow China on motley pagoda it’s ringing.\nMy heart is a porcelain bell--in enamel dense sky\nExiting the flocks of the cranes it is affably singing.\n\nAnd tender meek girl in the dress of the red fine silks\nEmbroidered with flowers, wasps, dragons of old times,\nWithout a thought and a dream, cross-legged, quietly sits,\nIntently, attentively listening to slight soothing chimes.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Joan Kovalevskaya", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1911, "month": "october", "day": 20 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Joan Kovalevskaya" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -40894,12 +42062,14 @@ "title": "“I was torn out of this narrow life 
”", "body": "I was torn out of this narrow life.\nThis meager, ordinary life,\nBy your tormenting, wondrous,\nIrresistible beauty.\n\nAnd I died 
 and I saw a flame.\nOne that had never been seen before,\nBefore my dazzled eyes\nShone a blue star.\n\nTransforming my spirit and my body,\nA musical strain rose, and fell again;\nIt was the speaking and the ringing\nOf your blood, singing like a lute.\n\nAnd there was a fragrance, sweeter and more fiery\nThan anything found in life,\nAnd even than that lily that grows\nIn the angels’ lofty garden.\n\nAnd suddenly, out of the radiant abyss\nThe earthly sphere arose again;\nYou suddenly appeared before me,\nTrembling like a wounded bird.\n\nYou repeated, “I am suffering,”\nBut what can I do, knowing\nAt last with such sweet certainty\nThat you are but a blue star.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Earl D. Sampson", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917, "month": "july" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Earl D. Sampson" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -40910,11 +42080,13 @@ "title": "“I, who could have been the best of poems 
”", "body": "I, who could have been the best of poems,\nA resonant violin, or a white rose,\nHave, in this world, turned into nothing;\nSo here I live, and do nothing.\n\nMy life is often hard, often painful,\nBut even this pain of mine\nIs saddled to no fiery steed,\nBut weariness and empty languishing.\n\nI can understand nothing in life.\nI can only whisper: “It may be hard for me, but\nIt was worse for my God\nAnd more painful for His Mother.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Simon Franklin", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Simon Franklin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "our_lady_of_sorrows" @@ -40925,11 +42097,13 @@ "title": "“Kha”", "body": "Beautiful lassies, we are you now?\nYou who don’t answer me anymore\nYou who forgot all about me;\nLeft me behind--now my weakened voice\nWakes up the echo in vain.\n\nHave you been eaten by angry beasts?\nOr by your lovers you’re being kept?\nGo on, answer me dearest,\nI fell in love with you and I came\nDown to meet with you here.\n\nI caught a glimpse of you naked when\nYou were bathing in a clear lake.\nAnd I came down thinking not\nOf who you are--daughters of the moon\nI--who am black robin’s son.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Maya Jouravel", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Maya Jouravel" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -40937,13 +42111,16 @@ "title": "“The Lost Streetcar”", "body": "I was walking along the street as a stranger\nAnd suddenly heard the cawing of crows.\nThe playing of lutes and distant thunder 
\nBefore me a rushing streetcar arose.\n\nHow I managed to jump on the step as it passed me\nHas remained a riddle to this day,\nFor it left a path in the air that was flaming\nEven in daylight as it went its way.\n\nIt rushed like a storm that was dark and wingĂ©d,\nLost in the depths of time somehow.\nStop the streetcar! Stop, stop, driver!\nStop the streetcar! Stop right now!\n\nToo late. We had passed the wall already,\nSlipped through the grove where the palm trees toss.\nThe Neva, the Nile, the Seine beneath us.\nThree bridges we thundered across.\n\nThe face of an old beggar flashed past the window.\nAnd his glance studied us, following us from the rear 
\nThe same man, of course, the very same beggar,\nWho died in Beirut sometime last year.\n\nWhere am I? My heart beats in replying\n(Filled with a languor and care past control).\nDo you see a station in which one can purchase\nA ticket to the India of the soul?\n\nSignboard 
 And the vegetable shop letters\nAre painted with blood. I know here instead\nOf cabbages, instead of rutabagas,\nThey sell only heads that are dead.\n\nA man in a red shirt, face like an udder.\nCuts my head off too on the blocks.\nIt is lying together with the others\nOn the very bottom in a slippery box.\n\nAnd there is a board fence in the alley,\nA house with three windows and a lawn grown gray.\nStop the streetcar! Stop, stop, driver!\nStop the streetcar right away!\n\nNow, Mashenka, you lived and sang here.\nWove carpets for me, the man you would wed.\nWhere now then is your voice and body?\nIs it conceivable you are dead?\n\nHow you cried in your room so tiny!\nAnd I in a powdered wig at the door\nWas going to be presented to the Empress.\nAnd I never saw you anymore.\n\nI understand it now: Our freedom\nIs only a light striking us from out-there.\nPeople and spirits stand at the entrance\nTo a zoological garden of planets somewhere.\n\nThe sweet and familiar wind comes swiftly--\nAnd across the bridge toward me full force\nFlies the iron-gloved hand of the rider\n--And two hoofs of his rearing horse.\n\nThe faithful fortress of orthodoxy,\nSaint Isaac’s, rises heavenly.\nThere I’ll say a prayer for the health of\nMashenka And a simple ‘Rest in peace’ for me.\n\nTo breathe is hard; to live is painful 
\nMy desolate heart is forever sad.\nMashenka, I never thought it possible\nTo love one so much and to feel so bad.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Markov & Merrill Sparks", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1919, "month": "december", "day": 30 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Markov", + "Merrill Sparks" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december", @@ -40955,12 +42132,14 @@ "title": "“Masquerade”", "body": "In barren halls and secluded corridors\nToday merry maskers were amassing,\nToday in parlors, variegated colors\nLike mad whirlwinds, swept through, dancing.\n\nThey snaked about beneath dragons and moons,\nChinese vases were tossed among them,\nTorches flamed and lutes strings kept on\nRepeating the same impenetrable name.\n\nThe call to the headlong mazurka was made\nAnd I danced with Sodom’s courtesan,\nSome things I grieved, at some I laughed,\nAnd some seemed strangely, too well known.\n\nI pleaded with her: “Take off your mask,\nAnd who is your brother, pray tell?\nYou remind me of some ancient fairy tale\nThat I heard in the long distant past.\n\nYou remain forever-strange, to all,\nAnd to me you are no boon-companion,\nBut it’s true, of all the masks, all the people,\nYou are known as Tsarina of Sodom.”\n\nUnder my mask I heard her youthful laugh,\nBut her glances would not connect with mine,\nAs they snaked about beneath dragons and moons,\nAnd Chinese vases were tossed among them,\n\nSuddenly beneath the window as night\nVainly threatened to hide her face in dark,\nSlipping away from me like a snake,\nShe pulled off her mask and her eyes glanced back.\n\nI recall everything once again--such a song,\nWith a wild chilly voluptuousness\nSuch tender enticing whispers: “Rise up,\nRise again to live in the anguish of bliss!”\n\nMuch I saw in that brief while\nBut her fearsome oath did not deter me.\nTsarina, Tsarina, I am your captive, see,\nYou can take my body, you can take my soul!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Don Mager", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1907, "month": "july" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Don Mager" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -40971,11 +42150,14 @@ "title": "“Offensive”", "body": "This country could have been paradise:\nit’s a den of fire.\nWe’ve been advancing for four days,\nwe’ve not eaten for four days.\n\nIn this strange, bright hour\nwe don’t need earth’s bread:\nthe Lord’s Word\nis better nourishment.\n\nThe blood-filled weeks\nare blinding, insubstantial;\nshrapnel bursts over my head,\nknives fly faster than birds.\n\nI shout, my voice wild,\n“That’s brass banging on brass!”\nI carry a Great Idea,\nI cannot die, I cannot.\n\nLike thunder hammering,\nlike angry sea-waves,\nRussia’s golden heart\nbeats steadily in my chest.\n\nAnd how sweet to dress Victory,\nlike a girl, in ropes of pearls,\nas you follow the enemy’s\nsmoke-covered retreating tracks.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Burton Raffel & Alla Burago", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Burton Raffel", + "Alla Burago" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -40983,13 +42165,15 @@ "title": "From “Remembrance”", "body": "Only serpents let their skin be fallen\nAnd a soul--all grown up and old.\nWe, alas, change an eternal soul,\nLeaving body in eternal hold.\n\nOh, remembrance, power, she-giant,\nYou direct a horse-life with a bridle,\nYou will tell me all these men about,\nWho had had my body before I’d.\n\nThe first one was ugly, thin and tragic,\nLoving darkness of the garden lane,\nFalling Leaf, the child of gloomy magic,\nWhose one word could fully stop the rain.\n\nSecond one--he liked the wind from South,\nEvery noise for him was strings’ accord,\nHe believed that life is just his spouse,\nAnd the rag under his feet--the world.\n\nI don’t like him: in his mind, he’s roused,\nTo the crowns of the King and God,\nHe had hanged on entrance to my house\nThe signboard with a script “The Bard.”\n\nI do like the favorite of freedom,\nHim, who used to sail in sea and shoot:\nWhat a song he heard in water’s kingdom,\nWhat a cloud followed his routes!\n\nI’m a builder, which is working smartly\nO’er the temple, arising in a haze,\nSeek for fame for my beloved country\nAs in Heavens, so on the earth.\n\nHeart is scorched by non-extinguished fire,\nTill the day, in which, as made of light,\nWalls of New Jerusalem will spire\nOn the fields of my beloved land.\n\nThen the queer wind will start to blow,\nAnd the awful light will pour on us,\nIt’s the Milky Way--begins to grow\nAs a garden of the dazzling stars.\n\nAnd the tiered stranger will appear,\nHiding face, but I will catch his dream,\nLooking at a lion, going near,\nAnd an eagle, flying straight to him.\n\nI will scream, but who will hear my groan,\nWho will save my soul from a crash?\nOnly snakes could let their skin be fallen,\nPeople lose the soul--not the flesh.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1920, "month": "april", "day": 15 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -41001,12 +42185,15 @@ "title": "“Sixth Sense”", "body": "O beautiful the wine in love with us!\nThe good bread in the oven--for us baking!\nAnd that woman, who gave torment and fuss.\nWhom now we can enjoy--for just the taking!\n\nBut what to do with this rose sunset over\nA sky becoming cold as hues disperse.\nWhere silence and unearthly calm still hover,\nWhat should we do with our immortal verse?\n\nYou can’t eat, drink, or kiss sunsets or lines 
\nThe moment runs unchecked and we, hand-wringing,\nAre still condemned to overlook the signs\nAnd somehow miss the mark--with our wide swinging.\n\nJust as a boy sometimes watching girls bathing\n(Having forgotten all about his games.\nYet innocent of love and love’s behaving)\nIs tortured by a strange desire’s flames;\n\nJust as that slippery creature at one time,\nFeeling still-unformed wings upon his shoulders,\nRoared out his sense of helplessness through slime\nAnd geologic giant ferns and boulders--\n\nSo century on century (Lord, quickly?)\nBeneath nature and art’s knife our intense\nSpirit cries out, our flesh grows faint and sickly--\nTrying to birth organs for our sixth sense.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Markov & Merrill Sparks", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1920, "month": "august" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Markov", + "Merrill Sparks" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -41017,12 +42204,14 @@ "title": "“The Slaughter of the Suitors”", "body": "A lone two horned moon hung above the town\nWhen abruptly the mist was sharply sliced\nAnd Odysseus stood high above the transom\nTo shoot his arrow through AntinoĂŒs’s chest.\n\nA chalice fell from AntinoĂŒs’s hand,\nHis eyes were swathed in a haze of dark blood,\nA slight tremor 
 and the hero of that land,\nOf the youth of Greece, no longer stood,\n\nGripped with terror, the others all arose\nReluctant to grab their shields and swords.\nIn vain! With the swiftness of steel-tipped arrows,\nCame down these regal, derisive, keen words:\n\n“What now, renowned princes of Ithaca,\nWhy are you in no hurry to meet your master,\nAnd why is there no sacrificial display\nAs sacred sign of welcome on his altar?\n\nLike a crash of cymbals you smashed the shrine\nThat was made for the tributes to the gods,\nThe fatted bull, and the sharp-horned ram,\nAnd the golden wine from Cyprus’s hills.\n\nYou whispered sweet words in Penelope’s ear,\nAt night, lewdly fondled the servant maids--\nSweeter than the music of battling spears;\nWhile I drifted in fear on the watery waste!\n\nWhat now can any of you say to me?\n‘He abandoned his house without a line,\nFor, in the deep bottomless sea,\nOn his blind corpse, the fish to dine.’\n\nSo? For all the hard feelings you want to make\nThings right? And offer me your palace?\nI would not trade the whole Atlantic,\nFor today’s new graves in the burial place!\n\nWhen the bell clangs, sure arrows will sing,\nAnd measured, the slash of the sword will glint,\nAnd you, princes all, cowardly or daring,\nWill prepare to lie in heaps and grow white.\n\nHere lies Eurymachus, dumpy, fat\nAnd pale 
 as white as a marble slab.\nAnd like plagues of flies, the false virgins sit\nExpectant with fear, captive and locked up.\n\nHere lies AntinoĂŒs 
 one glance tells all 
\nA heavy massy pile, like an elephant,\nWhen with us of Ilion, he should have set sail\nTo be first among the heroes of the Iliad.\n\nAll will fall--fall--whether tiger or deer,\nAnd never alive will any again stand.\nWho is that red one? Flung up there\nStill steaming and flowing in blood?\n\nWell, everyone in my path, make way,\nFair-haired youth, my son, Telemachus!\nThe merciless gods above will show\nThe black path you now must use.\n\nAgain I fondly recall from afar\nThe golden moon riding on the horizon\nAnd see along the frothing Pontic shore\nThe grove of sacred palms in the wind.\n\nNut none who held lewd dreams of fondling her,\nHave ever despoiled the royal sheets.\nLike soaring gulls, the queen is white and pure,\nTerrifying and dark in her loveliness.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Don Mager", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1909, "month": "june" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Don Mager" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -41033,13 +42222,15 @@ "title": "“Their souls’ love near the sea was born 
”", "body": "Their souls’ love near the sea was born\nIn sacred groves of virgin devotees,\nWhere the play of strings and agile breeze\nCompetes with joyful songs from dusk till dawn.\n\nThe Priest 
 Unlikely human shape\nCould be that weird handsome 
\nHis lips were shut; his look was awesome;\nAnd on his head--a scarf of bloody shade.\n\nWhen hazes came upon the sea,\nThe Priest started sacred rite.\nAnd dancing virgins, pliable and bright\nShined on the shore as necklace pearly.\n\nThe one of them, more beautiful than fairy,\nThe Priest distinguished more 
\nOh, he forgot that elegance may draw,\nThat bloody scarf can make you so hungry.\n\nBefore the dawn, beneeth the blinking stars\nThe Priest forgot his vow.\nHer honey lips did not say “no”.\nHer eyes rejected not his love.\n\nBanished by others, they were gone\nFrom shadows of sacred groves.\nThe strength abandoned their souls,\nSince then they live with love alone.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Kristina Kamaeva", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1907, "month": "november", "day": 30 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Kristina Kamaeva" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november", @@ -41051,12 +42242,15 @@ "title": "“The Urchin”", "body": "I’ll walk along the tracks,\nthinking, following\nthe thread of the running rails\nacross the yellow sky, the scarlet sky.\n\nI’ll go to the gloomy\nstation, shivering--\nif the watchmen don’t shout\nand chase me off.\n\nAnd later, determined to remember,\nI’ll think--again, again--\nof the beautiful lady, and how she looked up,\nquickly, as she got into the train.\n\nProud, distant:\nWhy should she care if I love her?\nBut when will I ever see\nanother lady with eyes so blue!\n\nI’ll tell my friend,\nI’ll tease him, a little,\nwhen evening spreads smoke\nacross the meadow.\n\nAnd with an ugly smile\nhe’ll say, “You see?\nYou read all kinds of junk\nand you start to talk like that.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Burton Raffel & Alla Burago", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912, "month": "april" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Burton Raffel", + "Alla Burago" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -41067,13 +42261,16 @@ "title": "“The Word”", "body": "In those primal days when God Almighty\nBent His face over the fresh world--then\nThe word made the sun stand still in heaven,\nThe word tore apart the towns of men.\n\nAnd when the word--like a pink flame burning--\nFloated freely in the highest flight,\nEagles did not stir their wings or flutter\nAnd the stars crouched toward the moon in fright.\n\nThose on lower planes were given numbers--\nLike domestic cattle under yoke;\nFor all shades of meaning can be rendered\nBy sagacious numbers at one stroke.\n\nAnd the hoary patriarch is bringing\nBoth evil and good neath his command;\nNot prone to turn to the sound, he sketches\nNumbers with his cane upon the sand.\n\nWe forget that just the word is haloed\nHere where earthly cares leave us perplexed.\nIn the Gospel of St John is written\nThat the word is God: that is the text.\n\nWe have put a limit to its meaning:\nOnly to this life, this shallow shell.\nAnd like bees in an abandoned beehive,\nDead, deserted words have a bad smell.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Markov & Merrill Sparks", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1919, "month": "august", "day": 31 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Markov", + "Merrill Sparks" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "annunciation" @@ -41189,8 +42386,10 @@ "title": "“For years my heart inquired of me 
”", "body": "For years my heart inquired of me\n Where Jamshid’s sacred cup might be,\nAnd what was in its own possession\n It asked from strangers, constantly;\nBegging the pearl that’s slipped its shell\n From lost souls wandering by the sea.\n\nLast night I took my troubles to\n The Magian sage whose keen eyes see\nA hundred answers in the wine\n Whose cup he, laughing, showed to me.\nI questioned him, “When was this cup\n That shows the world’s reality\n\nHanded to you?” He said, “The day\n Heaven’s vault of lapis lazuli\nWas raised, and marvelous things took place\n By Intellect’s divine decree,\nAnd Moses’ miracles were made\n And Sameri’s apostasy.”\n\nHe added then, “That friend they hanged\n High on the looming gallows tree--\nHis sin was that he spoke of things\n Which should be pondered secretly,\nThe page of truth his heart enclosed\n Was annotated publicly.\n\nBut if the Holy Ghost once more\n Should lend his aid to us we’d see\nOthers perform what Jesus did--\n Since in his heartsick anguish he\nWas unaware that God was there\n And called His name out ceaselessly.”\n\nI asked him next, “And beauties’ curls\n That tumble down so sinuously,\nWhat is their meaning? Whence do they come?”\n “Hafez,” the sage replied to me,\n“It’s your distracted, lovelorn heart\n That asks these questions constantly.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dick Davis", "language": "Persian", + "translators": [ + "Dick Davis" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -41198,8 +42397,10 @@ "title": "“Ode 44”", "body": "Last night, as half asleep I dreaming lay,\n Half naked came she in her little shift,\n With tilted glass, and verses on her lips;\nNarcissus-eyes all shining for the fray,\n Filled full of frolic to her wine-red lips,\n Warm as a dewy rose, sudden she slips\n Into my bed--just in her little shift.\n\nSaid she, half naked, half asleep, half heard,\nWith a soft sigh betwixt each lazy word,\n“Oh my old lover, do you sleep or wake!”\nAnd instant I sat upright for her sake,\nAnd drank whatever wine she poured for me--\nWine of the tavern, or vintage it might be\nOf Heaven’s own vine: he surely were a churl\nWho refused wine poured out by such a girl,\nA double traitor he to wine and love.\nGo to, thou puritan! the gods above\nOrdained this wine for us, but not for thee;\nDrunkards we are by a divine decree,\nYea, by the special privilege of heaven\nForedoomed to drink and foreordained forgiven.\n\nAh! HAFIZ, you are not the only man\n Who promised penitence and broke down after;\nFor who can keep so hard a promise, man,\n With wine and woman brimming o’er with laughter!\nO knotted locks, filled like a flower with scent,\nHow have you ravished this poor penitent!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Richard Le Gallienne", "language": "Persian", + "translators": [ + "Richard Le Gallienne" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -41207,8 +42408,10 @@ "title": "“Ode 487”", "body": "With last night’s wine still singing in my head,\nI sought the tavern at the break of day,\nThough half the world was still asleep in bed;\nThe harp and flute were up and in full swing,\nAnd a most pleasant morning sound made they;\nAlready was the wine-cup on the wing.\n“Reason,” said I, “’t is past the time to start,\nIf you would reach your daily destination,\nThe holy city of intoxication.”\nSo did I pack him off, and he depart\nWith a stout flask for fellow-traveller.\n\nLeft to myself, the tavern-wench I spied,\nAnd sought to win her love by speaking fair;\nAlas! she turned upon me, scornful-eyed,\nAnd mocked my foolish hopes of winning her.\nSaid she, her arching eyebrows like a bow:\n“Thou mark for all the shafts of evil tongues!\nThou shalt not round my middle clasp me so,\nLike my good girdle--not for all thy songs!--\nSo long as thou in all created things\nSeest but thyself the centre and the end.\nGo spread thy dainty nets for other wings--\nToo high the Anca’s nest for thee, my friend.”\n\nThen took I shelter from that stormy sea\nIn the good ark of wine; yet, woe is me!\nSaki and comrade and minstrel all by turns,\nShe is of maidens the compendium\nWho my poor heart in such a fashion spurns.\nSelf, HAFIZ, self! That thou must overcome!\nHearken the wisdom of the tavern-daughter!\nVain little baggage--well, upon my word!\nThou fairy figment made of clay and water,\nAs busy with thy beauty as a bird.\n\nWell, HAFIZ, Life’s a riddle--give it up:\nThere is no answer to it but this cup.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Richard Le Gallienne", "language": "Persian", + "translators": [ + "Richard Le Gallienne" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -41445,11 +42648,11 @@ "title": "“After a Journey”", "body": "Hereto I come to view a voiceless ghost;\nWhither, O whither will its whim now draw me?\nUp the cliff, down, till I’m lonely, lost,\nAnd the unseen waters’ ejaculations awe me.\nWhere you will next be there’s no knowing,\nFacing round about me everywhere,\nWith your nut-coloured hair,\nAnd gray eyes, and rose-flush coming and going.\n\nYes: I have re-entered your olden haunts at last;\nThrough the years, through the dead scenes I have tracked you;\nWhat have you now found to say of our past--\nViewed across the dark space wherein I have lacked you?\nSummer gave us sweets, but autumn wrought division?\nThings were not lastly as firstly well\nWith us twain, you tell?\nBut all’s closed now, despite Time’s derision.\n\nI see what you are doing: you are leading me on\nTo the spots we knew when we haunted here together,\nThe waterfall, above which the mist-bow shone\nAt the then fair hour in the then fair weather,\nAnd the cave just under, with a voice still so hollow\nThat it seems to call out to me from forty years ago,\nWhen you were all aglow,\nAnd not the thin ghost that I now frailly follow!\n\nIgnorant of what there is flitting here to see,\nThe waked birds preen and the seals flop lazily,\nSoon you will have, Dear, to vanish from me,\nFor the stars close their shutters and the dawn whitens hazily.\nTrust me, I mind not, though Life lours,\nThe bringing me here; nay, bring me here again!\nI am just the same as when\nOur days were a joy, and our paths through flowers.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913, "month": "march" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -41460,12 +42663,12 @@ "title": "“And There Was a Great Calm”", "body": "There had been years of Passion--scorching, cold,\nAnd much Despair, and Anger heaving high,\nCare whitely watching, Sorrows manifold,\nAmong the young, among the weak and old,\nAnd the pensive Spirit of Pity whispered, “Why?”\n\nMen had not paused to answer. Foes distraught\nPierced the thinned peoples in a brute-like blindness,\nPhilosophies that sages long had taught,\nAnd Selflessness, were as an unknown thought,\nAnd “Hell!” and “Shell!” were yapped at Lovingkindness.\n\nThe feeble folk at home had grown full-used\nTo ‘dug-outs’, ‘snipers’, ‘Huns’, from the war-adept\nIn the mornings heard, and at evetides perused;\nTo day-dreamt men in millions, when they mused--\nTo nightmare-men in millions when they slept.\n\nWaking to wish existence timeless, null,\nSirius they watched above where armies fell;\nHe seemed to check his flapping when, in the lull\nOf night a boom came thencewise, like the dull\nPlunge of a stone dropped into some deep well.\n\nSo, when old hopes that earth was bettering slowly\nWere dead and damned, there sounded “War is done!”\nOne morrow. Said the bereft, and meek, and lowly,\n“Will men some day be given to grace? yea, wholly,\nAnd in good sooth, as our dreams used to run?”\n\nBreathless they paused. Out there men raised their glance\nTo where had stood those poplars lank and lopped,\nAs they had raised it through the four years’ dance\nOf Death in the now familiar flats of France;\nAnd murmured, “Strange, this! How? All firing stopped?”\n\nAye; all was hushed. The about-to-fire fired not,\nThe aimed-at moved away in trance-lipped song.\nOne checkless regiment slung a clinching shot\nAnd turned. The Spirit of Irony smirked out, “What?\nSpoil peradventures woven of Rage and Wrong?”\n\nThenceforth no flying fires inflamed the gray,\nNo hurtlings shook the dewdrop from the thorn,\nNo moan perplexed the mute bird on the spray;\nWorn horses mused: “We are not whipped to-day;”\nNo weft-winged engines blurred the moon’s thin horn.\n\nCalm fell. From Heaven distilled a clemency;\nThere was peace on earth, and silence in the sky;\nSome could, some could not, shake off misery:\nThe Sinister Spirit sneered: “It had to be!”\nAnd again the Spirit of Pity whispered, “Why?”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1918, "month": "november", "day": 11 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november", @@ -41477,10 +42680,10 @@ "title": "“Before Marching and After”", "body": "Orion swung southward aslant\nWhere the starved Egdon pine-trees had thinned,\nThe Pleiads aloft seemed to pant\nWith the heather that twitched in the wind;\nBut he looked on indifferent to sights such as these,\nUnswayed by love, friendship, home joy or home sorrow,\nAnd wondered to what he would march on the morrow.\n\nThe crazed household-clock with its whirr\nRang midnight within as he stood,\nHe heard the low sighing of her\nWho had striven from his birth for his good;\nBut he still only asked the spring starlight, the breeze,\nWhat great thing or small thing his history would borrow\nFrom that Game with Death he would play on the morrow.\n\nWhen the heath wore the robe of late summer,\nAnd the fuchsia-bells, hot in the sun,\nHung red by the door, a quick comer\nBrought tidings that marching was done\nFor him who had joined in that game overseas\nWhere Death stood to win, though his name was to borrow\nA brightness therefrom not to fade on the morrow.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1916 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -41499,10 +42702,10 @@ "title": "“De Profundis”", "body": "# I.\n\n_“Percussus sum sicut foenum, et aruit cor meum.”_\n --_Ps. ci_\n\n Wintertime nighs;\nBut my bereavement-pain\nIt cannot bring again:\n Twice no one dies.\n\n Flower-petals flee;\nBut, since it once hath been,\nNo more that severing scene\n Can harrow me.\n\n Birds faint in dread:\nI shall not lose old strength\nIn the lone frost’s black length:\n Strength long since fled!\n\n Leaves freeze to dun;\nBut friends can not turn cold\nThis season as of old\n For him with none.\n\n Tempests may scath;\nBut love can not make smart\nAgain this year his heart\n Who no heart hath.\n\n Black is night’s cope;\nBut death will not appal\nOne who, past doubtings all,\n Waits in unhope.\n\n\n# II.\n\n_“Considerabam ad dexteram, et videbam; et non erat qui cognosceret me 
 Non est qui requirat animam meam.”_\n --_Ps. cxli._\n\nWhen the clouds’ swoln bosoms echo back the shouts of the many and strong\nThat things are all as they best may be, save a few to be right ere long,\nAnd my eyes have not the vision in them to discern what to these is so clear,\nThe blot seems straightway in me alone; one better he were not here.\n\nThe stout upstanders say, All’s well with us: ruers have nought to rue!\nAnd what the potent say so oft, can it fail to be somewhat true?\nBreezily go they, breezily come; their dust smokes around their career,\nTill I think I am one horn out of due time, who has no calling here.\n\nTheir dawns bring lusty joys, it seems; their eves exultance sweet;\nOur times are blessed times, they cry: Life shapes it as is most meet,\nAnd nothing is much the matter; there are many smiles to a tear;\nThen what is the matter is I, I say. Why should such an one be here? 
\n\nLet him to whose ears the low-voiced Best seems stilled by the clash of the First,\nWho holds that if way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst,\nWho feels that delight is a delicate growth cramped by crookedness, custom, and fear,\nGet him up and be gone as one shaped awry; he disturbs the order here.\n\n\n# III.\n\n_“Heu mihi, quia incolatus meus prolongatus est! Habitavi cum habitantibus Cedar; multum incola fuit aninia mea.”_\n --_Ps. cxix._\n\nThere have been times when I well might have passed and the ending have come--\nPoints in my path when the dark might have stolen on me, artless, unrueing--\nEre I had learnt that the world was a welter of futile doing:\nSuch had been times when I well might have passed, and the ending have come!\n\nSay, on the noon when the half-sunny hours told that April was nigh,\nAnd I upgathered and cast forth the snow from the crocus-border,\nFashioned and furbished the soil into a summer-seeming order,\nGlowing in gladsome faith that I quickened the year thereby.\n\nOr on that loneliest of eves when afar and benighted we stood,\nShe who upheld me and I, in the midmost of Egdon together,\nConfident I in her watching and ward through the blackening heather,\nDeeming her matchless in might and with measureless scope endued.\n\nOr on that winter-wild night when, reclined by the chimney-nook quoin,\nSlowly a drowse overgat me, the smallest and feeblest of folk there,\nWeak from my baptism of pain; when at times and anon I awoke there--\nHeard of a world wheeling on, with no listing or longing to join.\n\nEven then! while unweeting that vision could vex or that knowledge could numb,\nThat sweets to the mouth in the belly are bitter, and tart, and untoward,\nThen, on some dim-coloured scene should my briefly raised curtain have lowered,\nThen might the Voice that is law have said “Cease!” and the ending have come.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1896 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -41521,10 +42724,10 @@ "title": "“The Last Performance”", "body": "“I am playing my oldest tunes,” declared she,\n “All the old tunes I know,--\nThose I learnt ever so long ago.”\n--Why she should think just then she’d play them\n Silence cloaks like snow.\n\nWhen I returned from the town at nightfall\n Notes continued to pour\nAs when I had left two hours before:\n“It’s the very last time,” she said in closing;\n “From now I play no more.”\n\nA few morns onward found her fading,\n And, as her life outflew,\nI thought of her playing her tunes right through;\nAnd I felt she had known of what was coming,\n And wondered how she knew.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -41535,12 +42738,12 @@ "title": "“Men Who March Away”", "body": "What of the faith and fire within us\nMen who march away\nEre the barn-cocks say\nNight is growing gray,\nLeaving all that here can win us;\nWhat of the faith and fire within us\nMen who march away?\n\nIs it a purblind prank, O think you,\nFriend with the musing eye,\nWho watch us stepping by\nWith doubt and dolorous sigh?\nCan much pondering so hoodwink you!\nIs it a purblind prank, O think you,\nFriend with the musing eye?\n\nNay. We well see what we are doing,\nThough some may not see--\nDalliers as they be--\nEngland’s need are we;\nHer distress would leave us rueing:\nNay. We well see what we are doing,\nThough some may not see!\n\nIn our heart of hearts believing\nVictory crowns the just,\nAnd that braggarts must\nSurely bite the dust,\nPress we to the field ungrieving,\nIn our heart of hearts believing\nVictory crowns the just.\n\nHence the faith and fire within us\nMen who march away\nEre the barn-cocks say\nNight is growing gray,\nLeaving all that here can win us;\nHence the faith and fire within us\nMen who march away.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1914, "month": "september", "day": 5 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september", @@ -41552,10 +42755,10 @@ "title": "“A New Year’s Eve in War Time”", "body": "Phantasmal fears,\nAnd the flap of the flame,\nAnd the throb of the clock,\nAnd a loosened slate,\nAnd the blind night’s drone,\nWhich tiredly the spectral pines intone!\n\nAnd the blood in my ears\nStrumming always the same,\nAnd the gable-cock\nWith its fitful grate,\nAnd myself, alone.\n\nThe twelfth hour nears\nHand-hid, as in shame;\nI undo the lock,\nAnd listen, and wait\nFor the Young Unknown.\n\nIn the dark there careers--\nAs if Death astride came\nTo numb all with his knock--\nA horse at mad rate\nOver rut and stone.\n\nNo figure appears,\nNo call of my name,\nNo sound but ‘Tic-toc’\nWithout check. Past the gate\nIt clatters--is gone.\n\nWhat rider it bears\nThere is none to proclaim;\nAnd the Old Year has struck,\nAnd, scarce animate,\nThe New makes moan.\n\nMaybe that ‘More Tears!--\nMore Famine and Flame--\nMore Severance and Shock!’\nIs the order from Fate\nThat the Rider speeds on\nTo pale Europe; and tiredly the pines intone.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_eve" @@ -41566,10 +42769,10 @@ "title": "“The Oxen”", "body": "Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.\n“Now they are all on their knees,”\nAn elder said as we sat in a flock\nBy the embers in hearthside ease.\n\nWe pictured the meek mild creatures where\nThey dwelt in their strawy pen,\nNor did it occur to one of us there\nTo doubt they were kneeling then.\n\nSo fair a fancy few would weave\nIn these years! Yet, I feel,\nIf someone said on Christmas Eve,\n“Come; see the oxen kneel,”\n\n“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb\nOur childhood used to know,”\nI should go with him in the gloom,\nHoping it might be so.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "christmas_eve" @@ -41580,12 +42783,12 @@ "title": "“Rain on a Grave”", "body": "Clouds spout upon her\nTheir waters amain\nIn ruthless disdain,--\nHer who but lately\nHad shivered with pain\nAs at touch of dishonour\nIf there had lit on her\nSo coldly, so straightly\nSuch arrows of rain:\n\nOne who to shelter\nHer delicate head\nWould quicken and quicken\nEach tentative tread\nIf drops chanced to pelt her\nThat summertime spills\nIn dust-paven rills\nWhen thunder-clouds thicken\nAnd birds close their bills.\n\nWould that I lay there\nAnd she were housed here!\nOr better, together\nWere folded away there\nExposed to one weather\nWe both,--who would stray there\nWhen sunny the day there,\nOr evening was clear\nAt the prime of the year.\n\nSoon will be growing\nGreen blades from her mound,\nAnd daisies be showing\nLike stars on the ground,\nTill she form part of them--\nAy--the sweet heart of them,\nLoved beyond measure\nWith a child’s pleasure\nAll her life’s round.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913, "month": "january", "day": 31 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -41597,14 +42800,14 @@ "title": "“The Self-Unseeing”", "body": "Here is the ancient floor,\nFootworn and hollowed and thin,\nHere was the former door\nWhere the dead feet walked in.\n\nShe sat here in her chair,\nSmiling into the fire;\nHe who played stood there,\nBowing it higher and higher.\n\nChildlike, I danced in a dream;\nBlessings emblazoned that day;\nEverything glowed with a gleam;\nYet we were looking away!", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1901 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Poems of the Past and the Present", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1901 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -41612,10 +42815,10 @@ "title": "“The Shadow on the Stone”", "body": "I went by the Druid stone\n That stands in the garden white and lone,\nAnd I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows\n That at some moments there are thrown\n From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,\n And they shaped in my imagining\nTo the shade that a well-known head and shoulders\n Threw there when she was gardening.\n\n I thought her behind my back,\n Yea, her I long had learned to lack,\nAnd I said: “I am sure you are standing behind me,\n Though how do you get into this old track?”\n And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf\n As a sad response; and to keep down grief\nI would not turn my head to discover\n That there was nothing in my belief.\n\n Yet I wanted to look and see\n That nobody stood at the back of me;\nBut I thought once more: “Nay, I’ll not unvision\n A shape which, somehow, there may be.”\n So I went on softly from the glade,\n And left her behind me throwing her shade,\nAs she were indeed an apparition--\n My head unturned lest my dream should fade.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -41623,10 +42826,10 @@ "title": "“Shut out that Moon”", "body": "Close up the casement, draw the blind,\nShut out that stealing moon,\nShe wears too much the guise she wore\nBefore our lutes were strewn\nWith years-deep dust, and names we read\nOn a white stone were hewn.\n\nStep not forth on the dew-dashed lawn\nTo view the Lady’s Chair,\nImmense Orion’s glittering form,\nThe Less and Greater Bear:\nStay in; to such sights we were drawn\nWhen faded ones were fair.\n\nBrush not the bough for midnight scents\nThat come forth lingeringly,\nAnd wake the same sweet sentiments\nThey breathed to you and me\nWhen living seemed a laugh, and love\nAll it was said to be.\n\nWithin the common lamp-lit room\nPrison my eyes and thought;\nLet dingy details crudely loom,\nMechanic speech be wrought:\nToo fragrant was Life’s early bloom,\nToo tart the fruit it brought!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1904 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -42575,8 +43778,10 @@ "title": "“The Fig-Tree”", "body": "Welcome, thou cool oriental evening, welcome! After the hot day thou art as a pitcher of water after a ride in the desert. Thou art as a pale young wife, who from the hill beckons home the sweating toiler of the fields. Thou art like the Tartar jeweler’s opal, for thy color shifts between the white of milk and the glowing red of wine in the same manner that thy joy shifts between healthful, strengthening repose and enkindling merriment.\n\nWith this apostrophe I saluted the evening and reined up my jenny in a small ravine which clambered up toward Jerusalem. The city lay on a height, with its surrounding wall and its cupola-ed white houses, like a four-cornered basket full of eggs. Before the city gate, white-clad widows were sitting motionless at the graves of their husbands, mirrored in a great, quiet, colorless pool.\n\nAll at once came the dusk. The road of the ravine became full of people--for the time of the Passover was drawing near.\n\nAt the door of a small cottage, where women were preparing supper, was seated Christ, the Brotherer. Although His face could not be wholly distinguished, because the light of an oil-lamp within the house fell upon his back, yet one could tell at once who He was. His dark hair hung in rough luxuriance down to His knees. His white prophet’s garment was frayed, His feet dusty. With His left hand He compressed the nozzle of a leather skin of wine. Whenever one of the friends who were sitting with crossed legs in a circle about him attempted to rise, He pressed him back to his place again and offered him drink. No cares, no thought of labor came to disturb the still evening joy.\n\nThen arose, unobserved, Judas, the Jew of Jews. His well-tended hands and feet were white as marble, and the nails carefully polished. He did not wipe the sweat from his forehead with a fold of his garment as did the other disciples, but drew out always a long Roman handkerchief. His clean-shaven, prosperous-looking face with its small, sedate, intelligent eyes was altogether that of the sober, discreet man of property.\n\nHe stole away softly behind the cottage on the road to Jerusalem, while his green head-cloth fluttered among the twisted black olive trees. He smote himself on the forehead and spoke half-aloud, and it was not difficult to divine his thoughts.\n\n_What does it lead to,_ thought he, _if one follow this man who forbids us to work and to think of the future, and upon whose head they have finally set a price? Have not I year by year and day by day saved coin after coin? There lack but thirty pieces of silver--but thirty!--and I shall be sitting under my own fig-tree._\n\nInvoluntarily I reached for a stone. Then Christ, the Brotherer, arose in the lighted doorway.\n\n“Thou art still young,” he called out to me. “Thy first thought upon thine own fig-tree shall go forth and sell me.”\n\nMeanwhile the ravine became so dark that nothing could any longer be distinguished. All sank back into the Orient’s indescribable stillness, a stillness that has brought forth prophets. But from that evening I understood them who desire that no man shall possess an own fig-tree.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Charles Wharton Stork", "language": "Swedish", + "translators": [ + "Charles Wharton Stork" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "holy_thursday" @@ -42587,8 +43792,10 @@ "title": "“The Heaviest Road”", "body": "Hard do you press on me, dark hand,\nAnd heavily you rest upon my head.\nI vowed that unlamenting I would stand;\nBoldly set garlands on my hair instead.\nThe sorrow of the old is other\nThan bird-song grief in springtime’s glow.\nAround me chilling shadows gather.\nThe heaviest road is still to go.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Charles Wharton Stork", "language": "Swedish", + "translators": [ + "Charles Wharton Stork" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -42599,8 +43806,10 @@ "title": "“Starting on the Journey”", "body": "Already I’m upon the bridge that leads\nFrom Earth unto a land beyond my ken,\nAnd far to me is now what once was near.\nBeneath, as formerly, the race of men\nPraise, blame, and forge their darts for warlike deeds;\nBut now I see that true and noble creeds\nEven on my foemen’s shields are blazoned clear.\nNo more does life bewilder with its riot,\nI am as lonely as a man may be;\nStill is the air, austere and winter-quiet;\nSelf is forgot, and I go forward free.\nI loose my shoes and cast aside my stave.\nSoftly I go, for I would not defile\nWith dust a world so pure, all white as snow.\nBeneath, men soon may carry to a grave\nA wretched shape of human clay, the while\nMumbling a name--’twas mine once long ago.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Charles Wharton Stork", "language": "Swedish", + "translators": [ + "Charles Wharton Stork" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -42611,8 +43820,10 @@ "title": "“A Theme with Two Variations”", "body": "# I.\n\nMany a man who quietly lays his head on the block has swooned at a prick under the finger-nail. Nekir and Munkar, the angels who record the actions of mankind, had every day unconcernedly made entry of the heaviest sins, but they were much startled and became almost pale with terror when once upon a time they heard a pious man on the threshold of Paradise thank God that He had protected him against frivolity, the commonest sin on earth. Since Nekir and Munkar were not fully agreed as to what he meant by this never-before-mentioned sin, they commanded the most frivolous man on earth to show himself.\n\nSo Don Juan came, guffawing and whistling. It was impossible to get a serious word from him, but a Jew to whom he had pawned his plate pointed at him and whispered in passing: “Dot man amuses himself all de time und iss shoost mad about pretty vimmen! Coot-bye!”\n\nNekir answered: “To use every hour of his short life is, as long as others don’t suffer from it, no sin in our sight, though it may be in that of the narrow but possibly needful laws of men. It was not he whom we meant.”\n\nAfter that the Recording Angels repeated their command. Thereupon, timid and trembling, came Sheik Rifat Hassan, who died long ago. He knelt and sobbed: “Oh Munkar, I lived the first forty years of my life in such a whirl of pleasure that for the remaining forty I had to go about as a sick beggar.”\n\nThen answered Munkar: “My friend, to sacrifice the worst forty years of one’s life in order to have double enjoyment from the best is no frivolity. That is taking life seriously.”\n\nAfter that the Recording Angels for the third time summoned the most frivolous man living. But no one answered. There was silence over all the earth.\n\nFor the fourth and fifth time they repeated the summons without answer. They only heard in the distance a lengthy, apathetic yawning, and a ridiculous, emaciated old man approached. He stood still and cried out insolently and defiantly: “What is it ye desire to know? Ask of me! I am Diogenes and am so wise that I scorn the pleasures of life.”\n\nThen answered Nekir: “In that thou deemest thyself wise, thou art a blockhead. In that thou failest to make use of well-tasting meat and drink, of beautiful furnishings and garments and all the trifles that in their measure gladden the short space of life, thou art frivolous.”\n\nTherewith Nekir dipped his pen and inscribed in his book the following: Number 5,989,700,402. Diogenes. The world’s most frivolous man.\n\n\n# II.\n\nIn one of the spreading valleys overgrown with peach-trees hard by Sana in Araby the Blest, Ildis, the Turkish governor’s daughter, had wreathed a mighty garland. In her joy at the silent, limpid Oriental evening she resolved to present the garland to that man of Sana’s inhabitants who best understood how to use the moment.\n\nIn her great childishness she asked the watchman at the city gate where she could find this man. He led her straightway to a writer of books. Who in Sana knew not the name of the writer of books? With hurried step he was going back and forth in his garden. Finally he stood still with an air of satisfaction and murmured: “At length I discern clearly wherein your charm consists, O evening of the Orient!” Thereafter he wrote on a slip of paper the following:\n\n_What is thy beauty. Orient Land,\nThou desert region of stones and sand,\nWith bare, parched mountain-wall?\n ’Tis color and silence all!\nThrow o’er the sunlight Europa’s glum\nOctober clouds wtih their dark-gray scowl,\nAnd set on the mountain a man with a drum,\n And the Orient Land would be foul!_\n\nAs soon as he had written down the last exclamation mark he sank down weary on a bench and went to sleep forthwith. Ildis looked at him and said: “As thou art a writer of books, it is thy fortune to be unfortunate. As thou art so unfortunate as to pluck apart every impression, thou dost rob thy life of all joy.--Let us go further!”\n\nThe watchman led her now to the market-place to a wealthy tallow-chandler. This man had passed his entire youth in a damp vault with his chandlery. His provision for the future had never won him a day’s leisure. Still he was sitting on the steps of his house, evidently broken-down and in his dotage, but provided for.\n\nIldis shook her head and turned toward him. “My friend, when thou didst labor for the morrow, thou wert a self-betrayer, because even before night thou might’st have lain on a bier. When thou didst offer up thy youth for thy age, thou wert a spendthrift who bought pebbles for diamonds.”\n\nAt last the watchman became impatient, shrugged his shoulders, and moodily retired, while his big slippers flapped on the stone pavement.\n\nNight had already come on, and Ildis noted with alarm that she had arrived in front of the forbidding hovel which was inhabited by Muchail, the city swineherd, a giaour of ill-repute, on whom the writer of books had composed the following epigram:\n\n_Muchail exalts the noble three,\nTobacco, dancing-girls and wine.\nBy day the city swineherd he,\nBy night he is the city swine._\n\nIldis looked anxiously about her at the empty street. Through the half-open door she made out the handsome, curly-haired Muchail, a fellow of scarce twenty, who in the faintly lighted room was talking in a low voice with a friend. He cast two copper coins on the table and cried to his comrade:\n\n“One coin shall be thine. I am but a poor swineherd, seest thou, but the little that I earn I always divide with my friends on condition that they immediately spend it. Do thou buy a little tobacco and wine, and I’ll knock at the house of the dancing-girls. A piastre is only a fish-hook with which one catches a little much-sought-after goldfish that is called Happiness. While the others of the city quite absurdly hoard up fish-hooks, let us to-night catch the fish themselves!”\n\nThe maiden felt that she was red with blushes. She stepped back a couple of steps into the bright, glad southern moonlight which outlined her shadow on the door. She hesitated, cautiously thrust off her slippers, and finally, barefoot, stepped stealthily up on the stone threshold, hung the great garland on the key and kissed it. Then she took the slippers in her hand and sprang quickly away in the shadow of the houses as if she had done something wicked.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Charles Wharton Stork", "language": "Swedish", + "translators": [ + "Charles Wharton Stork" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -42620,8 +43831,10 @@ "title": "From “Thoughts in Loneliness”", "body": "# I. _The Spark._\n\nThere is a spark dwells deep within my soul.\nTo get it out into the daylight’s glow\nIs my life’s aim both first and last, the whole.\n\nIt slips away, it burns and tortures me.\nThat little spark is all the wealth I know;\nThat little spark is my life’s misery.\n\n\n# II. _An Elder Day._\n\nIn solitude my life-years drift away;\nI babble to my dog, I stir my fire.\nI do not feel the loss of yesterday,\n’Tis hours fled long since that I desire,\nWhen yonder bent and grizzled serving-man\nWho brought my supper in was young.\nWhen, children yet, my parents played among\nThe grasses, ere my life began.\n\n\n# IV. _Childhood Scenes._\n\nI’ve longed for home these eight long years, I know.\nI long in sleep as well as through the day.\nI long for home. I seek where’er I go--\nNot men-folk, but the fields where I would stray,\nThe stones where as a child I used to play.\n\n\n# V. _The Shifting Self._\n\nEach night my old self in the grave I lay\nAnd get me another on waking.\nWith a hundred thoughts I begin the day,\nNot one to my slumber-time taking.\n’Twixt sorrow and joy I roam without pause;\nI seem like a riddle, none dafter.\nBut lucky is he who for any cause,\nCan burst into tears or laughter.\n\n\n# VII. _My Mother._\n\nAs years would fade, I often kept returning\nTo an old empty house, deserted quite,\nIts hundred windows burning\nWith vivid sunset light.\nOpening and closing, anxiously I strayed there\nFrom room to room, but found no clocks that swayed their\nBright pendulums, nor furniture beneath.\nTo the last room I came. Displayed there\nUpon the wall in withered wreath\nA dark, half-ruined picture hung:\nA small, old dame in black arrayed,--\nA starched cap round her comely features clung.\nAnd yonder woman, silently portrayed\nOn canvas dark, I saw when I was young,\nShe prayed my life might have a worthy goal.\nAnd ’twas her picture, when all else was gone,\nThat still was left me, that alone.\nYon empty dwelling was my soul.\n\n\n# VIII. _Fame._\n\nYou seek for fame; but I would choose another\nAnd greater blessing: so to be forgotten\nThat none should hear my name; no, not my mother.\n\n\n# IX. _Obedience._\n\nNow even-song is ringing,\nI ride to win me rest.\nMy steed, let us be springing\nOut into the glowing west!\nHow glad among men my life would be,\nWere not “Obey!” our A and Z!\n\nIf the world had one mouth like a great black well\nAnd should cry as loud as a booming bell:\n“Obey, or in fetters double\nOf iron and wood thou shalt straight be bound!”\nI hardly should take the trouble\nTo look up and glance around.\n\nIf the Lord of the World from an evening cloud\nShould thunder “Obey!” with menacings loud,\nI would answer: “Lower your voice, God, pray,\nAnd perhaps I shall hear what you say!”\n\nMy steed so strong,\nNot yet do I long\nFor my stuffy home and the stove.\nKeep on for an hour, for twain maybe!\nAnd you purchase for me\nTwo hours of the respite I love.\n\n\n# X. _Helpless Animals._\n\nIf I should have a friend, one only friend,\nAnd that friend slew a helpless beast and gave\nHis hand, to which of late mine warmly clave,\nThough I still longed an answering grasp to lend,\nMy hand with his I never more would blend.\n\nIf he lay sick, the friend who had the heart\nTo slay a helpless beast, and felt the smart\nOf thirst, and I was sitting there beside him\nOn his last night, no drink would I provide him,\nBut fill and drain my glass, and so depart.\n\n\n# XII. _The Trap._\n\nA cunning trap I’m laying.\nYour love I have truly sought,\nBut just as you will be saying\nDeep down in your inmost thought:\n\n“I’ll give the bad man his due then,\nMy heart that he’s begged so long;”\nI’ll turn my back on you then\nAnd make a merry song.\n\n\n# XVI. _The Cup._\n\nA mighty cup my sires possessed,\nA mighty great pewter cup.\nMy heart is warmed as I fill it up\nAnd lift it on high with a zest.\n\nThen out of the ale sighs an ancient song,\nLike torches the strophes flame.\nGod grant that our children may hear it long\nWhile of us it murmurs the same!\n\n\n# XVII. _Self-Impatience._\n\nWithin my heart of hearts I’m well advised\nThat I am worst among the men I know of.\nNot only friends I mean, but this is so of\nAll those as well whom I have most despised.\n\nWhen comes the day when, young and strong for strife\nI may step forth and prove with eager passion\nThe tithe of greatness in my composition\nAnd for a sacred cause yield up my life?\n\n\n# XVIII. _Insight._\n\nI’ve searched half the world over everywhere\nFor a place that I fairest might call.\nSo lovely, though, were they all\nThat none could well be most fair.\n\nTake all that is mine or mine can be,\nBut leave me my one best gift:\nThat scenes may delight me, uplift,\nWhich another scarcely would see.\n\n\n# XXI. _A Farewell._\n\nYou cared for me, and at your behest\nI’d have laid my all at your feet.\nBut late I’d have given the world, my sweet,\nFor your heart, your lips, your breast.\n\nBut lucky our love, ever hid from sight,\nWhich bound not for weal or for woe\nTill it languished away, till we slew it outright\nBy faults neither one could forego!\n\nWhat can be forgotten with years, forget!\nCast me out as a corpse might be cast!\nThis mournful dream of our love may be yet\nA memory of youth at the last.\n\n\n# XXIV. _Self-Atonement._\n\nToo proud am I to see another suffer\nA death abhorred\nMy guilt to ease;\nToo tender to look on when Christ should offer\nTo thorns his forehead--\nMy thorns are these.\nFor my life’s care, in my heart I hide it.\nThe sin that I on man and beast have wrought\nAnd against thee, O Nature, be it brought\nUpon my life, and let my memory abide it!\n\n\n# XXVI. _Last Prayer._\n\nQuickly my little life will have departed.\nTo whom then should I pray, if at the last I could,\nLying upon my pillow, heavy-hearted\nFor the much ill I’d done and little good?\n\nShall hopeless prayers be hushed in their up-springing?\nShall I in dumb despair upon my death-bed lie?\nOr to deaf Nature’s might shall I be flinging\nA cry that fades away without reply?\n\nNo, but I will pray, lest my spirit harden,\nSilent but heart-warm prayers to those of my own clay,\nThat they forgive my sins as theirs I pardon.\nUnto my living fellow-men I’ll pray.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Charles Wharton Stork", "language": "Swedish", + "translators": [ + "Charles Wharton Stork" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -42692,8 +43905,10 @@ "title": "“The Consecration”", "body": "Lonely in the forest chapel,\nAt the image of the Virgin,\nLay a gentle, pallid stripling,\nBent in humble adoration.\n\nO Madonna! Let me ever\nOn the threshold here be kneeling;\nThou wilt never drive me from thee,\nTo the world so cold and sinful.\n\nO Madonna! Sunny radiance\nRound thy head’s bright locks is gleaming,\nAnd a mild sweet smile is playing\nRound thy fair mouth’s holy roses.\n\nO Madonna! Thine eyes’ lustre\nLightens me like stars in heaven;\nWhile life’s bark doth drift at random,\nStars lead on for ever surely.\n\nO Madonna! Without wavering\nI have borne thy test of sorrow,\nOn kind love relying blindly,\nIn thy glow alone e’er glowing.\n\n _O Madonna! This day hear me,\n Full of mercy, rich in wonders!\n Grant me then a sign of favour,\n Just one little sign of favour._\n\nThen presently happen’d a marvellous wonder.\nThe forest and chapel were parted insunder;\nThe boy understood not the miracle strange,\nFor all around him did suddenly change.\n\nIn a brilliant hall there sat the Madonna,\nHer rays were gone, as he gazed upon her;\nShe bore the form of a lovely maid,\nAround her lips a childlike smile play’d.\n\nAnd see! from her fair and flowing tresses\nShe steals a lock, as she thus addresses\nIn a heavenly tone, the raptured boy:\nThe sweetest reward on earth enjoy!\n\n _What attests this consecration?\n Saw’st thou not the rainbow shedding\n Its sublime illumination,\n O’er the wide horizon spreading?\n\n Angels up and down are moving,\n Loudly do their pinions flutter;\n Breathing music strange and loving,\n Sweet the melodies they utter.\n\n Well the stripling knows the yearning\n Through his frame that now doth quiver;\n To that land his footsteps turning,\n Where the myrtle blooms for ever._", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edgar Alfred Bowring", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Edgar Alfred Bowring" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "assumption" @@ -42704,8 +43919,10 @@ "title": "“Declaration”", "body": "Onward glimmering came the evening,\nWilder tossĂšd the flood,\nAnd I sat on the strand, regarding\nThe snowy dance of the billows,\nAnd soon my bosom swell’d like the sea;\nA deep home-sickness yearningly seized me\nFor thee, thou darling form,\nWho everywhere surround’st me,\nAnd everywhere call’st me,\nEverywhere, everywhere,\nIn the moan of the wind, in the roar of the ocean,\nIn the sigh within my own breast.\n\nWith brittle reed I wrote on the sand:\n“Agnes, I love thee!”\nBut wicked billows soon pour’d themselves\nOver the blissful confession,\nEffacing it all.\n\nAh too fragile reed, all fast-scatter’d sand,\nAh fugitive billows, I’ll trust you no more!\nThe heavens grow darker, my heart grows wilder\nAnd with vigorous hand from the forests of Norway\nTear I the highest fir-tree,\nAnd plunge it deep\nIn Etna’s glowing abyss, and thereafter\nWith fire-imbued giant-pen\nI write on the dark veil of heaven:\n“Agnes, I love thee!”\nEvery night gleams thenceforward\nOn high that eternal fiery writing,\nAnd all generations of farthest descendants\nRead gladly the heavenly sentence:\n“Agnes, I love thee!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -42713,8 +43930,10 @@ "title": "“E’en as a Lovely Flower”", "body": "E’en as a lovely flower,\nSo fair, so pure thou art;\nI gaze on thee, and sadness\nComes stealing o’er my heart.\n\nMy hands I fain had folded\nUpon thy soft brown hair,\nPraying that God may keep thee\nSo lovely, pure and fair.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -42725,8 +43944,10 @@ "title": "“A Fir-Tree”", "body": "A single fir-tree, lonely,\nOn a northern mountain height,\nSleeps in a white blanket,\nDraped in snow and ice.\nHis dreams are of a palm-tree,\nWho, far in eastern lands,\nWeeps, all alone and silent,\nAmong the burning sands.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -42737,8 +43958,10 @@ "title": "“I Don’t Know What It Means”", "body": "I don’t know what it could mean,\nOr why I’m so sad: I find,\nA fairy-tale, from times unseen,\nWon’t vanish from my mind.\nThe air is cool and it darkens,\nAnd quiet flows the Rhine:\nThe tops of the mountains sparkle,\nIn evening’s after-shine.\nThe loveliest of maidens,\nShe’s wonderful, sits there,\nHer golden jewels glisten,\nShe combs her golden hair.\nShe combs it with a comb of gold,\nAnd sings a song as well:\nIts strangeness too is old\nAnd casts a powerful spell.\nIt grips the boatman in his boat\nWith a wild pang of woe:\nHe only looks up to the heights,\nCan’t see the rocks below.\nThe waves end by swallowing\nThe boat and its boatman,\nThat’s what, by her singing,\nThe Lorelei has done.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -42746,8 +43969,10 @@ "title": "“In the Cabin at Night”", "body": "# I.\n\nThe sea its pearls possesseth,\nAnd heaven its stars containeth,\nBut, O my heart, my heart,\nMy heart its love hath also.\n\nVast is the sea and the heavens,\nYet vaster is my heart,\nAnd fairer than pearls or the stars\nGlitt’reth and beameth my love.\n\nThou little youthful maiden,\nCome to my heart so vast;\nMy heart and the sea and the heavens\nFor very love are dying.\n\n\n# II.\n\n’Gainst the azure veil of heaven,\nWhere the beauteous stars are twinkling,\nFain I’d press my lips with ardour,\nPress them wildly, madly weeping.\n\nYonder stars the very eyes are\nOf my loved one, thousand-changing\nGlimmer they and greet me kindly\nFrom the azure veil of heaven.\n\nTow’rd the azure veil of heaven,\nTow’rd the eyes of my beloved one,\nLift I up my arms in worship,\nAnd I pray, and thus beseech them:\n\nBeauteous eyes, ye lights of mercy,\nO make happy my poor spirit,\nLet me die, and as my guerdon,\nWin both you and all your heaven!\n\n\n# III.\n\nFrom those heavenly eyes above me\nLight and trembling sparks are falling\nThrough the night, and then my spirit\nLoving-wide and wider stretcheth.\n\nO ye heavenly eyes above me!\nWeep yourselves into my spirit,\nThat my spirit may run over\nWith those tears so sweet and starry!\n\n\n# IV.\n\nCradled by the ocean billows,\nAnd by thoughts that seem like visions,\nSilent lie I in the cabin,\nIn the dark bed in the corner.\n\nThrough the open hatchway see I\nThere on high the stars all-radiant,\nThose sweet eyes so dearly cherish’d\nOf my sweet and dearly loved one.\n\nThose sweet eyes so dearly cherish’d\nFar above my head are watching,\nAnd they tinkle and they beckon\nFrom the azure veil of heaven.\n\nTow’rd the azure veil of heaven\nGaze I many an hour with rapture,\nTill a white and misty curtain\nFrom me hides those eyes so cherish’d.\n\n’Gainst the boarded side of the ship,\nWhere my dreaming head is lying,\nRave the billows, the furious billows.\nThey roar and they murmur\nThus soft in my ear:\n\n“O foolish young fellow!\nThine arm is short, and the heavens are wide,\nAnd yonder stars are firmly nailed there;\nIn vain is thy yearning, in vain is thy sighing,\nThe best thou can’st do is to sleep!”\n\nI dreamt, and dreaming saw a spacious heath,\nFar overspread with white, with whitest snow,\nAnd ’neath that white snow buried I was lying,\nAnd slept the lonesome, chilly sleep of death.\n\nYet from on high, from out the darkling heavens,\nLook’d down upon my grave those eyes all-starry,\nThose eyes so sweet! In triumph they were gleaming\nIn calm and radiant but excessive love.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -42758,8 +43983,10 @@ "title": "“Meeting Again”", "body": "One summer eve, in the woodbine bower\n We sat once more at the window lonely;\nThe moon arose with life-giving power,\n But we appear’d two spectres only.\n\nTwelve years had pass’d since the last occasion\n When we on this spot had sat together;\nEach tender glow, each loving persuasion\n Had meanwhile been quench’d in life’s rough weather.\n\nI silently sat. The woman, however,\n Just like her sex, amongst love’s ashes\nMust needs be raking, but vain her endeavour\n To kindle again its long-quench’d flashes.\n\nAnd she recounted how she had contended\n With evil thoughts, the story disclosing\nHow hardly she once her virtue defended,--\n I stupidly listened to all her prosing.\n\nWhen homeward I rode, the trees beside me\n Like spirits beneath the moon’s rays flitted;\nSad voices call’d, but onward I hied me,\n Yes, I and the dead, who my side ne’er quitted.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -42770,8 +43997,10 @@ "title": "“The Night is Still”", "body": "The night is so still, the streets are at rest,\nThis is the house that my love graced,\nThis is the town she’s long since left,\nBut the house is here in the selfsame place.\nA man’s there too, who stands and stares,\nAnd wrings his hands, in violent pain:\nWhen I see his look it makes me scared--\nThe moonlight shows my face again.\nYou doppel-gĂ€nger! You pallid creature!\nWhy do you act that torment through,\nLove, torturing me on this very corner,\nFor so many nights, those years I knew.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -42779,8 +44008,10 @@ "title": "“The Night on the Strand”", "body": "Starless and cold is the night,\nThe ocean boils;\nAnd over the sea, flat on its belly,\nLies the misshapen Northwind;\nWith groaning and stifled mysterious voice,\nA sullen grumbler, good-humour’d for once,\nPrates he away to the waves,\nTelling many a wild tradition,\nGiant-legends, murderous-humorous,\nPrimeval Sagas from Norway,\nAnd the while, far echoing, laughs he and howls he\nExorcists’ songs of the Edda,\nGrey old Runic proverbs,\nSo darkly-daring, and magic-forcible,\nThat the white sons of Ocean\nSpring up on high, all exulting,\nIn madden’d excitement.\n\nMeanwhile, along the flat shore,\nOver the flood-moisten’d sand,\nPaces a stranger, whose heart within him\nIs wilder far than wind and waters;\nThere where he walks\nSparks fly out, and shells are crackling,\nAnd he veils himself in his dark-grey mantle,\nAnd quickly moves on through the blustering night;--\nGuided in safety by yon little light,\nThat sweetly, invitingly glimmers,\nFrom the lone fisherman’s cottage.\n\nFather and brother are out on the sea,\nAnd all all alone is staying\nWithin the hut the fisherman’s daughter,\nThe wondrously lovely fisherman’s daughter.\nBy the hearth she’s sitting,\nAnd lists to the water-kettle’s\nHomely, sweet foreboding humming,\nAnd shakes in the fire the crackling brushwood\nAnd on it blows,\nSo that the lights, all ruddy and flickering,\nMagic-sweetly are reflected\nOn her fair blooming features,\nOn her tender, snowy shoulder,\nWhich, moving gently, peeps\nFrom out her coarse grey smock,\nAnd on her little, anxious hand,\nWhich fastens firmer her under-garment,\nOver her graceful hip.\n\nBut sudden, the door bursts open,\nThe nightly stranger entereth in;\nLove-secure, his eye reposes\nOn the snowy, slender maiden,\nWho, trembling, near him stands,\nLike to a startled lily;\nAnd he throws his mantle to earth,\nAnd laughs and speaks:\n\n“See now, my child, I’ve kept my word,\nAnd I come, and with me hath come\nThe olden time, when the gods from the heavens\nCame down to earth, to the daughters of mortals,\nAnd the daughters of mortals embraced they,\nAnd from them there issued\nSceptre-bearing races of monarchs,\nAnd heroes, wonders of earth.”\n\n“But start not, my child, any longer\nBecause of my godhead,\nAnd I pray thee give me some tea mix’d with rum\nFor ’tis cold out of doors,\nAnd amid such night breezes\nFreeze even we, we godheads immortal,\nAnd easily catch the divinest of colds,\nAnd a cough that proves quite eternal.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -42791,8 +44022,10 @@ "title": "“Old Scents”", "body": "The nosegay Matilda twined for me,\nAnd smilingly offer’d entreatingly,\nI push’d away, o’erpower’d completely\nBy the sight of the flowers that blossom’d so sweetly.\n\nAt the scent of the flowers, my tears fast flow,--\nI feel that in all this fair world below,\nIts beauty, sunlight, joy, love are bereft me,\nAnd nought but its bitter tears are left me.\n\nThey tell me that I no longer share\nA part in life and its circle fair,\nThat I belong to death’s kingdom dreary,\nYes, I, a corpse unburied and weary.\n\nHow happy was I when erst I saw\nThe dance of rats at the Opera!\nBut now I hear the odious scuffling\nOf churchyard rats and grave-moles shuffling.\n\nThe scent of the flowers recalls again\nA perfect ballet, a joyous train\nOf recollections perfumed and glowing,\nFrom the hidden depths of the past o’erflowing,\n\nTo sound of cornet and castanet,\nIn spangled dresses (full short, I regret),--\nYet all their toying, each laugh, each titter,\nCan only render my thoughts more bitter.\n\nAway with the flowers! O, how I abhor\nThe scent that maliciously tells once more\nOf days long vanish’d and hours of gladness--\nI weep at the thought with speechless sadness.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -42800,8 +44033,10 @@ "title": "“The Phoenix”", "body": "There comes a bird who hath flown from the westward,\nHe flies tow’rd the east,\nTow’rd the eastern garden-home,\nWhere the spices so fragrant are growing,\nAnd palms are waving and wells are cooling--\nAnd, flying, the wondrous bird thus singeth\nShe loves him, she loves him!\nHis image she bears in her little bosom,\nAnd bears it sweetly and secretly hidden,\nNor knows it herself!\nBut in her vision, before her he stands,\nShe prays, and she weeps, and she kisses his hands,\nAnd calls on his name,\nAnd calling awakes she and lieth all-startled,\nAnd rubbeth her beauteous eyes in amazement--\nShe loves him! she loves him!", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -42809,8 +44044,10 @@ "title": "“Questions”", "body": "By the sea, by the desert night-cover’d sea\nStandeth a youth,\nHis breast full of sadness, his head full of doubtings,\nAnd with gloomy lips he asks of the billows:\n\n“O answer me life’s hidden riddle,\nThe riddle primeval and painful,\nOver which many a head has been poring,\nHeads in hieroglyphical nightcaps,\nHeads in turbans and swarthy bonnets,\nHeads in perukes, and a thousand other\nPoor and perspiring heads of us mortals--\nTell me what signifies man?\nFrom whence doth he come? And where doth he go?\nWho dwelleth amongst the golden stars yonder?”\n\nThe billows are murm’ring their murmur eternal,\nThe wind is blowing, the clouds are flying,\nThe stars are twinkling, all listless and cold,\nAnd a fool is awaiting an answer.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -42818,8 +44055,10 @@ "title": "“Sea Salutation”", "body": "Thalatta! Thalatta!\nHail to thee, O thou Ocean eterne!\nHail to thee ten thousand times\nFrom hearts all exulting,\nAs formerly hail’d thee\nTen thousand Grecian hearts,\nMisfortune-contending, homeward-aspiring,\nWorld-renown’d Grecian hearts.\n\nThe billows were heaving,\nThey heaved and they bluster’d,\nThe sun shed hastily downwards\nHis light so sportive and rosy-hued;\nThe sudden-startled flocks of sea-mews\nFlutter’d along, loud screaming,\nThe horses were stamping, the bucklers were ringing,\nAnd afar there resounded triumphantly:\nThalatta! Thalatta!\nHail to thee, O thou Ocean eterne!\nLike voices of home thy waters are rushing,\nLike visions of childhood saw I a glimmering\nOver thy heaving billowy-realm,\nAnd olden remembrance again tells me stories\nOf all the darling, beautiful playthings,\nOf all the glittering Christmas presents,\nOf all the ruddy coral branches,\nThe gold fish, pearls and colour’d shells\nWhich thou mysteriously dost keep\nDown yonder in bright crystal house.\n\nO how have I languish’d in drear foreign lands!\nLike to a wither’d flower\nIn the tin case of a botanist,\nLay in my bosom my heart;\nMethought whole winters long I sat\nAn invalid, in darksome sick-room,\nAnd now I suddenly leave it,\nAnd with dazzling rays am I greeted\nBy emerald springtime, the sunny-awaken’d,\nAnd the snowy blossoming trees are all rustling,\nAnd the youthful flowers upon me gaze\nWith eyes all chequer’d and fragrant;\nThere’s a perfume and humming and breathing and laughing,\nAnd the birds in the azure heavens are singing--\nThalatta! Thalatta!\n\nThou valiant retreating heart!\nHow oft, how bitter-oft, wast thou\nHard press’d by the Northern barbarian women\nFrom large victorious eyes\nShot they their burning arrows;\nWith words both crooked and polish’d\nThey threatened to cleave my breast,\nWith cuniform billets-doux harass’d they\nMy poor distracted brain--\nIn vain I held my shield to resist them,\nThe arrows whizz’d and the blows crash’d heavily,\nAnd by the Northern barbarian women\nBack to the sea was I driven,\nAnd freely breathing I hailĂšd the sea,\nThe darling life-saving sea,\nThalatta! Thalatta!", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -42827,8 +44066,10 @@ "title": "“Sunset”", "body": "The beauteous sun\nHath calmly descended down to the sea;\nThe heaving waters already are dyed\nBy dusky night;\nNought but the evening’s red\nWith golden light still spreadeth o’er them,\nAnd the rushing force of the flood\n’Gainst the shore presseth the snowy billows\nWhich merrily, hastily skip,\nLike wool-cover’d flocks of lambkins\nWhom the singing sheep-boy at even\nHomeward doth drive.\n\n“How fair is the sun!”--\nSo spake, after long silence, my friend,\nWho with me wander’d along the strand,\nAnd half in sport and half in sad earnest\nAssured he me that the sun was only\nA lovely woman, whom the old sea-god\nOut of convenience married;\nAll the day long she joyously wander’d\nIn the high heavens, deck’d out with purple,\nAnd glitt’ring with diamonds,\nAnd all-beloved and all-admired\nBy every mortal creature,\nAnd every mortal creature rejoicing\nWith her sweet glances’ light and warmth;\nBut in the evening, impell’d all-disconsolate.\nOnce more returneth she home\nTo the moist house and desert arms\nOf her grey-headed spouse.\n\n“Believe me”--here added my friend,\nWith laughter and sighing and laughter again:\n“They’re living below in the tenderest union!\nEither they’re sleeping or quarrelling fiercely,\nSo that up here e’en the ocean is roaring,\nAnd the fisherman hears in the rush of the waves\nHow the old man’s abusing his wife:\n‘Thou round wench of the universe!\nBeaming coquettish one!\nAll the day long thou art glowing for others,\nAt night for me thou art frosty and tired.’\nAfter this curtain lecture\nAs a matter of course the proud sun\nBursts into tears, lamenting her misery,\nAnd cries so sadly and long, that the sea-god\nSuddenly springs from his bed all distracted,\nAnd hastily swims to the surface of ocean,\nTo recover his breath and his senses.\nI saw him myself, in the night just past,\nRising out of the sea as high as his bosom;\nA jacket of yellow flannel he wore,\nAnd a lily-white nightcap,\nAnd a face all wither’d and dry.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -42839,8 +44080,10 @@ "title": "“There Was a King”", "body": "There was a king, now ageing,\nWith heart of lead, and head so grey.\nHe took a wife, the old king,\nA young wife too, men say.\nThere was a handsome pageboy\nWith hair of gold, and thoughts so free:\nHe bore the silks with joy\nThat trailed behind the queen.\nDo you know the ancient singing?\nIt rings so true: it rings so sweet!\nBoth had to die, of loving,\nOf love that was too deep.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -42848,8 +44091,10 @@ "title": "“They Loved Each Other”", "body": "They loved each other, but neither\nWould admit to the other they could:\nAs enemies, they saw each other,\nAnd almost died of their love.\nIn the end they parted and only\nSaw each other sometimes in dreams:\nIt was long ago they had died,\nBut they scarcely knew it, it seems.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -42857,8 +44102,10 @@ "title": "“This Mad Carnival of Loving”", "body": "This mad carnival of loving,\nThis wild orgy of the flesh,\nEnds at last and we two, sobered,\nLook at one another, yawning.\n\nEmptied the inflaming cup\nThat was filled with sensuous potions,\nFoaming, almost running over--\nEmptied is the flaming cup.\n\nAll the violins are silent\nThat impelled our feet to dancing,\nTo the giddy dance of passion--\nSilent are the violins.\n\nAll the lanterns now are darkened\nThat once poured their streaming brilliance\nOn the masquerades and murmurs--\nDarkened now are all the lanterns.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -42866,8 +44113,10 @@ "title": "“Thunderstorm”", "body": "Heavily lies on the ocean the storm,\nAnd through the darksome wall of clouds\nQuivers the forkĂšd lightning flash,\nSuddenly gleaming and suddenly vanishing,\nLike a thought from the head of Cronion.\nOver the desert, far-heaving water\nAfar the thunders are rolling,\nThe snowy billowy horses are springing,\nWhich Boreas’ self did engender\nOut of the beautiful mares of Erichton,\nAnd the seafowl are mournfully fluttering,\nLike shadowy corpses by Styx,\nBy Charon repulsed from his desolate bark.\n\nPoor, but merry little ship,\nYonder dancing the strangest dance!\nAeolus sends it his briskest attendants,\nWho wildly strike up for the frolicsome dance;\nThe one is piping, another is blowing,\nThe third is beating the hollow double-bass--\nAnd the staggering sailor stands at the rudder,\nAnd on the compass is steadily looking,\nThat trembling soul of the vessel,\nAnd raises his hands in entreaty to heaven;\n“O rescue me, Castor, thou hero gigantic,\nAnd thou, knight of the ring, Polydeuces!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -42878,8 +44127,10 @@ "title": "“The Whims of the Amorous”", "body": "Upon the hedge the beetle sits sadly,\nHe has fallen in love with a lady-fly madly.\n\nO fly of my soul, ’tis thou alone\nArt the wife I have chosen to be my own.\n\nO marry me, and be not cold,\nFor I have a belly of glistening gold.\n\nMy back is a mass of glory and show,\nThere rubies glitter, there emeralds glow--\n\nO would that I were a fool just now!\nI’d never marry a beetle, I vow.\n\nI care not for emeralds, rubies, or gold,\nI know that no happiness riches enfold.\n\n’Tis tow’rd the ideal my thought soars high,\nFor I am in truth a haughty fly.--\n\nThe beetle flew off, with a heart like to break,\nThe fly went away, a bath to take.\n\nO what has become of my maid, the bee,\nThat she when I’m washing may wait on me,\n\nThat she may stroke my soft hair outside,\nFor I am now a beetle’s bride.\n\nIn truth, a splendid party I’ll give,\nFor handsomer beetle never did live.\n\nHis back is a mass of glory and show,\nThere rubies glitter, there emeralds glow.\n\nHis belly is golden, and noble each feature;\nWith envy will burst full many a creature.\n\nMake haste, Miss Bee, and dress my hair,\nAnd lace my waist, use perfumes rare.\n\nWith otto of roses rub me o’er,\nAnd lavender oil on my feet then pour,\n\nThat I mayn’t stink or nastily smell,\nWhen I in my bridegroom’s arms shall dwell.\n\nAlready are flitting the dragonflies blue,\nAs maids of honour to wait on me too.\n\nInto my bridal garland they’ll twine\nThe blossoms white of the orange so fine.\n\nFull many musicians are asked to the place,\nAnd singers as well, of the grasshopper race.\n\nThe bittern, drone, hornet, and gadfly all come,\nTo blow on the trumpet, and beat the drum.\n\nThey’re all to strike up for the glad wedding feast--\nThe gay-wingĂšd guests, from greatest to least,\n\nAre coming in families dapper and brisk,\nThe commoner insects amongst them frisk.\n\nThe grasshoppers, wasps, and the aunts, and the cousins\nAre coming, whilst trumpets are blowing by dozens.\n\nThe pastor, the mole, in black dignified state,\nHas also arrived, and the hour grows late.\n\nThe bells are all sounding ding-dong, ding-a-dong--\nBut where’s my dear bridegroom ling’ring so long?\n\nDing dong, ding-a-dong, sound the bells all the day,\nThe bridegroom however has flown far away.\n\nThe bells are all sounding ding-dong, ding-a-dong--\nBut where’s my dear bridegroom ling’ring so long?\n\nThe bridegroom has meanwhile taken his seat\nOn a distant dunghill, enjoying the heat.\n\nSeven years there sits he, until his forgotten\nPoor bride has long been dead and rotten.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -42887,8 +44138,10 @@ "title": "“A Woman”", "body": "They loved each other with love so deep,\nShe was a tramp and he was a thief.\nWhen he was plying his naughty craft,\nShe lay on the bed and laughed.\nThe days went by in pleasure and joy,\nAt night in the sheets she hugged her boy.\nWhen they dragged him off to jail at last,\nShe stood at the window and laughed.\nHe wrote to her saying: “O come to me,\nI long for you, so badly, you see,\nI’m weeping: I’m fading fast--”\nShe shook her head and laughed.\nAt six in the morning they hung him high,\nAt seven they buried him under the sky,\nBut as eight o’clock went past\nShe drank red wine and laughed.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -43028,10 +44281,10 @@ "title": "“Advice to a Son”", "body": "Never trust a white man,\nNever kill a Jew,\nNever sign a contract,\nNever rent a pew.\nDon’t enlist in armies;\nNor marry many wives;\nNever write for magazines;\nNever scratch your hives.\nAlways put paper on the seat,\nDon’t believe in wars,\nKeep yourself both clean and neat,\nNever marry whores.\nNever pay a blackmailer,\nNever go to law,\nNever trust a publisher,\nOr you’ll sleep on straw.\nAll your friends will leave you\nAll your friends will die\nSo lead a clean and wholesome life\nAnd join them in the sky.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -43040,11 +44293,11 @@ "body": "The age demanded that we sing\nAnd cut away our tongue.\nThe age demanded that we flow\nAnd hammered in the bung.\nThe age demanded that we dance\nAnd jammed us into iron pants.\nAnd in the end the age was handed\nThe sort of shit that it demanded.", "metadata": { "place": "Paris", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -43052,10 +44305,10 @@ "title": "“Along with Youth”", "body": "A porcupine skin,\nStiff with bad tanning,\nIt must have ended somewhere.\nStuffed horned owl\nPompous\nYellow eyed;\nChuck-wills-widow on a biassed twig\nSooted with dust.\nPiles of old magazines,\nDrawers of boy’s letters\nAnd the line of love\nThey must have ended somewhere.\nYesterday’s Tribune is gone\nAlong with youth\nAnd the canoe that went to pieces on the beach\nThe year of the big storm\nWhen the hotel burned down\nAt Seney, Michigan.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -43064,11 +44317,11 @@ "body": "“Blood is thicker than water.”\nThe young man said\nAs he knifed his friend\nFor a drooling old bitch\nAnd a house full of lies.", "metadata": { "place": "Paris", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -43076,10 +44329,10 @@ "title": "“Captives”", "body": "Some came in chains\nUnrepentant but tired.\nToo tired but to stumble.\nThinking and hating were finished\nThinking and fighting were finished\nRetreating and hoping were finished.\nCures thus a long campaign,\nMaking death easy.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -43088,11 +44341,11 @@ "body": "I know monks masturbate at night\nThat pet cats screw\nThat some girls bite\nAnd yet\nWhat can I do\nTo set things right?", "metadata": { "place": "Paris", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -43100,10 +44353,10 @@ "title": "“For we have thought the longer thoughts 
”", "body": "For we have thought the longer thoughts\n And gone the shorter way.\nAnd we have danced to devils’ tunes,\n Shivering home to pray;\nTo serve one master in the night,\n Another in the day.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -43112,11 +44365,11 @@ "body": "Grass smooth on the prairies\n Plows breaking\nStreets smooth and shining\n Trucks crumbling.\nAsphalt, tell me what follows the asphalt.\nWops, he said, wops follow the asphalt.", "metadata": { "place": "Paris", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -43141,11 +44394,11 @@ "body": "I’m off’n wild wimmen\nAn Cognac\nAn Sinnin’\nFor I’m in loOOOOOOOve.", "metadata": { "place": "Paris", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -43154,11 +44407,11 @@ "body": "Desire and\nAll the sweet pulsing aches\nAnd gentle hurtings\nThat were you,\nAre gone into the sullen dark.\nNow in the night you come unsmiling\nTo lie with me\nA dull, cold, rigid bayonet\nOn my hot-swollen, throbbing soul.", "metadata": { "place": "Paris", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -43166,10 +44419,10 @@ "title": "“Montparnasse”", "body": "There are never any suicides in the quarter among people one knows\nNo successful suicides.\nA Chinese boy kills himself and is dead.\n(they continue to place his mail in the letter rack at the Dome)\nA Norwegian boy kills himself and is dead.\n(no one knows where the other Norwegian boy has gone)\nThey find a model dead\nalone in bed and very dead.\n(it made almost unbearable trouble for the concierge)\nSweet oil, the white of eggs, mustard and water, soap suds\nand stomach pumps rescue the people one knows.\nEvery afternoon the people one knows can be found at the cafĂ©.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -43178,11 +44431,11 @@ "body": "The sea desires deep hulls--\nIt swells and rolls.\nThe screw churns a throb--\nDriving, throbbing, progressing.\nThe sea rolls with love,\nSurging, caressing,\nUndulating its great loving belly.\nThe sea is big and old--\nThrobbing ships scorn it.", "metadata": { "place": "Paris", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -43190,10 +44443,10 @@ "title": "“Oklahoma”", "body": "All of the Indians are dead\n(a good Indian is a dead Indian)\nOr riding in motor cars--\n(the oil lands, you know, they’re all rich)\nSmoke smarts my eyes,\nCottonwood twigs and buffalo dung\nSmoke grey in the teepee--\n(or is it myopic trachoma)\n\nThe prairies are long,\nThe moon rises,\nPonies\nDrag at their pickets.\nThe grass has gone brown in the summer--\n(or is it the hay crop failing)\n\nPull an arrow out:\nIf you break it\nThe wound closes.\nSalt is good too\nAnd wood ashes.\nPounding it throbs in the night--\n(or is it the gonorrhea)", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -43205,11 +44458,11 @@ "body": "Under the wide and starry sky,\nGive me new glands and let me lie,\nOh how I try and try and try,\nBut I need much more than a will.", "metadata": { "place": "Paris", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -43226,11 +44479,11 @@ "body": "There was a cat named Crazy Christian\nWho never lived long enough to screw\nHe was gay hearted, young and handsome\nAnd all the secrets of life he knew\nHe would always arrive on time for breakfast\nScamper on your feet and chase the ball\nHe was faster than any polo pony\nHe never worried a minute at all\nHis tail was a plume that scampered with him\nHe was black as night and as fast as light.\nSo the bad cats killed him in the fall.", "metadata": { "place": "Paris", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -43238,10 +44491,10 @@ "title": "“Ultimately”", "body": "He tried to spit out the truth;\nDry-mouthed at first,\nHe drooled and slobbered in the end;\nTruth dribbling his chin.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -44112,7 +45365,6 @@ "title": "“An Answer”", "body": "This will be a night in deep snow\nwhich has the power to muffle steps\nin deep shadow transforming\nbodies to two puddles of darkness\nwe lie holding our breath\nand even the slightest whisper of thought\n\nif we are not tracked down by wolves\nand the man in a Russian sheepskin who swings\nquick-firing death on his chest\nwe must spring and run\nin the clapping of short dry salvos\nto that other longed-for shore\n\nthe earth is the same everywhere\nwisdom teaches everywhere the man\nweeps with white tears\nmothers rock their children\nthe moon rises\nand builds a white house for us\n\nthis will be night after hard reality\na conspiracy of the imagination\nit has a taste of bread and lightness of vodka\nbut the choice to remain here\nis confirmed by every dream about palm trees\n\nthe dream is interrupted suddenly by the arrival of three\ntall men of rubber and iron\nthey will check your name your fear\norder you to go downstairs\nthey won’t allow you to take anything\nbut the compassionate face of the janitor\n\nHellenic Roman Medieval\nEast Indian Elizabethan Italian\nperhaps above all French\na bit of Weimar and Versailles\nwe carry so many homelands\non the shoulders of a single earth\n\nbut the only one guarded\nby the most singular number\nis here where they will trample you into the ground\nor with boldly ringing spade\nmake a large pit for your longing", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44121,6 +45373,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -44139,7 +45394,6 @@ "title": "“The Ardennes Forest”", "body": "Cup your hands to scoop up sleep\nas you would draw a grain of water\nand the forest will come: a green cloud\na birch trunk like a chord of light\nand a thousand eyelids fluttering\nwith forgotten leafy speech\nthen you will recall the white morning\nwhen you waited for the opening of the gates\n\nyou know this land is opened by a bird\nthat sleeps in a tree and the tree in the earth\nbut here is a spring of new questions\nunderfoot the currents of bad roots\nlook at the pattern on the bark where\na chord of music tightens\nthe lute player who presses the frets\nso the silent resounds\n\npush away leaves: a wild strawberry\ndew on a leaf the comb of grass\nfurther a wing of a yellow damselfly\nand an ant burying its sister\na wild pear sweetly ripens\nabove the treacheries of belladonnas\nwithout waiting for greater rewards\nsit under the tree\n\ncup your hands to draw up memory\nof the dead names dried grain\nagain the forest: a charred cloud\nforehead branded by black light\nand a thousand lids pressed\ntightly on motionless eyeballs\na tree and the air broken\nbetrayed faith of empty shelters\n\nthat other forest is for us is for you\nthe dead also ask for fairy tales\nfor a handful of herbs water of memories\ntherefore by needles by rustling\nand faint threads of fragrances--\nno matter that a branch stops you\na shadow leads you through winding passages--\nyou will find and open\nour Ardennes Forest", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44148,6 +45402,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44155,7 +45412,6 @@ "title": "“A Ballad That We Do Not Perish”", "body": "Those who sailed at dawn\nbut will never return\nleft their trace on a wave--\n\na shell fell to the bottom of the sea\nbeautiful as lips turned to stone\n\nthose who walked on a sandy road\nbut could not reach the shuttered windows\nthough they already saw the roofs--\n\nthey have found shelter in a bell of air\n\nbut those who leave behind only\na room grown cold a few books\nan empty inkwell white paper--\n\nin truth they have not completely died\ntheir whisper travels through thickets of wallpaper\ntheir level head still lives in the ceiling\n\ntheir paradise was made of air\nof water lime and earth an angel of wind\nwill pulverize the body in its hand\nthey will be\ncarried over the meadows of this world", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44164,6 +45420,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44182,7 +45441,6 @@ "title": "“A Description of the King”", "body": "The king’s beard on which sauces and ovations\nfell until it became heavy as an axe\nappears suddenly in a dream to a man condemned to die\nand on a candlestick of flesh shines alone in the dark.\n\nOne hand for tearing meat is huge as a whole province\nthrough which a ploughman inches forward a corvette lingers\nThe hand wielding the sceptre has withered from distinction\nhas grown grey from old age like an ancient coin\n\nIn the hour-glass of the heart sand trickles lazily\nFeet taken off with boots stand in a corner\non guard when at night stiffening on the throne\nthe king heirlessly forfeits his third dimension", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44191,6 +45449,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44206,7 +45467,6 @@ "title": "“The Emperor’s Dream”", "body": "A crevice! shouts the Emperor in his sleep, and the canopy of ostrich plumes trembles. The soldiers who pace the corridors with unsheathed swords believe the Emperor dreams about a siege. Just now he saw a fissure in the wall and wants them to break into the fortress.\nIn fact the Emperor is now a wood-louse who scurries across the floor, seeking remnants of food. Suddenly he sees overhead an immense foot about to crush him. The Emperor hunts for a crevice in which to squeeze. The floor is smooth and slippery.\nYes. Nothing is more ordinary than the dreams of Emperors.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44215,6 +45475,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44222,7 +45485,6 @@ "title": "“The Envoy of Mr Cogito”", "body": "Go where those others went to the dark boundary\nfor the golden fleece of nothingness your last prize\ngo upright among those who are on their knees\namong those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dust\nyou were saved not in order to live\nyou have little time you must give testimony\nbe courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous\nin the final account only this is important\nand let your helpless Anger be like the sea\nwhenever your hear the voice of the insulted and beaten\nlet you sister Scorn not leave you\nfor the informers executioners cowards--they will win\nthey will go to your funeral with relief will throw a lump of earth\nthe woodborer will write your smoothed-over biography\nand do not forgive truly it is not in your power\nto forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn\nbeware however of unnecessary pride\nkeep looking at your clown’s face in the mirror\nrepeat: I was called--weren’t there better ones than I\nbeware of dryness of heart love the morning spring\nthe bird with an unknown name the winter oak\nlight on a wall the splendour of the sky\nthey don’t need your warm breath\nthey are there to say: no one will console you\nbe vigilant--when the light on the mountains gives the sign--arise and go\nas long as blood turns in the breast your dark star\nrepeat old incantations of humanity fables and legends\nbecause this is how you will attain the good you will not attain\nrepeat great words repeat them stubbornly\nlike those crossing the desert who perished in the sand\nand they will reward you with what they have at hand\nwith the whip of laughter with murder on a garbage heap\ngo because only in this way you will be admitted to the company of cold skulls\nto the company of your ancestors: Gilgamesh Hector Roland\nthe defenders of the kingdom without limit and the city of ashes\nBe faithful Go", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44231,6 +45493,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44238,7 +45503,6 @@ "title": "“Episode”", "body": "We walk by the sea-shore\nholding firmly in our hands\nthe two ends of an antique dialogue\n--do you love me?\n--I love you\n\nwith furrowed eyebrows\nI summarize all wisdom\nof the two testaments\nastrologers prophets\nphilosophers of the gardens\nand cloistered philosophers\n\nand it sounds about like this:\n--don’t cry\n--be brave\n--look how everybody\n\nyou pout your lips and say\n--you should be a clergyman\nand fed up you walk off\nnobody loves moralists\n\nwhat should I say on the shore of\na small dead sea\n\nslowly the water fills\nthe shapes of feet which have vanished", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44247,6 +45511,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44262,11 +45529,14 @@ "title": "“Five Men”", "body": "# 1.\n\nThey take them out in the morning\nto the stone courtyard\nand put them against the wall\n\nfive men\ntwo of them very young\nthe others middle-aged\n\nnothing more\ncan be said about them\n\n\n# 2.\n\nwhen the platoon\nlevel their guns\neverything suddenly appears\nin the garish light\nof obviousness\n\nthe yellow wall\nthe cold blue\nthe black wire on the wall\ninstead of a horizon\n\n that is the moment\nwhen the five senses rebel\nthey would gladly escape\nlike rats from a sinking ship\n\nbefore the bullet reaches its destination\nthe eye will perceive the flight of the projectile\nthe ear record the steely rustle\n\nthe nostrils will be filled with biting smoke\na petal of blood will brush the palate\nthe touch will shrink and then slacken\n\nnow they lie on the ground\ncovered up to their eyes with shadow\nthe platoon walks away\ntheir buttonstraps\nand steel helmets\nare more alive\nthen those lying beside the wall\n\n\n# 3.\n\nI did not learn this today\nI knew it before yesterday\n\n so why have I been writing\nunimportant poems on flowers\n\n what did the five talk of\nthe night before the execution\n\n of prophetic dreams\nof an escapade in a brothel\nof automobile parts\nof a sea voyage\nof how when he had spades\nhe ought not to have opened\nof how vodka is best\nafter wine you get a headache\nof girls\nof fruits\nof life\n\nthus one can use in poetry\nnames of Greek shepherds\none can attempt to catch the color of morning sky\nwrite of love\nand also\nonce again\nin dead earnest\noffer to the betrayed world\na rose", "metadata": { + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "translator": "CzesƂaw MiƂoz & Peter Dale Scott", - "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "CzesƂaw MiƂoz", + "Peter Dale Scott" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44274,7 +45544,6 @@ "title": "“A Halt”", "body": "We halted in a town the host\nordered the table to be moved to the garden the first star\nshone out and faded we were breaking bread\ncrickets were heard in the twilight loosestrife\na cry but a cry of a child otherwise the bustle\nof insects of men a thick scent of earth\nthose who were sitting with their backs to the wall\nsaw violet now--the gallows hill\non the wall the dense ivy of executions\n\nwe were eating much\nas is usual when nobody pays", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44283,6 +45552,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44325,7 +45597,6 @@ "title": "“A Knocker”", "body": "There are those who grow\ngardens in their heads\npaths lead from their hair\nto sunny and white cities\n\nit’s easy for them to write\nthey close their eyes\nimmediately schools of images\nstream down their foreheads\n\nmy imagination\nis a piece of board\nmy sole instrument\nis a wooden stick\n\nI strike the board\nit answer me\nyes--yes\nno--no\n\nfor others the green bell of a tree\nthe blue bell of water\nI have a knocker\nfrom unprotected gardens\n\nI thump on the board\nand it prompts me\nwith the moralists dry poem\nyes--yes\nno--no", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44334,6 +45605,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44341,7 +45615,6 @@ "title": "“Lament”", "body": "And now she has over her head brown clouds of roots\na slim lily of salt on the temples beads of sand\nwhile she sails on the bottle of a boat through foaming nebulas\n\nA mile beyond us where the river turns\nvisible-invisible as the light on a wave\ntruly she isn’t differen--abandoned like all of us.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44350,6 +45623,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44365,7 +45641,6 @@ "title": "“The Monster of Mr Cogito”", "body": "# 1.\n\nLucky Saint George\nfrom his knight’s saddle\ncould exactly evaluate\nthe strength and movements of the dragon\n\nthe first principle of strategy\nis to assess the enemy accurately\n\nMr Cogito\nis in a worse position\nhe sits in the low\nsaddle of a valley\ncovered with thick fog\n\nthrough fog it is impossible to perceive\nfiery eyes\ngreedy claws\njaws\n\nthrough fog\none sees only\nthe shimmering of nothingness\n\nthe monster of Mr Cogito\nhas no measurements\nit is difficult to describe\nescapes definition\n\nit is like an immense depression\nspread out over the country\n\nit can’t be pierced\nwith a pen\n\nwith an argument\nor spear\n\nwere it not for its suffocating weight\nand the death it sends down\none would think\nit is the hallucination\nof a sick imagination\n but it exists\nfor certain it exists\n\nlike carbon monoxide it fills\nhouses temples markets\n\npoisons wells\ndestroys the structures of the mind\ncovers bread with mould\n\nthe proof of the existence of the monster\nis its victims\n\nit is not direct proof\nbut sufficient\n\n\n# 2.\n\nreasonable people say\nwe can live together\nwith the monster\n\nwe only have to avoid\nsudden movements\nsudden speech\n\nif there is a threat assume\nthe form of a rock or a leaf\n\nlisten to wise Nature\nrecommending mimicry\n\nthat we breathe shallowly\npretend we aren’t there\n\n\nMr Cogito however\ndoes not want a life of make-believe\nhe would like to fight\nwith the monster\non firm ground\n\nso he walks out at dawn\ninto a sleepy suburb\ncarefully equipped\nwith a long sharp object\n\nhe calls to the monster\non the empty streets\nhe offends the monster\nprovokes the monster\n\nlike a bold skirmisher\nof an army that doesn’t exist\n\nhe calls--\ncome out contemptible coward\n\nthrough the fog\none sees only\nthe huge snout of nothingness\n\nMr Cogito wants to enter\nthe uneven battle\nit ought to happen\npossibly soon\n\nbefore there is\na fall from inertia\nan ordinary death without glory\nsuffocation from formlessness", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44374,6 +45649,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44389,7 +45667,6 @@ "title": "“From Mythology”", "body": "First there was a god of night and tempest, a black idol without eyes, before whom they leaped, naked and smeared with blood. Later on, in the times of the republic, there were many gods with wives, children, creaking beds, and harmlessly exploding thunderbolts. At the end only superstitious neurotics carried in their pockets little statues of salt, representing the god of irony. There was no greater god at that time.\nThen came the barbarians. They too valued highly the little god of irony. They would crush it under their heels and add it to their dishes.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44398,6 +45675,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44413,7 +45693,6 @@ "title": "“Objects”", "body": "Inanimate objects are always correct and cannot, unfortunately, be reproached with anything. I have never observed a chair shift from one foot to another, or a bed rear on its hind legs. And tables, even when they are tired, will not dare to bend their knees. I suspect that objects do this from pedagogical considerations, to reprove us constantly for our instability.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44422,6 +45701,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44437,8 +45719,11 @@ "title": "“Pebble”", "body": "The pebble\nis a perfect creature\nequal to itself\nmindful of its limits\nfilled exactly\nwith a pebbly meaning\nwith a scent that does not remind one of anything\ndoes not frighten anything away does not arouse desire\nits ardour and coldness\nare just and full of dignity\nI feel a heavy remorse\nwhen I hold it in my hand\nand its noble body\nis permeated by false warmth\n--Pebbles cannot be tamed\nto the end they will look at us\nwith a calm and very clear eye", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter Dale Scott & CzesƂaw MiƂosz", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Peter Dale Scott", + "CzesƂaw MiƂosz" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44478,7 +45763,6 @@ "title": "“Report from the Besieged City”", "body": "Too old to carry arms and fight like the others--\n\nthey graciously gave me the inferior role of chronicler\nI record--I don’t know for whom--the history of the siege\n\nI am supposed to be exact but I don’t know when the invasion began\ntwo hundred years ago in December in September perhaps yesterday at dawn\neveryone here suffers from a loss of the sense of time\n\nall we have left is the place the attachment to the place\nwe still rule over the ruins of temples spectres of gardens and houses\nif we lose the ruins nothing will be left\n\nI write as I can in the rhythm of interminable weeks\nmonday: empty storehouses a rat became the unit of currency\ntuesday: the mayor murdered by unknown assailants\nwednesday: negotiations for a cease-fire the enemy has imprisoned our messengers\nwe don’t know where they are held that is the place of torture\nthursday: after a stormy meeting a majority of voices rejected\nthe motion of the spice merchants for unconditional surrender\nfriday: the beginning of the plague saturday: our invincible defender\nN.N. committed suicide sunday: no more water we drove back\nan attack at the eastern gate called the Gate of the Alliance\n\nall of this is monotonous I know it can’t move anyone\n\nI avoid any commentary I keep a tight hold on my emotions I write about the facts\nonly they it seems are appreciated in foreign markets\nyet with a certain pride I would like to inform the world\nthat thanks to the war we have raised a new species of children\nour children don’t like fairy tales they play at killing\nawake and asleep they dream of soup of bread and bones\njust like dogs and cats\n\nin the evening I like to wander near the outposts of the city\nalong the frontier of our uncertain freedom.\nI look at the swarms of soldiers below their lights\nI listen to the noise of drums barbarian shrieks\ntruly it is inconceivable the City is still defending itself\nthe siege has lasted a long time the enemies must take turns\nnothing unites them except the desire for our extermination\nGoths the Tartars Swedes troops of the Emperor regiments of the Transfiguration\nwho can count them\nthe colours of their banners change like the forest on the horizon\nfrom delicate bird’s yellow in spring through green through red to winter’s black\n\nand so in the evening released from facts I can think\nabout distant ancient matters for example our\nfriends beyond the sea I know they sincerely sympathize\nthey send us flour lard sacks of comfort and good advice\nthey don’t even know their fathers betrayed us\nour former allies at the time of the second Apocalypse\ntheir sons are blameless they deserve our gratitude therefore we are grateful\nthey have not experienced a siege as long as eternity\nthose struck by misfortune are always alone\nthe defenders of the Dalai Lama the Kurds the Afghan mountaineers\n\nnow as I write these words the advocates of conciliation\nhave won the upper hand over the party of inflexibles\na normal hesitation of moods fate still hangs in the balance\n\ncemeteries grow larger the number of defenders is smaller\nyet the defence continues it will continue to the end\nand if the City falls but a single man escapes\nhe will carry the City within himself on the roads of exile\nhe will be the City\n\nwe look in the face of hunger the face of fire face of death\nworst of all--the face of betrayal\nand only our dreams have not been humiliated", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44487,6 +45771,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44502,7 +45789,6 @@ "title": "“A Russian Tale”", "body": "The tsar our little father had grown old, very old. Now he could not even strangle a dove with his own hands. Sitting on his throne he was golden and frigid. Only his beard grew, down to the floor and farther.\n\nThen someone else ruled, it was not known who. Curious folk peeped into the palace windows but Krivonosov screened the windows with gibbets. Thus only the hanged saw anything.\n\nIn the end the tsar our little father died for good. The bells rang and rang, yet they did not bring his body out. Our tsar had grown into the throne. The legs of the throne had become all mixed up with the legs of the tsar. His arm and the armrest were one. It was impossible to tear him loose. And to bury the tsar along with the golden throne--what a shame.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44511,6 +45797,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44518,7 +45807,6 @@ "title": "“Three Poems by Heart”", "body": "# I.\n\nI can’t find the title\nof a memory about you\nwith a hand torn from darkness\nI step on fragments of faces\n\nsoft friendly profiles\nfrozen into a hard contour\n\ncircling above my head\nempty as a forehead of air\na man’s silhouette of black paper\n\n\n# II.\n\nliving--despite\nliving--against\nI reproach myself for the sin of forgetfulness\n\nyou left an embrace like a superfluous sweater\na look like a question\n\nour hands won’t transmit the shape of your hands\nwe squander them touching ordinary things\n\ncalm as a mirror\nnot mildewed with breath\nthe eyes will send back the question\n\nevery day I renew my sight\nevery day my touch grows\ntickled by the proximity of so many things\n\nlife bubbles over like blood\nShadows gently melt\nlet us not allow the dead to be killed--\n\nperhaps a cloud will transmit remembrance--\na worn profile of Roman coins\n\n\n# III.\n\nthe women on our street\nwere plain and good\nthey patiently carried from the markets\nbouquets of nourishing vegetables\n\nthe children on our street\nscourge of cats\n\nthe pigeons--\n\nsoftly gray\n\na Poet’s statue was in the park\nchildren would roll their hoops\nand colorful shouts\nbirds sat on the Poet’s hand\nread his silence\n\non summer evenings wives\nwaited patiently for lips\nsmelling of familiar tobacco\n\nwomen could not answer\ntheir children: will he return\nwhen the city was setting\nthey put the fire out with hands\npressing their eyes\n\nthe children on our street\nhad a difficult death\npigeons fell lightly\nlike shot down air\n\nnow the lips of the Poet\nform an empty horizon\nbirds children and wives cannot live\nin the city’s funereal shells\nin cold eiderdowns of ashes\n\nthe city stands over water\nsmooth as the memory of a mirror\nit reflects in the water from the bottom\n\nand flies to a high star\nwhere a distant fire is burning\nlike a page of the Iliad", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44527,6 +45815,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44558,7 +45849,6 @@ "title": "“The Trial”", "body": "During his great speech the prosecutor\nkept piercing me with his yellow index finger\nI’m afraid I didn’t appear self-assured\nunintentionally I put on a mask of fear and depravity\nlike a rat caught in a trap an informer a fratricide\nthe reporters were dancing a war dance\nslowly I burned at a stake of magnesia\n\nall of this took place in a small stifling room\nthe floor creaked plaster fell from the ceiling\nI counted knots in the boards holes in the wall faces\nthe faces were alike almost identical\npolicemen the tribunal witnesses the audience\nthey belonged to the party of those without any pity\nand even my defender smiling pleasantly\nwas an honorary member of the firing squad\n\nin the first row sat an old fat woman\ndressed up as my mother with a theatrical gesture she raised\na handkerchief to her dirty eyes but didn’t cry\nit must have lasted a long time I don’t know even how long\nthe red blood of the sunset was rising in the gowns of the judges\n\nthe real trial went on in my cells\nthey certainly knew the verdict earlier\nafter a short rebellion they capitulated and started to die one after the other\nI looked in amazement at my wax fingers\n\nI didn’t speak the last word and yet\nfor so many years I was composing the final speech\nto God to the court of the world to the conscience\nto the dead rather than the living\nroused to my feet by the guards\nI managed only to blink and then\nthe room burst out in healthy laughter\nmy adoptive mother laughed also\nthe gavel banged and this really was the end\n\nbut what happened after that--death by a noose\nor perhaps a punishment generously chained to a dungeon\nI’m afraid there is a third dark solution\nbeyond the limits of time the senses and reason\n\ntherefore when I wake I don’t open my eyes\nI clench my fingers don’t lift my head\nbreathe lightly because truly I don’t know\nhow many minutes of air I still have left", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44567,6 +45857,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44582,7 +45875,6 @@ "title": "“What Our Dead Do”", "body": "Jan came this morning\n--I dreamt of my father\nhe says\n\nhe was riding in an oak coffin\nI walked next to the hearse\nand father turned to me:\n\nyou dressed me nicely\nand the funeral is very beautiful\nat this time of year so many flowers\nit must have cost a lot\n\ndon’t worry about it father\n--I say--let people see\nwe loved you\nthat we spared nothing\n\n six men in black livery\n walk nicely at our sides\n\nfather thought for a while\nand said--the key to the desk\nis in the silver inkwell\nthere is still some money\nin the second drawer on the left\n\nwith this money--I say--\nwe will buy you a gravestone\na large one of black marble\n\nit isn’t necessary--says father--\nbetter give it to the poor\n\n six men in black livery\n walk nicely at our sides\n they carry burning lanterns\n\nagain he seemed to be thinking\n--take care of the flowers in the garden\ncover them for the winter\nI don’t want them to be wasted\n\nyou are the oldest--he says--\nfrom a little felt bag behind the painting\ntake out the cuff links with real pearls\nlet them bring you luck\nmy mother gave them to me\nwhen I finished high school\nthen he didn’t say anything\nhe must have entered a deeper sleep\n\nthis is how our dead\nlook after us\nthey warn us through dreams\nbring back lost money\nhunt for jobs\nwhisper the numbers of lottery tickets\nor when they can’t do this\nknock with their fingers on the windows\n\nand out of gratitude\nwe imagine immortality for them\nsnug as the burrow of a mouse", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Carpenter", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Elegy for the Departed", @@ -44591,6 +45883,9 @@ "year": 1990 } }, + "translators": [ + "John Carpenter" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -44849,10 +46144,10 @@ "title": "“Across the Fields”", "body": "Across the sky, the clouds move,\nAcross the fields, the wind,\nAcross the fields the lost child\nOf my mother wanders.\n\nAcross the street, leaves blow,\nAcross the trees, birds cry--\nAcross the mountains, far away,\nMy home must be.", "metadata": { + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1902 }, - "language": "German", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -44863,10 +46158,10 @@ "title": "“At Night on the High Seas”", "body": "At night, when the sea cradles me\nAnd the pale star gleam\nLies down on its broad waves,\nThen I free myself wholly\nFrom all activity and all the love\nAnd stand silent and breathe purely,\nAlone, alone cradled by the sea\nThat lies there, cold and silent, with a thousand lights.\nThen I have to think of my friends\nAnd my gaze sinks into their gazes\nAnd I ask each one, silent, alone:\n“Are you still mine\nIs my sorrow a sorrow to you, my death a death?\nDo you feel from my love, my grief,\nJust a breath, just an echo?”\nAnd the sea peacefully gazes back, silent,\nAnd smiles: no.\nAnd no greeting and now answer comes from anywhere.", "metadata": { + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1911 }, - "language": "German", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -44877,11 +46172,13 @@ "title": "“Elizabeth”", "body": "I should tell you a story,\nThe night is already so late-\nDo you want to torment me,\nLovely Elizabeth?\n\nI write poems about that,\nJust as you do;\nAnd the entire history of my love\nIs you and this evening.\n\nYou mustn’t be troublesome,\nAnd blow these poems away,\nSoon you will listen to them,\nListen, and not understand.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1902 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44889,11 +46186,13 @@ "title": "“Evil Time”", "body": "Now we are silent\nAnd sing no songs any more,\nOur pace grows heavy;\nThis is the night, that was bound to come.\n\nGive me your hand,\nPerhaps we still have a long way to go.\nIt’s snowing, it’s snowing.\nWinter is a hard thing in a strange country.\n\nWhere is the time\nWhen a light, a hearth burned for us?\nGive me your hand!\nPerhaps we still have a long way to go.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1911 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -44904,11 +46203,13 @@ "title": "“How Heavy the Days Are”", "body": "How heavy the days are.\nThere’s not a fire that can warm me,\nNot a sun to laugh with me,\nEverything bare,\nEverything cold and merciless,\nAnd even the beloved, clear\nStars look desolately down,\nSince I learned in my heart that\nLove can die.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -44919,11 +46220,13 @@ "title": "“I Know, You Walk”", "body": "I walk so often, late, along the streets,\nLower my gaze, and hurry, full of dread,\nSuddenly, silently, you still might rise\nAnd I would have to gaze on all your grief\nWith my own eyes,\nWhile you demand your happiness, that’s dead.\nI know, you walk beyond me, every night,\nWith a coy footfall, in a wretched dress\nAnd walk for money, looking miserable!\nYour shoes gather God knows what ugly mess,\nThe wind plays in your hair with lewd delight--\nYou walk, and walk, and find no home at all.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1899 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44931,11 +46234,13 @@ "title": "“Lonesome Night”", "body": "You brothers, who are mine,\nPoor people, near and far,\nLonging for every star,\nDream of relief from pain,\nYou, stumbling dumb\nAt night, as pale stars break,\nLift your thin hands for some\nHope, and suffer, and wake,\nPoor muddling commonplace,\nYou sailors who must live\nUnstarred by hopelessness,\nWe share a single face.\nGive me my welcome back.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1902 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44943,11 +46248,13 @@ "title": "“Lying in Grass”", "body": "Is this everything now, the quick delusions of flowers,\nAnd the down colors of the bright summer meadow,\nThe soft blue spread of heaven, the bees’ song,\nIs this everything only a god’s\nGroaning dream,\nThe cry of unconscious powers for deliverance?\nThe distant line of the mountain,\nThat beautifully and courageously rests in the blue,\nIs this too only a convulsion,\nOnly the wild strain of fermenting nature,\nOnly grief, only agony, only meaningless fumbling,\nNever resting, never a blessed movement?\nNo! Leave me alone, you impure dream\nOf the world in suffering!\nThe dance of tiny insects cradles you in an evening radiance,\nThe bird’s cry cradles you,\nA breath of wind cools my forehead\nWith consolation.\nLeave me alone, you unendurably old human grief!\nLet it all be pain.\nLet it all be suffering, let it be wretched--\nBut not this one sweet hour in the summer,\nAnd not the fragrance of the red clover,\nAnd not the deep tender pleasure\nIn my soul.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -44958,11 +46265,13 @@ "title": "“Mountains at Night”", "body": "The lake has died down,\nThe reed, black in its sleep,\nWhispers in a dream.\nExpanding immensely into the countryside,\nThe mountains loom, outspread.\nThey are not resting.\nThey breathe deeply, and hold themselves,\nPressed tightly, to one another.\nDeeply breathing,\nLaden with mute forces,\nCaught in a wasting passion.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1911 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44970,11 +46279,13 @@ "title": "“Night”", "body": "I like the dark night well enough;\nBut sometimes, when it turns bleak\nAnd peaked, as my suffering laughs at me,\nIts dreadful kingdom horrifies me,\nAnd I wish to God I could take one look at the sunlight\nAnd the blue of heaven brought back to light by its clouds,\nAnd I want to lie down warm in the wide spaces of the day.\nThen I can dream of the night.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1911 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -44982,11 +46293,13 @@ "title": "“On a Journey”", "body": "Don’t be downcast, soon the night will come,\nWhen we can see the cool moon laughing in secret\nOver the faint countryside,\nAnd we rest, hand in hand.\n\nDon’t be downcast, the time will soon come\nWhen we can have rest. Our small crosses will stand\nOn the bright edge of the road together,\nAnd rain fall, and snow fall,\nAnd the winds come and go.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1911 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -44997,11 +46310,13 @@ "title": "“A Swarm of Gnats”", "body": "Many thousand glittering motes\nCrowd forward greedily together\nIn trembling circles.\nExtravagantly carousing away\nFor a whole hour rapidly vanishing,\nThey rave, delirious, a shrill whir,\nShivering with joy against death.\nWhile kingdoms, sunk into ruin,\nWhose thrones, heavy with gold, instantly scattered\nInto night and legend, without leaving a trace,\nHave never known so fierce a dancing.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1911 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -45009,11 +46324,13 @@ "title": "“Thinking of a Friend at Night”", "body": "In this evil year, autumn comes early 
\nI walk by night in the field, alone, the rain clatters,\nThe wind on my hat 
 And you? And you, my friend?\n\nYou are standing--maybe--and seeing the sickle moon\nMove in a small arc over the forests\nAnd bivouac fire, red in the black valley.\nYou are lying--maybe--in a straw field and sleeping\nAnd dew falls cold on your forehead and battle jacket.\n\nIt’s possible tonight you’re on horseback,\nThe farthest outpost, peering along, with a gun in your fist,\nSmiling, whispering, to your exhausted horse.\nMaybe--I keep imagining--you are spending the night\nAs a guest in a strange castle with a park\nAnd writing a letter by candlelight, and tapping\nOn the piano keys by the window,\nGroping for a sound 
\n\n--And maybe\nYou are already silent, already dead, and the day\nWill shine no longer into your beloved\nSerious eyes, and your beloved brown hand hangs wilted,\nAnd your white forehead split open--Oh, if only,\nIf only, just once, that last day, I had shown you, told you\nSomething of my love, that was too timid to speak!\n\nBut you know me, you know 
 and, smiling, you nod\nTonight in front of your strange castle,\nAnd you nod to your horse in the drenched forest,\nAnd you nod to your sleep to your harsh clutter of straw,\nAnd think about me, and smile.\nAnd maybe,\nMaybe some day you will come back from the war,\nand take a walk with me some evening,\nAnd somebody will talk about Longwy, Luttich, Dammerkirch,\nAnd smile gravely, and everything will be as before,\nAnd no one will speak a word of his worry,\nOf his worry and tenderness by night in the field,\nOf his love. And with a single joke\nYou will frighten away the worry, the war, the uneasy nights,\nThe summer lightning of shy human friendship,\nInto the cool past that will never come back.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -45024,11 +46341,13 @@ "title": "“Without You”", "body": "My Pillow gazes upon me at night\nEmpty as a gravestone;\nI never thought it would be so bitter\nTo be alone,\nNot to lie down asleep in your hair.\n\nI lie alone in a silent house,\nThe hanging lamp darkened,\nAnd gently stretch out my hands\nTo gather in yours,\nAnd softly press my warm mouth\nToward you, and kiss myself, exhausted and weak--\nThen suddenly I’m awake\nAnd all around me the cold night grows still.\nThe star in the window shines clearly--\nWhere is your blond hair,\nWhere your sweet mouth?\n\nNow I drink pain in every delight\nAnd poison in every wine;\nI never knew it would be so bitter\nTo be alone,\nAlone, without you.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -45079,8 +46398,10 @@ "title": "“Why do you come, white moths 
”", "body": "Why do you come, white moths, so oft to me?\nSouls of the dea, why do you flutter so oft\nUpon my hand; your wingbeat often\nLeaven then a tiny trace of ashes.\n\nYou who are dwelling near urns, in a place where dreams repose\nStooped in eternal shade, in the dim expanse\nAs on the vaults of tombs the bats\nThat nightly whir away in the tumult.\n\nI oft hear in my sleep the vampires’s yaps;\nThey sound as if the somber moon were laughing.\nAnd I see deep in empty caverns\nThe candles of the homeless shadows.\n\nWhat is all life? The brief flare-up of torchlights\nRinged by distorted frights out of black darkness\nAnd some of them come close already\nAnd with thin hands reach for the flames.\n\nWhat is all life? Small vessel in abysses\nOf sea forgotten. Dreadful rigid skies.\nOr as at night across bare fields lost moonlight\nMeanders till it disappears.\n\nWoe unto him who once saw someone dying,\nWhen in the calmness of cool autumn death\nUnseen stepped up to the sick one’s moist bed\nAnd bade him pass away, while like the whistling\n\nAnd rattling of a rusty organ pipe\nHis throat exhaled its last breath with a wheeze.\nWoe to such witnesses. They bear forever\nThe pallid flower of a leaden horror.\n\nWho will unlock the lands beyond our death\nAnd who the gate of the gigantic rune.\nWhat do the dying see that makes them roll\nThe blind white of their eyes so terribly.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Reinhold Grimm", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Reinhold Grimm" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -45576,8 +46897,10 @@ "title": "“At the Middle of Life”", "body": "The earth hangs down\nto the lake, full of yellow\npears and wild roses.\nLovely swans, drunk with\nkisses you dip your heads\ninto the holy, sobering waters.\n\nBut when winter comes,\nwhere will I find\nthe flowers, the sunshine,\nthe shadows of the earth?\nThe walls stand\nspeechless and cold.\nThe weathervanes\nrattle in the wind.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Mitchell", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Mitchell" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -45588,8 +46911,10 @@ "title": "“The Course of Life”", "body": "You too wanted better things, but love\nforces all of us down. Sorrow bends us more\nforcefully, but the arc doesn’t return to its\npoint of origin without a reason.\n\nUpwards or downwards! In holy Night,\nWhere mute Nature plans the coming days,\ndoesn’t there reign in the most twisted Orcus\nsomething straight and direct?\n\nThis I have learned. Never to my knowledge\ndid you, all-preserving gods, like mortal\nmasters, lead me providentially\nalong a straight path.\n\nThe gods say that man should test\neverything, and that strongly nourished\nhe be thankful for everything, and understand\nthe freedom to set forth wherever he will.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Mitchell", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Mitchell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -45597,8 +46922,10 @@ "title": "“Human Applause”", "body": "Isn’t my heart holy, more full of life’s beauty,\nsince I fell in love? Why did you like me more\nwhen I was prouder and wilder, more full\nof words, yet emptier?\n\nWell, the crowd likes whatever sells in the\nmarketplace; and no one but a slave\nappreciates violent men. Only those who\nare themselves godlike believe in the gods.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Mitchell", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Mitchell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -45606,12 +46933,14 @@ "title": "“Patmos”", "body": "The god\nIs near, and hard to grasp.\nBut where there is danger,\nA rescuing element grows as well.\nEagles live in the darkness,\nAnd the sons of the Alps\nCross over the abyss without fear\nOn lightly-built bridges.\nTherefore, since the summits\nOf Time are heaped about,\nAnd dear friends live near,\nGrowing weak on the separate mountains--\nThen give us calm waters;\nGive us wings, and loyal minds\nTo cross over and return.\n\nThus I spoke, when faster\nThan I could imagine a spirit\nLed me forth from my own home\nTo a place I thought I’d never go.\nThe shaded forests and yearning\nBrooks of my native country\nWere glowing in the twilight.\nI couldn’t recognize the lands\nI passed through, but then suddenly\nIn fresh splendor, mysterious\nIn the golden haze, quickly emerging\nIn the steps of the sun,\nFragrant with a thousand peaks,\nAsia rose before me.\n\n\n# II.\n\nDazzled I searched for something\nFamiliar, since the broad streets\nWere unknown to me: where the gold-bejeweled\nPatoklos comes rushing down from Tmolus,\nWhere Taurus and Messogis stand,\nAnd the gardens are full of flowers,\nLike a quiet fire. Up above\nIn the light the silver snow\nThrives, and ivy grows from ancient\nTimes on the inaccessible walls,\nLike a witness to immortal life,\nWhile the solemn god-built palaces\nAre borne by living columns\nOf cypress and laurel.\n\nBut around Asia’s gates\nUnshaded sea-paths rush\nAbout the unpredictable sea,\nThough sailors know where\nThe islands are. When I heard\nthat one of these close by\nWas Patmos, I wanted very much\nTo put in there, to enter\nThe dark sea-cave. For unlike\nCyprus, rich with springs,\nOr any of the others, Patmos\nIsn’t splendidly situated,\n\nBut it’s nevertheless hospitable\nIn a more modest home. And if\nA stranger should come to her,\nShipwrecked or homesick\nOr grieving for a departed friend,\nShe’ll gladly listen, and her\nOffspring as well, the voices\nIn the hot grove, so that where sands blow\nand heat cracks the tops of the fields,\nThey hear him, these voices,\nAnd echo the man’s grief.\nThus she once looked after\nThe prophet that was loved by God,\nWho in his holy youth\n\nHad walked together inseparably\nWith the Son of the Highest,\nBecause the Storm-Bearer loved\nThe simplicity of his disciple.\nThus that attentive man observed\nThe countenance of the god directly,\nThere at the mystery of the wine,\nWhere they sat together at the hour\nOf the banquet, when the Lord with\nHis great spirit quietly foresaw his\nOwn death, and forespoke it and also\nHis final act of love, for he always\nHad words of kindness to speak,\nEven then in his prescience,\nTo soften the raging of the world.\nFor all is good. Then he died. Much\nCould be said about it. At the end\nHis friends recognized how joyous\nHe appeared, and how victorious.\n\nAnd yet the men grieved, now that evening\nHad come, and were taken by surprise,\nSince they were full of great intentions,\nAnd loved living in the light,\nAnd didn’t want to leave the countenance\nOf the Lord, which had become their home.\nIt penetrated them like fire into hot iron,\nAnd the one they love walked beside them\nLike a shadow. Therefore he sent\nThe Spirit upon them, and the house\nShook and God’s thunder rolled\nOver their expectant heads, while\nThey were gathered with heavy hearts,\nLike heroes under sentence of death,\n\nWhen he again appeared to them\nAt his departure. For now\nThe majestic day of the sun\nWas extinguished, as he cast\nThe shining scepter from himself,\nSuffering like a god, but knowing\nHe would come again at the right time.\nIt would have been wrong\nTo cut off disloyally his work\nWith humans, since now it pleased\nHim to live on in loving night,\nAnd keep his innocent eyes\nFixed upon depths of wisdom.\nLiving images flourish deep\nIn the mountains as well,\n\nYet it is fearful how God randomly\nScatters the living, and how very far.\nAnd how fearsome it was to leave\nThe sight of dear friends and walk off\nAlone far over the mountains, where\nThe divine spirit was twice\nRecognized, in unity.\nIt hadn’t been prophesied to them:\nIn fact it seized them right by the hair\nJust at the moment when the fugitive\nGod looked back, and they called out to him\nTo stop, and they reached their hands to\nOne another as if bound by a golden rope,\nAnd called it bad--\n\nBut when he dies--he whom beauty\nLoved most of all, so that a miracle\nSurrounded him, and he became\nChosen by the gods--\nAnd when those who lived together\nThereafter in his memory, became\nPerplexed and no longer understood\nOne another; and when floods carry off\nThe sand and willows and temples,\nAnd when the fame of the demi-god\nAnd his disciples is blown away\nAnd even the Highest turns aside his\nCountenance, so that nothing\nImmortal can be seen either\nIn heaven or upon the green earth--\nWhat does all this mean?\n\nIt is the action of the winnower,\nWhen he shovels the wheat\nAnd casts it up into the clear air\nAnd swings it across the threshing floor.\nThe chaff falls to his feet, but\nThe grain emerges finally.\nIt’s not bad if some of it gets lost,\nOr if the sounds of his living speech\nFade away. For the work\nOf the gods resembles our own:\nThe Highest doesn’t want it\nAccomplished all at once.\nAs mineshafts yield iron,\nAnd Etna its glowing resins,\nThen I’d have sufficient resources\nTo shape a picture of him and see\nWhat the Christ was like.\n\nBut if somebody spurred himself on\nAlong the road and, speaking sadly,\nFell upon me and surprised me, so that\nLike a servant I’d make an image of the god--\nOnce I saw the lords\nOf heaven visibly angered, not\nThat I wanted to become something different,\nBut that I wanted to learn something more.\nThe lords are kind, but while they reign\nThey hate falsehood most, when humans become\nInhuman. For not they, but undying Fate\nIt is that rules, and their activity\nSpins itself out and quickly reaches an end.\nWhen the heavenly procession proceeds higher\nThen the joyful Son of the Highest\nIs called like the sun by the strong,\n\nAs a watchword, like a staff of song\nThat points downwards,\nFor nothing is ordinary. It awakens\nThe dead, who aren’t yet corrupted.\nAnd many are waiting whose eyes are\nStill too shy to see the light directly.\nThey wouldn’t do well in the sharp\nRadiance: a golden bridle\nHolds back their courage.\nBut when quiet radiance falls\nFrom the holy scripture, with\nThe world forgotten and their eyes\nWide open, then they may enjoy that grace,\nAnd study the light in stillness.\n\nAnd if the gods love me,\nAs I now believe,\nThen how much more\nDo they love yourself.\nFor I know that the will\nOf the eternal Father\nConcerns you greatly.\nUnder a thundering sky\nHis sign is silent.\nAnd there is one who stands\nBeneath it all his life.\nFor Christ still lives.\nBut the heroes, all his sons\nHave come, and the holy scriptures\nConcerning him,\nWhile earth’s deeds clarify\nThe lightning, like a footrace\nThat can’t be stopped.\nAnd he is there too,\nAware of his own works\nFrom the very beginning.\n\nFor far too long\nThe honor of the gods\nHas been invisible.\nThey practically have to\nGuide our fingers as we write,\nAnd with embarrassment the energy\nIs torn from our hearts.\nFor every heavenly being\nExpects a sacrifice,\nAnd when this is neglected,\nNothing good can come of it.\nWithout awareness we’ve worshipped\nOur Mother the Earth, and the Light\nOf the Sun as well, but what our Father\nWho reigns over everything wants most\nIs that the established word be\nCarefully attended, and that\nWhich endures be interpreted well.\nGerman song must accord with this.", "metadata": { + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1803, "month": "february" }, - "translator": "James Mitchell", - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Mitchell" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -45743,7 +47072,6 @@ "title": "“Childhood Paradise”", "body": "_Birth and Baptism_\n\n# 1.\n\nI was 
 born\non\na first\nfull, luminous streaming\nwonderful,\nwonderblue, wonderwarm\nspring day,\nin\na royal Prussian\npharmacy--\n“To the Black Eagle,”--\nwith a narrow facade and a deep perspective;\nspacious,\nglassdoor klingeling, protected by shutters\nand quaint;\nbuilt\n“anno domini,” in “days of yore,” already there\nunder\nthe Great Elector;\ndignified, cosy,\nwith four stories and so many front steps, with sharp gables and\na double roof,\ntowering high above it all\nand beautiful;\nshelf on shelf, drawer on drawer,\ncontainer near container, small box by small box,\nbottle by bottle,\nalways\nmost carefully neat, always most prudently exact,\nalways\nmost pitilessly orderly,\nmost well\nsorted.\nA pharmacy frequently\ninspected,\nrevised, so as not to say molested,\nsuddenly,\ncompletely\nunexpecte d, unawaited, unsuspected;\ninspected by\ntopmast spygalss commissioners--\naustere, officious, majestically bespectacled,\nsnooping,\nsnuffling, sniffing, sniffling,\nrummaging through\nall boxes, all vessels, all\nprovision rooms,\nwith suspicion, curiosity, mistrust,\nfor\nhours,\nhours and hours--\nuseless,\nfruitless, ineffectual,\nfully\nunnecessary and superfluous.\nA pharmacy\nnot yet new-fashioned,\nso atrociously moulded, so gruesomely\nschematicized,\nshrewdly like a factory, cleverly commercial, slyly\ncold and business-like;\nlacking the divine,\nthe fairy-tale magic, the romance;\namericanized;\nas if\npredestined for me\nby “God,”\nas if\nby a special “destiny,” as if by a higher “power”.\nA pharmacy,\njust\nopposite\nthe precinct station:\nhonestly upright, peaceably lowly,\ncomfortably one-storied,\nstretched\nout, yellow/pink piebald,\npatched up,\ngingerbreadbrown, bright red,\ntile-roofed,\ncaring for citizens,\nrustling,\nrushing, rumbling, whooshing, scarily swooshing,\ncellar-deep\nteeming with rats;\nthe precinct station\nwith the\nbig, heavy, monstrous,\nold-fashioned,\nold-frankish, outmoded fire alarm;\na fire bell\nof black iron,\ndusty with cobwebs, a polished clapper,\ndangling, now and then swaying\nunder a gray, leaking, under a decaying, splintered, under a\nslanted shingle roof\npenetrable by\nrain,\nhail, and blizzard;\na fire bell\nbegging and whining\nfor\nrescue,\nhelp in need and resistance.\nThere\nI was 
 born!\n\n\n# 2.\n\nNo one shouted\n“RĂ€tin, he lives!”\nThe\naspects:\nMars in opposition to Venus, Mercury in opposition to Saturn,\nJupiter in opposition to Uranus,\nNeptune\nin dispute\nwith all:\nAries, Aquarius\nand\nLibra 
 you don’t see them that way 
 every day,\nLeo, Capricorn\nand\nScorpio,--oh, it was pure mockery,--\nstood\nthreateningly 
 fiercely armed, signalled in a terrible manner,\n# I.protested, I rebelled, I revolted,\n\n# I.opposed.\n\n\nBut!\n\nThe\ngood,\nold, honest,\ndiligent, industrious, eager\nFrau\nPommerĆ hnke,\nusually\nloaded and armed\nwith an\nalmost\nsuitcase-sized, mysterious, black-leather\npurse\ncontaining\na syringe;\nwith a\nflesh-colored, self-knitted,\ncrumpled, wrinkled, rumpled\ncardigan;\nFrau\nPommerĂ€hnke,\nwho\nhad already helped\ninto the world\nthe whole city and half of the country\nwho\nhelped\nso many already\nto\nthe light, to the air;\nFrau PommerĆ hnke assisted,\nand the\nrefined, venerable, bachelor\nDoctor Piehdong,\n“clean as a whistle”\nalways\nlooking lie the death from Warsaw, always moving like Magnificence itself,\nwhite\ngloved, with a gray top-hat, blue bespectacled;\nDoctor Piehdong\ncongratulated, Father inspected, Mother triumphed,\neverything\nfunctioned.\n\nChubby\nand\nround! Red-cheeked and sound! Fully nine pound!\n\nAnd\nthen as the christening procession\nslowly turned\naround the corner--\nmost joyful of\nthrongs, Mother in lace with three prongs,\nFather\nin\nfestive\ntuxedo with tails, very tight pants and with ivory cane,\nbehind him\nin a\nstately and pressing\nblock, Godparents and guests total two score,\nthe\nLiedtkes, the Tiedtkes, the Ziedtkes,\nthe\nZorns, the Hebestreits, and the Haberkorns,\nthe\nKluwes, the Struwes, the Druwes,\nthe\nBrodiens, the Scharfenbergs and the Lewertiens,\nthe\nKuhnkes, the Gruhnkes, the Ruhnkes,\nthe\nRieks, the Tuleweits, and the Papendieks,\nin short, in\nfull\narray, dignified and elegant, each by rank and degree,\nmost of the upper\nbourgeoisie,\namidst the resounding\njoyous swekks of pious, honest trusty bels,\nand\nmost golden blue\nsunshine, mob and public right behind,\npace\nby pace, trace on\ntrace,\ndown the\npine-strewn church street,\nfrom the marketplace\ntowards Saint George’s\n(there’s\nmore at stake here than\nfun and games, “the manly heart pounds wildly in its cage,”\na\nbrimstone butterfly\nthat\nflew and flutter-tumbled, beat its wings to\nhover overhead,\nand\nswung and tottered, shivered and\nquivered,\npicturesquely\nbrightening up the scene):\nas\nthe procession\nslowly turned\nthe corner,\nsuddenly:\nan idea\noccurred to 
 Mother!\n\nStop\nit all! It must be so!\n\nMen and women\nfreeze,\nstand, wonderingly\nstaring, not to say as if they were “carved of stone”:\nThe\nLiedtkes, the Tiedtkes, the Ziedtkes,\nthe\nZorns, the Hebestreits, and the Haberkorns,\nthe\nKluwes, the Struwes, the Druwes,\nthe\nBrodiens, the Scharfenbergs and the Lewertiens,\nthe\nKuhnkes, the Gruhnkes, the Ruhnkes,\nthe\nRieks, the Tuleweits, and the Papendieks,\nin short, in\nfull\narray, dignified and elegant, each by rank and degree,\nmost of the upper\nbourgeoisie!\nMother\nhanded me over,\nin my resplendent\ndisplay,\neyes wide open, delighted, making goo-goo-ga-ga noises,\ngave me\nher\nlittle one,\nto the old PommerĆ hnke, the\nloyal soul, the kindly valiant one,\nthe\ntrusty doting mother,\ninto\nthe arms,\nat once\nrescuing, open, obligingly reaching out\nand,\nclick, clack\n“Hold on to the kid for a moment, I’ll be right back,”\nthrough the crowd, through the people, through the ones\nwho\nwere surprised;\ncourageous, energized,\ndetermined, vigorous, resolute,\nback\ninto the pharmacy,\nit\nwas something!\n\nWhereto?! Wherefore?! What for?!\nIdiot!\n\nMotherlove! Motherknowledge!\nMotherconcern!\n\nA\nboy who, at his baptism,\nhad a\npen, or a pencil, or a goose-quill\nstuck into\nhis jacket, or into his swaddling clothes, or into his bunting,\nsecretly,\ncraftily, inconspicuously,\nwill become\nsomething\n“famous”!\n\nAnd\nbarely five minutes later\nin\nthe church,\nwith the blessing of Pastor Dreschhoff,\nwhile\nI was crowned with\nnames,\nall around me, the little\nwiseguy,\nin\ndensely\ncircling, snircling,\nclosing\norbit, yes so be it,\nthe\nLiedtkes, the Tiedtkes, the Ziedtkes,\nthe\nZorns, the Hebestreits, and the Haberkorns,\nthe\nKluwes, the Struwes, the Druwes,\nthe\nBrodiens, the Scharfenbergs and the Lewertiens,\nthe\nKuhnkes, the Gruhnkes, the Ruhnkes,\nthe\nRieks, the Tuleweits, and the Papendieks,\nin short, in\nfull\narray, dignified and elegant, each by rank and degree,\nmost of the upper\nbourgeoisie,\nI suddenly cried\nout\nand\nmoaned, and consequently groaned,\nnot because\nI was feeling my oats\nbut rather being stuck\nby a very sharp Faber pencil\nwith the 
 imprint\n\nNumber\nOne!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Babette Deutsch & Avrahm Yarmolinsky", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Phantastus", @@ -45752,6 +47080,10 @@ "year": 1898 } }, + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch", + "Avrahm Yarmolinsky" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -45759,7 +47091,6 @@ "title": "“On a mountain of sugar-candy 
”", "body": "On a mountain of sugar-candy,\nunder a blossoming almond-tree,\ntwinkles my gingerbread house.\nIts little windows are of gold-foil, out of its chimney steams wadding.\n\nIn the green heaven, above me, beams the Christmas tree.\n\nIn my round sea of tinfoil\nare mirrored all her angels, all her lights!\n\nThe little children stand about\nand stare at me.\n\nI am the dwarf Turlitipu.\n\nMy fat belly is made of gumdragon,\nmy thin pin-legs are matches,\nmy clever little eyes\nraisins!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Babette Deutsch & Avrahm Yarmolinsky", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Phantastus", @@ -45768,6 +47099,10 @@ "year": 1898 } }, + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch", + "Avrahm Yarmolinsky" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -45775,7 +47110,6 @@ "title": "“Pain”", "body": "Forgive? I? To you\nA long time ago.\nI did it before I knew it.\nBut forget? Forget? 
 Ah, if I could!\nOften,\nin the brightest sunshine,\nwhen I’m happy and “don’t think about anything,”\nsuddenly,\nthere,\ngray it crouches in front of me\n
 like a toad!\nAnd everything, everything seems stale to me again. shawl and desolate.\nThe whole life.\nAnd I am sad. sorry about you 
 and me.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Babette Deutsch & Avrahm Yarmolinsky", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Phantastus", @@ -45784,6 +47118,10 @@ "year": 1898 } }, + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch", + "Avrahm Yarmolinsky" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -45791,7 +47129,6 @@ "title": "“Purzmalunder”", "body": "At\nthe age of five\nI was 
 certain about\neverything.\n\nIn\nChina\nFrench was\nspoken,\nin\nAfrica\nthere was a bird, called a kangaroo,\nand\nthe Virgin Mary\nwas\nCatholic and had a\nskyblue\nrobe on.\n\nShe was made of wax and was the dear\nLord’s mother.\n\nWhen I grew up,\nI wanted\nto become\nSchiller and Goethe\nand\nlive\nin Berlin behind the palace.\n\nWhen I had children,\nI wanted\nto have them all\npainted.\n\nThat\nwouldn’t be so expensive,\nand\nthey wouldn’t tear\ntheir\npants.\n\nAt\nPollakowski’s book bindery\nhung a\nlarge colorful\nflyspeckbespeckled\nposter\nwith a white stallion, rearing on his hind legs.\n\nThe fat Turk with the shining saber on the post\nwas\nAli Pascha.\n\nIf I ever\ngot a dime,\nI wanted\nto buy 
 it for myself.\n\nBut\nmostly\nI did so want 
 to discover\nthe source of the Nile.\n# I.knew exactly\n\nhow\nyou would do it.\n\nWhere\nit flowed out,\nyou simply go into a\nboat,\npaddled, piddled and puddled\nto where\neverything stops.\n\nThen you were there.\n\nThere,\nthere were apes,\nthrowing oranges and coconuts at each other,\ngold dust,\nand\ngrape-raisin trees with bushels of almonds\non them.\n\nAnd\nso I wouldn’t starve,\nI would\ntake\nlots of barley-sugar bars along and a mess of carob bread.\n\nBut\nI wouldn’t tell\nanyone.\n\nThat\nI kept for myself\nalone.\n\nOnly\nI wondered\nto myself,\nwhy the others were\nall\nso dumb!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Babette Deutsch & Avrahm Yarmolinsky", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Phantastus", @@ -45800,6 +47137,10 @@ "year": 1898 } }, + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch", + "Avrahm Yarmolinsky" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -45807,7 +47148,6 @@ "title": "“Self-Assured Upbeat”", "body": "In\nthe last, deep,\nspellbound, weaving, weighty\nnight sleep,\nthrough the\npurple 
 convex\npoem,\nfrom light of spheres beyond those worlds, a free-from-earthly-body\nglowing face\nwhispered to me, occurred to me, formed\nin me\nthe\ncertainty:\nSeven trillion 
 years 
 before my birth\nI was\na sword lily.\nMy searching roots\nsucked\nthemselves\naround a star.\nOut of\nhis vaulting\nwaters,\nscarry like flower-leaves, dusty like golden arrow threads,\ndreamblue,\ngrew,\nsoared, shoved,\ngrew steeper, parted, skewered,\nburned out, streamed out, sprayed out\ninto\nnew,\nflowing, waxing, waving,\nbrewing, bubbling,\ncircling\nworld rings,\nmost pregnant with secret, most majestic with secret,\nmost exalted with secret,\nself-procreating, self-begetting, self-shadowing, self-\ndividing\nmeteoric ball of flames,\ncascades of comets, colored crown of planets,\nextravagantly\nshowering about herself, benevolently blessing about herself,\nwastefully\ncatapulting\nabout herself,\nmy\ndark-metallic, halcyon-phallic, ringing crystallic\ngiantflower-sceptercrown!\nStill\nin my\nheavy early-up sleep-shaking, in my becoming a person again, in my once again full waking,\nher\npower-proud joy,\nher creator fired-up courage, her\nconfidence\nlaughed, glistened, jubilated\nin crashing cascades!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Babette Deutsch & Avrahm Yarmolinsky", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Phantastus", @@ -45816,6 +47156,10 @@ "year": 1898 } }, + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch", + "Avrahm Yarmolinsky" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -45976,11 +47320,11 @@ "title": "“Andromeda”", "body": "Now Time’s Andromeda on this rock rude,\nWith not her either beauty’s equal or\nHer injury’s, looks off by both horns of shore,\nHer flower, her piece of being, doomed dragon’s food.\nTime past she has been attempted and pursued\nBy many blows and banes; but now hears roar\nA wilder beast from West than all were, more\nRife in her wrongs, more lawless, and more lewd.\n\nHer Perseus linger and leave her tĂł her extremes?--\nPillowy air he treads a time and hangs\nHis thoughts on her, forsaken that she seems,\nAll while her patience, morselled into pangs,\nMounts; then to alight disarming, no one dreams,\nWith Gorgon’s gear and barebill, thongs and fangs.", "metadata": { + "place": "Oxford", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1879 }, - "place": "Oxford", - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -45988,11 +47332,11 @@ "title": "“As Kingfishers Catch Fire”", "body": "As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies drĂĄw flĂĄme;\nAs tumbled over rim in roundy wells\nStones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s\nBow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;\nEach mortal thing does one thing and the same:\nDeals out that being indoors each one dwells;\nSelves--goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,\nCrying WhĂĄt I dĂł is me: for that I came.\n\nÍ say mĂłre: the just man justices;\nKĂ©eps grace: thĂĄt keeps all his goings graces;\nActs in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is--\nChrĂ­st--for Christ plays in ten thousand places,\nLovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his\nTo the Father through the features of men’s faces.", "metadata": { + "place": "Wales", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1877 }, - "place": "Wales", - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46019,10 +47363,10 @@ "title": "“Barnfloor and Winepress”", "body": "_And he said, If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress?_\n --2 Kings VI: 27\n\nThou that on sin’s wages starvest,\nBehold we have the joy in harvest:\nFor us was gather’d the first fruits,\nFor us was lifted from the roots,\nSheaved in cruel bands, bruised sore,\nScourged upon the threshing-floor;\nWhere the upper mill-stone roof’d His head,\nAt morn we found the heavenly Bread,\nAnd, on a thousand altars laid,\nChrist our Sacrifice is made!\n\nThou whose dry plot for moisture gapes,\nWe shout with them that tread the grapes:\nFor us the Vine was fenced with thorn,\nFive ways the precious branches torn;\nTerrible fruit was on the tree\nIn the acre of Gethsemane;\nFor us by Calvary’s distress\nThe wine was racked from the press;\nNow in our altar-vessels stored\nIs the sweet Vintage of our Lord.\n\nIn Joseph’s garden they threw by\nThe riv’n Vine, leafless, lifeless, dry:\nOn Easter morn the Tree was forth,\nIn forty days reach’d heaven from earth;\nSoon the whole world is overspread;\nYe weary, come into the shade.\n\nThe field where He has planted us\nShall shake her fruit as Libanus,\nWhen He has sheaved us in His sheaf,\nWhen He has made us bear his leaf.--\nWe scarcely call that banquet food,\nBut even our Saviour’s and our blood,\nWe are so grafted on His wood.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1865 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "corpus_christi" @@ -46034,11 +47378,11 @@ "body": "My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,\nQuelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,\nAll felled, felled, are all felled;\nOf a fresh and following folded rank\nNot spared, not one\nThat dandled a sandalled\nShadow that swam or sank\nOn meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.\n\nO if we but knew what we do\nWhen we delve or hew--\nHack and rack the growing green!\nSince country is so tender\nTo touch, her being sĂł slender,\nThat, like this sleek and seeing ball\nBut a prick will make no eye at all,\nWhere we, even where we mean\nTo mend her we end her,\nWhen we hew or delve:\nAfter-comers cannot guess the beauty been.\nTen or twelve, only ten or twelve\nStrokes of havoc Ășnselve\nThe sweet especial scene,\nRural scene, a rural scene,\nSweet especial rural scene.", "metadata": { "place": "Port Meadow", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1879, "month": "march" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -46049,12 +47393,12 @@ "title": "“The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe”", "body": "Wild air, world-mothering air,\nNestling me everywhere,\nThat each eyelash or hair\nGirdles; goes home betwixt\nThe fleeciest, frailest-flixed\nSnowflake; that’s fairly mixed\nWith, riddles, and is rife\nIn every least thing’s life;\nThis needful, never spent,\nAnd nursing element;\nMy more than meat and drink,\nMy meal at every wink;\nThis air, which, by life’s law,\nMy lung must draw and draw\nNow but to breathe its praise,\nMinds me in many ways\nOf her who not only\nGave God’s infinity\nDwindled to infancy\nWelcome in womb and breast,\nBirth, milk, and all the rest\nBut mothers each new grace\nThat does now reach our race--\nMary Immaculate,\nMerely a woman, yet\nWhose presence, power is\nGreat as no goddess’s\nWas deemĂšd, dreamĂšd; who\nThis one work has to do--\nLet all God’s glory through,\nGod’s glory which would go\nThrough her and from her flow\nOff, and no way but so.\n\nI say that we are wound\nWith mercy round and round\nAs if with air: the same\nIs Mary, more by name.\nShe, wild web, wondrous robe,\nMantles the guilty globe,\nSince God has let dispense\nHer prayers his providence:\nNay, more than almoner,\nThe sweet alms’ self is her\nAnd men are meant to share\nHer life as life does air.\n If I have understood,\nShe holds high motherhood\nTowards all our ghostly good\nAnd plays in grace her part\nAbout man’s beating heart,\nLaying, like air’s fine flood,\nThe deathdance in his blood;\nYet no part but what will\nBe Christ our Saviour still.\nOf her flesh he took flesh:\nHe does take fresh and fresh,\nThough much the mystery how,\nNot flesh but spirit now\nAnd makes, O marvellous!\nNew Nazareths in us,\nWhere she shall yet conceive\nHim, morning, noon, and eve;\nNew Bethlems, and he born\nThere, evening, noon, and morn\nBethlem or Nazareth,\nMen here may draw like breath\nMore Christ and baffle death;\nWho, born so, comes to be\nNew self and nobler me\nIn each one and each one\nMore makes, when all is done,\nBoth God’s and Mary’s Son.\n Again, look overhead\nHow air is azurĂšd;\nO how! nay do but stand\nWhere you can lift your hand\nSkywards: rich, rich it laps\nRound the four fingergaps.\nYet such a sapphire-shot,\nCharged, steepĂšd sky will not\nStain light. Yea, mark you this:\nIt does no prejudice.\nThe glass-blue days are those\nWhen every colour glows,\nEach shape and shadow shows.\nBlue be it: this blue heaven\nThe seven or seven times seven\nHued sunbeam will transmit\nPerfect, not alter it.\nOr if there does some soft,\nOn things aloof, aloft,\nBloom breathe, that one breath more\nEarth is the fairer for.\nWhereas did air not make\nThis bath of blue and slake\nHis fire, the sun would shake,\nA blear and blinding ball\nWith blackness bound, and all\nThe thick stars round him roll\nFlashing like flecks of coal,\nQuartz-fret, or sparks of salt,\nIn grimy vasty vault.\n So God was god of old:\nA mother came to mould\nThose limbs like ours which are\nWhat must make our daystar\nMuch dearer to mankind;\nWhose glory bare would blind\nOr less would win man’s mind.\nThrough her we may see him\nMade sweeter, not made dim,\nAnd her hand leaves his light\nSifted to suit our sight.\n Be thou then, thou dear\nMother, my atmosphere;\nMy happier world, wherein\nTo wend and meet no sin;\nAbove me, round me lie\nFronting my froward eye\nWith sweet and scarless sky;\nStir in my ears, speak there\nOf God’s love, O live air,\nOf patience, penance, prayer:\nWorld-mothering air, air wild,\nWound with thee, in thee isled,\nFold home, fast fold thy child.", "metadata": { + "place": "Lancashire", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1883, "month": "may" }, - "place": "Lancashire", - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -46073,11 +47417,11 @@ "title": "“Brothers”", "body": "How lovely the elder brother’s\nLife all laced in the other’s,\nLĂłve-laced!--what once I well\nWitnessed; so fortune fell.\nWhen Shrovetide, two years gone,\nOur boys’ plays brought on\nPart was picked for John,\nYoung JĂłhn: then fear, then joy\nRan revel in the elder boy.\nTheir night was come now; all\nOur company thronged the hall;\nHenry, by the wall,\nBeckoned me beside him:\nI came where called, and eyed him\nBy meanwhiles; making mĂœ play\nTurn most on tender byplay.\nFor, wrung all on love’s rack,\nMy lad, and lost in Jack,\nSmiled, blushed, and bit his lip;\nOr drove, with a diver’s dip,\nClutched hands down through clasped knees--\nTruth’s tokens tricks like these,\nOld telltales, with what stress\nHe hung on the imp’s success.\nNow the other was brĂĄss-bĂłld:\nHĂ© had no work to hold\nHis heart up at the strain;\nNay, roguish ran the vein.\nTwo tedious acts were past;\nJack’s call and cue at last;\nWhen Henry, heart-forsook,\nDropped eyes and dared not look.\nEh, how ĂĄll rĂșng!\nYoung dog, he did give tongue!\nBut Harry--in his hands he has flung\nHis tear-tricked cheeks of flame\nFor fond love and for shame.\n\nAh Nature, framed in fault,\nThere ’s comfort then, there ’s salt;\nNature, bad, base, and blind,\nDearly thou canst be kind;\nThere dearly thĂ©n, deĂĄrly,\nI’ll cry thou canst be kind.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1880, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46086,12 +47430,12 @@ "body": "A bugler boy from barrack (it is over the hill\nThere)--boy bugler, born, he tells me, of Irish\nMother to an English sire (he\nShares their best gifts surely, fall how things will),\n\nThis very very day came down to us after a boon he on\nMy late being there begged of me, overflowing\nBoon in my bestowing,\nCame, I say, this day to it--to a First Communion.\n\nHere he knelt then Ă­n regimental red.\nForth Christ from cupboard fetched, how fain I of feet\nTo his youngster take his treat!\nLow-latched in leaf-light housel his too huge godhead.\n\nThere! and your sweetest sendings, ah divine,\nBy it, heavens, befall him! as a heart Christ’s darling, dauntless;\nTongue true, vaunt- and tauntless;\nBreathing bloom of a chastity in mansex fine.\n\nFrowning and forefending angel-warder\nSquander the hell-rook ranks sally to molest him;\nMarch, kind comrade, abreast him;\nDress his days to a dexterous and starlight order.\n\nHow it dĂłes my heart good, visiting at that bleak hill,\nWhen limber liquid youth, that to all I teach\nYields tender as a pushed peach,\nHies headstrong to its wellbeing of a self-wise self-will!\n\nThen though I should tread tufts of consolation\nDĂĄys ĂĄfter, sĂł I in a sort deserve to\nAnd do serve God to serve to\nJust such slips of soldiery Christ’s royal ration.\n\nNothing Ă©lse is like it, no, not all so strains\nUs: fresh youth fretted in a bloomfall all portending\nThat sweet’s sweeter ending;\nRealm both Christ is heir to and thĂ©re rĂ©igns.\n\nO now well work that sealing sacred ointment!\nO for now charms, arms, what bans off bad\nAnd locks love ever in a lad!\nLet mĂ© though see no more of him, and not disappointment\n\nThose sweet hopes quell whose least me quickenings lift.\nIn scarlet or somewhere of some day seeing\nThat brow and bead of being,\nAn our day’s God’s own Galahad. Though this child’s drift\n\nSeems by a divĂ­ne doom chĂĄnnelled, nor do I cry\nDisaster there; but may he not rankle and roam\nIn backwheels though bound home?--\nThat left to the Lord of the Eucharist, I here lie by;\n\nRecorded only, I have put my lips on pleas\nWould brandle adamantine heaven with ride and jar, did\nPrayer go disregarded:\nForward-like, but however, and like favourable heaven heard these.", "metadata": { "place": "Oxford", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1879, "month": "july", "day": 27 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -46103,11 +47447,11 @@ "title": "“The Caged Skylark”", "body": "As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage\n Man’s mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells--\n That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;\nThis in drudgery, day-labouring-out life’s age.\nThough aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage,\n Both sing sometĂ­mes the sweetest, sweetest spells,\n Yet both droop deadly sĂłmetimes in their cells\nOr wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage.\n\nNot that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest--\nWhy, hear him, hear him babble and drop down to his nest,\n But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.\n\nMan’s spirit will be flesh-bound when found at best,\nBut uncumbered: meadow-down is not distressed\n For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bĂłnes rĂ­sen.", "metadata": { + "place": "Wales", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1877 }, - "place": "Wales", - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46115,11 +47459,11 @@ "title": "“The Candle Indoors”", "body": "Some candle clear burns somewhere I come by.\nI muse at how its being puts blissful back\nWith yellowy moisture mild night’s blear-all black,\nOr to-fro tender trambeams truckle at the eye.\nBy that window what task what fingers ply,\nI plod wondering, a-wanting, just for lack\nOf answer the eagerer a-wanting Jessy or Jack\nThere God to aggrĂĄndise, God to glorify.--\n\nCome you indoors, come home; your fading fire\nMend first and vital candle in close heart’s vault:\nYou there are master, do your own desire;\nWhat hinders? Are you beam-blind, yet to a fault\nIn a neighbour deft-handed? Are you that liar\nAnd cast by conscience out, spendsavour salt?", "metadata": { + "place": "Liverpool", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1880 }, - "place": "Liverpool", - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46131,11 +47475,11 @@ "favorite" ], "place": "Dublin", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1885, "month": "august" }, - "language": "English", "context": { "month": "august" } @@ -46196,10 +47540,10 @@ "body": "Felix Randal the farrier, O is he dead then? my duty all ended,\nWho have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome\nPining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it, and some\nFatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended?\n\nSickness broke him. Impatient, he cursed at first, but mended\nBeing anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some\nMonths earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom\nTendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended!\n\nThis seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears.\nMy tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears,\nThy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal;\n\nHow far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,\nWhen thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,\nDidst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!", "metadata": { "place": "Liverpool", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1881 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46240,10 +47584,10 @@ "body": "The world is charged with the grandeur of God.\n It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;\n It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil\nCrushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?\nGenerations have trod, have trod, have trod;\n And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;\n And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil\nIs bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.\n\nAnd for all this, nature is never spent;\n There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;\nAnd though the last lights off the black West went\n Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--\nBecause the Holy Ghost over the bent\n World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.", "metadata": { "place": "Wales", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1877 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "pentecost" @@ -46254,10 +47598,10 @@ "title": "“The Habit of Perfection”", "body": "Elected Silence, sing to me\nAnd beat upon my whorlĂšd ear,\nPipe me to pastures still and be\nThe music that I care to hear.\n\nShape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:\nIt is the shut, the curfew sent\nFrom there where all surrenders come\nWhich only makes you eloquent.\n\nBe shellĂšd, eyes, with double dark\nAnd find the uncreated light:\nThis ruck and reel which you remark\nCoils, keeps, and teases simple sight.\n\nPalate, the hutch of tasty lust,\nDesire not to be rinsed with wine:\nThe can must be so sweet, the crust\nSo fresh that come in fasts divine!\n\nNostrils, your careless breath that spend\nUpon the stir and keep of pride,\nWhat relish shall the censers send\nAlong the sanctuary side!\n\nO feel-of-primrose hands, O feet\nThat want the yield of plushy sward,\nBut you shall walk the golden street\nAnd you unhouse and house the Lord.\n\nAnd, Poverty, be thou the bride\nAnd now the marriage feast begun,\nAnd lily-coloured clothes provide\nYour spouse not laboured-at nor spun.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46265,11 +47609,11 @@ "title": "“The Half-Way House”", "body": "Love I was shewn upon the mountain-side\nAnd bid to catch Him ere the dropp of day.\nSee, Love, I creep and Thou on wings dost ride:\nLove it is evening now and Thou away;\nLove, it grows darker here and Thou art above;\nLove, come down to me if Thy name be Love.\n\nMy national old Egyptian reed gave way;\nI took of vine a cross-barred rod or rood.\nThen next I hungered: Love when here, they say,\nOr once or never took love’s proper food;\nBut I must yield the chase, or rest and eat.--\nPeace and food cheered me where four rough ways meet.\n\nHear yet my paradox: Love, when all is given,\nTo see Thee I must _see_ Thee, to love, love;\nI must o’ertake Thee at once and under heaven\nIf I shall overtake Thee at last above.\nYou have your wish; enter these walls, one said:\nHe is with you in the breaking of the bread.", "metadata": { + "place": "Oxford", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1865 }, - "place": "Oxford", - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46286,13 +47630,15 @@ "body": "Hard as hurdle arms, with a broth of goldish flue\nBreathed round; the rack of ribs; the scooped flank; lank\nRope-over thigh; knee-nave; and barrelled shank--\n Head and foot, shoulder and shank--\nBy a grey eye’s heed steered well, one crew, fall to;\nStand at stress. Each limb’s barrowy brawn, his thew\nThat onewhere curded, onewhere sucked or sank--\n Soared or sank--,\nThough as a beechbole firm, finds his, as at a roll-\n call, rank\nAnd features, in flesh, what deed he each must do--\n His sinew-service where do.\n\nHe leans to it, Harry bends, look. Back, elbow, and\n liquid waist\nIn him, all quail to the wallowing o’ the plough:\n ’s cheek crimsons; curls\nWag or crossbridle, in a wind lifted, windlaced--\n See his wind- lilylocks -laced;\nChurlsgrace, too, child of Amansstrength, how it hangs\n or hurls\nThem--broad in bluff hide his frowning feet lashed! raced\nWith, along them, cragiron under and cold furls--\n With-a-fountain’s shining-shot furls.", "metadata": { "place": "Dromore", + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Autumn", + "season": "autumn", "year": 1887 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "autumn" + } } }, "heaven-haven": { @@ -46300,13 +47646,15 @@ "body": "I have desired to go\n Where springs not fail,\nTo fields where flies no sharp and sided hail\n And a few lilies blow.\n\n And I have asked to be\n Where no storms come,\nWhere the green swell is in the havens dumb,\n And out of the swing of the sea.", "metadata": { "place": "Oxford", + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1864 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "hope-holds-to-christ": { @@ -46322,10 +47670,10 @@ "body": "Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks rise\nAround; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour\nOf silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier\nMeal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?\n\nI walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,\nDown all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;\nAnd, Ă©yes, heĂĄrt, what looks, what lips yet gave you a\nRapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?\n\nAnd the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder\nMajestic--as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet!--\nThese things, these things were here and but the beholder\nWanting; which two when they once meet,\nThe heart rears wings bold and bolder\nAnd hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.", "metadata": { "place": "Wales", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1877 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "autumn_equinox" @@ -46337,10 +47685,10 @@ "body": "I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.\nWhat hours, O what black hoĂŒrs we have spent\nThis night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!\nAnd more must, in yet longer light’s delay.\nWith witness I speak this. But where I say\nHours I mean years, mean life. And my lament\nIs cries countless, cries like dead letters sent\nTo dearest him that lives alas! away.\n\nI am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree\nBitter would have me taste: my taste was me;\nBones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.\nSelfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see\nThe lost are like this, and their scourge to be\nAs I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.", "metadata": { "place": "Dublin", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1885 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -46351,13 +47699,13 @@ "title": "“In the Valley of the Elwy”", "body": "I remember a house where all were good\n To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:\n Comforting smell breathed at very entering,\nFetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.\nThat cordial air made those kind people a hood\n All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing\n Will, or mild nights the new morsels of spring:\nWhy, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.\n\nLovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales,\nAll the air things wear that build this world of Wales;\n Only the inmate does not correspond:\nGod, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,\nComplete thy creature dear O where it fails,\n Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.", "metadata": { + "place": "Wales", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1877, "month": "may", "day": 23 }, - "place": "Wales", - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -46370,10 +47718,10 @@ "body": "This darksome burn, horseback brown,\nHis rollrock highroad roaring down,\nIn coop and in comb the fleece of his foam\nFlutes and low to the lake falls home.\n\nA windpuff-bonnet of fĂĄawn-frĂłth\nTurns and twindles over the broth\nOf a pool so pitchblack, fĂ©ll-frĂłwning,\nIt rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.\n\nDegged with dew, dappled with dew\nAre the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,\nWiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,\nAnd the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.\n\nWhat would the world be, once bereft\nOf wet and of wildness? Let them be left,\nO let them be left, wildness and wet;\nLong live the weeds and the wilderness yet.", "metadata": { "place": "Scotland", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1881 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46381,10 +47729,10 @@ "title": "“The Lantern out of Doors”", "body": "Sometimes a lantern moves along the night,\nThat interests our eyes. And who goes there?\nI think; where from and bound, I wonder, where,\nWith, all down darkness wide, his wading light?\n\nMen go by me whom either beauty bright\nIn mould or mind or what not else makes rare:\nThey rain against our much-thick and marsh air\nRich beams, till death or distance buys them quite.\n\nDeath or distance soon consumes them: wind\nWhat most I may eye after, be in at the end\nI cannot, and out of sight is out of mind.\n\nChrist minds: Christ’s interest, what to avow or amend\nThere, Ă©yes them, heart wĂĄnts, care haĂșnts, foot fĂłllows kĂ­nd,\nTheir rĂĄnsom, thĂ©ir rescue, ĂĄnd first, fĂĄst, last friĂ©nd.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1878 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46392,12 +47740,12 @@ "title": "“The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo”", "body": "_The Leaden Echo_\n\nHow to keep--is there ĂĄny any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, lĂĄce, latch or catch or key to keep\nBack beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, 
 from vanishing away?\n\nÓ is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankĂšd wrinkles deep,\nDĂłwn? no waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey?\nNo there’s none, there’s none, O no there’s none,\nNor can you long be, what you now are, called fair,\nDo what you may do, what, do what you may,\nAnd wisdom is early to despair:\nBe beginning; since, no, nothing can be done\nTo keep at bay\nAge and age’s evils, hoar hair,\nRuck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death’s worst, winding sheets, tombs and worms and tumbling to decay;\nSo be beginning, be beginning to despair.\nO there’s none; no no no there’s none:\nBe beginning to despair, to despair,\nDespair, despair, despair, despair.\n\n\n_The Golden Echo_\n\nSpare!\nThere is one, yes I have one (Hush there!);\nOnly not within seeing of the sun,\nNot within the singeing of the strong sun,\nTall sun’s tingeing, or treacherous the tainting of the earth’s air.\nSomewhere elsewhere there is ah well where! one,\nÓne. Yes I can tell such a key, I do know such a place,\nWhere whatever’s prized and passes of us, everything that’s fresh and fast flying of us, seems to us sweet of us and swiftly away with, done away with, undone,\nUndone, done with, soon done with, and yet dearly and dangerously sweet\nOf us, the wimpled-water-dimpled, not-by-morning-matchĂšd face,\nThe flower of beauty, fleece of beauty, too too apt to, ah! to fleet,\nNever fleets more, fastened with the tenderest truth\nTo its own best being and its loveliness of youth: it is an everlastingness of, O it is an all youth!\nCome then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maiden gear, gallantry and gaiety and grace,\nWinning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks, lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girlgrace--\nResign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath,\nAnd with sighs soaring, soaring sĂ­ghs deliver\nThem; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death\nGive beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty’s self and beauty’s giver.\nSee; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair\nIs, hair of the head, numbered.\nNay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mould\nWill have waked and have waxed and have walked with the wind what while we slept,\nThis side, that side hurling a heavyheaded hundredfold\nWhat while we, while we slumbered.\nO then, weary then whĂœ should we tread? O why are we so haggard at the heart, so care-coiled, care-killed, so fagged, so fashed, so cogged, so cumbered,\nWhen the thing we freely fĂłrfeit is kept with fonder a care,\nFonder a care kept than we could have kept it, kept\nFar with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonder\nA care kept. Where kept? Do but tell us where kept, where.--\nYonder.--What high as that! We follow, now we follow.--\nYonder, yes yonder, yonder,\nYonder.", "metadata": { + "place": "Lancashire", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1882, "month": "october" }, - "place": "Lancashire", - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -46417,11 +47765,11 @@ "body": "# 1.\nThe Eurydice--it concerned thee, O Lord:\nThree hundred souls, O alas! on board,\n Some asleep unawakened, all un-\nwarned, eleven fathoms fallen\n\n# 2.\nWhere she foundered! One stroke\nFelled and furled them, the hearts of oak!\n And flockbells off the aerial\nDowns’ forefalls beat to the burial.\n\n# 3.\nFor did she pride her, freighted fully, on\nBounden bales or a hoard of bullion?--\n Precious passing measure,\nLads and men her lade and treasure.\n\n# 4.\nShe had come from a cruise, training seamen--\nMen, boldboys soon to be men:\n Must it, worst weather,\nBlast bole and bloom together?\n\n# 5.\nNo Atlantic squall overwrought her\nOr rearing billow of the Biscay water:\n Home was hard at hand\nAnd the blow bore from land.\n\n# 6.\nAnd you were a liar, O blue March day.\nBright sun lanced fire in the heavenly bay;\n But what black Boreas wrecked her? he\nCame equipped, deadly-electric,\n\n# 7.\nA beetling baldbright cloud thorough England\nRiding: there did storms not mingle? and\n Hailropes hustle and grind their\nHeavengravel? wolfsnow, worlds of it, wind there?\n\n# 8.\nNow Carisbrook keep goes under in gloom;\nNow it overvaults Appledurcombe;\n Now near by Ventnor town\nIt hurls, hurls off Boniface Down.\n\n# 9.\nToo proud, too proud, what a press she bore!\nRoyal, and all her royals wore.\n Sharp with her, shorten sail!\nToo late; lost; gone with the gale.\n\n# 10.\nThis was that fell capsize,\nAs half she had righted and hoped to rise\n Death teeming in by her portholes\nRaced down decks, round messes of mortals.\n\n# 11.\nThen a lurch forward, frigate and men;\n“All hands for themselves” the cry ran then;\n But she who had housed them thither\nWas around them, bound them or wound them with her.\n\n# 12.\nMarcus Hare, high her captain,\nKept to her--care-drowned and wrapped in\n Cheer’s death, would follow\nHis charge through the champ-white water-in-a-wallow.\n\n# 13.\nAll under Channel to bury in a beach her\nCheeks: Right, rude of feature,\n He thought he heard say\n“Her commander! and thou too, and thou this way.”\n\n# 14.\nIt is even seen, time’s something server,\nIn mankind’s medley a duty-swerver,\n At downright “No or yes?”\nDoffs all, drives full for righteousness.\n\n# 15.\nSydney Fletcher, Bristol-bred,\n(Low lie his mates now on watery bed)\n Takes to the seas and snows\nAs sheer down the ship goes.\n\n# 16.\nNow her afterdraught gullies him too down;\nNow he wrings for breath with the deathgush brown;\n Till a lifebelt and God’s will\nLend him a lift from the sea-swill.\n\n# 17.\nNow he shoots short up to the round air;\nNow he gasps, now he gazes everywhere;\n But his eye no cliff, no coast or\nMark makes in the rivelling snowstorm.\n\n# 18.\nHim, after an hour of wintry waves,\nA schooner sights, with another, and saves,\n And he boards her in Oh! such joy\nHe has lost count what came next, poor boy.--\n\n# 19.\nThey say who saw one sea-corpse cold\nHe was all of lovely manly mould,\n Every inch a tar,\nOf the best we boast our sailors are.\n\n# 20.\nLook, foot to forelock, how all things suit! he\nIs strung by duty, is strained to beauty,\n And brown-as-dawning-skinned\nWith brine and shine and whirling wind.\n\n# 21.\nO his nimble finger, his gnarled grip!\nLeagues, leagues of seamanship\n Slumber in these forsaken\nBones, this sinew, and will not waken.\n\n# 22.\nHe was but one like thousands more,\nDay and night I deplore\n My people and born own nation,\nFast foundering own generation,\n\n# 23.\nI might let bygones be--our curse\nOf ruinous shrine no hand or, worse,\n Robbery’s hand is busy to\nDress, hoar-hallowĂšd shrines unvisited;\n\n# 24.\nOnly the breathing temple and fleet\nLife, this wildworth blown so sweet,\n These daredeaths, ay this crew, in\nUnchrist, all rolled in ruin--\n\n# 25.\nDeeply surely I need to deplore it,\nWondering why my master bore it,\n The riving off that race\nSo at home, time was, to his truth and grace\n\n# 26.\nThat a starlight-wender of ours would say\nThe marvellous Milk was Walsingham Way\n And one--but let be, let be:\nMore, more than was will yet be.--\n\n# 27.\nO well wept, mother have lost son;\nWept, wife; wept, sweetheart would be one:\n Though grief yield them no good\nYet shed what tears sad truelove should.\n\n# 28.\nBut to Christ lord of thunder\nCrouch; lay knee by earth low under:\n “Holiest, loveliest, bravest,\nSave my hero, O Hero savest.\n\n# 29.\nAnd the prayer thou hearst me making\nHave, at the awful overtaking,\n Heard; have heard and granted\nGrace that day grace was wanted.”\n\n# 30.\nNot that hell knows redeeming,\nBut for souls sunk in seeming\n Fresh, till doomfire burn all,\nPrayer shall fetch pity eternal.", "metadata": { "place": "Derbyshire", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "april" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -46473,10 +47821,10 @@ "title": "“Morning Midday and Evening Sacrifice”", "body": "The dappled die-away\nCheek and wimpled lip,\nThe gold-wisp, the airy-grey\nEye, all in fellowship--\nThis, all this beauty blooming,\nThis, all this freshness fuming,\nGive God while worth consuming.\n\nBoth thought and thew now bolder\nAnd told by Nature: Tower;\nHead, heart, hand, heel, and shoulder\nThat beat and breathe in power--\nThis pride of prime’s enjoyment\nTake as for tool, not toy meant\nAnd hold at Christ’s employment.\n\nThe vault and scope and schooling\nAnd mastery in the mind,\nIn silk-ash kept from cooling,\nAnd ripest under rind--\nWhat life half lifts the latch of,\nWhat hell stalks towards the snatch of,\nYour offering, with despatch, of!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1887 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46485,10 +47833,10 @@ "body": "My own heart let me have more pity on; let\nMe live to my sad self hereafter kind,\nCharitable; not live this tormented mind\nWith this tormented mind tormenting yet.\nI cast for comfort I can no more get\nBy groping round my comfortless, than blind\nEyes in their dark can day or thirst can find\nThirst’s all-in-all in all a world of wet.\n\nSoul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise\nYou, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile\nElsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size\nAt God knows when to God knows what; whose smile\n’s not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather--as skies\nBetween pie mountains--lights a lovely mile.", "metadata": { "place": "Dublin", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1885 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46505,10 +47853,10 @@ "body": "No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,\nMore pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.\nComforter, where, where is your comforting?\nMary, mother of us, where is your relief?\nMy cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief\nWoe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing--\nThen lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked “No ling-\nering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief”.\n\nO the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall\nFrightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap\nMay who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our small\nDurance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,\nWretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all\nLife death does end and each day dies with sleep.", "metadata": { "place": "Dublin", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1885 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46532,13 +47880,13 @@ "title": "“Peace”", "body": "When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,\nYour round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?\nWhen, when, PeacĂš, will you, Peace? I’ll not play hypocrite\nTo own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but\nThat piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows\nAlarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?\n\nO surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu\nSome good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,\nThat plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house\nHe comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,\nHe comes to brood and sit.", "metadata": { + "place": "Oxford", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1879, "month": "october", "day": 2 }, - "place": "Oxford", - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -46551,10 +47899,10 @@ "body": "Who long for rest, who look for pleasure\nAway from counter, court, or school\nO where live well your lease of leisure\nBut here at, here at Penmaen Pool?\n\nYou’ll dare the Alp? you’ll dart the skiff?--\nEach sport has here its tackle and tool:\nCome, plant the staff by Cadair cliff;\nCome, swing the sculls on Penmaen Pool.\n\nWhat’s yonder?--Grizzled Dyphwys dim:\nThe triple-hummocked Giant’s stool,\nHoar messmate, hobs and nobs with him\nTo halve the bowl of Penmaen Pool.\n\nAnd all the landscape under survey,\nAt tranquil turns, by nature’s rule,\nRides repeated topsyturvy\nIn frank, in fairy Penmaen Pool.\n\nAnd Charles’s Wain, the wondrous seven,\nAnd sheep-flock clouds like worlds of wool.\nFor all they shine so, high in heaven,\nShew brighter shaken in Penmaen Pool.\n\nThe Mawddach, how she trips! though throttled\nIf floodtide teeming thrills her full,\nAnd mazy sands all water-wattled\nWaylay her at ebb, past Penmaen Pool.\n\nBut what’s to see in stormy weather,\nWhen grey showers gather and gusts are cool?--\nWhy, raindrop-roundels looped together\nThat lace the face of Penmaen Pool.\n\nThen even in weariest wintry hour\nOf New Year’s month or surly Yule\nFurred snows, charged tuft above tuft, tower\nFrom darksome darksome Penmaen Pool.\n\nAnd ever, if bound here hardest home,\nYou’ve parlour-pastime left and (who’ll\nNot honour it?) ale like goldy foam\nThat frocks an oar in Penmaen Pool.\n\nThen come who pine for peace or pleasure\nAway from counter, court, or school,\nSpend here your measure of time and treasure\nAnd taste the treats of Penmaen Pool.", "metadata": { "place": "Wales", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1876 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46562,11 +47910,11 @@ "title": "“Pied Beauty”", "body": "Glory be to God for dappled things--\nFor skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;\nFor rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim:\nFresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;\nLandscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough;\nAnd Ă ll trĂ des, their gear and tackle and trim.\n\nAll things counter, original, spare, strange;\nWhatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)\nWith swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;\nHe fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:\nPraise him.", "metadata": { + "place": "Wales", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1877 }, - "place": "Wales", - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46586,10 +47934,10 @@ "body": "Earth, sweet Earth, sweet landscape, with leavĂšs throng\nAnd louchĂšd low grass, heaven that dost appeal\nTo, with no tongue to plead, no heart to feel;\nThat canst but only be, but dost that long--\n\nThou canst but be, but that thou well dost; strong\nThy plea with him who dealt, nay does now deal,\nThy lovely dale down thus and thus bids reel\nThy river, and o’er gives all to rack or wrong.\n\nAnd what is Earth’s eye, tongue, or heart else, where\nElse, but in dear and dogged man?--Ah, the heir\nTo his own selfbent so bound, so tied to his turn,\nTo thriftless reave both our rich round world bare\nAnd none reck of world after, this bids wear\nEarth brows of such care, care and dear concern.", "metadata": { "place": "Lancashire", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1882 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46597,12 +47945,12 @@ "title": "“The Sea and the Skylark”", "body": "On ear and ear two noises too old to end\nTrench--right, the tide that ramps against the shore;\nWith a flood or a fall, low lull-off or all roar,\nFrequenting there while moon shall wear and wend.\n\nLeft hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend,\nHis rash-fresh re-winded new-skeinĂšd score\nIn crisps of curl off wild winch whirl, and pour\nAnd pelt music, till none’s to spill nor spend.\n\nHow these two shame this shallow and frail town!\nHow ring right out our sordid turbid time,\nBeing pure! We, life’s pride and cared-for crown,\n\nHave lost that cheer and charm of earth’s past prime:\nOur make and making break, are breaking, down\nTo man’s last dust, drain fast towards man’s first slime.", "metadata": { + "place": "Rhyl", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1877, "month": "may" }, - "place": "Rhyl", - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -46641,10 +47989,10 @@ "body": "Earnest, earthless, equal, attuneable, | vaulty, voluminous, 
 stupendous\nEvening strains to be tĂ­me’s vĂĄst, | womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night.\nHer fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, | her wild hollow hoarlight hung to the height\nWaste; her earliest stars, earl-stars, | stĂĄrs principal, overbend us,\nFĂ­re-fĂ©aturing heaven. For earth | her being has unbound, her dapple is at an end, astray or aswarm, all throughther, in throngs; | self Ă­n self steepĂšd and pashed--qĂșite\nDisremembering, dĂ­smembering | Ă ll now. Heart, you round me right\nWith: Óur Ă©vening is over us; Ăłur night | whĂ©lms, whĂ©lms, ĂĄnd will end us.\nOnly the beak-leaved boughs dragonish | damask the tool-smooth bleak light; black,\nEver so black on it. Óur tale, Ăłur oracle! | LĂ©t life, wĂĄned, ah lĂ©t life wind\nOff hĂ©r once skĂ©ined stained vĂ©ined varĂ­ety | upon, ĂĄll on twĂł spools; pĂĄrt, pen, pĂĄck\nNow her ĂĄll in twĂł flocks, twĂł folds--black, white; | right, wrong; reckon but, reck but, mind\nBut thĂ©se two; wĂĄre of a wĂłrld where bĂșt these | twĂł tell, each off the Ăłther; of a rack\nWhere, selfwrung, selfstrung, sheathe- and shelterless, | thĂłughts agaĂ­nst thoughts Ă­n groans grĂ­nd.", "metadata": { "place": "Dublin", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1886 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46653,11 +48001,11 @@ "body": "Nothing is so beautiful as spring--\n When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;\n Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush\nThrough the echoing timber does so rinse and wring\nThe ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;\n The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush\n The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush\nWith richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.\n\nWhat is all this juice and all this joy?\n A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning\nIn Eden garden. Have, get, before it cloy,\n Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,\nInnocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,\n Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.", "metadata": { "place": "Wales", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1877, "month": "may" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "may_day" @@ -46668,11 +48016,11 @@ "title": "“Spring and Fall”", "body": "MĂĄrgarĂ©t, ĂĄre you grĂ­eving\nOver Goldengrove unleaving?\nLeĂĄves like the things of man, you\nWith your fresh thoughts care for, can you?\nAh! ĂĄs the heart grows older\nIt will come to such sights colder\nBy and by, nor spare a sigh\nThough worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;\nAnd yet you wĂ­ll weep and know why.\nNow no matter, child, the name:\nSĂłrrow’s sprĂ­ngs ĂĄre the same.\nNor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed\nWhat heart heard of, ghost guessed:\nIt Ă­s the blight man was born for,\nIt is Margaret you mourn for.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1880, "month": "september" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -46691,11 +48039,11 @@ "title": "“The Starlight Night”", "body": "Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!\nO look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!\nThe bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!\nDown in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves’-eyes!\nThe grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!\nWind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!\nFlake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!--\nAh well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.\n\nBuy then! bid then!--What?--Prayer, patience, alms, vows.\nLook, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!\nLook! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!\nThese are indeed the barn; withindoors house\nThe shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse\nChrist home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.", "metadata": { + "place": "Wales", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1877 }, - "place": "Wales", - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -46728,10 +48076,10 @@ "title": "“That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection”", "body": "Cloud-puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows | flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-\nbuilt thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs | they throng; they glitter in marches.\nDown roughcast, down dazzling whitewash, | wherever an elm arches,\nShivelights and shadowtackle in long | lashes lace, lance, and pair.\nDelightfully the bright wind boisterous | ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare\nOf yestertempest’s creases; in pool and rut peel parches\nSquandering ooze to squeezed | dough, crust, dust; stanches, starches\nSquadroned masks and manmarks | treadmire toil there\nFootfretted in it. Million-fuelĂšd, | nature’s bonfire burns on.\nBut quench her bonniest, dearest | to her, her clearest-selvĂšd spark\nMan, how fast his firedint, | his mark on mind, is gone!\nBoth are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark\nDrowned. O pity and indig | nation! Manshape, that shone\nSheer off, disseveral, a star, | death blots black out; nor mark\n Is any of him at all so stark\nBut vastness blurs and time | beats level. Enough! the Resurrection,\nA heart’s-clarion! Away grief’s gasping, | joyless days, dejection.\n Across my foundering deck shone\nA beacon, an eternal beam. | Flesh fade, and mortal trash\nFall to the residuary worm; | world’s wildfire, leave but ash:\n In a flash, at a trumpet crash,\nI am all at once what Christ is, | since he was what I am, and\nThis Jack, joke, poor potsherd, | patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,\n Is immortal diamond.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1888 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "eastertide" @@ -46751,12 +48099,12 @@ "body": "_Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen\njusta loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c._\n\nThou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend\nWith thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.\nWhy do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must\nDisappointment all I endeavour end?\nWert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,\nHow wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost\nDefeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust\nDo in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,\nSir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes\nNow, leavĂšd how thick! lacĂšd they are again\nWith fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes\nThem; birds build--but not I build; no, but strain,\nTime’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.\nMine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.", "metadata": { "place": "Dublin", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1889, "month": "march", "day": 17 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -46809,11 +48157,11 @@ "title": "“To Seem the Stranger Lies My Lot”", "body": "To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life\nAmong strangĂšrs. Father and mother dear,\nBrothers and sisters are in Christ not near\nAnd he my peace my parting, sword and strife.\n\nEngland, whose honour O all my heart woos, wife\nTo my creating thought, would neither hear\nMe, were I pleading, plead nor do I: I weary\nof idle a being but by where wars are rife.\n\nI am in Ireland now; now I am at a thĂ­rd\nRemove. Not but in all removes I can\nKind love both give and get. Only what word\nWisest my heart breeds dark heaven’s baffling ban\nBars or hell’s spell thwarts. This to hoard unheard,\nHeard unheeded, leaves me a lonely began.", "metadata": { + "place": "Dublin", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1885 }, - "place": "Dublin", - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46829,11 +48177,11 @@ "title": "“Tom’s Garland”", "body": "Tom--garlanded with squat and surly steel\nTom; then Tom’s fallowbootfellow piles pick\nBy him and rips out rockfire homeforth--sturdy Dick;\nTom Heart-at-ease, Tom Navvy: he is all for his meal\nSure, ’s bed now. Low be it: lustily he his low lot (feel\nThat ne’er need hunger, Tom; Tom seldom sick,\nSeldomer heartsore; that treads through, prickproof, thick\nThousands of thorns, thoughts) swings though. Common-weal\nLittle I reck ho! lacklevel in, if all had bread:\nWhat! Country is honour enough in all us--lordly head,\nWith heaven’s lights high hung round, or, mother-ground\nThat mammocks, mighty foot. But no way sped,\nNor mind nor mainstrength; gold go garlanded\nWith, perilous, O nĂł; nor yet plod safe shod sound;\nUndenizened, beyond bound\nOf earth’s glory, earth’s ease, all; no one, nowhere,\nIn wide the world’s weal; rare gold, bold steel, bare\nIn both; care, but share care--\nThis, by Despair, bred Hangdog dull; by Rage,\nManwolf, worse; and their packs infest the age.", "metadata": { + "place": "Dublin", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1887 }, - "place": "Dublin", - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -46882,12 +48230,12 @@ "title": "“The Wreck of the Deutschland”", "body": "_To the happy memory of five Franciscan Nuns, exiles by the Falk Laws, drowned between midnight and morning of Dec. 7th, 1875_\n\n# I.\n\nThou mastering me\nGod! giver of breath and bread;\nWorld’s strand, sway of the sea;\nLord of living and dead;\nThou hast bound bones & veins in me, fastened me flesh,\nAnd after it almost unmade, what with dread,\nThy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh?\nOver again I feel thy finger and find thee.\n\nI did say yes\nO at lightning and lashed rod;\nThou heardst me truer than tongue confess\nThy terror, O Christ, O God;\nThou knowest the walls, altar and hour and night:\nThe swoon of a heart that the sweep and the hurl of thee trod\nHard down with a horror of height:\nAnd the midriff astrain with leaning of, laced with fire of stress.\n\nThe frown of his face\nBefore me, the hurtle of hell\nBehind, where, where was a, where was a place?\nI whirled out wings that spell\nAnd fled with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host.\nMy heart, but you were dovewinged, I can tell,\nCarrier-witted, I am bold to boast,\nTo flash from the flame to the flame then, tower from the grace to the grace.\n\nI am soft sift\nIn an hourglass--at the wall\nFast, but mined with a motion, a drift,\nAnd it crowds and it combs to the fall;\nI steady as a water in a well, to a poise, to a pane,\nBut roped with, always, all the way down from the tall\nFells or flanks of the voel, a vein\nOf the gospel proffer, a pressure, a principle, Christ’s gift.\n\nI kiss my hand\nTo the stars, lovely-asunder\nStarlight, wafting him out of it; and\nGlow, glory in thunder;\nKiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west:\nSince, tho’ he is under the world’s splendour and wonder,\nHis mystery must be instressed, stressed;\nFor I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand.\n\nNot out of his bliss\nSprings the stress felt\nNor first from heaven (and few know this)\nSwings the stroke dealt--\nStroke and a stress that stars and storms deliver,\nThat guilt is hushed by, hearts are flushed by and melt--\nBut it rides time like riding a river\n(And here the faithful waver, the faithless fable and miss).\n\nIt dates from day\nOf his going in Galilee;\nWarm-laid grave of a womb-life grey;\nManger, maiden’s knee;\nThe dense and the driven Passion, and frightful sweat;\nThence the discharge of it, there its swelling to be,\nThough felt before, though in high flood yet--\nWhat none would have known of it, only the heart, being hard at bay,\n\nIs out with it! Oh,\nWe lash with the best or worst\nWord last! How a lush-kept plush-capped sloe\nWill, mouthed to flesh-burst,\nGush!--flush the man, the being with it, sour or sweet,\nBrim, in a flash, full!--Hither then, last or first,\nTo hero of Calvary, Christ,’s feet--\nNever ask if meaning it, wanting it, warned of it--men go.\n\nBe adored among men,\nGod, three-numberĂ©d form;\nWring thy rebel, dogged in den,\nMan’s malice, with wrecking and storm.\nBeyond saying sweet, past telling of tongue,\nThou art lightning and love, I found it, a winter and warm;\nFather and fondler of heart thou hast wrung:\nHast thy dark descending and most art merciful then.\n\nWith an anvil-ding\nAnd with fire in him forge thy will\nOr rather, rather then, stealing as Spring\nThrough him, melt him but master him still:\nWhether at once, as once at a crash Paul,\nOr as Austin, a lingering-out swĂ©et skĂ­ll,\nMake mercy in all of us, out of us all\nMastery, but be adored, but be adored King.\n\n\n# II.\n\n“Some find me a sword; some\nThe flange and the rail; flame,\nFang, or flood” goes Death on drum,\nAnd storms bugle his fame.\nBut wĂ© drĂ©am we are rooted in earth--Dust!\nFlesh falls within sight of us, we, though our flower the same,\nWave with the meadow, forget that there must\nThe sour scythe cringe, and the blear share come.\n\nOn Saturday sailed from Bremen,\nAmerican-outward-bound,\nTake settler and seamen, tell men with women,\nTwo hundred souls in the round--\nO Father, not under thy feathers nor ever as guessing\nThe goal was a shoal, of a fourth the doom to be drowned;\nYet did the dark side of the bay of thy blessing\nNot vault them, the million of rounds of thy mercy not reeve even them in?\n\nInto the snows she sweeps,\nHurling the haven behind,\nThe Deutschland, on Sunday; and so the sky keeps,\nFor the infinite air is unkind,\nAnd the sea flint-flake, black-backed in the regular blow,\nSitting Eastnortheast, in cursed quarter, the wind;\nWiry and white-fiery and whirlwind-swivellĂšd snow\nSpins to the widow-making unchilding unfathering deeps.\n\nShe drove in the dark to leeward,\nShe struck--not a reef or a rock\nBut the combs of a smother of sand: night drew her\nDead to the Kentish Knock;\nAnd she beat the bank down with her bows and the ride of her keel:\nThe breakers rolled on her beam with ruinous shock;\nAnd canvass and compass, the whorl and the wheel\nIdle for ever to waft her or wind her with, these she endured.\n\nHope had grown grey hairs,\nHope had mourning on,\nTrenched with tears, carved with cares,\nHope was twelve hours gone;\nAnd frightful a nightfall folded rueful a day\nNor rescue, only rocket and lightship, shone,\nAnd lives at last were washing away:\nTo the shrouds they took,--they shook in the hurling and horrible airs.\n\nOne stirred from the rigging to save\nThe wild woman-kind below,\nWith a rope’s end round the man, handy and brave--\nHe was pitched to his death at a blow,\nFor all his dreadnought breast and braids of thew:\nThey could tell him for hours, dandled the to and fro\nThrough the cobbled foam-fleece, what could he do\nWith the burl of the fountains of air, buck and the flood of the wave?\n\nThey fought with God’s cold--\nAnd they could not and fell to the deck\n(Crushed them) or water (and drowned them) or rolled\nWith the sea-romp over the wreck.\nNight roared, with the heart-break hearing a heart-broke rabble,\nThe woman’s wailing, the crying of child without check--\nTill a lioness arose breasting the babble,\nA prophetess towered in the tumult, a virginal tongue told.\n\nAh, touched in your bower of bone\nAre you! turned for an exquisite smart,\nHave you! make words break from me here all alone,\nDo you!--mother of being in me, heart.\nO unteachably after evil, but uttering truth,\nWhy, tears! is it? tears; such a melting, a madrigal start!\nNever-eldering revel and river of youth,\nWhat can it be, this glee? the good you have there of your own?\n\nSister, a sister calling\nA master, her master and mine!--\nAnd the inboard seas run swirling and hawling;\nThe rash smart sloggering brine\nBlinds her; but she that weather sees one thing, one;\nHas one fetch in her: she rears herself to divine\nEars, and the call of the tall nun\nTo the men in the tops and the tackle rode over the storm’s brawling.\n\nShe was first of a five and came\nOf a coifĂšd sisterhood.\n(O Deutschland, double a desperate name!\nO world wide of its good!\nBut Gertrude, lily, and Luther, are two of a town,\nChrist’s lily and beast of the waste wood:\nFrom life’s dawn it is drawn down,\nAbel is Cain’s brother and breasts they have sucked the same.)\n\nLoathed for a love men knew in them,\nBanned by the land of their birth,\nRhine refused them, Thames would ruin them;\nSurf, snow, river and earth\nGnashed: but thou art above, thou Orion of light;\nThy unchancelling poising palms were weighing the worth,\nThou martyr-master: in thy sight\nStorm flakes were scroll-leaved flowers, lily showers--sweet heaven was astrew in them.\n\nFive! the finding and sake\nAnd cipher of suffering Christ.\nMark, the mark is of man’s make\nAnd the word of it Sacrificed.\nBut he scores it in scarlet himself on his own bespoken,\nBefore-time-taken, dearest prizĂšd and priced--\nStigma, signal, cinquefoil token\nFor lettering of the lamb’s fleece, ruddying of the rose-flake.\n\nJoy fall to thee, father Francis,\nDrawn to the Life that died;\nWith the gnarls of the nails in thee, niche of the lance, his\nLovescape crucified\nAnd seal of his seraph-arrival! and these thy daughters\nAnd five-livĂšd and leavĂšd favour and pride,\nAre sisterly sealed in wild waters,\nTo bathe in his fall-gold mercies, to breathe in his all-fire glances.\n\nAway in the loveable west,\nOn a pastoral forehead of Wales,\nI was under a roof here, I was at rest,\nAnd they the prey of the gales;\nShe to the black-about air, to the breaker, the thickly\nFalling flakes, to the throng that catches and quails\nWas calling “O Christ, Christ, come quickly”:\nThe cross to her she calls Christ to her, christens her wildworst Best.\n\nThe majesty! what did she mean?\nBreathe, arch and original Breath.\nIs it love in her of the being as her lover had been?\nBreathe, body of lovely Death.\nThey were else-minded then, altogether, the men\nWoke thee with a we are perishing in the weather of Gennesareth.\nOr Ă­s it that she cried for the crown then,\nThe keener to come at the comfort for feeling the combating keen?\n\nFor how to the heart’s cheering\nThe down-dugged ground-hugged grey\nHovers off, the jay-blue heavens appearing\nOf pied and peeled May!\nBlue-beating and hoary-glow height; or night, still higher,\nWith belled fire and the moth-soft Milky way,\nWhat by your measure is the heaven of desire,\nThe treasure never eyesight got, nor was ever guessed what for the hearing?\n\nNo, but it was not these.\nThe jading and jar of the cart,\nTime’s tasking, it is fathers that asking for ease\nOf the sodden-with-its-sorrowing heart,\nNot danger, electrical horror; then further it finds\nThe appealing of the Passion is tenderer in prayer apart:\nOther, I gather, in measure her mind’s\nBurden, in wind’s burly and beat of endragonĂšd seas.\n\nBut how shall I 
 make me room there:\nReach me a 
 Fancy, come faster--\nStrike you the sight of it? look at it loom there,\nThing that she 
 there then! the Master,\nIpse, the only one, Christ, King, Head:\nHe was to cure the extremity where he had cast her;\nDo, deal, lord it with living and dead;\nLet him ride, her pride, in his triumph, despatch and have done with his doom there.\n\nAh! there was a heart right\nThere was single eye!\nRead the unshapeable shock night\nAnd knew the who and the why;\nWording it how but by him that present and past,\nHeaven and earth are word of, worded by?--\nThe Simon Peter of a soul! to the blast\nTarpeian-fast, but a blown beacon of light.\n\nJesu, heart’s light,\nJesu, maid’s son,\nWhat was the feast followed the night\nThou hadst glory of this nun?--\nFeast of the one woman without stain.\nFor so conceivĂšd, so to conceive thee is done;\nBut here was heart-throe, birth of a brain,\nWord, that heard and kept thee and uttered thee outright.\n\nWell, she has thee for the pain, for the\nPatience; but pity of the rest of them!\nHeart, go and bleed at a bitterer vein for the\nComfortless unconfessed of them--\nNo not uncomforted: lovely-felicitous Providence\nFinger of a tender of, O of a feathery delicacy, the breast of the\nMaiden could obey so, be a bell to, ring of it, and\nStartle the poor sheep back! is the shipwrack then a harvest, does tempest carry the grain for thee?\n\nI admire thee, master of the tides,\nOf the Yore-flood, of the year’s fall;\nThe recurb and the recovery of the gulf’s sides,\nThe girth of it and the wharf of it and the wall;\nStaunching, quenching ocean of a motionable mind;\nGround of being, and granite of it: past all\nGrasp God, throned behind\nDeath with a sovereignty that heeds but hides, bodes but abides;\n\nWith a mercy that outrides\nThe all of water, an ark\nFor the listener; for the lingerer with a love glides\nLower than death and the dark;\nA vein for the visiting of the past-prayer, pent in prison,\nThe-last-breath penitent spirits--the uttermost mark\nOur passion-plungĂšd giant risen,\nThe Christ of the Father compassionate, fetched in the storm of his strides.\n\nNow burn, new born to the world,\nDoubled-naturĂšd name,\nThe heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled\nMiracle-in-Mary-of-flame,\nMid-numbered he in three of the thunder-throne!\nNot a dooms-day dazzle in his coming nor dark as he came;\nKind, but royally reclaiming his own;\nA released shower, let flash to the shire, not a lightning of fĂ­re hard-hurled.\n\nDame, at our door\nDrowned, and among our shoals,\nRemember us in the roads, the heaven-haven of the Reward:\nOur KĂ­ng back, Oh, upon Ă©nglish sĂłuls!\nLet him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east,\nMore brightening her, rare-dear Britain, as his reign rolls,\nPride, rose, prince, hero of us, high-priest,\nOur hearts’ charity’s hearth’s fire, our thoughts’ chivalry’s throng’s Lord.", "metadata": { + "place": "Wales", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1875, "month": "december" }, - "place": "Wales", - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -47645,10 +48993,10 @@ "title": "“For all the saints 
”", "body": "For all the saints who from their labor rest,\nWho Thee by faith before the world confessed,\nThy name, O Jesus, be forever blessed,\n_Alleluia! Alleluia!_\n\nO blest communion, fellowship divine.\nWe feebly struggle, they in glory shine;\nYet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.\n_Alleluia! Alleluia!_\n\nAnd when the fight is fierce, the warfare long,\nSteals on the ear the distant triumph song,\nAnd hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.\n_Alleluia! Alleluia!_\n\nFrom earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,\nThrough gates of pearl streams in the countless host,\nSinging to Father, Son and Holy Ghost,\n_Alleluia! Alleluia!_", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1864 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "all_saints" @@ -48360,11 +49708,13 @@ "title": "“Katyusha”", "body": "All the apple and pear trees are in blossom,\nMorning fogs along the river creep,\nAnd the girl, Katyusha, young and lovesome,\nComes the river bank that’s high and steep.\n\nShe walks out and starts a song about\nHer brave boy--a steppe dove-colored eagle,\nHow she waits for him, without doubt\nTo his letters glad she’s been and will.\n\nLet you, song, according to her order\nFly to heights, and follow the Earth,\nTo the soldier at the country’s border\nFrom Katyusha bring the greeting warmth.\n\nLet him hear the song true and sincere,\nBy the honest girl sent as a dove.\nLet him keep safe earth beloved, dear,\nAnd Katyusha will take care of love.\n\nAll the apple and pear trees are in blossom,\nMorning fogs along the river creep,\nAnd the girl, Katyusha, young and lovesome,\nComes the river bank that’s high and steep.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vyacheslav Chistyakov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vyacheslav Chistyakov" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -48375,11 +49725,13 @@ "title": "“A Lonely Accordion”", "body": "All is frozen till dawn and only\n(No creak of a door, no light)\nOnly someone’s accordion lonely\nStrolls about the streets whole night.\n\nIn the fields he is going now,\nThen comes back, as if changing his mind,\nLike he’s looking for someone around\nBut, in no way, manage to find.\n\nAt midnight the whole village is sleeping.\nFrom the apple trees flowers fall 
\nYou just tell, what is it you are seeking.\nYou confess, who is she, if at all.\n\nIt may be she is near, but only\nDoesn’t know, you’re looking for her.\nWhy are you strolling the whole night lonely,\nJust in vain waking up other girls?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Gurvich", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1945 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Gurvich" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -48425,11 +49777,13 @@ "title": "“The Alpine Horn”", "body": "Far up in empty mountains I met a shepherd\nBlowing low notes on a long alpine horn.\nFlowing pleasantly and loud, both song\nAnd horn were merely instruments for waking\nA more captivating mountain melody.\nEach time, after a few notes, the shepherd listened\nAs the echo traveled back through narrow gorges\nWith indescribably sweet resonance,\nAnd I imagined an unseen choir of spirits\nWith instruments not of this earth translating\nEarth’s utterings into the language of heaven.\nAnd I thought: “Genius! Like this alpine horn\nYou must sing a song of earth to wake in hearts\nAnother song. Blessed is he who hears.”\nAnd from the mountains rang an answering voice:\n“Nature is a symbol, like this horn\nSounding for the sound of the answer--God.\nBlessed is he who hears both song and answer.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "George M. Young", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1902 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "George M. Young" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -48437,11 +49791,13 @@ "title": "“The Vineyard of Dionysus”", "body": "Dionysus walks his vineyard, his beloved;\nTwo women in dark clothing--two vintagers--follow him.\nDionysus tells the two mournful guards--The vintagers:\n“Take your sharp knife, my vintners, Grief and Torment;\nHarvest, Grief and Torment, my beloved grapes!\nGather the blood of scarlet bunches, the tears of my golden clusters--\nTake the victim of bliss to the whetstone of grief,\nThe purple of suffering to the whetstone of bliss;\nPour the fervent liquid of scarlet delights into my ardent Grail!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anonymous", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1902 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Anonymous" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -48484,8 +49840,10 @@ "title": "“Without You”", "body": "In spite of all your dream-world’s straying vapour,\nAnd all the mist that cloaks the cosmic earth,\nI still can read in all your gaze’s coldness\nWhat others could not see, for what it’s worth.\n\nAnd now, forgetting all my daily worries\nAnd all the friends with whom I’ve broken bread,\nOn rocky road I will not come towards you\nlike lunatic who from the moon has fled.\n\nSo let the heavens judge our brooding’s feelings\nAnd let them send us thunder or a lull.\nWithout you, life is sad and agonising,\nAlone with you, you all my senses dull.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rupert Moreton", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Rupert Moreton" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -48542,7 +49900,6 @@ "title": "“Guardian Angel”", "body": "I am the bird that flutters against your window in the morning,\nand your closest friend, whom you can never know,\nblossoms that light up for the blind.\n\nI am the glacier shining over the woods, so pale,\nand heavy voices from the cathedral tower.\nThe thought that suddenly hits you in the middle of the day\nand makes you feel so fantastically happy.\n\nI am the one you have loved for many years.\nI walk beside you all day and look intently at you\nand put my mouth against your heart\nthough you’re not aware of it.\n\nI am your third arm, your second\nshadow, the white one,\nwhom you cannot accept,\nand who can never forget you.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Norwegian", "source": { "title": "The Winged Energy of Delight", @@ -48552,6 +49909,9 @@ "month": "june" } }, + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "guardian_angels" @@ -48562,7 +49922,6 @@ "title": "“The Silence Afterwards”", "body": "Try to be done now\nwith deliberately provocative actions and sales statistics,\nbrunches and gas ovens,\nbe done with fashion shows and horoscopes,\nmilitary parades, architectural contests, and the rows of triple traffic lights.\nCome through all that and be through\nwith getting ready for parties and eight possibilities\nof winning on the numbers,\ncost of living indexes and stock market analyses,\nbecause it is too late,\nit is way too late,\nget through with and come home\nto the silence afterwards\nthat meets you like warm blood hitting your forehead\nand like thunder on the way\nand the sound of great clocks striking\nthat make the eardrums quiver,\nbecause words don’t exist any longer,\nthere are no more words,\nfrom now on all talk will take place\nwith the voices stones and trees have.\n\nThe silence that lives in the grass\non the underside of every blade\nand in the blue spaces between the stones.\nThe silence\nthat follows shots and birdsong.\nThe silence\nthat pulls a blanket over the dead body\nand waits in the stairs until everyone is gone.\nThe silence\nthat lies like a small bird between your hands,\nthe only friend you have.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Norwegian", "source": { "title": "The Roads Have Come to an End Now", @@ -48571,6 +49930,9 @@ "year": 2001 } }, + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -49125,8 +50487,10 @@ "title": "“Full Moon”", "body": "The door is open,\nthe cricket is singing.\nAre you going around naked\nin the fields?\n\nLike an immortal water,\ngoing in and out of everything.\nAre you going around naked\nin the air?\n\nThe basil is not asleep,\nthe ant is busy.\nAre you going around naked\nin the house?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -49150,8 +50514,10 @@ "title": "“Oceans”", "body": "I have a feeling that my boat\nhas struck, down there in the depths,\nagainst a great thing. And nothing\nhappens! Nothing 
 Silence 
 Waves 
\n\n--Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,\nand are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -49170,8 +50536,10 @@ "title": "“The street is waiting for the night 
”", "body": "The street is waiting for the night.\nAll is history and silence.\nThe trees along the walk\nare asleep along the sky.\n\nAnd the sad sky is violet.\nan April sky, beautiful\nviolet sky with gentle\npreludes of starlight.\n\nNow the lamps are shining\nat the barred windows. A dog whines\nat a closed door. A black cat\ntwirls in the smooth sky 
\n\nAh! that yellow lamp,\nthe peace of the blind children,\nthe nostalgia of the widows,\nthe presence of the dead!\n\nAnd the stories that we told\non those April evenings\nthat have never returned,\nwhile we gazed at the stars!\n\nAnd the darkness is falling,\nsweet and great and peaceful,\namong the distant murmurs\nof the little villages 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lysander Kemp", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Lysander Kemp" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -49182,8 +50550,10 @@ "title": "“Who knows what is going on 
”", "body": "Who knows what is going on on the other side of each hour?\n\nHow many times the sunrise was there, behind a mountain!\n\nHow many times the brilliant cloud piling up far off was already a golden body full of thunder!\n\nThis rose was poison.\n\nThat sword gave life.\n\nI was thinking of a flowery meadow at the end of a road, and found myself in the slough.\n\nI was thinking of the greatness of what was human, and found myself in the divine.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -49191,8 +50561,10 @@ "title": "“You are carrying me, full consciousness 
”", "body": "You are carrying me, full consciousness,\ngod that has desires,\nall through the world.\nHere, in the third sea,\nI almost hear your voice: your voice, the wind,\nfilling entirely all movements;\neternal colors and eternal lights,\nsea colors and sea lights.\n\nYour voice of white fire\nin the universe of water, the ship, the sky,\nmarking out the roads with delight,\nengraving for me with a blazing light my firm orbit:\na black body with the glowing diamond in its center.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -49252,8 +50624,10 @@ "title": "“Dark Night of the Soul”", "body": "On a dark night,\nKindled in love with yearnings\n--oh, happy chance!--\nI went forth without being observed,\nMy house being now at rest.\n\nIn darkness and secure,\nBy the secret ladder, disguised\n--oh, happy chance!--\nIn darkness and in concealment,\nMy house being now at rest.\n\nIn the happy night,\nIn secret, when none saw me,\nNor I beheld aught,\nWithout light or guide,\nsave that which burned in my heart.\n\nThis light guided me\nMore surely than the light of noonday\nTo the place where he (well I knew who!)\nwas awaiting me--\nA place where none appeared.\n\nOh, night that guided me,\nOh, night more lovely than the dawn,\nOh, night that joined\nBeloved with lover,\nLover transformed in the Beloved!\n\nUpon my flowery breast,\nKept wholly for himself alone,\nThere he stayed sleeping,\nand I caressed him,\nAnd the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.\n\nThe breeze blew from the turret\nAs I parted his locks;\nWith his gentle hand\nhe wounded my neck\nAnd caused all my senses to be suspended.\n\nI remained, lost in oblivion;\nMy face I reclined on the Beloved.\nAll ceased and I abandoned myself,\nLeaving my cares\nforgotten among the lilies.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edgar Allison Peers", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Edgar Allison Peers" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_john_of_the_cross" @@ -49264,8 +50638,10 @@ "title": "“Full of hope I climbed the day 
”", "body": "Full of hope I climbed the day\nwhile hunting the game of love,\nand soared so high, high above\nthat I at last caught my prey.\n\nIn order to seize the game\n--the divine love in the sky--\nI had to fly so high, high\nI floated unseen and became\nlost in that dangerous day;\nand so my flight fell short of\nheight--yet so high was my love\nthat I at last caught my prey.\n\nDazzled and stunned by light\nas I rose nearer the sun,\nmy greatest conquest was won\nin the very black of night.\nYet since love opened my way\nI leapt dark, blindly above\nand was so high, near my love,\nthat at last I caught my prey.\n\nIn this most exalted quest\nthe higher I began to soar\nthe lower I felt--more sore\nand broken and depressed.\nI said: None can seize the prey!\nand groveled so low, so low\nthat high, higher did I go,\nand at last I caught my prey.\n\nBy strange reckoning I saw\na thousand flights in one flight;\nfor hope of heavenly light\nis achieved by hoping now.\nI hoped only for this way\nand was right to wait for love,\nand climbed so high, high above\nthat at last I caught my prey.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Willis Barnstone", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Willis Barnstone" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_john_of_the_cross" @@ -49276,8 +50652,10 @@ "title": "“I entered the unknown 
”", "body": "_I entered the unknown,\nand there I remained unknowing,\nall knowledge transcended._\n\nWhere I entered I knew not,\nbut seeing myself there,\nnot knowing where,\ngreat things then made themselves known.\nWhat I sensed I cannot say,\nfor I remained unknowing,\n_all knowledge transcended._\n\nIn this peace and purity\nwas perfect knowledge.\nIn profoundest solitude\nI understood with absolute clarity\nsomething so secret\nthat I was left stammering,\n_all knowledge transcended._\n\nSo deep was I within,\nso absorbed, transported,\nthat all senses fled,\nand outer awareness fell away.\nMy spirit received the gift\nof unknowing knowing,\n_all knowledge transcended._\n\nHe who reaches this realm\nloses himself,\nfor all he once knew\nnow is beneath his notice,\nand his mind so expands\nthat he remains unknowing,\n_all knowledge transcended._\n\nAnd the higher he rises\nthe less he knows:\nThat is the dark cloud\nthat shines in the night.\nThe one who knows this\nalways remains unknowing,\n_all knowledge transcended._\n\nThis knowing by unknowing\nis of such exalted power,\nthat the disputations of the learned\nfail to grasp it,\nfor their knowledge does not reach\nto knowing by unknowing,\n_all knowledge transcended._\n\nOf such supreme perfection\nis this knowledge\nthat no faculty or method of mind\ncan comprehend it;\nbut he who conquers himself\nwith this unknowing knowing,\n_will always transcend._\n\nAnd if you are ready to receive it,\nthis sum of all knowledge is discovered\nin the deepest ecstasy\nof the Divine Essence.\nGoodness and grace\ngrant us this unknowing,\n_all knowledge transcended._", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ivan M. Granger", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Ivan M. Granger" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_john_of_the_cross" @@ -49288,8 +50666,10 @@ "title": "“Love’s Living Flame”", "body": "O love’s living flame,\nso softly do you sear\nthe deepest center of my soul!\nNow that you no longer shy away,\nend this game, I beg of you, today:\n\nRip open the veil separating us\nin this sweet rendezvous!\n\nO tender burn!\nO burning boon!\nO gentle hand!\nO delicate caress,\nthat infers eternal life\nand renders all debts paid!\nKilling,\ndeath into life you have made!\n\nO beacons of fire,\nin whose splendor\nthe blind, dark\ndeep grottoes\nof the senses,\nwith strange and stately art,\nwarm and enlighten,\nand win my love!\n\nHow tenderly is your memory\ncherished in my breast,\nwhere you alone reside and in secret rest:\nHere I taste in your perfumed breath\ngoodness a-flood with glory--\n\nHow gracefully you’ve won my love!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ivan M. Granger", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Ivan M. Granger" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_john_of_the_cross" @@ -49300,8 +50680,10 @@ "title": "“Not for all the beauty 
”", "body": "_Not for all the beauty\nwill I ever be lost,\nbut for I-know-not-what\nthat by fortune I may reach._\n\nThe taste of what is finite,\nGoes only as far\nAs to weary the appetite\nAnd destroy the taste;\nThus not for sweetness\nWill I ever be lost,\nBut for I-know-not-what\n_That by fortune I may reach._\n\nThe generous heart\nNever cares to stop\nWhere it is easy to cross,\nBut tries where it is hard;\nNothing satisfies him,\nAnd with faith he climbs so high,\nThat he tastes I-know-not-what\n_That by fortune I may reach._\n\nHe who is pierced by love,\nOr touched by the divine,\nHas his taste so changed\nThat to all taste he is dead;\nAs someone may leave\nThe food he sees when he is sick,\nAnd craves for I-know-not-what\n_That by fortune I may reach._\n\nDo not be surprised\nThat taste be thus changed,\nFor the cause of this evil\nIs alien to all the rest;\nThus every creature\nSees itself estranged,\nAnd tastes I-know-not-what\n_That by fortune I may reach._\n\nFor as soon as the will\nis touched from above,\nIt cannot be satisfied\nBut with the divine;\nIts beauty being such\nThat only faith may show it,\nFor it tastes of I-know-not-what\n_That by fortune I may reach._\n\nTell me if for such a lover,\nYou will feel any pain,\nFor he finds no pleasure\nAmong created things;\nAlone, with no figure or shape,\nWithout company or even memory,\nExcept the taste of I-know-not-what\n_That by fortune I may reach._\n\nDo not think that the soul,\nThat is worth much more,\nFinds joy and happiness\nIn what on earth gives taste;\nIt is beyond beauty,\nIn what is, was or will be,\nThat it tastes I-know-not-what\n_That by fortune I may reach._\n\nWhoever wants to advance\nWould better use care\nIn what is left to gain\nThan in what he has already won;\nAnd thus aiming for the heights,\nI will always try\nFor that I-know-not-what\n_That by fortune I may reach._\n\nWhat comes through the senses\nAnd may here be understood\nAnd whatever may be learned,\nEven though very high,\nNot for all that beauty\nWill I ever be lost,\nBut for that I-know-not-what\n_That by fortune I may reach._", "metadata": { - "translator": "Antonio T. de Nicolas", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Antonio T. de Nicolas" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_john_of_the_cross" @@ -49312,8 +50694,10 @@ "title": "“On the Communion of the Three Persons”", "body": "Born of the limitless love\nflooding from them both,\nthe Father sang words\nof celebration to the Son,\n\nWords of such sweet delight\nnone can truly know.\nIn his solitude the Son rejoiced,\nwhispered as they were for him alone.\n\nHere, though, is the sum\nof what in secret was said:\n--“Nothing, my Son, satisfies me,\nsave your company.”\n\n“When a thing is sweet,\nthrough you alone do I taste it.\nThe more of you I savor,\nthe more do I smile.”\n\n“What is unlike you,\nis flavorless to me.\nYou alone are my joy,\nlife of my life!”\n\n“You are the fire of my fire,\nmy knowing.\nYou are the form of my substance.\nIn you am I well pleased.”\n\n“Whoever gives his love to you, my Son,\nto him I give myself.\nHim I fill\nwith the love I feel for you\njust for making you beloved,\nmy Beloved.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ivan M. Granger", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Ivan M. Granger" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "trinity_sunday" @@ -49324,8 +50708,10 @@ "title": "“Song of the Soul That Delights in Knowing God by Faith”", "body": "_Well I know the fountain that runs and flows,\nthough it is night!_\n\nThis eternal fountain is hidden deep.\nWell I know where it has its spring,\n_Though it is night!_\n\nIn this life’s dark night,\nFaith has taught where this cold fountain lies,\n_Though it is night!_\n\nIts origin I cannot know, it has none,\nAnd I know all origins come from it,\n_Though it is night!_\n\nAnd I know there can be nothing more fair,\nThe heavens and earth drink there,\n_Though it is night!_\n\nAnd I know it has no bed,\nAnd I know no one can cross its depths,\n_Though it is night!_\n\nIts clarity is never clouded,\nAnd I know all light shines from it,\n_Though it is night!_\n\nI know her streams swell so abundantly,\nThey water people, heaven and even hell,\n_Though it is night!_\n\nThe current born of this fountain\nI know to be wide and mighty,\n_Though it is night!_\n\nAnd from these two another stream flows,\nAnd I know neither comes before,\n_Though it is night!_\n\nI know Three in only one water live,\nAnd each the other feeds,\n_Though it is night!_\n\nThis eternal fountain is hiding from sight\nWithin this living bread to give us life,\n_Though it is night!_\n\nHe calls all creatures to this light,\nAnd of this water they drink, though in the dark,\n_Though it is night!_\n\nThis living fountain I desire,\nI see it here within this living bread,\n_Though it is night!_", "metadata": { - "translator": "Antonio T. de Nicolas", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Antonio T. de Nicolas" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_john_of_the_cross" @@ -49336,11 +50722,13 @@ "title": "“A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ”", "body": "> _The Bride:_\n\nWhere have You hidden Yourself,\nAnd abandoned me in my groaning, O my Beloved?\nYou have fled like the hart,\nHaving wounded me.\nI ran after You, crying; but You were gone.\n\nO shepherds, you who go\nThrough the sheepcots up the hill,\nIf you shall see Him\nWhom I love the most,\nTell Him I languish, suffer, and die.\n\nIn search of my Love\nI will go over mountains and strands;\nI will gather no flowers,\nI will fear no wild beasts;\nAnd pass by the mighty and the frontiers.\n\nO groves and thickets\nPlanted by the hand of the Beloved;\nO verdant meads\nEnameled with flowers,\nTell me, has He passed by you?\n\n\n> _Answer of the Creatures:_\n\nA thousand graces diffusing\nHe passed through the groves in haste,\nAnd merely regarding them\nAs He passed\nClothed them with His beauty.\n\n\n> _The Bride:_\n\nOh! who can heal me?\nGive me at once Yourself,\nSend me no more\nA messenger\nWho cannot tell me what I wish.\n\nAll they who serve are telling me\nOf Your unnumbered graces;\nAnd all wound me more and more,\nAnd something leaves me dying,\nI know not what, of which they are darkly speaking.\n\nBut how you persevere, O life,\nNot living where you live;\nThe arrows bring death\nWhich you receive\nFrom your conceptions of the Beloved.\n\nWhy, after wounding\nThis heart, have You not healed it?\nAnd why, after stealing it,\nHave You thus abandoned it,\nAnd not carried away the stolen prey?\n\nQuench my troubles,\nFor no one else can soothe them;\nAnd let my eyes behold You,\nFor You are their light,\nAnd I will keep them for You alone.\n\nReveal Your presence,\nAnd let the vision and Your beauty kill me,\nBehold the malady\nOf love is incurable\nExcept in Your presence and before Your face.\n\nO crystal well!\nOh that on Your silvered surface\nYou would mirror forth at once\nThose eyes desired\nWhich are outlined in my heart!\n\nTurn them away, O my Beloved!\nI am on the wing:\n\n\n> _The Bridegroom:_\n\nReturn, My Dove!\nThe wounded hart\nLooms on the hill\nIn the air of your flight and is refreshed.\n\n\n> _The Bride:_\n\nMy Beloved is the mountains,\nThe solitary wooded valleys,\nThe strange islands,\nThe roaring torrents,\nThe whisper of the amorous gales;\n\nThe tranquil night\nAt the approaches of the dawn,\nThe silent music,\nThe murmuring solitude,\nThe supper which revives, and enkindles love.\n\nCatch us the foxes,\nFor our vineyard has flourished;\nWhile of roses\nWe make a nosegay,\nAnd let no one appear on the hill.\n\nO killing north wind, cease!\nCome, south wind, that awakens love!\nBlow through my garden,\nAnd let its odors flow,\nAnd the Beloved shall feed among the flowers.\n\nO nymphs of Judea!\nWhile amid the flowers and the rose-trees\nThe amber sends forth its perfume,\nTarry in the suburbs,\nAnd touch not our thresholds.\n\nHide yourself, O my Beloved!\nTurn Your face to the mountains,\nDo not speak,\nBut regard the companions\nOf her who is traveling amidst strange islands.\n\n\n> _The Bridegroom_:\n\nLight-winged birds,\nLions, fawns, bounding does,\nMountains, valleys, strands,\nWaters, winds, heat,\nAnd the terrors that keep watch by night;\n\nBy the soft lyres\nAnd the siren strains, I adjure you,\nLet your fury cease,\nAnd touch not the wall,\nThat the bride may sleep in greater security.\n\nThe bride has entered\nThe pleasant and desirable garden,\nAnd there reposes to her heart’s content;\nHer neck reclining\nOn the sweet arms of the Beloved.\n\nBeneath the apple-tree\nThere were you betrothed;\nThere I gave you My hand,\nAnd you were redeemed\nWhere your mother was corrupted.\n\n\n> _The Bride:_\n\nOur bed is of flowers\nBy dens of lions encompassed,\nHung with purple,\nMade in peace,\nAnd crowned with a thousand shields of gold.\n\nIn Your footsteps\nThe young ones run Your way;\nAt the touch of the fire\nAnd by the spiced wine,\nThe divine balsam flows.\n\nIn the inner cellar\nOf my Beloved have I drunk; and when I went forth\nOver all the plain\nI knew nothing,\nAnd lost the flock I followed before.\n\nThere He gave me His breasts,\nThere He taught me the science full of sweetness.\nAnd there I gave to Him\nMyself without reserve;\nThere I promised to be His bride.\n\nMy soul is occupied,\nAnd all my substance in His service;\nNow I guard no flock,\nNor have I any other employment:\nMy sole occupation is love.\n\nIf, then, on the common land\nI am no longer seen or found,\nYou will say that I am lost;\nThat, being enamored,\nI lost myself; and yet was found.\n\nOf emeralds, and of flowers\nIn the early morning gathered,\nWe will make the garlands,\nFlowering in Your love,\nAnd bound together with one hair of my head.\n\nBy that one hair\nYou have observed fluttering on my neck,\nAnd on my neck regarded,\nYou were captivated;\nAnd wounded by one of my eyes.\n\nWhen You regarded me,\nYour eyes imprinted in me Your grace:\nFor this You loved me again,\nAnd thereby my eyes merited\nTo adore what in You they saw\n\nDespise me not,\nFor if I was swarthy once\nYou can regard me now;\nSince You have regarded me,\nGrace and beauty have You given me.\n\n\n> _The Bridegroom:_\n\nThe little white dove\nHas returned to the ark with the bough;\nAnd now the turtle-dove\nIts desired mate\nOn the green banks has found.\n\nIn solitude she lived,\nAnd in solitude built her nest;\nAnd in solitude, alone\nHas the Beloved guided her,\nIn solitude also wounded with love.\n\n\n> _The Bride:_\n\nLet us rejoice, O my Beloved!\nLet us go forth to see ourselves in Your beauty,\nTo the mountain and the hill,\nWhere the pure water flows:\nLet us enter into the heart of the thicket.\n\nWe shall go at once\nTo the deep caverns of the rock\nWhich are all secret,\nThere we shall enter in\nAnd taste of the new wine of the pomegranate.\n\nThere you will show me\nThat which my soul desired;\nAnd there You will give at once,\nO You, my life!\nThat which You gave me the other day.\n\nThe breathing of the air,\nThe song of the sweet nightingale,\nThe grove and its beauty\nIn the serene night,\nWith the flame that consumes, and gives no pains.\n\nNone saw it;\nNeither did Aminadab appear\nThe siege was intermitted,\nAnd the cavalry dismounted\nAt the sight of the waters.", "metadata": { - "translator": "David Lewis", "tags": [ "favorite" ], "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "David Lewis" + ], "context": { "holiday": "saint_john_of_the_cross" } @@ -49350,8 +50738,10 @@ "title": "“Stanzas Of The Soul That Suffers With Longing To See God”", "body": "I live, but not in myself,\nand I have such hope\nthat I die because I do not die.\n\n\n# 1.\n\nI no longer live within myself\nand I cannot live without God,\nfor having neither him nor myself\nwhat will life be?\nIt will be a thousand deaths,\nlonging for my true life\nand dying because I do not die.\n\n\n# 2.\n\nThis life that I live\nis no life at all,\nand so I die continually\nuntil I live with you;\nhear me, my God:\nI do not desire this life,\nI am dying because I do not die.\n\n\n# 3.\n\nWhen I am away from you\nwhat life can I have\nexcept to endure\nthe bitterest death known?\nI pity myself,\nfor I go on and on living,\ndying because I do not die.\n\n\n# 4.\n\nA fish that leaves the water\nhas this relief:\nthe dying it endures\nends at last in death.\nWhat death can equal my pitiable life?\nFor the longer I live, the more drawn out is my dying.\n\n\n# 5.\n\nWhen I try to find relief\nseeing you in the Sacrament,\nI find this greater sorrow:\nI cannot enjoy you wholly.\nAll things are affliction\nsince I do not see you as I desire,\nand I die because I do not die.\n\n\n# 6.\n\nAnd if I rejoice, Lord,\nin the hope of seeing you,\nyet seeing I can lose you\ndoubles my sorrow.\nLiving in such fear\nand hoping as I hope,\nI die because I do not die.\n\n\n# 7.\n\nLift me from this death,\nmy God, and give me life;\ndo not hold me bound\nwith these bonds so strong;\nsee how I long to see you;\nmy wretchedness is so complete\nthat I die because I do not die.\n\n\n# 8.\n\nI will cry out for death\nand mourn my living\nwhile I am held here\nfor my sins.\nO my God, when will it be\nthat I can truly say:\nnow I live because I do not die?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Willis Barnstone", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Willis Barnstone" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_john_of_the_cross" @@ -49362,8 +50752,10 @@ "title": "“The Sum of Perfection”", "body": "Creation forgotten,\nCreator only known,\nAttention turned inward\nIn love with the Beloved alone.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ivan M. Granger", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Ivan M. Granger" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_john_of_the_cross" @@ -49374,8 +50766,10 @@ "title": "“Without a place and with a place 
”", "body": "Without a place and with a place\nto rest--living darkly with no ray\nof light--I burn my self away.\n\nMy soul--no longer bound--is free\nfrom the creations of the world;\nabove itself it rises hurled\ninto a life of ecstasy,\nleaning only on God. The world\nwill therefore clarify at last\nwhat I esteem of highest grace:\nmy soul revealing it can rest\nwithout a place and with a place.\n\nAlthough I suffer a dark night\nin mortal life, I also know\nmy agony is slight, for though\nI am in darkness without light,\na clear heavenly life I know;\nfor love gives power to my life,\nhowever black and blind my day,\nto yield my soul, and free of strife\nto rest--living darkly with no ray.\n\nLove can perform a wondrous labor\nwhich I have learned internally,\nand all the good or bad in me\ntakes on a penetrating savor,\nchanging my soul so it can be\nconsumed in a delicious flame.\nI feel it in me as a ray;\nand quickly killing every trace\nof light--I burn my self away.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Willis Barnstone", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Willis Barnstone" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_john_of_the_cross" @@ -49733,10 +51127,10 @@ "title": "“Warning”", "body": "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple\nWith a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.\nAnd I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves\nAnd satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.\nI shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired\nAnd gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells\nAnd run my stick along the public railings\nAnd make up for the sobriety of my youth.\nI shall go out in my slippers in the rain\nAnd pick flowers in other people’s gardens\nAnd learn to spit.\n\nYou can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat\nAnd eat three pounds of sausages at a go\nOr only bread and pickle for a week\nAnd hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.\n\nBut now we must have clothes that keep us dry\nAnd pay our rent and not swear in the street\nAnd set a good example for the children.\nWe must have friends to dinner and read the papers.\n\nBut maybe I ought to practise a little now?\nSo people who know me are not too shocked and surprised\nWhen suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1961 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -50248,8 +51642,10 @@ "title": "“The Time Before Death”", "body": "Friend? hope for the Guest while you are alive.\nJump into experience while you are alive!\nThink 
 and think 
 while you are alive.\nWhat you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death.\n\nIf you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,\ndo you think ghosts will do it after?\n\nThe idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic\njust because the body is rotten--\nthat is all fantasy.\nWhat is found now is found then.\nIf you find nothing now,\nyou will simply end up with an apartment in the\n City of Death.\nIf you make love with the divine now, in the next\nlife you will have the face of satisfied desire.\n\nSo plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,\nBelieve in the Great Sound!\n\nKabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,\nit is the intensity of the longing for the Guest\nthat does all the work.\n\nLook at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Hindi", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -50375,20 +51771,36 @@ "name": "Kostas Kariotakis", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1896 + "year": 1896, + "month": "november", + "day": 11 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Tripoli", + "country": "Greece" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1928 - } + "year": 1928, + "month": "july", + "day": 20 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Preveza", + "country": "Greece" + }, + "cause": "suicide" }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ "poet" ], "education": null, - "movement": [], + "movement": [ + "Expressionism", + "Surrealism" + ], "religion": null, "nationality": [ "greece" @@ -50399,7 +51811,9 @@ "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kostas_Karyotakis", "favorite": false, "tags": [ - "Greek" + "Greek", + "Expressionism", + "Surrealism" ] }, "poems": { @@ -50407,8 +51821,11 @@ "title": "“Lives”", "body": "And so they go and die the same way they live.\n\nI speak of lives given to the light\nof serene love, and while they flow\nlike streams, they keep that light inside\neternally inseparable, just as\nthe sky glints in rivers,\njust as suns flow through the skies.\nI speak of lives given to the light 
\n\nI speak of brief lives draping\na woman’s rubied lips, just as\nvotive offerings, silver hearts, are draped\non the icon-screen up front.\nThese lives on a woman’s beloved lips\nare likewise humble and true.\nI speak of brief lives draping 
\n\nNo one mistrusts them.\nJust as--quiet and dark\nand foreign and sad--they follow\nthe footstep, the idea of a lithe woman\n(and she isn’t mistrusted), so they\nwill droop toward the earth, will fade quietly.\nNo one mistrusts them 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Keith Taylor & William W. Reader", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Keith Taylor", + "William W. Reader" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -50416,8 +51833,11 @@ "title": "“Nostalgia”", "body": "From the depth of good times\nour loves greet us bitterly\n\nYou’re not in love, you say, and you don’t remember.\nAnd if your heart has filled and you shed the tears\nthat you couldn’t shed like you did at first,\nyou’re not in love and you don’t remember, even though you cry.\n\nSuddenly you’ll see two blue eyes\n--how long it’s been!--that you caressed one night;\nas though inside yourself you hear\nan old unhappiness stirring and waking up.\n\nThese memories of time past\nwill begin their danse macabre;\nand like then, your bitter tear will\nwell up on your eyelid and fall.\n\nThe eyes suspended--pale suns--\nthe light that thaws the frozen heart,\nthe dead loves that begin to stir,\nthe old sorrows that again ignite 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Keith Taylor & William W. Reader", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Keith Taylor", + "William W. Reader" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -50425,8 +51845,10 @@ "title": "“Posthumous Fame”", "body": "Our death is needed by the boundless nature all around\nand is craved by the purple mouths of flowers.\nIf Spring were again to come, it will again leave us,\nand then we shall not even be shadows of other shadows.\n\nOur death is awaited by the bright sunlight.\nTo experience another such triumphant dusk,\nand then to leave those April evenings,\nfor the distant kingdoms of the dark.\n\nOnly our lines may stay behind us,\nten solitary lines just to remain, like\npigeons scattered by castaways at luck,\nbut when the message comes it is already late.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Haris Stavrakis", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Haris Stavrakis" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -50434,8 +51856,10 @@ "title": "“Preveza”", "body": "Death is the bullies bashing\nagainst the black walls and roof tiling,\ndeath is the women being loved\nin the course of onion peeling.\n\nDeath the squalid, unimportant streets\nwith their glamorous and pompous names,\nthe olive-grove, the surrounding sea, and even\nthe sun, death among all other deaths.\n\nDeath the policeman bending over\nto weigh, a “lacking” portion,\ndeath the harebells on the balcony\nand the teacher with the newspaper.\n\nBase, Guard, Sixty-man Prevezian Rule.\nOn Sunday we’ll listen to the band.\nI’ve taken out a savings booklet,\nmy first deposit drachmas thirty one.\n\nWalking slowly on the quay,\n“do I exist?” you say, and then: “you do not!”\nThe ship approaches. The flag is flying.\nPerhaps Mr. Prefect will be coming.\n\nIf at least, among these people,\none would die of sheer disgust\nsilent, bereaved, with humble manners,\nat the funeral we’d all have fun.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Haris Stavrakis", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Haris Stavrakis" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "sunday" @@ -50446,8 +51870,10 @@ "title": "“A Story”", "body": "At sixteen they laughed\nyonder, in the springtime afternoon.\nLater their lips became silent\nand in their heart old age did intrude.\nThey had set out as friends\ntwo dry leaves upon the ground.\nLater they even went apart\non some autumn afternoon.\nNow each of them, with lips all pale,\nstooping, kisses his bonds.\nLater they shall bend completely down\nand will pass into the ground.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Haris Stavrakis", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Haris Stavrakis" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -50455,8 +51881,11 @@ "title": "“Strophes”", "body": "1.\n\nFor twenty years I gambled\nwith books instead of cards;\nfor twenty years I gambled\nand I squandered my life.\nPoor now I lie down here\nto listen to an easy wisdom\nwhich an old plane tree\nwhispers to me.\n\n\n2.\n\nFree from everything I want\nto sail to the end of the world.\nIf I have any friend left,\nhe should flee, escape.\nAnd when death demands\nthe wealth I’ve amassed,\nyou, my vast bitterness,\nwill be my only estate.\n\n\n3.\n\nYou told me about your life,\nabout the loss of youth,\nabout our love which cries\nover its own death,\nand while in your eyes,\nthe hint of a tear glinted\nbriefly, through the open window\nbright sunlight entered.\n\n\n4.\n\nWhy do I squander my days\none after another?\nAnd as my hair grays\nso the wine turns sour.\nOnly when I gaze\nthrough a crystal glass\nfilled with fresh retsina,\ndoes my life look golden.\n\n\n5.\n\nBefore life abroad could do so,\nnight had already separated us\nfrom everyone we love.\n(Are they all there on the pier?)\nBlow your whistle, ship, we’re late.\nAnd if we approach our destination,\nhold up for a while, then\nblow your whistle so we can finally disembark.\n\n\n6.\n\nPoplars, giants fixed\nhere on the road-side,\nmy trees, you’ve agreed to let\nthe north wind take your leaves.\nYou’re still the shadow of shadows\ncascading across my brow\nwhile I walk the ground below\nand the moon is up on high.\n\n\n7.\n\nJoy! The Joy! Ah the joy of young\nchildren! They capture that girl\nlife and bind her--these handsome,\ndark highwaymen--and make love to her.\nBut your book is always open,\na breeze flips its pages.\nFool, fool, you’ve grown old\nwithout ever being young.\n\n\n8.\n\n--Poet, my laughter flows\nlike honey and scorn, but you\nnever stop beating out\nyour crown of sounds.\n--Girl, I work in vain\nbut what use is the barren\nand wordless vanity\nof your agate eye?\n\n\n9.\n\nFarewell! Farewell! You’ve gone\nwith your heavenly eyes\nand with flowers around your neck,\nyou fair hopes for new loves.\nFarewell, and you--the one\nwho looked back when all the rest\nhad vanished--you saw me again\ntaking the deep dark road.\n\n\n10.\n\nBronze gypsy--tralala!--\nskips wildly over there, filled\nwith joy because he’s worked\nhis bronze all day long,\nand because he has his wife,\nhis property and realm.\nBronze gypsy--tralala!--\ngives a kick to the sun!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Keith Taylor & William W. Reader", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Keith Taylor", + "William W. Reader" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -50464,8 +51893,10 @@ "title": "“They betrayed virtue and the last came first 
”", "body": "They betrayed virtue and the last came first.\nWith money the heart is taken and the friend is appraised.\nIf once it was shimmering in the mind, in the eyes, in everything,\nlife is already dark and unfeasible like a legend,\nit’s bitterness on the lip.\n\nDeep Night. With a spirit full of rage I pushed the bed.\nI opened the cobweb-filled rooms. No\nhope. From the window, I saw the shadow\nof the last passer-by. And I shouted in the peacefulness:\n“Misery!”\n\nThe awful word with fire was written in the sky.\nTrees are pointing at it, stars are looking it,\nthe houses have it for a sign and they are graves,\neven the dogs must have heard it and are howling:\nMen do not listen", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yiannis Vogiatzis", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Yiannis Vogiatzis" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -50651,10 +52082,10 @@ "title": "“A candle burning before a sacred shrine 
”", "body": "A candle burning before a sacred shrine\nSculpturing shadow-saints on the transept\nGrotesque and full of fearful mystery\nDark wonder of the terrible fate of Christ.\n\nThe wine-dipped bread for me and I, Judas\nEating Damnation to my fitful ghost.\n“One of you here is about to betray\nThe Son of Man. But woe unto that man,”\n\nI heard and almost prayer disturbed my lips\nYet no prayer. Crumpled of soul I went\nOut into the fields of death where never\nQuivers a candle-light.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1926 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "holy_thursday" @@ -51388,10 +52819,10 @@ "title": "“The Eve of St. Agnes”", "body": "St. Agnes’ Eve--Ah, bitter chill it was!\n The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;\n The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,\n And silent was the flock in woolly fold:\n Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told\n His rosary, and while his frosted breath,\n Like pious incense from a censer old,\n Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,\nPast the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.\n\n His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;\n Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,\n And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,\n Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:\n The sculptur’d dead, on each side, seem to freeze,\n Emprison’d in black, purgatorial rails:\n Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat’ries,\n He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails\nTo think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.\n\n Northward he turneth through a little door,\n And scarce three steps, ere Music’s golden tongue\n Flatter’d to tears this aged man and poor;\n But no--already had his deathbell rung;\n The joys of all his life were said and sung:\n His was harsh penance on St. Agnes’ Eve:\n Another way he went, and soon among\n Rough ashes sat he for his soul’s reprieve,\nAnd all night kept awake, for sinners’ sake to grieve.\n\n That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft;\n And so it chanc’d, for many a door was wide,\n From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft,\n The silver, snarling trumpets ’gan to chide:\n The level chambers, ready with their pride,\n Were glowing to receive a thousand guests:\n The carved angels, ever eager-eyed,\n Star’d, where upon their heads the cornice rests,\nWith hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their breasts.\n\n At length burst in the argent revelry,\n With plume, tiara, and all rich array,\n Numerous as shadows haunting faerily\n The brain, new stuff’d, in youth, with triumphs gay\n Of old romance. These let us wish away,\n And turn, sole-thoughted, to one Lady there,\n Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day,\n On love, and wing’d St. Agnes’ saintly care,\nAs she had heard old dames full many times declare.\n\n They told her how, upon St. Agnes’ Eve,\n Young virgins might have visions of delight,\n And soft adorings from their loves receive\n Upon the honey’d middle of the night,\n If ceremonies due they did aright;\n As, supperless to bed they must retire,\n And couch supine their beauties, lily white;\n Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require\nOf Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.\n\n Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline:\n The music, yearning like a God in pain,\n She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine,\n Fix’d on the floor, saw many a sweeping train\n Pass by--she heeded not at all: in vain\n Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier,\n And back retir’d; not cool’d by high disdain,\n But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere:\nShe sigh’d for Agnes’ dreams, the sweetest of the year.\n\n She danc’d along with vague, regardless eyes,\n Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short:\n The hallow’d hour was near at hand: she sighs\n Amid the timbrels, and the throng’d resort\n Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;\n ’Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn,\n Hoodwink’d with faery fancy; all amort,\n Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,\nAnd all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.\n\n So, purposing each moment to retire,\n She linger’d still. Meantime, across the moors,\n Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire\n For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,\n Buttress’d from moonlight, stands he, and implores\n All saints to give him sight of Madeline,\n But for one moment in the tedious hours,\n That he might gaze and worship all unseen;\nPerchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss--in sooth such things have been.\n\n He ventures in: let no buzz’d whisper tell:\n All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords\n Will storm his heart, Love’s fev’rous citadel:\n For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,\n Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,\n Whose very dogs would execrations howl\n Against his lineage: not one breast affords\n Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,\nSave one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.\n\n Ah, happy chance! the aged creature came,\n Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,\n To where he stood, hid from the torch’s flame,\n Behind a broad half-pillar, far beyond\n The sound of merriment and chorus bland:\n He startled her; but soon she knew his face,\n And grasp’d his fingers in her palsied hand,\n Saying, “Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee from this place;\nThey are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirsty race!”\n\n “Get hence! get hence! there’s dwarfish Hildebrand;\n He had a fever late, and in the fit\n He cursed thee and thine, both house and land:\n Then there’s that old Lord Maurice, not a whit\n More tame for his gray hairs--Alas me! flit!\n Flit like a ghost away.”--“Ah, Gossip dear,\n We’re safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit,\n And tell me how”--“Good Saints! not here, not here;\nFollow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier.”\n\n He follow’d through a lowly arched way,\n Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume,\n And as she mutter’d “Well-a--well-a-day!”\n He found him in a little moonlight room,\n Pale, lattic’d, chill, and silent as a tomb.\n “Now tell me where is Madeline,” said he,\n “O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom\n Which none but secret sisterhood may see,\nWhen they St. Agnes’ wool are weaving piously.”\n\n “St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes’ Eve--\n Yet men will murder upon holy days:\n Thou must hold water in a witch’s sieve,\n And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays,\n To venture so: it fills me with amaze\n To see thee, Porphyro!--St. Agnes’ Eve!\n God’s help! my lady fair the conjuror plays\n This very night: good angels her deceive!\nBut let me laugh awhile, I’ve mickle time to grieve.”\n\n Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon,\n While Porphyro upon her face doth look,\n Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone\n Who keepeth clos’d a wond’rous riddle-book,\n As spectacled she sits in chimney nook.\n But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told\n His lady’s purpose; and he scarce could brook\n Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold,\nAnd Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.\n\n Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,\n Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart\n Made purple riot: then doth he propose\n A stratagem, that makes the beldame start:\n “A cruel man and impious thou art:\n Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream\n Alone with her good angels, far apart\n From wicked men like thee. Go, go!--I deem\nThou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem.”\n\n “I will not harm her, by all saints I swear,”\n Quoth Porphyro: “O may I ne’er find grace\n When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer,\n If one of her soft ringlets I displace,\n Or look with ruffian passion in her face:\n Good Angela, believe me by these tears;\n Or I will, even in a moment’s space,\n Awake, with horrid shout, my foemen’s ears,\nAnd beard them, though they be more fang’d than wolves and bears.”\n\n “Ah! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul?\n A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing,\n Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll;\n Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening,\n Were never miss’d.”--Thus plaining, doth she bring\n A gentler speech from burning Porphyro;\n So woful, and of such deep sorrowing,\n That Angela gives promise she will do\nWhatever he shall wish, betide her weal or woe.\n\n Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy,\n Even to Madeline’s chamber, and there hide\n Him in a closet, of such privacy\n That he might see her beauty unespy’d,\n And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,\n While legion’d faeries pac’d the coverlet,\n And pale enchantment held her sleepy-ey’d.\n Never on such a night have lovers met,\nSince Merlin paid his Demon all the monstrous debt.\n\n “It shall be as thou wishest,” said the Dame:\n “All cates and dainties shall be stored there\n Quickly on this feast-night: by the tambour frame\n Her own lute thou wilt see: no time to spare,\n For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare\n On such a catering trust my dizzy head.\n Wait here, my child, with patience; kneel in prayer\n The while: Ah! thou must needs the lady wed,\nOr may I never leave my grave among the dead.”\n\n So saying, she hobbled off with busy fear.\n The lover’s endless minutes slowly pass’d;\n The dame return’d, and whisper’d in his ear\n To follow her; with aged eyes aghast\n From fright of dim espial. Safe at last,\n Through many a dusky gallery, they gain\n The maiden’s chamber, silken, hush’d, and chaste;\n Where Porphyro took covert, pleas’d amain.\nHis poor guide hurried back with agues in her brain.\n\n Her falt’ring hand upon the balustrade,\n Old Angela was feeling for the stair,\n When Madeline, St. Agnes’ charmed maid,\n Rose, like a mission’d spirit, unaware:\n With silver taper’s light, and pious care,\n She turn’d, and down the aged gossip led\n To a safe level matting. Now prepare,\n Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;\nShe comes, she comes again, like ring-dove fray’d and fled.\n\n Out went the taper as she hurried in;\n Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:\n She clos’d the door, she panted, all akin\n To spirits of the air, and visions wide:\n No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!\n But to her heart, her heart was voluble,\n Paining with eloquence her balmy side;\n As though a tongueless nightingale should swell\nHer throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.\n\n A casement high and triple-arch’d there was,\n All garlanded with carven imag’ries\n Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,\n And diamonded with panes of quaint device,\n Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,\n As are the tiger-moth’s deep-damask’d wings;\n And in the midst, ’mong thousand heraldries,\n And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,\nA shielded scutcheon blush’d with blood of queens and kings.\n\n Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,\n And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,\n As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon;\n Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,\n And on her silver cross soft amethyst,\n And on her hair a glory, like a saint:\n She seem’d a splendid angel, newly drest,\n Save wings, for heaven:--Porphyro grew faint:\nShe knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.\n\n Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,\n Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;\n Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;\n Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees\n Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:\n Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,\n Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,\n In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,\nBut dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.\n\n Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,\n In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex’d she lay,\n Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress’d\n Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;\n Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;\n Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain;\n Clasp’d like a missal where swart Paynims pray;\n Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,\nAs though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.\n\n Stol’n to this paradise, and so entranced,\n Porphyro gaz’d upon her empty dress,\n And listen’d to her breathing, if it chanced\n To wake into a slumberous tenderness;\n Which when he heard, that minute did he bless,\n And breath’d himself: then from the closet crept,\n Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness,\n And over the hush’d carpet, silent, stept,\nAnd ’tween the curtains peep’d, where, lo!--how fast she slept.\n\n Then by the bed-side, where the faded moon\n Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set\n A table, and, half anguish’d, threw thereon\n A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet:--\n O for some drowsy Morphean amulet!\n The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion,\n The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarinet,\n Affray his ears, though but in dying tone:--\nThe hall door shuts again, and all the noise is gone.\n\n And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,\n In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender’d,\n While he forth from the closet brought a heap\n Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;\n With jellies soother than the creamy curd,\n And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;\n Manna and dates, in argosy transferr’d\n From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,\nFrom silken Samarcand to cedar’d Lebanon.\n\n These delicates he heap’d with glowing hand\n On golden dishes and in baskets bright\n Of wreathed silver: sumptuous they stand\n In the retired quiet of the night,\n Filling the chilly room with perfume light.--\n “And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake!\n Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite:\n Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes’ sake,\nOr I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache.”\n\n Thus whispering, his warm, unnerved arm\n Sank in her pillow. Shaded was her dream\n By the dusk curtains:--’twas a midnight charm\n Impossible to melt as iced stream:\n The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam;\n Broad golden fringe upon the carpet lies:\n It seem’d he never, never could redeem\n From such a stedfast spell his lady’s eyes;\nSo mus’d awhile, entoil’d in woofed phantasies.\n\n Awakening up, he took her hollow lute,--\n Tumultuous,--and, in chords that tenderest be,\n He play’d an ancient ditty, long since mute,\n In Provence call’d, “La belle dame sans mercy”:\n Close to her ear touching the melody;--\n Wherewith disturb’d, she utter’d a soft moan:\n He ceas’d--she panted quick--and suddenly\n Her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone:\nUpon his knees he sank, pale as smooth-sculptured stone.\n\n Her eyes were open, but she still beheld,\n Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep:\n There was a painful change, that nigh expell’d\n The blisses of her dream so pure and deep\n At which fair Madeline began to weep,\n And moan forth witless words with many a sigh;\n While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep;\n Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye,\nFearing to move or speak, she look’d so dreamingly.\n\n “Ah, Porphyro!” said she, “but even now\n Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear,\n Made tuneable with every sweetest vow;\n And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear:\n How chang’d thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear!\n Give me that voice again, my Porphyro,\n Those looks immortal, those complainings dear!\n Oh leave me not in this eternal woe,\nFor if thy diest, my Love, I know not where to go.”\n\n Beyond a mortal man impassion’d far\n At these voluptuous accents, he arose\n Ethereal, flush’d, and like a throbbing star\n Seen mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose;\n Into her dream he melted, as the rose\n Blendeth its odour with the violet,--\n Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows\n Like Love’s alarum pattering the sharp sleet\nAgainst the window-panes; St. Agnes’ moon hath set.\n\n ’Tis dark: quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet:\n “This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!”\n ’Tis dark: the iced gusts still rave and beat:\n “No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine!\n Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine.--\n Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring?\n I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine,\n Though thou forsakest a deceived thing;--\nA dove forlorn and lost with sick unpruned wing.”\n\n “My Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride!\n Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest?\n Thy beauty’s shield, heart-shap’d and vermeil dyed?\n Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest\n After so many hours of toil and quest,\n A famish’d pilgrim,--sav’d by miracle.\n Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest\n Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think’st well\nTo trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel.”\n\n “Hark! ’tis an elfin-storm from faery land,\n Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed:\n Arise--arise! the morning is at hand;--\n The bloated wassaillers will never heed:--\n Let us away, my love, with happy speed;\n There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see,--\n Drown’d all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead:\n Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be,\nFor o’er the southern moors I have a home for thee.”\n\n She hurried at his words, beset with fears,\n For there were sleeping dragons all around,\n At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears--\n Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found.--\n In all the house was heard no human sound.\n A chain-droop’d lamp was flickering by each door;\n The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound,\n Flutter’d in the besieging wind’s uproar;\nAnd the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.\n\n They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;\n Like phantoms, to the iron porch, they glide;\n Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,\n With a huge empty flaggon by his side:\n The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,\n But his sagacious eye an inmate owns:\n By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:--\n The chains lie silent on the footworn stones;--\nThe key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.\n\n And they are gone: ay, ages long ago\n These lovers fled away into the storm.\n That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,\n And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form\n Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,\n Were long be-nightmar’d. Angela the old\n Died palsy-twitch’d, with meagre face deform;\n The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,\nFor aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1819 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_agnes_eve" @@ -51402,10 +52833,10 @@ "title": "“Fancy”", "body": "Ever let the Fancy roam,\nPleasure never is at home:\nAt a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,\nLike to bubbles when rain pelteth;\nThen let winged Fancy wander\nThrough the thought still spread beyond her:\nOpen wide the mind’s cage-door,\nShe’ll dart forth, and cloudward soar.\nO sweet Fancy! let her loose;\nSummer’s joys are spoilt by use,\nAnd the enjoying of the Spring\nFades as does its blossoming;\nAutumn’s red-lipp’d fruitage too,\nBlushing through the mist and dew,\nCloys with tasting: What do then?\nSit thee by the ingle, when\nThe sear faggot blazes bright,\nSpirit of a winter’s night;\nWhen the soundless earth is muffled,\nAnd the caked snow is shuffled\nFrom the ploughboy’s heavy shoon;\nWhen the Night doth meet the Noon\nIn a dark conspiracy\nTo banish Even from her sky.\nSit thee there, and send abroad,\nWith a mind self-overaw’d,\nFancy, high-commission’d:--send her!\nShe has vassals to attend her:\nShe will bring, in spite of frost,\nBeauties that the earth hath lost;\nShe will bring thee, all together,\nAll delights of summer weather;\nAll the buds and bells of May,\nFrom dewy sward or thorny spray;\nAll the heaped Autumn’s wealth,\nWith a still, mysterious stealth:\nShe will mix these pleasures up\nLike three fit wines in a cup,\nAnd thou shalt quaff it:--thou shalt hear\nDistant harvest-carols clear;\nRustle of the reaped corn;\nSweet birds antheming the morn:\nAnd, in the same moment, hark!\n’Tis the early April lark,\nOr the rooks, with busy caw,\nForaging for sticks and straw.\nThou shalt, at one glance, behold\nThe daisy and the marigold;\nWhite-plum’d lillies, and the first\nHedge-grown primrose that hath burst;\nShaded hyacinth, alway\nSapphire queen of the mid-May;\nAnd every leaf, and every flower\nPearled with the self-same shower.\nThou shalt see the field-mouse peep\nMeagre from its celled sleep;\nAnd the snake all winter-thin\nCast on sunny bank its skin;\nFreckled nest-eggs thou shalt see\nHatching in the hawthorn-tree,\nWhen the hen-bird’s wing doth rest\nQuiet on her mossy nest;\nThen the hurry and alarm\nWhen the bee-hive casts its swarm;\nAcorns ripe down-pattering,\nWhile the autumn breezes sing.\n\nOh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;\nEvery thing is spoilt by use:\nWhere’s the cheek that doth not fade,\nToo much gaz’d at? Where’s the maid\nWhose lip mature is ever new?\nWhere’s the eye, however blue,\nDoth not weary? Where’s the face\nOne would meet in every place?\nWhere’s the voice, however soft,\nOne would hear so very oft?\nAt a touch sweet Pleasure melteth\nLike to bubbles when rain pelteth.\nLet, then, winged Fancy find\nThee a mistress to thy mind:\nDulcet-ey’d as Ceres’ daughter,\nEre the God of Torment taught her\nHow to frown and how to chide;\nWith a waist and with a side\nWhite as Hebe’s, when her zone\nSlipt its golden clasp, and down\nFell her kirtle to her feet,\nWhile she held the goblet sweet\nAnd Jove grew languid.--Break the mesh\nOf the Fancy’s silken leash;\nQuickly break her prison-string\nAnd such joys as these she’ll bring.--\nLet the winged Fancy roam,\nPleasure never is at home.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1820 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -51417,10 +52848,10 @@ "title": "“La Belle Dame Sans Merci”", "body": "O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,\n Alone and palely loitering?\nThe sedge has withered from the lake,\n And no birds sing.\n\nO what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,\n So haggard and so woe-begone?\nThe squirrel’s granary is full,\n And the harvest’s done.\n\nI see a lily on thy brow,\n With anguish moist and fever-dew,\nAnd on thy cheeks a fading rose\n Fast withereth too.\n\nI met a lady in the meads,\n Full beautiful--a faery’s child,\nHer hair was long, her foot was light,\n And her eyes were wild.\n\nI made a garland for her head,\n And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;\nShe looked at me as she did love,\n And made sweet moan\n\nI set her on my pacing steed,\n And nothing else saw all day long,\nFor sidelong would she bend, and sing\n A faery’s song.\n\nShe found me roots of relish sweet,\n And honey wild, and manna-dew,\nAnd sure in language strange she said--\n “I love thee true”.\n\nShe took me to her Elfin grot,\n And there she wept and sighed full sore,\nAnd there I shut her wild wild eyes\n With kisses four.\n\nAnd there she lullĂšd me asleep,\n And there I dreamed--Ah! woe betide!--\nThe latest dream I ever dreamt\n On the cold hill side.\n\nI saw pale kings and princes too,\n Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;\nThey cried--“La Belle Dame sans Merci\n Thee hath in thrall!”\n\nI saw their starved lips in the gloam,\n With horrid warning gapĂšd wide,\nAnd I awoke and found me here,\n On the cold hill’s side.\n\nAnd this is why I sojourn here,\n Alone and palely loitering,\nThough the sedge is withered from the lake,\n And no birds sing.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1819 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -51431,11 +52862,11 @@ "title": "“Ode on a Grecian Urn”", "body": "Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,\n Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,\nSylvan historian, who canst thus express\n A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:\nWhat leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape\n Of deities or mortals, or of both,\n In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?\nWhat men or gods are these? What maidens loth?\n What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?\n What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?\n\nHeard melodies are sweet, but those unheard\n Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;\nNot to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,\n Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:\nFair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave\n Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;\n Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,\nThough winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;\n She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,\n For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!\n\nAh, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed\n Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;\nAnd, happy melodist, unwearied,\n For ever piping songs for ever new;\nMore happy love! more happy, happy love!\n For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,\n For ever panting, and for ever young;\nAll breathing human passion far above,\n That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,\n A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.\n\nWho are these coming to the sacrifice?\n To what green altar, O mysterious priest,\nLead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,\n And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?\nWhat little town by river or sea shore,\n Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,\n Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?\nAnd, little town, thy streets for evermore\n Will silent be; and not a soul to tell\n Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.\n\nO Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede\n Of marble men and maidens overwrought,\nWith forest branches and the trodden weed;\n Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought\nAs doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!\n When old age shall this generation waste,\n Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe\nThan ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,\n “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all\n Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1819, "month": "may" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -51446,12 +52877,12 @@ "title": "“To Autumn”", "body": "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,\nClose bosom-friend of the maturing sun;\nConspiring with him how to load and bless\nWith fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;\nTo bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,\nAnd fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;\nTo swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells\nWith a sweet kernel; to set budding more,\nAnd still more, later flowers for the bees,\nUntil they think warm days will never cease,\nFor summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.\n\nWho hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?\nSometimes whoever seeks abroad may find\nThee sitting careless on a granary floor,\nThy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;\nOr on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,\nDrows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook\nSpares the next swath and all its twined flowers:\nAnd sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep\nSteady thy laden head across a brook;\nOr by a cyder-press, with patient look,\nThou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.\n\nWhere are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?\nThink not of them, thou hast thy music too,--\nWhile barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,\nAnd touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;\nThen in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn\nAmong the river sallows, borne aloft\nOr sinking as the light wind lives or dies;\nAnd full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;\nHedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft\nThe red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;\nAnd gathering swallows twitter in the skies.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1819, "month": "september", "day": 19 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september", @@ -52012,10 +53443,10 @@ "title": "“Mexico City Blues”", "body": "Got up and dressed up\n and went out & got laid\nThen died and got buried\n in a coffin in the grave,\nMan--\n Yet everything is perfect,\nBecause it is empty,\nBecause it is perfect\n with emptiness,\nBecause it’s not even happening.\n\nEverything\nIs Ignorant of its own emptiness--\nAnger\nDoesn’t like to be reminded of fits--\n\nYou start with the Teaching\n Inscrutable of the Diamond\nAnd end with it, your goal\n is your startingplace,\nNo race was run, no walk\n of prophetic toenails\nAcross Arabies of hot\n meaning--you just\n numbly don’t get there", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1959 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -52085,11 +53516,13 @@ "title": "“Empty speeches”", "body": "Seated at a table, flighty thoughts,\nShoulders spread, inflated chest,\nI pronounced empty speeches,\nStill as a statue and just as loved.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Chandler", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1933 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52097,11 +53530,14 @@ "title": "“A Fairy Tale”", "body": "There once was a man by the name of Semyonov.\nAnd Semyonov went out for a walk and lost his handkerchief.\nAnd Semyonov started looking for a handkerchief and lost his hat.\nAnd looking for a hat, he lost his jacket.\nHe began to look for a jacket and lost his boots.\n--Yes--said Semyonov--this is a loss--I shall go home.\nSemyonov began walking home--and he got lost.\n--No--said Semyonov--I’d rather sit. And he sat down.\nAnd he sat on a stone, and fell asleep.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Katie Farris & Ilya Kaminsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1933 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Katie Farris", + "Ilya Kaminsky" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52109,13 +53545,15 @@ "title": "“Here’s the rain crashing down 
”", "body": "Here’s the rain crashing down,\ntime has stopped.\nThe clocks go on helplessly knocking.\nGrow, grass, you don’t need time.\nSpeak, Holy Spirit, you don’t need words.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Chandler", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1937, "month": "august", "day": 12 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -52127,13 +53565,15 @@ "title": "“I thought of eagles for a long time 
”", "body": "I thought of eagles for a long time\nand understood such a whole lot:\nthe eagles soar above the clouds,\nthey fly and fly and touch no one.\nThey live on cliffs and on mountains\nand are intimate with water sprites,\nI thought a long time about eagles\nbut confused them, I think, with flies.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alex Cigale", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1939, "month": "march", "day": 15 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alex Cigale" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -52145,13 +53585,15 @@ "title": "“Perpetuity of merriment and dirt”", "body": "The water murmurs, cool and clear,\nAnd shade sets in open fields;\nthe light has dimmed. And birds\nhave taken to the sky in dreams.\nAnd Sweeper with his raven whiskers\nstands all night through under the gates,\nscratches his head under his soiled cap,\nwith dirt-encrusted fingers. And\nin the windows merry shrieks are heard,\nand stomping feet, and jangling bottles.\n\nA day goes by, a week then passes,\nand one by one the years follow,\nand people marching in formations\nkeep disappearing in their graves.\nAnd Sweeper with his raven whiskers\nagain stands at the gate, and through the night\nscratches his head under his soiled cap,\nwith dirt-encrusted fingers. And\nin the windows merry shrieks are heard,\nand stomping feet, and jangling bottles.\n\nBoth Moon and Sun have dimmed and paled.\nthe constellations’ forms have changed.\nthen Motion became like syrup\nand Time now became like sand.\nAnd Sweeper with his raven whiskers\nagain stands at the gate, and through the night\nscratches his head under his soiled cap,\nwith dirt-encrusted fingers. And\nin the windows heard are merry shrieks,\nand stomping feet, and jangling bottles.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Roman Turovsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1933, "month": "october", "day": 14 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Roman Turovsky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -52163,13 +53605,15 @@ "title": "“Prayer before sleep”", "body": "Lord, in broad daylight\napathy overcame me.\nAllow me to lie down and fall asleep Lord,\nand while I sleep fill me Lord\nwith your strength.\nThere is much I want to know,\nbut neither books nor people\nwill tell me this.\nMay You alone Lord enlighten me\nby means of my verses.\nWake me strong for the battle with meaning,\nswift in the arrangement of words\nand zealous to praise the name of God\nfor ever and ever.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Chandler", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1931, "month": "march", "day": 28 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -52181,11 +53625,13 @@ "title": "“This is how hunger begins 
”", "body": "This is how hunger begins:\nfirst you wake in good cheer,\nthen weakness begins,\nand then boredom,\nand then comes the losss\nof the power of swift reason\nand then comes calm--\nand then the horror.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Chandler", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1937 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -52196,13 +53642,15 @@ "title": "“What Are We To Do?”", "body": "While the dolphin and the sea-horse\nPlayed silly games together,\nThe ocean beat against the cliffs\nAnd washed the cliffs with its water.\nThe scary water moaned and cried.\nThe stars shone. Years went by.\n\nThen the horrid hour came:\nI am no more, and so are you,\nThe sea is gone, the cliffs, the mountains,\nAnd the stars gone, too;\nOnly the choir sounds out of the dead void.\nAnd for simplicity’s sake, our wrathful God\nSprung up and blew away the dust of centuries,\nAnd now, freed from the shackles of time\nHe flies alone, his own and only dearest friend.\nCold everywhere, and darkness blind.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Matvei Yankelevich", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1934, "month": "october", "day": 15 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Matvei Yankelevich" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -52268,13 +53716,15 @@ "title": "“Beast + Number”", "body": "When the blue shimmer of the damsel-fly\nshines through the smoke of villages,\nA Thing appears, some new conception,\nand shipwrecks intellect on Number’s shore.\n\n“Children, children!” the priest exclaimed,\nwhen he heard the Athenian envoy speak.\nAbout the austere neck of Number\nmind and matter hang like a cloak.\n\nWhen mortal minds tire pondering\nsome equation--wine-dark, foam-born--\ntheir goal, remember, is to tower\nuntil they touch the sky.\n\nReplace the stake, the block, the cross!\nThink of Number as an iron device.\nEven the whirlwind slackens,\nconfronting Number face to face.\n\nI write these lines in ink: Believe me,\nthe day is near that glorifies us all!\nAnd the rough beast slouches in silence,\na pair of virgin ciphers in his paw!\n\nBut when he hears the tender tumult\nof these voices and these days,\nhe will fall down as if struck\nupon the rocks, upon the rocks.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915, "month": "september", "day": 21 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september", @@ -52286,11 +53736,13 @@ "title": "“Black king dance out front of the crowd 
”", "body": "Black king dance out front of the crowd,\nand witch-doctors batter the tom-tom.\nBig black women laugh bawdy and loud,\nPelele stain their mouths, and burn.\nThe dirty cauldron bubble:\nsome bird bones, and a child.\nOur Elder Father Helper Sun\nhe hurt us unaware.\nSeven times the light go by,\nseven times to earth from sun.\nWe look and see the dark turn cold.\nWe look and we see Requiem.\nBlack king dance out front of the crowd,\nand witch-doctors batter the tom-tom.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52298,11 +53750,13 @@ "title": "“The bowl is banished from the long tables 
”", "body": "The bowl is banished from the long tables--\nsomeone has drunk the liquor of the gods.\nDivine wine is a beast-feast also--\nthe oxen raise their blue-gray horns.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1908 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52310,11 +53764,13 @@ "title": "“Brooding, dark, and elegant 
”", "body": "Brooding, dark, and elegant--\nStranger, aren’t you the man\nwho frightened the children yesterday?\n“Mama!” they shouted, “he’s wicked!” and ran.\n\nYou went to visit my sweetheart\nwhere she took the evening air,\nsaid: “Permit me to introduce myself 
”\nAnd laughed: “
 how beautiful you are 
”\n\nShe twisted the ring on her finger,\nsmiled like any coquette, and said:\n“Sir, I’ve heard of your wicked adventures--\nbut why is your glove stained red?”\n\n“Believe me, Lady,\nthose stories aren’t true--\nDo I look like an evil adventurer?\nI’m only as old as you.”\n\n“Oh sir, I can hardly believe that 
\nyou have such melancholy eyes!”\nStrands of spider-glitter drifted\nin the water-mirrored skies.\n\nTwo figures were seen on the pathway,\nthe little boat was gone 
\nAnd a long embrace of water\nsilenced my sweetheart’s moan.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1908 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52330,11 +53786,13 @@ "title": "“A goblin grabbles in the greeny forest 
”", "body": "A goblin grabbles in the greeny forest--\nWood-willy, slurping his mouth-organ--\nwhere a clump of aspens quivers\nand benefolent spruces cascade.\n\nA smear of pungent forest honey\nlicky on the tongue-tip of daylight;\nOh! His grasping arms were icy:\nI was completely taken in.\n\nI couldn’t stand his eyes’ unblinking\npoint-blank confrontation--\nhis look, full of pleading promises,\nthe icicle anguish in his eyes.\n\nLawn-rake fingers crabbing at me\nfrom a shaky clump of catkins;\nhe had dark blue sighters\nand a body all mush-flesh and flow.\n\nI had missed a turn or two, tearing\nalong in a juventy frenzy. Slying,\nthe wood-wart winked and jostled\nme: “Which way where? And why?”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -52356,13 +53814,15 @@ "title": "“Hunger”", "body": "Why do elks and rabbits cavort through the forest?\nDrawing away?\nThe people ate the bark of the asp,\nThe green sprouts of firs 
\nWives and children wander through the woods,\nCollecting birch leaves\nFor their schi, okroschka and borsch,\nFir tops and silvery moss,--\nThe sustenance of the forest.\nThe children are its scouts,\nWandering through the woods,\nRoasting white worms in the fire,\nSorrel, fat caterpillars\nOr large spiders--they are sweeter than nuts.\nThey catch moles, grey lizards,\nShoot hissing serpents with a bow and arrow,\nMake crisp bread from saltbush,\nThey run after butterflies:\nThey have got a whole sack.\nThere will be butterfly borsch today--\nMom will cook.\nBut the rabbit, tenderly cavorting through the forest,\nThe children behold as in a dream,\nAs a vision of a bright world,\nEnthralled, with large eyes,\nSaintly from the hunger,\nDisbelieving the truth,\nIt runs away a nimble apparition,\nGoing black with the tip of its ear.\nAn arrow flies after it,\nBut too late--a filling meal has gotten away,\nAnd the children stand spellbound 
\n“A butterfly, look, over there 
\nQuick, after it! And there’s a blue one!
”\nIt’s gloomy in the woods. A wolf came from afar\nTo the spot where last year\nHe had devoured a lamb.\nFor a long while he whirled as a spinning top,\nSniffing the entire place out,\nBut nothing was left--\nThe ants’ doing--except for a withered hoof.\nUnsettled, he drew in his lumpy ribs\nAnd skulked from the thicket.\nWith a heavy paw, he shall crush the red-brow\nWoodcocks that fell asleep under the snow,\nHimself bespattered with the cold white 
\nThe little fox with the fiery down,\nClumped itself on a tree stump,\nRuminating about the future 
\nShould I become a dog?\nEnter the service of people?\nThere are many stretched nets--\nJust lie in one of them 
\nNo, that’s a risky business.\nThey shall devour the gingery fox,\nThe same way they devoured the dogs!\nNo dogs bark in the village 
\nAnd the fox washed itself with its downy paws,\nRaising the fiery sail of its tail,\nThe squirrel said, fussily:\n“Where are my nuts and my acorns?--\nThe people ate them!”\nThe translucent quiet of evening descended.\nWith a faint lisp, the pine kissed\nThe asp,\nPerhaps they shall be cut down\nTomorrow for breakfast.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrew Stempton", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921, "month": "october", "day": 7 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrew Stempton" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -52374,13 +53834,15 @@ "title": "“I call you to try with a sword 
”", "body": "I call you to try with a sword\nTo touch the shirt.\nIt’s away.\nSay with the sword: the King is naked.\nWhat we’ve done with fuzz of breath\nI call you to do with iron.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alexander Zorin", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1922, "month": "february", "day": 15 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alexander Zorin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -52392,11 +53854,13 @@ "title": "“I saw a tiger, he crouched by a wood 
”", "body": "I saw a tiger, he crouched by a wood\nand filled a bamboo flute with his sighs;\nhis ferine forces contracted in waves,\nand mocking fires burned in his eyes.\nBeside him an elegant maid discoursed\nwith an elegant tilt to her head:\n“Tigers and lions, as everyone knows,\ncannot carry a tune,” she said.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52404,8 +53868,10 @@ "title": "“If I turn mankind into a clock 
”", "body": "If I turn mankind into a clock\nAnd show how the hand of the century moves on,\nWill really from our time’s flock\nNo war take off like the needless upsilon?\nWhere the human race has contracted piles,\nSitting in armchairs of spring-loaded war for thousands of years,\nI am going to tell you that I sense from miles\nAway my suprahuman dreams.\nI know you are wolf-zealots,\nWith mine I shake your five gunshots,\nBut can you really not hear fate’s needle whisper,\nThat miraculous knitter?\nI shall flood with my power, deluge of thought\nExisting governments’ buildings,\nIncredibly grown Kitezh\nFor bondmen of the old inanity I shall plot.\nAnd, when the planet Earth chairmen crew\nIs tossed to horrific hunger--a green rind,\nEvery government’s in existence screw\nBy our driver will be spinned.\nAnd, when a woman with a beard\nTosses a promised stone,\nYou will say: “This is it,\nWhat we’ve been expecting for aeons.”\nO clock of mankind, as you pat,\nWith my hand cause to move on thoughts!\nLet these grow through self-murder of governments and through books--those.\nEarth shall be irrevogreat!\nPreterglogreat!\nSong be its stranglegreat:\nI am going to say that the universe is a lamp-black match\nOn the outcome’s face.\nAnd my thought--like a pick to the latch\nOn the door, behind it someone who shot himself dead.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Victor Pechorin", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Victor Pechorin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52413,11 +53879,13 @@ "title": "“In periwinkle potion 
”", "body": "In periwinkle potion,\nyou earthworms, kindle\ntwo watery rocks\nin a black thread.\nI’m a charred log\nof obscure reputation;\nit’s not that I’m empty\nor especially awful--\nI’m just worn out,\nI’m not hot anymore.\nI sit here. Warm me.\nKeep my face from moving\non the cliff of my shoulders,\nbut let the speech of someone’s singing hands\nawake my own hands’ hearing.\nFor with this periwinkle water\nI will find out at last--\ndid her scarf cut me off cold,\nlike winter leaving the land?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -52428,11 +53896,13 @@ "title": "“Let us all be heads of lettuce 
”", "body": "Let us all be heads of lettuce;\nlet us not let knives upset us.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52440,8 +53910,10 @@ "title": "“Lice stupidly prayed godding me 
”", "body": "Lice stupidly prayed godding me,\nEvery morning they crawled through my clothes,\nEvery morning I killed them,--\nListen to their cracks,--\nBut they came again like quietly confident surf.\n\nThe white godlike marrow of mine\nI gave, Russia, you:\nBe Khlebnikov, be my mind.\nWedged piles in the people’s brain, and axes, too,\nI built a small house of piles\n“We’re the future-be-men”.\nI’ve done all of this as a beggar,\nAs a thief whom everyone damned.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alexander Zorin", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alexander Zorin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52449,11 +53921,13 @@ "title": "“A monster inhabits mountain’s high 
”", "body": "A monster inhabits mountain’s high\nAnd has a terrifying bottom.\nIt’s grabbed a girl carrying a pot\nAnd flashes her a comely smile.\nAnd she is ready to drop just like\na fruit in his paws like hairy branches.\nThe monster is as a monster looks.\nSelf-satisfied it scratches its haunches.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1908 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52461,11 +53935,13 @@ "title": "“The moon begins to flow 
”", "body": "The moon begins to flow--\nreveals herself,\nconceals herself,\nthen somebody squeals: oh!\nand disintegrates the sky.\nGloss-face drapes herself\nin a chorus of clouds.\nBread’s set out on the table. Soup’s on.\nThey say a naked woman\nis beautiful by moonlight.\nRough voices, red faces\nmunching mushrooms; they\ndrink, dribble, bolt about.\nI can’t get away from you, ever.\nThe sky takes scraps of blue, black, gray,\nquietly quilts them into evening.\nAnd they’re busy gobbling the caviar.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52473,11 +53949,13 @@ "title": "“Okay, Graylegs, time to set the plow 
”", "body": "Okay, Graylegs, time to set the plow\naside. Rainstorm lashes our faces.\nTime to turn back to the barn,\nto dinner, dreams, and darkness.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -52488,13 +53966,15 @@ "title": "“Once again, once again 
”", "body": "Once again, once again\nI’m a star for\nyou.\nWoe to the sailor who has taken\nThe wrong angle of the ship\nOn a star:\nHe will be shattered on the rocks,\nOn the underwater sandbanks.\nWoe to you also who have taken\nThe heart’s wrong angle on me.\nYou will be shattered on the rocks,\nAnd rocks will laugh\nAt you\nAs you laught\nAt me.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dmitrii Obolensky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1922, "month": "february", "day": 15 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dmitrii Obolensky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -52506,11 +53986,13 @@ "title": "“Rue”", "body": "_A Fable_\n\nYou know the herb they use for doses;\nit grows at the edge of filthy places.\nThis is a tale of ancient princes:\nRussia fought the Mongols here\nin the lighter days of a younger year.\nWith a rough sack of sour complaints\nthe New Year took the old one’s place,\nwith all his horde of helpmates hustling\nafter joking, jostling, whistling\nlewdly into their country pipes\nand puffing out their piggy cheeks.\nBut that same land no longer laughs\nsince the swan-song sounded overhead,\n\nand the bones, the bones--“Rue,” they madly cry\nbeneath their shroud of spring-green rye.\nAnd the bones, they wail forevermore:\n“We will always remember war.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -52521,11 +54003,13 @@ "title": "“Sayan”", "body": "# I.\n\nThe Sayan rolls with one swell after another,\nAnd with shores of chalk.\nHere, is the brooding of the past,\nWhere time has turned numb.\nAbove, with a vast blanket,\nThe sails rustle ominously,\nA shuttle boat perturbs the second\nSky of the river with its hulk bottom.\nWhat have you seen? Troops?\nAn assembly of mute priests?\nOr has anguish led you\nThere, to the land of the fathers?\nWhy have you become morose and boring,\nYou were carried by the stream,\nAnd have taken the wide oar\nOut of the rowlock?\nAnd, leaning towards the tip of the oar,\nYou stood bewitched,\nThe bleary glance was riveted\nTo the single stone.\nA hunter came and shed off\nThe old garment,\nAnd threw his hands up to the sky\nWith a trapper’s prayer.\nA deep bow thrice,\nThe custom of a nomad.\n“Understand, these are the ancestors’ images,\nNeighbours of the white clouds.”\nIn the heights, where the pinewood rustled\nAnd where the pine strings rang,\nThe master could carve out\nThe enigmatic runes of the fathers.\nYour eyes, old god,\nPeek from the cracks in the wall.\nThe ancient sons of the desert\nHobble and shepherd harts.\nAnd the harts scurry behind\nThe austere cuneiform.\nThe fathers’ writings froze\nAs fabled birds in the firmament,\nBelow, the hoary redwood\nSings with the evening paridae.\nIn its wretched magnanimity\nAn elk ascends the mountain top\nTo observe the agreements with god\nOver the sign-covered cliff.\nHe strokes the stone of his horns\nAgainst the black stony threshold.\nHe snaps the branch, chewing the leaves,\nAnd stares dully and wearily\nAt the crudely-ancient lineaments\nOf that which is no more.\n\n\n# II.\n\nBut above the belt of writings,\nSomehow, the stricken drawing on the birch\nHas been preserved,\nShining with old beauty.\nWith a child’s countenance, he bowed down\nTo the wide abyss in front of him,\nBent over the precipice as a nail,\nSpared by the savage thunderstorm,\nCovering the birch’s front with a board,\nHe, froze, spellbound.\nOnly the black raven, a loner,\nFlew in the sky with a grim call.\nDid the birch say something to him\nWith its clear bark,\nAnd the precipice silence something\nIn front of the bewitched mountain?\nHe widened his foreign eyes--\nA blue-lit garden in them--\nLooking where the waterfall\nHas dug its stream bed for the night.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alexander Zorin", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alexander Zorin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52533,11 +54017,13 @@ "title": "“The Song of One Come to Confusion 
”", "body": "I saw black pine-needles\non a canvas of stone;\nher hand, I thought, thin as bone--\nthen it knocks at my very vitals.\n\nSo soon? So strange, now to stand\nbeside you in the evening, a skeleton;\nto stretch out a long thin hand\nand conjure constellations into your room.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52545,11 +54031,13 @@ "title": "“The sticky sky smells blue-gray 
”", "body": "The sticky sky smells blue-gray, it’s the odor of udder.\nShow me some loving, be good to me!\nI am bleeding. You are my fatality.\nI am nailed up to die on an old empty tree.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -52560,11 +54048,13 @@ "title": "“The Tangled Wood”", "body": "The tangled wood was full of sound\nthe forest screamed, the forest groaned\nwith fear\nto see the spear-man beast his spear.\n\nWhy does hart’s horn hang heavy\nwith the moving mark of love?\nArrow’s flash of metal hits a haunch,\nand reckons right. Now beast is broken\n\nto his knees, beaten to the ground.\nHis eyes look deep at death.\nThe horses clatter, snort, and chatter:\n“We bring the Tall Ones. Useless to run.”\n\nUseless only your exquisite motion,\nyour almost feminine face. No action\ncan save you. You fly from rack and ruin,\nand searching spear-man follows fast.\n\nPanting horses always closer,\nbranching antlers always lower,\ntwangling bowstrings over and over,\nnor help nor hart from hurt and hazard.\n\nBut he rears abruptly, bristles, roars--\nand shows a lion’s cruel claws.\nWith lazy ease he touches, teases--\nteaches the trick of terror.\n\nAcquiescent and still,\nthey fall to fill their graves.\nHe rises rampant. Regal roar.\nAnd around him everywhere lay beaten slaves.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Schmidt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Schmidt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52572,8 +54062,10 @@ "title": "“When drinking warm breaths of a pigeon 
”", "body": "When drinking warm breaths of a pigeon,\nYou, wholly laughing, called him spiky\nAnd he, inserting a hooked beak into lips’ coloured region,\nShaking his wing, did he consider you a dove?\n Unlikely!\nA flock of orioles was flying,\nLike triangle of dawns, onto the body\nIn brows’ twilight trying to conceal\nThe mirrors of the morning seas\nAnd those fell low, akin to the singing of kings.\nBehind their shining haulm,\nAs with an air of golden weather,\nAt times would shudder known\nSteep flight of hill towards the nether.\nA pigeon’s legs of crimson\nWere buried in a hairdo fluffy.\nAutumnal-chilly, he has come.\nHe’s in disfavour with his covey.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Victor Pechorin", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Victor Pechorin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -52638,13 +54130,15 @@ "title": "“The Ape”", "body": "The heat was unbearable. The forests were burning.\nTime passed languorously. At the neighboring dacha\nA cock was crowing. I went outside the gate.\nThere, leaning upon the fence, an itinerant Serb,\nRail-thin and dark, was snoozing on the bench.\nA heavy silver cross hung suspended\nOn his half-exposed chest. Drops of sweat\nRolling down it. Above him, on the fence,\nDressed in a red skirt, sat a monkey,\nGreedily masticating the dusty leaves\nOf the lilac bush. A leather collar,\nPulled back by a heavy chain,\nThrottled its neck. The Serb, having heard me,\nCame to, wiped the sweat, and asked if I would give him\nSome water to drink. But having only lifted it to his lips--\nNot too cold--placed the little bowl\nOn the bench, and that very moment the ape,\nDipping its fingers in the water, grabbed\nThe bowl with both of its hands.\nShe drank, getting down on all fours,\nLeaning with her elbows on the bench.\nThe chin almost touching the boards,\nThe back arched severely above the animal’s\nBalding head. It must have been just so\nThat Darius did once upon a time fall to his knees\nTo drink from the roadside puddle, as he retreated\nBefore Alexander’s mighty phalanx.\nHaving drunk every drop of the water, the ape\nBrushed the bowl off the bench, raised itself\nAnd--will I ever forget this moment?--\nOffered me its black, calloused hand,\nStill cool with the moisture 
\nI had shaken the hands of beauties, poets,\nHeads of state--but never did a single hand\nEncompass in itself such graceful\nAspect! Nor ever did a hand\nTouch my hand in such a spirit of brotherhood!\nAnd, as God is my witness, no one gazed into my eyes\nWith such wisdom and to such depths,\nVerily--to the bottom of my soul.\nThe sweetest legends of deepest antiquity\nThat lowly beast did stir within my heart,\nAnd in that second my life appeared complete,\nAnd it seemed a choir of heavenly lights and sea waves,\nOf the winds and of the spheres, with organ music\nBurst into my ears, and thundered, as once upon a time\nIn other, immemorial days.\n\nAnd the Serb took his leave, thumping on a tambourine.\nHaving saddled his left shoulder,\nThe monkey rocked rhythmically,\nAs Indian maharajas do atop an elephant.\nThe huge crimson sun,\nDeprived of its rays,\nHung in the opalescent smoke. The relentless swelter\nPoured forth beyond the withered field of wheat.\n\nThat day, war was declared.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alex Cigale", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1919, "month": "february", "day": 20 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alex Cigale" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -52656,14 +54150,16 @@ "title": "“The Ballad of the One-Armed Man with the Pregnant Wife”", "body": "What’s this? Am I in what they call a life?\nAre we in France or in Nineveh?\nA one-armed man with pregnant wife\nJust walked into the cinema.\n\nThe angels give me lyres to play,\nMy world’s pellucid, clear as glass;\nAnd, meanwhile, this guy gapes away,\nWhile Charlie Chaplin shows his ass.\n\nHow come this twerp with ravaged sleeve,\nA man of peace, of no small charm,\nCan trudge so calmly, unaggrieved\nThrough worlds that take away an arm?\n\nThis can’t be here; it’s Nineveh,\nIs what I think when with his wife\nThe unarmed leaves the cinema,\nAnd heads for home to live his life.\n\nThat’s when I shriek, my molars gnash,\nI take my leather belt in hand,\nMy angels’ backs I whip and lash;\nMy angels scatter, then disband,\n\nFly high into the city skies.\nReminds me of the way spooked doves,\nOn St. Mark’s Square did flutter-flies\nBeneath the feet of my best love.\n\nThen graciously I doffed my hat\nAnd walked up to the unarmed man;\nFirst touched his sleeve, tried brief chitchat,\nThen made this speech in trite deadpan:\n\n“Pardon, monsieur, when I’m in hell,\nFor my disgusting sins requited,\nWhile you, with spouse, in heaven dwell,\n(‘Tis true, my life is sore benighted),\n\nYou’ll be aloft, immured in grace,\nAn eye trained on the sins below,\nWith no vexations, not a trace,\nYour white wings wreathed in hallowed glow,\n\nThen from your perch on cloudlet blest\nPlease throw me down a feather light;\nOr, soothing to my scorched, burnt breast,\nLet one small snowflake land, alight.”\n\nThe man with one arm looked at me,\nA grin upon his phizog soft,\nDeparted then his wife and he;\nHis derby hat he left undoffed.", "metadata": { - "translator": "U. R. Bowie", "place": "Meudon", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1925, "month": "august", "day": 17 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "U. R. Bowie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -52675,13 +54171,15 @@ "title": "“Before the Mirror”", "body": "“I, I, I”. What a weird word!\nIs that man there really I?\nCan it be that mother loved such a person,\nGreyish-yellow, with hair turning grey,\nAnd omniscient as a serpent?\n\nCan it be that the boy who used to dance\nAt Ostankino in the summer--\nIs I, who, by each of my answers,\nInspire loathing, anger and fear\nIn newly hatched poets?\n\nCan it be that the same person\nWho used to throw all his boyish vivacity--\nInto midnight arguments--is I,\nWho have learned to be silent\nAnd to jest when faced with tragic conversations?\n\nYet it’s always like this midway\nOn the fatal journey through life;\n[You go] from one trivial cause to another,\nAnd behold, you have lost your way in the desert,\nAnd cannot find your own tracks.\n\nNo panther leaping in pursuit\nHas driven me into my Parisian garret\nAnd there is no Virgil standing at my shoulder.\nThere is only loneliness--framed in the mirror\nThat speaks the truth.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dmitrii Obolensky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1924, "month": "june", "day": 23 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dmitrii Obolensky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -52693,14 +54191,16 @@ "title": "“Burial”", "body": "Forehead--\nChalk.\nCoffin\nPale.\n\nPriest\nSang.\nShaft\nBang!\n\nDay\nSacred!\nCrypt\nBlind.\n\nShade--\nTo hell!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alex Cigale", "place": "Paris", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928, "month": "march", "day": 9 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alex Cigale" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -52712,11 +54212,13 @@ "title": "“Good poems torment me much 
”", "body": "Good poems torment me much,\nBad ones--are nice without reason:\nThey can’t sting souls, nor they bite,\nThey have the warmth of home, isn’t it?\n\nSo--that’s a real lemonade, of course,\n(They’re light, as a silk morning gown).\nAnd genius ones takes minute to concern, oh 
\nThe grey verses hold evening whole.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lyudmila Purgina", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Lyudmila Purgina" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52724,11 +54226,13 @@ "title": "“The Grain’s Path”", "body": "The sower walks down the even furrows;\nhis fathers all furrowed the path he follows.\n\nThe young seed glitters gold in his hand,\nbut it must fall into the black ground.\n\nThere, amid the tunnels of the blind worm,\nit will die on its due day--and grow again.\n\nSo now my soul treads the path of the grain--\ndown into darkness--and spring’s return.\n\nAnd you, my people, and you, my native land,\nyou will die and live, when the dark months end,\n\nfor we have been granted only this one truth:\nwhatever lives must follow the grain’s path.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Chandler", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -52739,11 +54243,13 @@ "title": "“The House”", "body": "There was a house here. They recently dismantled\nthe upstairs for firewood, leaving just the rough\nlower stonework structure. I go there\noften of an evening to relax. The open sky\nand green trees in the little courtyard\nrise up so fresh from all that’s fallen,\nand there’s the clear outline of the wide\nwindow-frames. A tumbled beam resembles\na column. A musty chill is coming\nfrom the piles of rubble and debris\nfilling up the rooms, where once\nthe people nested 
\nWhere they quarrelled, they reconciled, they\nstored up greasy money in a stocking\nfor a rainy day; where in the stuffy dark\nspouses embraced; where they sweated\nin a fever’s heat; where people were born\nand died in private--all of it now\nopen to the passer-by. O, blessed is he\nwhose untrammelled foot treads cheerfully\non this dust, and whose indifferent staff\ncan knock against the abandoned walls!\nThe royal palace of great Rameses\nor an unknown labourer’s shack, they’re\nequal to the wanderer, taking the same\ncomfort in the song of passing time; whether\nceremonious ranks of columns, or gaps\nfrom yesterday’s doors, much the same\nthey lead the traveller from one emptiness\ninto another 
\n\nWith a pattern of broken banisters\nthe stairs are walking up into the sky,\nand where the landing has been interrupted\nseems to me like an elevated podium.\nBut there’s no orator. And in the sky\nthe evening star has started shining,\ninstigator of high-flown meditations.\n\nYes, Time: you are so good. It’s good\nto inhale your awful spaciousness.\nWhy hide the fact? The human heart\nis playing like an infant fresh from sleep,\nwhen war, or famine, or civil turmoil\nswoop down suddenly, and shake the earth;\nthe times like opening skies will gape apart\nand man will throw himself, and his ever--\nunsatisfied soul, longingly into the deep.\n\nLike a bird up in the air, a fish in the ocean,\na slippery worm in a damp layer of earth,\nlike a salamander in flames--man lives\nin time. A half-wild nomad, using the moon’s\nchanges and sketched-out constellations,\nhe makes attempts to measure the abyss,\nwith his unpractised letters noting down\nevents like islands plotted on a map 
\nBut son displaces father. Cities, empires,\nscriptures, truths--they pass away. And man\nbreaks and builds up again with equal joy.\nHe has invented history--what a pleasure!\nAnd with both horror and a secret lust\nthe madman watches how, somewhere between\nthe past and the future--like clear water\nslipping between the fingers--unceasingly\nlife is trickling away. And the heart flutters\nlike the flag aloft on the mast of a ship,\nbetween the recollection and the hope\n--that memory of a future 
\n\n But here--\nthe rustle of footsteps. A hunched old woman\ncarrying a big sack. With a wrinkled hand\nshe’s ripping down old oakum off the walls,\npulling out laths. I go up silently\nto help her, and in pleasant harmony\nwe do some of the work for time. It’s darker:\nout from behind the walls a green crescent rises,\nits feeble light, like a little stream, flows\nover the glazed tiles of the collapsing stove.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter Daniels", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Peter Daniels" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52751,13 +54257,15 @@ "title": "“Lady’s washed her hands so long 
”", "body": "Lady’s washed her hands so long,\nLady’s scrubbed her hands so hard,\nand this lady won’t forget\nthe blood around the neck.\n\nLady, lady! Like a bird\nyou twitch about your sleepless bed.\nThree hundred years you’ve had no sleep--\nand six years now I’ve stayed awake.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter Daniels", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1922, "month": "january", "day": 9 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Peter Daniels" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -52769,14 +54277,16 @@ "title": "“Monument”", "body": "In me is the beginning, in me the end.\nWhat’s been accomplished by me a blink!\nYet still I am a reliable chain link:\nThis happiness to me has been given.\n\nIn the new but greater Russia they will\nerect to me a Janus-faced idol at\nthe broad cross-roads of two city streets\nwhere there’s sand, time, and the wind whines 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alex Cigale", "place": "Paris", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928, "month": "january", "day": 28 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alex Cigale" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -52788,13 +54298,15 @@ "title": "“My heart is singing, singing, singing 
”", "body": "My heart is singing, singing, singing,\n In it there is the blossoming,\nOf course, I can not have excuse\n In these so awful years.\n\nThe coffins are across my earth\n And hunger, murrain, death--\nBut I feel, for some reason, glee\n As if the sun is in me.\n\nThis feeling is my shame, it’s true,\n But what can I do here?--\nMy heart against everything\n Is singing, singing, singing.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Tatiana Kocherova", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1919, "month": "december", "day": 5 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Tatiana Kocherova" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december", @@ -52806,14 +54318,16 @@ "title": "“Nights”", "body": "A thin howl from the dogs on guard.\nTonight still camped in the same place,\nno-good vagabond orphans, we are\nwarming our hands at the bonfire.\n\nA sullen look beneath the brows\nfrom empty nights of far-fetched sleep.\nThe smoke is full of ruby floaters\nwhirled from flames that whistle and crack.\n\nThe waste says nothing. Silent, barbed,\na distant wind pursues the dust;\nwe sing with an evil dreariness\nthat’s chafing at our curling lips 
\n\nA thin howl from the dogs on guard.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter Daniels", "place": "Lidino", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1907, "month": "may", "day": 7 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Peter Daniels" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -52825,13 +54339,15 @@ "title": "“Not my mother, but a Tula peasant 
”", "body": "Not my mother, but a Tula peasant,\nElĂ©na KĂșzina, fed me her breast.\nShe warmed my swaddling-clothes above the stove,\nand with her cross at night my dreams were blessed.\n\nShe knew no fairy tales and never sang:\nbut always kept as treats for me instead\ninside her treasured white enamel tin\na peppermint horse or fruity gingerbread.\n\nShe never taught me how to say my prayers,\nbut gave up everything she had for me:\neven her own bitter motherhood,\nall that was dear to her, unconditionally.\n\nOnly the time I tumbled from the window, but\nstood up alive (that day for ever mine!),\nwith half a kopek for the miracle\nher candle graced Iberian Mary’s shrine.\n\nAnd you, Russia, ‘great resounding power’:\ntaking her nipples for my lips to pull,\nI suckled the excruciating right\nto love you, and to curse at you as well.\n\nMy honest, joyful task of making psalms,\nin which I serve each moment all day long,\nyour wonder-making genius teaches me,\nand my profession is your magic tongue.\n\nAnd I may stand before your feeble sons\npriding myself at times that I can guard\nthis language, handed down from age to age,\nwith a more jealous love for every word
\n\nThe years fly by. The future has no use,\nthe past has burnt itself into my soul.\nAnd yet the secret joy is still alive,\nfor me there is one refuge from it all:\n\nwhere with the still imperishable love\neven a maggot-eaten heart can keep,\nbeside the trampled coronation crowd\nmy nurse, Elena Kuzina, asleep.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter Daniels", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1922, "month": "march", "day": 2 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Peter Daniels" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -52843,11 +54359,13 @@ "title": "“Orpheus”", "body": "Brightly lit from above I am sitting\nin my circular room; this is I--\nlooking up at a sky made of stucco,\nat a sixty-watt sun in that sky.\n\nAll around me, and also lit brightly,\nall around me my furniture stands,\nchair and table and bed--and I wonder\nsitting there what to do with my hands.\n\nFrost-engendered white feathery palmtrees\non the window-panes silently bloom;\nloud and quick clicks the watch in my pocket\nas I sit in my circular room.\n\nOh, the leaden, the beggarly bareness\nof a life where no issue I see!\nWhom on earth could I tell how I pity\nmy own self and the things around me?\n\nAnd then clasping my knees I start slowly\nto sway backwards and forwards, and soon\nI am speaking in verse, I am crooning\nto myself as I sway in a swoon.\n\nWhat a vague, what a passionate murmur\nlacking any intelligent plan;\nbut a sound may be truer than reason\nand a word may be stronger than man.\n\nAnd then melody, melody, melody\nblends my accents and joins in their quest\nand a delicate, delicate, delicate\npointed blade seems to enter my breast.\n\nHigh above my own spirit I tower,\nhigh above mortal matter I grow:\nsubterranean flames lick my ankles,\npast my brow the cool galaxies flow.\n\nWith big eyes-as my singing grows wilder--\nwith the eyes of a serpent maybe,\nI keep watching the helpless expression\nof the poor things that listen to me.\n\nAnd the room and the furniture slowly,\nslowly start in a circle to sail,\nand a great heavy lyre is from nowhere\nhanded me by a ghost through the gale.\n\nAnd the sixty-watt sun has now vanished,\nand away the false heavens are blown:\non the smoothness of glossy black boulders\nthis is Orpheus standing alone.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Nabokov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Nabokov" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -52858,11 +54376,13 @@ "title": "“Step over, leap across 
”", "body": "Step over, leap across,\nfly beyond, however you like, get through it--\nbut tear yourself off: be a stone from a sling,\nbe a star that breaks away from the night 
\nYou lost it yourself--now look for it.\n\nGod knows what you grunt to yourself,\nlooking for spectacles or keys.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter Daniels", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Peter Daniels" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52870,11 +54390,13 @@ "title": "“The Stopper”", "body": "The stopper in the iodine\nhas rotted from the strength inside,\nthe way the soul will burn unseen\nand eat the flesh it’s occupied.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter Daniels", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Peter Daniels" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52882,13 +54404,15 @@ "title": "“The Tears Of Rachel”", "body": "Peace to the earth of the evens and sinners!\nBarriers, glasses, and pools are in a glow.\nI go under the rain’s flows, thinnest,\nMy shoulders--wet and my hat is all raw.\nNow we all are the homeless bastards,\nAs if we always were vagabonds here,\nAnd it sings to us--the rain, everlasting,--\nSongs of the Rachel’s perpetual tears.\n\nLet our grandchildren create their ballads\nOf fabulous fits of their great-great grandfathers,\nIn our heart, every day, as the bloodiest,\nMost shameful of days, is left for the others.\nIt is our pest that, to God, we were thrust in\nThis real cold world--in the time of a fear!\nAnd on the pale cheeks of the old woman, passing,\nFlow the Rachel’s embittered tears.\n\nI will take never nor glory nor honor,\nIf on last week--like I really saw it--\nShe has received, as a parcel, a lone,\nOozed with his blood piece of his overcoat.\nUnder all our cumbersome burden,\nAll those songs, we can there sing and hear,\nHave only one, one refrain that’s a good one:\nIt is the Rachel’s disconsolate tears.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1916, "month": "october", "day": 30 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -52900,8 +54424,10 @@ "title": "“Temptation”", "body": "“Enough! for beauty is not needed.\nThe sordid world’s not worth a song.\nGrow dim, O Tasso’s lamp! Unheeded\nLie, Homer, friend for centuries long!”\n\n“And revolution is not needed;\nIts armies dissipate and fade.\nIt has one crown for which it pleaded,\nIt has one liberty--to trade.”\n\n“In vain on public squares stands preaching\nHarmony’s hungry son to men;\nUnwelcome is his gospel-teaching\nTo the successful citizen.”\n\n“Content, and recking proudly of it,\nOn heaps where blossoming banners stand,\nThe scabs of drudgery and profit\nHe scratches with an itching hand.”\n\n“--Be off! Don’t trouble me. I’m selling.\n--No bourgeois, and no farmer, I.\n--I hide my profits daily swelling\n--In flaming cap of liberty.”\n\n“Soul, here confined and sickly grieving,\nOn heaps of this dishonoured lot.\nLook up to heaven for relieving,\nBut near, upon the earth, look not!”\n\nSo speaks the wicked Heart in trying\nTo tempt the Soul’s unsullied dreams.\n“O earthly one,” says Soul, replying:\n“What knowest thou where heaven gleams?”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Cecil Maurice Bowra", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Cecil Maurice Bowra" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -52909,13 +54435,15 @@ "title": "“Too late”", "body": "Fell to thinking I. And woke up.\nRang out belfry’s toll!\nTapered, smoke-dimmed icons--churchward\nBeckons pealing, dole.\n\nTardy, tardy--church is empty.\nLastly tolls the bell.\nYearnful heart impatient, sorry\nHeartful groan so fell.\n\nMuch too late. It’s snuffed, the candle.\nHere--the only one.\nNot remembering church is joy-filled,\nSad, returning, son.\n\nHow I want to turn the clock back,\nDown on knees I fall!\nGod, O God! Your tabernacle\nHolds me in its thrall!\n\nQuesting, I am now imprisoned.\nSpectres o’er me flap--\nThreatening, threatening, lure-enticing,\nSpider’s silky trap!\n\nMuch too late. In darkened hell-hole\nBlind, condemned to rot 
\nYet, regretful, dallying light’s call--\nStrengthless, take my lot.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rupert Moreton", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1904, "month": "december", "day": 5 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Rupert Moreton" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december", @@ -52927,11 +54455,13 @@ "title": "“Twilight”", "body": "The snow has drifted. Quietness descends.\nBlind walls beside the alley here, and empty ground.\nHere comes a man. To take the knife and stab him now!\n--Without a sound he’ll lean against the fence,\nThen slowly sink onto his knees, and lie face down.\nThe snowy breath that stirs among the trees,\nThe smoke that softly hazes evening skies--\nThose heralds of a deep and perfect peace--\nWill lightly whirl about him where he lies.\nFrom streets and yards they’ll all come running out to see,\nLike swarming ants, and stand between his corpse and me.\nThey’ll question me on how I killed him, and what for.--\nNot one will understand the love for him I bore.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Frayn", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Michael Frayn" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -52942,14 +54472,16 @@ "title": "“Twilight was turning to darkness outside 
”", "body": "Twilight was turning to darkness outside.\nUnder the eaves a window banged wide.\n\nA curtain was lifted, a light briefly shone,\nA swift shadow fell down the wall and was gone.\n\nHappy the man who falls head first to death:\nAt least for a moment his viewpoint is fresh.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Frayn", "place": "Saarow", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1923, "month": "december", "day": 23 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Michael Frayn" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december", @@ -53319,10 +54851,10 @@ "title": "“Love’s Lantern”", "body": "Because the road was steep and long\nAnd through a dark and lonely land,\nGod set upon my lips a song\nAnd put a lantern in my hand.\nThrough miles on weary miles of night\nThat stretch relentless in my way\nMy lantern burns serene and white,\nAn unexhausted cup of day.\nO golden lights and lights like wine,\nHow dim your boasted splendors are.\nBehold this little lamp of mine;\nIt is more starlike than a star!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -53523,11 +55055,11 @@ "title": "“Trees”", "body": "I think that I shall never see\nA poem lovely as a tree.\n\nA tree whose hungry mouth is prest\nAgainst the earth’s sweet flowing breast;\n\nA tree that looks at God all day,\nAnd lifts her leafy arms to pray;\n\nA tree that may in Summer wear\nA nest of robins in her hair;\n\nUpon whose bosom snow has lain;\nWho intimately lives with rain.\n\nPoems are made by fools like me,\nBut only God can make a tree.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913, "month": "february" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -53546,10 +55078,10 @@ "title": "“Vision”", "body": "Homer, they tell us, was blind and could not see the beautiful faces\nLooking up into his own and reflecting the joy of his dream,\nYet did he seem\nGifted with eyes that could follow the gods to their holiest places.\n\nI have no vision of gods, not of Eros with love-arrows laden,\nJupiter thundering death or of Juno his white-breasted queen,\nYet have I seen\nAll of the joy of the world in the innocent heart of a maiden.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -53557,10 +55089,10 @@ "title": "“The Visitation”", "body": "There is a wall of flesh before the eyes\nOf John, who yet perceives and hails his King.\nIt is Our Lady’s painful bliss to bring\nBefore mankind the Glory of the skies.\nHer cousin feels her womb’s sweet burden rise\nAnd leap with joy, and she comes forth to sing,\nWith trembling mouth, her words of welcoming.\nShe knows her hidden God, and prophesies.\nSaint John, pray for us, weary souls that tarry\nWhere life is withered by sin’s deadly breath.\nPray for us, whom the dogs of Satan harry,\nSaint John, Saint Anne, and Saint Elizabeth.\nAnd, Mother Mary, give us Christ to carry\nWithin our hearts, that we may conquer death.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "visitation" @@ -53871,8 +55403,10 @@ "title": "“Hermann and Thusnelda”", "body": "> _Thusnelda:_\n\nHa! there comes he, with sweat, with blood of Romans,\nAnd with dust of the fight all stained! O, never\nSaw I Hermann so lovely!\nNever such fire in his eyes!\n\nCome! I tremble for joy; hand me the Eagle,\nAnd the red, dripping sword! come, breathe, and rest thee;\nRest thee here in my bosom;\nRest from the terrible fight!\n\nRest thee, while from thy brow I wipe the big drops,\nAnd the blood from thy cheek!--that cheek, how glowing!\nHermann! Hermann! Thusnelda\nNever so loved thee before!\n\nNo, not then when thou first, in old oak-shadows,\nWith that manly brown arm didst wildly grasp me!\nSpell-bound I read in thy look\nThat immortality, then,\n\nWhich thou now hast won. Tell to the forests,\nGreat Augustus, with trembling, amidst his gods now,\nDrinks his nectar; for Hermann,\nHermann immortal is found!\n\n\n> _Hermann:_\n\nWherefore curl’st thou my hair? Lies not our father\nCold and silent in death? O, had Augustus\nOnly headed his army,--\nHe should lie bloodier there!\n\n\n> _Thusnelda:_\n\nLet me lift up thy hair; ’tis sinking, Hermann;\nProudly thy locks should curl above the crown now!\nSigmar is with the immortals!\nFollow, and mourn him no more!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Charles Timothy Brooks", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Charles Timothy Brooks" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -53915,11 +55449,14 @@ "title": "“The autumns of the earth are like a bishop’s grave 
”", "body": "The autumns of the earth are like a bishop’s grave\nWhere incense and brocade--half-rotten, mix and set in\nWith the cadaver’s mold. The aspen backwoods wave,\nBrowner than any brick. Like some crypt thieves can get in,\nThe sky is yawning wide. There--lees, the trash of cold\nGraves, and the twangy talk, the sexton wind’s endeavor:\n“The omophorion and censer of pure gold\nAre stolen; the most sacred grave profaned forever:\nA miter--lump of dirt, the eagle-rug rags curled.”\nThe autumns of the earth are sad unendingly 
\nThey are the living pledge the rich crypt of the world\nIs stolen piece by piece--and without lock and key\nWill be only received by the sacristan death.\nOh Lord, you pacify--with fire and wounds of war--\nThe spirit of the thief, the fats our bodies store;\nBut you soften the scabs with balms of Spring’s fresh breath\nAnd scare us with the fall--as with some dread landmark\nAt crossroads of the worlds where the graves’ dusk is dark.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Markov & Merrill Sparks", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Markov", + "Merrill Sparks" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -53930,11 +55467,14 @@ "title": "“Don’t think that the demons are winged 
”", "body": "Don’t think that the demons are winged,\nFor they have a bladder like fish.\nThey’re fond of mute, desolate sunsets,\nAnd the ocean’s expanse at midnight.\n\nThey swim after boats like a shark-pack.\nThe cheek bones of rocks undersea\nAre shelter for their hellish spirits,\nAs if they were greedy octopi.\n\nThey’re demons of smile and of silence,\nOf sleep, of the bolt on the door 
\nIn grave--also in baby cradle\nThere they seethe--in their own fiery wave.\n\nThe flocks of the small demons gather\nIn cuckoos, in a spinning song.\nThe bony fears of the old women\nGuarantee us that Hell is quite close.\n\nO, Mountains, fall down here upon us!\nAnd gorges, come cover us up!\nA thundery tale has been written\nOn an aphis and hoof of an ox.\n\nAt feasts, at the meal of a beggar,\nHorned shadows rise up everywhere 
\nFor whom, then, do angels at sunset\nWeave their paradise hems and kerchiefs?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Markov & Merrill Sparks", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Markov", + "Merrill Sparks" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -53942,11 +55482,13 @@ "title": "“I have forgotten what is in my hands 
”", "body": "I have forgotten what is in my hands:\nA heart, a hat, or a cane?\nIn the gardens of the Lord\nGrape bunches ripen.\n\nAhead the cry: “don’t,”\nBehind: “return.”\nAll that is quiet is the path\nLeading upwards.\n\nShouldn’t I follow it?\nMaybe, if no sin is committed,\nOn the azure path\nThe soul will become a bird.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Makin", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Michael Makin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -54621,12 +56163,15 @@ "title": "“Night was done 
”", "body": "Night was done. We rose and after\nWashing, dressing,--kissed with laughter,--\nAfter all the sweet night knows.\nLilac breakfast cups were clinking\nWhile we sat like brothers drinking\nTea,--and kept our dominoes.\n\nAnd our dominoes smiled greeting,\nAnd our eyes avoided meeting\nWith our dumb lips’ secrecy.\n“Faust” we sang, we played, denying\nNight’s strange memories, strangely dying,\nAs though night’s twain were not we.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Babette Deutsch & Avrahm Yarmolinsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1906, "month": "august" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch", + "Avrahm Yarmolinsky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -54684,7 +56229,6 @@ "title": "“Anguish”", "body": "Anguish, anguish is my heritage,\nthe wound of my throat,\nthe cry of my heart in the world.\nNow the lathered sky congeals\nin the coarse hand of night;\nnow the forests\nand the rigid heights\nrise barrenly against\nthe dwarfed vault of the sky.\nHow hard everything is,\nhow stiffened, black and silent!\n\nI grope about this darkened room,\nI feel the sharp edge of the cliff against my finger.\nI tear my sore and aching hands\non the hills and darkened woods,\non the black iron of sky\nand on the cold earth!\n\nAnguish, anguish is my heritage,\nthe wound of my throat,\nthe cry of my heart in the world.", "metadata": { - "translator": "W. H. Auden", "language": "Swedish", "source": { "title": "Aftonland", @@ -54693,6 +56237,9 @@ "year": 1953 } }, + "translators": [ + "W. H. Auden" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -54703,7 +56250,6 @@ "title": "“I Wanted to Know”", "body": "I wanted to know\nbut was only allowed to ask,\nI wanted light\nbut was only allowed to burn.\nI demanded the ineffable\nbut was only allowed to live.\n\nI complained,\nbut nobody understood what I meant.", "metadata": { - "translator": "W. H. Auden", "language": "Swedish", "source": { "title": "Aftonland", @@ -54712,6 +56258,9 @@ "year": 1953 } }, + "translators": [ + "W. H. Auden" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -54719,7 +56268,6 @@ "title": "“It is most beautiful when it is dark 
”", "body": "It is most beautiful when it is dark.\nAll the love heaven holds\nlies gathered in a dim light\nover the earth, over the house of the land.\n\nEverything is tenderness, everything is caressed by hands.\nThe Lord Himself wipes out distant shores.\nEverything is near, everything is far.\nEverything is given to man as a loan.\n\nAll is mine, and all shall be taken from me,\nsoon everything will be taken from me.\nThe trees, the clouds, the ground where I walk.\nI shall walk alone, without a trail.", "metadata": { - "translator": "W. H. Auden", "language": "Swedish", "source": { "title": "Aftonland", @@ -54728,6 +56276,9 @@ "year": 1953 } }, + "translators": [ + "W. H. Auden" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -54918,11 +56469,6 @@ "title": "“Absences”", "body": "Rain patters on a sea that tilts and sighs.\nFast-running floors, collapsing into hollows,\nTower suddenly, spray-haired. Contrariwise,\nA wave drops like a wall: another follows,\nWilting and scrambling, tirelessly at play\nWhere there are no ships and no shallows.\n\nAbove the sea, the yet more shoreless day,\nRiddled by wind, trails lit-up galleries:\nThey shift to giant ribbing, sift away.\n\nSuch attics cleared of me! Such absences!", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1950, - "month": "november", - "day": 28 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Less Deceived", @@ -54932,6 +56478,11 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "time": { + "year": 1950, + "month": "november", + "day": 28 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november", @@ -54943,11 +56494,6 @@ "title": "“An Arundel Tomb”", "body": "Side by side, their faces blurred,\nThe earl and countess lie in stone,\nTheir proper habits vaguely shown\nAs jointed armour, stiffened pleat,\nAnd that faint hint of the absurd--\nThe little dogs under their feet.\n\nSuch plainness of the pre-baroque\nHardly involves the eye, until\nIt meets his left-hand gauntlet, still\nClasped empty in the other; and\nOne sees, with a sharp tender shock,\nHis hand withdrawn, holding her hand.\n\nThey would not think to lie so long.\nSuch faithfulness in effigy\nWas just a detail friends would see:\nA sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace\nThrown off in helping to prolong\nThe Latin names around the base.\n\nThey would no guess how early in\nTheir supine stationary voyage\nThe air would change to soundless damage,\nTurn the old tenantry away;\nHow soon succeeding eyes begin\nTo look, not read. Rigidly they\n\nPersisted, linked, through lengths and breadths\nOf time. Snow fell, undated. Light\nEach summer thronged the grass. A bright\nLitter of birdcalls strewed the same\nBone-littered ground. And up the paths\nThe endless altered people came,\n\nWashing at their identity.\nNow, helpless in the hollow of\nAn unarmorial age, a trough\nOf smoke in slow suspended skeins\nAbove their scrap of history,\nOnly an attitude remains:\n\nTime has transfigures them into\nUntruth. The stone fidelity\nThey hardly meant has come to be\nTheir final blazon, and to prove\nOur almost-instinct almost true:\nWhat will survive of us is love.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1956, - "month": "february", - "day": 20 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -54956,6 +56502,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1956, + "month": "february", + "day": 20 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -54967,11 +56518,6 @@ "title": "“At Grass”", "body": "The eye can hardly pick them out\nFrom the cold shade they shelter in,\nTill wind distresses tail and mane;\nThen one crops grass, and moves about\n--The other seeming to look on--\nAnd stands anonymous again\n\nYet fifteen years ago, perhaps\nTwo dozen distances sufficed\nTo fable them: faint afternoons\nOf Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,\nWhereby their names were artificed\nTo inlay faded, classic Junes--\n\nSilks at the start: against the sky\nNumbers and parasols: outside,\nSquadrons of empty cars, and heat,\nAnd littered grass: then the long cry\nHanging unhushed till it subside\nTo stop-press columns on the street.\n\nDo memories plague their ears like flies?\nThey shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.\nSummer by summer all stole away,\nThe starting-gates, the crowd and cries--\nAll but the unmolesting meadows.\nAlmanacked, their names live; they\n\nHave slipped their names, and stand at ease,\nOr gallop for what must be joy,\nAnd not a fieldglass sees them home,\nOr curious stop-watch prophesies :\nOnly the grooms, and the grooms boy,\nWith bridles in the evening come.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1950, - "month": "january", - "day": 3 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -54980,6 +56526,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1950, + "month": "january", + "day": 3 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -54991,12 +56542,12 @@ "title": "“Aubade”", "body": "I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.\nWaking at four to soundless dark, I stare.\nIn time the curtain-edges will grow light.\nTill then I see what’s really always there:\nUnresting death, a whole day nearer now,\nMaking all thought impossible but how\nAnd where and when I shall myself die.\nArid interrogation: yet the dread\nOf dying, and being dead,\nFlashes afresh to hold and horrify.\n\nThe mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse\n--The good not done, the love not given, time\nTorn off unused--nor wretchedly because\nAn only life can take so long to climb\nClear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;\nBut at the total emptiness for ever,\nThe sure extinction that we travel to\nAnd shall be lost in always. Not to be here,\nNot to be anywhere,\nAnd soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.\n\nThis is a special way of being afraid\nNo trick dispels. Religion used to try,\nThat vast moth-eaten musical brocade\nCreated to pretend we never die,\nAnd specious stuff that says No rational being\nCan fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing\nThat this is what we fear--no sight, no sound,\nNo touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,\nNothing to love or link with,\nThe anaesthetic from which none come round.\n\nAnd so it stays just on the edge of vision,\nA small unfocused blur, a standing chill\nThat slows each impulse down to indecision.\nMost things may never happen: this one will,\nAnd realisation of it rages out\nIn furnace-fear when we are caught without\nPeople or drink. Courage is no good:\nIt means not scaring others. Being brave\nLets no one off the grave.\nDeath is no different whined at than withstood.\n\nSlowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.\nIt stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,\nHave always known, know that we can’t escape,\nYet can’t accept. One side will have to go.\nMeanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring\nIn locked-up offices, and all the uncaring\nIntricate rented world begins to rouse.\nThe sky is white as clay, with no sun.\nWork has to be done.\nPostmen like doctors go from house to house.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1977, "month": "november", "day": 29 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november", @@ -55008,11 +56559,6 @@ "title": "“Breadfruit”", "body": "Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit,\n Whatever they are,\nAs bribes to teach them how to execute\nSixteen sexual positions on the sand;\nThis makes them join (the boys) the tennis club,\nJive at the Mecca, use deodorants, and\nOn Saturdays squire ex-schoolgirls to the pub\n By private car.\n\nSuch uncorrected visions end in church\n Or registrar:\nA mortgaged semi- with a silver birch;\nNippers; the widowed mum; having to scheme\nWith money; illness; age. So absolute\nMaturity falls, when old men sit and dream\nOf naked native girls who bring breadfruit\n Whatever they are.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1961, - "month": "november", - "day": 19 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55021,6 +56567,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1961, + "month": "november", + "day": 19 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november", @@ -55032,11 +56583,6 @@ "title": "“The Building”", "body": "Higher than the handsomest hotel\nThe lucent comb shows up for miles, but see,\nAll round it close-ribbed streets rise and fall\nLike a great sigh out of the last century.\nThe porters are scruffy; what keep drawing up\nAt the entrance are not taxis; and in the hall\nAs well as creepers hangs a frightening smell.\n\nThere are paperbacks, and tea at so much a cup,\nLike an airport lounge, but those who tamely sit\nOn rows of steel chairs turning the ripped mags\nHaven’t come far. More like a local bus.\nThese outdoor clothes and half-filled shopping-bags\nAnd faces restless and resigned, although\nEvery few minutes comes a kind of nurse\n\nTo fetch someone away: the rest refit\nCups back to saucers, cough, or glance below\nSeats for dropped gloves or cards. Humans, caught\nOn ground curiously neutral, homes and names\nSuddenly in abeyance; some are young,\nSome old, but most at that vague age that claims\nThe end of choice, the last of hope; and all\n\nHere to confess that something has gone wrong.\nIt must be error of a serious sort,\nFor see how many floors it needs, how tall\nIt’s grown by now, and how much money goes\nIn trying to correct it. See the time,\nHalf-past eleven on a working day,\nAnd these picked out of it; see, as they c1imb\n\nTo their appointed levels, how their eyes\nGo to each other, guessing; on the way\nSomeone’s wheeled past, in washed-to-rags ward clothes:\nThey see him, too. They’re quiet. To realise\nThis new thing held in common makes them quiet,\nFor past these doors are rooms, and rooms past those,\nAnd more rooms yet, each one further off\n\nAnd harder to return from; and who knows\nWhich he will see, and when? For the moment, wait,\nLook down at the yard. Outside seems old enough:\nRed brick, lagged pipes, and someone walking by it\nOut to the car park, free. Then, past the gate,\nTraffic; a locked church; short terraced streets\nWhere kids chalk games, and girls with hair-dos fetch\n\nTheir separates from the cleaners--O world,\nYour loves, your chances, are beyond the stretch\nOf any hand from here! And so, unreal\nA touching dream to which we all are lulled\nBut wake from separately. In it, conceits\nAnd self-protecting ignorance congeal\nTo carry life, collapsing only when\n\nCalled to these corridors (for now once more\nThe nurse beckons--). Each gets up and goes\nAt last. Some will be out by lunch, or four;\nOthers, not knowing it, have come to join\nThe unseen congregations whose white rows\nLie set apart above--women, men;\nOld, young; crude facets of the only coin\n\nThis place accepts. All know they are going to die.\nNot yet, perhaps not here, but in the end,\nAnd somewhere like this. That is what it means,\nThis clean-sliced cliff; a struggle to transcend\nThe thought of dying, for unless its powers\nOutbuild cathedrals nothing contravenes\nThe coming dark, though crowds each evening try\n\nWith wasteful, weak, propitiatory flowers.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1972, - "month": "february", - "day": 9 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "High Windows", @@ -55045,6 +56591,11 @@ "year": 1974 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1972, + "month": "february", + "day": 9 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -55056,11 +56607,6 @@ "title": "“Days”", "body": "What are days for?\nDays are where we live.\nThey come, they wake us\nTime and time over.\nThey are to be happy in:\nWhere can we live but days?\n\nAh, solving that question\nBrings the priest and the doctor\nIn their long coats\nRunning over the fields.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1953, - "month": "august", - "day": 3 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55069,6 +56615,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1953, + "month": "august", + "day": 3 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -55080,11 +56631,6 @@ "title": "“Deceptions”", "body": "_“Of course I was drugged, and so heavily I did not regain consciousness until the next morning. I was horrified to discover that I had been ruined, and for some days I was inconsolable, and cried like a child to be killed or sent back to my aunt.”_\n --Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor\n\nEven so distant, I can taste the grief,\nBitter and sharp with stalks, he made you gulp.\nThe sun’s occasional print, the brisk brief\nWorry of wheels along the street outside\nWhere bridal London bows the other way,\nAnd light, unanswerable and tall and wide,\nForbids the scar to heal, and drives\nShame out of hiding. All the unhurried day,\nYour mind lay open like a drawer of knives.\n\nSlums, years, have buried you. I would not dare\nConsole you if I could. What can be said,\nExcept that suffering is exact, but where\nDesire takes charge, readings will grow erratic?\nFor you would hardly care\nThat you were less deceived, out on that bed,\nThan he was, stumbling up the breathless stair\nTo burst into fulfillment’s desolate attic.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1950, - "month": "february", - "day": 20 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Less Deceived", @@ -55094,6 +56640,11 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "time": { + "year": 1950, + "month": "february", + "day": 20 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -55105,11 +56656,6 @@ "title": "“The Explosion”", "body": "On the day of the explosion\nShadows pointed towards the pithead:\nIn thesun the slagheap slept.\n\nDown the lane came men in pitboots\nCoughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke\nShouldering off the freshened silence.\n\nOne chased after rabbits; lost them;\nCame back with a nest of lark’s eggs;\nShowed them; lodged them in the grasses.\n\nSo they passed in beards and moleskins\nFathers brothers nicknames laughter\nThrough the tall gates standing open.\n\nAt noon there came a tremor; cows\nStopped chewing for a second; sun\nScarfed as in a heat-haze dimmed.\n\nThe dead go on before us they\nAre sitting in God’s house in comfort\nWe shall see them face to face--\n\nplian as lettering in the chapels\nIt was said and for a second\nWives saw men of the explosion\n\nLarger than in life they managed--\nGold as on a coin or walking\nSomehow from the sun towards them\n\nOne showing the eggs unbroken.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1970, - "month": "january", - "day": 5 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "High Windows", @@ -55118,6 +56664,11 @@ "year": 1974 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1970, + "month": "january", + "day": 5 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -55129,11 +56680,6 @@ "title": "“Faith Healing”", "body": "Slowly the women file to where he stands\nUpright in rimless glasses, silver hair,\nDark suit, white collar. Stewards tirelessly\nPersuade them onwards to his voice and hands,\nWithin whose warm spring rain of loving care\nEach dwells some twenty seconds. _Now, dear child,\nWhat’s wrong,_ the deep American voice demands,\nAnd, scarcely pausing, goes into a prayer\nDirecting God about this eye, that knee.\nTheir heads are clasped abruptly; then, exiled\n\nLike losing thoughts, they go in silence; some\nSheepishly stray, not back into their lives\nJust yet; but some stay stiff, twitching and loud\nWith deep hoarse tears, as if a kind of dumb\nAnd idiot child within them still survives\nTo re-awake at kindness, thinking a voice\nAt last calls them alone, that hands have come\nTo lift and lighten; and such joy arrives\nTheir thick tongues blort, their eyes squeeze grief, a crowd\nOf huge unheard answers jam and rejoice--\n\nWhat’s wrong! Moustached in flowered frocks they shake:\nBy now, all’s wrong. In everyone there sleeps\nA sense of life lived according to love.\nTo some it means the difference they could make\nBy loving others, but across most it sweeps\nAs all they might have done had they been loved.\nThat nothing cures. An immense slackening ache,\nAs when, thawing, the rigid landscape weeps,\nSpreads slowly through them--that, and the voice above\nSaying _Dear child,_ and all time has disproved.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1960, - "month": "may", - "day": 10 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55142,6 +56688,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1960, + "month": "may", + "day": 10 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -55153,11 +56704,6 @@ "title": "“First Sight”", "body": "Lambs that learn to walk in snow\nWhen their bleating clouds the air\nMeet a vast unwelcome, know\nNothing but a sunless glare.\nNewly stumbling to and fro\nAll they find, outside the fold,\nIs a wretched width of cold.\n\nAs they wait beside the ewe,\nHer fleeces wetly caked, there lies\nHidden round them, waiting too,\nEarth’s immeasureable surprise.\nThey could not grasp it if they knew,\nWhat so soon will wake and grow\nUtterly unlike the snow.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1956, - "month": "march", - "day": 3 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55166,6 +56712,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1956, + "month": "march", + "day": 3 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -55177,10 +56728,6 @@ "title": "“Going”", "body": "There is an evening coming in\nAcross the fields, one never seen before,\nThat lights no lamps.\n\nSilken it seems at a distance, yet\nWhen it is drawn up over the knees and breast\nIt brings no comfort.\n\nWhere has the tree gone, that locked\nEarth to the sky? What is under my hands,\nThat I cannot feel?\n\nWhat loads my hands down?", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1946, - "month": "february" - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Less Deceived", @@ -55190,6 +56737,10 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "time": { + "year": 1946, + "month": "february" + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -55200,11 +56751,6 @@ "title": "“High Windows”", "body": "When I see a couple of kids\nAnd guess he’s fucking her and she’s\nTaking pills or wearing a diaphragm,\nI know this is paradise\n\nEveryone old has dreamed of all their lives--\nBonds and gestures pushed to one side\nLike an outdated combine harvester,\nAnd everyone young going down the long slide\n\nTo happiness, endlessly. I wonder if\nAnyone looked at me, forty years back,\nAnd thought, _That’ll be the life;\nNo God any more, or sweating in the dark\n\nAbout hell and that, or having to hide\nWhat you think of the priest. He\nAnd his lot will all go down the long slide\nLike free bloody birds._ And immediately\n\nRather than words comes the thought of high windows:\nThe sun-comprehending glass,\nAnd beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows\nNothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1967, - "month": "february", - "day": 12 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "High Windows", @@ -55213,6 +56759,11 @@ "year": 1974 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1967, + "month": "february", + "day": 12 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -55224,11 +56775,6 @@ "title": "“Homage to a Government”", "body": "Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home\nFor lack of money, and it is all right.\nPlaces they guarded, or kept orderly,\nMust guard themselves, and keep themselves orderly\nWe want the money for ourselves at home\nInstead of working. And this is all right.\n\nIt’s hard to say who wanted it to happen,\nBut now it’s been decided nobody minds.\nThe places are a long way off, not here,\nWhich is all right, and from what we hear\nThe soldiers there only made trouble happen.\nNext year we shall be easier in our minds.\n\nNext year we shall be living in a country\nThat brought its soldiers home for lack of money.\nThe statues will be standing in the same\nTree-muffled squares, and look nearly the same.\nOur children will not know it’s a different country.\nAll we can hope to leave them now is money.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1969, - "month": "january", - "day": 10 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "High Windows", @@ -55237,6 +56783,11 @@ "year": 1974 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1969, + "month": "january", + "day": 10 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -55248,11 +56799,6 @@ "title": "“How Distant”", "body": "How distant, the departure of young men\nDown valleys, or watching\nThe green shore past the salt-white cordage\nRising and falling.\n\nCattlemen, or carpenters, or keen\nSimply to get away\nFrom married villages before morning,\nMelodeons play\n\nOn tiny decks past fraying cliffs of water\nOr late at night\nSweet under the differently-swung stars,\nWhen the chance sight\n\nOf a girl doing her laundry in the steerage\nRamifies endlessly.\nThis is being young,\nAssumption of the startled century\n\nLike new store clothes,\nThe huge decisions printed out by feet\nInventing where they tread,\nThe random windows conjuring a street.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1965, - "month": "november", - "day": 24 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "High Windows", @@ -55261,6 +56807,11 @@ "year": 1974 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1965, + "month": "november", + "day": 24 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november", @@ -55272,9 +56823,6 @@ "title": "“If hands could free you, heart 
”", "body": "If hands could free you, heart,\nWhere would you fly?\nFar, beyond every part\nOf earth this running sky\nMakes desolate? Would you cross\nCity and hill and sea,\nIf hands could set you free?\n\nI would not lift the latch;\nFor I could run\nThrough fields, pit-valleys, catch\nAll beauty under the sun--\nStill end in loss:\nI should find no bent arm, no bed\nTo rest my head.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1944 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The North Ship", @@ -55284,6 +56832,9 @@ "month": "july" } }, + "time": { + "year": 1944 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -55291,12 +56842,12 @@ "title": "“Love Again”", "body": "Love again: wanking at ten past three\n(Surely he’s taken her home by now?),\nThe bedroom hot as a bakery,\nThe drink gone dead, without showing how\nTo meet tomorrow, and afterwards,\nAnd the usual pain, like dysentery.\n\nSomeone else feeling her breasts and cunt,\nSomeone else drowned in that lash-wide stare,\nAnd me supposed to be ignorant,\nOr find it funny, or not to care,\nEven 
 but why put it into words?\nIsolate rather this element\n\nThat spreads through other lives like a tree\nAnd sways them on in a sort of sense\nAnd say why it never worked for me.\nSomething to do with violence\nA long way back, and wrong rewards,\nAnd arrogant eternity.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1979, "month": "september", "day": 20 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september", @@ -55308,11 +56859,6 @@ "title": "“Love Songs In Age”", "body": "She kept her songs, they kept so little space,\n The covers pleased her:\nOne bleached from lying in a sunny place,\nOne marked in circles by a vase of water,\nOne mended, when a tidy fit had seized her,\n And coloured, by her daughter--\nSo they had waited, till, in widowhood\nShe found them, looking for something else, and stood\n\nRelearning how each frank submissive chord\n Had ushered in\nWord after sprawling hyphenated word,\nAnd the unfailing sense of being young\nSpread out like a spring-woken tree, wherein\n That hidden freshness sung,\nThat certainty of time laid up in store\nAs when she played them first. But, even more,\n\nThe glare of that much-mentioned brilliance, love,\n Broke out, to show\nIts bright incipience sailing above,\nStill promising to solve, and satisfy,\nAnd set unchangeably in order. So\n To pile them back, to cry,\nWas hard, without lamely admitting how\nIt had not done so then, and could not now.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1957, - "month": "january", - "day": 1 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55321,6 +56867,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1957, + "month": "january", + "day": 1 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -55332,9 +56883,6 @@ "title": "“Love, we must part now 
”", "body": "Love, we must part now: do not let it be\nCalamitious and bitter. In the past\nThere has been too much moonlight and self-pity:\nLet us have done with it: for now at last\nNever has sun more boldly paced the sky,\nNever were hearts more eager to be free,\nTo kick down worlds, lash forests; you and I\nNo longer hold them; we are husks, that see\nThe grain going forward to a different use.\n\nThere is regret. Always, there is regret.\nBut it is better that our lives unloose,\nAs two tall ships, wind-mastered, wet with light,\nBreak from an estuary with their courses set,\nAnd waving part, and waving drop from sight.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1944 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55343,6 +56891,9 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1944 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -55350,11 +56901,6 @@ "title": "“MCMXIV”", "body": "Those long uneven lines\nStanding as patiently\nAs if they were stretched outside\nThe Oval or Villa Park,\nThe crowns of hats, the sun\nOn moustached archaic faces\nGrinning as if it were all\nAn August Bank Holiday lark;\nAnd the shut shops, the bleached\nEstablished names on the sunblinds,\nThe farthings and sovereigns,\nAnd dark-clothed children at play\nCalled after kings and queens,\nThe tin advertisements\nFor cocoa and twist, and the pubs\nWide open all day;\nAnd the countryside not caring\nThe place-names all hazed over\nWith flowering grasses, and fields\nShadowing Domesday lines\nUnder wheats’ restless silence;\nThe differently-dressed servants\nWith tiny rooms in huge houses,\nThe dust behind limousines;\nNever such innocence,\nNever before or since,\nAs changed itself to past\nWithout a word--the men\nLeaving the gardens tidy,\nThe thousands of marriages\nLasting a little while longer:\nNever such innocence again.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1960, - "month": "may", - "day": 17 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55363,6 +56909,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1960, + "month": "may", + "day": 17 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -55374,11 +56925,6 @@ "title": "“Money”", "body": "Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me:\n “Why do you let me lie here wastefully?\nI am all you never had of goods and sex.\n You could get them still by writing a few cheques.”\n\nSo I look at others, what they do with theirs:\n They certainly don’t keep it upstairs.\nBy now they’ve a second house and car and wife:\n Clearly money has something to do with life\n\n--In fact, they’ve a lot in common, if you enquire:\n You can’t put off being young until you retire,\nAnd however you bank your screw, the money you save\n Won’t in the end buy you more than a shave.\n\nI listen to money singing. It’s like looking down\n From long french windows at a provincial town,\nThe slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad\n In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1973, - "month": "february", - "day": 19 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "High Windows", @@ -55387,6 +56933,11 @@ "year": 1974 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1973, + "month": "february", + "day": 19 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -55398,12 +56949,12 @@ "title": "“The Mower”", "body": "The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found\nA hedgehog jammed up against the blades,\nKilled. It had been in the long grass.\n\nI had seen it before, and even fed it, once.\nNow I had mauled its unobtrusive world\nUnmendably. Burial was no help:\n\nNext morning I got up and it did not.\nThe first day after a death, the new absence\nIs always the same; we should be careful\n\nOf each other, we should be kind\nWhile there is still time.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1979, "month": "june", "day": 12 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -55415,11 +56966,6 @@ "title": "“Night-Music”", "body": "At one the wind rose,\nAnd with it the noise\nOf the black poplars.\n\nLong since had the living\nBy a thin twine\nBeen led into their dreams\nWhere lanterns shine\nUnder a still veil\nOf falling streams;\nLong since had the dead\nBecome untroubled\nIn the light soil.\nThere were no mouths\nTo drink of the wind,\nNor any eyes\nTo sharpen on the stars’\nWide heaven-holding,\nOnly the sound\nLong sibilant-muscled trees\nWere lifting up, the black poplars.\n\nAnd in their blazing solitude\nThe stars sang in their sockets through\nthe night:\n“Blow bright, blow bright\nThe coal of this unquickened world.”", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1944, - "month": "october", - "day": 12 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The North Ship", @@ -55429,6 +56975,11 @@ "month": "july" } }, + "time": { + "year": 1944, + "month": "october", + "day": 12 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -55440,11 +56991,6 @@ "title": "“No Road”", "body": "Since we agreed to let the road between us\nFall to disuse,\nAnd bricked our gates up, planted trees to screen us,\nAnd turned all time’s eroding agents loose,\nSilence, and space, and strangers--our neglect\nHas not had much effect.\n\nLeaves drift unswept, perhaps; grass creeps unmown;\nNo other change.\nSo clear it stands, so little overgrown,\nWalking that way tonight would not seem strange,\nAnd still would be allowed. A little longer,\nAnd time would be the stronger,\n\nDrafting a world where no such road will run\nFrom you to me;\nTo watch that world come up like a cold sun,\nRewarding others, is my liberty.\nNot to prevent it is my will’s fulfillment.\nWilling it, my ailment.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1950, - "month": "october", - "day": 28 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55453,6 +56999,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1950, + "month": "october", + "day": 28 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -55464,11 +57015,6 @@ "title": "“The North Ship”", "body": "I saw three ships go sailing by,\nOver the sea, the lifting sea,\nAnd the wind rose in the morning sky,\nAnd one was rigged for a long journey.\n\nThe first ship turned towards the west,\nOver the sea, the running sea,\nAnd by the wind was all possessed\nAnd carried to a rich country.\n\nThe second ship turned towards the east,\nOver the sea, the quaking sea,\nAnd the wind hunted it like a beast\nTo anchor in captivity.\n\nThe third ship drove towards the north,\nOver the sea, the darkening sea,\nBut no breath of wind came forth,\nAnd the decks shone frostily.\n\nThe northern sky rose high and black\nOver the proud unfruitful sea,\nEast and west the ships came back\nHappily or unhappily:\n\nBut the third went wide and far\nInto an unforgiving sea\nUnder a fire-spilling star,\nAnd it was rigged for a long journey.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1944, - "month": "october", - "day": 8 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The North Ship", @@ -55478,6 +57024,11 @@ "month": "july" } }, + "time": { + "year": 1944, + "month": "october", + "day": 8 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -55489,11 +57040,6 @@ "title": "“Nothing to be Said”", "body": "For nations vague as weed,\nFor nomads among stones,\nSmall-statured cross-faced tribes\nAnd cobble-close families\nIn mill-towns on dark mornings\nLife is slow dying.\n\nSo are their separate ways\nOf building, benediction,\nMeasuring love and money\nWays of slowly dying.\nThe day spent hunting pig\nOr holding a garden-party,\n\nHours giving evidence\nOr birth, advance\nOn death equally slowly.\nAnd saying so to some\nMeans nothing; others it leaves\nNothing to be said.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1961, - "month": "october", - "day": 18 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55502,6 +57048,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1961, + "month": "october", + "day": 18 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -55513,11 +57064,6 @@ "title": "“The Old Fools”", "body": "What do they think has happened, the old fools,\nTo make them like this? Do they somehow suppose\nIt’s more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,\nAnd you keep on pissing yourself, and can’t remember\nWho called this morning? Or that, if they only chose,\nThey could alter things back to when they danced all night,\nOr went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September?\nOr do they fancy there’s really been no change,\nAnd they’ve always behaved as if they were crippled or tight,\nOr sat through days of thin continuous dreaming\nWatching light move? If they don’t (and they can’t), it’s strange:\nWhy aren’t they screaming?\n\nAt death, you break up: the bits that were you\nStart speeding away from each other for ever\nWith no one to see. It’s only oblivion, true:\nWe had it before, but then it was going to end,\nAnd was all the time merging with a unique endeavour\nTo bring to bloom the million-petaled flower\nOf being here. Next time you can’t pretend\nThere’ll be anything else. And these are the first signs:\nNot knowing how, not hearing who, the power\nOf choosing gone. Their looks show that they’re for it:\nAsh hair, toad hands, prune face dried into lines--\nHow can they ignore it?\n\nPerhaps being old is having lighted rooms\nInside your head, and people in them, acting.\nPeople you know, yet can’t quite name; each looms\nLike a deep loss restored, from known doors turning,\nSetting down a lamp, smiling from a stair, extracting\nA known book from the shelves; or sometimes only\nThe rooms themselves, chairs and a fire burning,\nThe blown bush at the window, or the sun’s\nFaint friendliness on the wall some lonely\nRain-ceased midsummer evening. That is where they live:\nNot here and now, but where all happened once.\nThis is why they give\n\nAn air of baffled absence, trying to be there\nYet being here. For the rooms grow farther, leaving\nIncompetent cold, the constant wear and tear\nOf taken breath, and them crouching below\nExtinction’s alp, the old fools, never perceiving\nHow near it is. This must be what keeps them quiet:\nThe peak that stays in view wherever we go\nFor them is rising ground. Can they never tell\nWhat is dragging them back, and how it will end? Not at night?\nNot when the strangers come? Never, throughout\nThe whole hideous, inverted childhood? Well,\nWe shall find out.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1973, - "month": "january", - "day": 12 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "High Windows", @@ -55526,6 +57072,11 @@ "year": 1974 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1973, + "month": "january", + "day": 12 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -55537,11 +57088,6 @@ "title": "“Sad Steps”", "body": "Groping back to bed after a piss\nI part thick curtains, and am startled by\nThe rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness.\n\nFour o’clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie\nUnder a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.\nThere’s something laughable about this,\n\nThe way the moon dashes through clouds that blow\nLoosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart\n(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)\n\nHigh and preposterous and separate--\nLozenge of love! Medallion of art!\nO wolves of memory! Immensements! No,\n\nOne shivers slightly, looking up there.\nThe hardness and the brightness and the plain\nFar-reaching singleness of that wide stare\n\nIs a reminder of the strength and pain\nOf being young; that it can’t come again,\nBut is for others undiminished somewhere.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1968, - "month": "april", - "day": 24 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "High Windows", @@ -55550,6 +57096,11 @@ "year": 1974 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1968, + "month": "april", + "day": 24 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -55561,11 +57112,6 @@ "title": "“Since the majority of me 
”", "body": "Since the majority of me\nRejects the majority of you,\nDebating ends forwith, and we\nDivide. And sure of what to do\n\nWe disinfect new blocks of days\nFor our majorities to rent\nWith unshared friends and unwalked ways,\nBut silence too is eloquent:\n\nA silence of minorities\nThat, unopposed at last, return\nEach night with cancelled promises\nThey want renewed. They never learn.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1950, - "month": "december", - "day": 6 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55574,6 +57120,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1950, + "month": "december", + "day": 6 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december", @@ -55585,12 +57136,12 @@ "title": "“Story”", "body": "Tired of a landscape known too well when young:\nThe deliberate shallow hills, the boring birds\nFlying past rocks; tired of remembering\nThe village children and their naughty words,\nHe abandoned his small holding and went South,\nRecognised at once his wished-for lie\nIn the inhabitants’ attractive mouth,\nThe church beside the marsh, the hot blue sky.\n\nSettled. And in this mirage lived his dreams,\nThe friendly bully, saint, or lovely chum\nAccording to his moods. Yet he at times\nWould think about his village, and would wonder\nIf the children and the rocks were still the same.\n\nBut he forgot all this as he grew older.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1941, "month": "february", "day": 13 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february", @@ -55602,11 +57153,6 @@ "title": "“A Study Of Reading Habits”", "body": "When getting my nose in a book\nCured most things short of school,\nIt was worth ruining my eyes\nTo know I could still keep cool,\nAnd deal out the old right hook\nTo dirty dogs twice my size.\n\nLater, with inch-thick specs,\nEvil was just my lark:\nMe and my cloak and fangs\nHad ripping times in the dark.\nThe women I clubbed with sex!\nI broke them up like meringues.\n\nDon’t read much now: the dude\nWho lets the girl down before\nThe hero arrives, the chap\nWho’s yellow and keeps the store\nSeem far too familiar. Get stewed:\nBooks are a load of crap.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1960, - "month": "august", - "day": 20 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55615,6 +57161,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1960, + "month": "august", + "day": 20 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -55626,10 +57177,6 @@ "title": "“Sunny Prestatyn”", "body": "_Come To Sunny Prestatyn_\nLaughed the girl on the poster,\nKneeling up on the sand\nIn tautened white satin.\nBehind her, a hunk of coast, a\nHotel with palms\nSeemed to expand from her thighs and\nSpread breast-lifting arms.\n\nShe was slapped up one day in March.\nA couple of weeks, and her face\nWas snaggle-toothed and boss-eyed;\nHuge tits and a fissured crotch\nWere scored well in, and the space\nBetween her legs held scrawls\nThat set her fairly astride\nA tuberous cock and balls.\n\nAutographed _Titch Thomas,_ while\nSomeone had used a knife\nOr something to stab right through\nThe moustached lips of her smile.\nShe was too good for this life.\nVery soon, a great transverse tear\nLeft only a hand and some blue.\nNow _Fight Cancer_ is there.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1962, - "month": "october" - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55638,6 +57185,10 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1962, + "month": "october" + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -55648,11 +57199,6 @@ "title": "“Talking in Bed”", "body": "Talking in bed ought to be easiest,\nLying together there goes back so far,\nAn emblem of two people being honest.\nYet more and more time passes silently.\nOutside, the wind’s incomplete unrest\nBuilds and disperses clouds in the sky,\nAnd dark towns heap up on the horizon.\nNone of this cares for us. Nothing shows why\nAt this unique distance from isolation\nIt becomes still more difficult to find\nWords at once true and kind,\nOr not untrue and not unkind.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1960, - "month": "august", - "day": 10 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55661,6 +57207,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1960, + "month": "august", + "day": 10 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -55672,9 +57223,6 @@ "title": "“This is the first thing 
”", "body": "This is the first thing\nI have understood:\nTime is the echo of an axe\nWithin a wood.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1944 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The North Ship", @@ -55684,6 +57232,9 @@ "month": "july" } }, + "time": { + "year": 1944 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -55694,12 +57245,12 @@ "title": "“To Failure”", "body": "You do not come dramatically, with dragons\nThat rear up with my life between their paws\nAnd dash me butchered down beside the wagons,\nThe horses panicking; nor as a clause\nClearly set out to warn what can be lost,\nWhat out-of-pocket charges must be borne\nExpenses met; nor as a draughty ghost\nThat’s seen, some mornings, running down a lawn.\n\nIt is these sunless afternoons, I find\nInstall you at my elbow like a bore\nThe chestnut trees are caked with silence. I’m\nAware the days pass quicker than before,\nSmell staler too. And once they fall behind\nThey look like ruin. You have been here some time.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1949, "month": "may", "day": 18 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -55711,11 +57262,6 @@ "title": "“Toads”", "body": "Why should I let the toad work\nSquat on my life?\nCan’t I use my wit as a pitchfork\nAnd drive the brute off?\n\nSix days of the week it soils\nWith its sickening poison--\nJust for paying a few bills!\nThat’s out of proportion.\n\nLots of folk live on their wits:\nLecturers, lispers,\nLosers, loblolly-men, louts-\nThey don’t end as paupers;\n\nLots of folk live up lanes\nWith fires in a bucket,\nEat windfalls and tinned sardines-\nThey seem to like it.\n\nTheir nippers have got bare feet,\nTheir unspeakable wives\nAre skinny as whippets--and yet\nNo one actually _starves_.\n\nAh, were I courageous enough\nTo shout, Stuff your pension!\nBut I know, all too well, that’s the stuff\nThat dreams are made on:\n\nFor something sufficiently toad-like\nSquats in me, too;\nIts hunkers are heavy as hard luck,\nAnd cold as snow,\n\nAnd will never allow me to blarney\nMy way of getting\nThe fame and the girl and the money\nAll at one sitting.\n\nI don’t say, one bodies the other\nOne’s spiritual truth;\nBut I do say it’s hard to lose either,\nWhen you have both.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1954, - "month": "march", - "day": 16 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Less Deceived", @@ -55725,6 +57271,11 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "time": { + "year": 1954, + "month": "march", + "day": 16 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -55736,11 +57287,6 @@ "title": "“Wants”", "body": "Beyond all this, the wish to be alone:\nHowever the sky grows dark with invitation-cards\nHowever we follow the printed directions of sex\nHowever the family is photographed under the flag-staff--\nBeyond all this, the wish to be alone.\n\nBeneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs:\nDespite the artful tensions of the calendar,\nThe life insurance, the tabled fertility rites,\nThe costly aversion of the eyes away from death--\nBeneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1950, - "month": "june", - "day": 1 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Less Deceived", @@ -55750,6 +57296,11 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "time": { + "year": 1950, + "month": "june", + "day": 1 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -55761,11 +57312,6 @@ "title": "“The Whitsun Weddings”", "body": "That Whitsun, I was late getting away:\n Not till about\nOne-twenty on the sunlit Saturday\nDid my three-quarters-empty train pull out,\nAll windows down, all cushions hot, all sense\nOf being in a hurry gone. We ran\nBehind the backs of houses, crossed a street\nOf blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence\nThe river’s level drifting breadth began,\nWhere sky and Lincolnshire and water meet.\n\nAll afternoon, through the tall heat that slept\n For miles inland,\nA slow and stopping curve southwards we kept.\nWide farms went by, short-shadowed cattle, and\nCanals with floatings of industrial froth;\nA hothouse flashed uniquely: hedges dipped\nAnd rose: and now and then a smell of grass\nDisplaced the reek of buttoned carriage-cloth\nUntil the next town, new and nondescript,\nApproached with acres of dismantled cars.\n\nAt first, I didn’t notice what a noise\n The weddings made\nEach station that we stopped at: sun destroys\nThe interest of what’s happening in the shade,\nAnd down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls\nI took for porters larking with the mails,\nAnd went on reading. Once we started, though,\nWe passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls\nIn parodies of fashion, heels and veils,\nAll posed irresolutely, watching us go,\n\nAs if out on the end of an event\n Waving goodbye\nTo something that survived it. Struck, I leant\nMore promptly out next time, more curiously,\nAnd saw it all again in different terms:\nThe fathers with broad belts under their suits\nAnd seamy foreheads; mothers loud and fat;\nAn uncle shouting smut; and then the perms,\nThe nylon gloves and jewellery-substitutes,\nThe lemons, mauves, and olive-ochres that\n\nMarked off the girls unreally from the rest.\n Yes, from cafĂ©s\nAnd banquet-halls up yards, and bunting-dressed\nCoach-party annexes, the wedding-days\nWere coming to an end. All down the line\nFresh couples climbed aboard: the rest stood round;\nThe last confetti and advice were thrown,\nAnd, as we moved, each face seemed to define\nJust what it saw departing: children frowned\nAt something dull; fathers had never known\n\nSuccess so huge and wholly farcical;\n The women shared\nThe secret like a happy funeral;\nWhile girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared\nAt a religious wounding. Free at last,\nAnd loaded with the sum of all they saw,\nWe hurried towards London, shuffling gouts of steam.\nNow fields were building-plots, and poplars cast\nLong shadows over major roads, and for\nSome fifty minutes, that in time would seem\n\nJust long enough to settle hats and say\n I nearly died,\nA dozen marriages got under way.\nThey watched the landscape, sitting side by side\n--An Odeon went past, a cooling tower,\nAnd someone running up to bowl--and none\nThought of the others they would never meet\nOr how their lives would all contain this hour.\nI thought of London spread out in the sun,\nIts postal districts packed like squares of wheat:\n\nThere we were aimed. And as we raced across\n Bright knots of rail\nPast standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss\nCame close, and it was nearly done, this frail\nTravelling coincidence; and what it held\nStood ready to be loosed with all the power\nThat being changed can give. We slowed again,\nAnd as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled\nA sense of falling, like an arrow-shower\nSent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1958, - "month": "october", - "day": 18 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55774,6 +57320,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1958, + "month": "october", + "day": 18 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -55785,11 +57336,6 @@ "title": "“Wild Oats”", "body": "About twenty years ago\nTwo girls came in where I worked--\nA bosomy English rose\nAnd her friend in specs I could talk to.\nFaces in those days sparked\nThe whole shooting-match off, and I doubt\nIf ever one had like hers:\nBut it was the friend I took out,\n\nAnd in seven years after that\nWrote over four hundred letters,\nGave a ten-guinea ring\nI got back in the end, and met\nAt numerous cathedral cities\nUnknown to the clergy. I believe\nI met beautiful twice. She was trying\nBoth times (so I thought) not to laugh.\n\nParting, after about five\nRehearsals, was an agreement\nThat I was too selfish, withdrawn,\nAnd easily bored to love.\nWell, useful to get that learnt.\nIn my wallet are still two snaps\nOf bosomy rose with fur gloves on.\nUnlucky charms, perhaps.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1962, - "month": "may", - "day": 12 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Whitsun Weddings", @@ -55798,6 +57344,11 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1962, + "month": "may", + "day": 12 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -56527,6 +58078,67 @@ } } }, + "eino-leino": { + "metadata": { + "name": "Eino Leino", + "birth": { + "date": { + "year": 1878, + "month": "july", + "day": 6 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Paltaniemi", + "country": "Finland" + } + }, + "death": { + "date": { + "year": 1926, + "month": "january", + "day": 10 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Tuusula", + "country": "Finland" + } + }, + "gender": "male", + "occupation": [ + "poet" + ], + "education": null, + "movement": [], + "religion": null, + "nationality": [ + "finland" + ], + "language": [ + "Finnish" + ], + "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eino_Leino", + "favorite": false, + "tags": [ + "Finnish" + ] + }, + "poems": { + "nocturne": { + "title": "“Nocturne”", + "body": "Hark! My ears are catching corncrake’s clicking,\nSilver moonlight shines on cobhead corn;\nSummer evening’s blessing me, enriching,\nValley’s wreaths of smoky slash and burn.\nNeither joying I, nor grieve I, mournful;\nBut for forest’s darkness am I yearnful,\nRose-gilt clouds the day’s protracted ending,\nWindy sleeping hill o’er all extending,\nFragrant twinflower, shortening, lingering shade;\nThese the things from which my heart-song’s made.\n\nLady June-July, for you I’m singing,\nGreat the silence of my ardent heart,\nMerry music make, for faith is mounting,\nVerdant wreath of oak eternal start.\nFoolish errands now I’ll make no longer,\nFortune blessĂšd hands will grasp the stronger;\nRippled pool of circles now decreasing;\nTime has ceased and weathervane is sleeping;\nStretches road at twilit end of day,\nBound for home unknown, I take its way.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Finnish", + "translators": [ + "Rupert Moreton" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "july" + } + } + } + } + }, "luis-de-leon": { "metadata": { "name": "Luis de LeĂłn", @@ -56565,8 +58177,10 @@ "title": "“The Life Removed”", "body": "How tranquil is the life\nOf him who, shunning the vain world’s uproar,\nMay follow, free from strife,\nThe hidden path, of yore\nChosen by the few who conned true wisdom’s lore!\n\nFor he, with thoughts aloof,\nBy proud men’s great estate is not oppressed.\nNor marvels at the roof\nOf gold, built to attest\nThe Moor’s skill, that on jasper pillars rests.\n\nHe heeds not though fame raise\nHis name afar on wings of rumour flung,\nHe cares not for the praise\nOf cunning flatterer’s tongue,\nNor for what truth sincere would leave unsung.\n\nWhat boots it my content\nThat the vain voice of fame should favour me,\nIf in its service spent\nI find myself to be\nVexed by dull care and gnawing misery?\n\nO hill, O stream, O field,\nO solitary refuge of delight,\nSince my bark now must yield\nTo storm, your solace bright\nI seek and flee this sea’s tempestuous might.\n\nSleep broken by no fear\nBe mine, and a day clear, serene, and free,\nShunning the look severe,\nLofty exceedingly,\nOf him whom gold exalts or ancestry.\n\nMe may the birds awake\nWith their sweet, unpremeditated song,\nAnd those dark cares forsake\nThat e’er to him belong\nWho lives not in his independence strong!\n\nI to myself would live,\nTo enjoy the blessings that to Heaven I owe,\nAlone, contemplative,\nAnd freely love forgo,\nNor hope, fear, hatred, jealousy e’er know.\n\nUpon the bare hillside\nAn orchard I have made with my own hand,\nThat in the sweet Springtide\nAll in fair flower doth stand\nAnd promise sure of fruit shows through the land.\n\nAnd, as though swift it strove\nTo see and to increase that loveliness,\nFrom the clear ridge above\nA stream pure, weariless\nHurrying to reach that ground doth onward press;\n\nAnd straightway in repose\nIts course it winds there tree and tree between,\nAnd ever as it goes\nThe earth decks with new green\nAnd with gay wealth of flowers spreads the scene.\n\nThe air in gentle breeze\nA myriad scents for my delight distils,\nIt moves among the trees\nWith a soft sound that fills\nThe mind, and thought of gold or scepter kills.\n\nTreasure and gold be theirs\nWho to a frail bark would entrust their life:\nI envy not the cares\nOf those whose fears are rife\nWhen the north wind with south wind is at strife.\n\nIn the storm’s strain the mast\nGroans, and clear day is turned to eyeless night,\nWhile to the skies aghast\nRise wild cries of affright\nAnd they enrich the sea in their despite.\n\nBut me may still suffice,\nRich only in meek peace, a humble fare;\nAnd the wrought artifice\nBe his of gold plate rare\nWho dreads not o’er the raging sea to fare.\n\nAnd while in misery\nOthers are pledged to fierce ambition’s throng,\nAfire insatiably\nFor power that stays not long,\nMay I in pleasant shade recite my song;\n\nYea, lying in the shade,\nMy brow with bay and ivy immortal crowned,\nMy ear attentive made\nTo the soft, tuneful sound\nOf zither touched by fingers’ skill profound.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Aubrey F. G. Bell", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Aubrey F. G. Bell" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -56661,8 +58275,10 @@ "title": "“The Infinite”", "body": "This lonely hill to me was ever dear,\nThis hedge, which shuts from view so large a part\nOf the remote horizon. As I sit\nAnd gaze, absorbed, I in my thought conceive\nThe boundless spaces that beyond it range,\nThe silence supernatural, and rest\nProfound; and for a moment I am calm.\nAnd as I listen to the wind, that through\nThese trees is murmuring, its plaintive voice\nI with that infinite compare;\nAnd things eternal I recall, and all\nThe seasons dead, and this, that round me lives,\nAnd utters its complaint. Thus wandering\nMy thought in this immensity is drowned;\nAnd sweet to me is shipwreck on this sea.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Frederick Townsend", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Frederick Townsend" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -56713,8 +58329,10 @@ "title": "“To His Lady”", "body": "Beloved beauty who inspires\nlove in me from afar, your face obscured\nexcept when your celestial image\nstirs my heart in sleep, or in the fields\nwhere light and nature’s laughter shine more lovely--\nwas it maybe you who blessed\nthe innocent age called golden,\nand do you now, blithe spirit,\nfly among men? Or does that miser fate\nwho hides you from us save you for the future?\n\nNo hope of seeing you alive\nremains for me now,\nexcept when, naked and alone,\nmy soul will go down a new street\nto its unknown home. Already at the dawn\nof my dark, uncertain day\nI imagined you a fellow traveler\non this arid ground. But there’s no thing\nthat resembles you on earth. And if someone\nhad a face like yours, in act and word she’d be,\nthough something like you, far less beautiful.\n\nIn spite of all the suffering\nfate decreed for human time,\nif there were anyone on earth\nwho truly loved you as my thought depicts you,\nthis life for him would be a blessing.\nAnd I see clearly how your love\nwould lead me still to strive for praise and virtue,\nas I used to in my early years.\nThough heaven gave no comfort for our troubles,\nyet with you mortal life would be\nlike what in heaven leads to divinity.\n\nIn the valleys, where the song\nof the weary farmer sounds,\nand when I sit and mourn\nthe illusions of youth fading,\nand on the hills where I recall\nand grieve for my lost desires\nand my life’s lost hope, I think of you\nand start to shake. If only I, in this\nsad age and unhealthy atmosphere,\ncould keep hold of your noble look; for since the real thing’s\nmissing I must make do with the image.\n\nWhether you are the only one\nof the eternal ideas eternal wisdom\nrefuses to see arrayed in sensible form\nto know the pains of mortal life\nin transitory spoils,\nor if in the supernal spheres another earth\nfrom among unnumbered worlds receives you\nand a near star lovelier than the Sun\nwarms you and you breathe benigner ether,\nfrom here, where years are both ill-starred and brief,\naccept this hymn from your unnoticed lover.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jonathan Galassi", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Jonathan Galassi" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -56801,11 +58419,13 @@ "title": "“Alone”", "body": "Alone, I come to the road.\nThe stony track gleams in the mist:\nthe calm night listens to God,\nand star is speaking to star.\n\nAll’s marvellous, grave, in the sky!\nEarth sleeps in the radiant blue 
\nWhy such pain then, such weight on the heart?\nDo I regret, wait for something new?\n\nI expect no more from this life\nand I’ve no regrets for the past.\nI look for freedom and peace:\nI want rest and oblivion at last 
\n\nBut not the chill peace of the grave:\nI’d like to sleep for all time\nso life’s powers slept in my chest,\nand it heaved with my gentle breath:\n\nan enchanted voice in my ear\nsinging, day and night, of love:\nand a dark oak to rustle over me,\nand bend down from above.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1841 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -56824,11 +58444,13 @@ "title": "“The Angel”", "body": "An angel was crossing the pale vault of night,\nAnd his song was as soft as his flight,\nAnd the moon and the stars and the clouds in a throng\nStood enthralled by this holy song.\n\nHe sang of the bliss of the innocent shades\nIn the depths of celestial glades;\nHe sang of the Sovereign Being, and free\nOf guile was his eulogy.\n\nHe carried a soul in his arms, a young life\nTo the world of sorrow and strife,\nAnd the young soul retained the throb of that song\n--without words, but vivid and strong.\n\nAnd tied to this planet long did it pine\nFull of yearnings dimly divine,\nAnd our dull little ditties could never replace\nSongs belonging to infinite space.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Nabokov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1831 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Nabokov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -56836,11 +58458,13 @@ "title": "“From beneath a mysterious and ice-cold half-mask 
”", "body": "From beneath a mysterious and ice-cold half-mask\nYour voice sounded to me as flattering as a dream,\nYour charming eyes were shining at me,\nAnd your cunning mouth was smiling.\n\nThrough the wispy haze I noticed unconsciously\nThe paleness of your virgin cheeks and neck,\nLucky creature! I saw a wilful curl\nLeaving the wave of its native locks! 
\n\nAnd I created then by these light signs\nA lovely beauty in my imagination;\nAnd from that time I carry in my soul,\nCaress and love this ethereal apparition.\n\nAnd all seems thus to me: this lively conversation\nI have already heard in the former years,\nAnd someone whispers to me: after this encounter\nWe will meet again as good old friends.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dmitri Smirnov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1840 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dmitri Smirnov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -56859,12 +58483,15 @@ "title": "“Captive Knight”", "body": "Silent I sit by the prison’s high window,\nWhere through the bars the blue heavens are breaking.\nFlecks in the azure, the free birds are playing;\nWatching them fly there, my shamed heart is aching.\n\nBut on my sinful lips never a prayer,\nNever a song in the praise of my charmer;\nAll I recall are far fights and old battles,\nMy heavy sword and my old iron armor.\n\nNow in stone armor I hopelessly languish,\nAnd a stone helmet my hot head encases,\nThis shield is proof against arrows and sword-play,\nAnd without whip, without spur, my horse races.\n\nTime is my horse, the swift-galloping charger,\nAnd for a visor this bleak prison grating,\nWalls of my prison are heavy stone armor;\nShielded by cast-iron doors, I am waiting.\n\nHurry, oh fast-flying Time, fly more quickly!\nIn my new armor I faint, I am choking.\nI shall alight, with Death holding my stirrup,\nThen my cold face from this visor uncloaking.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Babette Deutsch & Avrahm Yarmolinsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1840, "month": "march" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch", + "Avrahm Yarmolinsky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -56875,11 +58502,13 @@ "title": "“The Clouds”", "body": "Clouds in the sky, you are ceaselessly wandering,\nAs pearly chains in the azure steppes glimmering,\nExiled as I have been, constantly hurrying\nFrom native North into South you are quickening.\n\nWhat drives you there: the command of your destiny?\nSome secret jealousy? Or open wickedness?\nOr crimes hang heavy on you or some mutiny?\nOr your friends’ calumny is cruel and poisonous?\n\nNo, you were bored to death with these fields’ fruitlessness\nWith all these passions and alien misery,\nIce cold eternally, in steady idleness\nYou have no homeland and suffer no outlawry.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dmitri Smirnov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1840 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dmitri Smirnov" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -56890,11 +58519,13 @@ "title": "“Confession”", "body": "I’m to believe, but with some fear,\nFor I haven’t tried it all before,\nThat every monk could be sincere\nAnd live as he by altar swore;\nThat smiles and kisses of all people\nCould be perfidious only once;\nThat, sometimes, they forgive the little\nMistakes, the others make by chance;\nThat time heals sufferers around,\nThe world is one of joy and gleam;\nThat virtue is not just a sound,\nAnd life is more than a dream.\n\nBut rough and hardened life’s experience,\nRepulse my warm faith every time,\nMy mind, sunk, as before, in grievance,\nHas not achieved its goal, prime,\nAnd heart, full of the sharp frustrations,\nHolds in its deep the clear trace\nOf dead--but blest imaginations,\nAnd vanished senses’ easy shades;\nThere will be none for it to fear,\nAnd what’s a poison for all them,\nMakes it alive and feeds it here\nWith its ironic, mocking flame.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1831 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -56902,11 +58533,13 @@ "title": "“The Cup of Life”", "body": "We drink the cup of life while yet\nA veil our eyes is keeping;\nAnd the cup’s golden brim is wet\nWith tears of our own weeping.\n\nBut when the veil falls from our eyes.\nAs Death appears before us.\nThen with the veil the mystery flies\nThat held enchantment o’er us.\n\nOh then we see the golden cup\nWas empty in its gleaming,\nThat only dreaming filled it up.\nNor even ours the dreaming!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Cecil Maurice Bowra", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1831 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Cecil Maurice Bowra" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -56914,11 +58547,13 @@ "title": "“The Demon”", "body": "_Part I_\n\n# I.\n\nA Demon, soul of all the banished,\nsadly above the sinful world\nfloated, and thoughts of days now vanished\nbefore him crowdingly unfurled;\ndays when, in glory’s habitation,\nhe shone out a pure cherubim,\nwhen comets dying on their station\nrejoiced to exchange a salutation\nof welcome and of love with him,\nwhen through the vapours of creation,\nhungry for knowledge, he flew on\nwith caravans in their migration\nto space where headlong stars have gone;\nwith love and faith to lean upon,\nhappy first-born of our condition,\nhe knew no evil, no suspicion,\nhis mind undaunted by the length\nof fruitless aeons sadly falling 
\nso much, so much there was 
 the strength,\nthe will now fails him for recalling!\n\n\n# II.\n\nHe wandered, now long-since outcast;\nhis desert had no refuge in it:\nand one by one the ages passed,\nas minute follows after minute,\neach one monotonously dull.\nThe world he ruled was void and null;\nthe ill he sowed in his existence\nbrought no delight. His technique scored,\nhe found no traces of resistance--\nyet evil left him deeply bored.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAbove the steep Caucasian places\nheaven’s expatriate flew full-pelt:\nbelow him, Kazbek’s diamond-faces\nglittered with snows that never melt,\nand far beneath them, dark, arresting\nas some crevasse where snakes are nesting,\nDaryal wound its twisted belt,\nand Terek, lioness-like, was springing,\nshaggily-maned all down its back;\nit roared, and mountain beasts and swinging\nbirds high on their circuitous track\nin the azure heard its lilting water;\nand clouds from far-off southern lands\nescorted him in gilded bands\ntoward horizon’s northern quarter;\nand closely packed massifs of stone,\ndeep-sunk in their mysterious dreaming\nhad bowed their peaks as he had flown\nabove the bed where waves were gleaming;\nand towered castles on the hard\nprecipice-top, above the entry\nto Caucasus, in cloud stood guard\ngrim as some Cyclopean sentry!\nHow strange, how savage was the whole\ndivine landscape; but that proud soul\nviewed with disdain and some derision\nthe product of his Maker’s will;\nhis lofty forehead at this vision\nexpressed no thought, exactly nil.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nBefore him now the picture changes;\na different scene, a brilliant hue:\nluxurious Georgia’s vales and ranges\nare counterpaned-out for his view;\nfortunate land, and sumptuous too!\nPillar-like ruined halls and granges,\nand watercourses that run loud,\nover the dappled pebbles rolling,\nand nightingales that in the crowd\nof roses voice their amorous trolling\nto which no answer is allowed;\nplane-trees inside their ivy sheathing\nwith branching shadows; caves where deer\nat flaming midday hide their fear;\nand life, and sound of leaves, and glow,\na hundred tongues that murmur low,\nand plants in thousands gently breathing!\nThe sensual heat of high noondays,\nnights which the never-failing sprays\nof dew have drenched in aromatic,\nand stars like eyes, clear and dramatic,\nsharp as a Georgian maiden’s gaze! 
\nand yet, apart from envy’s chilling,\nthis natural glory could inspire\nthe barren exile with no thrilling\nof new emotion or new Are;\nand everything he contemplated\nhe either scorned or execrated.\n\n\n# V.\n\nA lofty hall, a broad courtyard,\ngrey-haired GudĂĄl built for his pleasure 
\nthe building cost his slaves much treasure\nof tears and labour long and hard.\nHis towers in light of morning barred\nwith stripes of shade the mountain fairway.\nOut of the cliff was hacked a stairway\nfrom where the angled bastions gleam\ndown to the river; GudĂĄl’s daughter,\nwhite-veiled and flashing like a dream,\nPrincess Tamara, seeking water\nruns down to the ArĂĄgva’s stream.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nFrom the steep mountain every minute\nthe voiceless house stares at the vale;\ntoday, though, there’s a feast, pipes wail--\nthe hall resounds, wine’s flowing in it,\nfor Gudal has betrothed his girl,\nthe whole clan’s here, all’s in a whirl.\nUp on the roof, among her bidden\ngirl-friends, the bride looks on the hall:\nsitting on rugs, they sing and call\nand play. Already sunk and hidden\nby distant peaks the sun’s half-ball;\nto keep the measure of their singing\nthe girls clap hands; the youthful bride\ntakes up her tambourine and, swinging\nit round her head in sweeping-wide\ncircles, abruptly starts to glide;\none moment, like a bird, she dashes\nand swoops; the next, she stands at gaze\nand her moist eyes dart out their rays\nfrom underneath malicious lashes;\nand now she twitches a dark brow,\nnow suddenly she stops her gliding,\nand halts, and makes a little bow;\nmeanwhile a heavenly foot is sliding\nover the carpet; infantile\nis the enjoyment in her smile.\nEven the moonbeam’s fitful shivers\nplaying on water can’t in truth\nrival that peerless smile: it quivers\nas full of joy as life, or youth.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nI swear it on the midnight star,\non rays of sunset or of dawning,\nnever did autocrat of far\ngolden Iran, or earthly tsar,\nkiss such an eye; on sultry morning\nno sparkling fount of the harem\never in summertime was splashing\na waist so heavenly in the flashing,\nthe pearly dewfall of its stream!\n\nOr by no human fingers, pressing\na loved one’s brow in their caressing,\nwas ever hair like this undone;\nsince earth lost heaven, with humble duty\nI swear it, never did such beauty\nblossom beneath the southern sun.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nShe’d dance no more. Alas, there waited\na different morrow; she was fated,\nshe, heiress of the celebrated\nGudĂĄl, she, lively freedom’s own\nnursling, to grim incarceration,\nvowed to a strange expatriation\nand to a family unknown.\nSometimes a secret hesitation\nobscured the brilliance of her face;\nand, with her, every single motion\nwas so compact of inner notion,\nfull of such sweet and simple grace,\nthat if the Demon, as he floated\nabove, had looked upon the bride,\nthinking of brothers once devoted\nhe would have turned away--and sighed 
\n\n\n# IX.\n\nAnd he did see her 
 For a second\nby turmoil too deep to be reckoned\nthe Demon sensed that he was bound.\nHis dumb soul’s emptiness was slowly\nfilled with loud chords of blissful sound--\nand once again he reached that holy\nshrine where love, beauty, goodness gleam! 
\nAnd long he gazed, with fascination,\nat the sweet view; as if in dream\nhis earlier blisses’ constellation\ncame as on summons from afar\nand swam before him, star on star.\nThen, riveted by unseen forces,\nhe came to feel a new sorrow;\nemotion started on discourses\nin language that he used to know.\nWas this a sign of new begetting?\nthe cunning, covetousness-whetting\nwords came no more 
 had he forgot?\nGod never gave that: and he’d not\nat any price accept forgetting 
\n\n\n# X.\n\nAt sunset, spurring on his beast,\nthe bridegroom to the wedding feast\nwith all impatient haste was riding,\nand the green banks of brightly gliding\nArĂĄgva he had safely gained.\nBehind him staggered, limped and strained\nan endless line of camels bringing\nhis wedding gifts in towering load;\nthey gleamed, and all their bells were ringing\nas they strung out along the road.\nSinodal’s lord himself was heading\nthe sumptuous caravan. His waist\ninside its belt is tightly laced;\nsabre and dagger-mounts are shedding\nthe sun’s reflections; his flintlock,\nslung back, has notches on its stock.\nAnd in the wind his sleeves are straying,\nsleeves of a chukha that all round\nwith trimming of galloon is crowned.\n\nA saddle where bright silks are playing;\na bit with tassels downward swaying;\nand, lathered under him, his bold\ncharger with that rare hue of gold.\nKarabakh’s brave offspring, ears with tension\npricked, all taut in apprehension\nsnorts as he squints down in the gloom\non the careering river’s spume.\nA path to make the bravest shiver!\nThe cliff to leftward; deep as doom,\nto right the chasm of the wild river.\nIt’s late; on snowy peaks the sliver\nof radiance fades; mists rise apace 
\nthe caravan begins to race.\n\n\n# XI.\n\nA wayside chapel 
 here is sleeping\nsince days of old, in God’s good keeping,\nnow sanctified, an ancient prince\ncut down by vengeance. Ever since,\nheading for feast or bloody fighting,\nhere, as he hurried on his way,\nthe traveller never missed finditing\nthe strongest prayer that he could say:\nthat prayer, so fervently directed,\nkept him from Moslem’s knife protected.\nBut the bold bridegroom now disdained\nthe rite his forefathers maintained.\nThe crafty Demon with infernal\nreveries had tempted him; in thought\nbeneath the gloom, the shades nocturnal,\nit was his sweetheart’s lips he sought.\nBut suddenly, ahead, a figure--\nno, two--no, more--a shot--whose trigger?\nIn clinking stirrups rising now,\nramming his fur cap on his brow\nthe dauntless prince in silence lifted\nhis Turkish whip; it flashed, it whirred,\ncrack went the lash; he spoke no word\nas, eagle-like, he swooped, he shifted 
\nAnother shot! a screaming man--\nthen from the valley dull groans rended\nthe still of night. The Georgians ran,\nthe battle all too soon was ended!\n\n\n# XII.\n\nNow calm returned; the sheepish flock\nof camels on the road, in shock,\ngazed back upon the dead, astounded;\nand in the still of steppe and rock\ndully their little bells resounded.\nThe sumptuous caravan was sacked;\nabove those Christian corpses packed\nthe bird of night invigilated!\nno peaceful sepulchre awaited\ntheir bodies, in some cloister’s trust,\nwhere rested their forefather’s dust;\nno sisters and no mothers, trailing\nlengths of impenetrable veiling,\nwith sobs and prayers and sighs and wailing\nvisit their grave and mourn their loss!\nAnd yet, by loving hands erected\nhere at the highway verge, protected\nby the steep cliff, there stands a cross;\nin spring the amorous, neglected\nivy, in emerald nets displayed,\nclasps it in tenderest embraces;\nand, turning in from far-off places,\nthe walker, tired from the long grade,\nrests in the consecrated shade 
\n\n\n# XIII.\n\nSwift as a deer the horse is rushing,\nsnorting as if for battle; hushing\nsometimes, he halts in mid-career,\nblows out his nostrils wide in fear,\nand listens to the breeze’s sighing;\nnow thunderously his hooves are flying,\nbeating tattoos of rhythmic sort;\nhis mane all tangled, wildly spraying,\nhe gallops on without a thought.\nHe bears a silent horseman, swaying\nacross the saddle or, down-pressed,\ncollapsed upon that golden crest.\nHis hand no longer steers the bridle,\nfeet in the stirrups are thrust back,\nbloodstreams are flowing, broad and idle,\nacross the cloth of his shabrack.\nBrave galloper, you brought your master\nout from the battle like a dart,\nbut the Ossetian’s bullet, faster\nthan you, in darkness found his heart!\n\n\n# XIV.\n\nIn GudĂĄl’s hall there’s grief and moaning,\nthe guests swarm out to the courtyard;\nwhose charger, broken past atoning,\noutside the gates has fallen so hard?\nand who’s the lifeless rider? traces\nof war’s alarm lurk in the spaces\nof his dark-favoured, furrowed brow.\nOn clothes, on weapons, blood is freezing;\nhis hand in a last furious squeezing\nupon the mane is frozen now 
\nOh, not for long the bride had waited\nher young groom’s coming: and at least,\nhis princely word unviolated,\nhe galloped to the wedding feast 
\nAlas, no more that brave, hard-bitten\ncharger shall bear him--so it’s written! 
\n\n\n# XV.\n\nHeaven’s punishment like thunder swooped\ndown on that family, so light-hearted!\npitiable, Tamara drooped\nonto her bed; she sobbed, then started,\nsuddenly, tear on rolling tear,\nher bosom laboured, breath oppressed her--\nwhen, from above, a voice addressed her;\nshe seemed in magic tones to hear:\n“Don’t weep, my child! no use in steeping\na voiceless corpse with tears unsleeping!\nSuch tears are no life-giving dew:\nthey simply cloud your eyes; such weeping\nburns up complexion’s virgin hue!\nhe’s far from here, he’s past all knowing,\nfrom him your grief can earn no praise;\ncelestial radiance now is glowing\nbefore his incorporeal gaze;\nfor him heaven’s choirs are now intoning 
\nwhat are life’s paltry dreams, the oppressed\ntears of a poor young girl, her groaning,\nto the celestial country’s guest?\nNo mortal creature should be reckoned,\nwhatever be his lot, as worth--\nbelieve me--for a single second,\nyour grief, my angel of the earth!”\n\n“On the heavens’ ethereal ocean,\nrudderless, without a sail,\nstarry choirs in ordered motion\ncalmly float through vapour’s veil;\nover heaven’s unbounded spaces,\nunattainable, unheard,\nleaving after them no traces,\npass the clouds in fleecy herd.\nTimes for meeting, or leave-taking,\nbring them neither joy nor pain;\nfuture brings them no wish-making,\npast, no will to live again.\nIn the grievous hour of sorrows,\nthey are what you should recall;\ntake no heed for earthly morrows,\nbe uncaring, like them all!”\n\n“As soon as night on the Caucasian\nsummits has cast its mantle round,\nas soon as its bewitching suasion\nhas stilled the world, as if spellbound;\nas soon as on the cliff there passes\na night wind through the withered grasses,\nand hidden deep in them a bird\ncheerfully in the dark has stirred;\nas soon as, under vineyard railing\nthirstily drinking the unfailing\ndewfall, the flower of night has bloomed;\nas soon as the gold moon has loomed\nsilently from the mountain-sill,\nlooked at you sidelong in the still--\nthen I shall fly to you and keep\ntryst with you till the daystar flashes,\nand on the silk of your eyelashes\nI shall infuse the gold of sleep 
”\n\n\n# XVI.\n\nThen the voice faded like illusion,\nthe sound had come, the sound died out.\nShe started up, she looked about 
\nand inexpressible confusion\nreigned in her breast; fear, grief, joy, doubt,\ncompared to this were just delusion.\nHer feelings bubbled up in rout;\nher soul arose and snapped its shackles,\nwhile fire came racing through each vein;\nthat voice, so strange it raised the hackles,\nshe thought she heard it speak again.\nJust before daybreak, welcome-seeming\nslumber had dimmed Tamara’s gaze;\nand yet her mind was in a daze,\nastonished with prophetic dreaming.\nA stranger, mute, through mists that curled,\nin beauty clad not of this world,\ncame to her, leaned above her pillow;\nand in his glance was such a billow\nof love and grief that you’d infer\nall his compassion was for her.\nThis was no angel to befriend her,\nthis was no heaven-sent defender:\nno crown of iridescent beams\nadorned his forehead with its gleams;\nnor one of those who burn together\nin hell, no tortured sinner--no!\nhe was like evening in clear weather:\nnot day, nor night--not gloom, nor glow!\n\n\n_Part II._\n\n# I.\n\n“Oh, father, father, cease from chiding,\nleave your Tamara free from threat;\nI weep: see how my tears are gliding,\nthey’ve flowed for days, they’re flowing yet.\nIt’s futile that from distant places\nsuitors crowd hither to my side 
\nGeorgia abounds in maiden graces;\nmy fate is to be no one’s bride! 
\nOh, father, throw stern words away.\nYou’ve noted how, from day to day,\nvictim of poison’s curse, I’m fading:\nan evil dream, past all evading,\ntorments me; there’s no way to flee;\nI’m lost, it’s pressing down on me!\nTo holy sanctuary send me,\nsend me to cool my raging head;\nfor there my Saviour will defend me,\nwith Him my anguish will be shed.\nNo worldly joys can now deceive me 
\nso in a shrine’s protecting gloom\nrather let some dim cell receive me,\nan early foretaste of the tomb 
”\n\n\n# II.\n\nAnd so to a secluded holy\ncloister her parents took her; dressed\nin a habiliment of lowly\nhairshirting was that maiden breast.\nBut even in her monastic twilling,\nas under damask’s figured gleam,\nstill with the same illicit dream\njust as before her heart was thrilling.\nAt the altar, in the candle’s glow,\nat moments of most solemn singing,\nor while the voice of prayer was ringing,\nwould sound those tones she had to know.\nAnd where the dim cathedral lifted\nits vaulting, often would repair,\nsoundless and traceless as the air,\nwhere the thin films of incense drifted,\na starlike figure, shining there;\nit called, it beckoned her 
 but where?\n\n\n# III.\n\nBetween two hills, in shade abounding,\nthe sacred convent hid away\nin planes and poplars tight-surrounding;\nsometimes, when darkness came to stay\non the ravine, a lamp, appearing\nin a faint glimmer through the clearing,\nrevealed where that young sinner lay.\nIn shade that almond-trees projected,\nsad crosses in their rows protected\nthe voiceless graves; there the small birds\nin choirs of song rehearsed their words.\nOver the stones ran, bubbling, springing,\nfountains of water, chilled as ice,\nthat under beetling cliffs would slice\nacross the valley--bed and, singing,\ntumble on further through a scrub\nwhose bloom hoar-frosted every shrub.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nTo northward, mountain peaks were showing.\nAnd when Aurora, early glowing,\nwatches the smoky mists of blue\nrise from the valley, layer on layer,\nand when, face to the east, as due,\nall the muezzins call to prayer,\nand the clear voice of the bell-tower\nwakens the people with its shaking;\nin that pacific, solemn hour\nat which the Georgian maiden, taking\nher long and tapering pitcher, goes\nfor water down the steep, there grows\na mountain range, all capped in snows;\nagainst the limpid heaven it throws\na wall of lilac past comparing;\nor in the sunset hour it’s wearing\na chasuble that darkly glows;\nand in the middle stands, invading\ncloudland, the supreme peak by far,\nKazbek, all turbaned in brocading,\nof Caucasus the mighty tsar.\n\n\n# V.\n\nWith guilty thoughts in crowding session,\nTamara’s deaf to the intercession\nof honest pleasures. In her eyes\nthe whole world’s wrapped in shade and sadness;\nall things are cause for pain and madness--\nnight’s gloom, or radiance of sunrise.\nNo sooner has the chill infusion\nof sleepy night flowed all around,\nthan she in frenzy and confusion\nbefore the icon falls to ground;\nshe weeps; and in the silent tension\nof night her sobs with apprehension\ntrouble the wayfarer’s attention:\n“There groans some spirit of the height,\nchained in a cavern, sadly stirring!”\nhe listens hard through the still night,\nthen gives his weary horse a spurring.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nTamara at the window-sill\nstares at the distant scene, and still\nstares, languid, full of trepidation;\nshe sits in lonely meditation,\nshe sighs and waits, waits the whole day 
\na whisper comes: he’s on his way!\nHer dreams, his manner of appearing,\nsuch flattery had not failed to reach\nher heart; his sad gaze, the endearing,\nthe tender strangeness of his speech.\nHerself not knowing rhyme or reason,\nshe’s pined and languished many days;\nher heart may wish to pray in season\nto holy saints, to him it prays;\nworn out by struggle unabating,\nif she lies down on slumber’s bed,\nher pillow burns, she’s suffocating,\nshe starts up, shivering with dread;\nher breast, her shoulders flame, she races\nto breathe, she chokes, mist’s in her eyes,\nher arms are thirsting for embraces,\nand on her lips a kiss that dies 
\n\n\n# VII.\n\nNow Georgia’s mountains had been vested\nin aery robes of twilight hue.\nDown to the cloister, as suggested\nby his sweet wont, the Demon flew.\nAnd yet he shrank, long minutes through,\nhe started back from violating\nthe peace in which that shrine was waiting.\nThere was a moment when he dreamed\nof giving up his grim designing.\nAround the high wall, brooding, pining,\nhe roamed: without a breeze, it seemed\nthe leaves had stirred from his returning.\nIn shade he looked up; her undone\nwindow displays a lantern burning;\nshe’s long been waiting for someone!\nAnd now, amid the silence reigning,\nchingar’s2 harmonious complaining\nlilted, and strains of song began;\nthey flowed, these sounds, they ran and ran,\nthey pressed, like tears, hard on each other;\nso tender was that song, you’d find\nthat up in heaven, for mankind,\nits melodies had been designed.\nPerhaps to a forgotten brother\nsome angel, moved to meet again,\nhad flown in stealth and raised this strain\nto alleviate the other’s pain,\nsongs where time past found sweet narration? 
\nLove’s swooning and love’s agitation--\nfor the first time the Demon now\nexperienced them; in shock and shiver\nhe thinks of fleeing--but no quiver\nstirs in his wing! from his dimmed brow\na heavy teardrop, a slow river 
\nwhat marvel! till today, quite near\nthat cell, there stands in wondrous fashion\na stone scorched by a tear of passion,\nburnt through by an inhuman tear! 
\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nAnd, as he enters, love is winning,\nhis soul is opened to the good;\nhe thinks, for life a new beginning\nhas come, as he had prayed it would.\nThe vague alarm of expectation,\nthe unspoken fear of the unknown,\nas if at a first confrontation\nto that proud soul had now been shown.\nThen comes a grim prefiguration!\nhe enters--there in front of him\nheaven’s envoy, the cherubim,\nradiant, on his protective mission\nkeeps the fair sinner from all things\nevil, defends her from perdition\ninside the shadow of his wings;\nand sudden light, from heaven down-beating,\nblinded the Demon’s unclean sight;\ninstead of a sweet-spoken greeting,\nheavy rebuke was prompt to smite:\n\n\n# IX.\n\n“Oh, soul of evil, soul unsleeping,\nin midnight gloom, what tryst is keeping?\nNone of your votaries are here,\nno breeze of ill has dared to roister\ntill now in this my well-loved cloister;\nso bring no wicked footsteps near.\nWho summoned you?” A crafty sneer\nwas Demon’s manner of replying;\nall red with envy was his look;\nand once more in his soul, undying,\nhate’s poison brew began to cook.\n“She’s mine!” cried out the grim contender,\n“release her, for you come too late,\ntoo late to serve as her defender\nand stand in judgement on her fate\nor mine. On her proud soul, I tell you,\nI have affixed my seal above;\nso from your cloister I repel you,\nthis is my kingdom, here I love!”\nAnd on the victim, now past saving,\nthe Angel cast a sorrowing eye\nand slow as slow, with pinions waving,\nwas drowned in the ethereal sky.\n\n\n# X.\n\n> _Tamara:_\nWho are you, tempter-tongue? What duty\nbrings you to me--from heaven? from hell?\nWhat do you want of me? 
\n\n> _Demon:_\nYour beauty 
\n\n> _Tamara:_\nTell me, who are you? Answer. Tell 
\n\n> _Demon:_\nHe to whose voice with rapt attention\nyou listened in the still midnight,\nwhose grief you guessed at, whose intention\nspoke to your soul, whose vague dimension\nyou saw in dreaming; who can blight\nhopes with one glance, and bring them crashing;\nwhom no one loves; who lives for lashing\nhis earthly slaves with furious beat,\nthe king of freedom and cognition,\nheaven’s foe, and nature’s own perdition,\nand yet, you see him at your feet!\nI bring a message of devotion,\na prayer of love; for you I’ve kept\nmy first pains of earthbound emotion,\nand the first tears I ever wept.\nOh, hear me out! oh, have some notion\nof pity! back to heaven you\nwith just a single word could send me.\nWith your love’s raiment to defend me,\nthus vested, I’d stand there, a new\nangel with a new gleam to attend me;\noh, only hear me out, I pray--\nI love you like a slave! the day\nwhen I set eyes on you there started\nin me a secret but whole-hearted\nhatred for my immortal sway.\nI found I envied such deficient\nhappiness as exists down here;\nall life not yours was insufficient,\nall life away from you brought fear.\nThen in my dull heart, unexpected,\na glow began to warm and wake;\ndeep in an old wound and undetected,\ngrief started stirring like a snake.\nWhat, without you, is life eternal?\nwhat are my boundless realms infernal?\nJust empty words, a loud discord,\na vast cathedral--with no lord!\n\n> _Tamara:_\nDeceitful spirit, you must leave me!\nBe still, I’ll not believe the foe 
\nOh, my Creator 
 grief and woe!\nno prayer comes out 
 my wits deceive me,\nthey falter, gripped by venom’s ire!\nListen, you pile up doom above me\nwith words of poison and of fire 
\nTell me the reason why you love me!\n\n> _Demon:_\nThe reason why, fair one, you said?\nAlas, I know it not! 
 elated\nwith new life, from my guilty head\nthe thorny crown I relegated,\nthrew in the ashes all my days:\nmy heaven, my hell are in your gaze.\nI love you with no earthly passion,\nsuch love that you could never find:\nwith rapture, in the towering fashion\nof an immortal heart and mind.\nOn my sad soul, from world’s first aeon,\ndeeply your image was impressed;\never before me it progressed\nthrough wastes of timeless empyrean.\nMy thoughts had long been stirred and racked\nby just one name of passing sweetness:\nmy days in paradise had lacked\njust your perfection for completeness.\nIf you could guess, if you could know\nhow much it costs in tribulation\nthroughout the ages’ long gradation\nto take one’s pleasure, suffer woe,\nto expect no praise for evil, no\nprize for good deeds; what condemnation\nto live for self, by self be bored\nin endless struggle--no reward,\nno crown, no reconciliation!\nTo regret all, to seek no prize,\nto know, feel, see all things for ever,\nto seek to hate the world--whatever\nthere may be in it, to despise! 
\nAs soon as I from heaven’s employment\nwas banned by curses, from that day\nall nature’s warmth and sweet enjoyment\ngrew chilled for ever, froze away;\nbluer before me stretched the spaces;\nI saw apparelled in their places,\nlike wedding guests, the lights I knew 
\ncrowned, gliding one behind another;\nand yet their former friend and brother\nnot one would recognise anew.\nSo, in despair, the expatriated,\nthe outcasts I began to call,\nbut faces, words, and looks that hated,\nI failed to recognise them all.\nAnd so, in horror, wings inflected,\nI swooped away--but whither? why?\nI know not 
 I had been rejected\nby my old friends; like Adam I\nfound the world gone deaf-mute and dry.\nSo, at the current’s free impulsion,\na helpless and storm-crippled boat,\nsailless and rudderless, will float,\nknowing no goal for its propulsion;\nso at the earliest morning-tide\na scrap of thunder-cloud will ride,\nin heaven’s azure vaults the only\nvisible speck, unhalting, lonely,\nwill without trace and without sense\nfly God knows whither, God knows whence!\nBriefly I guided mankind’s thought,\nbriefly the ways of sin I taught,\ndiscredited what’s noble, brought\neverything beautiful to nought;\nbriefly 
 the flame of all committed\nbelief in man I firmly drowned 
\nbut was it worthwhile to confound\njust hypocrites and the half-witted?\nI hid where the ravines run deep;\nI started, meteor-like, to sweep\non course through midnight’s darkest glooming 
\nA lonely wayfarer was looming,\nenticed by a near lamp--to fall\nover the cliff-edge, horse and all;\nvainly he called out--bloody traces\nfollowed him down the mountain-side 
\nbut hatred’s tricks, its sad grimaces,\nbrought me a solace that soon died!\nHow often, locked in dusty battle\nwith some great hurricane, in shroud\nof mist and lightning I would rattle\nand swoop and storm amid the cloud,\nand hope in elemental churning\nto stifle all my heart’s regret,\nto escape from thoughts that kept returning,\nthe unforgotten to forget!\nWhat is the sum of the privations,\nthe labours and the grief of man,\nof past, of future generations,\ncompared with just one minute’s span\nof all my untold tribulations?\nWhat is man’s life? his labour? why--\nhe’s passed, he’s died, he’ll pass and die 
\nhis hopes on Judgement Day rely:\nsure judgement, possible forgiving!\nbut my sorrow is endless, I\nam damned to sorrow everliving;\nfor it, no grave in which to doze!\nsometimes, snakelike, it creeps, or glows\nlike flame, it crackles, blazes, rushes,\nor, like a tomb, it chokes and crushes--\na granite tomb for the repose\nof ruined passions, hopes and woes.\n\n> _Tamara:_\nWhy should I share your griefs, your inner\ntorments? why listen to your moan?\nYou’ve sinned 
\n\n> _Demon:_\nTowards you, I’m no sinner.\n\n> _Tamara:_\nSomeone will hear us! 
\n\n> _Demon:_\nWe’re alone.\n\n> _Tamara:_\nAnd God?\n\n> _Demon:_\nWon’t glance at us: eternal\nfor heaven, but not for earth, his care.\n\n> _Tamara:_\nAnd punishment, and pains infernal?\n\n> _Demon:_\nWhat of them, if we both are there?]\n\n> _Tamara:_\nSufferer, stranger-friend, unwilling--\nwhoever you may be--I find\nyour words set secret pleasure thrilling,\nceaselessly they disturb my mind.\nBut if there’s cunning in your story,\nif there’s a secret, wicked goal 
\noh, have some mercy! where’s the glory\nto you, what value is my soul?\nIn heaven’s eye could I be reckoned\ndearer than those you spurned instead?\nthey too are beauties, though unbeckoned!\nas here, no mortal for a second\nhas dared defile their maiden bed 
\nSwear me a fateful oath 
 in anguish\nI bid you swear 
 see how I languish;\nyou know the stuff of women’s dreams!\ninstinctively you soothe my terrors 
\nyou understand my ways, my errors--\nand you’ll have pity that redeems!\nSwear it 
 from evil machinations\nyou’ll cease for ever, swear it now.\nHave you no oaths, no adjurations,\nhave you no single sacred vow? 
\n\n> _Demon:_\nBy the first day of our creation\nI swear, and by its final night,\nI swear by evil’s condemnation\nand by the triumph of the right,\nby downfall, with its bitter smarting,\nby victories I dream to score,\nby bliss of seeing you once more\nand by the threat of once more parting.\nI swear by all the souls of those\nwho serve me in predestined fashion,\nI swear by my unsleeping foes;\nby heaven, by hell, by earth’s profession\nof holiness, and by your head,\nI swear by your last look’s expression,\nI swear by the first tear you shed,\nthe air your sweet lips are inhaling,\nthose silky curls that wave above,\nI swear by bliss and by travailing,\nI swear, believe it, by my love.\nOld plans of vengeance and destruction\nI have renounced, and dreams of pride;\nhenceforth, by evil’s sly seduction\nno human spirit shall be tried;\nwith heaven I seek to end my warring,\nto live for praying and adoring,\nto live for faith in all that’s good.\nTears of repentance, as they should,\nwill from my forehead, thus deserving\nyour virtues, wash off heaven’s brand,\nand may the world, calm, unobserving,\nflourish untroubled by my hand!\nTill now, you’ve found appreciation\nat your true worth from me alone:\nI chose you for my adoration,\nlaid at your feet my realms, my throne.\nI need your love, my benefaction\nto you will be eternal life;\nin love, just as in evil action,\nI’m strong and quite unmoved by strife.\nWith me, free son of the ethereal,\nto stellar regions you’ll be whirled;\nyou’re fated to be my imperial\nconsort, and first queen of the world.\nThen without pity, without caring,\nyou’ll learn to look down at the earth,\nwhere no true bliss and no long-wearing\nbeauty exist, which brings to birth\nonly misdeeds and retribution,\nwhere only paltry passions live;\nwhere love and hate, without dilution\nby fear, are past man’s power to give.\nSurely you know how short and fleeting\nis human love’s ephemeral rule?\njust for a flash, young blood is heating--\nthen days go flying, blood runs cool!\nWho can stand up to pain of parting,\nor to new beauty’s tempting gleams,\nto weariness or boredom starting,\nor to the waywardness of dreams?\nBe sure that you were never fated,\nmy consort, to destroy your bloom\nand fade away incarcerated,\nenslaved in envy’s narrow room,\namongst the cold and the small-minded,\nthe false friends and the open foes,\nthe fears, the toils that vainly grinded,\nthe fruitless hopes, the crushing woes.\nNo, pitifully, without passion,\nyou’ll not expire, in prayer, behind\nhigh walls, removed in equal fashion\nfrom God, and from all human kind.\nOh, no, you wonder of creation,\na different destiny is yours;\nyou face a different tribulation\nand different bliss in bounteous stores;\ngive up all previous ambition,\nrenounce the fate of this sad world:\ninstead, a lofty, splendid mission\nbefore your eyes will be unfurled.\nA host of souls who owe me duty\nI’ll bring, I’ll throw them at your feet;\nmagically for you, my beauty,\nhandmaids will labour, deft and fleet;\nfor you from the eastern star I’ll ravish\na golden crown; I’ll take for you\nfrom flowers the midnight dew, and lavish\nupon your crown that selfsame dew;\nI’ll bring a sunset ray; ecstatic,\nI’ll clasp it, belt-like, round your waist,\nwith breath of healing aromatic\nthe airs around you will be laced;\nall day the strains of heavenly playing\nwill lull your hearing with their tune;\nI’ll build you halls with an inlaying\nof turquoise, rooms with amber strewn;\nI’ll sound the bottom of the ocean,\nhigh up above the clouds I’ll climb,\nall, all, that’s earthly, my devotion\nwill give you--love me! 
\n\n\n# XI.\n\nAnd this time\nwith ardent lips so lightly grazing\nhe kissed her trembling mouth, and then\nanswered her pleas, in language dazing\nwith sweet temptation; once again\nthose mighty eyes were fixed and gazing\ndeep into hers. He set her blazing.\nHe gleamed above her like a spark\nor like a knife that finds its mark.\nThat devil triumphed! In the dark,\nalas, to her bosom the infernal\npoison of his embrace could pierce.\nA cry resounded, tortured, fierce,\ntroubling the stillnesses nocturnal.\nIn it were love, and pain’s hard kernel,\nreproaches, a last desperate prayer,\nand then a hopeless, an eternal\nfarewell to life--all these were there.\n\n\n# XII.\n\nMeanwhile, alone, the watchman pacing\npast the steep wall serenely made\nhis nightly duty-round, embracing\nthe iron gong that told his trade;\nand near the cell of that young sinner\nhe slowed the measure of his tread;\nabove the gong his hand in inner\npuzzlement poised, he halted dead.\nAnd through the stillness all around him\nhe thought he heard an undertone,\ntwo mouths that kissed, then came to astound him\na short, sharp cry, a feeble moan.\nAnd a detestable suspicion\npierced to the old man’s heart 
 but stay,\na moment passed in this condition\nand all was silent; far away\nonly a breeze began to play\nand brought the sound of leaves that rustled;\nin its dark bed the torrent bustled\nand sadly murmured on its way.\nIn fear the old night-watchman hurries\nto say a text from holy writ,\nand chase the wicked thought that worries\nwith its bad spell his sinful wit;\nhe crosses with his quavering fingers\na breast disturbed by reverie’s force,\nin silence he no longer lingers\nbut goes his customary course.\n\n\n# XIII.\n\nLike a sweet peri sleeping lightly\nshe lay inside her coffin now;\ncleaner than counterpane, and whitely\nblooming, the dull hue of her brow.\nLowered for ever were her lashes 
\nBut heavens! who would not have supposed\nthe eyes beneath them simply dozed\nand marvellously just reposed\nwaiting a kiss, or daystar’s flashes?\nBut fruitlessly the light of day\npoured on them all its golden ray;\nher parents’ lips kissed them but vainly\nin speechless sorrow. All too plainly\nfrom them there’s nothing has the power\nto tear death’s seal off at this hour!\n\n\n# XIV.\n\nNever in festal days’ confusion\nhad sweet Tamara been so dressed,\nin such bright hues, so rich a vest.\nFlowers from her valley in profusion\n(such is tradition’s strict behest)\nabove her shed their perfume; pressed\nin her dead hand, they looked like making\nfarewell to earth, a last leave-taking!\nand nothing in her face implied\nto onlookers how she had died\nin blaze of rapture and of passion;\nno, all her features were instilled\nwith a calm beauty that was chilled,\nexpressionless in marble-fashion,\nblank of all thought, of feeling’s breath,\nimpenetrable, just like death.\nAnd a strange smile that had come fleeting\nacross her lips was frozen cold.\nOf grief and much heartbreak, on meeting\nany perceptive eye, it told:\nit carried cool contempts impression,\nthe scorn of one prepared to die,\nit carried a last thought’s expression\nand, to the earth, a dumb goodbye--\nof life now gone, a vain reflection,\ndeader than those death sets apart,\nof eyes grown dim, a recollection\neven more hopeless for the heart.\nJust as, at sunset’s grave occasion,\nfar on the skyline the Caucasian\nsnow-ranges--when in molten gold\nday’s chariot founders--iridescent,\ntheir radiance for a moment hold,\nin dark of distance incandescent--\nand yet this half-dead light can show\nno glimmer down to the benighted\ndesert, and no one’s path is lighted\nby gleams those icy summits throw.\n\n\n# XV.\n\nNow every neighbour, each relation,\nfor the sad pilgrimage is bound.\nHis grey locks all in laceration,\nbeating his breast without a sound,\nfor the last time GudĂĄl has mounted\nhis faithful, his white-crested horse,\nand the cortege begins its course.\nThree days and three nights must be counted\nto reach the calm refuge she shares\nwith bones of her long-dead forebears.\nOf every traveller and each village\nthe scourge, an ancestor of hers,\nchained down by illness, all his pillage\nrepented--history so avers--\nwished for past crimes to win redemption,\nand vowed to build a minster, right\non top of a granitic height\nwhere blizzard’s dirge had the preemption,\nwhere no bird ventured but the kite.\nAnd soon from Kazbek’s snows a lonely\ntemple arose, and on the crest\nthe bones of that wrong-doer only\nin such a scene could find new rest;\nso to a graveyard was converted\nthat rock, the kin of clouds on high:\nas if, the nearer to the sky,\nthe tomb was warmer 
 or, averted\nand shut away from human gaze,\nas if death’s sleep were sounder-seeming 
\nvain hope! for dead men, there’s no dreaming\nthe joys, the griefs of earlier days.\n\n\n# XVI.\n\nA holy Angel through ethereal\nimmensities of heaven’s blue\nwinged it on golden pinions, who\nwas carrying off from things material\na sinful spirit as he flew.\nAnd with sweet words of consolation\nand hope he scattered all her doubt;\nall trace of crime and tribulation,\nwith flowing tears he washed it out.\nAlready, from far off, there swept them\nhomeward the sounds of heavenly bliss--\nwhen there flew up to intercept them\na hellish soul from the abyss.\nHe was as mighty as the roaring\nwhirlwind, as lightning did he shine;\nproudly, and vyith insanely soaring\naudacity he cried: “She’s mine!”\n\nTamara’s sinful soul was riding\ntight-gripped against her guardian’s breast;\nby prayer her terrors were suppressed.\nAnd now her fate was for deciding,\nagain he stood before her eyes,\nbut, God!--too changed to recognise!\nso evil was the whole impression,\nso full of poison and aggression\nand endless hatred; in a wave\nthe Demon’s motionless expression\nbreathed out the coldness of the grave.\n“Begone, dark spirit of denial!”\nso heaven’s ambassador replied:\n“for long enough your wicked pride\nhas triumphed--God will now decide,\nfor this is judgement hour; her trial\nis past, the days of test by fire;\nwith earth’s corruptible attire\nfrom evil’s thrall she’s liberated.\nHer soul is ours, and long-awaited!\nHer spirit, one of those by right\nwhose life on earth is to be reckoned\na flash of sharpest pain, a second\nof unattainable delight:\nwoven by God from an ethereal\nsubstance are all their vital strings;\nthey were not made for things material,\nnor made for them, material things!\nIn cruel, costly expiation\nshe has atoned for all her doubt.\nShe suffered love and tribulation--\nand heaven for love has opened out.”\n\nThe Angel, with stern gaze unsleeping,\nstared at the tempter, then on high,\nhis pinions joyfully upsweeping,\nmerged in the radiance of the sky.\nVanquished, the Demon execrated\nhis reveries and their mad scope,\nwas left once more to his inflated\narrogance, left there isolated\nin all the world--no love, no hope!\n\nAbove Koishaur’s ravine, where climbs\nthe mountain through its rocky stages,\nthere stands, preserved to modern times,\na jagged wreck from bygone ages.\nAbout it, tales for children’s ears\ntoo frightful, linger in tradition 
\nAnd voiceless as an apparition,\nwitness of those uncanny years,\nit lifts, through trees, its blackened towers.\nBelow, the aĂŒl houses spill,\nthe earth is green and bright with flowers;\na hum of voices grows, falls still\nlost in the distance, and the tinkling\ncaravan bells sound far away,\nwhile through the vapours, gleaming, twinkling,\nthe river shoots in foam and spray.\nAnd vital, youthfully eternal,\nloving the sunshine and the vernal\ncoolness, old Nature frolics there\njust like a child without a care.\nBut the sad castle, after giving\nlong years of duty-service, ends\nas some poor old man does, outliving\nall of his dear ones and his friends.\nOnly its unseen dwellers, waiting\nfor moonrise, then begin to stir;\nthen is their time for celebrating!\nthey buzz, they scurry, and they whirr.\nA spider, anchorite-beginner,\nworks at his web, the grey old spinner;\nup on the roof a jolly pack\nof lizard families are brawling;\na canny snake from his dark crack\ncomes out punctiliously crawling\nacross the flags of the old stair;\nnow in three coils he gathers there,\nand now in one long streak he’s creeping,\njust like a blade, all bright and steeled,\nforgot on some old battlefield,\nno use to heroes dead and sleeping! 
\nAll’s wild, nowhere is any trace\nof years gone by: no, in this place\nTime’s hand has long been busy sweeping,\nnothing there is that now recalls\nthe glorious state GudĂĄl was keeping,\nwith his sweet daughter, in these halls!\n\nBut the church on the mountain-tower\nwhere to the earth their bones were vowed,\nkept safely by some sacred power,\ncan still be seen amidst the cloud.\nBy the church-door, on sentry-go,\na line of black granitic boulders,\nwith snowy mantles on their shoulders,\nwear as breastplate against the foe\neternal ice’s glittering show.\nRelics of landslide, dreaming masses\nlike waterfalls, grooved with crevasses,\nhang down where they were snapped and caught\nby frost, as if in frowning thought.\nAnd there the blizzard goes patrolling,\npuffing snow-dust from those grey walls,\nnow setting a lament a-rolling,\nnow answering with sentry-calls.\nAnd hearing in some far direction\nof a famed minster in this land,\nfrom eastward, clouds in serried band\nhurry to make their genuflection;\nbut on that circle of tombstones\nno one now weeps, and no one moans.\nThere Kazbek’s cliff, in dour ill-humour,\nlocks up its booty far from harm,\nand mankind’s everlasting rumour\ntroubles not that eternal calm.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Charles Johnson", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1839 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Charles Johnson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -56926,11 +58561,13 @@ "title": "“Do you remember how together 
”", "body": "Do you remember how together\nWe said good-bye in evening weather?\nLoud was the cannon’s curfew sound.\nTo it across the waves we listened.\nThe setting sun no longer glistened,\nAnd on the sea mist gathered round.\nThe straining shock passed through the air.\nAnd suddenly died everywhere.\n\nWhen the day’s work is done at last,\nHow often then I dream about you!\nThe empty sea I wander past\nAnd hear the curfew-shot without you.\nWhen its loud echo comes again\nFrom the grey waters back to me,\nI weep, worn out by sorrow’s pain.\nAnd long to perish in the sea!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Cecil Maurice Bowra", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1830 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Cecil Maurice Bowra" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -56938,11 +58575,13 @@ "title": "“Dream”", "body": "At blazing noon, in Dagestan’s deep valley,\na bullet in my chest, dead still I lay,\nas steam yet rose above my wound, I tallied\neach drop of blood, as life now now seeped away.\n\nAlone I lay within a sandy hollow,\nas jagged ledges teemed there, rising steep,\nwith sun-scorched peaks above me, burning yellow,\nI too was scorched, yet slept a lifeless sleep.\n\nI dreamt of lights upon an evening hour,\na lavish feast held in my native land,\nand fair young maidens garlanded with flowers:\ntheir talk of me was merry and off-hand.\n\nBut one of them, not joining their free chatter,\nsat timidly apart, bemused, alone,\nsunk in a dream, her soul by sadness shattered:\nGod only knows what made her so forlorn;\n\nshe dreamed of sand in Dagestan’s deep valley,\na gorge in which a man she knew lay dead,\nblack steam still rose above the wound’s scorched hollow,\nas blood streamed down and cooled like molten lead.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alexander Levitsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1841 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alexander Levitsky" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -56950,11 +58589,13 @@ "title": "“An Evening after Rain”", "body": "Beyond my window now horizon fades,\nDeclining ray atop the colonnades--\nThe domes, the chimneys, crosses golden-leaved--\nIs glistening, burning eyes of the deceived;\nAnd fiery edges of the cloudy veil\nLike snakes are sketched as if by pencil’s trail,\nAnd softly breezes through the garden pass\nCaressing stems of quivering rain-soaked grass 
\nBetween those stems I spied a little bloom,\nAs ’twere an eastern pearl amidst the gloom,\nAnd trembling, sparkling droplet from it hung,\nIts head inclined, it yet to standing clung,\nJust like a mourning girl confronting dole,\nHer spirit quenched, her joy departing soul:\nDespite her eyes that streamed with angry tears,\nHer beauty she’ll recall in coming years.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rupert Moreton", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1830 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Rupert Moreton" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -56962,12 +58603,14 @@ "title": "“The Ghost Ship”", "body": "As Darkness descends on the ocean,\nAs Night spreads her silvery veil,\nA brigantine cuts through the waters\nAnd glides downwind at full sail.\n\nHer tall topsail masts are not bending,\nHer vanes are not moved by the air,\nHer cannons face open deck hatches\nWith silent indifferent stare.\n\nYou won’t hear the captain’s curt orders\nYou won’t see the sailors on deck,\nYet treacherous reefs or fierce tempests\nWill not bring this vessel to wreck.\n\nIt steers to a wild distant island\nEngulfed by funereal gloom.\nA tomb has been carved in its granite\nAn emperor lies in that tomb.\n\nHe rests there, buried by rivals\nWithout the honors of war,\nHis heavy headstone would not let him\nEscape from that desolate shore.\n\nThe day of the emperor’s passing\nEach year, on his doleful death day\nThe mystic ship quietly anchors\nAnd lies in a small tranquil bay.\n\nAt midnight, the powerful emperor\nDoes suddenly rise from the dead--\nHe’s dressed in his combat attire\nA gray bicorn hat on his head.\n\nHis noble head slightly bent forward,\nWithout a farewell glance,\nHe steps on board, ready to steer\nHis ship on her journey to France.\n\nFor France he is ardently yearning\nThe land of his glorious reign;\nThe land where his son and successor\nAnd old loyal guard have remained.\n\nAs soon as familiar shorelines\nEmerge from the fog into sight,\nThe emperor’s heart starts to flutter\nHis eager eyes shine with delight.\n\nThe emperor boldly strides forward\nNow setting his foot on the shore,\nHe loudly calls for his marshals,\nHe forcibly summons his corps.\n\nBut his grenadiers cannot hear--\nThey now rest forever amid\nThe infinite snows of cold Russia\nThe hot sands of great pyramids.\n\nAnd his gallant marshals are silent;\nSome fell on the Elbe’s grassy sward,\nAnd others acceded to treason\nAnd sold out their honor and sword.\n\nThe emperor angrily paces\nThe shore back and forth, all in vain;\nAnd stomping his foot on the ground,\nHe fervently calls once again:\n\nHe calls for his son’s love and favor\nTo amend his sad circumstance;\nHe pledges the world to his heir\nExcept for his own, his sweet France.\n\nBut when he was still in full vigor,\nDeath claimed his beloved dauphin;\nAll night, the sad father awaits him\nNot willing to leave or give in.\n\nAlone, by the sea he is standing\nTill dawn puts her blush on the sky.\nHis eyes well with hot bitter tears,\nHe breathes out a long heavy sigh.\n\nTo his magic ship, the doomed emperor\nWalks slowly, his eyes downcast.\nDismissing all hope with a hand wave,\nHe heaves up the anchor at last.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Olga Dumer", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1840, "month": "march" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Olga Dumer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -56978,11 +58621,13 @@ "title": "“I look with fear toward the future 
”", "body": "I look with fear toward the future,\nWith yearning back toward the past,\nAnd as a criminal before execution\nI search in vain for a kindred soul;\nWill there be a messenger of my salvation,\nCome to show me my life’s purpose,\nThe goal of my prayers and passions?\nTo tell me what God has in store for me,\nAnd why he has so bitterly crossed\nThe hopes of my youth?\n\nI gave the earth her earthly dues\nOf love, hopes, good, and evil;\nI am ready to start life anew,\nSilent I wait: the time has come.\nI leave no kindred soul behind me,\nAnd embraced by cold and darkness\nIs my tired spirit.\nLike an early fruit, devoid of life-giving waters,\nIt has been engulfed in fate’s storms\nUnder the harsh sun of the day-to-day.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anonymous", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1838 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Anonymous" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -57001,11 +58646,14 @@ "title": "“Monologue”", "body": "Believe that to be nothing is a boon in this world!\nTo what end are deep knowledge, thirst for fame,\nTalent, and ardent love of freedom,\nSince we cannot make use of them?\nWe, the children of the north, like the local plants,\nFlourish not for long; we fade quickly 
\nAs the winter sun on the grey horizon\nSo is our life as gloomy, as transient\nIts monotonous flow 
\nAnd it feels stifling in the mother country,\nAnd the heart is heavy and the soul yearns.\nKnowing neither love nor sweet friendship,\nAmidst the futile storms our youth pines away\nAnd quickly the poison of evil darkens it,\nAnd for us is bitter the chilled cup of life,\nAnd nothing cheers our soul again.", "metadata": { - "translator": "B. A. Rudzinsky & Stella Gardiner", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1829 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "B. A. Rudzinsky", + "Stella Gardiner" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -57013,12 +58661,14 @@ "title": "“New Year’s Poem”", "body": "When I often stay a motley crowd in,\nWhen before my eyes, as in an awful dream,\nTo humming orchestras and dances,\nAnd foolish whispering of speeches learnt by eart,\nFlit figures of the people lost of heart,\nAnd masques with a false politeness;\nWhen my hands are touched, by any chance,\nWith heedless boldness of the city’s lass,\nBy hands without virgin fear,--\nExternally involved in their gleam and whim,\nI cherish in my heart an old and dear dream,\nThe sacred sounds of the bygone years.\nAnd if in some way I can lose, at last,\nThe dark reality, then to the resent past\nI fly in mind--as birds fly to the South;\nI see myself a child, I see once more them all:\nThe gentry’s manor, so old and tall,\nThe garden with the broken hothouse.\nHere sleeps a quiet pool under a net of grass,\nBehind the pool, a village smokes, and they rise--\nThe mists--above the lawns so endless.\nI enter a dark lane; the evening beams\nPeer through the bushes; and the yellow leaves\nRustle at my footsteps sadness.\nAnd sadness, very strange, lies my poor breast above:\nI think about her, I weep and I do love,\nI love my sacred dreams’ creation\nWith eyes that full of ever-azure light,\nWith a rosy smile, as if, a grove behind,\nThe light of the young day’s invasion.\nThus, proud liege of the bewitching land,\nFor the long hours, immovable, I sat--\nAnd their memory exists till now\nBeneath the mighty storm of passions and mistrusts,\nLike some fresh island, safe midst ocean’s floods,\nIn water desert has been flowered.\nWhen, coming to my senses, I notice the fraud,\nWhen the crowd’s noise has completely destroyed\nMy dream--the wrong guest at their banquet--\nOh, how, then, I want to shock their foolish mirth\nAnd boldly cast in their eyes my iron verse,\nSteeped in bitterness and hatred!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1840, "month": "january" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_day" @@ -57029,11 +58679,13 @@ "title": "“Prayer”", "body": "When faints the heart for sorrow,\nIn life’s hard, darkened hour,\nMy spirit breathes a wondrous prayer\nFull of love’s inward power.\n\nThere is a might inspiring\nEach consecrated word,\nThat speaks the inconceivable\nAnd holy will of God.\n\nThe heavy load slips from my heart--\nOppressing doubt takes flight,\nThe soul believes, the tears break forth--\nAnd all is light, so light!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Martha Dickinson Bianchi", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1839 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Martha Dickinson Bianchi" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -57041,11 +58693,13 @@ "title": "“Prophet”", "body": "Since that time when the highest court\nHad given me the prophet’s vision,\nIn eyes of men I always caught\nThe images of sin and treason.\n\nThen I began to promulgate\nThe clear love’s and truth’s commandment:\nAt me all humans threw for that\nHard sticks and stones, like the madmen.\n\nI put sackcloth and ashes on,\nAnd ran--a beggar--from the town,\nAnd there I live in desert lone,\nLike birds, on food that God sends down;\n\nHere earthly creatures serve me right,\nThe laws of the Lord obeying;\nAnd stars here hear me in night,\nWith their rays, like babies, playing.\n\nAnd when to towns’ walls, by chance,\nI hurry through the noisy places,\nThe old men say to younger ones,\nWith selfish smiles on their faces,\n\n“Look, there is an example for us!\nHe was expelled from life, like ours:\nThe fool was forcing us to trust\nThat God is speaking through his mouth!\n\nSo, see, my children: how grim,\nThin, pale he is--with shaggy hair!\nLook, how poor he is and bare,\nHow despise all people him!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1841 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -57053,11 +58707,13 @@ "title": "“Sail”", "body": "Amid the blue haze of the ocean\nA sail is passing, white and frail.\nWhat do you seek in a far country?\nWhat have you left at home, lone sail?\n\nThe billows play, the breezes whistle,\nAnd rhythmically creaks the mast.\nAlas, you seek no happy future,\nNor do you flee a happy past.\n\nBelow the mirrored azure brightens,\nAbove the golden rays increase--\nBut you, wild rover, pray for tempests,\nAs if in tempests there was peace!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Nabokov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1832 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Nabokov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -57065,11 +58721,13 @@ "title": "“The Silhouette”", "body": "I have your silhouette,\nIts sad color is dear to me;\nIt hangs upon my breast,\nAnd is as somber as the heart within.\n\nIts eyes hold neither life nor fire,\nAnd yet it is always close to me;\nIt is your shadow, but I love\nYour shadow as a shadow of bliss.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anonymous", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1831 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Anonymous" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -57077,11 +58735,13 @@ "title": "“The Sky and the Stars”", "body": "Fair is the evening sky,\nClear are the stars in the distance,\nAs clear as the joy of an infant.\nOh, why can’t I tell myself even in thought:\nThe stars are as clear as my joy!\n\nWhat is your trouble?\nPeople might query.\nJust this is my trouble,\nExcellent people: the sky and the stars\nAre the stars and the sky, whereas I am a man.\n\nPeople are envious\nOf one another.\nI, on the contrary,\nOnly the beautiful stars do I envy,\nOnly to be in their place do I wish.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Nabokov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1831 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Nabokov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -57089,11 +58749,13 @@ "title": "“Their love was so gentle 
”", "body": "_Sie liebten beiden, doch keiner\nWollt’es dem andern gestehn._\n --Heine\n\nTheir love was so gentle, so long, and surprising,\nWith pining, so deep, and zeal, like a crazy uprising!\nBut, much like foes, they shunned their meetings, confessions 
\nAnd were cold and empty their short conversations.\n\nThey left each other in suffering, wordless and proud,\nAnd only in dreams, saw the image beloved, farther.\nDeath had come and commenced their date in the world, that is out 
\nBut they didn’t discern in this new world each other.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1841 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -57101,12 +58763,14 @@ "title": "“When the yellowing cornfield is waving 
”", "body": "When, in the cornfield, yellow waves are rising,\nThe wood is rustling at the sound of soft wind,\nAnd, in the garden, crimson plums are hiding\nIn pleasant shade of leaves, so shining ones and green;\n\nWhen, spilled with fragrant dew in calmness of the alley,\nIn morning of a gold or evening of a red,\nUnder the bush, the lily of a valley,\nIs gladly nodding me with silver of her head;\n\nWhen the icy brook in the ravine is playing,\nAnd, sinking thoughts in somewhat misty dreams,\nIn bubbling tones secretly tale-telling\nOf those peaceful lands from which it gaily streams--\n\nThen wrinkles are smoothing on my knitted brow,\nMy heart is losing troubles and distress--\nAnd I can apprehend the happiness on earth,\nAnd see Almighty in the heavens now 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1837, "month": "february" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -57117,11 +58781,13 @@ "title": "“When your voice I hear 
”", "body": "When your voice I hear\nSo tenderly ringing,\nLike a captive bird\nI wake with a song.\n\nWhen your glance I meet,\nIn your azure eyes,\nMy soul arises\nWith a longing for you.\n\nI fain would weep\nIn my happiness:\nOh to hold you, dear,\nClose to my heart!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Eugene Mark Kayden", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1839 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Eugene Mark Kayden" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -57129,11 +58795,13 @@ "title": "“Wherefore”", "body": "I grieve because I love, and loving you,\nI know their crafty rumors will pursue\nYour youth in flower, lying out of spite.\nFor every shining hour and true delight\nFate will demand in ache and tears its pay.\nI grieve--because you are so free and gay.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Eugene Mark Kayden", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1840 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Eugene Mark Kayden" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -58130,10 +59798,10 @@ "title": "“Our Valley”", "body": "We don’t see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August\nwhen the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay\nof this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchard\nwhen suddenly the wind cools and for a moment\nyou get a whiff of salt, and in that moment you can almost\nbelieve something is waiting beyond the Pacheco Pass,\nsomething massive, irrational, and so powerful even\nthe mountains that rise east of here have no word for it.\n\nYou probably think I’m nuts saying the mountains\nhave no word for ocean, but if you live here\nyou begin to believe they know everything.\nThey maintain that huge silence we think of as divine,\na silence that grows in autumn when snow falls\nslowly between the pines and the wind dies\nto less than a whisper and you can barely catch\nyour breath because you’re thrilled and terrified.\n\nYou have to remember this isn’t your land.\nIt belongs to no one, like the sea you once lived beside\nand thought was yours. Remember the small boats\nthat bobbed out as the waves rode in, and the men\nwho carved a living from it only to find themselves\ncarved down to nothing. Now you say this is home,\nso go ahead, worship the mountains as they dissolve in dust,\nwait on the wind, catch a scent of salt, call it our life.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2009 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -58829,8 +60497,10 @@ "title": "“Lavernock”", "body": "Moor and sea, skylark’s song\nascending through the wind’s demesnes,\nwe too standing listening\nas we’d listened formerly.\n\nWhat wealth remains, then, after\nthe journey’s adversities?\nMoor and sea, skylark’s song\ndescending from the wind’s demesnes.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Harry Gilonis", "language": "Welsh", + "translators": [ + "Harry Gilonis" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -58838,8 +60508,10 @@ "title": "“Prayer at the End”", "body": "It’s an experience nobody else shares\nEveryone on his own and in his own way\nOwns his death\nThroughout the thousands of years of human story.\nIt can be watched, Sometimes the moment be recognized;\nIt’s impossible to sympathize with anyone in that moment\nWhen the breathing and the person together cease.\nAfterwards? There’s no stretching to the afterwards only prayer groping\nHow pitiful is man, how childish his imagination;\n“In my Father’s house are many mansions”.\nAs impoverished as we, just as earthly confused\nWas his genius in the days of his kenosis.\nAs for us similarly we can only picture hope:\n“He sits at the right hand of God Almighty Father”--\nA general with his celebration through Rome\nWith the slaughter in Persia as a creation\nCrowned Augustus, a Co-Augustus with his Father--\nHow laughable are our own highest faith-statements.\nAnd around us remains silence and the deep void\nInto which our world one night will silently sink.\nWords cannot trace the boundaries of silence\nNor say God meaningfully.\nOne prayer remains for all, silently to go to silence.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Heywood Thomas", "language": "Welsh", + "translators": [ + "John Heywood Thomas" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -58882,8 +60554,10 @@ "title": "“Drinking Alone in the Moonlight”", "body": "Beneath the blossoms with a pot of wine,\nNo friends at hand, so I poured alone;\nI raised my cup to invite the moon,\nTurned to my shadow, and we became three.\nNow the moon had never learned about drinking,\nAnd my shadow had merely followed my form,\nBut I quickly made friends with the moon and my shadow;\nTo find pleasure in life, make the most of the spring.\n\nWhenever I sang, the moon swayed with me;\nWhenever I danced, my shadow went wild.\nDrinking, we shared our enjoyment together;\nDrunk, then each went off on his own.\nBut forever agreed on dispassionate revels,\nWe promised to meet in the far Milky Way.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Arthur Waley", "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Arthur Waley" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -58930,8 +60604,10 @@ "title": "“Great King! from Heaven’s high throne descending low 
”", "body": "Great King! from Heaven’s high throne descending low,\nIn Bethlehem’s stable born in cold and woe,\nThou shiverest in a manger, Babe divine,\nMuch hast Thou borne for sins: how much for mine!\n\nThe world’s creator Thou, our God adored,\nThou sufferest cold and want, O humbled Lord!\nDear chosen Child! when love transforms Thee so,\nFor Thee my heart the more with love shall glow.\n\nIn joy reposing on Thy Father’s breast,\nHow can a couch of straw afford Thee rest?\nSweet love, thus pained, inflame my frozen heart,\nJesus! to me Thy purest love impart.\n\nIf thus to suffer was Thy gracious will,\nYet, loving Savior! let me ask Thee still,\nWhat could Thy blissful soul to suffering move?\nThou weepest--not for grief--Ah no! for love.\n\nThou grievest, after all Thy love, to see\nThyself so little loved, O God, by me;\nYet if the past so little love has shown,\nI love Thee now, O Jesus, Thee alone.\n\nThou sleepest, holy Infant! but Thou art\nFor us still wakeful in Thy tender heart:\nTell me, O beauteous Lamb! say what may be\nThy thoughts?--I hear thee lisp: “To die for thee.”\n\nThou dwellest on Thy death for me, with joy;\nWho then, save Thee, shall all my thoughts employ?\nMary, my hope! if less I love your Son,\nO love Him you for me, and all is done.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Jones", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "James Jones" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "christmas_day" @@ -58945,19 +60621,35 @@ "name": "Vachel Lindsay", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1879 + "year": 1879, + "month": "november", + "day": 10 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Springfield", + "state": "Illinois", + "country": "USA" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1931 + "year": 1931, + "month": "december", + "day": 5 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Springfield", + "state": "Illinois", + "country": "USA" } }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ "poet" ], - "education": null, + "education": { + "medical": "Hiram College" + }, "movement": [], "religion": null, "nationality": [ @@ -59218,14 +60910,16 @@ "title": "“And moan of winds and whispered thoughts of gloom 
”", "body": "And moan of winds and whispered thoughts of gloom,\nFrom life no joy is won
\nYet somewhere,--warmth, and ocean’s muffled boom,\nAnd lustre of the sun.\n\nThe blizzard wails, and in the heart it throws\nA load of tears unshed.\nYet somewhere myrtle, verdant myrtle grows,\nAnd stainless roses spread.\n\nLife, passing by, in empty brooding delves,\nUnmeaning, unbedight
\nYet somewhere, mirth and bliss will yield themselves,\nAnd comeliness and light!", "metadata": { + "place": "Yaroslavl", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1895, "month": "january", "day": 22 }, - "place": "Yaroslavl", - "translator": "Paul Selver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Selver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -59237,11 +60931,13 @@ "title": "“Dreams of Immortality”", "body": "There, on an island of the vast world,\nI fell in love with a friend--beautiful,\nCurly-haired, serenely joyful,\n Clear-visaged.\nHe floated in with the twilight of a wearisome day\n And stayed with me till morning.\n\n Misty shrouds fell\n About his many-hued array,\n His words were incoherent\n And mysterious--his gaze strange.\nScarlet poppies, smoldering with a purple fire,\n Formed a fragrant garland ’round his head.\n\n He whispered inspired tales to me,\n Evoked sultry visions:\n Some innocent, some troubled,\n Some blessed.\nAway into the forbidden distance, to the golden lands\n My thoughts flew with him.\n\n But, exhausted by life’s daily\n Pining from a nameless torture,\n Once, in an anguished moment of parting,\n In tears, I whispered to him:\n “--O my friend, alone, without you, I am so sad,\n Why can’t you be with me forever?”\n\n He said: “What can be forever?\n Even centuries pass like moments.\n On earth you will not find eternal Oblivion.”\nAnd into the rays of the dawning day, with a deep sigh,\n He vanished, he abandoned me.\n\n But in my hours of boring loneliness\n I awaited this perfect bliss,\n I, burning, summoned that unchanging,\n That inseparable, faithful friend.\nHe appeared, and with the shadow of his quivering wings,\n With that dark shadow he embraced me.\n\n He gazed at me with a welcoming smile,\n And my brow, overburdened with thoughts,\n Overburdened with thoughts gloomy,\n Hopeless,\nAnd my eyes, and my breast, wearied from yearning,\n He touched with his healing hand.\n\n I cast off this weary flesh,\n I severed those useless chains,\n Into those far-off spheres, beyond the stars,\n Renewd, enlightened,\nHe lifted me to the light of unbounded day,\n That he need never forsake me again.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1898 }, - "translator": "Temira Pachmuss", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Temira Pachmuss" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -59249,11 +60945,13 @@ "title": "“Enis-el-Djellis”", "body": "In an ornamented tower huddled the harem\nOf the lord of an eastern land;\nThere captives lived, not knowing why,\nLanguished, and awaited Spring.\n\nThe sun had inclined toward the pearly waves,\nThe air breathed wind and dreams.\nAn unknown knight on a white steed\nApproached--and paused neath the window.\n\nHe watched as the birds, having touched the window,\nCircled and drifted downward.\nHe saw--in the harem one lovelier than all,\nThe slave Enis-el-Djellis.\n\nHer young lips were red,\nLike the roses of southern lands.\nMore ethereal than the evening shadows\nSeemed her seductive shape.\n\nHer luxuriant braids coiled in the sun,\nLike two golden streams.\nAnd the knight cried out: “Enis-el-Djellis!\nYou’ll be mine--or no one’s.”\n\nAlong the red clouds\nThe sun withdrew into its night chamber.\nGlory to the names of those immortalized in love--\nTheirs will be commended to the ages.\n\nThe tower has crumbled. On that dark cliff\nThere stands a silent cypress.\nThe slave Enis-el-Djellis\nDreams in the cold earth, murdered.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1900 }, - "translator": "Temira Pachmuss", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Temira Pachmuss" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -59261,11 +60959,13 @@ "title": "“I love the faded blossoms 
”", "body": "I love the faded blossoms\nOf late-blooming violets and lilacs,\nHalf-hinted, half-tinted\nBy an entwining haze of beauty.\n\nThe troubled soul is ill\nAnd embraced by the silent dusk;\nIt is enraptured by approaching sleep\nAnd the peaceful charm of sunset.\n\nWhat remains for the fire of hopes to illumine?\nWhat can breathe with that bygone joy?\nWhat will rouse\nMy sinking, half-closed lids?\n\nNothing. No one. Desires are gone.\nThe lightning has flashed mutely.\nI gaze with a smile of exhaustion\nAt life, and the vanity of vanities.\n\nThe celestial path is hidden in a mist.\nGrief subsides, wounds grow mute.\nBlessed, blessed is Nirvana’s rest--\nTo doze 
 to disappear 
 to drown.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1893 }, - "translator": "Temira Pachmuss", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Temira Pachmuss" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -59273,11 +60973,13 @@ "title": "“A prayer for those who are perishing”", "body": "O, righteous God,\nHear my prayers\nFor the souls of those who are perishing\nWithout absolution;\nFor all those anguishing,\nFor all those suffering,\nFor those striving toward You,\nFor those ignorant of You!\n\nI do not beg for obedience And hope\nFor you, the humble,\nWhose life--is silence.\nFor you, who are meek in spirit.\nYou, who are pure of heart,\nThe thorny paths Are easy and joyful.\n\nBut for you, the rebellious,\nThose who have sorely fallen away,\nWho have confused ecstasy\nWith madness and evil,\nFor the torments of these chosen,\nFor the pain of their moment--\nI beg awareness\nAnd revelation!", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1902 }, - "translator": "Temira Pachmuss", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Temira Pachmuss" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -59285,11 +60987,13 @@ "title": "“The Queen of Sheba”", "body": "_“Put me, like a seal, on your heart. Like a signet-ring on your hand, for love is as powerful as death.”_\n --Solomon’s “Song of Songs,” 8, 6.\n\n# I.\n\nBathing in the sun’s gold rays,\nIn the warm azure of the firmament,\nTwelve doves flew south\nFar from Zion.\n\n Pining, the queen had long awaited\n Her plumed guests--\n And into the golden-purple tent\n Their lively flock drifted
\n\nShe went to meet them,\nDescending from her shimmering throne,\nSlender--like the palm of En-gedi,\nFresh, like the rose of Jericho 
\n\n Suddenly her beautiful face\n Was bathed in a tender, burning blush.\n And a snow-white dove\n Alit upon her bare shoulder.\n\nFrom its scarlet beak\nShe quickly took, with trembling hand,\nA message
 The swarm of slave girls\nFell silent and froze expectantly
\n\n Just o’er her crowned head\n A large fan barely rustled
\n The queen, with downcast eyes,\n Harkened to the royal message.\n\n And each word of it,\n It seemed, found echo\n In her breast, where before\n Self-will alone had dwelt:\n\n“I kiss the delicate traces\nOf my queen’s lovely feet!\nHer eyes, like two stars,\nGlimmer through dark lashes
\nWhat say I? 
 two stars?!
\nBright flashes of summer lightning are they!\nAnd by them is my heart consumed,\nFilled with the madness of love!\n\nO, who can compare with her,\nWith my beloved! Her cheeks\nAre like lilies, flowers of the field,\nDrenched in the evening’s glow
\nWhat say I?!--the lily’s bloom?!--\nScarlet roses are her cheeks!\nAnd by them is my heart enraptured,\nFilled with the madness of love!\n\nHow intoxicatingly subtle\nThe perfumes of her gown!\nShe captivates the eye, like the light of the moon,\nThe charm of a wondrous beauty
\nWhat say I?!--The light of the moon?!--\nRather the brilliance of the southern sun!\nAnd by it is my heart bedazzled,\nFilled with the madness of love!”\n\n\n# II.\n\n The slave had finished
 But far away\n The Queen’s dreams have drawn her,\n There, to the promised land,\n “Where milk and honey flow
”\n Where an intoxicating well bubbles into a brook\n And the juice of amber wines trickles,\n Where the multibranched terebinth grows,\n And a canopy of plantains and olive trees
\n\nWhere palaces with their fairy tale glitter\nOutshine the splendor of the southern lands,\nWhere myrrh, incense, and saffron\nStream fragrances from censers
\nSeven steps
 and a resplendent throne
\nAnd, illuminated by most sublime glory,\n\n He--the fragrant blossom of the valleys,\n “The narcissus of Sharon”--Solomon! 
\n O moment, remembered by her even now,\n When, under that powerful and vital gaze,\n She, a seeming goddess,\n Stood before him--\n Before victory or disgrace.\n Her involuntary fear concealed,\n With a slyly lowered gaze,\n With a subtle smile on her lips
\n\n --“What does Your Highness command\n In reply to the King of the East?”--\n Roused from her wondrous dream,\n Her lashes softly trembled
\n\nMore flushed than the rose of Jericho,\nStill under the sweet dream’s spell,\nTo Solomon’s winged messengers\nShe spoke with a sigh:\n\n --“Not from the Queen--from his slave\n Tell your King That I worship him.\n And he gladdens my heart,\n That I marvel at his wisdom.\n His power, his wealth, his land
\n I love him! 
 And long to join him! 
\n I am consumed by our love! 
”", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1894 }, - "translator": "Temira Pachmuss", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Temira Pachmuss" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_valentine" @@ -59300,11 +61004,13 @@ "title": "“The Seraphim”", "body": "# I.\n\nGorged for a time with bloody slaughter,\nBoth servants and valorous hero are weary\nAnd enter the dome of God’s dwelling.\nWhere candles glimmer at the Master’s feet,\nAnd from the basilica’s walls, with gentle smiles,\nGaze the blissful faces of the Seraphim.\n\n\n# II.\n\nThe weary executioner has dozed for an instant.\nThe hung victim’s frenzy grows.\nA beaten body quivers on the rack,\nNo limit to these slow tortures is seen.\nBut there, above the earth, above this pitch darkness,\nSoar the Seraphim with innocent smiles.\n\n\n# III.\n\nWith a deep “in pace” lacking strength and will,\nA nun beats against the stones of a grave.\nThe echo of heavenly songs is heard\nIn that cold pit, with rats and mold.\nBut beyond--with the organ’s roar, unseen in clouds of incense,\n“Hosanna, Hosanna!” sing the Seraphim.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1900 }, - "translator": "Temira Pachmuss", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Temira Pachmuss" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -59315,19 +61021,35 @@ "name": "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1807 + "year": 1807, + "month": "february", + "day": 27 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Portland", + "state": "Maine", + "country": "USA" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1882 + "year": 1882, + "month": "march", + "day": 24 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Cambridge", + "state": "Massachusetts", + "country": "USA" } }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ "poet" ], - "education": null, + "education": { + "bachelors": "Bowdoin College" + }, "movement": [ "Fireside" ], @@ -59493,8 +61215,10 @@ "title": "“Gacela of the Dark Death”", "body": "I want to sleep the sleep of the apples,\nI want to get far away from the busyness of the cemeteries.\nI want to sleep the sleep of that child\nwho longed to cut his heart open far out at sea.\n\nI don’t want them to tell me again how the corpse keeps all its blood,\nhow the decaying mouth goes on begging for water.\nI’d rather not hear about the torture sessions the grass arranges for\nnor about how the moon does all its work before dawn\nwith its snakelike nose.\n\nI want to sleep for half a second,\na second, a minute, a century,\nbut I want everyone to know that I am still alive,\nthat I have a golden manger inside my lips,\nthat I am the little friend of the west wind,\nthat I am the elephantine shadow of my own tears.\n\nWhen it’s dawn just throw some sort of cloth over me\nbecause I know dawn will toss fistfuls of ants at me,\nand pour a little hard water over my shoes\nso that the scorpion claws of the dawn will slip off.\n\nBecause I want to sleep the sleep of the apples,\nand learn a mournful song that will clean all earth away from me,\nbecause I want to live with that shadowy child\nwho longed to cut his heart open far out at sea.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -59542,8 +61266,10 @@ "title": "“Serenata”", "body": "The night soaks itself\nalong the shore of the river\nand in Lolita’s breasts\nthe branches die of love.\n\nThe branches die of love.\n\nNaked the night sings\nabove the bridges of March.\nLolita bathes her body\nwith salt water and roses.\n\nThe branches die of love.\n\nThe night of anise and silver\nshines over the rooftops.\nSilver of streams and mirrors\nAnise of your white thighs.\n\nThe branches die of love.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Derek Parker", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Derek Parker" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -59613,10 +61339,10 @@ "title": "“To Althea, from Prison”", "body": "When Love with unconfinĂšd wings\nHovers within my Gates,\nAnd my divine _Althea_ brings\nTo whisper at the Grates;\nWhen I lie tangled in her hair,\nAnd fettered to her eye,\nThe Gods that wanton in the Air,\nKnow no such Liberty.\n\nWhen flowing Cups run swiftly round\nWith no allaying _Thames_,\nOur careless heads with Roses bound,\nOur hearts with Loyal Flames;\nWhen thirsty grief in Wine we steep,\nWhen Healths and draughts go free,\nFishes that tipple in the Deep\nKnow no such Liberty.\n\nWhen (like committed linnets) I\nWith shriller throat shall sing\nThe sweetness, Mercy, Majesty,\nAnd glories of my King;\nWhen I shall voice aloud how good\nHe is, how Great should be,\nEnlargĂšd Winds, that curl the Flood,\nKnow no such Liberty.\n\nStone Walls do not a Prison make,\nNor Iron bars a Cage;\nMinds innocent and quiet take\nThat for an Hermitage.\nIf I have freedom in my Love,\nAnd in my soul am free,\nAngels alone that soar above,\nEnjoy such Liberty.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1642 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -60013,10 +61739,10 @@ "title": "“The Dead”", "body": "We have flowed out of ourselves\nBeginning on the outside\nThat shrivvable skin\nWhere you leave off\n\nOf infinite elastic\nWalking the ceiling\nOur eyelashes polish stars\n\nCurled close in the youngest corpuscle\nOf a descendant\nWe spit up our passions in our grand-dams\n\nFixing the extension of your reactions\nOur shadow lengthens\nIn your fear\n\nYou are so old\nBorn in our immortality\nStuck fast as Life\nIn one impalpable\nOmniprevalent Dimension\n\nWe are turned inside out\nYour cities lie digesting in our stomachs\nStreet lights footle in our ocular darkness\n\nHaving swallowed your irate hungers\nSatisfied before bread-breaking\nTo your dissolution\nWe splinter into Wholes\nStirring the remorses of your tomorrow\nAmong the refuse of your unborn centuries\nIn our busy ashbins\nStink the melodies\nOf your\nSo easily reducible\nAdolescences\n\nOur tissue is of that which escapes you\nBirth-Breaths and orgasms\nThe shattering tremor of the static\nThe far-shore of an instant\nThe unsurpassable openness of the circle\nLegerdemain of God\n\nOnly in the segregated angles of Lunatic Asylums\nDo those who have strained to exceeding themselves\nBreak on our edgeless contours\n\nThe mouthed echoes of what\nhas exuded to our companionship\nIs horrible to the ear\nOf the half that is left inside them.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -60027,10 +61753,10 @@ "title": "“Love Song”", "body": "Spawn of fantasies\nSitting the appraisable\nPig Cupid his rosy snout\nRooting erotic garbage\n“Once upon a time”\nPulls a weed white star-topped\nAmong wild oats sown in mucous membrane\nI would an eye in a Bengal light\nEternity in a sky-rocket\nConstellations in an ocean\nWhose rivers run no fresher\nThan a trickle of saliva\n\nThere are suspect places\n\nI must live in my lantern\nTrimming subliminal flicker\nVirginal to the bellows\nOf experience\n Colored glass.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_valentine" @@ -60041,10 +61767,10 @@ "title": "“Songs to Joannes, VII”", "body": "My pair of feet\nSmack the flag-stones\nThat are something left over from your walking\nThe wind stuffs the scum of the white street\nInto my lungs and my nostrils\nExhilarated birds\nProlonging flight into the night\nNever reaching--", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -60414,8 +62140,10 @@ "title": "“The Bouquet”", "body": "The sun was shining high above\nWhen I gave you in a bouquet\nMy precious and consuming love\nAnd my heart’s secret in that day.\nThe posy was my youth, my pearl,\nAnd if today lies withered here,\nYou maybe didn’t kiss it, girl,\nO, lovely Mary, O, my dear.\n\nFor eons you cannot be mine,\nYou know it and I know it well,\nBut love is like a sweet red wine\nAnd getting sober is a hell.\nYet, when in reverie you’re caught,\nIf you can see that bouquet clear,\nGive to the poet a nice thought,\nO, lovely Mary, O, my dear.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Octavian CocoƟ", "language": "Romanian", + "translators": [ + "Octavian CocoƟ" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -60423,8 +62151,10 @@ "title": "“Philosophy of Death”", "body": "To Death, with unwise voice, such words I will not pour\n“Stop coming for a while and wait a little more!,”\nTo breathe my last I’m ready right now or anytime!\nIn it there’s always freedom, in life man slave becomes 
\nEternity is waiting for us with open arms 
\nAnd thus we all re-enter the bosom sweet, sublime!\n\nIt’s not at all appalling, as people say and sigh;\nIts glance is calm and bluish like the unclouded sky.\nThe state before inception is mirrored by its face!\nStays at the worldly border like a triumphant gate\nIts fires wash the passions which have been sent by fate,\nAnd cleans the clay that covers our souls so full of grace!\n\nIf any of the spirits denies its high domain\nIs worthy then to live here and feel the bitter pain!\nWhen cease to be you’re rescued from suffering and cry!\nBy Jove! I’m sick of sleeping, and drinking in delight,\nAgain to do the same things from dawn till late at night,\nTo live, but have the feeling I cannot choose to die!\n\nBut what’s beyond the dying? 
 Another life may be\nWhen blood has frozen solid and stopped to flow in thee? 
\nTo say a No what being of this wide world would dare? 
\nAnd Death what’s in its essence? 
 A sleep, a holy rest,\nWhen once again our soft clay is kneaded and is pressed\nAnd for that change majestic it has to wait and bear!\n\nWhen paper burns, a fraction of it in ashes lies,\nWhile smoke--the other fraction--above the flame will rise;\nThe same is with the body, made of two parts, no doubt,\nThe clay remains behind it and flowers will grow then,\nWhile gases go in heaven to freshen once again\nThose elements eternal from which they all came out!\n\nO, shadows, you who passed away,\nIn death you never will subside,\nYou live in all we see today,\nFrom where you left after you died;\nYour soul is everywhere you please,\nBurns with the flames, flies with the breeze,\nLies in the leaf that’s turning green,\nSpeaks in the river winding, clean,\nSmells from the flower that is seen,\nWe live in it, in us it lies,\nMothers in mourning, wipe your eyes,\nYour children still are here with you!\n\nNothing is lost in world at all,\nNothing will pass, alive will stay,\nThe blade of grass, however small,\nAnd my own body made of clay!\nThe tombstone tries, but all in vain,\nTo keep us in the moist terrain;\nBirds come on it to drink and rest;\nIt’s hit by wind, by rain oppressed!\nTime breaks it and in moss is dressed;\nPadlock and handles then will rust\nOur country’s soldiers, dead in dust,\nWill be all over, in us, too!\n\nI will not go to search in Hell\nThose in the world who surely die\nAnd Paradise is far, I tell,\nLong is the ladder to the sky!\nBut in two vines, which join above,\nI’ll find two hearts that fell in love,\nAnd in the willows sheding tears,\nPoets with harps that soothe the ears,\nIn flowers, lovers young of years!\nMoms in the stems stick in the ground\nAnd heroes in the mounts around!\n\nLet all the stupid people to fear the death today,\nWhich, to avoid temptation, will surely come and lay\nAt life’s remotest border a barrier, alas;\nBut those who can see farther and hear the grave’s loud call,\nWhen feel they’re on its edges and ready are to fall,\nLike me, for Death, to drink up this necessary glass!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Octavian CocoƟ", "language": "Romanian", + "translators": [ + "Octavian CocoƟ" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -60435,8 +62165,10 @@ "title": "“The Well”", "body": "# I.\n\nI know a small well in the shadowy vale\nA chirping gold starling has urged me to sleep\nBeneath the high poplars, with green foliage veil,\nForgetting the city where my sigh was deep.\n\nI know a small well in the shadowy vale\nA blackbird I talked to down there, for it pried,\nWhen learned that I suffered and heard my sad wail,\nLaughed loudly and deeply, but I only sighed 
\n\nI know a small well in the shadowy vale.\n\n\n# II.\n\nIn foliage lies hidden the white-looking vale\nAnd what have I wanted in this passing world?\nI pity myself, the sad folks who prevail 
\nO, you, finely chirping and nice golden bird.\n\nIn foliage lies hidden the white-looking vale\nIts spring in the morning is kissed by the sky,\nWith it flows my fate, beginning to fail,\nO, blackbird whose laughter is not gonna die!\n\nThe small hidden well turns white in the vale.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Octavian CocoƟ", "language": "Romanian", + "translators": [ + "Octavian CocoƟ" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -60496,7 +62228,6 @@ "title": "“Don’t be surprised, dear friends 
”", "body": "Don’t be surprised, dear friends,\nthat my forehead is furrowed.\nWith men I live in peace,\nbut with my insides I am at war.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Mary G. Berg & Dennis Maloney", "language": "Spanish", "source": { "title": "There is No Road", @@ -60505,6 +62236,10 @@ "year": 2003 } }, + "translators": [ + "Mary G. Berg", + "Dennis Maloney" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -60512,7 +62247,6 @@ "title": "“Envy of virtue made Cain a criminal 
”", "body": "Envy of virtue\nmade Cain a criminal.\nGlory be to Cain!\nToday vice is what is envied most.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Mary G. Berg & Dennis Maloney", "language": "Spanish", "source": { "title": "There is No Road", @@ -60521,6 +62255,10 @@ "year": 2003 } }, + "translators": [ + "Mary G. Berg", + "Dennis Maloney" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -60528,7 +62266,6 @@ "title": "“Every man wages two battles: 
”", "body": "Every man wages two battles:\nin dreams, he struggles with God\nand awake, with the sea.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Mary G. Berg & Dennis Maloney", "language": "Spanish", "source": { "title": "There is No Road", @@ -60537,6 +62274,10 @@ "year": 2003 } }, + "translators": [ + "Mary G. Berg", + "Dennis Maloney" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -60544,7 +62285,6 @@ "title": "“Eyes opened one day to the light 
”", "body": "Eyes opened one day to the light,\nonly to later turn back, blind, to the earth,\nweary of looking without seeing!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Mary G. Berg & Dennis Maloney", "language": "Spanish", "source": { "title": "There is No Road", @@ -60553,6 +62293,10 @@ "year": 2003 } }, + "translators": [ + "Mary G. Berg", + "Dennis Maloney" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -60560,7 +62304,6 @@ "title": "“Heart, yesterday sonorous 
”", "body": "Heart, yesterday sonorous,\ndoesn’t your little gold coin jingle?\nWill your strongbox be emptied\nbefore time breaks it?\nLet’s trust that\nnothing of what we know\nturns out to be really true.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Mary G. Berg & Dennis Maloney", "language": "Spanish", "source": { "title": "There is No Road", @@ -60569,6 +62312,10 @@ "year": 2003 } }, + "translators": [ + "Mary G. Berg", + "Dennis Maloney" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -60576,7 +62323,6 @@ "title": "“I never chased fame 
”", "body": "I never chased fame,\nnor longed to leave my song\nbehind in the memory of men.\nI love the subtle worlds,\nalmost weightless,\ndelicate as soap bubbles.\nI like to see them paint themselves\nin colors of sunlight and float,\nscarlet into the blue sky, then\nsuddenly quiver and break.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Mary G. Berg & Dennis Maloney", "language": "Spanish", "source": { "title": "There is No Road", @@ -60585,6 +62331,10 @@ "year": 2003 } }, + "translators": [ + "Mary G. Berg", + "Dennis Maloney" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -60592,11 +62342,13 @@ "title": "“Last night as I was sleeping 
”", "body": "Last night as I was sleeping,\nI dreamt--marvelous error!--\nthat a spring was breaking\nout in my heart.\nI said: Along which secret aqueduct,\nOh water, are you coming to me,\nwater of a new life\nthat I have never drunk?\n\nLast night as I was sleeping,\nI dreamt--marvelous error!--\nthat I had a beehive\nhere inside my heart.\nAnd the golden bees\nwere making white combs\nand sweet honey\nfrom my old failures.\n\nLast night as I was sleeping,\nI dreamt--marvelous error!--\nthat a fiery sun was giving\nlight inside my heart.\nIt was fiery because I felt\nwarmth as from a hearth,\nand sun because it gave light\nand brought tears to my eyes.\n\nLast night as I slept,\nI dreamt--marvelous error!--\nthat it was God I had\nhere inside my heart.", "metadata": { + "language": "Spanish", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "translator": "Roberty Bly", - "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Roberty Bly" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -60604,7 +62356,6 @@ "title": "“Man has four things 
”", "body": "Man has four things\nthat are no good at sea;\nanchor, rudder, oars,\nand the fear of going down.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Mary G. Berg & Dennis Maloney", "language": "Spanish", "source": { "title": "There is No Road", @@ -60613,6 +62364,10 @@ "year": 2003 } }, + "translators": [ + "Mary G. Berg", + "Dennis Maloney" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -60620,7 +62375,6 @@ "title": "“Man is by nature a paradoxical beast 
”", "body": "Man is by nature a paradoxical beast,\nan absurd animal in need of logic.\nHe created a world out of nothing and when\nhe finished said, “Now I know the secret:\neverything is nothing!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Mary G. Berg & Dennis Maloney", "language": "Spanish", "source": { "title": "There is No Road", @@ -60629,6 +62383,10 @@ "year": 2003 } }, + "translators": [ + "Mary G. Berg", + "Dennis Maloney" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -60636,7 +62394,6 @@ "title": "“Of what men call virtue 
”", "body": "Of what men call virtue,\njustice and kindness,\nhalf is envy,\nand the other half is not charity.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Mary G. Berg & Dennis Maloney", "language": "Spanish", "source": { "title": "There is No Road", @@ -60645,6 +62402,10 @@ "year": 2003 } }, + "translators": [ + "Mary G. Berg", + "Dennis Maloney" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -60652,7 +62413,6 @@ "title": "“Poet, your prophecy? 
”", "body": "Poet, your prophecy?\n“Tomorrow the dumb shall speak:\nthe heart and the stone.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Mary G. Berg & Dennis Maloney", "language": "Spanish", "source": { "title": "There is No Road", @@ -60661,6 +62421,10 @@ "year": 2003 } }, + "translators": [ + "Mary G. Berg", + "Dennis Maloney" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -60668,7 +62432,6 @@ "title": "“Water and thirst are good 
”", "body": "Water and thirst are good,\nshadows and sun are good,\nhoney from flowering rosemary,\nhoney from bare fields.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Mary G. Berg & Dennis Maloney", "language": "Spanish", "source": { "title": "There is No Road", @@ -60677,6 +62440,10 @@ "year": 2003 } }, + "translators": [ + "Mary G. Berg", + "Dennis Maloney" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -60684,8 +62451,10 @@ "title": "“The wind, one brilliant day 
”", "body": "The wind, one brilliant day, called\nto my soul with an odor of jasmine.\n\n“In return for the odor of my jasmine,\nI’d like all the odor of your roses.”\n\n“I have no roses; all the flowers\nin my garden are dead.”\n\n“Well then, I’ll take the withered petals\nand the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain.”\n\nthe wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself:\n“What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Roberty Bly", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Roberty Bly" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -61529,7 +63298,6 @@ "title": "“Afternoon”", "body": "Mine eyes have snared my soul. But O,\nGrant me, O Lord, my one desire:\nLet fall Thy leaves upon the snow,\nLet fall Thy rain upon the fire.\n\nThe sun upon my pillow plays,\nThe self-same hours they sound again,\nAnd always falls my questing gaze\nOn dying men that harvest grain.\n\nMy hands they pluck the withered grass,\nMine eyes with sleep are all undone,\nAre sick folk in a springless pass,\nOr flowers of darkness in the sun.\n\nWhen will my dreams unchanging know\nThe rain, and when the meadows brown\nAlong the far horizon, lo,\nThe lambs are herded toward the town.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61538,6 +63306,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -61548,7 +63319,6 @@ "title": "“Amen”", "body": "At length the consecrating hour is here\nThat sains the slave’s extenuated sleep.\nAnd I who wait shall see its hands appear,\nFull of white roses in these caverns deep.\n\nI wait--at length to feel its cooling wind\nStrike on my heart, impregnable to lies,\nA paschal lamb lost amid marshes blind,\nA wound o’er which the surging waters rise.\n\nI wait--for nights no morrow shall defy,\nI wait--for weakness nothing shall avail;\nTo feel upon my hands its shadow lie,\nTo see in peaceful tides its image pale.\n\nI wait until those nights of thine shall show\nAll my desires with cleansed eyes go by,\nFor then my dreams shall bathe in evening’s glow,\nAnd then within their crystal castle die.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61557,6 +63327,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -61564,7 +63337,6 @@ "title": "“Contacts”", "body": "The sense of contact!\nDarkness lies between your fingers!\nThe cries of brazen instruments in a tempest!\nThe music of organs in the sunlight!\nAll the flocks of the soul in the depths of a night of eclipse!\nAll the salt of the sea on the grass of the meadows!\nAnd the blaze of blue lightning on every horizon!\n(Have pity on this human sense!)\n\nBut O these sadder, wearier contacts!\nO the touch of your poor moist hands!\nI hear your pure fingers as they glide between mine,\nAnd flocks of lambs are departing by moonlight\nAlong the banks of a misty river.\n\nI can remember all the hands that have touched my hands,\nAnd again I see all that was protected by those hands,\nAnd I see to-day what I was, protected by those cool hands.\nI was often the beggar who gnaws his crust on the steps of a throne.\n\nI was sometimes the diver, who cannot evade the surging waters.\nI was often a whole people, no longer able to escape from the town!\nAnd some hands were like a convent without a garden!\nAnd some confined me like a group of invalids in a glass-house on a rainy day!\nUntil other cooler hands should come to set the doors ajar,\nAnd sprinkle a little water upon the threshold!\n\n\nO, I have known strange contacts,\nAnd here they surround me forever!\nSome were wont to give alms on a day of sun-shine,\nSome gathered a harvest in the depths of a cavern,\nAnd the music of mountebanks was heard outside the prison.\nThere were wax-work figures in the summer woods,\nAnd elsewhere the moon had swept the whole oasis,\nAnd at times I found a virgin, flushed and sweating, in a grotto of ice!\n\nPity these strange hands!\nThese hands contain the secrets of all the kings!\nPity these hands too pale!\nThey seem to have emerged from the caverns of the moon;\nThey are worn with spinning threads from the\ndistaffs of fountains!\nPity these hands, too white, too moist!\nThey are like princesses that slumber at noon all the summer through.\n\nAvoid these hard harsh hands!\nThey seem to have issued from the rocks!\nBut pity these cold hands!\nI see a heart bleeding under ribs of ice!\nAnd pity these evil hands,\nFor these have poisoned the springs!\nThey have set young cygnets in a nest of hemlock!\nI have seen the angels of evil open the gates at noon!\nHere are only madmen on a pestilent river!\nHere are black sheep only in starless pastures!\nAnd lambs hasting away to graze in darkness!\n\nBut O these cool faithful hands!\nThey come to offer ripe fruits to the dying!\nThey bring clear cold water in their palms!\nThey water the battlefields with milk!\nThey have surely come from wonderful and eternally virgin forests!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61573,6 +63345,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -61583,7 +63358,6 @@ "title": "“The Fevered Soul”", "body": "The dark brings visions to mine eyes:\nThro’ my desires they seek their goal.\nO nights within the humid soul,\nO heart to dreams that open lies!\n\nWith azure reveries I bedew\nThe roses of attempts undone;\nMy lashes close the gates upon\nThe longings that will ne’er come true.\n\nMy pallid indolent fingers plant\nEver in vain, at close of day,\nThe emerald bells of hope that lay\nOver the purple leaves of want.\n\nHelpless, my soul beholds with dread\nThe bitter musings of my lips,\nAmid the crowding lily-tips:\nO that this wavering heart were dead", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61592,6 +63366,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -61599,7 +63376,6 @@ "title": "“Glances”", "body": "O all these poor weary glances!\nAnd yours, and mine!\nAnd those that are no more, and those to be!\nAnd those that will never be, and yet exist!\nThere are those that seem to visit the poor on a Sabbath;\nThere are some like sick folk who are houseless,\nThere are some like lambs in a meadow full of bleaching linen;\nAnd O, these strange unwonted glances!\nUnder the vaults of some we behold\nA maiden being put to death in a chamber with closed doors.\nAnd some make us dream of unknown sorrows,\n\nOf peasants at the windows of a factory,\nOf a gardener turned weaver,\nOf a summer afternoon in a wax-work show,\nOf the thoughts of a queen on beholding sick man in a garden,\nOf an odour of camphor in the forest,\nOf a princess locked in a tower on a day of rejoicing,\nOf men sailing all the week on the stagnant waters of a canal.\n\nHave pity on those that come creeping forth like convalescents at harvest-tide!\nHave pity on those that have the air of children who have lost their way at supper-time!\nHave pity on the glances of the wounded man at the surgeon,\nLike tents stricken by a hurricane!\nHave pity on the glances of the virgin tempted!\n(Rivers of milk are flowing away in the darkness;\nAnd the swans have died in the midst of serpents!)\nAnd the gaze of the virgin who surrenders!\n\nThere are princesses deserted in swamps that have no issue!\nAnd lo, those eyes in which you may see ships in full sail, lit up by flashes of the storm!\nAnd how pitiful are all those glances which suffer because they are not elsewhere!\nAnd so much suffering, so indistinguishable and yet so various!\nAnd those glances which no one will ever understand!\nAnd those poor glances which are all but dumb!\nAnd those poor whispering glances!\nAnd those poor stifled glances!\n\nAmid some of these you might think yourself in a mansion serving as hospital,\nAnd many others have the air of tents, lilies of war, on the little lawn of the convent!\nAnd many others have the air of wounded men tended in a hot-house!\nOr Sisters of Charity on an ocean devoid of patients!\n\nOh, to have encountered all these glances,\nTo have admitted them all,\nAnd to have exhausted mine thereby!\nAnd henceforth to be unable to close mine eyes!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61608,6 +63384,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -61618,7 +63397,6 @@ "title": "“The Heart’s Foliage”", "body": "Neath the azure crystal bell\nOf my listless melancholy\nAll my formless sorrows wholly\nSink to rest, and all is well;\n\nSymbols all, the plans entwine:\nWater lilies, flowers of pleasure,\nPalms desirous, slow with leisure,\nFrigid mosses, pliant bine.\n\n’Mid them all a lily only,\nPale and fragile and unbending,\nImperceptibly ascending\nIn that place of leafage lonely,\n\nLike a moon the prisoned air\nFills with glimmering light wherethro’\nRises to the crystal blue,\nWhite and mystical, its prayer.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61627,6 +63405,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -61634,7 +63415,6 @@ "title": "“Her Lover Went His Way”", "body": "Her lover went his way\n(I heard the gate),\nHer lover went his way;\nYet she was gay.\n\nWhen he came again\n(I heard the lamp),\nWhen he came again\nAnother made the twain.\n\nAnd the dead I met\n(I heard her spirit cry),\nAnd the dead I met:\nShe who waits him yet.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61643,6 +63423,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -61650,7 +63433,6 @@ "title": "“The Hot-House”", "body": "O Hot-house deep in the forest’s heart!\nO doors forever sealed!\nLo, all that lives beneath thy dome,\nAnd in my soul, and the likeness of these things!\n\nThe thoughts of a princess who is sick with hunger,\nThe listless mood of a mariner in the desert,\nAnd brazen music at the windows\nOf men who are sick to death!\n\nSeek out the coolest corners--\nAnd you think of a woman who has swooned on a day of harvest.\n\nPostilions have entered the courtyard of the hospital,\nAnd there passes yonder an Uhlan, who has turned sick-nurse.\n\nBehold it all by moonlight!\n(Nothing, nothing is in its rightful place!)\nAnd you think of a madwoman haled before the judges,\nA warship in full sail on the waters of a canal,\nBirds of the night perched among lilies,\nAnd the knell of a passing-bell at the mid-day hour of Angelus.\nAnd yonder--beneath those domes of glass--\nA group of sick folk halted amid the meadows,\nAn odour of ether abroad on the sunny air!\n\nMy God, my God, when shall we feel the rain,\nAnd the snow, and the wind, in this close house of glass?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61659,6 +63441,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -61669,7 +63454,6 @@ "title": "“I Hold, to Every Sin”", "body": "I hold, to every sin,\nTo every soul that weeps,\nMy hands with pardon filled\nOut of the starry deeps.\n\nThere is no sin that lives\nWhen love hath vigil kept;\nThere is no soul that mourns\nWhen love but once hath wept.\n\nAnd tho’ on many paths\nOf earth love lose its way,\nIts tears will find me out\nAnd shall not go astray.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61678,6 +63462,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -61688,7 +63475,6 @@ "title": "“Lassitude”", "body": "These lips have long forgotten to bestow\nTheir kiss on blind eyes chiller than the snow,\nHenceforth absorbed in their magnificent dream.\nDrowsy as hounds deep in the grass they seem;\nThey watch the grey flocks on the sky-line pass,\nBrowsing on moonlight scattered o’er the grass,\nBy skies as vague as their own life caressed.\nThey see, unvexed by envy or unrest,\nThe roses of joy that open on every hand,\nThe long green peace they cannot understand.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61697,6 +63483,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -61704,7 +63493,6 @@ "title": "“Maidens with Bounden Eyes”", "body": "Maidens with bounden eyes\n(O loose the scarves of gold!)\nMaidens with bounden eyes,\nThey sought their destinies.\n\nAt noon they opened wide\n(O keep the scarves of gold!)\nAt noon they opened wide\nThe palace in the plain:\n\nThere they greeted life\n(Bind close the scarves of gold!)\nThere they greeted life,\nAnd turned them back again.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61713,6 +63501,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -61720,7 +63511,6 @@ "title": "“Night”", "body": "My soul is sick at the end of all,\nSick and sad, being weary too,\nWeary of being so vain, so vain,\nWeary and sad at the end of all,\nAnd O I long for the touch of you!\n\nI long for your hands upon my face;\nSnow-cold as spirits they will be;\nI wait until they bring the ring.\nI wait for their coolness over my face\nLike a treasure deep in the sea.\n\nI wait to know their healing spell,\nLest in the desolate sun I die,\nSo that I die not out in the sun;\nO bathe mine eyes and make them well,\nWhere things unhappy slumbering lie.\n\nWhere many swans upon the sea,\nSwans that wander over the sea,\nStretch forth their mournful throats in vain\nIn wintry gardens by the sea\nSick men pluck roses in their pain.\n\nI long for your hands upon my face;\nSnow-cold as spirits they will be,\nAnd soothe my aching sight, alas!\nMy vision like the withered grass\nWhere listless lambs irresolute pass!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61729,6 +63519,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -61739,7 +63532,6 @@ "title": "“Night Prayer”", "body": "Below the somnolence of prayer,\nUnder languid visions I\nHear the passions surge and cry:\nLust with lust is warring there.\n\nThro’ the lassitude of dreams\nShines the moon as thro’ a mesh;\nAnd the wandering joy of flesh\nStill on pestilent beaches gleams.\n\nUnder ever-shrouded skies,\nThirsting for their starry fires,\nThro’ my veins I hear desires\nToward the green horizon rise.\n\nEvil fondnesses I hear\nBlackly surging through my mind:\nPhantom marshes vanish blind\nSudden on the sky-line drear.\n\nO Lord, thy wrath will slay me soon!\nHave pity on me, Lord, I pray!\nSweating and sick, O let me stray\nThro’ pastures glimmering in the moon!\n\nFor now, O Lord, the time is nigh\nTo rase the hemlock with the steel,\nWhose moon my secret hopes reveal\nGreen as a serpent in the sky:\n\nAnd the plague of dreams mine eyes\nSmites, and all its sins subdue,\nAnd the rustling fountains blue\nToward the sovereign moon arise!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61748,6 +63540,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -61758,7 +63553,6 @@ "title": "“The Passions”", "body": "Narrow paths my passions tread:\nLaughter rings there, sorrow cries\nSick and sad, with half-shut eyes,\nThro’ the leaves the woods have shed,\n\nMy sins like yellow mongrels slink;\nUncouth hyaenas, my hates complain,\nAnd on the pale and listless plain\nCouching low, love’s lions blink.\n\nPowerless, deep in a dream of peace,\nSunk in a languid spell they lie,\nUnder a colourless desolate sky,\nThere they gaze and never cease,\n\nWhere like sheep temptations graze,\nOne by one departing slow:\nIn the moon’s unchanging glow\nMy unchanging passions gaze.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61767,6 +63561,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -61777,7 +63574,6 @@ "title": "“Prayer”", "body": "Thou know’st, O Lord, my spirit’s dearth\nThou see’st the worth of what I bring\nThe evil blossoms of the earth,\nThe light upon a perished thing.\n\nThou see’st my sick and weary mood:\nThe moon is dark, the dawn is slain.\nThy glory on my solitude\nShed Thou like fructifying rain.\n\nLight Thou, O Lord, beneath my feet\nThe way my weary soul should pass,\nFor now the pain of all things sweet\nIs piteous as the ice-bound grass.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61786,6 +63582,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -61796,7 +63595,6 @@ "title": "“Reflections”", "body": "Under the brimming tide of dreams\nO, my soul is full of fear!\nIn my heart the moon is clear;\nDeep it lies in the tide of dreams.\n\nUnder the listless reeds asleep,\nOnly the deep reflection shows\nOf palm, of lily and of rose,\nWeeping yet in the waters deep;\n\nAnd the flowers, late and soon,\nFall upon the mirrored sky,\nTo sink and sink eternally\nThro’ dreamy waters and the moon.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61805,6 +63603,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -61812,7 +63613,6 @@ "title": "“Sisters, Sisters”", "body": "Sisters, sisters, thirty years\nI sought where he might be;\nThirty years I sought for him:\nNever did I see.\n\nThirty years the way I trod;\nLong the road and hot;\nSisters, he was everywhere,\nHe who yet is not.\n\nSisters, sad the hour and late,\nMy sandal’s thongs unpick.\nEven as I the evening dies,\nAnd my soul is sick.\n\nYou whose years are seventeen,\nForth and seek him too;\nSisters, sisters, take my staff,\nSeek the whole world through.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61821,6 +63621,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -61828,7 +63631,6 @@ "title": "“The Soul”", "body": "My soul!\nO, my soul, verily too closely sheltered!\nAnd the flocks of my desires, imprisoned in a house of glass!\nWaiting until the tempest break upon the meadows!\n\nCome first of all to these, so sick and fragile:\nFrom these a strange effluvium rises.\nAnd lo, it seems I am with my mother,\nCrossing a field of battle.\nThey are burying a brother-in-arms at noon,\nWhile the sentinels are snatching a meal.\n\nNow let us go to the feeblest:\nThese are covered with a strange sweat.\nHere is an ailing bride,\nAnd an act of treachery done upon a Sabbath,\nAnd little children in prison,\nAnd yonder, yonder through the mist,\nDo I see there a woman dying at the door of a kitchen,\nOr a Sister of Charity, shelling peas at the bedside of a dying patient?\n\nLast of all let us go to the saddest:\n(Last of all, for these are venom’d.)\nO, my lips are pressed by the kisses of a wounded man!\n\nIn the castles of my soul this summer all the chatelaines have died of hunger!\n\nNow it is twilight on the morning of a day of festival!\nI catch a glimpse of sheep along the quays,\nAnd there is a sail by the windows of the hospital.\n\nThe road is long from my heart to my soul,\nAnd all the sentinels have died at their posts!\nOne day there was a poor little festival in the suburbs of my soul!\nThey were mowing the hemlock there one Sunday morning,\nAnd all the maiden women of the convent\nwere watching the passing vessels,\nOn the canal, one sunny fast-day.\nBut the swans were ailing, in the shadow of the rotting bridge.\nThey were lopping the trees about the prison,\nThey were bringing remedies, on an afternoon of June,\nAnd on every hand there were sick folk feasting!\n\nAlas, my soul,\nAnd alas, the sadness of all these things!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61837,6 +63639,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -61847,7 +63652,6 @@ "title": "“Stagnant Hours”", "body": "Here are the old desires that pass,\nThe dreams of weary men, that die,\nThe dreams that faint and fail, alas!\nAnd there the days of hope gone by!\n\nWhere to fly shall we find a place?\nNever a star shines late or soon:\nWeariness only with frozen face,\nAnd sheets of blue in the icy moon.\n\nBehold the fireless sick, and lo!\nThe sobbing victims of the snare!\nLambs whose pasture is only snow!\nPity them all, O Lord, my prayer!\n\nFor me, I wait the awakening call:\nI pray that slumber leave me soon.\nI wait until the sunlight fall\nOn hands yet frozen by the moon.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61856,6 +63660,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -61866,7 +63673,6 @@ "title": "“Temptations”", "body": "Green as the sea, temptations creep\nThrough the shadows of the mind,\nWhere with flaming flowers entwined\nDark ejaculations leap--\n\nStems obscure that coil and thrust\nIn the moon’s unhallowed glow,\nAnd the autumnal shadows throw\nOf their auguries of lust.\n\nAnd the moon may hardly shine\nThrough their fevered fast embrace:\nLimb and slimy limb enlace,\nEmerald and serpentine.\n\nSacrilegiously they grow,\nAnd their secret will reveal,\nDismal as regrets that steal\nO’er men dying in the snow;\n\nAnd their mournful shadows hide\nTangled wounds that mark the thrust\nOf the azure swords of lust\nIn the crimson flesh of pride.\n\nWhen will the dreams of earth, alas,\nFind in my heart their final tomb?\nO let Thy glory, Lord, illume\nThis dark and evil house of glass,\n\nAnd that oblivion nought may win!\nThe dead leaves of their fevers fall,\nThe stars between their lips, and all\nThe viscerae of woe and sin!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61875,6 +63681,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -61885,7 +63694,6 @@ "title": "“There Were Three Sisters Fain to Die”", "body": "There were three sisters fain to die.\nHer crown of gold each putteth on,\nAnd forth to seek their death they’re gone.\n\nThey wander to the forest forth:\n“Give us our death, O forest old,\nFor here are our three crowns of gold.”\n\nThe forest broke into a smile,\nAnd kisses gave to each twice twain,\nThat showed them all the future plain.\n\nThere were three sisters fain to die:\nThey wandered forth to seek the sea:\nThey found it after summers three.\n\n“Give us our death, thou ocean old,\nFor here are our three crowns of gold.”\nThen the ocean began to weep:\n\nThree hundred kisses it gave the three,\nAnd all the past was plain to see.\nThere were three sisters fain to die,\n\nTo find the city they sought awhile;\nThey found it midmost of an isle.\n\n“Give us our death, thou city old,\nFor here are our three crowns of gold.”\n\nThe city opened then and there,\nAnd covered them with kisses dear\nThat showed them all the present clear.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61894,6 +63702,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -61904,7 +63715,6 @@ "title": "“Three Little Maids”", "body": "Three little maids they did to death,\nTo see what hid within their hearts.\n\nThe first little heart was full of bliss,\nAnd lo, wherever its blood might run,\nThree serpents hissed till three years were done.\n\nThe second was full of gentlehood,\nAnd lo, wherever its blood might run\nThree lambs that fed till three years were done.\n\nThe third was full of pain and woe,\nAnd lo, wherever the red blood crept\nArchangels three their vigil kept.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61913,6 +63723,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -61920,7 +63733,6 @@ "title": "“Toward the Castle She Made Her Way”", "body": "Toward the castle she made her way\n(Hardly yet was the sun on the sea),\nToward the castle she made her way;\nKnight looked at knight and looked away;\nThe women had never a word to say.\n\nShe came to rest before the door\n(Hardly yet was the sun on the sea),\nShe came to rest before the door;\nThey heard the queen as she paced the floor,\nAnd the king that asked her what would she.\n\n“What do you seek, O where do you go?\n(Have a care, it is hard to see),\nWhat do you seek, O where do you go?\nDoth one await you there below?”\nBut never a word, a word spake she.\n\nDown she went to the one unknown\n(Have a care, it is hard to see),\nDown she went to the one unknown,\nAnd round the queen her arms were thrown;\nNever a word did either say;\nWithout a word they went their way.\n\nThe king wept on the threshold sore\n(Have a care, it is hard to see),\nThe king wept by the open door;\nThey heard the footsteps of the queen,\nAnd the fall of the leaves where she had been.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61929,6 +63741,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -61939,7 +63754,6 @@ "title": "“Vigil”", "body": "My soul her unused hands to pray\nFolds, that hide the world away:\nLord, my broken dreams complete,\nThat Thine angels’ lips repeat.\n\nWhile beneath my wearied eyes\nShe breathes the prayers that in her rise--\nPrayers that find my lids a tomb,\nAnd whose lilies may not bloom:\n\nWhile in dreams her barren breast\nHushes ’neath my gaze to rest--\nStill her eyes from perils cower,\nSuch as wake by falsehood’s power.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61948,6 +63762,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -61955,7 +63772,6 @@ "title": "“Visions”", "body": "All the tears that I have shed,\nAll my kisses, lo, they pass\nThro’ my mind as in a glass:\nAll my kisses whose joy is dead.\n\nThere are flowers without a hue,\nLilies that under the moonlight fade,\nMoonlight over the meadows laid,\nFountains far on the sky-line blue.\n\nWeary and heavy with slumber I\nSee thro’ the lids that slumber closes\nCrows that gather amid the roses,\nSick folk under a sunbright sky.\n\nOf these vague loves the weary smart\nShines unchanging late and soon\nLike a pale slow-moving moon\nSadly into my indolent heart.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61964,6 +63780,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -61971,7 +63790,6 @@ "title": "“The Weary Hunting”", "body": "My soul is sick, in an evil mood;\nStricken with many a lack it lies,\nStricken with silence, and mine eyes\nIllume it with their lassitude.\n\nArrested visions of the chase\nObsess me; memory whips them on;\nThe sleuth-hounds of Desire are gone\nOn fading scents--a weary race.\n\nIn misty woods the hunt is met;\nThe questing packs of dreams depart;\nToward the white stags of falsehood dart\nThe jaundiced arrows of Regret.\n\nAh, my desires! For breath they swoon\nThe wearied longings of mine eyes\nHave clouded with their azure sighs,\nWithin my soul, the flooding moon!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61980,6 +63798,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -61987,7 +63808,6 @@ "title": "“Wintry Desires”", "body": "I mourn the lips of yesterday,\nLips whose kisses are yet unborn,\nAnd the old desires outworn,\nUnder sorrows hid away.\n\nAlways rain on the far sky-line;\nAlways snow on the beaches gleams,\nWhile by the bolted gate of dreams\nCrouching wolves in the grasses whine.\n\nInto my listless soul I gaze:\nWith clouded eyes I search the past,\nAt all the long-spilt blood aghast\nOf lambs that died in wintry ways.\n\nOnly the moon its mournful fires\nEnkindles, and a desolate light\nFalls where the autumn frosts are white\nOver my famishing desires.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -61996,6 +63816,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -62006,7 +63829,6 @@ "title": "“A Woman’s Fears My Heart Control”", "body": "A woman’s fears my heart control:\nWhat have I done with these, my part,\nMy hands, the lilies of my soul,\nMine eyes, the heavens of my heart?\n\nO Lord, have pity on my grief:\nI have lost the palm and ring, alas!\nPity my prayers, my poor relief,\nCut flowers and fragile in a glass.\n\nPity the trespass of my mouth,\nAnd things undone, and words unsaid;\nShed lilies on my fever’s drouth,\nAnd roses on the marshes shed!\n\nO God! The doves whose flights are gold\nOn heavens remembered! Pity too\nThese garments that my loins enfold,\nThat rustle round me, dimly blue!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bernard Miall", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Poems", @@ -62015,6 +63837,9 @@ "year": 1915 } }, + "translators": [ + "Bernard Miall" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -62057,8 +63882,10 @@ "title": "“Girl’s Poem”", "body": "So many stars in the sky\nand even if they were all my eyes\nI wouldn’t be able to look at him enough.\n\nSo many branches in the highlands\nand even if they were all my hands\nI wouldn’t be able to hug him enough.\n\nSo many springs on this earth\nand even if all would give their murmur,\nI wouldn’t be able to sing to him so.\n\nSo many birds in the world\nand even if all turn into girls\nthere wouldn’t be enough for him, though.\n\nSo many rocks on the ground\nand even if all of them on my chest lain\nit wouldn’t match the half of this pain.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Stephen Capus", "language": "Serbian", + "translators": [ + "Stephen Capus" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -62066,8 +63893,10 @@ "title": "“Warning”", "body": "Listen, I’ll tell you my secret:\nNever leave me alone\nwhen music plays.\n\nIt could seem to me\nthat some eyes gray\nare so deep and soft,\nthe eyes that are actually plain.\n\nIt could seem to me\nthat I dive into the sound\nand I could give my hands\nto anyone around.\n\nIt could seem to me\nso easy, so gay\nto love someone\nfor only one day.\n\nOr, I could tell someone\nmy dearest, magically growing secret\nhow much I love you.\n\nOh, never leave me alone\nwhen music plays.\n\nIt could seem to me that again,\nsomewhere in a forest,\nmy tears flow through a new well.\n\nIt could seem to me that a black butterfly\nmakes patterns on heavy water--\nthose that no one feels free to tell.\n\nIt could seem to me that somewhere in the dark zone\nsomeone sings and with a bitter flower\ntouches my heart where the incurable wound stays.\n\nOh, never leave me alone,\nnever alone,\nwhen music plays.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Stephen Capus", "language": "Serbian", + "translators": [ + "Stephen Capus" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -62206,8 +64035,10 @@ "title": "“I Was Washing at Night out in the Yard”", "body": "I was washing at night out in the yard--\nthe heavens glowing with rough stars.\nA star-beam like salt upon an axe,\nthe water barrel brimful and cold.\n\nA padlock makes the gate secure,\nand conscience gives sternness to the earth--\nhard to find a standard anywhere\npurer than the truth of new-made cloth.\n\nA star melts in the barrel like salt,\nand the ice-cold winter is blacker still,\ndeath is more pure, disaster saltier\nand earth more truthful and more terrible.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter France", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Peter France" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -62385,11 +64216,13 @@ "title": "“Winter’s Night”", "body": "O cold is the slight wind, and keen.\nBare and bright in dim light is seen,\nas vast as the graces of God,\nthe veld’s starlit and fire-scarred sod.\nTo the high edge of the lands,\nspread through the scorched sands,\nnew seed-grass is stirring\nlike beckoning hands.\n\nO mournful the tune\nof the East-wind refrain,\nlike the song of a girl\nwho loved but in vain.\nOne drop of dew glistens\non each grass-blade’s fold\nand fast does it pale\nto frost in the cold!", "metadata": { + "language": "Afrikaans", "time": { "year": 1905 }, - "translator": "At de Lange", - "language": "Afrikaans", + "translators": [ + "At de Lange" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -62563,11 +64396,11 @@ "title": "“In stagnant gloom I toil thro’ day 
”", "body": "In stagnant gloom I toil thro’ day,\nAll that delights me put away.\nNot even a bird, to one oppressed,\nWarbles in an o’erlabored breast,\nNor from the fountains of delight\nFalls one clear drop to ease my sight.\n\nYet, Thou who mad’st of dust my face,\nAnd shut me in this bitter place,\nThou also, past the world to know,\nDid hinges hang where heart may go\nAfter day’s travail--vain all words--\nInto this garden of the Lord’s.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1941, "month": "june" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -62656,11 +64489,11 @@ "title": "“Two Epitaphs”", "body": "# I.\n\nYe say we sleep;\nBut nay, we wake;\nLife was that strange and chequered dream\nOnly for waking’s sake.\n\n\n# II.\n\nO passer--by, beware!\nIs the day fair?--\nYet unto evening shall the day spin on\nAnd soon thy sun be gone;\nThen darkness come,\nAnd this, a narrow home.\nNot that I bid thee fear;\nOnly, when thou at last lie here,\nBethink thee, there shall only be\nThyself for company.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917, "month": "april" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -62834,12 +64667,12 @@ "poems": { "lincoln-the-man-of-the-people": { "title": "“Lincoln, the Man of the People”", - "body": "When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour\nGreatening and darkening as it hurried on,\nShe left the Heaven of Heroes and came down\nTo make a man to meet the mortal need.\nShe took the tried clay of the common road,\nClay warm yet with the genial heat of earth,\nDasht through it all a strain of prophecy;\nTempered the heap with thrill of human tears;\nThen mixt a laughter with the serious stuff.\nInto the shape she breathed a flame to light\nThat tender, tragic, ever-changing face;\nAnd laid on him a sense of the Mystic Powers\nMoving—all husht—behind the mortal veil,\nHere was a man to hold against the world,\nA man to match the mountains and the sea.\n\nThe color of the ground was in him, the red earth,\nThe smack and tang of elemental things;\nThe rectitude and patience of the cliff;\nThe good-will of the rain that loves all leaves;\nThe friendly welcome of the wayside well;\nThe courage of the bird that dares the sea;\nThe gladness of the wind that shakes the corn;\nThe pity of the snow that hides all scars;\nThe secrecy of streams that make their way\nUnder the mountain to the riften rock;\nThe tolerance and equity of light\nThat gives as freely to the shrinking flower\nAs to the great oak flaring to the wind—\nTo the grave’s low hill as to the Matterhorn\nThat shoulders out the sky. Sprung from the West,\nHe drank the valorous youth of a new world,\nThe strength of virgin forests braced his mind,\nThe hush of spacious prairies stilled his soul,\nHis words were oaks in acorns; and his thoughts\nWere roots that firmly gript the granite truth.\n\nUp from log cabin to the Capitol,\nOne fire was on his spirit, one resolve—\nTo send the keen ax to the root of wrong\nClearing a free way for the feet of God,\nThe eyes of conscience testing every stroke,\nTo make his deed the measure of a man,\nHe built the rail-pile as he built the State,\nPouring his splendid strength through every blow;\nThe grip that swung the ax in Illinois\nWas on the pen that set a people free.\nSo came the Captain with the mighty heart;\nAnd when the judgment thunders split the house,\nWrenching the rafters from their ancient rest,\nHe held the ridgepole up, and spikt again\nThe rafters of the Home. He held his place—\nHeld the long purpose like a growing tree—\nHeld on through blame and faltered not at praise,\nAnd when he fell in whirlwind, he went down\nAs when a lordly cedar, green with boughs,\nGoes down with a great shout upon the hills,\nAnd leaves a lonesome place against the sky.\"", + "body": "When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour\nGreatening and darkening as it hurried on,\nShe left the Heaven of Heroes and came down\nTo make a man to meet the mortal need.\nShe took the tried clay of the common road,\nClay warm yet with the genial heat of earth,\nDasht through it all a strain of prophecy;\nTempered the heap with thrill of human tears;\nThen mixt a laughter with the serious stuff.\nInto the shape she breathed a flame to light\nThat tender, tragic, ever-changing face;\nAnd laid on him a sense of the Mystic Powers\nMoving--all husht--behind the mortal veil,\nHere was a man to hold against the world,\nA man to match the mountains and the sea.\n\nThe color of the ground was in him, the red earth,\nThe smack and tang of elemental things;\nThe rectitude and patience of the cliff;\nThe good-will of the rain that loves all leaves;\nThe friendly welcome of the wayside well;\nThe courage of the bird that dares the sea;\nThe gladness of the wind that shakes the corn;\nThe pity of the snow that hides all scars;\nThe secrecy of streams that make their way\nUnder the mountain to the riften rock;\nThe tolerance and equity of light\nThat gives as freely to the shrinking flower\nAs to the great oak flaring to the wind--\nTo the grave’s low hill as to the Matterhorn\nThat shoulders out the sky. Sprung from the West,\nHe drank the valorous youth of a new world,\nThe strength of virgin forests braced his mind,\nThe hush of spacious prairies stilled his soul,\nHis words were oaks in acorns; and his thoughts\nWere roots that firmly gript the granite truth.\n\nUp from log cabin to the Capitol,\nOne fire was on his spirit, one resolve--\nTo send the keen ax to the root of wrong\nClearing a free way for the feet of God,\nThe eyes of conscience testing every stroke,\nTo make his deed the measure of a man,\nHe built the rail-pile as he built the State,\nPouring his splendid strength through every blow;\nThe grip that swung the ax in Illinois\nWas on the pen that set a people free.\nSo came the Captain with the mighty heart;\nAnd when the judgment thunders split the house,\nWrenching the rafters from their ancient rest,\nHe held the ridgepole up, and spikt again\nThe rafters of the Home. He held his place--\nHeld the long purpose like a growing tree--\nHeld on through blame and faltered not at praise,\nAnd when he fell in whirlwind, he went down\nAs when a lordly cedar, green with boughs,\nGoes down with a great shout upon the hills,\nAnd leaves a lonesome place against the sky.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1900 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -62847,10 +64680,10 @@ "title": "“The Man with the Hoe”", "body": "_God made man in His own image, in the image of God made He him._\n --Genesis\n\nBowed by the weight of centuries he leans\nUpon his hoe and gazes on the ground,\nThe emptiness of ages in his face,\nAnd on his back the burden of the world.\nWho made him dead to rapture and despair,\nA thing that grieves not and that never hopes,\nStolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?\nWho loosened and let down this brutal jaw?\nWhose was the hand that slanted back this brow?\nWhose breath blew out the light within this brain?\nIs this the Thing the Lord God made and gave\nTo have dominion over sea and land;\nTo trace the stars and search the heavens for power.\nTo feel the passion of Eternity?\nIs this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns\nAnd marked their ways upon the ancient deep?\nDown all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf\nThere is no shape more terrible than this--\nMore tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed--\nMore filled with signs and portents for the soul--\nMore fraught with menace to the universe.\n\nWhat gulfs between him and the seraphim!\nSlave of the wheel of labor, what to him\nAre Plato and the swing of Pleiades?\nWhat the long reaches of the peaks of song,\nThe rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?\nThrough this dread shape the suffering ages look;\nTime’s tragedy is in that aching stoop;\nThrough this dread shape humanity betrayed,\nPlundered, profaned and disinherited,\nCries protest to the Judges of the World,\nA protest that is also prophecy.\n\nO masters, lords and rulers in all lands,\nIs this the handiwork you give to God,\nThis monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?\nHow will you ever straighten up this shape;\nTouch it again with immortality;\nGive back the upward looking and the light;\nRebuild in it the music and the dream;\nMake right the immemorial infamies,\nPerfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?\n\nO masters, lords and rulers in all lands,\nHow will the Future reckon with this Man?\nHow answer his brute question in that hour\nWhen whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world?\nHow will it be with kingdoms and with kings--\nWith those who shaped him to the thing he is--\nWhen this dumb Terror shall reply to God,\nAfter the silence of the centuries?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1898 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -62986,8 +64819,10 @@ "title": "“Love or Friendship”", "body": "What is it, lovely one, I beg you,\nthat stops you loving me more?\nI’ll always be filled with sadness,\nuntil you tell me the truth, I’m sure.\nPerhaps you only want Friendship,\nor something ill’s been said of me,\nor your heart’s found a newer love.\n\nIf you forsake love’s sweet path,\nyou render your beauty prisoner;\nif you’ve forgot me for another,\nHeaven grant the good you seek;\nbut if you’ve heard aught ill of me,\nthen, I trust, as fair you seem to me,\nso much or more you’ll punish me.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -62995,8 +64830,10 @@ "title": "“The Rose”", "body": "The lovely rose, to Venus consecrated,\nwould give greater pleasure to eye and mind,\nif I tell you, lady, who pleases me,\nwhy we see it dressed all in red.\n\nOne day Venus with her Adonis\nthrough a garden, full of briars,\ntrod sleeveless and bare-footed;\na rose-thorn pricked here, there;\nand all the roses, white before,\nwere reddened with her blood.\n\nAnd I have profited from that rose,\nin enjoying you, for, above all else,\nyour face, in embracing sweetness,\nseems a fresh and reddened rose.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -63007,8 +64844,10 @@ "title": "“Song of May and Virtue”", "body": "Gladly, in this month of May,\nearth transforms, and renews,\nand many a lover does so too,\nmade to forge their love anew,\nby the fickleness of their hearts,\nand be more content elsewhere.\nThat way of loving is not for me,\nmy love will endure eternally.\n\nThere is no lovely lady, here,\nwhose beauty will not fade,\nthrough time, illness, anxiety\nimperfection seeks them out;\nbut no shade can touch the one\nwhom I claim to love endlessly;\nand since she is forever lovely;\nmy love will endure eternally.\n\nShe of whom I say these things\nis Virtue the unfading Nymph,\nwho to Honour’s shining peak,\ncalls all true lovers perpetually:\n“Come, lovers, come,” she cries,\n“come to me, for I wait for you.”\n“Come” she cries, the lovely girl,\n“my love will endure eternally.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -63019,8 +64858,10 @@ "title": "“The Tormenter”", "body": "She who has so tormented me,\nhas taken pity on my distress:\nfor into her garden she had led me,\nwhere all the trees grow lustily.\nAnd so employs no harshness:\nif I kiss her, she embraces me;\nshe gave her noble heart to me,\nfrom which I am advised to flee.\n\nWhen I see her heart is mine,\nI put all fear behind me, saying\n“Lovely one, it’s no great thing\nfor me to slumber in your arms.”\nBut the lady then replies: “No,\nno more of such demands. He’s\nmaster enough of all the body,\nwho has its heart at his command.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -63064,8 +64905,10 @@ "title": "“Because your eyes were two flames 
”", "body": "Because your eyes were two flames\nAnd your brooch wasn’t pinned right,\nI thought you had spent the night\nIn playing forbidden games.\n\nBecause you were vile and devious\nSuch deadly hatred I bore you:\nTo see you was to abhor you\nSo lovely and yet so villainous.\n\nBecause a note came to light,\nI know now where you had been,\nAnd what you had done unseen--\nCried for me all the long night.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Manuel A. Tellechea", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Manuel A. Tellechea" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -63073,11 +64916,13 @@ "title": "“The Girl of Guatemala”", "body": "In the shadow of a wing\nI wish to tell this flowered tale\nOf the girl from Guatemala\nWho died of love.\n\nThe wreaths were of lilies\nAnd jasmine and mignonette;\nWe laid the girl to rest\nIn a silken casket.\n\nShe gave a little scented pillow\nTo the forgetful one, and he\nReturned, returned now wedded.\nShe died of love.\n\nAmbassadors and bishops\nCarried her bier, and there were\nRelays of people following,\nAll with flowers.\n\nWishing to see him again,\nShe went out on the belvedere;\nHe returned with his wife:\nShe died of love.\n\nHer brow was like molten bronze\nAt his parting kiss,\nThe brow I loved the best\nin all my life!\n\nAt dusk she entered the river,\nThe doctor pulled out her body.\nThey say she died of cold; I know\nShe died of love.\n\nThey laid her out on two benches\nthere in the frigid vault;\nI kissed her slender hand\nAnd her white shoes.\n\nSoftly, when evening fell,\nThe gravedigger bid me come.\nNever again did I see that girl\nWho died of love.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Elinor Randall", + "language": "Spanish", "time": { "year": 1891 }, - "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Elinor Randall" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -63088,8 +64933,10 @@ "title": "“I have a white rose to tend 
”", "body": "I have a white rose to tend\nIn July as in January;\nI give it to the true friend\nWho offers his frank hand to me.\nAnd for the cruel one whose blows\nBreak the heart by which I live,\nThistle nor thorn do I give:\nFor him, too, I have a white rose.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Manuel A. Tellechea", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Manuel A. Tellechea" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -63097,8 +64944,10 @@ "title": "“I want to leave the world 
”", "body": "I want to leave the world\nThrough the natural gate:\nIn a cart of green leaves\nThey have to take me to die.\n\nDon’t put me in the dark\nTo die as a traitor:\nI am good, and as good\nI will die facing the sun!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Manuel A. Tellechea", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Manuel A. Tellechea" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -63106,8 +64955,10 @@ "title": "“I’ll never forget, I vow 
”", "body": "I’ll never forget, I vow,\nThat fall morning long ago,\nWhen I saw a new leaf grow\nUpon the old withered bow.\n\nThat dear morning when for naught,\nBy a stove whose flame had died,\nA girl in love stood beside\nAn old man, and his hand sought.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Manuel A. Tellechea", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Manuel A. Tellechea" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -63118,13 +64969,15 @@ "title": "“Love in the City”", "body": "Times of gorge and rush are these:\nVoices fly like light: lightning,\nlike a ship hurled upon dread quicksand,\nplunges down the high rod, and in delicate craft\nman, as if winged, cleaves the air.\nAnd love, without splendor or mystery,\ndies when newly born, of glut.\nThe city is a cage of dead doves\nand avid hunters! If men’s bosoms\nwere to open and their torn flesh\nfall to the earth, inside would be\nnothing but a scatter of small, crushed fruit!\n\nLove happens in the street, standing in the dust\nof saloons and public squares: the flower\ndies the day it’s born. The trembling\nvirgin who would rather death\nhave her than some unknown youth;\nthe joy of trepidation; that feeling of heart\nset free from chest; the ineffable\npleasure of deserving; the sweet alarm\nof walking quick and straight\nfrom your love’s home and breaking\ninto tears like a happy child;--\nand that gazing of our love at the fire,\nas roses slowly blush a deeper color,--\nBah, it’s all a sham! Who has the time\nto be noble? Though like a golden\nbowl or sumptuous painting\na genteel lady sits in the magnate’s home!\n\nBut if you’re thirsty, reach out your arm,\nand drain some passing cup!\nThe dirtied cup rolls to the dust, then,\nand the expert taster--breast blotted\nwith invisible blood--goes happily,\ncrowned with myrtle, on his way!\nBodies are nothing now but trash,\npits and tatters! And souls\nare not the tree’s lush fruit\ndown whose tender skin runs\nsweet juice in time of ripeness,--\nbut fruit of the marketplace, ripened\nby the hardened laborer’s brutal blows!\n\nIt is an age of dry lips!\nOf undreaming nights! Of life\ncrushed unripe! What is it that we lack,\nwithout which there is no gladness? Like a startled\nhare in the wild thicket of our breast,\nfleeing, tremulous, from a gleeful hunter,\nthe spirit takes cover;\nand Desire, on Fever’s arm,\nbeats the thicket, like the rich hunter.\n\nThe city appals me! Full\nof cups to be emptied, and empty cups!\nI fear--ah me!--that this wine\nmay be poison, and sink its teeth,\nvengeful imp, in my veins!\nI thirst--but for a wine that none on earth\nknows how to drink! I have not yet\nendured enough to break through the wall\nthat keeps me, ah grief!, from my vineyard!\nTake, oh squalid tasters\nof humble human wines, these cups\nfrom which, with no fear or pity,\nyou swill the lily’s juice!\nTake them! I am honorable, and I am afraid!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Esther Allen", "place": "New York", + "language": "Spanish", "time": { "year": 1882, "month": "april" }, - "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Esther Allen" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -63135,8 +64988,10 @@ "title": "“A sincere man am I 
”", "body": "A sincere man am I\nFrom the land where palm trees grow,\nAnd I want before I die\nMy soul’s verses to bestow.\n\nI’m a traveller to all parts,\nAnd a newcomer to none:\nI am art among the arts,\nWith the mountains I am one.\n\nI know how to name and class\nAll the strange flowers that grow;\nI know every blade of grass,\nFatal lie and sublime woe.\n\nI have seen through dead of night\nUpon my head softly fall,\nRays formed of the purest light\nFrom beauty celestial.\n\nI have seen wings that were surging\nFrom beautiful women’s shoulders,\nAnd seen butterflies emerging\nFrom the refuse heap that moulders.\n\nI have known a man to live\nWith a dagger at his side,\nAnd never once the name give\nOf she by whose hand he died.\n\nTwice, for an instant, did I\nMy soul’s reflection espy:\nTwice: when my poor father died\nAnd when she bade me good-bye.\n\nI trembled once, when I flung\nThe vineyard gate, and to my dread,\nThe wicked hornet had stung\nMy little girl on the forehead.\n\nI rejoiced once and felt lucky\nThe day that my jailer came\nTo read the death warrant to me\nThat bore his tears and my name.\n\nI hear a sigh across the earth,\nI hear a sigh over the deep:\nIt is no sign reaching my hearth,\nBut my son waking from sleep.\n\nIf they say I have obtained\nThe pick of the jeweller’s trove,\nA good friend is what I’ve gained\nAnd I have put aside love.\n\nI have seen across the skies\nA wounded eagle still flying;\nI know the cubby where lies\nThe snake of its venom dying.\n\nI know that the world is weak\nAnd must soon fall to the ground,\nThen the gentle brook will speak\nAbove the quiet profound.\n\nWhile trembling with joy and dread,\nI have touched with hand so bold\nA once-bright star that fell dead\nFrom heaven at my threshold.\n\nOn my brave heart is engraved\nThe sorrow hidden from all eyes:\nThe son of a land enslaved,\nLives for it, suffers and dies.\n\nAll is beautiful and right,\nAll is as music and reason;\nAnd all, like diamonds, is light\nThat was coal before its season.\n\nI know when fools are laid to rest\nHonor and tears will abound,\nAnd that of all fruits, the best\nIs left to rot in holy ground.\n\nWithout a word, the pompous muse\nI’ve set aside, and understood:\nFrom a withered branch, I choose\nTo hang my doctoral hood.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Manuel A. Tellechea", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Manuel A. Tellechea" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -63144,8 +64999,10 @@ "title": "“The Two Princes”", "body": "The palace is in mourning,\nThe king cries on his throne;\nThe queen is also crying,\nShe’s crying all alone.\nIn handkerchiefs of pure lace\nThey cry in disbelief,\nThe nobles of the palace,\nBeside themselves with grief.\nThe royal horses, once so bright,\nAre now in black-array:\nThe horses did not eat last night--\nNor wanted food today.\nThe courtyard’s stately laurel tree\nIs stripped of all its leaves:\nThe people of the country\nAll carry laurel wreaths.\nThe king’s son has died today:\nThe king’s heir has passed away.\n\nUpon the hill, the shepherd\nHas built his simple home:\nThe shepherdess to ask is heard:\n“Why does the sun still come?”\nWith lowered heads, the sheep\nApproach the shepherd’s door:\nA box he’s lining, long and deep,\nUpon the cottage floor.\nA sad dog keeps watch there;\nFrom the hut is heard a moan:\n“Little bird, take me where\nMy precious one has flown.”\nThe weeping shepherd takes the spade,\nAnd sinks it in the bower,\nAnd in the hole that he has made\nThe shepherd lays his flower.\nThe shepherd’s son has died today,\nThe shepherd’s heir has passed away.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Manuel A. Tellechea", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Manuel A. Tellechea" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -63188,11 +65045,13 @@ "title": "“Dusk in the Country”", "body": "The riddle silently sees its image. It spins evening\namong the motionless reeds.\nThere is a frailty no one notices\nthere, in the web of grass.\n\nSilent cattle stare with green eyes.\nThey mosey in evening calm down to the water.\nAnd the lake holds its immense spoon\nup to all the mouths.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", + "language": "Swedish", "time": { "year": 1945 }, - "language": "Swedish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -63203,11 +65062,13 @@ "title": "“Power”", "body": "The engineer sits by the big wheel,\nall through the June night, reading.\nThe power station mumbles introverted in the turbines,\nits leafy, embedded heart beats calm and strong.\nThe timid birch stands tall by the concrete mouth of the dam;\nnot a leaf quivers.\nThe hedgehog slobbers along the river bank.\n\nThe guard’s cat listens hungrily to birdsong.\nAnd the power whistles away along a hundred miles of wire\nbefore it suddenly rumbles down into the braggart cities.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", + "language": "Swedish", "time": { "year": 1931 }, - "language": "Swedish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -63253,11 +65114,13 @@ "title": "“Leaves”", "body": "The leaves\nWere lying\nOn the pavement 
\n\nWhen suddenly\nThey seemed possessed\nAnd their autumnal colours changing\nBegan to dance with fiendish zest.\n\nI cried: “Who are you?\nWhy the bustle?”\n\nI heard them heave a mournful sigh.\n“We’re autumn leaves 
”\nThey sadly rustled.\n\n“We hoped an artist would come by\nBut those who came with paint and brush\nDid not so much as look at us.\nSo off we fly,\nGoodbye 
”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter Tempest", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1951 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Peter Tempest" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -63268,11 +65131,13 @@ "title": "“The River of Silence”", "body": "--Do you want to return\nTo the River of Silence?\n--I do.\nOn the first night it freezes.\n--But would you find a boat, even one,\nAnd can you cross it\nthe River of Silence?\nWill you not drown, in the snowy dark\nOn the night the river freezes?\n--No, I won’t drown.\nI know a house in the town.\nIf I knock on the window, they’ll open.\nI know a woman. She’s ugly.\nI never loved her.\n--Don’t lie:\nYou did love her!\n--No--we’re not friends: nor enemies.\nI’ve forgotten her.\nSo, though it seems that the ferry’s destroyed\nI want to float once more on the River of Silence\nIn the snowy dark,\non the night it freezes.\n\n--The night is windy and damp.\nTrembling this night, logs smolder in the stoves.\nBut whom will the logs warm as they burn out?\nMy advice is to think of warmer nights.\n--Shall we go?\n--Let us go.\n\nFrom the woodshed, on their shoulders,\nHer brothers will bring out the boat\nAnd set it down on the Silence.\nAnd snowstorm holds captive the river:\nI shall not look at my companion\nBut will say to her only:\n“Sit there, in the stern.”\nShe will say only\n“I’ll bring my cloak\nI’ll come straight away.”\nWe shall float into the gloom\nPast the village of Wolf s Tail\nUnder the wooden bridge\nUnder the Tin bridge\nUnder the bridge without name--\n\nI shall row into the dark\nShe will sit in the stern,\nThe stern oar in her hand.\nBut of course she won’t steer--\nI’ll steer myself.\nSnow melts on her cheeks\nClings to her hair.\n\n--And how wide is the River Silence?\nDo you know how wide?\nWe can hardly see the right bank--\nA dim chain of lights 
\nAnd we shall set out for the islands.\nYou know them? There are two in the river.\nAnd how long is the River Silence?\nDo you know how long?\nFrom the depths of midnight to noonday heights\nSeven thousand eight hundred\nKilometers --the whole way the same\nProfound silence!\n\nIn that snowy twilight\nEver duller the creak of oarlocks\nAnd the voiceless spasms of fish\nThat jerk and die in the nets.\nThe boatmen leave the barges,\nThe pilots go home.\nInvisible and silent\nAre the banks of the Silence.\nSlower and slower, gray seagulls\nBatter the snowstorm with wings.\n\n--But wait: what will you tell the woman?\n--Seagulls batter the snowstorm with their wings.\n--No, wait! What will you say to the woman?\n--I don’t understand: what woman?\n--She who bent over the oar in the stern.\n--Oh: I’ll say: Be silent, don’t cry.\nYou’ve no right\nThe night when the east wind, the trumpeter,\nSounds the long call of the frost.\nListen!\nThere is my answer.\nThere is no River of Silence.\nThe silence is broken.\nThat is your fault.\nNo!\nIt is your happiness, your good fortune.\nYou yourself broke it,\nThat deepest Silence\nWhose captive you were.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. R. Rowland", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1929 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "J. R. Rowland" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -63403,10 +65268,10 @@ "title": "“An Horatian Ode”", "body": "The forward Youth that would appear\nMust now forsake his Muses dear,\nNor in the Shadows sing\nHis Numbers languishing.\n’Tis time to leave the Books in dust,\nAnd oyl th’unused Armours rust:\nRemoving from the Wall\nThe Corslet of the Hall.\nSo restless Cromwell could not cease\nIn the inglorious Arts of Peace,\nBut through adventrous War\nUrged his active Star.\nAnd, like the three-fork’d Lightning, first\nBreaking the Clouds where it was nurst,\nDid through his own Side\nHis fiery way divide.\nFor ’tis all one to Courage high\nThe Emulous or Enemy;\nAnd with such to inclose\nIs more then to oppose.\nThen burning through the Air he went,\nAnd Pallaces and Temples rent:\nAnd Caesars head at last\nDid through his Laurels blast.\n’Tis Madness to resist or blame\nThe force of angry Heavens flame:\nAnd, if we would speak true,\nMuch to the Man is due.\nWho, from his private Gardens, where\nHe liv’d reserved and austere,\nAs if his hightest plot\nTo plant the Bergamot,\nCould by industrious Valour climbe\nTo ruine the great Work of Time,\nAnd cast the Kingdome old\nInto another Mold.\nThough Justice against Fate complain,\nAnd plead the antient Rights in vain:\nBut those do hold or break\nAs Men are strong or weak.\nNature that hateth emptiness,\nAllows of penetration less:\nAnd therefore must make room.\nWhere greater Spirits come.\nWhat Field of all the Civil Wars,\nWhere his were not the deepest Scars?\nAnd Hampton shows what part\nHe had of wiser Art.\nWhere, twining subtile fears with hope,\nHe wove a Net of such a scope,\nThat Charles himself might chase\nTo Caresbrooks narrow case.\nThat thence the Royal Actor born\nThe Tragick Scaffold might adorn\nWhile round the armed Bands\nDid clap their bloody hands.\nHe nothing common did or mean\nUpon that memorable Scene:\nBut with his keener Eye\nThe Axes edge did try:\nNor call’d the Gods with vulgar spight\nTo vindicate his helpless Right,\nBut bow’d his comely Head,\nDown as upon a Bed.\nThis was that memorable Hour\nWhich first assur’d the forced Pow’r.\nSo when they did design\nThe Capitols first Line,\nA bleeding Head where they begun,\nDid fright the Architects to run;\nAnd yet in that the State\nForesaw it’s happy Fate.\nAnd now the Irish are asham’d\nTo see themselves in one Year tam’d:\nSo much one Man can do,\nThat does both act and know.\nThey can affirm his Praises best,\nAnd Have, though overcome, confest\nHow good he is, how just,\nAnd fit for highest Trust:\nNor yet grown stiffer with Command,\nBut still in the Republick’s hand:\nHow fit he is to sway\nThat can so well obey.\nHe to the Common Feet presents\nA Kingdome, for his first years rents:\nAnd, what he may, forbears\nHis Fame to make it theirs:\nAnd has his Sword and Spoyls ungirt,\nTo lay them at the Publick’s skirt.\nSo when the Falcon high\nFalls heavy from the Sky,\nShe, having kill’d no more does search,\nBut on the next green Bow to pearch;\nWhere, when he first does lure,\nThe Falckner has her sure.\nWhat may not then our Isle presume\nWhile Victory his Crest does plume!\nWhat may not others fear\nIf thus he crown each Year!\nA Caesar he ere long to Gaul,\nTo Italy an Hannibal,\nAnd to all States not free\nShall Clymacterick be.\nThe Pict no shelter now shall find\nWithin his party-colour’d Mind;\nBut from this Valour sad\nShrink underneath the Plad:\nHappy if in the tufted brake\nThe English Hunter him mistake;\nNor lay his Hounds in near\nThe Caledonian Deer.\nBut thou the Wars and Fortunes Son\nMarch indefatigably on;\nAnd for the last effect\nStill keep thy Sword erect:\nBesides the Force it has to fright\nThe Spirits of the shady Night,\nThe same Arts that did gain\nA Pow’r must it maintain.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1650 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -63414,11 +65279,11 @@ "title": "“To His Coy Mistress”", "body": "Had we but World enough, and Time,\nThis coyness Lady were no crime.\nWe would sit down, and think which way\nTo walk, and pass our long Loves Day.\nThou by the Indian Ganges side.\nShould’st Rubies find: I by the Tide\nOf Humber would complain. I would\nLove you ten years before the Flood:\nAnd you should if you please refuse\nTill the Conversion of the Jews.\nMy vegetable Love should grow\nVaster then Empires, and more slow.\nAn hundred years should go to praise\nThine Eyes, and on thy Forehead Gaze.\nTwo hundred to adore each Breast.\nBut thirty thousand to the rest.\nAn Age at least to every part,\nAnd the last Age should show your Heart.\nFor Lady you deserve this State;\nNor would I love at lower rate.\nBut at my back I alwaies hear\nTimes winged Charriot hurrying near:\nAnd yonder all before us lye\nDesarts of vast Eternity.\nThy Beauty shall no more be found;\nNor, in thy marble Vault, shall sound\nMy ecchoing Song: then Worms shall try\nThat long preserv’d Virginity:\nAnd your quaint Honour turn to durst;\nAnd into ashes all my Lust.\nThe Grave’s a fine and private place,\nBut none I think do there embrace.\nNow therefore, while the youthful hew\nSits on thy skin like morning glew,\nAnd while thy willing Soul transpires\nAt every pore with instant Fires,\nNow let us sport us while we may;\nAnd now, like am’rous birds of prey,\nRather at once our Time devour,\nThan languish in his slow-chapt pow’r.\nLet us roll all our Strength, and all\nOur sweetness, up into one Ball:\nAnd tear our Pleasures with rough strife,\nThorough the Iron gates of Life.\nThus, though we cannot make our Sun\nStand still, yet we will make him run.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1650, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -63580,10 +65445,10 @@ "title": "“Between the barren pasture and the wood”", "body": "Between the barren pasture and the wood\nThere is a patch of poultry-stricken grass,\nWhere, in old time, Ryemeadows’ Farmhouse stood,\nAnd human fate brought tragic things to pass.\nA spring comes bubbling up there, cold as glass,\nIt bubbles down, crusting the leaves with lime,\nBabbling the self-same song that it has sung through time.\n\nDucks gobble at the selvage of the brook,\nBut still it slips away, the cold hill-spring,\nPast the Ryemeadows’ lonely woodland nook\nWhere many a stubble gray-goose preens her wing,\nOn, by the woodland side. You hear it sing\nPast the lone copse where poachers set their wires,\nPast the green hill once grim with sacrificial fires.\n\nAnother water joins it; then it turns,\nRuns through the Ponton Wood, still turning west,\nPast foxgloves, Canterbury bells, and ferns,\nAnd many a blackbird’s, many a thrush’s nest;\nThe cattle tread it there; then, with a zest\nIt sparkles out, babbling its pretty chatter\nThrough Foxholes Farm, where it gives white-faced cattle water.\n\nUnder the road it runs, and now it slips\nPast the great ploughland, babbling, drop and linn,\nTo the moss’d stumps of elm trees which it lips,\nAnd blackberry-bramble-trails where eddies spin.\nThen, on its left, some short-grassed fields begin,\nRed-clayed and pleasant, which the young spring fills\nWith the never-quiet joy of dancing daffodils.\n\nThere are three fields where daffodils are found;\nThe grass is dotted blue-gray with their leaves;\nTheir nodding beauty shakes along the ground\nUp to a fir-clump shutting out the eaves\nOf an old farm where always the wind grieves\nHigh in the fir boughs, moaning; people call\nThis farm The Roughs, but some call it the Poor Maid’s Hall.\n\nThere, when the first green shoots of tender corn\nShow on the plough; when the first drift of white\nStars the black branches of the spiky thorn,\nAnd afternoons are warm and evenings light,\nThe shivering daffodils do take delight,\nShaking beside the brook, and grass comes green,\nAnd blue dog-violets come and glistening celandine.\n\nAnd there the pickers come, picking for town\nThose dancing daffodils; all day they pick;\nHard-featured women, weather-beaten brown,\nOr swarthy-red, the colour of old brick.\nAt noon they break their meats under the rick.\nThe smoke of all three farms lifts blue in air\nAs though man’s passionate mind had never suffered there.\n\nAnd sometimes as they rest an old man comes,\nShepherd or carter, to the hedgerow-side,\nAnd looks upon their gangrel tribe, and hums,\nAnd thinks all gone to wreck since master died;\nAnd sighs over a passionate harvest-tide\nWhich Death’s red sickle reaped under those hills,\nThere, in the quiet fields among the daffodils.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -63609,15 +65474,15 @@ "title": "“The Builders”", "body": "Before the unseen cock had called the time,\nThose workers left their beds and stumbled out\nInto the street, where dust lay white as lime\nUnder the last star that keeps bats about.\nThen blinking still from bed, they trod the street,\nThe doors closed up and down; the traveller heard\nDoors opened, closed, then silence, then men’s feet\nMoving to toil, the men too drowsed for word.\nThe bean-field was a greyness as they passed,\nThe darkness of the hedge was starred with flowers,\nThe moth, with wings like dead leaves, sucked his last,\nThe triumphing cock cried out with all his powers;\nHis fire of crying made the twilight quick,\nThen clink, clink, clink, men’s trowels tapped the brick.\n\nI saw the delicate man who built the tower\nLook from the turret at the ground below,\nThe granite column wavered like a flower,\nBut stood in air whatever winds might blow.\nIts roots were in the rock, its head stood proud,\nNo earthly forest reared a head so high;\nSometimes the eagle came there, sometimes cloud,\nIt was man’s ultimate footstep to the sky.\nAnd in that peak the builder kept his treasure,\nBooks with the symbols of his art, the signs\nOf knowledge in excitement, skill in pleasure,\nThe edge that cut, the rule that kept the lines.\nHe who had seen his tower beneath the grass,\nRock in the earth, now smiled, because it was.\n\nHow many thousand men had done his will,\nMen who had hands, or arms, or strength to spend,\nOr cunning with machines, or art, or skill!\nAll had obeyed him, working to this end.\nHundreds in distant lands had given their share\nOf power, to deck it; on its every stone\nTheir oddity of pleasure was laid bare,\nYet was the tower his offspring, his alone.\nHis inner eye had seen, his will had made it,\nAll the opposing army of men’s minds\nHad bowed, had turned, had striven as he bade it,\nEach to his purpose in their myriad kinds.\nNow it was done, and in the peak he stood\nSeeing his work, and smiled to find it good.\n\nIt had been stone, earth’s body, hidden deep,\nLightless and shapeless, where it cooled and hardened.\nNow it was as the banner on man’s keep\nOr as the Apple in Eden where God gardened.\nLilies of stone ran round it, and like fires\nThe tongues of crockets shot from it and paused,\nHorsemen who raced were carven on’t, the spires\nWere bright with gold; all this the builder caused.\nAnd standing there, it seemed that all the hive\nOf human skill which now it had become,\nWas stone no more, nor building, but alive,\nTrying to speak, this tower that was dumb,\nTrying to speak, nay, speaking, soul to soul\nWith powers who are, to raven or control.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1925 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, - "death-lies-in-wait-for-you-you-wild-thing-in-the-wood": { - "title": "“Death lies in wait for you, you wild thing in the wood 
”", + "death-lies-in-wait-for-you": { + "title": "“Death lies in wait for you 
”", "body": "Death lies in wait for you, you wild thing in the wood,\nShy-footed, beauty dear, half-seen, half-understood,\nGlimpsed in the beech-wood dim and in the dropping fir,\nShy like a fawn and sweet and beauty’s minister.\nGlimpsed as in flying clouds by night the little moon,\nA wonder, a delight, a paleness passing soon.\n\nOnly a moment held, only an hour seen,\nOnly an instant known in all that life has been,\nOne instant in the sand to drink that gush of grace,\nThe beauty of your way, the marvel of your face.\n\nDeath lies in wait for you, but few short hours he gives;\nI perish even as you by whom all spirit lives.\nCome to me, spirit, come, and fill my hour of breath\nWith hours of life in life that pay no toll to death.", "metadata": { "language": "English", @@ -63635,10 +65500,10 @@ "title": "“The Death Rooms”", "body": "My soul has many an old decaying room\n Hung with the ragged arras of the past,\nWhere startled faces flicker in the gloom,\n And horrid whispers set the cheek aghast.\n\nThose dropping rooms are haunted by a death,\n A something like a worm gnawing a brain,\nThat bids me heed what bitter lesson saith\n The blind wind beating on the widow-pane.\n\nNone dwells in those old rooms: none ever can:\n I pass them through at night with hidden head;\nLock’d rotting rooms her eyes must never scan,\n Floors that her blessed feet must never tread.\n\nHaunted old rooms: rooms she must never know,\nWhere death-ticks knock and mouldering panels glow.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -63679,10 +65544,10 @@ "title": "“An Epilogue”", "body": "I have seen flowers come in stony places\nAnd kind things done by men with ugly faces,\nAnd the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races,\nSo I trust, too.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1946 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -63690,10 +65555,10 @@ "title": "“Fragments”", "body": "Troy Town is covered up with weeds,\nThe rabbits and the pismires brood\nOn broken gold, and shards, and beads\nWhere Priam’s ancient palace stood.\n\nThe floors of many a gallant house\nAre matted with the roots of grass;\nThe glow-worm and the nimble mouse\nAmong her ruins flit and pass.\n\nAnd there, in orts of blackened bone,\nThe widowed Trojan beauties lie,\nAnd Simois babbles over stone\nAnd waps and gurgles to the sky.\n\nOnce there were merry days in Troy,\nHer chimneys smoked with cooking meals,\nThe passing chariots did annoy\nThe sunning housewives at their wheels.\n\nAnd many a lovely Trojan maid\nSet Trojan lads to lovely things;\nThe game of life was nobly played,\nThey played the game like Queens and Kings.\n\nSo that, when Troy had greatly passed\nIn one red roaring fiery coal,\nThe courts the Grecians overcast\nBecame a city in the soul.\n\nIn some green island of the sea,\nWhere now the shadowy coral grows\nIn pride and pomp and empery\nThe courts of old Atlantis rose.\n\nIn many a glittering house of glass\nThe Atlanteans wandered there;\nThe paleness of their faces was\nLike ivory, so pale they were.\n\nAnd hushed they were, no noise of words\nIn those bright cities ever rang;\nOnly their thoughts, like golden birds,\nAbout their chambers thrilled and sang.\n\nThey knew all wisdom, for they knew\nThe souls of those Egyptian Kings\nWho learned, in ancient Babilu,\nThe beauty of immortal things.\n\nThey knew all beauty--when they thought\nThe air chimed like a stricken lyre,\nThe elemental birds were wrought,\nThe golden birds became a fire.\n\nAnd straight to busy camps and marts\nThe singing flames were swiftly gone;\nThe trembling leaves of human hearts\nHid boughs for them to perch upon.\n\nAnd men in desert places, men\nAbandoned, broken, sick with fears,\nRose singing, swung their swords agen,\nAnd laughed and died among the spears.\n\nThe green and greedy seas have drowned\nThat city’s glittering walls and towers,\nHer sunken minarets are crowned\nWith red and russet water-flowers.\n\nIn towers and rooms and golden courts\nThe shadowy coral lifts her sprays;\nThe scrawl hath gorged her broken orts,\nThe shark doth haunt her hidden ways.\n\nBut, at the falling of the tide,\nThe golden birds still sing and gleam,\nThe Atlanteans have not died,\nImmortal things still give us dream.\n\nThe dream that fires man’s heart to make,\nTo build, to do, to sing or say\nA beauty Death can never take,\nAn Adam from the crumbled clay.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1945 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -63796,10 +65661,10 @@ "title": "“Invocation”", "body": "O wanderer into many brains,\nO spark the emperor’s purple hides,\nYou sow the dusk with fiery grains\nWhen the gold horseman rides.\n O beauty on the darkness hurled,\n Be it through me you shame the world.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -63896,11 +65761,11 @@ "title": "“On Growing Old”", "body": "Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying;\nMy dog and I are old, too old for roving.\nMan, whose young passion sets the spindrift flying,\nIs soon too lame to march, too cold for loving.\nI take the book and gather to the fire,\nTurning old yellow leaves; minute by minute\nThe clock ticks to my heart. A withered wire,\nMoves a thin ghost of music in the spinet.\nI cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander\nYour cornland, nor your hill-land, nor your valleys\nEver again, nor share the battle yonder\nWhere the young knight the broken squadron rallies.\nOnly stay quiet while my mind remembers\nThe beauty of fire from the beauty of embers.\n\nBeauty, have pity! for the strong have power,\nThe rich their wealth, the beautiful their grace,\nSummer of man its sunlight and its flower.\nSpring-time of man, all April in a face.\nOnly, as in the jostling in the Strand,\nWhere the mob thrusts, or loiters, or is loud,\nThe beggar with the saucer in his hand\nAsks only a penny from the passing crowd,\nSo, from this glittering world with all its fashion,\nIts fire, and play of men, its stir, its march,\nLet me have wisdom, Beauty, wisdom and passion,\nBread to the soul, rain when the summers parch.\nGive me but these, and though the darkness close\nEven the night will blossom as the rose.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1919, "month": "august" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -63911,10 +65776,10 @@ "title": "“The Passing Strange”", "body": "Out of the earth to rest or range\nPerpetual in perpetual change,\nThe unknown passing through the strange.\n\nWater and saltness held together\nTo tread the dust and stand the weather,\nAnd plough the field and stretch the tether,\n\nTo pass the wine-cup and be witty,\nWater the sands and build the city,\nSlaughter like devils and have pity,\n\nBe red with rage and pale with lust,\nMake beauty come, make peace, make trust,\nWater and saltness mixed with dust;\n\nDrive over earth, swim under sea,\nFly in the eagle’s secrecy,\nGuess where the hidden comets be;\n\nKnow all the deathy seeds that still\nQueen Helen’s beauty, Caesar’s will,\nAnd slay them even as they kill;\n\nFashion an altar for a rood,\nDefile a continent with blood,\nAnd watch a brother starve for food:\n\nLove like a madman, shaking, blind,\nTill self is burnt into a kind\nPossession of another mind;\n\nBrood upon beauty, till the grace\nOf beauty with the holy face\nBrings peace into the bitter place;\n\nProve in the lifeless granites, scan\nThe stars for hope, for guide, for plan;\nLive as a woman or a man;\n\nFasten to lover or to friend,\nUntil the heart break at the end:\nThe break of death that cannot mend;\n\nThen to lie useless, helpless, still,\nDown in the earth, in dark, to fill\nThe roots of grass or daffodil.\n\nDown in the earth, in dark, alone,\nA mockery of the ghost in bone,\nThe strangeness, passing the unknown.\n\nTime will go by, that outlasts clocks,\nDawn in the thorps will rouse the cocks,\nSunset be glory on the rocks:\n\nBut it, the thing, will never heed\nEven the rootling from the seed\nThrusting to suck it for its need.\n\nSince moons decay and suns decline,\nHow else should end this life of mine?\nWater and saltness are not wine.\n\nBut in the darkest hour of night,\nWhen even the foxes peer for sight,\nThe byre-cock crows; he feels the light.\n\nSo, in this water mixed with dust,\nThe byre-cock spirit crows from trust\nThat death will change because it must;\n\nFor all things change, the darkness changes,\nThe wandering spirits change their ranges,\nThe corn is gathered to the granges.\n\nThe corn is sown again, it grows;\nThe stars burn out, the darkness goes;\nThe rhythms change, they do not close.\n\nThey change, and we, who pass like foam,\nLike dust blown through the streets of Rome,\nChange ever, too; we have no home,\n\nOnly a beauty, only a power,\nSad in the fruit, bright in the flower,\nEndlessly erring for its hour,\n\nBut gathering, as we stray, a sense\nOf Life, so lovely and intense,\nIt lingers when we wander hence,\n\nThat those who follow feel behind\nTheir backs, when all before is blind,\nOur joy, a rampart to the mind.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -63963,10 +65828,10 @@ "title": "“Roadways”", "body": "One road leads to London,\nOne road leads to Wales,\nMy road leads me seawards\nTo the white dipping sails.\n\nOne road leads to the river,\nAs it goes singing slow;\nMy road leads to shipping,\nWhere the bronzed sailors go.\n\nLeads me, lures me, calls me\nTo salt green tossing sea;\nA road without earth’s road-dust\nIs the right road for me.\n\nA wet road heaving, shining,\nAnd wild with segulls’ cries,\nA mad salt sea-wind blowing\nThe salt spray in my eyes.\n\nMy road calls me, lures me\nWest, east, south, and north;\nMost roads lead men homewards,\nMy road leads me forth\n\nTo add more miles to the tally\nOf grey miles left behind,\nIn quest of that one beauty\nGod put me here to find.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -64056,10 +65921,10 @@ "title": "“Twilight”", "body": "Twilight it is, and the far woods are dim, and the rooks cry and call.\nDown in the valley the lamps, and the mist, and a star over all,\nThere by the rick, where they thresh, is the drone at an end,\nTwilight it is, and I travel the road with my friend.\n\nI think of the friends who are dead, who were dear long ago in the past,\nBeautiful friends who are dead, though I know that death cannot last;\nFriends with the beautiful eyes that the dust has defiled,\nBeautiful souls who were gentle when I was a child.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -64067,10 +65932,10 @@ "title": "“A Wanderer’s Song”", "body": "A wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels,\nI am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels;\nI hunger for the sea’s edge, the limit of the land,\nWhere the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.\n\nOh I’ll be going, leaving the noises of the street,\nTo where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet;\nTo a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride,\nOh I’ll be going, going, until I meet the tide.\n\nAnd first I’ll hear the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls,\nThe clucking, sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls,\nThe songs at the capstan at the hooker warping out,\nAnd then the heart of me’ll know I’m there or thereabout.\n\nOh I am sick of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick,\nFor windy green, unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick;\nAnd I’ll be going, going, from the roaring of the wheels,\nFor a wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1932 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -64078,10 +65943,10 @@ "title": "“Waste”", "body": "No rose but fades: no glory but must pass:\n No hue but dims: no precious silk but frets.\nHer beauty must go underneath the grass,\n Under the long roots of the violets.\n\nO, many glowing beauties Time has hid\n In that dark, blotting box the villain sends.\nHe covers over with a coffin-lid\n Mothers and sons, and foes and lovely friends.\n\nMaids that were redly-lipped and comely-skinned,\n Friends that deserved a sweeter bed than clay.\nAll are as blossoms blowing down the wind,\n Things the old envious villain sweeps away.\n\nAnd though the mutterer laughs and church bells toll,\nDeath brings another April to the soul.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -64144,10 +66009,10 @@ "title": "“When Bony Death”", "body": "When bony Death has chilled her gentle blood,\n And dimmed the brightness of her wistful eyes,\nAnd changed her glorious beauty into mud\n By his old skill in hateful wizardries;\n\nWhen an old lichened marble strives to tell\n How sweet a grace, how red a lip was hers;\nWhen rheumy grey-beards say, “I knew her well,”\n Showing the grave to curious worshippers;\n\nWhen all the roses that she sowed in me\n Have dripped their crimson petals and decayed,\nLeaving no greenery on any tree\n That her dear hands in my heart’s garden laid,\n\nThen grant, old Time, to my green mouldering skull,\nThese songs may keep her memory beautiful.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -64155,10 +66020,10 @@ "title": "“The Wild Duck”", "body": "Twilight. Red in the West.\nDimness. A glow on the wood.\nThe teams plod home to rest.\nThe wild duck come to glean.\nO souls not understood,\nWhat a wild cry in the pool;\nWhat things have the farm ducks seen\nThat they cry so--huddle and cry?\nOnly the soul that goes.\nEager. Eager. Flying.\nOver the globe of the moon,\nOver the wood that glows.\nWings linked. Necks a-strain,\nA rush and a wild crying.\n\nA cry of the long pain\nIn the reeds of a steel lagoon,\nIn a land that no man knows.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -64245,8 +66110,10 @@ "title": "“Adulthood”", "body": "Adults are busy.\nWith bills in each pocket.\nLove?\nSure!\nFor a hundred or so.\nBut I\nwandered broke,\nhomeless\nand ragged,\nhaving no money\nand no place to go.\nIt’s night.\nYou put on your finest faces.\nOn wives and widows, you practice your moves.\nI’m\nchoked in Moscow’s loving embrace\nin the ring of its endless Sadovaya loops.\nIn the heart,\nalmost clock-like,\nthe lovers are ticking,\nin passionate bedrooms, alone lovers flare.\nbut I heard the thundering heartbeats\nof cities,\nsprawling across the Strastnoya Square.\nMy jacket’s wide open,\nwith my heart on my sleeve--\nI’ve opened myself to the sun and the street.\nEnter with passion,\nclimb into my soul!\nMy heart is now free! I’ve lost all control!\nIn others, I know where the heart had been placed.\nEveryone knows--it beats in the chest.\nBut even anatomy\nis absurd in my case--\nthere’s just one massive heart\nand no room for the rest.\nIn the last twenty years,\nhow many springs there,\nin my sizzling body, have gathered?\nTheir weight, still unused, is too much to bear,\nand not just\nin verse,\nbut in reality, rather.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -64257,8 +66124,11 @@ "title": "“As a Young Man”", "body": "Youth has a mass of occupations.\nWe hammer grammar into the thickest skulls.\nBut I\nwas expelled from the fifth class.\nThen they began to shove me into Moscow prisons.\nIn your\ncosy\nlittle apartment world,\ncurly-headed lyricists sprout in bedrooms.\nWhat do you find in these lapdog lyricists?!\nAs for me,\nI learned\nabout love\nin Butyrki.\nDoes nostalgia for the Bois de Boulogne mean anything?!\nOr to gaze at the sea and sigh?!\nIn the “Funeral Parlor,”\nI\nfell in love\nwith the keyhole of Cell 103.\nStaring at the daily sun,\npeople ask:\n“How much do they cost, these little sunbeams?”\nBut I\nfor a yellow patch\nof light jumping on the wall\nwould then have given everything in the world.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Max Hayward & George Reavey", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Max Hayward", + "George Reavey" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -64282,8 +66152,10 @@ "title": "“An Extraordinary Adventure Which Happened to Me, Vladimir Mayakovsky, One Summer in the Country”", "body": "A hundred suns the sunset fired,\ninto July summer shunted,\nit was so hot,\neven heat perspired--\nit happened in the country.\nThe little hamlet known as Pushkino,\nAkula’s Mount\nmade hunchbacked.\nBelow, the village\nseemed pushed-in so--\nits crooked roof-crusts cracked.\nAnd beyond that village\nyawned a hole,\ninto that hole--and not just maybe--\nthe sun for certain always rolled,\nslowly, surely, daily.\nAt morn\nto flood the world\nagain\nthe sun rose up--\nand ruddied it.\nDay after day\nit happened this way,\ntill I got\nfed up with it.\nAnd one day I let out such a shout,\nthat everything grew pale,\npoint-blank at the sun I yelled:\n“Get out!\nEnough of loafing there in hell!”\nTo the sun I yelled:\n“You lazy mummer!\nin the clouds cushioning,\nwhile here--knowing neither winter nor summer,\nI sit, just posters brushing!”\nI yelled to the sun:\n“Hey, wait there!\nListen, golden brightbrow,\ninstead of vainly\nsetting in the air,\nhave tea with me\nright now!”\nWhat have I done!\nFor ruin I’m heading!\nTo me,\nof his own goodwill,\nthe sun himself,\nray-strides outspreading,\nis marching over the hill.\nNot wanting to show him I’m afraid--\nback I retreat, guardedly.\nNow his eyes lighten the garden shade.\nHe’s actually in the garden now.\nThrough windows,\ndoors,\ncrannies he spread;\nin flooded a sunny mass,\nhaving burst in\nhe drew his breath,\nand spoke in a deep bass.\n“I’ve withheld my fires you see\nthe first time since creation began.\nYou’ve invited me?\nSo lay out the tea,\nand, poet, lay on the jam!”\nTears from my poor eyes were streaming--\nthe heat really made me scary,\nall the same--\nI got the samovar steaming:\n“Of course,\nsit down, comrade luminary!”\nWhat possessed me to shout at him like a fool,\ninwardly myself I cursed,--\nand sat confused\non the corner of a stool,\nfrightened it might be worse!\nBut a radiance strange\nstreamed from the sun,--\nand my tact\nno longer taxing,\nI sit and chat with the luminated one,\ngradually relaxing.\nAbout this,\nand about that I chatted,\nworn out with ROSTA publicity,\nbut the sun:\n“Alright,\ndon’t get so rattled,\nsee things with greater simplicity!\nYou think it’s easy\nfor me\nto shine so?\n--If so, come and have a test!--\nBut once you go--\nwhy have a go\ngo--and shine your damnedest!”\nWe gossiped like that till darkness appeared,\ntill the night before, that is.\nFor how could there be any darkness here?\nAnd now\nlike chums we chatted.\nAnd soon,\nin open friendship bonded,\nto slap him on the back I dared.\nAnd likewise the sun\nwarmly responded:\n“Why, comrade, we’re a pair!\nCome, poet,\nlet us dawn\nand sing\naway the drabness of the universe.\nAs the sun, myself I’ll fling,\nand you--yourself,\nin verse.”\nAnd shadows’ walls,\nand jails of night\nfell to its double-barreled shot.\nBattering barrage of poetry and light--\nshine out, no matter what!\nAnd when the sun gets tired,\nand night\nwants to rest\nits sleepy-headed,\nwhy suddenly--\nI shine with all my might--\nand once more day is trumpeted.\nShine all the time,\nfor ever shine.\nthe last days’ depths to plumb,\nto shine--!\nspite every hell combined!\nSo runs my slogan--\nand the sun’s!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dorian Rottenberg", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dorian Rottenberg" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -64295,8 +66167,11 @@ "title": "“I”", "body": "On the pavement\nof my trampled soul\nthe steps of madmen\nweave the prints of rude crude words.\nWhere cities\nhang\nand in the noose of cloud\nthe towers’\ncrooked spires\ncongeal--\nI go\nalone to weep\nthat crossroads\ncrucify\npolicemen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Max Hayward & George Reavey", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Max Hayward", + "George Reavey" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -64304,8 +66179,10 @@ "title": "“I Call”", "body": "Like a heavyweight lifter,\nI stumbled on, tired.\nI called,\nas if summoning people to vote,\nor alarming\nthe villagers\nthat there’s a fire:\n“Here!\nHere it is!\nHelp me carry my load!”\nWhen they saw\nsuch a bulk sobbing and wailing--\nthrough snow\nand through mud\nrunning,\nin fright,\nall the ladies\nquickly\nscurried away from me:\n“That’s too much 
\nWe just wanted a tango tonight.”\nI can do it no more,--\nAnd yet, I carry this burden.\nI want to throw it away--\nbut I won’t,\nthat’s for certain!\nI walked on, enduring the pain in my chest.\nMy ribcage was trembling under the stress.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -64313,8 +66190,10 @@ "title": "“Impossible”", "body": "I can’t lift the grand piano\nall on my own,\n(the steel safe\nis too heavy too)\nBut if not the safe\nor the piano,\nalone,\nhow could I carry my heart back from you?\nBankers know:\n“In money, we bathe.\nIf the pockets are full,--\nplace it all in the safe.”\nI’ve hid\nall my love\ninto you\nlike riches in steel,\nand walked on, like Croesus,\nbut wealthier still.\nand,\nif desire really demands it,\nI’ll take out a smile,\nor whatever\nthe cost,\nand party all night\nwith all of my friends there\nspending some fifteen lyrics, at most.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -64322,8 +66201,10 @@ "title": "“Lilichka”", "body": "Tobacco smoke has consumed the air.\nThe room\nis a chapter in Kruchenykh’s inferno.\nRemember--\nbeyond that window\nin a frenzy\nI first stroked your hands.\nYou sit here today\nwith an iron-clad heart.\nOone more day\nyou’ll toss me out,\nperhaps, cursing.\nIn the dim front hall my arm,\nbroken by trembling won’t fit right away in my sleeve.\nI’ll run out,\nthrow my body into the street.\nI’ll rave,\nwild,\nlashed by despair.\nDon’t let it happen\nmy dear,\nmy darling,\nlet us part now.\nAfter all\nmy love\nis a heavy weight\nhanging on you\nno matter where you go.\nLet me bellow a final cry\nof bitter, wounded grievance.\nIf you drive a bull to exhaustion\nhe will run away,\nlay himself down in the cold waters.\nBesides your love\nI have\nno ocean\nand your love won’t grant even a tearful plea for rest.\nWhen a tired elephant wants peace\nhe lies down regally in the firebound sand.\nBesides your love\nI have\nno sun,\nbut I don’t even know where you are and with whom.\nIf you tortured a poet like this,\nhe\nwould berate his beloved for money and fame,\nbut for me\nno sound is joyous\nbut the sound of your beloved name.\nI won’t throw myself downstairs\nor drink poison\nnor can I put a gun to my head.\nNo blade\nholds me transfixed\nbut your glance.\nTomorrow you’ll forget\nthat I have crowned you,\nthat I burned my flowering soul with love,\nand the whirling carnival of trivial days\nwill ruffle the pages of my books 
\nWould the dry leaves of my words\nforce you to a stop\ngasping for air?\n\nAt least let me\npave with a parting endearment\nyour retreating path.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dorian Rottenberg", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dorian Rottenberg" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -64331,8 +66212,11 @@ "title": "“Listen”", "body": "Listen,\nif stars are lit\nit means--there is someone who needs it.\nIt means--someone wants them to be,\nthat someone deems those specks of spit\nmagnificent.\n\nAnd overwrought,\nin the swirls of afternoon dust,\nhe bursts in on God,\nafraid he might be already late.\nIn tears,\nhe kisses God’s sinewy hand\nand begs him to guarantee\nthat there will definitely be a star.\nHe swears\nhe won’t be able to stand\nthat starless ordeal.\n\nLater,\nHe wanders around, worried,\nbut outwardly calm.\n\nAnd to everyone else, he says:\n“Now,\nit’s all right.\nYou are no longer afraid,\nare you?”\n\nListen,\nif stars are lit,\nit means--there is someone who needs it.\nIt means it is essential\nthat every evening\nat least one star should ascend\nover the crest of the building.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Maria Enzensberger & Elaine Feinstein", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Maria Enzensberger", + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -64340,8 +66224,10 @@ "title": "“Past One O’Clock”", "body": "# 1.\n\nShe loves me--loves me not.\nMy hands I pick\nand having broken my fingers\nfling away.\nSo the first daisy-heads\none happens to flick\nare plucked,\nand guessing,\nscattered into May.\nLet a cut and shave\nreveal my grey hairs.\nLet the silver of the years\nring out endlessly!\nShameful common sense--\nI hope, I swear--\nWill never come\nto me.\n\n\n# 2.\n\nIt’s already two.\nNo doubt, you’ve gone to sleep.\nIn the night\nThe Milky Way\nwith silver filigrees.\nI don’t hurry,\nand there is no point in me\nwaking and disturbing you\nwith express telegrams.\n\n\n# 3.\n\nThe sea goes to weep.\nThe sea goes to sleep.\nAs they say,\nthe incident has petered out.\nThe love boat of life\nhas crashed on philistine reefs\nYou and I\nare quits.\nNo need to reiterate\nmutual injuries,\ntroubles\nand griefs.\n\n\n# 4.\n\nD’you see,\nIn the world what a quiet sleeps.\nNight tributes the sky\nwith silver constellations.\nIn such an hour as this,\none rises and speaks\nto eras,\nhistory,\nand world creation.\n\n# 5.\n\nI know the power of words, I know words’ tocsin.\nThey’re not the kind applauded by the boxes.\nFrom words like these coffins burst from the earth\nand on their own four oaken legs stride forth.\nIt happens they reject you, unpublished, unprinted.\nBut saddle-girths tightening words gallop ahead.\nSee how the centuries ring and trains crawl\nto lick poetry’s calloused hands.\nI know the power of words. Seeming trifles that fall\nlike petals beneath the heel-taps of dance.\nBut man with his soul, his lips, his bones.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dorian Rottenberg", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dorian Rottenberg" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -64352,8 +66238,10 @@ "title": "“Soon onto the Clean Streets, Body at a Time”", "body": "Soon onto the clean streets, body at a time,\nThis place will squeeze out all your sloppy lard,\nAnd I unlocked for you so much verse confined,\nI--of priceless words the waster and prodigal.\n\nTake you, mister, your moustache has cabbage\nFrom soup you couldn’t even eat up, cloyed;\nTake you, madam, white from thick maquillage,\nYour oyster face looks from the shell of clog.\n\nAll of you on the butterfly heart of a verser\nWill mount, filthy, caring of galoshes or not a bit,\nThe frenzied crowd will begin to jostle,\nThe centi-head louse, bristled, will raise its feet.\n\nAnd if today I, lowbred and bully,\nWon’t feel like grimacing for you--after all,\nI’ll burst with laughter and spit with glee,\nSpit straight in your face,\nI--of priceless words the waster and prodigal.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Evgenia Sarkisyants", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Evgenia Sarkisyants" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -64361,8 +66249,10 @@ "title": "“From Street to Street”", "body": "A\nstreet.\nMastiff\nfaces\nsharp-\ner\nthan years. O-\nver\niron horses\nthe first cubes leapt\nfrom the windows of running houses.\nSwans of bell necks\ncurve themselves in nooses of cables!\nIn the sky a cartoon giraffe is about\nto show off motley rusty forelocks.\nDappled like a trout,\nthe son\nof unploughed fields.\nA magician,\nhidden behind the clock tower faces,\nis pulling rails\nout of the streetcar’s mouth.\nWe’ve been conquered!\nBathtubs.\nShowers.\nAn elevator.\nThe bodice of the soul is undone.\nHands burn your body.\nGo ahead and scream:\n“I didn’t want to!”\nit’s sharp\ntorments\nburn.\nThe thorny wind\ntears\na clump of smoky wool\nfrom a chimney.\nA bald-headed street lamp\nlasciviously pulls off\nthe street’s\nblack stocking.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jenny Wade", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Jenny Wade" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -64381,8 +66271,10 @@ "title": "“Usually So”", "body": "To every infant love is given,--\nbut between work,\nprofits\nand other stuff,\nfrom evening to evening,\nthe crust of the heart grows rough.\nThe heart wears a body,\nthat body--a shirt.\nand that’s not all, they’re obsessed!\nan idiot!--\ninventing cuff-links,\nsomebody\nstarted pouring starch all over his chest.\nGetting old, they see their mistakes.\nThe women start creaming.\nThe men exercise, resembling windmills.\nToo late.\nThe skin is already covered with wrinkles.\nLove gets nourished,\nflourishes--\nfor a bit and withers.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -64390,8 +66282,10 @@ "title": "“You”", "body": "You came--\ndetermined,\nbecause I was large,\nbecause I was roaring,\nbut on close inspection\nyou saw a mere boy.\nYou seized\nand snatched away my heart\nand began\nto play with it--\nlike a girl with a bouncing ball.\nAnd before this miracle\nevery woman\nwas either a lady astounded\nor a maiden inquiring:\n“Love such a fellow?\nWhy, he’ll pounce on you!\nShe must be a lion tamer,\na girl from the zoo!”\nBut I was triumphant.\nI didn’t feel it--\nthe yoke!\nOblivious with joy,\nI jumped\nand leapt about, a bride-happy redskin,\nI felt so elated\nand light.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dorian Rottenberg", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dorian Rottenberg" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -64447,12 +66341,12 @@ "title": "“The Ascetic”", "body": "A wild wind blows from out the angry sky\nAnd all the clouds are tossed like thistle-down\nAbove the groaning branches of the trees;\nFor on this steel-cold night the earth is stirred\nTo shake away its rottenness; the leaves\nAre shed like secret unremembered sins\nIn the great scourge of the great love of God 
\n\nEre I was learned in the ways of love\nI looked for it in green and pleasant lands,\nIn apple orchards and the poppy fields,\nAnd peered among the silences of woods,\nAnd meditated the shy notes of birds\nBut found it not.\n\n Oh, many a goodly joy\nOf grace and gentle beauty came to me\nOn many a clear and cleansing night of stars.\nBut when I sat among my happy friends\n(Singing their songs and drinking of their ale,\nWarming my limbs before their kindly hearth)\nMy loneliness would seize me like a pain,\nA hunger strong and alien as death.\n\nNo comfort stays with such a man as I,\nNo resting place amid the dew and dusk,\nWhose head is filled with perilous enterprise\nThe endless quest of my wild fruitless love.\n\nBut these can tell how they have heard His voice,\nHave seen His face in pure untroubled sleep,\nOr when the twilight gathered on the hills\nOr when the moon shone out beyond the sea!\n\nHave _I_ not seen them? Yet I pilgrimage\nIn desolation seeking after peace,\nLearning how hard a thing it is to love.\nThere is a love that men find easily,\nFamiliar as the latch upon the door,\nDear as the curling smoke above the thatch--\nBut I have loved unto the uttermost\nAnd know love in the desperate abyss,\nIn dereliction and in blasphemy!\nAnd fly from God to find him, fill my eyes\nWith road-dust and with tears and starry hopes,\nEre I may search out Love unsearchable,\nEternal Truth and Goodness infinite,\nAnd the ineffable Beauty that is God.\n\nEmpty of scorn and ceasing not to praise\nThe meanest stick and stone upon the earth,\nI strive unto the stark Reality,\nThe Absolute grasped roundly in my hands.\nBitter and pitiless it is to love,\nTo feel the darkness gather round the soul,\nLove’s abnegation for the sake of love,\nTo see my Templed symbols’ slow decay\nBecome of every ravenous weed the food,\nWhere bats beat hideous wings about the arch\nAnd ruined roof, where ghosts of tragic kings\nAnd sleek ecclesiastics come and go\nUpon the shattered pavements of my creed.\n\nYet Mercy at the last shall lead me in,\nThe Bride immaculate and mystical\nTenderly guide my wayward feet to peace,\nAnd show me love the likeness of a Man,\nThe Slave obedient unto death, the Lamb\nSlain from the first foundations of the world,\nThe Word made flesh, the tender new-born Child\nThat is the end of all my heart’s desire.\n\nThen shall my spirit, naked of its hopes,\nStripped of its love unto the very bone,\nSink simply into Love’s embrace and be\nMade consummate of all its burning bliss.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917, "month": "august", "day": 26 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -64486,12 +66380,12 @@ "title": "“Carrion”", "body": "The guns are silent for an hour; the sounds\n Of war forget their doom; the work is done--\nStrong men, uncounted corpses heaped in mounds,\n Are rotting in the sun.\n\nFoul carrion--souls till yesterday!--are these\n With piteous faces in the bloodied mire;\nBut where are now their generous charities?\n Their laughter, their desire?\n\nIn each rent breast, each crushed and shattered skull\n Lived joy and sorrow, tenderness and pain,\nHope, ardours, passions brave and beautiful\n Among these thousands slain!\n\nA little time ago they heard the call\n Of mating birds in thicket and in brake;\nThey wondering saw night’s jewelled curtain fall\n And all the pale stars wake 
\n\nBodies most marvellously fashioned, stark,\n Strewn broadcast out upon the trampled sod--\nThese temples of the Holy Ghost--O hark!--\n These images of God!\n\nFlesh, as the Word became in Bethlehem,\n Houses to hold their Sacramental Lord:\nSwiftly and terribly to harvest them\n Swept the relentless sword!\n\nHappy if in your dying you can give\n Some symbol of the Eternal Sacrificed,\nSome pardon to the hearts of those who live--\n Dying the death of Christ!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917, "month": "january", "day": 6 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "epiphany" @@ -64537,11 +66431,11 @@ "title": "“The Holy Spring”", "body": "The radiant feet of Christ now lead\n The dancing sunny hours,\nThe ancient Earth is young again\nWith growing grass and warm white rain\n And hedgerows full of flowers.\n\nThe lilac and laburnum show\n The glory of their bud,\nAnd scattered on each hawthorn spray\nThe snow-white and the crimson may--\n The may as red as blood.\n\nThe bluebells in the deep dim woods\n Like fallen heavens lie,\nAnd daffodils and daffodils\nUpon a thousand little hills\n Are waving to the sky.\n\nThe corn imprisoned in the mould\n Has burst its wintry tomb,\nAnd on each burdened orchard tree\nWhich stood an austere calvary\n The apple blossom bloom.\n\nThe kiss of Christ has brought to life\n The marvel of the sod.\nOh, joy has rent its chrysalis\nTo flash its jewelled wings, and is\nA dream of beauty and of bliss--\n The loveliness of God.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917, "month": "may" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -64582,12 +66476,12 @@ "title": "“Nocturne”", "body": "When evening hangs her lamp above the hill\n And calls her children to her waiting hearth,\n Where pain is shed away and love and wrath,\nAnd every tired head lies white and still--\n\nDear heart, will you not light a lamp for me,\n And gather up the meaning of the lands,\n Silent and luminous within your hands,\nWhere peace abides and mirth and mystery?\n\nThat I may sit with you beside the fire,\n And ponder on the thing no man may guess,\n Your soul’s great majesty and gentleness,\nUntil the last sad tongue of flame expire.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1916, "month": "december", "day": 21 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december", @@ -64825,10 +66719,10 @@ "title": "“Anarchy”", "body": "I saw a city filled with lust and shame,\nWhere men, like wolves, slunk through the grim half-light;\nAnd sudden, in the midst of it, there came\nOne who spoke boldly for the cause of Right.\n\nAnd speaking, fell before that brutish race\nLike some poor wren that shrieking eagles tear,\nWhile brute Dishonour, with her bloodless face\nStood by and smote his lips that moved in prayer.\n\n“Speak not of God! In centuries that word\nHath not been uttered! Our own king are we.”\nAnd God stretched forth his finger as He heard\nAnd o’er it cast a thousand leagues of sea.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1897 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -64836,10 +66730,10 @@ "title": "“The Anxious Dead”", "body": "O guns, fall silent till the dead men hear\nAbove their heads the legions pressing on:\n(These fought their fight in time of bitter fear,\nAnd died not knowing how the day had gone.)\n\nO flashing muzzles, pause, and let them see\nThe coming dawn that streaks the sky afar;\nThen let your mighty chorus witness be\nTo them, and Caesar, that we still make war.\n\nTell them, O guns, that we have heard their call,\nThat we have sworn, and will not turn aside,\nThat we will onward till we win or fall,\nThat we will keep the faith for which they died.\n\nBid them be patient, and some day, anon,\nThey shall feel earth enwrapt in silence deep;\nShall greet, in wonderment, the quiet dawn,\nAnd in content may turn them to their sleep.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -64847,10 +66741,10 @@ "title": "“The Dead Master”", "body": "Amid earth’s vagrant noises, he caught the note sublime:\nTo-day around him surges from the silences of Time\nA flood of nobler music, like a river deep and broad,\nFit song for heroes gathered in the banquet-hall of God.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -64866,10 +66760,10 @@ "title": "“Eventide”", "body": "The day is past and the toilers cease;\nThe land grows dim ’mid the shadows grey,\nAnd hearts are glad, for the dark brings peace\n At the close of day.\n\nEach weary toiler, with lingering pace,\nAs he homeward turns, with the long day done,\nLooks out to the west, with the light on his face\n Of the setting sun.\n\nYet some see not (with their sin-dimmed eyes)\nThe promise of rest in the fading light;\nBut the clouds loom dark in the angry skies\n At the fall of night.\n\nAnd some see only a golden sky\nWhere the elms their welcoming arms stretch wide\nTo the calling rooks, as they homeward fly\n At the eventide.\n\nIt speaks of peace that comes after strife,\nOf the rest He sends to the hearts He tried,\nOf the calm that follows the stormiest life--\n God’s eventide.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1895 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -64880,10 +66774,10 @@ "title": "“The Hope of My Heart”", "body": "_“Delicta juventutis et ignorantius ejus,\nquoesumus ne memineris, Domine.”_\n\nI left, to earth, a little maiden fair,\nWith locks of gold, and eyes that shamed the light;\nI prayed that God might have her in His care\n And sight.\n\nEarth’s love was false; her voice, a siren’s song;\n(Sweet mother-earth was but a lying name)\nThe path she showed was but the path of wrong\n And shame.\n\n“Cast her not out!” I cry. God’s kind words come--\n“Her future is with Me, as was her past;\nIt shall be My good will to bring her home\n At last.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1894 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -64891,10 +66785,10 @@ "title": "“In Due Season”", "body": "If night should come and find me at my toil,\nWhen all Life’s day I had, tho’ faintly, wrought,\nAnd shallow furrows, cleft in stony soil\nWere all my labour: Shall I count it naught\n\nIf only one poor gleaner, weak of hand,\nShall pick a scanty sheaf where I have sown?\n“Nay, for of thee the Master doth demand\nThy work: the harvest rests with Him alone.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1897 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -64902,10 +66796,10 @@ "title": "“In Flanders Fields”", "body": "In Flanders fields the poppies blow\nBetween the crosses, row on row,\nThat mark our place; and in the sky\nThe larks, still bravely singing, fly\nScarce heard amid the guns below.\n\nWe are the Dead. Short days ago\nWe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,\nLoved and were loved, and now we lie,\n In Flanders fields.\n\nTake up our quarrel with the foe:\nTo you from failing hands we throw\nThe torch; be yours to hold it high.\nIf ye break faith with us who die\nWe shall not sleep, though poppies grow\n In Flanders fields.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -64913,10 +66807,10 @@ "title": "“Mine Host”", "body": "There stands a hostel by a travelled way;\nLife is the road and Death the worthy host;\nEach guest he greets, nor ever lacks to say,\n“How have ye fared?” They answer him, the most,\n“This lodging place is other than we sought;\nWe had intended farther, but the gloom\nCame on apace, and found us ere we thought:\nYet will we lodge. Thou hast abundant room.”\n\nWithin sit haggard men that speak no word,\nNo fire gleams their cheerful welcome shed;\nNo voice of fellowship or strife is heard\nBut silence of a multitude of dead.\n“Naught can I offer ye,” quoth Death, “but rest!”\nAnd to his chamber leads each tired guest.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1897 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -64924,10 +66818,10 @@ "title": "“The Night Cometh”", "body": "Cometh the night. The wind falls low,\nThe trees swing slowly to and fro:\nAround the church the headstones grey\nCluster, like children strayed away\nBut found again, and folded so.\n\nNo chiding look doth she bestow:\nIf she is glad, they cannot know;\nIf ill or well they spend their day,\n Cometh the night.\n\nSinging or sad, intent they go;\nThey do not see the shadows grow;\n“There yet is time,” they lightly say,\n“Before our work aside we lay”;\nTheir task is but half-done, and lo!\n Cometh the night.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -64935,10 +66829,10 @@ "title": "“The Oldest Drama”", "body": "_“It fell on a day, that he went out to his father to the reapers.\n And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad,\n Carry him to his mother. And 
 he sat on her knees till noon,\n and then died. And she went up, and laid him on the bed
 .\n And shut the door upon him and went out.”_\n\nImmortal story that no mother’s heart\nEv’n yet can read, nor feel the biting pain\nThat rent her soul! Immortal not by art\nWhich makes a long past sorrow sting again\n\nLike grief of yesterday: but since it said\nIn simplest word the truth which all may see,\nWhere any mother sobs above her dead\nAnd plays anew the silent tragedy.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1907 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "memorial_day" @@ -64949,10 +66843,10 @@ "title": "“Penance”", "body": "My lover died a century ago,\nHer dear heart stricken by my sland’rous breath,\nWherefore the Gods forbade that I should know\n The peace of death.\n\nMen pass my grave, and say, “’Twere well to sleep,\nLike such an one, amid the uncaring dead!”\nHow should they know the vigils that I keep,\n The tears I shed?\n\nUpon the grave, I count with lifeless breath,\nEach night, each year, the flowers that bloom and die,\nDeeming the leaves, that fall to dreamless death,\n More blest than I.\n\n’Twas just last year--I heard two lovers pass\nSo near, I caught the tender words he said:\nTo-night the rain-drenched breezes sway the grass\n Above his head.\n\nThat night full envious of his life was I,\nThat youth and love should stand at his behest;\nTo-night, I envy him, that he should lie\n At utter rest.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1896 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -64960,10 +66854,10 @@ "title": "“The Pilgrims”", "body": "An uphill path, sun-gleams between the showers,\nWhere every beam that broke the leaden sky\nLit other hills with fairer ways than ours;\nSome clustered graves where half our memories lie;\nAnd one grim Shadow creeping ever nigh:\n And this was Life.\n\nWherein we did another’s burden seek,\nThe tired feet we helped upon the road,\nThe hand we gave the weary and the weak,\nThe miles we lightened one another’s load,\nWhen, faint to falling, onward yet we strode:\n This too was Life.\n\nTill, at the upland, as we turned to go\nAmid fair meadows, dusky in the night,\nThe mists fell back upon the road below;\nBroke on our tired eyes the western light;\nThe very graves were for a moment bright:\n And this was Death.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1905 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -64974,10 +66868,10 @@ "title": "“Recompense”", "body": "I saw two sowers in Life’s field at morn,\nTo whom came one in angel guise and said,\n“Is it for labour that a man is born?\nLo: I am Ease. Come ye and eat my bread!”\nThen gladly one forsook his task undone\nAnd with the Tempter went his slothful way,\nThe other toiled until the setting sun\nWith stealing shadows blurred the dusty day.\n\nEre harvest time, upon earth’s peaceful breast\nEach laid him down among the unreaping dead.\n“Labour hath other recompense than rest,\nElse were the toiler like the fool,” I said;\n“God meteth him not less, but rather more\nBecause he sowed and others reaped his store.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1896 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -64985,10 +66879,10 @@ "title": "“The Shadow of the Cross”", "body": "At the drowsy dusk when the shadows creep\nFrom the golden west, where the sunbeams sleep,\n\nAn angel mused: “Is there good or ill\nIn the mad world’s heart, since on Calvary’s hill\n\n’Round the cross a mid-day twilight fell\nThat darkened earth and o’ershadowed hell?”\n\nThrough the streets of a city the angel sped;\nLike an open scroll men’s hearts he read.\n\nIn a monarch’s ear his courtiers lied\nAnd humble faces hid hearts of pride.\n\nMen’s hate waxed hot, and their hearts grew cold,\nAs they haggled and fought for the lust of gold.\n\nDespairing, he cried, “After all these years\nIs there naught but hatred and strife and tears?”\n\nHe found two waifs in an attic bare;\n--A single crust was their meagre fare--\n\nOne strove to quiet the other’s cries,\nAnd the love-light dawned in her famished eyes\n\nAs she kissed the child with a motherly air:\n“I don’t need mine, you can have my share.”\n\nThen the angel knew that the earthly cross\nAnd the sorrow and shame were not wholly loss.\n\nAt dawn, when hushed was earth’s busy hum\nAnd men looked not for their Christ to come,\n\nFrom the attic poor to the palace grand,\nThe King and the beggar went hand in hand.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1894 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "friday" @@ -64999,10 +66893,10 @@ "title": "“A Song of Comfort”", "body": "_“Sleep, weary ones, while ye may--\nSleep, oh, sleep!”_\n --Eugene Field.\n\nThro’ May time blossoms, with whisper low,\nThe soft wind sang to the dead below:\n“Think not with regret on the Springtime’s song\nAnd the task ye left while your hands were strong.\nThe song would have ceased when the Spring was past,\nAnd the task that was joyous be weary at last.”\n\nTo the winter sky when the nights were long\nThe tree-tops tossed with a ceaseless song:\n“Do ye think with regret on the sunny days\nAnd the path ye left, with its untrod ways?\nThe sun might sink in a storm cloud’s frown\nAnd the path grow rough when the night came down.”\n\nIn the grey twilight of the autumn eves,\nIt sighed as it sang through the dying leaves:\n“Ye think with regret that the world was bright,\nThat your path was short and your task was light;\nThe path, though short, was perhaps the best\nAnd the toil was sweet, that it led to rest.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1894 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "all_souls" @@ -65013,10 +66907,10 @@ "title": "“Then and Now”", "body": "Beneath her window in the fragrant night\nI half forget how truant years have flown\nSince I looked up to see her chamber-light,\nOr catch, perchance, her slender shadow thrown\nUpon the casement; but the nodding leaves\nSweep lazily across the unlit pane,\nAnd to and fro beneath the shadowy eaves,\nLike restless birds, the breath of coming rain\nCreeps, lilac-laden, up the village street\nWhen all is still, as if the very trees\nWere listening for the coming of her feet\nThat come no more; yet, lest I weep, the breeze\nSings some forgotten song of those old years\nUntil my heart grows far too glad for tears.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1896 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -65027,10 +66921,10 @@ "title": "“The Unconquered Dead”", "body": "_“
 defeated, with great loss.”_\n\nNot we the conquered! Not to us the blame\nOf them that flee, of them that basely yield;\nNor ours the shout of victory, the fame\nOf them that vanquish in a stricken field.\n\nThat day of battle in the dusty heat\nWe lay and heard the bullets swish and sing\nLike scythes amid the over-ripened wheat,\nAnd we the harvest of their garnering.\n\nSome yielded, No, not we! Not we, we swear\nBy these our wounds; this trench upon the hill\nWhere all the shell-strewn earth is seamed and bare,\nWas ours to keep; and lo! we have it still.\n\nWe might have yielded, even we, but death\nCame for our helper; like a sudden flood\nThe crashing darkness fell; our painful breath\nWe drew with gasps amid the choking blood.\n\nThe roar fell faint and farther off, and soon\nSank to a foolish humming in our ears,\nLike crickets in the long, hot afternoon\nAmong the wheat fields of the olden years.\n\nBefore our eyes a boundless wall of red\nShot through by sudden streaks of jagged pain!\nThen a slow-gathering darkness overhead\nAnd rest came on us like a quiet rain.\n\nNot we the conquered! Not to us the shame,\nWho hold our earthen ramparts, nor shall cease\nTo hold them ever; victors we, who came\nIn that fierce moment to our honoured peace.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "memorial_day" @@ -65041,10 +66935,10 @@ "title": "“The Warrior”", "body": "He wrought in poverty, the dull grey days,\nBut with the night his little lamp-lit room\nWas bright with battle flame, or through a haze\nOf smoke that stung his eyes he heard the boom\nOf Bluecher’s guns; he shared Almeida’s scars,\nAnd from the close-packed deck, about to die,\nLooked up and saw the “Birkenhead”’s tall spars\nWeave wavering lines across the Southern sky:\n\nOr in the stifling ’tween decks, row on row,\nAt Aboukir, saw how the dead men lay;\nCharged with the fiercest in Busaco’s strife,\nBrave dreams are his--the flick’ring lamp burns low--\nYet couraged for the battles of the day\nHe goes to stand full face to face with life.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1907 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -65291,8 +67185,10 @@ "title": "“The Desert has Many Teachings”", "body": "In the desert,\nTurn toward emptiness,\nFleeing the self.\nStand alone,\nAsk no one’s help,\nAnd your being will quiet,\nFree from the bondage of things.\n\nThose who cling to the world,\nEndeavor to free them;\nThose who are free, praise.\nCare for the sick,\nBut live alone,\nHappy to drink from the waters of sorrow,\nTo kindle Love’s fire\nWith the twigs of a simple life.\nThus you will live in the desert", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jane Hirshfield", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Jane Hirshfield" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -65303,8 +67199,10 @@ "title": "“The devil also offers his spirit 
”", "body": "The devil also offers his spirit\nTo those who in hatred and proud desire\nAre ready for the worst.\nSuch know not that love leads to all good,\nThey become poor from hatred\nAnd the fury of the devil,\nSo that it becomes impossible\nThey should ever again find or follow\nThe love of God.\nTrue love praises God constantly;\nLonging love gives the pure heart sweet sorrow;\nSeeking love belongs to itself alone;\nUnderstanding love loves all in common;\nEnlightening love is mingled and sadness;\nSelfless love bears fruit without effort;\nIt functions so quietly\nThat the body knows nothing of it.\nClear love is still, in God alone,\nSeeing that both have one will\nAnd there is no creature so noble\nThat it can hinder them.\n\nThis is written by Knowledge\nOut of the everlasting book.\nGold is often heavily flecked by copper,\nJust as falseness and vain honor\nBlot out virtue from the human soul.\nThe ignoble soul to whom passing things are so dear\nThat it never trembled before Love\nNever heard God speak lovingly in it--\nAlas! to such this life is darkness!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lucy Menzies", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Lucy Menzies" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -65312,8 +67210,10 @@ "title": "“God Speaks to the Soul”", "body": "> _God speaks to the soul:_\n\nAnd God said to the soul:\nI desired you before the world began.\nI desire you now\nAs you desire me.\nAnd where the desires of two come together\nThere love is perfected.\n\n\n> _The soul speaks to God:_\n\nLord, you are my lover,\nMy longing,\nMy flowing stream,\nMy sun,\nAnd I am your reflection.\n\n\n> _God answers the soul:_\n\nIt is my nature that makes me love you often,\nFor I am love itself.\n\nIt is my longing that makes my love you intensely,\nFor I yearn to be loved from the heart.\n\nIt is my eternity that makes me love you long,\nFor I have no end.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Oliver Davies", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Oliver Davies" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -65321,8 +67221,10 @@ "title": "“God’s Absence”", "body": "Ah blessed absence of God,\nHow lovingly I am bound to you!\nYou strengthen my will in its pain\nAnd make dear to me\nThe long hard wait in my poor body.\nThe nearer I come to you,\nThe more wonderfully and abundantly\nGod comes upon me.\nIn pride, alas, I can easily lose you,\nBut in the depths of pure humility, O Lord,\nI cannot fall away from you.\nFor the deeper I fall, the sweeter you taste.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Oliver Davies", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Oliver Davies" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -65330,8 +67232,10 @@ "title": "“I cannot dance, Lord 
”", "body": "I cannot dance, Lord, unless you lead me.\nIf you want me to leap with abandon,\nYou must intone the song.\nThen I shall leap into love,\nFrom love into knowledge,\nFrom knowledge into enjoyment,\nAnd from enjoyment beyond all human sensations.\nThere I want to remain, yet want also to circle higher still.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Frank J. Tobin", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Frank J. Tobin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -65339,8 +67243,10 @@ "title": "“If I was a Learned Man”", "body": "I was warned against writing this book.\nPeople said:\nIf one did not watch out,\nIt could be burned.\nSo I did as I used to do as a child.\nWhen I was sad, I always had to pray.\nI bowed to my Lover and said: “Alas, Lord,\nNow I am saddened all because of your honor.\nIf I am going to receive no comfort from you now,\nThen you led me astray,\nBecause you are the one who told me to write it.”\n\nAt once God revealed himself to my joyless soul, held this book in his right hand, and said:\n\n“My dear one, do not be overly troubled,\nNo one can burn the truth 
\nThe words symbolize my marvelous Godhead.\nIt flows continuously\nInto your soul from my divine mouth.\nThe sound of the words is a sign of my living spirit\nAnd through it achieves genuine truth.\nNow examine all these words--\nHow admirably do they proclaim my personal secrets!\nSo have no doubts about yourself.”\n\n“Ah, Lord, if I were a learned religious man,\nAnd if you had performed this unique miracle using him,\nYou would receive everlasting honor for it.\nBut how is one supposed to believe\nThat you have built a golden house on filthy ooze 
\nLord, earthly wisdom will not be able to find you there.”\n\n“
 One finds many a professor learned in scripture who actually is a fool in my eyes.\nAnd I’ll tell you something else:\nIt is a great honor for me with regard to them, and it very much strengthens Holy Christianity\nThat the unlearned tongue, aided by my Holy Spirit, teaches the learned tongue.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Frank J. Tobin", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Frank J. Tobin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -65348,8 +67254,10 @@ "title": "“Of all that God has shown me 
”", "body": "Of all that God has shown me\nI can speak just the smallest word,\nNor more than a honey bee\nTakes on his foot\nFrom an overspilling jar.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jane Hirshfield", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Jane Hirshfield" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -65360,12 +67268,26 @@ "name": "Herman Melville", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1819 + "year": 1819, + "month": "august", + "day": 1 + }, + "place": { + "city": "New York City", + "state": "New York", + "country": "USA" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1891 + "year": 1891, + "month": "september", + "day": 28 + }, + "place": { + "city": "New York City", + "state": "New York", + "country": "USA" } }, "gender": "male", @@ -65373,7 +67295,9 @@ "poet" ], "education": null, - "movement": [], + "movement": [ + "Romanticism" + ], "religion": null, "nationality": [ "united-states" @@ -65385,7 +67309,8 @@ "favorite": false, "tags": [ "American", - "English" + "English", + "Romanticism" ] }, "poems": { @@ -65480,11 +67405,13 @@ "title": "“Autumn in a Summer Garden”", "body": "On a soft and foggy path,\nRustling with autumn leaves,\nWearing the smile of young life,\nA child picks a strange bouquet.\n\nThe October night gets closer,\nAnd the dying bouquet gets brighter,\nAnd the lively eyes feast\nOn the exuberant hue of wilted leaves 
\n\nThe more inconsolable the pale eve,\nThe merrier the child’s laughter,\nAkin to the song of a spring bird\nIn the cold dusk of the path.\n\nIts blissful season\nFinds delight in withering.\nTo it, the fall of leaves is happiness,\nAnd death only a game.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Grinbaldt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1894 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Grinbaldt" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -65495,11 +67422,13 @@ "title": "“Children of Night”", "body": "Riveting our eyes\nOn the blanching east,\nChildren of sorrow, children of night,\nWe wait, to see if our prophet shall come.\nWe are scenting out the unseen,\nAnd, with hope in our hearts,\nDying, we grieve\nOver uncreated worlds.\nOur speech is daring,\nBut condemned to die\nAre the too early precursors\nOf a too tardy spring.\nResurrections of the buried\nAnd the rooster’s song\nIn the middle of the deep night,\nMorning’s cold--they are us.\nWe are the steps above the abyss,\nChildren of murk, awaiting the sun:\nOnce we see the light, as shadows,\nWe shall perish in its rays.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Albert C. Todd", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Albert C. Todd" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -65511,11 +67440,13 @@ "title": "“Christ has risen”", "body": "“Christ has risen”--they chant in the temple,\nBut I feel sad 
 my soul is silent;\nThe world is full of blood and tears,\nAnd this hymn in front of the altars\nSounds so insulting.\n\nIf He were among us and could see,\nWhat our glorious age has achieved,\nHow brothers have learned to hate each other,\nHow humans are disgraced,\n\nAnd if here, in this luxurious temple,\nHe heard, “Christ is risen,”\nHow bitter would be the tears He would shed\nIn front of the crowd!\n\nOh brethren, let it come to pass\nThat in this world there would not be any masters or slaves,\nThe groans and curses would fall silent,\nAnd so would the clatter of swords, and the ringing of shackles,--\n\nOh, then, and only then, as a hymn of freedom,\nLet it thunder: “Christ has risen!”\nAnd all the peoples will answer us:\n“Christ has risen indeed!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anonymous", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1887 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Anonymous" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "eastertide" @@ -65526,11 +67457,13 @@ "title": "“The eventide fondled the earth in farewell 
”", "body": "The eventide fondled the earth in farewell,\nAnd in its suspense not a leaf dared to sway;\nThe creak of a cart far away rose and fell,\nStars marshalled aquiver in silent array.\n\nClear-blue is the sky,--deep and strange is its guise;\nBut look not upon it with glances that crave,\nBut seek not therein the revealment you prize,--\nClear-blue is the sky, but as mute as the grave.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Selver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1887 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Selver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -65541,11 +67474,13 @@ "title": "“I love or I don’t--despair comes easily to me 
”", "body": "I love or I don’t--despair comes easily to me:\nThough I may never be yours,\nNonetheless there’s such tenderness at times\nIn your eyes, as though I am loved.\n\nNot by me you’ll live, not by me you’ll suffer,\nAnd I will pass like the shadow of clouds;\nBut you will never forget me,\nAnd my distant call will not die out in you.\n\nWe dreamt of mysterious joy,\nAnd we knew in the dream that it was a dream\nBut nevertheless there’s agonizing sweetness\nFor you even in this, that I’m not he.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Albert C. Todd", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Albert C. Todd" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -65553,12 +67488,14 @@ "title": "“March”", "body": "The sick, tired ice,\nThe sick and slushy snow 
\nAnd all is flowing, flowing 
\nHow blithesome is the vernal run\nOf mighty turbid waters!\nAnd cries the hoary snow,\nAnd dies the ice.\nThe air is full of bliss,\nAnd the bell is singing.\nFrom the arrows of spring will fall\nThe prison of free rivers,\nThe stronghold of grim winters--\nThe sick and darkened ice,\nThe tired, slushy snow 
\nAnd the bell is singing\nThat my God is forever alive,\nThat Death itself shall die!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Grinbaldt", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1894, "month": "march" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Grinbaldt" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -65570,11 +67507,13 @@ "title": "“Quoth nature 
”", "body": "Quoth nature unto me in tones of stately scorning:\n“Begone, and break not in upon my harmony!\nI weary of thy tears; mar not with anguished mourning\nThe calm wherewith my azure nights encompass me.”\n\n“All have I given thee,--life, youth and freedom given,\nBut thou in senseless feud hast flung it all away.\nNature hast thou with overweening murmurs riven,\nThou hast forgot thy mother,--go, I speak thee nay.”\n\n“Or dost thou rate as naught in heaven the starry lustre,\nAnd in the brooding woods the dusk where nothing speaks,\n
\nAnd all the rugged beauty on the cloudy peaks?”\n\n“All have I given thee,--this world is wonder-gifted,\nYet couldst thou not be happy, even as all the rest,\nHappy as woodland beast, and swallow, nether-lifted,\nAnd bud that sleeps amid its silvery dew-clad nest.”\n\n“By thy bewilderment the joy of life thou slayest,\nBegone, I loathe thee, full of weak and sickly dole 
\nThou, with thy probing mind and haughtiness of soul,\nThy happiness without me seek, as best thou mayest.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Selver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1887 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Selver" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -65658,10 +67597,10 @@ "title": "“Advice to a Young Prophet”", "body": "Keep away, son, these lakes are salt. These flowers\nEat insects. Here private lunatics\nYell and skip in a very dry country.\n\nOr where some haywire monument\nSome badfaced daddy of fear\nCommands an unintelligent rite.\n\nTo dance on the unlucky mountain,\nTo dance they go, and shake the sin\nOut of their feet and hands,\n\nFrenzied until the sudden night\nFalls very quiet, and magic sin\nCreeps, secret, back again.\n\nBadlands echo with omens of ruin:\nSeven are very satisfied, regaining possession:\n(Bring a little mescaline, you’ll get along!)\n\nThere’s something in your bones,\nThere’s someone dirty in your critical skin,\nThere’s a tradition in your cruel misdirected finger\nWhich you must obey, and scribble in the hot sand:\n\n“Let everybody come and attend\nWhere lights and airs are fixed\nTo teach and entertain. O watch the sandy people\nHopping in the naked bull’s-eye,\n\nShake the wildness out of their limbs,\nTry to make peace like John in skins\nElijah in the timid air\nor Anthony in tombs:\n\nPluck the imaginary trigger, brothers.\nShoot the devil: he’ll be back again!”\n\nAmerica needs these fatal friends\nOf God and country, to grovel in mystical ashes,\nPretty big prophets whose words don’t burn,\nFighting the strenuous imago all day long.\n\nOnly these lunatics, (O happy chance)\nOnly these are sent. Only this anaemic thunder\nGrumbles on the salt flats, in rainless night:\n\nO go home, brother, go home!\nThe devil’s back again,\nAnd magic Hell is swallowing flies.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1963 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -65699,10 +67638,10 @@ "title": "“At This Precise Moment of History”", "body": "1.\n\nAt this precise moment of history\nWith Goody-two-shoes running for Congress\nWe are testing supersonic engines\nTo keep God safe in the cherry tree.\nWhen I said so in this space last Thursday\nI meant what I said: power struggles.\n\n\n2.\n\nYou would never dream of such corn. The colonials in sandalwood like running wide open and available for protection. You can throw them away without a refund.\n\n3.\n\nDr. Hanfstaengel who was not called Putzi except by those who did not know him is taped in the national archives. J. Edgar Hoover he ought to know\nAnd does know.\n\nBut calls Dr. Hanfstaengel Putzi nevertheless\nSomewhere on tape in the\nArchives.\n\nHe (Dr. H.) is not a silly man.\nHe left in disgust\nAbout the same time Shirley Temple\nSat on Roosevelt’s knee\nAn accomplished pianist\nA remembered personality.\nHe (Dr. H.) began to teach\nImmortal anecdotes\nTo his mother a Queen Bee\nIn the American colony.\n\n\n4.\n\nWhat is your attitude toward historical subjects?\n--Perhaps it’s their size!\n\n\n5.\n\nWhen I said this in space you would never believe\nCorn Colonel was so expatriated.\n--If you think you know,\nTake this wheel\nAnd become standard.\n\n\n6.\n\nShe is my only living mother\nThis bee of the bloody arts\nBandaging victims of Saturday’s dance\nLike a veritable sphinx\nIn a totally new combination.\n\n\n7.\n\nThe Queen Mother is an enduring vignette at an early age.\nNow she ought to be kept in submersible decompression chambers\n\nFor a while.\n\n\n8.\n\nWhat is your attitude toward historical subjects\nLike Queen Colonies?\n--They are permanently fortified\nFor shape retention.\n\n\n9.\n\nSolid shades\nSeven zippered pockets\nClose to my old place\nWaiting by the road\nBig disk brakes\nSpinoff\nZoom\nLong lights stabbing at the\nTwo together piggyback\nIn a stark sports roadster\n\nRegretting his previous outburst\nAl loads his Cadillac\nWith lovenests.\n\n\n10.\n\nShe is my only living investment\nShe examines the housing industry\nCounts 3.5 million postwar children\nTurning twenty-one\nAnd draws her own conclusion\nIn the commercial fishing field.\n\n\n11.\n\nVoice of little sexy ventriloquist mignonne:\n“Well I think all of us are agreed and sincerely I myself believe that honest people on both sides have got it all on tape. Governor Reagan thinks that nuclear wampums are a last resort that ought not to be resorted.” (But little mignonne went right to the point with: “We have a commitment to fulfill and we better do it quick.” No dupe she!)\nAll historians die of the same events at least twice.\n\n\n13.\n\nI feel that I ought to open this case with an apology. Dr. H. certainly has a beautiful voice. He is not a silly man. He is misunderstood even by Presidents.\n\n\n14.\n\nYou people are criticizing the Church but what are you going to put in her place? Sometime sit down with a pencil and paper and ask yourself what you’ve got that the Church hasn’t.\n\n\n15.\n\nNothing to add\nBut the big voice of a detective\nUsing the wrong first names\nIn national archives.\n\n\n16.\n\nShe sat in shocking pink with an industrial zipper specially designed for sitting on the knees of presidents in broad daylight. She spoke the president’s mind. “We have a last resort to be resorted and we better do it quick.” He wondered at what he had just said.\n\n\n17.\n\nIt was all like running wideopen in a loose gown\nWithout slippers\nAt least someplace.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1968 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -65710,10 +67649,10 @@ "title": "“Aubade: Harlem”", "body": "Across the cages of the keyless aviaries,\nThe lines and wires, the gallows of the broken kites,\nCrucify, against the fearful light,\nThe ragged dresses of the little children.\nSoon, in the sterile jungles of the waterpipes and ladders,\nThe bleeding sun, a bird of prey, will terrify the poor,\nThese will forget the unbelievable moon.\n\nBut in the cells of whiter buildings,\nWhere the glass dawn is brighter than the knives of surgeons,\nPaler than alcohol or ether, shinier than money,\nThe white men’s wives, like Pilate’s,\nCry in the peril of their frozen dreams:\n\n“Daylight has driven iron spikes,\nInto the flesh of Jesus’ hands and feet:\nFour flowers of blood have nailed Him to the walls of Harlem.”\n\nAlong the white halls of the clinics and the hospitals\nPilate evaporates with a cry:\nThey have cut down two hundred Judases,\nHanged by the neck in the opera houses and the museum.\n\nAcross the cages of the keyless aviaries,\nThe lines and wires, the gallows of the broken kites,\nCrucify, against the fearful light,\nThe ragged dresses of the little children.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1948 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -65740,10 +67679,10 @@ "title": "“Birdcage Walk”", "body": "# I.\n\nOne royal afternoon\nWhen I was young and easily surprised\nBy uncles coming from the park\nAt the command of nurses and of guards,\n\nI wondered, over trees and ponds,\nAt the sorry, rude walls\nAnd the white windows of the apartments.\n\n“These,” said my uncle, “are the tallest houses.”\n\n\n# II.\n\nYes, in the spring of my joy\nWhen I was visibly affected by a gaitered bishop,\nLarge and unsteady in the flagged yard,\nGuards, dogs and blackbirds fled on every hand.\n\n“He is an old one,” said uncle,\n“The gaiters are real.”\n\n\n# III.\n\nRippled, fistfed windows of your\nDun high houses! Then\nCome cages made of pretty willows\nWhere they put the palace girls!\nGreen ducks wade slowly from the marble water.\nOne swan reproves a saucy daughter.\n\nI consider my own true pond,\nLook for the beginning and the end.\nI lead the bishop down lanes and islands.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nYes, in the windows of my first existence\nBefore my yawns became seasons,\nWhen nurses and uncles were sure,\nChinese fowl fought the frosty water\nStartled by this old pontifex.\n\n“No bridge” (He smiled\nBetween the budding branches),\n“No crossing to the cage\nOf the paradise bird!”\n\nAstounded by the sermons in the leaves\nI cried, “No! No! The stars have higher houses!”\n\nKicking the robins and ganders\nFrom the floor of his insular world\nThe magic bishop leaned his blessing on the children.\n\n\n# V.\n\nThat was the bold day when\nMoved by the unexpected summons\nI opened all the palace aviaries\nAs by a king’s representative\nI was appointed fowler.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -65822,11 +67761,11 @@ "title": "“The Dark Morning”", "body": "This is the black day when\nFog rides the ugly air:\nWater wades among the buildings\nTo the prisoner’s curled ear.\n\nThen rain, in thin sentences,\nSlakes him like danger,\nWhose heart is his Germany\nFevered with anger.\n\nThis is the dark day when\nLocks let the enemy in\nThrough all the coiling passages of\n(Curled ear) my prison!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1942, "month": "april" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -65845,11 +67784,11 @@ "title": "“A Dirge”", "body": "Some one who hears the bugle neigh will know\nHow cold it is, when sentries die by starlight.\n\nBut none who love to hear the hammering drum\nWill look, when the betrayer\nLaughs in the desert like a broken monument,\nRinging his tongue in the red bell of his head,\nGesturing like a flag.\n\nThe air that quivered after the earthquake\n(When God died like a thief)\nStill plays the ancient forums like pianos;\nThe treacherous wind, lover of the demented,\nWill harp forever in the haunted temples.\n\nWhat speeches do the birds make\nWith their beaks, to the desolate dead?\nAnd yet we love those carsick amphitheaters,\n\nNor hear our messenger come home from hell\nWith hands shot full of blood.\n\nNo one who loves the fleering fife, will feel\nThe light of morning stab his flesh,\n\nBut some who hear the trumpet’s raving, in the ruined sky,\nWill dread the burnished helmet of the sun\nWhose anger goes before the King.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1942, "month": "april" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -66011,10 +67950,10 @@ "title": "“Hagia Sofia”", "body": "# I. _Dawn. The Hour of Lauds._\n\nThere is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator’s Thought and Art within me, speaking as Hagia Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom.\n\nI am awakened, I am born again at the voice of this, my Sister, sent to me from the depths of the divine fecundity.\n\nLet us suppose I am a man lying asleep in a hospital. I am indeed this man lying asleep. It is July the second, the Feast of Our Lady’s Visitation. A Feast of Wisdom.\n\nAt five-thirty in the morning I am dreaming in a very quiet room when a soft voice awakens me from my dream. I am like all mankind awakening from all the dreams that ever were dreamed in all the nights of the world. It is like the One Christ awakening in all the separate selves that ever were separate and isolated and alone in all the lands of the earth. It is like all minds coming back together into awareness from all distractions, cross-purposes and confusions, into unity of love. It is like the first morning of the world (when Adam, at the sweet voice of Wisdom awoke from nonentity and knew her), and like the Last Morning of the world when all the fragments of Adam will return from death at the voice of Hagia Sophia, and will know where they stand.\n\nSuch is the awakening of one man, one morning, at the voice of a nurse in the hospital. Awakening out of languor and darkness, out of helplessness, out of sleep, newly confronting reality and finding it to be gentleness.\n\nIt is like being awakened by Eve. It is like being awakened by the Blessed Virgin. It is like coming forth from primordial nothingness and standing in clarity, in Paradise.\n\nIn the cool hand of the nurse there is the touch of all life, the touch of Spirit.\n\nThus Wisdom cries out to all who will hear (Sapientia clamitat in plateis) and she cries out particularly to the little, to the ignorant and the helpless.\n\nWho is more little, who is more poor than the helpless man who lies asleep in his bed without awareness and without defense? Who is more trusting than he who must entrust himself each night to sleep? What is the reward of his trust? Gentleness comes to him when he is most helpless and awakens him, refreshed, beginning to be made whole. Love takes him by the hand, and opens to him the doors of another life, another day.\n\n(But he who has defended himself, fought for himself in sickness, planned for himself, guarded himself, loved himself alone and watched over his own life all night, is killed at last by exhaustion. For him there is no newness. Everything is stale and old.)\n\nWhen the helpless one awakens strong as the voice of mercy, it is as if Life his Sister, as if the Blessed Virgin, (his own flesh, his own sister), as if Nature made wise by God’s Art and Incarnation were to stand over him and invite him with unutterable sweetness to be awake and to live. This is what it means to recognize Hagia Sophia.\n\n\n# II. _Early Morning. The Hour of Prime._\n\nO blessed, silent one, who speaks everywhere!\n\nWe do not hear the soft voice, the gentle voice, the merciful and feminine.\n\nWe do not hear mercy, or yielding love, or non-resistance, or non-reprisal. In her there are no reasons and no answers. Yet she is the candor of God’s light, the expression of His simplicity.\n\nWe do not hear the uncomplaining pardon that bows down the innocent visages of flowers to the dewy earth. We do not see the Child who is prisoner in all the people, and who says nothing. She smiles, for though they have bound her, she cannot be a prisoner. Not that she is strong, or clever, but simply that she does not understand imprisonment.\n\nThe helpless one, abandoned to sweet sleep, him the gentle one will awake: Sophia.\n\nAll that is sweet in her tenderness will speak to him on all sides in everything, without ceasing, and he will never be the same again. He will have awakened not to conquest and dark pleasure but to the impeccable pure simplicity of One consciousness in all and through all: one Wisdom, one Child, one Meaning, one Sister.\n\nThe stars rejoice in their setting, and in the rising of the Sun. The heavenly lights rejoice in the going forth of one man to make a new world in the morning, because he has come out of the confused primordial dark night into consciousness. He has expressed the clear silence of Sophia in his own heart. He has become eternal.\n\n\n# III. _High Morning. The Hour of Tierce._\n\nThe Sun burns in the sky like the Face of God, but we do not know his countenance as terrible. His light is diffused in the air and the light of God is diffused by Hagia Sophia.\n\nWe do not see the Blinding One in black emptiness. He speaks to us gently in ten thousand things, in which His light is one fullness and one Wisdom. Thus He shines not on them but from within them. Such is the loving-kindness of Wisdom.\n\nAll the perfections of created things are also in God; and therefore He is at once Father and Mother. As Father He stands in solitary might surrounded by darkness. As Mother His shining is diffused, embracing all His creatures with merciful tenderness and light. The Diffuse Shining of God is Hagia Sophia. We call her His “glory.” In Sophia His power is experienced only as mercy and as love.\n\n(When the recluses of fourteenth-century England heard their Church Bells and looked out upon the wolds and fens under a kind sky, they spoke in their hearts to “Jesus our Mother.” It was Sophia that had awakened in their childlike hearts.)\n\nPerhaps in a certain very primitive aspect Sophia is the unknown, the dark, the nameless Ousia. Perhaps she is even the Divine Nature, One in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And perhaps she is in infinite light unmanifest, not even waiting to be known as Light. This I do not know. Out of the silence Light is spoken. We do not hear it or see it until it is spoken.\n\nIn the Nameless Beginning, without Beginning, was the Light. We have not seen this Beginning. I do not know where she is, in this Beginning. I do not speak of her as a Beginning, but as a manifestation.\n\nNow the Wisdom of God, Sophia, comes forth, reaching from “end to end mightily.” She wills to be also the unseen pivot of all nature, the center and significance of all the light that is in all and for all. That which is poorest and humblest, that which is most hidden in all things is nevertheless most obvious in them, and quite manifest, for it is their own self that stands before us, naked and without care.\n\nSophia, the feminine child, is playing in the world, obvious and unseen, playing at all times before the Creator. Her delights are to be with the children of men. She is their sister. The core of life that exists in all things is tenderness, mercy, virginity the Light, the Life considered as passive, as received, as given, as taken, as inexhaustibly renewed by the Gift of God. Sophia is Gift, is Spirit, Donum Dei. She is God-given and God Himself as Gift. God as all, and God reduced to Nothing: inexhaustible nothingness. Exinanivit semetipsum. Humility as the source of unfailing light.\n\nHagia Sophia in all things is the Divine Light reflected in them, considered as a spontaneous participation, as their invitation to the Wedding Feast.\n\nSophia is God’s sharing of Himself with creatures. His outporing, and the Love by which He is given, and known, held and loved.\n\nShe is in all things like the air receiving the sunlight. In her they prosper. In her they glorigy God. In her they rejoice to reflect Him. In her they are united with him. She is the union between them. She is the Love that unites them. She is life as communion, life as thanksgiving, life as praise, life as festival, life as glory.\n\nBecause she receives perfectly there is in her no stain. She is love without blemish, and gratitude without self-complacency. All things praise her by being themselves and by sharing in the Wedding Feast. She is the Bride and the Feast and the Wedding.\n\nThe feminine principle in the world is the inexhaustible source of creative realizations of the Father’s glory. She is His manifestation in radiant splendor! But she remains unseen, glimpsed only by a few. Sometimes there are none who know her at all.\n\nSophia is the mercy of God in us. She is the tenderness with which the infinitely mysterious power of pardon turns the darkness of our sins into the light of grace. She is the inexhaustible fountain of kindness, and would almost seem to be, in herself, all mercy. So she does in us a greater work than that of Creation: the work of new being in grace, the work of pardon, the work of transformation from brightness to brightness tamquam a Domini Spiritu. She is in us the yielding and tender counterpart of the power, justice and creative dynamism of the Father.\n\n\n# IV. _Sunset. The Hour of Compline. Salve Regina._\n\nNow the Blessed Virgin Mary is the one created being\nwho enacts and shows forth in her life all that is hidden in Sophia.\nBecause of this she can be said to be a personal manifestation\nof Sophia, Who in God is Ousia rather than Person.\n\nNatura in Mary becomes pure Mother. In her, Natura\nis as she was from the origin from her divine birth. In Mary Natura\nis all wise and is manifested as an all-prudent, all-loving, all-pure person:\nnot a Creator, and not a Redeemer, but perfect Creature, perfectly\nRedeemed, the fruit of all God’s great power, the perfect expression\nof wisdom in mercy.\n\nIt is she, it is Mary, Sophia, who in sadness and joy, with the full awareness\nof what she is doing, sets upon the Second Person, the Logos, a crown\nwhich is His Human Nature. Thus her consent opens the door of created\nnature, of time, of history, to the Word of God.\n\nGod enters into His creation. Through her wise answer, through her obedient\nunderstanding, through the sweet yielding consent of Sophia, God enters\nwithout publicity into the city of rapacious men.\n\nShe crowns Him not with what is glorious, but with\nwhat is greater than glory: the one thing greater than\nglory is weakness, nothingness, poverty.\n\nShe sends the infinitely Rich and Powerful One forth\nas poor and helpless, in His mission of inexpressible\nmercy, to die for us on the Cross.\n\nThe shadows fall. The stars appear. The birds begin to sleep.\nNight embraces the silent half of the earth. A vagrant, a destitute\nwanderer with dusty feet, finds his way down a new road. A\nhomeless God, lost in the night, without papers, without\nidentifications, without even a number, a frail expendable exile\nlies down in desolation under the sweet stars of the world and\nentrusts Himself to sleep.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1962 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -66037,10 +67976,10 @@ "title": "“How to Enter a Big City”", "body": "# I.\n\nSwing by starwhite bones and\nLights tick in the middle.\nBlue and white steel\nBlack and white\nPeople hurrying along the wall.\n“Here you are, bury my dead bones.”\n\nCurve behind the sun again\nTowers full of ice. Rich\nGlass houses, “Here,\nHave a little of my blood,\nRich people!”\n\nWheat in towers. Meat on ice.\nCattlecars. Miles of wide-open walls.\nBaseball between these sudden tracks.\nYell past the red street--\nHave you any water to drink, City?\nRich glass buildings, give us milk!\nGive us coffee! Give us rum!\n\nThere are huge clouds all over the sky.\nRiver smells of gasoline.\nCars after cars after cars, and then\nA little yellow street goes by without a murmur.\n\nThere came a man\n(“Those are radios, that were his eyes”)\nWho offered to sell us his bones.\n\nSwing by starwhite buildings and\nLights come to life with a sound\nOf bugs under the dead rib.\n\nMiles of it. Still the same city.\n\n\n# II.\n\nDo you know where you are going?\nDo you know whom you must meet?\n\nFortune, perhaps, or good news\nOr the doctor, or the ladies\nIn the long bookstore,\nThe angry man in the milkbar\nThe drunkard under the clock.\nFortune, perhaps, or wonder\nOr, perhaps, death.\n\nIn any case, our tracks\nAre aimed at a working horizon.\nThe buildings, turning twice about the sun,\nSettle in their respective positions.\nCentered in its own incurable discontent, the City\nConsents to be recognized.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThen people come out into the light of afternoon,\nCovered all over with black powder,\nAnd begin to attack one another with statements\nOr to ignore one another with horror.\nCustoms have not changed.\nYoung men full of coffee and\nOld women with medicine under their skin\nAre all approaching death at twenty miles an hour.\n\nEverywhere there is optimism without love\nAnd pessimism without understanding,\nThey who have new clothes, and smell of haircuts\nCannot agree to be at peace\nWith their own images, shadowing them in windows\nFrom store to store.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nUntil the lights come on with a swagger of frauds\nAnd savage ferns,\nThe brown-eyed daughters of ravens,\nSing in the lucky doors\nWhile night comes down the street like the millennium\nWrapping the houses in dark feathers\nSoothing the town with a sign\nHealing the strong wings of sunstroke.\nThen the wind of an easy river wipes the flies\nOff my Kentucky collarbone.\n\nThe claws of the treacherous stars\nRenegade drums of wood\nEndure the heavenward protest.\nTheir music heaves and hides.\nRain and foam and oil\nMake sabbaths for our wounds.\n(Come, come, let all come home!)\nThe summer sighs, and runs.\nMy broken bird is under the whole town,\nMy cross is for the gypsies I am leaving\nAnd there are real fountains under the floor.\n\n\n# V.\n\nBranches baptize our faces with silver\nWhere the sweet silent avenue escapes into the hills.\nWinds at last possess our empty country\nThere, there under the moon\nIn parabolas of milk and iron\nThe ghosts of historical men\n(Figures of sorrow and dust)\nWeep along the hills like turpentine.\nAnd seas of flowering tobacco\nSurround the drowning sons of Daniel Boone.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -66141,11 +68080,11 @@ "title": "“From the Legend of St. Clement”", "body": "I have seen the sun\nSpilling its copper petals on the Black Sea\nBy the base of the prisoners’ cliff\nWhere, from the acts of martyrs,\nTall poems grow up like buildings.\n\nDeep in the wall of the wounded mountain\n(Where seas no longer frown)\nThe songs of the martyrs come up like cities or buildings.\nTheir chains shine with hymns\nAnd their hands cut down the giant blocks of stone.\n\nPoetry, psalms\nFlower with a huge architecture\nRaising their grandeur on the gashed cape.\nWords of God blaze like a disaster\nIn the windows of their prophetic cathedral.\nBut the sighs of the deep multitude\nGrow out of the mountain’s heart as clean as vines.\n\nO martyrs! O tremendous prisoners!\nBurying your murder in this marble hill!\nThe Lamb shall soon stand\nWhite as a shout against the sky:\nHis feet shall soon strike rainbows from the rock.\nThe cliffs give up their buried streams.\nThrow down the chains of your wrists, prisoners!\nDrink, and swim!\n\nThe winds have carried your last sentences\nAcross Ukraine.\nYour poetry shall grow in distant places.\nAsia, Greece, Egypt, England know your name.\nYour hymns shall stand like vineyards\nAnd swing with fruit in other worlds, in other centuries.\n\nAnd your ecstasy shall make shade,\nFoliage for summers unforeseen\nTo cover travellers in continents you have not known\nWhen the temples have fallen,\nThe theaters cemented in your blood have long ago fallen.\n\nYour joy echoes across the carved ridge\nPlays across mountains\nStands like fleets or islands\nSailing the seas to Greece\nAnd after twenty times one hundred\nYears of repercussion\nYour waters shatter the land at my feet with seas forever young.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1949, "month": "february" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -66197,11 +68136,11 @@ "title": "“The Night Train”", "body": "In the unreason of a rainy midnight\nFrance blooms along the windows\nOf my sleepy bathysphere,\nAnd runs to seed, in a luxuriance of curious lights.\n\nEscape is drawn straight through my dream\nAnd shines to Paris, clean as a violin string,\nWhile springtides of commotion,\n(The third-class pianos of the Orient Express)\nFill up the hollow barrels of my ears.\n\nCities that stood, by day, as gay as lancers\nAre lost, in the night, like old men dying.\nAt a point where polished rails branch off forever,\nThe steel laments, like crazy mothers.\nWe wake, and weep the deaths of the cathedrals\nThat we have never seen,\nBecause we hear the jugulars of the country\nFly in the wind, and vanish with a cry.\n\nAt once the diplomats start up, as white as bread.\nBuckle the careless cases of their minds,\nThat just fell open in the sleepers,\nAnd lock them under pillows:\n\nFor, by the rockets of imaginary sieges\nThey see to read big, terrible print,\nEach in the other’s face,\nThat spells the undecoded names\nOf the assassins they will recognize too late:\nThe ones that seem to be secret police,\nNow all in place, all armed, in the obvious ambush!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1942, "month": "april" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -66212,14 +68151,14 @@ "title": "“No Room At the Inn”", "body": "Into this world, this demented inn\nin which there is absolutely no room for him at all,\nChrist comes uninvited.\n\nBut because he cannot be at home in it,\nbecause he is out of place in it,\nand yet he must be in it,\nHis place is with the others for whom\nthere is no room.\n\nHis place is with those who do not belong,\nwho are rejected by power, because\nthey are regarded as weak,\nthose who are discredited,\nwho are denied status of persons,\nwho are tortured, bombed and exterminated.\n\nWith those for whom there is no room,\nChrist is present in this world.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1966 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Raids on the Unspeakable", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1966 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "christmas_eve" @@ -66230,11 +68169,11 @@ "title": "“Notes for a New Liturgy”", "body": "There’s a big Zulu runs our congregation\nA woe doctor cherubim chaser\nPuts his finger on the chief witch\nHas a mind to deter foes\nIs by the Star Archangel shown a surprise\nWrites his letters in vision mentions his B.A.\nFrom many a college\nHas a fan to scatter flies\nReceives a penetrating look\nFrom an imaginary visitant in white\nKnows all the meanings at once\nKnows he is in heaven in rectangles\nOf invented saints\nFlaming with new degrees and orders every day\n\n“I dreamt this Church I dreamt\nSeven precious mitres over my head\nMy word is final.”\n\n“I now General Overseer Concession Registrar\nOf rains and weather Committeeman\nFor Pepsi-Cola all over the islands\nFlail of incontinent clergy\nWave my highstrung certificate in times of change\nDon’t you need a Defender with a medical guarantee?”\n\n“You think that I am only a clown-healer from the out-district?\nHold this black bag while I lay hands on children\nSteady my followers with magic curios”\n\n“When I sleep I watch you with eyes in my feet\nLast night I dreamt of four beds\nI must marry again must go get\nAnother angel-nun\nCome holy deaconess we’ll ride\nBarefoot in yellow busses to Jordan River\nWearing emblems of the common vow.”\n\n“Subleaders keep telling the message\nLike it was new\nConfirming my charism as Prime-Mover in Management\nI shall continue in office as President\nFor all time until the earth melt\nAs all Full-Leaders stand over you wearing their watches\nMoulding you by government of thought\nAnd I return a while to the Origin\nRuling through a female medium from an obscure place:”\n\n“HOLD THIS MITRE WHILE I STRANGLE CHICKENS\nAND THROW THEM IN THE AIR\nCOVERING THE SACRED STONE WITH BLOODY FEATHERS\n(And surround the altar\nWith lie detectors.”)", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1968, "month": "july" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -66245,10 +68184,10 @@ "title": "“Now you are all here you might as well know 
”", "body": "1. Now you are all here you might as well know this is America we do what we like.\n\n2. Be spontaneous it is the right way.\n\n3. Mothers you have met before still defy comprehension.\n\n4. Our scene is foggy we are asking you to clarify.\n\n5. Explains geomoetry of life. Where? At Catholic Worker.\n\n6. Very glad you came. With our mouths full of cornflakes we were expecting an emergency.\n\n7. Cynics declare you are in Greece.\n\n8. Better get back quick before the place is all used up.\n\n9. The night court: the mumbling judge: confused.\n\n10. Well-wishers are there to meet you head on.\n\n11. For the journal: soldiers, harbingers of change.\n\n12. You came just in time, the score is even.\n\n13. None of the machines has yet been broken.\n\n14. Come on we know you have seen Popes.\n\n15. People have been a little self-conscious around here in the emergency.\n\n16. Who cares what the cynics declare. But you have been in Greece.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1944 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -66394,11 +68333,11 @@ "title": "“Seneca”", "body": "When the torch is taken\nAnd the room is dark\nThe mute wife\nKnowing Seneca’s ways\nListens to night\nTo rumors\nAll around the house\nWhile her wise\nLord promenades\nWithin his own temple\nMaster and censor\nOverseeing\nHis own ways\nWith his philosophical\nsconce\nPolicing the streets\nOf this secret Rome\nWhile the wife\nSilent as a sea\nPolicing nothing\nWaits in darkness\nFor the Night Bird’s\nInscrutable cry.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1964, "month": "march" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -66409,11 +68348,11 @@ "title": "“Sincerity”", "body": "_Omnis homo mendax_\n\nAs for the liar, fear him less\nThan one who thinks himself sincere\nWho, having deceived himself,\nCan deceive you with a good conscience.\n\nOne who doubts his own truth\nMay mistrust another less:\n\nKnowing, in his own heart,\nThat all men are liars\nHe will be less outraged\nWhen he is deceived by another.\n\nSo, too, will he sooner believe\nIn the sincerity of God.\n\nThe sincerity of God! Who never justifies\nHis actions to men! Who makes no bargains\nWith any other sincerity, because He knows\nThere is no other! Who does what He pleases\nAnd never protests His innocence!\n\nWhich of us can stand the sincerity of God?\n\nWhich of us can bear a Lord\nWho is neither guilty nor innocent\n(Who cannot be innocent because He cannot\nbe guilty)?\n\nWhat has our sincerity to do with His\nWhose truth is no approval of our truth\nAnd is not judged by anyone,\nEven by Himself?\n\n(Yet if I think myself sincere\nI will approve the purity of God\nConvinced that my own purity\nIs approved by Him)\n\nSo, when the Lord speaks, we go to sleep\nOr turn quickly to some congenial business\nSince, as every liar knows,\nNo man can bear such sincerity.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1956, "month": "december" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -66424,10 +68363,10 @@ "title": "“Song”", "body": "The bottom of the sea has come\nAnd builded in my noiseless room\nThe fishes’ and the mermaids’ home,\n\nWhose it is most, most hell to be\nOut of the heavy-hanging sea\nAnd in the thin, thin changeable air\n\nOr unroom sleep some other where;\nBut play their coral violins\nWhere waters most lock music in:\n\nThe bottom of my room, the sea.\nFull of voiceless curtaindeep\nThere mermaid somnambules come sleep\nWhere fluted half-lights show the way,\n\nAnd there, there lost orchestras play\nAnd down the many quarterlights come\nTo the dim mirth of my aquadrome:\nThe bottom of my sea, the room.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1946 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -66479,10 +68418,10 @@ "title": "“St. Malachy”", "body": "In November, in the days to remember the dead\nWhen air smells cold as earth,\nSt. Malachy, who is very old, gets up,\nParts the thin curtain of trees and dawns upon our land.\n\nHis coat is filled with drops of rain, and he is bearded\nWith all the seas of Poseidon.\n(Is it a crozier, or a trident in his hand?)\nHe weeps against the gothic window, and the empty\ncloister\nMourns like an ocean shell.\n\nTwo bells in the steeple\nTalk faintly to the old stranger\nAnd the tower considers his waters.\n“I have been sent to see my festival,” (his cavern speaksl)\n“For I am the saint of the day.\nShall I shake the drops from my locks and stand in your\ntransept,\nOr, leaving you, rest in the silence of my history?”\n\nSo the bells rang and we opened the antiphoners\nAnd the wrens and larks flew up out of the pages.\nOur thoughts became lambs. Our hearts swam like seas.\nOne monk believed that we should sing to him\nSome stone-age hymn\nOr something in the giant language.\nSo we played to him in the plainsong of the giant Gregory\nAnd oceans of Scripture sang upon bony Eire.\n\nThen the last salvage of flowers\n(Fostered under glass after the gardens foundered)\nHeld up their little lanterns on Malachy’s altar\nTo peer into his wooden eyes before the Mass began.\n\nRain sighed down the sides of the stone church.\nStorms sailed by all day in battle fleets.\nAt five o’clock, when we tried to see the sun, the speechless\nvisitor\nSighed and arose and shook the humus from his feet\nAnd with his trident stirred our trees\nAnd left down-wood, shaking some drops upon the ground.\n\nThus copper flames fall, tongues of fire fall\nThe leaves in hundreds fall upon his passing\nWhile night sends down her dreadnought darkness\nUpon this spurious Pentecost.\n\nAnd the Melchisedec of our year’s end\nWho came without a parent, leaves without a trace,\nAnd rain comes rattling down upon our forest\nLike the doors of a country jail.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1949 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_malachy" @@ -66981,10 +68920,10 @@ "title": "“Camel”", "body": "Remember that we are dust. It is said\nThat this place of our passage is prone to mirages:\nThat the waves of the drifting desert, the heat-daft\nAir playing like water-light, the horizon\nSwirling slow as a shadow and laying up\nTo itself all their unearthly shiftings,\nOr simply the salt tides working\nOf need or desire, out of some fold\nOf their flowing raise often visions\nAs of white cities like walled clouds, agleam\nOn their hills, so clear that you can see the tiered\nBuildings glint still in the rocking daylight,\nOr again of trees even whose shadows\nSeem green and to breathe, or merely of pools\nOf simple water on that same dry surge borne,\nThat will ride nearer, nearer, like elusive\nAphrodite; and these are nothing\nBut the playing of the heated light teasing\nLike pain over this dust. In truth, it may\nBe nothing but ourselves, this that is\nAll about us for our eves to see: this dust\nThat we cannot see beyond. Remember\nThat we are dust, dust and a little breath,\nAs the sand dervishes the wind lifts\nWhirling and sends over the sea-shaped dunes;\nAs does their dancing, we wind between breathless\nDust and breathless dust, and our passage\nEven as theirs, may be no more\nThan a casual sport of the air gliding\nTo no depth over the delusive surface\nOf our breathless selves. But speaking of virtues\nWe think of water; moving, we think\nOf arrival as of water, of virtue\nAs the means of arrival. And we have named\nFor water him who is visibly\nOur practice of virtue, beast of our motion,\nCalling him “Ship of the Desert.” Who rolls\nWhen he walks; whose going also\nHas strangely the gait of a cradle. He too is dust,\nYet not as we, save as that figure\nOf what our faring is, for his breath is speechless,\nHis back that bears us has a wave’s shape\nDrawn by a child; or hill’s lurching\nAs he strides; when he runs, his shadow\nOver the rippling dust is a wind’s\nShudder across modelled bay-water,\nCurved gust across grain-field, or storm silvering\nFast as some hastening angel over\nHillsides of olive trees, darkness\nOf rain-cloud chasing the sunlight\nOn carved hills, or wave-crest over\nFar reef flung, its main strength still racing\nFor shore. Even as these\nIt would seem our progress is, in itself bearing\nIts own sustenance for long waste-wending;\nA power that may be, in event of all\nArrival failing, other resources\nParched, our water of desperation; that is not\nOurselves; whose capacities may not be\nArrived at even by prayer, patient study\nAnd deprivation, yet whose presence we have known\nTo affect us so that even in places of water,\nOf pleasure, repose, abode, when we had thought\nTo escape the sense of it, it will sometimes break\nFrom where it was tethered and find us out,\nIntruding its ungainly ill-smelling head\nOver our shoulders. A creature that can shut\nBoth eyes and nostrils against the lash\nOf dust risen suddenly savage. That if not\nDrained at last dry as a white bone,\nExhausted beyond sense, or buried\nIn the capricious cruelty of\nIts own condition, can sense more surely than we\nOver the dust-driven horizon the green\nPlaces where the roots grope trusting\nDown into the dark breathlessness, the trees\nSway and give shade, dew falls early,\nStones drip in the mossed shadow, and the motes\nSeem to dance to a falling cadence\nThat mortal ears might apprehend. Catching, as we,\nAt phantoms, breaking into a dangerous\nRocking-horse sprint at false visions, nevertheless\nWhen we are despairing, drawn it would seem\nBy deceptions only, working to wean\nOur minds from arrival, staring vacantly\nAt the tormented air, while the enraged sun\nCareens in white circles about a sky\nThe blood-orange of an eyelid, he can with no warning\nLift the furred neck swinging there\nLike a winter serpent, flare divining nostrils,\nEven from far off smell the true water.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1955 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "ash_wednesday" @@ -67046,10 +68985,10 @@ "title": "“Despair”", "body": "Some lit theirs at both ends.\nSome clutched theirs as a blind man does his cane.\nSome sucked theirs like the only orange.\nSome packed clean shirts and a few socks in theirs.\nSome spent their lives looking for theirs and they were wearing it all the time.\nSome neglected theirs but the roots found a way.\nSome buried theirs. The stones tell when and where.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1962 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -67163,10 +69102,10 @@ "title": "“Esther”", "body": "Tomorrow they will come for you\nold female word from the corner\nlucidity\nmotionless in the dark\nthey will take you out to be\nbared elsewhere\nopened before it is May\n\nthere is no one else here\nthe door wide to the blinding\nspring\nthe wind one of the family\nlike a cold hen\nmute about the kitchen\nthe rest away busy the shirts waiting\nfor the iron\nthe calendar ticking\n\ntomorrow\nthe animals will keep away\nwe do not believe in\nhappening\nthe sunlight will always lie there\neven tonight even tomorrow night\nit was always there\nbut you go back to another time\nit is said\nas though there is one\n\nIf tomorrow is really\nnot today\nhow can one believe in anything\nas vou say\nhands holding each other in\npaper bags older than they are\neyes cut out of your dress hung\nto dry\nburst package to be\ncarried past the toys out\nin the bright dirt\npast the shadows waving\nringing their bells raising\ntheir instruments\nwhatever is brought back as you know\nis not all\n\nbut if you get\nlater to a place with a blackened wall\nand two sticks held together\nby a little smoke\nmaybe they would let you sit by it\nin the day\nstaring\nand you could announce what he is doing\nthe animal their sky", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1968 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -67314,10 +69253,10 @@ "title": "“Identity”", "body": "When Hans Hofmann became a hedgehog\nsomewhere in a Germany that has\nvanished with its forests and hedgerows\nShakespeare would have been a young actor\nstarting out in a country that was\nonly a word to Hans who had learned\nfrom those who had painted animals\nonly from hearing tales about them\nwithout ever setting eyes on them\nor from corpses with the lingering\nlight mute and deathly still forever\nheld fast in the fur or the feathers\nhanging or lying on a table\nand he had learned from others who had\narranged the corpses of animals\nas though they were still alive in full\nflight or on their way but this hedgehog\nwas there in the same life as his own\nlooking around at him with his brush\nof camel hair and his stretched parchment\nof sheepskin as he turned to each sharp\nparticular quill and every black\nwhisker on the long live snout and those\nflat clawed feet made only for trundling\nand for feeling along the dark undersides\nof stones and as Hans took them in he\nturned into the Hans that we would see", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2009 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -67395,10 +69334,10 @@ "title": "“Mercy”", "body": "Even the hunters, who smile to cock\nThe deadly choice in their minds, and like\nTo carry it by loving custom lightly,\nLooking for something to kill, even\nThe hunters sometimes it overtakes\nOver the half-killed quarry. Do not look\nIn their eyes, they will tell you, there are questions\nThat cannot be put out with knives. Sooner\nOr later, just the same, the eyes are there\nAsking out of the bird broken\nOn wires, out of the crushed rabbit", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -68021,8 +69960,10 @@ "title": "“Ah tell me, Love, had she a heart as kind 
”", "body": "Ah tell me, Love, had she a heart as kind\nAs beauty that her feature doth partake,\nCould there be found the wretch so dull and blind,\nThat would not choose himself from self to take,\nAnd give to her? Yet even if she grew\nMy loving friend, what more could I bestow,\nWhen in her coldness, while she seems my foe,\nI love her better than I else could do?", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68030,8 +69971,10 @@ "title": "“All Nature urgently doth me advise, 
”", "body": "All Nature urgently doth me advise,\nImplore, compel, to follow thee, and cling\nTo my sole blessed thing.\nLove, who doth other loveliness despise,\nTo make me seek salvation only here,\nDoth in my heart destroy\nDesire of other joy,\nAnd only measure of delight allow\nIn beauty semblant to thine eye and brow;\nYet being no longer near\nTo you, clear eyes, its light hath ceased to shine,\nFor only where you dwell is heaven of mine.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68039,8 +69982,10 @@ "title": "“As oft as I am free to nourish faith 
”", "body": "As oft as I am free to nourish faith\nThat in my love may lie my happiness,\nWith wisdom old and word of soberness\nHumility reproveth me, and saith:\n“What canst thou hope within the vivid sun,\nSave be consumed, and find no PhƓnix-birth?”\nIn vain; for helping hand is nothing worth\nTo rescue life that fain would be undone.\nI hear her warn, my peril understand,\nYet inwardly discern a heart concealed,\nThat tortureth the more, the more I yield;\nBetween two Deaths my lady seems to stand,\nOne mystical, one hateful to espy;\nIrresolute, both soul and body die.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68048,8 +69993,10 @@ "title": "“The blossom-twinĂšd garland of her hair 
”", "body": "The blossom-twinĂšd garland of her hair\nDelighteth so to crown her sunny tress,\nThat flowers one before the other press\nTo be the first to kiss that forehead fair;\nHer gown all day puts on a blithesome air,\nClingeth, then floweth free for happiness;\nHer meshĂšd net rejoiceth to caress\nThe cheek whereby it lies, and nestle there;\nMore fortunate, her golden-pointed lace\nTaketh her breathing in as close a hold\nAs if it cherished what it may enfold;\nAnd simple zone that doth her waist embrace\nSeemeth to plead: “Here give me leave to stay!”\nWhat would my arms do, if they had their way?", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68057,8 +70004,10 @@ "title": "“The chief of artists can imagine nought 
”", "body": "The chief of artists can imagine nought,\nOther than form that hideth in a stone,\nBelow its surface veilĂšd; here alone\nArriveth hand, obedient to his thought.\nSo, fair and noble lady, e’en in thee,\nThe good I seek, the evil that I fly,\nRemain enveloped; whence reluctant, I\nCreate my aspiration’s contrary.\nIt is not love, ’tis not thy beauty fair,\nUngentle pride, thy fortune ruling so,\nNor destiny of mine, that hath to bear\nThe censure, if my genius faint and low,\nWhile Death and Pity both thou dost conceal,\nThough passionĂšd, can only Death reveal.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68066,8 +70015,10 @@ "title": "“For silver or for gold 
”", "body": "For silver or for gold,\nAfter in fire these have been made to flow,\nDoth wait the empty mould,\nThat shattered, will the lovely image show;\nThrough passion-ardor, so\nMy vacancy I store\nWith the divine unbounded loveliness\nOf her whom I adore,\nThe soul and essence of my fragileness,\nWhose beauty doth inpour,\nAnd occupy by passages so strait,\nThat broken I must be to liberate.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68075,8 +70026,10 @@ "title": "“From heaven he came, and clothed in mortal clay 
”", "body": "From heaven he came, and clothed in mortal clay,\nTraversed the vengeful and the chastening woes,\nLiving, again toward height eternal rose,\nFor us to win the light of saving day;\nResplendent star, whose undeservĂšd ray\nMade glory in the nest where I had birth;\nWhose recompense not all a stainĂšd earth,\nBut Thou his Maker, Thou alone couldst pay.\nDante I mean, and that unfair return\nEndured from a community ingrate,\nThat only to the just awardeth scorn;\nWould I were he! To equal fortune born,\nFor his pure virtue, for his exile stern,\nI would resign earth’s happiest estate.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68084,8 +70037,10 @@ "title": "“How came to pass that I am mine no more? 
”", "body": "How came to pass that I am mine no more?\nAh me!\nWho took myself from me\nTo draw more close to me\nThan ever I could be,\nMore dearly mine, than I myself before?\nAh me!\nHow reached he to the heart\nTouching no outward part?\nWho prithee may Love be,\nThat entered at the eyes,\nAnd if in breathĂšd sighs\nHe go abroad, increaseth inwardly?", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68093,8 +70048,10 @@ "title": "“How, lady, can the mind of man allow, 
”", "body": "How, lady, can the mind of man allow,\nWhat lapse of many ages hath made known,\nThat image shapen of pure mountain stone\nOutlive the life that did with life endow?\nBefore effect the very cause doth bow,\nAnd Art is crowned in Nature’s deep despair.\nI know, and prove it, carving form so fair,\nThat Time and Death admire, and break their vow.\nPower, therefore, I possess, to grant us twain\nEstate, in color, or in marble cold,\nThat spent a thousand summers, shall remain\nThe face of either, and all eyes behold\nHow thou wert beautiful, and gaze on me,\nWeary, yet justified in loving thee.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68102,8 +70059,10 @@ "title": "“However worship-worthy and complete 
”", "body": "However worship-worthy and complete\nBe deemed a work that many lovers know,\nMay live the man who doth not find it so,\nDeriving bitter from the lauded sweet.\nTaste is so rare, a thing so isolate,\nThat from the multitude it must recede,\nAlone upon internal joy to feed;\nWherefore in self retired, and passionate,\nI see what vieweth not the outer eye,\nCold to the soul and heedless of her sigh.\nThe world is blind, and from its praises vain\nHe learneth most who freest doth remain,\nSuffers, and hath a lesson in his pain.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68111,8 +70070,10 @@ "title": "“I deemed when erst upon my prospect shone 
”", "body": "I deemed when erst upon my prospect shone\nThe mateless splendor of thy beauty’s day,\nThat as an eagle seeks the sun alone,\nI might have rested only on a ray.\nWith lapse of time, mine error have I known,\nFor who would soar in angels’ company,\nOn stony ground his idle seed hath sown,\nLost words in air, and thought in deity.\nIf near at hand, I may not well abide\nThy brilliancy that overcometh sight,\nAnd far, appear to leave consoling light,\nAh, what shall I become? what friend, what guide,\nWill render aid, or plead my cause with thee,\nIf either thou consum’st or grievest me?", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68120,8 +70081,10 @@ "title": "“I feel myself more precious than of yore 
”", "body": "I feel myself more precious than of yore,\nNow that my life thy signature doth show,\nAs gem inscribed with its intaglio\nExcelleth pebble it appeared before,\nOr writ or painted page is valued more\nThan idle leaf discarded carelessly;\nSo I, the target of thine archery,\nGrow proud of marks I need not to deplore.\nSigned with thy seal, in confidence I dwell,\nAs one who journeyeth in woundless mail,\nOr hath his way protected by a spell;\nO’er fire and flood I equally prevail,\nDo works of healing by the signet’s might,\nPoison allay, and yield the blind their sight.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68129,8 +70092,10 @@ "title": "“I know not if it be the longed-for light 
”", "body": "I know not if it be the longed-for light\nOf its Creator, that the soul doth feel,\nOr long-retentive Memory reveal\nSome creature-beauty, dwelling inly bright;\nOr if a history, a dream, I keep\nTo eyes apparent, treasured in the heart,\nWhereof fermenteth some uneasy part,\nThat now, perchance, inclineth me to weep;\nI long, I seek, and find not any guide,\nNor whither, of myself have wit to know,\nYet vague perceive a presence point the way;\nSuch life I lead since thee my looks espied,\nFrom bitter change to sweet, from aye to no;\nI think, thine eyes lent that enkindling ray.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68138,8 +70103,10 @@ "title": "“If any beauteous thing 
”", "body": "If any beauteous thing\nCan human hope exalt to God on high,\nFor one who hath the vision made as I,\nAlone my lady may like comfort bring;\nWherefore it is not strange,\nIf from the rest I range\nTo love her, to pursue and supplicate;\n’Tis Nature’s law, not mine,\nThat bids the soul incline\nToward eyes reminding of its first estate,\nWhereby it hath recourse\nTo its own end and source,\nThe primal Love, that her with beauty storeth;\nHe loves the vassal, who the lord adoreth.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68147,8 +70114,10 @@ "title": "“If eyes avail heart-passion to declare 
”", "body": "If eyes avail heart-passion to declare,\nMy love requires no more explicit sign,\nFor eloquent enow are looks of mine,\nO dear my mistress, to convey my prayer.\nPerchance, more credulous than I believe,\nThou seest how purely doth my passion burn,\nAnd now art ready toward desire to turn,\nAs he who asketh mercy must receive.\nIf so befall, on that thrice happy day\nLet course of time be suddenly complete,\nThe sun give over his primeval race;\nThat through no merit of my own, I may\nHenceforth forever, my desirĂšd sweet\nIn these unworthy, eager arms embrace!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68156,8 +70125,10 @@ "title": "“If habit of the eyes engender ease, 
”", "body": "If habit of the eyes engender ease,\nFaint Reason on her way\nFeareth to go astray,\nLest inwardly she taketh\nFor beauty fair, what beauty quite forsaketh.\nLady, it doth appear\nThat ease and custom have not made you dear,\nFor that my looks are foreign to your own,\nToward whose confĂŹne my wishes dare not soar;\nI was inflamĂšd in a breath alone;\nYour feature I have gazed on once, no more.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68165,8 +70136,10 @@ "title": "“If happy heart make beautiful the face 
”", "body": "If happy heart make beautiful the face,\nBut sad heart foul; and for a lady’s sake\nBe born the cause that such effect doth make,\nHow hath she courage for refusing grace\nTo me, whose birth-star bright\nAccordeth the clear sight\nThat rightly chooseth between fair and fair?\nSure she who hath my mind\nProves to herself unkind,\nMy feature if she render full of care;\nFor if in likeness shown\nA painter leaves his own,\nSmall loveliness can wait\nOn labor of a hand disconsolate.\nThen let her please to favor mine estate,\nThat I may paint blithe heart and smiling eye;\nShe will grow fair, and not unlovely I.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68174,8 +70147,10 @@ "title": "“If my rude hammer lend enduring stone 
”", "body": "If my rude hammer lend enduring stone\nSimilitude of life, being swayed and plied\nBy arm of one who doth its labor guide,\nIt moveth with a motion not its own;\nBut that on high, which lieth by God’s throne,\nItself, and all beside makes beautiful;\nAnd if no tool be wrought without a tool,\nThe rest are fashioned by its power alone.\nAs falls a blow with greater force and heat\nThe further it descends, for forging mine,\nThe lifted hammer high as heaven flew;\nWherefore mine own will never be complete\nUnless perfected from the forge divine,\nFor that which shaped it earth may not renew.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68183,8 +70158,10 @@ "title": "“If one chaste love, one sacred piety 
”", "body": "If one chaste love, one sacred piety,\nOne fortune sharĂšd ’twixt two lovers so,\nThat either’s care from heart to heart may flow,\nImpelled by one desire, one energy;\nIf bodies both are by one soul controlled,\nThat wingĂšd bears them up to heaven’s gate;\nIf love, with one essay, doth penetrate\nAnd burn two bosoms with one shaft of gold;\nIf living each in other, self forgot,\nOne liking, one felicity, awake\nOne will to move toward one desirĂšd lot;\nIf thousand ties as holy, fail to make\nA thousandth part; the consecrated knot,\nShall pride, and pride alone, avail to break?", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68192,8 +70169,10 @@ "title": "“If that she own a feature passing fair, 
”", "body": "If that she own a feature passing fair,\nWhile void of happy liking live the rest,\nOught I affection toward the whole to bear,\nFor sake of beauty by the one possessed?\nThe lovely part, distrest,\nMy praise doth deprecate,\nAnd sue to Reason for her sisters’ sake,\nThat also they be cherished, and forgiven\nFor fault they did not mean. Then Love, irate,\nWho thinketh but on pain that they have given,\nSaith, in his court there lieth no appeal.\nYet Heaven willeth fondness that I feel,\nWhen toward her imperfection merciful,\nTime maketh her, for me, all beautiful.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68201,8 +70180,10 @@ "title": "“In alpine stone and pure 
”", "body": "In alpine stone and pure\nIf art may bid endure\nHer countenance as long as summers flow;\nWhat period should heaven on her bestow,\nIts own creation, radiant and free,\nFor others, as for me?\nAnd yet is she with fading life endued.\nMy Fortune then in her best foot is lame,\nIf Death the substance, Life the semblance claim.\nOn whom devolves the feud?\nOn Nature’s self, if of her sons alone\nThe work survive, and Time despoil her own.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68210,8 +70191,10 @@ "title": "“In mountain-marble white 
”", "body": "In mountain-marble white,\nDoth hide a statue bright,\nThat waxeth ever while the rock doth wane;\nE’en so from flesh-control\nThe timid trembling soul\nMine inward fair would liberate in vain.\nLady, I look to thee\nAlone to set me free,\nFor in myself doth will nor power remain.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68219,8 +70202,10 @@ "title": "“Love, be my teacher 
”", "body": "“Love, be my teacher, of thy courtesy;\nThe beauty, whither my regards aspire,\nDoth it exist? Or is what I admire\nMade beautiful by force of fantasy?\nThou, Love, must know, who in her company\nArrivest oft to vex me with desire,\nAlthough I would not choose to quench the fire,\nAbate its glow, nor part with any sigh.”\n\n“The beauty thou hast seen from her did shine,\nAnd meet thy mortal vision; but its ray\nAscended to the soul, a better place;\nThere seemed she lovely, for a thing divine\nHath joy of its own image; in this way\nCame beauty thou beholdest in her face.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68228,8 +70213,10 @@ "title": "“Mine eyes beheld no perishable thing, 
”", "body": "Mine eyes beheld no perishable thing,\nWhen holy peace I found in orbs of thine,\nAnd inwardly obtained a hope divine,\nA joy my kindred soul enamoring.\nUnless create God’s equal, to receive\nEquality with Him, she might depend\nOn shows external; because these deceive,\nToward universal form she doth transcend.\nLife cannot sate its wishes with decay,\nNor yet Eternity commandment take\nFrom years wherein we wither and grow chill;\n’Tis lust hath energy the soul to slay,\nNot love, that fain would the beloved make\nPerfect on earth, in heaven, more perfect still.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68237,8 +70224,10 @@ "title": "“My glances pleased with everything that’s fair 
”", "body": "My glances pleased with everything that’s fair,\nMy soul inclined toward her celestial gain,\nDevoid of power high heaven to attain,\nCan find no way, save only gazing there.\nStars loftiest above\nA radiancy lend,\nBidding desire ascend;\nThat light is here named Love.\nNor gentle heart hath any other friend\nTo fortify, enamor, and advise,\nThan countenance with star-resembling eyes.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68246,8 +70235,10 @@ "title": "“My love doth use no dwelling in the heart 
”", "body": "My love doth use no dwelling in the heart,\nBut maketh mansion only in the soul;\nFie entereth not where sinful hopes control,\nWhere error and mortality have part.\nFrom source in God commanded to depart,\nMyself He made the eye, the lustre, thee;\nI cannot choose but His eternal see,\nIn what, alas! is thy decaying part.\nNo more may fire be sundered from its heat,\nThan my desire from that celestial Fair\nWhence thine derives, wherewith it doth compare;\nMy soul, enkindled, maketh her retreat\nTo primal home, where love did first arise,\nThe Paradise secluded in thine eyes.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68255,8 +70246,10 @@ "title": "“My strong imagination cannot make 
”", "body": "My strong imagination cannot make\nFrom solid earth or air of reverie,\nThe form of beauty, that my will can take\nTo be its shield and armor against thee.\nAbandoned, I decline, till everything\nDoth vanish, that I am and I possess;\nThe thought that haply I may suffer less,\nDestroyeth me beyond all suffering.\nNo hope of safety, when to turn and flee\nWill only speed an enemy’s career;\nThe slower from the fleeter cannot stray;\nYet Love consoleth and caresseth me,\nDeclaring that my toil may yet be dear;\nA thing so costly is not thrown away.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68264,8 +70257,10 @@ "title": "“Not Death alone, but his indwelling dread 
”", "body": "Not Death alone, but his indwelling dread\nDoth succor and set free\nFrom sway of one unjust as cherishĂšd,\nWho constantly doth make assault on me;\nAs oft as flameth with unwonted force\nThe fire that folds me, I have no resource\nSave keep his image central in the heart;\nWhere Death abides, Love hath not any part.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68273,8 +70268,10 @@ "title": "“O blessed spirits, who in world’s release 
”", "body": "“O blessed spirits, who in world’s release\nAre recompensed for tears it could not pay,\nTell me if Love wage war on you alway,\nOr Death hath yonder made his quarrel cease?”\n“Our everlasting peace,\nAll time beyond, here loveth unacquaint\nWith mortal lovers’ sorrow and complaint.”\n“Then sad it is for me\nTo linger, as you see,\nLoving and serving where my heart doth faint.\nIf Heaven be lovers’ friend,\nAnd Earth their anguish lend,\nNeed I live long? The thought doth cause me fear;\nTo wistful lover minutes years appear.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68282,8 +70279,10 @@ "title": "“O love, thou art divine 
”", "body": "“O love, thou art divine,\nA god to work thy will;\nPrithee, for me fulfil\nAll I would do for thee, if deity were mine.”\n\n“He were no friend of thine,\nWho hope of lofty beauty should bestow\nOn one who presently must life forego;\nCome put thee in my place,\nThy idle prayer retrace;\nWilt thou implore a gain,\nThat granted, only would enlarge the pain?\nDeath hath a sober face;\nIf even the unhappy find him rude,\nHow stern to one arrived at full beatitude?”", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68291,8 +70290,10 @@ "title": "“O Night, O season in thy darkness sweet 
”", "body": "O Night, O season in thy darkness sweet\n(For every toil falls peaceful to its close),\nHe deemeth well who laudeth thy repose,\nAnd who exalteth, payeth homage meet.\nThy dewy shade, with quiet falling slow,\nDivides the fret of never-pausing thought;\nFrom deep of being to the summit brought,\nIn dream thou guidst me where I hope to go.\nShadow of Death, the safe protecting gate\nBarred by the soul against her hunter Grief,\nOf human woe the final, only cure;\nThe fever of the blood dost thou abate,\nDry lingering tears, give weariness relief,\nAnd anger steal from him who liveth pure.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68300,8 +70301,10 @@ "title": "“O spirit nobly born, wherein we see 
”", "body": "O spirit nobly born, wherein we see\nThrough all thy members innocent and dear,\nAs if reflected in a mirror clear,\nWhat Heaven and Nature can make life to be;\nO spirit gentle, where by faith we know\nIndwell what doth thy countenance declare,\nLove, Mercy, and Compassion, things so rare,\nThat never beauty hath combined them so;\nThe love to charm, the beauty to retain,\nThe tenderness, the pity, to uphold\nBy glances mild the soul that doubteth grace;\nWhat mortal law, what custom doth ordain,\nWhat doom unmerciful to young or old,\nThat Death may not forgive so fair a face?", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68309,8 +70312,10 @@ "title": "“One day to rise toward height where it began, 
”", "body": "One day to rise toward height where it began,\nThe form immortal to thine earthly cell,\nAn angel of compassion, came to dwell\nWith balm and healing for the mind of man.\nSuch life it is that doth thy life endear,\nAnd not thy face serene, its envelope;\nIn shadows that decline and disappear,\nImmortal Love cannot repose his hope.\n’Tis true of all things marvellous and fair,\nWhere Nature taketh forethought, and the sky\nIs bountiful in their nativity;\nGod’s grace doth nowhere else so far prevail\nAs where it shineth through a body’s veil;\nAnd that I love, for He is mirrored there.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68318,8 +70323,10 @@ "title": "“A pilgrim seeking my salvation still 
”", "body": "A pilgrim seeking my salvation still,\nFrom foot to foot I change,\nAs wearily I range\nQuite indeterminate ’twixt good and ill,\nA stumbling farer-by,\nWho, viewless of the sky,\nDoth lose his way and wander at his will.\nThe white and vacant leaf\nInscribe with word of thine;\nLet love and pity come to my relief,\nAnd liberate my soul\nFrom dark and doubt-control\nFor petty period that yet is mine.\nLady, I ask thy saintliness divine,\nIf heaven on high a lower seat provide\nFor shamefast sin, than virtue satisfied?", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68327,8 +70334,10 @@ "title": "“Some deed or form of our humanity 
”", "body": "Some deed or form of our humanity\nWhen genius hath conceived of art divine,\nHer primal birth, an incomplete design,\nIs shaped in stuff of humble quality.\nMore late, in living marble’s purity\nThe chisel keepeth promise to the full;\nReborn is the idea so beautiful,\nThat it belongeth to eternity.\nSo me did Nature make the model rude,\nThe model of myself, a better thing\nBy nobleness of thine to be renewed;\nIf thy compassion, its work cherishing,\nEnlarge, and pare; mine ardor unsubdued\nAwaiteth at thy hand what chastening!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68336,8 +70345,10 @@ "title": "“That womanhood more tender and less cold 
”", "body": "That womanhood more tender and less cold\nBe clothed with beauty equal and the same,\nI pray that heaven may from thee reclaim\nHer gifts, that hourly perish and grow old,\nOf thy serene and radiant face remould\nA gentle heavenly form, and Love assign\nThe task to store a heart more mild than thine\nWith mercies sweet and charities untold.\nMy sighs let him preserve, from every place\nMy fallen wasted tears unite again,\nAnd on the friend of this new fair bestow.\nThus may befall, that he who sues for grace\nCompassion shall awaken by my pain,\nAnd love that I have lost be garnered so.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68345,8 +70356,10 @@ "title": "“Though true it be, that Charity divine 
”", "body": "Though true it be, that Charity divine\nShow mirrored in yon lovely face of thine,\nYet, lady, moves the distant hope so slow,\nThat from thy beauty I lack power to go;\nThe pilgrim soul, that would with thee delay,\nFinds rough and stern the strait and narrow way.\nMy time I therefore part,\nTo eyes give day, and darkness to the heart,\nTo last the water, and to first the fire,\nNo interval, toward heaven to aspire.\nA destiny of birth\nEnchained me to the earth\nIn grant of thee, save mercy of the sky\nPlease to descend, and lift my heart on high;\nHeart will not love what looks cannot espy.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68354,8 +70367,10 @@ "title": "“Thoughts of a man, nay of a god alone, 
”", "body": "Thoughts of a man, nay of a god alone,\nHer lips of woman render eloquent;\nWhence I, who listen purely with content,\nMay nevermore depart and be mine own.\nSince she my life hath taken,\nAnd self have I forsaken,\nI pity self that I was wont to be.\nFrom wavering will astray\nHer fair face maketh free,\nTill other beauty death appears to me.\nThou, who dost souls convey\nTo Paradise through chastening fire and wave,\nLest I to self return, dear lady, save!", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68363,8 +70378,10 @@ "title": "“Thy lucent-crownĂšd beauty to attain 
”", "body": "Thy lucent-crownĂšd beauty to attain\nUpon a narrow and laborious way,\nThe pilgrim vainly maketh his essay,\nSave thy humility his feet forestall;\nThe path aspireth while the strength doth wane,\nAnd midway on the road I pant and fall.\nAlthough thy loveliness celestiĂ€l\nBe heaven’s thing, yet aye it doth delight\nThe heart inclined toward stranger of the height;\nWherefore thy sweetness full to comprehend,\nI long to have thee stoop, and condescend\nAs low as I, of the idea content,\nIf thy disdain severe and prescient\nItself forgive for sinfulness of mine,\nTo love thee lowly, and to hate divine.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68372,8 +70389,10 @@ "title": "“Thy sweetness had no need of cord or chain 
”", "body": "Thy sweetness had no need of cord or chain\nIts prisoner to bind;\nToo well I bear in mind,\nHow I was conquered by a glance alone;\nThe heart subdued by many an ancient pain\nHath lost the fortitude it erst did own.\nYet who hath ever known,\nThat wakened by a look, in time so brief,\nA withered tree should kindle and bear leaf?", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68381,8 +70400,10 @@ "title": "“’Tis burdensome, however it be sweet 
”", "body": "’Tis burdensome, however it be sweet,\nThe friendly boon that doth oblige the friend;\nMy liberty, thy courtesy to meet,\nWorse than if robbed, doth with true love contend.\nThe soul of friendship is equality;\nIf friend more freely than his fellow give,\nAriseth rivalry;\nThe first excelleth, last doth not forgive.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68390,8 +70411,10 @@ "title": "“When PhƓbus hath no mind to strain and press 
”", "body": "When PhƓbus hath no mind to strain and press\nOur chilly sphere in his embraces bright,\nHis negligence the multitude call Night,\nA name of absence, till he glow again.\nSo impotent is she, so weak and vain,\nThat kindle up a torch, its petty light\nDoth work her death; and frame she hath so slight,\nThat flashing of a flint will rend in twain.\nIf Night in her own self be anything,\nCall her the daughter of the Earth and Sun,\nThe last creating, first receiving shade.\nBe what she may, how glorify a thing\nWidowed, dim-eyed, so easily undone,\nThat glowworm’s lantern turneth her afraid?", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68399,8 +70422,10 @@ "title": "“Who theeward draws me, spite my striving vain? 
”", "body": "Who theeward draws me, spite my striving vain?\nAh woe is me!\nAm I at once imprisonĂšd and free?\nIf thou dost chain me without any chain,\nAnd handless, armless, all my life embrace,\nWho shall defend me from thy lovely face?", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68408,8 +70433,10 @@ "title": "“With thy clear eyes I view a radiance fair 
”", "body": "With thy clear eyes I view a radiance fair,\nBefore to my blind vision quite unknown;\nI carry with thy feet a weight, mine own,\nOf halting steps, were never free to bear;\nUpon thy wings I soar to heaven, and there\nBy thy swift genius are its glories shown;\nI pale and redden at thy choice alone,\nGrow chill in sunlight, warm in frosty air.\nThy will is evermore my sole desire,\nWithin thy heart conceived each wish of mine,\nMy accents framĂšd purely of thy breath;\nLike to the moon am I, that hath no fire,\nBut only is beheld in heaven to shine\nAccording as the sun illumineth.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68417,8 +70444,10 @@ "title": "“Year after year, essay beyond essay 
”", "body": "Year after year, essay beyond essay,\nSeeking, the lessoned maker doth arrive\nAt the idea, he leaveth aye alive\nIn alpine marble, though his life be flown;\nFor only in the twilight of his day\nHe reacheth what is noble and his own.\nThus Nature, long astray\nFrom age to age, from face to fairer face,\nHath finally achieved thy perfect grace,\nWhen she herself is old, and near her end.\nTherein I find to dwell\nA fear, that with thy loveliness doth blend,\nAnd my desire toward passion strange compel;\nI cannot think or tell,\nIf sweet or painful be thy beauty bright,\nThe worlds conclusion, or my love-delight.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William Wells Newell", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "William Wells Newell" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -68477,7 +70506,6 @@ "title": "“The Akkerman Steppe”", "body": "Across sea-meadows measureless I go,\nMy wagon sinking under grass so tall\nThe flowery petals in foam on me fall,\nAnd blossom-isles float by I do not know.\nNo pathway can the deepening twilight show;\nI seek the beckoning stars which sailors call,\nAnd watch the clouds. What lies there brightening all?\nThe Dneister’s, the steppe-ocean’s evening glow!\nThe silence! I can hear far flight of cranes--\nSo far the eyes of eagle could not reach--\nAnd bees and blossoms speaking each to each;\nThe serpent slipping adown grassy lanes;\nFrom my far home if word could come to me!--\nYet none will come. On, o’er the meadow-sea.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edna Worthley Underwood", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Crimean Sonnets", @@ -68486,6 +70514,9 @@ "year": 1825 } }, + "translators": [ + "Edna Worthley Underwood" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -68496,7 +70527,6 @@ "title": "“The Calm of the Sea”", "body": "The flag on the pavilion barely stirs,\nThe water quivers gently in the sun\nLike some young promised maiden dreaming on,\nHalf-waking, of the joy that shall be hers,\nThe sails upon the masts’ bare cylinders\nAre furled like banners when the war is done;\nThe ship rocks, chained on waters halcyon,\nWith idle sailors, laughing passengers.\nO sea, among thy happy creatures, deep\nBelow, a polyp slumbers through the storm,\nIts long arms ever lifted, poised to dart.\nO thought, the hydra, memory, asleep\nThrough evil days, in peace will lift its form\nAnd plunge its talons in thy quiet heart.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Kenneth R. MacKenzie", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Crimean Sonnets", @@ -68505,6 +70535,9 @@ "year": 1825 } }, + "translators": [ + "Kenneth R. MacKenzie" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68523,7 +70556,6 @@ "title": "“The Pilgrim”", "body": "A rich and lovely country wide unrolled,\nA fair face by me, heavens where white clouds sail,\nWhy does my heart forever still bewail\nFar-distant lands, more distant days of old?\nLitwa! your roaring forests sang more bold\nThan Salhir maid, Baydary nightingale;\nI’d rather walk your marshes than this vale\nOf mulberries, and pineapples of gold.\nHere are new pleasures, and I am so far!\nWhy must I always sigh distractedly\nFor her I loved when first my morning star\nArose? In that dear house I may not see,\nWhere yet the tokens of her lover are,\nDoes she still walk my ways and think of me?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edna Worthley Underwood", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Crimean Sonnets", @@ -68532,6 +70564,9 @@ "year": 1825 } }, + "translators": [ + "Edna Worthley Underwood" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68539,8 +70574,10 @@ "title": "“The Romantic”", "body": "“Silly girl, listen!”\nBut she doesn’t listen\nWhile the village roofs glisten,\nBright in the sun.\n“Silly girl, what do you do there,\nAs if there were someone to view there,\nA face to gaze on and greet there,\nA live form warmly to meet there,\nWhen there is no one, none, do you hear?”\nBut she doesn’t hear.\n\nLike a dead stone\nShe stands there alone,\nStaring ahead of her, peering around\nFor something that has to be found\nTill, suddenly spying it,\nShe touches it, clutches it,\nLaughing and crying.\n\nIs it you, my Johnny, my true love, my dear?\nI knew you would never forget me,\nEven in death! Come with me, let me\nShow you the way now!\nHold your breath, though,\nAnd tiptoe lest stepmother hear!\n\nWhat can she hear? They have made him\nA grave, two years ago laid him\nAway with the dead.\nSave me, Mother of God! I’m afraid.\nBut why? Why should I flee you now?\nWhat do I dread?\nNot Johnny! My Johnny won’t hurt me.\nIt is my Johnny! I see you now,\nYour eyes, your white shirt.\n\nBut it’s pale as linen you are,\nCold as winter you are!\nLet my lips take the cold from you,\nKiss the chill o f the mould from you.\n\nDearest love, let me die with you,\nIn the deep earth lie with you,\nFor this world is dark and dreary,\nI am lonely and weary!\n\nAlone among the unkind ones\nWho mock at my vision,\nMy tears their derision,\nSeeing nothing, the blind ones!\n\nDear God! A cock is crowing,\nWhitely glimmers the dawn.\nJohnny! Where are you going?\nDon’t leave me! I am forlorn!\n\nSo, caressing, talking aloud to her\nLover, she stumbles and falls,\nAnd her cry of anguish calls\nA pitying crowd to her.\n\n“Cross yourselves! It is, surely,\nHer Johnny come back from the grave:\nWhile he lived, he loved her entirely.\nMay God his soul now save!”\n\nHearing what they are saying,\nI, too, start praying.\n\n“The girl is out of her senses!”\nShouts a man with a learned air,\n“My eye and my lenses\nKnow there’s nothing there.\n\nGhosts are a myth\nOf ale-wife and blacksmith.\nClodhoppers! This is treason\nAgainst King Reason!”\n\n“Yet the girl loves,” I reply diffidently,\n“And the people believe reverently:\nFaith and love are more discerning\nThan lenses or learning.\n\nYou know the dead truths, not the living,\nThe world of things, not the world of loving.\nWhere does any miracle start?\nCold eye, look in your heart!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edna Worthley Underwood", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Edna Worthley Underwood" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -68551,7 +70588,6 @@ "title": "“The Ruins Of The Castle At Balaklava”", "body": "These castles heaped in shattered piles once graced\nAnd guarded you, Crimea, thankless land!\nToday like giant skulls set high they stand\nAnd shelter reptiles, or men more debased.\nUpon that tower a coat of arms is traced,\nAnd letters, some dead hero’s name, whose hand\nScourged armies. Now he sleeps forgotten and\nThe grapevine holds him, like a worm, embraced.\nHere Greeks have chiseled Attic ornament,\nItalians cast the Mongols into chains\nAnd pilgrims chanted slowly, Mecca bent:\nToday the black-winged vulture only reigns\nAs in a city, dead and pestilent,\nWhere mourning banners flutter to the plains.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edna Worthley Underwood", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Crimean Sonnets", @@ -68560,6 +70596,9 @@ "year": 1825 } }, + "translators": [ + "Edna Worthley Underwood" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68567,7 +70606,6 @@ "title": "“The Storm”", "body": "The rudder breaks, the sails are ripped, the roar\nOf waters mingles with the ominous sound\nOf pumps and panic voices; all around\nTorn ropes. The sun sets red, we hope no more--\nThe tempest howls in triumph; from the shore\nWhere wet cliffs rising tier on tier surround\nThe ocean chaos, death advances, bound\nTo carry ramparts broken long before,\nOne man has swooned, one wrings his hands, one sinks\nUpon his friends, embracing them. Some say\na prayer to death that it may pass them by.\nOne traveller sits apart and sadly thinks:\n“Happy the man who faints or who can pray\nOr has a friend to whom to say goodbye.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Kenneth R. MacKenzie", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Crimean Sonnets", @@ -68576,6 +70614,9 @@ "year": 1825 } }, + "translators": [ + "Kenneth R. MacKenzie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -68586,7 +70627,6 @@ "title": "“The Three Brothers Budrys”", "body": "Doughty Budrys the old, Lithuanian bold,\nHe has summoned his lusty sons three.\n“Your chargers stand idle, now saddle and bridle\nAnd out with your broadswords,” quoth he.\n\n“For with trumpets’ loud braying in Wilno they’re saying\nThat our crmies set forth to three goals;\nGallant Olgierd takes Russia and Kiejstut takes Prussia\nAnd Scirgiell--our neighbours the Poles,\n\nStout of heart and of hand, go, fight for your land\nWith the gods of your fathers to guide you;\nThough I mount not this year, yet my rede ye shall hear:\nYe are three and three roads ye shall ride you.\n\nBy Lake Ilmen’s broad shores where fair Novgorod lowers\nOne shall follow ’neath Olgierd’s device:\nThere are sables’ black tails there are silvery veils,\nThere are coins shining brightly like ice,\n\nWith Kiejstut’s hordes ample the next son shall trample\nThat dog’s breed, the Knights of the Cross;\nThere he amber thick-strown, vestments diamond-sown,\nAnd brocades al a marvellous gloss,\n\nIn the barren, stripped land beyond Niemen’s wide strand\nWhere goes Skirgiell, the third son shall ride;\nOnly buckler and sword will he get as reward,\nBut from there he shall bring him his bride.\n\nFor ’tis Poland the world over that’s the land lor a lover:\nAll the maids are like kittens at play;\nFaces whiter than milk, lashes soft as black silk,\nAnd their eyes--like the star-shine are they!\n\nFifty years are now sped and my bride is long dead,\nThe bright Pole I brought home from a raid:\nAnd yet still when I stand and gaze out toward that land,\nI remenber the face of that maid.”\n\nSo he ends and they turn, he has blessed them their journey:\nThey’ve armed them, they’ve mounted and fled:\nFall and winter both pass, never word comes, alas,\nAnd old Budrys had thought his sons dead.\n\nThrough the high-piling drift comes a youth riding swift,\n’Neath his mantle rich booty doth hide:\n“Ah, a Novgorod kettle full of silver-bright metal!”\n--“Nay, my father, a Polish bride!”\n\nThrough the high-piling drift comes a youth riding swill,\n’Neath his mantle rich booty doth hide:\n“Ah, amber, my son, in the German land won!”\n--“Nay, my father, a Polish bride!”\n\nThrough the high-piling drift rides the third. Ah, his gift,\n’Tis the pride of the west and the east!\nBut while yet it is hidden, old Budrys has bidden\nHis guests to the third wedding feast.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dorothea Prall Radin", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Ballads and Romances", @@ -68595,6 +70635,9 @@ "year": 1822 } }, + "translators": [ + "Dorothea Prall Radin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68602,7 +70645,6 @@ "title": "“Twardowski’s Wife”", "body": "Eating, drinking, smoking, laughter,\nReverly and wild to-do--\nThey shake the inn from floor to rafter\nWith huzzahing and halloo.\n\nThere Twardowski heads the table,\nArms akimbo, pasha-wise, And he shouts,\n“Show what you’re able”\nJokes and tricks and terrifies.\n\nRound a soldier playing bully,\nScolding, shoving lustily,\nHums his sword-blade--and a woolly\nRabbit in his place they see!\n\nAt a lawyer sitting drinking\nQuietly his bowl of grog\nHe has set his wallat clinking--\nAnd the lawyer is a dog!\n\nTo a tailor’s forehead clapping\nThree long tubes, he smacks his nose\nThrice, and at his sudden tapping,\nOut the Danzig vodka flows.\n\nHe had drained his cup already\nWhen the tankard gave a hum\nAnd a clank. “The devil!” said he,\n“Well, my friend, why have you come?”\n\nIn the cup a little devil\nOf a bob-tailed German brand,\nGreeted all the guests, most civil,\nBowing, prancing, hat in hand.\n\nThen from out the tankard jumping\nTo the flow, two ells he grows:\nClaws like hawk’s, a hooked nose, clumping\nOn one hen’s foot, so he goes.\n\n“Ah, Twardowski, brother, greeting!”\nSays he boldly, at his ease:\n“Did you not expect this meeting?\nI am Mephistopheles.\n\nOn Bald Mountain not so lately\nYou bequeathed to me your soul.\nWrote your name down accurately\nOn a bull’s hide for a scroll.\n\nAll my friends were at your orders:\nYou, when two years’ time had flown,\nWere to come to Rome. My warders\nThen should take you for their own.\n\nSeven years you’ve spent tormenting\nHell with magic, nor do you\nPlan your journey yet, frequenting\nInns, although your bond is due.\n\nVengeance, though you count upon her\nBeing late, at last strikes home,\nAnd I now arrest Your Honor--\nFor this inn is named The Rome.”\n\nAt this dictum so acerbum\nTwardowski fled, but as he ran\nThe devil cought him. “Where’s your verbum\nNobile,” he said, “my man?”\n\nWhat was to be done? A moment\nTill he forfeited his head!\nSwiftly then Twardowski reckoned\nOn a scheme to serve his stead.\n\n“Read, Mepfiisto, the condition\nOf the contract on your scroll;\nWhen the time of my perdition\nComes and you demand my soul,\n\nI am still to have one little\nRight: to set a threefold task:\nYou must do each jot and tittle\nOf whatever I may ask.\n\nSee the tavern sign, a stallion\nPainted on a canvas ground:\nLet me jump on the rapscallion,\nBreak away, and gallop round.\n\nTwist a whip of sand, moreover,\nFor me, and upon the brink\nOf the wood build me a cover\nWhere I may find food and drink.\n\nMake the walls of nutshells matching\nThe Carpathians in height;\nOut of Jews’ beards make the thatching\nAnd pack popy seed on tight.\n\nLook, here is a nail for measure,\nOne inch through, three inches long:\nWith three spikes, such is my pleasure\nNail each seed down, stout and strong.”\n\nJumping high for joy, Mephisto\nWaters, feeds and grooms the horse;\nTurns a whip of sand, and presto!\nIt stands ready for the course.\n\nThen Twardowski mounts the racer,\nMakes it trot and caracole;\nAnd the building was no facer--\nThere it stood, complete and whole!\n\n“Well, you’ve won that bout, Sir Devil!\nHere’s the second; do your best!\nJump in holy water, level\nWith your neck; the bowl’s been biest.”\n\nCoughing, spitting, ever faster\nSweats the devil at this check:\nBut the servant minds the master,\nPlunges in up Co his neck.\n\nOut he flew as if projected\nFrom a sling, and, snorting wrath,\nScreamed: “Now you’re our own elected!\nBrr! But what a vapour bath!”\n\n--“One more task before you get me--\nEven magic has an end--\nHere’s Madame Twardowski: Let me\nIntroduce my little friend.\n\nFor a year I’ll make my dwelling\nWith Beelzebub. Above\nYou shall pass the year in spelling\nMe as husband with my love.\n\nSwear her love and recognition\nAnd obedience unalloyed;\nFail in only one condition,\nAnd our contract’s null and void.”\n\nOne ear to Twardowski bending,\nOne eye on his wife, but more\nFeigning than in fact attending,\nSatan seeks to reach the door.\n\nWhile Twardowski taunts and teases\nAnd attempts to bar his way,\nThrough the keyhole, out he squeezes\nAnd is running yet, they say.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dorothea Prall Radin", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Ballads and Romances", @@ -68611,6 +70653,9 @@ "year": 1822 } }, + "translators": [ + "Dorothea Prall Radin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -68618,17 +70663,21 @@ "title": "“Uncertainty”", "body": "While I don’t see you, I don’t shed a tear\nI never lose my senses when you’re near,\nBut, with our meetings few and far between\nThere’s something missing, waiting to be seen.\nIs there a name for what I’m thinking of?\nAre we just friends? Or should I call this love?\n\nAs soon as we have said our last good-byes,\nYour image never floats before my eyes;\nBut more than once, when you have been long gone,\nI seemed to feel your presence linger on.\nI wonder then what I’ve been thinking of.\nAre we just friends? Or should I call this love?\n\nWhen I’m downcast, I never seek relief\nBy pouring out my heart in tales of grief;\nYet, as I wander aimlessly, once more\nI somehow end up knocking at your door;\nWhat brought me here? What am I thinking of?\nAre we just friends? Or should I call this love?\n\nI’d give my life to keep you sound and well,\nTo make you smile, I would descend to hell;\nBut though I’d climb the mountains, swim the seas\nI do not look to be your health and peace:\nAgain I ask, what am I thinking of?\nAre we just friends? or should I call this love?\n\nAnd when you place your hand upon my palm,\nI am enveloped in a blissful calm,\nPrefiguring some final, gentle rest;\nBut still my heart beats loudly in my breast\nAs if to ask: what are you thinking of?\nAre you two friends? or will you call this love?\n\nNot bardic spirit seized my mortal tongue\nWhen I thought of you and composed this song;\nBut still, I can’t help wondering sometimes:\nWhere did these notions come from, and these rhymes?\nIn heaven’s name, what I was dreaming of?\nAnd what had inspired me? Friendship or love?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edna Worthley Underwood", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Edna Worthley Underwood" + ], "tags": [] } }, "within-their-silent-perfect-glass": { "title": "“Within their silent perfect glass 
”", - "body": "Within their silent perfect glass\nThe mirror waters, vast and clear,\nReflect the silhouette of rocks,\nDark faces brooding on the shore.\n\nWithin their silent, perfect glass\nThe mirror waters show the sky;\nClouds skim across the mirror’s face,\nAnd dim its surface as they die.\n\nWithin their silent, perfect glass\nThe mirror waters image storm;\nThey glow with lightning, but the blast\nOf thunder do not mar their calm.\n\nThose mirror waters, as before,\nStill lie in silence, vast and clear.\n\nThe mirror me, I mirror them,\nAs true a glass as they I am:\nAnd as I turn away I leave\nThe images that gave them form.\n\nDark rocks must menace from the shore,\nAnd thunderheads grow large with rain;\nLightning must flash above the lake,\nAnd I must mirror and pass on,\nOnward and onward without end. ", + "body": "Within their silent perfect glass\nThe mirror waters, vast and clear,\nReflect the silhouette of rocks,\nDark faces brooding on the shore.\n\nWithin their silent, perfect glass\nThe mirror waters show the sky;\nClouds skim across the mirror’s face,\nAnd dim its surface as they die.\n\nWithin their silent, perfect glass\nThe mirror waters image storm;\nThey glow with lightning, but the blast\nOf thunder do not mar their calm.\n\nThose mirror waters, as before,\nStill lie in silence, vast and clear.\n\nThe mirror me, I mirror them,\nAs true a glass as they I am:\nAnd as I turn away I leave\nThe images that gave them form.\n\nDark rocks must menace from the shore,\nAnd thunderheads grow large with rain;\nLightning must flash above the lake,\nAnd I must mirror and pass on,\nOnward and onward without end.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Cecil Hemley", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Cecil Hemley" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -68690,10 +70739,10 @@ "title": "“Afternoon on a Hill”", "body": "I will be the gladdest thing\nUnder the sun!\nI will touch a hundred flowers\nAnd not pick one.\n\nI will look at cliffs and clouds\nWith quiet eyes\nWatch the wind bow down the grass\nAnd the grass rise.\n\nAnd when lights begin to show\nUp from the town\nI will mark which must be mine\nAnd then start down.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -68704,10 +70753,10 @@ "title": "“Alms”", "body": "My heart is what it was before,\nA house where people come and go;\nBut it is winter with your love,\nThe sashes are beset with snow.\n\nI light the lamp and lay the cloth,\nI blow the coals to blaze again;\nBut it is winter with your love,\nThe frost is thick upon the pane 
\n\nI know a winter when it comes:\nThe leaves are listless on the boughs;\nI watched your love a little while,\nAnd brought my plants into the house.\n\nI water them and turn them south,\nI snap the dead brown from the stem;\nBut it is winter with your love,\nI only tend and water them.\n\nThere was a time I stood and watched\nThe small, ill-natured sparrows’ fray;\nI loved the beggar that I fed,\nI cared for what he had to say,\n\nI stood and watched him out of sight:\nToday I reach around the door\nAnd set a bowl upon the step;\nMy heart is what it was before,\n\nBut it is winter with your love;\nI scatter crumbs upon the sill,\nAnd close the window,--and the birds\nMay take or leave them, as they will.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -68726,10 +70775,10 @@ "title": "“And you as well must die, beloved dust 
”", "body": "And you as well must die, beloved dust,\nAnd all your beauty stand you in no stead;\nThis flawless, vital hand, this perfect head,\nThis body of flame and steel, before the gust\nOf Death, or under his autumnal frost,\nShall be as any leaf, be no less dead\nThan the first leaf that fell,--this wonder fled.\nAltered, estranged, disintegrated, lost.\nNor shall my love avail you in your hour.\nIn spite of all my love, you will arise\nUpon that day and wander down the air\nObscurely as the unattended flower,\nIt mattering not how beautiful you were,\nOr how beloved above all else that dies.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -68740,10 +70789,10 @@ "title": "“The Anguish”", "body": "I would to God I were quenched and fed\nAs in my youth\nFrom the flask of song, and the good bread\nOf beauty richer than truth.\n\nThe anguish of the world is on my tongue.\nMy bowl is filled to the brim with it; there is more than I can eat.\nHappy are the toothless old and the toothless young,\nThat cannot rend this meat.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -68751,10 +70800,10 @@ "title": "“As to some lovely temple, tenantless 
”", "body": "As to some lovely temple, tenantless\nLong since, that once was sweet with shivering brass,\nKnowing well its altars ruined and the grass\nGrown up between the stones, yet from excess\nOf grief hard driven, or great loneliness,\nThe worshiper returns, and those who pass\nMarvel him crying on a name that was,--\nSo is it now with me in my distress.\nYour body was a temple to Delight;\nCold are its ashes whence the breath is fled,\nYet here one time your spirit was wont to move;\nHere might I hope to find you day or night,\nAnd here I come to look for you, my love,\nEven now, foolishly, knowing you are dead.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -68762,10 +70811,10 @@ "title": "“Ashes of Life”", "body": "Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;\nEat I must and sleep I will--and would that night were here!\nBut ah!--to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!\nWould that it were day again!--with twilight near!\n\nLove has gone and left me and I don’t know what to do;\nThis or that or what you will is all the same to me;\nBut all the things that I begin I leave before I’m through--\nThere’s little use in anything as far as I can see.\n\nLove has gone and left me--and the neighbours knock and borrow\nAnd life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse--\nAnd to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow\nThere’s this little street and this little house.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -68773,10 +70822,10 @@ "title": "“Assault”", "body": "I had forgotten how the frogs must sound\nAfter a year of silence, else I think\nI should not so have ventured forth alone\nAt dusk upon this unfrequented road.\n\nI am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk\nBetween me and the crying of the frogs?\nOh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,\nThat am a timid woman, on her way\nFrom one house to another!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -68798,10 +70847,10 @@ "title": "“The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver”", "body": "“Son,” said my mother,\nWhen I was knee-high,\n“you’ve need of clothes to cover you,\nand not a rag have I.”\n\n“There’s nothing in the house\nTo make a boy breeches,\nNor shears to cut a cloth with,\nNor thread to take stitches.”\n\n“There’s nothing in the house\nBut a loaf-end of rye,\nAnd a harp with a woman’s head\nNobody will buy,”\nAnd she began to cry.\n\nThat was in the early fall.\nWhen came the late fall,\n“Son,” she said, “the sight of you\nMakes your mother’s blood crawl,--”\n\n“Little skinny shoulder-blades\nSticking through your clothes!\nAnd where you’ll get a jacket from\nGod above knows.”\n\n“It’s lucky for me, lad,\nYour daddy’s in the ground,\nAnd can’t see the way I let\nHis son go around!”\nAnd she made a queer sound.\n\nThat was in the late fall.\nWhen the winter came,\nI’d not a pair of breeches\nNor a shirt to my name.\n\nI couldn’t go to school,\nOr out of doors to play.\nAnd all the other little boys\nPassed our way.\n\n“Son,” said my mother,\n“Come, climb into my lap,\nAnd I’ll chafe your little bones\nWhile you take a nap.”\n\nAnd, oh, but we were silly\nFor half and hour or more,\nMe with my long legs,\nDragging on the floor,\n\nA-rock-rock-rocking\nTo a mother-goose rhyme!\nOh, but we were happy\nFor half an hour’s time!\n\nBut there was I, a great boy,\nAnd what would folks say\nTo hear my mother singing me\nTo sleep all day,\nIn such a daft way?\n\nMen say the winter\nWas bad that year;\nFuel was scarce,\nAnd food was dear.\n\nA wind with a wolf’s head\nHowled about our door,\nAnd we burned up the chairs\nAnd sat upon the floor.\n\nAll that was left us\nWas a chair we couldn’t break,\nAnd the harp with a woman’s head\nNobody would take,\nFor song or pity’s sake.\n\nThe night before Christmas\nI cried with cold,\nI cried myself to sleep\nLike a two-year old.\n\nAnd in the deep night\nI felt my mother rise,\nAnd stare down upon me\nWith love in her eyes.\n\nI saw my mother sitting\nOn the one good chair,\nA light falling on her\nFrom I couldn’t tell where.\n\nLooking nineteen,\nAnd not a day older,\nAnd the harp with a woman’s head\nLeaned against her shoulder.\n\nHer thin fingers, moving\nIn the thin, tall strings,\nWere weav-weav-weaving\nWonderful things.\n\nMany bright threads,\nFrom where I couldn’t see,\nWere running through the harp-strings\nRapidly,\n\nAnd gold threads whistling\nThrough my mother’s hand.\nI saw the web grow,\nAnd the pattern expand.\n\nShe wove a child’s jacket,\nAnd when it was done\nShe laid it on the floor\nAnd wove another one.\n\nShe wove a red cloak\nSo regal to see,\n“She’s made it for a king’s son,”\nI said, “and not for me.”\nBut I knew it was for me.\n\nShe wove a pair of breeches\nQuicker than that!\nShe wove a pair of boots\nAnd a little cocked hat.\n\nShe wove a pair of mittens,\nShw wove a little blouse,\nShe wove all night\nIn the still, cold house.\n\nShe sang as she worked,\nAnd the harp-strings spoke;\nHer voice never faltered,\nAnd the thread never broke,\nAnd when I awoke,--\n\nThere sat my mother\nWith the harp against her shoulder,\nLooking nineteeen,\nAnd not a day older,\n\nA smile about her lips,\nAnd a light about her head,\nAnd her hands in the harp-strings\nFrozen dead.\n\nAnd piled beside her\nAnd toppling to the skies,\nWere the clothes of a king’s son,\nJust my size.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "christmas_eve" @@ -68820,10 +70869,10 @@ "title": "“The Betrothal”", "body": "Oh, come, my lad, or go, my lad,\nAnd love me if you like.\nI shall not hear the door shut\nNor the knocker strike.\n\nOh, bring me gifts or beg me gifts,\nAnd wed me if you will.\nI’d make a man a good wife,\nSensible and still.\n\nAnd why should I be cold, my lad,\nAnd why should you repine,\nBecause I love a dark head\nThat never will be mine?\n\nI might as well be easing you\nAs lie alone in bed\nAnd waste the night in wanting\nA cruel dark head.\n\nYou might as well be calling yours\nWhat never will be his,\nAnd one of us be happy.\nThere’s few enough as is.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -68831,10 +70880,10 @@ "title": "“The Blue-Flag in the Bog”", "body": "God had called us, and we came;\nOur loved Earth to ashes left;\nHeaven was a neighbor’s house,\nOpen to us, bereft.\n\nGay the lights of Heaven showed,\nAnd ’twas God who walked ahead;\nYet I wept along the road,\nWanting my own house instead.\n\nWept unseen, unheeded cried,\n“All you things my eyes have kissed,\nFare you well! We meet no more,\nLovely, lovely tattered mist!\n\nWeary wings that rise and fall\nAll day long above the fire!”--\nRed with heat was every wall,\nRough with heat was every wire--\n\n“Fare you well, you little winds\nThat the flying embers chase!\nFare you well, you shuddering day,\nWith your hands before your face!\n\nAnd, ah, blackened by strange blight,\nOr to a false sun unfurled,\nNow forevermore goodbye,\nAll the gardens in the world!\n\nOn the windless hills of Heaven,\nThat I have no wish to see,\nWhite, eternal lilies stand,\nBy a lake of ebony.\n\nBut the Earth forevermore\nIs a place where nothing grows,--\nDawn will come, and no bud break;\nEvening, and no blossom close.\n\nSpring will come, and wander slow\nOver an indifferent land,\nStand beside an empty creek,\nHold a dead seed in her hand.”\n\nGod had called us, and we came,\nBut the blessed road I trod\nWas a bitter road to me,\nAnd at heart I questioned God.\n\n“Though in Heaven,” I said, “be all\nThat the heart would most desire,\nHeld Earth naught save souls of sinners\nWorth the saving from a fire?\n\nWithered grass,--the wasted growing!\nAimless ache of laden boughs!”\nLittle things God had forgotten\nCalled me, from my burning house.\n\n“Though in Heaven,” I said, “be all\nThat the eye could ask to see,\nAll the things I ever knew\nAre this blaze in back of me.”\n\n“Though in Heaven,” I said, “be all\nThat the ear could think to lack,\nAll the things I ever knew\nAre this roaring at my back.”\n\nIt was God who walked ahead,\nLike a shepherd to the fold;\nIn his footsteps fared the weak,\nAnd the weary and the old,\n\nGlad enough of gladness over,\nReady for the peace to be,--\nBut a thing God had forgotten\nWas the growing bones of me.\n\nAnd I drew a bit apart,\nAnd I lagged a bit behind,\nAnd I thought on Peace Eternal,\nLest He look into my mind:\n\nAnd I gazed upon the sky,\nAnd I thought of Heavenly Rest,--\nAnd I slipped away like water\nThrough the fingers of the blest!\n\nAll their eyes were fixed on Glory,\nNot a glance brushed over me;\n“Alleluia! Alleluia!”\nUp the road,--and I was free.\n\nAnd my heart rose like a freshet,\nAnd it swept me on before,\nGiddy as a whirling stick,\nTill I felt the earth once more.\n\nAll the earth was charred and black,\nFire had swept from pole to pole;\nAnd the bottom of the sea\nWas as brittle as a bowl;\n\nAnd the timbered mountain-top\nWas as naked as a skull,--\nNothing left, nothing left,\nOf the Earth so beautiful!\n\n“Earth,” I said, “how can I leave you?”\n“You are all I have,” I said;\n“What is left to take my mind up,\nLiving always, and you dead?”\n\n“Speak!” I said, “Oh, tell me something!\nMake a sign that I can see!\nFor a keepsake! To keep always!\nQuick!--before God misses me!”\n\nAnd I listened for a voice;--\nBut my heart was all I heard;\nNot a screech-owl, not a loon,\nNot a tree-toad said a word.\n\nAnd I waited for a sign;--\nCoals and cinders, nothing more;\nAnd a little cloud of smoke\nFloating on a valley floor.\n\nAnd I peered into the smoke\nTill it rotted, like a fog:--\nThere, encompassed round by fire,\nStood a blue-flag in a bog!\n\nLittle flames came wading out,\nStraining, straining towards its stem,\nBut it was so blue and tall\nThat it scorned to think of them!\n\nRed and thirsty were their tongues,\nAs the tongues of wolves must be,\nBut it was so blue and tall--\nOh, I laughed, I cried, to see!\n\nAll my heart became a tear,\nAll my soul became a tower,\nNever loved I anything\nAs I loved that tall blue flower!\n\nIt was all the little boats\nThat had ever sailed the sea,\nIt was all the little books\nThat had gone to school with me;\n\nOn its roots like iron claws\nRearing up so blue and tall,--\nIt was all the gallant Earth\nWith its back against a wall!\n\nIn a breath, ere I had breathed,--\nOh, I laughed, I cried, to see!--\nI was kneeling at its side,\nAnd it leaned its head on me!\n\nCrumbling stones and sliding sand\nIs the road to Heaven now;\nIcy at my straining knees\nDrags the awful under-tow;\n\nSoon but stepping-stones of dust\nWill the road to Heaven be,--\nFather, Son and Holy Ghost,\nReach a hand and rescue me!\n\n“There--there, my blue-flag flower;\nHush--hush--go to sleep;\nThat is only God you hear,\nCounting up His folded sheep!\n\nLullabye--lullabye--\nThat is only God that calls,\nMissing me, seeking me,\nEre the road to nothing falls!\n\nHe will set His mighty feet\nFirmly on the sliding sand;\nLike a little frightened bird\nI will creep into His hand;\n\nI will tell Him all my grief,\nI will tell Him all my sin;\nHe will give me half His robe\nFor a cloak to wrap you in.\n\nLullabye--lullabye--”\nRocks the burnt-out planet free!--\nFather, Son and Holy Ghost,\nReach a hand and rescue me!\n\nAh, the voice of love at last!\nLo, at last the face of light!\nAnd the whole of His white robe\nFor a cloak against the night!\n\nAnd upon my heart asleep\nAll the things I ever knew!--\n“Holds Heaven not some cranny, Lord,\nFor a flower so tall and blue?”\n\nAll’s well and all’s well!\nGay the lights of Heaven show!\nIn some moist and Heavenly place\nWe will set it out to grow.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -68853,10 +70902,10 @@ "title": "“Burial”", "body": "Mine is a body that should die at sea!\nAnd have for a grave, instead of a grave\nSix feet deep and the length of me,\nAll the water that is under the wave!\nAnd terrible fishes to seize my flesh,\nSuch as a living man might fear,\nAnd eat me while I am firm and fresh,--\nNot wait till I’ve been dead for a year!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -68864,10 +70913,10 @@ "title": "“Cherish you then the hope I shall forget 
”", "body": "Cherish you then the hope I shall forget\nAt length, my lord, Pieria?--put away\nFor your so passing sake, this mouth of clay\nThese mortal bones against my body set,\nFor all the puny fever and frail sweat\nOf human love,--renounce for these, I say,\nThe Singing Mountain’s memory, and betray\nThe silent lyre that hangs upon me yet?\nAh, but indeed, some day shall you awake,\nRather, from dreams of me, that at your side\nSo many nights, a lover and a bride,\nBut stern in my soul’s chastity, have lain,\nTo walk the world forever for my sake,\nAnd in each chamber find me gone again!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -68875,10 +70924,10 @@ "title": "“City Trees”", "body": "The trees along this city street\nSave for the traffic and the trains\nWould make a sound as thin and sweet\nAs trees in country lanes.\n\nAnd people standing in their shade\nOut of a shower undoubtedly\nWould hear such music as is made\nUpon a country tree.\n\nOh little leaves that are so dumb\nAgainst the shrieking city air\nI watch you when the wind has come--\nI know what sound is there.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -68894,10 +70943,10 @@ "title": "“Daphne”", "body": "Why do you follow me?--\nAny moment I can be\nNothing but a laurel-tree.\n\nAny moment of the chase\nI can leave you in my place\nA pink bough for your embrace.\n\nYet if over hill and hollow\nStill it is your will to follow,\nI am off;--to heel, Apollo!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -68932,10 +70981,10 @@ "title": "“The Dream”", "body": "Love, if I weep it will not matter,\nAnd if you laugh I shall not care;\nFoolish am I to think about it,\nBut it is good to feel you there.\n\nLove, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,--\nWhite and awful the moonlight reached\nOver the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,\nThere was a shutter loose,--it screeched!\n\nSwung in the wind,--and no wind blowing!--\nI was afraid, and turned to you,\nPut out my hand to you for comfort,--\nAnd you were gone! Cold, cold as dew,\n\nUnder my hand the moonlight lay!\nLove, if you laugh I shall not care,\nBut if I weep it will not matter,--\nAh, it is good to feel you there!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -68943,10 +70992,10 @@ "title": "“Ebb”", "body": "I know what my heart is like\n Since your love died:\nIt is like a hollow ledge\nHolding a little pool\n Left there by the tide,\n A little tepid pool,\nDrying inward from the edge.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -68954,10 +71003,10 @@ "title": "“Eel-Grass”", "body": "No matter what I say,\nAll that I really love\nIs the rain that flattens on the bay,\nAnd the eel-grass in the cove;\nThe jingle-shells that lie and bleach\nAt the tide-line, and the trace\nOf higher tides along the beach:\nNothing in this place.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -68965,10 +71014,10 @@ "title": "“Elaine”", "body": "Oh come again to Astolat!\nI will not ask you to be kind.\nAnd you may go when you will go\nAnd I will stay behind.\n\nI will not say how dear you are\nOr ask you if you hold me dear\nOr trouble you with things for you\nThe way I did last year.\n\nSo still the orchard Lancelot\nSo very still the lake shall be\nYou could not guess--though you should guess--\nWhat is become of me.\n\nSo wide shall be the garden-walk\nThe garden-seat so very wide\nYou needs must think--if you should think--\nThe lily maid had died.\n\nSave that a little way away\nI’d watch you for a little while\nTo see you speak the way you speak\nAnd smile--if you should smile.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -68976,10 +71025,10 @@ "title": "“Elegy”", "body": "Let them bury your big eyes\nIn the secret earth securely,\nYour thin fingers, and your fair,\nSoft, indefinite-colored hair,--\nAll of these in some way, surely,\nFrom the secret earth shall rise;\nNot for these I sit and stare,\nBroken and bereft completely;\nYour young flesh that sat so neatly\nOn your little bones will sweetly\nBlossom in the air.\n\nBut your voice,--never the rushing\nOf a river underground,\nNot the rising of the wind\nIn the trees before the rain,\nNot the woodcock’s watery call,\nNot the note the white-throat utters,\nNot the feet of children pushing\nYellow leaves along the gutters\nIn the blue and bitter fall,\nShall content my musing mind\nFor the beauty of that sound\nThat in no new way at all\nEver will be heard again.\n\nSweetly through the sappy stalk\nOf the vigorous weed,\nHolding all it held before,\nCherished by the faithful sun,\nOn and on eternally\nShall your altered fluid run,\nBud and bloom and go to seed;\nBut your singing days are done;\nBut the music of your talk\nNever shall the chemistry\nOf the secret earth restore.\nAll your lovely words are spoken.\nOnce the ivory box is broken,\nBeats the golden bird no more.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -68987,10 +71036,10 @@ "title": "“Elegy before Death”", "body": "There will be rose and rhododendron\nWhen you are dead and under ground;\nStill will be heard from white syringas\nHeavy with bees, a sunny sound;\n\nStill will the tamaracks be raining\nAfter the rain has ceased, and still\nWill there be robins in the stubble,\nBrown sheep upon the warm green hill.\n\nSpring will not ail nor autumn falter;\nNothing will know that you are gone,\nSaving alone some sullen plough-land\nNone but yourself sets foot upon;\n\nSaving the may-weed and the pig-weed\nNothing will know that you are dead,--\nThese, and perhaps a useless wagon\nStanding beside some tumbled shed.\n\nOh, there will pass with your great passing\nLittle of beauty not your own,--\nOnly the light from common water,\nOnly the grace from simple stone!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -69001,10 +71050,10 @@ "title": "“Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare 
”", "body": "Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.\nLet all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,\nAnd lay them prone upon the earth and cease\nTo ponder on themselves, the while they stare\nAt nothing, intricately drawn nowhere\nIn shapes of shifting lineage; let geese\nGabble and hiss, but heroes seek release\nFrom dusty bondage into luminous air.\nO blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,\nWhen first the shaft into his vision shone\nOf light anatomized! Euclid alone\nHas looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they\nWho, though once only and then but far away,\nHave heard her massive sandal set on stone.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69012,10 +71061,10 @@ "title": "“Exiled”", "body": "Searching my heart for its true sorrow,\nThis is the thing I find to be:\nThat I am weary of words and people,\nSick of the city, wanting the sea;\n\nWanting the sticky, salty sweetness\nOf the strong wind and shattered spray;\nWanting the loud sound and the soft sound\nOf the big surf that breaks all day.\n\nAlways before about my dooryard,\nMarking the reach of the winter sea,\nRooted in sand and dragging drift-wood,\nStraggled the purple wild sweet-pea;\n\nAlways I climbed the wave at morning,\nShook the sand from my shoes at night,\nThat now am caught beneath great buildings,\nStricken with noise, confused with light.\n\nIf I could hear the green piles groaning\nUnder the windy wooden piers,\nSee once again the bobbing barrels,\nAnd the black sticks that fence the weirs,\n\nIf I could see the weedy mussels\nCrusting the wrecked and rotting hulls,\nHear once again the hungry crying\nOverhead, of the wheeling gulls,\n\nFeel once again the shanty straining\nUnder the turning of the tide,\nFear once again the rising freshet,\nDread the bell in the fog outside,--\n\nI should be happy,--that was happy\nAll day long on the coast of Maine!\nI have a need to hold and handle\nShells and anchors and ships again!\n\nI should be happy, that am happy\nNever at all since I came here.\nI am too long away from water.\nI have a need of water near.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69034,10 +71083,10 @@ "title": "“Feast”", "body": "I drank at every vine.\n The last was like the first.\nI came upon no wine\n So wonderful as thirst.\n\nI gnawed at every root.\n I ate of every plant.\nI came upon no fruit\n So wonderful as want.\n\nFeed the grape and bean\n To the vintner and monger;\nI will lie down lean\n With my thirst and my hunger.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -69048,10 +71097,10 @@ "title": "“First Fig”", "body": "My candle burns at both ends;\nIt will not last the night;\nBut ah my foes and oh my friends--\nIt gives a lovely light!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69078,10 +71127,10 @@ "title": "“God’s World”", "body": "O world I cannot hold thee close enough!\nThy winds thy wide grey skies!\nThy mists that roll and rise!\nThy woods this autumn day that ache and sag\nAnd all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag\nTo crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!\nWorld World I cannot get thee close enough!\n\nLong have I known a glory in it all\nBut never knew I this;\nHere such a passion is\nAs stretcheth me apart--Lord I do fear\nThou’st made the world too beautiful this year;\nMy soul is all but out of me--let fall\nNo burning leaf; prithee let no bird call.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -69092,10 +71141,10 @@ "title": "“Hearing your words, and not a word among them 
”", "body": "Hearing your words, and not a word among them\nTuned to my liking, on a salty day\nWhen inland woods were pushed by winds that flung them\nHissing to leeward like a ton of spray,\nI thought how off Matinicus the tide\nCame pounding in, came running though the Gut,\nWhile from the Rock the warning whistle cried,\nAnd children whimpered and the doors blew shut;\nThere in the autumn when the men go forth,\nWith slapping skirts the island women stand\nIn gardens stripped and scattered, peering north,\nWith dahlia tubers dripping from the hand:\nThe wind of their endurance, driving south,\nFlattened your words against your speaking mouth.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1931 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -69125,10 +71174,10 @@ "title": "“I know I am but summer to your heart”", "body": "I know I am but summer to your heart,\nAnd not the full four seasons of the year;\nAnd you must welcome from another part\nSuch noble moods as are not mine, my dear.\nNo gracious weight of golden fruits to sell\nHave I, nor any wise and wintry thing;\nAnd I have loved you all too long and well\nTo carry still the high sweet breast of Spring.\nWherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,\nI must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,\nThat you may hail anew the bird and rose\nWhen I come back to you, as summer comes.\nElse will you seek, at some not distant time,\nEven your summer in another clime.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -69155,10 +71204,10 @@ "title": "“I think I should have loved you presently 
”", "body": "I think I should have loved you presently,\nAnd given in earnest words I flung in jest;\nAnd lifted honest eyes for you to see,\nAnd caught your hand against my cheek and breast;\nAnd all my pretty follies flung aside\nThat won you to me, and beneath your gaze,\nNaked of reticence and shorn of pride,\nSpread like a chart my little wicked ways.\nI, that had been to you, had you remained,\nBut one more waking from a recurrent dream,\nCherish no less the certain stakes I gained,\nAnd walk your memory’s halls, austere, supreme,\nA ghost in marble of a girl you knew\nWho would have loved you in a day or two.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69177,10 +71226,10 @@ "title": "“Indifference”", "body": "I said,--for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come,--\n“I’ll hear his step and know his step when I am warm in bed;\nBut I’ll never leave my pillow, though there be some\nAs would let him in--and take him in with tears!” I said.\nI lay,--for Love was laggard, O, he came not until dawn,--\nI lay and listened for his step and could not get to sleep;\nAnd he found me at my window with my big cloak on,\nAll sorry with the tears some folks might weep!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69188,10 +71237,10 @@ "title": "“Inland”", "body": "People that build their houses inland,\nPeople that buy a plot of ground\nShaped like a house, and build a house there,\nFar from the sea-board, far from the sound\n\nOf water sucking the hollow ledges,\nTons of water striking the shore,--\nWhat do they long for, as I long for\nOne salt smell of the sea once more?\n\nPeople the waves have not awakened,\nSpanking the boats at the harbour’s head,\nWhat do they long for, as I long for,--\nStarting up in my inland bed,\n\nBeating the narrow walls, and finding\nNeither a window nor a door,\nScreaming to God for death by drowning,--\nOne salt taste of the sea once more?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69199,10 +71248,10 @@ "title": "“Intention to Escape from Him”", "body": "I think I will learn some beautiful language, useless for commercial\nPurposes, work hard at that.\nI think I will learn the Latin name of every songbird, not only in\nAmerica but wherever they sing.\n(Shun meditation, though; invite the controversial:\nIs the world flat? Do bats eat cats?) By digging hard I might\ndeflect that river, my mind, that uncontrollable thing,\nTurgid and yellow, srong to overflow its banks in spring,\ncarrying away bridges\nA bed of pebbles now, through which there trickles one clear\nnarrow stream, following a course henceforth nefast--\nDig, dig; and if I come to ledges, blast.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1931 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69210,10 +71259,10 @@ "title": "“Interim”", "body": "The room is full of you!--As I came in\nAnd closed the door behind me, all at once\nA something in the air, intangible,\nYet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!--\n\nSharp, unfamiliar odors have destroyed\nEach other room’s dear personality.\nThe heavy scent of damp, funereal flowers,--\nThe very essence, hush-distilled, of Death--\nHas strangled that habitual breath of home\nWhose expiration leaves all houses dead;\nAnd wheresoe’er I look is hideous change.\nSave here. Here ’twas as if a weed-choked gate\nHad opened at my touch, and I had stepped\nInto some long-forgot, enchanted, strange,\nSweet garden of a thousand years ago\nAnd suddenly thought, “I have been here before!”\n\nYou are not here. I know that you are gone,\nAnd will not ever enter here again.\nAnd yet it seems to me, if I should speak,\nYour silent step must wake across the hall;\nIf I should turn my head, that your sweet eyes\nWould kiss me from the door.--So short a time\nTo teach my life its transposition to\nThis difficult and unaccustomed key!--\nThe room is as you left it; your last touch--\nA thoughtless pressure, knowing not itself\nAs saintly--hallows now each simple thing;\nHallows and glorifies, and glows between\nThe dust’s grey fingers like a shielded light.\n\nThere is your book, just as you laid it down,\nFace to the table,--I cannot believe\nThat you are gone!--Just then it seemed to me\nYou must be here. I almost laughed to think\nHow like reality the dream had been;\nYet knew before I laughed, and so was still.\nThat book, outspread, just as you laid it down!\nPerhaps you thought, “I wonder what comes next,\nAnd whether this or this will be the end”;\nSo rose, and left it, thinking to return.\n\nPerhaps that chair, when you arose and passed\nOut of the room, rocked silently a while\nEre it again was still. When you were gone\nForever from the room, perhaps that chair,\nStirred by your movement, rocked a little while,\nSilently, to and fro 
\n\nAnd here are the last words your fingers wrote,\nScrawled in broad characters across a page\nIn this brown book I gave you. Here your hand,\nGuiding your rapid pen, moved up and down.\nHere with a looping knot you crossed a “t,”\nAnd here another like it, just beyond\nThese two eccentric “e’s.” You were so small,\nAnd wrote so brave a hand! How strange it seems\nThat of all words these are the words you chose!\nAnd yet a simple choice; you did not know\nYou would not write again. If you had known--\nBut then, it does not matter,--and indeed\nIf you had known there was so little time\nYou would have dropped your pen and come to me\nAnd this page would be empty, and some phrase\nOther than this would hold my wonder now.\nYet, since you could not know, and it befell\nThat these are the last words your fingers wrote,\nThere is a dignity some might not see\nIn this, “I picked the first sweet-pea to-day.”\nTo-day! Was there an opening bud beside it\nYou left until to-morrow?--O my love,\nThe things that withered,--and you came not back\nThat day you filled this circle of my arms\nThat now is empty. (O my empty life!)\nThat day--that day you picked the first sweet-pea,--\nAnd brought it in to show me! I recall\nWith terrible distinctness how the smell\nOf your cool gardens drifted in with you.\nI know, you held it up for me to see\nAnd flushed because I looked not at the flower,\nBut at your face; and when behind my look\nYou saw such unmistakable intent\nYou laughed and brushed your flower against my lips.\n(You were the fairest thing God ever made,\nI think.) And then your hands above my heart\nDrew down its stem into a fastening,\nAnd while your head was bent I kissed your hair.\nI wonder if you knew. (Beloved hands!\nSomehow I cannot seem to see them still.\nSomehow I cannot seem to see the dust\nIn your bright hair.) What is the need of Heaven\nWhen earth can be so sweet?--If only God\nHad let us love,--and show the world the way!\nStrange cancellings must ink th’ eternal books\nWhen love-crossed-out will bring the answer right!\nThat first sweet-pea! I wonder where it is.\nIt seems to me I laid it down somewhere,\nAnd yet,--I am not sure. I am not sure,\nEven, if it was white or pink; for then\n’Twas much like any other flower to me\nSave that it was the first. I did not know\nThen, that it was the last. If I had known--\nBut then, it does not matter. Strange how few,\nAfter all’s said and done, the things that are\nOf moment. Few indeed! When I can make\nOf ten small words a rope to hang the world!\n“I had you and I have you now no more.”\nThere, there it dangles,--where’s the little truth\nThat can for long keep footing under that\nWhen its slack syllables tighten to a thought?\nHere, let me write it down! I wish to see\nJust how a thing like that will look on paper!\n\n“I had you and I have you now no more.”\n\nO little words, how can you run so straight\nAcross the page, beneath the weight you bear?\nHow can you fall apart, whom such a theme\nHas bound together, and hereafter aid\nIn trivial expression, that have been\nSo hideously dignified?--Would God\nThat tearing you apart would tear the thread\nI strung you on! Would God--O God, my mind\nStretches asunder on this merciless rack\nOf imagery! O, let me sleep a while!\nWould I could sleep, and wake to find me back\nIn that sweet summer afternoon with you.\nSummer? Tis summer still by the calendar!\nHow easily could God, if He so willed,\nSet back the world a little turn or two!\nCorrect its griefs, and bring its joys again!\n\nWe were so wholly one I had not thought\nThat we could die apart. I had not thought\nThat I could move,--and you be stiff and still!\nThat I could speak,--and you perforce be dumb!\nI think our heart-strings were, like warp and woof\nIn some firm fabric, woven in and out;\nYour golden filaments in fair design\nAcross my duller fibre. And to-day\nThe shining strip is rent; the exquisite\nFine pattern is destroyed; part of your heart\nAches in my breast; part of my heart lies chilled\nIn the damp earth with you. I have been tom\nIn two, and suffer for the rest of me.\nWhat is my life to me? And what am I\nTo life,--a ship whose star has guttered out?\nA Fear that in the deep night starts awake\nPerpetually, to find its senses strained\nAgainst the taut strings of the quivering air,\nAwaiting the return of some dread chord?\n\nDark, Dark, is all I find for metaphor;\nAll else were contrast,--save that contrast’s wall\nIs down, and all opposed things flow together\nInto a vast monotony, where night\nAnd day, and frost and thaw, and death and life,\nAre synonyms. What now--what now to me\nAre all the jabbering birds and foolish flowers\nThat clutter up the world? You were my song!\nNow, let discord scream! You were my flower!\nNow let the world grow weeds! For I shall not\nPlant things above your grave--(the common balm\nOf the conventional woe for its own wound!)\nAmid sensations rendered negative\nBy your elimination stands to-day,\nCertain, unmixed, the element of grief;\nI sorrow; and I shall not mock my truth\nWith travesties of suffering, nor seek\nTo effigy its incorporeal bulk\nIn little wry-faced images of woe.\n\nI cannot call you back; and I desire\nNo utterance of my immaterial voice.\nI cannot even turn my face this way\nOr that, and say, “My face is turned to you”;\nI know not where you are, I do not know\nIf Heaven hold you or if earth transmute,\nBody and soul, you into earth again;\nBut this I know:--not for one second’s space\nShall I insult my sight with visionings\nSuch as the credulous crowd so eager-eyed\nBeholds, self-conjured, in the empty air.\nLet the world wail! Let drip its easy tears!\nMy sorrow shall be dumb!\n\n--What do I say?\nGod! God!--God pity me! Am I gone mad\nThat I should spit upon a rosary?\nAm I become so shrunken? Would to God\nI too might feel that frenzied faith whose touch\nMakes temporal the most enduring grief;\nThough it must walk a while, as is its wont,\nWith wild lamenting! Would I too might weep\nWhere weeps the world and hangs its piteous wreaths\nFor its new dead! Not Truth, but Faith, it is\nThat keeps the world alive. If all at once\nFaith were to slacken,--that unconscious faith\nWhich must, I know, yet be the corner-stone\nOf all believing,--birds now flying fearless\nAcross would drop in terror to the earth;\nFishes would drown; and the all-governing reins\nWould tangle in the frantic hands of God\nAnd the worlds gallop headlong to destruction!\n\nO God, I see it now, and my sick brain\nStaggers and swoons! How often over me\nFlashes this breathlessness of sudden sight\nIn which I see the universe unrolled\nBefore me like a scroll and read thereon\nChaos and Doom, where helpless planets whirl\nDizzily round and round and round and round,\nLike tops across a table, gathering speed\nWith every spin, to waver on the edge\nOne instant--looking over--and the next\nTo shudder and lurch forward out of sight--\n\nAh, I am worn out--I am wearied out--\nIt is too much--I am but flesh and blood,\nAnd I must sleep. Though you were dead again,\nI am but flesh and blood and I must sleep.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69221,10 +71270,10 @@ "title": "“Into the golden vessel of great song 
”", "body": "Into the golden vessel of great song\nLet us pour all our passion; breast to breast\nLet other lovers lie, in love and rest;\nNot we,--articulate, so, but with the tongue\nOf all the world: the churning blood, the long\nShuddering quiet, the desperate hot palms pressed\nSharply together upon the escaping guest,\nThe common soul, unguarded, and grown strong.\nLonging alone is singer to the lute;\nLet still on nettles in the open sigh\nThe minstrel, that in slumber is as mute\nAs any man, and love be far and high,\nThat else forsakes the topmost branch, a fruit\nFound on the ground by every passer-by.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69232,10 +71281,10 @@ "title": "“Journey”", "body": "Ah could I lay me down in this long grass\nAnd close my eyes and let the quiet wind\nBlow over me--I am so tired so tired\nOf passing pleasant places! All my life\nFollowing Care along the dusty road\nHave I looked back at loveliness and sighed;\nYet at my hand an unrelenting hand\nTugged ever and I passed. All my life long\nOver my shoulder have I looked at peace\nAnd now I fain would lie in this long grass\nAnd close my eyes.\nYet onward!\nCat-birds call\nThrough the long afternoon and creeks at dusk\nAre guttural. Whip-poor-wills wake and cry\nDrawing the twilight close about their throats.\nOnly my heart makes answer. Eager vines\nGo up the rocks and wait; flushed apple-trees\nPause in their dance and break the ring for me;\nDim shady wood-roads redolent of fern\nAnd bayberry that through sweet bevies thread\nOf round-faced roses pink and petulant\nLook back and beckon ere they disappear.\nOnly my heart only my heart responds.\nYet ah my path is sweet on either side\nAll through the dragging day--sharp underfoot\nAnd hot and like dead mist the dry dust hangs--\nBut far oh far as passionate eye can reach\nAnd long ah long as rapturous eye can cling\nThe world is mine: blue hill still silver lake\nBroad field bright flower and the long white road\nA gateless garden and an open path:\nMy feet to follow and my heart to hold.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -69257,10 +71306,10 @@ "title": "“Lament”", "body": "Listen, children:\nYour father is dead.\nFrom his old coats\nI’ll make you little jackets;\nI’ll make you little trousers\nFrom his old pants.\nThere’ll be in his pockets\nThings he used to put there,\nKeys and pennies\nCovered with tobacco;\nDan shall have the pennies\nTo save in his bank;\nAnne shall have the keys\nTo make a pretty noise with.\nLife must go on,\nAnd the dead be forgotten;\nLife must go on,\nThough good men die;\nAnne, eat your breakfast;\nDan, take your medicine;\nLife must go on;\nI forget just why.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69276,10 +71325,10 @@ "title": "“Let you not say of me when I am old 
”", "body": "Let you not say of me when I am old,\nIn pretty worship of my withered hands\nForgetting who I am, and how the sands\nOf such a life as mine run red and gold\nEven to the ultimate sifting dust, “Behold,\nHere walketh passionless age!”--for there expands\nA curious superstition in these lands,\nAnd by its leave some weightless tales are told.\n\nIn me no lenten wicks watch out the night;\nI am the booth where Folly holds her fair;\nImpious no less in ruin than in strength,\nWhen I lie crumbled to the earth at length,\nLet you not say, “Upon this reverend site\nThe righteous groaned and beat their breasts in prayer.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69295,10 +71344,10 @@ "title": "“The Little Ghost”", "body": "I knew her for a little ghost\nThat in my garden walked;\nThe wall is high--higher than most--\nAnd the green gate was locked.\n\nAnd yet I did not think of that\nTill after she was gone--\nI knew her by the broad white hat,\nAll ruffled, she had on.\n\nBy the dear ruffles round her feet,\nBy her small hands that hung\nIn their lace mitts, austere and sweet,\nHer gown’s white folds among.\n\nI watched to see if she would stay,\nWhat she would do--and oh!\nShe looked as if she liked the way\nI let my garden grow!\n\nShe bent above my favourite mint\nWith conscious garden grace,\nShe smiled and smiled--there was no hint\nOf sadness in her face.\n\nShe held her gown on either side\nTo let her slippers show,\nAnd up the walk she went with pride,\nThe way great ladies go.\n\nAnd where the wall is built in new\nAnd is of ivy bare\nShe paused--then opened and passed through\nA gate that once was there.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69314,10 +71363,10 @@ "title": "“Low-Tide”", "body": "These wet rocks where the tide has been,\nBarnacled white and weeded brown\nAnd slimed beneath to a beautiful green,\nThese wet rocks where the tide went down\nWill show again when the tide is high\nFaint and perilous, far from shore,\nNo place to dream, but a place to die,--\nThe bottom of the sea once more.\nThere was a child that wandered through\nA giant’s empty house all day,--\nHouse full of wonderful things and new,\nBut no fit place for a child to play.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69333,10 +71382,10 @@ "title": "“Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring”", "body": "Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,\nAnd all the flowers that in the springtime grow,\nAnd dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow\nRising of the round moon, all throats that sing\nThe summer through, and each departing wing,\nAnd all the nests that the bared branches show,\nAnd all winds that in any weather blow,\nAnd all the storms that the four seasons bring.\n\nYou go no more on your exultant feet\nUp paths that only mist and morning knew,\nOr watch the wind, or listen to the beat\nOf a bird’s wings too high in air to view,--\nBut you were something more than young and sweet\nAnd fair,--and the long year remembers you.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -69358,10 +71407,10 @@ "title": "“Modern Declaration”", "body": "I, having loved ever since I was a child a few things, never having wavered\nIn these affections; never through shyness in the houses of the rich or in the presence of clergymen having denied these loves;\nNever when worked upon by cynics like chiropractors having grunted or clicked a vertebra to the discredit of these loves;\nNever when anxious to land a job having diminished them by a conniving smile; or when befuddled by drink\nJeered at them through heartache or lazily fondled the fingers of their alert enemies; declare\n\nThat I shall love you always.\nNo matter what party is in power;\nNo matter what temporarily expedient combination of allied interests wins the war;\nShall love you always.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1931 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69369,10 +71418,10 @@ "title": "“Never, never may the fruit be plucked from the bough 
”", "body": "Never, never may the fruit be plucked from the bough\nAnd gathered into barrels.\nHe that would eat of love must eat it where it hangs.\nThough the branches bend like reeds,\nThough the ripe fruit splash in the grass or wrinkle on the tree,\nHe that would eat of love may bear away with him\nOnly what his belly can hold,\nNothing in the apron,\nNothing in the pockets.\nNever, never may the fruit be gathered from the bough\nAnd harvested in barrels.\nThe winter of love is a cellar of empty bins,\nIn an orchard soft with rot.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -69399,10 +71448,10 @@ "title": "“Not in this chamber only at my birth 
”", "body": "Not in this chamber only at my birth--\nWhen the long hours of that mysterious night\nWere over, and the morning was in sight--\nI cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth\nI have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;\nAnd never shall one room contain me quite\nWho in so many rooms first saw the light,\nChild of all mothers, native of the earth.\n\nSo is no warmth for me at any fire\nTo-day, when the world’s fire has burned so low;\nI kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,\nAt that cold hearth which one time roared so strong,\nAnd straighten back in weariness, and long\nTo gather up my little gods and go.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69410,10 +71459,10 @@ "title": "“Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter 
”", "body": "Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter\nWe drenched the altars of Love’s sacred grove,\nShaking to earth green fruits, impatient after\nThe launching of the colored moths of Love.\nLove’s proper myrtle and his mother’s zone\nWe bound about our irreligious brows,\nAnd fettered him with garlands of our own,\nAnd spread a banquet in his frugal house.\nNot yet the god has spoken; but I fear\nThough we should break our bodies in his flame,\nAnd pour our blood upon his altar, here\nHenceforward is a grove without a name,\nA pasture to the shaggy goats of Pan,\nWhence flee forever a woman and a man.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69421,10 +71470,10 @@ "title": "“Ode to Silence”", "body": "Aye, but she?\nYour other sister and my other soul\nGrave Silence, lovelier\nThan the three loveliest maidens, what of her?\nClio, not you,\nNot you, Calliope,\nNor all your wanton line,\nNot Beauty’s perfect self shall comfort me\nFor Silence once departed,\nFor her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted,\nWhom evermore I follow wistfully,\nWandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and the four seasons through;\nThalia, not you,\nNot you, Melpomene,\nNot your incomparable feet, O thin Terpsichore, I seek in this great hall,\nBut one more pale, more pensive, most beloved of you all.\nI seek her from afar,\nI come from temples where her altars are,\nFrom groves that bear her name,\nNoisy with stricken victims now and sacrificial flame,\nAnd cymbals struck on high and strident faces\nObstreperous in her praise\nThey neither love nor know,\nA goddess of gone days,\nDeparted long ago,\nAbandoning the invaded shrines and fanes\nOf her old sanctuary,\nA deity obscure and legendary,\nOf whom there now remains,\nFor sages to decipher and priests to garble,\nOnly and for a little while her letters wedged in marble,\nWhich even now, behold, the friendly mumbling rain erases,\nAnd the inarticulate snow,\nLeaving at last of her least signs and traces\nNone whatsoever, nor whither she is vanished from these places.\n“She will love well,” I said,\n“If love be of that heart inhabiter,\nThe flowers of the dead;\nThe red anemone that with no sound\nMoves in the wind, and from another wound\nThat sprang, the heavily-sweet blue hyacinth,\nThat blossoms underground,\nAnd sallow poppies, will be dear to her.\nAnd will not Silence know\nIn the black shade of what obsidian steep\nStiffens the white narcissus numb with sleep?\n(Seed which Demeter’s daughter bore from home,\nUptorn by desperate fingers long ago,\nReluctant even as she,\nUndone Persephone,\nAnd even as she set out again to grow\nIn twilight, in perdition’s lean and inauspicious loam).\nShe will love well,” I said,\n“The flowers of the dead;\nWhere dark Persephone the winter round,\nUncomforted for home, uncomforted,\nLacking a sunny southern slope in northern Sicily,\nWith sullen pupils focussed on a dream,\nStares on the stagnant stream\nThat moats the unequivocable battlements of Hell,\nThere, there will she be found,\nShe that is Beauty veiled from men and Music in a swound.”\n\n“I long for Silence as they long for breath\nWhose helpless nostrils drink the bitter sea;\nWhat thing can be\nSo stout, what so redoubtable, in Death\nWhat fury, what considerable rage, if only she,\nUpon whose icy breast,\nUnquestioned, uncaressed,\nOne time I lay,\nAnd whom always I lack,\nEven to this day,\nBeing by no means from that frigid bosom weaned away,\nIf only she therewith be given me back?”\nI sought her down that dolorous labyrinth,\nWherein no shaft of sunlight ever fell,\nAnd in among the bloodless everywhere\nI sought her, but the air,\nBreathed many times and spent,\nWas fretful with a whispering discontent,\nAnd questioning me, importuning me to tell\nSome slightest tidings of the light of day they know no more,\nPlucking my sleeve, the eager shades were with me where I went.\nI paused at every grievous door,\nAnd harked a moment, holding up my hand,--and for a space\nA hush was on them, while they watched my face;\nAnd then they fell a-whispering as before;\nSo that I smiled at them and left them, seeing she was not there.\nI sought her, too,\nAmong the upper gods, although I knew\nShe was not like to be where feasting is,\nNor near to Heaven’s lord,\nBeing a thing abhorred\nAnd shunned of him, although a child of his,\n(Not yours, not yours; to you she owes not breath,\nMother of Song, being sown of Zeus upon a dream of Death).\nFearing to pass unvisited some place\nAnd later learn, too late, how all the while,\nWith her still face,\nShe had been standing there and seen me pass, without a smile,\nI sought her even to the sagging board whereat\nThe stout immortals sat;\nBut such a laughter shook the mighty hall\nNo one could hear me say:\nHad she been seen upon the Hill that day?\nAnd no one knew at all\nHow long I stood, or when at last I sighed and went away.\n\nThere is a garden lying in a lull\nBetween the mountains and the mountainous sea,\nI know not where, but which a dream diurnal\nPaints on my lids a moment till the hull\nBe lifted from the kernel\nAnd Slumber fed to me.\nYour foot-print is not there, Mnemosene,\nThough it would seem a ruined place and after\nYour lichenous heart, being full\nOf broken columns, caryatides\nThrown to the earth and fallen forward on their jointless knees,\nAnd urns funereal altered into dust\nMinuter than the ashes of the dead,\nAnd Psyche’s lamp out of the earth up-thrust,\nDripping itself in marble wax on what was once the bed\nOf Love, and his young body asleep, but now is dust instead.\n\nThere twists the bitter-sweet, the white wisteria Fastens its fingers in the strangling wall,\nAnd the wide crannies quicken with bright weeds;\nThere dumbly like a worm all day the still white orchid feeds;\nBut never an echo of your daughters’ laughter\nIs there, nor any sign of you at all\nSwells fungous from the rotten bough, grey mother of Pieria!\n\nOnly her shadow once upon a stone\nI saw,--and, lo, the shadow and the garden, too, were gone.\n\nI tell you you have done her body an ill,\nYou chatterers, you noisy crew!\nShe is not anywhere!\nI sought her in deep Hell;\nAnd through the world as well;\nI thought of Heaven and I sought her there;\nAbove nor under ground\nIs Silence to be found,\nThat was the very warp and woof of you,\nLovely before your songs began and after they were through!\nOh, say if on this hill\nSomewhere your sister’s body lies in death,\nSo I may follow there, and make a wreath\nOf my locked hands, that on her quiet breast\nShall lie till age has withered them!\n\n(Ah, sweetly from the rest\nI see\nTurn and consider me\nCompassionate Euterpe!)\n“There is a gate beyond the gate of Death,\nBeyond the gate of everlasting Life,\nBeyond the gates of Heaven and Hell,” she saith,\n“Whereon but to believe is horror!\nWhereon to meditate engendereth\nEven in deathless spirits such as I\nA tumult in the breath,\nA chilling of the inexhaustible blood\nEven in my veins that never will be dry,\nAnd in the austere, divine monotony\nThat is my being, the madness of an unaccustomed mood.\n\nThis is her province whom you lack and seek;\nAnd seek her not elsewhere.\nHell is a thoroughfare\nFor pilgrims,--Herakles,\nAnd he that loved Euridice too well,\nHave walked therein; and many more than these;\nAnd witnessed the desire and the despair\nOf souls that passed reluctantly and sicken for the air;\nYou, too, have entered Hell,\nAnd issued thence; but thence whereof I speak\nNone has returned;--for thither fury brings\nOnly the driven ghosts of them that flee before all things.\nOblivion is the name of this abode: and she is there.”\n\nOh, radiant Song! Oh, gracious Memory!\nBe long upon this height\nI shall not climb again!\nI know the way you mean,--the little night,\nAnd the long empty day,--never to see\nAgain the angry light,\nOr hear the hungry noises cry my brain!\nAh, but she,\nYour other sister and my other soul,\nShe shall again be mine;\nAnd I shall drink her from a silver bowl,\nA chilly thin green wine,\nNot bitter to the taste,\nNot sweet,\nNot of your press, oh, restless, clamorous nine,--\nTo foam beneath the frantic hoofs of mirth--\nBut savoring faintly of the acid earth,\nAnd trod by pensive feet\nFrom perfect clusters ripened without haste\nOut of the urgent heat\nIn some clear glimmering vaulted twilight under the odorous vine\n\nLift up your lyres! Sing on!\nBut as for me, I seek your sister whither she is gone.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -69435,10 +71484,10 @@ "title": "“Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this”", "body": "Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this:\nHow in the years to come unscrupulous Time,\nMore cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss,\nAnd make you old, and leave me in my prime?\nHow you and I, who scale together yet\nA little while the sweet, immortal height\nNo pilgrim may remember or forget,\nAs sure as the world turns, some granite night\nShall lie awake and know the gracious flame\nGone out forever on the mutual stone;\nAnd call to mind that on the day you came\nI was a child, and you a hero grown?--\nAnd the night pass, and the strange morning break\nUpon our anguish for each other’s sake!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69446,10 +71495,10 @@ "title": "“Once more into my arid days like dew 
”", "body": "Once more into my arid days like dew,\nLike wind from an oasis, or the sound\nOf cold sweet water bubbling underground,\nA treacherous messenger, the thought of you\nComes to destroy me; once more I renew\nFirm faith in your abundance, whom I found\nLong since to be but just one other mound\nOf sand, whereon no green thing ever grew.\nAnd once again, and wiser in no wise,\nI chase your colored phantom on the air,\nAnd sob and curse and fall and weep and rise\nAnd stumble pitifully on to where,\nMiserable and lost, with stinging eyes,\nOnce more I clasp,--and there is nothing there.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69476,10 +71525,10 @@ "title": "“The Philosopher”", "body": "And what are you that, wanting you,\nI should be kept awake\nAs many nights as there are days\nWith weeping for your sake?\n\nAnd what are you that, missing you,\nAs many days as crawl\nI should be listening to the wind\nAnd looking at the wall?\n\nI know a man that’s a braver man\nAnd twenty men as kind,\nAnd what are you, that you should be\nThe one man in my mind?\n\nYet women’s ways are witless ways,\nAs any sage will tell,--\nAnd what am I, that I should love\nSo wisely and so well?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69495,10 +71544,10 @@ "title": "“Recuerdo”", "body": "We were very tired, we were very merry\nWe had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.\nIt was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable\nBut we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,\nWe lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;\nAnd the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.\n\nWe were very tired, we were very merry\nWe had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;\nAnd you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,\nFrom a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;\nAnd the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,\nAnd the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.\n\nWe were very tired, we were very merry,\nWe had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.\nWe hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,\nAnd bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;\nAnd she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,\nAnd we gave her all our money but our subway fares.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69506,10 +71555,10 @@ "title": "“Renascence”", "body": "All I could see from where I stood\nWas three long mountains and a wood;\nI turned and looked another way\nAnd saw three islands in a bay.\nSo with my eyes I traced the line\nOf the horizon thin and fine\nStraight around till I was come\nBack to where I’d started from\nAnd all I saw from where I stood\nWas three long mountains and a wood.\nOver these things I could not see:\nThese were the things that bounded me;\nAnd I could touch them with my hand\nAlmost I thought from where I stand.\nAnd all at once things seemed so small\nMy breath came short and scarce at all.\nBut sure the sky is big I said;\nMiles and miles above my head;\nSo here upon my back I’ll lie\nAnd look my fill into the sky.\nAnd so I looked and after all\nThe sky was not so very tall.\nThe sky I said must somewhere stop\nAnd--sure enough!--I see the top!\nThe sky I thought is not so grand;\nI ’most could touch it with my hand!\nAnd reaching up my hand to try\nI screamed to feel it touch the sky.\n\nI screamed and--lo!--Infinity\nCame down and settled over me;\nForced back my scream into my chest\nBent back my arm upon my breast\nAnd pressing of the Undefined\nThe definition on my mind\nHeld up before my eyes a glass\nThrough which my shrinking sight did pass\nUntil it seemed I must behold\nImmensity made manifold;\nWhispered to me a word whose sound\nDeafened the air for worlds around\nAnd brought unmuffled to my ears\nThe gossiping of friendly spheres\nThe creaking of the tented sky\nThe ticking of Eternity.\nI saw and heard and knew at last\nThe How and Why of all things past\nAnd present and for evermore.\nThe Universe cleft to the core\nLay open to my probing sense\nThat sick’ning I would fain pluck thence\nBut could not--nay! But needs must suck\nAt the great wound and could not pluck\nMy lips away till I had drawn\nAll venom out.--Ah fearful pawn!\nFor my omniscience paid I toll\nIn infinite remorse of soul.\nAll sin was of my sinning all\nAtoning mine and mine the gall\nOf all regret. Mine was the weight\nOf every brooded wrong the hate\nThat stood behind each envious thrust\nMine every greed mine every lust.\nAnd all the while for every grief\nEach suffering I craved relief\nWith individual desire--\nCraved all in vain! And felt fierce fire\nAbout a thousand people crawl;\nPerished with each--then mourned for all!\nA man was starving in Capri;\nHe moved his eyes and looked at me;\nI felt his gaze I heard his moan\nAnd knew his hunger as my own.\nI saw at sea a great fog bank\nBetween two ships that struck and sank;\nA thousand screams the heavens smote;\nAnd every scream tore through my throat.\nNo hurt I did not feel no death\nThat was not mine; mine each last breath\nThat crying met an answering cry\nFrom the compassion that was I.\nAll suffering mine and mine its rod;\nMine pity like the pity of God.\nAh awful weight! Infinity\nPressed down upon the finite Me!\nMy anguished spirit like a bird\nBeating against my lips I heard;\nYet lay the weight so close about\nThere was no room for it without.\nAnd so beneath the weight lay I\nAnd suffered death but could not die.\n\nLong had I lain thus craving death\nWhen quietly the earth beneath\nGave way and inch by inch so great\nAt last had grown the crushing weight\nInto the earth I sank till I\nFull six feet under ground did lie\nAnd sank no more--there is no weight\nCan follow here however great.\nFrom off my breast I felt it roll\nAnd as it went my tortured soul\nBurst forth and fled in such a gust\nThat all about me swirled the dust.\nDeep in the earth I rested now;\nCool is its hand upon the brow\nAnd soft its breast beneath the head\nOf one who is so gladly dead.\nAnd all at once and over all\nThe pitying rain began to fall;\nI lay and heard each pattering hoof\nUpon my lowly thatchĂšd roof\nAnd seemed to love the sound far more\nThan ever I had done before.\nFor rain it hath a friendly sound\nTo one who’s six feet under ground;\nAnd scarce the friendly voice or face:\nA grave is such a quiet place.\n\nThe rain I said is kind to come\nAnd speak to me in my new home.\nI would I were alive again\nTo kiss the fingers of the rain\nTo drink into my eyes the shine\nOf every slanting silver line\nTo catch the freshened fragrant breeze\nFrom drenched and dripping apple-trees.\nFor soon the shower will be done\nAnd then the broad face of the sun\nWill laugh above the rain-soaked earth\nUntil the world with answering mirth\nShakes joyously and each round drop\nRolls twinkling from its grass-blade top.\nHow can I bear it buried here\nWhile overhead the sky grows clear\nAnd blue again after the storm?\nO multi-coloured multiform\nBeloved beauty over me\nThat I shall never never see\nAgain! Spring-silver autumn-gold\nThat I shall never more behold!\nSleeping your myriad magics through\nClose-sepulchred away from you!\nO God I cried give me new birth\nAnd put me back upon the earth!\nUpset each cloud’s gigantic gourd\nAnd let the heavy rain down-poured\nIn one big torrent set me free\nWashing my grave away from me!\n\nI ceased; and through the breathless hush\nThat answered me the far-off rush\nOf herald wings came whispering\nLike music down the vibrant string\nOf my ascending prayer and--crash!\nBefore the wild wind’s whistling lash\nThe startled storm-clouds reared on high\nAnd plunged in terror down the sky\nAnd the big rain in one black wave\nFell from the sky and struck my grave.\nI know not how such things can be;\nI only know there came to me\nA fragrance such as never clings\nTo aught save happy living things;\nA sound as of some joyous elf\nSinging sweet songs to please himself\nAnd through and over everything\nA sense of glad awakening.\nThe grass a-tiptoe at my ear\nWhispering to me I could hear;\nI felt the rain’s cool finger-tips\nBrushed tenderly across my lips\nLaid gently on my sealĂšd sight\nAnd all at once the heavy night\nFell from my eyes and I could see--\nA drenched and dripping apple-tree\nA last long line of silver rain\nA sky grown clear and blue again.\nAnd as I looked a quickening gust\nOf wind blew up to me and thrust\nInto my face a miracle\nOf orchard-breath and with the smell--\nI know not how such things can be!--\nI breathed my soul back into me.\n\nAh! Up then from the ground sprang I\nAnd hailed the earth with such a cry\nAs is not heard save from a man\nWho has been dead and lives again.\nAbout the trees my arms I wound;\nLike one gone mad I hugged the ground;\nI raised my quivering arms on high;\nI laughed and laughed into the sky\nTill at my throat a strangling sob\nCaught fiercely and a great heart-throb\nSent instant tears into my eyes;\nO God I cried no dark disguise\nCan e’er hereafter hide from me\nThy radiant identity!\nThou canst not move across the grass\nBut my quick eyes will see Thee pass\nNor speak however silently\nBut my hushed voice will answer Thee.\nI know the path that tells Thy way\nThrough the cool eve of every day;\nGod I can push the grass apart\nAnd lay my finger on Thy heart!\n\nThe world stands out on either side\nNo wider than the heart is wide;\nAbove the world is stretched the sky--\nNo higher than the soul is high.\nThe heart can push the sea and land\nFarther away on either hand;\nThe soul can split the sky in two\nAnd let the face of God shine through.\nBut East and West will pinch the heart\nThat cannot keep them pushed apart;\nAnd he whose soul is flat--the sky\nWill cave in on him by and by.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69528,10 +71577,10 @@ "title": "“Sorrow”", "body": "Sorrow like a ceaseless rain\nBeats upon my heart.\nPeople twist and scream in pain,--\nDawn will find them still again;\nThis has neither wax nor wane,\nNeither stop nor start.\n\nPeople dress and go to town;\nI sit in my chair.\nAll my thoughts are slow and brown:\nStanding up or sitting down\nLittle matters, or what gown\nOr what shoes I wear.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69539,10 +71588,10 @@ "title": "“Souvenir”", "body": "Just a rainy day or two\nIn a windy tower,\nThat was all I had of you--\nSaving half an hour.\n\nMarred by greeting passing groups\nIn a cinder walk,\nNear some naked blackberry hoops\nDim with purple chalk.\nI remember three or four\nThings you said in spite,\nAnd an ugly coat you wore,\nPlaided black and white.\n\nJust a rainy day or two\nAnd a bitter word.\nWhy do I remember you\nAs a singing bird?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69550,10 +71599,10 @@ "title": "“Spring”", "body": "To what purpose April do you return again?\nBeauty is not enough.\nYou can no longer quiet me with the redness\nOf little leaves opening stickily.\nI know what I know.\nThe sun is hot on my neck as I observe\nThe spikes of the crocus.\nThe smell of the earth is good.\nIt is apparent that there is no death.\nBut what does that signify?\nNot only under ground are the brains of men\nEaten by maggots.\nLife in itself\nIs nothing\nAn empty cup a flight of uncarpeted stairs.\nIt is not enough that yearly down this hill\nApril\nComes like an idiot babbling and strewing flowers.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -69565,10 +71614,10 @@ "title": "“The Spring and the Fall”", "body": "In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year,\nI walked the road beside my dear.\nThe trees were black where the bark was wet.\nI see them yet, in the spring of the year.\nHe broke me a bough of the blossoming peach\nThat was out of the way and hard to reach.\n\nIn the fall of the year, in the fall of the year,\nI walked the road beside my dear.\nThe rooks went up with a raucous trill.\nI hear them still, in the fall of the year.\nHe laughed at all I dared to praise,\nAnd broke my heart, in little ways.\n\nYear be springing or year be falling,\nThe bark will drip and the birds be calling.\nThere’s much that’s fine to see and hear\nIn the spring of a year, in the fall of a year.\n’Tis not love’s going hurt my days.\nBut that it went in little ways.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -69579,10 +71628,10 @@ "title": "“The Suicide”", "body": "“Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!\nThou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore!\nAnd all for a pledge that was not pledged by me,\nI have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly\nThat I might eat again, and met thy sneers\nWith deprecations, and thy blows with tears,--\nAye, from thy glutted lash, glad, crawled away,\nAs if spent passion were a holiday!\nAnd now I go. Nor threat, nor easy vow\nOf tardy kindness can avail thee now\nWith me, whence fear and faith alike are flown;\nLonely I came, and I depart alone,\nAnd know not where nor unto whom I go;\nBut that thou canst not follow me I know.”\n\nThus I to Life, and ceased; but through my brain\nMy thought ran still, until I spake again:\n\n“Ah, but I go not as I came,--no trace\nIs mine to bear away of that old grace\nI brought! I have been heated in thy fires,\nBent by thy hands, fashioned to thy desires,\nThy mark is on me! I am not the same\nNor ever more shall be, as when I came.\nAshes am I of all that once I seemed.\nIn me all’s sunk that leapt, and all that dreamed\nIs wakeful for alarm,--oh, shame to thee,\nFor the ill change that thou hast wrought in me,\nWho laugh no more nor lift my throat to sing\nAh, Life, I would have been a pleasant thing\nTo have about the house when I was grown\nIf thou hadst left my little joys alone!\nI asked of thee no favor save this one:\nThat thou wouldst leave me playing in the sun!\nAnd this thou didst deny, calling my name\nInsistently, until I rose and came.\nI saw the sun no more.--It were not well\nSo long on these unpleasant thoughts to dwell,\nNeed I arise to-morrow and renew\nAgain my hated tasks, but I am through\nWith all things save my thoughts and this one night,\nSo that in truth I seem already quite\nFree, and remote from thee,--I feel no haste\nAnd no reluctance to depart; I taste\nMerely, with thoughtful mien, an unknown draught,\nThat in a little while I shall have quaffed.”\n\nThus I to Life, and ceased, and slightly smiled,\nLooking at nothing; and my thin dreams filed\nBefore me one by one till once again\nI set new words unto an old refrain:\n\n“Treasures thou hast that never have been mine!\nWarm lights in many a secret chamber shine\nOf thy gaunt house, and gusts of song have blown\nLike blossoms out to me that sat alone!\nAnd I have waited well for thee to show\nIf any share were mine,--and now I go\nNothing I leave, and if I naught attain\nI shall but come into mine own again!”\n\nThus I to Life, and ceased, and spake no more,\nBut turning, straightway, sought a certain door\nIn the rear wall. Heavy it was, and low\nAnd dark,--a way by which none e’er would go\nThat other exit had, and never knock\nWas heard thereat,--bearing a curious lock\nSome chance had shown me fashioned faultily,\nWhereof Life held content the useless key,\nAnd great coarse hinges, thick and rough with rust,\nWhose sudden voice across a silence must,\nI knew, be harsh and horrible to hear,--\nA strange door, ugly like a dwarf.--So near\nI came I felt upon my feet the chill\nOf acid wind creeping across the sill.\nSo stood longtime, till over me at last\nCame weariness, and all things other passed\nTo make it room; the still night drifted deep\nLike snow about me, and I longed for sleep.\n\nBut, suddenly, marking the morning hour,\nBayed the deep-throated bell within the tower!\nStartled, I raised my head,--and with a shout\nLaid hold upon the latch,--and was without.\n\nAh, long-forgotten, well-remembered road,\nLeading me back unto my old abode,\nMy father’s house! There in the night I came,\nAnd found them feasting, and all things the same\nAs they had been before. A splendour hung\nUpon the walls, and such sweet songs were sung\nAs, echoing out of very long ago,\nHad called me from the house of Life, I know.\nSo fair their raiment shone I looked in shame\nOn the unlovely garb in which I came;\nThen straightway at my hesitancy mocked:\n“It is my father’s house!” I said and knocked;\nAnd the door opened. To the shining crowd\nTattered and dark I entered, like a cloud,\nSeeing no face but his; to him I crept,\nAnd “Father!” I cried, and clasped his knees, and wept.\n\nAh, days of joy that followed! All alone\nI wandered through the house. My own, my own,\nMy own to touch, my own to taste and smell,\nAll I had lacked so long and loved so well!\nNone shook me out of sleep, nor hushed my song,\nNor called me in from the sunlight all day long.\n\nI know not when the wonder came to me\nOf what my father’s business might be,\nAnd whither fared and on what errands bent\nThe tall and gracious messengers he sent.\nYet one day with no song from dawn till night\nWondering, I sat, and watched them out of sight.\nAnd the next day I called; and on the third\nAsked them if I might go,--but no one heard.\nThen, sick with longing, I arose at last\nAnd went unto my father,--in that vast\nChamber wherein he for so many years\nHas sat, surrounded by his charts and spheres.\n“Father,” I said, “Father, I cannot play\nThe harp that thou didst give me, and all day\nI sit in idleness, while to and fro\nAbout me thy serene, grave servants go;\nAnd I am weary of my lonely ease.\nBetter a perilous journey overseas\nAway from thee, than this, the life I lead,\nTo sit all day in the sunshine like a weed\nThat grows to naught,--I love thee more than they\nWho serve thee most; yet serve thee in no way.\nFather, I beg of thee a little task\nTo dignify my days,--’tis all I ask\nForever, but forever, this denied,\nI perish.” “Child,” my father’s voice replied,\n“All things thy fancy hath desired of me\nThou hast received. I have prepared for thee\nWithin my house a spacious chamber, where\nAre delicate things to handle and to wear,\nAnd all these things are thine. Dost thou love song?\nMy minstrels shall attend thee all day long.\nOr sigh for flowers? My fairest gardens stand\nOpen as fields to thee on every hand.\nAnd all thy days this word shall hold the same:\nNo pleasure shalt thou lack that thou shalt name.\nBut as for tasks--” he smiled, and shook his head;\n“Thou hadst thy task, and laidst it by,” he said.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69598,10 +71647,10 @@ "title": "“Tavern”", "body": "I’ll keep a little tavern\nBelow the high hill’s crest\nWherein all grey-eyed people\nMay sit them down and rest.\n\nThere shall be plates a-plenty\nAnd mugs to melt the chill\nOf all the grey-eyed people\nWho happen up the hill.\n\nThere sound will sleep the traveller\nAnd dream his journey’s end\nBut I will rouse at midnight\nThe falling fire to tend.\n\nAye ’tis a curious fancy--\nBut all the good I know\nWas taught me out of two grey eyes\nA long time ago.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69617,10 +71666,10 @@ "title": "“Three Songs from the Lamp and the Bell”", "body": "# I.\n\nOh, little rose tree, bloom!\nSummer is nearly over.\nThe dahlias bleed, and the phlox is seed.\nNothing’s left of the clover.\nAnd the path of the poppy no one knows.\nI would blossom if I were a rose.\n\nSummer, for all your guile,\nWill brown in a week to Autumn,\nAnd launched leaves throw a shadow below\nOver the brook’s clear bottom,--\nAnd the chariest bud the year can boast\nBe brought to bloom by the chastening frost.\n\n\n# II.\n\nBeat me a crown of bluer metal;\n Fret it with stones of a foreign style:\nThe heart grows weary after a little\n Of what it loved for a little while.\n\nWeave me a robe of richer fibre;\n Pattern its web with a rare device.\nGive away to the child of a neighbor\n This gold gown I was glad in twice.\n\nBut buy me a singer to sing one song--\n Song about nothing--song about sheep--\nOver and over, all day long;\n\n\n# III.\n\nRain comes down\nAnd hushes the town.\nAnd where is the voice that I heard crying?\n\nSnow settles\nOver the nettles.\nWhere is the voice that I heard crying?\n\nSand at last\nOn the drifting mast.\nAnd where is the voice that I heard crying?\n\nEarth now\nOn the busy brow.\nAnd where is the voice that I heard crying?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "autumn_equinox" @@ -69631,10 +71680,10 @@ "title": "“Three Songs of Shattering”", "body": "# I.\n\nThe first rose on my rose-tree\nBudded, bloomed, and shattered,\nDuring sad days when to me\nNothing mattered.\n\nGrief of grief has drained me clean;\nStill it seems a pity\nNo one saw,--it must have been\nVery pretty.\n\n\n# II.\n\nLet the little birds sing;\nLet the little lambs play;\nSpring is here; and so ’tis spring;--\nBut not in the old way!\n\nI recall a place\nWhere a plum-tree grew;\nThere you lifted up your face,\nAnd blossoms covered you.\n\nIf the little birds sing,\nAnd the little lambs play,\nSpring is here; and so ’tis spring--\nBut not in the old way!\n\n\n# III.\n\nAll the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!\nEre spring was going--ah, spring is gone!\nAnd there comes no summer to the like of you and me,--\nBlossom time is early, but no fruit sets on.\n\nAll the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree,\nBrowned at the edges, turned in a day;\nAnd I would with all my heart they trimmed a mound for me,\nAnd weeds were tall on all the paths that led that way!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -69645,10 +71694,10 @@ "title": "“Thursday”", "body": "And if I loved you Wednesday,\n Well, what is that to you?\nI do not love you Thursday--\n So much is true.\n\nAnd why you come complaining\n Is more than I can see.\nI loved you Wednesday,--yes--but what\n Is that to me?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "thursday" @@ -69659,10 +71708,10 @@ "title": "“Time does not bring relief 
”", "body": "Time does not bring relief; you all have lied\nWho told me time would ease me of my pain!\nI miss him in the weeping of the rain;\nI want him at the shrinking of the tide;\nThe old snows melt from every mountain-side,\nAnd last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;\nBut last year’s bitter loving must remain\nHeaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide\n\nThere are a hundred places where I fear\nTo go,--so with his memory they brim\nAnd entering with relief some quiet place\nWhere never fell his foot or shone his face\nI say, “There is no memory of him here!”\nAnd so stand stricken, so remembering him!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -69673,10 +71722,10 @@ "title": "“Travel”", "body": "The railroad track is miles away,\nAnd the day is loud with voices speaking,\nYet there isn’t a train goes by all day\nBut I hear its whistle shrieking.\n\nAll night there isn’t a train goes by,\nThough the night is still for sleep and dreaming,\nBut I see its cinders red on the sky,\nAnd hear its engine steaming.\n\nMy heart is warm with friends I make,\nAnd better friends I’ll not be knowing;\nYet there isn’t a train I’d rather take,\nNo matter where it’s going.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69700,10 +71749,10 @@ "title": "“A Visit to the Asylum”", "body": "Once from a big, big building,\nWhen I was small, small,\nThe queer folk in the windows\nWould smile at me and call.\n\nAnd in the hard wee gardens\nSuch pleasant men would hoe:\n“Sir, may we touch the little girl’s hair!”--\nIt was so red, you know.\n\nThey cut me coloured asters\nWith shears so sharp and neat,\nThey brought me grapes and plums and pears\nAnd pretty cakes to eat.\n\nAnd out of all the windows,\nNo matter where we went,\nThe merriest eyes would follow me\nAnd make me compliment.\n\nThere were a thousand windows,\nAll latticed up and down.\nAnd up to all the windows,\nWhen we went back to town,\n\nThe queer folk put their faces,\nAs gentle as could be;\n“Come again, little girl!” they called, and I\nCalled back, “You come see me!”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69711,10 +71760,10 @@ "title": "“Weeds”", "body": "White with daisies and red with sorrel\nAnd empty, empty under the sky!--\nLife is a quest and love a quarrel--\nHere is a place for me to lie.\n\nDaisies spring from damned seeds,\nAnd this red fire that here I see\nIs a worthless crop of crimson weeds,\nCursed by farmers thriftily.\n\nBut here, unhated for an hour,\nThe sorrel runs in ragged flame,\nThe daisy stands, a bastard flower,\nLike flowers that bear an honest name.\n\nAnd here a while, where no wind brings\nThe baying of a pack athirst,\nMay sleep the sleep of blessed things,\nThe blood too bright, the brow accurst.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -69744,10 +71793,10 @@ "title": "“When I too long have looked upon your face 
”", "body": "When I too long have looked upon your face,\nWherein for me a brightness unobscured\nSave by the mists of brightness has its place,\nAnd terrible beauty not to be endured,\nI turn away reluctant from your light,\nAnd stand irresolute, a mind undone,\nA silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight\nFrom having looked too long upon the sun.\nThen is my daily life a narrow room\nIn which a little while, uncertainly,\nSurrounded by impenetrable gloom,\nAmong familiar things grown strange to me\nMaking my way, I pause, and feel, and hark,\nTill I become accustomed to the dark.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69755,10 +71804,10 @@ "title": "“When the Year Grows Old”", "body": "I cannot but remember\nWhen the year grows old--\nOctober--November--\nHow she disliked the cold!\n\nShe used to watch the swallows\nGo down across the sky,\nAnd turn from the window\nWith a little sharp sigh.\n\nAnd often when the brown leaves\nWere brittle on the ground,\nAnd the wind in the chimney\nMade a melancholy sound,\n\nShe had a look about her\nThat I wish I could forget--\nThe look of a scared thing\nSitting in a net!\n\nOh, beautiful at nightfall\nThe soft spitting snow!\nAnd beautiful the bare boughs\nRubbing to and fro!\n\nBut the roaring of the fire,\nAnd the warmth of fur,\nAnd the boiling of the kettle\nWere beautiful to her!\n\nI cannot but remember\nWhen the year grows old--\nOctober--November--\nHow she disliked the cold!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -69769,10 +71818,10 @@ "title": "“Witch-Wife”", "body": "She is neither pink nor pale,\n And she never will be all mine;\nShe learned her hands in a fairy-tale,\n And her mouth on a valentine.\n\nShe has more hair than she needs;\n In the sun ’tis a woe to me!\nAnd her voice is a string of colored beads,\n Or steps leading into the sea.\n\nShe loves me all that she can,\n And her ways to my ways resign;\nBut she was not made for any man,\n And she never will be all mine.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -69788,10 +71837,10 @@ "title": "“The Wood Road”", "body": "If I were to walk this way\nHand in hand with Grief,\nI should mark that maple-spray\nComing into leaf.\nI should note how the old burrs\nRot upon the ground.\nYes, though Grief should know me hers\nWhile the world goes round,\nIt could not if truth be said\nThis was lost on me:\nA rock-maple showing red,\nBurrs beneath a tree.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -69802,10 +71851,10 @@ "title": "“Wraith”", "body": "“Thin Rain, whom are you haunting,\nThat you haunt my door?”\n--Surely it is not I she’s wanting;\nSomeone living here before--\n“Nobody’s in the house but me:\nYou may come in if you like and see.”\n\nThin as thread, with exquisite fingers,--\nHave you seen her, any of you?--\nGrey shawl, and leaning on the wind,\nAnd the garden showing through?\n\nGlimmering eyes,--and silent, mostly,\nSort of a whisper, sort of a purr,\nAsking something, asking it over,\nIf you get a sound from her.--\n\nEver see her, any of you?--\nStrangest thing I’ve ever known,--\nEvery night since I moved in,\nAnd I came to be alone.\n\n“Thin Rain, hush with your knocking!\nYou may not come in!\nThis is I that you hear rocking;\nNobody’s with me, nor has been!”\n\nCurious, how she tried the window,--\nOdd, the way she tries the door,--\nWonder just what sort of people\nCould have had this house before 
", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -69968,12 +72017,15 @@ "title": "“Account”", "body": "The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.\n\nSome would be devoted to acting against consciousness,\nLike the flight of a moth which, had it known,\nWould have tended nevertheless toward the candle’s flame.\n\nOthers would deal with ways to silence anxiety,\nThe little whisper which, though it is a warning, is ignored.\n\nI would deal separately with satisfaction and pride,\nThe time when I was among their adherents\nWho strut victoriously, unsuspecting.\n\nBut all of them would have one subject, desire,\nIf only my own--but no, not at all; alas,\nI was driven because I wanted to be like others.\nI was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.\n\nThe history of my stupidity will not be written.\nFor one thing, it’s late. And the truth is laborious.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Hass & Robert Pinsky", + "place": "Berkeley", + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1980 }, - "place": "Berkeley", - "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Hass", + "Robert Pinsky" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -69981,10 +72033,10 @@ "title": "“And the city stood in its brightness 
”", "body": "And the city stood in its brightness when years later I returned,\nAnd life was running out, Ruteboeuf’s or Villon’s,\nDescendants already born were dancing their dances,\nWomen looked in their mirrors, made from a new metal,\nWhat was it all for, if I cannot speak?\nShe stood above me, head like the earth on its axis,\nMy ashes were laid in a can under the bistro counter,\n\nAnd the city stood in its brightness when years later I returned,\nTo my home in the display case of a granite museum\nBeside eyelash mascara, alabaster vials, and menstruation girdles of an Egyptian princess,\nThere was only a sun forged out of gold plate,\nOn darkening parquetry the creep of unhurried steps,\n\nAnd the city stood in its brightness when years later I returned,\nMy face covered with a coat though now no one was left\nOf those who could have remembered my debts never paid,\nMy shames not forever, base deeds to be forgiven.\nAnd the city stood in its brightness when years later I returned.", "metadata": { + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1974 }, - "language": "Polish", "tags": [] } }, @@ -70008,10 +72060,10 @@ "title": "“Ars Poetica?”", "body": "I have always aspired to a more spacious form\nthat would be free from the claims of poetry or prose\nand would let us understand each other without exposing\nthe author or reader to sublime agonies.\n\nIn the very essence of poetry there is something indecent:\na thing is brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us,\nso we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out\nand stood in the light, lashing his tail.\n\nThat’s why poetry is rightly said to be dictated by a daimonion,\nthough it’s an exaggeration to maintain that he must be an angel.\nIt’s hard to guess where that pride of poets comes from,\nwhen so often they’re put to shame by the disclosure of their frailty.\n\nWhat reasonable man would like to be a city of demons,\nwho behave as if they were at home, speak in many tongues,\nand who, not satisfied with stealing his lips or hand,\nwork at changing his destiny for their convenience?\n\nIt’s true that what is morbid is highly valued today,\nand so you may think that I am only joking\nor that I’ve devised just one more means\nof praising Art with the help of irony.\n\nThere was a time when only wise books were read,\nhelping us to bear our pain and misery.\nThis, after all, is not quite the same\nas leafing through a thousand works fresh from psychiatric clinics.\n\nAnd yet the world is different from what it seems to be\nand we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings.\nPeople therefore preserve silent integrity,\nthus earning the respect of their relatives and neighbors.\n\nThe purpose of poetry is to remind us\nhow difficult it is to remain just one person,\nfor our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,\nand invisible guests come in and out at will.\n\nWhat I’m saying here is not, I agree, poetry,\nas poems should be written rarely and reluctantly,\nunder unbearable duress and only with the hope\nthat good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument.", "metadata": { + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1974 }, - "language": "Polish", "tags": [] } }, @@ -70019,10 +72071,10 @@ "title": "“Artificer”", "body": "Burning, he walks in the stream of flickering letters, clarinets,\nmachines throbbing quicker than the heart, lopped-off heads, silk\ncanvases, and he stops under the sky\n\nand raises toward it his joined clenched fists.\n\nBelievers fall on their bellies, they suppose it is a monstrance that shines,\n\nbut those are knuckles, sharp knuckles shine that way, my friends.\n\nHe cuts the glowing, yellow buildings in two, breaks the walls into motley halves;\npensive, he looks at the honey seeping from those huge honeycombs:\nthrobs of pianos, children’s cries, the thud of a head banging against the floor.\nThis is the only landscape able to make him feel.\n\nHe wonders at his brother’s skill shaped like an egg,\nevery day he shoves back his black hair from his brow,\nthen one day he plants a big load of dynamite\nand is surprised that afterward everything sprouts up in the explosion.\nAgape, he observes the clouds and what is hanging in them:\nglobes, penal codes, dead cats floating on their backs, locomotives.\nThey turn in the skeins of white clouds like trash in a puddle.\nWhile below on the earth a banner, the color of a romantic rose, flutters,\nand a long row of military trains crawls on the weed-covered tracks.", "metadata": { + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 2002 }, - "language": "Polish", "tags": [] } }, @@ -70049,12 +72101,15 @@ "title": "“Campo de’ Fiori”", "body": "In Rome on the Campo de’ Fiori\nbaskets of olives and lemons,\ncobbles spattered with wine\nand the wreckage of flowers.\nVendors cover the trestles\nwith rose-pink fish;\narmfuls of dark grapes\nheaped on peach-down.\n\nOn this same square\nthey burned Giordano Bruno.\nHenchmen kindled the pyre\nclose-pressed by the mob.\nBefore the flames had died\nthe taverns were full again,\nbaskets of olives and lemons\nagain on the vendors’ shoulders.\n\nI thought of the Campo dei Fiori\nin Warsaw by the sky-carousel\none clear spring evening\nto the strains of a carnival tune.\nThe bright melody drowned\nthe salvos from the ghetto wall,\nand couples were flying\nhigh in the cloudless sky.\n\nAt times wind from the burning\nwould drift dark kites along\nand riders on the carousel\ncaught petals in midair.\nThat same hot wind\nblew open the skirts of the girls\nand the crowds were laughing\non that beautiful Warsaw Sunday.\n\nSomeone will read as moral\nthat the people of Rome or Warsaw\nhaggle, laugh, make love\nas they pass by the martyrs’ pyres.\nSomeone else will read\nof the passing of things human,\nof the oblivion\nborn before the flames have died.\n\nBut that day I thought only\nof the loneliness of the dying,\nof how, when Giordano\nclimbed to his burning\nhe could not find\nin any human tongue\nwords for mankind,\nmankind who live on.\n\nAlready they were back at their wine\nor peddled their white starfish,\nbaskets of olives and lemons\nthey had shouldered to the fair,\nand he already distanced\nas if centuries had passed\nwhile they paused just a moment\nfor his flying in the fire.\n\nThose dying here, the lonely\nforgotten by the world,\nour tongue becomes for them\nthe language of an ancient planet.\nUntil, when all is legend\nand many years have passed,\non a new Campo de’ Fiori\nrage will kindle at a poet’s word.", "metadata": { + "place": "Warsaw", + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1943 }, - "place": "Warsaw", - "translator": "David Brooks & Louis Iribarne", - "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "David Brooks", + "Louis Iribarne" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring", @@ -70079,15 +72134,20 @@ } }, "city-without-a-name": { - "title": "“City without a Name”", + "title": "“City Without a Name”", "body": "# 1.\n\nWho will honor the city without a name\nIf so many are dead and others pan gold\nOr sell arms in faraway countries?\n\nWhat shepherd’s horn swathed in the bark of birch\nWill sound in the Ponary Hills the memory of the absent--\nVagabonds, Pathfinders, brethren of a dissolved lodge?\n\nThis spring, in a desert, beyond a campsite flagpole,\n--In silence that stretched to the solid rock of yellow and red mountains--\nI heard in a gray bush the buzzing of wild bees.\n\nThe current carried an echo and the timber of rafts.\nA man in a visored cap and a woman in a kerchief\nPushed hard with their four hands at a heavy steering oar.\n\nIn the library, below a tower painted with the signs of the zodiac,\nKontrym would take a whiff from his snuffbox and smile\nFor despite Metternich all was not yet lost.\n\nAnd on crooked lanes down the middle of a sandy highway\nJewish carts went their way while a black grouse hooted\nStanding on a cuirassier’s helmet, a relict of La Grande ArmĂ©e.\n\n\n# 2.\n\nIn Death Valley I thought about styles of hairdo,\nAbout a hand that shifted spotlights at the Student’s Ball\nIn the city from which no voice could reach me.\nMinerals did not sound the last trumpet.\nThere was only the rustle of a loosened grain of lava.\n\nIn Death Valley salt gleams from a dried-up lake bed.\nDefend, defend yourself, says the tick-tock of the blood.\nFrom the futility of solid rock, no wisdom.\n\nIn Death Valley no hawk or eagle against the sky.\nThe prediction of a Gypsy woman has come true.\nIn a lane under an arcade, then, I was reading a poem\nOf someone who had lived next door, entitled “An Hour of Thought.”\n\nI looked long at the rearview mirror: there, the one man\nWithin three miles, an Indian, was walking a bicycle uphill.\n\n\n# 3.\n\nWith flutes, with torches\nAnd a drum, boom, boom,\nLook, the one who died in Istanbul, there, in the first row.\nHe walks arm in arm with his young lady,\nAnd over them swallows fly.\n\nThey carry oars or staffs garlanded with leaves\nAnd bunches of flowers from the shores of the Green Lakes,\nAs they came closer and closer, down Castle Street.\nAnd then suddenly nothing, only a white puff of cloud\nOver the Humanities Student Club,\nDivision of Creative Writing.\n\n\n# 4.\n\nBooks, we have written a whole library of them.\nLands, we have visited a great many of them.\nBattles, we have lost a number of them.\nTill we are no more, we and our Maryla.\n\n\n# 5.\n\nUnderstanding and pity,\nWe value them highly.\nWhat else?\n\nBeauty and kisses,\nFame and its prizes,\nWho cares?\n\nDoctors and lawyers,\nWell-turned-out majors,\nSix feet of earth.\n\nRings, furs, and lashes,\nGlances at Masses,\nRest in peace.\n\nSweet twin breasts, good night.\nSleep through to the light,\nWithout spiders.\n\n\n# 6.\n\nThe sun goes down above the Zealous Lithuanian Lodge\nAnd kindles fire on landscapes “made from nature”:\nThe Wilia winding among pines; black honey of the Ć»ejmiana;\nThe Mereczanka washes berries near the Ć»egaryno village.\nThe valets had already brought in Theban candelabra\nAnd pulled curtains, one after the other, slowly,\nWhile, thinking I entered first, taking off my gloves,\nI saw that all the eyes were fixed on me.\n\n\n# 7.\n\nWhen I got rid of grieving\nAnd the glory I was seeking,\nWhich I had no business doing,\n\nI was carried by dragons\nOver countries, bays, and mountains,\nBy fate, or by what happens.\n\nOh yes, I wanted to be me.\nI toasted mirrors weepily\nAnd learned my own stupidity.\n\nFrom nails, mucous membrane,\nLungs, liver, bowels, and spleen\nWhose house is made? Mine.\n\nSo what else is new?\nI am not my own friend.\nTime cuts me in two.\n\nMonuments covered with snow,\nAccept my gift. I wandered;\nAnd where, I don’t know.\n\n\n# 8.\n\nAbsent, burning, acrid, salty, sharp.\nThus the feast of Insubstantiality.\nUnder a gathering of clouds anywhere.\nIn a bay, on a plateau, in a dry arroyo.\nNo density. No harness of stone.\nEven the _Summa_ thins into straw and smoke.\nAnd the angelic choirs fly over in a pomegranate seed\nSounding every few instants, not for us, their trumpets.\n\n\n# 9.\n\nLight, universal, and yet it keeps changing.\nFor I love the light too, perhaps the light only.\nYet what is too dazzling and too high is not for me.\nSo when the clouds turn rosy, I think of light that is level\nIn the lands of birch and pine coated with crispy lichen,\nLate in autumn, under the hoarfrost when the last milk caps\nRot under the firs and the hounds’ barking echoes,\nAnd jackdaws wheel over the tower of a Basilian church.\n\n\n# 10.\n\nUnexpressed, untold.\nBut how?\nThe shortness of life,\nthe years quicker and quicker,\nnot remembering whether it happened in this or that autumn.\nRetinues of homespun velveteen skirts,\ngiggles above a railing, pigtails askew,\nsittings on chamberpots upstairs\nwhen the sledge jingles under the columns of the porch\njust before the moustachioed ones in wolf fur enter.\nFemale humanity,\nchildren’s snots, legs spread apart,\nsnarled hair, the milk boiling over,\nstench, shit frozen into clods.\nAnd those centuries,\nconceiving in the herring smell of the middle of the night\ninstead of playing something like a game of chess\nor dancing an intellectual ballet.\nAnd palisades,\nand pregnant sheep,\nand pigs, fast eaters and poor eaters,\nand cows cured by incantations.\n\n\n# 11.\n\nNot the Last Judgment, just a kermess by a river.\nSmall whistles, clay chickens, candied hearts.\nSo we trudged through the slush of melting snow\nTo buy bagels from the district of Smorgonie.\n\nA fortune-teller hawking: “Your destiny, your planets.”\nAnd a toy devil bobbing in a tube of crimson brine.\nAnother, a rubber one, expired in the air squeaking,\nBy the stand where you bought stories of King Otto and Melusine.\n\n\n# 12.\n\nWhy should that city, defenseless and pure as the wedding necklace of\na forgotten tribe, keep offering itself to me?\nLike blue and red-brown seeds beaded in Tuzigoot in the copper desert\nseven centuries ago.\n\nWhere ocher rubbed into stone still waits for the brow and cheekbone\nit would adorn, though for all that time there has been no one.\n\nWhat evil in me, what pity has made me deserve this offering?\n\nIt stands before me, ready, not even the smoke from one chimney is\nlacking, not one echo, when I step across the rivers that separate us.\n\nPerhaps Anna and Dora DruĆŒyno have called to me, three hundred miles\ninside Arizona, because except fo me no one else knows that they ever\nlived.\n\nThey trot before me on Embankment Street, two hently born parakeets\nfrom Samogitia, and at night they unravel their spinster tresses of gray\nhair.\n\nHere there is no earlier and no later; the seasons of the year and of the\nday are simultaneous.\n\nAt dawn shit-wagons leave town in long rows and municipal employees\nat the gate collect the turnpike toll in leather bags.\n\nRattling their wheels, “Courier” and “Speedy” move against the current\nto Werki, and an oarsman shot down over England skiffs past, spread-\neagled by his oars.\n\nAt St. Peter and Paul’s the angels lower their thick eyelids in a smile\nover a nun who has indecent thoughts.\n\nBearded, in a wig, Mrs. Sora Klok sits at the counter, instructing her\ntwelve shopgirls.\n\nAnd all of German Street tosses into the air unfurled bolts of fabric,\npreparing itself for death and the conquest of Jerusalem.\n\nBlack and princely, an underground river knocks at cellars of the\ncathedral under the tomb of St. Casimir the Young and under the\nhalf-charred oak logs in the hearth.\n\nCarrying her servant’s-basket on her shoulder, Barbara, dressed in\nmourning, returns from the Lithuanian Mass at St. Nicholas to the\nRomers’ house in Bakszta Street.\n\nHow it glitters! the snow on Three Crosses Hill and Bekiesz Hill, not\nto be melted by the breath of these brief lives.\n\nAnd what do I know now, when I turn into Arsenal Street and open\nmy eyes once more on a useless end of the world?\n\nI was running, as the silks rustled, through room after room without\nstopping, for I believed in the existence of a last door.\n\nBut the shape of lips and an apple and a flower pinned to a dress were\nall that one was permitted to know and take away.\n\nThe Earth, neither compassionate nor evil, neither beautiful nor atro-\ncious, persisted, innocent, open to pain and desire.\n\nAnd the gift was useless, if, later on, in the flarings of distant nights,\nthere was not less bitterness but more.\n\nIf I cannot so exhaust my life and their life that the bygone crying is\ntransformed, at last, into harmony.\n\nLike a _Noble Jan DęborĂłg_ in the Straszun’s secondhand-book shop, I am\nput to rest forever between two familiar names.\n\nThe castle tower above the leafy tumulus grows small and there is still\na hardly audible--is it Mozart’s _Requiem_?--music.\n\nIn the immobile light I move my lips and perhaps I am even glad not\nto find the desired word.", "metadata": { + "place": "Berkeley", + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1968 }, - "place": "Berkeley", - "translator": "Robert Hass, Czeslaw Milosz, Robert Pinsky & Renata Gorczynski", - "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Hass", + "Czeslaw Milosz", + "Robert Pinsky", + "Renata Gorczynski" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -70134,12 +72194,14 @@ "title": "“Encounter”", "body": "We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.\nA red wing rose in the darkness.\n\nAnd suddenly a hare ran across the road.\nOne of us pointed to it with his hand.\n\nThat was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,\nNot the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.\n\nO my love, where are they, where are they going\nThe flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.\nI ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lillian Vallee", "place": "Wilno", + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1936 }, - "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Lillian Vallee" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -70255,7 +72317,6 @@ "title": "“Incantation”", "body": "Human reason is beautiful and invincible.\nNo bars, no barbed wire, no pulping of books,\nNo sentence of banishment can prevail against it.\nIt establishes the universal ideas in language,\nAnd guides our hand so we write Truth and Justice\nWith capital letters, lie and oppression with small.\nIt puts what should be above things as they are,\nIs an enemy of despair and a friend of hope.\nIt does not know Jew from Greek or slave from master,\nGiving us the estate of the world to manage.\nIt saves austere and transparent phrases\nFrom the filthy discord of tortured words.\nIt says that everything is new under the sun,\nOpens the congealed fist of the past.\nBeautiful and very young are Philo-Sophia\nAnd poetry, her ally in the service of the good.\nAs late as yesterday Nature celebrated their birth,\nThe news was brought to the mountains by a unicorn and an echo.\nTheir friendship will be glorious, their time has no limit.\nTheir enemies have delivered themselves to destruction.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Pinsky", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "The Captive Mind", @@ -70264,6 +72325,9 @@ "year": 1983 } }, + "translators": [ + "Robert Pinsky" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -70290,11 +72354,13 @@ "title": "“Late Ripeness”", "body": "Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,\nI felt a door opening in me and I entered\nthe clarity of early morning.\n\nOne after another my former lives were departing,\nlike ships, together with their sorrow.\n\nAnd the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas\nassigned to my brush came closer,\nready now to be described better than they were before.\n\nI was not separated from people,\ngrief and pity joined us.\nWe forget--I kept saying--that we are all children of the King.\n\nFor where we come from there is no division\ninto Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.\n\nWe were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part\nof the gift we received for our long journey.\n\nMoments from yesterday and from centuries ago--\na sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror\nof polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel\nstaving its hull against a reef--they dwell in us,\nwaiting for a fulfillment.\n\nI knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,\nas are all men and women living at the same time,\nwhether they are aware of it or not.", "metadata": { + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 2004 }, - "translator": "Robert Hass", - "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Hass" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -70310,12 +72376,14 @@ "title": "“A Magic Mountain”", "body": "I don’t remember exactly when Budberg died, it was either two years ago or three.\nThe same with Chen. Whether last year or the one before.\nSoon after our arrival, Budberg, gently pensive,\nSaid that in the beginning it is hard to get accustomed,\nFor here there is no spring or summer, no winter or fall.\n\n“I kept dreaming of snow and birch forests.\nWhere so little changes you hardly notice how time goes by.\nThis is, you will see, a magic mountain.”\n\nBudberg: a familiar name in my childhood.\nThey were prominent in our region,\nThis Russian family, descendants of German Balts.\nI read none of his works, too specialized.\nAnd Chen, I have heard, was an exquisite poet,\nWhich I must take on faith, for he wrote in Chinese.\n\nSultry Octobers, cool Julys, trees blossom in February.\nHere the nuptial flight of hummingbirds does not forecast spring.\nOnly the faithful maple sheds its leaves every year.\nFor no reason, its ancestors simply learned it that way.\n\nI sensed Budberg was right and I rebelled.\nSo I won’t have power, won’t save the world?\nFame will pass me by, no tiara, no crown?\nDid I then train myself, myself the Unique,\nTo compose stanzas for gulls and sea haze,\nTo listen to the foghorns blaring down below?\n\nUntil it passed. What passed? Life.\nNow I am not ashamed of my defeat.\nOne murky island with its barking seals\nOr a parched desert is enough\nTo make us say: yes, _oui, si._\n“Even asleep we partake in the becoming of the world.”\nEndurance comes only from enduring.\nWith a flick of the wrist I fashioned an invisible rope,\nAnd climbed it and it held me.\n\nWhat a procession! _Quelles dĂ©lices!_\nWhat caps and hooded gowns!\nMost respected Professor Budberg,\nMost distinguished Professor Chen,\nWrong Honorable Professor Milosz\nWho wrote poems in some unheard-of tongue.\nWho will count them anyway. And here sunlight.\nSo that the flames of their tall candles fade.\nAnd how many generations of hummingbirds keep them company\nAs they walk on. Across the magic mountain.\nAnd the fog from the ocean is cool, for once again it is July.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lillian Vallee", + "place": "Berkeley", + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1975 }, - "place": "Berkeley", - "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Lillian Vallee" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -70326,10 +72394,10 @@ "title": "“Magpiety”", "body": "The same and not quite the same, I walked through oak forests\nAmazed that my Muse, Mnemosyne,\nHas in no way diminished my amazement.\nA magpie was screeching and I said: Magpiety?\nWhat is magpiety? I shall never achieve\nA magpie heart, a hairy nostril over the beak, a flight\nThat always renews just when coming down,\nAnd so I shall never comprehend magpiety.\nIf however magpiety does not exist\nMy nature does not exist either.\nWho would have guessed that, centuries later,\nI would invent the question of universals?", "metadata": { + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1974 }, - "language": "Polish", "tags": [] } }, @@ -70345,12 +72413,12 @@ "title": "“Metareality of the Virtual Mind”", "body": "Always moving, always changing\nElectronic cars on the information highway.\nIdeas without thought, speech without meaning\nWords that aren’t words, yet are understood.\nPeople, places, things, plans and ambitions\nEverywhere but nowhere\nThe stuff that dreams are made of.\nRaw emotion, ebbing and flowing, coming and going\nPixellated passion\nSubliminal seduction.\nViolence spreading, pure rage emerging\nA day in the life of a virtual warfighter.\nPeople who aren’t, identity shifts\nPhantoms dancing on the silver screen.\nPeople talking, nobody listening\nCrackpots preaching to the imaginary masses.\nSociety shaping, culture emerging\nNumbers instead of names\nPorts without rivers\nPages without books\nServers bearing digital sustinance\nMen become Gods of the Wired.\nAlways connected, never away\nThe ultimate addiction\nThe power of Information.\nProposals and porgress\nArguments and arrangements\nConversations spreading at the speed of creation.\nPersonalities and mentalities\nReason and religion\nthe hard-wired mind needs to upgrade.\nIn the age of information\nOn the streets paved in silicon\nThe virtual has become the second reality.", "metadata": { + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 2008, "month": "march", "day": 18 }, - "language": "Polish", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -70378,11 +72446,13 @@ "title": "“Normalization”", "body": "This happened long ago, before the onset\nof universal genetic correctness.\n\nBoys and girls would stand naked before mirrors\nstudying the defects of their structure.\n\nNose too long, ears like burdocks,\nsunken chin just like a mongoloid.\n\nBreasts too small, too large, lopsided shoulders,\npenis too short, hips too broad or else too narrow.\n\nAnd just an inch or two taller!\n\nSuch was the house they inhabited for life.\n\nHiding, feigning, concealing defects.\n\nBut somehow they still had to find a partner.\n\nFollowing incomprehensible tastes--airy creatures\npaired with potbellies, skin and bones enamored of salt pork.\n\nThey had a saying then: “Even monsters\nhave their mates.” So perhaps they learned to tolerate their partners’\nflaws, trusting that theirs would be forgiven in turn.\n\nNow every genetic error meets with such\ndisgust that crowds might spit on them and stone them.\n\nAs happened in the city of K., where the town council\nvoted to exile a girl\n\nSo thickset and squat\nthat no stylish dress could ever suit her,\n\nBut let’s not yearn for the days of prenormalization.\nJust think of the torments, the anxieties, the sweat,\nthe wiles needed to entice, in spite of all.", "metadata": { + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1988 }, - "translator": "Clare Cavanagh", - "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -70390,8 +72460,10 @@ "title": "“Not Mine”", "body": "All my life to pretend this world of theirs is mine\nAnd to know such pretending is disgraceful.\nBut what can I do? Suppose I suddenly screamed\nAnd started to prophesy. No one would hear me.\nTheir screens and microphones are not for that.\nOthers like me wander the streets\nAnd talk to themselves. Sleep on benches in parks,\nOr on pavements in alleys. For there aren’t enough prisons\nTo lock up all the poor. I smile and keep quiet.\nThey won’t get me now.\nTo feast with the chosen--that I do well.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Hass", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Hass" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -70498,12 +72570,14 @@ "title": "“A Song on the End of the World”", "body": "On the day the world ends\nA bee circles a clover,\nA fisherman mends a glimmering net.\nHappy porpoises jump in the sea,\nBy the rainspout young sparrows are playing\nAnd the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.\n\nOn the day the world ends\nWomen walk through the fields under their umbrellas,\nA drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,\nVegetable peddlers shout in the street\nAnd a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,\nThe voice of a violin lasts in the air\nAnd leads into a starry night.\n\nAnd those who expected lightning and thunder\nAre disappointed.\nAnd those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps\nDo not believe it is happening now.\nAs long as the sun and the moon are above,\nAs long as the bumblebee visits a rose,\nAs long as rosy infants are born\nNo one believes it is happening now.\n\nOnly a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet\nYet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,\nRepeats while he binds his tomatoes:\nThere will be no other end of the world,\nThere will be no other end of the world.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anthony MiƂosz", + "place": "Warsaw", + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1944 }, - "place": "Warsaw", - "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Anthony MiƂosz" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_eve" @@ -70538,11 +72612,13 @@ "title": "“Theodicy”", "body": "No, it won’t do, my sweet theologians.\nDesire will not save the morality of God.\nIf he created beings able to choose between good and evil,\nAnd they chose, and the world lies in iniquity,\nNevertheless, there is pain, and the undeserved torture of creatures,\nWhich would find its explanation only by assuming\nThe existence of an archetypal Paradise\nAnd a pre-human downfall so grave\nThat the world of matter received its shape from diabolic power.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Hass", + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1988 }, - "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Hass" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -70561,8 +72637,10 @@ "title": "“To Mrs. Professor in Defense of My Cat’s Honor”", "body": "My valiant helper, a small-sized tiger\nSleeps sweetly on my desk, by the computer,\nUnaware that you insult his tribe.\n\nCats play with a mouse or with a half-dead mole.\nYou are wrong, though: it’s not out of cruelty.\nThey simply like a thing that moves.\n\nFor, after all, we know that only consciousness\nCan for a moment move into the Other,\nEmpathize with the pain and panic of a mouse.\n\nAnd such as cats are, all of Nature is.\nIndifferent, alas, to the good and the evil.\nQuite a problem for us, I am afraid.\n\nNatural history has its museums,\nBut why should our children learn about monsters,\nAn earth of snakes and reptiles for millions of years?\n\nNature devouring, nature devoured,\nButchery day and night smoking with blood.\nand who created it? Was it the good Lord?\n\nYes, undoubtedly, they are innocent,\nSpiders, mantises, sharks, pythons.\nWe are the only ones who say: cruelty.\n\nOur consciousness and our conscience\nAlone in the pale anthill of galaxies\nPut their hope in a humane God.\n\nWho cannot but feel and think,\nWho is kindred to us by his warmth and movement,\nFor we are, as he told us, similar to Him.\n\nYet if it is so, the He takes pity\nOn every mauled mouse, every wounded bird.\nThen the universe ofr him is like a Crucifixion.\n\nSuch is the outcome of your attack on the cat:\nA theological, Augustinian grimace,\nWhich makes difficult our walking on this earth.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Hass", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Hass" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -70578,12 +72656,14 @@ "title": "“Veni Creator”", "body": "Come, Holy Spirit,\nbending or not bending the grasses,\nappearing or not above our heads in a tongue of flame,\nat hay harvest or when they plough in the orchards or when snow\ncovers crippled firs in the Sierra Nevada.\nI am only a man: I need visible signs.\nI tire easily, building the stairway of abstraction.\nMany a time I asked, you know it well, that the statue in church\nlifts its hand, only once, just once, for me.\nBut I understand that signs must be human,\ntherefore call one man, anywhere on earth,\nnot me--after all I have some decency--\nand allow me, when I look at him, to marvel at you.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Pinsky", + "place": "Berkeley", + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1961 }, - "place": "Berkeley", - "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Pinsky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "pentecost" @@ -70637,12 +72717,14 @@ "title": "“You Who Wronged”", "body": "You who wronged a simple man\nBursting into laughter at the crime,\nAnd kept a pack of fools around you\nTo mix good and evil, to blur the line,\n\nThough everyone bowed down before you,\nSaying virtue and wisdom lit your way,\nStriking gold medals in your honor,\nGlad to have survived another day,\n\nDo not feel safe. The poet remembers.\nYou can kill one, but another is born.\nThe words are written down, the deed, the date.\n\nAnd you’d have done better with a winter dawn,\nA rope, and a branch bowed beneath your weight.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Richard Lourie", "place": "Washington, DC", + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1950 }, - "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Richard Lourie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -70836,8 +72918,10 @@ "title": "“It’s True I Went To The Market”", "body": "My friend, I went to the market and bought the Dark One.\nYou claim by night, I claim by day.\nActually I was beating a drum all the time I was buying him.\nYou say I gave too much; I say too little.\nActually, I put him on a scale before I bought him.\nWhat I paid was my social body, my town body, my family body, and all my inherited jewels.\nMirabai says: The Dark One is my husband now.\nBe with me when I lie down; you promised me this in an earlier life.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Hindi", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -70848,12 +72932,25 @@ "name": "Gabriela Mistral", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1889 + "year": 1889, + "month": "april", + "day": 7 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Vicuña", + "country": "Chile" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1957 + "year": 1957, + "month": "january", + "day": 10 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Hempstead", + "state": "New York", + "country": "USA" } }, "gender": "female", @@ -70862,7 +72959,7 @@ ], "education": null, "movement": [], - "religion": null, + "religion": "Catholic", "nationality": [ "chile" ], @@ -70872,6 +72969,7 @@ "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriela_Mistral", "favorite": false, "tags": [ + "Nobel Prize", "Chilean", "Spanish" ] @@ -71024,11 +73122,13 @@ "title": "“At last, with a gesture 
”", "body": "At last, with a gesture, the last shreds of your tobacco\nare extinguished in the glass\ndish; towards the ceiling\na slow spiral of smoke rises\nthat the bishops and knights on the chessboard\ngaze at stupefied; and new smoke-rings\nfollow, more mobile than the rings\non your fingers.\nThe mirage that freed towers\nand bridges in the sky is gone\nat the first breath; an unseen window\nopens and the smoke stirs. Down there\nanother herd moves; a storm\nof men who cannot comprehend your incense;\nthat of this board, of which you alone\ncan make sense.\nFor a time I doubted if even you perhaps\nwere ignorant of the game played out\non its squares, now a cloud at your door:\nthe madness of death is not eased at so slight\na cost; though the gleam in your eyes is subdued\nit demands other fires, as well as the dense\ncloud that the household gods foment\naround you, when they aid you.\nToday, I know what you want; the hoarse bell\nof the Martinella rings out and frightens\nthe ivory shapes with the spectral\nlight of snowfall. But he resists\nand wins the prize of the watchful solitary\nwho, with you, can pit those steely eyes\nof yours against the burning-glass\nthat blinds pawns.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -71036,11 +73136,13 @@ "title": "“The bad weather’s firecrackers 
”", "body": "The bad weather’s firecrackers\nwill become a murmur of hives in late evening.\nThere’s woodworm in the beams\nand an odour of melon oozes\nfrom the floor. The soft\nsmoke that ascends the valley\nof elves and mushrooms to the transparent cone\nof the summit fogs the windows,\nand I write to you from here, from this table,\nfrom this honeyed cell\nof a sphere hurled through space,\nand the covered cage, the grate\nwhere chestnuts explode, the veins\nof saltpetre and mould, are the frame\nfrom which I will burst. Life\nthat renders you legendary falls short\nif it contains you! The bright background\nreveals your icon. Outside it rains\nAnd you can follow the fragile architecture\nblackened by carbon and time,\nthe square courtyards with the deepest of wells\nat their centre; you can follow\nthe veiled flight of nocturnal\nbirds, and in the depths of the ravine the glow\nof the galaxy, that belt of every torment.\nBut the step that resonates in the darkness\nis of one who goes solitary and sees nothing\nexcept this descent of arches, shadows and angles.\nThe stars are embroidered too thinly,\nthe eye of the campanile shuts at two o’clock.\nthe vines too are an ascent\nof darkness and their scent bitter regret.\nReturn tomorrow, colder still, north wind,\nshatter the ancient fingers of sandstone,\nscatter the missals in the attics,\nand let all be slow tranquility, a domain, a prison\nof feeling without despair. Return more fiercely\nnorth wind that makes our chains dear to us,\nand seals up the seeds of the possible!\nThe streets are too narrow, the black donkeys\nthat jog along in files strike sparks,\nfrom the hidden peak magnesium flares reply 
\n
 has this Christian quarrel nothing\nbut words of shadow and lament\nto bring me? Less than whatever\nthe mill-race stole from you that inters\nsweetness in its closure of cement.\nA grindstone, an old trunk,\nthe world’s ultimate limits. A heap\nof straw is scattered: and woodworms emerge\nto link my wakefulness to your deep\nsleep that greets them, The porcupine\nsips at a thread of mercy.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -71048,11 +73150,13 @@ "title": "“The baroque convent 
”", "body": "The baroque convent\nof biscuit and foam\nhid a glimpse of sluggish water\nand tables already set, scattered here and there\nwith leaves and ginger.\nA swimmer emerged, dripping,\nin a cloud of midges,\nasked about our journey,\nspoke at length about his own, over the border.\n\nHe pointed to the bridge opposite, crossed\n(he informed us) with a single coin as toll.\n\nWith a wave of his hand, he sank,\nwas at one with the current 
\nAnd into his place,\nfrom a shed, there leapt our herald,\na dachshund barking joyously,\nsole fraternal voice in the sticky heat.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -71060,11 +73164,13 @@ "title": "“Between the thud of chestnuts 
”", "body": "Between the thud of chestnuts\nand the roar of the torrent,\nwhose voices unite\nthe heart wavers.\nPrecocious winter that the north wind\nsets shaking. I advance\non the verge that the dawn\nof day dissolves in ice.\nMarbled, branched 
\nand as one I shake down\nscrolled leaves, arrows\ninto the ditch.\nThe raw ultimate\npasses in the fog\nof its own breath.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -71075,11 +73181,13 @@ "title": "“Even a flying feather can sketch 
”", "body": "Even a flying feather can sketch\nyour figure, or a ray of light playing hide and seek\namong tables and chairs, the signal\nfrom a child’s mirror, or the rooftops. Round the circuit\nof walls trails of mist lengthen the spires\nof the poplars, and down below on its perch\nthe knife-grinder’s parrot ruffles its plumage. Then\nsultry night in the little squares, footsteps, and always\nthe toilsome effort to sink so as to rise again equal\nto centuries, moments, to nightmares that cannot\nrecover the light of your eyes in the incandescent\ncave--and still the same cries and the endless\nplaint on the veranda,\nif the sudden blow falls that reddens\nyour throat and breaks your wings, O perilous\nherald of dawn,\nand the cloisters and hospitals wake\nto a laceration of trumpets 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -71087,11 +73195,13 @@ "title": "“Evil I’ve often encountered in life 
”", "body": "Evil I’ve often encountered in life;\nit was the strangled rivulet gurgling,\nit was the shrivelling of parched\nleaves, it was the horse falling heavily.\nGood I have not known; except the wonder\nthat reveals divine Indifference;\nit was the statue in the somnolence\nof noon, and the cloud, and the hawk flying high.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -71099,11 +73209,13 @@ "title": "“The form of the carob tree that looms 
”", "body": "The form of the carob tree that looms\nnaked against the somnolent blue,\nthe sound of voices, the process\nof silver fingers over the doorsteps,\nthe feather that gets entangled, on the jetty\na trampling of feet that dies away,\nand the felucca already falling back in flight\nits abandoned sail in tatters.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -71111,11 +73223,13 @@ "title": "“Happiness is achieved for you, walking 
”", "body": "Happiness is achieved for you, walking\nthus, on the edge of a knife blade.\nTo our eyes you are a wavering gleam,\nafoot, tense ice that fractures;\nso who loves you most cannot touch you.\nIf you come upon spirits invaded\nwith sadness and brighten them, your morning\nis sweet and troubled like the nests on high.\nBut nothing compensates for the cry of the child\nwhose ball is in flight among the houses.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1925 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -71123,11 +73237,13 @@ "title": "“I free your brow of all the ice 
”", "body": "I free your brow of all the ice\nyou have gathered traversing the high\nclouds; your feathers lacerated\nby cyclones, you woke to lightning jolts.\n\nNoon: the medlar in the square extends\nits dark shadow, a cold sun hangs\nin the sky; and the other shadows lurking\nin the alley do not know you are here.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -71138,11 +73254,13 @@ "title": "“I recall your smile 
”", "body": "I recall your smile, and for me it is limpid water\nwitnessed by chance among the stones of a riverbed.\nslight mirror in which you see an ivy and its inflorescence,\nand over all the embrace of a serene white sky.\nThis is my recollection; I cannot say, O distant one,\nif an ingenuous spirit is freely expressed in your face,\ntruly you are a wanderer whom the world’s ills exhaust,\nand who carry your suffering with you like a talisman.\nBut this I may say; that your thoughtful portrait\ndrowns anxious inspiration in a wave of calm;\nand your aspect insinuates itself in grey memory\npure as the crown of a youthful palm-tree 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -71150,11 +73268,13 @@ "title": "“The journey ends here 
”", "body": "The journey ends here:\nin the petty cares that divide\nthe spirit that no longer utters a cry.\nNow the minutes are equal and fixed\nlike the rhythm of the pump’s wheel.\nA rotation: a spouting of rumbling water.\nAnother: more water, sometimes a creak.\nThe journey ends on this beach\nthat slow regular tides attempt.\nThe sea reveals nothing but idle vapours\nthe vigorous murmurs of shells\nconceive; and rarely among the tranquil\nmutations of islands of migrating air\nCorsica’s ridge or Capri appears.\nYou ask if all things vanish\nin this little mist of memories;\nif in this torpid hour, or in the sigh\nof breakers every destiny completes.\nI would say to you, no; the hour\napproaches when you will pass beyond time;\nperhaps only those who so wish become infinite,\nand you may do so, who knows, not I.\nI think for most it may be no salvation,\nbut some subvert every design,\nmake every crossing, discover what they desire.\nFirst I would grant your crossing yourself,\nthat way of escape\nuncertain as foam or a wrinkle\nin the risen fields of the sea.\nI grant you my miserly hope as well.\nAt daylight, weary, I cannot increase it:\nmy offer as pledge of the fate you evade.\nThe path ends with the brave\nwhom the tide gnaws with its ebb and flow.\nYour heart close to me that hears me not\nalready sets sail perhaps for eternity.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -71162,8 +73282,10 @@ "title": "“Maybe one morning, walking in dry, glassy air 
”", "body": "Maybe one morning, walking in dry, glassy air,\nI’ll turn and see the miracle occur:\nnothing at my back, the void\nbehind me, with a drunkard’s terror.\n\nThen, as if on a screen, trees houses hills\nwill suddenly collect for the usual illusion.\nBut it will be too late, and I’ll walk on silent\namong the men who don’t look back, with my secret.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jonathan Galassi", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Jonathan Galassi" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -71171,11 +73293,13 @@ "title": "“The repertoire of memory is worn 
”", "body": "The repertoire of memory is worn: a leather suitcase\nthat has borne the labels from too many hotels.\nNow there remains some sticker I dare not\nunpeel. We must think of the porters,\nthe doorman at night, the taxi-drivers.\nThe repertoire of your memory\nhas shown me you yourself before you left.\nThere were names of various countries, dates\nand sojourns and at the end a blank white page,\nbut with rows of dots 
 as if to suggest,\nif it were possible: “to be continued”.\nThe repertoire of our memory cannot be imagined\nas cut in two thus by a knife. It’s a single sheet with traces\nof stamps, abrasions, and a few spots of blood,\nIt was no passport, not even a testimonial.\nTo be of service, even to hope, would have still meant life.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -71183,11 +73307,13 @@ "title": "“This, that glimmers at night 
”", "body": "This, that glimmers at night\nin the shell of my mind\nmother-of-pearl snail-track,\nor ground glass powder,\nis not a lamp in some church or office,\ntended by clerical\nred, or black.\nI have only this rainbow glow\nto leave as testimony\nof a faith contested\nof a hope that burned more slowly\nthan an iron-hard log on the fire.\nKeep its face-powder in your compact,\nwhen with every light extinguished\nthe wild dance becomes infernal,\nand shadowy Lucifer lands on some prow\non the Thames, the Hudson, the Seine,\nbeating his bitumen wings half-\nlopped by fatigue, to tell you; this is the hour.\nIt’s not an heirloom, a lucky charm\nto withstand the force of the monsoon\nbeating on the spider-web of memory,\nbut a story can only survive as ashes,\nand persistence is only extinction.\nIt will be a sign, for certain; whoever sees it,\ncannot fail to find you there.\nEveryone knows their own: the pride was\nnot escape, the humility not\nmeanness, the tenuous spark struck\nthere no spurt of a spent match.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -71195,11 +73321,13 @@ "title": "“To rest in the shade 
”", "body": "To rest in the shade, pale and thoughtful,\nby a sun-hot garden wall\nlistening among thorns and brushwood\nto the cry of blackbirds, the hiss of snakes.\nIn cracks in the soil or amongst the vetch\nto spy on the files of red ants\nnow scattering now intertwining\nat the top of miniscule mountains.\nTo observe among the leaves the distant\nquivering scales of the sea,\nwhile the tremulous cries rise\nfrom cicadas on the naked hills.\nAnd walking in the dazzling sun\nto feel with a saddened wonder\nhow all of life and its travails\nis in this following a wall\ntopped by bright shards of glass.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -71210,11 +73338,13 @@ "title": "“The white cloud of maddened moths swirls 
”", "body": "The white cloud of maddened moths swirls\nthickly round the pale lamps and over the parapets,\nspreading a sheet on the ground that crackles\nlike sugar underfoot; now imminent summer liberates\nthe ice of night trapped\nin the secret caves of the dead season,\nin the gardens that stretch from Maiano here to Arno’s shores.\nLately, on the Corso, an infernal messenger passed in flight\nthrough cheering admirers; a mystic gulf, open\nand decked with crosses, took and swallowed the bait;\nthe shops are shuttered, poor\nand harmless though even those are armed\nwith cannon and toys of war,\nthe butcher has locked his grille, who wreathed\nthe heads of dead goats with berries,\nthe ritual of mild executioners who still do not realise blood\nhas been transmuted into the foul tangle of crushed wings\nof insects on the embankments, and water continues\nto gnaw the banks, and no one is innocent.\nAll for nothing then?--And the Roman candles,\non Saint John’s Day, that slowly bleached\nthe horizon, and the pledges and long goodbyes\nintense as a baptism in gloomy expectation\nof the horde (yet a comet scored the dripping air\non the ice and shores of your coasts,\nthe angels Tobias saw, the seven, the future\narriving) and the sunflower born\nfrom your hands--all burned and desiccated\nin this pollen that shrills like fire\nwith the sharpness of icy sleet 
\nOh, the wounded\nspring is still festive though frozen\nin death, this death! Your fate, Clizia,\nis still cherished above, you\nwho preserve a love unaltered though altered\npure in what the blind sun might bring you,\ndazed by the Highest, and destroyed\nin Him, for all. Perhaps the sirens, the tolling bells,\nthat greeted the monsters in their stormy\nevening are already confounded\nwith a sound loosed from heaven, descending, in victory--\nwith the breath of a dawn that rises tomorrow\nfor all, white but without those dreadful\nwings, over the scorched shores of the south 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Italian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_john_the_baptist" @@ -72347,8 +74477,10 @@ "title": "“Colour Grey”", "body": "1.\n\nI grow time, beans, the colour gray\nAnd stitch the shadows of a dying day\nThey make a woman, rather a girl\nLost in the ocean like a grain of pearl\nThe swans of Coole fly over me\nWill they rest for a while by me!\nMaybe it’s my turn now.\nDeep in the frost where my eyes shall never go\nThe leopard will print his paw\nAnd with a sudden leap break free\nAll the chimes of poetry\nMaybe it’s my turn now.\nThe rough beast was never born\nThough we devised a cage for his morn\nMaybe it’s my turn now.\nI have a tale to tell I shall also ring the bell\nWhen you start believing\nWhen you start hearing\nMaybe it’s my turn now.\n\n\n2.\n\nThese days I don’t think of you\nBut after the soot covers me\nI begin to wonder where those\nEvenings have gone, those wanderings\nIn the spacious lawns of enchantment\nThat smacked of no design, though\nWe were bent on making a sense\nThe early birds get their worms\nI lie in the tireless ticking of my old watch\nCounting the bits of frozen blood,\nListening to the worms\nThat are in all of us\nThen I begin to crawl towards the womb\nThat threw me off a long way back\nAnd look for the dark, the black hole\nTo suck me up.\n\n\n3.\n\nI was nice to him\nHe was nice to me\nOnly\nOur doors, our windows\nKept closed\nLest we smell each other.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Roger Woodhouse", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Roger Woodhouse" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -72523,11 +74655,13 @@ "title": "“The fog of nighttime sleep 
”", "body": "The fog of nighttime sleep, the dusty plaque of languor,\nI wash them off by gently-gold heavy sponge,\nWhich’s full of swollen foam soap in all over,\nThe fragrant thick and very charming storage.\n\nIt’s lightly bluish, in the pool of milk-white water,\nWhich‘s slightly visible, but stirring vapor,\nAnd I place me with all my grateful body\nIn its calm heat and gentle flavor.\n\nAnd afterwards, enjoying that silky care,\nI often like the icy moisture to obtain\nMy blades to pour one moment and there\nBy fluffy sheets I need me to entwine.\n\nThen while my skin is slightly dry I drape it\nWith cool and light textile fabric of own,\nWith songs of struggle, searching for a feat,\nIt’s fair to say, that both ready--body and soul.\n\nSo every little thing we--children, poets,\nAre always able to apply into a miracle,\nAnd in the usual we heavenly signs guess\nAnd our any touch, make color it 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Galina Devyatkina", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Galina Devyatkina" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72535,12 +74669,14 @@ "title": "“Lilith”", "body": "I died. Aeolus tugged and blown\nAt trees and shutters with his heat.\nI walked on down the dusty street\nFauns walked beside me. In each faun,\nI made out Pan. I contemplated:\n“This must be heaven, I have made it 
”\n\nFrom sunlight hiding, shinning softly\nwith russet armpits, standing bare,\na girl was looking from the doorway,\nwith water-lilies in her hair.\nShe stood so slender, and so free,\nher nipples--rosy,--I recalled\none day in spring, when I, enthralled,\nsat, hidden by an alder-tree,\nand watched in silence, closely prying,\nthe town miller’s younger daughter,\nas she emerged out of the water,--\nbetween her legs, a beard was drying.\n\nAnd now, in yesterday’s attire,\nwhich I had worn when I was killed,\nI, with a playboy’s lustful smile,\napproached my Lilith with a thrill.\nAcross the shoulder, with a distant\ngreen eye she gazed,--at once, on me,\nthe cloak caught fire,--in an instant\nit turned to ash. And I could see,\nnot far away, a Greek divan stood,\nand tables full of wine and food,\nand then a wall, with paint splattered.\nWith two cold fingers, lacking shame,\nthe child took me by the flame:\n“Come over here,”--she softly uttered.\nWithout effort or compulsion,\nbut slowly, to extend delight\nshe spread, like wings, in just one motion\nher knees right there before my sight.\nWith those seductive shinning eyes!\nshe seemed so cheerful and so ardent,\nwhen with a frenzied bang of thighs\nI broke into the unforgotten.\nOur vessels locked. Together linked,\ninside of her, I started sliding\nalready, in a growing sting,\nsuch wondrous bliss began alighting,--\nand suddenly she pushed away,\nran back, and closed her legs in haste,\npicked up some veil on the way\nand put it up around her waist\nand full of strength, stuck in-between--\nso close to pleasure,--I, dismaying,\nrushed toward her, and started swaying\nfrom heated winds. “Oh, let me in,”--\nI yelled to her and grew aware\nthat I was on the street once more\nand nasty, bleating children there\nwere staring at my mace in awe.\n“Oh, let me in,”--goat-legged mass\nwould gather ’round me. “At last,\nor I’ll go crazy!” I still yelled.\nThe door was silent. And I, grieving,\nbefore the public, spilled my semen\nand understood, that this was hell.", "metadata": { + "place": "Berlin", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "place": "Berlin", - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -72551,12 +74687,12 @@ "title": "“My Friend, I’m Really Just Sorry”", "body": "My friend, I’m really just sorry\nabout who, in secret blindness,\npassing all length of the green alley,\njust can not notice on leaves\nthe striking network of the streaks\nand points of the tubercles\nor even the serrated tracks\nfrom saws of the blue-horned slugs.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1920, "month": "january", "day": 2 }, - "language": "Russian", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -72576,12 +74712,14 @@ "title": "“The Shooting”", "body": "Some nights, as soon as I lie down,\nI’m back in Russia in my dream;\nMy hands behind my back are bound\nThey’re taking me to the ravine.\n\nThen I wake up, and from the chair--\nWhere my wrist watch always lies--\nIts glowing face through darkness stares,\nLike a gun muzzle in my eyes.\n\nIt’s aimed at me; now it will fire!\nI cover my head and neck, aghast,\nBut from the dimly lighted dial\nMy glance away I dare not cast.\n\nAnd then the rhythmic ticking sound\nCalms down my benumbed mind\nThe fortunate exile I found\nAround me is safely twined.\n\nAnd yet, my heart would still desire\nTo make it true, this Russian scene:\nThe starry sky, a gunshot fired,\nWhite hackberries in the ravine!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Olga Dumer", + "place": "Berlin", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1927 }, - "place": "Berlin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Olga Dumer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72589,11 +74727,13 @@ "title": "“The Swift”", "body": "At twilight, we stood by the pier\nI said, “See that swift in the sky?\nAs long as you live, will you ever\nForget how it whirled in its flight?”\n\nYou said: “I’ll remember forever!”\nAnd then we both burst into tears,\nAnd love, like a wounded bird cried 
\nAt twilight, right there by the pier\n\nForever, until we both die 
", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1937 }, - "translator": "Olga Dumer", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Olga Dumer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72601,12 +74741,12 @@ "title": "“What does my heart indeed just need 
”", "body": "What does my heart indeed just need\nto be happy? So not a lot 
\nI like animals, trees, God,\nA beam--at noon, darkness--at night.\n\nAnd on the edge of outside\nI’ll say: where was affliction?\nI sang, and if I ever cried--\nso only with tears of admiration.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1919, "month": "march", "day": 5 }, - "language": "Russian", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -72708,8 +74848,10 @@ "title": "“The Christ-Child”", "body": "The lips of the Christ-child are like to twin leaves;\nThey let roses fall when he smiles tenderly.\nThe tears of the Christ-child are pearls when he grieves;\nThe eyes of the Christ-child are deep as the sea.\nLike pomegranate grains are the dimples he hath,\nAnd clustering lilies spring up in his path.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alice Stone Blackwell", "language": "Armenian", + "translators": [ + "Alice Stone Blackwell" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "epiphany" @@ -72720,12 +74862,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 1", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nThe voice of a sighing heart, its sobs and mournful cries,\nI offer up to you, O Seer of Secrets,\nplacing the fruits of my wavering mind\nas a savory sacrifice on the fire of my grieving soul\nto be delivered to you in the censer of my will.\n\nCompassionate Lord, breathe in\nthis offering and look more favorably on it\nthan upon a more sumptuous sacrifice\noffered with rich smoke. Please find\nthis simple string of words acceptable.\nDo not turn in disdain.\n\nMay this unsolicited gift reach you,\nthis sacrifice of words\nfrom the deep mystery-filled chamber\nof my feelings, consumed in flames\nfueled by whatever grace I may have within me.\n\nAs I pray, do not let these\npleas annoy you, Almighty,\nlike the raised hands of Jacob,\nwhose irreverence was rebuked\nby Isaiah, nor let them seem like the impudence\nof Babylon criticized in the seventy second Psalm.\n\nBut let these words be acceptable\nas were the fragrant offerings\nin the tabernacle at Shiloh\nraised again by David on his return from captivity\nas the resting place for the ark of the covenant,\na symbol for the restoration of my lost soul.\n\n\n# II.\n\nBecause your stern judgment\nechoes mightily in the valley of retribution,\ncontradictory impulses in my soul\nbrace for battle like clashing mobs.\nCrowds of thoughts strike each other, sword\nagainst armor, evil against good,\nensnaring me for death, as in other times,\nwhen your grace had not rescued me--\nthat grace of Christ, which Paul,\nchosen among the apostles,\ntaught was greater than the law of Moses.\n\nFor as the Scripture says, “The day\nof the Lord is upon us,”\nand in the narrow valley of Jehoshaphat\non the banks of the Kidron,\nthose small battle grounds\nforeshadow on earth\nvictory in the life to come.\nThus, the kingdom of God in a visible form\nhas come already, charging me\non truthful testimony with wrongs\ngraver than those of the Edomites,\nPhilistines and other barbarians--\nwrongs that brought down the hand of God.\n\nAnd whereas their sentences were measured in years,\nmy transgressions will be punished without term.\nAs the prophet and the parable-teller warned,\nthe dungeon and shackles\nare already at my threshold to show me\nhere and now my eternal disgrace.\n\nOnly you can work the miracle\nto make life possible for a soul\nso imperiled by doubt,\nO Atoner for all, exalted beyond saying\nin your boundless glory on high\nforever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72733,12 +74877,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 2", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, my heavy laden soul,\nwhat will you do?\nYou call with your lips and voice to\nGod most high,\nGod, who cares only for deeds and\nis not taken in by words.\nYou, my soul, with a heart always turned toward Egypt,\nhow can I describe you?\n\nAm I\na Sodom, to be punished likewise with destruction,\nor the prosecutor of Ninevah, who was struck dumb?\n\nAm I\nmore cowardly and barbarous than the\nqueen of the south,\nlower than Canaan,\nmore stubborn than Amalek,\nincurable as the city of idols,\na relic left behind from the rebellion of Israel,\na reminder of the broken covenant of Judah,\nmore reproachable than Tyre,\nmore shunned than Zidon,\nmore immoral than Galilee, more unpardonable than faithless Capernaum,\nmaligned like Korazin,\nslandered like Bethsaida?\n\nOr am I\nimmodest as Ephraim as he grayed,\nor a dove, whose gentleness seems due to\nfeeblemindedness and not to inner calm,\nor an evil serpent born of lion’s cubs,\nor the serpent’s egg filled with decay,\nor like the last blow against Jerusalem?\nOr am I\nin the words of our Lord\nand the sayings of the prophets,\nan abandoned tabernacle about to collapse,\nthe unlatched doors of the stronghold,\nmy speaking edifice stained again,\nhaving given up my rightful inheritance,\nmy home built by God,\nas Moses, David and Jeremiah prophesied?\nMy thinking body now consumed by disease,\nafflicted with carping counsel, rehabilitated by the law,\nanointed with the clay of mildness,\nincapable of finding my own salvation,\ntorn away from the maker’s hand,\nexpelled as just punishment\nby order of the Almighty, to an unholy place,\nrejected, exiled, greatly shunned, nothing spared,\nhaving buried my gift in the ground,\nlike the one chastised in the Gospel by\nlosing his inheritance.\n\n\n# II.\n\nBut you, God,\nLord of souls and all flesh,\nin the words of one divinely graced,\nyou are long-suffering and abounding in mercy.\n\nIn the voice of blessed Jonah,\ngrant that I finish to your delight\nthis book of prayers, now begun.\nAnd having sown these words with tears\nand set forth on this journey toward the dwellings you\nhave prepared,\nmay I return joyfully in the time of harvest\nwith the bounty of atonement,\nwith sheaves of goodness and the fruits of delight.\n\nDo not give me a barren heart,\nlike the childless womb that was Israel’s,\nor eyes like dry breasts,\nbut hear the prayers of your thoughtful servant,\nalmighty and merciful Lord,\nbefore the prayers of heaven,\nas those of heaven are heard before those of earth,\nthe earth before offerings of wheat, wine and oil,\nand the wheat, wine and oil before Jezreel,\nso may the pleadings of the heavenly host\nmove my soul more than worldly temptation.\nYou--the potter, I--the clay\nShow me, here at the threshold of these contrite prayers,\nthe sweetness of your will.\nStrengthen me that I might not be unworthy\nof the light when the heavens open,\nso that I might not be consumed and snuffed out\nlike a candle.\nRather as you would for any earnest entreaty\ngive me heart, for I am exhausted,\ngive me strength, for I am weary,\ngive me life, for I am worn by pangs of conscience,\nand relieve my anguish in seeking you.\n\nAccept the gift of my prayers\nand grant the mercy of your grace.\nAccept this meager offering from a weakling like me,\nand grant greatly from your heavenly might.\nFortify my words of repentance, having sent the\nHoly Ghost, endowed with the message of the\nbreath of God.\nGrant, benevolent Lord, that we might be\nenlightened like Isaiah.\nOffer me, although I am deserving of death,\nthe gold of grace instead of the brass of a\ndisregarded voice,\nthe brightness of copper instead of blackness of\nunadorned iron, remembering copper as a symbol\nof virtue shining from Lebanon.\n\n\n# III.\n\nWhy have you hardened my miserable heart\nso I do not fear you, who is beyond words and awe?\nHelp, so I will not be unfruitful in this task\nlike the planter vainly sowing seeds into barren ground.\nSpare me that I may not\nlabor without birth,\nsigh without tears,\nmeditate without voice,\ncloud without rain,\nstruggle without reaching,\ncall without being heard,\nimplore without being heeded,\ngroan without being comforted,\nbeg without being helped,\nsmolder without aroma,\nsee you without being fulfilled.\n\nHear me, Lord, before I cry out to you,\nwho alone are almighty,\nDo not leave the wages of my suffering unrecompensed\nfor the tallied days of my life of sin,\nwayward soul that I am.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nGrant me life, compassionate Lord.\nHear me, merciful Lord.\nBe charitable to me, forgiving Lord.\nSave me, long-suffering Lord.\nProtect me, defender Lord.\nBe generous, all-giving Lord.\nFree me, all-powerful Lord.\nRevive me, restoring Lord.\nRaise me again, awe-inspiring Lord.\nEnlighten me, heavenly Lord.\nCure me, omnipotent Lord.\nGrant pardon, inscrutable Lord.\nBestow gifts, bountiful Lord.\nAdorn me with grace, generous Lord.\nLet us be reconciled, healing Lord.\nBe accepting, unvengeful Lord.\nWipe away my transgressions, blessed Lord,\nso that on that Day of Misery,\nwhen I stare at the abyss on either side,\nI may also catch sight of your salvation,\nmy hope and guardian,\nand on that terrifying journey\nyour angel of peace may sweetly guide me.\n\nEndow me, Lord, on the day my breath is finished\nwith a clean spirit raised in light among\nthe joyful heavenly host,\nwith gifts of your love overtaking me.\nMay I arrive with the workers for justice.\nGrant to my wayward soul an unexpected kindness\non that day of despair.\nDo not assign, blessed Lord and Savior,\na wild beast to guide your sick sheep,\nbut grant me health, for I am dying of sin,\ngrant me salvation, for I am ruined by transgressions.\n\n\n# V.\n\nWill you, I wonder:\nForget to be charitable, my expectation?\nNeglect to be compassionate, caring Lord?\nRegret your charity toward humankind, constant Lord?\nRetreat from your life-giving, everlasting Lord?\nAbandon the cheerful fruit of your mercy?\nCorrupt the gracious flower of your sweetness?\nDishonor the grandeur of your generous bounty?\nVary the glory of your white-haired exaltation?\nWaste the fitting splendor of your crown?\n\nIf bliss is for the merciful,\nthen you, a kingdom unto yourself, filled with love,\nwill you not grant me full salvation?\nWill you not offer a salve for my wounds?\nWill you not minister to my pains?\nWill you not cure my weakness?\nWill you not shed light upon the darkness,\nfor me who trusts in your strength?\nYou, gift of life to the universe,\nwho alone have glory in oneself and of oneself,\nwhose everlasting being is witnessed by everything,\nblessed and glorified through three eternities,\nand beyond the limits of all conceivable infinities.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72746,12 +74892,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 3", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nLord, my Lord, grantor of gifts, root of goodness,\nruler of all equally, creator of all from nothing,\nglorified, awesome, awe inspiring,\nbeyond understanding,\ndreadful, mighty, stern,\nunbearable, unapproachable, incomprehensible,\ninconceivable,\nineffable, invisible, unexaminable,\nuntouchable, unsearchable,\nwithout beginning, outside of time,\nunclouded knowledge, bold vision,\ntrue being, exalted and humble,\nblessed existence, shadowless dawn,\nray shining upon all, light professing to all,\nunwavering assurance, undisturbable calm,\nindelible seal, infinite image, witnessed name,\ntaste of sweetness, cup of bliss,\nsoul-nourishing bread, love in dark exile,\nunambiguous promise,\ncovering most desirable, garment most protective,\ncloak most worthy, ornament most glorious,\ngreat help, trustworthy refuge,\nundiminishing grace, inexhaustible treasure,\npure rain, glittering dew,\nuniversal cure, free healing,\nhealth restored, sublime spur,\nundeceiving call, good news for all,\nking who lifts up the slave,\ndefender who loves the poor,\ngiver of endless wealth,\nsafe harbor, unyielding command,\nhope without bounds,\nlong in vision, unsparing in generosity,\njust right hand that dispenses to all,\nimpartial eye, voice of comfort, consoling tidings,\nharbinger of bliss,\nliving name, finger of foresight,\nunstumbling start, sincere course,\nlife-giving will, candid advice, unenvying honor,\nbroad possibility, narrow restriction,\ntrack without trace, path without markers,\nimage indescribable, quantity immeasurable,\nmodel inimitable,\nunparalleled compassion, inexhaustible mercy,\nhumility celebrated, kiss of salvation.\n\nAnd more than these worthy epithets,\ndedicated to your Godliness,\nyou who are blessed, praised, lauded,\npreached, evangelized,\nproclaimed, exalted, recounted, sought with\nunflagging desire,\nwhatever your streams of sweetness bring us,\nshall be illustrated in these image-filled psalms,\nshowing you joyful in my salvation, blessed Lord,\nas if a ravenous hunger had been relieved by a\nsumptuous feast,\nfor you are glorified not because of some\nvain song of mine,\nbut because you may accept these modest prayers\nas justification for granting your great salvation.\n\n\n# II.\n\nA new book of psalms sings with urgency through me,\nfor all thinking people the world over,\nexpressing all human passions\nand serving with its images\nas an encyclopedic companion to our human condition,\nfor the entire, mixed congregation of the\nChurch universal,\nfor the newborn who have just arrived,\nfor adolescents in the second stage of life,\nfor adults whose days are ripe and numbered,\nfor the guilty and the just,\nfor the brazenly haughty and the falsely modest,\nfor the good and the evil,\nfor cowardly and brave,\nfor slaves and underlings,\nfor nobles and clerics,\nfor the middle class and princely,\nfor artisans and the lords,\nfor men and women,\nfor commanders and servants,\nfor high and low,\nfor exalted and menial,\nfor royalty and commoners,\nfor knights and footmen,\nfor city and country folk,\nfor those brutally bridled by arrogant kings,\nfor those cloistered in heavenly contemplation,\nfor sages with God-given wisdom,\nfor priests, pious and chosen,\nfor bishops, properly arrayed,\nfor patriarchs, charged with pious supervision.\n\nMay this book of prayers\nI have undertaken to compose\nwith the strength of the Holy Spirit\nand with a view to the multitudinous needs of all\nserve for some as heartfelt pleas of intercession and\nfor others as counsel toward virtue\nthat through this book they might constantly\nappear before you, Great Mercy.\n\n\n# III.\n\nMay you heal the souls and wash away the\ntransgressions of those who read this\nbook with pure hearts.\nForgive their debts and free them from the bonds of sin.\nRelease the flow of tears from those who study this book,\nand instill in them the desire to repent.\nAnd with them, Lord, grant me, contrition for my\nwillfulness, and give them grace-filled inspiration\nthrough my voice.\nMay their prayers, through this book, also be\noffered for me, and may their sighs rise like\nincense in place of mine.\nMay your light enter and dwell in those\nwho taste and embrace these mournful psalms.\nAnd if through me some pious readers dedicate\nthemselves to you, receive me also, merciful Lord, with\nthose who live for you.\nAnd if this book brings forth cleansing tears for our ills,\nmay they also rain upon me, Keeper.\nAnd if those who share the passion for life contained in\nthis book are enrolled in your heavenly kingdom and\nearn salvation, grant that by your will,\nO blessed Lord, I might be in their number.\nAnd if sighs pleasing to God should be evoked through\nthis book, may the benefit overflow to me also,\nexalted Lord.\nIf a pure hand lifts incense to you,\nmay my voice join with the sound and sighs of\nprayers and reach you.\nIf others’ petitions labor to be born with mine,\nmay mine, thus multiplied, be rededicated to you.\nIf my offering of the words of my soul is pleasing,\nmay they be offered to you with those who\nhave gone before.\nIf disheartened people falter in exhaustion,\nmay they regain their steadiness through these\nsighs, setting their hope on you.\nIf the bulwark of their faith crumbles with sin,\nmay it be rebuilt with these writings shaped by\nyour protecting right hand.\nIf the thread of hope is severed by the sword of\ntrangressions, may it be restored by the goodness of\nyour almighty will.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nIf the perils of death besiege a person with pain,\nmay redemption and hope of life be found through\nthese words, victorious in you, O Life Giver,\n\nIf a confused heart is wounded by doubt,\nmay these words make it whole through your sweetness.\n\nIf one is defeated by an irreparable loss,\nor buried in the depths of an abyss,\nmay he come to the light under your watchfulness,\nhooked by this invention.\n\nIf one is ensnared by drugs and their torpor,\nand surrenders to dark tendencies,\nlet him be strengthened on your account, Sole Refuge,\nand find tranquility in you.\n\nIf deserted by the armor of faith,\nmay he be sustained through the hand of\nyour intercession,\nand held in your steadfastness.\n\nIf one strays from the watchful eye of his caretakers,\nlet him be watched over by these words until their\nreturn, Renewer.\n\nIf one is seized by the tremors of demonic fevers,\nawake his soul with the sign of the cross,\nproclaiming and worshiping this miracle.\n\nIf a violent storm suddenly strikes\nthe vessel of the human body on\nits voyage through this world,\nsteady its course with your rudder and\nsend it sailing back toward you.\n\n\n# V.\n\nAnd may you make this book of mournful psalms\nbegun in your name, Most High,\ninto a life-giving salve for the sufferings of\nbody and soul.\nMay you perfect what I have started\nand may your spirit be mixed with it.\nMay the breath of your great might\ninfuse these verses with grace\nso that you may brace the wilting heart\nand accept praise from us all.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72759,12 +74907,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 4", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nSince I have begun\nthese conversations with you\nwho holds in your hand\nthe life breath of my sinful soul,\nI am shaken, and rightly so,\ntrembling in constant fear, remembering,\nwith unbearable terror that defies words,\nO creator of heaven and earth,\nyour inescapable tribunal,\nwhich justly judges me a sinner.\nAnd what is more, there exists no remedy\nfor the multitude of incurable, mortal wounds\nand the stinging bites inflicted by the deadly fangs\nof him who pursues my soul’s destruction.\nEspecially since according to the Prophet,\nthere is no putting off the day of confrontation:\n\nNot by words of justification,\nnot by a cloak of protection,\nnot by a mask of obfuscation,\nnot by speeches of propitiation,\nnot by appearances of deception,\nnot by compositions of prevarication,\nnot by swift feet of evasion,\nnot by aversion,\nnot by the ashen dust of abnegation,\nnot by fixing one’s mouth to the earth,\n\nnot by self-burial in the depths of the earth,\nfor even the covered and the invisible are\nreadily seen by you.\n\n\n# II.\n\nMy virtue is dissipated and depleted,\nmy sins laid open and ever worsening,\nmy wrongs permanent and I am lost as\nthe weight of the right is ever decreasing\nand the weight of wrong is increasing,\nthe harvest of goodness washes\naway and the errors of my ways harden to stone.\n\nThe bail is lost even as the sentence is sealed.\nDeath’s mortgage is signed,\nwhile the covenant of good news is voided.\nThe doer of good is despondent,\nwhile the doer of evil is jubilant.\nThe host of angels grieve,\nwhile Satan’s horde dances in glee.\nThe army on high is orphaned,\nwhile the army below is elated.\nThe murderer’s bounty grows,\nwhile the protector’s treasure is plundered.\nThe third parties’ rights are upheld,\nand the true heir’s legacy is betrayed.\nThe creator’s gift is forgotten,\nwhile the destroyer’s ambush is remembered.\nThe Savior’s grace is mocked,\nwhile the tricks of Satan are celebrated.\nThe fountain of life runs dry,\nwhile the tyrant’s rust continues to corrode my soul.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd now, would it not be better.\nas the prophecies foretold,\nnever to have been conceived,\nnever to have taken shape,\nnever to have been born,\nnever to have seen the light of life,\nnever to have been counted among mortals,\nnever to have struggled toward the state of immortality,\nnever to have been dressed in the image of beauty,\nnever to have been armed with words,\nthan to be seized by such horrible sins,\ntoo great for a hard rock to bear\nlet alone the frail body?\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd now, compassionate God,\nI pray for your mercy,\nas you instructed in your own words,\n“Make offerings in the name of God’s salvation\nand you shall be made holy,\nfor I want contrition not sacrifice.”\nBe exalted anew in remembrance of this offering in\nincense,\nfor everything is in you, and everything is from you.\nTo you glory from all.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72772,12 +74922,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 5", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, I, earthbound\nand preoccupied with the cares of everyday existence,\nnumbed by the deceitful wine of foolishness,\nI, who lie in all things and am truthful in none,\nmarked with these faults,\nhow shall I come before your judgment, Just Judge,\nterrible beyond words and telling, mighty God of all?\nThe more I compare my sinful ingratitude with your\nloving-kindness,\nthe more I prove that your law is always stronger,\nand my lawlessness, always defeated.\n\n\n# II.\n\nYou made me in your glorious image,\nfavoring a weak being like me\nwith your sublime likeness,\nadorning me with speech,\nand burnishing me with your breath,\nenriching me with thought,\ncultivating me with wisdom,\nestablishing me with ingenuity\nsetting me apart from the animals,\nendowing my character with a thinking soul,\nembellishing me with a sovereign individuality,\ngiving birth as a father, nurturing as a nurse,\ncaring for me as a guardian,\n\nYou sowed a wayward being in your courtyard,\nirrigated me with the water of life,\ncleansed me with the dew of the baptismal fount,\nnourished me with heavenly bread,\nquenched my thirst with your blood,\nacquainted me with the impalpable and\nunreachable,\nemboldened my earthly eyes to seek you,\nembraced me in your glorious light,\npermitted my unclean earthly hands to\nmake offerings to you,\nhonored my base, mortal ashes,\nlike a flicker of light,\nimprinted upon a worthless wretch like me\nyour father’s image, awesome and blessed,\nout of your love for mankind.\n\n\n# III.\n\nYou did not scald my mouth for daring to\ncall myself your co-heir,\ndid not reprimand me for arrogantly\nassociating with you,\ndid not darken the sight of my eyes for\ngazing upon you,\ndid not exile me in shackles with\nthose condemned to death,\ndid not break the wrist of my arm for\nimproperly reaching to you,\ndid not crack the digits of my fingers for\ntouching the word of life,\ndid not engulf me with fog for dedicating this\nto you, fearsome Lord,\ndid not crush the rows of my teeth for\nchewing your communion, infinite Lord,\ndid not turn in anger as I did with you,\nas with the stubborn house of Israel,\ndid not dishonor me at your wedding party,\nI, who am unworthy of singing and dancing,\ndid not scold me for my disheveled clothes,\nI, who am disorderly,\ndid not cast me into the dark, my hands and\nfeet shackled.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd I exchanged all these portions of\ngoodness, patience and forgiveness from you,\nO beneficent, blessed and always-tolerant God,\nfor all manner of waywardness of the flesh and the ego,\nfor the wavering passions of the mind and the\ndiversions of worldliness.\nYes, that is how, my God and Lord, I repaid you for\nyour abundant goodness.\nThus did I offer you evil in the manner of\nMoses’ ingratitude.\nAbandoning wisdom and pursuing foolishness,\nthus did I foully dissipate the bounty of your favor with\nthe ways of vanity,\nthus in a storm of mindlessness did I lose the beacon of\nyour ineffable grace glowing with your care,\nGod most high.\n\n\n# V.\n\nAnd although on many occasions you attempted\nto draw me to you by reaching out your helping hand,\nI rejected it, as the prophet accused Israel.\nAnd although I promised and made a\ncovenant to please you,\nI did not keep it,\nbut again perverted it into something evil.\nReverting to my old ways,\nI sowed the field of my heart with thorns of\nsin for a harvest of dissension.\nThe words of the God-fearing holy prophet apply to me,\nfor you expected grapes but instead I sprouted thorns.\nI became an unappetizing fruit of bitterness,\noutcast from the garden.\nSwaying violently in unsteady winds,\nalways blowing to and fro, I wavered.\nLike the voice of blessed Job, I followed my\npath of no return.\nI built my house upon the sands in foolishness.\nMisled by the broad gate, I missed the\nnarrow gate to life.\nI closed myself off from the pilgrimage of exodus.\nI spitefully uncovered the abyss of destruction.\nI blocked my hearing against your teaching of life.\nI covered the eyes of my soul against the cure of life.\nI did not recoil from the wasting of the mind from torpor,\nin spite of your trumpet of wrath.\nI was not sobered by the reports of the fiery trial,\non the day of judgment.\nI did not awaken from the slumber of mortal sleep.\nI did not give comfort to your Holy Spirit in my\nbodily tabernacle.\nI did not inhale the allotment of grace you granted me.\nWith my own hand I wreaked havoc, in the words of the\nproverb teller,\nkilling my living soul.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nAnd what is the use of composing these meager and\npaltry verses\nin my state of remorse which passes all measure and\nevades all cure?\nNow it is up to you to offer life to my dead soul\nand without vengeance to visit me,\na condemned prisoner,\nO Son of the Living God, to you be all glory.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72785,12 +74937,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 6", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nWhat use, what good is it to me\nto exhaust myself with this stream of words, the\nvoice of my sighing heart?\nWould it not be better to lance the accumulated words,\nlike deadly pus,\nor with fingers in the throat, to vomit up the heaviness of\nmy heart, weighed down with\nthe wounds of my soul?\n\n\n# II.\n\nAnd since I was not found worthy of sharing\nin the glory of the saints with their blissful\nlaughter and smiles, as described by the proverb teller\nand psalmist, I shall be granted the second rank,\nthe rank where people like me are assigned.\nBut in view of the error of my ways,\neven they are superior to me just as the penitent is\nsuperior to the impenitent.\nManasseh should be celebrated,\nwhen compared with the excess of my transgressions.\nThe Pharisee should be honored when compared with\nmy foul baseness.\nThe Prodigal Son should be praised\nwhen compared to the betrayal of my vows.\nThe deceit of the Amasseh’s son should be commended,\nwhen compared with my thankless ingratitude.\n\nMore blessed is the thief who was prosecutor\nof the faithless.\nMore honorable is the prostitute, the example and the\nmother of all repentant.\n\n\n# III.\n\nNo less than Pharaoh have I hardened my heart.\nNo less blameworthy than the frenzied Israelite mob,\nhave I rebelled against my creator.\nNo less than the enemies of God have I\ntaken the battlefield,\nand I did not refrain from denying the creator of\nall from nothing.\nI make waves like the turbulent sea during a storm,\nbut I do not tremble, humbled by your\nsevere commandment,\nlike the waves of the sea against the shore.\nMy countless misdeeds are measured like\nmounds of sand.\nThe boundless accumulation is less than the\nmass of my lawlessness.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nFor although small things mount up\nas sands on the shore,\nnevertheless, they are unique and distinct in their\norigin and increase,\nand like my transgressions, so countless that\nthey are impossible to comprehend:\none with its kith,\nthe other with its kin,\none with its defects,\nthe other with its dangers,\none with its thorns,\nthe other with its roots,\none with its stem,\nthe other with its fruits,\none with its limbs,\nthe other with its branches,\none with its shoots,\nthe other with its joints,\none with its claws,\nthe other with its fingers,\none with its shakiness,\nthe other with its sturdiness,\none with its causes,\nthe other with its effects,\none with its imprint,\nthe other with its traces,\none with its shadow,\nthe other with its darkness,\none with its tactics,\nthe other with its strategy,\none with its guile,\nthe other with its intent,\none with its trajectory,\nthe other with its size,\none with its depth,\nthe other with its baseness,\none with its spark,\nthe other with its passion,\none with its goods,\nthe other with its treasures,\none with its pipes,\nthe other with its fountain,\none with its torrents,\nthe other with its lightening,\none with its flames,\nthe other with its shame,\none with its pits,\nthe other with its abysses,\none with its embers,\nthe other with its dullness,\none with its thunder,\nthe other with its raindrops,\none with its currents,\nthe other with its floods and frost,\none with its gates,\nthe other with its roadways,\nthe furnace and its heat,\nthe fire and its fumes,\nthe melting tallow and its scent,\nthe wormwood tree and its bitter sap,\nthe destroyer and its victim,\nthe thief and his assassins,\nthe bully and his accomplices,\nthe master and his servants,\nthe beast and its whelps,\nthe biter and the bitten,\nthe corrupter and its imitator.\n\n\n# V.\n\nAnd these are but the main categories\nof the soul’s common afflictions.\nThey are further divided into smaller classes,\neach of which has thousands upon\nthousands of subclasses,\nbut the total number can be comprehended\nonly by the one who sees as done\nthat which is scripted in us.\nIf a person does not indulge in self-deception nor\nput on a mask,\nand is not tricked by lack of faith,\nbut has self-knowledge,\nand senses our common human nature,\nand is cognizant of being earth born and knows our\nproper place and limitations,\nthen he shall understand this list of attributes,\nnot as some meaningless scribble,\nnor as a complete description of even the essential types\nand kinds of imperfections whirling in our nature.\nRather, he will know that I have identified certain seeds\nof the thousands of evils,\nand even if through these he learns of others,\nhe realizes that even these categories are not enough.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72798,12 +74952,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 7", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nSo that I will not give up hope of salvation,\nand, laying down my arms, surrender to so many\ninvisible attackers,\nwhich are nothing other than the tribe of foes,\nspringing up, of their own, in the categories\njust described,\nin numbers and forms that are terrifying,\nI shall show here as against these warriors,\nthe mightiest of godly champions,\nmost victorious and undefeated,\nwhich at the same time are summoned by a\nmost painful grief,\nlike a difficult-to-swallow fruit of an unreachable tree,\nor the toil and hardship of an untrodden path.\n\nFor a small teardrop from the eye\ncan cause an entire evil platoon of the Tempter’s\narmy to shrink away,\nlike the squirming of centipedes or earthworms,\ndrowning in a puddle of oil or a drop of\nsome lethal potion.\nAnd the faint groan of a sighing heart,\nrising from the soul,\nis like a warm southerly breeze, mixed with sun,\nthat melts the fiercest blizzard,\nfor like storms, they are easily born and when\nopposed, quickly die.\n\n\n# II.\n\nBut I shall never stop judging my condemned self with\nanguished words,\nor reproaching myself for my sins,\nlike a wicked, irredeemable and incorrigible being.\nFor although I have slain some of my tormentors,\nI helped others to live and lost my soul.\nLike a plant with bitter branches,\nI have blossomed with the odor of wrongful ways,\nwith corrupting and fatal fruit,\nwhich I have made into the wine of destruction.\nThe offspring of Canaan and not Judah,\nin the words of the great prophet Daniel.\nI am\nthe child of hell and not paradise,\nthe heir of Hades, not of coveted glory,\nthe stuff of torment, not of rest,\nungrateful rather than grateful,\ndisgraceful rather than graced,\never sinful rather than forbearing,\none who embitters the sweetness of your beneficence,\nan evil and bad servant like the one who\nwas reprimanded by our Lord,\none who, as the Prophet Isaiah said,\nuses my learning for evil.\n\nI am\ndiligent in the baseness of corruption,\nconscientious in angering the Lord,\never active in satanic ventures,\na daily cause of grief to my Maker,\nweak in my flight toward goodness,\nlazy in the blessing of fidelity,\nslow in observing my promises,\nfainthearted in the necessary and useful,\nan unfaithful and ungrateful servant.\n\n\n# III.\n\nWoe to my sinful soul, for I have angered my creator.\nWoe to this son of perdition,\nfor I have forgotten the gift of life.\nWoe to this debtor of untold thousands of talents,\nfor I haven’t the means to repay\nWoe to this porter heavy laden with vile sins,\nfor I cannot lay down my burden to rest.\nWoe to this debtor of the Lord,\nfor I cannot face the Almighty.\nWoe to this heap of dried up reeds,\nfor I am consumed in Gehenna.\nWoe to me as I remember that the arrows of the\nwrath of God are fitted with flames.\nWoe for my stupidity, for I did not\nrecall that the hidden shall be revealed.\nWoe for my impiety, for I always and\nceaselessly wove the web of evil.\nWoe to my well-fed body\nwhich shall be food for the immortal worms,\nfor how shall I endure their fierce venom?\nWoe to me for having drunk of the cup of death,\nfor how shall I suffer eternity?\nWoe to me for raising this unworthy soul from\nthis corrupt body,\nfor how shall I face my judge?\nWoe to me for the lack of oil in my lamp,\nfor its darkness shall not be relit.\n\nWoe to me for the sudden alarm of the fear of dismay\nwhen the door of the marriage feast is closed.\nAnd woe to me for the terror of the voice of these words,\ntrembling and quaking, before the pronouncement\nof our heavenly king’s judgment:\nI do not know you.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72811,12 +74967,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 8", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, what will you do, my lost soul?\nWhere will you hide?\nHow will you live?\nAnd how can you escape the prison of your sin?\nYour transgressions are many and your\npunishments countless.\nThe scoldings severe and the harsh words endless.\nEven the angels have lost patience and the\njudge cannot be bribed.\nThe court is mighty and the tribunal just.\nThe vengeance is terrible and the retribution, merciless.\nThe sentence terrifying and the condemnation, direct.\nThe rivers fiery and the streams impassable.\nThe darkness is thick and the fog impenetrable.\nThe pit is vile and the torment eternal.\nHell is all-encompassing and the blizzard unrelenting.\nNow, indeed you have piled up all these bitter things,\na depraved and terrible cell of unbearable punishment,\nO my worthless sinful soul, evildoer, prostitute,\nsoiled, a refuse dump of filth.\n\nHere then are the wages of your handiwork:\nYou have turned from the straight path and\nstrayed from holiness.\nYou have been outcast from the ranks of the\nrighteous and honest.\nYou lack spiritual gifts and riches of our\nmost jealous benefactor and almighty king.\n\n\n# II.\n\nYou have ensnared yourself in an inescapable prison,\nby confessing that your wounds are incurable\nand your punishment unequaled and\ntestifying that your soul is condemned to\ndeath and incurably broken.\nYou are\nevil among the good,\nbitter among the sweet,\ndark among the light,\nbruised among the adorned,\nrejected among the praised,\nimpious among the pious,\nbrute among the thoughtful,\nstupid among the intelligent,\nfoolish among the wise,\nunclean among the elect,\ndead among the living,\nfilthy among the saints,\ndrunken among the sober,\ndeceptive among the just,\nuseless among the useful,\ndishonored among the glorious,\ndeficient among the abundant,\nunderling among the superiors,\nmost lowly among the sublime,\npoor among the wealthy,\nunworthy among the saved,\nhomeless among the rich in spirit,\ncast away among the blessed.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72824,12 +74982,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 9", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, O wretched soul of mine,\nwhat appropriately revolting words shall\nI use to describe you\nin this book of woes, my testament of prayers?\nYou who are so completely discredited that\nI am at a loss for words to answer,\nunworthy to communicate with God and the saints.\nIf I were to fill the basin of the sea with ink,\nand to measure out parchment the length and\nbreadth of a field of many leagues\nand were to take all the reeds of the forests and\nwoods and turn them into pens,\nI still would not be able to record even a fraction of my\naccumulated wrong doings.\nIf I were to set the Cedars of Lebanon as a scale\nand to put Mount Ararat on one side and my\niniquities on the other,\nit would not come close to balancing.\n\n\n# II.\n\nI am like a tree, towering with branches,\ncovered with leaves, but barren of fruit,\na true member of the same species as that fig tree that the\nLord struck dry.\nFor although covered with lush flowing hair, that is,\nwith an attractive exterior,\nas if adorned with a halo,\nmesmerizing like a drumbeat at a distance,\nif the sower were to come close to pick the harvest,\nhe would find me devoid of any goods\nand revolting without beauty,\nan object of ridicule for viewers and a spectacle\nfor the malicious.\n\nFor the bushy plant without fruit and spirit is\nbut a metaphor for the hapless, unprepared soul\ncursed at an unvigilant moment.\nIf the earth, moistened with dew,\ncultivated by the farmer,\ndoes not produce crops to multiply this effort,\nit is abandoned and forgotten.\nThen, you, my miserable soul,\na thinking, breathing plant\nthat has not given timely fruit,\nshall you not suffer the same fate as those in the parable?\nFor you have indulged with unsparing excess\nin the harvest of all the human evils\nfrom Adam till the end of the species, and even found\nsome new ones,\ndespised and repugnant to your creator, God.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd I have fixed my mind’s eye upon you,\nO worthless soul of mine,\nsculpting a monument in words.\nI cast stones at you mercilessly like some\nuntamed wild beast.\nFor although I may never chance to be called just,\nstill following the counsel of the wise,\nas my first rebuttal, I criticize myself of my own free will,\nas if criticizing some bitter enemy,\nand having confessed the angst of the\nsecrets of my mind, that is, the accumulated burden\nof my evil deeds,\nI spread them before you, my God and Lord.\nWith what measure I mete out reprimand to my soul,\nlet your undiminishing compassion be measured for me,\nthat I might receive your abundant grace\nmany times greater than the magnitude of my sins,\nthough my wounds and injuries overpower me,\nincurable and inescapable,\nyet the genius of your curative art, exalted and\nhonored Physician, shines twice as brightly.\nThe increase of my sins is more than matched by\nyour generosity, my benefactor.\nBlessed Lord, may you always be wreathed\nin incense as in your parable.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nFor yours is salvation,\nand from you is redemption,\nand by your right hand is restoration,\nand your finger is fortification.\nYour command is justification.\nYour mercy is liberation.\nYour countenance is illumination.\nYour face is exultation.\nYour spirit is benefaction.\nYour anointing oil is consolation.\nA dew drop of your grace is exhilaration.\nYou give comfort.\nYou make us forget despair.\nYou lift away the gloom of grief.\nYou change the sighs of our heart into laughter.\nTo you is fitting blessing with praise\nin heaven and on earth\nfrom our forefathers and unto all their generations\nforever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72837,12 +74997,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 10", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nBoth unruly sin and deep regret\nplunge us into damnation, being\nessentially similar even though from different sources.\nBut when compared they share the same character flaws:\none doubts the strength of the Almighty’s\nhand like a cowardly skeptic,\nwhile the other, like a wild beast,\nbrutally cuts the thread of hope.\nSatan, flattered by the first,\nconstantly rejoices; while the second\nprovides fresh blood for the hounds of hell to lap up.\n\n\n# II.\n\nI catch my breath like one bludgeoned with a thick club,\nuntil he reaches death’s shores. I catch\nmy breath, mustering whatever life remains\nhoping that my soul will be rehabilitated, protected,\nrestored, and resurrected from mortal perdition\nwith the help of Christ’s hand,\nChrist who is merciful in all things.\nAnd with help from our heavenly Father,\nwho has granted salvation and healing\nto a failing sinner near death,\nI begin this book of prayers with supplications.\nI will build an edifice of faith,\nas one of our faith-filled forefathers did\nwhen he was instantly transported to heaven\nthrough the balm of repentance,\nthus bequeathing us the promise of immortality on earth,\nperhaps more so than the Apostle writing about those\nwho, enduring their trials on earth,\nput their faith in heaven and the hope of things to come,\nand were filled with the abundance of the unseen.\n\n\n# III.\n\nFor even he who has committed mortal sin,\neven he, recaptured in the evil spirit’s prison\nand cast down into the abyss of evil,\neven he still can grasp the slender hope of salvation.\nEven he has hope of escape through redemption,\nlike the remorseful sinner miraculously reclaimed\nthrough the raindrops of his eyes\ncaused by the compassion of the Almighty,\nthe Almighty who again made the earth flourish,\nas a gift from the Spirit of God.\nLet us remember also the healing and encouraging words\nof our Lord,\n“With faith, anything is possible.”\nFirst and foremost let us consider this the measure\nof what is good and favored in the eyes of God;\nfor the way to the holy of holies is through faith.\nWithout faith, the Lord of glory did not, will not\nshow his miraculous power to us, asking first\nthat his good work be met by our faith.\nFor this reason he who is with God\nis, of his own, capable of receiving life,\nfor the blessed mouth of God has promised,\n“Your faith shall save you.”:\n\n\n# IV.\n\nFaith, that happy and favored word,\nwhich lasts forever untarnished and unbounded,\nhonored together with charity and hope\nbrings the rewards of truly clear vision, perfect wisdom,\nacquaintance with God and familiarity with the Exalted.\n\nFor if the faith of a mustard seed\ncan cast a great mountain\ninto the depths of the sea, then truly\nwe should accept it as the first step\ntoward eternal life.\nFaith, this simple and clear form of worship,\nmeans setting aside doubt to see the future and hidden\nwith the eye of the soul.\n\nFaith is honored in a glorious trinity\nwith charity and hope. For if you view\nthese three as distinct aspects\nof one and the same mystery,\nyou shall forever be magnified in God.\nAnd if you believe, you shall love\nand through love have hope in his unseen rewards.\nGlory to him forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72850,12 +75012,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 11", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, I, the most laggard of believers,\ndevoid of goodness, contemplate with my mind’s eye\nall creation out of nothing by the hand of our maker.\nAnd with hope, my faith grows\nthat Jesus Christ can do anything he wills,\nas Paul advised and David taught.\nAs I believe, so have I spoken.\nMay their prayers take life in me\nso that through faith I might know him and the power\nof his resurrection. And that I may,\nin the words of the Apostle, share in\nhis torment and the glory that followed.\nFor true faith attends and resembles\nthe transformation of renewal,\nfrom sin to atonement,\nfrom wrongdoing to righteousness,\nfrom uncleanness to holiness,\nfrom unforgivable mortal transgressions\nto blameless bliss,\nfrom earthly bondage to heavenly freedom.\n\n\n# II.\n\nFor what is more wondrous\nthan the sinner laughing for all to see,\nyet secretly weeping, when his heart\nwith the help of God is purged\nof the thick darkness of doubt?\nAnd though cast from the highest summit\ninto the pit of the perdition,\nand weighed down by unforgivable sins,\nnever before conceived,\nhe grabs the life-giving wafer of salvation,\nclinging as to the last glimmer of light\npreserved in mind and soul.\nOr like the amazingly intense fire, kindled\nat the bottom of the sleeping well,\nby the Almighty’s command, the sinner,\nconsumed with grief,\nall expectation of goodness abandoned,\nall assurance of grace lost,\ncan but hope to regain\nthe blessed innocence of the new-born.\nThis spark of hope, which God keeps alive\nfor broken, contrite hearts,\nsouls laid low, whose offerings are\nsweeter to God than the finest of incense,\nfor they proclaim the good tidings\nof the Giver’s almighty power.\nIt was for this reason the Savior asks\nthe blind, “Do you believe I can do this\nfor you?” thus obtaining a token of faith\nbefore restoring light to their eyes.\nAnd what hope of revival seems more remote,\nthan for a corpse four days dead?\nYet, armed with faith the women of his family,\nfell at the feet of the creator, and they saw\nthe manifestation of God’s glory when their\nbrother was resurrected.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd there is proof that even after sin\nthe grace of God persists: First there is\nthe case of Enoch, then Aaron,\nthen David and next Peter. And Eliezer,\nthe younger, upon whom God took great pity\nthat he might be an example to his elders.\nAnd it is unnecessary to add the example of\nthe Prodigal Son,\nthe prostitute praised by the Lord,\nthe tax collector remembered for his good deed,\nthe lucky thief, who, with his last breath,\nearned a halo through faith.\nOr even those whose sins cannot be atoned for,\nsuch as those who took part in killing our creator,\nor Paul, foremost of the chosen,\nwho was formerly the chief of the unjust.\nAnd there are others who stumbled,\neven knowing the law,\nbut then raised themselves up ten thousand times higher\nthan those who lived under the law. And what of him\nwho, before the law was given,\nhonored the traditions of his fathers,\nremaining more faithful to the commandment of\nhis forefather\nand taking the guilt of man’s original sin upon himself,\npaid for it with the torment of mortal passions,\natoned for it, not by burial in earth,\nbut through the torments of the body,\nwas transfigured, miraculously triumphing\nover death’s grip to become the herald\nof the possibility of eternal life for us mortals.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd consider those who chose a dissolute life\nfrom a tender age and in the fullness of time\ndid not tumble from their high stations but rather\nwere raised from their squalid lives\ninto the vault of heaven.\nIn times past the wayward\nchanged their ways by their own efforts,\nturning earthen vessels into gold and\netching a princely image of our heavenly model\nin majestic, imperishable and irreplaceable relief.\nTriumphing over the betrayals toward which\nour nature inclines us, they give us more cause for hope,\nespecially now that the Light has been revealed.\nIts veil lifted, its curtain drawn,\nby the promise of our Lord Christ\nby whom the divine word is fixed firmly\nin us, and who is according to the voice\nof the prophet, “The covenant of peace and\nthe seal of constancy,”\nthe mediator of our reconciliation,\nour heavenly advocate, immortal, living and eternal.\nAnd therefore by this most true law,\nand the immutable terms set by the creator,\nI kiss the image of the Word with lips of faith\nand await the glory of grace,\nFor verily, in the words of the Apostle,\n“If God absolves us, no one retains\nthe power to condemn.”:\n\n\n# V.\n\nAnd taking refuge in this unclouded assurance,\nI who was broken, am restored,\nwho was wretched, am triumphant,\nwho was dissipated, am healed,\nwho was desperately outlawed, find hope,\nwho was condemned to death, find life,\nwho was mortgaged by damnable deeds, find the light,\nwho was debauched by animal pleasures, find heaven,\nwho was twice caught in scandal, again find salvation,\nwho was bound by sin, find the promise of rest,\nwho was shaken by incurable wounds,\nfind the salve of immortality,\nwho was wildly rebellious, find the reins of tranquility,\nwho was a renegade, find calling,\nwho was brazenly self-willed, find humility,\nwho was quarrelsome, find forgiveness.\n\nTherefore, to Jesus Christ\nand his almighty and awe-inspiring Father,\nto the name and the will of\nthe beneficence of the true Holy Spirit,\nthe blessed essence and one Godhead,\nall power and dominion, majesty and glory\nforever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72863,12 +75027,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 12", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAlthough I have let myself fall\ninto seemingly eternal despair,\nbeating myself with the rod of doubt,\nlet me now dare with the slightest hope\nto call upon the Holy Trinity to help me, a sinner.\nFor upon blessing and acknowledging\nthe life-giving God of all, and calling out to him\nas to a family member,\nit becomes possible for the benefactor\nwho grants all grace, to grant life\nto me, a mortal, as the Prophet foretold,\n“Whoever calls out the name of the Lord shall live.”:\n\n\n# II.\n\nNot only do I call, but I believe in the Lord’s greatness.\nI pray not only for his rewards but also for himself,\nthe essence of life, guarantor of giving and\ntaking of breath\nwithout whom there is no movement, no progress,\nto whom I am tied not so much by the knot of hope\nas by the bonds of love.\nI long not so much for the gifts\nas for the giver.\nI yearn not so much for the glory\nas the glorified.\nI burn not so much with the desire for life\nas in memory of the giver of life.\nI sigh not so much with the rapture of splendor\nas with the heartfelt fervor for its maker.\nI seek not so much for rest\nas for the face of our comforter.\nI pine not so much for the bridal feast\nas for the distress of the groom,\nthrough whose strength I wait with certain\nexpectation believing with unwavering\nhope that in spite of the weight of my transgressions\nI shall be saved by the Lord’s mighty hand and\nthat I will not only receive remission of sins\nbut that I will see the Lord himself\nin his mercy and compassion\nand receive the legacy of heaven\nalthough I richly deserve to be disowned.\n\n\n# III.\n\nNow for my many humiliations\nmy head bowed in shame\nmy lips locked with embarrassment\nmy tongue not daring to move\nI resort again to intoning supplications,\nmournful sobs and cries, offered on high.\n\nAccept with sweetness almighty Lord my bitter prayers.\nLook with pity upon my mournful face.\nDispel, all-bestowing God, my shameful sadness.\nLift, merciful God, my unbearable burden.\nCast off, potent God, my mortal habits.\nSpoil, triumphant God, my wayward pleasures.\nDissipate, exalted God, my wanton fog.\n\nBlock, life-giving God, my destructive ways.\nUndo, secret-seeing God, my evil entrapments.\nFend off, inscrutable God, my assailants.\nInscribe your name on the skylight of my abode.\nCover the roof of my temple with your hand.\nMark the threshold of my cell with your blood.\nImprint the outside of my door with your sign.\nProtect the mat where I rest with your right hand.\nKeep my cot pure from all seductions.\nPreserve my suffering soul by your will.\nSteady the breath of life you have given my flesh.\nSurround me with your heavenly host.\nPost them on watch against the battalion of demons.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nGrant blissful rest\nlike the slumber of death\nin the depth of this night\nthrough the intercession of the Holy Mother of\nGod and the elect.\nFirmly close the windows of sight,\nsentient faculty of the mind,\nwith impregnable fortifications\nagainst the waves of anxiety,\nthe cares of daily life,\nnightmares, frenzy, hallucinations,\nand protected by the memory of your hope\nto wake again from the heaviness of sleep\ninto alert wakefulness and\nsoul-renewing cheerfulness\nto stand before you\nraising my prayerful voice\nin harmony with the heavenly choirs of praise\nwith the fragrance of faith,\nto you in heaven, all blessed king,\nwhose glory is beyond telling.\nFor you are glorified by all creation\nforever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72876,12 +75042,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 13", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nBeneficent, almighty, awe-inspiring God,\ngood Father, charitable donor of mercy,\nwhose very name heralds the good news of\nyour grandeur, compassion and fatherly affection,\nyou are gentle even toward the bitter and discontented.\n\nWith you also is your Son, who is like you,\nwhose hand is strong like yours,\nwhose awesome reign is eternal like yours,\nwhose exaltation is shared with you in your creation.\n\nSo too the Holy Spirit of your truth,\nthat flows from you without end,\nthe perfect essence of existence\nand eternal being, is equal to you\nin all things, reigning with the Son\nin equal glory.\nThree persons, one mystery,\nseparate faces, unique and distinct,\nmade one by their congruence\nand being of the same holy substance and nature,\nunconfused and undivided,\none in will and one in action.\nOne is not greater, one is not lesser,\nnot even by an eyelash, and because\nof the unobscurable light of heavenly love\nrevealed in our midst both have been\nglorified with a single crown of holiness\nfrom before the ages.\n\n\n# II.\n\nFor verily, as Peter’s open profession of\nfaith in the Trinity earned for him\nthe blessed name, Rock, so\nin expectation of your clemency,\ndo I, a sinner condemned, await exoneration,\nO deliverer of captives.\nAnd though all rewards may be yours,\nso too is all mercy,\nbut you are not so acclaimed for rewards as for mercy,\nfor while the first brings glory, the second merely\nrecognizes the effort of labor,\nsince rewards are compensation for merit,\nbut mercy is an act of generosity toward the unworthy.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd now, God of compassion, may human deeds\nnot prevail over your grace, even if they transgress\nthe laws of nature, but rather may your forbearance\ntriumph so that your ways may never be less\nthan those of mortals.\nFor when your light came to herald the new covenant,\nthose, like the Jews who prided themselves\nin keeping the law, were abandoned to greater heartache\nand became more needy of your charity,\nthan those wretched persons,\nforever lost in the wilderness.\nSince everything is possible for you, O benevolent God,\nhear my sighs of supplication to you.\nHave mercy, save us, and be generous.\nFor yours is forbearance, gentleness, salvation,\natonement and glory for all time, to all peoples.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72889,12 +75057,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 14", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nI pray to you, ray of light,\nheavenly king, praised beyond telling,\nSon of God, majestic beyond words,\nincline your ear once again,\nexalted compassion, refuge of life,\ntoward the feeble sobs of this\nwounded soul.\n\n\n# II.\n\nNowhere is it shown,\nnowhere can we read that the traveler\nall but slain by the swords of bandits,\ncried out to you in his distress,\nfor he had grown stiff from his wounds.\nNor did he utter a single plea\nfor he was struck dumb.\nNor did he point out his serious plight\nwith trembling fingers, O Seer, for\nhe was shattered. Nor did he fix eyes\nfilled with tears upon you, doer of good,\nfor he was ashamed. Nor did he try to\ngain your favor through messengers\nfor he was disconsolate.\nNor did he try to rend your heart,\ncompassionate one, by showing\nhis blood soaked clothes and beaten body,\nfor he had lost hope. Nor did he crawl\nupon his knees, since he could not stand and walk\nfor his dead half said to the living half,\ndeath is at hand.\nAll the more since, after receiving your counsel,\nbenefiting from your forbearance and\nbasking in the radiance of your glory,\nhe nevertheless did not forswear his wicked ways\nbut in stiff-necked revolt,\njoined the ranks of your enemies\nallying himself with those who hate you.\n\n\n# III.\n\nBut you, generous, kind, unspiteful, giver of life,\nnot only did you not record his sins\nbut you did not even scold him,\nyou did not kick him, but rather approached\nhim in sympathy and treated him with care.\nUnlike the priest’s custom in Aaron’s\nweak law, hurling aspersions and fistfuls of stones\nto speed death, you were in no rush\nto crush a wounded man.\nAnd unlike the Levite, our early predecessor,\nwho was the end of the old and the start of the new,\ncaught between the two, in soulless limbo,\nyou saw the plight\nof the wounded man and did not aim\nthe deadly axe at the root of life,\nfrightening him to death at what is to come\nby appearing as the minister of death.\nBut rather like the Assyrian pagans\nknown as the promise keepers, who received\nthe law from the Jews\nand kept it in tact, even when Jews\nhad forgotten it, you donned\nthe mortal cloak of our body to proclaim your\ngood tidings of deliverance to all peoples.\nAnd by the work of your incorruptible divinity,\nyou extended your hand to raise\nthe man condemned to death by his mortal sins,\nraising him along with all his generations.\n\nYou brought joy to the gloomy heart.\nYou steadied the fainting soul.\nYou restored happiness to the despondent spirit.\nYou filled his emptiness with the anointing\nof the life-giving baptismal font\nand the cup of light.\nYou renewed him through regenerative,\nheavenly bread, your body.\nThrough the watchful company of the happy\nelect, you cared, cured, and comforted him.\nWith a mare’s gentle gait you transported him\nunharmed until his deliverance to the abode of light.\nYou cured him through two\nintercessors, the life-giving testaments,\nold and new, given out of your love\nfor humanity. And as it was once with Moses,\nlike an eagle with outspread wings, you snatched\nhim midair and deposited him in calm safety,\nin the land of happiness, ordering\nhis doctors to nurture him with\nthe sustenance of your word.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd now, you who have miraculously endowed\nall things with the supreme light of your goodness,\ngathering as your own, the scattered treasures\nand re-establishing your inheritance,\nredeem me also, wiping out the debt of my sins.\nYou, who minister without charge to the unworthy,\ngrant me also atonement and healing,\nO compassionate, mighty, inscrutable, incorruptible\nand awesome, eternally blessed one,\nunto the ages of ages.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72902,12 +75072,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 15", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow again with the same sighs\nfrom my distressed heart\npouring out the same wordy strains,\nI seek your mercy bestower of all gifts,\nand with my soul immersed in torment\nlike the dead, I pray to you\nliving, immortal God, confessing\nbefore your honor, my disgrace,\nbefore your goodness, my evil.\nI am more devastated than cured,\nmore embarrassed than emboldened,\nhaving broken my vows and forsaken\nthe trust reposed in me.\n\nI am like the pathetic sheep in the second parable,\nwhich strayed into inaccessible hills\nand wandered in a daze among beastly demons\nand fierce idols, without the slightest chance of\nreturning to the fold. Although my tongue was lost\nfor words to tell my anguish, and my hands\nlacked the agility to communicate like the mute,\nstill you found me, you who alone\nare praised from beginning to end\nthroughout the generations.\n\nYou found me, a sinner, lost in darkness\ncrying like the psalmist in prayer,\nand because of your willing care\nyou were called Shepherd, for not only\ndid you care, but you sought,\nnot only did you find, O worker of miracles,\nbut with the goodness of your love,\na love that defies description,\nyou rescued me,\nlifting me upon your shoulders,\nto set down alongside your heavenly army,\nthe heirs to your fatherly legacy.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAnd now, mighty savior,\nblessed visitor, compassionate comforter,\nyou, who heard the unspoken supplication\nof one suffering in silence at death’s door,\nand of another who wandered into\nthe wilderness, helpless, lost,\nunable to speak, bleating inarticulately,\nyou, who in your divine providence that\ngraces the universe,\ncared for those lost or in peril, now\nshow again your compassion and the bounty\nof your kindness to me whose iniquity\nexceeds everything told above,\nwhose mortal sins come in all varieties,\nwhose flavor is that of evil among the\nsweet taste of goodness,\nwhose body deserves to be broken to the last bone,\nwhose wounded soul is infected with\nall manner of vile ills,\nwhose stupor is on a level with the speechless beasts,\nwhose alienation has removed him from intelligent life,\nwhose nature no longer resembles that of his species.\nIf there were an example, I would cite it.\nIf there were others like me, I would describe them.\nIf there were a category, I would name it.\nIf there were my equal, I would note it.\nIf there were a parallel, I would mark it.\nIf there were a model, I would show it.\nIf there were a precedent, I would use it.\nIf there were a present example, I could take heart.\nBut since mine surpasses all measure\nand defies all categories, you are my only hope of\natonement, healing and salvation,\nredeemer of all mortals, renewer of the universe.\n\n\n# III.\n\nFor if in the view of blessed David’s pure heart,\nhis lawlessness was piled over his head,\nhis transgressions outweighed the heaviest\nburdens, then my wrongs are even greater than\nall the waters of seas in torrential flood,\ninundating and submerging the mountains.\nRelease but a breath of your kindness\nas in Noah’s day, a breath that can melt mountains,\nand the stormy flood of my billowing misdeeds\nwill evaporate along with\nmy earth-shattering transgressions\nand my mountain-high sins.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nNow with your sharp and mighty word\nand the unbounded discretion of your swift judgment,\ngive me a way to redeem myself, even as the Prophet\npromised, even in my advanced stage of lawlessness.\n\nAnd forgiving my stubborn defiance,\nO long-suffering, merciful, blessed one,\nbe truly generous and forgive me all at once,\nwiping out my unrepayable debts\nand the crushing interest which has accrued,\nfor you have no wrath in your heart, nor vexation,\nnor deceit, nor traces of darkness,\nfor you wish only life and light.\nAnd as David and Solomon attest,\nyou did not make death or take\njoy in human misery.\n\n\n# V.\n\nIn your just laws, you set as a key rule\nthat one wrong should not be returned for another,\nbut that we should forgive seventy times seven\nthe sins committed against us each and every day.\nYou addressed this to us, wicked by nature,\nthe germs of sin sprouting in tens of thousands\nupon the fertile field of our thorny natures.\nAs you so rightly witnessed, “The human mind\nfrom childhood is inclined toward evil.”\nEven John, the Evangelist of your word of life,\nwho was exceedingly pure, nevertheless\nshared our common nature and said frankly\nin contrast to my roundabout manner of speech,\n“If we say that we have no sin, we make him a liar.”\n\nAnd now, your prophetic word is fulfilled\nand borne out beyond question by my iniquities.\nSo deliver me with your mercy,\nO fount of lovingkindness,\nwho alone are blessed through all eternity.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72915,12 +75087,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 16", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nYours alone, God, in heaven, exalted and generous,\nyours is the power, and yours, forgiveness.\nYours is healing and yours, abundance.\nYours are the gifts and yours alone grace.\nYours atonement and yours protection.\nYours is creation beyond knowing.\nYours are arts beyond discovery.\nYours are bounds beyond measure.\nYou are the beginning and you are the end.\nSince the light of your mercy is never obscured\nby the darkness of indignity,\nyou are not subject to disease in any form.\nYou are too lofty for words, an image beyond framing,\nwhose being is immeasurable,\nthe breadth of whose glory is unbounded,\nthe reach of whose incisive power is indescribable,\nthe supremacy of whose absoluteness is uncontainable,\nthe compassion of whose good works is unflagging.\n\nYou turned, according to the Prophet,\nthe shadow of death into dawn.\nYou willingly descended into Tartaros,\nthe prison of those detained below,\nwhere even the door of prayer was sealed\nto free the captive and damned souls\nwith the commanding sword of\nyour victorious word.\n\nYou cut the bindings of wretched death\nand dispelled the suspicion of sin.\nTurn toward me, trembling in the confines\nof my squalid cell, fettered by sin,\nmortally wounded by the Troublemaker’s arrows.\n\n\n# II.\n\nRemember me, Lord of all, benefactor,\nlight in the darkness, treasure of blessing,\nmerciful, compassionate, kind, mighty,\npowerful beyond telling, understanding, or words,\nequal to all crises, you who are, in the words\nof Jacob, always ready to do the impossible.\nO fire that clears away sin’s underbrush,\nblazing ray that illumines every\ngreat mystery, remember me, blessed one,\nwith mercy rather than legalisms,\nwith forbearance rather than vengeance,\nwith lenience rather than evidence,\nso that you weigh my sins with your kindness\nand not with judgment.\nFor by the first, my burden is light,\nbut by the second, I am damned forever.\n\n\n# III.\n\nNow, cure me, O kindness,\neven as you did the ear of the one\nwho attacked you.\nTake away the whipping winds of death\nfrom this sinner, so that the calm of\nyour almighty spirit might rest in me.\nUnto you all glory, now and forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72928,12 +75102,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 17", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow, tormented by bitter grief I pray\nto you, keeper of imperiled souls.\nDo not add to the pain of my sighs.\nDo not wound me. I am already injured.\nDo not condemn me. I am already punished.\nDo not torture me. I am already tormented.\nDo not cudgel me. I am already beaten.\nDo not push me. I have already fallen.\nDo not destroy me. I am already discredited.\nDo not reject me. I am already banished.\nDo not exile me. I am already persecuted.\nDo not embarrass me. I am already humbled.\nDo not scold me. I am already cowering.\nDo not crush me. I am already broken.\nDo not upset me. I am already agitated.\nDo not shake me. I am already quivering.\nDo not confuse me. I am already bewildered.\nDo not flay me. I am already picked over.\nDo not pound me. I am already crushed.\nDo not taint me. I am already debased.\nDo not blind me. I am already in the dark.\nDo not frighten me. I am already perplexed.\nDo not roast me. I am already charred.\nDo not kill me. I am already dying.\nDo not overload me. I am already weakened.\nDo not yoke me. I am already bent over.\nDo not double my wailing. I am already weeping.\nDo not till my soil too deeply.\nDo not scatter my ashes too harshly.\nDo not judge my works too roughly.\nDo not blow my dust too meanly.\n\n\n# II.\n\nDo not measure your greatness against my smallness,\nyour light against my dimness,\nyour good nature against my native evil,\nyour cornucopia of blessing against my cursed fruit,\nyour genuine sweetness against my complete sourness,\nyour unchanging glory against my total debasement,\nyour shrine of life against my vessel of clay,\nyour lord of lords against my dust of the earth,\nyour undimishing fullness against my slavish poverty,\nyour unpillaged abundance against my\nabandoned torment,\nyour unblemished goodness against my\nmost wretched squalor,\nfor who can reach morning and\nat the light of daybreak expect dark,\nor at the portal of life expect death,\nor at liberation expect bondage,\nor at grace expect condemnation,\nor at salvation expect destruction,\nor at renewal expect ruination,\nor at blessing expect banishment,\nor at cure expect injury,\nor at fullness expect want,\nor at abundance of bread expect famine,\nor at the flow of rivers expect drought,\nor at motherly compassion expect deception,\nor at the care of God’s right hand expect persecution?\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd now with my body shaken by disease\nand my soul in peril I pray\n“Lord, if you want you can make me clean.”\nLike a groping blind man,\nI cry with laments and call to you\nnot only the son of David,\nbut also profess your divine birth.\nI not only call you, “Rabbi,”\nthe name of honor given to teachers\nwho claim to know the truth, but I also\nbelieve you to be the Lord of heaven and earth.\nI not only expect to be cured when you are close,\nO compassionate God, by the touch of your hand,\nbut also when we are separated by great distances\nthrough the power of your words.\nI do not draw a line between your will\nand your compassion, a line of doubt,\nfor I believe that you will, because\nyou are compassionate and you are able,\nbecause you are our creator.\nSay the word and I will be cured.\nLet me join the centurion in his faith.\nLet my faith be not just for the short\ndistances from altar to altar,\nfor I know you are able to raise\nthe dead and make them whole.\nEven sitting in heaven you work miracles\nover the whole world below.\nAnd I have nothing to give in return.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nGrant me forgiveness, with the word of your judgment,\neven as you forgave the debt\nof five hundred dinars in the case of the prostitute,\nGod of goodness, Lord of bliss.\nThe more you bestow, the greater your glory.\nThe more you give, the more you are loved.\nThe more your mercy, the more your greatness.\nFor all your benevolence, you are rightly praised.\nThough Lord of all, you came to us as our equal.\nThough possessing everything, you weigh by\nour measure.\nThough you have gifts beyond telling,\nyou accept our skimpy payment.\nAnd to the account of mortals, you grant\nunlimited credit. Your generosity is sublime,\nyet not too high to receive our meager praise.\nShow the same compassion to me with my\ncountless debts so that I might\nin expressing gratitude for your gifts\nalso commemorate your love.\nTo you glory in all things.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72941,12 +75117,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 18", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nI was born in sin, the child of mortal labor.\nNow, in one day, a penalty of countless thousands\nhas come due.\nI turn to you for forgiveness not on the meager human\nscale, but with the full undiminishing measure\nof lovingkindness shown toward us\nby our Savior Jesus Christ:\nBefore I was, you created me.\nBefore I could wish, you shaped me.\nBefore I glimpsed the world’s light, you saw me.\nBefore I emerged, you took pity on me.\nBefore I called, you heard me.\nBefore I raised a hand, you looked over me.\nBefore I asked, you dispensed mercy on me.\nBefore I uttered a sound, you turned your ear to me.\nBefore I sighed, you attended me.\nKnowing in advance my current trials,\nyou did not thrust me from your sight.\nNo, even foreseeing my misdeeds,\nyou fashioned me.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAnd now, do not let me\nwhom you made, saved and took into\nyour care, be lost to sin and\nthe Troublemaker’s deceptions.\nDo not let the fog of my willfulness prevail\nover the light of your forgiveness,\nnor the hardness of my heart\nover your long-suffering goodness,\nnor my mortal flaws\nover your perfect wholeness,\nnor my weak flesh\nover your invincible strength.\n\n\n# III.\n\nIn your name, Almighty,\nI extend the shriveled arm of my soul\nso you will make it whole as before,\nas in the garden of Eden,\nwhen it reached to pick fruit of the tree of life.\nThe misery of my incorrigible soul,\nbound up, infirm, bent over,\nis like the stricken woman in the Gospel,\nbowed by sin, her gaze on the ground\nin Satan’s tyrannical chains,\nkept from your heavenly blessing.\n\nTurn your ear toward me, last hope of mercy\nand raise this humbled, fallen, dried up,\nthinking piece of wood,\nto make it blossom in piety,\nas foretold in the words of the holy prophet.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nLike one without light, blind from birth,\nI do not have vision to look upon your face, O creator,\nalmighty and compassionate, my only protector.\nIf you turn the caring gaze of your immeasurable love\nupon my breathing speaking vessel,\nyou could rekindle, out of nothing,\nthe light of being within me.\n\nLike the wretched woman in the Gospels,\nafflicted by evils for twelve years,\nI bleed with rivers of infirmity.\nLook down upon me from on high\ncloaked in blinding light,\nwhere sewn clothing does not exist,\nbut everything is covered in mighty miracles.\n\n\n# V.\n\nCondemned as I am, I do not approach\nthe soles of your life-giving feet\nto anoint them with oil\nor offer to wash them with my\ntear-drenched hair. But rather, a true believer,\nI kiss the earth, with pure faith,\nhands reaching up, sighing with streaming tears,\nbegging for the healing of my soul,\na soul wasted by shortcomings,\ndissipated by weakness.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nAnd these two feet, means of motion,\nfoundation of my body’s structure,\nnow lame and unsteady,\nvanquished by evil,\nimpede my ascent to the tree of life-giving fruit.\nMay you again inhabit them, my only hope of cure.\nAnd the organ of glorification with which you endowed\nme, whose voice when moved by the magnanimity of\nyour mercy used to turn back the breath of the\nTroublemaker, silencing him,\nmay you miraculously restore your living word to me,\nso I might speak again without faltering,\nlike the one you healed in the Gospel.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nI lie here on a cot struck down by evil,\nsinking in disease and torment,\nlike the living dead yet able to speak.\nO kind Son of God,\nhave compassion upon my misery.\nHear the sobbing of my agitated voice.\nBring me back to life\nwith the dew of your blessed eyes\nas you brought back your friend from breathless death.\nIn a dungeon of infirmities, I am captive, bitter and\nin doubt.\nGive me your hand, sun that casts no shadows, Son on\nhigh, and lift me into your radiant light.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nLike the pitiful, wailing voice of the widow Nain,\nmourning her only son,\nfingers trembling, chest heaving,\ntears streaming down her face paralyzed with grief,\nI beg with my last sighing breath: Grant me,\nwho has lost hope, your comfort and pity.\nTeach me not to moan and protest like a prisoner,\nkind and praiseworthy creator of the universe,\nbut rather, like the young man you brought back to life,\nwho comforted his grieving mother,\nmay I too receive from you\na second chance for my condemned soul.\n\n\n# IX.\n\nYou took pity, O Savior of all,\neven on demon-possessed brutes,\nand those unfortunates, stoned, beaten, and deformed,\nwith their unkempt, knotted hair\nand their wild faces, raving in delirium.\nLike them, I petition you,\nturn back the legions of evil defiling\nyour sanctuary within me\nso that when your Spirit arrives\nyour goodness might dwell here\nand fill my body with your cleansing breath,\nbringing lucidity to my reeling mind.\n\n\n# X.\n\nLike souls banished to hell,\nI am held captive by illness.\nLet your light dawn in radiant rays of mercy\nupon my torture to rescue me\nfrom the clutches of the sickness\ntearing me apart.\nThe infirmities that cause disease\ntraveling invisible paths, secretly lying in wait,\nstraying from the ordained ways with\nmalicious purposes--\nall torment my soul.\n\nHidden from examination, the\nmalignant growth proceeds\nwith the poisonous work of the Evil-doer.\nWith your strength which knows no equal,\nSon of God, heal me so that I might live.\n\nWith your almighty hand pluck out\nthe harvest of destruction\nthat the various mortal illnesses,\neach dressed in its own way, produce.\nPluck out the evil roots\nsprouted upon the field of my unruly body\nwith your mighty hand\nthat plows and cultivates the plots of our souls\nso they may bear the fruit of the gospel of life.\n\n\n# XI.\n\nAnd because the torments of my infirmities\nsurpass even these examples,\nwhich like a spreading cancer,\nhave touched all the parts of my body,\nthere is no salve as there was none for Israel,\nfor my innumerable sores.\nEvery part of my body from head to toe\nis unhealthy and beyond the help of physicians.\nBut you, merciful, beneficent, blessed,\nlong-suffering, immortal king,\nhear the prayers of my embattled heart for mercy,\nwhen I cry to you, “Lord,”\nin my time of need.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72954,12 +75132,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 19", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nHear, all-seeing vision of hope and goodness of life,\nthe profuse sighs of my hurting soul,\nunreachable greatness, fearful name, living word,\nlonged for message, delectable taste,\nworshipful calling, confessed beneficence,\nsweet perception, professed reality,\nglorious essence, blessed existence,\nLord Christ, praised and worshiped with your Father\nand exalted and proclaimed with the Holy Spirit,\nwho alone became human like us for our sakes,\nso that you might make us like you for your sake,\nlight unto all, merciful, almighty and\nheavenly in all ways,\nI pray that with your divine miracle-working power,\ncompassionate God, you restore this,\nmy collapsing broken earthen vessel.\nAnd I pray that you recast the image you gave me,\nworn by sin,\nin the lightning crucible of your word.\nCleanse the temple of my body,\nthe vessel of my soul,\nthe altar of your repose,\nas your dwelling place,\nI pray you, O doer of good.\nDo not repay my evil deeds with evil.\nI am drunk, in the words of the prophet, but not\nwith wine. Empty out the dregs of iniquity\nfrom my stupefying cup of death. And by the command\nof your salvation, giver of all life,\nlet me with the last drop of your cup\nbe spared on the day of judgment.\n\n\n# II.\n\nYou are just in your law\nand triumphant in your judgment.\nIf you hand down a death sentence,\nyour action is right.\nIf you reprimand before giving a stern condemnation,\nyour decision is just.\nIf you cast me into the abyss\nor still the movement of life,\nif you silence my power of speech,\nor darken the windows of my eyes,\nif you check my joy in life,\nor impair my ability to be nourished by ordinary food,\nif you reduce the richness of my days,\nor make drops of fire fall along with the dew drops,\nif you starve me by your silence,\nor shut the doors of my ears,\nif you cut off the bounty of your grace,\nor make the earth move under my feet,\nif you shut off the light of your countenance\nfor which I yearn, or expel me from\nthis world completely,\nif you terrify me with a lightening bolt,\nor condemn me to incurable pain,\nif you betray me to the demons of evil,\nor chew me up in the jaws of beasts,\nif you blow me away in billowing anger,\nor invent some new torture,\nmore evil than Tartaros,\nmore severe than Gehenna,\nmore vile than maggots,\nmore anguishing than darkness,\nmore terrifying than the abyss,\nmore pitiful than nakedness,\nI will testify against myself that\nI deserve these and more.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd since the punishments always match\nthe sins they are for,\nlike mirror images, identical,\nparallel, emblematic of the wrong,\nit is important to confess\nand lift the veil from my face\nto one who seeks to know me.\nFor as I did not tend the needs of\nmy fellow man with warm charity,\nit is right that I freeze with fear\nat the first sign of danger.\n\nAnd since I did not check my willful pride,\nit is fair that I should be consumed with\nunbridled disgrace.\n\nAnd since I did not love the light\nof the good news, it is just\nthat I should be condemned to grope\nin the darkness of ignorance and fog of perdition.\n\nAnd since I paid no heed to small faults,\nconsidering them harmless, it is fitting\nfor me to be wounded by the stings of insects.\n\nAnd since I did not lend a helping han\nto those in danger, it is proper for me\nto be cast into a pit of filth.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nBut evil is not from your Godly bounty,\nsource of all good, and darkness\nis not from your radiant light.\nAnd temptation is not\npart of your protection. No, I found these myself\nlike a destructive child.\nAnd the mounting sins of my iniquity have justified\nyour anger. As the good book warns\nI became the servant of the prince\nof iniquity, giving him your place.\n\n\n# V.\n\nAnd since the scandal,\nthe most private secret, has been uncovered\nand its shamefulness leaves a mark\nupon my face. I show myself, as in\nthe parable of the prophet, in complete\noffensiveness like a naked prostitute.\n\nRekindle your light of atonement in me,\nheavenly king, so that\nshaking off the dust of sin,\nmy soul can stand upright like the\npeople returning from Babylon,\nhaving heard the voice of good tidings.\nAnd I will be able to sit up again,\non the firm foundation of your unshakable hope.\nIn the words of the prophet Isaiah,\nI shall be clothed in my former purity\nby your mighty hand, for the sweetness\nof your all-giving divinity and your great glory.\nBlessed forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72967,12 +75147,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 20", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nLord, O Lord, who bears no grudges,\ntolerant, forgiving, compassionate, powerful,\nand merciful,\nbehold, your actions rest on truth,\nyour judgment upon confessions,\nyour decisions upon sound testimony,\nO seer of the unseen. Like the three\nfortunate youths who were tested by the caustic fires\nof Babylon but were unharmed,\nI groan a mournful refrain,\n“I have sinned. I am lawless. I have done wrong.\nI have been indicted and I have not heeded\nyour commandments.”\nThey being innocent of any wrong\ncried out this confession, while I am rightly\ncondemned to death and have yet more reason\nto plead even as Daniel,\nthe blessed holy prophet,\nwho was of your true lineage\nand the chosen branch of the house of Judah.\nTo his words and prayers of commitment that\nwere acceptable to you, I add my cries\nfor punishment and humiliation.\n\n\n# II.\n\nKnowing full well what was improper,\nI strayed from the path,\nsinning in all ways in all things,\nI fled from the balancing bounds\nof your will. And this is\nthe characteristic profile of base\nlawlessness that I practiced and\nperfected till my wrongdoing knew\nno limits. Is this not the very image\nof criminality? You admonished\nbut I was shameless. You entreated\nbut I took no heed. Both are flagrant signs\nof rebellion.\n\n\n# III.\n\nYou clothed yourself in righteousness,\nO doer of good, and prepared\nshame and humiliation for me.\nFor you, fitting glory,\nfor me, deserving insult.\nFor you, sweetness immemorial,\nfor me, vinegary bile.\nFor you, praise that cannot be silenced,\nfor me, weeping laments.\nFor you, songs of blessing rising with incense,\nfor me, the alienation of exile.\nFor you, all rights justly deserved,\nfor me, every worrisome debt.\nFor you, exaltation and praise beyond words,\nfor me, the abject punishment of eating dust.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd you, O splendid goodness beyond measure,\nyou received our offering with sweet frankincense\nfitting to you, while\nI received my portion of censure compounded\nby aggravating circumstances.\nFor if the innocent prayed to you in this way,\nwhat apology shall I weave in my guilt, I who have\nfaltered more basely than anyone?\nI have strayed down wayward paths in my\nundisciplined mind.\nIn my everyday speech I have been brazen.\nI have been obsessed by shameful deeds.\nI have become puffed up and haughty.\nI have become arrogant and conceited\nthough I will soon be lowered into the earthly grave.\nI want to make a deal\nthough I cannot even give my breath as collateral.\n\n\n# V.\n\nI, breathing dust, have grown haughty.\nI, talking clay, have become presumptuous.\nI, filthy dirt, have grown proud.\nI, disgusting ashes, have risen up,\nraising my hands with my broken cup, strutting\nlike a swaggering peacock, but then\ncurling back into myself, as if rejected,\nmy speaking slime glowing with anger\nI grew arrogant, as if I were immortal,\nI, who face the same death as the four-legged creatures.\nI embraced the love of pleasure\nand instead of facing you, turned my back.\nIn flights of fancy I darted into lurid thought.\nIndulging my body I wore out my soul.\nIn strengthening the sinister side\nI weakened the force of my right side.\nI saw your concern for me, too deep for words,\nand paid no heed.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nAs Hosea wrote of Ephraim, I rushed\ntoward my former ways like a wild fowl.\nIn my sanctuary I was immersed in my worldly\npreoccupations and I did not halt the meandering\nhorse of my mind with the reins of rationality.\nI added to my former wrong doings with new\ninventions. Like Job, I made my heavy yoke\neven more unbearable. Like Jeremiah,\nI became like a rotten cloth, and, as the preacher said,\nmy name is erased from the book of mankind\nlike a stillborn child. And as Isaiah said,\nI have become soiled like the napkin of the\nmenstruating woman and I am shattered and\nunmendable like a ceramic bowl. Like the Edomite\nchastised by the prophet, I have prepared myself\nfor a squalid end as the fourth penalty for\nmy lawlessness. And it would be no lie were I to add\nthat abandoning my inheritance in heaven I even built\na tabernacle to the demon Moloch, even fashioned\nan idol in the form of the Babylonian Star\nof Rephan like the one the Israelites had in the Sinai,\nso that my legacy should be hell.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nAnd now with the license of my original grace revoked\nI have changed, I am dispossessed, I am exiled,\nI am banished, I am separated and irreparably cut off.\nNow, accept me, O Lord, and renew the impression of\nyour image on my soul, I who am unworthy of life,\na capital felon, evil person,\na fallen being trampled by Satan,\na terminal patient at death’s door,\ndepraved and unworthy of your calling,\ndefeated with one blow, wanderer, exile and outlaw,\na doubter, wretch, reject, battered, shattered,\nbroken, wounded, dejected, embattled soul.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nAnd again, O compassionate Lord who loves mankind,\nalmighty God, as you consider these words of pleading,\ntreat them as a confession from a contrite soul\nfallen at your feet in repentance.\nAnd as you judge, note and weigh\nthe tearful soul, the heaving sighs,\nthe quivering lips, the dry tongue,\nthe clenched face, the good will in the depth of the heart,\nyou who are the salvation of humanity,\nthe seer of the undone, the creator of all,\nthe healer of invisible wounds,\nthe defender of the hopeful and the guardian of all,\nto you glory forever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72980,12 +75162,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 21", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nSince I of my own will mortgaged myself to death,\nnever standing as a man on my own two feet,\nand never having received a rational soul,\nas the Bible says,\nI did not turn away from my former sinful ways\nto travel the path of goodness.\nWhy should I not begin this chapter\nby disclosing my wayward tracks toward darkness?\nSo I shall adapt my writing to this purpose\nwithout changing my earlier testimony,\nand confess again the rest of the evil stains upon me.\n\n\n# II.\n\nDeserving the punishment of a foreign mercenary\nI joined the army of Beliar by my acts of obstinacy.\nSwept off by the agile dances, gleeful stunts,\nand foolery of the slithering demons,\ningenious deceivers, I wallowed in my sloth,\nand in the chambers of the fallen, I took comfort\nin secret floggings and invisible wounds instead of\nwarding off these outcasts with Christ’s cross.\nNo, I willingly joined them\nwith no reason other than my miserable lawlessness.\nYour name, O Jesus, was profaned among the demons,\nas it was among the Gentiles for the sake of Israel.\nThe vices I planted in myself blow by wicked blow\nlike thieves and evil spirits\nate away at the flower of my soul like corrosive rust.\nLike caterpillars and locusts,\nas the saintly prophet Joel described\nin his terrifying lament about the land of Israel.\nIndeed, I cultivated rather than uprooted them,\nrecruiting throngs of warriors armed\nwith deadly weapons.\nI collected them in my soul and\nnurtured those that goaded me toward\nlawlessness and iniquity,\nI strengthened my enemies so that they\nbecame invincible,\nI took bitterness as my portion instead of your\nsweet sustenance,\nalways deceitful toward the Creator,\nand faithful to the Deceiver.\n\n\n# III.\n\nHow dare I raise my voice in appeal,\nconsidering the wretchedness of my plight,\nthe anguish of my peril,\nthe shadow of my shame,\nthe darkness of my humiliation?\nThe voice of doom is overwhelming\nand the cry of my protests unbearable.\nAnd if I could see my soul,\ndeformed, shriveled, wasted away,\nI would sob yet more painfully in\nextreme embarrassment\nat the disgusting, ashen color of its baseness,\nlike a minion at a pagan temple.\nFor becoming a slave to sin is the same\nas worshiping a stone idol.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nSince I have traveled the path of destruction\npursuing the footprints of darkness,\nlike the priests of Israel scolded by the prophet, and\nsince I have traded your plot of paradise for\na barren desert,\nhow can I call myself human,\nwhen I have earned a place among the inhuman?\nHow can I be named a thinking being,\nwhen I indulge in brutish ways?\nHow can I be called a seeing being,\nwhen I have snuffed out my inner light?\nHow can I be known as cognizant,\nwhen I have slammed the door on wisdom?\nHow can I aspire to incorruptible grace,\nwhen with my own hand I have slain my soul?\nIndeed I lack attributes of a moving or even\nbreathing being,\nlet alone one capable of spiritual, thoughtful life.\n\n\n# V.\n\nChipped among the set of plates,\ndefective among the stones of the wall,\ndisdained among the ranks of the called,\nlowest of the tribe of the elect,\nweakest among those fearful of death,\nmost dejected with the pain of Jerusalem,\nas mournful as Jeremiah’s words,\n“My days have been wasted in wailing,\nand the course of my years in crying.”\nIn the songs of the musician,\n“Like wool eaten by moths, like wood\nchewed up by worms.”\nIn the words of the wiseman,\n“My heart was consumed by suspicion.”\nIn the words of the Psalmist,\n“I unravelled like a spiderweb,\nand became useless.”\nIn the words of the prophet,\n“I have disappeared, evaporated like the morning\ncloud and the dew at dawn.”:\n\n\n# VI.\n\nI do not put my hope in mankind,\nfor I would be cursed by the evil eye\nand falter in despair.\nRather I place my faith in you, my Lord,\nwho loves our souls.\nYou, who even at the hour\nyou were nailed to the cross\noverflowed with boundless compassion,\nand beseeched your Father on high\nto take mercy on your tormentors.\nNow grant me hope of atonement, life and refuge,\nso that when I take my last breath\nI might receive from you a healed soul.\nTo you with the Father and the Holy Spirit,\nall power, victory, majesty and glory forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -72993,12 +75177,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 22", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now I continue to accuse my cursed soul\nin different terms confessing all my\nundisclosed evil doings so that perhaps\nthe all-knowing might record in my favor\nthese anguished words of penitence and contrition.\n\n\n# II.\n\nMy body the grievous tormentor of my soul,\nwounded, untreatable, beyond care or recovery\nis like a talking horse with a callous mouth,\nbreaking my reins and shaking off my bit,\na surly, wild and incorrigible colt,\nan untame, recalcitrant, and stubborn heifer,\na homeless man, banished and lost,\na street urchin, roguish and impudent,\na boss, deserving mortal punishment,\nunfaithful and indolent,\nan intelligent person, turned beastly and unclean,\nan abandoned olive tree, barren and dry,\na string of imperial gold coins, wasted and forfeited,\na delinquent servant, runaway and wretched.\n\n\n# III.\n\nI am of no use to you at all, Lord,\nfor I am willingly self-destructive of soul and body,\nand remain spiritually lost and mentally deluded,\nwith a twisted will and broken heart,\nabsent-minded and stagnant-brained,\nnumb and drained,\nbrazen and disagreeable,\nbesieged by inflammations,\nwracked by fatal sickness.\nI pity the womb that bore me and\nbemoan the breasts that fed me, asking\nwhy was their milk not curdled with bile?\nWhy was the sweetness that nurtured me not\nmixed with bitterness?\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd because I have risen against myself\nwith words like a harsh prosecutor\nand have even taken up the sword\nof righteous anger that cannot be sheathed,\nwho among the earth-born will plead for me?\nI shall confess every scandalous detail.\nI shall submit my being to judgment.\nI shall beat down the army of destruction.\nI shall prosecute the marauders wounding me.\nI have sinned in everything and in all ways.\nHave mercy upon me, O compassionate God.\nIt is no new thing to find me in the fog of iniquity.\nI am always the same, breaking\nthe same commandments and appearing\nbefore you unreformed, stumbling\nin an unmendable garment.\nAnd only you, O truly compassionate and blessed,\nwith your love of mankind and your\nunwavering forgiveness\ncan speed my escape from Satan\nwho stands beside me.\n\n\n# V.\n\nNow, O caregiving, mighty, heavenly, kind,\ncreator of all out of nothing,\nsend the thunderbolt of wisdom in powerful words,\nupon the movements of my tongue\nthat it might cleanse the senses\nwith which you endowed me,\nso that with the faculties you created and\nfixed a second time,\nI might offer thanks to you\nwith unfailing voice and unbroken speech.\nFor the glory of the majesty of your Father,\nour God, forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73006,12 +75192,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 23", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nLord God of all, able to do anything,\nall-encompassing space, unbounded, unlimited,\nclose to all with your very essence,\nnowhere, yet without you there are no bounds,\ninvisible, yet without the light of your dawn\nnothing is visible,\nawesome glory, incomprehensible name,\nvoice of majesty, sound of the infinite,\nessence beyond analysis,\nunreachable distance, immediate closeness,\nwho notes gentleness and sees distress,\nstands by grief and can cure all hopeless cases,\nFather of compassion who spreads mercy,\nGod of comfort.\n\n\n# II.\n\nLook with mercy, O Lord, on my anguish,\non the many symptoms of dread afflictions\nI set out before you.\nTreat me like a physician, rather than examining\nme like a judge.\nIndeed I am overwhelmed by anxieties\ncaused by vacillation and doubt.\nWhen the body is weakened by malady,\nwhen the soul is not fortified against evil,\nwhen the senses are paralyzed by passion,\nthe members of the body wallow in desire,\nthe heart’s wisdom is wounded by remorse,\nthe expectation of good is abandoned,\nand despite the ability to think,\nman sinks to the level of beasts.\nHis existence becomes enmeshed with disgust\neven while appearing outwardly whole,\nhis intellect frays within.\nRemembering the graveness of his mistakes,\nhe falls into despair\ntormented by past deeds and constantly worried.\nThe clarity of prayer becomes clouded\nas he smolders in the fires of conscience.\nAt work, although his hand stays on the plough,\nhis mind keeps turning over the past.\nWalking forward, his feet drag back.\nKnowing the essential, he is consumed by irrelevancies.\nIn battles of the mind, he is always defeated by details.\nAnd the door of his voice box is charred by the burning\nof his heart.\nEverywhere sunless fog rises from damp whims\nenshrouding everything and blocking the grasp of hope.\nHis senses are branded with unbearable pain.\nHis mind is obsessed by the misfortune of perdition\nand retribution occupies the tribunal of his thought.\nHis tender eye fills with anger.\nBright spirits disfavor my earthen vessel\nand I am worthy of being stoned to death with\nstones of justice.\nWith terror my meager nature collides with yours\nas your thundering words scatter my\nthought-bearing ashes.\nLike a prodigal son I have wasted the talent given me,\nand like the useless servant I buried the\nhonorable gifts received.\nThe fruits of my labor are covered with the\ndarkness of sloth,\nand fade like the afterglow of a candle when\nit is taken away.\nMy tongue, having lost the right to respond, is dumb.\nMy twisted lips have been justly silenced.\nMy mind whirls with anxiety\nunable to concentrate\ntoo stupefied to weigh and choose what is right.\nThe path of deliverance is blocked\nby the wreckage of evil,\nand the lamp of my soul is filled only with ash.\nThe letters of my name have been scratched from the\nbook of life,\nand blame is written in the place of blessing.\n\n\n# III.\n\nIf I see a soldier, I expect death,\na messenger, punishment,\na clerk, foreclosure,\na jurist, condemnation,\nan evangelist, the shaking of the dust off his feet,\na pious person, reprimand,\na snob, sarcasm,\nIf I am put to trial by water, I will drown.\nIf I take a remedy for my condemnation, I will die.\nAt the mere sight of the harvest of goodness, I recoil\nremembering my evil.\nIf a hand is raised, I take cover.\nAt the least trifle, I tremble.\nAt the slightest sound, I flinch.\nIf I am invited to join in a toast, I quiver.\nIf I am scolded, I cower.\nIf I am called for questioning, I mumble.\nIf I am interrogated, I become dumb.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nNow, all these pitiful doubts, heaped upon each another,\nin the unconscious depths and inner chambers of my\nheart’s being,\nstifle me, piercing my heart with invisible arrows,\nunextractable, permanently lodged in my soul,\nfilling it with pus forewarning\na dreadful death.\nWith each breath I draw,\nthe ulcers and rust from these buried secrets,\nlocked away in iron, cause pain.\nThe cry of my voice strangled by these torments,\nI offer to heaven, mixed with tears and the sobbing grief\nof my soul,\nO doer of good, for whom everything is possible,\nalong with the prayers of other earth-bound sufferers.\nWith them I offer up my last sigh\nand tears here on earth,\nso that you will grant a calm peace to me,\na pitiful laborer engaged in vain earthly pursuits.\nEternal glory to you,\nwho are all in all through all.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73019,12 +75207,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 24", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nWhat am I worthy to ask of you in prayer?\n\nMay I pray for\nparadise, from which I have strayed?\nyour magnificent glory, which I am denied?\nyour everlasting life, from which I was rejected?\nthe society of angels, from which I was expelled?\nthe company of the just, from which I am banished?\nthe living vine, from which I have been\nripped away?\nthe shoot of the plant of bliss, from which I have\ndried up?\nthe grace of the flower of glory, from which\nI have fallen?\nthe legacy of praise, from which I was disinherited?\nthe devoted fatherly embrace, from which\nI have pulled away?\n\n\n# II.\n\nOr may I pray\nthat I might be honored with clothing of light,\nfrom which I have been stripped?\nthat I might hope for return to my creator,\nfrom whom I have been estranged?\nthat I might turn my desires to the light,\nfrom which I have strayed?\nthat I might join the body of Christ,\nfrom which I was rejected?\nthat I might touch the hand of him,\nfrom whom I am separated?\nthat I might seek refuge in the sanctuary,\nfrom which I was spurned?\nOr might I pray for\nthe renewal of salvation, from which I fell?\nthe reawakening of joy, from which\nI was abandoned?\nthe rule of monastic life, from which\nI have been diverted?\nthe edge of steadfastness, from which\nI have slipped?\nthe bulwark of the immovable rock,\nfrom which I have been shaken?\nthe procession of the faithful, from which I strayed?\nOr may I pray that I might\nprosper in the city of firstborn,\nfrom which I was taken captive?\nreceive my daily bread, for which\nI have not worked?\nbe compensated for labor, for which\nI have not sweat?\nbe showered with rewards, which\nI have not earned?\nbe recorded in the book of life,\nfrom which I have been erased?\nremember the bounty of blessings, which\nI always forget?\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd now the thread of the hope of life has snapped.\nI am dominated by a plague of leprosy, diseased all over.\nMy body has been eaten away by corruption.\nBesieged, I have been made dead to God.\nA small, shiny, ugly, white scar\nis all that remains of my earlier ambiguous symptoms,\nleaving no doubt of my uncleanness.\nAll vestiges of pride have been snuffed.\nSalvation is forsaken; the good darkened by shadows.\nAccess to life is completely closed; comfort removed.\nThe tribunal of judgment approaches.\nThe poisons of death quicken within me.\nThe malignancies reawaken.\nThe harbor is shut by reefs.\nThe path of hope is blocked.\nThe cloak of grace has been stripped away.\nThe splendor of majesty is eclipsed.\nThe sense of direction has been confused.\nThe stabs of reprimand have multiplied.\nThe horns of iniquity have sprouted.\nThe flames of hell have singed me.\nThe yoke of servitude weighs heavily.\nThe chains of slavery are strengthened.\nThe supporting structure has collapsed.\nThe base of the summit has disintegrated.\nThe unity of the family has fallen into the abyss.\nThe Spirit of God which loves holiness is dejected.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nI have embraced the bitter dregs\nof torment, anguish, sorrow, spiritual distress,\npains beyond treatment,\ndoubt beyond steadying, shame beyond measure,\nscandal beyond concealment,\nhumiliation beyond brazenness,\nfleeing beyond return,\npersecution beyond human decency\na long, barren pilgrimage.\nWhereas you are salvation, strength, and relief,\nmercy, enlightenment, atonement and life eternal,\nLord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God,\ncreator of heaven and earth,\nwho offers water to those parched from\nthirst in the desert.\nBlessed, kind, mighty, loving,\nforbearing, caring, ingenious, visitor,\ndefender without sparing, protector victorious,\nlife indestructible, intercessor to heaven,\nundiminishing fullness, bliss celebrated,\nlovingly extend your right hand of mercy.\nAccept and present me, a manifold sinner,\nmy sins forgiven and cleansed,\nto your Holy Spirit, equal to you in honor,\nO living Word,\nso that reconciled through you the Holy Spirit might\nreturn to me.\nThrough you, may the almighty Holy Spirit\ncleanse me with pure will and present me to your Father\nso that I may with him and through him\nalways be bound with grace to you\nthrough the breath of salutation\ninseparably united with you.\nAnd for these gifts, to you, the Father and\nthe Holy Spirit,\nthree persons, one nature and one godhead,\nglory and thanksgiving from your created beings,\nforever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73032,12 +75222,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 25", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nIn describing my imprisonment and captivity,\nI have recounted some of the wicked torments\nthat have afflicted me one after another,\nmost unfortunate soul that I am.\nNow I change my figure of speech,\nbut not the subject of my laments.\n\n\n# II.\n\nThe ways of my life are like the waves of the sea,\nmy soul tossing in this world upon countless,\nendless swells,\nriding in the shell of my body\nlike the ship lost at sea, as the prophet Isaiah\nonce said mourning the sudden destruction of Jerusalem\nand Samaria by Persian hordes.\n\nWould I then be wrong to use similar sounds and\nimages to describe the spiritual destruction that crashed\nupon me?\nFor as I strode through life free of doubts and cares,\nI had no inkling of the peril lying in wait for me\nbetween work and rest.\nIt arrived like the winter’s blast on a summer’s day,\na turbulent front thrusting me into turmoil.\n\nWrecked by the blows of the wild waves of the sea,\nlike a ship\nwhose rudder has become unhinged,\nwhose tall mast has been ripped from the deck,\nwhose flapping sails are in shreds,\nwhose well-built frame has lost its form,\nwhose ropes have unravelled,\nwhose lookout has been laid low,\nwhose cable strands have snapped,\nwhose anchor has come loose,\nwhose joints are unjointed,\nwhose guiding oar is bent,\nwhose keel is submerged,\nwhose helm is detached,\nwhose steering mechanism is gone,\nwhose backbone has snapped,\nwhose ribs are undone,\nwhose underbelly is shattered,\nwhose deck burst loose,\nwhose cabin has collapsed,\nwhose railing has fallen,\nwhose captain’s chair has tipped,\nwhose deck planks have split apart,\nwhose fastening nails are out.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThis image of destruction reminds me of my misery,\nlike a captain mourning his ship,\nchin in hand, tears streaming down,\nviewing traces of the wreckage\nbobbing on the crest of the waves.\nMy slain sanity sobs with pitiful grief.\n\nI did not stray from the truth\nin selecting these words to mourn\nthe shattered ark of my intellect.\nFor the Good Captain with his heavenly host\ntook pity on the sea of humanity in just this way.\nIndeed, our merciful Lord,\nwept like one of us mortals for the death of a friend\nand shed tears for fallen Jerusalem and\ntreacherous Judas.\nThose two, like sunken ships, were lost beyond hope,\nbut the first, having hit bottom,\nwas lifted up into tranquil peace,\nby the thread of hope held in the hand of our deliverer.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nI wonder:\nWill I ever see the battered ark of\nmy body restored?\nWill I ever see my shipwrecked soul healthy again?\nWill I ever see what has been separated by\nso great a chasm rejoined?\nWill I ever see the sad and tired heart of\nthis grieved spirit in bliss?\nWill I ever see the defiled image of\nnature once again in full bloom?\nWill I ever see the destroyed temple of\nmy miserable self standing?\nIs there hope I might see this exiled slave set free?\nIndeed, may one fallen from grace expect\nto be lifted once more to the light?\nWill I ever see the native splendor of\nyour radiance appearing to me in mercy?\nWill I ever see the saddest aspect of my soul smile?\nWill I ever hear good tidings instead of bad news?\nWill I ever see the thousand cracks in\nmy vessel mended?\nWill I see through the windows of\nmy mind’s eye the bond of my debt torn up?\nWill I see the goodness of forgiving grace\ndawn upon the days of my anguish?\nWill you lead me again into the joyous altar of light?\nWill my dried bones come alive again like Ezekiel’s\nthrough your life-giving breath?\nWill I again set eyes upon your holy cathedral,\nI who cry forth like the prophet from\nthe belly of the whale,\nrejected from the light, standing\nbefore you in shame?\nAnd will morning’s light ever dawn to\ndispel my gloom,\nI, who was reared in darkness?\nWill one tormented in the deep frost of\nwinter ever see spring?\nWill the mist of the rain restore the green\npasture of my soul?\nWill the lost sheep, gashed by wild beasts,\nbe again counted among your flock\nthrough your merciful will?\n\n\n# V.\n\nFor as Job said, the snares of evil are all around,\nfrom these I cannot escape.\nBut by your good will\nif the light of compassion should shine,\nif the door of your mercy should open,\nif the rays of your glory should spread,\nif the care of your hand should be revealed,\nif the dawning sun of life should break forth,\nif the sight of your beautiful morn\nshould be unveiled,\nif the bounty of your sweetness should flow forth,\nif the stream from the maker’s side should run,\nif the drops of your pure love should shower down,\nif the good news of the dawn of your\ngrace should resound,\nif the tree of your gift should blossom,\nif the parts of your blessed body are distributed,\nif the dashed expectations should be reassembled,\nif the silenced sound of your beckoning voice, Lord,\nshould again be heard,\nif your banished peace should return,\nthen with this blessing\nshall the faith of steady hope be forever mine\nfinding refuge in the Holy Spirit,\nwho with the Father is worshiped with\nthe voice of sweetness\nand together with you bathed in light too bright for\nhuman eyes.\nGrant life, forgiveness and heavenly bliss to me, a sinner,\nholding your incorruptible grace, the true token of faith,\nas an indestructible legacy.\n\nThis we pray in the name of your awe-inspiring,\nmighty and holy oneness\nand the lordship of your three-fold person\nbeyond human words and understanding\nto you, who are in essence and in existence eternally\nexalted, crowned, clothed and\nenthroned with sweetness, mercy and benevolence.\nIndeed through you, O merciful Lord,\nall things, in all ways, for all people, are possible.\nTo you glory here, now and forever and in the eternity to\ncome on the great day of revelation.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73045,12 +75237,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 26", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, truly and rightly, I join the others\nwho, modulating the sobs of their voices,\nappropriately dress their writing\nwith the same sound at the end of each verse,\nthereby more intensely inflaming and rending the heart,\nand the anguish of the pangs of its distress\nto the point of tears.\nThus I take my place at the head of the table of\nthe practitioners of this art,\nwho punctuate their poetry with sobs,\nand like them sighing and exclaiming “alas,”\nI lay open the grief of my soul,\nwhich is not totally dead to the world,\nbut is not truly alive to God,\npoetry neither especially hot, or particularly cold\nas the Evangelist wrote in the Revelations,\nthrice condemned by the Holy Trinity and\nall-knowing creator.\nThus, the fitting manifestation of my afflictions,\nmaking them twice as pitiful,\nis to set forth with a single rhyme\nmaking them the epitome of wretchedness,\nresonating response after response.\n\n\n# II.\n\nLike one, who renouncing debts, incurs even\nmore penalties, wretched person that I am,\nI am condemned by my unworthy acts\nto a double penalty and unwaivable judgment,\nliable before the Almighty, apprehended without\nany defense, in a matter of thousands of talents,\nbut without an ear’s worth of coins,\nheld captive in bitter confinement without\nan intercessor to sup on sighs and\npain in a prison of darkness,\ntormented without refuge or sustenance, I am pitiful,\nand chose here a different mode for my lamentations,\ntransposing my weeping with words,\narranged with regularity in the same manner,\nwith the indivisible, mystical symbol:\nthe pure vowel sound “ee” and the number of talents\nreturned by the industrious servant of the parable.\nThe flames of the furnace of spiritual poverty are\nfanned from all sides, around my miserable,\ndefenseless self.\nMy anguished heart is mortgaged and\nmy inconstant soul, easy prey to error.\nUnsparingly indicted, judgment shall be\ndemanded of me.\nMy senses shall be wounded by the weapons of\ndeath and sin.\nLike a slave condemned beyond salvation,\nmy very essence is shredded by the hacking of\nits sharp sword.\nAt the mere recollection of the tribunal of my judgment,\ngloom without a glimmer of light envelopes\nmy pessimistic eyes.\n\nHelpless captive of doubt, wretch that I am,\nthe image of heaven’s consternation overwhelms me.\nIn the severe sunless Tartaros, without cover,\nwithout refuge, singed by the flames of Gehenna, I am\nlost without trace, swallowed by the abyss of sin.\nThis is my net worth of useless silver\nwhich will never be honored or acceptable for deposit\nin the Lord’s treasury.\nMy petitions are tainted and my hands are\nunclean for an offering.\nI am heart broken and my fingers tremble in\nhope of redemption.\nWith my face to the ground, I beseech you,\nMother of Jesus,\nintercede and pray for forgiveness for me, a sinner.\nYou, who are the mighty savior of life, Queen of Heaven,\nto you we offer the blessing of our voices and\nthe fragrance of incense and the gift of sweet oils.\n\n\n# III.\n\nNow, let me add to the lamentations already written,\nanother part.\nI have offered to the grantor of grace the fruits of tears.\nHaving been unable to find the depth of my perdition,\nwhenever I tried to describe it in precise words,\neven the swift wings of my mind were not able to\ncomprehend its essence.\nBecause the defeat of my mental capacities by\nthe invincible forces of sin,\nI have taken the cup of wrath in my hand and\nI drink, as a taste of death, the perplexity of doubt.\nAnd now that I have set these rhythms of transgression\nto song with a pitiful voice,\nan invisible inferno blazes within me with flames that\ncannot be quenched,\nlike some invisible molten metal bubbling furiously in an\nblasting furnace,\nlike the shooting of poisoned arrows into the deepest\nchamber of my heart,\nlike jabs of pain from mortal wounds piercing through\nthe veins of my liver,\nlike pangs of labor, pain is stuck in my blocked intestines\nunable to escape,\nlike my two burning kidneys that cannot be cured,\nlike the unbearable bitterness of bile at the back of my\nthroat,\nthe fading voice of a sigh of “alas” can be heard in my\nwindpipe.\nThe various elements of the nature of my essence are like\nenemies at war with each other,\nwavering with the timidity of opinions in total crisis.\nAlthough kin, they are destroying each other in\nirreconcilable betrayal,\nneither dead nor alive, buried in the mire of\nthe baseness of sin.\nAnd with the suspicion of a convict I gaze upon\nyour benevolence,\nthat I might be lifted out of the pit of this hopeless life\ninto the light of our desire.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nMay he who copies these words be crowned\namong the blissful.\nMay he expecting your mercy join the ranks of the pure.\nMay he be granted life through your beneficence for his\nhomage to God the Word.\nMay the praiseworthy blessings of your lips be\nupon the heart of him who distributes this book.\nMay the aspiration of Solomon’s book of\nProverbs be fulfilled.\nThrough your Spirit, exalted God, may the imprint of\nyour image be incorruptibly renewed,\nfor you alone are patient and forgiving,\nand to you all glory.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73058,12 +75252,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 27", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAs I adapted the earlier chapters to the\nwordy creations offered up in my lamenting voice,\nwailing and sobbing, shrieking cries,\nweeping sighs of anguish,\nagain I begin my prayers\nwith confession and contrition,\nrevealing my dark secrets.\nAnd I shall place here, at\nthe beginning and end of each sentence\nthe same words, echoing each other\nto form a single supplication of similar litanies\nfor soul-saving humility.\n\n\n# II.\n\nI have sinned against your beneficence,\ndisrespectful sinner that I am.\nI have sinned against the rays of your dawn,\ndark sinner that I am.\nI have sinned against the boundless benefits of your\ngrace, verily I have sinned.\nI have sinned against the exalted mercy of love,\nbrazenly I have sinned.\nI have sinned against the creator ex nihilo,\ntruly I have sinned.\nI have sinned against the tenderness of your\nalmighty embrace,\nunworthy sinner that I am.\nI have sinned against the enlightenment of your\nundiminishing light,\ndeceitful sinner that I am.\nI have sinned against the eating of your ineffable life,\nmany times I have sinned.\nI have sinned against the talents of your\nincomprehensible gifts,\nat all times I have sinned.\nI have sinned against the praiseworthy body of God,\nmortally I have sinned.\nI have sinned against your worshipful blood, our creator,\ntruly I have sinned.\n\n\n# III.\n\nIndeed this “I have sinned” is a blessed phrase in this\nprayer for the heart set on hope,\nIt has an honorable lineage, an unforgettable image,\npaternal tribute, law of our forefathers,\nour common inheritance,\nirrefutable argument, forceful response,\nbridge of life, pleasing to Heaven,\nbeloved of the saints, unseverable tie,\nmagical words, inescapable logic, earnest request,\ninviting altar, heart-rending cry,\nhope for the hopeless, shield against hardship,\ncharter for the faithful, letter to the pagans,\nrule of the ancients, birthright of Christians,\nvictorious creative force, mighty abyss,\nterrifying separation, transcending art,\nincomprehensible depth, dazzling vision,\nsealed mystery that cannot be unlocked,\nbeyond the grasp of the quickest mind.\nA fitting, miraculous sound,\nwhich was not uttered by the outcast sinners,\nfor if it had been, perhaps at that very moment,\nthe just death sentence and culling of the flock\nno longer being applicable,\nthe eternal barrier would have been torn down.\nThis word is an ornament of crowning glory,\nby which the Godhead himself spreads his\nmagnanimity among us.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nFor who, having sought refuge by holding the\nhorn of the holy altar,\ndid not instantly escape punishment, being found pure?\nOr as Achan, son of Carmi, King Saul, and Judas,\nwere not absolved, merely by saying “I sinned”?\nThis, I affirm, with God as my witness, was just and fair,\nfor forced confession is not performed with loving\ncontrition and therefore cannot bring salvation.\n\n\n# V.\n\nBut I again embrace this happy word,\nrepeating it willingly\nlike a kind of baptism:\nI have sinned by forgetting your favor,\nagain I have sinned.\nI have sinned by slaying my soul with my hands of flesh,\nsenselessly I have sinned.\nI have sinned by betraying the life you gave,\nverily I have sinned.\nI have sinned by ignoring your word,\nbasely I have sinned.\nI have sinned by hastening the day of my death myself,\ndestructively I have sinned.\nI have sinned by mortgaging myself to lifeless death,\nmockingly I have sinned.\nI have sinned by my impudence before your greatness,\nannoyingly I have sinned.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nYet again I cry out my soul’s ultimate lament.\nFor its loss and destruction came about by my own hand,\nI strayed beyond return and though treated as a son,\nI turned hostile.\nI stumbled from the heights of heaven and only gathered\nthorns of life.\nMoreover, I cry out, for\nI defiled myself and turned myself into\nan altar to the Destroyer.\nThere is also another ache in my heart,\nfor they consider me to be something I am not.\nLike an outwardly sparkling cup, that is really dirty,\nor a whitewashed wall, that is filthy,\nor a showoff dressed in vain conceit,\nthat is really a light engulfed in gloom,\na miserable eye blinded not by a speck, but a stick,\nor an extinguished torch of glory,\ndestructive in all things, in all places, in all ways,\ntoward the providence of the Lord,\ntoward the manifestations of Godliness,\ntoward the images shaped by the creator,\ntoward the fearfulness of humility,\ntoward the one, whom I saw with my own eyes,\ntoward this, for which I am more accountable\nthan for the entire Gospel.\nAmazement, shock,\ngnawing cares, those infeasible intentions and\ncalculations beyond the mind’s ken,\nfailed escapes, faulty landings,\ndeserved disappointments, fair reprimand,\nappropriate ridicule, just denunciation,\nwell-deserved curses--\nsuch are the accusations and self-inflicted\ntorments of my sinful self.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nAnd since you are able to forgive all these\ntransgressions and cure these deadly wounds,\nLord of mercies, God of all\nChrist King, Son of the exalted Father,\ncreator, compassionate, beneficent,\nblessed, generous, bountiful,\nawesome, mighty, merciful,\nguardian, rescuer, bulwark,\nsavior, reviver, resusciator,\nlong-suffering, unvengeful, refuge,\nphysician, praised, heavenly,\nineffable, light, life,\nresurrection, renewal, atonement.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nIf you would look upon me with that goodwill\ntoward mankind as you do,\nthen as I contemplate you, I will cry out in anguish.\nIf you would listen, I will sigh.\nIf you would incline your ear, I will whisper a prayer.\nIf you would take note, I will beseech you.\nIf you would forgive, I will ask forgiveness.\nIf you would turn toward me, I will call.\nFor if you turn away, I will be ruined.\nAnd if you kick me away, I will cry.\nIf you do not protect my soul, I shall die.\nIf you show me your terrible countenance, I will perish.\nAnd if you scold me, I will tremble.\nIf you glare at me, I will shake.\nIf you are stern, I cringe.\nIf you drive me away, I whimper.\nIf you knock me down, I will shatter.\nIf you do not put out the flames of despair, I agonize.\nIf you despise me, I will flee.\nIf you threaten me, I will collapse.\nIf you examine me, I will be stoned.\nIf you look hard at me, I will sink.\nIf you do not spare me, I will be rejected.\nIf you summon me, I will be paranoid.\nIf you stare at me, I will be shamed.\nIf you call me, I will fear.\nFor I have betrayed the gift of goodness,\nforsaken bliss, abandoned grace, disavowed my word,\nforgotten the gift of life, lost boldness and confidence,\nangered the creator of my being,\ntrampled that grace beyond words,\ndeformed the image of honor.\n\n\n# IX.\n\nBut if you, Lord Jesus, reach out\nto me in loving-kindness as I suffocate with sighs of pain,\nthen, as the Scriptures promised,\n“Your cure will cleanse away the greatest sins.”\nAnd through your boundless kindness\nI will be joined to you, with your image of light\nre-imprinted upon my soul.\nAtoned and re-established in your salvation,\nI will reach the immortal life of the virtuous\nand give glory forever to you\nwith the Father and Holy Spirit.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73071,12 +75267,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 28", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nWhich of my sins shall I confess now?\nWhich shall we examine?\nOn which kind shall I discourse?\nHow much of the hidden shall I uncover?\nWhich shall I confess--\nthe present, which I am still doing?\nOr the past, which I have done?\nOr the future, which I fear?\nThe slippery places, where I stumbled?\nThose faults I thought small, but which\nGod reckoned large,\nor the insubstantial, which are not worth mentioning?\nThe minor, which are many,\nor the few, which are grave?\nThe psychological passions which are destructive\nor the physical ailments which are deadly?\nThose that began as easy pleasures,\nor those that ended in destruction?\nThe invisible or visible?\nThose committed directly by the hand,\nor those committed indirectly by one’s breath?\nThe scattershot of easy marks\nor the arrow shots at length?\nThose whose depth is beyond measure\nor those that totally cover the surface?\nMultifarious prostitution\nor incurable illness?\nThe body swollen with evil\nor the soul starved of the good?\nThe penchant for things unpleasing to God,\nor the equally frenzied tugging at the leash of restraint?\nThe mortal sins or my vain thoughts?\n\n\n# II.\n\nTruly like a willfully crazed person, stripped naked,\nI display my waywardness openly,\ncontradicting the wise man who said\nthat the clever cover up their shame.\nI who am estranged from religion,\nwho am expelled from the ranks,\nin holiness, profane; in celibacy, unclean,\nin justice, iniquitous; in piety, wicked,\nin words of my mouth, close to my creator,\nbut in my innermost organs, distant.\nBy my lips offering honor, as the Prophet says,\nbut not with my heart.\nAnd if I recount my full shame here,\nI would tempt fate with a worse punishment,\nfor I am the unreliable servant,\nvacillating between two paths,\nboth leading to damnation.\nI try, but I have no success.\nI press forward, but I do not arrive.\nI rush, but I am late.\nI strain, but I do not see.\nI desire, but I am not fulfilled.\nI long, but I do not meet.\nI have all earthly ills and thus can serve as\nan emissary offering prayers for the whole world.\n\n\n# III.\n\nForgive these sins, generous God,\nand do not focus only on them.\nIt is easier for you to erase them than\nfor me to describe my vile actions.\nTherefore I write without restraint\nso you may blot them out,\nyou, who for the sake of us sinners\nbecame long-suffering.\nMy soul, like Ezra’s yearning heart,\nis anxious, my spirit, restless\nas I list these faults,\nshowing how I am in danger of every mortal passion,\nhow I am fallen into a pit of sin.\nAnd like Job I doubt you hear me.\nNow, as a self-accused, self-condemned captive,\nbound by sin, I turn myself in\nand block all of life’s possibilities.\nBut by your mercy toward me\nyour greatness is multiplied, praiseworthy Lord.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd as advised by the good prophet,\nlet us try to pray with him in song,\nwith our firm faith in God’s protection,\n“Give your word,” says Hosea,\n“And turn away from sin and toward the Lord our God,\nand say to him, ‘ Would you forgive our sins? ’”\nthat you might be restored to the good,\nthat your souls might enjoy bliss.\nGod spoke, but who listened?\nHe himself gave witness, but who believed?\n\n\n# V.\n\nThese words, weighed and judged,\nthese terms describing God-given conditions,\nthis good news, this set of purposes,\nthis door to what is right,\nthis invitation to comfort,\nthis genuine picture,\nthe undiminishing treasure,\nthe indelible memory,\nI hereby set down in faith,\nand testify with the prophet--\nthat you are able to forgive all our sins,\nthereby magnifying, exalting yourself,\nfor this wretched soul.\nIn this you reign, providing all,\nreaching everywhere,\ntriumphing over all violence,\ncrumbling all hardness,\nfending off all blows,\nsoftening all severity,\novercoming all bitterness,\nsweetening sourness,\nlightening the inconsolable,\nforgiving all debts,\nremitting all transgressions,\nyou, able, mighty, master of all arts,\nsubmerge and destroy all sins and clear them away,\nas with a flash of lightning, which takes no space,\nbut penetrates the depths and is enveloped by the\nuniversal sea.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nNow, Father, through prayers offered by\nthe readers of this book,\nhave mercy, for the sake of the cross and\nthe suffering and death of your Son,\nwho is the source of the lamenting voice of\nthe one who sends these tearful psalms.\nMay he who prepared this remedy for\nthe salvation of our souls\nbe made whole in your name, Almighty.\nLet him who showed us the true path\nthrough confession,\nbe clear of all his transgression.\nLet him who taught us to clip the wings of our pride\nwith his message on the rule of life\nbe released from the evil bonds of deadly sins--\noriginal, final and all in between.\nThrough the beneficence of your Trinity,\nrestore us to the light and\nwe will deem ourselves blissful with him.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nNow, Father creator\nawesome name, miracle maker,\nshuddering voice, familiar exclamation,\nembracing thought, splendid effect, severe command,\nessence beyond examination, existence beyond words,\nreality beyond measure, might beyond thought,\ngood will, limitless dominion,\nimmeasurable greatness, exalted beyond comprehension,\nquantity beyond weighing, supremacy\nbeyond surpassing,\nthe origin of the Son by fatherhood, and not by priority\nby you and through your unbounded power,\nbanish the tormenting and demonic frenzied fever,\nwhich slyly entered with sin.\nBanish it from man so that\nfrightened by the wondrous and unending stream\nof blood of your heavenly lamb,\nwe might be cleansed forever.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nAnd now, before your wonders, in abject humility,\nmay Satan shrink in shame at the evil deeds\nof his angels, may he be tormented and driven away,\nbanished and exiled, into the outer darkness,\nfrom the altar of your dwelling place within us.\nAnd when you have purged them, wipe the tears\nfrom our faces, erase the sobbing of\nour voices from our hearts.\nAnd in memory of the blows, like thorns in the side,\nmortal and terrifying, by which the Only Begotten\nwas nailed to the cross,\nmay the evil one also suffer similar pain.\nAnd may the blow to the side by the piercing arrow,\ngravely wound him and\nkill the creator of death.\nAnd since Satan bowed his haughty head,\nbefore he breathed his last breath, O Exalted One,\nlet rebellious Beliar with his evil ways\nperish totally, condemned, vanquished.\nAnd again, since the truly immortal was concealed and\nburied in the womb of the earth,\nlet the haughty see himself bound in the darkness of\nthe shadows on the deadly pavement of hell.\nAnd may he remember the first irreversible blow\nby which the resistance to the poisonous snake died\nat the price of the suffering of the almighty Savior.\n\n\n# IX.\n\nFor your glory and in praise of your Son and through\nthe Holy Spirit,\nI confess this, Father of mercy,\nfor in the deep mystery of your unity,\none does not need the least power from the other,\nrather we glorify your Word made flesh\nwithout beginning, along with the timeless Father.\nTo you alone, Holy Trinity,\nfrom one stem, indivisible self,\nblessings, thanks and strength,\nand the ineffable splendor of greatness,\nfelicitous balance and equality forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73084,12 +75282,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 29", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nYou alone are the origin of all goodness,\nmercy beyond telling, Son of the one God on high,\nwho made the whole day a purgatory for our sins,\nand not a house of condemnation.\nYou are for me the expectation of good news,\ninstead of a day of dread.\nYou, physician to the ailing,\nshepherd to the lost sheep,\nmaster to the servant under your care,\npure wine for the dejected,\ncurative ointment for the wounded,\nfreedom for the captives of sin,\nblessing of goodness for the rejected,\nseal of grace for the despised,\nthe calling to anointment for the dispossessed,\nrestoration to uprightness for the fallen,\na mighty fortress for the stumbling,\na sublime helping hand to the disgraced,\nthe gate to heaven for the doubting,\nstairway to bliss for the depraved,\nthe straight way for the confused,\nforgiving king for the trespasser,\nsweet hope for the abandoned,\nthe outstretched hand of life for the banished.\n\n\n# II.\n\nYou alone are great and generous in everything.\nYou are the definition of abundant goodness,\nwho pours forth constantly without measure,\nmore than we ask or expect,\nas Paul said in gratitude.\nFor you commanded that we should do good,\nfrom dawn to dusk, in the same day,\nnine times fifty, plus three, plus four times ten.\nAlways attentive, forgiving with an unfettered heart,\nsomething more than the expectation of men’s prayers.\nAnd if we place my wretchedness and disgrace beside\nyour glory, omnipotent and awesome power,\nGod of all, blessed Lord Christ,\nby what measure of weight shall the balance between\nthe creator and the clay be set?\nYou remain in these things infinite and unexaminable,\ngood in all things, having no part in the wrath\nof darkness; therefore, far less are the number of\nstars than your greatness,\nfor you called them into existence from nothing\nby merely pronouncing their names.\nOr take the mass of the earth floating in air,\ncreated from nothing, from which you established the\ndry land of earth.\nThese are less than the number I formulated above,\nby which you taught us to be like you in forgiveness.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAs the radiant light of your long-suffering will\ndispelled all evil without trace,\nlike a speck of fog in the heat of the sun,\nso here, our natural impulses are shown\nin our common behavior.\nFor who among mortals has sinned and not regretted?\nWho has been corrupted and not been ashamed?\nWho has been base and not been humiliated?\nWho has faltered and not repented?\nWho has been ruined and not sobbed?\nWho has been scandalized and not felt compunction?\nWho has been defeated and not closed his mouth?\nWho has been cheated and not sighed?\nWho has tasted bile and not become bitter?\nWho has fallen from the heights and\nnot been disheartened?\nWho has lost greatness and not mourned?\nWho has been deprived of happiness and not cried?\nWho has been robbed of the grace of glory and\nnot lamented?\nWho has done harm to his soul and\nnot been embarrassed?\nWho has been banished from God’s sight and\nnot felt the loss of his gaze?\nWho has heard God’s warnings and not trembled?\nWho has made one mistake and not sighed “alas”\na thousand times?\nWho has bared himself on a winter’s day and\nnot shivered?\nWho has done wrong and not pelted himself with\nstones in his mind?\nWho has seen the high and mighty slave and\nnot been vexed?\nWho has done evil and not cursed himself?\nWho has cultivated vices and not condemned his soul?\nWho has done shameful things and\nnot made a mockery of his body?\nWho has had hard times and not cursed his life?\nWho has remembered his misdeeds and not stewed?\nWho has recalled secrets and not become flustered?\nWho has seen the dark side and\nnot sought the perdition of death?\nWho has had visions of the invisible and\nnot hung his head back to earth?\nWho has committed sins of ease and not burned with\nthe inextinguishable flames of the furnace?\nWho has violated nature, and not been parched?\nWho has acted willfully and not prayed for\nhis own death?\nWho has done the unspeakable and\nnot become disturbed?\nWho has unbearably violated his essence and\nnot grieved?\nWho has become high and mighty and\nnot been worn down?\nWho has committed acts that corrupt innocence and\nnot burned?\nWho has done things condemnable by banishment and\nnot been anguished?\nWho has appeared with a grimy face and\nnot felt deserving of the heaven’s disapproval?\nWho has focused on one of his major sins and\nnot been wounded by sin’s weaponry?\nWho has committed a scandalous act and\nnot woven the discouraging woe into\nthe sighs of his voice?\nWho has been ousted from his chair in heaven and has\nnot fallen down cringing?\nWho has placed dirt on his head instead of a splendid\nhalo and not been tortured with a thousand deaths?\nWho has put on sack cloth instead of a bright cloak and\nnot been sad?\nWho has lost his life and not sweat tears of blood?\nWho has clothed himself in darkness instead of light and\nnot fainted?\nWho has mourned for a loved one and not wilted?\n\n\n# IV.\n\nThese then faithfully describe me,\nthe sinner deserving reprimand,\na sad face, an extinguished ray, dried up liquid,\nshriveled lips,\na deformed mould, a dispirited soul, a distorted voice,\na twisted neck.\nIt would not be wrong to classify me as\na mind stripped of arrogance, a heart stripped of pride,\na wretch afraid to ask for help, too parched to pray,\nself-scolding wanderer,\nstarved by self-denial, hungry because of\nduly earned torment,\nstruck down by just condemnation, condemned to death\nby self-incrimination,\ndeservedly exiled, self-cursed outcast,\nlike the Pharisee who was rejected\nand the sinful tax collector who was pleasing to God.\n\n\n# V.\n\nAnd now, if the Slanderer takes credit\nas part of his day’s work,\nfor planting his bad seeds\nand using his evil devices on us, the wayward,\nwhy should you not count one by one the good things\nthat by your will and saving care\nare planted in us to fortify our souls,\nLord of merciful kindness, mighty and victorious,\nyou who atone for our sins,\nwho are salvation in all things for everything?\nIf you can exchange the abyss for heaven,\nor bring the dark of night into the light,\nif you can turn the bitter bile into sweet manna,\nor the groans of extreme grief\ninto the dancing circles at a joyful wedding,\nif for you these are easy and possible,\nthen you can do more than these,\nyou who reign over all in awesome power.\nTo you glory forever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73097,12 +75297,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 30", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow, let us see the truth of your words,\nO merciful God of all,\nwho forgives and blesses the sinner,\neven the sinner faltering many times a day,\nif he turns back repentant,\neven if the choice to turn back is made\nwith his last breath,\nor in the very midst of sinning,\nespecially since our cruel companion,\nas we try to govern ourselves,\nis the always contrary, lying, cheating,\nflattering Instigator,\nthe same who, in the words of the Proverbs, grazes on\nthe wind.\nMy wayward body, which has been an unruly fugitive\nfrom you, my creator, and easy prey for the Predator,\nis like the thorns among the wheat endlessly wavering\non any excuse, so often only you can keep track.\nAnd then comes the pitiful wail,\nwhich follows the sinning,\nhopeless and tormented, hear me sighing, “alas”\nas I come before you, Lord,\nwith pleas for mercy and wretched groans,\nwritten with tears, humbled by pangs of guilt caused\nby the distress of boundless evil.\n\n\n# II.\n\nSo that the repetition does not add up\nto mere wordiness,\nI will make my plea even more pathetic\nbecause a sinner does not dare ask for paradise\nbut only reduced torment.\nHe does not ask to be among the immortals,\nwho live in the light,\nbut only among the feeling, breathing beings destined for\nthe dark grave,\nnot among the resurrected,\nbut among broken hearted and contrite,\njustly deserving in death, restrained in their merriment,\nwith a smiling face but an anguished mind,\ncheerful demeanor but mournful eyes,\ncomposed appearance but bitterly tearful heart.\n\n\n# III.\n\nTwo cups in two hands\none filled with blood, the other with milk,\ntwo censers flickering\none with incense, the other with crisp fat,\ntwo platters piled with delicacies,\none sweet, the other tart,\ntwo goblets overflowing\none with tears, the other with brimstone,\ntwo bowls at the finger tips\none with wine, the other with bile,\ntwo windows of sight\none crying, the other erring,\ntwo refiner’s cauldrons\none heating, one cooling,\ntwo outlooks on one face\none mildly affectionate, the other fiercely raging,\ntwo lifted hands\none to strike, the other to shield,\ntwo grimaces\none dejected, the other angry,\ntwo rebukes at a time\none for now, the other for later,\ntwo hideouts for doubt\none “at least,” the other “perhaps,”\ntwo sighs in one mouth,\none for misfortune, the other for confusion,\ntwo impulses in one heart,\none of doubtful hope, the other of certain doom,\ntwo downpours from one dark cloud,\none of arrows, one of stones,\ntwo thunderous downpours\none of hail, the other of fire,\ntwo sorrows of a painful night,\none disease, the other death,\ntwo insults to sad mourning,\none of rebuke, the other threat,\ntwo suns on opposite horizons\none dark, the other blazing.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd if a fist is raised, he cringes as if it is for him.\nIf a hand bearing gifts is extended, he thinks\nit is for someone else.\nIf someone swaggers, he cowers.\nIf another’s head is high, his hangs low.\nIf evil is recalled, he sighs.\nIf the saintly are remembered, he is ashamed.\nIf the next life is mentioned, he trembles.\nIf someone blesses him, he curses the blesser.\nIf someone praises him, he puts himself down.\nIf he is criticized, he agrees.\nIf viciously ridiculed, he considers it just.\nIf someone wishes his death, he seconds it.\nIf death thunders in, he barely raises his head.\nHis book of rights slammed shut,\nhis hope of being heard abandoned,\nhis path of action checked,\nhe would not hesitate at suicide\nto gain release from this dead end,\nif that did not foreclose salvation.\nIn the words of the soulful wise man,\ntruly, woeful is the sinner\nstanding in doubt at the fork in the road.\n\n\n# V.\n\nWhy don’t you take pity, benevolent God,\nupon my wailing and sighing,\nyou, whose name is exalted for saying,\n“I am the merciful Lord”?\nGrant your goodness in the face of\nmy slavish wickedness,\nyour sweetness before my bitterness at being\ncondemned to death,\nyour beacon for my lost self, found again,\nyour mercy upon my brazen waywardness,\nyour humility before my destructive impudence,\nyour right arm to protect me from peril,\nyour hand to save me from drowning,\nyour finger to mend my incurable wounds,\nyour spirit to defend my traumatized soul,\nyour patience for my insolent ingratitude,\nyour strength upon anointing a scoundrel like me,\nyour commandments as atonement for my sins,\nyour foot as a refuge for a runaway like me,\nyour arm protecting a fugitive like me,\nyour light guiding a wayward soul like me,\nyour wisdom reassuring a doubter like me,\nyour blessedness for accepting the cursed like me,\nyour goad as encouragement for the\ndisheartened like me,\nyour cup as comfort for the grieving like me,\nyour will as relief for the anguished like me,\nyour love calling even those despised like me,\nyour word to steady those wavering like me,\nyour bloodshed for wounded souls like me,\nyour care for my ever increasing, unseen pains,\nyour mentorship for choosing me in my despair,\nyour communion rejoining those cut off like me,\nyour spark of life under death’s shadow like me,\nyour serenity for those troubled like me,\nyour welcome for those harshly persecuted like me,\nyour beckoning voice to those who have strayed like me,\nfor you rule all with mercy.\nWith you there is no darkness,\nand without you no goodness,\nand yours is the glory forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73110,12 +75312,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 31", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, since I have increased\nthe distress of my sighing voice\nwith great cries and inconsolable grief,\nso that you, merciful forefather\nof confession of invisible secrets,\nSon of the living God, Lord Jesus Christ,\nmight look with kindness and grant atonement,\nfor you are indeed able and truly sufficient.\nIf you want, you have the means;\nas much as you want, you can do,\nyou, who are more enriched by giving than receiving.\nYour treasure increases more by sharing than gathering.\nYour estate grows more by disbursing than collecting.\nYour stores pile up more by distributing than hoarding.\nAll this gives me faith that through you\nI might find the path to salvation.\nI, the disgraced, believe along with the honorable.\nI hope with Abraham and Anna,\none of whom believed your word,\nand the other listened to the words\nof the high priest--and for that, in old age,\nbecame the father of countless sons.\nHe hoped to see the barren womb of Sarah\nas the fertile and blessed field of many peoples:\nsaints, prophets, and chosen kings.\nAnd the other, Anna,\nwith the untilled field of her womb,\nabounded with fruit of seven children,\na mystical number symbolizing the eternity of\nHim, who is, and the unexaminable bonds of\nthe eternity of the Godhead and the unending\nabundance of children of the baptismal font,\nthe glorious number which is unpunctuated,\nan infinite decimal,\nrather it is a prime number, inherently unique\nand eternal,\nwhose nature is eternally beyond telling\nand difficult for our minds to comprehend.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAnd now count this small confession of faith in prayer\ntoward the justification and salvation of\nmy hopeless soul.\nHear the quivering voice of the cries of my sighing heart,\nand rank me with those blessed souls just described,\nso that I too might live with them and share in their bliss.\nTrusting more in your grace than my works,\nsince grace is far more exalted and glorious,\nfar greater than anything that can be\nmeasured by words-\na comfort to my distress and atonement for my sins,\nbeyond the feeble reach of our minds,\nfor with your awe-inspiring blood\nand the mother of your incarnation, worthy of adoration,\nthe circle of the apostles, ranks of prophets,\nhost of martyrs, both cavalry and foot soldiers,\narmed only with courage, wrestlers with fate,\nplatoons of hermits, orders of learned teachers,\nassemblies of the pious, legions of heavenly\nspirits on earth,\nthe heavenly patrol of guards, the offering of\nthe first fruits,\nsacrifice of bulls, lighting of lanterns,\nthe aroma of incense, the fragrance of scented oils,\nthe victorious sign of salvation,\nthe erection of altars where God dwells,\nthe hands of the priests that rest with grace.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThe soul’s every movement\nis a reminder of God,\nthe taking of a step,\nthe extension of the right hand,\nthe raising of the arm,\nwith thanks for good works,\nwith shame for bad,\nfor familiar conversation\nand public addresses,\nin rational discourse,\nin works of success,\nin the fervor of virtue,\nday and night,\nwe are guided by you\nin the useful movements for our spirit,\nasleep or awake,\nin mortal battles or combat with demons,\nin large and small struggles with heretics,\nwhile drinking or eating,\nin all that once stirred feelings,\nwhether pleasant or unpleasant,\nwith the pleasant we pray to remain,\nand from the unpleasing, through your\nmiraculous intercession,\nwe pray to be free.\nFor you are capable of all things, as we all believe,\nthe suckling infants, rash youths,\nimmoral men, haughty outlaws,\neven the actor and the motley mob,\neven in the dancing\nand clapping of hands that do not please\nyour will, Almighty,\nyou are not forgotten.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nYou have created all and all is yours,\nyou who are all-compassionate, take mercy on all,\nand even those who sin are yours,\nfor they are in your accounting,\nfor they know your strength,\neven as the Proverb teller said,\nwhose prayer I echo with my wretched words,\ntestifying like a criminal,\nI dare to say\nthat whoever praises your name\nrecognizes your existence, and though he be\ntainted by the sevenfold sins,\ndeserving of double punishment\nto set a good example, yet,\nhe is yours, is he not?\nFor sometimes in the midst of black crows\none sees a flock of white doves,\nand in the middle of wild, unkempt horses,\nwill be a tame sheep,\nin the midst of beastly dogs, a sacrificial lamb,\nand mildness amid harshness,\nperfection amid defects,\nhumility amid haughtiness,\ntruth amid lies,\nsimplicity amid cunning,\npurity amid perversity,\nkindness amid wickedness,\nhonesty amid depravity,\nmercy amid cruelty,\nrepentance amid despair,\nsweetness amid anger,\nreconciliation amid hostility,\nforbearance amid sarcasm,\nencouragement amid insults,\nblessings amid slings and arrows,\nthat being why I could never understand,\nwho among us earthly born is destined\nfor your inheritance, for\nyou alone judge fairly\nand distinguish\nthe impious who thinks himself pure,\nand the prostitute who is repentant,\nO only king and benefactor of all,\nblessed in the highest and in all things forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73123,12 +75327,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 32", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, being bereft of all the virtues mentioned\nand seeing myself among those who\nshould be punished, I pray for mercy\nwith the prayers of all others,\nwith the defeated and timid,\nthe weak and small,\nthe fallen and despised,\nthe banished and returned,\nthe doubter and the true believer,\nthe disgraced and the exalted,\nthe repressed and the upright,\nthe stumbling and the standing,\nthe rejected and the accepted,\nthe hated and the called,\nthe stupefied and the sober,\nthe wayward and the restrained,\nthe exiled and the invited,\nthe disowned and the beloved,\nthe dejected and the cheerful,\nthe somber and the joyful.\n\n\n# II.\n\nBut here I will not recount again the sins of Jerusalem,\nas Micah commanded concerning his forefathers,\nor as Isaiah told of Jacob’s iniquity\nrather I will reveal my own transgressions,\nfor with the peril of death upon me, I utter, “Alas,” like\nthe prophet Micah,\nand reproach myself like the Psalmist,\nso that my full confession might find favor,\nand I will not need to say “alas” again,\nbut might be at once cleansed completely by your\nblessed command.\nNow, again upon my knees, before your\nsweet beneficence,\nI open my soul before you,\nshowing how I sink like an image of death,\nlike the crawling beasts\nlowered to the ground and covered in dust,\nI, who nailed myself on the path of destruction in\nthis fleeting life.\nLet me lean upon you, Lord, staff of life,\nbody springing from the root of David,\ninexplicably joined to your uncreated divinity.\nI stand bowed and humbled before you, good Lord,\nwith my face turned to the ground\nand my eyes raised to you on high,\ngazing pathetically upon you\nwho hears our sighing,\nperfectly compassionate, thoroughly sweet,\na lake filled with tears of light,\nI offer prayers of hope to your majesty.\n\n\n# III.\n\nO totally generous God, whose patience never ends,\nhear me though I cause you bitterness.\nYou alone are the means of our salvation,\nGod of all, great beyond telling,\nnature beyond comprehension,\ntruth beyond examination,\nmighty power, able benefactor, unending calm,\nindescribable inheritance, fitting fortune,\nabundant preparation, unobscured wisdom,\nfervent gift, desirable offering,\nlonged-for bliss, peace unspoiled by sadness,\ndiscovery beyond doubt, life that cannot be\nwrenched away,\nestate that cannot be sold, exaltation that\ncannot be exchanged,\ndoctor of all arts, unshakable foundation,\nwho turns back the wayward, finds the lost,\ngives hope to those who seek refuge, light for\nthose in darkness,\nforgiveness for sinners, a sanctuary for runaways,\ncalm for the troubled, salvation for the dead,\nwho liberates the captive, frees the betrayed,\nsteadies the slipping,\ngrieves with the scandalized,\nsuffers the doubters,\nO vision of light, sign of rejoicing, rain of blessing,\nbreath of our nostrils, strength of our visage,\ncovering of our head.\nO mover of lips, inspirer of speech,\nhelmsman of the soul, lifter of hands, extender of\narms, who holds the reins of the heart,\nO voice of a friend, called like one of the family,\ngenuine antiphon, fatherly minister of care,\nname given in confession, worshiped image,\nboundless stamp for communion wafers,\nlordship before which we bow, eulogized memory,\ngateway to joy, unfailing path, door to glory,\nway of truth, ladder to heaven,\nworthy of a multitude of other praises,\nof infinite forms and verses without end,\nwhich an earthbound mouth cannot pronounce\nand the body lacks the stamina to say\nand the soul’s yearnings cannot sustain.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAll eyes turn to you, O God of all.\nIncline your ear toward the prayers of\nthe weeping voices of your servants and handmaidens.\nAccept the dew of my woeful song, the tears of my sore\neyes, upon the immaculate feet of your humanity, Christ,\nas you did when the sinner Mary washed your feet with\nher hair and tears.\nLet me return to you professing faith with\nthe kiss of my lips upon tasting the communion of\nlife’s salvation, beneficent God,\nmercifully having received union with the same spirit\nand the same compassion as the sinful woman.\nI hope for the pledge of your great gifts\nin exchange for my meager faith.\nAnd through the compassion of your love for me,\nyour servant who proclaims your cherished name,\nmay the severe winter winds become tranquil air,\nthe gusty storm become a pleasant breeze,\nthe misgivings of fear become great confidence,\nthe meting out of punishment turn into bliss,\nthe perils of grief become spiritual rejoicing,\nthe tossing waves calm into placid water,\nthe arm-wrenching helm turn toward a safe harbor,\nthe harvest of heavy sin be transformed into\na stipend of grace.\n\n\n# V.\n\nAnd for the myriad of good things from you,\nmay your mighty name be magnified, proclaimed and\nhonored with incense.\nMay the instigator of evil be embarrassed,\nrejected and persecuted.\nMay the mortgage of sin be annulled,\nmay the snares be cut loose, the traps removed,\nmay the ties be undone, the abyss eliminated,\nmay perils be lifted, deceit torn away,\nmay the mortgage of sin be annuled,\nmay yokes fall off, ploughs unhitched,\nand instead of the gloomy darkness of\nevil transgressions,\nand the siege of the armies of demons,\nmay the sun of your glory shine forth,\ngiving life, salvation and light,\nfrom the right and the left, the front and the back.\nAnd may the morning rays of the soul’s springtime shine\nupon those who await your coming.\nFor you are charitable and comforting in all things,\nand all things are possible for you,\nyou who want life and salvation for all.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nO hand of Jesus Christ, giver of all gifts,\nturn also toward me extending your grace.\nDwell in me, become a part of me and do not leave\nmy anguished soul, the chamber of love.\nAnd may your incorruptible image,\na token of the brilliant light beckoning us\nto Christian salvation,\nstay with me to intercede for my entry\nin the book of your legacy of eternal life,\nHoly Spirit of the Gospel and heavenly creator.\nAnd to you who are your own sole cause,\nand to you, the only begotten of the sole cause,\nand to you who bear the sole cause,\nthree persons in one Godhead,\nworthy of glory from the greatest of mortals\nand the ranks of saints,\nforever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73136,12 +75342,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 33", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nLet this offering of words, compassionate God,\nfrom the fruits of my soul rise to you with incense,\nmixed by you with the sweet oil\nused by the pious Mary\nwhich you accepted with respect\njust as you also accept offerings astonishingly\nfrom prostitutes, fortunate to be making offerings.\nMay my humble words also praise you and may you\naccept their reaching toward\nyour unreachable head, God on high,\nin spite of the reproach of the Psalmist,\n“Do not let the leafy boughs of my head\nbe anointed with the oil of the sinner.”:\n\n\n# II.\n\nLet the perfume, the bouquet of this book of confessions\nbe redoubled and affect multitudes.\nLet its memory be told everywhere and fill the world\nlike the fragrant oil in the house of Lazarus.\nFor you are the same Lord who brought\nthe sinful plotting women to their senses.\nAnd their character you transformed in your true image,\nas in the allegory of the prophet.\nBy changing them you made me know\nthe perfection of your grace.\n\nInstead of barley for livestock you provided\nthe abundant wheat of the bread of life.\nInstead of tarnishing silver you presented\nyour majestic image.\nInstead of the oil taken from the wanton women of old,\nyou anointed me with your grace.\nInstead of shredding burial bindings around the head,\nthere is an incorruptible cloak.\nInstead of elaborate handcuffs, a free soaring toward\nperfect virtue according to the law and the Gospels.\nInstead of a splendid earring, the unfading memory\nof your lordly voice.\nInstead of a sparkling necklace, the bountiful inheritance\nof the sweet yoke of your righteous faith.\n\n\n# III.\n\nBut am I proud of these writings,\nrather than feeling shame again?\nWhy change my style in this prayer book,\nin woeful song, to suit my fancy\nand earn punishment as sin’s wages?\nCiting briefly the words of the prophet,\nI enter this chamber solemnly like a stern prosecutor,\nmy charges prepared,\nand rather than reveling in them,\nI enter with weeping, a sighing voice in angry protest,\nwith bruising insults and grave wailing.\nBut your lovingkindness, O great God,\nthat reaches everyone,\nawakened in me hope as well,\nwhence comes my regret, confession,\ngood news, gifts, visions of light,\ndivine encouragement, splendid visions,\nthe source of hope for some,\nthe source of despair for others,\nand for me, who willingly destroyed myself,\nmy portion of perdition.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nIf Ezekiel said that under God’s disguising cloak\nmany people patch together idols\nand act like harlots--\nhow much more severe will my punishment be\nfor cloaking my unclean self in God inside and out?\nI am amazed that I am not consumed in flames.\nI am astonished that I am not burning up.\nI am confounded that I am not taken hostage,\ntortured, abandoned, tormented, beaten,\npulverized, cracked, crushed, torn to shreds\nin the jaws of the Satan our destroyer\naccording to Scripture.\nAll that is left for me\nis the glimmer of a memory of\nhope of salvation. For the Gospel of Christ\nis truly life revealed where there is\nfor our sins, forgiveness,\nfor debts, grace,\nfor decay, renewal,\nfor iniquity, atonement,\nfor wounds, bandages,\nfor distress, calm,\nfor punishment, pardon,\nfor war, peace,\nfor fire, rain,\nfor condemnation, rewards,\nfor the dread of dying, lenience,\nfor the destruction of death, the salvation of life.\n\n\n# V.\n\nHow can I enumerate so many things here yet neglect\nto include what is beyond words? When speaking\nof the exalted Father, we must remember our tie\nto the Son, the only begotten son of the Father.\nAnd remembering these two we must commune with\nthe Holy Spirit, remembering also\nthat with the cross comes salvation,\nwith the word, comfort,\nwith God’s all-knowing judgment,\nthe reward of good will,\nwith the life-giving font of baptism,\nthe mediation of reconciliation,\nas well as all other countless blessings, bestowed by God:\nfreedom from compulsion, freedom from the yoke,\nfreedom to rule oneself and not be ruled.\nThese are the comforting heralds of the life to come\nin the midst the bitterness of death.\nFor if I did not have these things,\nsurely I would have perished long ago,\nas the Psalmist says.\nI do not glorify the Father by disparaging the Son.\nNor is the Holy Spirit subordinated by\nnaming the Son first.\nI hold the Trinity equal in glory and in creation\nco-created, for there are prayers to the Holy Spirit\nto be offered before the Divine Liturgy,\nwhen the heavenly lamb is sacrificed I pray this way:\n\n\n# VI.\n\nAlmighty, beneficent God of all, who\nloves mankind, maker of the visible and invisible,\nsavior and creator,\ndefender and peacemaker, spirit of the Father Almighty,\nwe beseech you with outstretched arms,\ntears and prayers,\nas we appear before you,\nyou, who strike terror in our hearts,\njudge us as we approach with trembling and fear,\npresenting first this sacrificial offering of\nwords to your power that is beyond understanding.\nYou share the throne, glory and creatorship of\nthe undiminishing honor of the Father.\nYou examine our deepest secrets and mysteries.\nO Emmanuel, who fulfill the will of your Father\nwho sent you as the Savior, life-giver and creator.\nThrough you he is made known to us,\nthree persons in one Godhead,\nof which only you, incomprehensibly, can be known.\nBy you and through you did our forefathers,\nthe first generation of the patriarchal tribe,\ncalled prophets,\ntell of the past and the future,\nwhat has been and what is yet to come,\nin plain words and images.\nSpirit of God, Moses proclaimed you as the one\nwho brooded on the water, an unbounded force,\ntaking the new-born under your protective\nwing with care,\nand with lovingkindness revealing the mystery of\nthe baptismal font.\nLikewise, in the pattern of the archetype,\nbefore fashioning the pliable substance with\nits final covering,\nyou shaped, in lordly manner, all nature,\nthe full range of existence, all beings from nothing.\n\nThrough you all that has been created shall receive\nthe renewal of the resurrection\non the last day of this life\nand the first day in the land of the living.\nChrist obeyed you with unity of will as he did his Father,\nbeing of the same family, of the same essence\nas the Father.\nBeing the first born son in our image,\nhe announced you, true God,\nequal and consubstantial with his mighty Father,\nHe preached against those who blasphemed you,\nand, as opponents of God, spoke impiously against you.\n\nHe silenced the blasphemous mouths and graced\nhis own people,\nhe, the just and spotless, who finds all,\nwho was betrayed for our sins,\nand rose from the dead to justify us.\nThrough you glory to him and praise to you,\nwith the Father almighty, forever and ever.\nAmen.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nAgain, I shall continue in this manner\nuntil the assurance of the miraculous light\nheralds the good news of peace.\nWith all our souls\nwe pray and beseech you with tearful cries,\nglorious creator, incorruptible and uncreated,\ntimeless Holy Spirit of compassion.\nYou are the intercessor of our silent sighs to\nyour merciful Father.\nYou, who keep the saints, purify the sinners and\nbuild the temple of the living and life-giving\nwill of the Father,\nfree me now from all unclean deeds,\nwhich are not pleasing for your dwelling place.\nDo not extinguish the light of grace\nin us and in our minds’ eye,\nfor we have learned that you will join us\nthrough prayer and sumptuous incensing.\nOne of the Trinity is sacrificed and the other accepts it,\nfavoring us with the reconciling blood of his first born\nso that you might accept our supplications.\nPrepare for us honorable lodgings\nfor the partaking of your heavenly lamb,\nthat we might eat life-giving manna of the new salvation\nand escape the punishments of condemnation.\nOur blasphemy shall be purified in the refiner’s fire,\nas the prophet told of the live coal in the tongs of\noffering at the altar.\nIn all things you spread your mercy through\nthe Son of God.\nAlso spread the sweetness of the Father,\nas you embraced the prodigal son with\nfatherly inheritance,\nand led the prostitute to the bliss of\nthe heavenly kingdom.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nYes, yes, and I too am one of them.\nReceive me with them,\nas one who is needy of your great love for mankind,\none who lives only by your grace, redeemed by\nthe blood of Christ,\nso that your divinity might be revealed and in\nall ways glorified.\nYou are honored equally with the Father,\nwith one will and one rule, worthy of praise.\nFor yours is compassion, ability and lovingkindness,\nmight and glory forever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73149,12 +75357,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 34", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nHere is my profession of faith, here,\nthe yearnings of my wretched breath to you\nwho constitute all things with your Word, God.\nWhat I have discoursed upon before, I set forth again,\nthese written instructions and interpretations\nfor the masses of different nations.\nI offer these prayers of intercession\nin the thanksgiving prayer below.\n\n\n# II.\n\nI pray to your unchanging, almighty Spirit:\nSend the dew of your sweetness upon my soul\nto rule over the impulses of my senses.\nSend the all-filling gifts of your merciful grace\nand cultivate the reasoning fields hardened by my heart,\nthat they might bear the fruit of your spiritual seeds.\nAll gifts that flourish and grow with us, Teacher,\ncome from your all-encompassing wisdom.\nYou who laid hands on the apostles,\nfilled the prophets,\ntaught the teachers,\nmade the speechless speak,\nand opened the ears of the deaf.\nYou, of the same family as the first and\nonly begotten Son of your consubstantial Father,\ncarry all this out through your mutual effort.\n\nYou proclaimed as the co-equal of your Father,\ngrant me, a sinner, to speak boldly of the life-giving,\nmystery of the good news of your Gospel,\nthat I might follow with soaring mind,\nthe infinite course of the inspired breath of\nyour testament.\nAnd when I embark upon the solemn interpretation\nof the Word, send me first your compassion,\nand let it speak through me\nin a manner worthy, useful and pleasing to you,\nin glory and praise for your Godhead,\nand in the silence of the universal church.\nExtend over me your right hand,\nand fortify me with your grace.\nClear my mind of the fog of forgetfulness,\ndispelling the darkness of sin,\nthat I might rise above this earthly life through wisdom.\nMay the dawn of that unobscured miracle,\nthe knowledge of your Godliness,\nshine within me again, Almighty.\nTo be worthy to do and teach\nand be an example of goodness for god-loving listeners.\nTo you all glory in all things,\nwith your Father almighty and\nyour only begotten and benevolent Son,\nnow and forever, without end.\nAmen.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThe creed of the co-existing Holy Trinity,\nthe rule of life and grace of salvation,\nI taught in the following way:\nWe confess and profess, honor and worship\nthe shared glory and unity of the Holy Trinity\nGodhead beyond description, always good,\nof the same substance, equal in honor,\nbeyond the flight of the wings of our thought,\nhigher than all examples, beyond all analogies,\nsurpassing the limits on high.\nBefore the creation of eternal undifferentiated matter\nand the categories of creatures\nwith blessing that cannot be translated,\ncrowned forever with the richest greatness,\nsetting time in motion and all that has taken shape as\ntime unfolds,\nhimself the cause and shaper of everything visible\nand invisible,\nwho cannot be defined by name or denoted by label,\nnor likened in quality, nor weighed in quantity,\nnor formed by rules, nor known by kind,\nnor spread to exhaustion,\nnor occupying space, nor appearing in a place.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nFather of compassion, God of the universe,\ncreator of everything in heaven and on earth\nexcept the only begotten Word, through whom\nall things exist, creator and giver of breath to all things\nexcept for the consubstantial Holy Spirit,\nthrough whom you formed all else.\n\n\n# V.\n\nOne of three glorified persons equal in power and awe,\nwho descended from on high to here below,\nwho was indeed by nature indistinguishable\nfrom those below,\nwithout relinquishing the throne of glory,\nwithout leaving the watchful gaze of the parent of love,\nmerely entering the vessel of the virgin womb purely\nand coming out joined with a body\ninseparable in essence,\nwithout any flaw in his humanity and lacking\nnothing in divinity,\none and only Son of the only Father and\nthe first born of the Mother of God, Virgin Bearer\nof the Lord,\ncreator becoming a true man as originally created,\nnot in the fallen state of mortals,\nbut new and splendid with the sublime glory of kings,\nnot seen in the ages or existing in time.\nThe first born, as the Psalmist said,\nhigher than all the kings of earth,\nformed from an incorruptible combination\nlike us in body,\nin the manner of the soul with body,\nand as gold with fire,\nor to put it more plainly,\nlight in air, neither transformed nor separated.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nHe submitted himself willingly to the cross of death,\nlike an innocent lamb led to slaughter,\nand girded himself with mighty self-discipline\nfor the salvation of those he created.\nHe truly suffered like a mortal.\nHe was placed in a tomb with no special treatment for\nhis divinity.\nOn the third day, in the hell of Tartarus,\nhe preached to the\ndowncast captives and showed renewal and light.\nAnd having carried out his providential\nmission of redemption,\nhe came back to life as God,\nand ruled on the wings of the winds,\nrising upon the Cherubim,\ncovered in an inscrutable cloud.\nHe ascended into heaven on high,\nsat in splendor upon the throne bequeathed to him\nfrom the beginning, equal with his Father,\nfrom whom he had never been separated,\nneither losing what had been acquired,\nnor diluting that which was his own.\nTherefore, he shall come to the judgment of retribution,\nexamining the unseen with the scales of justice,\nfor which we wait and pray\nwith faith in his almighty Lordship over and through all,\nwho truly is the only one of the only one\nin equal glory forever worshiped as one.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nWe always praise along with the Son and Father, the\nHoly Spirit,\nwhich is of the same essence,\nmighty, true, perfect and holy,\nwho from nothing brought into existence\neverything that exists,\nwho acts through itself and shares rule with\nthe other two,\nin the same indestructible, boundless kingdom,\nwho is the first cause, the awesome Word of his selfhood.\nAnd the same exalted Holy Spirit,\ngood ruler, who dispenses the gifts of the Father,\nin praise of the name and the glory of\nthe only begotten Son,\nwho acted through the Laws and inspired the Prophets,\nwith the encouragement of your co-equal Son\ncommissioned your apostles.\nIn the form of a dove you appeared at the River Jordan,\nfor the greater glory of the one who had come,\nshone forth in the writings of the evangelists,\ncreated genius, strengthened the wise,\nfilled the teachers, blessed the kingdom,\nassisted the kings, appointed the guardians,\nissued the decree of salvation, granted talents,\nprepared atonement,\ncleansed those baptized into Christ’s death that\nyou might dwell in them\na sacrament performed jointly by the Father and\nSon with the Holy Spirit,\nwho is God, honored as Lord, in all ways in all things.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nBeing named first among the Trinity does not make one\ngreater than the other,\nor being named after the other, less than the rest,\nor by saying that they are one, that there is a\nconfusion of persons,\nor by dividing into three, a separation of wills.\nFor the Father would be diminished\nif he did not have the power of the\nWord so too if he did not have the Holy Spirit and\nwas speechless,\nlifeless and deprived of any power to command.\nAnd the Word, if it were not known by\nthe name of the Father,\nwould be abandoned like some orphan or just\nanother mortal being.\nSimilarly the Holy Spirit, if not commissioned\nby its cause,\nwould be vagabond, an unruly wind.\n\n\n# IX.\n\nBut if one presumes in a refutation\nto snatch the Father from his Word,\non the ground that there was a time when\nthe Word was not,\nbelieving that such speculations exalt\nthe sublime greatness of the divine,\nor if one subordinates the Spirit which proceeds forth\non the ground that it is not by nature spiritual,\nthereby introducing an alien being or some\nunstable mixture\ninto the pure and sublime unity of the Holy Trinity,\nwe must reject such persons from our midst.\nWe must drive them away in disgrace\nwith our confession of faith\nlike a stoning of fierce demons or vicious beasts,\nand cast a curse upon their devilish lot,\nshutting the gates to the church of life in their face.\nWhile we glorify the Holy Trinity in the same lordship of\nunified equality,\nin parallel praise, uniform level,\nblessed on earth and in heaven,\nin the congregation of the nation of\nearthly thinking beings,\nnow and forever.\nAmen.\n\n\n# X.\n\nNow, I offer to your all-hearing ears, almighty God,\nthe secret thoughts in this book,\nand thus equipped, I venture forth in conversation,\nnot with the idea that my voice could\nsomehow exalt you,\nfor before you created everything,\nbefore the creation of the heavens\nwith the immortal choir of praise and\nthe earthly thinking beings,\nyou yourself in your perfection were already glorified,\nbut still you permit me, a reject, to taste\nyour indescribable sweetness, through\nthe communion of words.\nAnd what good is it to mouth your\nroyal command about\n“Adonai, Lord,” and not carry it out.\nI destroyed with my own hand\nthe golden tables of speech,\ndedicated to your message, written by\nthe finger of God.\nThat was true destruction.\nAnd I, with ashen-faced sorrow,\nnow provide a second copy, made in its likeness.\nBut now, since I have prayed much,\nin a voice of passionate and sincere praise,\nhear me, compassionate God, with this\nprofession of faith.\nMay the voice of this prayer be joined with those offered\nby clean worshipers obedient to your will\nso that this meager offering, a dry loaf of\nunleavened bread,\nmight be served with oil upon your altar of glory.\n\n\n# XI.\n\nBut you, beneficent and charitable in all things,\nO Christ, of one God, mighty and powerful,\nwho surpasses all with your sweet and\ncaring compassion\nnot only humanity in general and those like me\nwho are susceptible to all manner of contrariness,\nbut also the uncontaminated angels,\nand even the pure and saintly, who give praise.\nThere was Elijah, for example,\nwhose austere signs on Mt. Horeb were shown\nin three ways:\na great earthquake, strong winds and burning fire.\nBut you act in the mildness of patience and\nthe calm peacefulness of the sweet air,\nfor you alone, as the Scripture says,\nare the will of mercy\nAnd although our kind found joy in virtue\nand otherwise adopted heavenly ways,\nstill they were earthlings, though chosen\namong mankind.\nYou, on the contrary, are not even capable of evil:\nYou are good in your very essence\nand blessed in all things,\nsalvation for all, tranquility in all,\ncalm for all, cure for all disease,\nthe fount of life-giving water in the words of Jeremiah.\n\n\n# XII.\n\nTurn toward me and have mercy upon me,\nO God, who so thirsts, hungers and longs for\nmy salvation.\nYou have gone so far as to designate\na heavenly host of blessed immortals,\nto act as priests and intercessors for man’s salvation,\nso that on behalf of us earthly beings,\nfor the reconciliation of the wretched and\nabandoned like me,\nthey might perpetually pray for your great\nblessed mercy,\nwith this light-giving phrase,\n“Have mercy upon Jerusalem,”\nso that based upon your great revelation\nplaces left empty by the fallen angels,\nmight be filled by human beings,\nwho have joined you, in the manner of\nthe earthly Jerusalem,\nabout which you sent us good news.\n\n\n# XIII.\n\nTruly, you hear, kind God,\nYou listen, king.\nYou lent an ear, life and light.\nYou paid attention, heavenly one.\nYou respected us, almighty.\nYou noted, knower of secrets.\nYou saw, keeper.\nYou empathized, Lord beyond telling.\nYou humbled yourself, exalted one.\nYou became meek, awesome one.\nYou were revealed, Lord beyond words.\nYou were defined, boundless one.\nYou were measured, unexaminable one.\nYou focused light, radiant one.\nYou became human, incorporeal one.\nYou became tangible, immeasurable one.\nYou took shape, you who are beyond quality.\nYou truly fulfilled the yearnings of those\nwho pray to you.\nWith the voice of the blissful,\nyou were even for me, miserable soul that I am,\na kind intercessor, a living mediator,\nan immortal offering, an endless sacrifice,\na gift of purity, a priceless burnt offering,\nan inexhaustible cup.\nMerciful Lord, who loves mankind,\nmay you always show\nthe favor of your life-giving will and your\nlong-suffering patience toward me, a sinner.\nTo you glory forever. Amen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73162,12 +75372,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 35", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, Lord of hosts,\nawesome majesty, unwavering vision,\nall expansive will, undiminishing bounty,\nhow can our dances and songs of joy\ndo honor to even one drop of your goodness?\nYou earnestly strive to prepare for my salvation,\nbut let me write what is greater, that it might be\ntold in the future.\nYou have not been called “angel lover,”\nalthough the founder of their kingdom.\nAnd of the heavens with their luminaries,\nall your handiwork,\nnever have you been described as loving them.\nRather to your greater honor and praise,\nyou preferred the love of mankind.\nFor this reason you doubly magnified your name\nbeyond telling,\nwith frightening mystery.\nYou called the heavenly host dressed in light,\nyour servants and stewards of special missions,\nand us mortals, born below,\nyou adorned with your worshipful, lordly and\ngodly name,\nexceeding again all bounds of measure and weight,\nby the flow of your power and exceeding goodness,\nyou inspired endless praise.\nAnd by becoming man, you, one of “the One who is,”\nyour gifts of life, diverse talents,\nsplendid divine work and miracles,\npoured down abundantly upon some who\nasked for themselves, and others who\nasked blessings for others.\nMoved by the faith of his nurses,\nyou cured the cripple,\nthough he was lacking in faith.\nHow much more able, then, is your mighty word\nto cleanse the disease from the bodies of those\nwho cry out to you in prayer?\nFor truly, Lord, it is a greater miracle\nto keep a washed image pure,\nand protected against the attack of unruly diseases,\nthan to cleanse a corrupt soul,\nfrom the first, with the favor of the grace of\nthe baptismal font,\nyou exalt the glory of the Father.\n\n\n# II.\n\nIt is you, Lord, who cleanses us,\nas you did first with your chosen, Moses.\nIt is you, who looked over the tribe of Jacob\nin their sin and lawlessness,\nas they became accustomed to the dark pagan ways\nof the land of Egypt.\nIt is you, who, in the words of the Psalmist David,\nteaches the sinner to walk in the law of righteousness.\nIt is you who replaces the stubborn, hardness of\nstony hearts,\nwith the obedient softness of flesh, receptive to\nthe Word.\n\nIt is you who can guide hearts to a single way,\nrespecting you with their full lives.\nIt is you who instill respect, fear and faith,\nto heed you, according to the voice of the Prophet.\n\n\n# III.\n\nLike a key to the doors of my hearing,\nmay you sprinkle life-giving divine rain\nfrom your blessed lips that created the world.\nMay you remove the poison of the cunning serpent,\nthat troublemaker Satan, and heal me.\nAnd with your almighty hand guide\nmy tongue and strengthen my voice,\nwhich you have freely given to all,\nthat it might speak boldly,\nand teach fittingly,\nneither depriving me of hope or betraying me\ninto nonsense,\nby speaking impudently like our forefather Adam.\nIllumine again the light of my soul’s darkened eye\nwith the touch of your life-giving right hand,\nso the lamp of my boldness may not be extinguished\nby the serpent’s breath and be hidden under a bushel.\nLift away my sins, Lord, and cast them into\nthe depths of the sea,\nseas so small in comparison to your greatness that\nin the words of the prophet:\nthey can swallow up my evil.\nRestore confidence to my wrecked soul,\nso that a monument of disappointment not be erected to\nmy hidden faults.\nOpen, almighty and merciful, the handbook of\nlife-giving cures,\nso that the seeds sown and cultivated by\nthe Destroyer here below\nmight be cut down and uprooted with the sickle\nof your will.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nIn the manner of Peter, seeking to follow you,\nGod of all,\nI was swallowed by the waves of the sea of my sinful life.\nExtend your life-giving right hand to help me, for I am\nfoundering.\nIn the voice the Canaanite women, I pray from\nthe bottom of my heart,\nlike a starving dog yelping, wretched and anxious,\nbegging for scraps,\na few crumbs of the bread of life\nfrom your bountiful table.\nSave my physical altar, Son of bitterness,\nwho came to rescue me when I was lost.\nFor yours is majesty, victory and power.\nAnd you are atonement and healing, renewal and bliss.\nTo you all glory and praise forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73175,12 +75387,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 36", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNo matter how great the mounting debt of my sins,\nthe saving grace of your trials\nis greater by far.\nYou were nailed to the cross, the instrument of death,\non your all-embracing creative hands, which\nhold all souls,\nso my disobedient hand might be stilled.\nOut of compassion for my wantonness,\nyou bound the motion of your two life-giving feet,\nso they might be pawned for my miserable feet,\nalways racing toward brutishness.\n\n\n# II.\n\nYou did not order the hands of those who beat\nyour head to shrivel.\nYou, who could uproot the fig tree without effort.\nThis example gives me hope of reprieve.\nYou did not threaten me with the evil whipping\nthat was your own lot,\nthough you are proclaimed God.\nYou who darkened the sun\nand grant rest with goodness to me a mortal.\nYou did not dry the evil mouth of those who cursed you,\nyou who tinted the image of the moon with\nthe color of blood,\nso you might strengthen my meek tongue to praise you.\n\nYou did not rebuke the wanton insultors,\nyou who shook the very firmament,\nso you might anoint my miserable head with\nthe oil of compassion.\n\nYou did not rip the jaws of the God-killer who called you\na fanatic, charlatan,\nyou who rent the hardness of the rocky tomb,\nso you might mercifully grant my soul,\nthough it is incapable of goodness,\na respite from the burden of emptiness.\n\nYou did not run the swords of the guards through\ntheir bowels,\nyou who condemned the snake to slither on the ground,\nso you might preserve the bones of my tormented body,\nto be worthy of resurrection.\n\nYou flatten and thrust into the abyss,\nthose who sealed the tomb upon the bearer of life,\nin order that you might rest the token of your light\nin the tomb of my soul.\n\nYou did not absolutely and for all generations\nstrike down\nthose who rumored your hand perished and\nyour body stolen like that of a mortal,\nso you might permit me, insignificant as I am,\nto partake of that goodness which neither perishes nor\ncan be harmed,\ntogether with those chosen for salvation.\n\nYou did not turn into stone, as with Moab in\ndays of old,\nyour frenzied persecutors who twice stole silver bribes\nfrom the offerings in your Father’s sanctuary\nto betray and degrade you,\nso that you might set me upon the steadfastness\nof your rock.\nAlthough I waver and am sold to the powers of death,\nI am redeemed by your blood.\nYou are blessed twice over and blessed again\npraised in all things, forever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73188,12 +75402,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 37", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow, of all your gifts and favors I have received\nand described,\nmerciful, beneficent, praised and powerful Lord,\nonly a few have been set forth here.\nBut they are all nobles of the kingdom.\nThey are like freemen with rich estates,\nsons of military orders and offspring of the sublime,\ngreat in glory, renewed in light, honored in miracles.\nProclaimed with the unfurling flags of victory, each gift\nadorned with a crowning wreath on its heads and\nbringing countless other dominions and estates, gifts\npraising, endearing, meek, happy, peaceful,\nfrom those regions closest to God.\nOf these the prophet prayed,\n“Awake, Lord, your heavenly forces and\ncome to save us.”\nWho is better armed to drive out sin,\nfend off hail, melt the ice of despair,\nand repel those first rebels from the heavenly ranks,\nwhose nocturnal ways love the darkness,\nand who from the beginning revolted against God?\nIt is impossible to recount all the good gifts\nyou have rained down on me, a weak,\nbelligerent and ungrateful servant.\nBut if one were to try to speak\nabout even the least of this abundance,\none would be at a loss,\nrecalling the dust we were made of.\nLike a puny weakling, one would be struck dumb\nin defeat by the greatness of the maker.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAfter writing this much I testify again\nto the flawed immaturity of my soul\nwhen compared to your perfection, O creator, and\nmy waywardness in comparison to your kindness.\nHowever, the strength of your praiseworthy\ncreative force,\nyour everlasting light, generous and abundant,\ndefends me against the ways of the Trickster, who\naims to harden the heart, making it\na rock of despair,\nthreatening to dry up the two springs\nof the Eden of my sentiments that were\nestablished by the Gardener\nto water and make the garden of good works\nplanted in me flourish.\nMay we not be snatched again from our\noriginal paradise, through the evil trickery of heretical\nillusions that parch our eyes\nso that when the miraculously resurrected God stands\nas a mediator among the gods,\nbringing his gift of grace,\nall the injuries of deceit and short-sighted anxieties,\nill be pulverized as if dashed upon a hard rock,\nor washed away by the trickling of a stream,\nor blown away like the dust.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd so my reprimand shall come, as Job said,\nnot from myself,\nbut from your all-seeing eye,\nof which I am in terror,\nwrenched with anxieties, dread and fear.\nBut refuge for my broken spirit lies in your living,\nincorruptible, constant hope,\nthat looking on me with mercy,\nas one condemned to perdition,\nwhen I present myself before your heavenly beneficence,\nempty-handed and without gifts,\nbringing with me the evidence of your untold glory,\nI will remind you\nwho never slumber in forgetfulness,\nwho never shut your eyes,\nnever ignore the sighs of grief,\nthat with your cross of light\nyou may lift away from me, I beg you, the peril that\nchokes me,\nwith your comforting care, the vacillating sadness,\nwith your crown of thorns, the germs of my sin,\nwith the lashes of the whip, the blows of death,\nwith the memory of the slap in the face,\nthe neediness of my shame,\nwith the spitting of your enemies, my\ncontemptible vileness,\nwith your sip of vinegar, the bitterness of my soul.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nFor yours is all the boundless goodness,\nonly begotten Son of God,\ntogether with which, I remember my wrongs,\ncalling your all blessed name aloud\nwith supplications.\nLook upon my embarrassed confessions of defeat\nand grant mercifully to this son worthy of execution,\nthe death of immortality,\nso that on my sins, again and again,\ngrowing by leaps and bounds,\nthe goodness of your mercy might be proclaimed\nwith resounding solemnity in heaven as on earth.\nAnd to you with the Father and Holy Spirit,\nglory forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73201,12 +75417,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 38", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow, as I wrote in the beginning of this work,\nabout the dark origins of the cardinal sins and\nthe workings of the bodily organs,\nby which I am dominated, human heir of death,\nhere, in this prayer, I recount, even if it is\na drop taken from the limitless expanse of the sea,\na few aspects of the spiritual life\nthat liberate those born in the light\nthrough our Lord Jesus.\n\n\n# II.\n\nSome of these are truly splendid, and should be\nplaced on a high throne,\ntheir stores of grace, filled to the brim with\nkindness and wealth,\nthe king and his loving subjects,\nthe emperor and his nobles,\nthe crowned and their princes,\nthe famous and his good report,\nthe victor and his trumpets,\nthe general and his troops,\nthe hero and his glory,\nthe groom and his revelers,\nthe queen and her maids,\nthe lady in waiting and her retinue,\nfreedom and its benefits,\nthe visitation and its outstretched hand,\nthe promise and its atonement,\nthe protection and its right hand,\nthe gifts and their wrapping,\nthe seal of life and its indelibility,\nthe soul and its imprint,\nthe cloud and its shadow,\nart and its miracles,\nthe spirit and its immortality,\nthe word and its perfection,\nthe taking of the oath and its fulfillment,\nthe force and its order,\nthe baptismal font and its miraculous work,\nmanna and its incorruptibility,\nthe living rock and its stream,\nthe pillar of fire and its rays,\nthunder and its echo,\nhope and its salvation,\nthe tree of blessings and its fruit,\nthe bough and its bounty.\nAnd so that I shall not err by saying this,\nI note my omissions,\nfor as the eyes are blinded when looking at the sun,\nI have averted my attention from the greatest and\npresented the lesser points that are within\nmy meager ability.\n\n\n# III.\n\nI apologize for my always miserable, wretched soul,\nbecause my composition mixes\nthe voice of good news with mournful protests,\nbringing justice and judgment,\ndecision and penalty,\ninvestigation and spotlights,\nscolding and torches,\nnakedness and embarrassment,\nrevelation and shame,\ninnocence and reward,\nerror and punishment.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAgain and again, I flinch doubly misfortunate\nand wretched,\nfor unbearable anger is coming with a sickle\nto harvest my ripened sheaves of grain,\na judge for the court,\na strongman for the tribunal,\nan executioner for execution,\nan arm to carry out the judgment,\na rod to reprimand,\narmor for revenge,\na shepherd for sorting the flock,\nfor the words you said to me,\nshall judge me, the condemned, on the\nlast day of judgment.\nHurry, merciful Lord, with your sweet acceptance,\nattend the faint sighs of my cowardly wavering\nwith the great strength of your blessed hand.\nDo not be angry, but with your characteristic good will,\ncomfort, cure, forgive and save me,\nat my last trial.\nAnd to you glory, forever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73214,12 +75432,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 39", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nSince I abandoned my former composure,\nled by the destroyer and\ntotally wasted by my own laziness,\nnow I address my former self,\nrecounting with heavy heart and pitiful sobs\nthe scandal of my ways\nbefore the congregation of the multitude of nations.\n\n\n# II.\n\nI am a living book,\nwritten like the scroll in the vision of Ezekiel,\ninside and out,\nlisting lamentations, moaning and woe.\nI am a city without walls or towers,\na house empty without doors for protection,\nsalt in looks but lacking taste,\nsea water unfit to quench the thirst,\nland, useless for cultivation,\nfield, barren and covered with briars.\nMy personal acres, cared for by God,\nbut already sown with the devices of the Slanderer,\nan olive tree that is wood without fruit,\na barren orchard to be cut down,\na hopeless, twice dead, talking plant,\na burned out candle that cannot be lit.\n\n\n# III.\n\nNow again, in the same vein, I repeat\nsimilar pathetic images\nthat await me, miserable soul, as bitter punishment for\nmy shame.\nGnashing of teeth and endless wailing, for the eyes of\nmy wretched self,\npaternal anger that cannot be deflected by filial regret,\nunmendable corruption for my sinful body,\nnew reprimands for me, an inventor of evil for\nmy diseased soul,\nthe anxiety of doubt for my escape as a captive,\nwaiting to be visited by the heavenly host.\nTestifying I am a miserable, wounded soul,\nwho deserves to be burned in the bundles of weeds,\nwith a stern voice pronouncing me, incorrigible refuse.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nTruly, these are but the charming melodies of a harlot,\nwith her harp, strolling about and beating her breast,\nbrazenly wailing, miserably and scornfully,\nas the prophet Isaiah wrote in his admonition to Tyre.\nIf she could because of a minor misfortune ( the loss of\nher clientele),\nprotest with all manner of fake moaning and groaning,\nthen in what kind of desperate voice should I cry out?\nI who wait the coming of the Lord,\nand yet have been caught unprepared and naked.\n\n\n# V.\n\nNow, if I recount again the fearsome judgment,\nmy repentance should be multiplied.\nAnd if I present my tribulations realistically\nterror should seize me.\nAnd if I describe this vision in detail\nmy tribulations increase.\nFor having recognized all this in advance and\nnot repented, even in retrospect, I am grateful that\nyou spared me, merciful lover of mankind,\nmighty doer of good,\nAll-giving Christ, King, blessed forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73227,12 +75447,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 40", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAlmighty God, doer of good, creator of all,\nhear the sound of my sighs of distress\nand my terror of imagined perils to come.\nSave me with your strength, ridding me of my sins.\nFor you are capable of all things and are\nthe key to all things with your boundless greatness\nand infinite wisdom.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAnd seeing with my mind’s eye in the distance\nthe terrible vision of the life to come,\nI observe in advance the day of light,\nthe hope of the saints,\nand the day of darkness, the punishment of the sinful,\nfrom which none can escape nor find refuge,\nneither in the deep abyss nor in the bottomless pits,\nneither on the heights of the mountains,\nnor in the caves in the stone,\nneither on the hardness of boulders,\nnor in the cavity of a hole,\nneither in the crevices of a pit,\nnor the waves of a flood,\nneither in the labyrinth of the basement,\nnor the loft of the attic,\nneither behind the closed doors of my cell,\nnor in the darkness of the valley,\nneither in the declines of the valleys,\nnor on the inclines of the hills,\neither in the blowing of the wind,\nnor in the undulation of the seas,\nneither in the swirling of a whirlpool,\nnor in the distant ends of the earth,\nneither in the sounds of lament,\nnor in the sighs of weeping,\nneither in the trembling of fingers,\nnor in the lifting of hands,\nneither in the prayers of the lips,\nnor in the cries of the tongue.\nOut of this terrible inescapable lot\nyou, Lord Christ, are the exit and respite,\nthe ease and calm of the salvation for\nmy ever sinning soul.\n\n\n# III.\n\nNow, look upon me besieged by overwhelming danger,\nyou who are alone sweet to all.\nCut me loose with your victorious sword of life, the\ncross, and release me from the nets that have snared me,\nnets that assail me on all sides as the captive of death.\nPlease steady my shaky feet on the crooked path and\nheal the burning fever of my anguished heart.\nTurn away the demonic whisper of temptation to\nsin against you.\nDrive away the despair of my dark soul that\ndwells with evil.\nDispel the thick smoke of sin that has infused and\nobscured me.\nDestroy the vile dark passions of my base needs.\nRenew the image of light revered by\nthe glory of your mighty name, my soul.\nFix your glowing grace upon my face and\nthe perception of my mind, an earthbound creature.\nAnd cleanse my squalid sinfulness with your purity\nso that you might restore and reveal your image in me.\nWith your divine, living, uncorrupted and\nheavenly light that envelopes your three persons.\nFor you alone are blessed with the Father and Holy Spirit\nforever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73240,12 +75462,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 41", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nSon of the living God, blessed in all things,\nwhose awesome birth by your Father passes\nall understanding,\nfor whom nothing is impossible,\nbefore the dawning of the uneclipsed rays of the mercy\nof your glory\nsins melt away, demons flee, transgressions are erased,\nbindings are cut and chains undone.\nThe dead are born again, infirmities are cured,\nwounds are healed, corruption is cleansed,\nsadness withdraws, sighs retreat,\ndarkness flees, fog departs,\ntwilight vanishes, darkness lifts, the night passes,\nalarm is banished, evil is destroyed, despair is exiled.\nAnd your omnipotent hand rules, redeemer of all.\n\n\n# II.\n\nYou who came not to destroy our mortal souls, but to\ngive them life,\nforgive my countless wrongs with your abundant mercy.\nFor you alone are in heaven beyond words, and on earth\nbeyond understanding,\nin the substance of existence unto the ends of the earth,\nthe beginning of everything and the completion of\neverything in all ways, blessed in the\nGlory forever to you\nwith the Father and the Holy Spirit.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73253,12 +75477,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 42", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nLord God of compassion, salvation and mercy\nredemption and restoration, healing and health,\nenlightenment and life, resurrection and immortality,\nremember me, when you come with your kingdom,\nO awesome, mighty, doer of good and creator of all,\nliving, praised, perfecter of all,\naccessible to the sighs of all beings.\n\nWith the man who was crucified with you,\nwho was not captured for your sake and was not bound,\nwas not hanged and was not nailed,\nwas not beaten in your great name and\nwas not disgraced,\nwas not tortured and was not treated with contempt,\nwas not crushed and was not killed,\nI beg to be worthy of the Kingdom and\nthe most desired light that is the reward of the just.\nMay you, by the authority of saying the oath, “Amen,”\naffirm that your gifts are unchanging and\nare glorified for giving the hope of salvation to\nthose of us\nthat consider ourselves totally abandoned.\n\n\n# II.\n\nBlessed, blessed, and blessed again!\nHaving accepted me by that same faith,\nraise me up from my fallen state, doer of good,\ncure me of disease, merciful,\nreturn me from the edge of death to life, lifegiver,\nfor I am yours, same as man’s faith, my refuge.\nGrant the breath of life to the body of the dead,\nO resurrection,\nlife, immortality, and inexhaustible joy,\nboundless grace, unwavering forgiveness,\nomnipotent right hand, all-governing hand,\nall-reaching finger,\nyou have only to wish it, Lord, and I shall be saved,\nonly to think it, and by your mercy shall I be justified.\nSay the word, and I will be found spotless.\nForget my wrongs, and I shall venture to emerge.\nCultivate me and I shall cleave to you,\nyou who are glorified in all things forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73266,12 +75492,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 43", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nWith every possible facet of the art of healing,\nLord Jesus,\ncause of all healthy life,\nmighty heavenly king,\nGod of all things apprehended by the mind and\nby the eye,\njoin me in the words of the prophet,\n“And behold, through this union with you\nthrough these words,\nyour light shall break forth in me to heal\nmy breath and body,”\nyou who are mighty and invincible.\n\n\n# II.\n\nTo heal our spiritual wounds, you do not\nneed ointments,\nnor time, nor intermediaries,\nnor the passing of days,\nnor the changing of prescriptions,\nnor amputation, nor cauterization, nor surgery\nas practiced by earthly medicine,\nin which there is always trial and error,\noften grave error.\nBut for you, the creator of the soul and body,\nall is illumined, all is clear,\nall is written,\nall is easy,\nall is possible,\nwisdom leads,\npromises are kept,\nwishes are fulfilled.\nYour testament is the gospel.\nYour judgment is freedom.\nYour lawbook is grace.\nYou are not limited by laws.\nYou are not bound by canons.\nYou are not hampered by imperfections.\nYou are not humbled by obedience.\nYou are not restricted by smallness.\nYou are not measured by boundaries.\nYou do not err out of anger.\nYou do not alter out of wrath.\nYou do not misjudge out of severity.\nYou do not simmer out of agitation.\nYou do not falter out of ignorance.\nYou do not waver out of soft-heartedness.\nYou do not diminish out of exaltation.\nYou do not abandon your duty of care.\nYou do not weaken your salvation.\nYou are the beginning and the end of all.\nEverything is from you alone.\nTherefore glory to you and worship forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73279,12 +75507,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 44", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nBoundless God, genuine son of God, inexplicable,\ncreator of everything, Christ King,\nlight for the darkened hearts of the unknowing,\nlight who took human form like us,\nbut are in essence like him who sent you,\nwhose form is miraculously revealed through ours.\nBlessed by your heavenly Father,\nwho sent you and with whom\nyou share glory for creation.\nYou care enough for my salvation, an exiled slave,\nthat you delivered yourself to evil men\nand without resorting to your divinity\ndrank from the cup of death for me, a sinner,\naccording to the plan of your divine economy,\nwith true humanity and perfect divinity.\nAnd the Holy Ghost is also of the same essence as you\nand the Father,\nequal in honor with the Son and the Father,\none perfect trinity in three persons indivisible,\nwithout beginning or time,\nbenefactor to all, life giver of all, peacemaker of all,\ncreator of existence and shaper of all things,\nglorified with one indivisible nature.\n\n\n# II.\n\nFor the sake of my transgressions for which\nI am condemned to death,\nthe merciful Father, heavenly, almighty, one of\nthe divine essence,\nhas offered the only son of his bosom.\nHis beloved son, his equal in honor he did not spare,\nbut willingly gave him to death by the arms of\nhis tormentors,\nas foretold by the prophet Zechariah:\n“For raise the sword upon the shepherd,\nand strike down the keeper of the flock,\nand the flock shall disperse.”\nThe Old Testament also gives another example\nof vows at the altar and the blood of the offering in\nthe story of Abraham’s sacrifice,\nwhich described to me how you wished\nto save the wretched.\nSo now, why do you grieve, my soul?\nYou are not destroyed by God\nbut by your own doing.\nAnd why am I upset,\nmy mind reeling with satanic despair?\nI should trust in God, confess to him\nand he will care for me,\nas David wrote in the Psalms,\nand the Prophet counseled.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThe ways of the creator surpass\nthe understanding of angels and mortals.\nIf I were to try ten thousand times, my words\ncould not capture it,\nfor his good works are beyond comprehension\nand description.\nOne of the blessed trinity\nsent another of the trinity\nand to please the will of the sender,\nhe died. And the third, according to\nthe wishes of the other two\nworked together for the same good\nwith the same will.\nAs the soul is for the living beings and\nthought for the rational beings,\nas radiance is for glory, and form for substance,\nas caring for life, and mindfulness for mercy,\nas giving in charity, and resolve in salvation,\nas abundance in generosity, flow in continuity,\nas fullness for perfection, richness in inexhaustibility,\nas long in forbearance, exalted in unreachableness,\nthey are one perfect trinity, of three persons,\nblessed forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73292,12 +75522,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 45", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow, confess, my ruined soul\nwith hope in your heart for salvation\nwith the belt of faith tight over your kidneys,\nconfess your thoughts to God\nas if thoughts were actions,\nas if plans were accomplishments,\nas if invisible were seen,\nas if the heart’s secrets were voiced,\nas if sinful intentions were committed wrongs,\nas if words were deeds,\nas if footprints were flight from God’s will,\nhands raised in anger as if they shed blood,\nabandoned laughter as if abandoned grace,\nvows both reasonable and unreasonable\nas if compacts with the devil,\nhaughtiness as if it could detract\nfrom our creator,\nuneasiness of heart as if a lack of faith,\ncowardice as if it were defeat,\ncomplaints about passionate temptations\nas if betrayals of a vow to the Lord,\ninsolence as if it were impiety,\narrogance as if precious vanity,\npride as if fondness for evil,\nthe involuntary as well as voluntary,\nthe forced as well as the consenting,\nthe extrinsic as well as the intrinsic,\nthe lawless as well as the ungodly,\nthe smallest as well as the greatest,\nthe few as well as the many,\nthe things I have left unspoken as if\nthey were spoken by the all-knowing,\nthe unwritten wrongs as if\nthey were carved by the all-seeing upon a lodestone,\nthe slightest contentious thought as if\nit were the gravest of burdens,\na hidden matter of measure as if\nit were the just demand for payment of tribute\nin the amount of four drachmae\nfrom the mouth of a baby whale,\nburied deeds as if they were speeding to the ear of God.\nCompile and compound them redoubling your effort,\nand lament here again what is not, as if it were.\nOffer your vanquished soul to God\nso that you might receive the forgiveness of sins,\nlike the sinner who through the Lord’s grace\nwas justified,\neloquently proclaiming the merits of repentance rather\nthan faultfinding:\n\n\n# II.\n\nNow compile and condemn your soul’s sins,\nreproach yourself with varied images, my soul,\nin a relentless stream of words:\nevil, disobedience, error,\ndesertion, surrender,\nrage, impudence, stupidity,\nstupor, daydreaming, slumber,\npagan thoughts, base words,\npleasure in dissolution, dalliance,\ndesire of what is hateful to God,\nimpious, incorrigible, uncivilized,\nfaulty, feeble, weak, stingy,\nuntethered, ridiculous, lusting,\ncomic, scandalous, deceitful,\nbrazen, quarrelsome, outlaw,\nsuffocating the soul, shaking cowardice,\nunruly branching bush,\ndishonorable indulgence, contentiousness, sulking,\nbaseless hatred, lax titillation,\nfailure to weigh small things, breach of promise,\nforgetfulness of vows, distortion of similarity,\ndisguised by veils, extravagance of glory seeking,\narrogance, roguishness, egotism,\nwill to power, conspiracy with criminals,\nmeaningless gossip, vicious behavior,\ncollaboration with the conniving tempter,\nconfusion, selling of life for the price of butchery,\nloss of tradition, betrayal of homeland,\nattractive bondage,\nyoked to lawlessness like oxen,\nliving in filth, abandoning the good,\ngiving in to bad impulses, worse than\nbefore conversion,\nnew designs, untoward intentions, unstable will,\npointless shouting, letter over spirit,\nlawlessness, despotic rule,\nand other things that cannot be spoken, written, told\nor countenanced.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd now, how shall you be cured, my poor soul,\nafter suffering so many slashes of the lance?\nYou are like an abandoned, exiled man, incurable,\nas the Prophet wrote. Anyone would be condemned\nto death for the wrongs listed above, let alone if besieged\nby the hordes of killers and vicious executioners.\nAnd these descriptions fail to convey fully\nthe weight of my misfortune.\nAlthough my skin-covered vessel may look\ngood from the outside, it is teaming with evil within\nas if swarming with scorpions that sting\nwith the deadly poison in their tails.\nIt is a storehouse of ruination and mass of grief,\nfilled with agents of destruction and sowers of death.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd now, your store of iniquities,\nthe accumulated wages of your wicked ways,\nmy soul, are enough to condemn you twice to death.\nSeeds sown by the enemy upon the grain fields\nof the world,\nwhich you willingly accepted in yourself,\nunclean man, dishonest and lazy, completely hateful,\ngluttonous lover of all that is filled with corruption,\nfor which the Apostle saved some of his most fearsome\nwords of reprimand:\n“And those who know,” he said, “God’s law, and still\ndo such things or are willing to do so,\nare deserving of death.”\nThus, I myself am deserving of double\ncondemnation to ruination and death, but still\nI pray you, spare me, with your mercy,\nO God, compassionate, living, mighty,\nobliging, able, potent, blessed forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73305,12 +75537,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 46", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow I am lost, forever punishable,\nalways immoral,\ncondemning myself to death,\nshepherd of a flock of fetid sin, a flock of wild boars,\na despicable mercenary\na shepherd watching a flock of desert goats.\nThe image of the shepherds’ tent in the Song of Songs\naptly applies to me,\nfor I do not know or understand,\nby whom, in whose image or why I was created.\n\n\n# II.\n\nBehold, you were formed like an angel,\non two feet that take and bring you,\nas if in flight on two wings lifting you upward,\nto gaze down on my fatherland.\nO fool, why did you choose to be earthbound,\nalways preoccupied with the worldliness of\nthe here and now,\ncarrying on like wild asses in the desert?\nOn the lamp stand of your body, encircling your head,\na chandelier with many arms was placed,\nso that by its light you might\nnot stray and might see God and know what is everlasting.\nYou were doubly endowed in the womb of reason,\nso that you might speak with an unfettered tongue\nof the victory of the good things given you.\nAnd you were endowed with artful hands and\nnimble fingers\nto carry out the practical affairs of daily life\nlike the all-giving right hand of God,\nthat you might be called God.\nYou are assembled of three hundred sixty parts and five senses,\nthe number of the days of the year,\nand no aspect of your physical being remains invisible\nto your sight or unstudied by your mind.\nFor some parts are thick and strong,\nsome are small and others necessary,\nsome are sturdy but sensitive,\nsome are sublime, important and noble,\nsome are necessary but humble,\nand the explanation of the image of these things is\nengraved on you\nas on an uneraseable monument, wretched soul of mine,\nso that like the elements of time\nand the continuous train of days around the year\nby some inner law these parts function\nin unerring and inalterable order.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd now another spiritual image,\ntied to the bonds of love uniting the church,\nis also reflected within you.\nLike the yoke that mediates between the great\nand the lowly,\nthe assembled body\nestablished in the name of Christ is sometimes impaired,\nas with the cutting off or loss of an unruly organ,\ninfecting the body.\nSomething is lost in your mortal structure,\nfeeling abode of mankind,\nand the usual shape of the person undergoes\nsome disfigurement.\nAnd now when the uniquely miraculous structure\nin the living image of God,\nis completely condemned, my enslaved soul,\nthat original likeness is stolen from you as\nby breaking the law in the Garden of Eden.\nBut by the light of the baptismal font\nthe breath of the Holy Spirit is received and\nthe image is restored to God’s likeness.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd now, why did you give up heavenly glory\nlike the original man Adam did in the earthly\nGarden of Eden?\nWhy did you yourself close heaven and lock\nthe door to ascent?\nWhy did you mix the clean water with\nimpurities of bitter tears?\nWhy did you soil newly washed clothes with dirty work?\nWhy did you put off the clothes given you\nand put on the cloak of sin?\nWhy did you infect the purity of your feet\nby taking the path of the fallen?\nWhy did you repeat the violation of just vows of\nthe Old Testament?\nWhy did you refuse the fruit of grace, as Adam did\nthe tree of life?\nWhy did you willfully lose the unshadowed hope\nof eternity?\nWhy did you cover your face with brazen shame?\nWhy did you arm your enemies against you,\nrepository of stupidity?\nWhy did you venture into the snares of death,\nabandoning the way of faith?\nWhy did you get caught on the fishhook of deception,\nyou who share the body of the life giver?\nBut again, relying upon him, call to him,\nthe redeemer of those seeking refuge, renewer,\nsavior, life maker and life giver,\nmerciful, caring, lover of humanity,\nungrudging, generously compassionate,\nblessed forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73318,12 +75552,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 47", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nWhat can I be, but speechless\nbefore your awesome might?\nWhat can I be but embarrassed and silent\nmy words only quiet dust in my mouth,\nwhen I hope for virtue\nas the prophets advised?\nEven if I open my clamped lips,\nwhat would flow but more mournful elegies?\nNothing but the voice of my many wounds\npouring forth.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAnd now, weeping with the great sinner,\nwho willingly committed mortal sin,\nI join in his cry,\n“I have sinned, Lord, I have sinned,\nand to my lawlessness I myself am witness.”\nWeaving this cry with the words of the fiftieth Psalm,\nI conclude that the wages of my innumerable\nsins are greater\nthan the grains of sand that make up the earth\nand are scattered by the wind.\nI have sinned against heaven and you.\nLike the Prodigal Son, who though shamed,\nreceived his father’s forgiveness,\nI make my entreaty, prostrate before you,\nmy face twisted in grief, pleading:\nFather of compassion, God of all,\nI am not worthy to be called even a worthless,\nirresponsible hireling,\nlet alone “son,” or even to have this word\nuttered about me.\nStill accept me, a wandering exile, defeated by wounds,\nfaint with gnawing hunger.\nHeal me with your bread of life,\nconfront me with mercy, for you are my first refuge.\nClothe me, a lawless sinner, merciful and\nunvengeful God,\nwith the clothes of my former innocence.\nPlace, with your boundless generosity,\nthe ring with your seal of courage\non my sinful hand that lost everything by straying in sin.\nProtect the soles of my bare feet\nwith the sandals of the Gospels.\nGuard me from poisonous snakes.\nAnd even though I am wanting in virtue\nyou sacrifice the fatted calf of heaven,\nyour only begotten Son, out of\nlove for mankind.\nYour blessed Son who is always offered and\nyet remains whole,\nwho is sacrificed continuously upon innumerable altars\nwithout being consumed,\nwho is all in everyone and complete in all things,\nwho is in essence of heaven and in reality of earth,\nwho is lacking nothing in humanness and without\ndefect in divinity,\nwho is broken and distributed in individual parts,\nthat all may be collected in the same body with\nhim as head.\nGlory to you with him, Father most merciful.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73331,12 +75567,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 48", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nExalted and mighty God,\nwho has no beginning, no becoming, and no end,\nobserver with an unsleeping eye,\nparent of the only begotten, glorious and inscrutable,\nbefore heaven and earth,\njustify granting your mercy to me to whom\nit has been denied.\nCelebrate my restoration to life.\nAnnounce the good news for me who is dying.\nReveal your good will, O praiseworthy Lord,\nto all creation.\nBe true to your name, ineffable, and grant me,\na miserable sinner, renewed salvation.\nWipe away the mortgage of my sins.\nAnd commute the death sentence upon my soul\nwith the blood of your beloved Son.\nWith his blood assure salvation for the good.\nShow the majesty of your mercy at the bridal feast.\nDo not shut me, a supplicant, out of the house of life.\nDo not bar me from your banquet table and do not\ndeprive me of your bounty.\nDo not keep the debts of my iniquity in your safe.\nDo not seal the vileness of my dissipation in\nyour good purse.\nDo not cover my diseased body with the wounds\nof my sins.\nDo not preserve the infectious deterioration of\nmy aching body to be buried with me,\nbut lift away the corrupting decay with your mercy,\nso that I might be restored to health.\nFor my grave ills, Father of compassion,\nprepare a strong balm.\nFor my fatal ailments, visit goodness,\nfor I am yours, Lord, lover of our souls.\nAnd although in one step I might commit\na thousand sins, still,\nI would not be deemed as completely sinful,\nbeneficent giver of life,\nhaving sought refuge in the grace of your gifts.\nFor to know you is complete justice,\nand to know your strength is the root of immortality.\nAs the wiseman wrote in ages past,\nyour sovereignty causes you to spare all.\nAnd he is close to you; whenever you want\nyou can find him.\n\n\n# II.\n\nI take Solomon as the model for my prayer of hope.\nFor no other person has matched my sinfulness.\nOnce a beloved son, but later despised,\nonce a peacemaker, but later the sower of discord,\nonce the giver of the law, but later\nthe mortgagor of death,\ntrampling divine service under foot and taking\na foreign name,\ninstigator of discord, undeprived depriver,\ncontented thief, pampered complainer,\ncoddled fugitive, repulsive traitor, irresponsible vandal,\nsweet curser, father-hating child,\nbetrayer of covenants, defamer of Moses,\nforgetter of favors,\nwise delinquent, knowing transgressor,\nshameful lamenter, wavering penitent,\ncovetous idolator, sluggish convert,\ndoubtful acceptance, vacillating reconciliation,\nshadow of the future, ambiguous salvation,\nuncertain discovery, trace of a remnant,\ndeceitful slave, half-escaped but voluntarily surrendered,\nlike an overindulged ruffian, an eccentric genius.\nAnd from the clashing of these two streams of words,\nmore reports of pity and praise,\nwith great shame and little honor,\nas on a person whose ruin is self-inflicted and\nmourning is mixed with blame,\nhis copious writings have encouraged people of\nall ages toward virtue,\nbut his vices bring forth moans of grief from all lips.\n\n\n# III.\n\nI am amazed, I faint, seized with doubt.\nIf Solomon strayed this much, what will become of me?\nWhy did the haughty fall?\nWhy did the steady falter?\nWhy did the sturdy collapse?\nWhy did the follower become alienated?\nWhy did the chosen son stray?\nWhy did the dear one flee?\nWhy did the shining tarnish?\nWhy was the teacher no longer an example?\nWhy did the famous turn obscure?\nWhy did the glorious become dishonored?\nWhy was the exalted humbled?\nWhy were the pious perverted?\nWhy was the chosen rejected?\nWhy was the covenant with heaven broken?\nI am ashamed to say that he consorted with the Devil,\nfor what business did he have with idols?\nWhence his love for graven images?\nWhy did he yearn for cults?\nDid he not remember Samuel’s reprimand to Saul--\n“Paganism is a sin”? Yet he labored and sacrificed for\nthe household gods.\nWhy did he not remember the ancestral reproof?\n“Idols,” it said, “are breathless, pagan demons.\nAnd so are their priests.”\nDid not Moses scold his people with scorn,\n“Only the Lord leads them, and there is no other\ngod for them but the one known to their fathers.”:\n\n\n# IV.\n\nWhere is the death-bringing grotesque statue of Pagora?\nWhere is the ugly, infamous, accursed\nfemale statue of the Sodomites?\nWhere is the embarrassing statue of a woman?\nThe image which the prophets condemned as ungodly\nand beastial and the demon of intemperance.\nThis woman who shoved Solomon’s ancestors into\ndestruction, he mistook as a sign of favor.\nArrogance got the better of his wisdom.\nHaughtiness enslaved it.\nPampering stupified it.\nSilver enslaved it.\nThe weapons of the Destroyer deadened his soul,\nand torn from the embrace of God, he strayed\nto the path of iniquity.\nLuxury killed him, sloth numbed him.\nIntemperance poisoned him.\nO, easily deceived mortal body,\nwith what cries shall I mourn you?\nThis contradiction is found not only in him,\nbut with all those who err, all who willfully do wrong.\nFor he proves that it is wrong to take pride\nin the knowledge of the body\nunless guided by God’s judgment.\nFor even if a person is stupid,\nif he places his will in the hand of God,\nhe shall not succumb as Solomon did.\n\n\n# V.\n\nIn addition, Solomon has left a horrifying account\nof his perversion,\nfilled with self-accusatory reproof for being\ntruly dead to worldly honor.\nTo learn this truth, one need only read\nthe book of Vanities,\nor the books of the Priests, or the writings\nof Saint Silon.\nIn these he describes with sorrow the torments and\nerror of his ways.\nVain effort, fruitless labor,\nmindless devotion, aimless wandering,\ncapricious activity, alien fantasies,\ngroundless praise, rotten harvest,\nimproper conjecture, trivial concept,\nhouse built on sand, collapsed estate,\ncontemptible tasks, struggle against oneself,\nudgment upon one’s own soul,\nuseless sweat, dangerous attraction,\nroad to destruction, wayward path,\nruinous education, unwholesome practices,\nflawed eyesight, garish eye painting,\nwhorish get up, infectious germ,\nrevolting color, tragic splendor,\nstifling smoke, smothering steam,\neasily pilfered goods, fragile temple,\ninappropriate cries, baseless ridicule,\ndespicable ambition, self-incriminating writing,\ndestructive path, ungodly thought,\nlying speech, vexing stories,\nempty faultfinding, crazed inquest,\nshameful display, scandalous revelations,\nimpending dishonor, injurious acts,\nsordid story, slothful example,\nhidden pit, dark prey,\ndeathly pit, bottomless abyss,\nmurderous company, foolish prattle,\nbandits’ hideout, dilapidated house,\nshaken building, broken bridge,\nfleeting phantom, deceptive flatterer, inhumane traitor,\nantagonism toward the one on high.\nEcclesiastes put these confessional thoughts\ninto our heads as a prod to repentance\nso no one might wound either soul or friend\nwith the arrows of disparaging words.\nFor a person who looks pious but whose acts\ndisplease God\nis like a pagan under a veil.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nAs we now see, Solomon sinned as much as\nhe atoned for,\nso let us not blame him but remember the good,\nand let this be our hope as supplicants at the Lord’s feet,\nso when he descends with the Spirit in undivided divinity\nto redeem the righteous,\nwe, the living, are assured of the good news by the\nexample of the dead.\nWith Solomon whose wisdom I lack,\nbut whose sins I surpass,\nI make this plea to your glorified greatness.\nFill my humble scribbling with his felicitous genius.\nMay my supplications mingle with the prayers of that\npenitent king,\nand may they be answered through the intercession of\nthat sublime monarch,\nwhom you set as a precursor of your only begotten Son,\nand by whose lineage we have partaken of the glory of\nyour co-equal Son.\nSave your servant, all powerful, almighty, and awesome.\nIncrease your glory as creator\nby granting repentance for our unforgivable sins.\nIn recognition of his good counsel, redeem Solomon too,\nfor he preached your divinity in the Old Testament\nwith words of sweetness, eloquence and edifying stories,\nthus leaving the church footprints toward goodness\nby teaching us to turn toward you, Father,\nshowing that except for a drop of despair that\ndampened his heart’s fervor and spurred him\ntoward repentance,\nhe was not far from salvation.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nNow remembering Solomon’s goodness,\nlet us greet him with compassion, instead of\nthe blame with which he has been trampled and\npilloried for ages.\nHis repentance filled the banquet hall with\na torrent of tears that gushed over the roof.\nAnd in passionate penitence he exceeded his father.\nI pray that your long-suffering forgiveness will blend\nhis tears with the tears of your Son, the Word,\nwho subjected himself to our frail human condition.\nMay the Psalm sometimes\nthought to be addressed to Solomon\nrather be addressed to your Son, co-equal in glory,\nthereby granting him the sweetness of salvation\nalong with the other wretched of the earth.\nFor living poets, it is ample reward for their words\nto be mingled with Solomon’s\nand to be offered on his behalf\nin harmonious prayer to you.\nMy justification for this plea is this:\nhis work, the parable of Job, the man from Uz,\nis a work of miraculous talent and prophecy,\nthat alone earns Solomon a place of honor in\nthe ranks of God’s defenders.\nHence, it is acceptable to plead for him rather than\nspeak ill of him.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nNow I too, with greater confidence, hope\nmy cries will be offered to you with his,\nfor if you destroy us, judging us by our deeds,\nyour glory will not be diminished, for you will\nbe judged as just.\nBut if you accept us, you will be exalted\nas befits your majesty.\nLean then, Lord, incline yourself in sweetness\nwith compassion and freely give the gift of\nlove to comfort us,\nwho like Solomon are chronically feverish with incurable\ngrief and turmoil.\nLay your hand of salvation on us.\nRenew us, forgive and defend us\nfrom the destruction of sin.\nAnd to you alone, who are\nthe beginning without beginning,\nthe source of all beginnings,\nthe holy Trinity and One Divinity,\nto you alone are due\nglory and dominion forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73344,12 +75582,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 49", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now remembering the image of\nyour royal kingdom above,\nGod of light for all,\ndo not let iniquity rule me.\nDo not let the haughty rebel steal the grace\nof your breath from this creature you made.\nDo not let sin trap and rule my mortal body,\nenslaving me.\nNo king rules my soul except you, Christ,\nwho without force submits me to your easy yoke,\nwho lifts away my sinful passions with your\nall-powerful word,\nwho redeems me with your blood and nourishes me\nwith your body,\nwho sets forth and establishes the unchanging\ncovenant of life,\nwho by setting the stamp of your spirit on\nme as your cohort,\npresents me to your Father as a co-heir,\nand in the name of your sacrifice and memory\nof your torment,\nemboldened me to pray to the same benevolent God.\nCreator of all life,\nyou are the God of all souls\nwho made this gift of grace greater than\nall your other miracles.\nNeither the heavens with all their raiment, nor the angels\nin their brilliance,\nnor the earth and humanity and their wonders,\nnor the expanse of the seas and all in them,\nnor the abyss in its infiniteness and all in it,\nexalted you as sublimely as your sympathy toward me,\nwhen you said through the prophet, our hope\nof sweet goodness,\n“Who is a God like me, always pardoning sin\nand canceling the debts of iniquity?”\nBehold your words are honored with incense,\nmerciful God,\nand your good works proclaimed,\nglorified, deep mystery and worshiped,\noverflowing grace.\n\n\n# II.\n\nIndeed, no one is able to convey with human speech,\neven a small part of the acts of compassion which you\nhave shown me, creator.\nFor the power to restore what is worn-out to\nits former grandeur is greater than creating anew.\nAnd since weakness is not yours, mighty in all things,\nyou who with but a word can carry out all deeds,\narise, doer of good, and be glorified,\nand reclaim those whose salvation was beyond hope,\nso that by the exercise of the covenant,\nthe voice of your blessed good news might be\nmore exalted,\nand known for the grace of your forgiveness,\nmore for the light of your mercy dispensed,\nthan for the process of creation.\nFor in one we recognize the creator,\nwhereas in the other, creatorship is recalled\nas well as grace.\n\nWe recognize\nnot only the one who fashioned us, but also the one\nwho atoned for our sins,\nnot only the one who invented us, but also the one\nwho did good for us,\nnot only the one who established us, but also the one\nwho took pity on us,\nnot only the one who formed us, but also the one\nwho gave us possibilities,\nnot only the one who authored, but also the one\nwho humbled himself for us,\nnot only the one who designed us, but also the one\nwho performed miracles,\nnot only the one who started us, but also the one\nwho gave us light,\nnot only the anointed, but also the shepherd,\nnot only the healer, but also the caretaker,\nnot only the protector, but also the physician,\nnot only a supporter, but also a commander,\nnot only a victor, but also a king,\nnot only a creator, but also sweetness,\nnot only the giver of all gifts, but also a\ngenerous sponsor,\nnot only always patient, but also forgiving,\nnot only not angered, but also unvengeful,\nnot only sharing our sorrows, but also\nreading our hearts,\nnot only providing comfort, but also refuge,\nnot only supremely compassionate, but also God,\nnot only endless goodness, but also blessed in all things.\n\n\n# III.\n\nNow, as you created me, before I existed,\nand you revealed yourself as my sustenance,\nand I pray that you might reinstate my soul\ntogether with the tabernacle of my body in\nthe spotlessness of the clean holiness of\ntheir former being so\nthat your limitless marvels\nmight be bestowed more amply, frequently\nand increasingly\nupon the ever-renewing present rather\nthan upon the fading shadows of ages past.\nAnd when recounting my sins,\nhowever much the wings of my mind can\nbear to remember,\nmay I be justified in your name, Almighty\nin confessing my own stains upon my soul, and\nmay you forgive the baseness of the many sins\nI have revealed,\nAlmighty, seer of secrets, savior of all, so\nthat I might not, due to lack of good news,\nslide back and long for my former ways.\nEnvying with the Psalmist those who have been\nsaved by baptism,\nand wounded in my soul by the thorns of sin,\nmay your hand not press on me again more heavily\nmaking the burden of my transgressions greater than the\nsweetness of your gifts.\nRather, free me through your blessed Holy Spirit,\nI pray you, Lord of all, from the laws of sin and death.\nSpare me from falling with weakness before\nreaching the dawn of your truth as written in the\nScriptures.\nFor wherever forgiveness reigns, sin is banished,\nand wherever your living word gives encouragement,\nthere is no despair.\nAnd wherever your gifts abound, debts are dissolved.\nAnd the hand of God being close by,\nnothing is impossible.\nRather, everything basks in light, filled with strength\nand invincible potency.\nYours is salvation, life, renewal, mercy,\nand at the same time,\na sweet kingdom, incorruptible and glorified forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73357,12 +75597,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 50", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nSince there is no salvation for souls without Christ\nand there is no light without the sight of the eyes,\nnor is there sweetness of the sun without\nthe rays of dawn,\nin the same way there is no remission of sins\nwithout confession of secrets and the baring of the soul.\nFor what good is purity,\nif you are judged with the Pharisees?\nOr what harm are my transgressions,\nif I am to be praised with the tax collectors?\nWhere is it written that Joel was punished,\nfor repeating three times the distress of his soul?\nMight a holy man be blamed for reminding us\nof the Last Judgment?\nIs it possible that Isaiah can be called a man of\nunclean lips, when he stood apart from the deeds of\nthe house of Israel?\nAnd how can God, who took on Adam’s body out of\nsympathy for me, be considered blameworthy for\npraying to his Father like a sinner?\nHow can the proverb be interpreted:\n“The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,\nbut the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.”\nFor he, who does not confess the error of Adam\nto his own heart, and like the fortunate king who took\nupon himself the sins of his ancestors,\nconsider the sins of all his own\nshall lose his righteousness, like one who thinks our\nhuman nature incorruptible.\nAnd as it is written, a heart can not make\na merry countenance in expectation of the good news\nif one does not, as taught by Christ’s apostle\nexperience sorrow and repentance.\n\n\n# II.\n\nNow, I must memorialize\nthe ancient counsel of the sage,\nadvice even our Lord saw fit to repeat\nwhen the ungodly gather,\ndo not go sit at the head of the table among the haughty\nthe place David and Jeremiah advised,\nas a hard and fast rule, to avoid.\nBut rather sit with the contrite, those humiliated by sin,\nand stricken by the fear of retribution on\nthe great day of judgment,\nthose who have humbled themselves willingly with the\nleast of those on earth.\nWith them God on high rejoices.\nAnd I dare to be deemed worthy of this rule\nin order to be ranked among the chosen on\nthe seats of bliss and to escape the rebuke of the prophet,\nwho remarked about the arrogant:\n“Do not come near me, for I am pure, and who can\nlook upon me?”\nThus drawing upon blessed David’s immeasurable\nhumility, I say with him:\nI am like an animal,\ndeprived of sensibility and besieged by evils.\nMy wounds have festered and become putrid\nbecause of my incorrigible stupidity.\nAnd even like certain of the chosen in Assyria, who were\nspotless in soul, but who by their own willful impudence\ncondemned themselves,\nI say with them in the words of the great priest Ezra,\n“I am unable even to lift up my face to you, God.”:\n\n\n# III.\n\nI, like a mirror of mankind,\nmix with their sins my own,\nand doubling the bitterness of my own with theirs,\nI sigh with them.\nAlthough there was no need to paint in harsher tones,\nan already ugly picture,\nyet I sinned here,\nwithout thinking, I did what was not pleasing to you\nwith many condemnable errors.\nLook upon me with compassion, Lord, for\nlike Peter caught in the act of denial,\nI am completely empty.\nShed light upon me with the rays of your mercy,\nyou who are benevolent in all ways,\nthat I might receive your blessing, Lord,\nthat I might be justified, live and be cleansed\nof my inner turmoil, not of the life with which\nyou endowed me.\nI do not dare spread my sinful hands before you\nuntil you offer your blessed right hand\nfor the renewal of my condemned self.\nNow, vanquish again my impudence with\nyour meekness,\nvisit upon me your lovingkindness toward humanity.\nAnd with your might to do all in all with all,\nforgive my wrongdoing, original, middle and last,\nChrist, king of the light of the just,\nfor whom the impossible is possible.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nI am not worthy to mention your blessed name,\nfor I am capable of dealing mortal blows to you, though\nyou do only good,\nand to deface your seal, your grace, your breath of life,\nyour gifts, your legacy, your talents,\nyour image, your stamp, your anointing,\nyour name, your son-hood, your majestic honor,\nyour bounty, your courage, your friendship,\nyour life, your light, your blessedness,\nyour hope, your glory, your majesty that\ncannot be laid low,\nyour incorruptible halo, your promise of secrets,\nwhich through you, Lord Christ, was heralded to me in\nmanifold ways.\nI am as impudent as a serpent or adder,\nwith deaf ears, shut tight with wounds,\nwhich in the face of your ever growing goodness,\nmultiplied yet more my wrongdoing,\nand completely destroyed me,\ndenied me life, and bound me with death,\na slave to decadence.\n\n\n# V.\n\nNow you who alone are fair and just in your benevolent\njudgment, who are blessed in compassion,\nI have sinned against you. I have transgressed.\nI have been unjust.\nFor these I am ruined, corrupted, guilty, debased.\nI did not obey your confessed, worshiped, praised word.\nYou who revealed yourself among us with your love\nbeyond telling,\nthe mere writing of which is great and the meaning\nof which is overwhelming,\nto you justice and glory and eternal praise,\nand for me, ashamed before you, my caretaker,\natonement, mercy and healing,\nhelp and protection for heart and soul,\npraised in all forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73370,12 +75612,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 51", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow, should I, a mortal who has strayed in every way,\nplead with another earthly being,\nto whom it is vain to cry out?\nTo a mere rational mortal, on whom it would be false to\nplace hope of salvation?\nTo a frail human, whose strength is as feeble and\nfaltering as his word?\nTo the princes on earthly thrones,\nwhose trappings are as transitory as their beings?\nTo a blood brother,\nwho likewise is needy of contentment?\nTo my earthly father,\nwhose care diminishes with his dwindling days?\nTo my mother, who bore me,\nwhose compassion waned with her retreating life?\nTo the kingdoms of this world, perhaps, who are always\nmore artful in killing than giving life?\nOr to you, beneficent God, glorified in the highest,\nwho live and give life to all and\nwho after death are able to work incorruptible renewal.\n\n\n# II.\n\nFor if we flee, it is you who come after us.\nIf we are weak, you give us strength.\nIf we falter, you set us on the right and easy path.\nIf we faint, you encourage us.\nIf we are ailing in body and soul, you heal us.\nIf we lie, you justify us with your truth.\nIf we stumble into the abyss, you direct us to heaven.\nIf we do not turn from our willfulness, you guide us.\nIf we sin, you weep.\nIf we are just, you smile.\nIf we are estranged, you mourn.\nIf we approach, you celebrate.\nIf we give, you receive.\nIf we become stubborn, you are patient.\nIf we are ungrateful, you grant abundantly.\nIf we quit, you are sad.\nIf we are brave, you rejoice.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThe blessed and wonderful Psalm One Hundred Three\ncomforts my failing heart,\nand heralds the good news of the hope of life.\nIt is an assurance of salvation\nthat triumphs over demons and the doubts of\nthe Slanderer.\nIt is like the Lord’s cross, a sign of good fortune,\nglorious and resplendent,\nunshakable in its exalted light,\ninvincible in the strength on high,\nstanding as an irresistible champion,\nunmovable forever\nagainst the immoral ways of Satan’s tyranny.\nFor the discerning soul, it is a treasure of spiritual goods,\nshowing the defeat of death and the absolution\nof sin, plus\ndouble hopes for each, now and eternally.\nIt promises restoration for the righteous.\nIts rules preach goodness and give life as\nwritten by the Spirit of God.\nThe Psalms were songs of everything for\nthe pure in heart: a testament of life, written for all people.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nFor the Old law was a faint image of the New,\nholding in its bosom good news and assurance\nof the great, blessed victory over death\nand heavenly life like that of the angels forever,\nbeyond telling.\nThey were passing writings and replaceable rules.\nTheir function was to condemn the frailties\nof transgressors,\nand they were to be taken as earthly commitment and\nweak as an intercessor for reconciliation.\nThey leave undone the words of those who prayed.\nAlthough they show the salvation of Manasseh,\nwho after so many unforgivable sins,\nin the trustworthy account of the prophet,\nguilty of spilling the blood of the righteous in\nthe city of his ancestors, a city\nrenowned for its miracles and dedicated to\nthe great king.\nEven the greatest of the seers, his teacher\nand the steward of the estate built by his forebears,\nwas hacked in two by Manasseh with horrific torment.\nAs a symbol of his revolt, cutting off the last\nhope of his salvation,\nhe committed yet another brutal misdeed and still\nhe had the arrogance to enter into unlawful battle with\nthe Most High.\nNever even having respected the honor of the creator\nand having denied the name of him who\ndwells in the altar,\nhe persecuted the spirit of God and pledged\nhimself to Satan.\nAnd that very temple of the Lord,\ndesignated by God for adoration with incense,\nthe most renowned gathering place,\nrevered by the nations as a sacred place,\nwhere angelic visions and triumphant divine signs\nappeared in brilliant revelation.\nIn that place reminiscent of heaven,\nawesome, resplendent,\nhe erected the four-faced idol Kevan as\na competing deity\nturning it into a vile cult center, a wasteland of rubble,\nand altar for satanic sacrifices,\ndispossessing the heavenly king of his regal\ndwelling place,\nstripping the most bountiful of his belongings.\nTransforming the landlord into a vagabond with\nno place to rest,\nhe built a splendid tabernacle to Beelzebub,\nand expelled the awesome name from there.\nTaking the legacy of the praiseworthy hostage,\nwretchedly degrading the stature of the most merciful,\nhe turned the hall of light into a small fox hole\nand for him who holds the world in his hand,\nhe left not even a hut from his own creation to\ncover his head.\nHe tore down the sanctuary of the Holy of Holies,\nwhere the mysteries of blood sacrifice were conducted,\nand in their place installed fortune tellers.\nHe opened many ways to sinfulness.\nLike a shepherd of destruction he led his flock\nto slaughter, a frenzied priest of waywardness.\nAnd all this he did, knowing full well the religion\nof the Laws, having as a father the great King Hezekiah,\nthe likeness of David.\n\n\n# V.\n\nHe was so resourceful in his evil-doing that\nhe blasphemed and contested God’s honor\nwith which he had been granted the glory\nof the kingdom.\nHe butchered the multitude of the pious at prayer,\na traitor to his family, a bane to his associates,\nmurderer of his intimates, killer of his companions,\nhe could not turn toward God, for he had rejected him.\nHe could not remember Abraham,\nfor he had become estranged.\nHe could not pray by Isaac, for he had cursed him.\nHe could not take pride in Israel, for he had been\nbanished from the glory of that name\nof great mystery.\nHe could not sing a song of David,\nfor he had reprimanded him.\nHe could not approach the place of penitence,\nfor he had befouled it.\nHe could not take refuge in the tabernacle of God,\nfor he had replaced it with a molten idol.\nHe could not call to Moses, for his sins\nagainst him were unforgivable.\nHe could not pray to Aaron, for he was\nguilty before him.\nHe could not turn to the group of prophets close at hand,\nfor he had killed them all.\nNevertheless, he was granted forgiveness of sins\nand regained his rule over the kingdom,\nso that you, Lord who does good,\nmight multiply and inspire\npraise beyond words that cannot be silenced,\nthrough the peoples of all nations and\nthe ages of all times,\nso that you might keep the gates of hope open for entry,\nfor the glory of your exaltation\nand as salvation for condemned people like me, to whom\nChrist gives the gift of immortality.\nPraise forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73383,12 +75627,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 52", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nBlessed in holy essence,\nboundless and unchangeable, truly good,\nworthy of adoration, happiness professed\nby all the earth,\nmost complete revelation of persistent hope,\ncompassionate and merciful,\nwithout grudges even for the blinking of an eye\ndespite the sin of many years.\nLord, with a new showering of grace and streams of\nmercy from on high,\nwho delights in pouring forth enlightenment\nmiraculously without end,\nmore abundantly than upon the nations of old\nand who opened and broadened those\nnarrow windows\nthrough which knowledge glimmers as Solomon said,\nfor him, and with him for me, a wretched sinner.\nYou lift the screen which blocked the entry\nof God’s freely given mercy,\nthe good news that was foretold\nin the Old Testament obliquely, for example:\n“Turn toward me and I will turn toward you,”\nand “when you turn and regret, then you shall revive.”:\n\n\n# II.\n\nFor he changes the gloom of twilight\ninto the brightness of snow,\nand people drenched in blood he washes white as wool.\nIn the midst of anger you still remember mercy.\nThe deserted cities of Israel are inhabited anew.\nThe overgrown byways abandoned by men\nare trod again.\nThose wasting from the famine of the soul are restored\nby your hand.\nGod withdrawing in anger, returns in mercy,\ngranting pardon and refuge, and\nin the midst of reprimands grants double protection.\nWith his heartache, he also feels compassionate caring.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThe venerable voices of the prophets, foretold\nthe liberating mission of your blessed coming,\nwhich is beyond human telling.\nFor the manifestations of the revelation\nof your good news\nand the salvation of the cross,\nare countless and varied,\nfaint and feeble,\nold and fleeting.\nYou raised your altars everywhere as testimony to\nthe blood of your new covenant,\nwhich echoes more resoundingly\nthan the condemnation of Abel’s murder.\nYour victory in the battle for goodness,\nfor a new, immortal life of grace, baptism, resurrection,\nand renewal,\nfor our kinship with you and union with\nyour Holy Spirit,\nfor forgiveness, liberation, and enlightenment,\nfor eternal purity, true bliss,\nin communion with the angels, in unfading glory,\nis the plea for reconciliation upon our lips voiced by\nour Lord on high.\nAnd what is more awe-inspiring,\nfor it is a monument to your magnanimity: the gift of\ndivine nature by election of your grace,\nuniting us with you, Creator, by partaking of your body\nand sharing in your light of life,\nthe fulfillment of the good promise,\nwhich, in Paul’s words, the Old Law did not have.\nYou, Savior, came with your father’s bounty,\nperfected and fulfilled in perpetuity\nour undiminishing hope in you, Redeemer of all.\nTo you glory with your Father,\nwith praise and blessings to the Holy Spirit,\nforever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73396,12 +75642,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 53", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nLord, Lord almighty, king of all creation,\nblessed mercy, God of all,\nwho surpasses the limits of the widespread expanses,\nyou are the sum of all infinities,\nThe solid is fluid for you, and the fluid solid.\nThere is nothing impossible for you, O terrifying,\ntriumphant power.\nFire is a refreshing mist and rain a consuming flame.\nYou can make a stone into a speaking figure,\nor turn a speaking figure into a breathless statue.\nYou honor the repentant sinner,\nand the seemingly pure you scrutinize justly\nand condemn.\nThose approaching death you release with\nthe joy of grace.\nAnd the humiliated you restore, anointing their faces\nwith cheer.\nYou rescue the one who has stumbled into a snare.\nAnd the one who wavers you set confidently\nupon a rock.\nThe one who is afflicted and sighing you make happy\nAnd the impudent you put in his place.\nAnd when our resources are exhausted\nyou perform the greatest miracles.\nFor you forgive sins and erase our iniquity;\nyou pardon our injustices and forget our sins\nas the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah predicted.\n\n\n# II.\n\nWhen I consider, deeply grateful,\nthe grace of your new salvation\nI am dumb struck by its breadth.\nFor this inexhaustible favor of your light,\nwhich you have bestowed upon a stubborn\nwretch like me,\nI shall pray to you with the prayer you taught,\nwhile continuing my writings,\nfilling the leaves of this book of mournful psalms,\nwith grieving and sighs of the heart.\nBut in doing this I have, for the pleasure of the Giver,\nmixed the cure with the pain,\nencouragement with disappointment,\nthe name of our creator with discouragement,\nomfort with sadness,\nthe sweetness of our Savior with my bitterness,\ngrace with the retribution of the Law,\nyour liberating blessing with cursed punishments,\ncomplete renewal with the death of the body.\n\n\n# III.\n\nI believe in your almighty word, hence I bear witness.\nHear the silence of my heart, Lord Jesus, and\nthe great clamor of my voice crying perpetually for you,\nwho came to share our body and our image,\nwho came also\nas a high priest not under the Law, but throwing off the\nyoke of the Law.\nInstead of animal sacrifice, you offered your\nblessed body\nperpetually sacrificed without dying and\nwithout diminishing the pardon you grant,\nnot just for those of few sins,\nbut also for those whose expectation of life is cut off.\nWith these bodies so inclined to sin,\nhow could we reach salvation, even if we tried for\nten thousand years?\nBut you God of all, for this reason,\nwillingly made yourself the sacrifice,\nand suffering death are shared in communion\nfor our pardon.\nNot that you, O fountain of purity, are forced to be\nsacrificed daily; rather you chose it through\nthe Holy Spirit\nand with the approval of the Father for\nour reconciliation.\nYou are continuously sacrificed.\nAnd you, inscrutable God of all,\ntaking on my nature for my sake and in my stead,\nfor my salvation,\nas if I were united and participating in your very being\nthrough your all-embracing body.\nAnd you, benefactor, for me and those like me,\ntaking my sins upon you,\nthough you are sinless, and accepting death,\nwhich was the punishment I, a mortal sinner, deserved,\nand on my behalf bearing guilt,\nso I may suffer with you who\nwillingly dies but remains living.\nYou are offered in the divine mystery and\ndistributed in indivisible parts,\nnot by the hands of those who deny you,\nbut by the faith of those who confess to you.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nA certain pagan priest who had converted\nfrom idolatry\nonce made a weighty decision,\nwith presumptuous expectations for a person\nsuch as he, saying:\n“I believe that with the death of my passing body,\nI will more readily attain glory and bliss\nthrough communion\nthan through martyrdom or even,\nthrough right living, wretch that I am.”\nAnd from his paradoxical observation I concluded\nthat he actually believed, that even the pious,\nwithout partaking in communion,\ncannot be truly fulfilled,\nuntil they are united in spirit through this great mystery.\nWhen he said, “You were sacrificed twice\nfor me a sinner,”\nhe meant, “you truly became me,\nexchanging my vileness with your savor,\nsacrificing your material body,\nthrough the wafer of the life of light.”\nFor these reasons, at the last supper in the upper room,\nat the first partaking of this grace,\nas the cure for incurable diseases,\nhe distributed his body and blood for\nthe forgiveness of sins.\nThis he deemed higher than martyrs’ shedding\ntheir own blood.\nBy this example of hope, he sought to show\nGod gives more weight to this sacrifice of faith,\nthan through other efforts to obtain pardon, mercy or\ngrace.\nSo much greater is the force of the divine compared to\nthe human,\nand the willing sacrifice of the Lord’s body united with\nthe divine,\nthan the offering of animal sacrifices.\nthe immortal, not the mortal,\nthe awesome light, not the shadowy darkness,\nthe eternal, not the passing,\nthe exalted, not the earthly,\nthe uncreated, not the created,\ngoodness in its essence, not corruption by nature,\nespecially since his is the willing and his the\ngiving of life,\nand he is the occasion for blessing, not a cause\nfor cursing.\n\n\n# V.\n\nNow, I pray you, compassionate Lord,\ngrant me, broken in heart and spirit,\nthe salve of life from heaven on high.\nCome sweetly to me, ill with sin.\nPardon my debts, in your omnipotence.\nAnd for my part, the truth and trustworthiness of these\nwords lie in this:\nYou, creator of all, dwell in the saints.\nAnd in the true words of Paul, as we sow,\nso shall we reap.\nAnd, the infirm of sight can not bear the glare of sun.\nBut you, doer of good, who created everything\nfrom nothing,\nlook kindly upon those who truly have believed in you,\ndeeming this enough for salvation.\n\nYou who are not limited by law,\nbut prevail over it, breaking loose from its legalism.\nFor all us sinners in our bewilderment,\nyou remain the only condition for the good news.\nTo you with the Father and the Holy Spirit,\nglory and power forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73409,12 +75657,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 54", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, in all and for all, your mercy is hope,\nLord Jesus, the first light of our eyes and our hearts,\nall good deeds, life and immortality are from you.\nTurn with compassion toward me\nand make my soul return to you rejoicing.\nFor without you I cannot be transformed anew,\nand if your will is not in sympathy with me,\nI am unable to save myself since I am condemned\nto death.\nAnd if you, my guide, did not show me the way,\nmarking the footsteps on the path that leads to you,\nI would fall into the abyss on the right and the left.\n\n\n# II.\n\nI am not proud, for I am justly scorned.\nI am not arrogant, for I am blameworthy.\nI am not haughty, for I am abandoned.\nI do not boast, for I am reduced to silence.\nI do not rebel, for I am mocked.\nI do not rejoice, for I am pitiful.\nI do not justify myself, for I am wicked.\nA horse does not go straight without someone\nat the reins,\nnor does a ship sail forth without a helmsman,\nnor does a ploughshare make a furrow\nwithout a plowman,\nnor does a pair of oxen move properly without a driver,\nnor does a cloud float in the sky without the wind,\nnor do the stars appear and disappear without\na scheduler,\nnor does the sun course through the zodiac without\nthe action of air.\nNor do I, like them, do anything except at the pleasure\nof your commandments, doer of good.\nFor you alone give life to thinking beings.\nAnd you alone maintain order in the cycle of creatures.\nAnd you alone are my salvation, as the Psalmist said,\nand you proclaim in joyous voice the good news,\nwhich resounds in the ears of the attentive of all ages--\n“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden,\nand I will give you rest and cleanse you of your sins.”:\n\n\n# III.\n\nBut what does it avail me to be cleansed,\nif I am only to be soiled again?\nAnd what use is taking communion,\nif I am to be damned to Hell?\nOr why should I glory in Abraham,\nif I have strayed from his deeds,\nI, the abominable son of an Amorite father,\nand a Hittite or Canaanite mother,\nin the words of the Prophet, as if written for me.\nI deserve to be the disinherited offspring of\nthe Ethiopian, and not the fruit of Sarah’s womb,\nin the prophet’s words, apt to me.\n\nI am the brother of Samaria and Gomorrah.\nI am a child unwashed and unsalted,\nthe unripe fruit of the unripe womb of Aholah\nand Ahoblibah,\ndoubly condemned by the Prophet Ezekiel.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd like one imperiled on the high seas,\ntossed by waves whipped up by the winds,\nI am in terror and torment,\nswept away by the wild currents,\nclawing with my fingers this way and that to hold on,\nas if borne away in the torrents of a river\nflooding in spring,\nin an involuntary and pitiful downward course.\nGulping water, unable to breathe because of debris\nI have swallowed,\nfoul, slimy, prickly seaweed,\ndragging me into the pangs of death.\nLike a drowning man, carried by the flow,\nI am wretched:\nThey speak, but I do not understand.\nThey call, but I do not hear.\nThey shout, but I do not wake up.\nThey clamor, but I do not budge.\nThey trumpet, but I do not rally.\nI am wounded, but I do not feel.\nLike an abominable idol,\ndevoid of any sense of goodness,\nmy true essence is more evil\nthan this example,\nmore heinous and reprehensible,\ndeserving to be brought before the tribunal of Christ.\n\n\n# V.\n\nAnd since I leave readers this testament\nrecording my misdeeds along the path of no return,\nthat they might pray to God through my words\nday by day,\nmay this book remain as a guide for repentance,\ncontinuously lifted in voice to you, almighty Lord,\nits letters like my body, its message like my soul.\nMay it always be present before you, O boundless God.\nAccept my pleas as from an innocent petitioner,\ncompassionate God, who loves mankind,\nblessed through all eternity.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73422,12 +75672,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 55", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nOn the wings of my soul I have soared\nthrough endless generations of mankind,\nweighing them in the scales of my rational mind.\nI found none my equal in sin.\nTherefore, I have adopted the Psalm of David\nas my theme,\nlike a stern reprimand delivered with the overseer’s staff,\n“Who equals me in my wrongdoing and iniquity?”\nAnd since these words literally apply to me,\na mortal man,\nI again testify against myself under oath,\nroundly condemning myself\nrather than letting others be banished for my words,\nso that perhaps you might pardon me,\nforgiver of my sins.\n\n\n# II.\n\nNow, here in this book, what prayers,\nwhat fragrant incense\nshall I offer pleasing and acceptable to you,\nblessed heavenly king Christ?\nIf not a prayer that you bless those I have cursed,\nrelease those I have bound, free the condemned,\ncomfort the outcast, reconcile the antagonized,\nconsole the mournful, heal the afflicted,\ncare for the shunned, protect the betrayed,\nminister to the souls of those whose bodies are wounded.\nThus, when I greet people with blessings, hear me,\nand when with curses, pay no attention,\ncompassionate Lord.\n\n\n# III.\n\nI am most wretchedly tormented,\nthe least of those who pray to you with this book.\nI have forgiven my debtors with all my soul,\nso that you might block the cruel wishes of\nmy spiteful voice.\nAnd on my knees repeatedly, I have prayed,\nwith all my heart, for reconciliation with those who\nhave betrayed me.\nI pray for them along with those who have\nshown kindness.\nFor as you are greater than I,\nmay you visit a comparable portion of mercy upon me,\npraiseworthy guardian,\nyou who are life for mortals like me,\nstrength for the frail,\nmight for the unsteady,\nfountain of wisdom for the stupefied.\nFor I am always stumbling in error,\nlike an inexperienced diver in dark waters,\nunwittingly in the snare of death,\nI did not comprehend the danger.\nI did not recognize the trap.\nI did not see the hidden devices for capturing the quarry.\nI did not suspect camouflaged traps.\nI did not sense the ambush on all sides.\nI did not feel the hostage-taking fishhook net.\nAs the Psalmist said,\n“Evils visited me, and I was unable to recognize them.”:\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd as a certain foreign philosopher aptly said,\n“Evil is death that comes without warning or reason.”\nI shall confirm it in my own case:\nLike dumb cattle,\nwe die, but are not terrified.\nWe perish, but are not astonished.\nWe are buried, but are not humbled.\nWe are shunned, but are not contrite.\nWe are corrupted, but are not regretful.\nWe are worn down, but do not care.\nWe are robbed, but we do not gather ourselves.\nWe proceed, but without precautions.\nWe are enslaved, but are not aware.\n\n\n# V.\n\nThat happy man, Job, called mortal death rest,\nand with that holy man I too would agree,\nhad I not the heavy burden of mortal deeds and\nwere I not on the path of the hidden traps, where\nthe trapsetter is invisible,\nthe present is non-existent,\nthe past unknown, and the future questionable,\nI am impatient and my nature is skeptical,\nmy legs shaky and my mind reeling,\nmy passions are unruly and my habits intemperate,\nmy body is laced with sin and my inclinations toward\nthe worldly,\nmy rebelliousness innate and my character contradictory,\nmy dwelling clay and the rain pelting,\nmy needs innumerable and perils on all sides,\nmy mind fond of evil and my desires hating the good,\nmy life ephemeral and my joys rare,\nmy delusion stupefying and my pastimes childish,\nmy work vain and my pleasures illusory,\nmy hoarding is of nothing and my storehouse filled with\nthe wind,\nmy likeness is of a shadow and my image ridiculous.\nFor when the command came,\nas St. Paul wrote,\nit found me unprepared.\nSin came alive when confronted by justice\nand I died for life and came alive for death.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nAs the Good Book foretold\nalien, evil forces, stole the wise treasure of my heart.\nWisdom waned in me, as the Proverb teller says,\nand evil impulses waxed.\nI did not fix the eye of my soul on the head of\nmy life, Christ,\nwho would have led me down the straight path.\nFor in trying to run too quickly, I dug myself in deeper.\nIn trying to reach the unreachable, I failed to reach my\nown level.\nIn pretending to greatness, I slipped from where I was.\nFrom the heavenly path, I sank to the abyss.\nTrying to avoid harm, I was permanently debilitated.\nTrying to be completely pure, I was\ncorrupted completely.\nI dodged to the left, and left myself open from the right.\nChasing the second, I lost the first.\nSeeking the insignificant, I forfeited the important.\nKeeping the small vow, I broke the covenant.\nTrying to break a habit, I picked up a vice.\nAvoiding the petty, I fell prey to the weighty.\nWhat I did, I did to myself,\nwhich is the worst testimony against me.\nOnly you are able to deliver me, a captive slave,\nfrom these things,\nrestoring to life a soul devoted to death.\nFor you alone, Lord Christ, revered doer of good,\nwith the boundless glory of the Father and\nthe Holy Spirit are blessed forever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73435,12 +75687,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 56", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAs for the agents of death,\nthe roots of the bitter fruit of the tree of damnation,\nhostile kin, intimate adversaries, traitorous sons, I now\nshall describe them in detail by name.\nThey are\nmy sinister heart,\nmy gossiping mouth,\nmy lustful eyes,\nmy wanton ears,\nmy murderous hands,\nmy weak kidneys,\nmy wayward feet,\nmy swaggering gait,\ncrooked footprints,\npolluted breath,\ndark inclinations,\ndried innards,\nmushy mind,\ninconstant will,\nincorrigible depravity,\nwavering virtue,\nbanished soul,\ndissipated legacy,\nwounded beast,\narrow-struck bird,\nfugitive on the precipice,\napprehended criminal,\ndrowning pirate,\ntreasonous soldier,\nreluctant fighter,\nundisciplined warrior,\nslovenly laborer,\nfaithless worshiper,\nworldly cleric,\nimpious priest,\nofficious minister,\nhaughty clerk,\nderanged sage,\ngrotesque rhetorician,\nimmodest manner,\nshameless countenance,\ninsolent grimace,\nrepulsive tone,\nsubhuman mold,\nlurid beauty,\nrotting meat,\nsickening flavor,\nweed-choked orchard,\nworm-eaten vine,\ngarden of briars,\nrusted ear of corn,\nmouse-infested honey,\nthreadbare outcast,\nhaughty desperado,\nclosed-minded heretic,\nirreconcilable sectarian,\nfast-talking charlatan,\nherd mentality blowhard,\nbrutishly wicked, hellishly greedy,\nunashamedly arrogant,\nfrenzied atheist, assassin ready to strike,\nsower of thorns, woeful contentment,\ndebased majesty, defiled splendor, wasted ability,\nhumbled greatness, trampled glory,\npersistent disobedience, willful error,\nnegligent steward, treacherous adviser, alienated friend,\ncorrupt official, covetous associate,\nstingy boss, crooked supervisor,\nsoul without compassion, wish without charity,\nhateful habit, insatiable appetite,\nimprudent actions, invisible damage,\nsecret curses, antagonizing events,\ncareless merchant, gluttonous exploiter,\ndrunken official, duplicitous treasure warden,\ndissension sowing emissary, sleeping doorman,\nproud beggar, rich ingrate,\ndishonest secretary, untrustworthy custodian,\nback-biting relatives,\ntardy messenger, wayward courier,\nvexing envoy, foolish mediator,\nbanished ruler, feeble king, broken-spirited emperor,\nrogue prince, plundering general,\nbiased judge, capricious rabble,\nfor enemies--cause for snickering,\nfor friends--cause for tears,\nfor writers--cause for reproach,\nfor adversaries--cause for accusation.\nFor though I was indeed called by the highest names,\nby my works I earned the worst of these descriptions.\nThus, these are the multitude of seductive devices,\nwhich I allowed to deceive me in my naivetĂ© or\nI allowed to prevail over me in my weakness,\ncondemning myself willfully to death.\n\n\n# II.\n\nNow, which of the things listed above,\nabhorrent to you and devastating for me,\nshall I offer in service to you?\nWhich of these things wrapped in corruption\nshall I present before your holy majesty?\nFor how long will your patience\nbear this many sins?\nHow much will you forgive?\nHow will you remain silent?\nHow will you even bear to listen?\nHow can you spare the rod\nwhen I am worthy of being beaten to death?\nBut you visit the mercy of your light\nin the pitch blackness of the dark side of the soul,\nto cure, pardon and give us life.\nO force that cannot be deterred,\nto you glory in all things,\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73448,12 +75702,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 57", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nChrist God, awe-inspiring name, vision of majesty\ninscrutable image of sublimity, infinite force,\nmodel of the light of salvation, defender of life,\ngate to the kingdom of heavenly rest,\npath of tranquility\nrefuge of renewal that ends sadness,\nalmighty sovereign of all being,\ncall to blessing,\nvoice of good news,\nproclamation of bliss,\nsalve of immortality,\nindescribable son of the one and only God.\nWhat is impossible for me is easy for you.\nWhat is beyond my reach was put there by you.\nWhat is inaccessible for me is close to you.\nWhat is hidden from me in my fallen state\nis within view for your beatitude.\nWhat is impossible for me is done by you.\nWhat is incalculable for me is already tallied by you,\nwho are beyond telling.\nWhat is despair for me is consoling for you.\nWhat is incurable for me is harmless for you.\nWhat is sighing for me is rejoicing for you.\nWhat is heavy for me is light for you.\nWhat effaces me is written for your power.\nWhat is lost for me is conquered for you.\nWhat is inexpressible for me is comprehensible for you.\nWhat is gloom for me is radiance for you.\nWhat is infinite for me you hold in the palm of your\nblessed hand.\nWhat is somber for me is refreshing for you.\nWhat sets me to flight, you withstand.\nWhat holds me in check, you handily turn back.\nWhat is fatal for me is nothing before your\nalmighty essence.\n\n\n# II.\n\nBut you, merciful God of all, Lord Christ Jesus,\nif you take pity on me, you can instantly find a way out\nof my predicament.\nFor the sake of the name of the majestic glory of your\nblessed Father,\nfor the sake of the compassionate will of your\nHoly Spirit,\nlook with favor upon this relentless expression of\ncontrition for my wrongdoing\nand the reproach I heap upon myself from the\ndepth of my heart.\nLook upon the distracted unreadiness of my nature.\nGrant healing for my wounds,\nand a way out for me, for I am lost,\ndeliverance from my multiple symptoms of\nimpending death,\nand the path of life, for I am wayward,\nrenewal for me who am corrupt,\nand entry into the light for me who am impious.\nAnd if I have displayed unprecedented will,\nhow much more will you show your\ncharacteristic goodness?\nAnd if a sweet fruit came forth from a thorn bush,\nhow much sweeter is the taste of immortality from\nthe tree of life?\nIf I begged for mercy for those who hate me,\nhow would you not grant me, one of yours,\na second portion, Almighty, of your\nundiminishing abundance?\n\n\n# III.\n\nNow, look at your greatness, Lord most high,\nand then look at my smallness.\nAccept this meager confession of my innumerable sins,\nyou who see everything in its totality.\nAnd as you overlooked the fall of the Rock,\nmay you ignore my vacillation, a small grain of sand.\nAnd as you immediately pardoned him for his sins,\nwhen David said “I have sinned,”\nmay you do the same with your long-suffering\nforbearance for the voice of my sighing heart,\nwhich you grant to all generously and fairly\nmerciful creator of all.\nLike a good and judicious conqueror,\nwho does not disdain me, the least of your captives,\nyou did not destroy me, but renewed me,\nwho am sustained by your blood, compassionate Lord.\nFor yours is salvation, from you is pardon,\nand to you is befitting glory in all things forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73461,12 +75717,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 58", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nLord Jesus, blessed with the Father,\nby favor of your Holy Spirit and\nall who are blessed through your blessedness,\nblessed only son of the blessed,\nno other king other than you, Christ, rules\nover my breath.\nAs the prophet Isaiah said,\nthe blessing of Jacob will come when I\nlift away his sins.\nNow, have mercy upon me, Lord, with lovingkindness,\nas you did in the past\nand bless me, your speaking, thinking vessel,\nas you did the voice of David and Moses,\nby the visitation of your word of salvation.\nMay I receive pardon with your blessing.\nMerciful heavenly ruler,\nwork a miracle upon me divinely,\nas you did for those gathered in the hall in Bethesda,\nwho were bedridden for many years.\nAmong them was a person,\na paralytic who had been stricken for thirty-eight years,\nwhom you did not refuse to heal by laying on of hands,\neven when knowing of the incurable malice\nthat awaited you on the day of your betrayal,\non the bitter night of the battle against the Lord,\nour assurance, great and beneficent.\n\n\n# II.\n\nLord, though you admonished him,\n“Do not sin so that nothing worse befalls you.”\nBut that did not deter him from being one of the first\nof the cruel accusers to condemn you to the cross.\nAnd for such a crippled, bewitched, ill-fated man,\nbrought to his knees by death, you took pity.\nLord, you are goodness beyond telling,\nwonder-filled human kindness,\nastonishing forgiveness, perplexing forbearance,\nunending sweetness, glorious mildness.\nYou, over whom compassion prevails, but\ndo not feel restrained.\nYou are overwhelmed by mercy, but are not blamed.\nYou are constrained by human kindness, but\nare not disdained.\nYou are compelled by goodness, but are not cursed.\nYou act out of love, but are not ridiculed.\nYou seek my return to you, but do not grow weary.\nYou run after me in my obstinacy, but do not give up.\nYou call out to me though I do not listen, but\ndo not lose patience.\nYou rush after me in my sloth and are not stopped.\nIn the face of my evil, you are good.\nIn the face of my total indebtedness, you are forgiving.\nIn the face of my sinfulness, you are indulgent.\nIn the face of my darkness, you are light.\nIn the face of my mortality, you are life.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThis is the message of all the books inspired for\nour benefit,\nwhich often bear heavenly fruits, indescribable\nand amazing.\nSay to me also, wretched soul that I am, Lord, blessed\nand revered in all ways,\n“Arise, take the bed of your infirmity, the place of\nyour destruction, and go to the tranquil repose of\nthe life without toil.”\nSever, with the omnipotent sword of your\ncommanding word,\nthe wrappings of the grave that hold me in the\nbonds of the underworld.\nRelease me from the strangling noose that brutally\ndemands my soul.\nDeliver those deserving death to the liberation of\nunending bliss on high\nby your life-giving and divine word.\nDo not hesitate, do not delay day by day,\nso the heavy burden of sin does not break my back,\nand destroy me, bend me downward, looking to hell,\nso that the haughty one with tyrannical violence\ndisarms my spiritual defenses and turns me into\na slave of death.\nCome to my aid, good Lord who suffered\nwith us the pangs of death’s torment.\nHaving lifted from me the cross of perdition,\nas you did once from the shoulder of the guard,\nto erect the fitting monument to your courageous might,\nwith steadfast faith and unshakable hope to be nailed to\nyou inseparably.\nTo you with the Father and the Holy Spirit, glory and\ndominion, forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73474,12 +75732,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 59", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nI believe and bear witness in sound mind,\nthrough the insights of my soul and\nthe visions of my conscience inspired by you,\nthat for you, doer of good, the prayers of a sinner are\nmore desirable than the petitions of the just.\nFor the first, baring the defeated soul, awaits your grace\nand being well acquainted with the limits of\nhuman nature,\nrises up like a stern accuser,\na combatant bent on self-mortification,\na bitter critic and prosecutor who sees secrets.\nWhereas the second, looking upon his good works,\nplaces the hand of confidence on his soul,\nforgets the limitations of his nature\nand awaits rewards, rather than mercy\nFor that reason, the first is the subject of\ninnumerable accounts trumpeting your mercy,\nand the second has been passed over in silence,\nO inscrutable, awesome, and all-caring Lord!\nI shudder at the thought that my accounts,\nthe accounts of a mere mortal go too far.\nSo come Lord, do not let the gestures of a human hand\nseem grander than yours.\nDo not let your mercies be meted out in mortal measure.\n\n\n# II.\n\nBut those who have healthy organs are not in need of\na physician’s care,\nand those who with good vision have no need of a guide,\nand those who are well off do not beg at\nthe doors of the wealthy,\nand those who are well fed do not wait for crumbs of\nbread from the table,\nand those who lead a saintly life are not needy of mercy,\nso heavenly Lord almighty on high, take mercy on me,\na tormented wretch,\nfor if I were like Job,\nI would say my soul was upright and pure like his.\nAnd if I were like Moses,\nI would confidently say with him,\n“The Lord recognizes his own.”\nAnd if I were like David, I would say,\n“I have done judgment and justice.”\nAnd again in words that exceed our physical nature:\n“If I see sin in my heart, may the Lord not hear me.”\nIf I were like Elijah, I would call myself a man of God.\nIf I were like Jeremiah, I would emulate your truth\nin my soul. If I were like Hezekiah, I would proudly\nsay, with justification, “I walked before you\nwith righteousness.”\nOr if I were like Paul, I would call myself\nthe dwelling place, oracle and receiver of God’s word.\n\n\n# III.\n\nBut I, lawless despite knowing the law,\nnot only cannot present my soul to you,\nwith respectful words like them, I cannot even\nmention myself, who am totally corrupt,\nto you in the same breath as these good souls,\nfor my impious tongue is not worthy to utter your name\npraised by all creation.\nBut you, who are capable of everything,\ngrant me the spirit of salvation,\nthe sheltering right arm,\nthe helping hand,\nthe command of goodness,\nthe light of mercy,\nthe word of renewal,\nthe cause of pardon,\nand help of the staff of life.\nFor you are the hope of refuge, Lord Jesus Christ,\nblessed with the Father and Holy Spirit,\nforever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73487,12 +75747,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 60", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nLong ago I learned that blessings\nshould not come from the mouth of a sinner,\ntherefore, how can I, even regretfully,\ncontinue saying Psalms in worship\nthat earn only scorn for me?\n\nHow shall I praise my injuries and build monuments\nto my disgrace while gathering thorns in my bare chest\ninstead of lilies?\n\nHow shall I dare to say with David:\n“You have broken the teeth of the ungodly.”\nOr “The wicked shall dwell before your eyes.”\nOr “Judge me, Lord, according to your righteousness,\naccording to the integrity that is in me.”\nOr “Let wickedness be visited upon the sinful.”\nOr “Break the arms of the sinner and wicked,”\nand all that follows.\nOr “Upon the wicked he shall rain snares,\nfire and brimstone.”\nOr “The Lord shall cut off flattering lips and the boasting\ntongue.”\nOr “You have tested my heart and found no iniquity.”\nOr the next verse, “My steps have held fast\nto your path.”\nOr “I shall behold thy face in righteousness.”\nOr “I was upright before him.”\nOr the next verse, “The Lord paid me according to my\nrighteousness and the cleanness of my hands.”\nOr how can I cover up my lies, yet say with the holy,\n“I wash my hands in innocence.”\nOr wallowing in baseness brag, “I do not consort\nwith the impious.”\nOr proudly put on a happy face, pathetic though I am,\nand say, “Vindicate me, Lord, for I have\nwalked in integrity.”\nOr I, the stranger to goodness, beg you,\nknower of secrets,\n“Do not count my soul among the wicked.”\nOr when cursing others although I deserve cursing,\nI dare say, “Requite them, Lord, according\nto their works.”\nAnd shall I dare continue?\n\n\n# II.\n\nIf I should add to the previous verses,\nmy grief would double, my bitterness multiply.\nMy tears dammed up within me, daily seek\nthe comfort of the familiar scolding voice of the Psalms,\naccusing me.\nIf I add the last part of Psalm fifty,\nwhich dooms me as abominable,\ngags my speech and exposes my guilty soul\nto the prosecuting voice of God,\nhope of life is lost.\n\nI am pelted from the ramparts by deadly missiles.\nIt is a misfortune to be cursed by others, but\nit is worse to curse oneself. And if it is hard to be\nreproached by friends, how much more chilling,\nalarming and tormenting to be exposed before\nthe one who sees all.\n\nBut if one surrenders to humiliation and lashes\none’s soul with the reproaches of one’s own tongue,\none earns the blessings of the glorious and all-powerful\nLord for expressing one’s return to him\nwithout covering the traces of the past,\nfor the sake of love he cut the root of our\ntransgressions, undeterred by nay-sayers.\nThe sheep of Christ’s flock have found\nthe cure, the balm for their inner wounds.\n\nYet amidst green pastures blooming\nwith life-giving counsel, intelligent beings\nirrationally and willfully choose\nto graze in poisonous fields of delusion.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd now, since this reprimand suits me exactly\nand describes the evil situation\nwhere I myself fuel the consuming fire\npoured from on high upon my head,\nthe organ of thought.\n\nWhat did I profit from the Psalms,\nwhen I remained fruitless despite my repeated chants,\nfailing to sing with my soul as instructed by Paul?\nHow shall I mix our Lord’s words with those\nof the Prophet?\nHow can I, the greatest of sinners, the pinnacle\nof neediness,\nsay with the Saint, “Get away, you workers\nof iniquity”?\nOr how shall I, who has not fulfilled any of the multitude\nof commandments relating to grace or the law,\ncry with the happy man who has practiced all he\npreached, saying,\n“For I, your servant, have kept these commandments”\nand the words that follow?\n\nHow shall I, who am devoid of life’s wisdom,\npraise the Lord with the God-fearing?\n\nAnd how shall I add my prayer to that of the great one,\nwho said, “I sought but one thing from the Lord,\nto behold his splendor and to serve in his temple”?\n\nHow shall I seek what I am deprived of,\nwhen I hear, “It is fitting to bless the upright”?\n\nHow shall I curse my soul with my own lips, saying,\namong other things, “The gaze of the Lord is\nupon evil doers, whose memory shall be wiped\nfrom the face of the earth”?\n\nOr again in another verse,\n“The evil soon shall perish”?\n\nOr as in my case,\n“The arms of the wicked shall be stricken”?\n\n\nOr how can I pray for my destruction,\n“Behold how the sinners perish”?\n\nHow shall I utter these blessed words with\nmy unruly tongue: “I shall guard my way so that\nI do not sin with my tongue”?\n\nHow shall I boast with the innocent when I choke\non thorns of sin: “But you have upheld me because of\nmy integrity”?\n\nHow shall I, a sinner deserving double punishment,\ncomplain: “Deliver me, O God, from deceitful and\nunjust men”?\n\n\n# IV.\n\nHow shall I dare say with David,\nas if I am not a hypocrite and idolator,\n“Have we forgotten the name of our God,\nor spread our hands in prayer to a strange god”?\nFor only one laid low in the baseness of sin,\nerects bestial statues and images,\ninciting infidelity and harlotry such as the statues to\nfemale Ashtoreth, Chemosh, the male Milcom, and\nthe vile Tharahad, with lewd, naked parts like donkeys.\n\nHow then shall I not be ashamed to pray with the martyr\nwho always held fast to the good:\n“For your sake we are slain all day long,”\nand the rest of this psalm?\n\nHow can I, the most foolish and perverse of humans,\nsay: “My mouth shall utter wisdom,\nand my heart, understanding”?\n\nHow can I, a flattering hypocrite, wish\nfor the bones of sycophants to be scattered?\n\nHow shall I recall the twice-repeated blessing\nof the Psalmist: “May I walk before God in\nthe land of the living”?\n\nHow shall I with my countless sins say:\n“I have no sin or transgressions,\nI walk without sin and am upright”?\n\nOr how shall I condemn myself by saying:\n“Spare none of those who treacherously plot evil”?\n\nHow shall I say: “Like candle wax melts in the fire,\nso sinners, before the face of God”?\n\n\n# V.\n\nHow shall I, who have indulged in mortal vices, utter:\n“I have humbled myself with fasting,”\nor in the similar, “When they were sick, I wore sackcloth,\nand bowed down as in mourning and grief”?\n\nHow shall I remain calm,\nwhen the punishment facing my ilk looms before me:\n“All wicked of the earth shall drink it\ndown to the dregs of God’s unceasing wrath,”\nand “He will cut off the horns of the wicked”?\n\nHow shall I mock Jacob’s ingratitude,\nwhen I myself embrace shadows as the truth\nand succumbing to their charms,\nforget Christ’s salvation through the divine\nmiracle of the cross, this being more condemnable\nthan failing to recognize the miraculous power of\nthe Moses’ rod,\ngiven us as assurance of divine providence?\n\nHow shall I point to the perils of attacking demons,\nas if they are foreign barbarians, saying:\n“They have given the bodies of the righteous among us\nas food to the birds,” that is, to the demons of the air?\n\nHow can I claim that the alliance of my will with evil\ncan be holy, when it is “like the seed of the word\nfallen by the wayside”?\n\nHow can I name those holy who pursue the hostile path\nof wickedness, namely the rebellious conflicts of my\ncamouflaged mind, in collaboration with the devices of\nthe Slanderer?\n\nAnd for these reasons I cannot pray, “God, be not silent,\ndo not hold your peace,” or “They have plotted against\nyour holy people and said 
”?\n\nFor it is quite proper that through these words\nwe recognize the virulence of demons and their cohorts,\ncausing trouble at every turn.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nProtect us, Lord Christ, exalted son of great God.\nFortify and surround us with your heavenly host,\ndefend us from the gusting winds of the Deceiver\nwith your cross of light.\nFor although any number of offenses may be found\nin me, blasphemy is not among them.\nFor you were not gratified by\nthe destruction of the impious likes of me.\nRather with melancholy tenderness,\nyou are doubly aggrieved by the destruction\nof the iniquitous in the flood,\nconsidering their death intolerable and repugnant,\nand saying in your heart the amazing words:\n“I shall never again curse the earth because of the\ndeeds of man.”\nAnd you are greatly consoled and rejoice in\nthe deliverance of unclean men worthy of destruction,\nas in the parable of the plant that shaded Jonah,\nwhere you spared those deserving of destruction,\nO merciful Lord.\nAnd in another instance how greatly were you annoyed\nby the delay of the rain which would salvage those\nwho denied you.\nAnd in your last days you did great deeds\nbeyond telling, worthy of celebration,\ncommanding your disciples to spread your sweet\ngospel of peace to the Gentiles and all peoples far and\nwide.\nSprinkle upon me the dew of your compassionate\nfatherly love, living God, so I too may find salvation\nthrough the pardoning of my sins by your abundant\nmercy.\nAnd to you, with the Father through the Holy Spirit,\nglory forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73500,12 +75762,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 61", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nTo what end should I recite the Psalms,\nto what purpose sing them daily\nwith the harp of my voice when\nin unison they condemn and curse me?\n\nHow can I adopt the persona of\nthe happy Psalmist, to say with him,\nwhen I am doomed, “let perverseness\nbe far removed from my heart”?\n\nHow disconcerting are the many virtues\nascribed to kings, militant prophets\nand commanders of the Old Law,\ndescribed in terms befitting the angels?\n\nHow can I recite them without\ndespondence at my life,\nI the preacher of the good news,\nI disciple of the New Covenant,\nwhen I am devoid of those virtues?\n\nHow can I, in the manner of the righteous,\n“Be armed to destroy the wicked at dawn,”\nand always be ready and vigilant as told in the parable,\nwhen I have not tamed and disciplined my own body?\n\nHow can I emulate the great valor of David\nand cleanse the Lord’s city of the unrighteous,\nwhen I have not uprooted the shortcomings from\nmy own soul?\n\nHow can I lie to one who writes what has not yet been\nrevealed, saying “I have eaten ashes like bread”?\nHow can I who have not mixed one tainted drop\nof my remorse with the pure springs of the\nPsalmist’s eyes, say with him, “I have mingled my drink\nwith tears” and “I have drenched my bed with tears”?\n\nHow can I confess my mortal sins,\nwhen he who loved God with all his heart,\nassumed the sins of his forefathers as his own,\nsaying, “We have sinned with our fathers\nand have done wickedly,”\nwhile all that follows is more rightly written\nfor me than for Israel.\n\nHow can I be counted among the good,\nwhen I have not used those remedies\nconsidered effective by human lights--\nfasting to the point of death,\nand frequent mortification of the flesh until the\nbody is spent--as practiced even by the Jews and the\npagans according to their religions?\n\nWhy then should “my righteousness endure forever,”\nwhen I have done nothing to attain it?\n\n\n# II.\n\nBut so that I do not become tedious and long-winded,\nlet me compress my words,\nwords I say echoing the blessed David\nin his inspired voice, “I seek you with all my heart.”\n\nHow shall I say with him something greater than this,\n“I hold back my feet from every evil way”?\n\nHow shall I add this to what has already been said,\n“I have laid up your word in my heart so that I might not\nsin against you”?\n\nHow shall I express my emptiness as if it were fullness\nalong with the saints, saying, “Through your precepts I\nget understanding; therefore I hate every false way”?\n\nHow shall I place my lies beside the true vows\nof the meek, pledging fidelity, saying, “I have sworn\nto observe your righteous ordinances”?\n\nHow can I repeat the verdict of the angel of death,\n“Salvation is far from the wicked”?\n\nHow shall I, who am truly wicked, put myself\namong the good, who receive their just reward from the\nLord, repeating, “Do good, O Lord, to those who ar\nupright in their hearts”?\n\nHow shall I, who have strayed, sentence myself justly,\n“But those who go off on their crooked ways,\nthe Lord will lead away with evildoers”?\n\nHow shall I so ashamed, cloak myself in pious dignity,\nsaying, “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,\nmy eyes are not raised too high,”\nand the verses that follow?\n\nAnd how shall I, who has laid up my treasure in hell,\ntake words beyond human understanding\nas a sign of encouragement to the weary,\nand say with the anointed of God,\n\n“Even before a word was on my tongue you knew,\nO Lord, there was no cunning in it,”\nand the rest of this psalm from its first letter to the last?\n\nHow shall I, who conspire with miscreants,\na condemned man and depraved son, call out,\n“Do I not hate them that hate you, Lord,”\nand the verses that follow?\n\nHow shall you, my soul, the most pitiful in the world,\nwith the confidences of that sublime soul,\noffer your spirit without condemnation\nand presume to boast with him who has earned\nhis halo, saying,“Test me, Lord, and see if there is any\niniquity upon my hands,” and all that follows?\n\nHow shall I, being what I am, pray to be\ndelivered from evil and join my voice with those who\nhope in God, saying, “Guard me, Lord, from the hands\nof the wicked and preserve me from violent men”?\n\nHow shall I arise to pray with worthy David saying,\n“You are my refuge and my portion in the land of\nthe living”?\n\nHow shall I pray as if I had been in combat with evil,\nto offer the prize of victory to God the king,\nrepeating these unreasonable expectations,\n“The righteous will surround me;\nfor you will deal bountifully with me”?\n\n\n# III.\n\nHow blessed is the spiritual message of the Psalmist,\nwhich recalls our Lord’s own act of rebuffing his tempter,\ndespising all others and preferring only the first cause of\nall creation, saying, “Happy the people whose\nGod is the Lord!”\nHow sublime the exaltation of grace\nexpressed with prudent forthrightness, inspired by\nheavenly goodness, “Your saints shall bless you!”\n\nHow great the desire for the intimate kinship\nof spiritual communion\nto hope in God and built upon him\nin the joyous words of the psalm,\n“The Lord fulfills the desire of all who fear him,”\nfrom which the Psalmist concludes:\n“The Lord preserves all who love him,\nbut the wicked he will destroy.”\n\nThus, in the last chapters of songs of praise,\nthe Psalmist puts the just and unjust\non notice of their fates, repeating\nthe themes that grow out of and resonate with\neach other:\n“The Lord lifts up the downtrodden,\nhe casts the haughty to the ground.”\n\nWhat calamity, then, awaits me if,\n“the Lord takes pleasure in his holy people,\nand adorns the humble with victory.”\nWhere shall I stand?\n\nAnd if “God is blessed among the saints as Lord,”\nwhere do I fit, a stranger to saintliness?\nAnd if next to those other warnings\nI set the reminder,\n“Love the Lord, all you his saints!\nThe Lord preserves the faithful,\nbut punishes the haughty.”\nIn what camp do I find myself,\ncaptivated by the clever inventor of evil?\n\n\n# IV.\n\nFor like the leaves of the cedar tree\nwavering in the tempest, which stream down\nin the battering winds,\nso too the evil spirit tries to break\nthe fruitful branches of my life’s upward striving,\nshaped by your nurturing hand, O uncreated God.\n\nRestore these broken branches and\nlet them take root in the field of life\nunder the care of your good will,\nwith a new fruitful innocence.\nO Christ King, who\nbestows all good gifts,\nblessed forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73513,12 +75777,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 62", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow, why should I not add to the Psalms I have quoted\npassages from the Prophets?\nBut what pleasure is there from nourishment\nif my sense of taste is numbed by pain as I eat?\nAnd what advantage can I derive from the Psalms\nif I cannot take them to heart?\nFor I curse myself with them, but I do not know it.\nI am cleansed, but I do not glisten.\nThe sun dawns, but I am not enlightened.\nI eat honey but am not sweetened.\nI am filled with balm but am not cured.\nI rise early for prayers each day and return\nempty handed.\nI am mocked endlessly but never learn.\nI am warned but do not come to my senses.\n\n\n# II.\n\nTruly, my sin and lawlessness dwell in me\nand I am worn away by them,\nas the Prophet said of the transgressors,\nand the Lord taught in the parable\nof the new wine in old casks.\nFor as Isaiah foretold,\n“Rebels and sinners shall be destroyed together.”\nAnd the same is in store for me, wretch that I am,\nfor I recite the psalm, “The Lord abundantly requites\nthose who act haughtily,”\nto which I link the prophecy,\n“The Lord has a day against all who are proud\nand haughty,” when I recite,\n“The wicked go astray from the womb 
”\nand I add, “Let the wicked of the earth be destroyed”\nand “the haughty be wiped from the earth”\nand “the unjust shall be uprooted from the earth.”:\n\n\n# III.\n\nWeep for me when you read,\n“As the tongue of fire devours the dry grass,\nso shall sinners be consumed in the furious flames.”\nWeep for me also at the psalm, saying,\n“Let burning coals fall upon them.”\nAnd pray I might be pardoned from divine judgment,\nforetold by the Prophet, “If you refuse to heed me,\nyou shall be devoured by the sword.”\n\nWeep at this psalm:\n“Death shall be their shepherd.”\nPrepare salty tears mixed with the sighs of my heart,\nwhen the Lord on high says to me, along\nwith Israel, “My people did not listen to me.”\n\nSigh “alas!” for me, when another Prophet says the same:\n“Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!”\n\nTrumpet the words of the heart, heavy before crying,\nwhen God who sees all puts me to shame,\nreprimanding me with the insolent house of Jacob,\n“Look, you, wicked nations, and see; wonder and\nbe astounded.”:\n\n\n# IV.\n\nO great God, reconsider and withhold the terrible\nsword of your righteous anger,\nmenacingly raised over me.\nI am fear-stricken before you\nas you extend the bounteous care of\nyour right hand over me.\nBestow the anointing oil of life\nupon your supplicant. And glory to you\nin heaven on high, and from mortals\non earth below, throughout all the nations\nand reaches of the earth,\nforever,\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73526,12 +75792,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 63", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nOne and only king, compassionate, long-suffering,\ndoer of good who loves mankind,\nhonored with your Father and praised as the Lord of all,\nSon of the living God, never the cause of\nmy destruction,\nwho is not tempted by evil,\nwho does not seek the death of a sinner,\nwho offers salvation by your will,\nwho turns the storm of sin into the breeze of pardon,\nand transforms the fire of anger into rain,\n\nwho turned the woman that looked back from\nyour goodness, into a single statue with two natures,\nplacing her neither with the just nor unjust,\n\nwho transformed the liquidity of the sea,\ninto a wall of stone,\n\nwho caused a stream to spring and flow\nlike a waterfall from the hard rocks of the desert,\n\nwho stopped the rushing waters of the Jordan\ninto a pool for cleansing the pagans\nand fortified the walls of Jericho\nsymbolizing the destruction of Satan’s tyranny,\ndemolished by you as if it were straw,\n\nwho sweetened the poisonous waters\nwith miraculous salts, as a metaphor\nfor the conversion of evil to good,\nthat is, the salvation of the Canaanites,\n\nwho turned the bitter waters of Marah,\nthe symbol of disbelief,\ninto drinkable water with the staff of life\nthat you shouldered,\n\nwho took colorless water from the river\nand made it red as blood,\n\nwho transformed the rod into a serpent\nto prefigure your taking of our nature\nand to show how Gentiles might join the elect,\n\nwho with the blessed right hand of Moses\nforetold both your incarnation,\nO Lord on high, and through your grace,\nthe cleansing of my corrupt body\nthrough an immutable transformation,\n\nby these great signs, you have foretold\nthe rescue of long lost sinners\nby the caring art of your love,\nblessed and compassionate Lord.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAlmighty Lord, you who make the lifeless seed sprout\ngreen from the earth,\nwho make the roots of the immobile tree move,\nwho call those born of the unexalted womb,\nin your image,\nwho give children teeth to chew,\nwho make the beard grow,\nwho turn the black foliage of hair into snow,\nshowing that you reign over all.\n\nYou who transform the natural movements of the lips,\nin the words of Job, into meaningful expressions,\nwho shake the earth and its pillars from\ntheir foundations, showing that through all creation,\nonly you are indestructible.\n\nYou who vary the elements in their passing states\nand combine them in stable compounds,\nshowing that for the multitude of sins\nyou are likewise able to remember and forgive.\n\nYou train the inanimate dawning sun as if in a bridle,\nshowing you can, if you wish, tame\nthe evil impulses of nature.\n\nAnd you regulate the speechless globe of the moon\nso that it is empty or full,\nproviding illuminating hope to on-lookers\nthat you are able to restore a sinful body\ndepleted of goodness\nto its original state of innocent fullness.\n\nYou who gather and scatter the speechless constellations,\nlike a flock of sheep, symbolic of the hope\nof life that you, Lord, with your sweet providence\ndispense in your abundant mercy\neven to the slow of tongue who do not petition you.\n\n\n# III.\n\nYou who chart the safe path on the sea\nbetween death and life, testifying that even\nin that perilous place we are protected through you.\n\nYou who, when the water is boiling in the cauldron\nlike a furious storm of sin, calm it with the word\nof your will.\n\nYou, whose mere glance toward the earth\ncauses tremors, rouse the animals to alert\nthe thinking beings.\n\nYou who shake the limitless density of the land\nlike a small sailboat tossing on the waves,\nby which you put all creatures on notice\nthat you are decisively in control,\nholding the whole world in your hand.\n\nYou who sow dead bodies in the earth,\nkeep them whole and bring them to life again,\nreceiving the perishable create the eternal,\nwho join the spark of life with mortal matter,\nwho with but an utterance created the entire universe\nin an instant and adorned its barrenness in every way.\nYours is the strength and the power,\nthat varies the seasons of the year,\neach with its fitting splendor.\n\nYou who command the unspeaking things as if\nthey were alive,\nyou who by merely giving the signal set them\ninto motion,\nyou alone weave the daylight and darkness with your\ncreative art that is beyond telling.\nYou who after the first order of creation\nstill performed miracles to the amazement\nof blessed Job.\nYou fashioned yet more permanent creations,\nand during your incarnation performed other\ncelebrated acts without number.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nYou who took our transgressions upon yourself,\nyou who graced us with your righteousness,\nyou who offered yourself as the ransom of\nour reconciliation,\nyou who never abandoned mercy,\nturn the impious toward good, God-fearing works,\nthe stupefied toward the sobriety of a vigilant heart,\nthe impure toward the holiness of shining character,\nthe sinners toward the purity of the tranquil\nsaintly nature,\nthe broken toward wholeness impervious to accidents,\nthe weeping toward the joy of unclouded bliss,\nthe hopeless toward the love of union,\nthe embarrassed toward firmness,\nthe people who live in darkness toward the light of\nendless joy,\nthe captives of death toward life incorruptible.\nFor your name is glorified, Lord Jesus,\nprofessed in all ways with the Father and the Holy Spirit,\nin heaven on high and on earth below\namong all the inhabitants therein,\nforever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73539,12 +75807,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 64", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nIn everything and toward everything you are upright,\nO God.\nYou judge justly and weigh fairly.\nYou measure truly and dispense blessings.\nYou act with goodness and uphold steadfastness.\nYou seek clarity and embrace enlightenment.\nYou admonish with experience and examine\nwith forbearance.\nYou are without guile and arrogance,\nbut in all things show gentleness, tranquility\nand compassion.\n\n\n# II.\n\nYou showed your justice, heavenly wisdom of\nthe Father’s unchanging genius,\nwhich those adopted by grace confirm through\nthe witness of their unstinting praise.\nAs told in the holy sayings of the Gospel,\n“They wailed, but I did not mourn,\nthey played their flutes, but I did not dance.”\n\nYou advised me in my lawlessness, “Do not\nbreak the law,” but I persisted in errant ways.\n\nTo me a sinner, you said, “Do not lift your horn,”\nbut I opposed you. Oblivious and wayward,\n\nI never noticed that you lift and lower the\nroyal trumpets, as told by Habakkuk,\nDavid and Zechariah.\nYou wanted blessings for me, merciful Lord,\nbut I lean toward the damnation I deserved.\nI preferred anger to calm,\ngroping in darkness without light,\nas the Scripture says,\nI answered your compassionate voice with impudence.\n\nThrough Isaiah you said, “Even the worm is immortal,\nthe fire unquenchable,” the condemnation unending,\nthe place eternal, the image terrifying.\nAs in the words of the Psalmist, I neither heeded\nnor understood, but walked in the darkness of\nintellectual blindness.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThrough prophecy you revealed, “he who upholds\nthe law shall be blessed,”\nwhile I was quick to cut corners.\nLord Jesus, you raised David with his writing,\nas a spiritual monument, a rock inscribed by you,\nwhile he, one of the elect, said,\n“I shall keep your law at all times,”\nand repeated, “forever and ever” for good measure.\nBut I, despite these words of warning and\nencouragement, was unmoved.\nI rushed to worship Baal instead of God,\nas Elijah said in his satirical admonition,\nI stumbled along the path of doubt,\nbeing of two inclinations, then\nI abandoned the right.\n\nI have the example of Moses with his laws\nreturning from the dead and I have the\nletters of the prophets, written on the tablet of my heart\nand the books of the apostles as bindings on\nmy fingers.\n\nAnd you, Lord of all, through your good news,\nyou raised countless dead from the grave,\nstill I remained on the blacksmith’s anvil,\ninert, with a heart of stone,\nmore disbelieving than the five brothers of\nthat rich man, who in that apt parable,\nwere as numb with gluttony as Belial,\nyet I was unrepentant.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nBut grant your mercy nevertheless upon\nmy forsaken self, good king, who inspires awe,\nloves humanity and cares for his people,\nliving and holy Lord who always\nenlightens us by the power of the mystery of\nyour exalted cross.\nIn my barren fields, hardened by sin,\nfilled with folly, with fruitless heart,\nI am still sustained by your compassion, Almighty.\nMy soul shall be refreshed with springs of water\nand my sore eyes quenched with streams of tears,\noffered for purification and salvation and released\nby your acceptance, all-giving Lord, who is\nglorified forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73552,12 +75822,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 65", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow, I foremost among the impious and\nchief among sinners, the leader among the unjust,\nthe first among debtors, the epitome of a criminal,\nthe Attica of vice, not of virtue,\nhave dared to say what is unspeakable:\nI have boasted of my humiliation,\nI have exposed my secrets,\ndisclosed what I have covered up,\nshown what I have hidden,\nspread what I have stored up,\nsplattered the gall of my bitterness,\ndivulged my collaboration with the evil one,\nsqueezed my pus-filled wound,\nacknowledged the abyss of my sins,\nput on the mask of hypocrisy,\nlifted the veil from ugliness,\nstripped away the clothes from shamefulness,\nlaid open my baseness,\nthrown up the dregs of death,\nrevealed the abscessed wounds of my soul to you,\nChrist high priest.\n\nNot sparing my soul from peril,\nnot conceding to the love of my body,\nI examined down to the oldest roots.\nShowing no leniency for the human condition,\ncutting my tie with the brotherhood,\ndestroying the castle of my heart,\nI struggled with the stalking of my desires, as if\nambushed by death, laying open the storehouse\nof secrets,\nsetting forth before great God this hoarded treasure,\nappearing before the judge as a prosecutor,\nforeseeing the ominous things to come,\nbreaking my pact with the Devil,\nI recanted my vows to the Deceiver.\nI took refuge in you, Lord Jesus, for a victorious end to\nthis battle, marshalling the troops for war,\nplacing my hope in the word of God to fend off attacks,\nI delivered the forces of darkness to those\narmed with light.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAnd now, Christ, maker of all creation,\nSon of God on high,\nI have been blamed with these words,\nand struck with these blows,\nplease do not reproach me again at the Last Judgment,\nyou, who are our immortal, almighty king, who does\ngood in ways we cannot understand or express.\nDo not reproach me with my self-abasement and\nself-accusatory humiliation,\nby which I of my own volition condemned\nmyself relentlessly,\nand through this book of psalms confront the face of\nSatan with his shame,\nand strengthen the stamp of your cross upon my face,\nwretch that I am.\nLet the glow of your seal add luster to my countenance,\nthe sign of your steadfastness be stamped upon my face,\nthe shape of your cross be fixed upon my cheeks,\nthe glory of your miraculous work be marked\nupon my forehead,\nthe luster of your seal not be taken from me,\nthe radiance of your blessing not fade from the\nsight of my eyes,\nthe token of your assurance not be removed\nfrom my head,\nthe glory of your scripture not waver upon the firm\nthreshold of my mouth,\nyour praiseworthy armor shield the sentiments\nof my heart,\nyour four-winged radiance spread through the four\nelements of my being,\nthe power of your cross of salvation come to the aid of\nmy outstretched hand, and\nmay the sanctity of your valor realize the goodness\nof the offering for which my hands were made.\n\n\n# III.\n\nWhen I depart this life, may holiness not abandon me.\nWhen I am wrapped in shrouds may your honor\nnot leave me.\nMay my soul not reject your unwavering salvation.\nMay your image engraved upon my soul, Giver of life,\nnot be effaced.\nMay the mark of your blood not be erased from my\nsoul’s altar bearing your seal.\nMay it dwell with me in my grave.\nWhen my miserable body is worn out may your\nanointing grace stay with me,\nthat I might on the day of renewal meet you,\ngroom of glory\nthat I may be known as one of yours,\nthat I may be clothed with your accomplishments,\nthat I may be honored by the assurances of\nyour greatness,\nthat I may be adorned with the robe of your baptism and\npardoned with mercy.\n\nGive me, O compassionate Lord, your cloak\nof incorruptibility,\nyou who suffer with the sins of my body.\nDo not let the Blasphemer gain control over your people.\nMay the one who wears out my soul waste away.\nMay the tricks of those who live on the dark side not\nhaunt me.\nMay the abyss of my final rest be blessed in your name,\nO merciful Lord.\nMay the cell of my captivity be filled with your mercy.\nMay the place of my torture be broken open\nthrough you.\nMay tranquility reign, my keeper, in my prison of terror.\nMay that dark womb nourish me toward resurrection.\nMay your hope preserve me that chamber of anxiety.\nMay your hand protect me upon the cot of my torment.\nMay your wings shield me in the house of anguish.\nStay with me, Lord most praised, in my room of peril.\nA thousand woes upon me,\nfor once I was angelic, but now I am in the abyss,\nonce I was celebrated, but now I am pitiful.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nNow again, you who are blessed by all creation,\nby the heavenly and the earthly,\nand by the denizens of Hades,\nyou who were banished for me for no reason,\nfor it was I who strayed and was estranged,\nI who was stupid, lost, and found worthless.\nI was abandoned, extinguished and destroyed.\nI erred, I was caught, I was rejected.\nI was alienated, enslaved, and degraded.\nI was cursed, I became wretched, drunken and wasted.\nI was swallowed up, I was deceived, I rebelled.\nI was corrupted, died and destroyed completely.\nYou had no hand in this evil,\nfor you are only unchanging good.\n\n\n# V.\n\nNow, when your will is upon me, darkness becomes\nlight for me.\nWhen your lamp of hope is there, night is like the dawn.\nWhen your body is taken during communion, I live\ndown my shame.\nBut I do not consider my soul living,\nfor death is inevitable.\nNor do I consider it dead,\nfor renewal is not doubted.\nAnd though I see the path to life closed before me\nbecause of my unpardonable sins\nstill paradise is open before me\nbecause of the good news of salvation.\nFor the discouragement of bad news makes me\nless anxious than the encouragement of your hand\nextending salvation.\nTherefore, grant mercy, O Lord,\nfor all those who raise voices in thanks,\nLord blessed forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73565,12 +75837,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 66", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow, whoever believes in the healing prayers\nin this humble book, praying sincerely\neven if he be one of the sinful,\nI too join him with my words.\nFor if he is among the just,\nmay we find mercy together through these prayers.\nAnd if he finds happiness,\nleaving misery to me alone,\nI shall nevertheless bear witness for him.\nBut may he remember Solomon and his inspired words:\n“Who can say, I have a pure heart,\nor boast of being clean of sin?”\nFor no man born on earth is free of sin.\nAnd not one of us is special because of our swiftness,\nnot even if wings carry us to the heights.\nTherefore, we should be careful, think twice,\nfor if we are on a pedestal, as Paul taught,\nwe may fall to the ground,\nlike the just judge who formulated this rule.\n\nBut let the righteous take this warning as a crown,\nso as not to fall from the unreachable heights.\nAnd may the condemned see this as hope of salvation.\nby which to rise from the perdition of spiritual death,\nand live in hope.\nAs for me may this message be like words\nengraved on a monument never to be effaced\na token of my wretched mortal soul\ncrying out forever, unsilenced,\nwith the echoes of uninterrupted sighing.\n\nMay my bones, undone\nin the earthen cloak of the tomb,\nconfess this with a soundless voice,\nand my body turned to dust\ndeliver these prayers to you\nwith an indiscernible cry, seer of secrets.\n\n\n# II.\n\nLord of compassion, fount of mercies,\nbounty of goodness,\nSon of the one on high, Lord Jesus Christ,\nhave mercy, save us, and love us humans.\nLook upon my peril. Gaze upon my broken heart.\nAttend to my misery.\nSee the confusion of my unending anxiety.\nCome to my aid in my time of mortal torment.\nTouch me, curing my most wretched infirmities.\nLend a kind ear to my pitiful sighs.\nListen to the silent cries from the depths of\nthe abysmal grave.\nMay the voice of my failing body in prayer reach your\nall-hearing ears\nand since the pledge for my life’s redemption\nis imperishable,\nso too let your love be also constant.\nGently help me, enfeebled with infirmity as I am.\n\n\n# III.\n\nDo not hold a grudge against me, the image of death.\nDo not berate my breathless figure.\nDo not strike me while I am suffering the\npangs of death.\nDo not deal harshly with the cracked clay vessel\nof my existence.\nDo not double your wrath: I am crushed by\nyour sentence.\nDo not condemn to destruction my already\ndilapidated structure.\nDo not throw stones at me: I am already like a dead dog.\nDo not fulminate at me sternly: I am like a\ncrushed flea.\nDo not roar at me mightily as if upon some braggart:\nI am lower than dirt.\nDo not summon me for trial by ordeal:\nI am but cast away ash.\nDo not view me, who am but vanishing dust,\nas your opponent.\nDo not deem me, who am loathsome sediment,\nto be your foe.\nDo not ward me off, a contemptible abomination,\nas if I am a warrior.\nDo not set me aside as material for hell:\nI am worthless refuse.\nDo not scold me again, who by this multitude of\nwords already\nhas been admonished many times over.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nSo these are the fruits of my broken and contrite heart\noffered in prayer from my wretched tomb shrouded\nin darkness.\nEstablish your blessed word in me indelibly\naccording to the yearnings of my heart.\nFor although I speak among the living,\nI am dead to you, who are beyond reach,\nyet on the day I succumb to death’s destruction,\nmay I be saved through my faith in your\nall-powerful orders.\n\nNow, I pray you, Lord Jesus Christ,\nlook upon me with compassion\nand do not let me be the cohort of Satan.\nAt the time of my pitiful burial, in the lifeless sepulchre,\nechoing with death, attend to the voice of my sighing\nheart lifted in reconciliation,\nLord, our sole benefactor, who cherishes our spirits,\nalmighty God, who loves mankind.\nMay your kind Spirit dwell with me,\nshedding light upon me in the darkness.\nMay the venerated, life-giving relics of your passion\nstay with me,\nlike a treasure deposited with you,\nso they may bestow the gift of renewed life.\nWith these inexhaustible weapons I am equipped\nas stones of a slingshot made of the spirit,\nto ward off the legions of evil.\nWith you on my side Lord,\nthe battle waged against me shall be checked,\nwhen enemies rise up and attack me,\nthinking that the citadel has no troops,\nand the alarms make no sounds.\nBut I have you, Lord, as my eternal keeper\nwho slumbers not, nor sleeps.\n\n\n# V.\n\nFor even now, if the evil one in anticipation of the\nDay of Judgment\nrushes to prepare a prison without escape for me,\nI will deliver the Lord’s prayer like a deathblow.\nIf he tries to deter me as I kneel before my creator,\nif he tries to bow my face to the dust,\nmay my bowing down to God turn him back.\nIf he tries to torment me with pain,\nmay the abundant sweat mixed with the blood of our\nSavior of the world frustrate him.\nAnd if he takes my breath hostage\nso I cannot travel the path to goodness,\nmay the bindings of the creator of the universe free me.\nIf he forces me to renounce the gifts of the light,\nmay your patience in the face of mockery by\nthe enemies of God,\nsilence them, just as you did.\nIf he should barrage me with secret arrows,\nmay the arrowheads from the Father’s glorious\nquiver befall him.\nIf the veil of darkness should make my eye shameless,\nmay the blow to his blindfolded head\nby the creator knock him down.\nIf he ventures to bind up my firm hands,\nmay the reed offered by the right hand of the\ncreator silence him.\nIf with jeering mockery he toys with me,\nmay the Almighty’s fortitude in the face of ridicule\nmock him back.\nIf he conjures a spell upon me,\nmay he be foiled by the Almighty’s slap to his face.\nIf at twilight he attacks shamelessly under\ncover of darkness,\nmay he be confounded by the radiance of the light of\nyour revelation, Lord.\nIf in the heat of noonday he thinks he can dry my roots\nwith scorching blasts of the sun’s furnace,\n\nmay he be uprooted and dried by the power of\nyour sign of light.\nIf he plots to deprive me of the grace of your breath,\nmay he be humiliated by the spit, which the Lord of the\ncherubim endured for me, a sinner.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nIf he dares show his biting teeth,\nmay the silence of the mouth of our heavenly\nLord shut it.\nIf he causes desires to gnaw at my soul,\nmay the nails that pierced the creator hurt him.\nIf he tries to lead me astray along the path of\nunjust thoughts,\nmay the nails in the feet of our Lord, beyond\nunderstanding, hold him fast.\nIf he tries to make me drink a vile potion,\nmay the vinegar mixed with bile that was given\nour Savior to drink, embitter him.\nIf he lures me into eating from the first wood, the tree of\nthe forbidden fruit,\nmay the terrible spectacle of the second wood seize and\ncompletely vanquish him.\nIf he tries to teach me to rebel against\nGod’s commandments,\nmay the nod of the infinite Godhead destroy him.\nIf he tries to kill me by wounding and persecuting me,\nmay the lance that pierced the side of the creator of\nAdam cut him down.\nIf he envelops me in the pangs of hellish pain,\nmay the burial shrouds of the Lord who holds all\ncreation, wrap him up.\nIf he tricks me into gazing into the abyss of death,\nmay the living God who survived the stone\ntomb kill him.\nIf he takes joy in my mortal errors,\nmay he, with his crooked will, die again,\nwhen the immortal God, resurrected in glory,\nrenews all mortals.\nIf he is cheered by the prospect of release\nfrom these small bindings after a thousand years,\nmay he tremble again for the later chains that will\nbind him forever\nin the place of unremitting torment without end.\nIf the first blow is bad news for him,\nwait till he finds out about the inextinguishable\nfires of hell that await him and\nhis angels at the Last Judgment.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nAnd for me, who has sought refuge in you, Lord Jesus,\nour only king, absolute and mighty,\ncreator of heaven and earth\nand every beauty in it,\nI await your coming with anticipation\nand hope in the mercy of your cross.\nI fall at your feet and kiss the traces of your footsteps.\nI confess my sin and publish my wrongdoing.\nI beat myself up and entomb my heart in sighs.\nI am wounded by pangs of conscience and smolder with\nfiery breath.\nI burn with the salty dew of tears and my insides are on\nfire with grief.\nI am parched by winds of despair and suffocated by the\nfoul fumes.\nI am weak with words of grief and shaking with\nwretched cries.\nI suffer with sorrowful afflictions and my soul\nshakes in alarm.\nI am tossed on the waves of the storm and jolted by the\ncrashing of the waves.\nI shudder at the news and am devastated by the memory\nof terror.\nI melt at the sight of the tribunal and am mortified by\nyour threats, great Lord.\nHear me, compassionate Lord, who pardons us,\nwho loves mankind,\nwho is patient with us, sweet beyond words,\ngood day, dawn of our longing,\nfor you are capable of all things\nand when I give up the spirit, you will be my\ngreat salvation.\nTo you with the Father and the Holy Spirit, glory forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73578,12 +75852,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 67", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nBut since your judgment, Christ God,\nis much more lenient toward me\nthan toward Satan the forefather of evil,\nand because of him, “the Son of God was\nrevealed among us that he might destroy the works\nof the devil,”\nwhereas for me, he came to restore my\nworn-out image,\ntaking our image in its essence,\nhe united in himself the image of great God\nin indisputable unity.\nHe graced Satan with none of this bounty,\nand upon me he poured forth everything\nin abundance.\nHe did not suffer on the cross for Satan,\nbut for me he is continuously sacrificed.\nSatan does not partake in life,\nbut I am eternally favored with salvation.\nSatan is not protected by the cross,\nbut I am fortified by this sign.\nHe is banished from the light,\nbut I am joined with glory.\nGod did not promise him peace even on earth,\nbut he made me an owner of heaven.\nGod cut off his guarantee of hope,\nbut continued mine forever.\nGod confined him to a herd of pigs,\nbut in me God dwells more firmly\nGod compared him to a scorpion,\nand he called me the light of the world.\nGod made him resemble a snake,\nbut he placed the seal of his name upon me.\n\n\n# II.\n\nBut I abandoned the favors of God,\nwho created so many good things, and I\ngave in to my inclination toward evil,\ngazing downward with him at the bottom of the abyss:\n\nLook at me,\nI am\nunworthy of good, undeserving of favor,\nincapable of love, drawn in by the strands of sin,\nwounded in the depth of my inner organs,\na broken palm tree,\nspilled wine,\ndamp wheat,\nbreached mortgage,\nripped up verdict,\ncounterfeit seal,\ndeformed image,\nsinged garment,\nlost goblet,\nsunken ship,\ncrushed pearl,\nburied gem,\ndried up plant,\nbroken beam,\nrotten wood,\nmutilated mandrake,\ncollapsed roof,\ndilapidated altar,\nuprooted plant,\noily filth on the street,\nmilk flowing through ash,\na dead man in the battalion of the brave.\n\n\n# III.\n\nMy pitiful soul, though you heard the warnings\nfrom Jerusalem\nand were told parables about Babylon by the prophet,\nyou did not listen, leaving me\nridiculous on the one hand,\nand scandalized on the other;\nhere accused, there reprimanded;\nhere mocked, there insulted;\nhere scorned, there opposed;\nhere confused, there abandoned;\nhere weeping, there sobbing;\nhere doubt, there finality;\nhere grief, there chastisement;\nhere calamity, there the court of judgment.\n\nHere I am,\nwith no right to speak, nor opportunity to plea,\nwhere days are without number and time has no end,\nwhere there is no bridge of hope, nor door of mercy,\nno protecting right hand, nor helping hand extended.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nBut you are refuge and you yourself are salvation,\nyou are rescue and you are pardon,\nyou are bliss and through you is blessing and mercy,\nO Lord, who alone is mighty, living, and beyond words.\nLord Jesus Christ, God who does good, be\nblessed, blessed and blessed again,\nwith your Holy Spirit exalted forever,\nin the glory of your great Father’s essence,\nforever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73591,12 +75867,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 68", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, recalling the stern wrath described above,\nthat awaits me from God,\nhow can I stop these new laments\nand how can the flow of tears from my eyes be dried?\n\nWere I to take the rushing streams of the four rivers\nthat water Eden and the rest of the earth to its\nfarthest reaches and direct them to the\nsprings of my eyes,\nthey would not cool the flames\nof my soul’s mortal sins.\n\nOr were the prophet’s wishes to come true for me\nand my head were inundated with water\nand upon my light of vision, fountains of tears\nwere to gush, still it would not suffice to measure the\npain of my broken soul.\n\nAnd were the tragic cries of a wailing woman,\nheart and soul pierced with pain, joined together,\nthey would not suffice to incant the melody\nor the harmony of the lament of my soul’s devastation.\n\n\n# II.\n\nThe day of my birth was cursed,\nand not that of Job or Jeremiah,\nfor their birthdays are to be celebrated and not erased,\nsince the world is not worth even one of them.\n\nBut looking at me, who does not deserve the light\nor any portion of goodness, they should curse the day\nI was born, I,\na destructive child, deadly neighbor, sower of sin and\nsatellite of iniquity.\n\nI, who did not honor the covenant of life\nthat you established, God, doer of good,\nand did not walk in the path of your life-giving salvation.\n\nI did not gather the harvest of grain,\nto store for my sustenance\nwhen snowy days of trouble come.\n\nI did not build firm walls\nand did not put a roof on my house\nto protect from the stormy gusts of air.\n\nI did not lay aside a store of sacramental wafers\nfor the endless journey to cure the turmoil of my hunger.\n\nI did not address you with prayers of supplication,\nso that I might have the audacity to stand before you.\n\nI did not amass the reward of salvation through\ngood works to assure the renewal of my soul.\n\n\n# III.\n\nOn my life’s journey I did not settle accounts with\nmy adversaries, so that I might here and now escape\nthe stern hand of the judge.\nI did not approach with hands filled with blessings and\nin hope of exoneration with the lawgiver.\nI did not look forward,\nnor did I protect my back,\nnor was I armed to the right,\nnor was I shielded from the left,\nto be spared harm in the battle.\nI did not dress my cavalry in armor\nnor did I equip my footsoldiers with arms\nthat I might send them to the front.\nI did not gather the early fruit,\nnor act in time for the late harvest,\nand now I am in limbo, bereft of goodness.\nI do not have the flower of innocence,\nnor the oil of mercy.\nHere, in the darkness of the night, without a\nflicker of light, I doze in the stupor of mortality\nwhile the trumpet call summons me.\nOnce again I have arrived without wedding clothes,\nand have left the oil of good works behind.\nAnd the door to the wedding feast has closed\nbefore me.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nHow shall I find comfort for this much grief?\nHow much of the light of hope can I mix\nwith the darkness of doubt?\nWhere should I dig in my heels?\n\nOn what shall I fix my eyes?\nWhat calm can I await?\nTo what peace shall I lift my hands?\n\nShould I look for the vault of the heaven from where\nthe fiery rain fell on Sodom, as written?\n\nOr where earth\nopened its voracious throat\nto swallow Dathan with the army of Abiram?\n\nDare I flee my keeper\nto be captured by terrible leviathan?\n\nOr should I travel among those beasts, who\nwould be quicker to ask vengeance from the creator\nthan Elisha did against the pagan youth of Bethel?\n\nOr shall I turn to the expanse of clear skies\ncovering the Egyptians in thick darkness?\n\nLook to the birds on high\nthat feed like vultures on bloody carrion?\n\n\n# V.\n\nWhat good is it to be brave as\na lion among the weak\nand then be devoured by wasps?\n\nOr to be delivered from the bears’ claws,\nonly to be engulfed in blood-sucking flies?\n\nIf I sit down to rest, impudent fleas swarm around me\nlike flecks of flaming ash from a fire.\n\nIf I escape being impaled on the horn of a unicorn,\nmy flesh will crawl with the chewing of little worms.\n\nAnd even huddled in the darkest corners of my closet,\nI could be accosted by the foulness, like heaps of dead\nfrogs, to disgust me.\n\nIf stand in the middle of a field,\nI can be surrounded by swarms of locusts.\n\nBut let me leave aside the grasshoppers and caterpillars,\na mighty army, together with the palmerworm and\nseemingly lifeless canker, and the hardened\nwater pellets of hail and the destructive frosts,\nwhich may to the eye seem less destructive,\nbut when wielded by God with his eternal wrath and\nstrength have struck down, laid low, and\ndriven out the high and mighty Pharaoh\nwith his rod of violent repression, vanquishing him.\n\nThese then are the visible manifestations of the\nhidden afflictions, the spiritual chastisements\nand unseen inner torment,\nsuffered by the Egyptians for their injustice.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nBut you, almighty creator of everything, Lord of all,\nwho rise up again at my enemies and scatter them,\nhave mercy on me, with compassion.\n\nExtend your hand of salvation to me,\nperplexed, weary, wayward, and worthy of death.\nFor you alone are known as God,\nglorified forever, with the Father and your Holy Spirit\nunto the ages of ages.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73604,12 +75882,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 69", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, by your hand, great Lord and God,\nartist who with infinite ingenuity shaped my being\nin the crucible of your love where\nI am daily refined but never purified,\ncontinuously stirred but never smooth.\nIt is in vain, O silversmith, my heavenly architect,\nthat you squander effort working on me.\nAs the prophet said in his well known parable,\nmy wickedness does not melt away\n\nBecause I am woefully misguided\nI dare speak out of turn\nlike some pathetic, possessed maniac,\nincreasing the burden of my sin\ninstead of finding a means of reconciliation.\n\nAnd so that the punishment awaiting me in the next life\ndoes not come as a shock,\nextraordinary event, or unprecedented calamity,\nhe planted as a reminder here in my body\nthe token of that first curse,\nthat through this small insignificant speck the larger\nillness might be examined.\n\n\n# II.\n\nFor in the womb are born and spontaneously multiply\nall manner of squirming worms, three hundred ten\nintestinal worms gnawing in secret,\nburning tumors, stinging ulcers, abnormal growths,\nand host of other sweaty, noisome, disgusting, annoying,\nitching conditions.\nPlus other savage marauders,\nlike demons attacking in the night,\nbarbarous mercenaries from the legions of darkness,\nwith the ferocity of Arabian wolves,\nstalking with their head curved down, their\nmelancholy color,\ntheir crooked, hooked jaw,\nresembling that of a scorpion,\npiercing with crude thorns,\nsucking, drawing blood,\nto turn the bed of rest into an instrument of punishment.\n\nAnd when one lifts one’s hand to give them their due,\nthey sense the danger in advance that man poses\nand immediately take flight\nwith their hairless bodies and dwarfed size,\nand hopping this way and that like grasshoppers\nthey scatter,\nand with the slyness of foxes conspire against the good,\nescaping through secret places, as if they have found\ndeliverance from death.\n\nAnd such vile and miserable beings,\nnot only pursue the vulgar and motley mob,\nbut also powerful and fearsome kings,\ndriving them to the attic of their habitations,\nor even forcing them to live outside.\n\nCourageous and brave men, who rule crowds\nand govern peoples and take cities of nations,\nhave witnessed defeat at the hands of this virulent\nforce, saying\n“We were not able to resist these tyrants, stronger\nthan ourselves;\ntherefore we took flight and reached this point.”:\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd why have I discoursed about\nsuch miniscule and abject things worthy of ridicule?\nOnly because they are the most powerful and irrefutable\nadvocates for the Divinity,\nreminding me of what awaits me in the next life, these\nbitter fruits\nof my unruly body.\nAnd even so deadly diseases happen upon us and\neat away relentlessly.\nFrom these there is no riddance\nother than through physical pains which foretell\nthe punishment that is to come.\nAnd there is no place to seek refuge,\nto escape them by fleeing.\nFor without the signal of your will,\nhuman efforts and methods fail.\nBut you, who do good, hold in ample measure the\nlife-giving cure for everything.\nYou have but to will it, in order to save, renew, pardon,\ncure and give life.\nTo you glory forever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73617,12 +75897,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 70", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow let me lift this discussion\nfrom the lowly things of earth\nunworthy of being considered part of creation\nto the higher things.\nLet me speak of God’s serious and stern Last Judgment\nfrom which there is no escape.\nEven those the closest to God such as the Patriarchs\nor the most saintly such as the Prophets,\nor the most spotless such as the Apostles,\nor the truly chosen such as the martyrs,\nif you did not grace them with your love\ntoward mankind,\nwith your undiminishing goodness,\nunchanging providence\nand unending mercy, they would be no use for\nmy salvation.\n\n\n# II.\n\nFor even if I were to call to Abraham himself\nwith a parched mouth, as taught by\nthe parable of the rich man,\nAbraham would not provide so much as a drop of water,\nsince he too is bound by our common humanity.\n\nAnd if I were to call to Moses, also a captive of\nhuman frailty,\nit would be useless for he could not save even the man\ngathering branches on the Sabbath.\n\nAnd as for Aaron, he himself needed an intercessor.\nAnd David, he too was blamed despite his abundant\ngood deeds.\nThen there are Noah, and Job and Daniel,\nas the prophet Ezekiel explained, inspired by God:\n“As I live, said the Lord God, they shall deliver neither\nsons nor daughters from the fury to come, only they\nthemselves shall be saved.”\n\nAs for Peter, the rock of faith,\nno sooner was he out of your providential care\nthan he succumbed to human anxieties.\nI leave unmentioned multitudes of others\nhumbled by various human frailties\nwho are, nevertheless, among the eternally blessed,\nfor example, the prophet Josiah who blasphemed even\nat the altar during the divine liturgy.\nLike these there are many more making up\nan inexplicable mystery\nsusceptible to various interpretations.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd since human power to reach salvation is finite,\nwe are objects of your mercy, beneficent God,\nand fortified by you, Almighty,\ncalled by you, God protector,\nand pardoned by you, God for whom everything\nis possible,\ngraced by you, God our liberator,\nand cured by you, God our healer,\ngranted life by you, God incorruptible,\nand granted light by you, God our renewer.\n\nTherefore, acknowledging the limitations\nof my earth-born nature,\nbut taking courage from those you have comforted,\nI petition only you, Son of the living God,\nChrist blessed in all things.\nWhat is written above is further justified\nwhen we recall the wisdom written\nin the same spirit as this prayer:\n“It is better for a happy wise man\nto fall into the hands of the Lord,\nthan to fall into the hands of men,\nfor the greater the power, the greater the mercy.”\n\nThese words also suit David,\nwho when faced with three penalties posed by God\nwillingly chose a horrible death, displaying faith\nreminiscent of the living Christ,\npreferring death to the two lesser penalties\nthat involved torment without mercy.\n\nAnd if I apply these words to myself\nsearching to sustain my lost soul,\nit would not be stretching the truth.\nFor in this book of lamentations\nI seek not to disparage\nthose who have been rescued,\nfor without them how would we approach the Lord?\nInstead I aim to glorify the name of our Savior,\nand praise his grace before all people,\nproclaiming those who have\nbeen raised by high deeds\nthrough the forever coveted salve of compassion.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nEven as you are life, you are salvation,\nyou are the cure, you are immortality,\nyou are bliss, you are enlightenment.\nGrant me peace from the torment of my sins,\nso that you might also have rest\nfrom my incessant, whining self-reproaches,\nyou who thrive on nothing but the salvation\nof us humans.\nBlessed forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73630,12 +75912,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 71", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow let us turn to the happy and glorified ranks\nof the saints,\nsome of whom stumbled slightly but were steadied,\nsome who doubted a bit but were enlightened\nby the radiant purity of the Holy Spirit,\nthus exhibiting the faults of the ordinary humans\non the one hand, while on the other,\nthe ways and virtues of angels,\ntranscending the laws of nature.\n\nAnd now, those who are blessed\nby the divine mouth of our Father Christ,\ncommanding all alike, the chosen, celebrated, adored,\nand praised,\nwho are worshiped as members of the body of Christ\nand who are prepared as temples of the Holy Spirit,\nin whom there is no hint of darkness,\nbut who are instead completely guileless\nand glow with righteousness\nand are godly as much as humans can be:\ntheir faces are open and unashamed,\ntheir piety uplifting and intrepid,\ntheir lives sober and irreproachable,\ntheir worship stalwart and unwavering,\ntheir ways courageous and unflagging,\ntheir truth uniform and unshakable,\ntheir valor strong and indomitable,\ntheir vision is bright and unconfused,\ntheir wisdom is heavenly and invincible,\ntheir image is clean and incorruptible.\nBy their examples and in the memory of their names\nGod taught us to pray and\nthrough them find help amid troubles,\nas your word, Creator, teaches.\n\n\n# II.\n\nBut I am unworthy in all things,\nand fail, as much as I try.\nAlthough I am awake, I dream.\nAlthough I seem alert, I am dazed.\nWhile worshiping, I blaspheme.\nWhile praying I err.\nIn my work I balk.\nWhile seeking forgiveness I sin.\nIn my resting, I am restless,\nWhile advancing, I retreat.\nWhen I walk, I walk backwards.\nTo the light, I bring darkness.\nTo sweet flavors, I add the bitterness of absinthe.\nInto the warp of goodness, I weave the woof of evil.\nAfter being lifted up, I stumble again.\nI blossom, but do not bear fruit.\nI speak and do not act.\nI promise but do not perform.\nI make vows I do not fulfill.\nI reach out but pull back.\nI display but do not offer.\nI bring forth but do not give.\nWhile tending my wounds I reopen them.\nWhile reconciling I cause friction.\nI complain without cause and am justly condemned.\nI am enrolled and immediately removed.\nI set sail and immediately lose course.\nI set out and do not reach the harbor.\nI poise myself and yet I fall.\nI am filled and yet drained dry.\nI am put in order here and fall apart there.\nI am gathered here and set afire there.\nI lay a foundation but do not finish building.\nI gain little and waste thousands.\nI save almost nothing and spend without end.\nI give others advice I do not practice.\nI study constantly but never learn the truth.\nEven when the evil is extinguished I keep stoking it.\nI take heart a bit, then feel yet more abandoned.\nI gear up and then as quickly slacken.\nI patch this and rip that.\nI pull up nettles and sow thorns.\nI try to ascend and am dragged down.\nI go to the nest as a dove and come out a crow.\nI arrive almost white and leave totally black.\nI pledge myself to you and then dedicate myself\nto an assassin.\nI face forward but turn back.\n\n\n# III.\n\nI am cleansed but am covered with soot.\nI am washed but am soiled just the same.\nI pretend to be David and act like Saul.\nI mouth truths and lie in my heart.\nI give with my right hand but steal with my left.\nI cultivate wheat but sow tares.\nI have retreated from the heights of wisdom and become\nas I was.\nI put on the face of an angel but have the mind of a devil.\nI am steady on my feet but wavering in my mind.\nI confess my shortcomings falsely but really err.\nI feign righteousness but am truly false.\nI pretend to be in the choir of the meek but strut\nwith the demons.\nI am praised by humans but reproached by you,\nall-seeing God.\nI am blessed among the earthly but\npitiful among the children of light.\nI am pleasing to the most vulgar but have fallen\nfrom your eyes, great king.\nI flee your just tribunal but plea before the impious.\nI reject the noble but cavort with the repulsive.\nI dress my body up with finery\nbut my soul in spotted feathers of a jay\nI approach to make a pact but I am rejected as a traitor.\nToday I am pure and filled with the Spirit\nbut tomorrow I am a crazed fool.\nI disobeyed the Lord’s commandments but\nfollowed the serpent’s suggestions.\nI became high and mighty but submitted like a weakling.\nI bear the burdens of the day but leave\nwithout my portion at pay time.\nI talk big at a distance but am nonplussed when\ncalled to account.\nAt sunrise I appear prosperous and at sunset I loiter\nempty-handed.\nI sit upon the elder’s chair but take counsel from fools.\nI fall asleep complaining and awake in terror.\nI plough the fields of my desires with special\ncare for evil.\n\nI who am\never the prodigal son,\nbanished forever, unrepentant, wayward,\ninconsolably dejected, in self-imposed captivity,\nservant of death and corruption,\nmercilessly tormented, condemned\nbeyond salvation,\ncut off beyond rejoining, extinguished\nbeyond resuscitation,\nbruised beyond healing, destroyed\nbeyond hope of the next life.\nAnd if sterner reproaches than these are needed\nagainst my unruly soul,\nI hereby commit them to writing,\nI heap them like kindling\nto fuel the flames of Hell.\n\nI am the jealous offspring of the new heavenly Adam\nas Cain was in the first instance toward the old and\nearthly Adam.\nAnd in this world I bear upon my soul the\nmark of blame, not with the respiration of breath,\nbut through the wordy torment of my conscience.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd where is salvation now?\nNow when the father of faith, Abraham, in our\ndesperate damnation, turns my cruelty in life back\non my soul after death?\nWhen the great prophets stone me with the\nharsh words?\nWhen the brave one adorned in glory, kills me\nwith the thrust of a javelin?\nWhen the image of the true Lord wipes me from\nthe face of the earth with Achor?\nWhen the most sublime of God’s chosen delivers me\nto the vengeance of the Gibeonites?\nWhen the seer born of the prophet slays me\nbefore the Lord with the Amalakites?\nWhen the zealot of God lays waste\nwith fire from heaven?\nWhen the consummation of the dim images of the old\ncovenant and the herald of the new covenant\npours upon us the winnowing of the chaff?\nWhen the chief of the disciples takes my life\nwith Sapphira’s?\nWhen the one judged admirable by the Holy Spirit\nmixes the savor of death with teaching of life?\nMeanwhile, the assembly of the blessed are\nindifferent to me, both angel and human,\nthose valiant forces poised to obey God’s command,\nthe universe of the world, and the elements,\nthe inanimate and the living,\nby whom I am forever scolded and condemned\nand reminded of terrors to come\nunsettling the tranquility and stability of my life\nlike waves whipped by storms.\n\nAnd if one were to study with wisdom\nthe diverse sea creatures\nfrom the smallest to the largest,\ncountless without number\nswarming in infinite schools, bustling\nand gliding this way and that through\nthe sea of my body, the truth of all\nI have written would be confirmed.\n\n\n# V.\n\nBut you yourself blessed, immortal king,\nkind, heavenly Christ, who loves mankind,\nonly-begotten Son of the living God,\nalmighty exalted beyond understanding,\nbeyond telling, who pardons us, awesome God,\nscold the undulating agitation of my soul\nwhipped up by the winter tempest,\ncalm the uncontrollable commotion in my troubled heart,\nwhip in the reins and subdue the wild urges of my mind.\n\nBy the grace of your command, O great God,\nmay the storm that constantly pelts me with\nicy gusts be calmed.\nPut to rest and banish forever\nthe multi-headed ghosts of secret shame\nwhich attack like pirates in their vulgar ways.\nConsider my constant prayer\nwhose letters are written with ever\nrenewed compunction in this book of the sighs of my\ngrieving heart.\nLift me out of the abyss of death’s\ndepths and grant me miraculous life among the\nredeemed prophets.\nReceive my repentance, my self-reproaches\noffered with savory smoke.\nConsole me, for I am out of hope,\nand ease my afflictions and sighs.\nTo you with the Father and the Holy Spirit,\nglory, honor and dominion forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73643,12 +75927,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 72", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow to you, monastic brothers,\ncommunities of disciples,\nyou who, bared-handed, have enlisted\nas the Lord’s soldiers, in expectation\nand hope of infinite good gifts,\nfor you I set this table with\nmy burnt sacrifice of words.\n\nAccept this testament of confession\nfor the edification and salvation of your souls.\nKnow through it the frailty of the body.\nRemember the warning words of the prophet\nand the apostle: “No flesh should exult\nbefore God.” And, “No one,\nnot a single person, is just.”\nDo not forget the word of the Lord:\n“Even when you have done the things commanded,\nadmit, we are useless servants.”\nDo not permit yourselves to become the prey\nof the Deceiver. Take heed from the scriptures.\n“The chosen are also Devil’s food.”\nFor even I, who nourish you with these meager fruits,\nwillingly blaming myself\nwith myriad accounts of all the incurable sins,\nfrom our first forefather through the end\nof his generations in all eternity,\nI charge myself with all these, voluntarily,\ntaking the debt of all your wrongdoing upon me.\n\n\n# II.\n\nI heard an innocent person once speak\nin a most unfitting manner to the One\nbefore whom no earthly being can be justified,\nand it was not pleasing as he boasted,\n“I have never committed adultery\nor fornication or tasted any other mortal pleasures\nof this world.” Saying this is no less impious\nthan those deeds. May God forgive him,\nfor even if what he said were true\nby bragging he shows he has not progressed\nas far as he has fallen.\nRepeating Zechariah’s words to the people of Israel:\n“Praise the Lord that we are great,”\nechoing the voice of the Pharisee who exalted himself.\n\n\n# III.\n\nBut since I am condemned before the all-knowing God,\nwho has placed the unseen passions of the mind\nonto the scale of justice, and seeks to judge me\nby these in the most just way, I shall not\npretend before the all-seeing,\ndeceive the one who scrutinizes everything,\nlie to the one who counts faults when conceived, not\nwhen committed,\nuse trickery to favorably impress the Great One,\nmask my unruly debauchery with the appearance of\na good person,\ntake on airs of self-discipline while being\nforever weak,\ndress in other’s costumes,\nbask in other’s splendor,\nput on finery to cover the ugliness of my body.\nNo one is so sinful as I,\nso unruly, so impious,\nso unjust, so evil,\nso feeble, so misguided,\nso foolish, so crafty,\nso mired, so embarrassed, so blameworthy.\nI alone, and no one else,\nI in all, and all in me,\nnot the pagans, for they did not know,\nnot the Jews, for they were blind,\nnot the ignorant, for they were confused and\nlacking wisdom.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nI was dubbed, “Master,” which testifies against me.\nI was called, “Teacher, teacher,”\ndetracting from the praise of God.\nI was said to be good because of my miserable plight.\nI was considered a saint by men,\nthough I am unclean before God.\nI was proclaimed just, though by all accounts\nI am ungodly.\nI reveled in the praise of men,\nthus becoming a mockery before the tribunal of Christ.\nI was called, “Awake” at the baptismal font,\nbut I slumber in the sleep of mortality.\nOn the day of salvation I was named “Vigilant,”\nbut I closed my eyes to vigilance.\nSo here are judgment and blame,\nnew reprimands and old sentences,\nshame to my face and turmoil to my soul,\npleas about seemingly small things and very\ngrave matters.\n\n\n# V.\n\nBut you alone, Lord God, who loves mankind without\nrevenge and with forbearing,\non the day of the terrible last judgment\nwhen my sinful soul is judged, take into account\nthese heart-rending words of self-reproach\nand contrition that I myself have written instead\nof waiting to hear them from you, God of compassion.\n\nNow lift away and annul the instances of my unruliness\nfor I am bound to you with all of the desires of my soul.\nTake away the reproaches of shame and scandal.\nCover the ugly appearance of my naked body\nwith your mighty right hand. Lead me to your rest,\nfor I am worn by the burden of sin.\nSet me on the path of goodness toward you,\nrefuge and life. Remember me in mercy\neven after death, O perfect life.\nBlessed in heaven and honored on earth,\npraised always in all things forever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73656,12 +75942,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 73", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nKing on high, mighty and awesome,\nblessed Lord Jesus Christ,\nfor someone like me who despairs of salvation\nonly you can change the curse of mortality\ninto the blessing of life.\nOnly you can turn the discouragement of blame\ninto joyous praise,\nshame into resilience,\nhumility into honor,\nbanishment into the hope of goodness,\nseparation into the expectation of reunion,\nmenacing words into compassionate comfort,\nfinal condemnation into a second chance\nat deliverance.\n\n\n# II.\n\nLord, have mercy on me, for I am condemned to death\non the day of my life-breath’s release,\nwhile I implore on high with my eyes’ pitiful gaze\nfixed the perils ahead on that unavoidable journey,\nwith danger on all sides in my terrified imagination.\nAnd while gazing at my cell’s ceiling where I will start\nmy outward journey, wretched and half dead with\na twisted face, with shaking fingers, muffled sighs,\nfailing cries, a thin voice, my grieving soul\nshaken by a panoply of\ndoubts, I shall lament from the bottom of\nmy invisible soul the sins I have committed.\n\nYou are able, compassionate God, to perform a miracle\nwith your everlasting might saying,\n“Be healed of your soul’s torment,”\nor “May your sins be forgiven,”\nor “Go in peace. You are cleansed of sin.”\nAnd whatever I do not manage to say at that hour\nreceive from me today in your love for mankind,\nO long-suffering, generous God, who gives life to all.\n\n\n# III.\n\nWhen I, so eloquent now with my haughty voice\nand strutting stiff-necked ways,\nam laid out a lifeless cadaver, dispossessed\nof speech, hands bound, limbs atrophied,\nlips sealed, eyes shut, as still as\na board, a half-burnt log,\ninert statue, speechless image, breathless being,\npitiful spectacle, deplorable sight,\nlamentable form, miserable face,\ntear-causing likeness, silenced tongue,\nparched grass, petal-less flower,\nrun-down beauty, extinguished lamp,\ndeserted throat, devastated heart,\nmuted trumpet, dry well, wilted body,\nfestering womb, collapsed tent, broken branch,\nseparated joint, chopped tree, sawed off root,\nabandoned house, harvested field, uprooted plant,\nalienated friend, forgotten supplies,\nburied filth, cast away trash,\nbrushed aside clutter, contemptible skeleton,\nlike some useless thing trodden under foot.\nI am needy of the prayers of others,\nwhich rise to you, compassionate doer of good,\nwith the dew of tears amplifying\nthe sighs of the faith-filled pleas\nof my wretched voice.\nJoining in my prayer, they chant\nthe responsive hymn to you, whom I praise,\nthe sign of your cross of salvation, which I worship,\nthe truth of your resurrection, which I believe,\nthe revelation of your glory, which I praise,\nthe sternness of your judgment, which I confess,\nthe reprimand of your words, which I fear,\nthe guiding companionship of your Holy Spirit,\nwhich I revere,\nthe anointing seal of the Lord at last unction,\nwhich I embrace,\nthe reigning with you, Lord Jesus,\nfor which I pray\nAnd though it was abandoned, rejected, cast away,\nbroken, though it fled, flew, gave way in the tumult of life,\nyour hope, which is a gift from you,\nperseveres as a permanent and indelible reminder.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nLook with mercy upon me in my doubts and perils,\nglorified Son of God, who alone are compassionate\nand will pardon, heal, save, protect, renew, restore,\nlift up, support,\nand create me again in blissful purity.\nYours is the power, yours is the salvation, and\nyours the mercy.\nNothing is impossible for you.\n\nYours is might, exaltation, dominion\nand kingdom without end, true essence and selfhood,\nall-encompassing absolute being,\ngoodness and light, glorified as Lord,\nto which nothing can be added or taken away,\nadored in the Holy Trinity with inexplicable mystery\nand given thanks forever also in the Holy Trinity\nin the same act of worship equally with the same honor,\nyesterday, today and forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73669,12 +75957,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 74", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nHeavenly king, Lord of all,\npatient toward all in all things,\nSon of the living God, beyond our understanding,\nyour true mercy is manifest when\nthe expectation of reward is cut off.\nYour benevolence is displayed when the mind’s\nvision is blocked.\nYour love of mankind is expressed at the hour\nwhen weakness lays siege from without and within.\nThe divine healing of your hand is manifest\nwhen life departs completely from our bodies.\nYou visit where there is no exit.\nYour greatness is clear when you cure the\nwound of despair.\nYour genuine humanity shared with us is revealed\nwhen at unexpected times you dispense salvation.\nYour victory is obvious\nwhen you open the closed door of life\nat my last breath.\nYour magnificent grace is there\nwhen you forget my wrongs and\nremember your goodness.\nYour ungrudging generosity is manifest\nwhen you include me in your care,\ningrate that I am, along with the grateful.\nI know and recognize\nthat you look upon this offering of words with\nyour former compassion as you lift away my\nsinful habits.\n\n\n# II.\n\nFor hymns rise up and chants are sung\nwhen the Lord in his kindness rewards the bad servant\nwith goodness.\nWhen he grants rest in the royal palace to one\nwho should be imprisoned.\nWhen he seats on the tufts of the sumptuous throne\none who belongs in the dust bin.\nWhen he lifts toward the heights of happiness\nthe eyes of one expecting them gouged.\nWhen he places the ring of royalty on the hand\nof him who expects his fingers cut off.\nWhen he draws into his comforting embrace\none expecting lashes of a whip.\nWhen in plain view of all he rescues\nsomeone poised for destruction.\nWhen he bestows glory as well as life\nto him waiting for death’s devastation.\nWhen he decorates with laurels\nthe head of one expecting beheading.\nThese are the blessed fruits of your magnificent vine,\ncompassionate Lord. This is the living harvest\nof your creative commandments.\nThese are the yearning thoughts inspired by\nfervor for you.\nThese are the rays of light of your\nall-encompassing radiance.\nThis is the pleasurable taste of your glorious sweetness.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThese are yours alone, Lord,\nand by you was I moved to write them.\nI pray, blessed Lord, for those gifts uniquely\nyours to give,\nGrant them, I pray you.\nOpen, Lord, the treasures of your good things,\naccording to the prayer of the Proverbs.\nDo not mix my wrongdoing in the storehouse of\nyour good things.\nDo not store up vengeance and anger, which are\nhateful to you, with compassion and mercy,\nwhich you love.\nDo not keep in your venerable creation the darkness and\ncruelty displeasing to you\nor the sin and misery harmful to me.\nDo not record with your blessed right hand\ninto the book of life\nthe mortgage of my damning debts.\nRather bring to pass the seemingly impossible,\nexalt your name yet again, Lord, by showing\nhow simple and easy these are for you.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nMy debts are too numerous to count,\nbut not so marvelous as your mercy.\nMy sins are many,\nbut small compared to your forgiveness.\nMy transgressions are frequent,\nbut your love for mankind vanquishes them all,\npowerful and almighty,\nThe stains on my soul are too numerous for me to count,\nbut for you they are very limited.\n\nThe weapons of sin produced by a miserable wretch like\nme are not so strong against life as the memory of your\ndeath, living Lord, for fending off the Destroyer.\nWhat effect can a small shadow have on the light of\nyour day, God?\nHow can the dusk withstand your radiance, great God?\nHow can my unruly frail body be placed on the scales\nwith the cross of your suffering?\nHow does the mass of all the sins of the universe appear\nto your eye, Almighty, who made everything in\nabundance? Are they not for you but a clump of earth\nthat easily crumbles or a drop of rain that splatters in all\ndirections and disappears at your command?\n\n\n# V.\n\nHow long would it take your omnipotent power to\npardon my transgressions?\nNot even the batting of the eye,\nnot the fleeting side glance,\nnot the quick glaring flash,\nnot the slightest hesitation,\nnot the hurried footstep,\nnot the raindrop’s coursing a cubit,\nnot the grasp of a line by the mind,\nnot the speed of light,\nnot the taking of a breath.\n\nNone of these insubstantial, fleeting events or\nephemeral states is so short or instantaneous as\nthe disintegration, destruction and melting of the\nglacier of my sins by your power God, Lord of all,\nJesus Christ, Son of the living God, beyond human\nunderstanding.\nYou grant the sun of sweetness to the evil as\nwell as the good, and make it rain upon both.\nYou mete out fairly the vicissitudes of life.\nThose who find contentment in the expectation\nof rewards, you pay with the spurs of temptation\nfor their few sins.\nAnd those who have chosen the worldly life,\nyou forgive with mercy\nministering your care to both alike,\nawaiting their return to you.\nTo you glory, Almighty, for the miraculous work\nof your patient loving care,\nblessed forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73682,12 +75972,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 75", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, engulfed, entranced and overwhelmed\nby the magnitude, multitude and frequency\nof your gifts that overflow infinitely with abundant,\nundiminishing plenty, on the left and right,\nto the front and back,\nI approach to offer again, great God, a testament in\npraise of the true faith,\nfor although at times\nI was ensnared and lured away\nand expelled from Paradise\nby heretical doctrines, devices of the Deceiver,\nnow by this true doctrine in upright purity,\nas a token of true grace\nagain on wings of light\nI ascend in pursuit of heaven.\nAnd as I was conceived and born in the\nwomb of the Church,\nwith pangs of spiritual labor,\nremembering the profession of faith\nand the doctrine of the Holy Trinity,\nI now should address the great\nand favored immaculate queen,\ntrue maiden of all virgins, my glorious mother,\nworthy of praise, so she may be known\nand proclaimed and the extent of her venerable\nglory might be told to the nations in the future,\nworthy of honor\nand reverence as a pure body\nheaded by the incarnate Word of God.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAnd now, in the manner of this word picture drawn by\nthe Spirit,\nthis icon upon the altar of light,\naccept me, O compassionate and blessed God,\nand let me be pardoned and cleansed through it.\nRemove the sinful stains upon my soul.\nSeat me with the innocent and the pure under\nits shadow.\nGather me up, the weakest of the house of David,\nand move me from there to the house of God,\nas the Prophet said, referring to you, Jesus.\nDo not render my comings and goings from the chapel\nvain and useless.\nDo not find the fervor of my faith cold.\nDo not consider the embrace of my greeting out of place.\nDo not deem my service without grace.\nDo not leave my worship without inspiration.\nMay the vision of your image not be fruitless.\nMay this model of paradise not be lusterless.\nMay the fireless burnt offering not be overlooked.\nMay the sacrifice of this vow in words not be cast away.\nMay the taste of your light not be my death.\nMay the cup of the blood from your wounded side\nnot be my condemnation.\n\n\n# III.\n\nTo you, Lord Jesus, one of the divine essence,\nwhom we tasted, thereby coming to know the Father\nand Holy Spirit,\nto you, teacher who taught us\nthe all-rewarding ways of the church,\nto you who dwell in this light-filled house of prayer\ndedicated to the salvation of good souls\nto you, ruler of all, Holy Trinity\nwith hearts spread forth and hands outstretched,\nwe offer this incense of words\nforever, with grace and thanksgiving.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nWe glorify you chanting hymns of praise,\nbelieving in the efficacy of the ministry of the Word,\nO good commanding cause of all being,\nHoly Trinity without beginning, peerless highness,\nunfathomable mystery, incomprehensible for our minds,\nunexaminable by our senses, beyond the capacity\nof all creation, whose greatness encompasses\nthe heavens on high and the limitless depths below,\nend of all ends and beginning of all beginnings,\none from three distinct persons,\nthree from one indivisible Godhead,\nbeyond the understanding of the unfettered mind\ntraversing all dimensions, unchanging good,\nunshakable uprightness, unadulterated image of love,\ngreatness beyond which there is nothing,\nheight which cannot be lowered,\nvision that cannot be marred,\nundiminishing beneficence, steadfast will,\nliving commandment, sign of salvation, true blessing,\nexpectation of faith, unfeignable promise,\ngenerous inheritance, trustworthy good news,\nsublime beyond reach.\nOne Father of the only Son, honored by the singular\nHoly Spirit,\nwith the richest goodness, completely devoid of evil,\nwith thanksgiving offered in a voice of blessing,\nexalted with hymns of praise beyond our understanding.\n\n\n# V.\n\nOne of the exalted, the awesome name\npartaker of the same honor,\nthe same ineffable nature,\nthe same substance of three conjoined lights,\nperfection to which nothing can be added,\nof his own free will reverently loving the Father,\nwhose likeness he bears,\nwith the aid of the Spirit of Holiness,\nwho humbled itself and descended to earth,\nwithout diminishing its inherent glory,\nto enter the maternal womb of the immaculate Virgin,\nMother of God, in whom he grew the seeds of blessings\nin that radiant field of purity\ncombining with the most perfect divine essence\nin an unfathomable unity,\nin a permeating union,\nhe miraculously combined into his divinity\nthe breath of our existence.\n\nIn this way, with the irresistible reins\nof his guiding bridle, he calmed my unruliness\nand willingly submitting to the cross.\nHe rose like the flower of the\nfruit-bearing tree of life\nupon the stem of immortality.\nHe was wounded, died\nwithout separating his divinity from\nthe flesh that is the same as ours\nand suffering forever with his physical body,\ninseparable from the essence of the creatorship\nwithin him he brought life out of the\ninstrument of defeat.\n\nDescending into the dark regions of hell,\nhe delivered the kidnapped beings of his creation\nfrom the bonds of the alienating serpent,\nand as if shaking off the stupor of sleep,\nhe forced death’s assault on him to retreat,\nand arose and came to life divinely\nascending from earth as the bread of life,\nshepherding the flock of thinking souls.\nThe world had faith in him and\nhe appeared again to his disciples as he was\nin no way diminished, for he\nhad come back whole and ascended\nin his entirety to sit upon\nthe exalted throne with the glory\nof his creatorship as simply\nas it had been formerly.\nWe confess him as God, doer of good\nand Lord of all who judges\nall the earth with justice on the great day,\nwho himself is the beginning and himself\nis the end, the first and the last,\nwho rules with his undiminished wholeness\nin light too bright to approach.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nWe praise with the Father and the Son\nthe Lord Holy Spirit, which springs inseparably\nforth from them sharing their glory,\nthe Spirit that created everything and gave life to all,\nthat Spirit which from the very beginning,\nwhen the universe was completely enveloped\nin misty darkness, brooded, designed and shaped\nthe sea which covered the earth with\nits infinite, all-powerful waters,\nan act symbolic of the true mystery\nof the holy baptismal font of light.\nFirst he created and now he acts.\nHe brought into existence and constantly\nperforms his handiwork, splendid miracles,\nforetold through the visions of saintly,\ndivine signs, amazing miracles,\nprophets, apostles, scholars,\nlearned in the teaching of wisdom.\n\nHe prepared the sanctuary for the offering\nof Christ’s blood. With mercy he ordered\nthe pardoning of souls and the healing of\nbodies in the manner of Christ.\nHe baptized with that which is greater than water\nand he renewed and enlightened through himself.\nHe daily grows stronger by his good works.\nHe bore witness to the only begotten of God\nat the flowing waters of the Jordan.\nWith the voice of the Father in the shape of a cloud\nhe appeared on Mount Tabor.\nIn the same form he protected the house of Jacob\nin its exodus from Egypt.\nOn the march led by Moses,\nhe engulfed Pharaoh with terrible winds.\nHe creates priests.\nHe shapes sages.\nHe strengthens kings.\n\nHe accords pardon.\nHe grants life to the dead in the renewal of\nthe resurrection.\nHe himself is the anointing of God made man,\nforever equally worshiped with the Father\nfor the honor of greatness of the Son,\nwith boundless glory praised forever,\nAmen.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nWe profess the true faith, unerring and pure,\nwith the kiss of our lips we greet the altar\nbuilt of lifeless stone, the body of the church\nas the dwelling place of God\nmore exalted than the most splendid heights of heaven\nand founded upon the congregation of the apostles,\nand revered by the disciples of the one on high,\nas the place where the servants of the Word worshiped.\nThis treasure of life had its beginning in\nthe upper room, the place where the miracle\nhappened on the great day of Pentecost.\nThe spirit of God radiant with power,\nfilled that beautiful house,\nbreathing upon it as a sign of the pre-eminence\nof the church,\nthen sanctifying it through this act of grace,\nthen endowing it and those within with glorious\nrenewing light. Thus the blood of the almighty God\ndistributed and offered forever\nis greater than Abel’s.\nFor Abel’s cries only the message of death\nbut this blood shouts with a blissful voice\nproclaiming life immortal.\n\nNo one has the power under heaven\nor before the sun to celebrate this awesome mystery\nexcept under the protective wing of the church,\nfor heaven is not pleased with a gift of the Lord’s body\nexcept when offered under the auspices\nof this blessed roof, and for this reason,\naccording to the Law, there is a curse of death\nupon one who makes the divine offering,\nexcept at the altar of communal sacrifice.\nMoreover, one who makes this offering,\nthe image of the soul, at a place other than the altar,\nshall be branded with blood guilt.\n\nIn the church, there is but one baptism into the\ndeath of Christ,\nso that his divinity might not unwittingly suffer\nsacrificed a second time to purify someone already\ncleansed by his light.\nThere is but one laying on of hands\nto be anointed with light so that deceit\nmight not be mixed with truth.\nThere is but one pardon,\nmore through grace than penance,\nso that the reality might not\nbe confused with appearances.\nThere is but one doctrine about the trial to come,\nso that the threat of punishment might not\nseem like mere talk about some stranger.\nThere is but one just warning for both of the elements\nof our nature, so that in the immortal power\nof the adoption into the kingdom of heaven\nthe recompense for good and evil\ndoes not appear solely for the inner soul, but\nfor the outer man too, so the true magnificence\nof the kingdom might be manifest through our earthly nature as well.\nThere is but one hope of life with the incorruptible saints,\nso that the certitude of things promised,\nas revealed to the minds of those who listen,\nmight be believed.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nThe inanimate church, venerable queen,\ngives life and rules over death,\nlike the fruit that Adam was said to have eaten.\nBut this church surpasses all animate beings,\nfor though inanimate, it performs miracles,\neven undertaking to perfect and renew us,\nby etching the image of the glorious light upon us.\nIt is written that the church shares the vault\nof heaven’s grandeur, before the hosts\nof spiritual beings that live there.\nShe uplifts bodies to soar again with\nthe lightness of the soul, endowing\nthe baser element with dignity.\nShe is not debased by her own faults,\nbut by being trampled by evil or faithless people.\nShe is an amazing sign, overwhelming our\nmind’s understanding,\nthis unthinking thing, created by thinking creatures,\nthat helps them as a superior helps its subordinate.\nShe is greater than man,\nas the invincible rod was greater than\nGod’s chosen Moses.\nShe surpasses the speaking beings\nas the miraculously blooming rod was\ngreater than Aaron.\nShe exceeds the thinking beings just as\nthe splendid cloak\nthat parted the rivers is greater than\nElijah and Elisha.\nShe delivers assistance again and again with hands\nmore saintly than militant, for her body\nof stone and mortar shares the same substance\nas the feeling beings and the saints.\nLike an immortal rock, she lives in the falling\nand rising of many\nLike the judge of all souls, she comes forth\nwith miraculous signs\nthrough curses and blessings.\nLike one who sees the unseen she exposes some,\nshelters others.\nLike the commander-in-chief she summons\nall by name.\nLike an eternal mountain she resists attack.\nLike a net cast by God she catches souls.\nSinless, unerring, she proceeds in the\nfootsteps of Christ.\nLike the praiseworthy, she lifts up her head in\nsublime magnificence, boldly and without shame.\n\n\n# IX.\n\nThe church has such great sanctity that her canons\nmake distinctions among the creatures made\nin God’s image.\nIf, despite care, an improper person\nventures through her portal,\nshe is not desecrated,\nbut rather distressed by this carelessness.\nShe is not cursed, but pardons those who do\nnot understand her sanctity.\nShe is not abandoned as if she caused the shortcomings,\nbut is tarnished by our deeds.\nShe does not permit a second approach to receive\nthe mystery of the Lord at the feet of the\nlife-giving God.\nShe does not permit that sacrament to be offered twice\nin one day so that this gift is not debased by\nindiscriminate use.\nShe has compassion for our frailties,\nthe same as one immune from passion’s corruption.\nWithout a word she judges with lordly authority.\n\n\n# X.\n\nFor she is an ark of purity\na second cause of rejoicing\nwho saves us from drowning\nin the tumult of our worldly lives.\nShe does not gather all sorts of beasts and just a few\nhumans, but rather gathers the heavenly host\ntogether with us mortals.\nShe is not tossed about on waves of agitation,\nbut rises above it to the heavenly heights.\nAs a disciple under the command of the\nHoly Spirit of God\nshe avoids iniquity.\nShe does not demand a death blow to the flesh\nbut rather guides those in her care to the\ngood news of life.\nShe is not built by the hand of Noah,\nbut is built by the command of the creator.\nShe is not adorned by Moses with the craftsman\nBezaleel, but by the only begotten Son of God\nwith the Holy Spirit.\nShe is not in perpetual motion, constantly changing\nbut is established permanently upon an\nunshakable foundation.\nLike the ark made of wooden planks,\nlacking the ability to speak and the sense of sight,\nstill she guides us anew.\nIn the image of the creator’s infinite plenitude\nshe goes ahead to prepare for us a place in\nthe light of life.\nShe strikes one dead on the spot, like Uzzah,\nif she is not shouldered like the cross in the soul.\nShe kills without pause or trace\nif she is carried off like some man-made vessel\non a cart harnessed to beasts in earthly desires.\nShe speaks not with the tongues of men,\nbut with the language of angels.\nShe does not listen with physical ears\nbut comprehends directly with her mind.\nShe does not proclaim with articulated sounds\nbut tells the message of Jesus’ works to all nations.\nShe does not have vocal cords but expresses\nherself with the breath of the living God.\nShe does not have joints of bones and nerves\nbut just as the armed throngs of Israelites\nthough the chosen army of God on high,\nwere made to stand two thousand cubits from the\nark of the covenant because of their impiety, she\nstill keeps her distance from those infected with sin\neven though they were delivered from the toil\nof brick-making in Egypt.\nEven the essence of God incarnate was\ncalled the “rock,”\nfor the thirst of the many was quenched by\nthe piercing of his side.\n\nIt is not the flow of blood through veins\nbut the rays of light from on high\npenetrating and becoming one with it\nthat give the Church life and renewal.\nIt is not masterful art of Solomon or Zurababel,\nbut the wisdom of God who holds all in his hands\nthat designs the Church.\nIt is not with the unconsecrated and common oil of Jacob\nthat is applied to it, but with the awesome\nblood and glory of the great God that it is anointed.\nIt is not a house made with the things of earth,\nbut rather the body of the heavenly light of God\nwhere he baptizes and ordains its children.\nThe Church nurtures not those born to the\nways of the world,\nbut rather those who are heirs to the\nheavenly kingdom,\nso that she might offer to the bosom of Abraham\nthose raised in her care.\nThe bridegroom of her wedding day is the\nSon of the living God.\nAnd the rejoicing entourage of bride’s maids are the\nassembly of patriarchs.\nShe makes us forget the high places of pagan\nworship where demons dwell, so that only God in\nheaven might be worshiped.\nShe is the complete refutation of the images\nof pagan gods for in her every stone Christ is exalted.\n\nShe is the open destruction of the self-indulgent\nnymph cults of the forest, so that above all other trees\nof this world, the Lord might be offered,\nlike the tree of life, in the Church.\n\nShe undermines all the false, magical, fertility idols\nbecause in her and with her the adored rock\nis established, set in light-giving rubies and living stones.\n\n\n# XI.\n\nThis graceful, God-pleasing house is free of all servility.\nIt is not the image of Zion on high, but rather\nthe true Zion as experienced in reality.\nIt is not a pagan fire altar or\na place of penance under the yoke of the Law,\nbut rather the Lord’s table which we kiss offering thanks\nfor his loving-kindness. It is unshakable,\nnever taking on a different image but rather\ngrows ever greater in the same radiant glory,\nproclaiming the heavens and representing\nheaven on earth in brilliant light.\nJust as without the Father, there is no Christ,\nso without the womb of the mother Church,\nthe soul cannot be fulfilled.\nThe infinite God would wander were it not for\nthe shelter of the tabernacle of this house of prayer.\nThe Lord of all would have no place to rest his head,\nif he did not lodge at this inn of life.\nHe is more honored in this material dwelling place\nthan in the vault of heaven on high.\nThe infinity of the divine light\nthat covered the face of the prophet and those\nwith him caused people to flee because the glorious\nradiance was overwhelming, whereas here in the Church,\nwhile celebrating those very prophets,\nthey approach the light and sing praise with\nthe host of angels. Here in the Church, God’s good will\nand repeated blessings exceed the splendor of paradise.\n\n\n# XII.\n\nThis spiritual, heavenly mother of light\ncared for me as a son more than a earthly, breathing,\nphysical mother could.\nThe milk of her bosom was the blood of Christ.\nIf one were to consider her the image of the Mother\nof God, it would not be impious.\nLike the sign of the cross of salvation with amazing\npowers and handiwork, it performs miracles.\nThe terrifying tribunal of the last judgment\nis established there visibly.\nThrough her the babbling mouths of immoral heretics\nare silenced.\nShe also has intelligent, speaking stones,\nby which she chases away the beastly and unclean.\nShe gives birth to godly mortals,\nsaints in the image of the sole God, Christ.\nShe faces east, our first place of habitation.\nShe points the way to the second coming of God,\nand making us face east guides us toward\nthe Lord’s brilliant light.\nThe dawn and rising of the sun foreshadow\nfor the creatures of earth the vision of Christ\non the day of the last judgment.\nShe drives away pain, heals the infirm, overcomes\nthe tyranny of demons.\nLike a jubilant bridal party the twelve apostles\nencircle her the life-giving fountain, the womb of life.\nSo much have her blessings and bliss increased\nand flourished that she has been called by the name of\nthe Savior himself\nand by those close to the only begotten Son,\nshe was consecrated in the name the radiant\n\nMother of God.\nFor sinners tossing about on the sea, she is a safe harbor;\nfor the heavenly choirs, a place of jubilation.\nFor the perplexed mortal, a place of sure healing.\nThe Holy Trinity, beyond telling, is glorified in her,\nthe blessed in all.\n\n\n# XIII.\n\nAnd woe to him who raises a hand in malice\nagainst the heavenly kingdom as if\nthe doctrine of the church made by hands,\nwere some physical invention\nor human artifact or earthly handiwork,\nand not the gift of life and reflection of the divine,\na foreshadow of the renewing light revealed by\nthe Holy Spirit, and the abundant gifts of God on high,\nthe altar honoring the mystery of the will of the creator.\nand the institution founded with wisdom by the right\nhand of the apostles, in a word, the gate of heaven,\nthe city of the living God,\nthe mother of all living things, free of all sin,\nand the true model of our visible, thinking being.\nHer intellectual part is the mystery of our souls.\nHer palpable part is the image of our bodies.\nAnd a new holiness surpassing the holiness of old\nand crowned with the brilliantly glorious sign of Christ.\nThose who do not confess this\nare expelled from the Almighty’s presence\nby the hand of his consubstantial Word,\ndepriving them of the inheritance of grace\nfrom the co-glorified Holy Spirit,\nand closing before them the doors to the\nbridal chamber of life.\n\nAnd we who have written this bear witness to it\nand believe in what we have composed here,\nin the name of and for the glory of the almighty Trinity\nand of the one Godhead,\nforever and ever.\nAmen.\n\nThe first prayer was my credo to the Holy Trinity and this\nprayer my avowed profession of faith to my Mother\nChurch glorified with light.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73695,12 +75987,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 76", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nGod whose mercies are diverse and abundant,\nmighty and awesome God who loves mankind,\nblessed living God beyond description\nwhose mere word can make anything possible\nand for whose mind nothing is unthinkable.\nYou alone can repay the severity of thorns\nwith sweetness of fruit.\nYou who are the author of that new and\namazing law of life:\nto do good to those who hate\nand pray for those who persecute\nand to seek salvation for those who wound\nand ask forgiveness for those who murder.\nThese are the miraculous fruits you bestow,\nwith sweetness beyond compare\nmade delectable by your divine will\nand savory by your praiseworthy lips,\nLord Christ, blessed on high\nbreath of our nostrils,\nand the strength of our dignity.\n\nYet still, human beings, earth-born prone to err\nrender evil to the hand offering good,\nbut you, light and giver of light,\ndo not heed the blasphemy, take no pleasure\nin evil, do not want their destruction and\ndo not wish these sinners’ death.\n\nNeither are you vexed or agitated,\nnor do you succumb to anger.\nNor do you act rashly.\nNor do you wane in love.\nNor do you waver in compassion.\nNor do you change in goodness.\nNeither do you turn your back or\nturn your face away\nRather you are light on all paths\nwith the sole aim of salvation.\n\n\n# II.\n\nIf you wish to pardon, you are able.\nIf to heal, you have the power.\nTo give life, you have the means.\nTo bestow, you are generous.\nTo make whole, you are able.\nTo grant, you are most bountiful.\nTo justify, you are most resourceful.\nTo comfort, you are all powerful.\nTo renew, you are all capable.\nTo perform a miracle, you are king of all.\nTo establish anew, you are the creator.\nTo re-create, you are God.\nTo care for us, you are Lord of all.\nTo rid us of sin, you are a guardian.\nTo aid us, though unworthy, you are blessed.\nTo rescue from the hunter, you are our savior.\nTo pour yours upon us, you are rich.\nTo reach us before we ask, you lack nothing.\nTo widen the narrow places, you are a comfort.\nTo call me who am last, you are a protector.\nTo steady me who wavers, you are a rock.\nTo give me a drink when parched,\nyou are a fountain.\nTo reveal to me what is covered, you are light.\nTo teach me what is useful, you are kind.\nTo overlook my faults, you are long-suffering.\nTo refrain from judging my minor transgressions,\nyou are exalted.\nTo lend a hand to a servant like me,\nyou are good master.\nTo shelter with your right hand, you are a provider.\nTo offer a remedy to me who am infirm,\nyou are a restorer.\nTo fill me when ignorant, you are a teacher.\nTo accept me when I petition, you are a refuge.\n\n\n# III.\n\nIndeed, all these are yours, Lord of mercy,\nnot just in words, but also in reality,\nespecially are you foremost among\nthe martyrs in your patient suffering,\nyou, who for my salvation\ncame to the battlefield in force to soften\nthe stiff-necked unruliness of my haughty body\nwith the tempering instruction of tormenting tribulation\nand taking our nature, bore on your blameless body\nthe penalty of grievous torment\nin order to teach by your example\nthe mercy you have for us.\nEver blessed.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73708,12 +76002,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 77", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nSince today is a blessed day,\nwhen morning came twice dividing day into\nequal parts,\nwhen the passing creatures of the earth\nwere transformed into a different and heavenly\nimmutable beings,\nwhen the high were laid low and the\nhumble raised up,\nmaking this the most awesome day of Lent, Holy Friday,\nwhen it is fitting for me to write\nthis prayer voicing joy mixed with terror, therefore\nI think it appropriate to speak now of\nthe suffering you endured for me, God of all.\n\n\n# II.\n\nYou stood, with my nature, before a tribunal of\nyour creatures, and did not speak, giver of speech.\nYou did not utter a word, creator of tongues.\nYou did not release your voice, shaker of the world.\nYou did not make a sound, trumpet of majesty.\nYou did not answer back with accounts of\nyour good deeds.\nYou did not silence them with their wrongs.\nYou did not deliver your betrayer to death.\nYou did not struggle when bound.\nYou did not squirm when whipped.\n\nYou did not fight back when spat upon.\nYou did not resist when beaten.\nYou did not take affront when mocked.\nYou did not frown when ridiculed.\n\nThey stripped you of your cloak, as from a weakling,\nand dressed you like a condemned prisoner.\nIf my Lord had not been forced twice to drink vinegar\nand gall, he would not have been able to cleanse\nme of the accumulated bile of our forefathers.\nHe tasted heartbreak and did not waver.\nThey dragged him violently and brought him\nback disrespectfully.\nThey condemned him, humiliated him by flogging\nbefore a motley crowd.\nThey knelt before him in ridicule\nand put a crown of disdain upon his head.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThey gave you no rest, Life-giver,\neven forcing you to bear the instrument of your death.\nYou accepted with forbearance.\nYou received it with sweetness.\nYou bore it with patience.\nYou submitted to the wooden cross of grief,\nlike one condemned.\nLike a lily of the field, you shouldered the\nweapon of life,\nso that your throne in my body might be protected\nagainst the terrors of the night\nturning the last judgment into a joyful banquet.\nThey led him out like a sacrificial lamb.\nThey hung him like Isaac’s ram whose horns were caught\nin the thicket.\nThey spread him on the table of the cross like a sacrifice.\nThey nailed him like a common criminal.\n\nThey persecuted you, like an outlaw, treating\nyou in your serenity, like a bandit,\nyou in your majesty, like a miserable wretch,\nyou who are adored by cherubim,\nlike a despised man,\nyou who are the definition of life, like one\ndeserving of a slaughter,\nyou, the author of the Gospels, like one\nwho blasphemed the Law,\nyou, the Lord and the fulfillment of the prophets,\nlike one who cut the Scriptures,\nyou, the radiance of glory and the image of\nthe mystery of the Father, beyond mortal\nunderstanding, as if you are the adversary\nof the will of him who bore you,\nyou who are blessed, like someone banished,\nyou who came to release the bonds of the Law,\nlike a heretic,\nyou, the consuming fire, like a\ncondemned prisoner,\nyou who inspire awe in heaven and earth,\nlike one deserving punishment,\nyou, covered in unapproachable light, like\nsome earthly quarry.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nO, sweet Lord,\nforbearing doer of good, merciful and compassionate,\nLord of all, who for the sake of infirm and unruly\nservants like me submitted to everything willingly\naccording to your plan\ntogether with your perfectly human body\nsubmitted even to the sleepy tomb of the sepulchre,\nwho lack nothing of divine perfection, being identical with\nGod who is beyond human understanding,\nyet bore human indignity with patience beyond words,\nyou rose with your body, alive and of your own power,\nin exalted light, with undiminished humanity\nand flawless divinity.\nYou are blessed for your glory\npraised for your compassion,\nand always exalted for your mercy,\nforever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73721,12 +76017,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 78", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, fallen down upon my face with my\nearthly nature, humbly on my knees in worship,\nI kiss the life-giving feet of your mercifulness,\ndoer of good.\nOffering this to your majesty,\nI pray you, my sole keeper, who loves mankind,\ncompassionate, giver of life, mighty God, who rescues\nand protects us.\n\nMay your suffering for our salvation not be in vain,\nGod, who became man for my sake.\nMay the sweat mixed with blood on the night of your\nbetrayal not be without purpose.\nMay the gifts of your light not be eclipsed, gifts\nthat you have given freely and without compensation to\na wretch like me.\nMay the good news of your grace renewed by the blood\ndrops from your side not be erased.\nMay the fruit of your suffering, offered for my neediness,\nnot be senseless.\nMay the banished Deceiver not dare\nto possess me, whom you have made.\n\n\n# II.\n\nIndeed, you vanquish the desires of the Evil One\nby your will.\nYou confound anew the one whom you once cast out\nand again defeat completely the one condemned.\nDo not hold back your words of salvation,\nwhich being offered to you\nreturn your own creatures to you.\n\nYou have done good works beyond telling\nat the unexpected moment of despair,\nwhen all movement of life had ceased and disappeared,\nyou who are immortal died and brought the dead\nback to life.\nIf you changed the Old Testament rule of\n“an eye for an eye,” do not now block the easier,\nmore flexible and yet more\nfeasible rule,\nO source of mercy, compassionate, blessed and\nforbearing King.\nSay the word, by which with almighty force,\nyou brought light into existence on the first day\nand I will immediately be made well.\nAnd though I have failed to follow your light,\nmay you visit me anyway in the form of your Father’s\nradiant dawn, and may I, an unworthy servant, be su\nmoned before you for your mercy and grace.\nThe time has run out for paying my debts,\nso turn your face toward me, when I am in pain,\nyou who lighten the darkness for the disheartened.\n\nBlock and seal the escape routes\nthrough which your good things drain away\nfrom my memory.\nPreserve in me the grace of your permanently\nsparkling treasure by which I might be found worthy\nto be called yours\nand be protected by your boundless goodness.\n\n\n# III.\n\nHave mercy upon me, compassionate Lord, I pray you.\nHave mercy upon me, almighty Lord, again have mercy.\nDo not repay my wrongdoing with pain, O Lord who is\ngood in all ways.\nDo not take from me the grace you have given.\nDo not snatch away the breath of the all-blessed\nHoly Spirit.\nDo not erase the venerable stamp of your majestic image.\nDo not raise the thorns of sin in the purity of my mind.\nDo not cut the tie that binds me to you with\nsteadfast love.\nDo not deprive me of the powerful art of speech.\nDo not weaken the ability of my right hand\nto distribute the parcels of your light.\nDo not enter my death sentence in your book of life.\nDo not record my sins and assess them to me.\nDo not recollect them and do not embarrass\nme with them.\nDo not blame me and do not trample me.\nDo not register my infirmity.\nDo not gather my destructive acts.\nDo not accuse me like some criminal.\nDo not let the tree of damnation grow within me.\nDo not unleash in me the branches of destruction.\nDo not let the buds of my sins blossom.\nDo not demand payment on my debt note.\nDo not permit these sins to mature into evil fruits.\nDo not count my prolific misdeeds on the tree branches,\nthe fingers of the earth you created.\nDo not pronounce your awesome word to confront me\nwith my iniquity.\nDo not permit my willfulness to betray my soul\ninto slavery.\nDo not honor me here, only to condemn me in\nthe hereafter.\nDo not let the lesser, passing things of this world\ndiminish my eternal good.\nDo not measure the endless glory to come by the meager\nintervals of the here and now.\nDo not pawn the incorruptible life for the valley\nof sighing grief.\nDo not exchange your light beyond words for the\nshadows of the darkness here.\nDo not drop the reins of my soul to follow my\nwayward tracks.\nDo not deem the bridge of my passing life as sufficient\nrepose for me.\nDo not keep the well of my mind in the shadows\nonly to be cleared when it is too late in the\nlife to come.\nIf you were to add all of my innumerable misdeeds,\nI would be the living dead.\nIf you were to take this all to heart,\nI would be spontaneously consumed in flameless fire.\nIf you were to examine my iniquities,\nI would completely melt away, without even coming\nbefore you.\nIf you were to allow the sprouts of sin to grow with me,\nI would be choked off by them and waste away.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAlways powerful, almighty God,\nglance my way, so that\nthe sins within me might be set to flight,\nso that your goodness might come in their stead.\nO compassionate God, praiseworthy provider,\ninextinguishable light, with unbounded power,\ncommand that the essence of my nature be\nestablished anew under the roof of my body\nand its parts, in order\nthat you might dwell here with happy fervor,\nand stay without ever leaving,\nuniting my soul with you and\nbanishing completely the corruption of sin,\nimmortal king, Lord Jesus Christ, who gives life to all,\nblessed forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73734,12 +76032,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 79", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nRemember, Lord, Lord of mercies,\nwho loves justice, true God,\nto look again upon me in my ever erring\nhuman condition.\nCheck again the circulation of my blood\nthroughout my body.\nLike a physician examine me,\nfor I am a man possessed of an unripe mind filled\nwith faulty thoughts\nas you yourself know, seer of the non-existent, for you\nalone are devoid of the darkness of falsehood.\nThis is why it is more proper to record me\namong sinners,\nI who repeatedly succumb to the weaknesses of\nhuman frailty\nlike all other mortals born of the flesh on earth,\notherwise your word might appear false.\nFor you indeed know that\n“they were made evil and their wickedness is innate,\nand their way of thinking will never change,”\nas the learned man, wise in the ways of the soul,\nobserved long ago in his writings.\n\n\n# II.\n\nEase the severity of the torment that awaits me and\nthose children of hell, the ornaments of eternal death.\n\nLift away my shameful sins\nthat are kept to reprimand me, wretch that I am,\nat the tribunal of the last judgment.\n\nLet it be for my peace that my punishment has already\nbeen given by your mercy,\nso that unbearable terror does not loom before me\nand hopelessness might not overwhelm\nlife-giving contrition.\n\nTerrifying day of judgment,\njudge that cannot be bought or deceived,\nawful shame, fearsome rebuke,\ninescapable reprimand, unavoidable torment,\nterror that cannot be comforted,\ntrembling that cannot be stilled,\ninconsolable weeping, incurable gnashing of teeth,\nuntreatable disease,\nthe curse of your awesome divine word,\nthe shutting down of compassion, cutting off of mercy.\nAt the time when the heavens will be rolled up\nlike a scroll\nand the earth will be shaken to its very foundations,\nand billowing waves of the tempestuous sea,\npursue each other, crash against each other and\ncounteract each other’s force,\njolting and shaking\nthe foundations of the earth’s thick surface\nacross its expanse\nwith forceful blows to its very core\nand with thunderous sound,\nlaying the mountains low,\nand melting the substance of stone with fire,\nwith all the other elements of nature at that time:\nthen the heavens will be cleared in purity\nand the creatures together with all their elements\nwill be recreated in new form\nand our hidden misdeeds will be made known\nand our invisible passions will be revealed\nthe conduct of each person’s inner beliefs\nwill be displayed on our bodies\nand the king of heaven will sit at his tribunal\nwith the due sentence in his hands.\n\n\n# III.\n\nWoe to me, sevenfold woe!\nAn endless perdition in the measure of this cipher, seven,\nthat symbolizes the infinity of numbers.\nWhat shall my pitiful soul do on the solemn day of peril?\nFor the thought of what lies ahead is worse than the\nevent itself.\nAs one of the prophets vividly wrote,\nit is as if one were to escape from the clutches of a lion,\nonly to run into a bear,\nand fleeing the bear,\nyou enter a house and lean against the wall,\nonly to have a hand bitten by a snake.\nAnd he makes the situation yet more terrifying,\nsaying, “Indeed, the Day of the Lord is darkness”\n“That Day is gloom and darkness, a day of clouds and\nthick fog.”:\n\n\n# IV.\n\nWhen the guardian angel who is our companion\nfor life,\naccuses us like a stern official\nand the awesome judge justly reprimands us,\nthe king’s servants rush about without delay,\ninviting some to life and condemning others to shame,\nshowing to some a cheerful face,\nbut to me appearing fearsome and horrifying.\nTo some they shall offer a halo of glistening light,\nand others mortal perdition.\nTo the just, the voice of good news,\nbut to me, the sad news of endless grief.\nWhen for the good, the victory of death itself expires,\nfor me, wayward soul, it is repeatedly extended.\nAt that point knocking at the door will do no good,\nfor my quota of mercy will have run out.\n\nThere, when the amazing and miraculous book is\nopened, showing all manner of hitherto hidden\nacts done by mankind and\nthe conduct of our human nature,\nfor which reason all beings were created,\nthen upon each body all this shall be manifest in full,\nso that before our eyes shall ineffably appear,\nthat which is sealed away from the comprehension of\nthis world.\nHere, heaven can be found at the cost of lamentations\nand tears,\nthere, these are despised and rejected like so much\nuntimely vanity.\nThe sighs of the heart that are not delivered now\nwill not be accepted later.\nKindness sparingly sown\nshall not light the way before us.\nThere, the loud-voiced accusers shall be\nthe ark against the lawless of the time of Noah,\nand the Old Testament against those who\nblasphemed the Lord, along with the awe-inspiring sign\nof the cross against us now.\nI will be accused\nfirst for breaking the natural law of our earliest forbears,\nsecond for dishonoring the tabernacle of worship to the\ninvisible spirit, and\nthird for the blood of great God.\nAnd I also accuse myself.\nHow shall I be consoled when my hope is cut short?\nFor if the forces of light, the ranks of the just,\nwho are glorified in benedictions, tremble in fear,\nand cannot bear the terrifying face of the great judge,\nhow shall I come before him, miserable wretch that I am,\na disinherited son condemned to death,\nwho does not expect a halo\nbut unbearable punishment\nand endless ruin?\n\n\n# V.\n\nHasten to extend your hand of salvation to me, for I am\ncaptured by the Destroyer,\nLord almighty beyond words, who gives all things.\nFor with your help, I might turn back from the\ngates of hell, and properly armed, I might escape\npunishment completely without harm,\nseeing with my mind’s eye the things to come,\nI am already sufficiently chastened\nby the terrifying reports of awful tortures that await me.\n\nBy your good will, I might be saved unscathed,\nand not thrown to the young lions,\nwho beg for me as food,\nso they can devour me with their ferocious teeth\nand fill their womb of death with me.\nThey, who have grown fat in this world,\nwill digest me and drag me away to the storehouse\nof surplus sin, there to consume me forever in torment.\nFor you alone are able to wrest me from the\njaws of death, and deliver me to everlasting life and bliss,\nrefuge of all, king of light,\nLord Jesus Christ, blessed forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73747,12 +76047,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 80", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, after all this despair\nand terrible heartbreak,\nangry reprimands and divine wrath,\nwith a soul completely tormented by grief,\nI pray to you, Holy Mother of God,\nherald to mankind, angel in bodily form,\nheavenly queen,\npure as air, clean as light,\nclear as the image of the sun at its height,\nhigher than the forbidden dwelling place of the\nholy of holies,\nplace of the blessed covenant, a breathing Eden,\ntree of immortality, guarded by a fiery sword,\nstrengthened and protected by the exalted Father,\nprepared and purified by the Holy Spirit that\nrested upon you, adorned by the Son who dwelt\nin you as his tabernacle,\nonly Son of the Father, and for you the first born,\nyour Son by birth, and your Lord by creation,\ntogether with your unsoiled purity, spotless goodness,\ntogether with your immaculate holiness,\nguardian intercessor.\nReceive these prayers from me, who believe in you.\nTogether with my ode to you\noffer and present them to God as your own.\n\nWeave and mix into your prayers of happiness\nand adoration the bitter sighs that I, a sinner, utter,\nyou, who are the tree of life bearing the blessed fruit,\nso that always receiving help from you and through your\ngood deeds, and taking refuge in the light of your\nholy motherhood,\nI may live for Christ, your Son and Lord.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAssist me on your wings of prayer,\nyou, proclaimed Mother of all the living,\nso that my departure from this earthly valley\nmay be without torment, leading to life in the lodgings\nyou have prepared, that my death might be light,\nthough I am weighed down by iniquity.\n\nMake the day of my anguish a festive holiday,\nyou, healer of the sorrow of Eve.\nSpeak on my behalf, beg and beseech for my sake,\nfor as I believe your purity is beyond words,\nI also believe in the power of your words.\n\nBlessed among women, I am in trouble.\nHelp me with your tears.\nAsk on bended knee for my reconciliation,\nMother of God.\nCare for me who am miserable, altar of the exalted.\nLend me a hand, for I have fallen, heavenly temple.\nGlorify your Son,\nby performing upon me the divine miracle of\nmercy and pardon, handmaid and Mother of God.\n\n\n# III.\n\nMagnify your honor through me,\nand my salvation will be manifested through you\nif you find me, Madonna,\nif you pity me, blessed among women,\nif you rescue me in my waywardness,\nimmaculate one,\nif you care for me in my fear, happy one,\nif you lift my head bowed in shame, good grace,\nif you intercede for me in my despair,\never Holy Virgin,\nif you include me in my rejection, exalted of God,\nif you show me kindness, undoer of malice,\nif you steady me in my doubt, repose,\nif you calm my anxiety, pacifier,\nif you show me the way from which\nI have strayed, praised one,\nif you appear before the tribunal for me,\nvanquisher of death,\nif you mellow my bitterness, sweetness,\nif you eliminate my separation from God,\nreconciliation,\nif you lift away my uncleanness, you who\nstamp out corruption,\nif you save me in my condemnation, living light,\nif you cut off the sound of my wailing, bliss,\nif you restore me, for I am broken, salve of life,\nif you look upon me in my ruin, you filled\nwith the Spirit,\nif you visit me with compassion, legacy given us.\nYou alone shall be on the pure lips of happy tongues.\nIndeed if but a drop of your virgin milk\nwere to rain on me, it would give me life,\n\nMother of our exalted Lord Jesus,\ncreator of heaven and earth,\nwhom you bore complete in humanity and\ntotal in divinity,\nwho is glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit,\nuniting his essence and our nature in a manner beyond\nhuman understanding.\nHe is all and in all, one of the Holy Trinity.\nTo him glory, forever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73760,12 +76062,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 81", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAccept kind and merciful God,\nwith the prayers of the Mother of God,\nthe petitions of the immortal angels, adorned in light,\nwhich sing, without ceasing, with their pure mouths\nin constant intercession for my sake.\nThe angels are virtuous, created good by you,\ndoer of good,\nThey are ignorant of evil, established by your command,\nwhich rules all, God who is.\nThey are a mighty force at your disposal, exalted God,\nholy, pure, spotless, blessed,\nsplendid, victorious and invincible,\nswift as a flash of the mind.\n\nThese guardian angels serve us and plead for us,\njust as for the barren fig tree\nthat did not give fruit for three years,\nan eternity encompassing past, present and future,\nfor a long period it took root\nin the vineyard of this world,\ndecorated with useless foliage, but gave no fruit.\nAnd this is the very image of wretched mankind.\n\nThe angels brood over us constantly.\nThey aid us in our frailty.\nThey tend our portion of virtue\nwith everlasting life they pray for our salvation,\nsaying these words: “Forsake not the work\nof your hands.”\nFor truly, this prayer is ours.\nYou, God on high arranged for them\nto say this for our sake,\nfor they were created by the word,\nand we by the action of your hand.\nThey shall come with your only begotten Son,\nas fearsome witnesses at the last judgment,\ntrue accusers of the sins of earthly beings,\nbefore the terrifying tribunal,\njustly and fairly counseling us.\nThere too, they sympathize with us, pleading with sighs,\nthe perpetual chant of their voices:\nHave mercy, you who created them.\nDo not destroy them.\n\n\n# II.\n\nNow, with their voices in thanksgiving\nand their prayers, immortal and sublime,\ninhale also the savory scent of our sighs, creator of all.\nYou exceed those above and below with\nyour compassion,\nsince from you flow all good deeds for us and for them.\nAnd for the sake of the splendor of the\nincorruptible beings, miraculous in their fiery forms,\nunadulterated purity, sinless, made of fire and\nspirit, invincible, with the immense advantage of\ntheir higher status,\ntheir abundant, brilliant knowledge,\nfervent with an ardor that does not cool,\nwith an innate passion for the love of God,\nlike them, may our cold, smoldering hearts,\nbe rekindled brightly at the sublime mystery of\nthe holy table, which is your sanctuary\nand without drowsiness or lethargy\nmay we await the blessed command\nof your life-giving will, creator of all,\nto be united with God inseparably\nin cherubic virtue.\n\nThey are the great heavenly principalities,\nsoldiers, pure and awesome,\nthe virtuous and noble ministers in your\nheavenly kingdom,\nthe glimmering rays of your cloud of light, God on high.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThrough them, Jesus, show your merciful\nlove for mankind\nfor me also, sinner born of earth that I am.\nThrough the prayers of my guardian angel\nturn me toward the good path of your light,\nso that the inheritance of my soul\nwhich you entrusted to his protection,\nmay be received by you from this life,\nwith a joyous heart, jubilant within me,\nblameless and blessed by you,\nmight he bring me forward and present me\nwith a glad and cheerful face,\nto you, praised and merciful Lord,\nsublime king of glory beyond comprehension,\nin the midst of the blissful choir in tumultuous jubilation.\nAnd to you, who are beyond understanding,\nwith your Father, beyond reach,\nand your Holy Spirit beyond words--\nglory, honor and adoration,\nunto the ages of ages.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73773,12 +76077,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 82", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nLord God, doer of good, generous king,\nrefuge of life, form of light,\nspacious place of repose,\nwho for the sake of sinners like me\ncame, took the form of man\naccomplishing things beyond telling\nand performed miracles,\neven perfecting our humanity\nwith the fullness of your divinity.\n\nNow for the holy apostles,\nwhom you ordained with your heavenly hand,\nand anointed by your Holy Spirit,\nwhose deserving praises I have sung\nas much as I could\nfor your glory, Lord of all, in another work.\nHave mercy upon me in the memory of your chosen.\n\nThrough them prepare for me a way to the\nmost desired bliss.\nMay the voice of these good shepherds\nbe heard beckoning me sweetly to eternal life.\nMay I partake of the jubilant hope\nof everlasting salvation\nwith the lives of our leaders, the first to be graced with\nthis honor,\nthe glorified choir, the spiritual rivers,\nthe sublime evangelists, the illustrious princes,\nthose with sparkling crowns,\nand those adorned in the untarnished\nbrilliant radiance of the strength of grace, yes,\nthose who have been made perfect with\nthe oil of gladness, your lordly light.\n\n\n# II.\n\nTogether with your disciples,\nChrist God on high,\nand the self-sacrifice of your chosen martyrs,\nwho through mortification and torments of the flesh,\nand peril to life and limb and all manner of suffering,\nand who despite their earthly nature\nstruggled against every element of material existence to\nwin halos, transcending and reborn in spirit,\ncourageously. They departed this world, as\nthe prophets said,\nas true witnesses to the trials and tribulations of death.\nThey comprehended the unequivocal good,\nunseen and hidden,\neven in this world with the hope of things seen.\nThe disciples of the apostles and their\ncompanions in suffering\nare also equal to them in their works\nand in their consummate and utter perfection\nare jubilant with endless bliss.\nBy their pleasing and acceptable pleading,\nhonoring their prayers as a blood-drenched sacrifice of\ndedicated service\noffered with the incense of sweat,\naccept me again to share their lot\nand be established in you with everlasting salvation.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThough a sinner deserving of punishment,\naccept me,\ntogether with those who fight with fire and sword,\ncovered in blood, and together with the holy ascetics,\nhermit fathers, and your other followers, Son of God,\nall who with invincible bravery and\nundistracted vigilance, have courageously struggled\nagainst the baseness of the body\nand fended off the bodiless Satan.\nIn the perpetual battlefield of our earthly life\nwithout being worn down\nupon the waves of this expansive worldly sea,\ndespite the heaviness of their bodily ark,\nthey sent their souls soaring in lightness,\nreaching the safe haven of eternal life.\nAnd like those who love the celestial realm,\ntruly and boldly, without reservations,\nthey have crowned themselves with\nthe tiara of victory, adorned with brilliant gems.\nBy grace of their worthy prayers and\ndedicated supplications,\naccept me too.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nMixing my impure words\nwith the glorious prayers of the blessed,\nwho for my sake call out to you in a pleasing manner,\nI too call out with them,\nsour notes amidst the sweet,\nthorns amidst the smoothness,\nugliness amidst splendor,\nfilth amidst glistening diamonds,\nimpurities amidst pure gold,\nworthless rocks amidst silver,\ncontradictions amidst the truth,\ngrains of sand amidst the soft bread.\n\nListen, mighty, ingenious, praised, Lord,\nto their prayers for me and mine for them,\nfor their praise, my salvation, and for your glory,\nO Lord, all-compassionate, doer of good, blessed,\nlong-suffering, potent, beyond understanding,\nbeyond words, incorruptible and uncreated.\nYours are the gifts, and yours is grace.\nYou are the beginning and cause of all good.\n\n\n# V.\n\nYou are not the accuser, but the liberator,\nnot the destroyer, but the rescuer,\nnot the executioner, but the savior,\nnot the scatterer, but the gatherer,\nnot the traitor, but the deliverer.\nYou do not pull down, but lift up.\nYou do not knock down, but stand upright.\nYou do not curse, but bless.\nYou do not take revenge, but give grace.\nYou do not torment, but comfort.\nYou do not erase, but write.\nYou do not shake, but steady.\nYou do not trample, but console.\nYou do not invent the causes of death,\nbut seek the means to preserve life.\nYou do not forget to help.\nYou do not abandon the good.\nYou do not withhold compassion.\nYou do not bring the sentence of death, but\nthe legacy of life.\nYou are not opposed for your generosity.\nYou are not blasphemed for your grace.\nYou are not cursed for your bounty.\nYou are not insulted for your free gifts.\nYou are not mocked for your patience.\nYou are not blamed for your pardon.\nYou are not accused for your goodness.\nYou are not dishonored for your sweetness.\nYou are not despised for your meekness.\nFor these, we send not complaints,\nbut gratitude that cannot be silenced.\nTake away my sins, Almighty.\nRemove the curse from me, blessed.\nPardon my debts, merciful.\nErase my transgressions, compassionate.\nExtend your hand of deliverance\nand I will instantly be made perfect.\nWhat is easier than this for you Lord,\nand what is more important to you?\nThus, providential Lord, revive me\nmade in your image and brought to life by your breath\nin order to renew the breath of your pure\nenlightening grace,\nprotecting my sinful soul.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nDo not dispatch me, merciful Lord, before my time.\nDo not let me depart this life empty-handed, before my\njourney is accomplished.\nDo not offer me the cup of bitterness in my time of thirst.\nDo not block me, compassionate Lord, from the\npath of doing good,\nand do not permit the nightfall of death to overtake me\nlike a band of thieves in a sudden ambush.\nMay the feverish heat of the sun at an\nunexpected moment\nnot cut off and dry up my roots forever.\nAnd may the lunacy of the moon, arriving in secret,\nnot cause harm.\nMay rest not bring death\nand slumber not lead to slaughter.\nMay sleep not destroy me\nand may drowsiness not corrupt me.\nMay my death not strike me at an\ninappropriate moment.\nAnd may the release of my spirit upward not\nbe cast down.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nYou are the Lord, you are compassionate, you are the\ndoer of good.\nYou are patient and almighty.\nIn all things you are strong beyond comprehension\nand words\nto pardon, to save, to grant life,\nto enlighten, to establish anew,\nto snatch from the jaws of ferocious beasts,\nor from the teeth of dragons and restore life,\nto lead from the depths of the abyss to the light of bliss,\nand from drowning in the waves of sin\nto be seated among the righteous with the glory\nof the blessed.\nEvery soul awaits you with hope and expectation,\nlonging for your grace,\nwhether heavenly or earthly\nwhether fallen in sin or exalted with righteousness,\nwhether master or servant,\nwhether lady or maid.\nAnd in your hand is the life breath of every creature.\nTo you with the Father and the Holy Spirit,\nglory forever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73786,12 +76092,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 83", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nExalted and inscrutable, terrifying power,\nlord of creation, king of heaven,\ncreator of angels, who fashioned the spirits,\nand made the fiery beings,\ngood chief of souls, helping hand,\ntranquil repose, vision of enlightenment,\nbrightness of bliss, path to beatitude,\ncause of life, source of intelligence,\nsalvation without evil, guide to peace,\nrampart of strength, bulwark of protection,\nwall of the great fire of blessing, definition\nof unvengeful,\nremember the lamentations and confessions in this book,\nfor those of the human race who are our enemies as well,\nand for their benefit accord them pardon and mercy.\n\nDo not be angry at them for my sake, Lord,\nas if they blasphemed the saints,\non account of your love which is upon me,\nbut rather treat them as if they are reprimanding evil and\njustly rebuke me,\nwhile forgiving them their transgressions.\nFor when we both appear before you, just judge,\nperhaps some of those who have harmed me\nhave sinned little\nand justly spoken against me,\nwhereas I have committed innumerable and\nimmeasurable breaches of my vows,\nwith respect to you, generous Lord.\n\n\n# II.\n\nRemember your greatness, Lord,\nwhen looking upon my lowliness.\nAnd while I petition you to do good to my enemies,\nyou in your magnanimity beyond words\nshow your miraculous favor toward them who are\nalso your enemies.\nDo not destroy those who persecute me, but\nreform them,\nroot out the vile ways of this world,\nand plant the good in me and them,\nespecially since you are light and hope,\nand I am darkness and foolishness.\nYou are true good, praiseworthy Lord,\nand I am thoroughly evil and helpless.\nYou are the Lord of everything on earth and in\nthe heavens, and I do not control my breath or spirit.\nYou are exalted, free of any needs,\nand I am in pain and peril.\nYou are above all the passions of earth,\nand I am base, disgusting clay.\nIn the words of the prophet:\nyou endure in perpetual infinity on high\nand I continuously perish.\nIn you there is neither darkness nor deceit,\nand in me, they are complete,\nsince I have wasted my inheritance of goodness.\n\nTake me out of my prison and free me from my bonds.\nRemove my chains and rescue me from drowning.\nFree me from anxiety and release me from my irons.\nDeliver me from preoccupations and banish my doubts.\nConsole my sadness and calm my vexation.\nDispel my afflictions and quiet my agitation.\nCure me of my tears and stop my sighing.\nDrive away my lamentations and heal my sobbing.\n\nGod of mercy and giver of sweetness,\ndo not despise me, whom you have redeemed with your\nalmighty blood.\nDo not condemn me to a place of perdition.\nProp me up for I have reached the shores of death\nthrough all manner of fatal illness.\n\n\n# III.\n\nLook how through the seasons of my life\nmy vain acts have piled up and accrued,\nfor from the day I appeared on this earth,\nI have been good for nothing,\nand in the field of my mother’s womb\nI was a sprouting thorn bush of sin.\nNevertheless, do not be a wounding sting for me,\nas you were for the house of Judah or the descendants\nof Ephraim.\nAnd since I sowed in my soul\nweeds that prick, poison that numbs me,\ninstead of the good seeds of wheat,\nas the Scriptures say, which are older than the Gospels,\nwhy should I not call my soul a foul field,\nchoking with the accursed thorns of sin?\nI did not sow justice, as Hosea said,\nso why should I reap and gather the fruit of life?\nI lost the pure innocence of my soul,\nas the prophet said of Israel:\nNow can you restore it, Lord?\nI spread forth and opened the bed of my will\nto the demons of lust, in the wayward ways of Judah.\nIt is in your hands to restore that innocence.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nIf the union of the prostitute with the prophet\npurified her, how much more, Savior,\nwill our spiritual union purify me?\nIf the inanimate sun which you created,\nprovider of the earth, dries the foul swamps\nand brings the immature fruits to ripeness,\nthen you, Creator of all, Holy Spirit of God,\nhow much more can you flush away the silt of\nmy wrongdoing and cleanse the foul pus of\nmy accumulated sin?\n\nFor this reason I hasten in this prayer to ask that\nyou do good to those who hate me,\nso that you, blessed compassion, would not reject me,\nthough I am deserving of death for my mortal sins and\nyou should banish me from your all-protecting sight.\n\nGive me life, although I have sinned in all ways,\nwith every part of my body\nand the conduct of my soul, give me life\nthat I might contemplate only that which is\npleasing to you.\nTo seek benefits for those who have done good is\nthe law of nature, an instinctive urge.\nAnd indeed, all manner of people are capable\nof following this first rule.\n\nBut the second, that is, to pray for your enemies\nwith the care of the first, comes close to\nbeing the divine.\nFor this reason, I presented the second first,\nthat is praying for my enemies\nbefore asking favor for the good.\n\n\n# V.\n\nRemember twice those\nwho, in your exalted name,\naccepted me, unworthy soul that I am,\nand give them, most generous Lord, doer of good,\nwithout spite, the reward of the just and the prophets.\nAlthough I may be devoid of virtues forever,\nconsidering the belief and by the hope and expectation,\nthey in their reasonable judgment have regarded\nthose like me, a slave to sin,\nas if I had a secret compartment in my soul\nfilled with your life-giving relics.\n\nApproaching me with your infinite compassion,\ncleanse me, whose sins cannot be hidden from your sight\nor from your unerring judgment.\nThus protect me from being shamefully condemned\nbefore the tribunal of the universe.\n\nAnd as those whom you love, those who for your sake\nsee your glory reflected on me, unworthy though I am,\nfor they look upon my fine vestments\nwithout knowing the defects they conceal\nand call me in my pitiful state “blessed,”\nmay you, ingenious, bountiful, content\nLord, who loves mankind, with infinite mercy,\nfor the sake of the sighs of my most wretched soul,\nsettle with them according to their faith.\nOn the terrible day of judgment,\nwhen everything is tried and the good are separated\nfrom the bad,\noffer and grant them your incorruptible glory\nand your never fading crown.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nYou are the guarantee of salvation for a starving slave\nlike me,\nmade worthy by the Word, your gift,\nto be redeemed for the benefits of heaven\nby the largesse of your endless and priceless treasure.\n\nLead me beside the still waters.\nErect in me like a monument, unchanging God,\na ready assurance.\nEstablish in me, praised Lord, a sincere and\nunshakable hope.\nAccord me, you who provide everything, an\nimpartial defense.\nIn my unsteadiness, accord me the tranquility of virtue,\nin my doubt, the solace of enlightenment,\nin my mourning, great happiness,\nin my weariness, hope to live,\nin my abandonment, steadfast help,\nin my retreat, return without stumbling.\nFor all of this is yours, and all of this is from you,\nand through you are distributed the necessities of\nall creation,\nand to you is fitting glory, forever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73799,12 +76107,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 84", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nHeavenly monarch, exalted king,\nLord of all, hope of each,\ncreator of the visible, establisher of the invisible,\ncause of being, shaper of the future,\ngiver of light, impulse of dawn that prepares\nthe morrow,\nwho makes the evening appear and conjures the night,\ningenious artisan, applied wisdom,\nblessed pardoner who liquidates sin, banishes pain,\nand neutralizes bitterness,\npreserver of tranquility, who induces slumber,\narranges sleep, grants rest,\nwho sustains our breathing, maintains our senses,\ndissipates our phantoms, moderates our imaginings,\ndisplaces our terrors,\ntransformation of sadness, suppression of anxiety,\ndispeller of doubts, calmer of turmoil,\nwho strikes fear in the heart of the wicked,\nand cuts down demons,\nwards off disease and drowns scandal,\nprotect me with your hand that shaped the heavens.\nStrengthen me with your exalted right hand.\nTake me under your almighty wings.\nBlanket me with your divine care.\nBolster me with the vigilance of your heavenly host.\nEncircle me with your army of immortals.\nSurround me with the attachments of angels.\nFend off the enemy with the forces of the vigilant.\nSupport me through prayers to your divine Mother, for\nI am shaken.\nAssign your best troops to guard me.\nOpen the eyes of my soul along with the eyes in my face.\nSober the passions that weigh me down along with\nmy troubled soul.\nLift away Lord, from my senses the stupor\nthat covers them.\nRemove, Lord who only does good, the heavy\nveil of darkness.\nMake your mercy dawn with the breaking of day.\nMake your righteous sun shine on the gloom of my\nheart with morning light.\nMay the ray of your glory illumine the chamber\nof my mind.\nMay the sign of your cross cast its shadow over\nmy whole spirit and body.\nI commit to you today\nthis tabernacle of mine,\nwhich you have given to shelter my soul.\nFor you are God beyond understanding,\ngenerous in all things,\nperfect in all ways,\nblessed forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73812,12 +76122,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 85", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, since our waking vigilance\nappears like some kind of stupor to you\nand our profound silence, owing to our orthodox\nfaith in you,\nseems to you sleeping with open eyes,\ndirect me with your Holy Spirit’s wisdom\nto finish this the work of my hands,\nthe prayers of my sighing voice.\n\nStrengthen me, Lord, in my courageous labors\nto fight the good fight.\nBe my aid against human frailty.\nLighten the task of my repentance, for it has\nonly just begun.\nQuicken, always capable Lord, the work I have\nset before me.\nEase the course to its conclusion.\nHelp me achieve the bliss of accomplishment.\nHelp me reach the destination I hope for.\nBe my companion through the end of my journey\n\nIn my ascending flight, speed me on the course\ntoward the good.\nBe at my right side when I am in danger.\nMake your voice heard in my time of need.\nGrant me life with your hand in the hour of my death.\nIntervene with your finger in my time of alarm.\n\nLevel the most harmful obstacles of alienation.\nSend an angel, as you did to Habbakuk, to help me.\nInspire my speech before the tribunal of judgment.\nPlant wisdom in me when I am being scrutinized.\nWith the cloud of your will miraculously protect me.\nCalm my stormy seas with your tree of life, the cross.\nBy your command, bridle my earthly impulses.\nFor if your mercy wills it, Lord,\nthe fluid waves of the sea will become harder\nthan stone.\nBut if you abandon me on dry land, Lord,\nthe earth upon which I stand will move\nand crumble beneath me.\n\n\n# II.\n\nJesus, accept with favor\nthe supplications I make to you,\nand turn my gnawing apprehensions into solid faith.\nIn the time of the great flood that destroyed everything,\nthose who lived carelessly without fear\nupon the steady plains of earth\nwere destroyed, bereft of your mercy,\nwhile those who trusted in your name,\nstood on the rocking deck\nof the covered ark of logs\nand were saved.\nEven so, rescue me with your love of mankind,\nthough I forever sway this way and that, and\ndeliver me to the port of your peace, I pray you.\n\nBearing the fruits of your grace with me\nand leaving behind the heavy burden of sin that\nweighs me down,\nI fall before you, Lord, in the words of your parable,\nuniting with you completely, inseparably,\nO Lord, blessed in all things.\nNow chanting these prayers in antiphon\nwith the most pure angels\nand with the earthly martyrs\nwho were tested by water and fire\nand who upon their departure from this life, pray for us,\nleaving their memory as encouragement,\nlet us say with them, in unison:\nSo be it.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73825,12 +76137,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 86", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nHave mercy, praiseworthy and long-suffering king,\nupon all souls through these prayers\nof grieving lamentation,\ncomposed on various themes,\nand have mercy especially on those souls\nwho are cut off from the hope of salvation\nwho have died unprepared,\nwith lamps extinguished for lack of oil.\nRemember, then, my compassionate Lord,\nand consider me justified in this request also,\nfor in your splendid and awe-inspiring majesty\nyou combined opposites in the make-up of man,\na little gravity, a little levity,\non the one hand coolness, on the other heat,\nso that by keeping the opposites in balance,\nwe might be called just,\nbecause of this faithful equality.\nAnd however virtuous we might be judged\non this account, when transported upward,\nwe should bear in view that we are made of humble clay\nand accept the crown of tribulation.\nBut since we violated your commandment of the\nOld Testament\nand following our earthly nature, strayed like animals,\nwe were laid low and bound to the earth,\nin some instances by disease, and others by cruelty,\nsome by gluttony and passions,\nas if a ravenous beast is joined to our nature.\n\nSometimes one of four primary elements,\nlunges forward and uncontrollably, savagely and\nrelenlessly raises its head.\nAnd though warmed by the fervor of our love for you\nand by token of your spark which is in us,\nthe coldness that is its constant companion,\nextinguishes it, disrupting the good.\nAnd although we ascend to you with the\nairy ways of angels, the weight and density of\nour first element, earth,\nholds us down, and hinders us.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAnd now, defeated on all fronts and completely forsaken,\nlike a feeble cripple, I am rejected, I am banished that\nI might perish.\nWorn down by the multitude of blows, I was\ncaptured by death and deprived of grace.\nI seek mercy with a shameful face.\nI, who have committed all manner of sin,\npray for all the dead living in you.\nFor you are able, with infinite ingenuity,\nto save dying mortals like me.\nFor you everything is possible.\nEspecially since you have power that knows no limits,\nand you take delight in exercising your will for good.\nTherefore, when these two illustrious and\nrenewing graces come together--power and will--\nthe despair that afflicts the race of sinners is lifted away\nand the light of your good news arrives\nwith your prescription to heal our souls,\nLord of all, blessed forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73838,12 +76152,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 87", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nAnd now, since I am approaching the end of this\nmodest testament of lamentations,\nLord, with these prayers, put an end\nto those demeaning blameworthy acts\nthat have become a bad habit with me.\nYou established the good news of hope for condemned\npeople like me, saying, “It is not the will of the Father,\nthat the least of these little ones should perish.”\nAnd further, “This is the will of my Father,\nthat I shall not lose those he has given to me.”:\n\n\n# II.\n\nBehold, you are blessed for compassion,\never praised for your sweetness,\nproclaimed for your patience,\nrecognized for your help,\npreached as the Lord for salvation,\ncelebrated for your bounty,\nhonored for your protection,\nglorified for your deliverance,\nworshiped for your infinite highness,\nadored for your greatness beyond understanding,\nalone acclaimed for your triumph,\nexalted for your great strength,\nrevered for your mercy,\nembraced for your mildness.\n\nSharing in humility\nwith your heavenly father,\nGod of all comfort,\ntogether with your Holy Spirit, filled with goodness\nwho established the Law\nnot to abandon the fallen beast of one’s enemy\nnor the man who stumbles by his own stupidity.\nYour gifts, Almighty, within me,\nand your virtue, great Lord, on high\nare celebrated endlessly by the eternal choir of angels,\nthus hear my prayful voice\nthrough the intercession of the angels\nand along with the supplications of the martyrs,\nin sweet and pleasing aroma.\n\nThrough the redeeming value of these prayers\nof reconciliation, almighty Lord,\nlet my original sin be pardoned and\nmy unseen wounds be cured,\nalong with those committed in\nthe course of my life and at my death,\nwounds that bring death to my body and my soul.\nHeal my inner and outer wounds,\ntheir traces, lines, and welts,\nwith the exalted and pure salve of your mercy.\nThe multitude of bites\nshow you the essence of my character,\nboth the base and that which is pleasing to you.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd if I reach old age,\nhaving been guided by you to my worthy death,\ndo not abandon me in my frailty.\nDo not despise my gray hair.\nDo not destroy what is already broken.\nDo not bring down the bent.\nDo not knock down the humbled.\nDo not extinguish the flickering flame with your wind.\nDo not shove the unsteady.\nDo not leave the shivering without a coat.\nDo not permit the afflicted to go without a cure.\nDo not leave the dilapidated untended.\nDo not let the old image be dishonored.\nDo not take the taste away from the sumptuous.\nDo not tarnish the splendor of grace.\nDo not insult the old.\nDo not send waves upon the ship of my soul.\nDo not cut the thread of hope.\nDo not sever the life line.\nDo not take away presence of mind or memory.\nDo not destroy what you have shaped.\nDo not clip the wings of ascension.\nDo not deform the cheerfulness of beauty.\nDo not retract the rays of light.\nDo not close the windows of the eyes.\nDo not block their light.\nDo not cut down my speaking image.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nI pray you, compassionate Lord, I beseech you with\nall of the saints,\nlisten to my prayers now, so that they will not\nlater be forgotten.\nYou led me, as the Psalmist wrote, and\n“restored my soul.”\n\nRelieve me, Lord, as with the Psalmist,\nof the doubts and perplexities that cause me fear.\n\nBut I am not worthy of this,\nno, not even of the common sustenance of a\nhired servant.\nBut you are able, according to your ways,\nto show kindness even to people who whine as I do.\nYours are the amazing gifts beyond telling, you,\nwho alone work miracles, continuously blessed\nwith the Father and the Holy Spirit,\nforever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73851,12 +76167,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 88", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nNow with my broken soul, my deserted mind and\nmy crushed heart,\nI pour forth the water of my will and the milk\nof my tears,\njust as the prophet Samuel,\npoured water before you, all-seeing God,\nto show his people how to bow\nin confession and obedience\nbefore your life-giving feet.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAnd now, accept these prayers of sighs and contrition,\nas you inhale the scent of this bloodless sacrifice of\nwords, king of heaven.\nBless and sanctify the letters of this book of lamentation,\nand fix your seal upon it,\nas an eternal monument of\nservanthood along with others pleasing to you.\nMay it stand before you forever,\nand echo in your ears constantly.\nMay it be pronounced upon the lips of your chosen,\nand may it be spoken by the mouths of your angels.\nMay it be spread before your throne,\nand may it be offered in your sacred temples.\nMay it rise as incense in the houses of worship dedicated\nto your name, and may it give fragrance at the\naltar of your glory.\nMay it be kept among your treasures\nlaid up in store with your property.\nMay it be recited to the ears of all generations,\nand may it be preached to all peoples.\nMay it be inscribed on the doors of the mind\nand imprinted on the threshold of the senses.\nAs if alive and in person, may it recount\nthe iniquities I have confessed.\nAnd although I shall die in the way of all mortals,\nmay I be deemed to live\nthrough the continued existence of this book.\nMay it be protected from destruction by your will, Lord,\nthat it might be for me, the condemned,\nan ever watchful judge, fair accuser,\nthat reprimands with vigor and blames with rigor,\nthat relentlessly criticizes and sternly shames me,\nthat inhumanely hands me over to\nthe unbribable executioner from whom there is no escape\nlike a ruthless informant coldly exposing me to\nthe whole world.\nMay it loudly trumpet my faults in confession\nwithout break or end.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThis book will cry out in my place, with my voice,\nas if it were me.\nIt will uncover what I have covered up and\nproclaim my secrets.\nIt will lament what I have done and\nextol what I have forgotten,\nreveal the invisible and relate my blasphemy,\npreach about the depths of my soul\nand tell of my sins.\nIt will lay bare the unseen and display the shape of\nwhat is hidden.\nThrough this book may traps be explored and\npitfalls be discovered.\nMay unspeakable faults be confronted and\nthe traces of evil wrung out.\nMay the life of your grace and mercy reign, O Christ.\nMay my dry bones be preserved in your treasury\nso that at the time of eternal life,\nat the dawn of that first spring light,\non the day of renewed splendor,\nthrough your dew my soul might again stir,\nwith your immortal salvation\nand according to the hope held out in your inspired\nScriptures, may I again become green and blossom,\nand send up shoots of spiritual goodness\nthat will never dry out.\nAnd to you, Savior, and to your Spirit,\nof the same essence as the Father,\nto your united lordship and your inexplicable Trinity,\nall glory and adoration\nwith mystic praise\nforever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73864,12 +76182,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 89", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nGod and Lord, life and creator,\nmerciful, compassionate, light,\nlong-suffering, God who bears no grudges,\nall-merciful, generous God who loves mankind,\nsavior, blessed, praised, glorified,\nstorehouse of steadfastness, bulwark of faith,\ngood without guile,\nradiance without darkness,\npardoner of sins,\nhealer of wounds,\ncreator of unknowable mysteries,\nthe most approachable of the unreachables,\nrefuge from despair,\nyour name is proclaimed, God the Son,\nand your Father’s with you,\nmighty and awesome,\nand your almighty Holy Spirit\nworshiped with you,\nglory and thanksgiving forever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73877,12 +76197,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 90", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nGlorified God in heaven,\nsole creator, lord of all,\nawesome majesty,\ncompassion worthy of blessing,\nmercy worthy of proclamation,\nprovidence worthy of worship,\nlove of mankind worthy of celebration,\nprotection worthy of adoration,\nexalted beyond understanding,\nclose to us by your choice,\nunfailing refuge,\nyou comfort our hearts,\nyou make our grief disappear and reassure us\nin our pain,\nyou end our despair and wipe away our debts,\nyou remedy our shortcomings, discipline our passions,\nand shape our words,\nyou rein in our tongues, regulate our breathing, and\ncontrol our speech,\nyou bring our thoughts together, discipline our will, and\nsettle our emotions,\nyou calm storms and restore tranquility to the waves,\nyou hold the rudder of my impulsive will\nand taming it with your wisdom,\nyou guide me back to you.\n\n\n# II.\n\nO ever exalted giver of gifts,\nyou are forbearing with lowly gentleness,\ndwelling with fervor and untold miracles in the\nsouls of the saints.\nO king of all beings, merciful one proclaimed by\nthe universe,\nyou are our forefather and originator of\nthe law of love.\nO path of life,\nyou sweetly lead me, a learner, toward your\nheavenly light.\nO most steady outstretched hand,\nyou do not let me stumble to my destruction.\nO image of hope,\nyou appear before praying human hands as\nthat truthful hope.\nO refuge of peace,\nyou never lead us to the risk of condemnation.\nO bestower of free grace,\nyou redeem us fully without compensation.\nO generosity that knows no jealousy,\nyou adorn with your glory the base earth of\nwhich I am made.\nO brilliance without shadows,\nwho engulfs me, a miserable wretch, in the\nradiance of your awesome majesty,\nrestore and make me flourish again.\nO pardoner of our multiple sins,\nrekindling the former brilliance of those\ndeprived of salvation,\nremake their splendor.\nO Almighty,\nyou make it possible to reach the infinite heights.\nO certain path,\nyou lead us toward the promised joy.\nO yearned for bliss,\nit is pleasing to give up the breath of life,\nthat I might find you, Living God.\nO unwavering will,\nwho is able to pardon me, a slave,\nyou deserve all praise.\nO unerring balm of life,\nwho performs miracles even over those\ncompletely without life.\nO undoubted creator of all,\nwho resurrects in the blink of an eye,\nthose consumed by fire, blown to the winds,\nor devoured in the jaws of beasts,\nback into their undiminished physical being.\nO brave nobility without equal,\nin whom it is right to boast and\nin whose glory we can bask.\n\n\n# III.\n\nLook, Lord, from heaven, with cheerful sweetness\nupon me, imperiled on all sides by destruction.\nCalm my anxious sobbing.\nGrant the ease of repose.\nThe deadly armies are mounted against me:\nbattalions of violent warriors armed with\nall manner of demonic devices,\nthe barrage of ugly sins hateful to you,\nthe strokes of pain and destructive disease.\nRepel them, take them away, cut them off, stop them,\ndrive them out, banishing them to a distant place.\nDestroy them yet again\nand erect the sign of your cross\nas a destiny of life and beacon at my death\nguiding me to your refuge,\nO Salvation.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd through the invincible, infallible and irresistible\npower of your awesome majesty,\nmay the secret snares of Satan be undone,\nmay his tools be snatched away and the\nstumbling blocks removed,\nmay his traps be foiled, may his ambush be discovered,\nmay his treachery be revealed,\nmay his nets be lifted away,\nmay his weeds be burned,\nmay the wicked spells be cast out,\nmay the deceptive ropes of the hunter of death be cut,\nmay the liar’s gossip be confounded.\nmay the troublemaker’s weapons run out,\nmay the swords fall from the hands of the\nbearer of death,\nmay the attacker’s preparations be scuttled,\nmay the ropes of the tormentor come undone,\nmay the false appearances of the hypocrites\nbe unmasked,\nmay the heavy-handedness of the haughty be banned,\nmay the bands of marauders be dispersed,\nmay the hordes of thieves be banished,\nmay the masses of barbarians be expelled,\nmay the fortresses of the rebels be demolished,\nmay the tempests of the boastful be checked,\nmay the rainstorms of the tempter be dispelled,\nmay the frost of the divider evaporate,\nmay the horns of the wicked be broken,\nmay the pedestals of idols collapse,\nmay the bragging of the proud be shattered,\nmay the agressors’ confrontations be repulsed,\nmay the troops of Belial be destroyed--\nboth spiritual and physical,\nmay the invaders from one route be set to flight\nin seven directions,\nmay they fall into the pits they have dug for me,\nmay the winters of discontent turn to summer,\nmay the ties that bind me to the tireless outlaw be cut,\nmay the kiss of the flatterer upon my forehead revolt me,\nmay the barrage of arrows from my tormentor cease,\nmay the boat of the trickster always be rocky,\nmay the teeth of the biter be ripped from their roots.\n\n\n# V.\n\nThrough the blessed wood of life,\nupon which you were bound,\nincomprehensible God,\nby the memory of those nails,\nwith which you were spread upon the instrument of\ndeath, creator of heaven and earth,\nby your lordly blood, by which, as with a fishhook, you\ncaught the great serpent,\nby the bitterness of the bile,\nwhich you drank, pouring out the deadly\npotion of the destroyer,\nby the blessed recounting of your horrible torment,\nthrough which you shamed and silenced\nthe impudence of the opponent,\nby your name that cannot be understood or explained in\nany way, before which the natures of the visible and\ninvisible, tremble with fear and awesome terror and\nare condemned,\nmay all these gifts of grace\nbe for me, who proclaim them,\nprotection, cure and pardon.\n\nAnd for the serpent that brought the bitter\npoison of death,\nby whom the universe was betrayed into evil,\nmay these bring the death for him.\nMay he be bound and taken captive,\nsubjected to the stroke of incurable torture.\n\nMay your mercy, O creator, toward me,\nand the breath of my soul toward you,\nbe united inseparably as one.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nAnd let whoever may read these requests\nand supplications\nof the voice calling out in prayer,\nwith the love of God,\nwhether old or young, girl or boy,\nor one of the maidens,\nmay all equally receive, without distinction,\nfrom you a portion of the blessing of forgiveness of sin,\nand be restored to their former spotless purity,\nsealed with your unchanging image.\nYou who are almighty, powerful, beyond telling,\nbeyond understanding, beyond comprehension,\nlook upon the cries of the sighing heart,\noffered to you from the lips of all,\nfor your Father in heaven and doer of good,\nfor the Holy Spirit, co-equal in glory and giver of life,\nthrough the intercession of your Mother of God,\nand the prayers of all the saints.\n\nFor you created everything\nand from you all things came into being,\nand you rule over all,\nand to you is befitting glory from all creation.\nYou, one of the very essence of the timeless trinity,\ninfinitely glorified together,\nforever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73890,12 +76212,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 91", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nLord, Lord filled with compassion, God of mercies,\nmajestic name, awe-inspiring voice,\nsevere summons, unbroken silence,\nthundering speech, shocking sound,\nhope of good deeds and all merciful sweetness,\nbefore which all creatures quake in fear.\nBefore your awesome wrath,\nthe seraphim take to flight and the cherubim\nhuddle together.\nthe choirs of angels hide their faces,\nall the principalities of heaven shake in amazement,\nand all of them rejoice with great trembling in\njubilant celebration.\nthe demons are frightened away and the\nevil bands recoil,\nthe spirits of darkness are exiled and\nthe angels of the banished one are condemned\nto the abyss.\nThe attacks of the aggressors are held in check by\nthe sign of your cross, and the vengeful Amalekites are\nlocked away in their infernal prison.\nThe enemy forces are bound with undoable knots.\nThe legions of the warriors of death are jailed in prisons\nfrom which there is no escape.\nThe demonic hordes are arrested as in irons by\nyour command.\nThe instigators of mutiny are silenced.\nThe mobs of evil spirits are tied up and waste away.\nThe emissaries of the Antichrist are locked in\nunbreakable chains.\n\n\n# II.\n\nIn this midnight silence I lift\nmy hand toward you to make\nthe blessed sign of your cross, source of sight,\nwho never dims in the darkness of ignorance,\nbut eternally dwells in unapproachable light.\nWith a grateful heart I implore\nthat this grieving soul be taken\nunder the protection of your almighty wing.\nSave me from the onrush of external illusion.\nEndow my heart’s eye with pure light.\nStrengthen me with your cross, the wood of life,\nagainst nightmares.\nConsecrate the boundaries of my cell with drops of your\nlife-giving blood.\nSanctify my threshold with the water and blood from\nyour side.\nMay the roof of my dwelling bear the shape of\nyour cross.\nMay the miracle of your sacrifice for our salvation\nappear as a vision before my raised eyes.\nMay the instrument of your torment be fixed\nupon my door.\nMay my faith and hope hang upon your blessed tree.\nWith your cross, Lord, stop the slayer of souls.\nLet the protector of light enter.\nEase the severity of my pains\nand lighten the burden of my guilt.\nIn the silent chamber where my mind collects itself\nupon the cushion of my bed,\nrecalling the bitter fruits of despair,\nI confess to you, all-knowing God, my\ninnumerable deeds of wicked iniquity in all their forms.\n\n\n# III.\n\nGive me rest.\nI am exhausted from the multitude of cares and toil.\nRemove the turmoil of doubt from my broken spirit,\nthe bitterness along with the grief,\nthe sighing along with the misery,\nthe anxiety along with the wretchedness,\nthe cries along with the destruction,\nthe brokenness along with the stupor,\nthe delirium along with the folly,\nthe imprudence along with the stupidity,\nthe cooling of love along with the feverish\npassion for luxury.\n\nCome to my aid,\nfor I am weak with grief and poor in spirit.\nWith your right hand of beneficial grace,\nwith your finger of renewal, with your ever-radiant glory,\nwith your eternal, incorruptible presence,\nwith your cheerful countenance,\nwith the essence of your venerable being,\nwith your greatness worthy of worship,\nrelieve this labored sighing that is suffocating me.\n\nStop the new tricks of evil and the old deceptions of\nthe Troublemaker,\nthe alienating impulses of the teacher of death,\nthe unfitting imaginings prompted by the one who\nkills us daily,\nthe mirages caused by the treacherous demon,\nthe enchanting sorcerer’s fiery breath.\n\nProtect my place of rest in the tranquility\nresembling death,\nfrom hidden thoughts and new errors,\nfrom great misdeeds and small missteps,\nfrom the evil machinations of idleness.\n\nBanish from my senses, wayward servant that I am,\ninappropriate thoughts and base passions,\nblameworthy conduct and unbecoming ambitions,\nerring actions, ridiculous illusions,\nvile thoughts, and despicable babble.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nArm me, for I have taken refuge in you,\narm me with an unerring heart and undefiled body,\nagainst winds, the violent blows,\nthe battering of the storm, the pouncing of the tempest,\nthe attacks of beasts.\nWhen I close my eyes, do not let my heart-vision\ngrow dark, rather let it awaken,\nbecome bright and splendid\nto shine with you, Lord Jesus Christ,\nwith the burning of the inextinguishable light.\n\nWith your word, cleanse my bedchamber\nof cunning and distractions,\nof memories distasteful to you and thoughts\nhostile to heaven,\nof criminal follies and ingratitude toward your Lordship,\nand heresies against God.\n\nStand guard over me with your heavenly host,\nthe principalities and dominions, and invincible powers,\npure ministers of your holy Godhead,\nthe apostles with the tidings of your Gospel,\nthe prophets with their testaments,\nand the righteous with their prayers offered at the\nend of their lives,\nthat I might fall asleep in mourning pleasing to you\nand awaken anew with the grace of your joy.\nThough I sleep with trepidation,\nmay I arise again in spiritual bliss.\nThough I go to bed in sinfulness,\nmay I get up with a clear conscience\nand spotless purity.\n\n\n# V.\n\nHear the sighing of my voice in prayer,\nyou who alone are most compassionate,\nthrough the intercession of your Holy Mother,\nand all the righteous and the chosen martyrs.\n\nTo you glory from all people, which I offer up to you,\nalong with the choirs of immortal Holy Angels,\nin praise of your Father, our God,\nand the Holy Spirit, the creator and renewer\nof everything,\nforever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73903,12 +76227,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 92", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nI give you thanks, compassionate Lord,\nfriend of mankind,\ncreator of heaven and earth,\nSon of the living God.\nAs soon as I awake I am seized by yearning\nfor your love, thanks to the sounding of your wooden bell.\nHearing the bell’s clipped resonance\nwe awake and arise from our deathlike slumber.\nAnd as if called by a consoling voice,\nwe are drawn to the service of blessing and come\nwith joy before your throne to be judged.\n\n\n# II.\n\nGlory to you,\nname beyond definition, uncontainable power,\nwho went to such amazing lengths to provide\nfor my salvation.\nImmortal essence, praised with thanksgiving,\nyour miracles in this world\nforeshadow the world to come.\nBy this instrument, this wooden vessel,\nyou firmly shake me from the stupor of sleep,\nas if you rouse me from my slothfulness\nwith an admonishing reproach,\nadding percussive accompaniment\nto the gentleness of your fatherly love.\nBy the clapping of two mallets,\nyou sweetly rain your loving-kindness upon us.\nYou do not plunge me back into the depths of sleep\nwith hushed syllables,\nnor frighten my anxious soul\nwith needless harshness.\nI worship you, upon my knees, Creator of all,\nwho has given us in this world a sample\nof the sound of that terrifying alarm that will echo\non the great day of resurrection.\nYou brought me back to life\nfrom the tomblike numbness of oblivion.\nYou sought a fool like me to invite\nto taste the wine of joy\nYou made this instrument to prepare\nthe immaculate bride for your love, O groom.\nWith this humble spur, you struck fear in the\nmonstrous demons.\nYou tamed the Rebel by placing a massive yoke\nupon his shoulders.\nYou muzzled the jaw of the Troublemaker with a\nrestraining bridle.\nMay your infinite highness be forever exalted great God,\nwho turned the tree symbolizing our transgression\ninto the liberating grace of salvation\nand who brought a muddled fool like me\nto my senses through the wisdom of your spirit.\nThrough the strokes of the mallet on this wooden board\nyou remind us that alone we cannot cure\nthe serpent’s bite.\nBy the three blows at the end of the call to worship,\nwhich symbolize the Trinity,\nyou reinforce the three chains that restrain\nmy destroyer.\n\n\n# III.\n\nI send up odes of praise, with fragrant incense, to you\nGod who cares for all,\nfor your ways are more potent than the multitude of\npagan gods,\nfrom whom you captured my sinful\nsoul guiding me to your worship.\n\nWith the voice of this sacred wood, hardy and robust,\nyou preached the truth.\n\nWith this worthy instrument\nyou increased the honor of your New Covenant.\n\nIts clamor calls your heavenly host to arms,\nLord Christ, who rules over all earthly states\nand emperors.\nIt is the sign of joy, Lord Jesus, upon your victory on the\nfield of battle, in which the Pharoah who oppresses souls\nis seized and bound.\nThis well-shaped piece of wood delivers a daily beating\nupon the head of the haughty evil doer.\nBy the sound of this wood, the sons of Zion are\nsummoned to battle against the despot who casts a\ndarkness over the world.\nAnd like a house of divine worship, built long ago,\nthis wood consecrated with oil, which neither grows old\nnor retires from service,\nalerts us well in advance of the Day of Reckoning that\nlies ahead.\n\nIt is like the tree of life in paradise, O God, inviting\nus to gather and hasten to the house of blessings.\nIt resembles the tree of knowledge\ncreated to distinguish good from evil.\nIt is a solemn reminder of the sign of the cross\nsealed upon my forehead by your Holy Spirit.\nIt announces the good news of your glorious\nsecond coming to the bride, kept pure for you, O King.\nIt encourages the ranks of the saintly to rejoice.\nIt inspires an innocent yearning for spiritual union\nwith the virgin queen, the mother of all, veiled\nin splendor.\nIt prepares the secret treasures that adorn the soul.\nIt is reminiscent of the thunderous message on Mt. Sinai\nand the aura of dwelling places of the Lord.\nIt crowns with glory the immaculate mother of\npure children, the splendid eternal virgin--the church.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nWith the sounding of this wood,\nstronger than the trumpeting rams’ horns at Jericho,\nyou brought down and leveled the tyranny of Satan.\nWith this wooden slingshot you slew Goliath.\nYou fashioned this new javelin that foretells the\ndestruction of Satan,\nfor with this tool you pulled up the deep roots of sin\nand through its beneficial work\nyou recommitted me to duties I had forgotten.\nIf I call this alarm a voice,\nthat predicts the coming of your Word, O God,\nI would not be wrong, but would be telling the truth.\nBy this humble instrument,\nthough material, yet bearing the spirit,\nthe majesty of your works are proclaimed, O Jesus.\nThrough this unassuming sign,\nsignaling the place of refuge,\nyou draw our attention on earth\nto your bounteous help from on high.\n\n\n# V.\n\nYour name is proclaimed,\nGod, who loves mankind,\nwho provides and cares for us beyond reason.\nYou are adored in the mystery of your Holy Trinity,\nO light whose image cannot be drawn.\nBy this twice dedicated wood,\nyou shot arrows of sound,\nthrough the air, reaching their targets\nacross long distances, bearing a living spirit,\nfoiling the secret designs of the archer of darkness,\nforcing him into retreat.\nAs if waging battle from a high fortress,\nmighty and indestructible,\nyou hurl down the strokes of this wooden bell,\nlike an angel you send to confound the enemy.\nWith the words of your covenant, Your Majesty,\nconsecrated with grace by being mixed with your blood,\nyou have sharpened this horn\nlike a cross of redemption honed on the whetstone,\nto strike down the blustering bully.\nBy the clamor of this wooden bell,\nmore tumultuous than a celestial chorus,\nthe doors of the human will\nwith its half-hearted and unseemly impulses,\nare knocked down\ntaking with it the legalistic mentality of the\nOldTestament heart and its house which is but a shadow\nof your new covenant.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nI offer you glory and praise,\nimmortal king,\nI pray that you might renew\nwith your mighty right hand\nall that you have created.\nBy the reverberating wooden bell\nyou drove away the wicked peril of the\ncunning Troublemaker,\nthe feverish torment of sin,\nthe sour breath of the deceiver,\nthe impulsive and deadly misadventures and delusions,\nthe harmful and depressing acts caused by\nweakness of the flesh,\nthe diabolical whining that causes us to faint.\nHelped by the wings of the sign of your cross,\ndispel again with this wooden armament\nclouds that rain fire,\nthunder that brings hail,\nburning flames of smoky deception\nof the many-footed fire-breathing dragon,\nthe butcher’s knife, the confrontation of battle,\nthe wild thoughts that overtake me\nlike prancing demons.\nThey are set to flight by this little bell,\novercome with trembling,\nand they know the Lord\ncomes to judgment\nwith a sound like this.\nAnd the pious warriors,\nwell armed with the sword of the Holy Spirit,\nare spurred on with courage,\nwhen they hear the alarm of the wooden bell,\nwhich with an inarticulate cry calls all nations\nto sacrifice themselves for justice.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nListen to the great trumpet sound\nby which God is exalted in worship\nthroughout the world.\nIt resounds in the ears of the heathens, causing\nthem to scatter.\nIt reinforces the voice of the watchmen of great God,\nand, in the words of Isaiah, has us singing\ntogether for joy\nThanks to this wooden bell, the enemies of the cross,\nare separated like the waters.\nThe fruit of the first tree loses its\nfar-reaching significance,\nwhen wood becomes celebrated as the symbol of life.\nCompared to this wooden bell emitting the sound of life,\nthe iron sword of war loses its luster.\nAnd like something sacred,\nthis wooden bell that rings out life\nwas deemed worthy to be inscribed\nwith the sign of the cross,\nlike bells on horses, holy to the Lord.\nThe sword of human authority is sheathed\nin deference to this anointed staff of the\nheavenly shepherd.\nNo hammer of any artisan has nicked a\nstone of the temple,\nbut on the altar built by God this sacred wood\nsoaring with the wings of the cross wields power.\nNot only at the beginning of the month,\nnor upon the seven times seven years of the jubilee,\nis the wooden bell removed from its corner and sounded,\nbut from the dawn of the universe to its far reaches,\nupon the waves of the sea and its islands,\nit echoes, divinely,\nannouncing the good news.\nThe swords of the butcher were broken\nby the sight of this wood,\nand the useless were transformed into ploughshares and\npruning hooks.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nThe sound of the wooden bell, is not like the harsh echo\nof stones in the depths of a pit,\nnor does it do violence to the air, in the words of\na foreign sage.\nIt does not pierce the ear with a sharp and\nannoying sound,\nnor does it make the skull vibrate unpleasantly.\nIt does not cause bones to crack,\nnor does it stun the mind.\nIt does not clang like a bell of copper,\nnor does it clunk without any sweetness\nlike a stone on the pavement.\nIt is the invincible keeper of the New Zion.\nIt is one of the main, sacred vessels, given by God,\nthat Christian clerics, along with the Levites,\ntreat with care and reverence.\nIt is like the voice of an angel,\nwhich in the words of the parable-teller,\nresemble the song of a bird.\nIt is a new musical instrument to announce the grace of\nthe good news.\nIt awakens in us the Spirit of God\nmore readily than the odes of Elishe’s harp.\nIt is the prelude to the lamentations,\nplayed upon the strings of a sweet and\nharmonious violin.\nIt is cymbals with their allegorical expression.\nIt is a new flute of a different sort\nthat we have adopted instead of the old.\nIt does not make hollow noises like reeds of the pagans.\nIt does not make earthly noises like instruments of\nthe Jews, about which the Lord said through the prophet,\n“Take these away from me.”\nRather, it is a God-pleasing sound, doubly honored,\nfor it wards off attacking demons and other\nstrokes of evil.\n\n\n# IX.\n\nAnd now, I have accepted with blessing,\nveneration and praise, this sacred gift,\nas protection for me and glory for you,\nthanksgiving from me and worship to you,\na wonder of your creative glory, wanting in nothing.\nMay this Godly sound pierce through the joints\nof my body to drive from my soul the deceitful\nways of the demons and block corruption.\nMake this wooden bell a symbol,\na harp of light, an invitation that cannot be\nretracted, an endless praise of your\nlordly providence.\nHear us, O compassionate Lord, through\nthis wooden bell.\nGrant us, I pray, almighty Lord,\ntwofold protection against visible\nand invisible enemies.\nGive us, O generous hand,\nopen and ready to offer and share good things,\nthe sweetness of air and beneficial rains.\nMay your order, voiced in this medium,\ncurb the hellish blasts, the painful breathing,\nthe attacks of the deceitful and evil brigands.\nBy this instrument may we be delivered from\nthe aggressive warriors who lead us to evil.\nBy the cheerful voice of this anointed wood,\nmay the worm, canker, and their kind,\nthat draw strength from our sins and fight\nagainst us be driven away, cut down and killed.\nBy this plant of bliss\nmay our trust in you as our protector,\nCreator of all, lord of creation,\ntake root, like the thicket where Abraham\nfound the ram, at the end of whose branches\nthe sacred inheritance of my present salvation\nhangs before us, caused by you, Christ, to blossom\nand bear the fruit of eternal life.\nBefore the ringing out of the good news heralded by\nhis glorious wood,\nmay the demon-possessed enemies\nand the lying and tricky many-handed hellions\nbe set to flight and banished to the dark abyss.\nMay this bell drive away from the fertile fields\nof our toil, the devastating blights and trampling\nbands of animals.\nLet this bell remove unbecoming excesses\ncaused by the devices of evil,\nthat render us yet more ugly.\nMay this bell truly eliminate\nthe faults generated by traitors\nin our two natures:\nfrom the spiritual, strange, false thoughts;\nfrom the physical, corruption caused by\nimpure stirrings.\nDeliver me, Lord Jesus, I pray you!\nDeliver me, my benefactor.\nReach out to me with your almighty right hand,\nand having helped me,\nfree me of these enemies.\n\n\n# X.\n\nMix and unite your commandments with the\nsound of the bell,\nso that my callous heart, hard as a diamond,\nmight again bear the fruits of your word.\nMay the sound of the bell strike and pierce\nmy worn heart and forsaken soul\nand like a sharp stake of wonder,\nreinforce and shore them up,\nupright and steadfast,\nwhile softening the hardness of my soul,\nso that I might awaken, sobered with humility,\nlike Paul and Matthew.\nO God who loves mankind,\nthrough this venerable wooden bell\nremind me of the gifts of your cross\nby which you did things beyond words.\nLift away from me, Giver of life,\nthe weight of my sins\nby the glorious yoke of your new tabernacle.\nBy your will, Almighty,\nmay the ears of my stubborn heart be opened\nto the sound of life.\nBy this tiding of your magnificent good works,\nmay the ears of the deaf hear.\nThrough this bell may the tongues of the dumb speak.\nMay the sight of the eyes be restored,\nthat they might look upon you purely in\nunwavering adoration.\nMay the weary wills of men be refreshed,\nthat they might repent and return to you.\nIn my turmoil, O Lord,\ngrant me the rain of tears.\nLet this be from you to us\na message of joy,\na jubilant shout,\na tranquil song,\na thing of bliss,\na means of salvation,\nan occasion for pardon,\na banishment of grief,\nan extrication from entanglements,\nan easing of anxiety,\na ceasing of cares,\na dispelling of sighs\nan alleviation of groaning,\nan assurance of necessities,\na discipline of passions,\na consolation for disappointments,\na cure for pains,\nan immunization against backsliding,\na contemplation of things invisible.\n\n\n# XI.\n\nLead me across this bridge of yearning,\nwhich neither hinders nor causes us to stray,\non our upward journey,\nupon this heaven-bound ladder marked\nby the footsteps of the saints.\nOffer me to your blessed Father,\nwhose name inspires awe,\nO doer of good,\nmay I be guided by your Holy Spirit,\nto inseparable unity with you.\nAnd to your one and only, holy and united Lordship and\nincorruptible creatorship, for which your creatures,\nboth living and inanimate, give thanks,\nglory and dominion, forever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73916,12 +76242,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 93", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nHoly, awe-inspiring name, too sublime to utter,\never desired object of our yearning,\npraised without end by the glorious seraphim,\nwho sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy,”\nto you who dwell in the Holy of Holies,\nwho are filled with bountiful goodness,\nyou pour forth generously and without end,\nawesome and incomprehensible.\nYou are all and are in all.\nWith these words, as my contract of hope,\nmay I enter into a covenant with you, Almighty?\nYes, amen, alleluia!\nvenerated king of the universe,\nGod of all, creator of beings and sovereign Lord,\nsole cause of all consequences,\nforever adored, Savior and Christ, the anointed Messiah.\n\n\n# II.\n\nThe meaning of this priceless treasure and\nirreplaceable wealth\nis given to us by your very name,\nJesus Christ heavenly king,\nwhom the immortal and sublime beings,\nwith mouths of light and breath of fire,\nserve with trembling,\nbowing to you on bended knee in thanksgiving,\ngladly without mental reservations,\nCreator of all beings visible and invisible.\nYou who are and were totally perfect and\nlacking nothing, took our nature truly and in its entirety,\nin order to complete it with your perfection.\nO blessed and praised Lord,\nforever proclaimed for the incomprehensible\nsacrifice you made for our salvation,\nto you, glory and praise for your goodness,\nyou, who are exalted beyond words,\nsublime and awe-inspiring.\nYou are the source of grace given through anointing,\na great mystery that miraculously adorns us,\nfor through it your light was revealed to us,\n\nO incomprehensible ray,\nboundless dawn,\nsun shining fairly on all,\nstar that divides the day in two,\nlamp unto our feet and light upon the path,\nthanks to you we see the meaning of this sacrament\nand compose this prayer,\ncelebrating with angelic singing and jubilation,\nwith a pure spirit,\nvenerating with incense fit for our Savior\nyour generous allotment of gifts, most wise Lord,\nthrough the oil of gladness and spotless belief.\nFor the first created man, my forefather, who,\nscarcely created, tragically lost the greatest gift,\nthe breath of eternal life,\nand forever withering in the hands of sin,\nbecame a captive of death.\nHe was tied into an undoable knot,\ninto deadly decadence,\nand fell because of the tree of knowledge,\nunable to stand, stumbling toward destruction,\nexpelled from the light,\nhe was condemned to the darkness of this world.\nBut you, compassionate Lord,\nalways knew your creature\nbetter than he knew himself.\nIn pursuit of the divine knowledge he could not have,\nhe lost the innocence he had,\nthereby becoming unable to look upon\nyour sublimity which dwells in unapproachable light,\nO infinite God.\n\nFor this reason you did not reveal yourself\nin an ever radiant light that does not wane,\nbut only as an aid against the terrors of the night,\nwhen the feet stumble.\nYou gave the oil, and in this oil you placed a wick,\nwhich exemplifies your union, without imperfection,\nwith our condition,\nformed and woven with your love of mankind,\nso that we, who find ourselves banished, in the\nshadow of death,\nbecause of the first transgressions against the tree,\nthrough the fruit of the tree akin to it,\nmight be enlightened with the flame of faith\nand restored to that former blessed state.\nAnd also by being spread upon the tree of death\nyou spread us upon it as well,\nand thanks to this great mystery\nunited us with the tree of life.\n\n\n# III.\n\nNow, just as the day is incomplete without night,\nso the household is incomplete without the staple oil.\nFor as ordinary, unconsecrated oil illumines the sight of\nthe physical eyes,\nso the oil sanctified and chosen by the mystery of your\nbreath of grace\ngives luster to our invisible souls in a glorious,\nmiraculous way\nuniting us with you, Lord who cannot be seen.\nFor as we believe, that by the washing of the body\nin the glow of holy baptismal font\nour souls are cleansed,\nso when anointed with chrism, that oil of hope,\nwe believe, without the least doubt,\nthat we receive through it the Holy Spirit.\nAnd since by your blessed commandment, Lord,\nyou arranged in advance the pardoning of\nthose afflicted with sin,\nand for those who do not believe in this pardon,\nyou performed before their eyes the miracle\nof healing as evidence for doubters.\nSimilarly, this oil of salvation, sanctified with light,\nis poured on us to anoint our outer temple,\nand enters us in secret and unseen,\nwhereby the inner man is born again.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nThis physical thing is a superb analogy for you,\nfor the wise maidens who bore the oil\nreceived the benefit of your mercy,\nand in praise you defined yourself as merciful, saying:\n“I am merciful, said the Lord.”\nAs your name is synonymous with love, O God,\nso in part your mercy and love are manifested\nby coming down to be reimprinted upon our nature\naccording to the divine plan of salvation.\nThe sacrificial fat is a fitting analogy for a great\nand sublime mystery\nfor as the fat is to the animal,\nso the oil is to the plant--its heavy, earthen part.\nAnd as you commanded in the Old Law\nthat this part of the animal should not be eaten,\nbut should be offered as a sacrifice to you, O Creator,\nso under the New Testament,\nthis oil is a potent offering ceremonially given\nfor your favor, fitting only for you Lord,\nthe God who is,\nas the true travel-mate of my soul,\nto be kept and pledged to you, Creator.\n\nFor neither the lifeblood nor the savor of the burning\nfat, which are the symbols of the soul and strength,\nare burnt to ashes with the meat of sacrifice,\nbut are the portion offered before your throne\nin the heavenly kingdom, O Lord,\nso this light-giving substance\nmay always burn bright and inextinguishable.\n\n\n# V.\n\nThe first-born male could not preside as a judge\nunless he was anointed,\nnor could the clergy set foot in the Holy of Holies,\nunless he were ordained and consecrated with oil.\nJacob poured oil upon the stone on which he slept,\nthus consecrating the distant archetype of\nthe altar of God.\nThis pouring out moreover symbolized your descent\non that splendid ladder, O God exalted beyond words,\nto take me up on my heavenly journey.\nAnd for this reason, he erected and anointed a monument\nto remind later generations.\nThe splendor of Aaron’s priesthood\nwas fulfilled by anointing him\naccording to your commandment, great God.\nIn the words of the Psalmist,\nwhen oil poured down over his head and beard,\nhe was miraculously transformed,\nregaining the original glory of Adam,\nand receiving your life-giving Holy Grace through union\nwith our nature.\nThe kings of this world would have no legitimacy,\nas the image of your creatorship on earth,\nwere it not for their consecration with a horn\nfilled with oil, and the placing of the crowns upon their\nheads in your name, Christ.\nAnd how could I forget the first among these sublime\nfigures, Melchisedek, the servant of your greatness and\nyour image beyond understanding?\nIs it possible that Melchisedek\nthe symbol of your awesome truth,\non the Mount of Olives,\nwhere later your feet, God incarnate, walked,\ncan it be possible he was not anointed by the fruits of this\nplace by the angels on high?\nThus he was invested by you\nto guard the tomb of our forefather Adam\nin princely episcopal honor,\nuntil you appeared, Lord,\nthe true priest fully revealed,\nthe regeneration and regenerator of Adam.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nSince yours is grace,\nand to you is befitting thanksgiving,\nO blessed Son of God,\nmay you yourself place the seal of your blessed image\nupon these prayers, imbued with the oil of humble love,\nthe incense of adoration\nand the myrrh of repentance\nthat they may bring glory for you\nand healing for me, a wretched sinner.\nApply, Lord Jesus, this oil of light to my invisible sores,\nand on the cauterized parts of these deadly wounds,\nput a drop of the blessed oil of your salvation\nwith the ever sweet wine of your love,\nbound by you with the protective bandages of your care,\nso that this testament, my explanatory discourse in prayer,\nmight be endowed with fitting dignity,\nunder the wings of your Holy Spirit.\n\nYour Spirit, O exalted God, came upon David,\nonly after the day he was consecrated and anointed.\nSaul became a different man and joined the\nband of prophets, when the anointing oil\ndescended upon his head.\nThe Assyrian Empire was conquered and taken captive\nby the anointed and joined to the house of Israel.\nCertain illustrious rulers, great and prominent\namong the uncouth and barbarous nations,\nupon whom was sprinkled the dew of this\nlife-giving oil, were caught as if in a trap,\njoining your family in service to you, great God.\nThe heavenly word, spoken through the prophets,\ncalling Cyrus, chosen of God,\nalso honored him by referring to him as\n“the Anointed One.”\nThe Psalmist esteemed the title, “anointed”\ngreater than that of “prophet,” first stating the\nprohibition, “Do not approach the anointed.”\nand then adding, “and do not harm the prophets.”\nThe divine mission entrusted to Elijah on Mount Horeb,\nwhich marked the end of the pagan cult of Baal,\nwas the anointing Jehu and Hazael.\nYour name, O bridegroom, the Christ,\n“the oil poured out,”\nis witnessed long ago by the inspired\nwords of the sage.\nIn this way, the Spirit, the eternal image and sign of God,\nmight imprint your great image on this small drop of oil\nthat we may be united with you, receiving your grace.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nWhy do I belabor this point\nwith images and farfetched analogies\nin long, complicated, poetic prayers to you,\nO exalted and awesome Lord\nO Lord and giver of life,\nO creator of heaven and earth?\nYou began to preach the good news of your kingdom,\nonly after you were anointed and proclaimed by\nJohn the Baptist as the Anointed One and “Lamb of God,\nwho takes away the sins of the world.”\nAlthough the Holy Spirit was always in you with its\ncomplete essence, and your perfect union of divinity\nwith humanity was an anointing in itself,\nthe word, anointed, when applied to the saints\ndescribes the miraculous grace acting upon them,\nand through this word you prepare the servile\nflesh of Adam to be eternally ennobled.\nOpening the book of the prophet Isaiah,\nyou read about yourself, O incarnate divinity,\nand in fulfillment of the words of your servants, O Lord,\nrevealed yourself as the anointed,\nthrough the prophetic words:\n“the Spirit of the Lord is upon me,\nbecause he has anointed me.”\nThen you closed the book,\nthereby showing the great difference in degree\nbetween these two anointings, ours and yours,\nand defined the great distance between them:\nours is a bit of luster from a drop of grace,\nand yours is the revelation of your divine essence\nshared equally with your Father and your Holy Spirit.\nWhen you first made your incarnation known\nat your birth, the angels in high praise proclaimed you\nthe Anointed One by which name you became known to\nall the creatures of earth.\nThe Prophet foretold the descent\nof your Father’s voice from the heavens\nat the River Jordan and on the chosen Mount Tabor,\nsaying “He proclaims among the people his\nAnointed One.”\nAnd the Psalmist also foretold your glory, Almighty,\nand of the honor bestowed by consecrating the human\nnature you have assumed, “God, your God has anointed\nyou with the oil of gladness.”:\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nThe breath of our face, Lord Christ,\nyour name is truly, “the Anointed One,”\nfor in your goodness, you gave our souls\nthe breath of life and light of your countenance.\nThe wise words of one favored by God\nproclaimed your love for mankind,\nwhile telling of a certain prophet:\n“He shall testify before the Lord and his anointed,”\nand confirmed the good news, saying:\n“I have not taken so much as a pair of sandals\nfrom any man.”\n\nIn praise of Christ’s bride, the holy church,\nthe Song of Songs, from beginning to end,\nexplains the divine mystery,\ncomparing incarnation to spiced wine\nand virtue to myrrh mixed with choice oil\nand perfect morals to a sweet perfume of\nmyrrh and incense mixed with delicious powders.\nWhen Daniel described in words that seemed\nbeyond human expression your life-giving death,\nChrist King of heaven, he predicted “the anointed one\nwill be killed in sixty-nine weeks,”\ncalling you the anointed leader.\nThe lamp stand of Zechariah, son of Berechiah\nand grandson of Iddo,\nthrough its ingenious system of oil supply\nto the seven lamps, keeping them constantly lit,\nsymbolizes the anointing and salvation\npoured from your bounty upon us.\nAnd according to the Old Law of prophecy,\ncereal offerings of round loafs of unleaven bread\nof fine flour mixed with the oil\nand peace offering of the anointed calf,\nthe portion called the Lord’s, and\npurification sacrifice performed with two birds,\nthe living one dipped in the blood of the other,\nas if with anointing oil,\nall were performed at your altar in the temple.\nAll these are manifestations of the mystery,\nall are signs relating to you,\nonly begotten Son, blessed of great God.\nYou alone are anointed in a new and marvelous way,\nin and through yourself, with your whole essence,\nperfectly and lacking absolutely nothing.\n\n\n# IX.\n\nBut does it make sense to multiply examples of\nthis great, inexplicable mystery?\nTo understand, we must taste you, sweet Lord,\nand learn through you\nthe true meaning of the oil\nfor what is it, if not\nthe gladness praised by the Psalmist\nthat you grant by curing the grief\nof the tree of our transgression?\nWhat is it, if not the rich, fullness of heart,\nby which you make us forget the food of death?\nWhat, if not the anointing, that transforms our ashen\nwretchedness into the brightness of perpetual good\ncheer, that through the salvation of your name,\nO Spirit of Might, we might become the\nchildren of God?\nWhat, if not the cure that is the fervent desire of the\nprophet’s heart, that is, to be anointed in his old age\nwith rich oil that he might be anointed upon\nhis head with oil\nby which with the help of your protecting hand,\nwe are saved from the tragedy of the fall,\nwhich brings death.\nWhat, if not the thanks\nexpressed for the lamp\nthat shed light on the fog of sin and the darkness\nof idolatry, your union in my nature to\nbecome in me, Emmanuel?\nWhat, if not the consolation prophesied by the prophet\nof gladdening blessings as a sign saying:\n“They will be anointed with oil free of impurities.”\n\nOr when the wiseman in the name of bride, says to the\nmaids of honor, “Sustain me with oil,\nshower me in apples,”\nand “Keep me in the embrace of the\nsweet balsam orchard,”\nreferring to that fine substance, filled with your Spirit,\nwhose light enables us to see\nyour finer, higher, ungraspable element, praised Lord.\n\nAnd now, our only provider and\ncause of all good things,\nlisten with compassion, Lord,\nto the supplications I call to you,\nwith my arms lifted up in prayer,\nbolstered from within,\nwith the sighs of my heart,\nwith the cries of my tongue and lips.\nExpressing thanks through these offerings,\nI offer up my gratitude to you,\nalmighty, awesome, exalted, incomprehensible,\nforever embraced in unending love,\nconstantly praised with the chant,\nHoly, Holy, only and always Holy,\nblessed forever.\nOut of your great goodness,\ngrant me yet more help,\nfor I am completely lost.\nGive me hope of sweetness,\nthough I am not worthy of the least drop of your light,\nso that I might understand through you, good Lord,\nthe subtle secret of this mystery.\nand mix thanks with my prayer,\nsaying with David,\n“We have received your mercy, Lord,”\nand “your hidden and invisible secrets,\nyou have revealed through your wisdom.”:\n\n\n# X.\n\nAnd now, majesty to you, God almighty,\nwhose generosity never ceases,\nwhose compassion streams in all directions,\nwho is always ready in healing,\nbecause you merged and mixed\nyour splendid miracles, awe-inspiring beyond telling,\ninto such a common and familiar material.\nFor that force which the heavens in their height,\nand the earth in its breadth,\nand the abyss in its depth,\nand the seas in their multitude\ncould not hold, you fit in this small drop of oil,\na mere speck, compared with your immensity,\ntruly and not just in appearance,\nso that when it performs a new miracle,\nunrelated to its nature,\nit does not appear to be some kind of\nillusion to onlookers.\nInstead it heals the doubting souls\nrather than wounding them.\nJust as out of the flour of wheat,\nblessed Son of God, you made your body,\nin reality and not in semblance,\nand out of the wine of the grape\nthe blood of your side,\nand out of the bountiful water,\nthe womb of spiritual birth,\nso you also bestowed on us, as you did upon\nyour disciples, the immortal breath of your Holy Spirit\nthrough and in this oil.\nFor the people who walked in darkness\nyou brought the dawn through your incarnation,\nand through your labors you gave birth to new life.\nYou placed a seal upon them\nthat cannot be effaced even by idolatry,\njust as no one can follow your example\nto further consecrate the wood of the cross, Lord.\nFor by this mark of grace\nyou brought light to the world,\nmanifesting yourself in your perfect fullness,\nbeyond understanding,\nin such a way, that the poor shall not want\nand the rich shall not take on airs,\nfor like the air is distributed\nand the sunlight is spread\nand the stream waters flow\nequally to all, just as the manna was equally\ndistributed to all people on earth alike,\nwith more for the poor than the rich and powerful.\n\n\n# XI.\n\nThe deep mystery of this substance is\nmarvelously explained by its very nature,\nfor it does not shift around constantly\nas if it cannot make up its mind,\nnor does it steal away from its place of rest,\nnor can it be removed by the strongest soap,\nnor is it washed away by any other kind of liquid.\nAnd just as color is a necessary and permanent attribute\nof physical existence,\nbecause when there is color, the body exists,\nand when there is no color, the body seems not to exist,\nin the same way, by virtue of its natural powers,\nthis oil takes hold and does not let go,\nand through it you were united and joined with us,\nLord Jesus Christ,\njoining the inner substance with its outward form.\nYou rendered visible\nthat which was invisible for the eyes\nand incomprehensible for the desires of our hearts,\nby providing us this oil,\nmade by pressing and squeezing fruits of the earth.\nMoreover, you did not command that this anointing oil\nbe prepared by mixing together all manner of flowers\ninto a strange concoction,\nin accordance with the old and benighted law.\nInstead, turning your name into reality,\nyou mixed yourself into this pure oil,\nmaking it radiant with heavenly light.\nAnd although the savors of your sweetness are\nbeyond expression and cannot be compared to anything,\nalthough you have variously been referred to as\nthe flowers of the field or the lilies-of-the-valley,\nexquisite nard or sandalwood mixed with aloe,\nthe scent of saffron, the blossoms of the vine or\na fine wine, you, Lord beyond understanding,\ndeemed it fitting\nthat your name be glorified simply as “oil poured out,”\nfor you are the consummation of all things\nand lacking in nothing.\nThus, not by the mixing of opposing elements,\nwhich at once symbolize a divided will,\nbut rather in confirmation of our love,\nyou revel in divine joy,\nfor our sake, you manifest yourself in all your splendor,\naccording to our needs,\nas the light of goodness\nor as a warming fire,\nor as the fervor of love,\ndevoid of any hard-hearted coldness,\nin ways to make understandable to our minds\nthat this drop of oil can really unite us with God.\nWith Solomon the anointed and adopted of God,\nI sing with the mouth of a bride, to you heavenly\nbridegroom, a song of praise and thanksgiving,\nyearning with the fervent desire of my heart\nfor your sweet scent, more than for any incense.\nIn the inspired words of the wiseman and the\ntheological evangelist, let us hasten in your footsteps\nand the trace of your scent.\nLike one who has the words of eternal life,\nhaving washed my face with the water of life,\nwhich is more exalted than the waters above the\nheavenly firmament, and having anointed my head\nwith the heavenly oil of incorruptibility,\nI come before you with joy, cheerfully and\nwithout sadness.\n\n\n# XII.\n\nThis venerated and blessed oil,\nwould not be an ointment for the chamber of my brain,\nor do the hair on my head any good,\nwere it not sealed with the sign of your\nlife-giving cross, Lord.\n\nThis miraculous oil brings the blessing of the Light to\nthe Jew and the Gentile,\nthe Indian and the barbarian,\nthe Scythian and the Greek,\nthe cruel savage and the fearsome dog-headed giants,\nthe freeborn master and the slave by birth,\nmaking them Christians,\nbaptizing them in your name,\ndedicating them to your Holy Spirit, and\nadopting them as the true sons of your Heavenly Father.\nSee how varied its powers,\nfirst in the physical and then in inner strength.\nFor as a wooden vessel easily cracks unless it is\nrubbed with oil\nand becomes useless and worthless,\nso a person, if not anointed, is easily led astray,\nand separated from you, and\nremains unenlightened.\nThis oil is your finger, O Jesus,\nwith which you perform miracles,\nwhich like unscratchable, impenetrable armor,\ncovers us with an ever protective cloak,\nfrom dark and foreign marauders.\nFor one pure as wool, dipped in this oil,\ncan neither be stained with blood,\nnor fade into somber colors.\nSpiritually, this oil enters\nand penetrates the very substance of our being.\nAnd if the curse of the Psalmist\ncould soak the bones of the evildoer like oil,\nhow much more will your Spirit\nthrough this oil of light,\nheal and make whole\nour invisible inner beings,\nfrom our windpipes\nto our toes,\ncompletely submerging\nany disturbing thought of death.\nFor your awesome, life-giving power, Lord Christ,\nis mixed in this oil and truly dwells in it.\n\n\n# XIII.\n\nOil, this magnificent substance applied by wrestlers\nto their naked bodies, as an enhancement\nduring tournaments, making it difficult for their\nopponents to take hold of them,\nsets demons and diseases to flight.\nFor, in the words Ezekiel addressed to the\nspiritual Pharaoh, in the form of a satirical allegory:\n“On the day you were created,\nI placed you with an anointed guardian cherub\namidst the fiery stones of the holy mountain of God.”\nO blessed and awesome universal help,\nwho is always beyond words and beyond understanding,\nwho is constantly venerated through the gospel of life\nas the new-born, anointed one from the city of David,\nand constantly sought as in the question of the\nchief priest,\n“Are you the Christ, son of the blessed?”\nand in the blessed proclamation by Peter,\n“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,”\nand by your suspicious interrogators,\n“If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”\nAnd because of your teachings,\nwe believe you to be the Christ,\nteacher and Lord of all.\nAnd even before this,\nHerod directly asked for you by name, O Christ,\nand you yourself answered, “How is it written\nthat the anointed of God, the Son without beginning,\nthe one David calls Lord, could be his son in time?”\nAnd we understand from this as a fitting interpretation,\nthat the consummation of this mystic calling is\nrealized in us, who have the honor of being called\nChristians.\n\n\n# XIV.\n\nThe awesome word “anointing,”\nevokes at once trepidation, veneration and\nrich adoration, that no earth-dweller dares be called God,\nbut only godly.\nLikewise, no human being has been called the Christ,\nbut only Christian.\nNot even the greatest of the prophets, John the Baptist,\nwho by baptizing with water\nprepared the way for the baptism with the spirit,\ncould claim this name,\nfor he said, “I am not the Christ, but was sent\nbefore him.”\nIn the words of the evangelist Mark,\nthe disciples set out in pairs,\nand as if acting with the genuine hand of God\nthey would anoint with oil\nand without invoking any other human devices,\nthey would heal people.\nFor as darkness yields to the light,\nand ailments to health\nand night to day\nand death to life,\nso by virtue of this substance, given by the Lord,\nall evil works are rejected, checked, and\ncompletely suppressed.\nAnd just as for flies, spiders and insects that\ncrawl into the ears,\nthe oil is a deadly poison that kills them,\nso this oil strengthened with the abundant\nblessings of grace,\nwards off demons, dissolves the mortgage of evil and\ntears up the death sentence.\nThe baptismal font is not complete\nunless accompanied by anointing.\nTo the first man left mortally wounded by brigands,\nthis salve of salvation was applied,\nand it also served honorably\nas ointment for the incurable wounds of\nJacob and Israel.\nDavid wanted this oil\nas a fruitful olive tree in the house of the Lord,\ndwelling there always in trust,\npredicting abandonment of circumcision\nand adoption of the grace of baptism.\nBut how can I discourse\nconvinced that I understand this completely,\nespecially regarding holiness,\nwhen even the angels cannot explain it in words?\nHow indeed could I hope to describe its true essence?\n\n\n# XV.\n\nGlory to you always and in all things,\nimmortal king, in the praise I now sing,\nwhich you created and perfected through me,\ngood, caring, merciful and patient,\nwealthy and abundant, Lord, triumphant over all.\nThe idea of anointing sketched by our forefathers,\nyou made a reality in the fullness of time.\nYou are light in your very nature\nand the ever-shining sun,\nand you called your disciples the light of the world,\nfor through them you filled the creatures of all the earth\nwith rays of blissful grace.\nYou accepted the anointing of your feet with the\noil of sweetness\nas a symbol that our prayers are acceptable to you.\nAnd by the anointing of your head by a\nwoman of ill-repute,\nyou showed your compassionate love for us.\nAnd with such great pleasure, O infinite Lord,\ndid you inhale the aroma of the oil,\nthat you ordered as an inviolable commandment\nthat wherever the gospel is preached\nthroughout the world\nthat seemingly insignificant act of anointing\nshould be remembered,\nto the amazement of your listeners\nand raising the hopes of future generations.\n“You have been anointed by the Holy One,”\nsaid that most blessed of your disciples,\nexplaining the mystery poured out upon us\nfrom your overflowing bounty, O source of life.\nThis drop of blessing from you who are praised on high,\nwhich endlessly innoculates us,\nbears a close, fitting and lasting resemblance\nto you who are light and to your Holy Spirit.\nIt is called light,\nbecause it is like the first element of creation,\nand the very symbol of you, our Creator,\nby which you drive away the gloomy\ndarkness of evil.\nIt is called fire,\nbecause in every element of creation\nthere is distributed in some measure, your essence,\nhidden and manifest, silent and known,\nthat unless provoked by the devilish adversary,\nit will not flare up by itself.\nIt is also called anointing,\nbecause through it we are adopted\ninto your majesty\nand are offered to your Father as his inheritance\nand marked indelibly with your mercy by this oil,\nlike you, so we might shine brightly in the next life.\nIt is also called spirit,\nbecause we are cleansed of the calamities of deceit,\ncunningly instigated by that troublemaker Satan,\nso we might worship our heavenly Father\nrenewed in soul and with truth,\nnailed to you with faith and hope,\nall-giving God.\n\n\n# XVI.\n\nIn truth, eternally and in reality,\nthis oil filled with light is\na venerable proof of your love, God on high.\nThis is why Paul himself deemed it fitting\nto say directly in his teaching on grace and thanksgiving,\n“He who establishes us with you in Christ and has\nanointed us is God, who has also sealed us and given\nus the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee,”\nand also, “Do not,” he said, “grieve the\nHoly Spirit of God,\nby whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”\n“Anointed” is a title honorable and invincible\nin the Old Testament, yet more so in the New.\nIn the words of the Psalm of David,\nthat predict faithfully the mystery of your providential\nsuffering, Lord, “The rulers of the people band together\nagainst the Lord and his anointed.”\nA great prophecy that imprinted upon the\nJewish throngs the unredeemable sin of\nspilling your blood, caused by audacity toward you,\nLord, “Who can put forth his hand against the Lord’s\nanointed, and be guiltless?”\nFor although Saul was killed by one of his own,\nstill they were not rejected in shame\nor subject to the insults of foreign nations,\nuntil they were implicated in the spilling of\nyour blood, Lord.\nAnd these pleas in the Psalms are a great pledge,\nreminding us of the inheritance of future generations:\n“For the sake of your beloved servant David,\nyou do not turn away the face of your anointed one,”\nand again, “Look upon the face of your anointed”\nand “show steadfast love for your anointed.”:\n\n\n# XVII.\n\nThis light-filled fluid, O Christ,\nis the venerated gift of your hand,\nfor out of all riches in your kingdom,\nthe Prophet deemed nothing higher, Lord,\nthan that you would say,\n“I have found David, my servant,\nand with my holy oil I have anointed him.”\nThus, by this instructive example,\nembracing your anointing with the light, our\nLord Jesus Christ,\nyou are known to us, unchanging and eternal.\nYou are all and in all, the only king of kings,\nand the true anointed one among the anointed,\nglorified and worshiped yesterday and today\nFor as the wick, soaked in oil, does not give light\nuntil lit with a flame,\nso we, who are anointed with the light,\ndo not glow until we are lit like torches in heaven.\nThis is a clear explanation of its nature,\ntransmitted from the ancients till today,\npainted in marvelously brilliant colors\nthrough these felicitous analogies.\n\n\n# XVIII.\n\nNow, the cause of these sublime, life-giving,\ndivine effects,\ncharacteristic of you, Creator,\nwithout which one cannot be considered a Christian,\nor named a Nazarite,\nor be remembered as a son of Judah,\nor raise a battle cry in the name of the Lord of Jacob,\nis this substance, the oil of blessings,\nin which your Holy Trinity is mixed and joined:\nthe ray of grace, the splendor of our forehead,\nthe image of our face, the comeliness of our traits,\nthe light of our eyes, the sign of the cross on our pupils,\nthe tenderness of our cheeks, the decoration of\nour countenance,\nthe guardian of our lips, the attendant of our faith,\nthe guide of our behavior, the tie that binds,\nthe strength of souls, the fortitude of resistance,\nthe barrier to spells, the destroyer of talismans,\nthe repeller of wizards, the confounder of sorcerers,\nthe exposer of heretics, the vanquisher of demons,\nthe dispeller of pain, the fulfiller of the baptized,\nthe fervent desire of converts, the incomprehensible\nmystery of outsiders,\nthe bewilderment of pagans,\nthe envy of non-believers,\nthe unmasker of secrets, the honor of the humble,\nthe glory of slaves, the adornment of women,\nthe growth of children, the joy of the aged,\nthe consecrator of the ordained, the counsel of the pure,\nthe crown of kings, the grandeur of monarchs,\nthe excellence of emperors.\nFor as a sealed container indicates the value of\nthe contents,\nso the sublimity of your grace sealed in us\nby being anointed in your name, God and\nLord Jesus Christ,\nis beautifully symbolized by anointing.\nAnd the name of this substance, muron,\naccording to the inspired wisemen,\noriginated with the Egyptians and\nexpresses its very essence\nas an image of an awe-inspiring mystery.\n\n\n# XIX.\n\nFor this blessed muron,\nwhich the prophet foreshadowed,\nreferring in his prayer to the light of his eyes,\naccording to its etymology is derived from homeron,\nwhich means mother for me,\nthat is to say, that which strongly attracts our\nnature to itself,\nand solidifies through a wonderful transformation,\nthe fluid water of the font of light,\nand like the ingredient that curdles milk into yogurt,\nso it stabilizes my untame ravings and\nthe perpetually flowing stream of my consciousness.\nAccording to another etymology,\nthe word muron means ‘ somber, ’\nthat is, ‘ obscure, ’\nsince it refers to something dark, hidden or unseen.\nAnd this name is not some baseless metaphor,\nsince this word truly refers to something\nthat symbolizes a secret deeper than the holy of holies.\nFor muron does not wash away dirt like water,\nor bolster the heart like bread.\nInstead in a fittingly new way, with divine providence,\nit imprints the Lord on our senses,\nnevertheless remaining exalted beyond our\ncomprehension, thus its name is beyond our understanding.\n\nFor as God truly dwells in light that\ncannot be approached,\nwith your boundless glory in its infinity,\nyou covered yourself in impenetrable cloud\nexternally sealed from our faculties.\nIn the same way, the flow of light\nfrom the eloquent tongues of some,\nin appropriate poetic composition is called obscure,\nbecause worldly natures cannot understand\nessential truths.\nThe holy chrism richly and properly\ncommands both these divine names,\nfor the very name chrism resembles the name of our\nexalted Lord, Christ, doubly glorifying this oil,\nconsecrated with fine and fragrant incense.\nFor “Our God is a consuming fire,”\naccording to Moses, and also,\n“the light,” according to John,\nthus Isaiah’s allusion is justified:\n“The light of Israel shall become a fire.”:\n\n\n# XX.\n\nOnce again I shall express the same idea\nin different words and comparisons,\nwith renewed praise and blessings,\nfor I cannot forget my bitterness,\nwhich you sweetened in your great compassion.\nFor mera, which means ‘bitterness,’\nappropriately signifies ‘wearisome torment and pain,’\nso in Armenian, muron is explained etymologically\nas a derivative of merelutyun, that is, ‘mortification.’\nFor by being anointed with this spirit-bearing oil,\nwe are cut off from the vanities of this world,\nthose vile and deadly excesses of the Adversary,\nwhose dankness makes my lyre go out of tune,\nwhose dampness muffles the sound of my drums\nthat used to resound strong and bold when struck\nbut whose soggy wetness drags us down\ninto the deaf numbness of death.\nYet again through this anointing we are bound with hope\nto the miracle of your cross, beyond telling, O Christ,\nfor by baptism into your death, O living God,\nwe partake in your divine immortality through you\nyourself, God, placing complete trust in you,\nforever, fully and inseparably.\n\n\n# XXI.\n\nThis oil seals us in your name, Jesus,\nwith a four-pointed mark in the form of your sign,\nconferring grace in glory and dignity to your blood,\nO Savior and giver of life,\nand crowned with the same invincible glory\nthis oil is exalted.\nIt is called the wood-blessing oil,\nin the words of the Prophets,\nfor when this oil is miraculously applied\nto common wood of the forest,\nraw material, wild with evil and strange ideas,\nbecomes the mature equivalent of your cross,\nto be offered up to you, O Creator.\nSimilarly, the windows of our soul, which are\nalways open, were sealed by you, in the name of your\nawesome majesty, with the sign of the cross\nin providential modesty,\nthat we might inhabit a dwelling favored by your\nHoly Spirit, and might be impervious to the evil\ndelusions of the trickster\nand his dark fog.\nRestrained by this light, we gather for the\nhymns of thanksgiving at the evening service\nwith the stars, your heavenly lamps,\nsymbolic of the light of your grace, the muron,\nthat burns in us.\nAnd in this light, the oil reminds us of the\nsalvation of the good, planting this thought in our souls,\nmaking it blossom and bear fruit.\nTo make ready for the banquet\non the last night of your Second Coming,\nwe use this light like a torch.\n\n\n# XXII.\n\nNow, if using the numerical value of the\nArmenian alphabet,\nwe take the twenty-fourth letter with the value of four hundred [n],\nand apply it to the profound mystery of the oil,\nwe come up with an easily digestible explanation\nto nourish those hungry for understanding.\nFor when we multiply twenty times four, we get eighty [dz],\nwhich is the first letter of the word oil [dzet/dzyut]\nin Armenian.\nAnd when we substitute the letter four hundred [n] for eighty [dz],\nwe change the word for oil [dzyut] in to the word\nfor matter [nyut], which symbolizes the new leaven\nthat miraculously raises up the lump of dough.\nAnd as the Gospel parable teaches,\nthough the smaller [80] does not contain the larger [400],\nnevertheless it can transform the whole mass and\nmake it grow, so the anointing oil mixed into\nour nature transforms and makes us grow.\n\n\n# XXIII.\n\nThis gentle oil is a constant reminder\nof elevation and humility.\nFor when eaten in food it goes down soft,\nlike a balanced and kind word,\nbut when put on liquids, slippery and unstable,\nit rises above them,\nshowing its glorious excellence and superiority,\nsymbolizing its miraculous mystery.\nAnd when applied to a leather container,\nit is not absorbed like water or wine,\nbut rather stays on the surface within its proper bounds.\nThus understanding the incomparable excellence of\nyour goodness,\nO Son of the living God,\nby virtue of your blood,\nwe write on our foreheads\nwith this oil of sacred gifts,\nand we imprint the breath of our nature with your\nHoly Spirit,\nbelieving with the conviction of our heart\nthat this oil will forever show forth and shine anew with\nbrilliant radiance upon the varied and marvelous expanse\nlike a beacon toward the glory of everlasting life.\nAnd may this spiritual oil,\nfull of bliss and heavenly glow,\nmake the sign of your cross\nshine upon my face, in your image.\n\n\n# XXIV.\n\nAnd being incomprehensible, a power too\ngreat for understanding,\neven soaring with the swift wings of the mind,\nbefore the pursuit of my thought\nflying without trace into infinity,\ncompletely disappeared, hid from me,\nand it left no likeness,\nresembled no parallel,\nwas defined by no formula,\nand could be measured by no companion,\nbut rather was spiritually superior to them,\nlike the sign of your divine cross,\nthe equal to your blood, O Savior.\nAnd now, Lord, bless us through it and in it.\nAnd by it may your name become our salvation,\nO awesome, light, heavenly and marvelous,\nvenerated with incense by the pure in spirit in praise of\nyour ineffable glory,\nholy, holy, beyond understanding, beyond telling,\nexalted, merciful, lauded, true, doer of good and holiness,\nPardon us.\nGrant us healing.\nClothe us in grace.\nEndow us with bliss.\nBy being anointed with this oil, this heavenly\nshower of light, may I be found sinless.\nDo not let the sorrow of sinful infirmity,\ninvade and take over this anointed rational\nfabric of mine, and commingle with the image of my soul.\nFor those who present themselves to be anointed\nwith this oil, let them be like a bride,\nas for a glorious wedding,\nbeautifully arrayed in holy splendor,\ntheir souls adorned with happiness.\nAnd for those who approach it for purification,\nmay this light, this glorious fire, given by God,\nbe a double tempering and second immersion,\nwith fervent striving for the good,\nthrough which they emerge as if newly created.\nAnd in all ways fully armed with ever-ready\nsteadfastness, may I dwell upon your unshakeable rock,\nstanding firm, my faith grounded in you without any doubt.\nFor those who are on fire with this gift,\nby this sign of victory, may they\nnot be doused with water,\nnot be burned by the fire,\nnot be frozen by the cold,\nnot be extinguished by the harmful wind,\nnot be stained by unclean dreams,\nnot betray Jesus’ own to the Evil One,\nnot throw away the accumulated treasures of life\nat their moment of exit from this world,\nnot be outside the protection of your wings,\nnot be stripped of our being anointed by unclean living.\nBut by your grace, may we be set on fire by it,\nbe filled with it,\nbe enlightened through it,\nbe justified by it,\nbe liberated, crowned and reign by it.\nAnd to you alone, the only Anointed,\ntogether with your Father and your Holy Spirit,\nmay all give\nhymns of blessing, alleluias in all tongues,\nresounding voices, triumphant praise,\nlips lauding your goodness,\nholy words of the Psalms,\nforever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73929,12 +76257,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 94", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nEternal God, almighty, doer of good,\ncreator of light and inventor of night,\nlife in death and light in the darkness,\nhope for the expectant and patient with the doubters,\nwho with your ingenious wisdom\nturns the darkness of death into morning,\ndawn that does not dim, sun that does not set.\nThe dark of the night is not able to cover the glory\nof your Lordship, before which all creation\nkneels constantly in worship,\nthose in heaven and on earth, and those confined in hell.\nYou who hear the sighs of those who are bound,\nand who attend to the prayers of the humble,\nand receive their supplications,\nmy God and my king,\nmy life and my refuge,\nmy hope and my confidence,\nJesus Christ, O God of all,\nholiness that dwells in the souls of the saints,\nconsolation for the afflicted and pardon for sinners,\nyou who know all things before they happen,\nsend the protective strength of your right hand\nand save me from the terror of the night and\nevil demons, so that always embracing your awesome\nmemory and your holy name\non the lips of my soul and with the desires of my breath,\nI might be saved and protected along with those\nwho call to you with all their hearts.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAnd by the seal of the sign of your cross,\nwhich you renewed by staining it with your divine blood,\nand by the same grace of your fatherhood,\nwith which you baptized us,\nand in the glory of your image, in which you fashioned\nand created us,\nwith these divine gifts,\nmay Satan be confounded and his machinations foiled,\nmay his snares be removed and his forces be defeated,\nmay his sharp edged weapons be ineffective,\nmay his fog be lifted, his darkness dispelled, his\nshadow withdrawn.\nMay your arm shield me and your right hand seal me,\nfor you are compassionate and merciful,\nand your servants are called by your name.\nTo you with the Father and your Holy Spirit,\nglory and power forever and ever.\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -73942,12 +76272,14 @@ "title": "Prayer 95", "body": "_Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart:_\n\n# I.\n\nSun of justice, ray of blessings, form of light,\ncherished desire, exalted beyond understanding,\nmighty beyond telling, joy of goodness,\nhope realized, praised by heaven,\nking of glory Christ creator,\nlife proclaimed, finish, I pray,\nthe meanderings of my wretched, errant voice\nwith your own mighty words.\nHelp me to polish a pleasing prayer,\nto bring before your Father on high.\nYou who took on my likeness\nsubmitting for my sake to trial and condemnation,\ntake pity on me.\nYou who bless all life, God of Goodness,\nwho provide all things above and below,\nwho were willing to die for me,\nGod and lord of all,\nwho have borne the pangs of mortal flesh,\ntake pity on me, for I am wracked with pain.\nTake pity on me, stay with me, a wretched sinner,\nand pray with me to your Father, your equal in glory.\n\n\n# II.\n\nBy your noble and glorious blood,\noffered unceasingly to please God who sent you,\nmay the dangers be lifted from me, the condemned,\nmay my transgressions be forgiven,\nmay my vices be pardoned,\nmay my shamelessness be forgotten,\nmay my sentence be commuted,\nmay the worms shrivel,\nmay the wailing stop,\nand the gnashing of teeth fall silent.\nLet the laments lessen and tears dry.\nLet mourning end and darkness be banished.\nMay the vengeful fire be tamped out\nand torments of every kind be exiled.\n\n\n# III.\n\nMay you who grant life to all be compassionate now.\nLet your light dawn, your salvation be swift,\nyour help come in time, and the hour of your\narrival be at hand.\nMay the dew of your mercy quench the parched field\nwhere my bones have fallen into the pit of death.\nPrepare the earth for the day of light\nand let the soil bloom and bring forth fruit,\nheavenly cup of life-giving blood,\never sacrificed, never running dry\nall for the salvation and life of the souls in eternal rest.\nAnd though my body die in sin,\nwith your grace and compassion,\nmay I be strengthened in you, cleansed of sin\nthrough you, and renewed by you with life everlasting,\nand at the resurrection of the righteous\nbe deemed worthy of your Father’s blessing.\nTo him together with you, all glory,\nand with the Holy Spirit, praise and resounding thanks,\nnow, always and forever,\nAmen.\n\n\nAmen.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas J. Samuelian", "language": "Armenian", "source": { "title": "(the) Book of Lamentations", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "Thomas J. Samuelian" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -74786,11 +77118,15 @@ "title": "“I shall soon fall prey to rot 
”", "body": "I shall soon fall prey to rot.\nThough it’s hard to die, it’s good to die;\nI shall ask for no one’s pity,\nAnd there’s no one who would pity me.\n\nWith my lyre I won no glory\nFor my noble family name;\nAnd I die as distant from my people\nAs the day that I began to live.\n\nTies of friendship, unions of the heart--\nAll are broken: from my youth,\nFate has sent me foes implacable,\nWhile my friends all perished in the struggle.\n\nTheir prophetic songs were left unfinished,\nThey fell victim to misfortune, were betrayed\nIn the bloom of life; and now their portraits watch me\nFrom the walls, reproachfully.", "metadata": { - "translator": "M. Denner & I. Kutik & A. Wachtel", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1874 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "M. Denner", + "I. Kutik", + "A. Wachtel" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -74801,11 +77137,15 @@ "title": "“Morning”", "body": "You’re unhappy, sick at heart:\nOh, I know it--here such sickness isn’t rare.\nNature can but mirror\nThe surrounding poverty.\n\nAll is ever drear and dismal,\nPastures, fields, and meadows,\nWet and drowsy jackdaws\nResting on the peaked haystacks;\n\nHere’s a drunken peasant driving\nHis collapsing nag\nInto far-off blueish mists,\nSuch a gloomy sky 
 It makes one weep!\n\nThe rich city is no better, though:\nThe same storm clouds race across the sky;\nIt’s hard on the nerves--steel shovels\nScraping, screeching as they clean the streets\n\nWork’s beginning everywhere;\nFrom the fire tower an alarm goes up;\nA condemned man’s brought outside\nWhere the executioners already wait.\n\nAt the break of day a prostitute is hurrying\nHome from someone’s bed;\nOfficers inside a hired carriage\nLeave the city--there will be a duel.\n\nShopkeepers have roused themselves\nAnd they rush to sit behind their counters:\nAll day long they need to swindle\nIf they want to eat their fill at night.\n\nListen! Cannon fire from the fortress!\nThere’s a flood endangering the capital 
\nSomeone’s died: Upon a scarlet cushion\nLies a first-class Anna decoration.\n\nNow a yardman beats a thief--he got him!\nGeese are driven out to slaughter;\nFrom an upper floor the crackle\nOf a shot--another suicide 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "M. Denner & I. Kutik & A. Wachtel", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1874 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "M. Denner", + "I. Kutik", + "A. Wachtel" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -74938,8 +77278,10 @@ "title": "“Clenched Soul”", "body": "We have lost even this twilight.\nNo one saw us this evening hand in hand\nwhile the blue night dropped on the world.\n\nI have seen from my window\nthe fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.\n\nSometimes a piece of sun\nburned like a coin in my hand.\n\nI remembered you with my soul clenched\nin that sadness of mine that you know.\n\nWhere were you then?\nWho else was there?\nSaying what?\nWhy will the whole of love come on me suddenly\nwhen I am sad and feel you are far away?\n\nThe book fell that always closed at twilight\nand my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.\n\nAlways, always you recede through the evenings\ntoward the twilight erasing statues.", "metadata": { - "translator": "W. S. Merwin", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "W. S. Merwin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -74955,8 +77297,10 @@ "title": "“The Dictators”", "body": "An odor stayed on in the canefields:\nCarrion, blood, and a nausea\nOf harrowing petals.\nBetween coconut palms lay the graves, in their stilled\nStrangulation, their festering surfeit of bones.\nA finical satrap conversed\nWith wineglasses, collars, and piping.\nIn the palace, all flashed like a clockdial.\nThe gloved laugh redoubled, a moment\nSpanning the passageways, meeting\nThe newly-killed voices and the buried blue mouths. Out of sight,\nLament was perpetual, and fell, like the plant and its pollen,\nForcing a lightless increase in the blinded, big leaves.\nAnd bludgeon by bludgeon on the terrible waters,\nScale over scale in the bog,\nThe snout filled with silence and slime\nAnd vendetta was born.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ben Belitt", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Ben Belitt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -74964,8 +77308,10 @@ "title": "“Discoverers”", "body": "From the north Almagro brought his wrinkled lightning,\nand over the territory, amid explosion and twilight,\nhe bent day and night as over a chart.\nShadow of thorns, shadow of thistle and wax\nthe Spaniard united with his dry figure,\nwatching the wounded strategies of earth.\nNight, snow and sand make the form\nof my slim fatherland,\nall silence is in its long line,\nall foam emerges from its marine beard,\nall coal fills it with mysterious kisses.\nLike an ember, gold burns in its fingers\nand silver illumines, like a green moon,\nits hardened shadow of grave planet.\nThe Spaniard seated near the rose, one day,\nnear the oil, near the wine, near the old sky,\ncould not conceive this spot of angry stone\nrising from the dung of the marine eagle.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angel Flores", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Angel Flores" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -74976,8 +77322,10 @@ "title": "“A Dog Has Died”", "body": "My dog has died.\nI buried him in the garden\nnext to a rusted old machine.\n\nSome day I’ll join him right there,\nbut now he’s gone with his shaggy coat,\nhis bad manners and his cold nose,\nand I, the materialist, who never believed\nin any promised heaven in the sky\nfor any human being,\nI believe in a heaven I’ll never enter.\nYes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom\nwhere my dog waits for my arrival\nwaving his fan-like tail in friendship.\n\nAi, I’ll not speak of sadness here on earth,\nof having lost a companion\nwho was never servile.\nHis friendship for me, like that of a porcupine\nwithholding its authority,\nwas the friendship of a star, aloof,\nwith no more intimacy than was called for,\nwith no exaggerations:\nhe never climbed all over my clothes\nfilling me full of his hair or his mange,\nhe never rubbed up against my knee\nlike other dogs obsessed with sex.\n\nNo, my dog used to gaze at me,\npaying me the attention I need,\nthe attention required\nto make a vain person like me understand\nthat, being a dog, he was wasting time,\nbut, with those eyes so much purer than mine,\nhe’d keep on gazing at me\nwith a look that reserved for me alone\nall his sweet and shaggy life,\nalways near me, never troubling me,\nand asking nothing.\n\nAi, how many times have I envied his tail\nas we walked together on the shores of the sea\nin the lonely winter of Isla Negra\nwhere the wintering birds filled the sky\nand my hairy dog was jumping about\nfull of the voltage of the sea’s movement:\nmy wandering dog, sniffing away\nwith his golden tail held high,\nface to face with the ocean’s spray.\n\nJoyful, joyful, joyful,\nas only dogs know how to be happy\nwith only the autonomy\nof their shameless spirit.\n\nThere are no good-byes for my dog who has died,\nand we don’t now and never did lie to each other.\n\nSo now he’s gone and I buried him,\nand that’s all there is to it.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alfred Yankauer", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Alfred Yankauer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -75004,8 +77352,10 @@ "title": "“Enigmas”", "body": "You’ve asked me what the lobster is weaving there with his golden feet?\nI reply, the ocean knows this.\nYou say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent bell? What is it waiting for?\nI tell you it is waiting for time, like you.\nYou ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?\nStudy, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know.\nYou question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal, and I reply by describing\nhow the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies.\nYou enquire about the kingfisher’s feathers,\nwhich tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides?\nOr you’ve found in the cards a new question touching on the crystal architecture\nof the sea anemone, and you’ll deal that to me now?\nYou want to understand the electric nature of the ocean spines?\nThe armored stalactite that breaks as it walks?\nThe hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out\nin the deep places like a thread in the water?\n\nI want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its jewel boxes\nis endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure,\nand among the blood-colored grapes time has made the petal\nhard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light\nand untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall\nfrom a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl.\n\nI am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead\nof human eyes, dead in those darknesses,\nof fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes\non the timid globe of an orange.\n\nI walked around as you do, investigating the endless star,\nand in my net, during the night, I woke up naked,\nthe only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -75024,8 +77374,10 @@ "title": "“Fantom of the Freighter”", "body": "Distance in flight above pipes of foam,\nSalt in ritual waves and regular ranks,\nAnd an odor and murmur of old ship,\nOf rotted wood and damaged ironwork,\nAnd tired machines that howl and weep\nPushing the prow and kicking the sides,\nMumbling lamentations, swallowing and swallowing distances,\nMaking a noise of sour waters over the sour waters,\nMoving the old ship over the old waters.\n\nInner storeholds, crepuscular tunnels\nVisited by intermittent daylight of the harbors:\nBags, bags heaped up by a somber god\nLike grey animals, rounded and eyeless,\nWith gentle grey ears,\nAnd worthy stomachs full of wheat or copra,\nSensitive bellies of pregnant women,\nMeanly dressed in grey, patiently\nWaiting in the shadow of a dolorous cinema.\n\nSuddenly the waters outside\nAre heard passing, running like an opaque horse,\nWith a noise of horses’ hooves in the water,\nRapid, submerging themselves once more in the waters.\nThen there is nothing but time in the cabins,\nTime in the miserable solitary diningroom,\nMotionless and visible like a great sorrow.\n\nOdor of leather and cloth thickly worn out,\nAnd onions and oil and yet more,\nOdor of something floating in the corners of the ship,\nOdor of something nameless,\nThat comes down the stairs like a wave of air,\nAnd traverses the corridors with its nonexistent body,\nAnd looks on with eyes preserved by death,\n\nIt looks on with its colorless eyes that are sightless,\nSlow, and it passes trembling without substance or shadow,\nSounds wrinkle it, things go through it,\nIts transparency makes the dirty chairs glisten\nWho is this fantom without a fantom’s body,\nWith its steps light as nocturnal dust\nAnd its voice that only objects preserve?\n\nThe furnishings travel full of its silent being\nLike little ships within the old ship,\nFreighted with its vague and disintegrated being:\nThe wardrobes, the green tablecovers,\nThe color of the curtains and the floor,\nEverything has suffered the slow emptiness of its hands\nAnd things have been worn out by its breath.\n\nIt slips and slides, it descends, transparent,\nAir within cold air that flows over the ship,\nIt leans on the railings with its hidden hands\nAnd looks at the bitter sea which flees behind the ship.\nOnly the waters repel its influence,\nIts odor and color of forgotten fantom\nAnd cool and deep they unfold their dance\nLike lives of fire, like blood or perfume,\nThey surge, new and strong, united and reunited.\n\nThe waters, without wearing out, without custom or time,\nGreen with quantity, skillful and cold,\nTouch the black stomach of the ship and wash its material,\nIts injured sides, its iron wrinkles,\nThe living waters gnaw the hull of the ship,\nTraveling with broad banners of foam\nAnd their teeth of salt flying in drops.\n\nThe fantom looks at the sea with its eyeless face:\nThe circle of day, the coughing of the ship, a bird\nIn the rounded and lonely equation of space;\nAnd it descends anew into the life of the ship,\nFalling upon the wood and dead time,\nGliding into black kitchens and cabins,\nSlow with air and atmosphere and desolate space.", "metadata": { - "translator": "H. R. Hays", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "H. R. Hays" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -75033,8 +77385,10 @@ "title": "“Finale”", "body": "Matilde, years or days\nsleeping, feverish,\nhere or there,\ngazing off,\ntwisting my spine,\nbleeding true blood,\nperhaps I awaken\nor am lost, sleeping:\nhospital beds, foreign windows,\nwhite uniforms of the silent walkers,\nthe clumsiness of feet.\n\nAnd then, these journeys\nand my sea of renewal:\nyour head on the pillow,\nyour hands floating\nin the light, in my light,\nover my earth.\n\nIt was beautiful to live\nwhen you lived!\n\nThe world is bluer and of the earth\nat night, when I sleep\nenormous, within your small hands.", "metadata": { - "translator": "William O’Daly", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "William O’Daly" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -75050,8 +77404,10 @@ "title": "“Horseman in Rain”", "body": "Primordial waters: clover and oat striving, water-walls,\nA meshing of cords in the net of the night,\nIn the barbarous weave of the damp, dropping water,\nA rending of water-drops, lamenting successions,\nDiagonal rage, cutting heaven.\nSteeped in aromas, smashing the water, interposing\nThe roan of their gloss, like a foliage, between boulder and water,\nThe horses gallop in water,\nTheir vapor attending, in a lunatic milk,\nA stampede of doves that hardens, like water.\nNot day, but a cistern\nOf obdurate weather, green agitations,\nWhere hooves join a landscape of haste\nWith the lapse of the rain and the bestial aroma of horses.\nBlankets and pommels, clustering cloak-furs,\nSeedfalls of darkness\nAblaze on the haunches of brimstone\nThat beat the considering jungle.\n\nBeyond and beyond and beyond\nAnd beyond and beyond and beyond and beyoooooond:\nThe horsemen demolish the rain, the horsemen\nPass under the bittering hazelnut, the rain\nWeaves unperishing wheat in a shimmer of lustres.\nHere is water’s effulgence, confusion of lightning,\nTo spill on the leaf, here, from the noise of the gallop,\nThe water goes wounded to earth, without flight.\nThe bridle reins dampen: branch-covered archways,\nFootfalls of footfalls, an herbage of darkness\nIn splintering starshapes, moonlike, icelike, a cyclone of horses\nRiddled with points like an icicle prism\nAnd born out of furor, the innocent fingers brim over,\nThe apple encompassing terror\nAnd the terrible banners of empire, are smitten.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ben Belitt", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Ben Belitt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -75104,8 +77460,10 @@ "title": "“Leviathan”", "body": "Night of the brute, antarctic outlander,\nNearing or passing me--an ice-field\nDisplacing the darkness--one day\nI shall enter your walls, I shall rear\nOn the sunken marine of your winter, your armory.\n\nSouthward, there crackled a holocaust, black\nWith your planet’s expulsion, the domains\nOf your silence that moved in the algae\nAnd jostled the lump of the ages.\n\nThen, form was, alone, was magnitude\nSealed by a world’s agitation, wherein glided\nYour leather pre-eminence, mistrusting\nThe gifts of its nature: tenderness, power.\n\nArk of our passion, inflaming\nA hummock of dark, as with torches,\nWhen your blind blood was quickened\nAn epoch of ocean still slept in its gardens,\nAnd in an immensity the disfiguring moon\nDivided its track with a magnet of phosphor.\nLife sputtered,\nThe mother-medusa, blue in the flame,\nA tempest of multiple wombs,\nAnd increase grew whole in its purity\nLike the pompano’s pulse in the sea.\n\nAmong waters, your congress\nOf mastheads and spars was disposed\nAnd your power of inviolate night\nWas shed on the roots in a deluge.\nPast expectancy’s islands, your continent\nFled; dereliction and terror\nMade the loneliness tremble.\nEven so, terror mounted the globes\nOf the glacial moon, terror entered your flesh\nAnd struck at your solitude, the asylums\nOf dread where your lamp lay extinguished.\nWith you was the night, a tempestuous slime\nThat held you like pitch and enveloped you\nWhile your tail’s hurricano\nSpun the ice of a slumbering galaxy.\n\nO enormously wounded onel Fiery fountainhead,\nLashing a ruin of thunders,\nOn the harpoon’s periphery, stained\nIn the blood-bath, bleeding your virtue away,\nThe repose and the calm of the animal conduct you,\nA cyclone of fracturing crescents,\nTo the black boats of blubber\nAnd the creatures of rancor and plague.\n\nGreat mold among crystals, dead\nOn a pole of the moon, heaven itself is encompassed,\nPandemonium’s cloud, and laments there,\nAnd covers all ocean with blood.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ben Belitt", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Ben Belitt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -75137,8 +77495,10 @@ "title": "“The Men”", "body": "I’m RamĂłn GonzĂĄlez Barbagelata from anywhere,\nfrom Cucuy, from ParanĂĄ, from Rio Turbio, from Oruro,\nfrom Maracaibo, from Parral, from Ovalle, from Loconmilla,\nI’m the poor devil from the poor Third World,\nI’m the third-class passenger installed, good God!\nin the lavish whiteness of snow-covered mountains,\nconcealed among orchids of subtle idiosyncrasy.\n\nI’ve arrived at this famous year 2000, and what do I get?\nWith what do I scratch myself? What do I have to do with\nthe three glorious zeros that flaunt themselves\nover my very own zero, my own non-existence?\nPity that brave heart awaiting its call\nor the man enfolded by warmer love,\nnothing’s left today except my flimsy skeleton,\nmy eyes unhinged, confronting the era’s beginning.\n\nThe era’s beginning: are these ruined shacks,\nthese poor schools, these people still in rags and tatters,\nthis cloddish insecurity of my poor families,\nis all this the day? the century’s beginning, the golden door?\n\nWell, enough said, I, at least, discreet,\nas in office, patched and pensive,\nI proclaim the redundancy of the inaugural:\nI’ve arrived here with all my baggage,\nbad luck and worse jobs,\nmisery always waiting with open arms,\nthe mobilization of people piled up on top of each other,\nand the manifold geography of hunger.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alfred Yankauer", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Alfred Yankauer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -75154,8 +77514,10 @@ "title": "“Nothing but Death”", "body": "There are cemeteries that are lonely,\ngraves full of bones that do not make a sound,\nthe heart moving through a tunnel,\nin it darkness, darkness, darkness,\nlike a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,\nas though we were drowning inside our hearts,\nas though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.\n\nAnd there are corpses,\nfeet made of cold and sticky clay,\ndeath is inside the bones,\nlike a barking where there are no dogs,\ncoming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,\ngrowing in the damp air like tears of rain.\n\nSometimes I see alone\ncoffins under sail,\nembarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,\nwith bakers who are as white as angels,\nand pensive young girls married to notary publics,\ncaskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,\nthe river of dark purple,\nmoving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,\nfilled by the sound of death which is silence.\n\nDeath arrives among all that sound\nlike a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,\ncomes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no finger in it,\ncomes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no throat.\nNevertheless its steps can be heard\nand its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.\n\nI’m not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,\nbut it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,\nof violets that are at home in the earth,\nbecause the face of death is green,\nand the look death gives is green,\nwith the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf\nand the somber color of embittered winter.\n\nBut death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,\nlapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,\ndeath is inside the broom,\nthe broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,\nit is the needle of death looking for thread.\n\nDeath is inside the folding cots:\nit spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,\nin the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:\nit blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,\nand the beds go sailing toward a port\nwhere death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -75171,8 +77533,10 @@ "title": "“Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market”", "body": "Here,\namong the market vegetables,\nthis torpedo\nfrom the ocean\ndepths,\na missile\nthat swam,\nnow\nlying in front of me\ndead.\n\nSurrounded\nby the earth’s green froth\n--these lettuces,\nbunches of carrots--\nonly you\nlived through\nthe sea’s truth, survived\nthe unknown, the\nunfathomable\ndarkness, the depths\nof the sea,\nthe great\nabyss,\n_le grand abĂźme,_\nonly you:\nvarnished\nblack-pitched\nwitness\nto that deepest night.\n\nOnly you:\ndark bullet\nbarreled\nfrom the depths,\ncarrying\nonly\nyour\none wound,\nbut resurgent,\nalways renewed,\nlocked into the current,\nfins fletched\nlike wings\nin the torrent,\nin the coursing\nof\nthe\nunderwater\ndark,\nlike a grieving arrow,\nsea-javelin, a nerveless\noiled harpoon.\n\nDead\nin front of me,\ncatafalqued king\nof my own ocean;\nonce\nsappy as a sprung fir\nin the green turmoil,\nonce seed\nto sea-quake,\ntidal wave, now\nsimply\ndead remains;\nin the whole market\nyours\nwas the only shape left\nwith purpose or direction\nin this\njumbled ruin\nof nature;\nyou are\na solitary man of war\namong these frail vegetables,\nyour flanks and prow\nblack\nand slippery\nas if you were still\na well-oiled ship of the wind,\nthe only\ntrue\nmachine\nof the sea: unflawed,\nundefiled,\nnavigating now\nthe waters of death.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robin Robertson", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robin Robertson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -75196,8 +77560,10 @@ "title": "“Ode to my Socks”", "body": "Maru Mori brought me\na pair\nof socks\nwhich she knitted herself\nwith her sheepherder’s hands,\ntwo socks as soft\nas rabbits.\nI slipped my feet\ninto them\nas though into\ntwo\ncases\nknitted\nwith threads of\ntwilight\nand goatskin.\nViolent socks,\nmy feet were\ntwo fish made\nof wool,\ntwo long sharks\nsea-blue, shot\nthrough\nby one golden thread,\ntwo immense blackbirds,\ntwo cannons:\nmy feet\nwere honored\nin this way\nby\nthese\nheavenly\nsocks.\nThey were\nso handsome\nfor the first time\nmy feet seemed to me\nunacceptable\nlike two decrepit\nfiremen, firemen\nunworthy\nof that woven\nfire,\nof those glowing\nsocks.\n\nNevertheless\nI resisted\nthe sharp temptation\nto save them somewhere\nas schoolboys\nkeep\nfireflies,\nas learned men\ncollect\nsacred texts,\nI resisted\nthe mad impulse\nto put them\ninto a golden\ncage\nand each day give them\nbirdseed\nand pieces of pink melon.\nLike explorers\nin the jungle who hand\nover the very rare\ngreen deer\nto the spit\nand eat it\nwith remorse,\nI stretched out\nmy feet\nand pulled on\nthe magnificent\nsocks\nand then my shoes.\n\nThe moral\nof my ode is this:\nbeauty is twice\nbeauty\nand what is good is doubly\ngood\nwhen it is a matter of two socks\nmade of wool\nin winter.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -75240,8 +77606,10 @@ "title": "“Ode to Tomatoes”", "body": "The street\nfilled with tomatoes,\nmidday,\nsummer,\nlight is\nhalved\nlike\na\ntomato,\nits juice\nruns\nthrough the streets.\n\nIn December,\nunabated,\nthe tomato\ninvades\nthe kitchen,\nit enters at lunchtime,\ntakes\nits ease\non countertops,\namong glasses,\nbutter dishes,\nblue saltcellars.\n\nIt sheds\nits own light,\nbenign majesty.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Margaret Sayers Peden", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Margaret Sayers Peden" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -75260,8 +77628,10 @@ "title": "“The Old Women Of The Ocean”", "body": "To the solemn sea the old women come\nWith their shawls knotted around their necks\nWith their fragile feet cracking.\n\nThey sit down alone on the shore\nWithout moving their eyes or their hands\nWithout changing the clouds or the silence.\n\nThe obscene sea breaks and claws\nRushes downhill trumpeting\nShakes its bull’s beard.\n\nThe gentle old ladies seated\nAs if in a transparent boat\nThey look at the terrorist waves.\n\nWhere will they go and where have they been?\nThey come from every corner\nThey come from our own lives.\n\nNow they have the ocean\nThe cold and burning emptiness\nThe solitude full of flames.\n\nThey come from all the pasts\nFrom houses which were fragrant\nFrom burnt-up evenings.\n\nThey look, or don’t look, at the sea\nWith their walking sticks they draw signs in the sand\nAnd the sea erases their calligraphy.\n\nThe old women get up and go away\nWith their fragile bird feet\nWhile the waves flood in\nTraveling naked in the wind.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jodey Bateman", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Jodey Bateman" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -75269,8 +77639,10 @@ "title": "“Open Sea”", "body": "If, to my hands, from its havocs and bounties,\nThe Sea might appoint me a ferment, a portion, a fruit,\nI would speak for that concord of distance, perspectives of steel,\nEvenings and airs of alerted extension\nYour power, like a language of whiteness, O Ocean,\nThe spoilure and rending of columns,\nInto innocent essence brought low.\n\nNot yet that ultimate wave in the weight of its brine,\nSmashing on seacoast, conducing\nThe peace of the sand that encircles a world.\nBut power and volume concenter,\nCapacity ranges the waters,\nUnmoved, in the flowing aloneness, in a surfeit of lives:\nTime, it may be, or the goblet of motion’s entirety,\nUpgathered and brimless with death; original singlehood,\nVisceral greens\nIn a charring totality.\n\nThe drowned arm, uplifting,\nCarries the kiss of the salt in a droplet. From the torsoes of men,\nA humid perfume on the beaches,\nThe soaked flower, retained;\nYour power in a semblance of squandering force,\nUndiminished, returned in a semblance of calm.\n\nThe wave, giving way\nIn a bow of identity, explosion of feathers,\nA trifle of spindrift, expends itself headlong\nAnd returns to its cause, unconsumed.\n\nAnd vigor recovers its origin.\nNo more than a ruined excess you surrender, O Sea,\nWho unhusk what the cargo rejects,\nWhatever mobility frees from abundance\nOr the cluster of being dissevers.\n\nFarther than sea-surge your form is extended.\n\nArdent and ordered, like a gesture of breathing\nOn breast and its vesture, out of isolate being,\nBorne up into tissue of light,\nYour meadows arise on the billow\nAnd the flesh of a planet is bared.\n\nSubstance of selfhood overflows into being.\nThe crescent of silence is brimmed.\n\nHere is no crater’s dismemberment,\nIn the cup of the headlands,\nOr pinnacle’s emptiness, vestiges, scars,\nPatrolling an air’s mutilation:\nThe goblet is shaken with salt and with honey,\nCreation’s abysm of waters,\nAnd nothing is lacking, O Sea!\n\nFor the petals of ocean contend with a planet’s pulsation.\nThe undersea granaries tremble.\nHazard is hung on the smooth of a wave--\nA swarming and swimming of schools\nAnd only the mesh of the netcord, ascending,\nDraws up a fish-scale’s extinction of lightning\nOne wounded gradation of distance,\nIn the crystal’s accomplished perfection.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ben Belitt", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Ben Belitt" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -75281,8 +77653,10 @@ "title": "“Party’s End”", "body": "# I.\n\nThe first rains are here: it is raining today over March\nand the swallows that dance in the downpour;\nwe have the ocean again on our table,\nall is as the wave wills,\nand will surely be so again: all\n\nis as it was: but I, one day made invisible,\nwill relinquish all power of return\nin my arms, hands, feet, eyes, my human discernment,\ntrapped by a shadow’s finality.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAmong the revellers met at the feast,\nsome move toward the shadows again, this one or that,\nas the power that unites us disposes: later,\nwords, mouths, and roads go their separate ways,\nbut the errand is always the same: each presses on\ntoward the nothingness into which the divided are drawn.\n\n\n# III.\n\nParty’s end 
 Isla Negra soaks under the rains:\nit rains on a tempest of emptiness, on the spray,\non the pole’s coruscations exploding in salt;\nall ebbs and delays, leaving only a glare on the sea.\nWhere are we going? asks the drowning redundance of things.\nWhat am I? the seaweed inquires, silent till now,\nand is answered in wave after wave after wave:\none rhythm creates and destroys and continues:\ntruth lies in the bitter mobility.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nThose uninhabited poems, between heaven and autumn,\npoems without people, transportation expenses:\nfor a moment, let no living creature enter my verses,\nno trace of a man on the sand’s empty reaches,\nno footprints, dead papers, distinguishing marks\nof the traveler-only\nthe fog’s exaltation, the color of March, the sea-bird’s\ndelirium, salt petrels, pelicans, pigeons,\nthe infinite\nchill in the air,\nshown once, before meditation and dreaming begin,\nbefore time’s uses resume, extending themselves in the night,\nan ocean of solitude given for only a moment,\nmouth pressing mouth in a month of humidity, a soiled\nsummer’s anguish, while I watch how the crystal expands,\nhow the rock climbs its pitiless silence,\nhow the ocean destroys itself without marring its energy.\n\n\n# V.\n\nWe live out our lifetimes asking: How much?\nseeing How much? in the eyes of our mothers and fathers,\ntheir mouths and their hands: this and that\nfor How much? How much for the earth, for a kilo of bread,\nfor the windfall of grapes, for the shoes on our feet.\nHow much, mister, how much does it take, slipping\ninto our smiles for a moment, cocksure,\nwhile our fathers in patches and hand-me-downs, certain\nof nothing, entered the warehouses as one enters a terrible temple.\nLater, much farther away, nothing has changed.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nIt displeases the esthete to edify: the poem with a moral\nthat went out of fashion when the poem taught the man\nhow to live like a man, leaving behind its violet\ncachet in the soul. I speak of the whithers and wherefores\nas I choose--from the throne to the oil-slick\nthat bloodies the world, asking\nHow much? while the grains of my anger grow greater\nwith my How many? syllables speaking all the world’s languages:\nyes, I speak, I speak on; and will be, if need be, a cracked violin\nor a troubador wracked by the truth and the doubt of the world.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nThe brutal imperative, as the blood in a wound may be brutal\nor the gathering chill in the wind is made bearable\nfor all our discomfiture, makes warriors of us, gives us the stance\nand inflection of fighters; but still, with unspeakable tenderness,\nthe table, the spoon, and the chair call out to us:\nin the thick of the battle we wait for the cry of the crockery.\nBut backward is nowhere! Having settled our loyalties,\nnothing can lower the balances\nbut the weight of our reason bearing down on us one way,\nand the path we broke open with our common enlightenment:\nmen move back and forth on our bridge of commitment.\nThat is the unprepossessing pride of our lifetime,\nand its organized splendor.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nParty’s end.\nThis is the rainy season,\nwith the underground rivers of Chile on the move\ndrilling delicate troughs of volcanoes,\npiercing the quartz and the gold, moving the silences.\nThis is the mighty arcana of water barely known to us here;\nthough we speak of the sea and name it by name: Cape Horn:\nthe stain of mortality never mars its dominion,\nwe can never implant our transactions,\nthe mines, motors, flags of our species.\nOpen-ended, the water shakes itself free:\nit moves while it cleanses and cleanses:\nit cleanses the stone and the sand, our wounds and utensils.\nIt is never used up, like the bleeding away of the fire,\nit does not turn to cinder and ash.\n\n\n# IX.\n\nNight and the water are one; it washes the sky,\nenters our dreams with the immediate burst of its presence,\nnight\ndoggedly there, interrupted and starry,\nalone\nas it sweeps off the leavings\nof every dead day\nwith the snowy\ndevice of its heraldry over us,\nand under us,\nbetween us,\nthe net with the knots of its cordage: shadow and dream.\nWater or dream, truth’s nakedness,\nshadow and stone-\nwe are these and continue to be:\nour nocturnes say nothing of light,\nwe drink the pure darkness:\nour lot is to stand by the stones\nof the oven;\nwhen we bent toward the bread with our paddles,\nwe drew out the darkness\nand were broken\ninto\nour lives:\nit was night that divided us,\ngave us its wisdom by halves\ntill we walked\nwithout faltering, pierced\nby the light of the stars.\n\n\n# X.\n\nThose threshed out of life, the dead with the delicate faces,\nwhom we cherished, who burned\nin the firmament in a multiple silence\nand rippled the wheat with their dying:\nthe seemingly dead bore off a part of ourselves,\nleft us poised by a thread, aware of their menace,\nwhile the wheat was flailed finer and funer\nand the cycle of living resumed.\n\nAll at once, the most preciously dead\nare gone from our table. We wait\nwithout ever quite waiting, as one waits for the dead,\nwhile she whom we cherished comes closer,\nbehind every chair, and will not take her place at the table.\nOr unhappy Alberto, dead with his fiddle there,\nthe fathers caved in on the grandfathers.\n\n\n# XI.\n\nLet us build an expendable day\nwithout winding the hours, counting\nonly the salient clarity--that day\nof all days that came bearing oranges.\nThe columns close on the niggling particulars,\nleaving their chewed scrap of paper\nspinning off in the sand,\ndevoured by the winters.\nNot a leaf in the forest\nsurvives our recall, though its scent\nand vibration stay in the memory:\nin that forest I put forth my foliage\nand carry its sigh in my veins\nwith no thought for the hour or the day.\nThe years and the numbers betray us:\nmonth follows month in the vast of the tunnel,\nOctober and April clash like two lunatic stones,\nthe apples rain into one basket,\nthe silvery catch in one net,\nwhile night with a rapier’s precision\ncuts through day’s splendor--the day\nthat is ours if we are there to retrieve it tomorrow.\n\n\n# XII.\n\nWhite spindrift, March on the Island, I see\nwave work against wave and splinter the whiteness,\nthe ungratified cup of the ocean brimming over,\nthe immovable sky slowly\nlengthen and part with the flight of pontifical birds.\nWe come upon yellow,\nthe month changes its color, the beard\nof the watery autumn grows long:\nbut my name remains Pablo,\nI am just as I was,\nwith my doubts, with my debts,\nwith my loves,\n\nhaving a whole sea to myself with its\npersonnel moving the waves,\npummeled by storms that blow me\ntoward Cloudcuckooland:\nI come and I go with the sea and the countries it grazes, I know\nthe thorn’s languages,\nthe bite of the obdurate fish,\nthe chill of the latitudes,\nthe blood on the coral, the taciturn\nnight of the whale.\nI have pushed past the deltas, from country to country,\nthe unbearable wastes of the world,\nand never found peace. I have always come back.\nWhat can I say without roots?\n\n\n# XIII.\n\nWhat can I say without touching my palms to the land?\nTo whom shall I turn but the rain?\nI have never set foot in the countries I lived in,\nevery port was a port of return:\nI have no postcards, no keepsakes of hair\nfrom important cathedrals: I have built what I could\nout of natural stone, like a native, open-handed,\nI have worked with my reason, unreason, my caprices,\nmy fury, and poise: hour after hour\nI have touched the domains of the lion\nand the turbulent tower of bee:\nhaving seen what there was to be seen,\nhaving handled the clay and the loam, the spray and the rock,\nwith those who remember my footprints and words,\nthe tendrils of plants whose kisses remain on my mouth,\nI say: “Here is my place,” stripping myself down in the light\nand dropping my hands in the sea,\nuntil all is transparent again\nthere under the earth, and my sleep can be tranquil.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ben Belitt", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Ben Belitt" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -75301,8 +77675,10 @@ "title": "“Sexual Water”", "body": "Rolling in solitary drops,\nin gouts like teeth,\nin thick gobs of marmalade and blood,\nrolling in drops,\nthe water pours down,\nin gouts like a blade,\na lacerating river of glass,\nit pours down, gnawing,\nhammering the axle of symmetry, soldering the soul’s brazings,\nsmashing abandoned objects, drenching what is dark.\n\nIt is merely a gasp, damper than weeping,\na liquid, a sweat, an oil without a name,\na motion of stabbing,\nshaping, thickening,\nthe water pours down\nin sluggish drops\nto its sea, to its juiceless ocean,\nto its wave without water.\n\nI see a summer stretched out, and a death-rattle growing from a barn,\nwine-cellars, locusts,\ncrowds of people, palpitations,\nhomes, little girls\nsleeping with hands on their hearts,\ndreaming of bandits, burnings,\nI see boats,\nI see trees of spinal cords, hackling like angry cats,\nI see blood, daggers and women’s stockings, and men’s hair,\nI see bedsteads, I see corridors where a virgin cries out,\nI see blankets and pipe-organs and hotels.\n\nI see private dreams,\nI let in the lagging days,\nand the beginnings, too, and the memories, too;\nlike an eyelid horribly pried up,\nI stand watching.\n\nAnd, further, there is this sound:\na red uproar of bones,\na cleaving together of flesh,\nand legs, yellow as spikes of corn, splicing.\nI listen between the crackling of kisses,\nI listen, flailed between pantings and wailings.\nI stand watching, hearing,\nwith half of my soul on the sea and with half of my soul on the earth,\nand with the two halves of my soul I watch the world.\n\nAnd even if I clap my eyes shut and dam my heart, thoroughly,\nI see a soft water wash down,\nin soft drops.\nIt is like a hurricane of gelatin,\na cascade of sperms and jellyfish.\nI see a clotted rainbow, flowing.\nI see its waters moving across my bones.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "James Wright" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -75313,8 +77689,10 @@ "title": "“Soldier Asleep”", "body": "Derelict there in the leafy encirclement,\nthe soldier arrived. His weariness struck at him then,\nand he fell in the leaves and lianas\nat the foot of that Providence, the plumed and omnipotent God\nalone with His universe, still\nwarm from the jungles.\nGodhead looked long\nat the warrior outlandishly born from the sea-water:\nstared long at those eyes, at the blood-clabbered beard\nand the sword, the black scintillation\nof armor, the weariness weighing\nlike haze on the head\nof the bloody young man.\nHow many zones\nin the darkness, till the God of the Feathers\ncould be born and entwine on the wood\nand the roseate stone, the web of his volumel\nWhat a chaos of lunatic water,\nnocturnal ferocity, what ravening\ntroughs for the light, unregenerate yet, what\ncrazed fermentation of lives and destructions, what bran\nof fertility, before the decorum could come:\nthe orders of plants and of clans,\nthe cut stone disposed on the stone,\nthe smoke of the ritual lamps,\nsoil firm for the stance of a man,\ndisposition of tribes\nand tribunes of terrestrial gods!\n\nAll the flakes of the rock shook:\nit felt the descent of the Terror\nlike a swarming of insects,\nand massing the might of its properties,\nsent rain to the roots,\nconferred with the motions of earth\nstill unmoved and obscure in the stone\nof its cosmic investiture,\nunable to stir in a fang or a claw,\na river, a temblor,\na meteor’s hiss\nthrough the pit of its emperies:\nand remained in that place, like a silence, a stone immobility.\nwhile BeltrĂĄn of CĂłrdoba slept on.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ben Belitt", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Ben Belitt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -75322,8 +77700,10 @@ "title": "“A Song of Despair”", "body": "The memory of you emerges from the night around me.\nThe river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.\n\nDeserted like the dwarves at dawn.\nIt is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!\n\nCold flower heads are raining over my heart.\nOh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.\n\nIn you the wars and the flights accumulated.\nFrom you the wings of the song birds rose.\n\nYou swallowed everything, like distance.\nLike the sea, like time. In you everything sank!\n\nIt was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.\nThe hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.\n\nPilot’s dread, fury of blind driver,\nturbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!\n\nIn the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.\nLost discoverer, in you everything sank!\n\nYou girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,\nsadness stunned you, in you everything sank!\n\nI made the wall of shadow draw back,\nbeyond desire and act, I walked on.\n\nOh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,\nI summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.\n\nLike a jar you housed infinite tenderness.\nand the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.\n\nThere was the black solitude of the islands,\nand there, woman of love, your arms took me in.\n\nThere was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.\nThere were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle.\n\nAh woman, I do not know how you could contain me\nin the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!\n\nHow terrible and brief my desire was to you!\nHow difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.\n\nCemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,\nstill the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.\n\nOh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,\noh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.\n\nOh the mad coupling of hope and force\nin which we merged and despaired.\n\nAnd the tenderness, light as water and as flour.\nAnd the word scarcely begun on the lips.\n\nThis was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing,\nand in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!\n\nOh pit of debris, everything fell into you,\nwhat sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned!\n\nFrom billow to billow you still called and sang.\nStanding like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.\n\nYou still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents.\nOh pit of debris, open and bitter well.\n\nPale blind diver, luckless slinger,\nlost discoverer, in you everything sank!\n\nIt is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour\nwhich the night fastens to all the timetables.\n\nThe rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.\nCold stars heave up, black birds migrate.\n\nDeserted like the wharves at dawn.\nOnly tremulous shadow twists in my hands.\n\nOh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.\n\nIt is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!", "metadata": { - "translator": "W. S. Merwin", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "W. S. Merwin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -75331,8 +77711,10 @@ "title": "“Sonnet”", "body": "I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,\nor arrow of carnations that propagate fire:\nI love you as one loves certain obscure things,\nsecretly, between the shadow and the soul.\n\nI love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries\nthe light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,\nand thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose\nfrom the earth lives dimly in my body.\n\nI love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,\nI love you directly without problems or pride:\nI love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,\nexcept in this form in which I am not nor are you,\nso close that your hand upon my chest is mine,\nso close that your eyes close with my dreams.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Mark Eisner", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Mark Eisner" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_valentine" @@ -75351,12 +77733,14 @@ "title": "“’Tis the morrow full of storm 
”", "body": "’Tis the morrow full of storm\nin the heart of summer.\n\nThe wandering hands of the wind shake the clouds\nlike white handkerchiefs waved in farewell.\n\nInnumerable heart of the wind\nfluttering over our silence of love.\n\nHumming through the trees, heavenly music,\nlike a tongue full of songs and wars.\n\nWind that lifts the fallen leaves in robbery\nand turns the palpitating flight of the birds.\n\nWind that throws them down in foamless waves\nand weightless shapes, and falling flames.\n\nTheir volume of kisses breaks and goes under\nfought at the gate of the summer wind.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. B. Donne", "language": "Spanish", "source": { "title": "Veinte Poemas de Amor y Una CanciĂłn Desesperada", "type": "book" }, + "translators": [ + "J. B. Donne" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -75367,8 +77751,10 @@ "title": "“Tonight I can write the saddest lines 
”", "body": "Tonight I can write the saddest lines.\n\nWrite, for example, “The night is shattered\nand the blue stars shiver in the distance.”\n\nThe night wind revolves in the sky and sings.\n\nTonight I can write the saddest lines.\nI loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.\n\nThrough nights like this one I held her in my arms\nI kissed her again and again under the endless sky.\n\nShe loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.\nHow could one not have loved her great still eyes.\n\nTonight I can write the saddest lines.\nTo think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.\n\nTo hear the immense night, still more immense without her.\nAnd the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.\n\nWhat does it matter that my love could not keep her.\nThe night is shattered and she is not with me.\n\nThis is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.\nMy soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.\n\nMy sight searches for her as though to go to her.\nMy heart looks for her, and she is not with me.\n\nThe same night whitening the same trees.\nWe, of that time, are no longer the same.\n\nI no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.\nMy voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.\n\nAnother’s. She will be another’s. Like my kisses before.\nHer voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.\n\nI no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.\nLove is so short, forgetting is so long.\n\nBecause through nights like this one I held her in my arms\nmy sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.\n\nThough this be the last pain that she makes me suffer\nand these the last verses that I write for her.", "metadata": { - "translator": "W. S. Merwin", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "W. S. Merwin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -75384,8 +77770,10 @@ "title": "“Walking Around”", "body": "It so happens I am sick of being a man.\nAnd it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie houses\ndried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt\nsteering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.\n\nThe smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs.\nThe only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.\nThe only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,\nno more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.\n\nIt so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nails\nand my hair and my shadow.\nIt so happens I am sick of being a man.\n\nStill it would be marvelous\nto terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,\nor kill a nun with a blow on the ear.\nIt would be great\nto go through the streets with a green knife\nletting out yells until I died of the cold.\n\nI don’t want to go on being a root in the dark,\ninsecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,\ngoing on down, into the moist guts of the earth,\ntaking in and thinking, eating every day.\n\nI don’t want so much misery.\nI don’t want to go on as a root and a tomb,\nalone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,\nhalf frozen, dying of grief.\n\nThat’s why Monday, when it sees me coming\nwith my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,\nand it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,\nand leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.\n\nAnd it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses,\ninto hospitals where the bones fly out the window,\ninto shoeshops that smell like vinegar,\nand certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.\n\nThere are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines\nhanging over the doors of houses that I hate,\nand there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,\nthere are mirrors\nthat ought to have wept from shame and terror,\nthere are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords.\n\nI stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,\nmy rage, forgetting everything,\nI walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic shops,\nand courtyards with washing hanging from the line:\nunderwear, towels and shirts from which slow\ndirty tears are falling.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "monday" @@ -75404,8 +77792,10 @@ "title": "“White Thighs”", "body": "Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,\nwhen you surrender, you stretch out like the world.\nMy body, savage and peasant, undermines you\nand makes a son leap in the bottom of the earth.\n\nI was lonely as a tunnel. Birds flew from me.\nAnd night invaded me with her powerful army.\nTo survive I forged you like a weapon,\nlike an arrow for my bow, or a stone for my sling.\n\nBut now the hour of revenge falls, and I love you.\nBody of skin, of moss, of firm and thirsty milk!\nAnd the cups of your breasts! And your eyes full of absence!\nAnd the roses of your mound! And your voice slow and sad!\n\nBody of my woman, I will live on through your marvelousness.\nMy thirst, my desire without end, my wavering road!\nDark river beds down which the eternal thirst is flowing,\nand the fatigue is flowing, and the grief without shore.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -75413,8 +77803,10 @@ "title": "“Widower’s Tango”", "body": "Oh Maligna, by this time you must have found the letter, wept with rage,\nand insulted the memory of my mother,\ncalling her rotten bitch and mother of curs,\nand you must have drunk your afternoon tea, all by yourself, alone,\ngazing at my old shoes, empty now for ever,\nand you can’t remember my sicknesses, my nightly dreams, my meals.\nwithout cursing me aloud as though I were still there\nfussing about the tropics, the Coringhi coolies,\nthe poisonous fevers that did me so much harm,\nand the frightful English, whom I detest still.\n\nMaligna, here’s the truth: what a huge night! what a solitary earth!\nI’ve gone back again to the lonely bedrooms,\nI can throw my trousers and shirts upon the floor;\nthere are no clothes-hangers in my room, no pictures of anybody on the walls.\nHow much of the darkness in my soul would I give to regain you,\nand how threatening seem to me now the names of the months,\nto eating cold meals in cafĂ©s, and once more,\nand how lugubrious a drum-sound the name of winter has!\n\nLater you will find buried near the coconut tree\nthe knife that I hid for fear that you’d kill me,\nand now, suddenly, I should like to smell its kitchen steel\nused to the weight of your hand and the lustre of your foot:\nbeneath the earth’s damp, among the deaf roots,\nthe poor thing would know, of all human languages, only your name,\nand the thick earth does not comprehend your name\ncomposed of impenetrable heavenly substances.\n\nJust as it troubles me to think of the clear day of your legs\nstretched out like arrested and hard solar waters,\nand the swallow that sleeping and fying lives in your eyes,\nand the dog of madness that you house in your heart,\nso also I perceive the deaths existing between us from now on,\nand the air I breathe bears ashes and destruction,\nthe long, lonely space that encircles me for ever.\n\nI would give this wind from the giant sea for your hoarse breathing\nheard in the long nights without admixture of oblivion,\ncombining with the atmosphere like a whip with the hide of a horse.\nAnd to hear the sound of you, in darkness, at the back of the house,\nlike one decanting a delicate, tremulous, silvery, reluctant honey,\nhow many times over would I give this chorus of shadow that is mine,\nand the noise of useless swords that clash in my heart,\nand the dove of blood perching solitary upon my forehead\ninvoking things gone, beings gone,\nsubstances strangely inseparable and lost.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dudley Fitts", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Dudley Fitts" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -75567,10 +77959,10 @@ "body": "Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on!\nThe night is dark, and I am far from home,--lead thou me on!\nKeep thou my feet; I do not ask to see\nThe distant scene,--one step enough for me.\n\nI was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou shouldst lead me on:\nI loved to choose and see my path, but now lead thou me on!\nI loved the garish days, and, spite of fears,\nPride ruled my will: remember not past years.\n\nSo long thy power hath blessed me, sure it still will lead me on;\nO’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till the night is gone;\nAnd with the morn those angel faces smile\nWhich I have loved long since, and lost awhile.", "metadata": { "place": "At sea", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1833 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_john_henry_newman" @@ -75604,11 +77996,11 @@ "body": "_Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,\nAtque metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum\nSubjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari!_\n\nIn childhood, when with eager eyes\nThe season-measured year I view’d,\nAll garb’d in fairy guise,\nPledged constancy of good.\n\nSpring sang of heaven; the summer flowers\nBade me gaze on, and did not fade;\nEven suns o’er autumn’s bowers\nHeard my strong wish, and stay’d.\n\nThey came and went, the short-lived four;\nYet, as their varying dance they wove,\nTo my young heart each bore\nIts own sure claim of love.\n\nFar different now;--the whirling year\nVainly my dizzy eyes pursue;\nAnd its fair tints appear\nAll blent in one dusk hue.\n\nWhy dwell on rich autumnal lights,\nSpring-time, or winter’s social ring?\nLong days are fire-side nights,\nBrown autumn is fresh spring.\n\nThen what this world to thee, my heart?\nIts gifts nor feed thee nor can bless.\nThou hast no owner’s part\nIn all its fleetingness.\n\nThe flame, the storm, the quaking ground,\nEarth’s joy, earth’s terror, nought is thine,\nThou must but hear the sound\nOf the still voice divine.\n\nO priceless art! O princely state!\nE’en while by sense of change opprest,\nWithin to antedate\nHeaven’s Age of fearless rest.", "metadata": { "place": "Highwood", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1827, "month": "october" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_john_henry_newman" @@ -75937,10 +78329,10 @@ "title": "“Animals”", "body": "Have you forgotten what we were like then\nwhen we were still first rate\nand the day came fat with an apple in its mouth\n\nit’s no use worrying about Time\nbut we did have a few tricks up our sleeves\nand turned some sharp corners\n\nthe whole pasture looked like our meal\nwe didn’t need speedometers\nwe could manage cocktails out of ice and water\n\nI wouldn’t want to be faster\nor greener than now if you were with me O you\nwere the best of all my days", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1950 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -75992,9 +78384,6 @@ "title": "“The Day Lady Died”", "body": "It is 12:20 in New York a Friday\nthree days after Bastille day, yes\nit is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine\nbecause I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton\nat 7:15 and then go straight to dinner\nand I don’t know the people who will feed me\n\nI walk up the muggy street beginning to sun\nand have a hamburger and a malted and buy\nan ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets\nin Ghana are doing these days\n\n I go on to the bank\nand Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)\ndoesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life\nand in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine\nfor Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do\nthink of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or\nBrendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les NĂšgres\nof Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine\nafter practically going to sleep with quandariness\n\nand for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE\nLiquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and\nthen I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue\nand the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and\ncasually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton\nof Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it\n\nand I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of\nleaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT\nwhile she whispered a song along the keyboard\nto Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1959 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Lunch Poems", @@ -76003,6 +78392,9 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1959 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -76015,9 +78407,6 @@ "title": "“Is It Dirty”", "body": "Is it dirty\ndoes it look dirty\nthat’s what you think of in the city\n\ndoes it just seem dirty\nthat’s what you think of in the city\nyou don’t refuse to breathe do you\n\nsomeone comes along with a very bad character\nhe seems attractive. is he really. yes. very\nhe’s attractive as his character is bad. is it. yes\n\nthat’s what you think of in the city\nrun your finger along your no-moss mind\nthat’s not a thought that’s soot\n\nand you take a lot of dirt off someone\nis the character less bad. no. it improves constantly\nyou don’t refuse to breathe do you", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1959 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Lunch Poems", @@ -76026,6 +78415,9 @@ "year": 1964 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1959 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -76086,10 +78478,10 @@ "title": "“Music”", "body": "If I rest for a moment near The Equestrian\npausing for a liver sausage sandwich in the Mayflower Shoppe,\nthat angel seems to be leading the horse into Bergdorf’s\nand I am naked as a table cloth, my nerves humming.\nClose to the fear of war and the stars which have disappeared.\nI have in my hands only 35Âą, it’s so meaningless to eat!\nand gusts of water spray over the basins of leaves\nlike the hammers of a glass pianoforte. If I seem to you\nto have lavender lips under the leaves of the world, I must tighten my belt.\nIt’s like a locomotive on the march, the season of distress and clarity\nand my door is open to the evenings of midwinter’s\nlightly falling snow over the newspapers.\nClasp me in your handkerchief like a tear, trumpet\nof early afternoon! in the foggy autumn.\nAs they’re putting up the Christmas trees on Park Avenue\nI shall see my daydreams walking by with dogs in blankets,\nput to some use before all those coloured lights come on!\n\nBut no more fountains and no more rain, and the stores stay open terribly late.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1954 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december", @@ -76101,10 +78493,10 @@ "title": "“Sleeping on the Wing”", "body": "Perhaps it is to avoid some great sadness,\nas in a Restoration tragedy the hero cries “Sleep!\nO for a long sound sleep and so forget it!”\nthat one flies, soaring above the shoreless city,\nveering upward from the pavement as a pigeon\ndoes when a car honks or a door slams, the door\nof dreams, life perpetuated in parti-colored loves\nand beautiful lies all in different languages.\n\nFear drops away too, like the cement, and you\nare over the Atlantic. Where is Spain? where is\nwho? The Civil War was fought to free the slaves,\nwas it? A sudden down-draught reminds you of gravity\nand your position in respect to human love. But\nhere is where the gods are, speculating, bemused.\nOnce you are helpless, you are free, can you believe\nthat? Never to waken to the sad struggle of a face?\nto travel always over some impersonal vastness,\nto be out of, forever, neither in nor for!\n\nThe eyes roll asleep as if turned by the wind\nand the lids flutter open slightly like a wing.\nThe world is an iceberg, so much is invisible!\nand was and is, and yet the form, it may be sleeping\ntoo. Those features etched in the ice of someone\nloved who died, you are a sculptor dreaming of space\nand speed, your hand alone could have done this.\nCuriosity, the passionate hand of desire. Dead,\nor sleeping? Is there speed enough? And, swooping,\nyou relinquish all that you have made your own,\nthe kingdom of your self sailing, for you must awake\nand breathe your warmth in this beloved image\nwhether it’s dead or merely disappearing,\nas space is disappearing and your singularity.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -76112,10 +78504,10 @@ "title": "“Song”", "body": "I am stuck in traffic in a taxicab\nwhich is typical\nand not just of modern life\n\nmud clambers up the trellis of my nerves\nmust lovers of Eros end up with Venus\nmuss es sein? es muss nicht sein, I tell you\n\nhow I hate disease, it’s like worrying\nthat comes true\nand it simply must not be able to happen\n\nin a world where you are possible\nmy love\nnothing can go wrong for us, tell me", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1960 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -76142,10 +78534,10 @@ "title": "“Today”", "body": "Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas!\nYou really are beautiful! Pearls,\nharmonicas, jujubes, aspirins! all\nthe stuff they’ve always talked about\n\nstill makes a poem a surprise!\nThese things are with us every day\neven on beachheads and biers. They\ndo have meaning. They’re strong as rocks.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1950 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -76212,11 +78604,13 @@ "title": "“Ground Glass”", "body": "A soldier came back home one day\nacounting all he’d won:\n“We’re sure to eat our fill tonight--\nus and the little ones!”\n\n“There’s seven grand! A real day’s haul!\nI’ve had some luck I’d say!\nInto the daily salt I mixed\nsome fine ground glass today.”\n\n“Dear God! Dear God!” his wife cried out\n“You killer! Akh! You beast!\nThat’s worse than robbery, you know,\nthey’ll die by morn at least!”\n\n“We’re born to die!” the soldier said,\n“I do not wish them ill!\nGo light a candle at the church\nthis evening, if you will.”\n\nHe ate, then went to “Paradise”--\nhis pub’s name formerly.\nHe talked of communism awhile\nand drank Soviet tea.\n\nBack at home he soon slept fast,\naround him all was still.\nTill midnight when a raven cried\nbeneath the windowsill.\n\n“Oh, woe to us!” his wife sighed deep:\n“There’s trouble on the way!\nA raven never caws at night\nfor nothing, so they say!”\n\nBut soon the second rooster crowed,\nthe soldier, foul of mood,\nrefused to go to “Paradise”:\nto clients he was rude.\n\n’Twas midnight at the soldier’s home,\nand all was dark once more,\nthe knock of wings from carrion crows\nwas heard outside his door.\n\nThey jumped and squawked upon the roof,\nhis kiddies soon awoke,\nhis wife sighed heavily all night\nwhile he slept like an oak.\n\nAt dawn he rose, before them all,\nhis mood was foul once more.\nHis wife forgiveness for him begged,\nher brow against the floor.\n\n“Why don’t you visit your hometown\na day or two!” said he.\n“I’m sick to hell of that damned glass--\n’twill be the death of me!”\n\nHe soon wound up his gramophone\nand sat down very near.\nAlas! He heard a funeral knell\nthat made him shake with fear.\n\nA ragged team of seven mares\ndraw seven coffins past.\nA teary choir of women sing:\n“Repose with God at last!”\n\n“Who are you mourning, Konstantin?”\n“My Masha dear!” he cried.\n“I went to a party Thursday night,\nby Friday morn she’d died!”\n\n“Our Foma died, and so did Klim,\nand Kolya’s son-in-law.\nA stranger illness in my life\nI swear I never saw!”\n\nA waning moon was on the rise,\nthe soldier went to bed.\nA double bed, all cold and firm,\na coffin for the dead!\n\nAt once appeared a corvine priest\n(or did he dream it all?).\nBehind him seven ravens held\naloft a lone, glass pall.\n\nThey entered, stood along the wall,\nthe darkness weighed a ton.\n“Begone, you demons! I won’t sell\nground glass to anyone!”\n\nToo late! The moan died on his lips,\ntill seven croaked the priest.\nInto the bier on raven wings\nwas rendered the deceased.\n\nAway they took him to the place\nwhere seven asp trees grow,\nfed by the long-dead waters from\na quagmire far below.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bradley Jordan", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Bradley Jordan" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -76224,11 +78618,14 @@ "title": "“He had said, Goodbye, my darling 
”", "body": "He had said, “Goodbye, my darling. Maybe\nI won’t come back--ever. Time will tell.”\nAnd I walked off down the lane, not knowing\nIf this was the Summer Park--or Hell.\n\nSilent. Empty. And the gate is, fastened.\nBut why should I now ever go home?\nStumbling like a blind man, by the black trees,\nSomebody in white begins to roam.\n\nShe comes closer 
 till she stands beside me\nIt s a statue, bright in the moonglow.\nShe looks at me with her white eyes staring,\nAnd she asks me in a voice turned low:\n\n“What do you think of our trading places?\nIf a heart is stone, it doesn’t ache.\nYou will become stone; I’ll be the live one.\nStand there. Here’s my bow and shield. So take.”\n\n“All right,” I say--in a good agreement.\n“Here’s my coat and shoes; they’re just your size.”\nThen the statue turns her head to kiss me;\nI see the white pupils of her eyes.\n\nThen I notice my lips stop their moving.\nMy heart’s warm beat doesn’t sound at all.\nShield in hand and bow behind my shoulders,\nI’m standing on a white pedestal.\n\nMorning 
 and the early shuffle of the milkmaids.\nChildren and officials hurry 
 Add\nRain and weak wind, and the streetcars ringing\nAll the usual world of Petrograd.\n\nLord! 
 O Lord, I realize thin instant:\nI can’t stop loving my love, my man.\nAll in vain I turned into a statue;\nStone can last longer than one’s heart can.\n\nAnd she’s leaving now--in my red-checkered\nCoat--and humming a melodic strain,\nWhile I still stand here--frozen and naked\nIn the dismal, pelting, autumn rain.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Markov & Merrill Sparks", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Markov", + "Merrill Sparks" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -76239,11 +78636,14 @@ "title": "“How nice to walk the quay at night 
”", "body": "How nice to walk the quay at night! No fuss.\nWe stroll and we are silent, both of us.\n\nWe see the Seine, a tree, and there’s the rising stone\nOf a cathedral, and clouds 
\n We’ll postpone\n\nOur talking till tomorrow, later, aye.\nTill day after tomorrow,\n till we die.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Markov & Merrill Sparks", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1951 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Markov", + "Merrill Sparks" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -76251,11 +78651,13 @@ "title": "“Under an electric lamp 
”", "body": "Under an electric lamp\nWith a hysterical smile\nand head in the pillow.\n\nA bird brought down by a gunshot,\nNo, this is only a dream,\nA bad dream 
\n\nCasino and Nice\nAnd starry firmament.\nAnd yet she is proud\nof her riches and herself\nAnd her bitter destiny,\nShe is so strange,\n\nSo pretty and drunk--\nAnd the glass is broken into shards.\n--Are you from distant lands?\nDo you want to love?\nDo you want to live\nOn this small planet\nIn sadness and warmth?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Maria Rubins", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1936 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Maria Rubins" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -76502,8 +78904,10 @@ "title": "“Disappointment”", "body": "But oh, I suppose she was ugly; she wasn’t elegant;\nI hadn’t yearned for her often in my prayers.\nYet holding her I was limp, and nothing happened at all:\nI just lay there, a disgraceful load for her bed.\nI wanted it, she did too; and yet no pleasure came\nfrom the part of my sluggish loins that should bring joy.\nThe girl entwined her ivory arms around my neck\n(her arms were whiter than the Sithonian snows) ,\nand gave me greedy kisses, thrusting her fluttering tongue,\nand laid her eager thigh against my thigh,\nand whispering fond words, called me the lord of her heart\nand everything else that lovers murmur in joy.\nAnd yet, as if chill hemlock were smeared upon my body,\nmy numb limbs would not act out my desire.\nI lay there like a log, a fraud, a worthless weight;\nmy body might as well have been a shadow.\nWhat will my age be like, if old age ever comes,\nwhen even my youth cannot fulfill its role?\nAh, I’m ashamed of my years. I’m young and a man: so what?\nI was neither young nor a man in my girlfriend’s eyes.\nShe rose like the sacred priestess who tends the undying flame,\nor a sister who’s chastely lain at a dear brother’s side.\nBut not long ago blonde Chlide twice, fair Pitho three times,\nand Libas three times I enjoyed without a pause.\nCorinna, as I recall, required my services\nnine times in one short night--and I obliged!\nHas some Thessalian potion made my body limp,\ninjuring me with noxious spells and herbs?\nDid some witch hex my name scratched on crimson wax\nand stab right through the liver with slender pins?\nBy spells the grain is blighted and withers to worthless weeds;\nby blighting spells the founts run out of water.\nEnchantment strips the oaks of acorns, vines of grapes,\nand makes fruit fall to earth from unstirred boughs.\nSuch magic arts could also sap my virile powers.\nPerhaps they brought this weakness on my thighs,\nand shame at what happened, too; shame made it all the worse:\nthat was the second reason for my collapse.\nYet what a girl I looked at and touched--but nothing more!\nI clung to her as closely as her gown.\nHer touch could make the Pylian sage feel young again,\nand make Tithonus friskier than his years.\nThis girl fell to my lot, but no man fell to hers.\nWhat will I ask for now in future prayers?\nI believe the mighty gods must rue the gift they gave,\nsince I have treated it so shabbily.\nSurely, I wanted entry: well, she let me in.\nKisses: I got them. To lie at her side: There I was.\nWhat good was such great luck--to gain a powerless throne?\nWhat did I have, except a miser’s gold?\nI was like the teller of secrets, thirsty at the stream,\nlooking at fruits forever beyond his grasp.\nWhoever rose at dawn from the bed of a tender girl\nin a state fit to approach the sacred gods?\nI suppose she wasn’t willing, she didn’t waste her best\ncaresses on me, try everything to excite me!\nThat girl could have aroused tough oak and hardest steel\nand lifeless boulders with her blandishments.\nShe surely was a girl to rouse all living men,\nbut then I was not alive, no longer a man.\nWhat pleasure could a deaf man take in Phemius’ song\nor painted pictures bring poor Thamyras?\nBut what joys I envisioned in my private mind,\nwhat ways did I position and portray!\nAnd yet my body lay as if untimely dead,\na shameful sight, limper than yesterday’s rose.\nNow, look! When it’s not needed, it’s vigorous and strong;\nnow it asks for action and for battle.\nLie down, there--shame on you!--most wretched part of me.\nThese promises of yours took me before.\nYou trick your master, you made me be caught unarmed,\nso that I suffered a great and sorry loss.\nYet this same part my girl did not disdain to take\nin hand, fondling it with a gentle motion.\nBut when she saw no skill she had could make it rise\nand that it lay without a sign of life,\n“You’re mocking me,” she said. “You’re crazy! Who asked you\nto lie down in my bed if you don’t want to?\nYou’ve come here cursed with woolen threads by some Aeaean\nwitch, or worn out by some other love.”\nAnd straightway she jumped up, clad in a flowing gown\n(beautiful, as she rushed barefoot off) ,\nand, lest her maids should know that she had not been touched,\nbegan to wash, concealing the disgrace.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jon Corelis", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Jon Corelis" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -76511,8 +78915,10 @@ "title": "“Duplicity”", "body": "# I.\n\nThen must I always bear your endless accusations?\nThey all prove false, but still I have to fight them.\nIf I happen to glance at the marble theater’s topmost row,\nyou pick some girl in the crowd to moan about;\nor if a beautiful woman looks at me wordlessly,\nyou charge she’s using lovers’ wordless signs.\nIf I compliment a girl, you try to tear out my hair;\nif I criticize one, you think I’ve got something to hide.\nIf I look well, I love no one--not even you;\nif I’m pale, you say that I’m pining for someone else.\nI wish I really had committed some such sin:\npunishment hurts less when you deserve it;\nbut as it is, your wild indictments at every turn\nthemselves forbid your wrath to have much weight.\nThink of the little long-eared donkey’s wretched lot:\ncontinual beatings only make him stubborn.\nNow look, here’s another charge: Cypassis, your coiffeuse,\nis cast at me for defiling her mistress’s bed!\nThe gods forbid that I, even if I yearned to sin,\nshould find delight in a slave-girl’s lowly lot!\nWhat man, being free, would want a servile liaison,\nor wish to embrace a body the whip has scarred?\nAnd furthermore, the girl’s your personal beautician,\nand valued by you because of her skillful hands.\nIs it likely that I’d approach such a trusted serving-maid?\nWhat would I get, but rejection and exposure?\nBy Venus and by the bow of her swift boy I swear,\nyou’ll never find me guilty of that crime.\n\n\n# II.\n\nCypassis, expert at dressing the hair in a thousand ways\n(but you ought to arrange the tresses of goddesses only)\nyou that I’ve found quite polished in stolen ecstasy,\nfit for your mistress’s service, but fitter for mine,\nwhoever was it that told of our bodies joining together?\nWhere did Corinna learn of our affair?\nCould I have blushed? Or slipped by a single word to give\nsome sign that has betrayed our furtive joys?\nAnd what of it, if I argued that nobody could transgress\nwith a servant, except for a man who was out of his mind\nThe Thessalian burned with passion for lovely Briseis, a servant;\nthe Mycenean leader loved Apollo’s slave.\nI’m no greater man than Achilles, or the scion of Tantalus.\nHow can what’s fine for kings be foul for me?\nAnd yet, when your mistress turned her glowering eyes on you,\nI saw a deep blush spread all over your face.\nBut how much more possessed I was, if you recall,\nI swore my faith by Venus’s great godhead!\n(You, goddess, bid, I pray, the warm Southwind to blow\nthose innocent lies across the Carpathian sea.)\nNow give me a sweet return for the favor I did you then,\nby bedding with me, you dusky Cypassis, today.\nDon’t shake your head, you ingrate, pretending you’re still afraid:\nyou can please one of your masters, and that’s enough.\nIf you’re silly enough to refuse, I’ll confess all that we’ve done,\nmaking myself the betrayer of my own crime,\nand I’ll tell your mistress how often we met, Cypassis, and where,\nand how many times we did it, and how many ways!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jon Corelis", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Jon Corelis" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -76539,8 +78945,10 @@ "title": "“Morning”", "body": "Already over the sea from her old spouse she comes,\nthe blonde goddess whose frosty wheels bring day.\nWhy do you hurry, Aurora? Hold off, so may the birds\nshed ritual blood each year for Memnon’s shade.\nNow it’s good to lie in my mistress’s tender arms;\nif ever, now it’s good to feel her near.\nNow drowsiness is richest, the morning air is cool,\nand birds sing shrilly from their tender throats.\nWhy do you hurry, dreaded by men and dreaded by girls?\nDraw back your dewy reins with your crimson hand.\nThe sailor marks the stars more clearly before you rise,\nnot raoming aimlessly across the sea;\nthe traveller, though weary, arises when you come,\nand the soldier sets his savage hand to arms;\nyou’re first to see the farmers wield their heavy hoes\nand to call slow oxen under the curving yoke;\nyou rob boys of their sleep and give them over to schools,\nwhere tender hands must bear the savage switch;\nand you send reckless fools to pledge themselves in court,\nwhere they take ruinous losses through one word;\nthe lawyer and the pleader take no delight in you,\nfor each must rise and wrangle with new torts;\nand you ensure that women’s chores are never done,\ncalling the spinner’s hands back to her wool.\nAll this I’d bear; but who would bear that girls must rise\nat dawn, unless himself he has no girl?\nHow many times I’ve wished Night would not yield to you,\nthe stars not fade and flee before your face!\nHow many times I’ve wished the wind would smash your wheels,\nyour steeds would stumble on a cloud and fall!\nJealous, why do you hurry? If your son is black,\nit’s since his mother’s heart is that same color.\nHow I wish Tithonus could still tell tales of you:\nno goddess would be more disgraced in heaven.\nSince he is endless eons old, you rise and flee\nat dawn to the chariot the old man hates,\nbut if some Cephalus were lying in your arms,\nyou’d cry out, “O run slowly, steeds of night!”\nWhy should this lover pay, if your husband withers with age?\nWas I the matchmaker who brought him to you?\nRemember how much sleep was given to her loved youth\nby Luna--and she’s beautiful as you.\nThe father of gods himself, to see you all the less,\njoined two nights into one for his desires.\nI’d finished my complaint. You could tell she’d heard: she blushed;\nand yet the day rose at its usual time.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jon Corelis", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Jon Corelis" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -76864,11 +79272,13 @@ "title": "“After the Interlude”", "body": "Three months ago, it all had started.\nThe early blizzards swept by, rushing\nOver our fields and yards unguarded\nWith some unmanageable passion.\n\nI then made up my mind at once,\nAs though a hermit on vocation,\nI’d write of winter and perchance,\nI would complete my spring collection.\n\nBut trivialities, like mounts, arose,\nLike snow-banks, standing in my way,\nAnd all my plans, it seemed, were lost,\nAs winter passed on, day by day.\n\nI, then, perceived and got to know\nWhy on this foul and stormy night,\nShe pierced the darkness with the snow\nAnd from the garden, peeked inside.\n\nShe sighed and whispered to me tensely,\n“Please hurry!”--pale from the cold.\nBut I was sharpening my pencil\nAnd awkwardly, dismissed her call.\n\nAnd while one early morning, I,\nBehind the desk, delayed each sentence,\nThe winter came 
 and passed me by\nWith some unrecognized resemblance.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -76879,8 +79289,10 @@ "title": "“August”", "body": "As promised and without deception,\nThe sun passed through in early morning\nIn a slanting saffron stripe\nFrom the curtain to the sofa.\n\nIt covered with burning ochre\nThe neighboring woods, village houses,\nMy bed, the wet pillow\nAnd the strip of wall behind the bookshelf.\n\nI remembered for what reason\nThe pillow was slightly damp.\nI dreamed that you were coming to my wake,\nOne after another through the woods.\n\nYou were coming in a crowd, in ones and twos,\nSuddenly, someone remembered that it was\nAugust sixth by the old calendar,\nThe Transfiguration of Christ.\n\nUsually, a light without fire\nPours this day from Mt. Tabor\nAnd autumn, clear as an omen,\nCompels the gaze of all.\n\nAnd you walked through the scant, beggarly\nNaked trembling alder grove\nInto the ginger-red cemetery woods,\nBurning like glazed ginger bread.\n\nA solemn sky verged\nUpon its silent heights,\nAnd distance called out\nIn drawling rooster voices.\n\nIn the woods, among the gravestones\nDeath stood like a government surveyor,\nLooking at my dead face\nTo dig my grave to measure.\n\nAll sensed the presence\nOf someone’s calm voice nearby.\nIt was my old prophetic voice\nThat rang, untouched by decay:\n\n“Farewell to the azure of Transfiguration\nAnd the gold of the Second coming.\nSoothe the woe of my fatal hour\nWith a woman’s parting caress.\n\nFarewell to the trackless years!\nLet’s say goodbye, o, woman who hurls\nA challenge to the abyss of humiliation.\nI am your battlefield.\n\nFarewell to you unfurled wing-span,\nFree, persistent flight,\nThe world’s image, captured in a word,\nCreative work, and miracle-working.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Richard McKane", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Richard McKane" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "transfiguration" @@ -76891,11 +79303,14 @@ "title": "“Autumn”", "body": "I have let my household disperse,\nMy dear ones have long been apart,\nAnd a familiar loneliness\nFills all of nature and all my heart.\n\nHere I am with you in the lodge.\nNo one walks through the woods these days.\nAs in the old song, undergrowth\nHas almost hidden the forest ways.\n\nForlornly, the timber walls\nLook down on the two of us here.\nWe did not promise to leap obstacles,\nWe shall fall at last in the clear.\n\nWe shall sit down from one till three,\nYou with embroidery, I deep\nIn a book, and at dawn shall not see\nWhen we kiss each other to sleep.\n\nMore richly and more recklessly,\nLeaves, leaves, give tongue and whirl away,\nFill yesterday’s cup of bitterness\nWith the sadness of today.\n\nImpulse, enchantment, beauty!\nLet’s dissolve in September wind\nAnd enter the rustle of autumn!\nBe still, or go out of your mind!\n\nAs the coppice lets slip its leaves,\nYou let your dress slip rustling down\nAnd throw yourself into my arms\nIn your silk-tasselled dressing gown.\n\nYou are my joy on the brink\nOf disaster, when life becomes\nA plague, and beauty is daring,\nAnd draws us into each other’s arms.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter France & Jon Stallworthy", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1949 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Peter France", + "Jon Stallworthy" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "autumn_equinox" @@ -76917,11 +79332,13 @@ "title": "“Black Spring”", "body": "Black spring! Pick up your pen, and weeping,\nOf February, in sobs and ink,\nWrite poems, while the slush in thunder\nIs burning in the black of spring.\n\nThrough clanking wheels, through church bells ringing\nA hired cab will take you where\nThe town has ended, where the showers\nAre louder still than ink and tears.\n\nWhere rooks, like charred pears, from the branches\nIn thousands break away, and sweep\nInto the melting snow, instilling\nDry sadness into eyes that weep.\n\nBeneath--the earth is black in puddles,\nThe wind with croaking screeches throbs,\nAnd--the more randomly, the surer\nPoems are forming out of sobs.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lydia Pasternak Slater", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Lydia Pasternak Slater" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -76932,11 +79349,13 @@ "title": "“The Breakup”", "body": "# 1.\n\nO two-tongued angel, on my grief a hundred\nproof no less I should have got you drunk.\nBut I’m not one, whatever pain the lies encouraged\nfrom the start, to claim a tooth for a tooth.\nAnd now the clever, festering doom!\n\nOh, no, betraying angel, it’s not fatal,\nnot this suffering, this rash of the heart.\nBut why at parting shower me with such a rain\nof blows to the body? Why this pointless\nhurricane of kisses? Why, your mockery\nsupreme, kill me in everybody’s sight?\n\n# 2.\n\nO shame, how overwhelming you can be!\nYet at this breaking-up how many dreams persist.\nWere I no more than a jumbled heap\nof brows and eyes and lips, cheeks, shoulders, wrists,\n\nfor my grief so strong, forever young,\nat the order of my verse, its ruthless march,\nI wrould submit to those and, leading them\nin battle, storm your citadel, O monstrous shame.\n\n# 3.\n\nAll my thoughts I now distract from you,\nif not at parties, drinking wine, then in heaven!\nSurely one day. as the landlord’s next door bell\nis ringing, for someone that door will open.\n\nI’ll rush in on them in tinkling December, say,\nthe door pushed wide--and here I am, far as the hall!\n“Where’ve you come from? What’s being said?\nTell us the news, the latest scandal from the city.”\n\nIs all my grief mistaken?\nWill it mutter later, “She mirrored her exactly,”\nas, gathering myself for a leap past forty feet,\nI burst out crying, “Is it really you?”\n\nAnd the public squares, will they spare me?\nAh, if you could only know what pain I feel\nwhen, at least a hundred times a day, the streets,\namazed, confront me with their counterfeits of you.\n\n# 4.\n\nGo ahead, try to stop me, try to put out\nthis fiery fit of sorrow, soaring\nlike mercury in a barometer.\nStop me from raving about you. Don’t be ashamed,\nwe are alone. Turn out the lights, turn them\nout, and douse my fire with fire.\n\n# 5.\n\nLike combers twine this cloudburst of cold elbows,\nlike lilies, silken-stalwart, helpless palms.\nSound the triumph! Break loose! Set to! In this wild race\nthe woods are roaring, choked on the echo of Calydonian hunts,\nwhere Acteon pursued Atalanta like a doe to the clearing,\nwhere in endless azure, hissing past the horses’ ears,\nthey kissed and kissed to the uproarious baying of the chase,\ncaressed among the shrillest horns and crackling trees,\nthe clattering hoofs and claws.\nLike those break loose, break loose, rush into the woods!\n\n# 6.\n\nSo you’re disappointed? You think we should\npart with a swan song for requiem,\nwith a show of sorrow, tears showering\nfrom your eyes dilated, trying their victorious power?\n\nAs if during mass the frescoes, shaken by what’s playing\non Johann Sebastian’s lips, were to tumble from the arches!\nFrom this night on in everything my hatred discovers\na dragging on and on that ought to have a whip.\n\nIn the dark, instantly, without a thought\nmy hatred decides that it is time\nto plough it all up. that suicide’s folly\nslow, too slow, the speed of a snail.\n\n# 7.\n\nMy love, my angel, just as in that night\nflying from Bergen to the Pole, the wild geese\nswooping, a snowstorm of warmest down, I swear,\nO Sweet, my will’s not crossed when I urge you.\nDearest, please forget and go to sleep.\n\nWhen like a Norwegian whaler’s wreck, to its stock ice-jammed,\na winter s apparition, rigid past its masts, I soar,\nfluttered in your eyes’ aurora borealis, sleep, don’t cry:\nall before your wedding day will heal, my dear.\n\nWhen like the North itself beyond the outmost settlements,\nhidden from the arctic and its ice floe wide awake,\nrinsing the eyes of blinded seals with midnight’s rim,\nI say--don’t rub your eyes, sleep, forget--it’s all nonsense.\n\n# 8.\n\nMy table’s not so wide that, pressing my chest\nagainst its board, I cannot crook my elbow\nround the edge of anguish, those straits\nof countless miles, quarried by “Farewell.”\n\n(It’s night there now) Ah, to have your cloudy hair\n(They’ve gone to sleep) the kingdom of your shoulders!\n(All lights are out) I d return them in the morning,\nand the porch would greet them with a nodding branch.\n\nO shield me. not with flakes, but with your hands,\npain’s ten sufficient fingers, the spikes\nof winter stars, like the placards of delay\nposted on trains northbound into blizzards!\n\n# 9.\n\nThe trembling piano licks foam from its lips.\nThis delirium, tossing, will strike you down.\nYou murmur. “Dearest!” “No!” I cry back. “Never\nin the midst of music!” And yet how could we be closer\n\nthan in the twilight here, the score like a diary,\npage after page, year after year, tossed on the fire.\nO wondrous memories that, luring us still,\nastonish the spirit! But you are free.\n\nI shan’t keep you. Go on. Give yourself to others.\nLeave at once. Werther’s already had his day.\nBut now the air itself reeks death:\nopening a window is like opening a vein.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Weiss", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Weiss" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -76944,11 +79363,13 @@ "title": "“Change”", "body": "I once was drawn towards the poor--\nAnd not with gaze of condescension,\nFor it was only really there\nThat life went on without pretension.\n\nAlthough some noble clans I knew\nAnd public of sophistication,\nThe parasitic I’d eschew,\nBefriended those of wastrel’s station.\n\nTo waken friendship then I sought\nWith those I met from ranks of toiler,\nFor which I earned from them their thought\nThat I belonged amidst the squalor.\n\nI didn’t need fine words to feel,\nWas real, and earthy and quite certain--\nA simple cellar was my deal,\nAn attic home without a curtain.\n\nAnd I have rotted since that time,\nCorruption of the age afflicted\nMidst bourgeois-optimistic climb,\nMy grief by shame has been convicted.\n\nI’ve long been faithless to all those\nWhom I was bound to by trust’s duty\nI’ve lost the human path I chose\nWith all who spurn such simple beauty.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rupert Moreton", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Rupert Moreton" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -76967,11 +79388,13 @@ "title": "“Don’t cry 
”", "body": "Don’t cry. Don’t tense your swollen lips,\nDon’t pack them into creases.\nYou’ll irritate those dried up bits\nOf scabs from vernal fevers.\n\nWithdraw you hand, don’t touch my chest,\nWe’re cables under voltage.\nTo one another, by some chance\nWe may be thrown by fortune.\n\nThe years will pass and you shall wed,\nYou will forget this love then.\nTo be a woman,--a great step.\nTo drive insane,--a talent.\n\nUnder the spell of female hands,\nThe spell of shoulders, backs, and necks,\nAs you can see, I’ve lost my sense,\nBewitched by their divine effects.\n\nNo matter how the night might bind,--\nIts dismal ring just cannot match\nThe force to leave it all behind\nAnd passion tempts me to detach.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1947 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -76982,11 +79405,13 @@ "title": "“A Dream”", "body": "I had a dream of autumn in a half-lit window,\nMy friends and you in their comic play,\nFrom sky as a falcon, gained a victim,\nDescended my heart just on your hand.\n\nBut time went, going older and mute,\nAnd making a silver patina on frames,\nThe garden dawn poured the glass\nWith the bloody tears of september.\n\nBut time went, going older. Lax as the ice,\nThe silk of the arm-chairs crackled,\nAnd suddenly, loud, you stopped silent,\nAnd dream, as a bell ring, had clammed.\n\nI woke up. Dark as the autumn was sunrise,\nAnd wind was carrying rain in a pile\nOf the running straws, as after the cart,\nA row of birches was racing far in the sky.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lyudmila Purgina", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Lyudmila Purgina" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "autumn_equinox" @@ -76997,8 +79422,10 @@ "title": "“During the Holy Week”", "body": "The shades of night are still around.\nSo early is the world that stars\nAre still too numerous to count\nAs each as bright as day came out,\nAnd if the Earth could be allowed,\nThrough Easter she would sleep, no doubt,\nTo readings from the Book of Psalms.\n\nThe shades of night are still around.\nSuch is the early world that still\nThe city square spreads out unbound\nLike an eternity unwound,\nAnd till the dawn and warmth rebound,\nThere’s a millennium to fill.\n\nThe Earth is still stark naked ground;\nNo hint at night of an attire\nTo swing the temple bells and sound\nA footloose backup for the choir.\n\nAnd from the Holy Thursday on,\nUntil the very Easter Eve,\nThe waters drill the banks head-on\nAnd never cease to whirl and weave.\n\nIt is the Passion of Our Lord.\nThe woods, disrobed, in disarray,\nStand silent like a pine cohort\nOf worshippers in need to pray.\n\nIn town, across a tighter space,\nThe naked trees appear to perch\nAs if in conclave as they gaze\nThrough grated windows of the church.\n\nAnd their eyes with fright dilate.\nThey feel a sense of deep unrest.\nThe gardens venture through the grate;\nThe ancient ways of Earth are swayed;\nThey lay Almighty God to rest.\n\nThey see a light by Holy Gate,\nA corporal and candles wait,\nAnd tearful faces of the crowd.\nAt once Procession of the Cross\nComes out behind a holy shroud.\nAnd lest their paths might oddly cross,\nTwo birches move to yield some ground.\n\nAround the yard the faithful tread.\nThen back they march in solemn praise\nAnd bring, as through the porch they’re led,\nThe chat of spring and springtime scent,\nThe air that tastes of holy bread\nWith flavors of the vernal craze.\n\nAnd March flings snowflakes left and right\nAt cripples gathered on the site,\nAs if a man had stepped outside,\nBrought out a shrine and opened wide\nAnd shared till there was nothing left.\n\nAt dusk, the chanting comes out soft:\nThey’ve wept to their hearts’ content,\nYet songs and psalms will still have got\nTo streetlights by an empty lot\nBut won’t be heard around the bend.\n\nThe midnight hushes all at length.\nThe beast and flesh have sensed the quirk\nOf spring and know that with her breath\nThere’ll be a way to conquer death\nBy Resurrection put to work.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yuri Menis", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yuri Menis" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "palm_sunday", @@ -77022,11 +79449,14 @@ "title": "“The Earth”", "body": "Spring bursts violently\ninto Moscow houses.\nMoths flutter about\ncrawl on summer hats,\nand furs hide secretly.\n\nPots of wallflowers and stock\nstand, in the window, just,\nof wooden second storeys,\nthe rooms breathe liberty,\nthe smell of attics is dust.\n\nThe street is friends\nwith the bleary glass,\nand white night and sunset\nat one, by the river, pass.\n\nIn the passage you’ll know\nwhat’s going on below\nand April’s casual flow\nof words with drops of thaw.\nIt’s a thousand stories veiled\nin a human sadness,\nand twilight along the fence\ngrows chill with the tale.\n\nOutside, or snug at home\nthe same fire and hesitation:\neverywhere air’s unsure.\nThe same cut willow twigs,\nthe same white swell of buds,\nat crossroads, windows above,\nin streets, and workshop-doors.\n\nThen why does the far horizon weep\nin mist, and the soil smell bitter?\nAfter all, it’s my calling, surely,\nto see no distance is lonely,\nand past the town boundary,\nto see that earth doesn’t suffer.\n\nThat’s why in early spring\nwe meet, my friends and I,\nand our evenings are--farewell documents,\nour gatherings are--testaments,\nso the secret stream of suffering\nmay warm the cold of life.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter France & Jon Stallworthy", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1949 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Peter France", + "Jon Stallworthy" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -77038,11 +79468,13 @@ "title": "“Encounter with Love”", "body": "The roads pile up with snow.\nThe roofs have snow galore.\nPerhaps, to stretch I’ll go--\nYou stand outside the door.\n\nAlone. In autumn wear.\nNo hat, no rubber shoes.\nYou feign you do not care--\nYour mouth, though, snowflakes chews.\n\nThe trees and fences steer\nAway into the dark.\nAlone you stand so near\nAs snowfall fills the park.\n\nAnd off your shawl some snow\nDrips down into the cuff.\nYour hair is all aglow\nWith dewdrops hanging tough.\n\nA lock of fairest hair\nIlluminates your face,\nThe figure, shawl and--there,\nThis coat you wear with grace.\n\nYour lashes, too, are wet;\nYour eyes betray unease,\nAnd all of you seems made\nOf one unbroken piece.\n\nAs if an iron pin\nHad dipped in dye in part\nAnd etched you from within\nAcross my throbbing heart.\n\nYour features born contrite\nHad grabbed my heart for good,\nAnd hence I do not mind\nThe world that’s cruel and crude.\n\nAnd hence this snowy night\nThat’s doubled for our sake,\nAnd there is no divide\nBetween us I can make.\n\nBut who are we, from where,\nIf all those years galore\nLeft nothing but hot air,\nYet we are here no more?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yuri Menis", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1949 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yuri Menis" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -77053,11 +79485,13 @@ "title": "“Eve”", "body": "On shore the trees stand looking on\nWhile midday casts the clouds on bet\nInto the meditative pond\nFor want of any other net.\n\nAnd like a net the sky sinks in\nThe pensively expectant waters\nAnd into it the bathers swim,\nFathers, mothers, sons and daughters.\n\nThen half a dozen girls come out\nWithout a stir among the shoots\nAnd rivulets of water spout\nAs they wring out their bathing suits.\n\nAnd, firing the imagination,\nThe coils of fabric coil and twist\nAs though the serpent of temptation\nHad really marked them for its nest.\n\nO woman, on your looks I dote,\nBut have no mental blanks to fill;\nYou’re like the stricture in a throat\nSeized by an unexpected thrill.\n\nYou seem created as a draft,\nA stanza from another sequence,\nAs if indeed the handicraft\nOf somebody who knew no equals,\n\nMade of my rib while asleep I lay,\nYou broke the clasping arms apart,\nThe very image of dismay,\nA spasm that grips and wrings man’s heart.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dorian Rottenberg", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dorian Rottenberg" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -77068,11 +79502,13 @@ "title": "“Fairy Tale”", "body": "Once upon a time,\nSomewhere far away,\nRiding through the steppe,\nA horseman made his way.\n\nThrough the dust, he saw,\nWhile he sped to fight,\nA forest was emerging\nDreary, dark and wide.\n\nHis soul cried out in worry,\nAnd his heart would race:\nTighten up your saddle,\nFear the watering-place.\n\nBut he didn’t listen,\nAnd only gaining speed,\nStraight onto the mound\nHe would lead his steed.\n\nTurning from the barrow,\nTo an barren vale,\nPast the higher ground,\nStraight across the dale.\n\nDown into the furrow\nHe took his horse apace\nWhere the trail led him\nTo a watering-place.\n\nHeedless of the warning,\nQuick to move, he took\nHis horse to drink the water\nFrom the hidden brook.\n\nNear the shallow water,\nWhere he made his way,\nSulfur flames illumined\nThe entrance to a cave.\n\nIn the crimson smoke\nThat shrouded everything,\nWith a distant calling\nThe forest seemed to ring\n\nStraight across the ravine,\nStartled and appalled,\nThe rider walked his horse\nTo the haunting call.\n\nAs he neared, a dragon\nSuddenly appeared.\nThe rider saw its tail\nAnd tightly gripped his spear.\n\nThe dragon breathed out fire\nWith a blinding light,\nThrice around a maiden\nWinding his spine.\n\nThe body of the dragon,\nBending like a whip,\nHeld the maiden’s shoulder\nWith a solid grip.\n\nA beautiful, young maiden,\nBy that county’s customs,\nWas given to the monster\nAs a form of ransom.\n\nThe village folk surrendered\nThis beauty with high hopes\nTo satisfy the serpent\nAnd to protect their homes.\n\nThe monster squeezed her arms\nAnd coiling her throat,\nHe left the victim feeling\nHopeless and distraught.\n\nThe rider, with a prayer,\nGazing at the sky,\nReady for the battle,\nHeld his spear up high.\n\nEyelids tightly shut.\nSummits. Clouded spheres.\nWaters. Fords and rivers.\nCenturies and years.\n\nThe wounded rider lies.\nHis body barely moves.\nThe loyal horse is trampling\nThe dragon with its hooves.\n\nThe dragon’s body’s fallen\nBy the watering-place.\nThe rider is a confounded.\nThe maiden’s in a daze.\n\nThe midday sky is shinning,\nAs azure clouds unfurl.\nWho is she? A princess?\nOr just a peasant girl?\n\nNow, in joyous happiness\nThe soul can’t cease to weep,\nAnd now, unable to resist,\nThe body falls asleep.\n\nNow, his health’s returning\nNow, he’s weak once more.\nFrom the loss of blood,\nHe’s feeling weak and sore.\n\nBut their hearts are beating.\nFirst one, then the other\nComing back to life\nAnd falling back in slumber.\n\nEyelids tightly shut.\nSummits. Clouded spheres.\nWaters. Fords and rivers.\nCenturies and years.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1953 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -77080,11 +79516,13 @@ "title": "“False Alarm”", "body": "Old pails and tubs all over\nThe place; from the onset\nThe day is wet and awkward,\nIt drizzles at sunset,\n\nAnd gulping down tears\nThe darkness gives a sigh,\nAt miles away one hears\nSteam train’s lonesome cry,\n\nAn early dusk comes down,\nA sudden blackness falls,\nSmall things are breaking down\nAs always in the fall.\n\nAt midday anguish pierces\nAnd fills the autumn vale\nBy coming from a distance\nA weeper’s howl and wail.\n\nWhen from across the river\nIt’s wafted to my place,\nI see the death and shiver,\nI see it face to face.\n\nI watch it from my cottage\nEach fall, this one again,--\nMy slowly approaching\nInevitable end.\n\nSee: winter swept the barrier\nAnd there, in plain daylight,\nThrough yellow leaves of terror\nIs staring at my life.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Natasha Gotskaya", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1941 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Natasha Gotskaya" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -77095,11 +79533,13 @@ "title": "“First Frost”", "body": "Cold morning: the sun blurs,\nPillar of smoky fire.\nAnd I’m indistinct too\nLike a dirty snapshot.\n\nTill it gets through the murk,\nShines on the grassy pond\nThe trees see me poorly\nAcross from the far bank;\n\nA passer-by, recognised\nLate, as he’s plunged in haze.\nFrost wraps gooseflesh, the air\nIs false as thickest rouge.\n\nYou go by paths with rime\nLike matting. The earth breathes\nPotato-stalks, and grows\nCold, unbelievably cold.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Conquest", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Conquest" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -77110,11 +79550,13 @@ "title": "“Garden”", "body": "The drowsy garden scatters insects\nBronze as the ash from braziers blown.\nLevel with me and with my candle,\nHang flowering worlds, their leaves full-grown.\n\nAs into some unheard-of dogma\nI move across into this night,\nWhere a worn poplar age has grizzled\nScreens the moon’s strip of fallow light,\n\nWhere the pond lies, an open secret,\nWhere apple-bloom is surf and sigh,\nAnd where the garden, a lake-dwelling,\nHolds out in front of it the sky.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Babette Deutsch", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -77125,11 +79567,13 @@ "title": "“Gentleness”", "body": "With blinding brilliance\nThe evening dawns at seven.\nFrom streets toward awnings\nDarkness marches apace.\nPeople--they are manikins;\nOnly lust and sadness lead\nThem across the universe\nFeeling their way by touch.\nThe heart under the palm\nBetrays with its shuddering\nTension of chase and escape,\nGlimmers of fright and flight.\nFeelings take to liberty\nAnd freedom with ill-ease,\nTearing just like a horse\nAt the bit of its mouthpiece.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alex Cigale", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1950 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alex Cigale" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -77140,11 +79584,13 @@ "title": "“Gethsemane”", "body": "The distant stars were shining overhead.\nTheir light was cast upon the curving road.\nThe road was laid around Mount Olivet.\nThe Kedron brook was flowing down below.\n\nThe meadow was cut off right in the middle\nAnd there, the Milky Way came into sight.\nThe grayish olives in their silver glitter\nWould try to climb the sky into the night.\n\nThere was a garden. Slowly, He approached\nAnd leaving His disciples by the wall,\nHe said to them, “Wait here for Me. Keep watch.\nI sense a fatal torment in My soul.”\n\nHe turned away without exasperation,\nAs though from what was borrowed in the past,\nFrom both, supremacy and domination,\nAnd now, He was a mortal, just like us.\n\nThe widespread darkness now appeared to beckon\nInto oblivion, into the barren space.\nThe vastness of the universe was vacant,\nThe Garden was the only living place.\n\nAnd looking at these chasms in the sky,\nSo empty, limitless, He felt a sudden dread.\nSo that the cup of death would pass Him by\nHe begged His Father, wet with blood and sweat.\n\nWith prayer softening the deadly languor,\nHe slowly headed back and saw, appalled,\nAs His disciples, with exhaustion anchored,\nWere sleeping on the grass beside the wall.\n\nHe woke them up in rage: “Almighty deemed\nYou worthy of My presence,--you offend Him.\nThe hour of the Son of Man is here.\nInto the hands of sinners, He’ll surrender.”\n\nJust as He said this, out of nowhere, stormed\nA mob of slaves, and wanderers assembled.\nLights, swords and Judas walking to the front,--\nA traitor’s kiss upon his lips still trembled.\n\nAnd Peter gripped his heavy sword. Unsettled,\nHe cut off someone’s ear in the discord.\nHe hears: “This clash can’t be resolved with metal!\nGood man, I say to you, put down your sword.\n\nOh, do you think My Father wouldn’t send\nThe winged legion to protect Me here?\nThey’d never touch a hair upon My head,--\nWithout a trace, My foes would disappear.\n\nKnow that the book of life has reached that page,\nMore valuable than all the blessings sent.\nWhat’s written in the book cannot be changed,\nThen let it all come true, I say. Amen.\n\nYou see, My time has reached the final hour.\nContinuing, it may alight in gloom.\nThus, in the name of His majestic power,\nAccepting agony, I’ll step into the tomb.\n\nI’ll step into the tomb soon overburdened,\nAnd on the third day, I’ll ascent. into my sight,\nAs though in a procession for my verdict,\nThe centuries will flow out of the night
”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1960 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "holy_thursday" @@ -77155,11 +79601,13 @@ "title": "“The Girl”", "body": "_By a cliff a golden cloud once lingered;\nOn his breast it slept 
_\n\nFrom the swing, from the garden, helter-skelter,\nA twig runs up to the glass.\nEnormous, close, with a drop of emerald\nAt the tip of the cluster cast.\n\nThe garden is clouded, lost in confusion,\nIn staggering, teeming fuss.\nThe dear one, as big as the garden, a sister\nBy nature--a second glass!\n\nBut then this twig is brought in a tumbler\nAnd put by the looking-glass;\nWhich wonders:--Who is it that blurs my vision,\nFrom the dull, from the prison-class?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lydia Pasternak Slater", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Lydia Pasternak Slater" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -77170,11 +79618,13 @@ "title": "“Hamlet”", "body": "The murmurs ebb; onto the stage I enter.\nI am trying, standing in the door,\nTo discover in the distant echoes\nWhat the coming years may hold in store.\n\nThe nocturnal darkness with a thousand\nBinoculars is focused onto me.\nTake away this cup, O Abba Father,\nEverything is possible to Thee.\n\nI am fond of this Thy stubborn project,\nAnd to play my part I am content.\nBut another drama is in progress,\nAnd, this once, O let me be exempt.\n\nBut the plan of action is determined,\nAnd the end irrevocably sealed.\nI am alone; all round me drowns in falsehood:\nLife is not a walk across a field.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lydia Pasternak Slater", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1946 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Lydia Pasternak Slater" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -77182,11 +79632,14 @@ "title": "“The highest sickness”", "body": "The shifting riddle glitters,\nthe siege goes on, days go on,\nthe months and years go by.\nOne lovely day, the messengers,\npanting and falling off their feet,\ncame bearing news: the fort had fallen.\nThey believe and don’t believe, set fires,\nblow up the vaults, seek the points of entry,\nthey come and go--the days go by.\nThe months and years go by.\nThe years go by--in shadow.\nIt’s the rebirth of the Trojan epic.\nThey believe and don’t believe, set fires,\nagitate and wait for the break;\nthey falter, go blind--the days go by--\nand the walls of the fort fall apart.\n\nI grow more and more ashamed every day\nthat in an age of shadows\nthe highest sickness escapes censure\nand goes by the name of song.\nIs Sodom the proper name for song\nlearned by ear the hard way,\nthen hurled out of hooks\nonly to be skewered by spears and bayonets?\nHell is paved with good intentions.\nThe current notion is\nthat by paving your poems with them\nyour sins will be forgiven.\nSuch gossip rips the ears of silence\non its way back from the war,\nand these devastating days have shown\nhow taut our hearing’s strung.\n\nIn those turbulent days everyone\nwas infected with a passion for rumors,\nand lice made winter twitch\nlike the ears of spooked horses,\nand all night snowy ears\nrustled quietly in darkness\nwhile we tossed fairy tales back and forth,\nreclining on peppermint cushions.\nIn Spring the upholstery\nof theater boxes was seized with trembling.\nPoverty-stricken February\ngroaned, coughed blood,\nand tiptoed off to whisper\ninto the ears of boxcars\nabout this and that,\nrailroad ties and tracks,\nthe thaw, and babbled on, of troops\nfoot-slogging home from the front.\nYou sleep, waiting for death,\nbut the narrator doesn’t care.\nIn the ladles of thawed galoshes\nthe cloth lice will swallow the lie\ntied to the truth without\nceasing to twitch their ears.\nAlthough the dawn thistle\nkept on chasing its shadow\nand in the same motion\nmade the hour linger;\nalthough, as before, the dirt road\ndragged the wheels over soft white sand\nand spun them onto harder ground\nalongside signs and landmarks;\nalthough the autumn sky was cloudy,\nand the forest appeared distant,\nand the twilight was cold and hazy;\nanyway, it was all a forgery.\nAnd the sleep of the stunned earth\nwas convulsive, like labor pains,\nlike death, like the silence\nof cemeteries, like that unique quiet\nthat blankets the horizon,\nshudders, and beats its brains\nto remember: Hold on, prompt me,\nwhat did I want to say?\n\nAlthough, as before, the ceiling,\ninstalled to support a new cell,\nlugged the second story to the third\nand dragged the fifth to the sixth\nsuggesting by this shift that everything\nwas as it used to be--\nand anyway, it was all a forgery;\nand through the network of water pipes\nrushed the hollow reverberation\nof a dark age; the stench\nof laurel and soybean,\nsmoldering in the flames of newspapers\neven more indigestible than these lines,\nrises into air like a pillar\nas though muttering to itself: Hold on, prompt me,\nwhat did I want to eat?\n\nAnd crept like a famished tapeworm\nfrom the second floor to the third,\nand stole from the fifth to the sixth.\nIt gloried in callousness and regression,\ndeclared tenderness illegal.\nWhat could be done? All sound\ndrowned in the roar of torn skies.\nThe roar passed the railroad platform\nthen vanished beyond the water tower\nand drifted to the end of the forest,\nwhere the hills broke out in rashes,\nwhere snowdrifts\npumped through the pines,\nand the blinded tracks itched\nand rubbed against the blizzard.\n\nAnd against the backdrop of blazing legends,\nthe idiot, the hero, the intellectual\nburned in decrees and posters\nfor the glory of a dark force,\nthat carried them with a grin\naround blind corners, if not\nfor heroic acts, then because two and two\nwon’t add up to a hundred in a day.\nAnd at the rear of blazing legends,\nthe idealist-intellectuals\nwrote and printed posters\non the joys of their twilight.\n\nHuddled in sheepskin, the serf\nlooked back at the darkening north\nwhere snow gave all it had\nto ward off death by twilight.\nThe railroad station glistened\nlike a pipe organ in mirrored ice,\nand groaned with opened eyes.\nAnd its wild beauty quarreled\nwith an empty Conservatory\nshut down for holiday repairs.\nThe insidiously silent typhus\ngripped our knees, and dreamt\nand shuddered as he listened\nand heard the stagnant gushing\nof monotonous remorse.\nThe typhus knew all the gaps in the organ\nand gathered dust in the seams\nof the bellows’ burlap shirts.\nHis well-tuned ears implored\nthe fog, the ice, and the puddles\nsplattered over the earth\nto keep their silence out of the rain.\n\nWe were the music of ice.\nI mean my own crowd--we pledged\nto quit this stage together,\nand I will quit--someday.\nThere is no room left for shame.\nI wasn’t put on this earth\nto gaze three ways into men’s eyes.\nMore insidious than this song\nis the double-crossing word “enemy.”\nI am a guest, and guests all over\nthe world are the highest sickness.\nI wanted to be like everyone else,\nbut our glorious age\nis stronger than my grief\nand tries to mimic me.\n\nWe were the music of cups,\ngone to sip tea in the dark\nof deaf forests, oblique habits,\nand secrets flattering to no one.\nFrosts crackled. Pails hung.\nJackdaws soared and the frostbitten year\nwas ashamed to show up at the gates.\nWe were the music of thought\nand sought to sweep the stairs,\nbut as the cold froze,\nice blurred the passage.\n\nYet I witnessed the Ninth Congress\nof the Soviets1 and, in the raw twilights,\nran from place to place in the city,\ncursing life, cursing the cobblestones,\nand on the second day, the fabled\nday of celebration, went\nto the theater in a frantic mood\nwith a pass to the orchestra pit.\nWhile walking soberly on somber rails\nI glanced around: the entire countryside\nwas a smoldering ash heap,\nstubbornly refusing to rise\noff the railway ties.\nThe Karelian question2 stared\nfrom every poster and raised\nthe question in the eyes of anemic birches.\nThick snow ribboned the crossbars\nof telegraph poles and in the fabric\nof branches the winter day was shutting down,\nnot of its own accord, but in response\nto a command. At that instant,\nlike a moral in a fairy tale,\nthe story of the Congress was revealed:\ntelling again how the fever of genius\nis stronger and whiter than cement.\n(Whoever didn’t help push that pushcart\nshould suffer it in the future.)\nHow suddenly, at the end of a week,\nthe walls of a Citadel arose\nin the blinded eyes of the creator,\nor at least a dwarfish fort.3\n\nThe new feeds the rows of ages,\nbut its golden pie, wolfed down\nbefore tradition can steep the sauce,\nsticks in your throat.\nNow, from a certain distance\nthe trivial details blur,\nthe stereotypical speeches are forgotten.\nTime levels the details\nwhere trivia once prevailed.\nThe farce was not prescribed\nto cure my trials and tribulations.\nAnd yet I have no memory of how\nthe voting went so smoothly.\nI’ve managed to exorcise that day,\nwhen, from the bottom of the sea,4\nthrough a yawning Japanese abyss,\na telegram was able to distinguish\n(what a scholarly deep-sea diver!)\nclasses of octopi from the working classes.\nBut those fire-breathing mountains\nwere beyond the range of its concern.\nThere were countless dumber things to do\nthan classifying Pompeii.\nFor a long time I knew by heart\nthat scandalous telegram\nwe sent the victims of the tragedy\nto soften the roar of Fujiyama\nwith more pabulum from our Trade Unions.\n\nWake up, poet, show your pass.\nYou can’t yawn at a time like this.\nMsta, Ladoga, Sheksna, Lovat.5\nLeap from box seats over the chairs into the pit.\nOnce again from Proclamation Hall,6\nthrough the door that opened southward,\nPeter the Great’s arctic blizzard\nfanned past the lamps.\nAgain the frigate went broadside.\nAgain gulping tidal waves\nthe child of treason and deceit\ndoesn’t recognize its country.\nEverything was drowsing, while\nfrom under the Tsar’s train,\nwith a wild shout,\nhunters’ packs scattered over the ice.\nTradition hid its stature\nbehind the railroad structure,\nunder the railroad bridge.\nThe pullman cars and the veiled\ntwo-headed eagles lingered\nin a black field where the earth\nheaved with the odor of March.\nAt Porkovo, a watery tarpaulin\nbillowed for a hundred nautical miles;\nthe gunpowder factory yawned\nover the long Baltic shore.\n\nAnd the two-headed eagle slowed down,\nand circled the Pskov region\nwhere the ring of anonymous rebellion\nwas tightening.\nIf only they could find a road\nnot marked on maps!\nBut the stock of railroad ties\nchecked on maps was melting fast.\nStill meticulous in crisis\nthey stoked with only the choicest cloth.\nStreams gamboled along the tracks;\nthe future sank in the mud.\nThe circle shrank, the pines thinned out--\ntwo suns met in the window:\none rising over Tosno;\nthe other sinking over Dno.7\n\nHow should I finish my fragment?8\nI remember his turn of phrase\nthat struck at me with a white flame\nlike a whiplash of lightning bolts.\nThe audience rose and with squinting eyes\nscanned the far table\nwhen he grew onto the platform,\ngrew before he reached the stage.\nHe slithered invisibly\nthrough rows of obstacles\nlike a ball of storm\nbolting into a smokeless room.\nThe roar of ovations broke over us\nlike relief, like the explosion\nof a nucleus that has to explode\nin a ring of hurdles and supports.\nAnd he opened his mouth. “We are here\nto remember 
 the monuments 
” What in that moment\ncame to exemplify only him?\n\nHe was--like the thrust of a rapier.\nChasing the stream of his talk\nhe thumbed his vest, planted his heel,\nand hammered his point home.\nHe could have been talking about axle grease\nbut the taut bow of his body\nexuded that naked essence\nwhich tore through the layers of husks.\nBut his naked guttural tones\npunctured our ears with truths\nimplied by the blood of fables:\nhe was their sound reflection.\nEnvious with the envy of ages,\njealous with their singular jealousy,\nhe lorded over their thoughts\nand because of that--over their country.\n\nWhen I saw him there on the stage\nI dwelled endlessly, to no end,\non his authority and right\nto strive from the first person.\n\nFrom the rows of generations\nsomeone steps to the front.\nA genius, bearing the promise of thaws, enters\nand revenges his departure with terror.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Mark Rudman & Bohdan Boychuk", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Mark Rudman", + "Bohdan Boychuk" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -77194,11 +79647,13 @@ "title": "“Illness”", "body": "At dusk you appear, a schoolgirl still,\na schoolgirl. Winter. The sunset a woodsman hacking\nin the forest of hours. I lie back to wait for dusk.\nAt once were hallooing; back and forth we call.\n\nBut the night! A torture chamber, bustling hell.\nCome--if anything could bring you!--see for yourself.\nNight’s your flitting away, your engagement, wedding,\nlast proceedings of a hangman’s court against me.\n\nDo you remember that life, the flakes like doves\nin flock thrusting their breasts against the howling\nand, the tempest swirling them, fiendishly\ndashed to the pavements?\n\nYou ran across the street, winds billowing under us,\na flying carpet--sleds, cries, crystals headlong!\nFor life, inspired by the blizzard, gushed\nlike blood into a crimson cloud.\n\nDo you remember that moment, the hawkers,\nthe tents, the jostling crowd, the coins a puppy’s\nmoist nose? Those bells, encumbered by snow,\ndo you remember their grumbling before the holidays?\n\nAlas. love. I must summon it all.\nWhat can replace you? Pills? Patent medicines?\nFrightened by my bottomless insomnia, sweat-soaked,\nI look sideways from my pillow as with a horse’s eye.\n\nAt dusk you appear, still taking exams.\nIt’s recess: robins flutter, headaches, textbooks.\nBut at night how they clamor for thirst, how glaring\ntheir eyes, the aspirins, the medicine bottles.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Weiss", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Weiss" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -77209,11 +79664,13 @@ "title": "“In the Hospital”", "body": "They stood almost blocking the pavement and stores,\nAs if scanning the wares in a show window’s glare;\nThe stretcher slid though past the ambulance doors,\nThe medics jumped in; they drove into the square.\n\nAnd passing by sidewalks, by courtyards and gapers,\nThrough tumult and chaos of streets in the night,\nThe rescue squad’s headlights massaged the soft vapors,\nDove into opaqueness devoid of all light.\n\nPolicemen and faces, a bleak alleyway\nFlashed by all agleam as the vehicle sped;\nClutching an atropine phial and a spray,\nThe EMT tech scanned the roof overhead.\n\nRain fell as they bore him to ER reception,\nWhere a querulous drain dripped and slurred.\nLine after line in his dim apperception,\nOn forms for admittance the scribbled words blurred.\n\nThey gave him a cot by the entryway rooms,\nFor the wing was jam-packed with the ill.\nAn iodine reek blew about noxious fumes;\nA breeze from the street touched the window and sill.\n\nOne smidgen of garden, a portion of sky\nWere posed in the window-frame square.\nThe just-arrived patient trained keen avid eye\nOn ward floors and white coats and stair.\n\nBut the soft reverie of his mind unattended\nWas jolted by inquiries the duty nurse made.\nHer head-shaking mien and her glum look portended:\nA sad end to this mess you’re not apt to evade.\n\nThen he gazed out with gratitude flooding his soul\nAt the wall that was gleaming beyond window’s frame.\nOn that wall, as if sparks from bituminous coal,\nDid the lights of the city their message declaim.\n\nIn sunset’s reflection a far gate glowed red,\nThe blaze of a maple tree smoldered, and now\nA long gnarly branch of that tree tossed its head,\nThen sent to the sick man a low farewell bow.\n\n“O Lord” (thought the patient), “how perfect thy ways,\nThy people, and walls and the scope of thy breath;\nThe beds and the parquet, the warmth of thy gaze,\nAnd the black of the city on the night of my death.”\n\n“A sleeping-draught dosage I’ve taken for rest,\nAnd I clutch at my handkerchief, weep;\nO God, all the tears of emotions distressed\nAre blinding my eyes while thy soft face I seek.”\n\n“Faint glimmers on walls make the air radiate,\nIllumining beds and the ward tossed adrift;\nHow sweet is the thought that my self and my fate,\nAll my heartbeats and days are Thy own precious gift.”\n\n“As I fade into death in this hospital bed\nI can sense Thy warm touch while life lingers;\nLike a filigreed ring, with a promise unsaid,\nBlessed hands hold me tight in smooth fingers.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "U. R. Bowie", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "U. R. Bowie" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -77221,11 +79678,13 @@ "title": "“In the Woods”", "body": "A lilac heat sickened the meadow;\nhigh in the wood, a cathedral’s sharp, nicked groins.\nNo skeleton obstructed the bodies--\nall was ours, obsequious wax in our fingers 
\n\nSuch, the dream: you do not sleep,\nyou only dream you thirst for sleep,\nthat someone elsewhere thirsts for sleep--\ntwo black suns singe his eyelashes.\n\nSunbeams shower and ebb to the flow of iridescent beetles.\nThe dragonfly’s mica whirs on your cheek.\nThe wood fills with meticulous scintillations--\na dial under the clockmaker’s tweezers.\n\nIt seemed we slept to the tick of figures;\nin the acid, amber ether,\nthey set up nicely tested clocks.\nshifted, regulated them to a soprano hair for the heat.\n\nThey shifted them here and there, and snipped at the wheels.\nDay declined on the blue clock-face;\nthey scattered shadows, drilled a void--\nthe darkness was a mast derricked upright.\n\nIt seems a green and brown happiness flits beyond us;\nsleep smothers the woods;\nno elegiacs on the clock’s ticking--\nsleep, it seems, is all this couple is up to.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Lowell", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Lowell" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -77236,11 +79695,13 @@ "title": "“Indian Summer”", "body": "Leaves of currant feel woven and prickly.\nLaughs inside and the clinking of glass;\nThey are peppering, shredding, and pickling,\nAdding cloves to the mixture, perchance.\n\nAnd the forest, a banterer, hassles\nTo deflect all that noise and takes aim\nAt the hilltop where sun-beaten hazels\nMay seem singed by a campfire flame.\n\nHere the footpath descends to a gully;\nHere one feels for a withered old snag\nAnd for Autumn the Ragman who glumly\nSweeps up into it crumbs he can bag.\n\nAnd one feels for creation that’s simpler\nThan some sages have stubbornly said,\nFor the birches that languish and whimper,\nAnd for all that must come to an end.\n\nWhy blink dumbly--you do know at bottom\nWhat’s ahead has been scorched by the droughts,\nAnd the heavy white smog of the autumn\nWeaves a cobweb to sneak in the house.\n\nThere’s a pass through the fence, for that matter,\nThat could lead to the woods, but so far--\nLaughs inside and a good kitchen chatter;\nLikewise, chatter and laughs from afar.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yuri Menis", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1946 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yuri Menis" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -77251,11 +79712,13 @@ "title": "“Insomnia”", "body": "What tune is it? It’s dark. Getting on to three.\nAgain, apparently, I’m not to close my eyes.\nThe village herdsman will crack his whip at dawn.\nCold air will blow in at the window Which overlooks the yard.\nAnd I’m alone.\nNot true. With all\nThe penetrating wave of your white self\nYou’re here with me.", "metadata": { - "translator": "George Reavey", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1953 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "George Reavey" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -77263,11 +79726,14 @@ "title": "“July”", "body": "A phantom roams through the house.\nThere are footsteps in upstairs rooms.\nAll day, shades flit through the attic.\nThrough the house a goblin roams.\n\nHe loafs about, gets in the way,\nHe interferes and causes trouble,\nCreeps up to the bed in a dressing gown,\nAnd pulls the cloth off the table.\n\nHe does not wipe his feet at the door,\nBut whirls in with the draft, unseen,\nAnd hurls the curtain to the ceiling\nLike a prima ballerina.\n\nWho can this irritating oaf,\nThis ghost, this phantom be?\nOf course, it is our summer guest,\nOur visitor on the spree.\n\nFor all his little holiday\nWe let him have the whole house.\nJuly with his tempestuous air\nHas rented rooms from us.\n\nJuly, who brings in thistledown\nAnd burs that cling to his clothes;\nJuly, who treats all windows as doors,\nAnd sprinkles his talk with oaths.\n\nUntidy urchin of the steppe,\nSmelling of lime-trees, grass and rye,\nBeet-tops, and fragrant fennel,\nMeadowsweet breath of July.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter France & Jon Stallworthy", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Peter France", + "Jon Stallworthy" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -77279,11 +79745,13 @@ "title": "“Let’s scatter our words 
”", "body": "_My friend, you will ask, who ordains\nthat the speech of a blessed fool should burn?_\n\nLet’s scatter our words\nAs the garden scatters amber zest,\nAbsentmindedly and generously\nBit by bit by bit.\n\nLet’s not discuss\nWhy the leaves are patterned\nSo formally\nWith ruby and lemon.\n\nWho welled up with needles\nAnd gushed through the slats,\nThe floodgate blinds,\nOnto the music books in the shelf.\n\nWho dyed the outdoor mat\nWith rowan berries\nLike a canvas of diaphanous,\nTrembling italics.\n\nYou will ask, who ordains\nThat August should be great,\nFor whom is nothing too small,\nWho is absorbed with etching\n\nA maple leaf\nAnd who, from the time of Ecclesiastes,\nHasn’t quit his post\nHewing alabaster?\n\nYou will ask, who ordains\nThat the September lips\nOf asters and dahlias should suffer?\nThat the fine leaves of broom\nShould waft from greying caryatids\nOnto the damp flagstones\nOf autumn hospitals?\n\nYou will ask, who ordains?\n--The all-powerful God of details,\nThe all-powerful God of love,\nOf Jagailos and Jadwigas.\n\nI don’t know if the dark riddle\nOf the tomb has been solved;\nBut life, like autumn\nSilence, is in the details.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anonymous", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Anonymous" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -77295,11 +79763,13 @@ "title": "“A life of fame is crude ambition 
”", "body": "A life of fame is crude ambition,\nIt’s not what elevates and lifts.\nNo need to archive each revision,\nAnd tremble over manuscripts.\n\nThe goal of art is one’s self-giving,\nAnd not the racket of success.\nTo be a fable with no meaning\nRetold by all is shamefulness.\n\nDon’t imitate--imposture’s tasteless,--\nBut learn to live, so, after all,\nYou’ll draw the love from open spaces\nAnd overhear the future’s call.\n\nAnd leave omissions to be captured\nIn destiny, not text, and strive\nTo mark across the margins chapters\nAnd scenes from an entire life.\n\nAnd dip your body, let it graze\nObscurity and hide your tracks,\nLike countrysides hide in the haze,\nWhere everything appears pitch-black.\n\nLet others trail you to the finish,\nIn step, wherever you have passed.\nBut you, yourself, must not distinguish\nDefeats and victories amassed.\n\nSave face, persistently and wholly,\nAnd never deviate or bend,\nBut be alive, alive and only,\nAlive and only to the end.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -77310,11 +79780,13 @@ "title": "“Like a brazier’s bronze cinders 
”", "body": "Like a brazier’s bronze cinders,\nthe sleepy garden’s beetles flowing.\nLevel with me, and my candle,\na flowering world is hanging.\n\nAs if into unprecedented faith,\nI cross into this night,\nwhere the poplar’s beaten grey\nveils the moon’s rim from sight.\n\nWhere the pond’s an open secret,\nwhere apple-trees whisper of waves,\nwhere the garden hanging on piles,\nholds the sky before its face.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -77325,11 +79797,13 @@ "title": "“Magdalene”", "body": "# I.\n\nEach night my demon drops right in\nTo take more payback for the past.\nThe memories of ugly sin\nReturn and gnaw my tortured heart:\nThose days, a slave to man’s worst whim,\nI’d been a frenzied outcast,\nAnd only streets dared take me in.\n\nWith minutes left, to my chagrin,\nA deathly silence soon ensues.\nAnd yet, before away they spin,\nI’ll break my life of long misuse\nIn front of you, at life’s last rim,\nAs if an alabaster cruse.\n\nOh I would be a sorry sight,\nMy Teacher, Savior, my Fate,\nBut for eternity each night\nAwaiting by the tableside,\nAs well as my next caller might,\nEnsnared in cobwebs of my trade.\n\nBut what is sin--explain to me,\nAnd death, and hell, and sulfur flame,\nIf anyone can plainly see\nThat like an offshoot of a tree,\nI’m one with you in boundless pain.\n\nWhen I, Oh Jesus, prop your feet\nAgainst my lap, I’m all consumed\nBy grief and, swooning, learn the need\nTo hug the canted cross
 I’ve leaned\nClose to your body and entreat:\nLord, let me help you be entombed.\n\n\n# II.\n\nHaving festive cleanup at its summit\nMakes for too much bustle--I retreat\nAnd with fragrant ointment from a bucket\nI anoint your holiest of feet.\n\nFeeling round, I cannot find the sandals\nAnd keep crying, blinded to the scene,\nAs my stranded hair in matted tangles\nDrapes my eyes like an impervious screen.\n\nAnd I press your feet against me blindly,\nBathe them, Christ, in tears I have let loose,\nWrap them with a string of beads contritely,\nDrop my hair on top like a burnoose.\n\nI can see the future with precision,\nSuch as if you’d stopped the time in flight.\nAnd I now possess prophetic vision\nThat can match the sybils’ vatic sight.\n\nAs the temple veil descends tomorrow,\nWe will huddle tightly on the side,\nAnd the Earth will sway beneath in sorrow,\nTaking pity on me--hope it might.\n\nThen the guards will turn at someone’s beckon,\nLeading back their horses in a swarm,\nAnd the cross will madly dash to heaven,\nLike a twister born amid a storm.\n\nI will sprawl beneath the cross in frenzy,\nBite my lip, be ravaged by the loss.\nYou will spread your arms for far too many\nFrom the ends of that departing cross.\n\nBut for whom is so much utter vastness,\nSo much hurt and might the world bestows?\nDoes it have the souls and lives to match this?\nDoes it have the rivers, towns, and groves?\n\nSuch three days until then will have happened,\nPushed me down such emptiness and dearth\nThat within that terrifying fragment\nI will lift myself to a rebirth.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yuri Menis", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1949 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yuri Menis" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "holy_thursday" @@ -77340,11 +79814,13 @@ "title": "“March”", "body": "The sultry sun heats to the seventh sweat.\nThe ravine rages in the frenzy, senseless.\nAs though a cowgirl working in the stead,--\nThe spring is busy, and its chores are endless.\n\nOut in the light, the snow-banks slowly slump,\nTheir bloodless, twig-like veins turn paler still.\nAnd from the farmhouse, life is smoking up,\nThe tines of pitchforks breathe with zest and zeal.\n\nThese nights. These days. These days and nights!\nThe thud of droplets in midday, the spatter\nOf dripping icicles,--what wonderful delight!\nTo hear the sleepless brook’s relentless chatter!\n\nThe cow-stead and the stable,--open everything!\nGray pigeons peck the oats out of the snow,\nAnd from the all-creating and enabling,--\nFrom fresh manure, fresh air begins to flow 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1946 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -77355,11 +79831,13 @@ "title": "“May life be always fresh as this”", "body": "Dawn shakes the candle, shoots a flame\nTo light the wren and does not miss.\nI search my memories and proclaim:\n“May life be always fresh as this!”\n\nLike a shot dawn rang through the night.\nBang-bang it went. In swooning flight\nThe wads of bullets flame and hiss.\nMay life be always fresh as this.\n\nThe breeze is at the door again.\nAt night he shivered, wanted us.\nHe froze when daybreak came with rain.\nMay life be always fresh as this.\n\nHe is astonishingly queer.\nWhy rudely past the gateman press?\nOf course he saw “No entrance here”\nMay life be always fresh as this.\n\nStill with a handkerchief to shake,\nWhile mistress still, chase all about,--\nWhile yet our darkness does not break.\nWhile yet the flames have not gone out.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Cecil Maurice Bowra", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Cecil Maurice Bowra" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -77370,11 +79848,13 @@ "title": "“Mephistopheles”", "body": "Every Sunday they left a circus of dust behind them,\nas they poured out on the turnpike in stately, overcrowded carriages,\nand the showers found nobody at home,\nand trampled through the bedroom windows.\n\nIt was a custom at these staid Sunday dinners\nto serve courses of rain instead of roastbeef;\non the baroque sideboard, by the Sunday silver,\nthe wind cut corners like a boy on a new bicycle.\n\nUpstairs, the curtain rods whirled, untouched;\nthe curtains roared in salvos to the ceiling.\nOutside the burghers kept losing themselves,\nthey showed up chewing straws by cowponds.\n\nEarlier, when a long cortege of carriages\napproached the city wall,\nthe horses would shy\nfrom the shadows of the Weimar gallows.\n\nThe devil in blood-red stockings with rose rosettes\ndanced along the sunset-watered road--\nhe was as red\nas a boiling lobster.\n\nOne snort of indignation\nwould have ripped the lid of heaven\nfrom the skyline’s low vegetation;\nthe devils ribbons fluttered and danced.\n\nThe carriages swam through his eyes like road signs;\nhe scarcely lifted a finger in greeting.\nHe rolled on his heels, he trembled with laughter,\nhe sidled off hugging Faust, his pupil.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Lowell", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Lowell" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "sunday" @@ -77385,11 +79865,13 @@ "title": "“My trees, it’s for your stunning eye 
”", "body": "My trees, it’s for your stunning eyes,\nBecause of your amazing presence\nThat, for the very first of times,\nI live on Earth and see your essence.\n\nI often think: perhaps, the Lord,\nWhen looking for the color, found\nAnd took it from inside my heart\nAnd dipped His brush to paint your crowns.\n\nIf there’s a friend among my class\nAs intimate as you, my tree-friends,\nHe has the simple grace of grass,\nUncommonness of heights and greenness.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Natasha Gotskaya", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Natasha Gotskaya" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -77400,11 +79882,13 @@ "title": "“Not like other people, not every week 
”", "body": "Not like other people, not every week,\nNot all the time, in a century but twice,\nI prayed to you: please intelligibly\nReiterate the words of creation.\n\nUnbearable to you are the admixtures\nOf intimacies and people’s slavishness.\nHow could you possibly make me happy?\nWith what would you consume the earth’s salt?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alex Cigale", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alex Cigale" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -77412,11 +79896,13 @@ "title": "“Parting”", "body": "A man is standing in the hall\nHis house not recognizing.\nHer sudden leaving was a flight,\nHerself, maybe, surprising.\n\nThe chaos reigning in the room\nHe does not try to master.\nHis tears and headache hide in gloom\nThe extent of his disaster.\n\nHis ears are ringing all day long\nAs though he has been drinking.\nAnd why is it that all the time\nOf waves he keeps on thinking?\n\nWhen frosty window-panes blank out\nThe world of light and motion,\nDespair and grief are doubly like\nThe desert of the ocean.\n\nShe was as dear to him, as close\nIn all her ways and features,\nAs is the seashore to the wave,\nThe ocean to the beaches.\n\nAs over rushes, after storm\nThe swell of water surges,\nInto the deepness of his soul\nHer memory submerges.\n\nIn years of strife, in times which were\nUnthinkable to live in,\nUpon a wave of destiny\nTo him she had been driven,\n\nThrough countless obstacles, and past\nAll dangers never-ended,\nThe wave had carried, carried her,\nTill close to him she’d landed.\n\nAnd now, so suddenly, she’d left.\nWhat power overrode them?\nThe parting will destroy them both,\nThe grief bone-deep corrode them.\n\nHe looks around him. On the floor\nIn frantic haste she’d scattered\nThe contents of the cupboard, scraps\nOf stuff, her sewing patterns.\n\nHe wanders through deserted rooms\nAnd tidies up for hours;\nTill darkness falls he folds away\nHer things into the drawers;\n\nAnd pricks his finger on a pin\nIn her unfinished sewing,\nAnd sees the whole of her again,\nAnd silent tears come flowing.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lydia Pasternak Slater", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Lydia Pasternak Slater" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -77424,11 +79910,14 @@ "title": "“Pine Trees”", "body": "In grass, among wild balsam,\nDog-dasies and lilies, we lie,\nOur arms thrown back behind us,\nOur faces turned to the sky.\n\nThe grass in the pine-wood ride\nIs impenetrably thick.\nWe look at each other and shift\nA shoulder-blade or a cheek.\n\nAnd there, for a time immortal,\nWe are numbered among the trees\nAnd liberated from aches,\nDisease, and the last disease.\n\nWith deliberate monotony,\nLike blue oil from green eaves,\nThe sky pours down on the ground,\nDappling and staining our sleeves.\n\nWe share the repose of the pines\nTo the ant’s accompaniment,\nInhaling the soporific\nIncense-and-lemon scent.\n\nSo fiercely the fiery trunks\nLeap up against the blue,\nAnd under our resting heads\nSo long our hands rest too,\n\nSo broad our field of vision,\nSo docile all things on all sides,\nThat somewhere beyond the trunks\nI imagine the surge of tides.\n\nThere waves are higher than branches,\nAnd collapsing against the shore\nThey hurl down a hail of shrimps\nFrom the ocean’s turbulent floor.\n\nAnd at evening, the sunset floats\nOn corks behind a trawler\nAnd, shimmering with fish oil\nAnd amber mist, grows smaller.\n\nTwilight descends and slowly\nThe moon hides all trace of day\nBeneath the black magic of water,\nBeneath the white magic of spray.\n\nAnd waves grow louder and higher\nAnd the crowd at the floating cafĂ©\nSurrounds the pillar whose poster\nIs a blur from far away.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter France & Jon Stallworthy", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1941 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Peter France", + "Jon Stallworthy" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -77439,11 +79928,13 @@ "title": "“Snow is falling”", "body": "Snow is falling: snow is falling.\nGeranium flowers reach\nfor the blizzard’s small white stars\npast the window’s edge.\n\nSnow is falling, all is lost,\nthe whole world’s streaming past:\nthe flight of steps on the back stairs,\nthe corner where roads cross.\n\nSnow is falling: snow is falling,\nnot snowflakes stealing down,\nSky parachutes to earth instead,\nin his worn dressing gown.\n\nAs if he’s playing hide-and-seek,\nacross the upper landings,\na mad thing, slowly sneaks,\nSky creeps down from the attic.\n\nIt’s all because life won’t wait,\nbefore you know, it’s Christmas here.\nAnd look, in a minute,\nsuddenly it’s New Year.\n\nSnow is falling, deeper--deeper.\nMaybe, with that same stride\nin that same tempo,\nwith that same languor,\nTime’s going by?\n\nYear after year, perhaps,\npassing, as snow’s falling,\nlike words in a poem?\nSnow’s falling: snow’s falling.\nSnow is falling, all is lost--\nthe whitened passers-by,\nleaves’ startled showing,\nthe corners where roads cross.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_day" @@ -77473,11 +79964,13 @@ "title": "“Spring”", "body": "Spring, coming in from street, where poplars\nstand amazed, the distance is scared, the houses\nafraid to fall down, the air blue, like a sack\nof clothes carried by a patient leaving a hospital.\n\nWhere the evening is empty, an interrupted tale,\nleft abandoned by a star without continuation\nto the incomprehension of a thousand noisy eyes\nof the homeless and those bereft of expression.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alex Cigale", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alex Cigale" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -77499,11 +79992,13 @@ "title": "“Star of the Nativity”", "body": "Winter had set in.\nWind blew in from the steppe\nand the child was cold in a dark den\non the slope of a hill.\n\nHe was kept warm by an ox’s breath.\nOther beasts also\nstood in the cave.\nAbove the manger floated a warm haze.\n\nAfter shaking bits of straw and millet\nfrom their thick furs,\nherdsmen gazed sleepily\ninto the midnight distance from a cliff.\n\nFar off lay a snowfield and churchyard,\nfences and headstones,\na plank in a snowdrift,\nand a sky full of stars above the graves.\n\nNearby, unknown until that night,\nmore timid than a candle\nin a watchman’s window,\na star glimmered on the road to Bethlehem.\n\nIt flared up like a dry hayrick, apart\nfrom God and heaven,\nlike an arson’s gleam,\nlike a farm and threshing-floor in flames.\n\nThe new star hung like a blazing stack\nof hay and straw\nat the heart of a world\nunsettled by its very presence.\n\nThe blaze glowed red above the world,\nsignifying something,\nand three stargazers\nraced toward the call of unprecedented fires.\n\nBehind them, camels bore lavish gifts,\nand donkeys in harnesses, each more stunted\nthan the next, trod slowly down the mountain.\n\nAnd all that was yet to come rose up\nin a strange vision of future times:\nall the dreams and thoughts of centuries,\nall worlds, all galleries and museums,\nall antics of fairies, all sorcerers’ spells,\nall Christmas trees and childhood fancies,\nall garlands and flickers of lighted candles,\nall the splendor of bright-colored tinsel
\n(the wind blew ever fiercer from the steppe)\n
and all the apples, the shining ornaments.\n\nPart of a pond lay hidden by alders,\nbut part could clearly be seen from the cliff\nthrough rooks’ high nests and crowns of trees.\nThe herdsmen distinctly saw how donkeys\nand camels were passing along the water.\n\n“Let’s go with the others to witness this miracle,”\nthey said, wrapping themselves in their sheepskins.\n\nShuffling through snow had made them hot.\nAcross the meadow, like sheets of isinglass,\nsets of bare tracks led behind a shack.\nBy blazing starlight, sheepdogs growled\nat the tracks, as they would at flared-up embers.\n\nThat frosty night was like a fairy tale:\nsomeone new would always materialize\non a windswept ridge and join their ranks.\nThe tired dogs, glancing around in fear,\nhuddled together and waited for the worst.\n\nAlong the same road, through the same place,\nangels walked in the thick of the crowd.\nTheir unearthliness had made them invisible,\nyet every step they took left a footprint.\n\nHordes of travelers gathered at the rock face.\nDay was breaking. Cedar trunks emerged.\n\n“And who are you?” Mary asked.\n\n“We are the herdsmen’s tribe and heaven’s envoys.\nWe have come to exalt you with our praise.”\n\n“You cannot all come in.\nSome must wait here.”\n\nAmid the early morning haze, gray as ash,\nshepherds and camel-drivers stamped about,\nthose on foot cursed those on horseback,\nand, at the hand-dug watering trough,\ncamels bellowed and donkeys kicked each other.\n\nDay was breaking. The dawn swept the last\nof the stars from the sky like cinders.\nAnd among the innumerable crowd, only\nthe magi did Mary let into the cave.\n\nHe slept, radiant in his oaken manger\nlike a moonbeam in a tree trunk’s hollow.\nHis sheepskin blanket had been exchanged\nfor donkeys’ lips and oxen’s nostrils.\n\nThe magi stood in the barn-like shadows,\nwhispering yet barely conversing in words.\nSomebody reached out a hand in the dark\nto move one of them to the left of the manger,\nand he glanced at the door: the star, he noticed,\nlike one more guest, was watching the Virgin.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jamie Olson", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1947 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Jamie Olson" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "christmas_day" @@ -77514,11 +80009,13 @@ "title": "“Storm-wind”", "body": "I am finished, but you live on.\nAnd the wind, crying and moaning,\nrocks the house and the clearing,\nnot each pine alone,\nbut all the trees together,\nwith the vast distance, whole,\nlike the hulls of vessels,\nmoored in a bay, storm-blown.\nAnd it shakes them not from mischief,\nand not with an aimless tone,\nbut to find, for you, from its grief,\nthe words of a cradle-song.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1953 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -77526,11 +80023,13 @@ "title": "“Sultry Night”", "body": "It drizzled, but not even grasses\nWould bend within the bag of storm;\nDust only gulped its rain in pellets,\nThe iron roof--in powder form.\n\nThe village did not hope for healing.\nDeep as a swoon the poppies yearned\nAmong the rye in inflammation,\nAnd God in fever tossed and turned.\n\nIn all the sleepless, universal,\nThe damp and orphaned latitude,\nThe signs and moans, their posts deserting,\nFled with the whirlwind in pursuit.\n\nBehind them ran blind slanting raindrops\nHard on their heels, and by the fence\nThe wind and dripping branches argued--\nMy heart stood still--at my expense.\n\nI felt this dreadful garden chatter\nWould last forever, since the street\nWould also notice me, and mutter\nWith bushes, rain and window shutter.\n\nNo way to challenge my defeat--\nThey’d argue, talk me off my feet.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lydia Pasternak Slater", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Lydia Pasternak Slater" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "holy_thursday" @@ -77541,11 +80040,13 @@ "title": "“Summer”", "body": "Athirst for insects, butterflies.\nAnd stains we long had waited,\nAnd round us both were memories\nOf heat, mint, honey plaited.\n\nNo clocks chimed, but the flail rang clear\nFrom dawn to dusk and planted\nIts dreams of stings into the air.\nThe weather was enchanted.\n\nStrolled sunset to its heart’s content,\nThey yielded to cicadas\nAnd stars and trees its government\nOf gardens and of larders.\n\nThe moon in absence, out of sight.\nNot shade but baulks was throwing.\nAnd softly, softly the shy night\nFrom cloud to cloud was flowing.\n\nFrom dream more than from roof, and more\nForgetful than faint-hearted.\nSoft rain was shuffling at the door\nAnd smell of wine-corks spurted.\n\nSo smelt the dust. So smelt the grass\nAnd if we chanced to heed them.\nSmell from the gentry’s teaching was\nOf brotherhood and freedom.\n\nThe councils met in villages;\nWeren’t you with those that held them?\nBright with wood-sorrel hung the days,\nAnd smell of wine-corks filled them.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Cecil Maurice Bowra", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Cecil Maurice Bowra" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -77567,11 +80068,13 @@ "title": "“There’ll be no one in the house 
”", "body": "There’ll be no one in the house,\nSave for twilight. All alone,\nThe winter day will be aroused\nFrom the curtains left undrawn.\n\nOnly clusters, wet and white,\nFlashing where the wind propels,\nOnly roofs and snow,--besides\nRoofs and snow,--nobody else.\n\nFrost, again, will shade the windows,\nAnd again, they’ll reappear--\nWorries of the prior winter,\nAnd the sadness of last year.\n\nAnd the guilt, that’s yet unpardoned,\nWill be piercing and sustained,\nAnd the fire’s growing hunger\nWill press on the window pane.\n\nSuddenly, disturbed and vexed,\nCurtains will proceed to tremble.\nMarking silence with your steps,\nLike the future, you will enter.\n\nYou’ll appear all of the sudden,\nWearing something plain and white,\nSomething of the very cotton\nUsed to knit the flakes outside.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1931 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -77590,11 +80093,13 @@ "title": "“Unapproachable”", "body": "Unapproachable, usually shy,\nYou are now like fire, all burning\nLet me lock your unusual sight\nIn the poem of love I am saying.\n\nLook, how perfectly changed with the lamp\nIs the hovel, and wall, even window\nOur figures are covered with shade\nWhich is gentle like night in the meadow.\n\nYou are sitting, your legs on the ottoman,\nAs the Turks used to sit on the sofa,\nJust the same, is it darkness or light\nYou are looking as if you are so far.\n\nYou are dreaming and stringing the beads\nIt’s a handful that’s rolled on the dress,\nAnd your smile is today very sad\nAnd your talk and your mood are depressed.\n\nLove--the word looks too vulgar today,\nI will think of another alias.\nThe whole world, all the words just for you\nI’ll rename to ruin the barriers.\n\nCan appearance sullen of yours\nShow feelings so deeply are laying\nAnd the light of your beautiful heart,\nAnd the grief that your eyes are containing.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Elena Krendel", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Elena Krendel" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -77624,11 +80129,13 @@ "title": "“Wet Paint”", "body": "I should have seen the sign: “Fresh paint,”\nBut useless to advise\nThe careless soul, and memory’s stained\nWith cheeks, calves, hands, lips, eyes.\n\nMore than all failure, all success,\nI loved you, for your skill\nIn whitening the yellowed world\nAs white cosmetics will.\n\nListen, my dark, my friend: by God,\nAll will grow white somehow,\nWhiter than madness or lamp shades\nOr bandage on a brow.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Babette Deutsch", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -77636,11 +80143,13 @@ "title": "“Wild Vines”", "body": "Beneath a willow entwined with ivy,\nwe look for shelter from the bad weather;\none raincoat covers both our shoulders--\nmy fingers rustle like the wild vine around your breasts.\n\nI am wrong. The rain’s stopped.\nNot ivy, but the hair of Dionysus\nhangs from these willows. What am I to do?\nThrow the raincoat under us!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Lowell", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1953 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Lowell" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -77648,8 +80157,10 @@ "title": "“Winter Night”", "body": "Snow, snow the whole world over,\nSweeping it, end to end.\nThe candle burned on the table,\nthe candle burned.\n\nLike a crowd of summer midges\nflying to the flame,\ndroves of snowflakes swarmed\nagainst the window pane.\n\nSnow-blasts moulded circles,\narrows on the glass.\nThe candle burned on the table,\nthe candle burned.\n\nAgainst the ceiling’s brightness\ndark shadows falling,\ncrossed ankles, crossed wrists,\ndestinies crossing.\n\nAnd two shoes dropped\nwith a thud to the floor,\nand waxen tears dropped\nfrom candle to dress.\n\nAnd in the grey-white, snowy\ndarkness, all was lost.\nThe candle burned on the table,\nthe candle burned.\n\nA draught from the corner\nblew: temptation’s heat\nraised, like an angel,\na crucifix of wings.\n\nSnow all through February,\nand time and again\nthe candle burned on the table,\nthe candle burned.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -77896,8 +80407,10 @@ "title": "“In her splendor islanded 
”", "body": "In her splendor islanded\nThis woman burning like a charm of jewels\nAn army terrifying and asleep\nThis woman lying within the night\nLike clear water lying on closed eyes\nIn a tree’s shadow\nA waterfall halted halfway in its flight\nA rapid narrow river suddenly frozen\nAt the foot of a great and seamless rock\nAt the foot of a mountain\nShe is lake-water in April as she lies\nIn her depths binding poplar and eucalyptus\nFishes or stars burning between her thighs\nShadow of birds scarcely hiding her sex\nHer breasts two still villages under a peaceful sky\nThis woman lying here like a white stone\nLike water in the moon in a dead crater\nNot a sound in the night not moss nor sand\nOnly the slow budding of my words\nAt the ear of water at the ear of flesh\nUnhurried running\nAnd clear memorial\nHere is the moment burning and returned\nDrowning itself in itself and never consumed", "metadata": { - "translator": "Muriel Rukeyser", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Muriel Rukeyser" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -77908,8 +80421,10 @@ "title": "“The Street”", "body": "Here is a long and silent street.\nI walk in blackness and I stumble and fall\nand rise, and I walk blind, my feet\ntrampling the silent stones and the dry leaves.\nSomeone behind me also tramples, stones, leaves:\nif I slow down, he slows;\nif I run, he runs\nI turn:\nnobody.\n\nEverything dark and doorless,\nonly my steps aware of me,\nI turning and turning among these corners\nwhich lead forever to the street\nwhere nobody waits for, nobody follows me,\nwhere I pursue a man who stumbles\nand rises and says when he sees me:\nnobody.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Muriel Rukeyser", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Muriel Rukeyser" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -77968,22 +80483,26 @@ "title": "“Ève”", "body": "_Jesus speaks:_\n\nO my Mother buried beyond the first garden,\nYou no longer know of the kingdom of grace,\nFrom the basin and spring to the high starlit place,\nAnd the virgin sun that unveiled the first morning.\n\nAnd the twists and the turns of the deer and the hind\nWinding and unwinding in their friendly chase\nAnd the sprints and the leaps that eventually end\nAnd the celebration of their eternal race.\n\nAnd the honoring of their original worth\nAnd the resting of their hooves on the carpet blest,\nAnd the laying of the two beauties on the earth,\nWhich serenely welcomed their most languorous rest.\n\nAnd the rising rapture of the childlike gazelle\nLacing and unlacing his wandering trace,\nGalloping and trotting and ending his chase,\nAnd the salutation of his spirit vernal.\n\nAnd the navigation of the goat and the roe\nThe crossing and curling of their audacious road.\nAnd the sudden ascent to some immense plateau\nAnd the salutation of their spacious abode.\n\nAnd all these spinning ones and all these weaving ones\nTying and untying their knotted silk fiber,\nAmid the golden stars and wavy spiral arms,\nThe Great Bear circled all around the Little Bear.\n\nAnd these inventors and these embroiderers\nAmid winding mazes of their organic lace.\nAnd the fine surveyors from among these menders\nWere rounding the corners of a hexahedron’s face.\n\nA dawning creation without a single care\nTurning and returning to the curves of the orb.\nAnd the nut and the acorn the pome and the sorb\nUnder the teeth sweeter than the plum and the pear.\n\nYou remember no more the soft soil maternal\nIts lush breasts exciting the many rising ears,\nAnd your breed nursing from the numerous udders\nAnd a chaste nature born from a body carnal.\n\nYou remember no more the soil all sable,\nNor the silence the shade and the white grape cluster,\nNor the ocean of wheat and weight of the table,\nAnd the days of pleasure trailing one another.\n\nYou remember no more this plain in the summer,\nNor the oats and the rye and their overflowing,\nNor the vine and trellis and the flowers growing,\nAnd the days of pleasure trailing one another.\n\nYou remember no more this dirt like a wellspring,\nWhich goes dull by the dint of being nourishing;\nYou remember no more the green vine flourishing,\nAnd the amber wheat that shot up for your offspring.\n\nYou remember no more the tree red with apples\nThat bends under the weight at the harvest season;\nYou remember no more in front of your chapel\nThe youthful wheat springing right up for your children.\n\nWhat since that dread day has become the sucking slime\nWas then both a fulsome and a compliant soil;\nAnd the Lady Wisdom and great King Solomon\nWould not have divided the man from the angel.\n\nWhat since that sad day has become the broken sum\nWas obtained without a total or addition;\nLady Wisdom sitting on the Hill of Zion\nWas no angel saving man from his destruction.\n\nYou remember neither this wide sweeping grassland,\nNor the secret ravine with the sharp slopes rising,\nNor the changing canvas of deep shadows falling.\nNor the valley sides as rich as fine porcelain.\n\nYou remember no more the gold seasons crowning\nDancing the same rhythm while still keeping the rhyme;\nYou remember no more the thrill of the springtime,\nAnd the deeper sway of the cold seasons frowning.\n\nYou remember no more the bright dawning flowers\nFlowing from the summits in rich drenching showers;\nYou remember no more the depths of the arcade,\nAnd from the cypress tops the well-awarded shade.\n\nYou remember no more all the new years rising\nSinging like a choir that summits the aeon.\nYou remember no more the start of the season\nThe chaste entwining of the sisters embracing.\n\nYou remember no more the seasons well aligned\nEqual and happy at the times of the ebbing;\nYou remember no more the springtime returning\nThe seasons unfolding and straightened within time.\n\nYou remember no more the seasons returning\nSharing an equal joy in a frisson of time;\nYou remember no more the coming of springtime\nThe lithe winding of the seasons diverting.\n\nYou remember no more, one pole to the other\nThe earth rocking gently as a pretty cradle;\nAnd the harsh withdrawal and the sudden departure\nOf a young season that perished from betrayal.\n\nYou remember no more, one pole to the other\nThe earth sailing smoothly as a fine three-master;\nAnd renunciation, and the harsh departure\nOf the season that dies from the frosty weather.\n\nYou remember no more, one pole to the other,\nThe earth balanced as well as a mighty tower;\nAnd the cold diversion and the ivory pallor\nOf an old season that dies now and forever.\n\nWhat since elder days has become an endless toil\nWas then the nectar of the rich and fertile soil.\nAnd no one understood the dread ancestral woe.\nAnd no one put their hand to the crook and the hoe.\n\nWhat since elder days has become a painful death\nWas only a normal and tranquil departure.\nHappiness pressed on man with every joyful breath.\nThe embarking was like leaving a sweet harbor.\n\nHappiness flowed like some ale over a spillway,\nThe soul was a still pond of deepening silence.\nThe rising sun made a glowing golden monstrance\nAnd reverberated in a bright silver day.\n\nThe censor made vapors like a sweet-smelling balm\nAnd the red cedars were rising like barricades.\nAnd the days of rapture were growing colonnades.\nAnd all things were at rest in the grey evening calm.\n\nAnd the wide earth was but a vast altar of peace.\nAnd the ripe fruit always ready on the tall trees,\nAnd the long days were scribed on the tombs of marble\nIn all they were but a splendid serving table.\n\nAnd the wide earth was but a vast sylvan courtyard.\nAnd the fruit all piled at the bottom of the trees,\nAnd the days aligned down through the marble ages\nIn all they were but a sweet blooming orchard.\n\nAnd the wide earth was but a tone garden of herbs.\nAnd man was here at home while the pretty buds flowered,\nAnd man respected by all the beasts and their herds\nAn amicable and benevolent shepherd.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nBoth resting and leaning onto His creation.\nAnd with a love that was loyal yet paternal\nWas then nourished by its homage and libation.\n\nAnd God Himself alone holy and eternal\nHad weighed the planet on his merciful balance.\nAnd then considered with a regard paternal\nThe man of his image and of his resemblance.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nSaw the inception of a new flowering age.\nAnd the Father watching with a gaze paternal\nThe world brought together as a humble village.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nMeditated on the splitting of night and day.\nAnd he contemplated with a gaze paternal\nThe world timbered from wood into a fine chalet.\n\nAnd God Himself one youthful yet eternal\nMeasuring all kairos and the plentiful age;\nFatherly considered with a gaze paternal\nThe world circumscribed like a beautiful village.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nMade plans for going on a trip and the return.\nAnd the Father watching with a gaze paternal\nThe world gathered around like an enormous burgh.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nStarted calculating the extent of the years.\nAnd constantly watching with a gaze paternal\nThe seasons’ crown passing among the four sisters.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nSaw the beginning of the chora and kairos.\nAnd calmly looking down with a gaze paternal\nSaw the reflection of God on its countenance.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nSaw the beginning of the chora and kairos.\nAnd quietly watching with a gaze paternal,\nSaw the perfect image of God in every locus.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nSaw the beginning of kairos and the cosmos.\nFatherly considered with a gaze paternal,\nThat the world is fading and a thing that passes.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nSaw the first budding of a garden that says yes.\nThis Florist regarded with a gaze paternal\nThe blooming of a world putting on its best dress.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nMarveled at the scale of the great sprawling spaces.\nHe then considered with a gaze paternal,\nThe relaxation of a world in its paces.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nA spectator watching the games of a young age.\nLooking quietly with a gaze paternal,\nHe considered himself in man’s mirror image\n\nAnd God Himself youthful holy and eternal\nLaughed indulgently at the wishes of youth.\nPrudently He then watched with a gaze paternal,\nThe world all dressed up in its own birthday suit.\n\nAnd God Himself youthful holy and eternal\nLooked at how the children of the primal age are.\nWatching impartially with a gaze paternal\nThe world sailing along a beautiful seashore.\n\nAnd God Himself youthful holy and eternal\nCounted on his one hand the number of infants.\nCautiously he watched with a gaze paternal\nThe younger girl who was the last of the twins.\n\nAnd God Himself youthful holy and eternal\nNoticed the playing of children with their rattles.\nCautiously he watched with a gaze paternal\nLike a mother leans on the sides of two cradles.\n\nGod Himself leaning then over love eternal\nNoticed her flourish in their little dwellings.\nAnd Fatherly he saw with a love maternal\nIt doubly shared between the two beautiful twins.\n\nGod himself bending then over love solemnly\nNoticed her flourish in the two little dwellings.\nAnd Fatherly he saw the love joyfully\nBeing spoken between the two beautiful twins.\n\nGod Himself bent over the flower eternal\nWatching her blooming at the tips of the new stems.\nAnd God himself leaning on a love fraternal\nWatched her germinating in the hearts of the twins.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nWatched the beginning of the laughter of the age\nImpartially he watched with a gaze paternal\nThe world grouped together on a beautiful stage.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nWatched the beginning of the weeping of the age.\nImpartially he watched with a gaze paternal\nThe world embarking on a golden pilgrimage.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nWatched the beginning of the crying of the age.\nImpartially he watched with a gaze paternal\nThe world sailing away on an ocean voyage\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nWatched the beginning of the kissing of the day.\nImpartially he watched with a gaze paternal\nThe world raising anchor and sailing far away.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nWatched the beginning of bold and careless thinking.\nHe watched anxiously and with a gaze paternal\nThe world sailing to the threshold of a sinking.\n\nAnd God Himself holy youthful yet eternal\nWatched the beginning of the advancing of age.\nWith a look always young and always paternal\nHe saw the beginning of a world growing sage.\n\nAnd God Himself holy thoughtful and eternal\nConsidered all his work and found it a wonder.\nFrom the first diamond to the final black cinder,\nHe enveloped it all with a gaze paternal.\n\nAnd God himself holy blessed and eternal\nConsidered all his work and found it to be good\nAnd that he was perfect and there was no falsehood\nAnd it unfolded in an order paternal.\n\nAnd the creation was like a mighty tower\nThat rises high above as an immense palace.\nAnd kairos and chora provided the passage.\nAnd the days of pleasure were like a sweet bower.\n\nAnd the fidelities were strong as a tower.\nAnd kairos and chora were waiting like footmen\nAnd kairos and chora protected the deadline.\nAnd the fidelities were not a fin’amor.\n\nA God Himself holy, author and eternal\nConsidered all his work and found it a wonder.\nFrom the apple blossom to the thistle flower,\nHe enveloped everything with a gaze paternal.\n\nA God Himself holy, august and eternal\nSaw only decency and a love filial.\nAnd the world of spirit and the world temporal\nWas before his true eyes a temple lilial.\n\nA God Himself holy, father and eternal\nSaw everywhere his sons and the sons of his sons.\nAnd the fields of meslin, beside the fields of maize\nWere before his eyes as the cloth of the altar.\n\nA God Himself holy, youthful yet eternal\nSaw then the universe as a boundless legacy.\nA world without offense, a world without mercy\nDeveloping the folds of an order formal.\n\nA new God Himself one, holy and eternal\nSaw then the inception of youthful novelty.\nFatherly watching with a gaze paternal\nHe beheld the real Form of emerging beauty.\n\nA good God well-meaning, holy and eternal\nConsidered his work and then found it to be pure.\nA cultivating God, economic and real\nHe saw the rye yellow and thought it was mature.\n\nA fair statuesque God, holy and eternal\nConsidered his work and thought it was beautiful.\nFrom the first fold and to the final crucible\nThere was one asylum equal and fraternal.\n\nYou remember no more this bright coat of rapture\nThrown over the shoulders for the world’s blessedness,\nAnd this river and this flood and this genesis,\nAnd gentle submission to the rules of honor.\n\nYou remember no more this cloak of tenderness\nThrown over the whole soul and this cape of honor.\nYou no longer experienced this chaste caress\nAnd gentle submission to the rules of rapture.\n\nYou remember no more this bright coat of goodness\nThrown upon a whole world and this benevolence,\nAnd this multitude and the ancient excellence,\nAnd this cool solitude and this honest firmness.\n\nYou remember no more this satin coat of grace\nThrown upon the people and in great joyfulness\nAn entire world swollen with the same tenderness\nFrom the close-cropped surface to the final terrace.\n\nYou remember no more this august wedding feast,\nAnd the sap and the blood purer than morning dew.\nThe young soul had put on her snowy bridal dress,\nAnd the whole earth inhaled the lavender and rue.\n\nAnd the young man’s body was then very chaste\nAnd the regard of man was a fathomless pool.\nAnd the pleasure of man was then so vast\nAnd the goodness of man was like a priceless jewel.\n\nYou remember no more the innocence of earth\nThe storehouse crowded to the front of the portal.\nYou remember no more this wild breed giving birth\nAnd the meadows streaming with the immense cattle.\n\nYou remember no more the austere destiny.\nYou remember no more the revitalized earth\nYou remember no more the passion clandestine.\nYou remember no more the deeply covered earth.\n\nYou remember no more the wheat a vast blanket\nAnd the sheaves rising to assault the granaries.\nYou remember no more the tireless grapevines.\nAnd the clusters mounting to assault the basket.\n\nYou remember no more the enduring footsteps,\nAnd the harvest rising in flight like some insects.\nThe grape harvest rising to assault the baskets.\nThe shoes of the pickers left some sandy footprints.\n\nYou remember no more the yawning cistern,\nAnd the harvest rising to assault the millstone.\nYou remember no more the one wandering soul\nAnd the suspicious steps on the paths through the shoal.\n\nYou remember no more the everlasting days,\nAnd the grapes rising up to assault the vintner.\nAnd the trellis rising to assault the farmer.\nAnd the sumptuous steps on the sandy pathways.\n\nYou remember no more the involuntary corn,\nYou have known nothing but poor and futile plowing.\nYou have known nothing but poor and futile loving.\nYou have only known the dour worldly scorn.\n\nYou remember no more corn unforgettable.\nYou have known nothing but the harvested seasons.\nAnd from the hills of the dying evergreen trees\nYou saw the starting of the days implacable.\n\nYou only remember cisterns leaking,\nAnd the meager pastures and the meager plowing.\nAnd the meager measures and the meager loving.\nAnd the highest plateau of the cedars rotting.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Julian Green", "tags": [ "favorite" ], + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "language": "French" + "translators": [ + "Julian Green" + ] } }, "freedom": { "title": "“Freedom”", "body": "_God speaks:_\n\nWhen you love someone, you love him as he is.\nI alone am perfect.\nIt is probably for that reason\nThat I know what perfection is\nAnd that I demand less perfection of those poor people.\nI know how difficult it is.\nAnd how often, when they are struggling in their trials,\nHow often do I wish and am I tempted to put my hand under their stomachs\nIn order to hold them up with my big hand\nJust like a father teaching his son how to swim\nIn the current of the river\nAnd who is divided between two ways of thinking.\nFor on the one hand, if he holds him up all the time and if he holds him too much,\nThe child will depend on this and will never learn how to swim.\nBut if he doesn’t hold him up just at the right moment\nThat child is bound to swallow more water than is healthy for him.\nIn the same way, when I teach them how to swim amid their trials\nI too am divided by two ways of thinking.\nBecause if I am always holding them up, if I hold them up too often,\nThey will never learn how to swim by themselves.\nBut if I don’t hold them up just at the right moment,\nPerhaps those poor children will swallow more water than is healthy for them.\nSuch is the difficulty, and it is a great one.\nAnd such is the doubleness itself, the two faces of the problem.\nOn the one hand, they must work out their salvation for themselves. That is the rule.\nIt allows of no exception. Otherwise it would not be interesting. They would not be men.\nNow I want them to be manly, to be men, and to win by themselves\nTheir spurs of knighthood.\nOn the other hand, they must not swallow more water than is healthy for them,\nHaving made a dive into the ingratitude of sin.\nSuch is the mystery of man’s freedom, says God,\nAnd the mystery of my government towards him and towards his freedom.\nIf I hold him up too much, he is no longer free\nAnd if I don’t hold him up sufficiently, I am endangering his salvation.\nTwo goods in a sense almost equally precious.\nFor salvation is of infinite price.\nBut what kind of salvation would a salvation be that was not free?\nWhat would you call it?\nWe want that salvation to be acquired by himself,\nHimself, man. To be procured by himself.\nTo come, in a sense, from himself. Such is the secret,\nSuch is the mystery of man’s freedom.\nSuch is the price we set on man’s freedom.\nBecause I myself am free, says God, and I have created man in my own image and likeness.\nSuch is the mystery, such the secret, such the price\nOf all freedom.\nThat freedom of that creature is the most beautiful reflection in this world\nOf the Creator’s freedom. That is why we are so attached to it,\nAnd set a proper price on it.\nA salvation that was not free, that was not, that did not come from a free man could in no wise be attractive to us. What would it amount to?\nWhat would it mean?\nWhat interest would such a salvation have to offer?\nA beatitude of slaves, a salvation of slaves, a slavish beatitude, how do you expect me to interested in that kind of thing? Does one care to be loved by slaves?\nIf it were only a matter of proving my might, my might has no need of those slaves, my might is well enough known, it is sufficiently known that I am the Almighty.\nMy might is manifest enough in all matter and in all events.\nMy might is manifest enough in the sands of the sea and in the stars of heaven.\nIt is not questioned, it is known, it is manifest enough in inanimate creation.\nIt is manifest enough in the government,\nIn the very event that is man.\nBut in my creation which is endued with life, says God, I wanted something more.\nInfinitely better. Infinitely more. For I wanted that freedom.\nI created that very freedom. There are several degrees to my throne.\nWhen you once have known what it is to be loved freely, submission no longer has any taste.\nAll the prostrations in the world\nAre not worth the beautiful upright attitude of a free man as he kneels. All the submission, all the dejection in the world\nAre not equal in value to the soaring up point,\nThe beautiful straight soaring up of one single invocation\nFrom a love that is free.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Julian Green", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Julian Green" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -77991,8 +80510,10 @@ "title": "“A Little Hope”", "body": "_I am, God says, Master of three virtues._\n\nFaith is a faithful spouse.\nCharity is a mother burning with devotion.\nBut hope is a very small girl.\nI am, God says, Master of three virtues.\nCharity is she who extends herself over the centuries.\nBut my little hope\nis the one who each morning\nsays Good Day to us.\n\n_I am, God says, Master of three virtues._\n\nFaith it is who keeps watch down the ages;\nCharity it is who keeps watch down the ages.\nBut little hope it is\nwho goes to bed every evening,\nand who gets up each morning,\nhaving slept soundly through the night.\n\n_I am, God says, the Master of Three Virtues._\n\nFaith is a soldier, a captain who defends a fortress.\nA town belonging to the King,\nOn the marches of Gascony, on the marches of Lorraine.\nCharity is a doctor, a Little Sister of the poor,\nWho nurses the sick, who nurses the wounded,\nThe poor subjects of the King,\nOn the marches of Gascony, on the marches of Lorraine.\nBut it is my little hope\nWho says good-day to the poor man and the orphan.\n\n_I am, God says, the Lord of the Virtues._\n\nFaith is a church, a cathedral rooted in the soil of France\nCharity is a hospital, an alms-house which gathers up wretchedness of the world.\nBut without hope it would be nothing but a cemetery.\n\n_I am, God says, the Lord of the Virtues._\n\nIt is Faith who watches through centuries of centuries.\nIt is Charity who watches through centuries of centuries.\nBut it is my little hope\nwho lies down every evening\nand gets up every morning\nand really has very good nights.\n\n_I am, God says, the Lord of that virtue._\n\nIt is my little hope\nwho goes to sleep every evening,\nin her child’s bed,\nafter having said a good prayer,\nand who wakes every morning and gets up\nand says her prayers with new attention.\n\n_I am, God says, Lord of the Three Virtues._\n\nFaith is a great tree, an oak rooted in the heart of France,\nAnd under the wings of that tree,\nCharity, my daughter Charity shelters all the distress of the world.\nAnd my little hope is only that little promise of a bud which shows itself at the very beginning of April.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Julian Green", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Julian Green" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -78000,8 +80521,10 @@ "title": "“The Passion of Our Lady”", "body": "For the past three days she had been wandering, and following.\nShe followed the people.\nShe followed the events.\nShe seemed to be following a funeral.\nBut it was a living man’s funeral.--\nShe followed like a follower.\nLike a servant.\nLike a weeper at a Roman funeral.--\nAs if it had been her only occupation.\nTo weep.--\nThat is what he had done to his mother.\nSince the day when he had begun his mission.--\nYou saw her everywhere.\nWith the people and a little apart from the people.\nUnder the porticoes, under the arcades, in drafty places.\nIn the temples, in the palaces.\nIn the streets.\nIn the yards and in the back-yards.\nAnd she had also gone up to Calvary.\nShe too had climbed up Calvary.\nA very steep hill.\nAnd she did not even feel that she was walking.\nShe did not even feel that her feet were carrying her.--\nShe too had gone up her Calvary.\nShe too had gone up and up\nIn the general confusion, lagging a little behind 
\nShe wept and wept under a big linen veil.\nA big blue veil 
\nA little faded.--\n\n\nShe wept as it will never be granted to a woman to weep.\nAs it will never be asked\nOf a woman to weep on this earth.\nNever at any time.--\nWhat was very strange was that everyone respected her.\nPeople greatly respect the parents of the condemned.\nThey even said: Poor woman.\nAnd at the same time they struck at her son.\nBecause man is like that.--\nThe world is like that.\nMen are what they are and you never can change them.\nShe did not know that, on the contrary, he had come to change man.\nThat he had come to change the world.\nShe followed and wept.\nEverybody respected her.\nEverybody pitied her.\nThey said: Poor woman.\nBecause they weren’t perhaps really bad.\nThey weren’t bad at heart.\nThey fulfilled the Scriptures.--\nThey honored, respected and admired her grief.\nThey didn’t make her go away, they pushed her back only a little with special attentions\nBecause she was the mother of the condemned.\nThey thought: It’s the family of the condemned.\nThey even said so in a low voice.\nThey said it among themselves\nWith a secret admiration.--\nShe followed and wept, and didn’t understand very well.\nBut she understood quite well that the government was against her boy.\nAnd that is a very bad business.--\nShe understood that all the governments were together against her boy.\nThe government of the Jews and the government of the Romans.\nThe government of judges and the government of priests.\nThe government of soldiers and the government of parsons.\nHe could never get out of it.\nCertainly not.--\nWhat was strange was that all derision was heaped on him.\nNot on her at all.--\nThere was only respect for her.\nFor her grief.--\nThey didn’t insult her.\nOn the contrary.\nPeople even refrained from looking at her too much.\nAll the more to respect her.\nSo she too had gone up.\nGone up with everybody else.\nUp to the very top of the hill.\nWithout even being aware of it.\nHer legs had carried her and she did not even know it.\nShe too had made the Way of the Cross.\nThe fourteen stations of the Way of the Cross.\nWere there fourteen stations?\nWere there really fourteen stations?--\nShe didn’t know for sure.\nShe couldn’t remember.\nYet she had not missed one.\nShe was sure of that.\nBut you can always make a mistake.\nIn moments like that your head swims.\nEverybody was against him.\nEverybody wanted him to die.\nIt is strange.\nPeople who are not usually together.\nThe government and the people.\nThat was awful luck.\nWhen you have someone for you and someone against you, sometimes you can get out of it.\nYou can scramble out of it.\nBut he wouldn’t.\nCertainly he wouldn’t.\nWhen you have everyone against you.\nBut what had he done to everyone?\n\nI’ll tell you.\nHe had saved the world.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Julian Green", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Julian Green" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "eastertide" @@ -78012,8 +80535,10 @@ "title": "“Prayer of Confidence”", "body": "When we sit down at the cross formed by two ways\nAnd must choose regret along with remorse\nAnd dual fate forces us to pick one course\nAnd the keystone of two arches fixes our gaze,\n\nYou alone, mistress of the secret, attest\nTo the downward slope where one road goes.\nYou know the other path that our steps chose,\nAs one chooses the cedar for a chest.\n\nAnd not through virtue, which we don’t possess.\nAnd not for duty, which we do not love.\nBut, as carpenters find the center of\nA board, to seek the center of wretchedness,\n\nAnd to approach the axis of distress,\nAnd for the dumb need to feel the whole curse,\nAnd to do whats harder and to suffer worse,\nAnd to take the blow in all its fulness.\n\nThrough that sleight-of-hand, that very artfulness,\nWhich will never make us happy anymore,\nLet us, o queen, at least preserve our honor,\nAnd along with it our simple tenderness.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Julian Green", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Julian Green" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -78021,7 +80546,6 @@ "title": "“The Surrender of Sleep”", "body": "# I.\n\nChildren don’t even think about being tired.\nThey run like little puppies. They make the trip twenty times.\nAnd, consequently, twenty times more than they needed to.\nWhat does it matter to them. They know well that at night\n(But they don’t even think about it)\nThey will fall asleep\nIn their bed or even at the table\nAnd that sleep is the end of everything.\nThis is their secret, that is the secret to being indefatigable.\nIndefatigable as children.\nIndefatigable like the child Hope.\nAnd always to start over again in the morning.\nChildren can’t walk, but they really know how to run.\nThe child doesn’t even think, doesn’t know that he’ll sleep at night.\nThat he’ll fall asleep at night. And yet it’s this sleep\nAlways at hand, always available, always present,\nAlways underneath, in full reserve,\nThat of yesterday, and that of tomorrow, like good food for one’s being,\nLike a strengthening of being, like a reservoir of being,\nThat’s inexhaustible. Always there.\nThat of this morning and that of this evening\nThat strengthens his legs.\nThe sleep from before, the sleep from after\nIt’s this same bottomless sleep\nAs continuous as being itself\nWhich passes from night to night, from one night to the next, which continues from one night to the next\nBy passing over the days\nLeaving the days as days, like so many holes.\nIt’s in this same sleep that children bury their whole being\nWhich maintains, which creates for them every day new legs,\nTheir brand new legs.\nAnd also that which is in their new legs: new souls.\nTheir new souls, their fresh souls.\nFresh in the morning, fresh at noon, fresh in the evening.\nFresh like the roses of France.\nTheir souls with the undrooping collars. This is the secret to being indefatigable.\nJust sleep. Why don’t people make use of it.\nI’ve given this secret to everyone, says God, I haven’t sold it.\nHe who sleeps well, lives well. He who sleeps, prays.\n(He who works, prays too. But there’s time for everything. Both for sleep and for work.\nWork and sleep are like two brothers. And they get on very well together.\nAnd sleep leads to work just like work leads to sleep.\nHe who works well sleeps well, he who sleeps well works well.)\n\n\n# II.\n\nThere must be, says God, some relationship,\nThere must be something going on\nBetween the kingdom of France and this little Hope.\nThere’s some secret there. They work too well together. And yet they tell me\nThat, there are men who don’t sleep.\nI don’t like the man who doesn’t sleep, says God.\nSleep is the friend of man.\nSleep is the friend of God.\nSleep may be my most beautiful creation.\nAnd I too rested on the seventh day.\nHe whose heart is pure, sleeps. And he who sleeps has a pure heart.\nThis is the great secret to being as indefatigable as a child.\nTo have that strength in your legs that a child has.\nThose new legs, those new souls\nAnd to start over every morning, always new,\nLike the young, like the new\nHope. Yes, they tell me that there are men\nWho work well and who sleep poorly.\nWho don’t sleep. What a lack of confidence in me.\nIt’s almost worse than if they worked poorly but slept well.\nThan if they worked but didn’t sleep, because sloth\nIs no worse a sin than anxiety\nIn fact, it’s even a less serious than anxiety\nAnd than despair and than a lack of confidence in me.\nI’m not talking, says God, about those men\nWho don’t work and who don’t sleep.\nThose men are sinners, it goes without saying. They get what they had\ncoming to them. Great sinners. All they have to do is work.\nI’m talking about those who work and who don’t sleep.\nI pity them. I’m talking about those who work, and who thus\nIn doing this are following my commandment, poor children.\nAnd who, on the other hand, don’t have the courage, don’t have the confidence, don’t sleep.\nI pity them. I hold it against them. A bit. They don’t trust me.\nAs a child lays innocently in his mother’s arms, thus do they not lay.\nInnocently in the arms of my Providence.\nThey have the courage to work. They don’t have the courage to do nothing.\nThey possess the virtue of work. They don’t possess the virtue of doing nothing.\nOf relaxing. Of resting. Of sleeping.\nUnhappy people, they don’t know what’s good.\nThey look after their affairs well during the day.\nBut they don’t want to give them to me to look after during the night.\nAs if I weren’t capable of looking after them for one night.\nHe who doesn’t sleep is unfaithful to Hope.\nAnd that’s the greatest infidelity.\nBecause it’s an infidelity to the greatest Faith.\nPoor children, they manage their affairs wisely during the day.\nBut, come nightfall, they can’t resolve\nThey can’t resign themselves to entrust their affairs to my wisdom\nThey can’t allow me to govern their affairs for the space of one night.\nTo take over the management and government of their affairs.\nAs if I weren’t capable, I suppose, of looking after them a bit.\nOf watching over them.\nOf managing and governing and all the rest.\nI manage plenty of other affairs, poor people, I govern creation, surely that’s more difficult.\nMaybe you could, without much loss, leave your affairs in my hands, wise men.\nSurely I am as wise as you are.\nPerhaps you could hand them over to me for the space of a night.\nWhile you sleep\nAt least\nAnd maybe tomorrow morning you won’t find them too badly damaged.\nMaybe tomorrow morning they won’t be any worse off.\nI’m probably still capable of guiding them a bit.\nI’m talking of those who work\nAnd who in this follow my commandment.\nAnd who don’t sleep, and who in this\nReject all that’s good in my creation,\nSleep, all that I have created good\nAnd who reject all the same my same commandment.\nWhat ingratitude these poor children have toward me\nTo reject such a good,\nSuch a beautiful commandment.\nThese poor children are following human wisdom.\nHuman wisdom says Never put off till tomorrow\nWhat you can do today.\nWhereas I tell you He who can put off till tomorrow\nIs he who is most pleasing to God.\nHe who sleeps like a child\nIs he, too, who sleeps like my precious Hope.\nAnd I tell you Put off till tomorrow\nThose concerns and those worries that are eating at you today\nAnd that might devour you today.\nPut off till tomorrow those sobs that choke you\nWhen you see today’s misery.\nThose sobs that rise in you and strangle you.\nPut off till tomorrow those tears that fill your eyes and cover your face.\nThat flood you. That fall down your cheeks. Those tears flowing from your eyes.\nBecause between today and tomorrow, I, God may have passed by.\nHuman wisdom says: Cursed is he who puts off till tomorrow.\nAnd I say Happy, happy is he who puts off till tomorrow.\nHappy is he who puts off. Which means Happy is he who hopes. And who sleeps.\nAnd I say on the contrary Cursed.\nCursed is he who lies awake and doesn’t trust me. What a mistrusting\nof me. Cursed is he who lies awake.\nAnd who drags.\nCursed is he who drags through the evenings and through the nights.\nThrough the eve of evening and through the fall of night.\nLike a snail’s trail across these beautiful eves.\nMy creatures.\nLike a slug’s trail across these beautiful nightfalls.\nMy creatures, my creation.\nThe thick remembrances of daily cares.\nThe burning, the gnawing.\nThe dirty tracks of our cares, the bitterness and the anxieties.\nThe sorrows.\nThe trails of slugs. Upon the flowers of my night.\nTruly I tell you that this offends\nMy precious Hope.\nWho wouldn’t want to entrust me with the supervision of his night.\nAs if I hadn’t proven myself.\nWho wouldn’t want to entrust me with the supervision of one of his nights.\nAs if I were asking for more than one.\nWho, having surrendered his affairs in poor condition when he went to bed,\nHas not found them well when he woke up.\nBecause I may have paid him a visit.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAs the sea is the reservoir of water so night is the reservoir of being.\nIt’s the time that I’ve reserved for myself. No matter what these feverish days may do.\nAs in the open sea, in the middle of the night, they bathe in the fullness of night.\nIt’s they that are scattered, it’s they that are fragmented.\nThe days are the Sporades Islands and night is the open sea\nUpon which St. Paul sailed\nAnd the border that descends from night to day\nIs always a rising border\nA steep border, and the border that rises from the day toward the night\nIs always a descending border. In the depths of night.\nO night, my finest invention, my most noble creation of all.\nMy most beautiful creature. Creature of the greatest Hope.\nYou give the most substance of Hope.\nYou are the instrument, you are the very substance and the dwelling-place of Hope.\nAnd also, (and thus), you are ultimately the creature of the greatest\nCharity.\nBecause it’s you who gently rock the whole of Creation\nInto a restoring Sleep.\nAs one lays a child in his little bed,\nAs his mother lays him down and as his mother tucks him in\nAd kisses him (She’s not afraid of waking him up.\nHe’s sleeping so soundly.)\nAs his mother tucks him in and laughs and kisses his forehead\nFor pleasure.\nAnd he too laughs, he laughs in response while sleeping.\nSo too, o night, dark-eyed mother, universal mother,\nNot only mother of children (it’s so easy)\nBut even mother of men and of women, which is so difficult,\nIt’s you, night, who put to bed the whole of Creation\nIn a bed of a few hours\n(Awaiting.) In a bed of a few hours\nImage, feeble image, and promise and prefiguration of the bed of every hour.\nAnticipated realization. Promise kept in advance\nAwaiting the bed of every hour.\nIn which I, the Father, will lay my creation.\nO Night, you are night. And all the days together\nWill never be day, they will never be anything but several days.\nScattered. The days will never be anything but flashes.\nUncertain flashes, and you, night, you are my great somber light.\nI congratulate myself for having made night. The days are isles and islands.\nThat pierce and split the sea.\nBut they have to rest in the deep sea.\nThey’re forced to.\nAnd you too, days, you’re forced to as well.\nYou have to rest in the deep night.\nAnd you, night, you are the deep sea\nUpon which St. Paul sailed, not that little lake in Galilee.\nAl the days are nothing but members\nDismembered members. It’s the days that emerge, but even so they have to be anchored in the deep water.\nIn the deep night. Night, my finest invention, it’s you who calm, it’s you who soothe, it’s you who bring rest\nTo aching limbs\nAll out of joint from the days work.\nIt’s you who calm, it’s you who soothe, it’s you who bring rest\nTo aching hearts\nTo bruised bodies, to limbs bruised from work, to hearts bruised from work\nAnd from daily cares and sorrow.\nO Night, o my daughter Night, the most religious of all my daughters\nThe most reverent.\nOf all my daughters, of all my creatures, the most abandoned into my hands.\nYou glorify me in the Sleep even more than your Brother, Day, glorifies me in Work.\nBecause in work man only glorifies me by his work.\nWhereas in sleep it is I who glorify myself by man’s surrender.\nAnd it’s more certain, and I know better how to go about it.\nNight, you are for man a more nourishing food than bread and wine.\nBecause the man who eats and drinks, if he doesn’t sleep, will not profit from his nourishment.\nAnd it will sour and upset his stomach.\nBut if he sleeps, the bread and wine will become his flesh and blood.\nFor working. For praying. For sleeping.\nNight, you alone dress wounds.\nAching hearts. All out of joint. All torn.\nO my dark-eyed daughter, of all my daughters you alone are, and can call yourself, my accomplice.\nYou are in league with me, because you and me, me through you,\nTogether we cause man to fall into the trap of my arms\nAnd we take him a bit by surprise.\nBut one takes what one can get. If anyone knows, it’s me.\nNight, you are the beautiful creation\nOf my wisdom.\nNight, o my daughter Night, o my silent daughter\nAt Rebecca’s well, at the well of the Samaritan woman\nIt’s you who draw the deepest water\nFrom the deepest well\nO night who gently rocks all creatures\nInto a restoring sleep.\nO night who bathes all wounds\nIn the only fresh water and in the only deep water\nAt Rebecca’s well, drawn from the deepest well.\nFriend of children, friend and sister to the young Hope\nO night who dresses all wounds\nAt the well of the Samaritan woman, you who draw, from the deepest well,\nThe deepest prayer.\nO night, o my daughter Night, you who know how to keep silent, o\nmy daughter of the beautiful mantle.\nYou who confer rest and forgetfulness. You how issue a healing balm,\nAnd silence, and shadow\nO my starry night, I created you first.\nYou who send to sleep, you who already enshroud in an eternal\nDarkness,\nAll of my most restless creatures,\nThe fiery steed, the industrious ant,\nAnd man, that monster of unrest.\nNight you succeed in quieting man\nThat well of unrest.\nBy himself more restless than all of creation put together.\nMan, that well of anxiety.\nJust as you quiet the water in the well.\nO my night with the glorious dress\nYou gather children and the young Hope\nInto the folds of your dress\nThough men resist you.\nO my beautiful night, I created you first.\nAnd practically before first\nO silent one, draped with veils\nYou who descend on earth as a foretaste\nYou who scatter by hand, who pour out over the earth\nAn initial peace\nForerunner of eternal peace.\nAn initial rest\nForerunner of eternal rest.\nAn initial soothing balm, an initial beatitude\nForerunner of eternal beatitude.\nYou who soothe, you who embalm, you who console.\nYou who bind wounds and injured limbs.\nYou who silence hearts, you who quiet bodies\nWho still aching hearts, aching bodies,\nWrought with pain,\nWorn-out limbs, backs broken\nWith weariness, with care, with (mortal) anxieties,\nWith sorrow,\nYou who administer balm to throats torn with bitterness\nA cooling balm\nO my noble-hearted daughter, I created you first\nPractically before first, my great-bosomed daughter\nAs I knew well what I was doing.\nSurely, I knew what I was doing.\nYou who lay the child in his mother’s arms\nThe child, brightened with a shadow of sleep\nLaughing inwardly, laughing secretly because of his confidence in his mother.\nAnd in me,\nLaughing secretly out of the corner of his serious mouth\nYou who lay the child, inwardly bursting, overflowing with innocence\nAnd with confidence\nIn the arms of his mother\nYou who used to lay the child Jesus every night\nIn the arms of the Most Holy and Immaculate one.\nYou who are the turn-sister of hope.\nO my daughter, first among all. You who even succeed,\nYou who occasionally succeed,\nYou who lay man in the arms of my Providence\nMy maternal Providence\nO my daughter, glittering and dark, I salute you\nYou who restore, you who nourish, you who give rest\nO silence of darkness\nSuch a silence reigned before the creation of anxiety.\nBefore the beginning of the reign of anxiety\nSuch a silence will reign, now a silence of light,\nWhen all this anxiety will have been consummated,\nWhen all this anxiety will have been exhausted.\nWhey they will have drawn all the water from the well.\nAfter the consummation, after the exhaustion of all this anxiety\nMan’s anxiety.\nThus, my daughter, you come early and you come late\nFor in this reign of anxiety you recall, you commemorate, you practically reestablish,\nYou practically recommence the former Serenity that existed\nWhen my spirit brooded over the waters.\nBut, my starry daughter, my daughter of the dark mantle, you are also very much ahead of your time, you are also precocious.\nFor you announce, for you represent, for you practically commence in advance, every night,\nMy great Serenity of light\nEternal.\nNight, you are holy; Night, you are great; Night, you are beautiful.\nNight of the great mantle.\nNight, I love you and I salute you and I glorify you and you are my\ngreat daughter and my creature.\nO beautiful night, night of the great mantle, my daughter of the starry mantle\nYou remind me, myself, you remind me of the great silence that existed\nBefore I had unlocked the firmament of ingratitude.\nAnd you proclaim, even to me, you herald to me the silence that will exist\nAfter the end of man’s reign, when I will have reclaimed my scepter.\nAnd sometimes I think about it ahead of time, because this man really makes a lot of noise.\nBut above all, Night, you remind me of that night.\nAnd I will remember it eternally.\nThe ninth hour had sounded. It was in the country of my people of Israel.\nIt was all over. That enormous adventure.\nFrom the sixth hour to the ninth hour there had been a darkness\ncovering the entire countryside.\nEverything was finished. Let’s not talk about it anymore. It hurts me to think about it.\nMy son’s incredible descent among men.\nInto their midst.\nWhen you think of what they made of him.\nThose thirty years that he was a carpenter among men.\nThose three years that he was a sort of preacher among men.\nA priest.\nThose three days when he fell victim to men.\nAmong men.\nThose three nights when he was dead in the midst of men.\nDead among the dead.\nThrough the centuries of centuries that he’s been a host among men.\nThis incredible adventure was finished.\nThe adventure that has tied my hands, God, for all eternity.\nThe adventure by which my Son has tied my hands.\nTying the hands of my justice eternally, untying the hands of my\nmercy for eternally.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Julian Green", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "The Portal of the Mystery of Hope", @@ -78030,6 +80554,9 @@ "year": 1912 } }, + "translators": [ + "Julian Green" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -78467,10 +80994,6 @@ "title": "“Inscriptions”", "body": "# I.\n\nWe pass and dream. Earth smiles. Virtue is rare.\nAge, duty, gods weigh on our conscious bliss.\nHope for the best and for the worst prepare.\nThat sum of purposed wisdom speaks in this.\n\n\n# II.\n\nMe, Chloe, a maid, the mighty fates have given,\nWho was nought to them, to the peopled shades.\nThus the gods will. My years were but twice seven.\nI am forgotten in my distant glades.\n\n\n# III.\n\nFrom my villa on the hill I long looked down\nUpon the muttering town;\nThen one day drew (life sight-sick, dull hope shed)\nMy toga o’er my head\n(The simplest gesture being the greatest thing)\nLike a raised wing.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nNot Cecrops kept my bees. My olives bore\nOil like the sun. My several herd lowed far.\nThe breathing traveller rested by my door.\nThe wet earth smells still; dead ray nostrils are.\n\n\n# V.\n\nI conquered. Far barbarians hear my name.\nMen were dice in my game,\nBut to my throw myself did lesser come:\nI threw dice, Fate the sum.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nSome were as loved, some as prizes prized.\nA natural wife to the fed man my mate,\nI was sufficient to whom I sufficed.\nI moved, slept, bore and aged without a fate.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nI put by pleasure like an alien bowl.\nStern, separate, mine, I looked towards where gods seem.\nFrom behind me the common shadow stole.\nDreaming that I slept not, I slept my dream.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nScarce five years passed ere I passed too.\nDeath came and took the child he found.\nNo god spared, or fate smiled at, so\nSmall hands, clutching so little round.\n\n\n# IX.\n\nThere is a silence where the town was old.\nGrass grows where not a memory lies below.\nWe that dined loud are sand. The tale is told.\nThe far hoofs hush. The inn’s last light doth go.\n\n\n# X.\n\nWe, that both lie here, loved. This denies us.\nMy lost hand crumbles where her breasts’ lack is.\nLove’s known, each lover is anonymous.\nWe both felt fair. Kiss, for that was our kiss.\n\n\n# XI.\n\nI for my city’s want fought far and fell.\nI could not tell\nWhat she did want, that knew she wanted me.\nHer walls be free,\nHer speech keep such as I spoke, and men die,\nThat she die not, as I.\n\n\n# XII.\n\nLife lived us, not we life. We, as bees sip,\nLooked, talked and had. Trees grow as we did last.\nWe loved the gods but as we see a ship.\nNever aware of being aware, we passed.\n\n\n# XIII.\n\nThe work is done. The hammer is laid down.\nThe artisans, that built the slow-grown town,\nHave been succeeded by those who still built.\nAll this is something lack-of-something screening.\nThe thought whole has no meaning\nBut lies by Time’s wall like a pitcher spilt.\n\n\n# XIV.\n\nThis covers me, that erst had the blue sky.\nThis soil treads me, that once I trod. My hand\nPut these inscriptions here, half knowing why;\nLast, and hence seeing all, of the passing band.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jorge de Sena", - "time": { - "year": 1920 - }, "language": "Portuguese", "source": { "title": "English Poems", @@ -78479,6 +81002,12 @@ "year": 1921 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1920 + }, + "translators": [ + "Jorge de Sena" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -78826,8 +81355,10 @@ "title": "“Autumn is Here Again”", "body": "Autumn is here again,\nSo pleasing to the eye,\nI like it so much,\nAlthough I don’t know why.\n\nI sit on top of the hill\nAnd look around from there,\nListening to the leaves\nFalling everywhere.\n\nThe gentle sun is shining\nDown on earth with a smile,\nLike a caring mother watching\nHer dear sleeping child.\n\nIndeed, in autumn the earth\nOnly sleeps, it goes still;\nOne can see it in its eyes,\nJust sleepy, not ill.\n\nIt took off its fancy clothes,\nIt quietly undressed\nTo dress up again in the morn,\nSo spring will be impressed.\n\nSleep beautiful nature,\nSleep until daybreak,\nHave a pleasant dream\nTo enjoy when you awake.\n\nMy fingers are quietly plucking\nThe strings of my lyre\nAnd start playing my wistful song,\nAs your lullaby.\n\nCome my love, sit next to me\nListen silently until my song\nLike the whispering wind\nGlides over the pond.\n\nWhen you kiss me and your lips\nTouch me, watch out, be tender,\nDon’t wake up kind nature\nFrom her dream-filled slumber.", "metadata": { - "translator": "MiklĂłs NĂĄdasdi", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "MiklĂłs NĂĄdasdi" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -78846,8 +81377,10 @@ "title": "“How Many Drops Has the Ocean Sea?”", "body": "How many drops has the ocean sea?\nCan you count the stars?\nIn human heads how many hairs can there be?\nAnd sins within human hearts?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter Zollman", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "Peter Zollman" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -78863,8 +81396,10 @@ "title": "“I Love You My Darling”", "body": "I love you my darling,\nI love your slim body,\nYour ivory forehead,\nYour hair like ebony,\nYour sparkling dark eyes\nAnd your rosy cheeks,\nYour tender, soft hands\nAnd your sweet, full lips.\nI love your soul\nThat can fly so high\nAnd the mountain-lake depth\nOf your warm heart.\nI love you when you’re smiling\nBecause you are glad,\nOr with tears in your eyes\nBecause you are sad.\nI love your virtues\nShining so bright\nAnd also your faults\nThat are never in sight.\nI love you my darling,\nI love you truly\nAs much as one can love,\nDeeply, strongly, fully.\nYou are everything,\nThere’s no life without you,\nYou enmesh all my thoughts\nSteadfast, through and through.\nYou are all my feelings\nAwake or asleep,\nYou are always present\nIn my every heart beat.\nI would relinquish\nAll the glory for you\nAnd, if you wanted,\nRegain it all anew.\nI have no wish\nAnd no will either\nBecause what you want\nIs also my desire.\nNo sacrifice is too small\nOf any measure\nIf it would give you\nEven a small pleasure.\nIf you would lose something\nSmall but it would cause pain\nIt would hurt me as well,\nI would feel the same.\nI love you my darling,\nI love you even more,\nI love you like no one\nHas loved you before.\nI love you my darling\nSo that it could kill me.\nI am all in one\nWho can love you dearly:\nHusband. son and father\nOr your older brother,\nI am all those and,\nMost of all, your lover.\nAt the same time\nYou are also my life,\nMother, daughter, sister,\nLover and my wife!\nI love you with my heart,\nI love you with my soul,\nI love you with dreamy,\nCrazy love and more! 
\nAnd if one deserves\nA praise or a prize\nFor all what I said,\nThose of any size,\nThe praise and the prize\nWhatever may be,\nYou deserve it all,\nYou alone--not me.\nYou deserve it all\nBecause the love I feel\nYou made it all real!", "metadata": { - "translator": "MiklĂłs NĂĄdasdi", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "MiklĂłs NĂĄdasdi" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -78880,8 +81415,10 @@ "title": "“If You Are a Man, Be a Man”", "body": "If you are a man, be a man\nNot a puppet, worthless, weak\nThat destiny can toss around\nFor the pleasure it may seek.\nFate is a coward bitch that yelps,\nRuns away from the brave\nWho is willing to face it,\nSo don’t capitulate!\nIf you are a man, be a man,\nMere words alone are useless.\nAction speaks far better\nThan any Demosthenes.\nBuild or destroy like a storm\nAnd be silent when you are done,\nLike the storm when it is finished\nQuietly dies down.\nIf you are a man, be a man,\nHave principles and faith,\nAdhere to them steadfast\nFor whatever it takes.\nRather give up your life\nA hundred times more\nThan deny yourself\nAnd lose your honor.\nIf you are a man, be a man,\nGuard your independence,\nDon’t ever sell it for\nAll the world’s abundance.\nDespise those who for a fat meal\nAre willing to sell themselves.\nYour slogan should always be:\n“Beggar-staff and independence!”\nIf you are a man, be a man,\nBe strong, be brave, be firm,\nThis way you can be certain\nNeither man nor fate can do you harm.\nBe an oak that, by a storm,\nMight sometimes be felled\nBut its awesome solid trunk\nThe wind could never bend.", "metadata": { - "translator": "MiklĂłs NĂĄdasdi", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "MiklĂłs NĂĄdasdi" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -78889,8 +81426,10 @@ "title": "“In the Souvenir Book of a Bookseller”", "body": "Life is a bliss but first of all\nYou must work hard for this goal.\nFree of charge you won’t get it\nYou must struggle quite a bit.\nNever lose sight of honesty\n\nFor anger or a modest fee.\nTruly love your fellow men\nKeep the bridge open for them.\nYour dear homeland you should guard\nIn a pure spot of your heart\nAnd sustain your love of god\nOnce my poems sold a lot.", "metadata": { - "translator": "MiklĂłs NĂĄdasdi", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "MiklĂłs NĂĄdasdi" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -78898,8 +81437,10 @@ "title": "“It is Not Possible to Forbid a Flower”", "body": "It is not possible to forbid a flower\nTo bloom in Spring when it has the power.\nLove is the flower, the girl is the Spring,\nIt blooms in Spring, it is a given thing.\nBabe, since I first saw you I couldn’t love you more,\nI became the lover of your beautiful soul.\nYour beautiful soul that tenderly smiles\nIn the mirror of your enchanting eyes.\nThere is a secret question in my heart:\nDo you love me or someone else, sweetheart?\nThese thoughts chase each other in my brain,\nLike clouds chase the sunbeam in the Autumn rain.\nOh, if I knew that your lovely rosy cheeks\nBathing in milk, wait for someone else’s kiss,\nIn this big world I would become an exile,\nOr rather desperately choose to die.\nStar of my happiness, shed on me some light\nSo that my life should not be a sad night,\nLove me, pearl of my heart, I don’t ask for more,\nAnd I ask god to give his blessings to your soul.", "metadata": { - "translator": "MiklĂłs NĂĄdasdi", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "MiklĂłs NĂĄdasdi" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -78950,8 +81491,10 @@ "title": "“The Shepherd Rides on a Donkey”", "body": "The shepherd rides in donkey-back\nThe shepherd rides in donkey-back,\nHis feet are dangling wide,\nThe guy is big, but bigger still\nHis bitterness inside.\n\nHe played his flute, he grazed his flock\nUpon the grassy hill\nWhen he was told his sweetheart girl\nWas desperately ill.\n\nHe rides his donkey in a flash\nAnd races to her bed,\nBut by the time he reached the house\nHis precious one was dead.\n\nThe lad was bitter, hoped to die,\nBut what he did instead:\nHe took a stick and struck a blow\nUpon the donkey’s head.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter Zollman", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "Peter Zollman" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -78959,8 +81502,10 @@ "title": "“Sorrow”", "body": "Sorrow? A great ocean.\nJoy?\nA little pearl in the ocean. Perhaps,\nBy the time I fish it up, I may break it.", "metadata": { - "translator": "W. H. Auden", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "W. H. Auden" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -78968,8 +81513,10 @@ "title": "“Time”", "body": "The farmer puts his field under the plow,\nThen he harrows it even.\nTime puts our features under the plow,\nBut won’t harrow them even.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter Zollman", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "Peter Zollman" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -78996,8 +81543,10 @@ "title": "“Winter World”", "body": "Somebody killed himself tonight\nThat is why the stormy wind blows\nAnd the plate is dancing madly\nAbove the barber shop windows.\nWhere is happiness nowadays?\nIn a cozy, warm, friendly place.\nThe day-labourer and his wife\nWork on logs, chopping and sawing,\nTheir child wrapped in a fleecy swaddle clothe\nHas a shrilling game with the wind.\nWhere is happiness nowadays?\nIn a cozy, warm, friendly place.\nThe soldier on his beat of sentry\nTakes long strides up and down\nWhile counting every one of his steps:\nIt does not seem to be much fun.\nWhere is happiness nowadays?\nIn a cozy, warm, friendly place.\nThe long-legged wandering tinker,\nHis shabby cape he can hardly hold,\nHis nose is like a ripe red pepper,\nHis eyes full of tears from the cold.\nWhere is happiness nowadays?\nIn a cozy, warm, friendly place.\nThe itinerant actor is strolling\nFrom one village to another;\nHe has no warm garment at all,\nNevertheless he is starving, no bother.\nWhere is happiness nowadays?\nIn a cozy, warm, friendly place.\nAnd the gypsy? 
 his teeth chatter\nUnder the ragged tent,\nThe wind knocks, then bursts in\nWithout the gypsy’s intent.\nWhere is happiness nowadays?\nIn a cozy, warm, friendly place.\nSomebody killed himself tonight,\nThat is why the stormy wind blows\nAnd the plate is dancing madly\nAbove the barber shop windows.\nWhere is happiness nowadays?\nIn a cozy, warm, friendly place.", "metadata": { - "translator": "MiklĂłs NĂĄdasdi", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "MiklĂłs NĂĄdasdi" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -79062,8 +81611,10 @@ "title": "“Alone, and pensive, near some desert shore 
”", "body": "Alone, and pensive, near some desert shore,\nFar from the haunts of men I love to stray,\nAnd, cautiously, my distant path explore\nWhere never human footsteps mark’d the way.\nThus from the public gaze I strive to fly,\nAnd to the winds alone my griefs impart;\nWhile in my hollow cheek and haggard eye\nAppears the fire that burns my inmost heart.\nBut ah, in vain to distant scenes I go;\nNo solitude my troubled thoughts allays.\nMethinks e’en things inanimate must know\nThe flame that on my soul in secret preys;\nWhilst Love, unconquer’d, with resistless sway\nStill hovers round my path, still meets me on my way.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. B. Taylor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "J. B. Taylor" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -79074,8 +81625,10 @@ "title": "“Breeze, blowing that blonde curling hair 
”", "body": "Breeze, blowing that blonde curling hair,\nstirring it, and being softly stirred in turn,\nscattering that sweet gold about, then\ngathering it, in a lovely knot of curls again,\nyou linger around bright eyes whose loving sting\npierces me so, till I feel it and weep,\nand I wander searching for my treasure,\nlike a creature that often shies and kicks:\nnow I seem to find her, now I realise\nshe’s far away, now I’m comforted, now despair,\nnow longing for her, now truly seeing her.\nHappy air, remain here with your\nliving rays: and you, clear running stream,\nwhy can’t I exchange my path for yours?", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -79086,8 +81639,10 @@ "title": "“Canzone”", "body": "Green robes and red, purple, or brown, or gray\nNo lady ever wore,\nNor hair of gold in sunny tresses twined,\nSo beautiful as she, who spoils my mind\nOf judgment, and from freedom’s lofty path\nSo draws me with her that I may not bear\nAny less heavy yoke.\n\nAnd if indeed at times--for wisdom fails\nWhere martyrdom breeds doubt--\nThe soul should ever arm it to complain\nSuddenly from each reinless rude desire\nHer smile recalls, and razes from my heart\nEvery rash enterprise, while all disdain\nIs soften’d in her sight.\n\nFor all that I have ever borne for love,\nAnd still am doom’d to bear,\nTill she who wounded it shall heal my heart,\nRejecting homage e’en while she invites,\nBe vengeance done! but let not pride nor ire\n’Gainst my humility the lovely pass\nBy which I enter’d bar.\n\nThe hour and day wherein I oped my eyes\nOn the bright black and white,\nWhich drive me thence where eager love impell’d\nWhere of that life which now my sorrow makes\nNew roots, and she in whom our age is proud,\nWhom to behold without a tender awe\nNeeds heart of lead or wood.\n\nThe tear then from these eyes that frequent falls--\nHE thus my pale cheek bathes\nWho planted first within my fenceless flank\nLove’s shaft--diverts me not from my desire;\nAnd in just part the proper sentence falls;\nFor her my spirit sighs, and worthy she\nTo staunch its secret wounds.\n\nSpring from within me these conflicting thoughts,\nTo weary, wound myself,\nEach a sure sword against its master turn’d:\nNor do I pray her to be therefore freed,\nFor less direct to heaven all other paths,\nAnd to that glorious kingdom none can soar\nCertes in sounder bark.\n\nBenignant stars their bright companionship\nGave to the fortunate side\nWhen came that fair birth on our nether world,\nIts sole star since, who, as the laurel leaf,\nThe worth of honour fresh and fragrant keeps,\nWhere lightnings play not, nor ungrateful winds\nEver o’ersway its head.\n\nWell know I that the hope to paint in verse\nHer praises would but tire\nThe worthiest hand that e’er put forth its pen:\nWho, in all Memory’s richest cells, e’er saw\nSuch angel virtue so rare beauty shrined,\nAs in those eyes, twin symbols of all worth,\nSweet keys of my gone heart?\n\nLady, wherever shines the sun, than you\nLove has no dearer pledge.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79095,8 +81650,10 @@ "title": "“Counting the hours, lest I myself mislead 
”", "body": "Counting the hours, lest I myself mislead\nBy blind desire wherewith my heart is torn,\nE’en while I speak away the moments speed,\nTo me and pity which alike were sworn.\nWhat shade so cruel as to blight the seed\nWhence the wish’d fruitage should so soon be born?\nWhat beast within my fold has leap’d to feed?\nWhat wall is built between the hand and corn?\nAlas! I know not, but, if right I guess,\nLove to such joyful hope has only led\nTo plunge my weary life in worse distress;\nAnd I remember now what once I read,\nUntil the moment of his full release\nMan’s bliss begins not, nor his troubles cease.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79104,8 +81661,10 @@ "title": "“Doth any maiden seek the glorious fame 
”", "body": "Doth any maiden seek the glorious fame\nOf chastity, of strength, of courtesy?\nGaze in the eyes of that sweet enemy\nWhom all the world doth as my lady name!\nHow honor grows, and pure devotion’s flame,\nHow truth is joined with graceful dignity,\nThere thou mayst learn, and what the path may be\nTo that high heaven which doth her spirit claim;\nThere learn that speech, beyond all poet’s skill,\nAnd sacred silence, and those holy ways\nUnutterable, untold by human heart.\nBut the infinite beauty that all eyes doth fill,\nThis none can learn! because its lovely rays\nAre given by God’s pure grace, and not by art.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Wentworth Higginson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79113,8 +81672,10 @@ "title": "“Dreams bore my fancy 
”", "body": "Dreams bore my fancy to that region where\nShe dwells whom here I seek, but cannot see.\n’Mid those who in the loftiest heaven be\nI looked on her, less haughty and more fair.\nShe took my hand, she said, “Within this sphere,\nIf hope deceive not, thou shalt dwell with me:\nI filled thy life with war’s wild agony;\nMine own day closed ere evening could appear.\nMy bliss no human thought can understand;\nI wait for thee alone, and that fair veil\nOf beauty thou dost love shall yet retain.”\nWhy was she silent then, why dropped my hand\nEre those delicious tones could quite avail\nTo bid my mortal soul in heaven remain?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Wentworth Higginson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79122,8 +81683,10 @@ "title": "“Gentle severity, repulses mild 
”", "body": "Gentle severity, repulses mild,\nFull of chaste love and pity sorrowing;\nGraceful rebukes, that had the power to bring\nBack to itself a heart by dreams beguiled;\nA tender voice, whose accents undefiled\nHeld sweet restraints, all duty honoring;\nThe bloom of virtue; purity’s clear spring\nTo cleanse away base thoughts and passions wild;\nDivinest eyes to make a lover’s bliss,\nWhether to bridle in the wayward mind\nLest its wild wanderings should the pathway miss,\nOr else its griefs to soothe, its wounds to bind;\nThis sweet completeness of thy life it is\nWhich saved my soul; no other peace I find.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Wentworth Higginson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79131,8 +81694,10 @@ "title": "“The holy angels and the spirits blest 
”", "body": "The holy angels and the spirits blest,\nCelestial bands, upon that day serene\nWhen first my love went by in heavenly sheen,\nCame thronging, wondering at the gracious guest.\n“What light is here, in what new beauty drest?”\nThey said among themselves; “for none has seen\nWithin this age arrive so fair a mien\nFrom changing earth unto immortal rest.”\nAnd she, contented with her new-found bliss,\nRanks with the perfect in that upper sphere,\nYet ever and anon looks back on this,\nTo watch for me, as if for me she stayed.\nSo strive my thoughts, lest that high heaven I miss.\nI hear her call, and must not be delayed.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Wentworth Higginson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79140,8 +81705,10 @@ "title": "“I once beheld on earth celestial graces 
”", "body": "I once beheld on earth celestial graces\nAnd heavenly beauties scarce to mortals known,\nWhose memory yields nor joy nor grief alone,\nBut all things else in cloud and dreams effaces.\nI saw how tears had left their weary traces\nWithin those eyes that once the sun outshone,\nI heard those lips, in low and plaintive moan,\nBreathe words to stir the mountains from their places.\nLove, wisdom, courage, tenderness, and truth\nMade in their mourning strains more high and dear\nThan ever wove soft sounds for mortal ear;\nAnd heaven seemed listening in such saddest ruth\nThe very leaves upon the bough to soothe,\nSuch sweetness filled the blissful atmosphere.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Wentworth Higginson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79149,8 +81716,10 @@ "title": "“In the sweet season when my life was new 
”", "body": "In the sweet season when my life was new,\nWhich saw the birth, and still the being sees\nOf the fierce passion for my ill that grew,\nFain would I sing--my sorrow to appease--\nHow then I lived, in liberty, at ease,\nWhile o’er my heart held slighted Love no sway;\nAnd how, at length, by too high scorn, for aye,\nI sank his slave, and what befell me then,\nWhereby to all a warning I remain;\nAlthough my sharpest pain\nBe elsewhere written, so that many a pen\nIs tired already, and, in every vale,\nThe echo of my heavy sighs is rife,\nSome credence forcing of my anguish’d life;\nAnd, as her wont, if here my memory fail,\nBe my long martyrdom its saving plea,\nAnd the one thought which so its torment made,\nAs every feeling else to throw in shade,\nAnd make me of myself forgetful be--\nRuling life’s inmost core, its bare rind left for me.\n\nLong years and many had pass’d o’er my head,\nSince, in Love’s first assault, was dealt my wound,\nAnd from my brow its youthful air had fled,\nWhile cold and cautious thoughts my heart around\nHad made it almost adamantine ground,\nTo loosen which hard passion gave no rest:\nNo sorrow yet with tears had bathed my breast,\nNor broke my sleep: and what was not in mine\nA miracle to me in others seem’d.\nLife’s sure test death is deem’d,\nAs cloudless eve best proves the past day fine;\nAh me! the tyrant whom I sing, descried\nEre long his error, that, till then, his dart\nNot yet beneath the gown had pierced my heart,\nAnd brought a puissant lady as his guide,\n’Gainst whom of small or no avail has been\nGenius, or force, to strive or supplicate.\nThese two transform’d me to my present state,\nMaking of breathing man a laurel green,\nWhich loses not its leaves though wintry blasts be keen.\n\nWhat my amaze, when first I fully learn’d\nThe wondrous change upon my person done,\nAnd saw my thin hairs to those green leaves turn’d\n(Whence yet for them a crown I might have won);\nMy feet wherewith I stood, and moved, and run--\nThus to the soul the subject members bow--\nBecome two roots upon the shore, not now\nOf fabled Peneus, but a stream as proud,\nAnd stiffen’d to a branch my either arm!\nNor less was my alarm,\nWhen next my frame white down was seen to shroud,\nWhile, ’neath the deadly leven, shatter’d lay\nMy first green hope that soar’d, too proud, in air,\nBecause, in sooth, I knew not when nor where\nI left my latter state; but, night and day,\nWhere it was struck, alone, in tears, I went,\nStill seeking it alwhere, and in the wave;\nAnd, for its fatal fall, while able, gave\nMy tongue no respite from its one lament,\nFor the sad snowy swan both form and language lent.\n\nThus that loved wave--my mortal speech put by\nFor birdlike song--I track’d with constant feet,\nStill asking mercy with a stranger cry;\nBut ne’er in tones so tender, nor so sweet,\nKnew I my amorous sorrow to repeat,\nAs might her hard and cruel bosom melt:\nJudge, still if memory sting, what then I felt!\nBut ah! not now the past, it rather needs\nOf her my lovely and inveterate foe\nThe present power to show,\nThough such she be all language as exceeds.\nShe with a glance who rules us as her own,\nOpening my breast my heart in hand to take,\nThus said to me: “Of this no mention make.”\nI saw her then, in alter’d air, alone,\nSo that I recognised her not--O shame\nBe on my truant mind and faithless sight!\nAnd when the truth I told her in sore fright,\nShe soon resumed her old accustom’d frame,\nWhile, desperate and half dead, a hard rock mine became.\n\nAs spoke she, o’er her mien such feeling stirr’d,\nThat from the solid rock, with lively fear,\n“Haply I am not what you deem,” I heard;\nAnd then methought, “If she but help me here,\nNo life can ever weary be, or drear;\nTo make me weep, return, my banish’d Lord!”\nI know not how, but thence, the power restored,\nBlaming no other than myself, I went,\nAnd, nor alive, nor dead, the long day past.\nBut, because time flies fast,\nAnd the pen answers ill my good intent,\nFull many a thing long written in my mind\nI here omit; and only mention such\nWhereat who hears them now will marvel much.\nDeath so his hand around my vitals twined,\nNot silence from its grasp my heart could save,\nOr succour to its outraged virtue bring:\nAs speech to me was a forbidden thing,\nTo paper and to ink my griefs I gave--\nLife, not my own, is lost through you who dig my grave.\n\nI fondly thought before her eyes, at length,\nThough low and lost, some mercy to obtain;\nAnd this the hope which lent my spirit strength.\nSometimes humility o’ercomes disdain,\nSometimes inflames it to worse spite again;\nThis knew I, who so long was left in night,\nThat from such prayers had disappear’d my light;\nTill I, who sought her still, nor found, alas!\nEven her shade, nor of her feet a sign,\nOutwearied and supine,\nAs one who midway sleeps, upon the grass\nThrew me, and there, accusing the brief ray,\nOf bitter tears I loosed the prison’d flood,\nTo flow and fall, to them as seem’d it good.\nNe’er vanish’d snow before the sun away,\nAs then to melt apace it me befell,\nTill, ’neath a spreading beech a fountain swell’d;\nLong in that change my humid course I held,--\nWho ever saw from Man a true fount well?\nAnd yet, though strange it sound, things known and sure I tell.\n\nThe soul from God its nobler nature gains\n(For none save He such favour could bestow)\nAnd like our Maker its high state retains,\nTo pardon who is never tired, nor slow,\nIf but with humble heart and suppliant show,\nFor mercy for past sins to Him we bend;\nAnd if, against his wont, He seem to lend,\nAwhile, a cold ear to our earnest prayers,\n’Tis that right fear the sinner more may fill;\nFor he repents but ill\nHis old crime for another who prepares.\nThus, when my lady, while her bosom yearn’d\nWith pity, deign’d to look on me, and knew\nThat equal with my fault its penance grew,\nTo my old state and shape I soon return’d.\nBut nought there is on earth in which the wise\nMay trust, for, wearying braving her afresh,\nTo rugged stone she changed my quivering flesh.\nSo that, in their old strain, my broken cries\nIn vain ask’d death, or told her one name to deaf skies.\n\nA sad and wandering shade, I next recall,\nThrough many a distant and deserted glen,\nThat long I mourn’d my indissoluble thrall.\nAt length my malady seem’d ended, when\nI to my earthly frame return’d again,\nHaply but greater grief therein to feel;\nStill following my desire with such fond zeal\nThat once (beneath the proud sun’s fiercest blaze,\nReturning from the chase, as was my wont)\nNaked, where gush’d a font,\nMy fair and fatal tyrant met my gaze;\nI whom nought else could pleasure, paused to look,\nWhile, touch’d with shame as natural as intense,\nHerself to hide or punish my offence,\nShe o’er my face the crystal waters shook\n--I still speak true, though truth may seem a lie--\nInstantly from my proper person torn,\nA solitary stag, I felt me borne\nIn wingĂšd terrors the dark forest through,\nAs still of my own dogs the rushing storm I flew\nMy song! I never was that cloud of gold\nWhich once descended in such precious rain,\nEasing awhile with bliss Jove’s amorous pain;\nI was a flame, kindled by one bright eye,\nI was the bird which gladly soar’d on high,\nExalting her whose praise in song I wake;\nNor, for new fancies, knew I to forsake\nMy first fond laurel, ’neath whose welcome shade\nEver from my firm heart all meaner pleasures fade.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -79161,8 +81730,10 @@ "title": "“Lady, in your bright eyes 
”", "body": "Lady, in your bright eyes\nSoft glancing round, I mark a holy light,\nPointing the arduous way that heavenward lies;\nAnd to my practised sight,\nFrom thence, where Love enthroned, asserts his might,\nVisibly, palpably, the soul beams forth.\nThis is the beacon guides to deeds of worth,\nAnd urges me to seek the glorious goal;\nThis bids me leave behind the vulgar throng,\nNor can the human tongue\nTell how those orbs divine o’er all my soul\nExert their sweet control,\nBoth when hoar winter’s frosts around are flung,\nAnd when the year puts on his youth again,\nJocund, as when this bosom first knew pain.\n\nOh! if in that high sphere,\nFrom whence the Eternal Ruler of the stars\nIn this excelling work declared his might,\nAll be as fair and bright,\nLoose me from forth my darksome prison here,\nThat to so glorious life the passage bars;\nThen, in the wonted tumult of my breast,\nI hail boon Nature, and the genial day\nThat gave me being, and a fate so blest,\nAnd her who bade hope beam\nUpon my soul; for till then burthensome\nWas life itself become:\nBut now, elate with touch of self-esteem,\nHigh thoughts and sweet within that heart arise,\nOf which the warders are those beauteous eyes.\n\nNo joy so exquisite\nDid Love or fickle Fortune ere devise,\nIn partial mood, for favour’d votaries,\nBut I would barter it\nFor one dear glance of those angelic eyes,\nWhence springs my peace as from its living root.\nO vivid lustre! of power absolute\nO’er all my being--source of that delight,\nBy which consumed I sink, a willing prey.\nAs fades each lesser ray\nBefore your splendour more intense and bright,\nSo to my raptured heart,\nWhen your surpassing sweetness you impart,\nNo other thought of feeling may remain\nWhere you, with Love himself, despotic reign.\n\nAll sweet emotions e’er\nBy happy lovers felt in every clime,\nTogether all, may not with mine compare,\nWhen, as from time to time,\nI catch from that dark radiance rich and deep\nA ray in which, disporting, Love is seen;\nAnd I believe that from my cradled sleep,\nBy Heaven provided this resource hath been,\n’Gainst adverse fortune, and my nature frail.\nWrong’d am I by that veil,\nAnd the fair hand which oft the light eclipse,\nThat all my bliss hath wrought;\nAnd whence the passion struggling on my lips,\nBoth day and night, to vent the breast o’erfraught,\nStill varying as I read her varying thought.\n\nFor that (with pain I find)\nNot Nature’s poor endowments may alone\nRender me worthy of a look so kind,\nI strive to raise my mind\nTo match with the exalted hopes I own,\nAnd fires, though all engrossing, pure as mine.\nIf prone to good, averse to all things base,\nContemner of what worldlings covet most,\nI may become by long self-discipline.\nHaply this humble boast\nMay win me in her fair esteem a place;\nFor sure the end and aim\nOf all my tears, my sorrowing heart’s sole claim,\nWere the soft trembling of relenting eyes,\nThe generous lover’s last, best, dearest prize.\n\nMy lay, thy sister-song is gone before.\nAnd now another in my teeming brain\nPrepares itself: whence I resume the strain.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Barbarina Brand", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Barbarina Brand" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -79173,8 +81744,10 @@ "title": "“Late to arrive my fortunes are and slow 
”", "body": "Late to arrive my fortunes are and slow--\nHopes are unsure, desires ascend and swell,\nSuspense, expectancy in me rebel--\nBut swifter to depart than tigers go.\nTepid and dark shall be the cold pure snow,\nThe ocean dry, its fish on mountains dwell,\nThe sun set in the East, by that old well\nAlike whence Tigris and Euphrates flow,\nEre in this strife I peace or truce shall find,\nEre Love or Laura practise kinder ways,\nSworn friends, against me wrongfully combined.\nAfter such bitters, if some sweet allays,\nBalk’d by long fasts my palate spurns the fare,\nSole grace from them that falleth to my share.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79182,8 +81755,10 @@ "title": "“Lust and dull slumber and the lazy hours 
”", "body": "Lust and dull slumber and the lazy hours\nHave well nigh banished virtue from mankind.\nHence have man’s nature and his treacherous mind\nLeft their free course, enmeshed in sin’s soft bowers.\nThe very light of heaven hath lost its powers\nMid fading ways our loftiest dreams to find;\nMen jeer at him whose footsteps are inclined\nWhere Helicon from dewy fountains showers.\nWho seeks the laurel? who the myrtle twines?\n“Wisdom, thou goest a beggar and unclad,”\nSo scoffs the crowd, intent on worthless gain.\nFew are the hearts that prize the poet’s lines:\nYet, friend, the more I hail thy spirit glad!\nLet not the glory of thy purpose wane!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Wentworth Higginson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79191,8 +81766,10 @@ "title": "“Madrigale”", "body": "Not Dian to her lover was more dear,\nWhen fortune ’mid the waters cold and clear,\nGave him her naked beauties all to see,\nThan seem’d the rustic ruddy nymph to me,\nWho, in yon flashing stream, the light veil laved,\nWhence Laura’s lovely tresses lately waved;\nI saw, and through me felt an amorous chill,\nThough summer burn, to tremble and to thrill.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -79203,8 +81780,10 @@ "title": "“The nearer I approach my life’s last day 
”", "body": "The nearer I approach my life’s last day,\nThe certain day that limits human woe,\nI better mark, in Time’s swift silent flow,\nHow the fond hopes he brought all pass’d away.\nOf love no longer--to myself I say--\nWe now may commune, for, as virgin snow,\nThe hard and heavy load we drag below\nDissolves and dies, ere rest in heaven repay.\nAnd prostrate with it must each fair hope lie\nWhich here beguiled us and betray’d so long,\nAnd joy, grief, fear and pride alike shall cease:\nAnd then too shall we see with clearer eye\nHow oft we trod in weary ways and wrong,\nAnd why so long in vain we sigh’d for peace.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -79215,8 +81794,10 @@ "title": "“O joyous, blossoming, ever-blessed flowers 
”", "body": "O joyous, blossoming, ever-blessed flowers!\n’Mid which my pensive queen her footstep sets;\nO plain, that hold’st her words for amulets\nAnd keep’st her footsteps in thy leafy bowers!\nO trees, with earliest green of springtime hours,\nAnd all spring’s pale and tender violets!\nO grove, so dark the proud sun only lets\nHis blithe rays gild the outskirts of thy towers!\nO pleasant country-side! O limpid stream,\nThat mirrorest her sweet face, her eyes so clear,\nAnd of their living light canst catch the beam!\nI envy thee her presence pure and dear.\nThere is no rock so senseless but I deem\nIt burns with passion that to mine is near.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Wentworth Higginson" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -79227,8 +81808,10 @@ "title": "“O wandering steps! O vague and busy dreams 
”", "body": "O wandering steps! O vague and busy dreams!\nO changeless memory! O fierce desire!\nO passion strong! heart weak with its own fire;\nO eyes of mine! not eyes, but living streams;\nO laurel boughs! whose lovely garland seems\nThe sole reward that glory’s deeds require!\nO haunted life! delusion sweet and dire,\nThat all my days from slothful rest redeems;\nO beauteous face! where Love has treasured well\nHis whip and spur, the sluggish heart to move\nAt his least will; nor can it find relief.\nO souls of love and passion! if ye dwell\nYet on this earth, and ye, great Shades of Love!\nLinger, and see my passion and my grief.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Wentworth Higginson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79236,8 +81819,10 @@ "title": "“O ye who trace through scattered verse the sound 
”", "body": "O ye who trace through scattered verse the sound\nOf those long sighs wherewith I fed my heart\nAmid youth’s errors, when in greater part\nThat man unlike this present man was found;\nFor the mixed strain which here I do compound\nOf empty hopes and pains that vainly start,\nWhatever soul hath truly felt love’s smart,\nWith pity and with pardon will abound.\nBut now I see full well how long I earned\nAll men’s reproof; and oftentimes my soul\nLies crushed by its own grief; and it doth seem\nFor such misdeed shame is the fruitage whole,\nAnd wild repentance and the knowledge learned\nThat worldly joy is still a short, short dream.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Wentworth Higginson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79245,8 +81830,10 @@ "title": "“Oft by my faithful mirror I am told 
”", "body": "Oft by my faithful mirror I am told,\nAnd by my mind outworn and altered brow,\nMy earthly powers impaired and weakened now,--\n“Deceive thyself no more, for thou art old!”\nWho strives with Nature’s laws is over-bold,\nAnd Time to his commandment bids us bow.\nLike fire that waves have quenched, I calmly vow\nIn life’s long dream no more my sense to fold.\nAnd while I think, our swift existence flies,\nAnd none can live again earth’s brief career,--\nThen in my deepest heart the voice replies\nOf one who now has left this mortal sphere,\nBut walked alone through earthly destinies,\nAnd of all women is to fame most dear.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Wentworth Higginson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79254,8 +81841,10 @@ "title": "“Sestina”", "body": "The overcharged air, the impending cloud,\nCompress’d together by impetuous winds,\nMust presently discharge themselves in rain;\nAlready as of crystal are the streams,\nAnd, for the fine grass late that clothed the vales,\nIs nothing now but the hoar frost and ice.\n\nAnd I, within my heart, more cold than ice,\nOf heavy thoughts have such a hovering cloud,\nAs sometimes rears itself in these our vales,\nLowly, and landlock’d against amorous winds,\nEnviron’d everywhere with stagnant streams,\nWhen falls from soft’ning heaven the smaller rain.\n\nLasts but a brief while every heavy rain;\nAnd summer melts away the snows and ice,\nWhen proudly roll th’ accumulated streams:\nNor ever hid the heavens so thick a cloud,\nWhich, overtaken by the furious winds,\nFled not from the first hills and quiet vales.\n\nBut ah! what profit me the flowering vales?\nAlike I mourn in sunshine and in rain,\nSuffering the same in warm and wintry winds;\nFor only then my lady shall want ice\nAt heart, and on her brow th’ accustom’d cloud,\nWhen dry shall be the seas, the lakes, and streams.\n\nWhile to the sea descend the mountain streams,\nAs long as wild beasts love umbrageous vales,\nO’er those bright eyes shall hang th’ unfriendly cloud\nMy own that moistens with continual rain;\nAnd in that lovely breast be harden’d ice\nWhich forces still from mine so dolorous winds.\n\nYet well ought I to pardon all the winds\nBut for the love of one, that ’mid two streams\nShut me among bright verdure and pure ice;\nSo that I pictured then in thousand vales\nThe shade wherein I was, which heat or rain\nEsteemeth not, nor sound of broken cloud.\n\nBut fled not ever cloud before the winds,\nAs I that day: nor ever streams with rain\nNor ice, when April’s sun opens the vales.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -79266,8 +81855,10 @@ "title": "“She ruled in beauty o’er this heart of mine 
”", "body": "She ruled in beauty o’er this heart of mine,\nA noble lady in a humble home,\nAnd now her time for heavenly bliss has come,\n’Tis I am mortal proved, and she divine.\nThe soul that all its blessings must resign,\nAnd love whose light no more on earth finds room\nMight rend the rocks with pity for their doom,\nYet none their sorrows can in words enshrine;\nThey weep within my heart; no ears they find\nSave mine alone, and I am crushed with care,\nAnd naught remains to me save mournful breath.\nAssuredly but dust and shade we are;\nAssuredly desire is mad and blind;\nAssuredly its hope but ends in death.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Wentworth Higginson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79275,8 +81866,10 @@ "title": "“So wayward now my will, and so unwise 
”", "body": "So wayward now my will, and so unwise,\nTo follow her who turns from me in flight,\nAnd, from love’s fetters free herself and light,\nBefore my slow and shackled motion flies,\nThat less it lists, the more my sighs and cries\nWould point where passes the safe path and right,\nNor aught avails to check or to excite,\nFor Love’s own nature curb and spur defies.\nThus, when perforce the bridle he has won,\nAnd helpless at his mercy I remain,\nAgainst my will he speeds me to mine end\n’Neath yon cold laurel, whose false boughs upon\nHangs the harsh fruit, which, tasted, spreads the pain\nI sought to stay, and mars where it should mend.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79284,8 +81877,10 @@ "title": "“So weary am I ’neath the constant thrall 
”", "body": "So weary am I ’neath the constant thrall\nOf mine own vile heart, and the false world’s taint,\nThat much I fear while on the way to faint,\nAnd in the hands of my worst foe to fall.\nWell came, ineffably, supremely kind,\nA friend to free me from the guilty bond,\nBut too soon upward flew my sight beyond,\nSo that in vain I strive his track to find;\nBut still his words stamp’d on my heart remain,\nAll ye who labour, lo! the way in me;\nCome unto me, nor let the world detain!\nOh! that to me, by grace divine, were given\nWings like a dove, then I away would flee,\nAnd be at rest, up, up from earth to heaven!", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "divine_mercy" @@ -79296,8 +81891,10 @@ "title": "“Sweet air, that circlest round those radiant tresses 
”", "body": "Sweet air, that circlest round those radiant tresses,\nAnd floatest, mingled with them, fold on fold,\nDeliciously, and scatterest that fine gold,\nThen twinest it again, my heart’s dear jesses;\nThou lingerest on those eyes, whose beauty presses\nStings in my heart that all its life exhaust,\nTill I go wandering round my treasure lost,\nLike some scared creature whom the night distresses.\nI seem to find her now, and now perceive\nHow far away she is; now rise, now fall;\nNow what I wish, now what is true, believe.\nO happy air! since joys enrich thee all,\nRest thee; and thou, O stream too bright to grieve!\nWhy can I not float with thee at thy call?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Wentworth Higginson" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -79308,8 +81905,10 @@ "title": "“Tears, bitter tears adown my pale cheek rain 
”", "body": "Tears, bitter tears adown my pale cheek rain,\nBursts from mine anguish’d breast a storm of sighs,\nWhene’er on you I turn my passionate eyes,\nFor whom alone this bright world I disdain.\nTrue! to my ardent wishes and old pain\nThat mild sweet smile a peaceful balm supplies,\nRescues me from the martyr fire that tries,\nRapt and intent on you whilst I remain;\nThus in your presence--but my spirits freeze\nWhen, ushering with fond acts a warm adieu,\nMy fatal stars from life’s quench’d heaven decay.\nMy soul released at last with Love’s apt keys\nBut issues from my heart to follow you,\nNor tears itself without much thought away.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79317,8 +81916,10 @@ "title": "“That fire for ever which I thought at rest 
”", "body": "That fire for ever which I thought at rest,\nQuench’d in the chill blood of my ripen’d years,\nAwakes new flames and torment in my breast.\nIts sparks were never all, from what I see,\nExtinct, but merely slumbering, smoulder’d o’er;\nHaply this second error worse may be,\nFor, by the tears, which I, in torrents, pour,\nGrief, through these eyes, distill’d from my heart’s core,\nWhich holds within itself the spark and bait,\nRemains not as it was, but grows more great.\nWhat fire, save mine, had not been quench’d and kill’d\nBeneath the flood these sad eyes ceaseless shed?\nStruggling ’mid opposites--so Love has will’d--\nNow here, now there, my vain life must be led,\nFor in so many ways his snares are spread,\nWhen most I hope him from my heart expell’d\nThen most of her fair face its slave I’m held.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79326,8 +81927,10 @@ "title": "“Those eyes, ’neath which my passionate rapture rose 
”", "body": "Those eyes, ’neath which my passionate rapture rose,\nThe arms, hands, feet, the beauty that erewhile\nCould my own soul from its own self beguile,\nAnd in a separate world of dreams enclose,\nThe hair’s bright tresses, full of golden glows,\nAnd the soft lightning of the angelic smile\nThat changed this earth to some celestial isle,--\nAre now but dust, poor dust, that nothing knows.\nAnd yet I live! Myself I grieve and scorn,\nLeft dark without the light I loved in vain,\nAdrift in tempest on a bark forlorn;\nDead is the source of all my amorous strain,\nDry is the channel of my thoughts outworn,\nAnd my sad harp can sound but notes of pain.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Wentworth Higginson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79335,8 +81938,10 @@ "title": "“The thread on which my weary life depends 
”", "body": "The thread on which my weary life depends\nSo fragile is and weak,\nIf none kind succour lends,\nSoon ’neath the painful burden will it break;\nSince doom’d to take my sad farewell of her,\nIn whom begins and ends\nMy bliss, one hope, to stir\nMy sinking spirit from its black despair,\nWhispers, “Though lost awhile\nThat form so dear and fair,\nSad soul! the trial bear,\nFor thee e’en yet the sun may brightly shine,\nAnd days more happy smile,\nOnce more the lost loved treasure may be thine.”\nThis thought awhile sustains me, but again\nTo fail me and forsake in worse excess of pain.\n\nTime flies apace: the silent hours and swift\nSo urge his journey on,\nShort span to me is left\nEven to think how quick to death I run;\nScarce, in the orient heaven, yon mountain crest\nSmiles in the sun’s first ray,\nWhen, in the adverse west,\nHis long round run, we see his light decay\nSo small of life the space,\nSo frail and clogg’d with woe,\nTo mortal man below,\nThat, when I find me from that beauteous face\nThus torn by fate’s decree,\nUnable at a wish with her to be,\nSo poor the profit that old comforts give,\nI know not how I brook in such a state to live.\n\nEach place offends, save where alone I see\nThose eyes so sweet and bright,\nWhich still shall bear the key\nOf the soft thoughts I hide from other sight;\nAnd, though hard exile harder weighs on me,\nWhatever mood betide,\nI ask no theme beside,\nFor all is hateful that I since have seen.\nWhat rivers and what heights,\nWhat shores and seas between\nMe rise and those twin lights,\nWhich made the storm and blackness of my days\nOne beautiful serene,\nTo which tormented Memory still strays:\nFree as my life then pass’d from every care,\nSo hard and heavy seems my present lot to bear.\n\nAlas! self-parleying thus, I but renew\nThe warm wish in my mind,\nWhich first within it grew\nThe day I left my better half behind:\nIf by long absence love is quench’d, then who\nGuides me to the old bait,\nWhence all my sorrows date?\nWhy rather not my lips in silence seal’d?\nBy finest crystal ne’er\nWere hidden tints reveal’d\nSo faithfully and fair,\nAs my sad spirit naked lays and bare\nIts every secret part,\nAnd the wild sweetness thrilling in my heart,\nThrough eyes which, restlessly, o’erfraught with tears,\nSeek her whose sight alone with instant gladness cheers.\n\nStrange pleasure!--yet so often that within\nThe human heart to reign\nIs found--to woo and win\nEach new brief toy that men most sigh to gain:\nAnd I am one from sadness who relief\nSo draw, as if it still\nMy study were to fill\nThese eyes with softness, and this heart with grief:\nAs weighs with me in chief\nNay rather with sole force,\nThe language and the light\nOf those dear eyes to urge me on that course,\nSo where its fullest source\nLong sorrow finds, I fix my often sight,\nAnd thus my heart and eyes like sufferers be,\nWhich in love’s path have been twin pioneers to me.\n\nThe golden tresses which should make, I ween,\nThe sun with envy pine;\nAnd the sweet look serene,\nWhere love’s own rays so bright and burning shine,\nThat, ere its time, they make my strength decline,\nEach wise and truthful word,\nRare in the world, which late\nShe smiling gave, no more are seen or heard.\nBut this of all my fate\nIs hardest to endure,\nThat here I am denied\nThe gentle greeting, angel-like and pure,\nWhich still to virtue’s side\nInclined my heart with modest magic lure;\nSo that, in sooth, I nothing hope again\nOf comfort more than this, how best to bear my pain.\n\nAnd--with fit ecstacy my loss to mourn--\nThe soft hand’s snowy charm,\nThe finely-rounded arm,\nThe winning ways, by turns, that quiet scorn,\nChaste anger, proud humility adorn,\nThe fair young breast that shrined\nIntellect pure and high,\nAre now all hid the rugged Alp behind.\nMy trust were vain to try\nAnd see her ere I die,\nFor, though awhile he dare\nSuch dreams indulge, Hope ne’er can constant be,\nBut falls back in despair\nHer, whom Heaven honours, there again to see,\nWhere virtue, courtesy in her best mix,\nAnd where so oft I pray my future home to fix.\n\nMy Song! if thou shalt see,\nOur common lady in that dear retreat,\nWe both may hope that she\nWill stretch to thee her fair and fav’ring hand,\nWhence I so far am bann’d;\n--Touch, touch it not, but, reverent at her feet,\nTell her I will be there with earliest speed,\nA man of flesh and blood, or else a spirit freed.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -79347,8 +81952,10 @@ "title": "“To every animal that dwells on earth 
”", "body": "To every animal that dwells on earth,\nExcept to those which have in hate the sun,\nTheir time of labour is while lasts the day;\nBut when high heaven relumes its thousand stars,\nThis seeks his hut, and that its native wood,\nEach finds repose, at least until the dawn.\n\nBut I, when fresh and fair begins the dawn\nTo chase the lingering shades that cloak’d the earth,\nWakening the animals in every wood,\nNo truce to sorrow find while rolls the sun;\nAnd, when again I see the glistening stars,\nStill wander, weeping, wishing for the day.\n\nWhen sober evening chases the bright day,\nAnd this our darkness makes for others dawn,\nPensive I look upon the cruel stars\nWhich framed me of such pliant passionate earth,\nAnd curse the day that e’er I saw the sun,\nWhich makes me native seem of wildest wood.\n\nAnd yet methinks was ne’er in any wood,\nSo wild a denizen, by night or day,\nAs she whom thus I blame in shade and sun:\nMe night’s first sleep o’ercomes not, nor the dawn,\nFor though in mortal coil I tread the earth,\nMy firm and fond desire is from the stars.\n\nEre up to you I turn, O lustrous stars,\nOr downwards in love’s labyrinthine wood,\nLeaving my fleshly frame in mouldering earth,\nCould I but pity find in her, one day\nWould many years redeem, and to the dawn\nWith bliss enrich me from the setting sun!\n\nOh! might I be with her where sinks the sun,\nNo other eyes upon us but the stars,\nAlone, one sweet night, ended by no dawn,\nNor she again transfigured in green wood,\nTo cheat my clasping arms, as on the day,\nWhen Phoebus vainly follow’d her on earth.\n\nI shall lie low in earth, in crumbling wood.\nAnd clustering stars shall gem the noon of day,\nEre on so sweet a dawn shall rise that sun.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79356,8 +81963,10 @@ "title": "“When all my mind I turn to the one part 
”", "body": "When all my mind I turn to the one part\nWhere sheds my lady’s face its beauteous light,\nAnd lingers in my loving thought the light\nThat burns and racks within me ev’ry part,\nI from my heart who fear that it may part,\nAnd see the near end of my single light,\nGo, as a blind man, groping without light,\nWho knows not where yet presses to depart.\nThus from the blows which ever wish me dead\nI flee, but not so swiftly that desire\nCeases to come, as is its wont, with me.\nSilent I move: for accents of the dead\nWould melt the general age: and I desire\nThat sighs and tears should only fall from me.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79365,8 +81974,10 @@ "title": "“When love doth those sweet eyes to earth incline 
”", "body": "When Love doth those sweet eyes to earth incline,\nAnd weaves those wandering notes into a sigh\nWith his own touch, and leads a minstrelsy\nClear-voiced and pure, angelic and divine,--\nHe makes sweet havoc in this heart of mine,\nAnd to my thoughts brings transformation high,\nSo that I say, “My time has come to die,\nIf fate so blest a death for me design.”\nBut to my soul, thus steeped in joy, the sound\nBrings such a wish to keep that present heaven,\nIt holds my spirit back to earth as well.\nAnd thus I live: and thus is loosed and wound\nThe thread of life which unto me was given\nBy this sole Siren who with us doth dwell.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Thomas Wentworth Higginson", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "Thomas Wentworth Higginson" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -79377,8 +81988,10 @@ "title": "“When love, whose proper throne is that sweet face 
”", "body": "When Love, whose proper throne is that sweet face,\nAt times escorts her ’mid the sisters fair,\nAs their each beauty is than hers less rare,\nSo swells in me the fond desire apace.\nI bless the hour, the season and the place,\nSo high and heavenward when my eyes could dare;\nAnd say: “My heart! in grateful memory bear\nThis lofty honour and surpassing grace:\nFrom her descends the tender truthful thought,\nWhich follow’d, bliss supreme shall thee repay,\nWho spurn’st the vanities that win the crowd:\nFrom her that gentle graceful love is caught,\nTo heaven which leads thee by the right-hand way,\nAnd crowns e’en here with hopes both pure and proud.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79386,8 +81999,10 @@ "title": "“Who is resolved to venture his vain life 
”", "body": "Who is resolved to venture his vain life\nOn the deceitful wave and ’mid the rocks,\nAlone, unfearing death, in little bark,\nCan never be far distant from his end:\nTherefore betimes he should return to port\nWhile to the helm yet answers his true sail.\n\nThe gentle breezes to which helm and sail\nI trusted, entering on this amorous life,\nAnd hoping soon to make some better port,\nHave led me since amid a thousand rocks,\nAnd the sure causes of my mournful end\nAre not alone without, but in my bark.\n\nLong cabin’d and confined in this blind bark,\nI wander’d, looking never at the sail,\nWhich, prematurely, bore me to my end;\nTill He was pleased who brought me into life\nSo far to call me back from those sharp rocks,\nThat, distantly, at last was seen my port.\n\nAs lights at midnight seen in any port,\nSometimes from the main sea by passing bark,\nSave when their ray is lost ’mid storms or rocks;\nSo I too from above the swollen sail\nSaw the sure colours of that other life,\nAnd could not help but sigh to reach my end.\n\nNot that I yet am certain of that end,\nFor wishing with the dawn to be in port,\nIs a long voyage for so short a life:\nAnd then I fear to find me in frail bark,\nBeyond my wishes full its every sail\nWith the strong wind which drove me on those rocks.\n\nEscape I living from these doubtful rocks,\nOr if my exile have but a fair end,\nHow happy shall I be to furl my sail,\nAnd my last anchor cast in some sure port;\nBut, ah! I burn, and, as some blazing bark,\nSo hard to me to leave my wonted life.\n\nLord of my end and master of my life,\nBefore I lose my bark amid the rocks,\nDirect to a good port its harass’d sail!", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -79398,8 +82013,10 @@ "title": "“With weary frame which painfully I bear 
”", "body": "With weary frame which painfully I bear,\nI look behind me at each onward pace,\nAnd then take comfort from your native air,\nWhich following fans my melancholy face;\nThe far way, my frail life, the cherish’d fair\nWhom thus I leave, as then my thoughts retrace,\nI fix my feet in silent pale despair,\nAnd on the earth my tearful eyes abase.\nAt times a doubt, too, rises on my woes,\n“How ever can this weak and wasted frame\nLive from life’s spirit and one source afar?”\nLove’s answer soon the truth forgotten shows--\n“This high pure privilege true lovers claim,\nWho from mere human feelings franchised are!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79407,8 +82024,10 @@ "title": "“A youthful lady ’neath a laurel green 
”", "body": "A youthful lady ’neath a laurel green\nWas seated, fairer, colder than the snow\nOn which no sun has shone for many years:\nHer sweet speech, her bright face, and flowing hair\nSo pleased, she yet is present to my eyes,\nAnd aye must be, whatever fate prevail.\n\nThese my fond thoughts of her shall fade and fail\nWhen foliage ceases on the laurel green;\nNor calm can be my heart, nor check’d these eyes\nUntil the fire shall freeze, or burns the snow:\nEasier upon my head to count each hair\nThan, ere that day shall dawn, the parting years.\n\nBut, since time flies, and roll the rapid years,\nAnd death may, in the midst, of life, assail,\nWith full brown locks, or scant and silver hair,\nI still the shade of that sweet laurel green\nFollow, through fiercest sun and deepest snow,\nTill the last day shall close my weary eyes.\n\nOh! never sure were seen such brilliant eyes,\nIn this our age or in the older years,\nWhich mould and melt me, as the sun melts snow,\nInto a stream of tears adown the vale,\nWatering the hard roots of that laurel green,\nWhose boughs are diamonds and gold whose hair.\n\nI fear that Time my mien may change and hair,\nEre, with true pity touch’d, shall greet my eyes\nMy idol imaged in that laurel green:\nFor, unless memory err, through seven long years\nTill now, full many a shore has heard my wail,\nBy night, at noon, in summer and in snow.\n\nThus fire within, without the cold, cold snow,\nAlone, with these my thoughts and her bright hair,\nAlway and everywhere I bear my ail,\nHaply to find some mercy in the eyes\nOf unborn nations and far future years,\nIf so long flourishes our laurel green.\n\nThe gold and topaz of the sun on snow\nAre shamed by the bright hair above those eyes,\nSearing the short green of my life’s vain years.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. G. Macgregor", "language": "Italian", + "translators": [ + "R. G. Macgregor" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -79454,8 +82073,11 @@ "title": "“Autumn Sketch”", "body": "From below the alert garden\na tree ascends into space,\nthe stillness is frail and empty,\nthe meadow looks for boundaries.\n\nYour heart sinks into fear,\nand the lurking road runs away.\nthe stem of a rose with a nervous smile,\ngazes into herself:\n\nin distant dubious regions\npain is being prepared.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Castro & GĂĄbor G. Gyukics", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "Michael Castro", + "GĂĄbor G. Gyukics" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -79466,8 +82088,11 @@ "title": "“Don’t Be Scared”", "body": "I could do it, but I will not do it,\nI’m planning it, raising the issue,\nI’m just playing with myself, that is all,\nI should rather cry than be brave.\n\nAlthough sometimes I’m scared, delight\nflowing toward my throat might entomb me,\nwhat if it’s only a ruminant horror,\nwhat would happen if I did it?\n\nWhat would happen if I kindled you\nin your house on a sleepy night?\nYou’d be destroyed there and those whom\nyou loved would perish with you! Die together.\n\nBefore, I would examine your room,\nI would sit there for an afternoon,\nI would inscribe in my brain where your bed sits,\nthe papers pattern on the wall,\n\nthe stairs that lead to your door,\nI want to know what will be with, and against you,\nwhere will the fire go and where\nthe rebellious room will press you in?\n\nBecause you will burn. Below in the yard\na gaping mouth opens for you,\na crying pain, a swallowing throat.\nVainly, you’ll rip through doors and windows.\n\nI’ll stand across the street and devour it all:\nthe smoke grow woolen on the firewall,\ngather itself in an inflamed bouquet and burst,\na bloody bundle beneath a narrow roof!\n\nThat hot anguish that killed me before\nnow flows over you like puss\nyou’ll be a dark, dented, numb wound,\nlike the night and my face down there.\n\nIt should be so. But nothing will happen.\nEven in hell, my faith did loosen.\nThis game gives me no consolation.\nThis point is the deepest of the night.\n\nThat I cursed you? Think what you like.\nYou don’t interest me, I’ve never loved you.\nSleep restfully, drink and eat,\nand if you understand my curses--don’t be scared", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Castro & GĂĄbor G. Gyukics", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "Michael Castro", + "GĂĄbor G. Gyukics" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79483,8 +82108,11 @@ "title": "“Fish in the Net”", "body": "We are tossing in a net of stars.\nFish hauled up to the beach,\ngasping in nothingness,\nmouths snapping dry void.\nWhispering, the lost element\ncalls us in vain.\nChoking among edged stones\nand pebbles, we must\nlive and die in a heap.\nOur hearts convulse,\nour writhings maim\nand suffocate our brother.\nOur cries conflict but\nnot even an echo answers.\nWe have no reason\nto fight and kill\nbut we must.\nSo we atone but our atonement\ndoes not suffice.\nNo suffering\ncan redeem our hells.\nWe are tossing in a starry net\nand at midnight\nmaybe we shall lie on the table\nof a mighty fisherman.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ted Hughes & JĂĄnos Csokits", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "Ted Hughes", + "JĂĄnos Csokits" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79492,8 +82120,11 @@ "title": "“The French Prisoner”", "body": "If only I could forget him, the Frenchman\nI saw outside our quarters, creeping round\nnear daybreak in that density of garden\nas if he’d almost grown into the ground.\nHe was just looking back, peering about him\nto check that he was safe here and alone:\nonce he was sure, his plunder was all his!\nWhatever chanced, he’d not be moving on.\n\nHe was already eating. He was wolfing\na pilfered turnip hidden in his rags.\nEating raw cattle feed. But he’d no sooner\nswallowed a mouthful than it made him gag;\nand the sweet food encountered on his tongue\ndelight and then disgust, as it might be\nthe unhappy and the happy, meeting in\ntheir bodies’ all-consuming ecstasy.\n\nOnly forget that body 
 Shoulder blades\ntrembling, and a hand all skin and bone,\nthe palm cramming his mouth in such a way\nthat it too seemed to feed in clinging on.\nAnd then the furious and desperate shame\nof organs galled with one another, forced\nto tear from one another what should bind them\ntogether in community at last.\n\nThe way his clumsy feet had been left out\nof all that gibbering bestial joy; and how\nthey stood splayed out and paralyzed beneath\nthe body’s torture and fierce rapture now.\nAnd his look too--if I could forget that!\nRetching, he went on gobbling as if driven\non and on, just to eat, no matter what,\nanything, this or that, himself even.\nWhy go on? It turned out that he’d escaped\nfrom the prison camp nearby--guards came for him.\nI wander, as I did then in that garden,\namong my garden shadows here at home.\n“If only I could forget him, the Frenchman”--\nI’m looking through my notes, I read one out,\nand from my ears, my eyes, my mouth, the seething\nmemory boils over in his shout:\n\n“I’m hungry!” And immediately I feel\nthe undying hunger which this wretched creature\nhas long since ceased to feel, for which there is\nno mitigating nourishment in nature.\nHe feeds on me. More and more hungrily!\nAnd I’m less and less sufficient, for my part.\nNow he, who would have been contented once\nwith any kind of food, demands my heart.", "metadata": { - "translator": "George Gömöri & Clive Wilmer", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "George Gömöri", + "Clive Wilmer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79501,8 +82132,10 @@ "title": "“Knocking”", "body": "We slept. In my dreams I was a tree,\nthen nothing, then such a child\nas knocks on a grown up’s door.\n\nMeanwhile you too were a tree. A child’s skirt.\nNot a door. Knocking. Knock.\nTogether we knocked. I no longer know\nwhether on the same door? This much is certain:\na cherub’s thrashing-about would be like this.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter Jay", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "Peter Jay" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79518,8 +82151,11 @@ "title": "“November Elysium”", "body": "Convalescence. You hang back, at the verge\nof the garden. Your background\na peaceful yellow wall’s monastery silence.\nA tame little wind starts out across the grass. And now,\nas if hands assuaged them with holy oils,\nyour five open wounds, your five senses\nfeel their healing and are eased.\nYou are timid, And exultant. Yes,\nwith your childishly translucent limbs,\nin the shawl and coat grown tall,\nyou are like Alyosha Karamazov.\nAnd like those gentle ones, over yonder,\nwho are like the child, yes, you are like them.\nAnd as happy too, because\nyou do not want anything any more.\nOnly to gleam like the November sun,\nand exhale fragrance, lightly, as a fir-cone.\nOnly to bask, like the blest.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ted Hughes & JĂĄnos Csokits", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "Ted Hughes", + "JĂĄnos Csokits" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -79530,8 +82166,11 @@ "title": "“On the Wall of a KZ Lager”", "body": "Where you’ve fallen, you will stay.\nIn the whole universe this one\nand only place is the sole place\nwhich you have made your very own.\n\nThe country runs away from you.\nHouse, mill, poplar--every thing\nis struggling with you here, as if\nin nothingness mutating.\n\nBut now it’s you who won’t give up.\nDid we fleece you? You’ve grown rich.\nDid we blind you? You watch us still.\nYou bear witness without speech.", "metadata": { - "translator": "George Gömöri & Clive Wilmer", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "George Gömöri", + "Clive Wilmer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79539,8 +82178,10 @@ "title": "“Once Upon a Fine Day”", "body": "Always the discarded tin spoon,\nThe wastes of misery I have been looking for,\nhoping, that once upon a fine day\nI shall weep, and be gently readmitted\nby the old yard,\nthe ivy silence and rustle of our home.\nAlways,\nAlways, I have longed for home", "metadata": { - "translator": "GellĂ©rt Hujbert", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "GellĂ©rt Hujbert" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79548,8 +82189,11 @@ "title": "“Paraphrase”", "body": "As a nourishment for all,\nas it’s been written,\nI give myself as a living food,\nto the world to be eaten.\n\nBecause all who live\nmust play the hungry game,\nmight be your best lover,\nyet smears blood on your name.\n\nI toss and turn in bed\nand shudder till I start\nthinking who guzzles up\nthe beating of my heart!\n\nWhat kind of trough this bed is,\nsay, what kind of trough?\nAnd what pushed me here, what desire,\nwhat kind of gorgeous puff!\n\nHow the horde gobbles up\nmy heart that’s ceaselessly coming!\nI am living nourishment\nstammering and throbbing.\n\nI’m your living food\nalways and totally\ndigest my essence\nto understand my gluttony.\n\nBecause he who belongs to no one,\nis a morsel for every one.\nSo waste me you awful love.\nMurder me. Don’t leave me to anyone.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Michael Castro & GĂĄbor G. Gyukics", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "Michael Castro", + "GĂĄbor G. Gyukics" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79557,8 +82201,11 @@ "title": "“Van Gogh’s Prayer”", "body": "A battle lost in the cornfields\nand in the sky a victory.\nBirds, the sun and birds again.\nBy night, what will be left of me?\n\nBy night, only a row of lamps,\na wall of yellow clay that shines,\nand down the garden, through the trees,\nlike candles in a row, the panes;\n\nthere I dwelt once and dwell no longer--\nI can’t live where I once lived, though\nthe roof there used to cover me.\nLord, you covered me long ago.", "metadata": { - "translator": "George Gömöri & Clive Wilmer", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "George Gömöri", + "Clive Wilmer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -79689,10 +82336,10 @@ "title": "“The Applicant”", "body": "First, are you our sort of a person?\nDo you wear\nA glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,\nA brace or a hook,\nRubber breasts or a rubber crotch,\n\nStitches to show something’s missing? No, no? Then\nHow can we give you a thing?\nStop crying.\nOpen your hand.\nEmpty? Empty. Here is a hand\n\nTo fill it and willing\nTo bring teacups and roll away headaches\nAnd do whatever you tell it.\nWill you marry it?\nIt is guaranteed\n\nTo thumb shut your eyes at the end\nAnd dissolve of sorrow.\nWe make new stock from the salt.\nI notice you are stark naked.\nHow about this suit--\n\nBlack and stiff, but not a bad fit.\nWill you marry it?\nIt is waterproof, shatterproof, proof\nAgainst fire and bombs through the roof.\nBelieve me, they’ll bury you in it.\n\nNow your head, excuse me, is empty.\nI have the ticket for that.\nCome here, sweetie, out of the closet.\nWell, what do you think of _that?_\nNaked as paper to start\n\nBut in twenty-five years she’ll be silver,\nIn fifty, gold.\nA living doll, everywhere you look.\nIt can sew, it can cook,\nIt can talk, talk, talk.\n\nIt works, there is nothing wrong with it.\nYou have a hole, it’s a poultice.\nYou have an eye, it’s an image.\nMy boy, it’s your last resort.\nWill you marry it, marry it, marry it.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1963 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -79700,10 +82347,10 @@ "title": "“Ariel”", "body": "Stasis in darkness.\nThen the substanceless blue\nPour of tor and distances.\n\nGod’s lioness,\nHow one we grow,\nPivot of heels and knees!--The furrow\n\nSplits and passes, sister to\nThe brown arc\nOf the neck I cannot catch,\n\nNigger-eye\nBerries cast dark\nHooks--\n\nBlack sweet blood mouthfuls,\nShadows.\nSomething else\n\nHauls me through air--\nThighs, hair;\nFlakes from my heels.\n\nWhite\nGodiva, I unpeel--\nDead hands, dead stringencies.\n\nAnd now I\nFoam to wheat, a glitter of seas.\nThe child’s cry\n\nMelts in the wall.\nAnd I\nAm the arrow,\n\nThe dew that flies\nSuicidal, at one with the drive\nInto the red\n\nEye, the cauldron of morning.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1960 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -79711,10 +82358,10 @@ "title": "“The Babysitters”", "body": "It is ten years, now, since we rowed to Children’s Island.\nThe sun flamed straight down that noon on the water off Marblehead.\nThat summer we wore black glasses to hide our eyes.\nWe were always crying, in our spare rooms, little put-upon sisters,\nIn the two, huge, white, handsome houses in Swampscott.\nWhen the sweetheart from England appeared, with her cream skin and Yardley cosmetics,\nI had to sleep in the same room with the baby on a too-short cot,\nAnd the seven-year-old wouldn’t go out unless his jersey stripes\nMatched the stripes of his socks.\n\nOr it was richness!--eleven rooms and a yacht\nWith a polished mahogany stair to let into the water\nAnd a cabin boy who could decorate cakes in six-colored frosting.\nBut I didn’t know how to cook, and babies depressed me.\nNights, I wrote in my diary spitefully, my fingers red\nWith triangular scorch marks from ironing tiny ruchings and puffed sleeves.\nWhen the sporty wife and her doctor husband went on one of their cruises\nThey left me a borrowed maid named Ellen, “for protection,”\nAnd a small Dalmation.\n\nIn your house, the main house, you were better off.\nYou had a rose garden and a guest cottage and a model apothecary shop\nAnd a cook and a maid, and knew about the key to the bourbon.\nI remember you playing “Ja-Da” in a pink piquĂ© dress\nOn the game-room piano, when the “big people” were out,\nAnd the maid smoked and shot pool under a green shaded lamp.\nThe cook had one walleye and couldn’t sleep, she was so nervous.\nOn trial, from Ireland, she burned batch after batch of cookies\nTill she was fired.\n\nO what has come over us, my sister!\nOn that day-off the two of us cried so hard to get\nWe lifted a sugared ham and a pineapple from the grownups’ icebox\nAnd rented an old green boat. I rowed. You read\nAloud, cross-legged on the stern seat, from the Generation of Vipers.\nSo we bobbed out to the island. It was deserted--\nA gallery of creaking porches and still interiors,\nStopped and awful as a photograph of somebody laughing\nBut ten years dead.\n\nThe bold gulls dove as if they owned it all.\nWe picked up sticks of driftwood and beat them off,\nThen stepped down the steep beach shelf and into the water.\nWe kicked and talked. The thick salt kept us up.\nI see us floating there yet, inseparable--two cork dolls.\nWhat keyhole have we slipped through, what door has shut?\nThe shadows of the grasses inched round like hands of a clock,\nAnd from our opposite continents we wave and call.\nEverything has happened.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1961 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -79725,10 +82372,10 @@ "title": "“Blackberrying”", "body": "Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,\nBlackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,\nA blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea\nSomewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries\nBig as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes\nEbon in the hedges, fat\nWith blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.\nI had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.\nThey accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.\n\nOverhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks--\nBits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.\nTheirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.\nI do not think the sea will appear at all.\nThe high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.\nI come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,\nHanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.\nThe honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.\nOne more hook, and the berries and bushes end.\n\nThe only thing to come now is the sea.\nFrom between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,\nSlapping its phantom laundry in my face.\nThese hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.\nI follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me\nTo the hills’ northern face, and the face is orange rock\nThat looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space\nOf white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths\nBeating and beating at an intractable metal.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1960 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -79739,10 +82386,10 @@ "title": "“The Colossus”", "body": "I shall never get you put together entirely,\nPieced, glued, and properly jointed.\nMule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles\nProceed from your great lips.\nIt’s worse than a barnyard.\n\nPerhaps you consider yourself an oracle,\nMouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.\nThirty years now I have labored\nTo dredge the silt from your throat.\nI am none the wiser.\n\nScaling little ladders with glue pots and pails of lysol\nI crawl like an ant in mourning\nOver the weedy acres of your brow\nTo mend the immense skull plates and clear\nThe bald, white tumuli of your eyes.\n\nA blue sky out of the Oresteia\nArches above us. O father, all by yourself\nYou are pithy and historical as the Roman Forum.\nI open my lunch on a hill of black cypress.\nYour fluted bones and acanthine hair are littered\n\nIn their old anarchy to the horizon-line.\nIt would take more than a lightning-stroke\nTo create such a ruin.\nNights, I squat in the cornucopia\nOf your left ear, out of the wind,\n\nCounting the red stars and those of plum-color.\nThe sun rises under the pillar of your tongue.\nMy hours are married to shadow.\nNo longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel\nOn the blank stones of the landing.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -79761,10 +82408,10 @@ "title": "“Daddy”", "body": "You do not do, you do not do\nAny more, black shoe\nIn which I have lived like a foot\nFor thirty years, poor and white,\nBarely daring to breathe or Achoo.\n\nDaddy, I have had to kill you.\nYou died before I had time--\nMarble-heavy, a bag full of God,\nGhastly statue with one gray toe\nBig as a Frisco seal\n\nAnd a head in the freakish Atlantic\nWhere it pours bean green over blue\nIn the waters off beautiful Nauset.\nI used to pray to recover you.\nAch, du.\n\nIn the German tongue, in the Polish town\nScraped flat by the roller\nOf wars, wars, wars.\nBut the name of the town is common.\nMy Polack friend\n\nSays there are a dozen or two.\nSo I never could tell where you\nPut your foot, your root,\nI never could talk to you.\nThe tongue stuck in my jaw.\n\nIt stuck in a barb wire snare.\nIch, ich, ich, ich,\nI could hardly speak.\nI thought every German was you.\nAnd the language obscene\n\nAn engine, an engine\nChuffing me off like a Jew.\nA Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.\nI began to talk like a Jew.\nI think I may well be a Jew.\n\nThe snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna\nAre not very pure or true.\nWith my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck\nAnd my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack\nI may be a bit of a Jew.\n\nI have always been scared of _you,_\nWith your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.\nAnd your neat mustache\nAnd your Aryan eye, bright blue.\nPanzer-man, panzer-man, O You--\n\nNot God but a swastika\nSo black no sky could squeak through.\nEvery woman adores a Fascist,\nThe boot in the face, the brute\nBrute heart of a brute like you.\n\nYou stand at the blackboard, daddy,\nIn the picture I have of you,\nA cleft in your chin instead of your foot\nBut no less a devil for that, no not\nAny less the black man who\n\nBit my pretty red heart in two.\nI was ten when they buried you.\nAt twenty I tried to die\nAnd get back, back, back to you.\nI thought even the bones would do.\n\nBut they pulled me out of the sack,\nAnd they stuck me together with glue.\nAnd then I knew what to do.\nI made a model of you,\nA man in black with a Meinkampf look\n\nAnd a love of the rack and the screw.\nAnd I said I do, I do.\nSo daddy, I’m finally through.\nThe black telephone’s off at the root,\nThe voices just can’t worm through.\n\nIf I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two--\nThe vampire who said he was you\nAnd drank my blood for a year,\nSeven years, if you want to know.\nDaddy, you can lie back now.\n\nThere’s a stake in your fat black heart\nAnd the villagers never liked you.\nThey are dancing and stamping on you.\nThey always _knew_ it was you.\nDaddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1960 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -79772,11 +82419,11 @@ "title": "“The Death of Myth-Making”", "body": "Two virtues ride, by stallion, by nag,\nTo grind our knives and scissors:\nLantern-jawed Reason, squat Common Sense,\nOne courting doctors of all sorts,\nOne, housewives and shopkeepers.\n\nThe trees are lopped, the poodles trim,\nThe laborer’s nails pared level\nSince those two civil servants set\nTheir whetstone to the blunted edge\nAnd minced the muddling devil\n\nWhose owl-eyes in the scraggly wood\nScared mothers to miscarry,\nDrove the dogs to cringe and whine,\nAnd turned the farmboy’s temper wolfish,\nThe housewife’s, desultory.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1959, "month": "september" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -79787,10 +82434,10 @@ "title": "“Dream with Clam-Diggers”", "body": "This dream budded bright with leaves around the edges,\nIts clear air winnowed by angels; she was come\nBack to her early sea-town home\nScathed, stained after tedious pilgrimages.\n\nBarefoot, she stood, in shock of that returning,\nBeside a neighbor’s house\nWith shingles burnished as glass,\nBlinds lowered on that hot morning.\n\nNo change met her: garden terrace, all summer\nTanged by melting tar,\nSloped seaward to plunge in blue; fed by white fire,\nThe whole scene flared welcome to this roamer.\n\nHigh against heaven, gulls went wheeling soundless\nOver tidal-fats where three children played\nSilent and shining on a green rock bedded in mud,\nTheir fabulous heyday endless.\n\nWith green rock gliding, a delicate schooner\nDecked forth in cockle-shells,\nThey sailed till tide foamed round their ankles\nAnd the fair ship sank, its crew knelled home for dinner.\n\nPlucked back thus sudden to that far innocence,\nShe, in her shabby travel garb, began\nWalking eager toward water, when there, one by one,\nClam-diggers rose up out of dark slime at her offense.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -79801,11 +82448,11 @@ "title": "“Eavesdropper”", "body": "Your brother will trim my hedges!\nThey darken your house,\nNosey grower,\nMole on my shoulder,\nTo be scratched absently,\nTo bleed, if it comes to that.\nThe stain of the tropics\nStill urinous on you, a sin,\nA kind of bush-stink.\n\nYou may be local,\nBut that yellow!\nGodawful!\nYour body one\nLong nicotine-finger\nOn which I,\nWhite cigarette,\nBurn, for your inhalation,\nDriving the dull cells wild.\n\nLet me roost in you!\nMy distractions, my pallors.\nLet them start the queer alchemy\nThat melts the skin\nGrey tallow, from bone and bone.\nSo I saw your much sicker\nPredecessor wrapped up,\nA six and a half foot wedding cake.\nAnd he was not even malicious.\n\nDo not think I don’t notice your curtain--\nMidnight, four o’clock,\nLit (you are reading),\nTarting with the drafts that pass,\nLittle whore tongue,\nChenille beckoner,\nBeckoning my words in--\nThe zoo yowl, the mad soft\nMirror talk you love to catch me at.\n\nHow you jumped when I jumped on you\nArms folded, ear cocked,\nToad-yellow under the drop\nThat would not, would not drop\nIn a desert of cow people\nTrundling their udders home\nTo the electric milker, the wifey, the big blue eye\nThat watches, like God, or the sky\nThe ciphers that watch it.\n\nO yellow\nWeasel unable\nTo rearrange the bitchy starvation, the dust lust!\nI had you hooked.\nI called. You crawled out,\nA weather figure, boggling,\nChink-yellow, Belge troll,\nThe Low Church smile\nSpreading itself, bad butter.\n\nThis is what I am in for!\nYour bone plates,\nYour creaky biscuits,\nSweater sets and treachery!\nCome to tea! Come to tea!\nI shall stuff you with pillows!\nPillow after pillow of pure silence.\nFlea body!\nEyes like mice\n\nFlicking over my property,\nLevering letter flaps,\nScrutinizing the fly\nOf the man’s pants\nDead on the chair back,\nOpening the fat smiles, the eyes\nOf two babies\nTust to make sure--\nToad-stone! Sister bitch! Sweet neighbor!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1963, "month": "august" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -79816,10 +82463,10 @@ "title": "“Edge”", "body": "The woman is perfected.\nHer dead\n\nBody wears the smile of accomplishment,\nThe illusion of a Greek necessity\n\nFlows in the scrolls of her toga,\nHer bare\n\nFeet seem to be saying:\nWe have come so far, it is over.\n\nEach dead child coiled, a white serpent,\nOne at each little\n\nPitcher of milk, now empty.\nShe has folded\n\nThem back into her body as petals\nOf a rose close when the garden\n\nStiffens and odors bleed\nFrom the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.\n\nThe moon has nothing to be sad about,\nStaring from her hood of bone.\n\nShe is used to this sort of thing.\nHer blacks crackle and drag.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1960 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -79827,11 +82474,11 @@ "title": "“Ella Mason and Her Eleven Cats”", "body": "Old Ella Mason keeps cats, eleven at last count,\nIn her ramshackle house off Somerset Terrace;\nPeople make queries\nOn seeing our neighbor’s cat-haunt,\nSaying: “Something’s addled in a woman who accommodates\nThat many cats.”\n\nRum and red-faced as a watermelon, her voice\nLong gone to wheeze and seed, Ella Mason\nFor no good reason\nPlays hostess to tabby, tom and increase,\nWith cream and chicken-gut feasting the palates\nOf finical cats.\n\nVillage stories go that in olden days\nElla flounced about minx-thin and haughty,\nA fashionable beauty\nSlaying the dandies with her emerald eyes;\nNow, run to fat, she’s a spinster whose door shuts\nOn all but cats.\n\nOnce we children sneaked over to spy Miss Mason\nNapping in her kitchen paved with saucers.\nOn antimacassars,\nTable-top, cupboard shelf, cats lounged brazen,\nOne gruff-timbred purr rolling from furred throats:\nSuch stentorian cats!\n\nWith poke and giggle, ready to skedaddle,\nWe peered agog through the cobwebbed door\nStraight into yellow glare\nOf guardian cats crouched round their idol,\nWhile Ella drowsed whiskered with sleek face, sly wits:\nSphinx-queen of cats.\n\n“Look! there she goes, Cat-Lady Mason!”\nWe snickered as she shambled down Somerset Terrace\nTo market for her dearies,\nMore mammoth and blowzy with every season;\n“Miss Ella’s got loony from keeping in cahoots\nWith eleven cats.”\n\nBut now turned kinder with time, we mark Miss Mason\nBlinking green-eyed and solitary\nAt girls who marry--\nDemure ones, lithe ones, needing no lesson\nThat vain jades sulk single down bridal nights,\nAccurst as wild-cats.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1957, "month": "july" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -79842,10 +82489,10 @@ "title": "“Elm”", "body": "I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root:\nIt is what you fear.\nI do not fear it: I have been there.\n\nIs it the sea you hear in me,\nIts dissatisfactions?\nOr the voice of nothing, that was your madness?\n\nLove is a shadow.\nHow you lie and cry after it\nListen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.\n\nAll night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,\nTill your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,\nEchoing, echoing.\n\nOr shall I bring you the sound of poisons?\nThis is rain now, this big hush.\nAnd this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.\n\nI have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.\nScorched to the root\nMy red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.\n\nNow I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.\nA wind of such violence\nWill tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.\n\nThe moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me\nCruelly, being barren.\nHer radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.\n\nI let her go. I let her go\nDiminished and flat, as after radical surgery.\nHow your bad dreams possess and endow me.\n\nI am inhabited by a cry.\nNightly it flaps out\nLooking, with its hooks, for something to love.\n\nI am terrified by this dark thing\nThat sleeps in me;\nAll day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.\n\nClouds pass and disperse.\nAre those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?\nIs it for such I agitate my heart?\n\nI am incapable of more knowledge.\nWhat is this, this face\nSo murderous in its strangle of branches?--\n\nIts snaky acids hiss.\nIt petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults\nThat kill, that kill, that kill.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1960 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -79853,10 +82500,10 @@ "title": "“Epitaph for Fire and Flower”", "body": "You might as well string up\nThis wave’s green peak on wire\nTo prevent fall, or anchor the fluent air\nIn quartz, as crack your skull to keep\nThese two most perishable lovers from the touch\nThat will kindle angels’ envy, scorch and drop\nTheir fond hearts charred as any match.\n\nSeek no stony camera-eye to fix\nThe passing dazzle of each face\nIn black and white, or put on ice\nMouth’s instant flare for future looks;\nStars shoot their petals, and suns run to seed,\nHowever you may sweat to hold such darling wrecks\nHived like honey in your head.\n\nNow in the crux of their vows, hang your ear\nStill as a shell: hear what an age of glass\nThese lovers prophesy to lock embrace\nSecure in museum diamond for the stare\nOf astounded generations; they wrestle\nTo conquer cinder’s kingdom in the stroke of an hour\nAnd hoard faith safe in a fossil.\n\nBut though they’d rivet sinews in rock\nAnd have every weathercock kiss hang fire\nAs if to outflame a phoenix, the moment’s spur\nDrives nimble blood too quick\nFor a wish to tether: they ride nightlong\nIn their heartbeats’ blazing wake until red cock\nPlucks bare that comet’s flowering.\n\nDawn snuffs out star’s spent wick\nEven as love’s dear fools cry evergreen,\nAnd a languor of wax congeals the vein\nNo matter how fiercely lit; staunch contracts break\nAnd recoil in the altering light: the radiant limb\nBlows ash in each lover’s eye; the ardent look\nBlackens flesh to bone and devours them.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -79879,10 +82526,10 @@ "title": "“Face Lift”", "body": "You bring me good news from the clinic,\nWhipping off your silk scarf, exhibiting the tight white\nMummy-cloths, smiling: I’m all right.\nWhen I was nine, a lime-green anesthetist\nFed me banana gas through a frog-mask. The nauseous vault\nBoomed with bad dreams and the Jovian voices of surgeons.\nThen mother swam up, holding a tin basin.\nO I was sick.\n\nThey’ve changed all that. Traveling\nNude as Cleopatra in my well-boiled hospital shift,\nFizzy with sedatives and unusually humorous,\nI roll to an anteroom where a kind man\nFists my fingers for me. He makes me feel something precious\nIs leaking from the funger-vents. At the count of two\nDarkness wipes me out like chalk on a blackboard 
\nI don’t know a thing.\n\nFor five days I lie in secret,\nTapped like a cask, the years draining into my pillow.\nEven my best friend thinks I’m in the country.\nSkin doesn’t have roots, it peels away easy as paper.\nWhen I grin, the stitches tauten. I grow backward. I’m twenty,\nBroody and in long skirts on my first husband’s sofa, my fingers\nBuried in the lambswool of the dead poodle;\nI hadn’t a cat yet.\n\nNow she’s done for, the dewlapped lady\nI watched settle, line by line, in my mirror--\nOld sock-face, sagged on a darning egg.\nThey’ve trapped her in some laboratory jar.\nLet her die there, or wither incessantly for the next fifty years,\nNodding and rocking and fingering her thin hair.\nMother to myself, I wake swaddled in gauze,\nPink and smooth as a baby.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1962 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -79893,12 +82540,12 @@ "title": "“Fever 103°”", "body": "Pure? What does it mean?\nThe tongues of hell\nAre dull, dull as the triple\n\nTongues of dull, fat Cerberus\nWho wheezes at the gate. Incapable\nOf licking clean\n\nThe aguey tendon, the sin, the sin.\nThe tinder cries.\nThe indelible smell\n\nOf a snuffed candle!\nLove, love, the low smokes roll\nFrom me like Isadora’s scarves, I’m in a fright\n\nOne scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel,\nSuch yellow sullen smokes\nMake their own element. They will not rise,\n\nBut trundle round the globe\nChoking the aged and the meek,\nThe weak\n\nHothouse baby in its crib,\nThe ghastly orchid\nHanging its hanging garden in the air,\n\nDevilish leopard!\nRadiation turned it white\nAnd killed it in an hour.\n\nGreasing the bodies of adulterers\nLike Hiroshima ash and eating in.\nThe sin. The sin.\n\nDarling, all night\nI have been flickering, off, on, off, on.\nThe sheets grow heavy as a lecher’s kiss.\n\nThree days. Three nights.\nLemon water, chicken\nWater, water make me retch.\n\nI am too pure for you or anyone.\nYour body\nHurts me as the world hurts God. I am a lantern--\n\nMy head a moon\nOf Japanese paper, my gold beaten skin\nInfinitely delicate and infinitely expensive.\n\nDoes not my heat astound you! And my light!\nAll by myself I am a huge camellia\nGlowing and coming and going, flush on flush.\n\nI think I am going up,\nI think I may rise--\nThe beads of hot metal fly, and I love, I\n\nAm a pure acetylene\nVirgin\nAttended by roses,\n\nBy kisses, by cherubim,\nBy whatever these pink things mean!\nNot you, nor him\n\nNor him, nor him\n(My selves dissolving, old whore petticoats)--\nTo Paradise.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1962, "month": "october", "day": 20 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -79910,10 +82557,10 @@ "title": "“Full Fathom Five”", "body": "Old man, you surface seldom.\nThen you come in with the tide’s coming\nWhen seas wash cold, foam-\n\nCapped: white hair, white beard, far-flung,\nA dragnet, rising, falling, as waves\nCrest and trough. Miles long\n\nExtend the radial sheaves\nOf your spread hair, in which wrinkling skeins\nKnotted, caught, survives\n\nThe old myth of origins\nUnimaginable. You float near\nAs keeled ice-mountains\n\nOf the north, to be steered clear\nOf, not fathomed. All obscurity\nStarts with a danger:\n\nYour dangers are many. I\nCannot look much but your form suffers\nSome strange injury\n\nAnd seems to die: so vapors\nRavel to clearness on the dawn sea.\nThe muddy rumors\n\nOf your burial move me\nTo half-believe: your reappearance\nProves rumors shallow,\n\nFor the archaic trenched lines\nOf your grained face shed time in runnels:\nAges beat like rains\n\nOn the unbeaten channels\nOf the ocean. Such sage humor and\nDurance are whirlpools\n\nTo make away with the ground--\nWork of the earth and the sky’s ridgepole.\nWaist down, you may wind\n\nOne labyrinthine tangle\nTo root deep among knuckles, shinbones,\nSkulls. Inscrutable,\n\nBelow shoulders not once\nSeen by any man who kept his head,\nYou defy questions;\n\nYou defy godhood.\nI walk dry on your kingdom’s border\nExiled to no good.\n\nYour shelled bed I remember.\nFather, this thick air is murderous.\nI would breathe water.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1958 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -79921,10 +82568,10 @@ "title": "“Green Rock, Winthrop Bay”", "body": "No lame excuses can gloss over\nBarge-tar clotted at the tide-line, the wrecked pier.\nI should have known better.\nFifteen years between me and the bay\nProfited memory, but did away with the old scenery\nAnd patched this shoddy\nMakeshift of a view to quit\nMy promise of an idyll. The blue’s worn out:\nIt’s a niggard estate,\nInimical now. The great green rock\nWe gave good use as ship and house is black\nWith tarry muck\nAnd periwinkles, shrunk to common\nSize. The cries of scavenging gulls sound thin\nIn the traffic of planes\nFrom Logan Airport opposite.\nGulls circle gray under shadow of a steelier flight.\nLoss cancels profit.\nUnless you do this tawdry harbor\nA service and ignore it, I go a liar\nGilding what’s eyesore,\nOr must take loophole and blame time\nFor the rock’s dwarfed lump, for the drabbled scum,\nFor a churlish welcome.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1959 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -79935,10 +82582,10 @@ "title": "“Lady Lazarus”", "body": "I have done it again.\nOne year in every ten\nI manage it--\n\nA sort of walking miracle, my skin\nBright as a Nazi lampshade,\nMy right foot\n\nA paperweight,\nMy face a featureless, fine\nJew linen.\n\nPeel off the napkin\nO my enemy.\nDo I terrify?--\n\nThe nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?\nThe sour breath\nWill vanish in a day.\n\nSoon, soon the flesh\nThe grave cave ate will be\nAt home on me\n\nAnd I a smiling woman.\nI am only thirty.\nAnd like the cat I have nine times to die.\n\nThis is Number Three.\nWhat a trash\nTo annihilate each decade.\n\nWhat a million filaments.\nThe peanut-crunching crowd\nShoves in to see\n\nThem unwrap me hand and foot--\nThe big strip tease.\nGentlemen, ladies\n\nThese are my hands\nMy knees.\nI may be skin and bone,\n\nNevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.\nThe first time it happened I was ten.\nIt was an accident.\n\nThe second time I meant\nTo last it out and not come back at all.\nI rocked shut\n\nAs a seashell.\nThey had to call and call\nAnd pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.\n\nDying\nIs an art, like everything else.\nI do it exceptionally well.\n\nI do it so it feels like hell.\nI do it so it feels real.\nI guess you could say I’ve a call.\n\nIt’s easy enough to do it in a cell.\nIt’s easy enough to do it and stay put.\nIt’s the theatrical\n\nComeback in broad day\nTo the same place, the same face, the same brute\nAmused shout:\n\n‘A miracle!’\nThat knocks me out.\nThere is a charge\n\nFor the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge\nFor the hearing of my heart--\nIt really goes.\n\nAnd there is a charge, a very large charge\nFor a word or a touch\nOr a bit of blood\n\nOr a piece of my hair or my clothes.\nSo, so, Herr Doktor.\nSo, Herr Enemy.\n\nI am your opus,\nI am your valuable,\nThe pure gold baby\n\nThat melts to a shriek.\nI turn and burn.\nDo not think I underestimate your great concern.\n\nAsh, ash--\nYou poke and stir.\nFlesh, bone, there is nothing there--\n\nA cake of soap,\nA wedding ring,\nA gold filling.\n\nHerr God, Herr Lucifer\nBeware\nBeware.\n\nOut of the ash\nI rise with my red hair\nAnd I eat men like air.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1960 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -79949,11 +82596,11 @@ "title": "“A Lesson in Vengeance”", "body": "In the dour ages\nOf drafty cells and draftier castles,\nOf dragons breathing without the frame of fables,\nSaint and king unfisted obstruction’s knuckles\nBy no miracle or majestic means,\n\nBut by such abuses\nAs smack of spite and the overscrupulous\nTwisting of thumbscrews: one soul tied in sinews,\nOne white horse drowned, and all the unconquered pinnacles\nOf God’s city and Babylon’s\n\nMust wait, while here Suso’s\nHand hones his tacks and needles,\nScourging to sores his own red sluices\nFor the relish of heaven, relentless, dousing with prickles\nOf horsehair and lice his horny loins;\n\nWhile there irate Cyrus\nSquanders a summer and the brawn of his heroes\nTo rebuke the horse-swallowing River Gyndes:\nHe split it into three hundred and sixty trickles\nA girl could wade without wetting her shins.\n\nStill, latter-day sages,\nSmiling at this behavior, subjugating their enemies\nNeatly, nicely, by disbelief or bridges,\nNever grip, as their grandsires did, that devil who chuckles\nFrom grain of the marrow and the river-bed grains.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1959, "month": "september" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -79964,10 +82611,10 @@ "title": "“Love Letter”", "body": "Not easy to state the change you made.\nIf I’m alive now, then I was dead,\nThough, like a stone, unbothered by it,\nStaying put according to habit.\nYou didn’t just toe me an inch, no--\nNor leave me to set my small bald eye\nSkyward again, without hope, of course,\nOf apprehending blueness, or stars.\n\nThat wasn’t it. I slept, say: a snake\nMasked among black rocks as a black rock\nIn the white hiatus of winter--\nLike my neighbors, taking no pleasure\nIn the million perfectly-chiseled\nCheeks alighting each moment to melt\nMy cheek of basalt. They turned to tears,\nAngels weeping over dull natures,\nBut didn’t convince me. Those tears froze.\nEach dead head had a visor of ice.\n\nAnd I slept on like a bent finger.\nThe first thing I saw was sheer air\nAnd the locked drops rising in a dew\nLimpid as spirits. Many stones lay\nDense and expressionless round about.\nI didn’t know what to make of it.\nI shone, mica-scaled, and unfolded\nTo pour myself out like a fluid\nAmong bird feet and the stems of plants.\nI wasn’t fooled. I knew you at once.\n\nTree and stone glittered, without shadows.\nMy finger-length grew lucent as glass.\nI started to bud like a March twig:\nAn arm and a leg, an arm, a leg.\nFrom stone to cloud, so I ascended.\nNow I resemble a sort of god\nFloating through the air in my soul-shift\nPure as a pane of ice. It’s a gift.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1962 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -79978,10 +82625,10 @@ "title": "“Magnolia Shoals”", "body": "Up here among the gull cries\nwe stroll through a maze of pale\nred-mottled relics, shells, claws\n\nas if it were summer still.\nThat season has turned its back.\nThrough the green sea gardens stall,\n\nbow, and recover their look\nof the imperishable\ngardens in an antique book\n\nor tapestries on a wall,\nleaves behind us warp and lapse.\nThe late month withers, as well.\n\nBelow us a white gull keeps\nthe weed-slicked shelf for his own,\nhustles other gulls off. Crabs\n\nrove over his field of stone;\nmussels cluster blue as grapes :\nhis beak brings the harvest in.\n\nThe watercolorist grips\nhis brush in the stringent air.\nThe horizon’s bare of ships,\n\nthe beach and the rocks are bare.\nHe paints a blizzard of gulls,\nwings drumming in the winter.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1959 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -79992,11 +82639,11 @@ "title": "“Metamorphosis”", "body": "Haunched like a faun, he hooed\nfrom grove of moon-glint and fen-frost\nuntil all owls in the twigged forest\nflapped black to look and brood\non the call this man made.\n\nNo sound but a drunken coot\nlurching home along river bank;\nstars hung water-sunk, so a rank\nof double star-eyes lit\nboughs where those owls sat.\n\nAn arena of yellow eyes\nwatched the changing shape he cut,\nsaw hoof harden from foot, saw sprout\ngoat-horns; marked how god rose\nand galloped woodward in that guise.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1957, "month": "january" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january" @@ -80007,10 +82654,10 @@ "title": "“Monologue at 3 A.M.”", "body": "Better that every fiber crack\nand fury make head,\nblood drenching vivid\ncouch, carpet, floor\nand the snake-figured almanac\nvouching you are\na million green counties from here,\n\nthan to sit mute, twitching so\nunder prickling stars,\nwith stare, with curse\nblackening the time\ngoodbyes were said, trains let go,\nand I, great magnanimous fool, thus wrenched from\nmy one kingdom.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -80018,10 +82665,10 @@ "title": "“Morning Song”", "body": "Love set you going like a fat gold watch.\nThe midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry\nTook its place among the elements.\n\nOur voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.\nIn a drafty museum, your nakedness\nShadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.\n\nI’m no more your mother\nThan the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow\nEffacement at the wind’s hand.\n\nAll night your moth-breath\nFlickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:\nA far sea moves in my ear.\n\nOne cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral\nIn my Victorian nightgown.\nYour mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square\n\nWhitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try\nYour handful of notes;\nThe clear vowels rise like balloons.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1962 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -80046,10 +82693,10 @@ "title": "“Nick and the Candlestick”", "body": "I am a miner. The light burns blue.\nWaxy stalactites\nDrip and thicken, tears\n\nThe earthen womb\nExudes from its dead boredom.\nBlack bat airs\n\nWrap me, raggy shawls,\nCold homicides.\nThey weld to me like plums.\n\nOld cave of calcium\nIcicles, old echoer.\nEven the newts are white,\n\nThose holy Joes.\nAnd the fish, the fish--\nChrist! they are panes of ice,\n\nA vice of knives,\nA piranha\nReligion, drinking\n\nIts first communion out of my live toes.\nThe candle\nGulps and recovers its small altitude,\n\nIts yellows hearten.\nO love, how did you get here?\nO embryo\n\nRemembering, even in sleep,\nYour crossed position.\nThe blood blooms clean\n\nIn you, ruby.\nThe pain\nYou wake to is not yours.\n\nLove, love,\nI have hung our cave with roses,\nWith soft rugs--\n\nThe last of Victoriana.\nLet the stars\nPlummet to their dark address,\n\nLet the mercuric\nAtoms that cripple drip\nInto the terrible well,\n\nYou are the one\nSolid the spaces lean on, envious.\nYou are the baby in the barn.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1960 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -80057,11 +82704,11 @@ "title": "“On the Decline of Oracles”", "body": "_Inside a ruined temple the broken statue of a god spoke a mysterious language._\n --Giorgio de Chirico\n\nMy father kept a speckled conch\nBy two bronze bookends of ships in sail,\nAnd as I listened its cold teeth seethed\nWith voices of that ambiguous sea\nOld Böcklin missed, who held a shell\nTo hear the sea he could not hear.\nWhat the seashell spoke to his inner ear\nHe knew, but no peasants know.\n\nMy father died, and when he died\nHe willed his books and shell away;\nThe books burned up, sea took the shell,\nBut I, I keep the voices he\nSet in my ear, and in my eye\nThe sight of those blue, unseen waves\nFor which the ghost of Böcklin grieves.\nThe peasants feast and multiply\n\nAnd never need see what I see.\nIn the Temple of Broken Stones, above\nA worn curtain, rears the white head\nOf a god or madman. Nobody knows\nWhich, or dares ask. From him I have\nTomorrow’s gossip and doldrums. So much\nIs vision good for: like a persistent stitch\nIn the side, it nags, is tedious.\n\nStraddling a stool in the third-floor window-\nBooth of the Alexandra House\nOver Petty Cury, I regard\nWith some fatigue the smoky rooms\nOf the restaurant opposite; see impose\nItself on the cook at the steaming stove\nA picture of what’s going to happen. I’ve\nTo wait it out. It will come. It comes:\n\nThree barely-known men are coming up\nA stair: this veils both stove and cook.\nOne is pale, with orange hair;\nBehind glasses the second’s eyes are blurred;\nThe third walks leaning on a stick\nAnd smiling. These trivial images\nInvade the cloistral eye like pages\nFrom a gross comic strip, and toward\n\nThe happening of this happening\nThe earth turns now. In half an hour\nI shall go down the shabby stair and meet,\nComing up, those three. Worth\nLess than present, past--this future.\nWorthless such vision to eyes gone dull\nThat once descried Troy’s towers fall,\nSaw evil break out of the north.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1959, "month": "september" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -80072,11 +82719,11 @@ "title": "“On the Difficulty of Conjuring up a Dryad”", "body": "Ravening through the persistent bric-a-brac\nOf blunt pencils, rose-sprigged coffee cup,\nPostage stamps, stacked books’ clamor and yawp,\nNeighborhood cockcrow--all nature’s prodigal backtalk,\nThe vaunting mind\nSnubs impromptu spiels of wind\nAnd wrestles to impose\nIts own order on what is.\n\n“With my fantasy alone,” brags the importunate head,\nArrogant among rook-tongued spaces,\nSheep greens, finned falls, “I shall compose a Crisis\nTo stun sky black out, drive gibbering mad\nTrout, cock, ram,\nThat bulk so calm\nOn my jealous stare,\nSelf-sufficient as they are.”\n\nBut no hocus-pocus of green angels\nDamasks with dazzle the threadbare eye;\n“My trouble, doctor, is: I see a tree,\nAnd that damn scrupulous tree won’t practise wiles\nTo beguile sight:\nE.g., by cant of light\nConcoct a Daphne;\nMy tree stays tree.”\n\n“However I wrench obstinate bark and trunk\nTo my sweet will, no luminous shape\nSteps out radiant in limb, eye, lip,\nTo hoodwink the honest earth which pointblank\nSpurns such fiction\nAs nymphs; cold vision\nWill have no counterfeit\nPalmed off on it.”\n\n“No doubt now in dream-propertied fall some moon-eyed,\nStar-lucky sleight-of-hand man watches\nMy jilting lady squander coin, gold leaf stock ditches,\nAnd the affluent air go studded with seed,\nWhile this beggared brain\nHatches no fortune,\nBut from leaf, from grass,\nThieves what it has.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1957, "month": "july" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -80098,10 +82745,10 @@ "title": "“Purdah”", "body": "Jade--\nStone of the side,\nThe agonized\n\nSide of a green Adam, I\nSmile, cross-legged,\nEnigmatical,\n\nShifting my clarities.\nSo valuable!\nHow the sun polishes this shoulder!\n\nAnd should\nThe moon, my\nIndefatigable cousin\n\nRise, with her cancerous pallors,\nDragging trees--\nLittle bushy polyps,\n\nLittle nets,\nMy visibilities hide.\nI gleam like a mirror.\n\nAt this facet the bridegroom arrives.\nLord of the mirrors!\nIt is himself he guides\n\nIn among these silk\nScreens, these rustling appurtenances.\nI breathe, and the mouth\n\nVeil stirs its curtain.\nMy eye\nVeil is\n\nA concatenation of rainbows.\nI am his.\nEven in his\n\nAbsence, I\nRevolve in my\nSheath of impossibles,\n\nPriceless and quiet\nAmong these parakeets, macaws!\nO chatterers\n\nAttendants of the eyelash!\nI shall unloose\nOne feather, like the peacock.\n\nAttendants of the lip!\nI shall unloose\nOne note\n\nShattering\nThe chandelier\nOf air that all day plies\n\nIts crystals,\nA million ignorants.\nAttendants!\n\nAttendants!\nAnd at his next step\nI shall unloose\n\nI shall unloose--\nFrom the small jeweled\nDoll he guards like a heart--\n\nThe lioness,\nThe shriek in the bath,\nThe cloak of holes.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1963 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -80109,10 +82756,10 @@ "title": "“The Snowman on the Moors”", "body": "Stalemated their armies stood, with tottering banners:\nShe flung from a room\nStill ringing with bruit of insults and dishonors\n\nAnd in fury left him\nGlowering at the coal-fire: “Come find me”--her last taunt.\nHe did not come\n\nBut sat on, guarding his grim battlement.\nBy the doorstep\nHer winter-beheaded daisies, marrowless, gaunt,\n\nWarned her to keep\nIndoors with politic goodwill, not haste\nInto a landscape\n\nOf stark wind-harrowed hills and weltering mist;\nBut from the house\nShe stalked intractable as a driven ghost\n\nAcross moor snows\nPocked by rook-claw and rabbit-track: she must yet win\nHim to his knees--\n\nLet him send police and hounds to bring her in.\nNursing her rage\nThrough bare whistling heather, over stiles of black stone,\n\nTo the world’s white edge\nShe came, and called hell to subdue an unruly man\nAnd join her siege.\n\nIt was no fire-blurting fork-tailed demon\nVolcanoed hot\nFrom marble snow-heap of moor to ride that woman\n\nWith spur and knout\nDown from pride’s size: instead, a grisly-thewed\nAustere, corpse-white\n\nGiant heaved into the distance, stone-hatcheted,\nSky-high, and snow\nFloured his whirling beard, and at his tread\n\nAmbushed birds by\nDozens dropped dead in the hedges: o she felt\nNo love in his eye,\n\nWorse--saw dangling from that spike-studded belt\nLadies’ sheaved skulls:\nMournfully the dry tongues clacked their guilt:\n\n“Our wit made fools\nOf kings, unmanned kings’ sons: our masteries\nAmused court halls:\n\nFor that brag, we barnacle these iron thighs.”\nThroned in the thick\nOf a blizzard, the giant roared up with his chittering trophies.\n\nFrom brunt of axe-crack\nShe shied sideways: a white fizz! and the giant, pursuing,\nCrumbled to smoke.\n\nHumbled then, and crying,\nThe girl bent homeward, brimful of gentle talk\nAnd mild obeying.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -80123,11 +82770,11 @@ "title": "“Sow”", "body": "God knows how our neighbor managed to breed\nHis great sow:\nWhatever his shrewd secret, he kept it hid\n\nIn the same way\nHe kept the sow: impounded from public stare,\nPrize ribbon and pig show.\n\nBut one dusk our questions commended us to a tour\nThrough his lantern-lit\nMaze of barns to the lintel of the sunk sty door\n\nTo gape at it:\nBehold! no rose-and-larkspurred china suckling\nWith a penny slot\n\nFor thrifty children, nor dolt pig ripe for heckling,\nAbout to be\nGlorified for prime flesh and golden crackling\n\nIn a parsley halo;\nNor even one of the common barnyard sows,\nMire-smirched, blowzy,\n\nMunching thistle and knotweed on her snout-cruise--\nBloat tun of milk\nOn the move, hedged by a litter of feat-foot ninnies\n\nShrilling her hulk\nTo halt for a swig at the pink teats. No. This vast\nBrobdingnag bulk\n\nOf a sow lounged belly-bedded on that black compost,\nFat-rutted eyes\nDream-filmed. What a vision of ancient hoghood must\n\nThus wholly engross\nThe great grandam!--our marvel blazoned a knight\nIn glittering guise\n\nUnhorsed and shredded in the grove of combat\nBy a grisly-bristled\nBoar: fabulous enough to straddle that sow’s heat.\n\nBut our farmer whistled,\nThen, with a jocular fist thwacked the barrel nape,\nAnd the green-copse-castled\n\nPig hove, letting legend like dried mud drop,\nSlowly, grunt\nOn grunt, up in the flickering light to shape\n\nA monument\nProdigious in gluttonies as that hog whose want\nMade lean Lent\n\nOf kitchen slops and, stomaching no constraint,\nProceeded to swill\nThe seven troughed seas and every earthquaking continent.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1957, "month": "july" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -80138,10 +82785,10 @@ "title": "“Stars over the Dordogne”", "body": "Stars are dropping thick as stones into the twiggy\nPicket of trees whose silhouette is darker\nThan the dark of the sky because it is quite starless.\nThe woods are a well. The stars drop silently.\nThey seem large, yet they drop, and no gap is visible.\nNor do they send up fires where they fall\nOr any signal of distress or anxiousness.\nThey are eaten immediately by the pines.\n\nWhere I am at home, only the sparsest stars\nArrive at twilight, and then after some effort.\nAnd they are wan, dulled by much traveling.\nThe smaller and more timid never arrive at all\nBut stay, sitting far out, in their own dust.\nThey are orphans. I cannot see them. They are lost.\nBut tonight they have discovered this river with no trouble;\nThey are scrubbed and self-assured as the great planets.\n\nThe Big Dipper is my only familiar.\nI miss Orion and Cassiopeia’s Chair. Maybe they are\nHanging shyly under the studded horizon\nLike a child’s too-simple mathematical problem.\nInfinite number seems to be the issue up there.\nOr else they are present, and their disguise so bright\nI am overlooking them by looking too hard\nPerhaps it is the season that is not right.\n\nAnd what if the sky here is no different,\nAnd it is my eyes that have been sharpening themselves?\nSuch a luxury of stars would embarrass me.\nThe few I am used to are plain and durable;\nI think they would not wish for this dressy backcloth\nOr much company, or the mildness of the south\nThey are too puritan and solitary for that--\nWhen one of them falls it leaves a space,\n\nA sense of absence in its old shining place.\nAnd where I lie now, back to my own dark star,\nI see those constellations in my head,\nUnwarmed by the sweet air of this peach orchard.\nThere is too much ease here; these stars treat me too well.\nOn this hill, with its view of lit castles, each swung bell\nIs accounting for its cow. I shut my eyes\nAnd drink the small night chill like news of home.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1962 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -80152,10 +82799,10 @@ "title": "“Strumpet Song”", "body": "With white frost gone\nand all green dreams not worth much,\nafter a lean day’s work\ntime comes round for that foul slut:\nmere bruit of her takes our street\nuntil every man,\nbe he red, pale or dark,\nveers to her slouch.\n\nMark, I cry, that mouth\nmade to do violence on,\nthat seamed face\naskew with blotch, dint, scar\nstruck by each dour year;\nstalks there not some such wild man\nas can find ruth\nto patch with brand of love this rank grimace\nwhich out from black tarn, ditch and cup\ninto my most chaste own eyes\nlooks up.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -80166,10 +82813,10 @@ "title": "“Suicide off Egg Rock”", "body": "Behind him the hotdogs split and drizzled\nOn the public grills, and the ochreous salt flats,\nGas tanks, factory stacks- that landscape\nOf imperfections his bowels were part of-\nRippled and pulsed in the glassy updraught.\nSun struck the water like a damnation.\nNo pit of shadow to crawl into,\nAnd his blood beating the old tattoo\nI am, I am, I am. Children\nWere squealing where combers broke and the spindrift\nRaveled wind-ripped from the crest of the wave.\nA mongrel working his legs to a gallop\nHustled a gull flock to flap off the sandspit.\n\nHe smoldered, as if stone-deaf, blindfold,\nHis body beached with the sea’s garbage,\nA machine to breathe and beat forever.\nFlies filing in through a dead skate’s eyehole\nBuzzed and assailed the vaulted brainchamber.\nThe words in his book wormed off the pages.\nEverything glittered like blank paper.\n\nEverything shrank in the sun’s corrosive\nRay but Egg Rock on the blue wastage.\nHe heard when he walked into the water\n\nThe forgetful surf creaming on those ledges.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1959 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -80180,10 +82827,10 @@ "title": "“Tulips”", "body": "The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.\nLook how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in.\nI am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly\nAs the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.\nI am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.\nI have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses\nAnd my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.\n\nThey have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff\nLike an eye between two white lids that will not shut.\nStupid pupil, it has to take everything in.\nThe nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,\nThey pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,\nDoing things with their hands, one just the same as another,\nSo it is impossible to tell how many there are.\n\nMy body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water\nTends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.\nThey bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.\nNow I have lost myself I am sick of baggage--\nMy patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,\nMy husband and child smiling out of the family photo;\nTheir smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.\n\nI have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat\nstubbornly hanging on to my name and address.\nThey have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.\nScared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley\nI watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books\nSink out of sight, and the water went over my head.\nI am a nun now, I have never been so pure.\n\nI didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted\nTo lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.\nHow free it is, you have no idea how free--\nThe peacefulness is so big it dazes you,\nAnd it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.\nIt is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them\nShutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.\n\nThe tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.\nEven through the gift paper I could hear them breathe\nLightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.\nTheir redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.\nThey are subtle: they seem to float, though they weigh me down,\nUpsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color,\nA dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.\n\nNobody watched me before, now I am watched.\nThe tulips turn to me, and the window behind me\nWhere once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,\nAnd I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow\nBetween the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,\nAnd I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself.\nThe vivid tulips eat my oxygen.\n\nBefore they came the air was calm enough,\nComing and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.\nThen the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.\nNow the air snags and eddies round them the way a river\nSnags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.\nThey concentrate my attention, that was happy\nPlaying and resting without committing itself.\n\nThe walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.\nThe tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;\nThey are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,\nAnd I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes\nIts bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.\nThe water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,\nAnd comes from a country far away as health.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1961 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -80194,10 +82841,10 @@ "title": "“Two Sisters of Persephone”", "body": "Two girls there are: within the house\nOne sits; the other, without;\nDaylong a duet of shade and light\nPlays between these.\n\nIn her dark wainscotted room,\nThe furst works problems on\nA mathematical machine;\nDry ticks mark time\n\nAs she calculates each sum;\nAt this barren enterprise\nRat-shrewd go her squint eyes,\nRoot-pale her meager frame.\n\nBronzed as earth, the second lies,\nHearing ticks blown gold\nLike pollen on bright air; lulled\nNear a bed of poppies,\n\nShe sees how their red silk flare\nOf petalled blood\nBurns open to sun’s blade;\nOn that green altar\n\nFreely become sun’s bride, the latter\nGrows quick with seed;\nGrass-couched in her labour’s pride,\nShe bears a king. Turned bitter\n\nAnd sallow as any lemon,\nThe other, wry virgin to the last,\nGoes graveward with flesh laid waste,\nWorm-husbanded, yet no woman;\n\nInscribed above her head, these lines:\nWhile flowering, ladies, scant love not\nLest all your fruit\nBe but this black outcrop of stones.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -80219,10 +82866,10 @@ "title": "“Widow”", "body": "Widow. The word consumes itself--\nBody, a sheet of newsprint on the fire\nLevitating a numb minute in the updraft\nOver the scalding, red topography\nThat will put her heart out like an only eye.\n\nWidow. The dead syllable, with its shadow\nOf an echo, exposes the panel in the wall\nBehind which the secret passage lies--stale air,\nFusty remembrances, the coiled-spring stair\nThat opens at the top onto nothing at all\n\nWidow. The bitter spider sits\nAnd sits in the center of her loveless spokes.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1962 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -80241,10 +82888,10 @@ "title": "“Wreath for a Bridal”", "body": "What though green leaves only witness\nSuch pact as is made once only; what matter\nThat owl voice sole “yes,” while cows utter\nLow moos of approve; let sun surpliced in brightness\nStand stock still to laud these mated ones\nWhose stark act all coming double luck joins.\n\nCouched daylong in cloisters of stinging nettle\nThey lie, cut-grass assaulting each separate sense\nWith savor; coupled so, pure paragons of constance,\nThis pair seek single state from that dual battle.\nNow speak some sacrament to parry scruple\nFor wedlock wrought within love’s proper chapel.\n\nCall here with flying colors all watchful birds\nTo people the twigged aisles; lead babel tongues\nOf animals to choir: “Look what thresh of wings\nWields guard of honor over these!” Starred with words,\nLet night bless that luck-rooted mead of clover\nWhere, bedded like angels, two burn one in fever.\n\nFrom this holy day on, all pollen blown\nShall strew broadcast so rare a seed on wind\nThat every breath, thus teeming, set the land\nSprouting fruit, flowers, children most fair in legion\nTo slay spawn of dragon’s teeth: speaking this promise,\nLet flesh be knit, and each step hence go famous.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -80255,10 +82902,10 @@ "title": "“You’re”", "body": "Clownlike, happiest on your hands,\nFeet to the stars, and moon-skulled,\nGilled like a fish. A common-sense\nThumbs-down on the dodo’s mode.\nWrapped up in yourself like a spool,\nTrawling your dark as owls do.\nMute as a turnip from the Fourth\nOf July to All Fools’ Day,\nO high-riser, my little loaf.\n\nVague as fog and looked for like mail.\nFarther off than Australia.\nBent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.\nSnug as a bud and at home\nLike a sprat in a pickle jug.\nA creel of eels, all ripples.\nJumpy as a Mexican bean.\nRight, like a well-done sum.\nA clean slate, with your own face on.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1960 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -80301,11 +82948,13 @@ "title": "“Bandit”", "body": "
 I fired at a door--dismounted--ran in--a smell of herbs and sorrow--lumber-room--someone lying wounded--through a kitchen--found a red-haired peasant, right hand above his head, gun in the left with blood dripping now and then (as rain drips from leaves after a downpour)--keeping dull count of this man. “Drop that gun!” I said. Muttering, the hurt man let the gun fall in the blood--pool, gazed at it. What had I to do? Isat in the armchair, waited. The man standing before me didn’t look like a bandit, nor like a rich man either. “You sit down!” He wouldn’t. “You’re a kulak?” “No. We’re the last of the locals. Kulaks aren’t fighting.” Fear gripped me as I recalled riding down village roads full of pale unhappy people. “Your right hand isn’t hurt: why didn’t you shoot me?” “I’m left-handed 
 They said an army’s coming. I couldn’t die alone 
” My brain thundered. I caught in his words the grief of the revolution, all the alarm of the poor. “Fool,” I said to myself, “Revolution’s a force of nature. I’ve got to kill him. Grass breaks the soil just by growing. Swine!” I changed my mind and told him to go off home and he started moving backwards, staring bewitchedatmy gun (held motionless, not to scare him). So I said to him: “Please stop being frightened. Just go away 
” Then he went.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -80313,11 +82962,13 @@ "title": "“End of the Old”", "body": "Sorrow lay helpless over the town\nas when a dead mother is carried away\nand everything mourns her--fences, plants,\nthe abandoned porch, and a little boy\ncrying in a dark, extinguished world.\n\nAll of the wet and fallen strength\nof the tired sky had been quite used up\nby tall weeds for their food and rebirth,\nand the wind had come down with the rain to lie\nhidden in cramped places of grass.\n\nIn childhood there are nights like this--\nempty and stopped, when inside your chest\na dried-up narrow stream, like a rough\nworm, stretches from stomach to neck,\nmaking your heart twitch with need.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -80325,11 +82976,13 @@ "title": "“Evening”", "body": "In the world the time was like an evening\nand in the man it seemed an evening too,\na time for adulthood, a time for feeling\nregret or a happy calm.\n\nHis father, once, deep in his own life’s evening,\ntied his feet and sank under the foam,\nwanting to see the morning of the future\nbefore his time.\n\nNow another evening was beginning,\nBells thinly rang in rain and it could seem\nthe evening of that very day whose dawn lay\nin the lake.\n\nThe father’s plunge and drown in hope was over.\nInstead the son, his head bared to the rain,\nlived again the evening of the morning,\nfor that long day was gone.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -80337,11 +82990,13 @@ "title": "“The Fisherman’s Grave”", "body": "I knew a fisherman once who fished in Lake Mutevo. He was filled with curiosity. He’d ask everyone about death: what was it? It seemed to him only the fish could know. He loved them, net for their sweet flesh but for their secret. He used to point to the face of a dead fish: “Look how wise! Why doesn’t a fish speak, and why are her eyes so blank?--It’s because she stands halfway between life and death. A calf thinks, but a fish already knows.” For years he stared at the lake and thought only how interesting death must be. “Nothing’s there, Mitya,” I’d say, “but cramped space, you won’t be able to breathe.” Yet full of impatience, one fine day, he fastened a rope around his feet and flung himself from his fishing-boat into the deep: Now Mitya never believed in death. He’d only wanted to take a look--it might be far better than village life on the shores of a lake, itmight be a new province lying beneath the sky as though at the bottom of cool water. “T’ll just go and stay there a little while,” he said. Some argued, others agreed--“Why not?” they said, “Give it a try, tell us about it when you come back.” Three days later they pulled him out and buried him by the churchyard fence.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -80349,11 +83004,13 @@ "title": "“Gopner”", "body": "“What is it I want?\nMy father wanted\nto see the Lord God with his own two eyes.\nBut me? I only\nwant some bare\nplace, well just a spare place, damn it!\nwhere, depending on my brain,\nthe whole world can be made again.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -80361,11 +83018,13 @@ "title": "“Hunger”", "body": "How hungry they were, those who travelled the steppe\nfor days and days, standing asleep, in untimetabled\ntrains that stopped in unpeopled stations for days\non end--travelling to look for food, for food,\n\nfor food, and something to drink, in that time of war,\nand often didn’t find it but died and died\nand died as they stood, like dog-bitten horses in yards,\ncollapsing comradely on to each other, while stil\n\ndreaming of--long ago--the transparent vodka,\n“God’s very air,” so pure, “like a woman’s tears,”\nsluicing the column of good food inside the body\nlike a last unconsciousness after feasting.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -80373,11 +83032,13 @@ "title": "“In the Beginning”", "body": "
 but when I looked again between the lines\na man appeared, his sharp face blocked by shade,\nwho lived on nothing, slept out in the wild,\nand sought for nothing, only hoped to find\nthe invisible rotation of the earth,\nthen make a clock that worked by it.\nHe made delicate ships, dirigibles and towers\nfrom shreds of wire and scraps of roofing-iron\n\nand watched the silent companies of ants,\nso impeccably equipped--their trees were grass\nand they had warmth of life and tender streets.\nHe heard the church clock tolling through the night\nup to the singing spacious rains of dawn\nbut seldom spoke--all human speech\nwent unnoticed by him like the noise\nof forest leaves to those who live in forests.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -80385,11 +83046,13 @@ "title": "“Newcomers”", "body": "Shapes of people coming down\nin darkness from the ancient mound,\ntheir faces grey as a wan sky\nbefore dawn, their bare feet slow\nas though they waded through dry snow.\n\nOrphans all, they sank to the town,\nand they were so destitute they found\na tenuous happiness in possessing\nthe touch of bodies of strangers, pressing\nclose to their skin like a wife or cousin.\n\nOne man tenderly picked out fleas\nfrom the head of a stumbling man in front.\nAnother, seeing how a boy reached\nback to an itch, reached forward to scratch.\nA third kept his hand on an old man’s shoulder.\n\nSo they came down, half-blind from hunger,\npatience and pain, to the town of the future.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -80397,11 +83060,13 @@ "title": "“Old Man”", "body": "“Spiderweb and light thin spider-corpses\nare sinking down to the floor to disintegrate\nin unrecognisable dust. Everywhere\nparticles lie scattered, shards of things\nonce cherished, once the darlings of their children,\n chipped-off scraps--perhaps of human people,\nor beetles or the nameless gnats of the earth.\n\nO if a body, though it’s dead, could remain\nwhole, we’d hold it, we’d remember it.\nInstead, winds blow and endless waters flow\nand all things break and cannot keep their shape,\nand fall to dust. Whoever dies has died\nfor nothing, nor can any of those who lived\never be found again. They are all lost.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -80409,11 +83074,13 @@ "title": "“Runner”", "body": "“Rivers flow, winds blow, a fish swims,\nyet here you sit as the light dims, half-awake,\ngrowing stiff and rusty with corrosive grief--\nShift, shift those old limbs, make them go.\nWinds will blow thought’s quake into you.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -80421,11 +83088,13 @@ "title": "“Shooting the Bourgeois”", "body": "Quiet steam came out of the head, and, showing through hair, a damp maternal candle-wax. But the bourgeois failed to fall, he sat down on his homely bundle. “Wife, swaddle my neck,” he said, “my soul is leaking out of my throat,” and fell from the bundle to hug the earth with flung-out arms and legs as if the earth were his wife.\n\nAll the dumb bourgeois now started to drop sideways, wrenching their spines, and they lost their legs’ strength in advance of the wound so the bullet entered randomly to be overgrown with living flesh. Lying on the ground with diminished body, one begged his gunman: “Dear human being, allow me to breathe, bring me my woman to say goodbye, or else--give--quick--your hand--and stay, I’m scared.” But he didn’t wait for the hand, he grasped a burdock for help, giving up to the plant his unfinished life, and didn’t let go til need for a woman’s farewell vanished. Then his arms fell down, foregoing friendship. So, with a bullet inside him the bourgeois desires, no less than the proletarian, a comrade? Yet without a bullet there’s nothing he loves but money and goods!\n\nThus the job was done and now in the world there was no proletarian more poor than the dead. By dawn the bundles and al the corpses were tipped in a pit, and the killed men’s wives, who hadn’t yet dared to come up close but had watched the work, from every street of the town came up to that flattened place. “Weep!” the _chekĂĄ_ advised, going off to get some sleep, being quite tired out. The wives lay down on the clay clods of the smooth and traceless grave. But the night had been very cold and their grief had been grieved right through to its end and gone out of them, and the dead men’s wives could no longer weep.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -80433,11 +83102,13 @@ "title": "“Sleep”", "body": "Asleep, you’re trying to remember something.\nThe trying is heavier than the thing to remember.\nWhich disappears--just when your mind\nbegins to turn. Like a bird from a wheel.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -80445,11 +83116,13 @@ "title": "“Start of the New”", "body": "A man went out and saw\nthe town of immense hope,\nopen, cool, lit\nby a grey shine from the far--\naway unrisen sun.\n\nGrass stil grew, paths\nlay intact, dawn--\nlight flourished in space,\nslowly undoing the gloom.\nHe said: “The sun will be ours!”\n\nNow sun leant into earth\ntil it ran with sap of stems,\ndamp of loam, stirred\nwith hair of the widespread steppe.\nAnd the sun burned, strained\n\nwith patience, became stone.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -80457,11 +83130,13 @@ "title": "“Vacancy”", "body": "Sad summer darkness covered\nthe frightening, vacant town.\n\nWith careful heart a man\nclosed wide gates.\n\nWhere were all the dogs?\n\nOnly ancient burdock\nand the kindly goosefoot\nlived on in the yards.\n\nEven the cows had vanished.\n\nAnd now, for the first time in centuries,\nno one was lying asleep in the houses.\n\nLife itself had renounced this place\nand gone away to die\nin the wild grass of the steppe.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -80472,11 +83147,13 @@ "title": "“The Wanderer”", "body": "In the world are distant roads,\nA field and a quiet mother,\nProfound dark nights--\nTogether we wait for no one.\nYou will open to a wanderer at midnight,\nA friend forgotten will come in.\nYou won’t hide your secret soul,\nThe wanderer will see and understand.\nThe sky is high and quiet,\nStars are radiant with centuries.\nIn the field is neither a wind, nor a cry,\nNor a lonely white willow.\nWe will go out with the last star\nTo search for our grandfather’s truth 
\nThe centuries will depart in sequence.\nAnd it’s not for us to understand even the grass.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Albert C. Todd", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1955 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Albert C. Todd" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -80487,11 +83164,13 @@ "title": "“Weeds”", "body": "Doomed are the pitiful weeds in the millet.\nWild and dislocate--clover, melilot,\ncornflowers, prettier than pallid corn-stalks,\nsoft as the colourful eyes of sorrowful\nchildren about to perish. Pitiless\npeasant women will rip their roots out,\nbending and sweating. Yet these plants are\nbrighter with life and patience than your\nfeebler grasses. The weeders gone,\nweeds are reborn--immortal, numberless.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -80499,11 +83178,13 @@ "title": "“Worms”", "body": "He paced the sunlit yard and couldn’t stop\nthinking how human beings derive from worms,\nand worms are dreadful, simple tubes: inside them--\nstench, emptiness, darkness: nothing.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Angela Livingstone", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Angela Livingstone" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -80546,8 +83227,10 @@ "title": "“Ah, why do your eyes occasionally 
”", "body": "Ah, why do your eyes occasionally\nGaze at me so severely\nAnd why torture my soul with distress\nFrom your cold, unaffectionate gaze,\n\nFrom your cold, unaffectionate gaze?\n\nWithout a smile and in proud silence\nYou go like a shadow before me,\nAnd, in spirit, having concealed the suffering,\nI jealously follow after you.\n\nJealously follow after you.\n\nYou with your love brighten\nAs in spring my sad days\nCaress me, as you used to,\nDrive away my grief with affection.\n\nCaress me, as you used to,\nDrive away my grief with affection.\nWhy do your eyes occasionally\nGaze at me so severely, so severely?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Erin Franklin", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Erin Franklin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -80558,11 +83241,13 @@ "title": "“Before thee lies a broad new way 
”", "body": "Before thee lies a broad new way.\nAccept then my greeting, not loud, but hearty:\nMay thy bosom be, as it was, warmed\nWith love of thy fellow-man, with love of the eternal truth.\n\nMayst thou not lose in the hard struggle with evil,\nAll of which at present thy soul is so full;\nAnd the life-giving lamp of faith and love\nMay the wave of life not extinguish in thee.\n\nRaising thy forehead, go with unfaltering step:\nGo, preserving in thy soul thy pure ideal,\nThe tears of the sufferers answering with a tear,\nAnd comforting those in the struggle who have lost courage.\n\nAnd if in old age, in the sorrowful hour of reflection,\nThou wilt say: “In the world I left a good footprint,\nAnd I can meet calmly the parting moment 
”\nThou wilt be happy, friend: there is no other happiness.", "metadata": { - "translator": "B. A. Rudzinsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1855 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "B. A. Rudzinsky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -80573,11 +83258,13 @@ "title": "“The Christ-Child and the Hebrew Children”", "body": "The Christ-child had a garden,\nAnd many roses He planted therein;\nHe had three times a day watered them,\nIn order to weave for Himself a garland later on.\n\nWhen those roses were in full bloom,\nHe called the Hebrew children;\nThey plucked off every flower,\nAnd the whole garden was devastated.\n\n--“How wilt Thou weave a garland for Thyself?\nIn Thy garden there are no more roses!”\n--“You forgot that the thorns\nRemained for Me,” said Christ.\n\nAnd from the thorns they wove\nA spiny garland for Him--\nAnd drops of blood, instead of roses,\nAdorned His brow.", "metadata": { - "translator": "B. A. Rudzinsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1877 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "B. A. Rudzinsky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -80591,13 +83278,26 @@ "name": "Joseph Mary Plunkett", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1887 + "year": 1887, + "month": "november", + "day": 21 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Dublin", + "country": "Ireland" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1916 - } + "year": 1916, + "month": "may", + "day": 4 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Dublin", + "country": "Ireland" + }, + "cause": "execution" }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ @@ -80605,7 +83305,7 @@ ], "education": null, "movement": [], - "religion": null, + "religion": "Catholic", "nationality": [ "ireland" ], @@ -80733,10 +83433,10 @@ "title": "“Al Aaraaf”", "body": "# I.\n\nO! nothing earthly save the ray\n(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty’s eye,\nAs in those gardens where the day\nSprings from the gems of Circassy--\nO! nothing earthly save the thrill\nOf melody in woodland rill--\nOr (music of the passion-hearted)\nJoy’s voice so peacefully departed\nThat like the murmur in the shell,\nIts echo dwelleth and will dwell--\nO! nothing of the dross of ours--\nYet all the beauty--all the flowers\nThat list our Love, and deck our bowers--\nAdorn yon world afar, afar--\nThe wandering star.\n\n’Twas a sweet time for Nesace--for there\nHer world lay lolling on the golden air,\nNear four bright suns--a temporary rest--\nAn oasis in desert of the blest.\nAway away--’mid seas of rays that roll\nEmpyrean splendor o’er th’ unchained soul--\nThe soul that scarce (the billows are so dense)\nCan struggle to its destin’d eminence--\nTo distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,\nAnd late to ours, the favour’d one of God--\nBut, now, the ruler of an anchor’d realm,\nShe throws aside the sceptre--leaves the helm,\nAnd, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,\nLaves in quadruple light her angel limbs.\n\nNow happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth,\nWhence sprang the “Idea of Beauty” into birth,\n(Falling in wreaths thro’ many a startled star,\nLike woman’s hair ’mid pearls, until, afar,\nIt lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt),\nShe look’d into Infinity--and knelt.\nRich clouds, for canopies, about her curled--\nFit emblems of the model of her world--\nSeen but in beauty--not impeding sight--\nOf other beauty glittering thro’ the light--\nA wreath that twined each starry form around,\nAnd all the opal’d air in color bound.\n\nAll hurriedly she knelt upon a bed\nOf flowers: of lilies such as rear’d the head\nOn the fair Capo Deucato, and sprang\nSo eagerly around about to hang\nUpon the flying footsteps of--deep pride--\nOf her who lov’d a mortal--and so died.\nThe Sephalica, budding with young bees,\nUprear’d its purple stem around her knees:\nAnd gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam’d--\nInmate of highest stars, where erst it sham’d\nAll other loveliness: its honied dew\n(The fabled nectar that the heathen knew)\nDeliriously sweet, was dropp’d from Heaven,\nAnd fell on gardens of the unforgiven\nIn Trebizond--and on a sunny flower\nSo like its own above that, to this hour,\nIt still remaineth, torturing the bee\nWith madness, and unwonted reverie:\nIn Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf\nAnd blossom of the fairy plant, in grief\nDisconsolate linger--grief that hangs her head,\nRepenting follies that full long have fled,\nHeaving her white breast to the balmy air,\nLike guilty beauty, chasten’d, and more fair:\nNyctanthes too, as sacred as the light\nShe fears to perfume, perfuming the night:\nAnd Clytia pondering between many a sun,\nWhile pettish tears adown her petals run:\nAnd that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth--\nAnd died, ere scarce exalted into birth,\nBursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing\nIts way to Heaven, from garden of a king:\nAnd Valisnerian lotus thither flown\nFrom struggling with the waters of the Rhone:\nAnd thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante!\nIsola d’oro!--Fior di Levante!\nAnd the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever\nWith Indian Cupid down the holy river--\nFair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given\nTo bear the Goddess’ song, in odors, up to Heaven:\n\n“Spirit! that dwellest where,\nIn the deep sky,\nThe terrible and fair,\nIn beauty vie!\nBeyond the line of blue--\nThe boundary of the star\nWhich turneth at the view\nOf thy barrier and thy bar--\nOf the barrier overgone\nBy the comets who were cast\nFrom their pride, and from their throne\nTo be drudges till the last--\nTo be carriers of fire\n(The red fire of their heart)\nWith speed that may not tire\nAnd with pain that shall not part--\nWho livest--_that_ we know--\nIn Eternity--we feel--\nBut the shadow of whose brow\nWhat spirit shall reveal?\nTho’ the beings whom thy Nesace,\nThy messenger hath known\nHave dream’d for thy Infinity\nA model of their own--\nThy will is done, O God!\nThe star hath ridden high\nThro’ many a tempest, but she rode\nBeneath thy burning eye;\nAnd here, in thought, to thee--\nIn thought that can alone\nAscend thy empire and so be\nA partner of thy throne--\nBy winged Fantasy,\n My embassy is given,\nTill secrecy shall knowledge be\nIn the environs of Heaven.”\n\nShe ceas’d--and buried then her burning cheek\nAbash’d, amid the lilies there, to seek\nA shelter from the fervor of His eye;\nFor the stars trembled at the Deity.\nShe stirr’d not--breath’d not--for a voice was there\nHow solemnly pervading the calm air!\nA sound of silence on the startled ear\nWhich dreamy poets name “the music of the sphere.”\nOurs is a world of words: Quiet we call\n“Silence”--which is the merest word of all.\n\nAll Nature speaks, and ev’n ideal things\nFlap shadowy sounds from the visionary wings--\nBut ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high\nThe eternal voice of God is passing by,\nAnd the red winds are withering in the sky!\n“What tho’ in worlds which sightless cycles run,\nLink’d to a little system, and one sun--\nWhere all my love is folly, and the crowd\nStill think my terrors but the thunder cloud,\nThe storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath\n(Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?)\nWhat tho’ in worlds which own a single sun\nThe sands of time grow dimmer as they run,\nYet thine is my resplendency, so given\nTo bear my secrets thro’ the upper Heaven.\nLeave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly,\nWith all thy train, athwart the moony sky--\nApart--like fire-flies in Sicilian night,\nAnd wing to other worlds another light!\nDivulge the secrets of thy embassy\nTo the proud orbs that twinkle--and so be\nTo ev’ry heart a barrier and a ban\nLest the stars totter in the guilt of man!”\n\nUp rose the maiden in the yellow night,\nThe single-mooned eve!--on earth we plight\nOur faith to one love--and one moon adore--\nThe birth-place of young Beauty had no more.\nAs sprang that yellow star from downy hours,\nUp rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers,\nAnd bent o’er sheeny mountain and dim plain\nHer way--but left not yet her Therasaean reign.\n\n\n# II.\n\nHigh on a mountain of enamell’d head--\nSuch as the drowsy shepherd on his bed\nOf giant pasturage lying at his ease,\nRaising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees\nWith many a mutter’d “hope to be forgiven”\nWhat time the moon is quadrated in Heaven--\nOf rosy head, that towering far away\nInto the sunlit ether, caught the ray\nOf sunken suns at eve--at noon of night,\nWhile the moon danc’d with the fair stranger light--\nUprear’d upon such height arose a pile\nOf gorgeous columns on th’ uuburthen’d air,\nFlashing from Parian marble that twin smile\nFar down upon the wave that sparkled there,\nAnd nursled the young mountain in its lair.\nOf molten stars their pavement, such as fall\nThro’ the ebon air, besilvering the pall\nOf their own dissolution, while they die--\nAdorning then the dwellings of the sky.\nA dome, by linked light from Heaven let down,\nSat gently on these columns as a crown--\nA window of one circular diamond, there,\nLook’d out above into the purple air\nAnd rays from God shot down that meteor chain\nAnd hallow’d all the beauty twice again,\nSave when, between th’ Empyrean and that ring,\nSome eager spirit flapp’d his dusky wing.\nBut on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen\nThe dimness of this world: that grayish green\nThat Nature loves the best for Beauty’s grave\nLurk’d in each cornice, round each architrave--\nAnd every sculptured cherub thereabout\nThat from his marble dwelling peered out,\nSeem’d earthly in the shadow of his niche--\nAchaian statues in a world so rich?\nFriezes from Tadmor and Persepolis--\nFrom Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss\nOf beautiful Gomorrah! Oh, the wave\nIs now upon thee--but too late to save!\nSound loves to revel in a summer night:\nWitness the murmur of the gray twilight\nThat stole upon the ear, in Eyraco,\nOf many a wild star-gazer long ago--\nThat stealeth ever on the ear of him\nWho, musing, gazeth on the distance dim,\nAnd sees the darkness coming as a cloud--\nIs not its form--its voice--most palpable and loud?\nBut what is this?--it cometh--and it brings\nA music with it--’tis the rush of wings--\nA pause--and then a sweeping, falling strain,\nAnd Nesace is in her halls again.\nFrom the wild energy of wanton haste\nHer cheeks were flushing, and her lips apart;\nThe zone that clung around her gentle waist\nHad burst beneath the heaving of her heart.\nWithin the centre of that hall to breathe\nShe paus’d and panted, Zanthe! all beneath,\nThe fairy light that kiss’d her golden hair\nAnd long’d to rest, yet could but sparkle there!\n\nYoung flowers were whispering in melody\nTo happy flowers that night--and tree to tree;\nFountains were gushing music as they fell\nIn many a star-lit grove, or moon-light dell;\nYet silence came upon material things--\nFair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wings--\nAnd sound alone that from the spirit sprang\nBore burthen to the charm the maiden sang:\n\n“Neath blue-bell or streamer--\nOr tufted wild spray\nThat keeps, from the dreamer,\nThe moonbeam away--\nBright beings! that ponder,\nWith half-closing eyes,\nOn the stars which your wonder\nHath drawn from the skies,\nTill they glance thro’ the shade, and\nCome down to your brow\nLike--eyes of the maiden\nWho calls on you now--\nArise! from your dreaming\nIn violet bowers,\nTo duty beseeming\nThese star-litten hours--\nAnd shake from your tresses\nEncumber’d with dew\n\nThe breath of those kisses\nThat cumber them too--\n(O! how, without you, Love!\nCould angels be blest?)\nThose kisses of true love\nThat lull’d ye to rest!\nUp! shake from your wing\nEach hindering thing:\nThe dew of the night--\nIt would weigh down your flight;\nAnd true love caresses--\nO! leave them apart!\nThey are light on the tresses,\nBut lead on the heart.\n\nLigeia! Ligeia!\nMy beautiful one!\nWhose harshest idea\nWill to melody run,\nO! is it thy will\nOn the breezes to toss?\nOr, capriciously still,\nLike the lone Albatross,\nIncumbent on night\n(As she on the air)\nTo keep watch with delight\nOn the harmony there?\n\nLigeia! wherever\nThy image may be,\nNo magic shall sever\nThy music from thee.\nThou hast bound many eyes\nIn a dreamy sleep--\nBut the strains still arise\nWhich _thy_ vigilance keep--\n\nThe sound of the rain\nWhich leaps down to the flower,\nAnd dances again\nIn the rhythm of the shower--\nThe murmur that springs\nFrom the growing of grass\nAre the music of things--\nBut are modell’d, alas!\nAway, then, my dearest,\nO! hie thee away\nTo springs that lie clearest\nBeneath the moon-ray--\nTo lone lake that smiles,\nIn its dream of deep rest,\nAt the many star-isles\nThat enjewel its breast--\nWhere wild flowers, creeping,\nHave mingled their shade,\nOn its margin is sleeping\nFull many a maid--\nSome have left the cool glade, and\nHave slept with the bee--\nArouse them, my maiden,\nOn moorland and lea--\n\nGo! breathe on their slumber,\nAll softly in ear,\nThe musical number\nThey slumber’d to hear--\nFor what can awaken\nAn angel so soon\nWhose sleep hath been taken\nBeneath the cold moon,\nAs the spell which no slumber\nOf witchery may test,\nThe rhythmical number\nWhich lull’d him to rest?”\n\nSpirits in wing, and angels to the view,\nA thousand seraphs burst th’ Empyrean thro’,\nYoung dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight--\nSeraphs in all but “Knowledge,” the keen light\nThat fell, refracted, thro’ thy bounds afar,\nO death! from eye of God upon that star;\nSweet was that error--sweeter still that death--\nSweet was that error--ev’n with _us_ the breath\nOf Science dims the mirror of our joy--\nTo them ’twere the Simoom, and would destroy--\nFor what (to them) availeth it to know\nThat Truth is Falsehood--or that Bliss is Woe?\nSweet was their death--with them to die was rife\nWith the last ecstasy of satiate life--\nBeyond that death no immortality--\nBut sleep that pondereth and is not “to be”--\nAnd there--oh! may my weary spirit dwell--\nApart from Heaven’s Eternity--and yet how far from Hell!\n\nWhat guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim\nHeard not the stirring summons of that hymn?\nBut two: they fell: for heaven no grace imparts\nTo those who hear not for their beating hearts.\nA maiden-angel and her seraph-lover--\nO! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)\nWas Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?\nUnguided Love hath fallen--’mid “tears of perfect moan.”\n\nHe was a goodly spirit--he who fell:\nA wanderer by mossy-mantled well--\nA gazer on the lights that shine above--\nA dreamer in the moonbeam by his love:\nWhat wonder? for each star is eye-like there,\nAnd looks so sweetly down on Beauty’s hair--\nAnd they, and ev’ry mossy spring were holy\nTo his love-haunted heart and melancholy.\nThe night had found (to him a night of wo)\nUpon a mountain crag, young Angelo--\nBeetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,\nAnd scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.\nHere sate he with his love--his dark eye bent\nWith eagle gaze along the firmament:\nNow turn’d it upon her--but ever then\nIt trembled to the orb of EARTH again.\n\n“Ianthe, dearest, see! how dim that ray!\nHow lovely ’tis to look so far away!\nShe seemed not thus upon that autumn eve\nI left her gorgeous halls--nor mourned to leave,\nThat eve--that eve--I should remember well--\nThe sun-ray dropped, in Lemnos with a spell\nOn th’ Arabesque carving of a gilded hall\nWherein I sate, and on the draperied wall--\nAnd on my eyelids--O, the heavy light!\nHow drowsily it weighed them into night!\nOn flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran\nWith Persian Saadi in his Gulistan:\nBut O, that light!--I slumbered--Death, the while,\nStole o’er my senses in that lovely isle\nSo softly that no single silken hair\nAwoke that slept--or knew that he was there.”\n\n“The last spot of Earth’s orb I trod upon\nWas a proud temple called the Parthenon;\nMore beauty clung around her columned wall\nThen even thy glowing bosom beats withal,\nAnd when old Time my wing did disenthral\nThence sprang I--as the eagle from his tower,\nAnd years I left behind me in an hour.\nWhat time upon her airy bounds I hung,\nOne half the garden of her globe was flung\nUnrolling as a chart unto my view--\nTenantless cities of the desert too!\nIanthe, beauty crowded on me then,\nAnd half I wished to be again of men.”\n\n“My Angelo! and why of them to be?\nA brighter dwelling-place is here for thee--\nAnd greener fields than in yon world above,\nAnd woman’s loveliness--and passionate love.”\n“But list, Ianthe! when the air so soft\nFailed, as my pennoned spirit leapt aloft,\nPerhaps my brain grew dizzy--but the world\nI left so late was into chaos hurled,\nSprang from her station, on the winds apart,\nAnd rolled a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.\nMethought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar,\nAnd fell--not swiftly as I rose before,\nBut with a downward, tremulous motion thro’\nLight, brazen rays, this golden star unto!\nNor long the measure of my falling hours,\nFor nearest of all stars was thine to ours--\nDread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,\nA red Daedalion on the timid Earth.”\n\n“We came--and to thy Earth--but not to us\nBe given our lady’s bidding to discuss:\nWe came, my love; around, above, below,\nGay fire-fly of the night we come and go,\nNor ask a reason save the angel-nod\n_She_ grants to us as granted by her God--\nBut, Angelo, than thine gray Time unfurled\nNever his fairy wing o’er fairer world!\nDim was its little disk, and angel eyes\nAlone could see the phantom in the skies,\nWhen first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be\nHeadlong thitherward o’er the starry sea--\nBut when its glory swelled upon the sky,\nAs glowing Beauty’s bust beneath man’s eye,\nWe paused before the heritage of men,\nAnd thy star trembled--as doth Beauty then!”\n\nThus in discourse, the lovers whiled away\nThe night that waned and waned and brought no day.\nThey fell: for Heaven to them no hope imparts\nWho hear not for the beating of their hearts.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1829 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -80747,13 +83447,13 @@ "title": "“Alone”", "body": "From childhood’s hour I have not been\nAs others were--I have not seen\nAs others saw--I could not bring\nMy passions from a common spring--\nFrom the same source I have not taken\nMy sorrow--I could not awaken\nMy heart to joy at the same tone--\nAnd all I loved--_I_ loved alone--\n_Thou_--in my childhood--in the dawn\nOf a most stormy life--was drawn\nFrom every depth of good and ill\nThe mystery which binds me still--\nFrom the torrent, or the fountain--\nFrom the red cliff of the mountain--\nFrom the sun that round me roll’d\nIn its autumn tint of gold--\nFrom the lightning in the sky\nAs it passed me flying by--\nFrom the thunder and the storm--\nAnd the cloud that took the form\n(When the rest of Heaven was blue)\nOf a demon in my view.", "metadata": { + "place": "Baltimore", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1829, "month": "march", "day": 17 }, - "place": "Baltimore", - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -80765,10 +83465,10 @@ "title": "“Annabel Lee”", "body": "It was many and many a year ago,\nIn a kingdom by the sea,\nThat a maiden there lived whom you may know\nBy the name of ANNABEL LEE;\nAnd this maiden she lived with no other thought\nThan to love and be loved by me.\n\n_I_ was a child and _she_ was a child,\nIn this kingdom by the sea:\nBut we loved with a love that was more than love--\nI and my ANNABEL LEE;\nWith a love that the winged seraphs of heaven\nCoveted her and me.\n\nAnd this was the reason that, long ago,\nIn this kingdom by the sea,\nA wind blew out of a cloud, chilling\nMy beautiful ANNABEL LEE;\nSo that her highborn kinsmen came\nAnd bore her away from me,\nTo shut her up in a sepulchre\nIn this kingdom by the sea.\n\nThe angels, not half so happy in heaven,\nWent envying her and me--\nYes!--that was the reason (as all men know,\nIn this kingdom by the sea)\nThat the wind came out of the cloud by night,\nChilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.\n\nBut our love it was stronger by far than the love\nOf those who were older than we--\nOf many far wiser than we--\nAnd neither the angels in heaven above,\nNor the demons down under the sea,\nCan ever dissever my soul from the soul\nOf the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.\n\nFor the moon never beams without bringing me dreams\nOf the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;\nAnd the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes\nOf the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;\nAnd so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side\nOf my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,\nIn her sepulchre there by the sea--\nIn her tomb by the side of the sea.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1849 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -80776,11 +83476,11 @@ "title": "“The Bells”", "body": "# I.\n\nHear the sledges with the bells--\nSilver bells!\nWhat a world of merriment their melody foretells!\nHow they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,\nIn their icy air of night!\nWhile the stars, that oversprinkle\nAll the heavens, seem to twinkle\nWith a crystalline delight;\nKeeping time, time, time,\nIn a sort of Runic rhyme,\nTo the tintinnabulation that so musically wells\nFrom the bells, bells, bells, bells,\nBells, bells, bells--\nFrom the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.\n\n\n# II.\n\nHear the mellow wedding bells,\nGolden bells!\nWhat a world of happiness their harmony foretells!\nThrough the balmy air of night\nHow they ring out their delight!\nFrom the molten golden-notes,\nAnd all in tune,\nWhat a liquid ditty floats\nTo the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats\nOn the moon!\nOh, from out the sounding cells,\nWhat a gush of euphony voluminously wells!\nHow it swells!\nHow it dwells\nOn the future! how it tells\nOf the rapture that impels\nTo the swinging and the ringing\nOf the bells, bells, bells,\nOf the bells, bells, bells, bells,\nBells, bells, bells--\nTo the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!\n\n\n# III.\n\nHear the loud alarum bells--\nBrazen bells!\nWhat a tale of terror now their turbulency tells!\nIn the startled ear of night\nHow they scream out their affright!\nToo much horrified to speak,\nThey can only shriek, shriek,\nOut of tune,\nIn a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,\nIn a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire\nLeaping higher, higher, higher,\nWith a desperate desire,\nAnd a resolute endeavor\nNow--now to sit or never,\nBy the side of the pale-faced moon.\nOh, the bells, bells, bells!\nWhat a tale their terror tells\nOf Despair!\nHow they clang, and clash, and roar!\nWhat a horror they outpour\nOn the bosom of the palpitating air!\nYet the ear it fully knows,\nBy the twanging,\nAnd the clanging,\nHow the danger ebbs and flows;\nYet the ear distinctly tells,\nIn the jangling,\nAnd the wrangling,\nHow the danger sinks and swells,\nBy the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells--\nOf the bells--\nOf the bells, bells, bells, bells,\nBells, bells, bells--\nIn the clamor and the clangor of the bells!\n\n\n# IV.\n\nHear the tolling of the bells--\nIron bells!\nWhat a world of solemn thought their monody compels!\nIn the silence of the night,\nHow we shiver with affright\nAt the melancholy menace of their tone!\nFor every sound that floats\nFrom the rust within their throats\n Is a groan.\nAnd the people--ah, the people--\nThey that dwell up in the steeple.\n All alone,\nAnd who tolling, tolling, tolling,\nIn that muffled monotone,\nFeel a glory in so rolling\nOn the human heart a stone--\nThey are neither man nor woman--\nThey are neither brute nor human--\n They are Ghouls:\nAnd their king it is who tolls;\nAnd he rolls, rolls, rolls,\n Rolls\nA paean from the bells!\nAnd his merry bosom swells\nWith the paean of the bells!\nAnd he dances, and he yells;\nKeeping time, time, time,\nIn a sort of Runic rhyme,\nTo the paean of the bells--\n Of the bells:\nKeeping time, time, time,\nIn a sort of Runic rhyme,\nTo the throbbing of the bells--\nOf the bells, bells, bells--\nTo the sobbing of the bells;\nKeeping time, time, time,\nAs he knells, knells, knells,\nIn a happy Runic rhyme,\nTo the rolling of the bells--\nOf the bells, bells, bells--\nTo the tolling of the bells,\nOf the bells, bells, bells, bells,\nBells, bells, bells--\nTo the moaning and the groaning of the bells.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1848, "month": "may" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -80791,10 +83491,10 @@ "title": "“The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see 
”", "body": "The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see\nThe wantonest singing birds,\n\nAre lips--and all thy melody\nOf lip-begotten words--\n\nThine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined\nThen desolately fall,\nO God! on my funereal mind\nLike starlight on a pall--\n\nThy heart--_thy_ heart!--I wake and sigh,\nAnd sleep to dream till day\nOf the truth that gold can never buy--\nOf the baubles that it may.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1845 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -80802,10 +83502,10 @@ "title": "“Bridal Ballad”", "body": "The ring is on my hand,\nAnd the wreath is on my brow;\nSatins and jewels grand\nAre all at my command.\nAnd I am happy now.\n\nAnd my lord he loves me well;\nBut, when first he breathed his vow,\nI felt my bosom swell--\nFor the words rang as a knell,\nAnd the voice seemed _his_ who fell\nIn the battle down the dell,\nAnd who is happy now.\n\nBut he spoke to reassure me,\nAnd he kissed my pallid brow,\nWhile a reverie came o’er me,\nAnd to the churchyard bore me,\nAnd I sighed to him before me,\nThinking him dead D’Elormie,\n“Oh, I am happy now!”\n\nAnd thus the words were spoken,\nAnd thus the plighted vow,\nAnd, though my faith be broken,\nAnd, though my heart be broken,\nBehold the golden keys\nThat _proves_ me happy now!\n\nWould to God I could awaken\nFor I dream I know not how,\nAnd my soul is sorely shaken\nLest an evil step be taken,--\nLest the dead who is forsaken\nMay not be happy now.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1845 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -80813,10 +83513,10 @@ "title": "“The City in the Sea”", "body": "Lo! Death has reared himself a throne\nIn a strange city lying alone\nFar down within the dim West,\nWhere the good and the bad and the worst and the best\nHave gone to their eternal rest.\nThere shrines and palaces and towers\n(Time-eaten towers and tremble not!)\nResemble nothing that is ours.\nAround, by lifting winds forgot,\nResignedly beneath the sky\nThe melancholy waters lie.\n\nNo rays from the holy Heaven come down\nOn the long night-time of that town;\nBut light from out the lurid sea\nStreams up the turrets silently--\nGleams up the pinnacles far and free--\nUp domes--up spires--up kingly halls--\nUp fanes--up Babylon-like walls--\nUp shadowy long-forgotten bowers\nOf sculptured ivy and stone flowers--\nUp many and many a marvellous shrine\nWhose wreathed friezes intertwine\nThe viol, the violet, and the vine.\n\nResignedly beneath the sky\nThe melancholy waters lie.\nSo blend the turrets and shadows there\nThat all seem pendulous in air,\nWhile from a proud tower in the town\nDeath looks gigantically down.\n\nThere open fanes and gaping graves\nYawn level with the luminous waves;\nBut not the riches there that lie\nIn each idol’s diamond eye--\nNot the gaily-jewelled dead\nTempt the waters from their bed;\nFor no ripples curl, alas!\nAlong that wilderness of glass--\nNo swellings tell that winds may be\nUpon some far-off happier sea--\nNo heavings hint that winds have been\nOn seas less hideously serene.\n\nBut lo, a stir is in the air!\nThe wave--there is a movement there!\nAs if the towers had thrust aside,\nIn slightly sinking, the dull tide--\nAs if their tops had feebly given\nA void within the filmy Heaven.\nThe waves have now a redder glow--\nThe hours are breathing faint and low--\nAnd when, amid no earthly moans,\nDown, down that town shall settle hence,\nHell, rising from a thousand thrones,\nShall do it reverence.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1831 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -80824,10 +83524,10 @@ "title": "“The Coliseum”", "body": "Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary\nOf lofty contemplation left to Time\nBy buried centuries of pomp and power!\nAt length--at length--after so many days\nOf weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,\n(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)\nI kneel, an altered and an humble man,\nAmid thy shadows, and so drink within\nMy very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!\n\nVastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!\nSilence! and Desolation! and dim Night!\nI feel ye now--I feel ye in your strength--\nO spells more sure than e’er Judaean king\nTaught in the gardens of Gethsemane!\nO charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee\nEver drew down from out the quiet stars!\n\nHere, where a hero fell, a column falls!\nHere, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,\nA midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!\nHere, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair\nWaved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!\nHere, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,\nGlides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,\nLit by the wan light of the horned moon,\nThe swift and silent lizard of the stones!\n\nBut stay! these walls--these ivy-clad arcades--\nThese mouldering plinths--these sad and blackened shafts--\nThese vague entablatures--this crumbling frieze--\nThese shattered cornices--this wreck--this ruin--\nThese stones--alas! these gray stones--are they all--\nAll of the famed, and the colossal left\nBy the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?\n\n“Not all”--the Echoes answer me--“not all!\nProphetic sounds and loud, arise forever\nFrom us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise,\nAs melody from Memnon to the Sun.\nWe rule the hearts of mightiest men--we rule\nWith a despotic sway all giant minds.\nWe are not impotent--we pallid stones.\nNot all our power is gone--not all our fame--\nNot all the magic of our high renown--\nNot all the wonder that encircles us--\nNot all the mysteries that in us lie--\nNot all the memories that hang upon\nAnd cling around about us as a garment,\nClothing us in a robe of more than glory.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1838 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -80835,11 +83535,11 @@ "title": "“The Colloquy of Monos and Una”", "body": "_“These things are in the future.”_\n --Sophocles--_Antig._\n\n> _Una:_\n“Born again?”\n\n> _Monos:_\nYes, fairest and best beloved Una, “born again.” These were the words upon whose mystical meaning I had so long pondered, rejecting the explanations of the priesthood, until Death itself resolved for me the secret.\n\n> _Una:_\nDeath!\n\n> _Monos:_\nHow strangely, sweet _Una_, you echo my words! I observe, too, a vacillation in your step, a joyous inquietude in your eyes. You are confused and oppressed by the majestic novelty of the Life Eternal.\nYes, it was of Death I spoke. And here how singularly sounds that word which of old was wont to bring terror to all hearts, throwing a mildew upon all pleasures!\n\n> _Una:_\nAh, Death, the spectre which sate at all feasts! How often, Monos, did we lose ourselves in speculations upon its nature! How mysteriously did it act as a check to human bliss, saying unto it, “thus far, and no farther!” That earnest mutual love, my own Monos, which burned within our bosoms, how vainly did we flatter ourselves, feeling happy in its first upspringing that our happiness would strengthen with its strength! Alas, as it grew, so grew in our hearts the dread of that evil hour which was hurrying to separate us forever! Thus in time it became painful to love. Hate would have been mercy then.\n\n> _Monos:_\nSpeak not here of these griefs, dear Una--mine, mine forever now!\n\n> _Una:_\nBut the memory of past sorrow, is it not present joy? I have much to say yet of the things which have been. Above all, I burn to know the incidents of your own passage through the dark Valley and Shadow.\n\n> _Monos:_\nAnd when did the radiant Una ask anything of her Monos in vain? I will be minute in relating all, but at what point shall the weird narrative begin?\n\n> _Una:_\nAt what point?\n\n> _Monos:_\nYou have said.\n\n> _Una:_\nMonos, I comprehend you. In Death we have both learned the propensity of man to define the indefinable. I will not say, then, commence with the moment of life’s cessation--but commence with that sad, sad instant when, the fever having abandoned you, you sank into a breathless and motionless torpor, and I pressed down your pallid eyelids with the passionate fingers of love.\n\n> _Monos:_\nOne word first, my Una, in regard to man’s general condition at this epoch. You will remember that one or two of the wise among our forefathers--wise in fact, although not in the world’s esteem--had ventured to doubt the propriety of the term “improvement,” as applied to the progress of our civilization. There were periods in each of the five or six centuries immediately preceding our dissolution when arose some vigorous intellect, boldly contending for those principles whose truth appears now, to our disenfranchised reason, so utterly obvious--principles which should have taught our race to submit to the guidance of the natural laws rather than attempt their control. At long intervals some master-minds appeared, looking upon each advance in practical science as a retrogradation in the true utility. Occasionally the poetic intellect--that intellect which we now feel to have been the most exalted of all--since those truths which to us were of the most enduring importance could only be reached by that _analogy_ which speaks in proof-tones to the imagination alone, and to the unaided reason bears no weight--occasionally did this poetic intellect proceed a step farther in the evolving of the vague idea of the philosophic, and find in the mystic parable that tells of the tree of knowledge, and of its forbidden fruit, death-producing, a distinct intimation that knowledge was not meet for man in the infant condition of his soul. And these men--the poets--living and perishing amid the scorn of the “utilitarians”--of rough pedants, who arrogated to themselves a title which could have been properly applied only to the scorned--these men, the poets, pondered piningly, yet not unwisely, upon the ancient days when our wants were not more simple than our enjoyments were keen--days when _mirth_ was a word unknown, so solemnly deep-toned was happiness--holy, august, and blissful days, blue rivers ran undammed, between hills unhewn, into far forest solitudes, primeval, odorous, and unexplored. Yet these noble exceptions from the general misrule served but to strengthen it by opposition. Alas! we had fallen upon the most evil of all our evil days. The great “movement”--that was the cant term--went on: a diseased commotion, moral and physical. Art--the Arts--arose supreme, and once enthroned, cast chains upon the intellect which had elevated them to power. Man, because he could not but acknowledge the majesty of Nature, fell into childish exultation at his acquired and still-increasing dominion over her elements. Even while he stalked a God in his own fancy, an infantine imbecility came over him. As might be supposed from the origin of his disorder, he grew infected with system, and with abstraction. He enwrapped himself in generalities. Among other odd ideas, that of universal equality gained ground; and in the face of analogy and of God--in despite of the loud warning voice of the laws of _gradation_ so visibly pervading all things in Earth and Heaven--wild attempts at an omniprevalent Democracy were made. Yet this evil sprang necessarily from the leading evil, Knowledge. Man could not both know and succumb. Meantime huge smoking cities arose, innumerable. Green leaves shrank before the hot breath of furnaces. The fair face of Nature was deformed as with the ravages of some loathsome disease. And methinks, sweet Una, even our slumbering sense of the forced and of the far-fetched might have arrested us here. But now it appears that we had worked out our own destruction in the perversion of our _taste_, or rather in the blind neglect of its culture in the schools. For, in truth, it was at this crisis that taste alone--that faculty which, holding a middle position between the pure intellect and the moral sense, could never safely have been disregarded--it was now that taste alone could have led us gently back to Beauty, to Nature, and to Life. But alas for the pure contemplative spirit and majestic intuition of Plato! Alas for the which he justly regarded as an all-sufficient education for the soul! Alas for him and for it!--since both were most desperately needed, when both were most entirely forgotten or despised. Pascal, a philosopher whom we both love, has said, how truly!--“_Que tout notre raisonnement se rĂ©duit Ă  cĂ©der au sentiment;_” and it is not impossible that the sentiment of the natural, had time permitted it, would have regained its old ascendency over the harsh mathematical reason of the schools. But this thing was not to be. Prematurely induced by intemperance of knowledge, the old age of the world drew near. This the mass of mankind saw not, or, living lustily although unhappily, affected not to see. But, for myself, the Earth’s records had taught me to look for widest ruin as the price of highest civilization. I had imbibed a prescience of our Fate from comparison of China the simple and enduring, with Assyria the architect, with Egypt the astrologer, with Nubia, more crafty than either, the turbulent mother of all Arts. In the history of these regions I met with a ray from the Future. The individual artificialities of the three latter were local diseases of the Earth, and in their individual overthrows we had seen local remedies applied; but for the infected world at large I could anticipate no regeneration save in death. That man, as a race, should not become extinct, I saw that he must be “_born again._”\nAnd now it was, fairest and dearest, that we wrapped our spirits, daily, in dreams. Now it was that, in twilight, we discoursed of the days to come, when the Art-scarred surface of the Earth, having undergone that purification which alone could efface its rectangular obscenities, should clothe itself anew in the verdure and the mountain-slopes and the smiling waters of Paradise, and be rendered at length a fit dwelling-place for man:--for man the Death-purged--for man to whose now exalted intellect there should be poison in knowledge no more--for the redeemed, regenerated, blissful, and now immortal, but still for the _material_, man.\n\n> _Una:_\nWell do I remember these conversations, dear Monos; but the epoch of the fiery overthrow was not so near at hand as we believed, and as the corruption you indicate did surely warrant us in believing. Men lived; and died individually. You yourself sickened, and passed into the grave; and thither your constant Una speedily followed you. And though the century which has since elapsed, and whose conclusion brings up together once more, tortured our slumbering senses with no impatience of duration, yet my Monos, it was a century still.\n\n> _Monos:_\nSay, rather, a point in the vague infinity. Unquestionably, it was in the Earth’s dotage that I died. Wearied at heart with anxieties which had their origin in the general turmoil and decay, I succumbed to the fierce fever. After some few days of pain, and many of dreamy delirium replete with ecstasy, the manifestations of which you mistook for pain, while I longed but was impotent to undeceive you--after some days there came upon me, as you have said, a breathless and motionless torpor; and this was termed _Death_ by those who stood around me.\nWords are vague things. My condition did not deprive me of sentience. It appeared to me not greatly dissimilar to the extreme quiescence of him, who, having slumbered long and profoundly, lying motionless and fully prostrate in a mid-summer noon, begins to steal slowly back into consciousness, through the mere sufficiency of his sleep, and without being awakened by external disturbances.\nI breathed no longer. The pulses were still. The heart had ceased to beat. Volition had not departed, but was powerless. The senses were unusually active, although eccentrically so--assuming often each other’s functions at random. The taste and the smell were inextricably confounded, and became one sentiment, abnormal and intense. The rose-water with which your tenderness had moistened my lips to the last, affected me with sweet fancies of flowers--fantastic flowers, far more lovely than any of the old Earth, but whose prototypes we have here blooming around us. The eye-lids, transparent and bloodless, offered no complete impediment to vision. As volition was in abeyance, the balls could not roll in their sockets--but all objects within the range of the visual hemisphere were seen with more or less distinctness; the rays which fell upon the external retina, or into the corner of the eye, producing a more vivid effect than those which struck the front or interior surface. Yet, in the former instance, this effect was so far anomalous that I appreciated it only as _sound_--sound sweet or discordant as the matters presenting themselves at my side were light or dark in shade--curved or angular in outline. The hearing, at the same time, although excited in degree, was not irregular in action--estimating real sounds with an extravagance of precision, not less than of sensibility. Touch had undergone a modification more peculiar. Its impressions were tardily received, but pertinaciously retained, and resulted always in the highest physical pleasure. Thus the pressure of your sweet fingers upon my eyelids, at first only recognized through vision, at length, long after their removal, filled my whole being with a sensual delight immeasurable. I say with a sensual delight. _All_ my perceptions were purely sensual. The materials furnished the passive brain by the senses were not in the least degree wrought into shape by the deceased understanding. Of pain there was some little; of pleasure there was much; but of moral pain or pleasure none at all. Thus your wild sobs floated into my ear with all their mournful cadences, and were appreciated in their every variation of sad tone; but they were soft musical sounds and no more; they conveyed to the extinct reason no intimation of the sorrows which gave them birth; while large and constant tears which fell upon my face, telling the bystanders of a heart which broke, thrilled every fibre of my frame with ecstasy alone. And this was in truth the _Death_ of which these bystanders spoke reverently, in low whispers--you, sweet Una, gaspingly, with loud cries.\nThey attired me for the coffin--three or four dark figures which flitted busily to and fro. As these crossed the direct line of my vision they affected me as _forms;_ but upon passing to my side their images impressed me with the idea of shrieks, groans, and, other dismal expressions of terror, of horror, or of woe. You alone, habited in a white robe, passed in all directions musically about.\nThe day waned; and, as its light faded away, I became possessed by a vague uneasiness--an anxiety such as the sleeper feels when sad real sounds fall continuously within his ear--low distant bell-tones, solemn, at long but equal intervals, and commingling with melancholy dreams. Night arrived; and with its shadows a heavy discomfort. It oppressed my limbs with the oppression of some dull weight, and was palpable. There was also a moaning sound, not unlike the distant reverberation of surf, but more continuous, which, beginning with the first twilight, had grown in strength with the darkness. Suddenly lights were brought into the rooms, and this reverberation became forthwith interrupted into frequent unequal bursts of the same sound, but less dreary and less distinct. The ponderous oppression was in a great measure relieved; and, issuing from the flame of each lamp (for there were many), there flowed unbrokenly into my ears a strain of melodious monotone. And when now, dear Una, approaching the bed upon which I lay outstretched, you sat gently by my side, breathing odor from your sweet lips, and pressing them upon my brow, there arose tremulously within my bosom, and mingling with the merely physical sensations which circumstances had called forth, a something akin to sentiment itself--a feeling that, half appreciating, half responded to your earnest love and sorrow; but this feeling took no root in the pulseless heart, and seemed indeed rather a shadow than a reality, and faded quickly away, first into extreme quiescence, and then into a purely sensual pleasure as before.\nAnd now, from the wreck and the chaos of the usual senses, there appeared to have arisen within me a sixth, all perfect. In its exercise I found a wild delight--yet a delight still physical, inasmuch as the understanding had in it no part. Motion in the animal frame had fully ceased. No muscle quivered; no nerve thrilled; no artery throbbed. But there seemed to have sprung up in the brain _that_ of which no words could convey to the merely human intelligence even an indistinct conception. Let me term it a mental pendulous pulsation. It was the moral embodiment of man’s abstract idea of _Time_. By the absolute equalization of this movement--or of such as this--had the cycles of the firmamental orbs themselves been adjusted. By its aid I measured the irregularities of the clock upon the mantel, and of the watches of the attendants. Their tickings came sonorously to my ears. The slightest deviations from the true proportion--and these deviations were omniprevalent--affected me just as violations of abstract truth were wont on earth to affect the moral sense. Although no two of the timepieces in the chamber struck the individual seconds accurately together, yet I had no difficulty in holding steadily in mind the tones, and the respective momentary errors of each. And this--this keen, perfect self-existing sentiment of _duration_--this sentiment existing (as man could not possibly have conceived it to exist) independently of any succession of events--this idea--this sixth sense, upspringing from the ashes of the rest, was the first obvious and certain step of the intemporal soul upon the threshold of the temporal eternity.\nIt was midnight; and you still sat by my side. All others had departed from the chamber of Death. They had deposited me in the coffin. The lamps burned flickeringly; for this I knew by the tremulousness of the monotonous strains. But suddenly these strains diminished in distinctness and in volume. Finally they ceased. The perfume in my nostrils died away. Forms affected my vision no longer. The oppression of the Darkness uplifted itself from my bosom. A dull shot like that of electricity pervaded my frame, and was followed by total loss of the idea of contact. All of what man has termed sense was merged in the sole consciousness of entity, and in the one abiding sentiment of duration. The mortal body had been at length stricken with the hand of the deadly _Decay_.\nYet had not all of sentience departed; for the consciousness and the sentiment remaining supplied some of its functions by a lethargic intuition. I appreciated the direful change now in operation upon the flesh, and, as the dreamer is sometimes aware of the bodily presence of one who leans over him, so, sweet Una, I still dully felt that you sat by my side. So, too, when the noon of the second day came, I was not unconscious of those movements which displaced you from my side, which confined me within the coffin, which deposited me within the hearse, which bore me to the grave, which lowered me within it, which heaped heavily the mould upon me, and which thus left me, in blackness and corruption, to my sad and solemn slumbers with the worm.\nAnd here in the prison-house which has few secrets to disclose, there rolled away days and weeks and months; and the soul watched narrowly each second as it flew, and, without effort, took record of its flight--without effort and without object.\nA year passed. The consciousness of _being_ had grown hourly more indistinct, and that of mere _locality_ had in great measure usurped its position. The idea of entity was becoming merged in that of _place_. The narrow space immediately surrounding what had been the body was now growing to be the body itself. At length, as often happens to the sleeper (by sleep and its world alone is _Death_ imaged)--at length, as sometimes happened on Earth to the deep slumberer, when some flitting light half startled him into awaking, yet left him half enveloped in dreams--so to me, in the strict embrace of the _Shadow_, came _that_ light which alone might have had power to startle--the light of enduring _Love_. Men toiled at the grave in which I lay darkling. They upthrew the damp earth. Upon my mouldering bones there descended the coffin of Una. And now again all was void. That nebulous light had been extinguished. That feeble thrill had vibrated itself into quiescence. Many _lustra_ had supervened. Dust had returned to dust. The worm had food no more. The sense of being had at length utterly departed, and there reigned in its stead--instead of all things, dominant and perpetual--the autocrats _Place_ and _Time._ For _that_ which _was not_--for that which had no form--for that which had no thought--for that which had no sentience--for that which was soundless, yet of which matter formed no portion--for all this nothingness, yet for all this immortality, the grave was still a home, and the corrosive hours, co-mates.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1841, "month": "august" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -80850,10 +83550,10 @@ "title": "“The Conqueror Worm”", "body": "Lo! ’tis a gala night\nWithin the lonesome latter years!\nAn angel throng, bewinged, bedight\nIn veils, and drowned in tears,\nSit in a theatre, to see\nA play of hopes and fears,\nWhile the orchestra breathes fitfully\nThe music of the spheres.\n\nMimes, in the form of God on high,\nMutter and mumble low,\nAnd hither and thither fly--\nMere puppets they, who come and go\nAt bidding of vast formless things\nThat shift the scenery to and fro,\nFlapping from out their Condor wings\nInvisible Wo!\n\nThat motley drama--oh, be sure\nIt shall not be forgot!\nWith its Phantom chased for evermore,\nBy a crowd that seize it not,\nThrough a circle that ever returneth in\nTo the self-same spot,\nAnd much of Madness, and more of Sin,\nAnd Horror the soul of the plot.\n\nBut see, amid the mimic rout\nA crawling shape intrude!\nA blood-red thing that writhes from out\nThe scenic solitude!\nIt writhes!--it writhes!--with mortal pangs\nThe mimes become its food,\nAnd the angels sob at vermin fangs\nIn human gore imbued.\n\nOut--out are the lights--out all!\nAnd, over each quivering form,\nThe curtain, a funeral pall,\nComes down with the rush of a storm,\nAnd the angels, all pallid and wan,\nUprising, unveiling, affirm\nThat the play is the tragedy, “Man,”\nAnd its hero the Conqueror Worm.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -80861,11 +83561,11 @@ "title": "“The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion”", "body": "_“I will bring fire to thee.”_\n --Euripides--_Androm._\n\n> _Eiros:_\nWhy do you call me Eiros?\n\n> _Charmion:_\nSo henceforward will you always be called. You must forget, too, _my_ earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion.\n\n> _Eiros:_\nThis is indeed no dream!\n\n> _Charmion:_\nDreams are with us no more;--but of these mysteries anon. I rejoice to see you looking life-like and rational. The film of the shadow has already passed from off your eyes. Be of heart, and fear nothing. Your allotted days of stupor have expired, and to-morrow I will myself induct you into the full joys and wonders of your novel existence.\n\n> _Eiros:_\nTrue--I feel no stupor--none at all. The wild sickness and the terrible darkness have left me, and I hear no longer that mad, rushing, horrible sound, like the “voice of many waters.” Yet my senses are bewildered, Charmion, with the keenness of their perception of _the new_.\n\n> _Charmion:_\nA few days will remove all this;--but I fully understand you, and feel for you. It is now ten earthly years since I underwent what you undergo--yet the remembrance of it hangs by me still. You have now suffered all of pain, however, which you will suffer in Aidenn.\n\n> _Eiros:_\nIn Aidenn?\n\n> _Charmion:_\nIn Aidenn.\n\n> _Eiros:_\nO God!--pity me, Charmion!--I am overburthened with the majesty of all things--of the unknown now known--of the speculative Future merged in the august and certain Present.\n\n> _Charmion:_\nGrapple not now with such thoughts. To-morrow we will speak of this. Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find relief in the exercise of simple memories. Look not around, nor forward--but back. I am burning with anxiety to hear the details of that stupendous event which threw you among us. Tell me of it. Let us converse of familiar things, in the old familiar language of the world which has so fearfully perished.\n\n> _Eiros:_\nMost fearfully, fearfully!--this is indeed no dream.\n\n> _Charmion:_\nDreams are no more. Was I much mourned, my Eiros?\n\n> _Eiros:_\nMourned, Charmion?--oh, deeply. To that last hour of all there hung a cloud of intense gloom and devout sorrow over your household.\n\n> _Charmion:_\nAnd that last hour--speak of it. Remember that, beyond the naked fact of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing. When, coming out from among mankind, I passed into Night through the Grave--at that period, if I remember aright, the calamity which overwhelmed you was utterly unanticipated. But, indeed, I knew little of the speculative philosophy of the day.\n\n_Eiros_. The individual calamity was, as you say, entirely unanticipated; but analogous misfortunes had been long a subject of discussion with astronomers. I need scarce tell you, my friend, that, even when you left us, men had agreed to understand those passages in the most holy writings which speak of the final destruction of all things by fire as having reference to the orb of the earth alone, But in regard to the immediate agency of the ruin, speculation had been at fault from that epoch in astronomical knowledge in which the comets were divested of the terrors of flame. The very moderate density of these bodies had been well established. They had been observed to pass among the satellites of Jupiter without bringing about any sensible alteration either in the masses or in the orbits of these secondary planets. We had long regarded the wanderers as vapory creations of inconceivable tenuity, and as altogether incapable of doing injury to our substantial globe, even in the event of contact. But contact was not in any degree dreaded; for the elements of all the comets were accurately known. That among _them_ we should look for the agency of the threatened fiery destruction had been for many years considered an inadmissible idea. But wonders and wild fancies had been of late days strangely rife among mankind; and, although it was only with a few of the ignorant that actual apprehension prevailed, upon the announcement by astronomers of a _new_ comet, yet this announcement was generally received with I know not what of agitation and mistrust.\nThe elements of the strange orb were immediately calculated, and it was at once conceded by all observers that its path, at perihelion would bring it into very close proximity with the earth. There were two or three astronomers of secondary note who resolutely maintained that a contact was inevitable. I cannot very well express to you the effect of this intelligence upon the people. For a few short days they would not believe an assertion which their intellect, so long employed among worldly considerations, could not in any manner grasp. But the truth of a vitally important fact soon makes its way into the understanding of even the most stolid. Finally, all men saw that astronomical knowledge lies not, and they awaited the comet. Its approach was not at first seemingly rapid, nor was its appearance of very unusual character. It was of a dull red, and had little perceptible train. For seven or eight days we saw no material increase in its apparent diameter, and but a partial alteration in its color. Meantime, the ordinary affairs of men were discarded, and all interest absorbed in a growing discussion instituted by the philosophic in respect to the cometary nature. Even the grossly ignorant aroused their sluggish capacities to such considerations. The learned _now_ gave their intellect--their soul--to no such points as the allaying of fear, or to the sustenance of loved theory. They sought--they panted for right views. They groaned for perfected knowledge. _Truth_ arose in the purity of her strength and exceeding majesty, and the wise bowed down and adored.\nThat material injury to our globe or to its inhabitants would result from the apprehended contact was an opinion which hourly lost ground among the wise; and the wise were now freely permitted to rule the reason and the fancy of the crowd. It was demonstrated that the density of the comet’s _nucleus_ was far less than that of our rarest gas; and the harmless passage of a similar visitor among the satellites of Jupiter was a point strongly insisted upon, and which served greatly to allay terror. Theologists, with an earnestness fear-enkindled, dwelt upon the biblical prophecies, and expounded them to the people with a directness and simplicity of which no previous instance had been known. That the final destruction of the earth must be brought about by the agency of fire, was urged with a spirit that enforced everywhere conviction; and that the comets were of no fiery nature (as all men now knew) was a truth which relieved all, in a great measure, from the apprehension of the great calamity foretold. It is noticeable that the popular prejudices and vulgar errors in regard to pestilences and wars--errors which were wont to prevail upon every appearance of a comet--were now altogether unknown, as if by some sudden convulsive exertion reason had at once hurled superstition from her throne. The feeblest intellect had derived vigor from excessive interest.\nWhat minor evils might arise from the contact were points of elaborate question. The learned spoke of slight geological disturbances, of probable alterations in climate, and consequently in vegetation; of possible magnetic and electric influences. Many held that no visible or perceptible effect would in any manner be produced. While such discussions were going on, their subject gradually approached, growing larger in apparent diameter, and of a more brilliant lustre. Mankind grew paler as it came. All human operations were suspended.\nThere was an epoch in the course of the general sentiment when the comet had attained, at length, a size surpassing that of any previously recorded visitation. The people now, dismissing any lingering hope that the astronomers were wrong, experienced all the certainty of evil. The chimerical aspect of their terror was gone. The hearts of the stoutest of our race beat violently within their bosoms. A very few days suffered, however, to merge even such feelings in sentiments more unendurable. We could no longer apply to the strange orb any _accustomed_ thoughts. Its _historical_ attributes had disappeared. It oppressed us with a hideous _novelty_ of emotion. We saw it not as an astronomical phenomenon in the heavens, but as an incubus upon our hearts and a shadow upon our brains. It had taken, with unconceivable rapidity, the character of a gigantic mantle of rare flame, extending from horizon to horizon.\nYet a day, and men breathed with greater freedom. It was clear that we were already within the influence of the comet; yet we lived. We even felt an unusual elasticity of frame and vivacity of mind. The exceeding tenuity of the object of our dread was apparent; for all heavenly objects were plainly visible through it. Meantime, our vegetation had perceptibly altered; and we gained faith, from this predicted circumstance, in the foresight of the wise. A wild luxuriance of foliage, utterly unknown before, burst out upon every vegetable thing.\nYet another day--and the evil was not altogether upon us. It was now evident that its nucleus would first reach us. A wild change had come over all men; and the first sense of _pain_ was the wild signal for general lamentation and horror. The first sense of pain lay in a rigorous construction of the breast and lungs, and an insufferable dryness of the skin. It could not be denied that our atmosphere was radically affected; the conformation of this atmosphere and the possible modifications to which it might be subjected, were now the topics of discussion. The result of investigation sent an electric thrill of the intensest terror through the universal heart of man.\nIt had been long known that the air which encircled us was a compound of oxygen and nitrogen gases, in the proportion of twenty-one measures of oxygen and seventy-nine of nitrogen in every one hundred of the atmosphere. Oxygen, which was the principle of combustion, and the vehicle of heat, was absolutely necessary to the support of animal life, and was the most powerful and energetic agent in nature. Nitrogen, on the contrary, was incapable of supporting either animal life or flame. An unnatural excess of oxygen would result, it had been ascertained, in just such an elevation of the animal spirits as we had latterly experienced. It was the pursuit, the extension of the idea, which had engendered awe. What would be the result of a _total extraction of the nitrogen_? A combustion irresistible, all-devouring, omni-prevalent, immediate;--the entire fulfilment, in all their minute and terrible details, of the fiery and horror-inspiring denunciations of the prophecies of the Holy Book.\nWhy need I paint, Charmion, the now disenchained frenzy of mankind? That tenuity in the comet which had previously inspired us with hope, was now the source of the bitterness of despair. In its impalpable gaseous character we clearly perceived the consummation of Fate. Meantime a day again passed--bearing away with it the last shadow of Hope. We gasped in the rapid modification of the air. The red blood bounded tumultuously through its strict channels. A furious delirium possessed all men; and with arms rigidly outstretched towards the threatening heavens, they trembled and shrieked aloud. But the nucleus of the destroyer was now upon us;--even here in Aidenn I shudder while I speak. Let me be brief--brief as the ruin that overwhelmed. For a moment there was a wild lurid light alone, visiting and penetrating all things. Then--let us bow down, Charmion, before the excessive majesty of the great God!--then, there came a shouting and pervading sound, as if from the mouth itself of HIM; while the whole incumbent mass of ether in which we existed, burst at once into a species of intense flame, for whose surpassing brilliancy and all-fervid heat even the angels in the high Heaven of pure knowledge have no name. Thus ended all.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1839, "month": "december" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -80876,12 +83576,12 @@ "title": "“A Dream”", "body": "In visions of the dark night\nI have dreamed of joy departed--\nBut a waking dream of life and light\nHath left me broken-hearted.\n\nAh! what is not a dream by day\nTo him whose eyes are cast\nOn things around him with a ray\nTurned back upon the past?\n\nThat holy dream--that holy dream,\nWhile all the world were chiding,\nHath cheered me as a lovely beam,\nA lonely spirit guiding.\n\nWhat though that light, thro’ storm and night,\nSo trembled from afar--\nWhat could there be more purely bright\nIn Truth’s day star?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1849, "month": "march", "day": 31 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -80893,10 +83593,10 @@ "title": "“Dream-land”", "body": "By a route obscure and lonely,\nHaunted by ill angels only,\nWhere an Eidolon, named NIGHT,\nOn a black throne reigns upright,\nI have reached these lands but newly\nFrom an ultimate dim Thule--\nFrom a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,\nOut of SPACE--out of TIME.\n\nBottomless vales and boundless floods,\nAnd chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,\nWith forms that no man can discover\nFor the dews that drip all over;\nMountains toppling evermore\nInto seas without a shore;\nSeas that restlessly aspire,\nSurging, unto skies of fire;\nLakes that endlessly outspread\nTheir lone waters--lone and dead,\nTheir still waters--still and chilly\nWith the snows of the lolling lily.\n\nBy the lakes that thus outspread\nTheir lone waters, lone and dead,--\nTheir sad waters, sad and chilly\nWith the snows of the lolling lily,--\n\nBy the mountains--near the river\nMurmuring lowly, murmuring ever,--\nBy the gray woods,--by the swamp\nWhere the toad and the newt encamp,--\nBy the dismal tarns and pools\nWhere dwell the Ghouls,--\nBy each spot the most unholy--\nIn each nook most melancholy,--\n\nThere the traveller meets aghast\nSheeted Memories of the past--\nShrouded forms that start and sigh\nAs they pass the wanderer by--\nWhite-robed forms of friends long given,\nIn agony, to the Earth--and Heaven.\n\nFor the heart whose woes are legion\n’Tis a peaceful, soothing region--\nFor the spirit that walks in shadow\n’Tis--oh, ’tis an Eldorado!\nBut the traveller, travelling through it,\nMay not--dare not openly view it;\nNever its mysteries are exposed\nTo the weak human eye unclosed;\nSo wills its King, who hath forbid\nThe uplifting of the fringed lid;\nAnd thus the sad Soul that here passes\nBeholds it but through darkened glasses.\n\nBy a route obscure and lonely,\nHaunted by ill angels only.\n\nWhere an Eidolon, named NIGHT,\nOn a black throne reigns upright,\nI have wandered home but newly\nFrom this ultimate dim Thule.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1844 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -80904,12 +83604,12 @@ "title": "“A Dream within a Dream”", "body": "Take this kiss upon the brow!\nAnd, in parting from you now,\nThus much let me avow--\nYou are not wrong, who deem\nThat my days have been a dream:\nYet if hope has flown away\nIn a night, or in a day,\nIn a vision or in none,\nIs it therefore the less _gone_?\n_All_ that we see or seem\nIs but a dream within a dream.\n\nI stand amid the roar\nOf a surf-tormented shore,\nAnd I hold within my hand\nGrains of the golden sand--\nHow few! yet how they creep\nThrough my fingers to the deep\nWhile I weep--while I weep!\nO God! can I not grasp\nThem with a tighter clasp?\nO God! can I not save\n_One_ from the pitiless wave?\nIs _all_ that we see or seem\nBut a dream within a dream?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1849, "month": "march", "day": 31 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -80932,11 +83632,11 @@ "title": "“Eldorado”", "body": "Gaily bedight,\nA gallant knight,\nIn sunshine and in shadow,\nHad journeyed long,\nSinging a song,\nIn search of Eldorado.\nBut he grew old--\nThis knight so bold--\nAnd o’er his heart a shadow\nFell as he found\nNo spot of ground\nThat looked like Eldorado.\n\nAnd, as his strength\nFailed him at length,\nHe met a pilgrim shadow--\n“Shadow,” said he,\n“Where can it be--\nThis land of Eldorado?”\n\n“Over the Mountains\nOf the Moon,\nDown the Valley of the Shadow,\nRide, boldly ride,”\nThe shade replied,\n“If you seek for Eldorado!”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1849, "month": "april" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -80947,11 +83647,11 @@ "title": "“Eulalie”", "body": "I dwelt alone\n In a world of moan,\n And my soul was a stagnant tide,\nTill the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride--\nTill the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.\n Ah, less--less bright\n The stars of the night\n Than the eyes of the radiant girl!\n And never a flake\n That the vapor can make\n With the moon-tints of purple and pearl,\nCan vie with the modest Eulalie’s most unregarded curl--\nCan compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie’s most humble and careless curl.\n Now Doubt--now Pain\n Come never again,\n For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,\n And all day long\n Shines, bright and strong,\n AstartĂ© within the sky,\nWhile ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye--\nWhile ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1845, "month": "july" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -80962,10 +83662,10 @@ "title": "“Evening Star”", "body": "’Twas noontide of summer,\nAnd midtime of night,\nAnd stars, in their orbits,\nShone pale, through the light\nOf the brighter, cold moon.\n’Mid planets her slaves,\nHerself in the Heavens,\nHer beam on the waves.\n\nI gazed awhile\nOn her cold smile;\nToo cold--too cold for me--\nThere passed, as a shroud,\nA fleecy cloud,\nAnd I turned away to thee,\nProud Evening Star,\nIn thy glory afar\nAnd dearer thy beam shall be;\nFor joy to my heart\nIs the proud part\nThou bearest in Heaven at night,\nAnd more I admire\nThy distant fire,\nThan that colder, lowly light.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1827 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -80976,10 +83676,10 @@ "title": "“Fairy-land”", "body": "Dim vales--and shadowy floods--\nAnd cloudy-looking woods,\nWhose forms we can’t discover\nFor the tears that drip all over\nHuge moons there wax and wane--\nAgain--again--again--\nEvery moment of the night--\nForever changing places--\nAnd they put out the star-light\nWith the breath from their pale faces.\nAbout twelve by the moon-dial\nOne more filmy than the rest\n(A kind which, upon trial,\nThey have found to be the best)\nComes down--still down--and down\nWith its centre on the crown\nOf a mountain’s eminence,\nWhile its wide circumference\nIn easy drapery falls\nOver hamlets, over halls,\nWherever they may be--\nO’er the strange woods--o’er the sea--\nOver spirits on the wing--\nOver every drowsy thing--\nAnd buries them up quite\nIn a labyrinth of light--\nAnd then, how deep!--O, deep!\nIs the passion of their sleep.\nIn the morning they arise,\nAnd their moony covering\nIs soaring in the skies,\nWith the tempests as they toss,\nLike--almost any thing--\nOr a yellow Albatross.\nThey use that moon no more\nFor the same end as before--\nVidelicet a tent--\nWhich I think extravagant:\nIts atomies, however,\nInto a shower dissever,\nOf which those butterflies,\nOf Earth, who seek the skies,\nAnd so come down again\n(Never-contented thing!)\nHave brought a specimen\nUpon their quivering wings.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1831 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -80987,10 +83687,10 @@ "title": "“For Annie”", "body": "Thank Heaven! the crisis--\nThe danger is past,\nAnd the lingering illness\nIs over at last--\nAnd the fever called “Living”\nIs conquered at last.\n\nSadly, I know,\nI am shorn of my strength,\nAnd no muscle I move\nAs I lie at full length--\nBut no matter!--I feel\nI am better at length.\n\nAnd I rest so composedly,\nNow in my bed,\nThat any beholder\nMight fancy me dead--\nMight start at beholding me\nThinking me dead.\n\nThe moaning and groaning,\nThe sighing and sobbing,\nAre quieted now,\nWith that horrible throbbing\nAt heart:--ah, that horrible,\nHorrible throbbing!\n\nThe sickness--the nausea--\nThe pitiless pain--\nHave ceased, with the fever\nThat maddened my brain--\nWith the fever called “Living”\nThat burned in my brain.\n\nAnd oh! of all tortures\n_That_ torture the worst\nHas abated--the terrible\nTorture of thirst,\nFor the naphthaline river\nOf Passion accurst:--\nI have drank of a water\nThat quenches all thirst:--\n\nOf a water that flows,\nWith a lullaby sound,\nFrom a spring but a very few\nFeet under ground--\nFrom a cavern not very far\nDown under ground.\n\nAnd ah! let it never\nBe foolishly said\nThat my room it is gloomy\nAnd narrow my bed--\nFor man never slept\nIn a different bed;\nAnd, to _sleep_, you must slumber\nIn just such a bed.\n\nMy tantalized spirit\nHere blandly reposes,\nForgetting, or never\nRegretting its roses--\nIts old agitations\nOf myrtles and roses:\n\nFor now, while so quietly\nLying, it fancies\nA holier odor\nAbout it, of pansies--\nA rosemary odor,\nCommingled with pansies--\nWith rue and the beautiful\nPuritan pansies.\n\nAnd so it lies happily,\nBathing in many\nA dream of the truth\nAnd the beauty of Annie--\nDrowned in a bath\nOf the tresses of Annie.\n\nShe tenderly kissed me,\nShe fondly caressed,\nAnd then I fell gently\nTo sleep on her breast--\nDeeply to sleep\nFrom the heaven of her breast.\n\nWhen the light was extinguished,\nShe covered me warm,\nAnd she prayed to the angels\nTo keep me from harm--\nTo the queen of the angels\nTo shield me from harm.\n\nAnd I lie so composedly,\nNow in my bed\n(Knowing her love)\nThat you fancy me dead--\nAnd I rest so contentedly,\nNow in my bed,\n(With her love at my breast)\nThat you fancy me dead--\nThat you shudder to look at me.\nThinking me dead.\n\nBut my heart it is brighter\nThan all of the many\nStars in the sky,\nFor it sparkles with Annie--\nIt glows with the light\nOf the love of my Annie--\nWith the thought of the light\nOf the eyes of my Annie.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1849 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -80998,10 +83698,10 @@ "title": "“The Forest Reverie”", "body": "’Tis said that when\n The hands of men\nTamed this primeval wood,\nAnd hoary trees with groans of wo,\nLike warriors by an unknown foe,\nWere in their strength subdued,\n The virgin Earth\n Gave instant birth\nTo springs that ne’er did flow--\n That in the sun\n Did rivulets run,\nAnd all around rare flowers did blow--\n The wild rose pale\n Perfumed the gale,\nAnd the queenly lily adown the dale\n (Whom the sun and the dew\n And the winds did woo),\nWith the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.\n\n So when in tears\n The love of years\nIs wasted like the snow,\nAnd the fine fibrils of its life\nBy the rude wrong of instant strife\nAre broken at a blow--\n Within the heart\n Do springs upstart\nOf which it doth now know,\n And strange, sweet dreams,\n Like silent streams\nThat from new fountains overflow,\n With the earlier tide\n Of rivers glide\nDeep in the heart whose hope has died--\nQuenching the fires its ashes hide,--\nIts ashes, whence will spring and grow\n Sweet flowers, ere long,--\nThe rare and radiant flowers of song!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1845 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -81013,10 +83713,10 @@ "title": "“The Happiest Day”", "body": "The happiest day--the happiest hour\nMy seared and blighted heart hath known,\nThe highest hope of pride and power,\nI feel hath flown.\n\nOf power! said I? Yes! such I ween\nBut they have vanished long, alas!\nThe visions of my youth have been--\nBut let them pass.\n\nAnd pride, what have I now with thee?\nAnother brow may ev’n inherit\nThe venom thou hast poured on me--\nBe still my spirit!\n\nThe happiest day--the happiest hour\nMine eyes shall see--have ever seen\nThe brightest glance of pride and power\nI feel have been:\n\nBut were that hope of pride and power\nNow offered with the pain\nEv’n _then_ I felt--that brightest hour\nI would not live again:\n\nFor on its wing was dark alloy\nAnd as it fluttered--fell\nAn essence--powerful to destroy\nA soul that knew it well.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1827 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81024,11 +83724,11 @@ "title": "“The Haunted Palace”", "body": "In the greenest of our valleys\nBy good angels tenanted,\nOnce a fair and stately palace--\nRadiant palace--reared its head.\nIn the monarch Thought’s dominion--\nIt stood there!\nNever seraph spread a pinion\nOver fabric half so fair!\n\nBanners yellow, glorious, golden,\nOn its roof did float and flow,\n(This--all this--was in the olden\nTime long ago),\nAnd every gentle air that dallied,\nIn that sweet day,\nAlong the ramparts plumed and pallid,\nA winged odor went away.\n\nWanderers in that happy valley,\nThrough two luminous windows, saw\nSpirits moving musically,\nTo a lute’s well-tunĂ«d law,\nBound about a throne where, sitting\n(Porphyrogene!)\nIn state his glory well befitting,\nThe ruler of the realm was seen.\n\nAnd all with pearl and ruby glowing\nWas the fair palace door,\nThrough which came flowing, flowing, flowing,\nAnd sparkling evermore,\nA troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty\nWas but to sing,\nIn voices of surpassing beauty,\nThe wit and wisdom of their king.\n\nBut evil things, in robes of sorrow,\nAssailed the monarch’s high estate.\n(Ah, let us mourn!--for never morrow\nShall dawn upon him desolate!)\nAnd round about his home the glory\nThat blushed and bloomed,\nIs but a dim-remembered story\nOf the old time entombed.\n\nAnd travellers, now, within that valley,\nThrough the red-litten windows see\nVast forms, that move fantastically\nTo a discordant melody,\nWhile, like a ghastly rapid river,\nThrough the pale door\nA hideous throng rush out forever\nAnd laugh--but smile no more.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1839, "month": "april" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -81039,10 +83739,10 @@ "title": "“Helen, thy beauty is to me 
”", "body": "Helen, thy beauty is to me\nLike those Nicean barks of yore,\nThat gently, o’er a perfumed sea,\nThe weary, wayworn wanderer bore\nTo his own native shore.\n\nOn desperate seas long wont to roam,\nThy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,\nThy Naiad airs have brought me home\nTo the glory that was Greece,\nTo the grandeur that was Rome.\n\nLo! in yon brilliant window niche,\nHow statue-like I see thee stand,\nThe agate lamp within thy hand!\nAh, Psyche, from the regions which\nAre Holy Land!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1831 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81050,10 +83750,10 @@ "title": "“Hymn”", "body": "At morn--at noon--at twilight dim--\nMaria! thou hast heard my hymn!\nIn joy and woe--in good and ill--\nMother of God, be with me still!\nWhen the Hours flew brightly by,\nAnd not a cloud obscured the sky,\nMy soul, lest it should truant be,\nThy grace did guide to thine and thee\nNow, when storms of Fate o’ercast\nDarkly my Present and my Past,\nLet my future radiant shine\nWith sweet hopes of thee and thine!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1845 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "assumption" @@ -81072,10 +83772,10 @@ "title": "“I heed not that my earthly lot 
”", "body": "I heed not that my earthly lot\nHath--little of Earth in it--\nThat years of love have been forgot\nIn the hatred of a minute:--\nI mourn not that the desolate\nAre happier, sweet, than I,\nBut that _you_ sorrow for _my_ fate\nWho am a passer-by.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1829 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81083,10 +83783,10 @@ "title": "“Imitation”", "body": "A dark unfathomed tide\nOf interminable pride--\nA mystery, and a dream,\nShould my early life seem;\nI say that dream was fraught\nWith a wild and waking thought\nOf beings that have been,\nWhich my spirit hath not seen,\nHad I let them pass me by,\nWith a dreaming eye!\nLet none of earth inherit\nThat vision on my spirit;\nThose thoughts I would control,\nAs a spell upon his soul:\nFor that bright hope at last\nAnd that light time have past,\nAnd my wordly rest hath gone\nWith a sigh as it passed on:\nI care not though it perish\nWith a thought I then did cherish.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1827 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81105,11 +83805,11 @@ "title": "“The Island of the Fay”", "body": "_“Nullus enim locus sine genio est.”_\n --Servius.\n\n“_La musique_,” says Marmontel, in those ‘Contes Moraux’ which in all our translations we have insisted upon calling ‘Moral Tales,’ as if in mockery of their spirit--“_la musique est le seul des talens qui jouisse de lui-meme: tous les autres veulent des temoins_.” He here confounds the pleasure derivable from sweet sounds with the capacity for creating them. No more than any other _talent_, is that for music susceptible of complete enjoyment where there is no second party to appreciate its exercise; and it is only in common with other talents that it produces _effects_ which may be fully enjoyed in solitude. The idea which the _raconteur_ has either failed to entertain clearly, or has sacrificed in its expression to his national love of _point_, is doubtless the very tenable one that the higher order of music is the most thoroughly estimated when we are exclusively alone. The proposition in this form will be admitted at once by those who love the lyre for its own sake and for its spiritual uses. But there is one pleasure still within the reach of fallen mortality, and perhaps only one, which owes even more than does music to the accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness experienced in the contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man who would behold aright the glory of God upon earth must in solitude behold that glory. To me at least the presence, not of human life only, but of life, in any other form than that of the green things which grow upon the soil and are voiceless, is a stain upon the landscape, is at war with the genius of the scene. I love, indeed, to regard the dark valleys, and the gray rocks, and the waters that silently smile, and the forests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud watchful mountains that look down upon all,--I love to regard these as themselves but the colossal members of one vast animate and sentient whole--a whole whose form (that of the sphere) is the most perfect and most inclusive of all; whose path is among associate planets; whose meek handmaiden is the moon; whose mediate sovereign is the sun; whose life is eternity; whose thought is that of a god; whose enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies are lost in immensity; whose cognizance of ourselves is akin with our own cognizance of the _animalculae_ which infest the brain, a being which we in consequence regard as purely inanimate and material, much in the same manner as these _animalculae_ must thus regard us.\n\nOur telescopes and our mathematical investigations assure us on every hand, notwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the priesthood, that space, and therefore that bulk, is an important consideration in the eyes of the Almighty. The cycles in which the stars move are those best adapted for the evolution, without collision, of the greatest possible number of bodies. The forms of those bodies are accurately such as within a given surface to include the greatest possible amount of matter; while the surfaces themselves are so disposed as to accommodate a denser population than could be accommodated on the same surfaces otherwise arranged. Nor is it any argument against bulk being an object with God that space itself is infinite; for there may be an infinity of matter to fill it; and since we see clearly that the endowment of matter with vitality is a principle--indeed, as far as our judgments extend, the _leading_ principle in the operations of Deity, it is scarcely logical to imagine it confined to the regions of the minute, where we daily trace it, and not extending to those of the august. As we find cycle within cycle without end, yet all revolving around one far-distant centre which is the Godhead, may we not analogically suppose, in the same manner, life within life, the less within the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring through self-esteem in believing man, in either his temporal or future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that vast “clod of the valley” which he tills and contemns, and to which he denies a soul, for no more profound reason than that he does not behold it in operation.\n\nThese fancies, and such as these, have always given to my meditations among the mountains and the forests, by the rivers and the ocean, a tinge of what the every-day world would not fail to term the fantastic. My wanderings amid such scenes have been many and far-searching, and often solitary; and the interest with which I have strayed through many a dim deep valley, or gazed into the reflected heaven of many a bright lake, has been an interest greatly deepened by the thought that I have strayed and gazed _alone._ What flippant Frenchman was it who said, in allusion to the well known work of Zimmermann, that _“la solitude est une belle chose; mais il faut quelqu’un pour vous dire que la solitude est une belle chose”_? The epigram cannot be gainsaid; but the necessity is a thing that does not exist.\n\nIt was during one of my lonely journeyings, amid a far distant region of mountain locked within mountain, and sad rivers and melancholy tarns writhing or sleeping within all, that I chanced upon a certain rivulet and island. I came upon them suddenly in the leafy June, and threw myself upon the turf beneath the branches of an unknown odorous shrub, that I might doze as I contemplated the scene. I felt that thus only should I look upon it, such was the character of phantasm which it wore.\n\nOn all sides, save to the west where the sun was about sinking, arose the verdant walls of the forest. The little river which turned sharply in its course, and was thus immediately lost to sight, seemed to have no exit from its prison, but to be absorbed by the deep green foliage of the trees to the east; while in the opposite quarter (so it appeared to me as I lay at length and glanced upward) there poured down noiselessly and continuously into the valley a rich golden and crimson waterfall from the sunset fountains of the sky.\n\nAbout midway in the short vista which my dreamy vision took in, one small circular island, profusely verdured, reposed upon the bosom of the stream. So blended bank and shadow there, that each seemed pendulous in air--so mirror-like was the glassy water, that it was scarcely possible to say at what point upon the slope of the emerald turf its crystal dominion began. My position enabled me to include in a single view both the eastern and western extremities of the islet, and I observed a singularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all one radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the eye of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The grass was short, springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed. The trees were lithe, mirthful, erect, bright, slender, and graceful, of eastern figure and foliage, with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored. There seemed a deep sense of life and joy about all, and although no airs blew from out the heavens, yet everything had motion through the gentle sweepings to and fro of innumerable butterflies, that might have been mistaken for tulips with wings.\n\nThe other or eastern end of the isle was whelmed in the blackest shade. A sombre, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom, here pervaded all things. The trees were dark in color and mournful in form and attitude--wreathing themselves into sad, solemn, and spectral shapes, that conveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and untimely death. The grass wore the deep tint of the cypress, and the heads of its blades hung droopingly, and hither and thither among it were many small unsightly hillocks, low and narrow, and not very long, that had the aspect of graves, but were not, although over and all about them the rue and the rosemary clambered. The shades of the trees fell heavily upon the water, and seemed to bury itself therein, impregnating the depths of the element with darkness. I fancied that each shadow, as the sun descended lower and lower, separated itself sullenly from the trunk that gave it birth, and thus became absorbed by the stream, while other shadows issued momently from the trees, taking the place of their predecessors thus entombed.\n\nThis idea having once seized upon my fancy greatly excited it, and I lost myself forthwith in reverie. “If ever island were enchanted,” said I to myself, “this is it. This is the haunt of the few gentle Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs theirs?--or do they yield up their sweet lives as mankind yield up their own? In dying, do they not rather waste away mournfully, rendering unto God little by little their existence, as these trees render up shadow after shadow, exhausting their substance unto dissolution? What the wasting tree is to the water that imbibes its shade, growing thus blacker by what it preys upon, may not the life of the Fay be to the death which engulfs it?”\n\nAs I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly to rest, and eddying currents careered round and round the island, bearing upon their bosom large dazzling white flakes of the bark of the sycamore, flakes which, in their multiform positions upon the water, a quick imagination might have converted into anything it pleased; while I thus mused, it appeared to me that the form of one of those very Fays about whom I had been pondering, made its way slowly into the darkness from out the light at the western end of the island. She stood erect in a singularly fragile canoe, and urged it with the mere phantom of an oar. While within the influence of the lingering sunbeams, her attitude seemed indicative of joy, but sorrow deformed it as she passed within the shade. Slowly she glided along, and at length rounded the islet and re-entered the region of light. “The revolution which has just been made by the Fay,” continued I musingly, “is the cycle of the brief year of her life. She has floated through her winter and through her summer. She is a year nearer unto death: for I did not fail to see that as she came into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the dark water, making its blackness more black.”\n\nAnd again the boat appeared and the Fay, but about the attitude of the latter there was more of care and uncertainty and less of elastic joy. She floated again from out the light and into the gloom (which deepened momently), and again her shadow fell from her into the ebony water, and became absorbed into its blackness. And again and again she made the circuit of the island (while the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and at each issuing into the light there was more sorrow about her person, while it grew feebler and far fainter and more indistinct, and at each passage into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became whelmed in a shadow more black. But at length, when the sun had utterly departed, the Fay, now the mere ghost of her former self, went disconsolately with her boat into the region of the ebony flood, and that she issued thence at all I cannot say, for darkness fell over all things, and I beheld her magical figure no more.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1841, "month": "june" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -81120,10 +83820,10 @@ "title": "“Israfel”", "body": "_“And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures.”_\n --Koran\n\nIn Heaven a spirit doth dwell\n“Whose heart-strings are a lute;”\nNone sing so wildly well\nAs the angel Israfel,\nAnd the giddy Stars (so legends tell),\nCeasing their hymns, attend the spell\nOf his voice, all mute.\n\nTottering above\nIn her highest noon,\nThe enamoured Moon\nBlushes with love,\nWhile, to listen, the red levin\n(With the rapid Pleiads, even,\nWhich were seven),\nPauses in Heaven.\n\nAnd they say (the starry choir\nAnd the other listening things)\nThat Israfeli’s fire\nIs owing to that lyre\nBy which he sits and sings--\nThe trembling living wire\nOf those unusual strings.\n\nBut the skies that angel trod,\nWhere deep thoughts are a duty--\nWhere Love’s a grow-up God--\nWhere the Houri glances are\nImbued with all the beauty\nWhich we worship in a star.\n\nTherefore, thou art not wrong,\nIsrafeli, who despisest\nAn unimpassioned song;\nTo thee the laurels belong,\nBest bard, because the wisest!\nMerrily live and long!\n\nThe ecstasies above\nWith thy burning measures suit--\nThy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,\nWith the fervor of thy lute--\nWell may the stars be mute!\n\nYes, Heaven is thine; but this\nIs a world of sweets and sours;\nOur flowers are merely--flowers,\nAnd the shadow of thy perfect bliss\nIs the sunshine of ours.\n\nIf I could dwell\nWhere Israfel\nHath dwelt, and he where I,\nHe might not sing so wildly well\nA mortal melody,\nWhile a bolder note than this might swell\nFrom my lyre within the sky.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1836 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -81134,10 +83834,10 @@ "title": "“The Lake”", "body": "In spring of youth it was my lot\nTo haunt of the wide world a spot\nThe which I could not love the less--\nSo lovely was the loneliness\nOf a wild lake, with black rock bound,\nAnd the tall pines that towered around.\n\nBut when the Night had thrown her pall\nUpon the spot, as upon all,\nAnd the mystic wind went by\nMurmuring in melody--\nThen--ah, then, I would awake\nTo the terror of the lone lake.\n\nYet that terror was not fright,\nBut a tremulous delight--\nA feeling not the jewelled mine\nCould teach or bribe me to define--\nNor Love--although the Love were thine.\n\nDeath was in that poisonous wave,\nAnd in its gulf a fitting grave\nFor him who thence could solace bring\nTo his lone imagining--\nWhose solitary soul could make\nAn Eden of that dim lake.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1827 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81145,10 +83845,10 @@ "title": "“Lenore”", "body": "Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!\nLet the bell toll!--a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river.\nAnd, Guy de Vere, hast _thou_ no tear?--weep now or never more!\nSee! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!\nCome! let the burial rite be read--the funeral song be sung!--\nAn anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young--\nA dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young.\n\n“Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,\nAnd when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her--that she died!\nHow _shall_ the ritual, then, be read?--the requiem how be sung\nBy you--by yours, the evil eye,--by yours, the slanderous tongue\nThat did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?”\n\n_Peccavimus;_ but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song\nGo up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!\nThe sweet Lenore hath “gone before,” with Hope, that flew beside,\nLeaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride--\nFor her, the fair and _dĂ©bonnaire_, that now so lowly lies,\nThe life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes--\nThe life still there, upon her hair--the death upon her eyes.\n\n“Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,\nBut waft the angel on her flight with a paean of old days!\nLet _no_ bell toll!--lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,\nShould catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned Earth.\nTo friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven--\nFrom Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven--\nFrom grief and groan to a golden throne beside the King of Heaven.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1831 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81156,10 +83856,10 @@ "title": "“Mysterious Star”", "body": "Mysterious star!\nThou wert my dream\nAll a long summer night--\nBe now my theme!\nBy this clear stream,\nOf thee will I write;\nMeantime from afar\nBathe me in light!\n\nThy world has not the dross of ours,\nYet all the beauty--all the flowers\nThat list our love or deck our bowers\nIn dreamy gardens, where do lie\nDreamy maidens all the day;\nWhile the silver winds of Circassy\nOn violet couches faint away.\nLittle--oh! little dwells in thee\nLike unto what on earth we see:\nBeauty’s eye is here the bluest\nIn the falsest and untruest--\nOn the sweetest air doth float\nThe most sad and solemn note--\nIf with thee be broken hearts,\nJoy so peacefully departs,\nThat its echo still doth dwell,\nLike the murmur in the shell.\nThou! thy truest type of grief\nIs the gently falling leaf--\nThou! thy framing is so holy\nSorrow is not melancholy.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1831 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -81170,10 +83870,10 @@ "title": "“A Paean”", "body": "How shall the burial rite be read?\nThe solemn song be sung?\nThe requiem for the loveliest dead,\nThat ever died so young?\n\nHer friends are gazing on her\nAnd on her gaudy bier,\nAnd weep!--oh! to dishonor\nDead beauty with a tear!\n\nThey loved her for her wealth--\nAnd they hated her for her pride--\nBut she grew in feeble health,\nAnd they _love_ her--that she died.\n\nThey tell me (while they speak\nOf her “costly broider’d pall”)\nThat my voice is growing weak--\nThat I should not sing at all--\n\nOr that my tone should be\nTun’d to such solemn song\nSo mournfully--so mournfully,\nThat the dead may feel no wrong.\n\nBut she is gone above\nWith young Hope at her side,\nAnd I am drunk with love\nOf the dead, who is my bride.--\n\nOf the dead--dead who lies\nAll perfum’d there,\nWith the death upon her eyes.\nAnd the life upon her hair.\n\nThus on the coffin loud and long\nI strike--the murmur sent\nThrough the gray chambers to my song,\nShall be the accompaniment.\n\nThou diedst in thy life’s June--\nBut thou didst not die too fair:\nThou didst not die too soon,\nNor with too calm an air.\n\nFrom more than friends on earth\nThy life and love are riven,\nTo join the untainted mirth\nOf more than thrones in heaven.--\n\nTherefore, to thee this night\nI will no requiem raise,\nBut waft thee on thy flight,\nWith a Paean of old days.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1836 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81181,10 +83881,10 @@ "title": "“The Power of Words”", "body": "> _Oinos:_\nPardon, Agathos, the weakness of a spirit new-fledged with immortality!\n\n> _Agathos:_\nYou have spoken nothing, my Oinos, for which pardon is to be demanded. Not even here is knowledge a thing of intuition. For wisdom, ask of the angels freely, that it may be given!\n\n> _Oinos:_\nBut in this existence I dreamed that I should be at once cognizant of all things, and thus at once happy in being cognizant of all.\n\n> _Agathos:_\nAh, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of knowledge! In forever knowing, we are forever blessed; but to know all, were the curse of a fiend.\n\n> _Oinos:_\nBut does not The Most High know all?\n\n> _Agathos:_\n_That_ (since he is The Most Happy) must be still the _one_ thing unknown even to HIM.\n\n> _Oinos:_\nBut, since we grow hourly in knowledge, must not _at last_ all things be known?\n\n> _Agathos:_\nLook down into the abysmal distances!--attempt to force the gaze down the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as we sweep slowly through them thus--and thus--and thus! Even the spiritual vision, is it not at all points arrested by the continuous golden walls of the universe?--the walls of the myriads of the shining bodies that mere number has appeared to blend into unity?\n\n> _Oinos:_\nI clearly perceive that the infinity of matter is no dream.\n\n> _Agathos:_\nThere are no dreams in Aidenn--but it is here whispered that, of this infinity of matter, the _sole_ purpose is to afford infinite springs at which the soul may allay the thirst _to know_ which is forever unquenchable within it--since to quench it would be to extinguish the soul’s self. Question me then, my Oinos, freely and without fear. Come! we will leave to the left the loud harmony of the Pleiades, and swoop outward from the throne into the starry meadows beyond Orion, where, for pansies and violets, and heart’s-ease, are the beds of the triplicate and triple-tinted suns.\n\n> _Oinos:_\nAnd now, Agathos, as we proceed, instruct me!--speak to me in the earth’s familiar tones! I understand not what you hinted to me just now of the modes or of the methods of what during mortality, we were accustomed to call Creation. Do you mean to say that the Creator is not God?\n\n> _Agathos:_\nI mean to say that the Deity does not create.\n\n> _Oinos:_\nExplain!\n\n> _Agathos:_\nIn the beginning only, he created. The seeming creatures which are now throughout the universe so perpetually springing into being can only be considered as the mediate or indirect, not as the direct or immediate results of the Divine creative power.\n\n> _Oinos:_\nAmong men, my Agathos, this idea would be considered heretical in the extreme.\n\n> _Agathos:_\nAmong the angels, my Oinos, it is seen to be simply true.\n\n> _Oinos:_\nI can comprehend you thus far--that certain operations of what we term Nature, or the natural laws, will, under certain conditions, give rise to that which has all the _appearance_ of creation. Shortly before the final overthrow of the earth, there were, I well remember, many very successful experiments in what some philosophers were weak enough to denominate the creation of animalculae.\n\n> _Agathos:_\nThe cases of which you speak were, in fact, instances of the secondary creation, and of the _only_ species of creation which has ever been since the first word spoke into existence the first law.\n\n> _Oinos:_\nAre not the starry worlds that, from the abyss of nonentity, burst hourly forth into the heavens--are not these stars, Agathos, the immediate handiwork of the King?\n\n> _Agathos:_\nLet me endeavor, my Oinos, to lead you, step by step, to the conception I intend. You are well aware that, as no thought can perish, so no act is without infinite result. We moved our hands, for example, when we were dwellers on the earth, and in so doing we gave vibration to the atmosphere which engirdled it. This vibration was indefinitely extended till it gave impulse to every particle of the earth’s air, which thenceforward, _and forever_, was actuated by the one movement of the hand. This fact the mathematicians of our globe well knew. They made the special effects, indeed, wrought in the fluid by special impulses, the subject of exact calculation--so that it became easy to determine in what precise period an impulse of given extent would engirdle the orb, and impress (forever) every atom of the atmosphere circumambient. Retrograding, they found no difficulty; from a given effect, under given conditions, in determining the value of the original impulse. Now the mathematicians who saw that the results of any given impulse were absolutely endless--and who saw that a portion of these results were accurately traceable through the agency of algebraic analysis--who saw, too, the facility of the retrogradation--these men saw, at the same time, that this species of analysis itself had within itself a capacity for indefinite progress--that there were no bounds conceivable to its advancement and applicability, except within the intellect of him who advanced or applied it. But at this point our mathematicians paused.\n\n> _Oinos:_\nAnd why, Agathos, should they have proceeded?\n\n> _Agathos:_\nBecause there were some considerations of deep interest beyond. It was deducible from what they knew, that to a being of infinite understanding--one to whom the _perfection_ of the algebraic analysis lay unfolded--there could be no difficulty in tracing every impulse given the air--and the ether through the air--to the remotest consequences at any even infinitely remote epoch of time. It is indeed demonstrable that every such impulse _given the air_, must _in the end_ impress every individual thing that exists _within the universe;_--and the being of infinite understanding--the being whom we have imagined--might trace the remote undulations of the impulse--trace them upward and onward in their influences upon all particles of all matter--upward and onward forever in their modifications of old forms--or, in other words, _in their creation of new_--until he found them reflected--unimpressive _at last_--back from the throne of the Godhead. And not only could such a being do this, but at any epoch, should a given result be afforded him--should one of these numberless comets, for example, be presented to his inspection--he could have no difficulty in determining, by the analytic retrogradation, to what original impulse it was due. This power of retrogradation in its absolute fulness and perfection--this faculty of referring at _all_ epochs, _all_ effects to _all_ causes--is of course the prerogative of the Deity alone--but in every variety of degree, short of the absolute perfection, is the power itself exercised by the whole host of the Angelic Intelligences.\n\n> _Oinos:_\nBut you speak merely of impulses upon the air.\n\n> _Agathos:_\nIn speaking of the air, I referred only to the earth: but the general proposition has reference to impulses upon the ether--which, since it pervades, and alone pervades all space, is thus the great medium of _creation_.\n\n> _Oinos:_\nThen all motion, of whatever nature, creates?\n\n> _Agathos:_\nIt must: but a true philosophy has long taught that the source of all motion is thought--and the source of all thought is--\n\n> _Oinos:_\nGod.\n\n> _Agathos:_\nI have spoken to you, Oinos, as to a child, of the fair Earth which lately perished--of impulses upon the atmosphere of the earth.\n\n> _Oinos:_\nYou did.\n\n> _Agathos:_\nAnd while I thus spoke, did there not cross your mind some thought of the _physical power of words_? Is not every word an impulse on the air?\n\n> _Oinos:_\nBut why, Agathos, do you weep--and why, oh, why do your wings droop as we hover above this fair star--which is the greenest and yet most terrible of all we have encountered in our flight? Its brilliant flowers look like a fairy dream--but its fierce volcanoes like the passions of a turbulent heart.\n\n> _Agathos:_\nThey _are_!--they _are_!--This wild star--it is now three centuries since, with clasped hands, and with streaming eyes, at the feet of my beloved--I spoke it--with a few passionate sentences--into birth. Its brilliant flowers _are_ the dearest of all unfulfilled dreams, and its raging volcanoes _are_ the passions of the most turbulent and unhallowed of hearts!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1845 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81192,11 +83892,11 @@ "title": "“The Raven”", "body": "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,\nOver many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--\nWhile I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,\nAs of some one gently rapping--rapping at my chamber door.\n“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door--\n Only this and nothing more.”\n\nAh, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,\nAnd each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.\nEagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow\nFrom my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore--\nFor the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--\n Nameless here for evermore.\n\nAnd the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain\nThrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;\nSo that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating\n“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door--\nSome late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;--\n This it is and nothing more.”\n\nPresently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,\n“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;\nBut the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,\nAnd so faintly you came tapping--tapping at my chamber door,\nThat I scarce was sure I heard you”--here I opened wide the door:--\n Darkness there and nothing more.\n\nDeep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,\nDoubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;\nBut the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,\nAnd the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore!”\nThis I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”\n Merely this and nothing more.\n\nBack into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,\nSoon I heard again a tapping, somewhat louder than before.\n“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;\nLet me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore--\nLet my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore;--\n ’Tis the wind and nothing more.”\n\nOpen here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,\nIn there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;\nNot the least obeisance made he: not an instant stopped or stayed he;\nBut, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door--\nPerched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--\n Perched, and sat, and nothing more.\n\nThen this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,\nBy the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,\n“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,\nGhastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore--\nTell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”\n Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”\n\nMuch I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,\nThough its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;\nFor we cannot help agreeing that no living human being\nEver yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door--\nBird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,\n With such name as “Nevermore.”\n\nBut the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only\nThat one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.\nNothing further then he uttered--not a feather then he fluttered--\nTill I scarcely more than muttered, “Other friends have flown before--\nOn the morrow _he_ will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.”\n Then the bird said, “Nevermore.”\n\nStartled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,\n“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store,\nCaught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster\nFollowed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore--\nTill the dirges of his Hope the melancholy burden bore\n Of ‘Never--nevermore.’”\n\nBut the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,\nStraight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;\nThen, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking\nFancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--\nWhat this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore\n Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”\n\nThis I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing\nTo the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;\nThis and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining\nOn the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,\nBut whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,\n _She_ shall press, ah, nevermore!\n\nThen, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer\nSwung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.\n“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee\nRespite--respite aad nepenthĂ© from thy memories of Lenore!\nQuaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthĂ©, and forget this lost Lenore!”\n Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”\n\n“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!--\nWhether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,\nDesolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--\nOn this home by Horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore--\nIs there--_is_ there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!”\n Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”\n\n“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!\nBy that Heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--\nTell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,\nIt shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--\nClasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”\n Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”\n\n“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting--\n“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!\nLeave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!\nLeave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door!\nTake thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”\n Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”\n\nAnd the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting\nOn the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;\nAnd his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,\nAnd the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;\nAnd my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor\n Shall be lifted--nevermore!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1845, "month": "january" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -81207,10 +83907,10 @@ "title": "“Romance”", "body": "Romance, who loves to nod and sing,\nWith drowsy head and folded wing,\nAmong the green leaves as they shake\nFar down within some shadowy lake,\nTo me a painted paroquet\nHath been--a most familiar bird--\nTaught me my alphabet to say--\nTo lisp my very earliest word\nWhile in the wild wood I did lie,\nA child--with a most knowing eye.\n\nOf late, eternal Condor years\nSo shake the very Heaven on high\nWith tumult as they thunder by,\nI have no time for idle cares\nThough gazing on the unquiet sky.\nAnd when an hour with calmer wings\nIts down upon my spirit flings--\nThat little time with lyre and rhyme\nTo while away--forbidden things!\nMy heart would feel to be a crime\nUnless it trembled with the strings.\n\nSucceeding years, too wild for song,\nThen rolled like tropic storms along,\nWhere, though the garish lights that fly\nDying along the troubled sky,\nLay bare, through vistas thunder-riven,\nThe blackness of the general Heaven,\nThat very blackness yet doth fling\nLight on the lightning’s silver wing.\n\nFor being an idle boy lang syne,\nWho read Anacreon and drank wine,\nI early found Anacreon rhymes\nWere almost passionate sometimes--\nAnd by strange alchemy of brain\nHis pleasures always turned to pain--\nHis naĂŻvetĂ© to wild desire--\nHis wit to love--his wine to fire--\nAnd so, being young and dipt in folly,\nI fell in love with melancholy.\n\nAnd used to throw my earthly rest\nAnd quiet all away in jest--\nI could not love except where Death\nWas mingling his with Beauty’s breath--\nOr Hymen, Time, and Destiny,\nWere stalking between her and me.\n\nBut _now_ my soul hath too much room--\nGone are the glory and the gloom--\nThe black hath mellow’d into gray,\nAnd all the fires are fading away.\n\nMy draught of passion hath been deep--\nI revell’d, and I now would sleep--\nAnd after drunkenness of soul\nSucceeds the glories of the bowl--\nAn idle longing night and day\nTo dream my very life away.\n\nBut dreams--of those who dream as I,\nAspiringly, are damned, and die:\nYet should I swear I mean alone,\nBy notes so very shrilly blown,\nTo break upon Time’s monotone,\nWhile yet my vapid joy and grief\nAre tintless of the yellow leaf--\nWhy not an imp the greybeard hath,\nWill shake his shadow in my path--\nAnd e’en the greybeard will o’erlook\nConnivingly my dreaming-book.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1831 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81218,10 +83918,10 @@ "title": "“Sancta Maria”", "body": "Sancta Maria! turn thine eyes--\nUpon the sinner’s sacrifice,\nOf fervent prayer and humble love,\nFrom thy holy throne above.\nAt morn; at noon; at twilight dim--\nMaria! thou hast heard my hymn!\nIn joy and woe; in good and ill--\nMother of God, be with me still!\nWhen the Hours flew brightly by,\nAnd not a cloud obscured the sky,\nMy soul, lest it should truant be,\nThy grace did guide to thine and thee;\nNow, when storms of Fate o’ercast\nDarkly my Present and my Past,\nLet my Future radiant shine\nWith sweet hopes of thee and thine!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1835 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "immaculate_conception" @@ -81232,11 +83932,11 @@ "title": "“Shadow”", "body": "Yea! though I walk through the valley of the _Shadow_.\n--_Psalm of David_\n\nYe who read are still among the living; but I who write shall have long since gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed strange things shall happen, and secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass away, ere these memorials be seen of men. And, when seen, there will be some to disbelieve and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much to ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron.\nThe year had been a year of terror, and of feeling more intense than terror for which there is no name upon the earth. For many prodigies and signs had taken place, and far and wide, over sea and land, the black wings of the Pestilence were spread abroad. To those, nevertheless, cunning in the stars, it was not unknown that the heavens wore an aspect of ill; and to me, the Greek Oinos, among others, it was evident that now had arrived the alternation of that seven hundred and ninety-fourth year when, at the entrance of Aries, the planet Jupiter is enjoined with the red ring of the terrible Saturnus. The peculiar spirit of the skies, if I mistake not greatly, made itself manifest, not only in the physical orb of the earth, but in the souls, imaginations, and meditations of mankind.\nOver some flasks of the red Chian wine, within the walls of a noble hall, in a dim city called Ptolemais, we sat, at night, a company of seven. And to our chamber there was no entrance save by a lofty door of brass: and the door was fashioned by the artisan Corinnos, and, being of rare workmanship, was fastened from within. Black draperies, likewise in the gloomy room, shut out from our view the moon, the lurid stars, and the peopleless streets--but the boding and the memory of Evil, they would not be so excluded. There were things around us and about of which I can render no distinct account--things material and spiritual--heaviness in the atmosphere--a sense of suffocation--anxiety--and, above all, that terrible state of existence which the nervous experience when the senses are keenly living and awake, and meanwhile the powers of thought lie dormant. A dead weight hung upon us. It hung upon our limbs--upon the household furniture--upon the goblets from which we drank; and all things were depressed, and borne down thereby--all things save only the flames of the seven iron lamps which illumined our revel. Uprearing themselves in tall slender lines of light, they thus remained burning all pallid and motionless; and in the mirror which their lustre formed upon the round table of ebony at which we sat each of us there assembled beheld the pallor of his own countenance, and the unquiet glare in the downcast eyes of his companions. Yet we laughed and were merry in our proper way--which was hysterical; and sang the songs of Anacreon--which are madness; and drank deeply--although the purple wine reminded us of blood. For there was yet another tenant of our chamber in the person of young Zoilus. Dead and at full length he lay, enshrouded;--the genius and the demon of the scene. Alas! he bore no portion in our mirth, save that his countenance, distorted with the plague, and his eyes in which Death had but half extinguished the fire of the pestilence, seemed to take such an interest in our merriment as the dead may haply take in the merriment of those who are to die. But although I, Oinos, felt that the eyes of the departed were upon me, still I forced myself not to perceive the bitterness of their expression, and gazing down steadily into the depths of the ebony mirror, sang with a loud and sonorous voice the songs of the son of Teos. But gradually my songs they ceased, and their echoes, rolling afar off among the sable draperies of the chamber, became weak, and undistinguishable, and so faded away. And lo! from among those sable draperies, where the sounds of the song departed, there came forth a dark and undefiled shadow--a shadow such as the moon, when low in heaven, might fashion from the figure of a man: but it was the shadow neither of man nor of God, nor of any familiar thing. And quivering awhile among the draperies of the room it at length rested in full view upon the surface of the door of brass. But the shadow was vague, and formless, and indefinite, and was the shadow neither of man nor God--neither God of Greece, nor God of Chaldaea, nor any Egyptian God. And the shadow rested upon the brazen doorway, and under the arch of the entablature of the door and moved not, nor spoke any word, but there became stationary and remained. And the door whereupon the shadow rested was, if I remember aright, over against the feet of the young Zoilus enshrouded. But we, the seven there assembled, having seen the shadow as it came out from among the draperies, dared not steadily behold it, but cast down our eyes, and gazed continually into the depths of the mirror of ebony. And at length I, Oinos, speaking some low words, demanded of the shadow its dwelling and its appellation. And the shadow answered, “I am SHADOW, and my dwelling is near to the Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those dim plains of Helusion which border upon the foul Charonian canal.” And then did we, the seven, start from our seats in horror, and stand trembling, and shuddering, and aghast: for the tones in the voice of the shadow were not the tones of any one being, but of a multitude of beings, and varying in their cadences from syllable to syllable, fell duskily upon our ears in the well remembered and familiar accents of many thousand departed friends.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1833, "month": "may" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -81247,10 +83947,10 @@ "title": "“Silence”", "body": "There are some qualities--some incorporate things,\nThat have a double life, which thus is made\nA type of that twin entity which springs\nFrom matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.\nThere is a twofold _Silence_--sea and shore--\nBody and soul. One dwells in lonely places,\nNewly with grass o’ergrown; some solemn graces,\nSome human memories and tearful lore,\nRender him terrorless: his name’s “No More.”\nHe is the corporate Silence: dread him not!\nNo power hath he of evil in himself;\nBut should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)\nBring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,\nThat haunteth the lone regions where hath trod\nNo foot of man), commend thyself to God!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1840 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81258,10 +83958,10 @@ "title": "“Silence: A Fable”", "body": "The mountain pinnacles slumber; valleys, crags, and caves _are silent_.\n“LISTEN to _me_,” said the Demon, as he placed his hand upon my head. “The region of which I speak is a dreary region in Libya, by the borders of the river ZĂ€ire. And there is no quiet there, nor silence.”\n“The waters of the river have a saffron and sickly hue; and they flow not onward to the sea, but palpitate forever and forever beneath the red eye of the sun with a tumultuous and convulsive motion. For many miles on either side of the river’s oozy bed is a pale desert of gigantic water-lilies. They sigh one unto the other in that solitude, and stretch towards the heaven their long and ghastly necks, and nod to and fro their everlasting heads. And there is an indistinct murmur which cometh out from among them like the rushing of subterrene water. And they sigh one unto the other.”\n“But there is a boundary to their realm--the boundary of the dark, horrible, lofty forest. There, like the waves about the Hebrides, the low underwood is agitated continually. But there is no wind throughout the heaven. And the tall primeval trees rock eternally hither and thither with a crashing and mighty sound. And from their high summits, one by one, drop everlasting dews. And at the roots, strange poisonous flowers lie writhing in perturbed slumber. And overhead, with a rustling and loud noise, the gray clouds rush westwardly forever until they roll, a cataract, over the fiery wall of the horizon. But there is no wind throughout the heaven. And by the shores of the river ZĂ€ire there is neither quiet nor silence.”\n“It was night, and the rain fell; and, falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it was blood. And I stood in the morass among the tall lilies, and the rain fell upon my head--and the lilies sighed one unto the other in the solemnity of their desolation.”\n“And, all at once, the moon arose through the thin ghastly mist, and was crimson in color. And mine eyes fell upon a huge gray rock which stood by the shore of the river and was lighted by the light of the moon. And the rock was gray and ghastly, and tall,--and the rock was gray. Upon its front were characters engraven in the stones; and I walked through the morass of water-lilies, until I came close unto the shore, that I might read the characters upon the stone. But I could not decipher them. And I was going back into the morass when the moon shone with a fuller red, and I turned and looked again upon the rock and upon the characters;--and the characters were DESOLATION.”\n“And I looked upwards, and there stood a man upon the summit of the rock; and I hid myself among the water-lilies that I might discover the action of the man. And the man was tall and stately in form, and wrapped up from his shoulders to his feet in the toga of old Rome. And the outlines of his figure were indistinct--but his features were the features of a deity; for the mantle of the night, and of the mist, and of the moon, and of the dew, had left uncovered the features of his face. And his brow was lofty with thought, and his eye wild with care; and in the few furrows upon his cheek, I read the fables of sorrow, and weariness, and disgust with mankind, and a longing after solitude.”\n“And the man sat upon the rock, and leaned his head upon his hand, and looked out upon the desolation. He looked down into the low unquiet shrubbery, and up into the tall primeval trees, and up higher at the rustling heaven, and into the crimson moon. And I lay close within shelter of the lilies, and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the solitude;--but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock.”\n“And the man turned his attention from the heaven, and looked out upon the dreary river ZĂ€ire, and upon the yellow ghastly waters, and upon the pale legions of the water-lilies. And the man listened to the sighs of the water-lilies, and to the murmur that came up from among them. And I lay close within my covert and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the solitude;--but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock.”\n“Then I went down into the recesses of the morass, and waded afar in among the wilderness of the lilies, and called unto the hippopotami which dwelt among the fens in the recesses of the morass. And the hippopotami heard my call, and came, with the behemoth, unto the foot of the rock, and roared loudly and fearfully beneath the moon. And I lay close within my covert and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the solitude;--but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock.”\n“Then I cursed the elements with the curse of tumult; and a frightful tempest gathered in the heaven, where before there had been no wind. And the heaven became livid with the violence of the tempest--and the rain beat upon the head of the man--and the floods of the river came down--and the river was tormented into foam--and the water-lilies shrieked within their beds--and the forest crumbled before the wind--and the thunder rolled--and the lightning fell--and the rock rocked to its foundation. And I lay close within my covert and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the solitude;--but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock.”\n“Then I grew angry and cursed, with the curse of silence, the river, and the lilies, and the wind, and the forest, and the heaven, and the thunder, and the sighs of the water-lilies. And they became accursed, and _were still._ And the moon ceased to totter up its pathway to heaven--and the thunder died away--and the lightning did not flash--and the clouds hung motionless--and the waters sunk to their level and remained--and the trees ceased to rock--and the water-lilies sighed no more--and the murmur was heard no longer from among them, nor any shadow of sound throughout the vast illimitable desert. And I looked upon the characters of the rock, and they were changed;--and the characters were SILENCE.”\n“And mine eyes fell upon the countenance of the man, and his countenance was wan with terror. And, hurriedly, he raised his head from his hand, and stood forth upon the rock and listened. But there was no voice throughout the vast illimitable desert, and the characters upon the rock were SILENCE. And the man shuddered, and turned his face away, and fled afar off, in haste, so that I beheld him no more.”\nNow there are fine tales in the volumes of the Magi--in the iron-bound, melancholy volumes of the Magi. Therein, I say, are glorious histories of the Heaven, and of the Earth, and of the mighty Sea--and of the Genii that overruled the sea, and the earth, and the lofty heaven. There was much lore, too, in the sayings which were said by the sybils; and holy, holy things were heard of old by the dim leaves that trembled around Dodona--but, as Allah liveth, that fable which the demon told me as he sat by my side in the shadow of the tomb, I hold to be the most wonderful of all! And as the Demon made an end of his story, he fell back within the cavity of the tomb and laughed. And I could not laugh with the Demon, and he cursed me because I could not laugh. And the lynx which dwelleth forever in the tomb, came out therefrom, and lay down at the feet of the Demon, and looked at him steadily in the face.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1837 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81269,10 +83969,10 @@ "title": "“The Sleeper”", "body": "At midnight, in the month of June,\nI stand beneath the mystic moon.\nAn opiate vapor, dewy, dim,\nExhales from out her golden rim,\nAnd, softly dripping, drop by drop,\nUpon the quiet mountain top,\nSteals drowsily and musically\nInto the universal valley.\nThe rosemary nods upon the grave;\nThe lily lolls upon the wave;\nWrapping the fog about its breast,\nThe ruin moulders into rest;\nLooking like Lethe, see! the lake\nA conscious slumber seems to take,\nAnd would not, for the world, awake.\nAll Beauty sleeps!--and lo! where lies\n(Her casement open to the skies)\nIrene, with her Destinies!\n\nOh, lady bright! can it be right--\nThis window open to the night!\nThe wanton airs, from the tree-top,\nLaughingly through the lattice-drop--\nThe bodiless airs, a wizard rout,\nFlit through thy chamber in and out,\nAnd wave the curtain canopy\nSo fitfully--so fearfully--\nAbove the closed and fringed lid\n’Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid,\nThat, o’er the floor and down the wall,\nLike ghosts the shadows rise and fall!\nOh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?\nWhy and what art thou dreaming here?\nSure thou art come o’er far-off seas,\nA wonder to these garden trees!\nStrange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!\nStrange, above all, thy length of tress,\nAnd this all-solemn silentness!\n\nThe lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep\nWhich is enduring, so be deep!\nHeaven have her in its sacred keep!\nThis chamber changed for one more holy,\nThis bed for one more melancholy,\nI pray to God that she may lie\nFor ever with unopened eye,\nWhile the dim sheeted ghosts go by!\n\nMy love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,\nAs it is lasting, so be deep;\nSoft may the worms about her creep!\nFar in the forest, dim and old,\nFor her may some tall vault unfold--\nSome vault that oft hath flung its black\nAnd winged panels fluttering back,\nTriumphant, o’er the crested palls,\nOf her grand family funerals--\nSome sepulchre, remote, alone,\nAgainst whose portal she hath thrown,\nIn childhood many an idle stone--\nSome tomb from out whose sounding door\nShe ne’er shall force an echo more,\nThrilling to think, poor child of sin!\nIt was the dead who groaned within.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1846 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -81283,10 +83983,10 @@ "title": "“Spirits of the Dead”", "body": "Thy soul shall find itself alone\n’Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone\nNot one, of all the crowd, to pry\nInto thine hour of secrecy.\nBe silent in that solitude\nWhich is not loneliness--for then\nThe spirits of the dead who stood\nIn life before thee are again\nIn death around thee--and their will\nShall overshadow thee: be still.\nThe night--tho’ clear--shall frown--\nAnd the stars shall not look down\nFrom their high thrones in the Heaven,\nWith light like Hope to mortals given--\nBut their red orbs, without beam,\nTo thy weariness shall seem\nAs a burning and a fever\nWhich would cling to thee forever.\nNow are thoughts thou shalt not banish--\nNow are visions ne’er to vanish--\nFrom thy spirit shall they pass\nNo more--like dew-drops from the grass.\nThe breeze--the breath of God--is still--\nAnd the mist upon the hill\nShadowy--shadowy--yet unbroken,\nIs a symbol and a token--\nHow it hangs upon the trees,\nA mystery of mysteries!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1829 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81294,10 +83994,10 @@ "title": "“Tamerlane”", "body": "Kind solace in a dying hour!\nSuch, father, is not (now) my theme--\nI will not madly deem that power\nOf Earth may shrive me of the sin\nUnearthly pride hath revelled in--\nI have no time to dote or dream:\nYou call it hope--that fire of fire!\nIt is but agony of desire:\nIf I _can_ hope--O God! I can--\nIts fount is holier--more divine--\nI would not call thee fool, old man,\nBut such is not a gift of thine.\n\nKnow thou the secret of a spirit\nBowed from its wild pride into shame\nO yearning heart! I did inherit\nThy withering portion with the fame,\nThe searing glory which hath shone\nAmid the Jewels of my throne,\nHalo of Hell! and with a pain\nNot Hell shall make me fear again--\nO craving heart, for the lost flowers\nAnd sunshine of my summer hours!\nThe undying voice of that dead time,\nWith its interminable chime,\nRings, in the spirit of a spell,\nUpon thy emptiness--a knell.\n\nI have not always been as now:\nThe fevered diadem on my brow I claimed and won usurpingly--\nHath not the same fierce heirdom given\nRome to the Caesar--this to me?\nThe heritage of a kingly mind,\nAnd a proud spirit which hath striven\nTriumphantly with human kind.\nOn mountain soil I first drew life:\nThe mists of the Taglay have shed\nNightly their dews upon my head,\nAnd, I believe, the winged strife\nAnd tumult of the headlong air\nHave nestled in my very hair.\n\nSo late from Heaven--that dew--it fell\n(’Mid dreams of an unholy night)\nUpon me with the touch of Hell,\nWhile the red flashing of the light\nFrom clouds that hung, like banners, o’er,\nAppeared to my half-closing eye\nThe pageantry of monarchy;\nAnd the deep trumpet-thunder’s roar\nCame hurriedly upon me, telling\nOf human battle, where my voice,\nMy own voice, silly child!--was swelling\n(O! how my spirit would rejoice,\nAnd leap within me at the cry)\nThe battle-cry of Victory!\n\nThe rain came down upon my head\nUnsheltered--and the heavy wind\nRendered me mad and deaf and blind.\nIt was but man, I thought, who shed\nLaurels upon me: and the rush--\nThe torrent of the chilly air\nGurgled within my ear the crush\nOf empires--with the captive’s prayer--\nThe hum of suitors--and the tone\nOf flattery ’round a sovereign’s throne.\n\nMy passions, from that hapless hour,\nUsurped a tyranny which men\nHave deemed since I have reached to power,\nMy innate nature--be it so:\nBut, father, there lived one who, then,\nThen--in my boyhood--when their fire\nBurned with a still intenser glow\n(For passion must, with youth, expire)\nE’en _then_ who knew this iron heart\nIn woman’s weakness had a part.\n\nI have no words--alas!--to tell\nThe loveliness of loving well!\nNor would I now attempt to trace\nThe more than beauty of a face\nWhose lineaments, upon my mind,\nAre--shadows on th’ unstable wind:\nThus I remember having dwelt\nSome page of early lore upon,\nWith loitering eye, till I have felt\nThe letters--with their meaning--melt\nTo fantasies--with none.\n\nO, she was worthy of all love!\nLove as in infancy was mine--\n’Twas such as angel minds above\nMight envy; her young heart the shrine\nOn which my every hope and thought\nWere incense--then a goodly gift,\nFor they were childish and upright--\nPure--as her young example taught:\nWhy did I leave it, and, adrift,\nTrust to the fire within, for light?\n\nWe grew in age--and love--together--\nRoaming the forest, and the wild;\nMy breast her shield in wintry weather--\nAnd, when the friendly sunshine smiled.\nAnd she would mark the opening skies,\n_I_ saw no Heaven--but in her eyes.\nYoung Love’s first lesson is the heart:\nFor ’mid that sunshine, and those smiles,\nWhen, from our little cares apart,\nAnd laughing at her girlish wiles,\nI’d throw me on her throbbing breast,\nAnd pour my spirit out in tears--\nThere was no need to speak the rest--\nNo need to quiet any fears\nOf her--who asked no reason why,\nBut turned on me her quiet eye!\n\nYet _more_ than worthy of the love\nMy spirit struggled with, and strove\nWhen, on the mountain peak, alone,\nAmbition lent it a new tone--\nI had no being--but in thee:\nThe world, and all it did contain\nIn the earth--the air--the sea--\nIts joy--its little lot of pain\nThat was new pleasure--the ideal,\nDim, vanities of dreams by night--\nAnd dimmer nothings which were real--\n(Shadows--and a more shadowy light!)\nParted upon their misty wings,\nAnd, so, confusedly, became\nThine image and--a name--a name!\nTwo separate--yet most intimate things.\n\nI was ambitious--have you known\nThe passion, father? You have not:\nA cottager, I marked a throne\nOf half the world as all my own,\nAnd murmured at such lowly lot--\nBut, just like any other dream,\nUpon the vapor of the dew\nMy own had past, did not the beam\nOf beauty which did while it thro’\nThe minute--the hour--the day--oppress\nMy mind with double loveliness.\n\nWe walked together on the crown\nOf a high mountain which looked down\nAfar from its proud natural towers\nOf rock and forest, on the hills--\nThe dwindled hills! begirt with bowers\nAnd shouting with a thousand rills.\n\nI spoke to her of power and pride,\nBut mystically--in such guise\nThat she might deem it nought beside\nThe moment’s converse; in her eyes\nI read, perhaps too carelessly--\nA mingled feeling with my own--\nThe flush on her bright cheek, to me\nSeemed to become a queenly throne\nToo well that I should let it be\nLight in the wilderness alone.\n\nI wrapped myself in grandeur then,\nAnd donned a visionary crown--\nYet it was not that Fantasy\nHad thrown her mantle over me--\nBut that, among the rabble--men,\nLion ambition is chained down--\nAnd crouches to a keeper’s hand--\nNot so in deserts where the grand--\nThe wild--the terrible conspire\nWith their own breath to fan his fire.\n\nLook ’round thee now on Samarcand!--\nIs she not queen of Earth? her pride\nAbove all cities? in her hand\nTheir destinies? in all beside\nOf glory which the world hath known\nStands she not nobly and alone?\nFalling--her veriest stepping-stone\nShall form the pedestal of a throne--\nAnd who her sovereign? Timour--he\nWhom the astonished people saw\nStriding o’er empires haughtily\nA diademed outlaw!\n\nO, human love! thou spirit given,\nOn Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!\nWhich fall’st into the soul like rain\nUpon the Siroc-withered plain,\nAnd, failing in thy power to bless,\nBut leav’st the heart a wilderness!\nIdea! which bindest life around\nWith music of so strange a sound\nAnd beauty of so wild a birth--\nFarewell! for I have won the Earth.\n\nWhen Hope, the eagle that towered, could see\nNo cliff beyond him in the sky,\nHis pinions were bent droopingly--\nAnd homeward turned his softened eye.\n’Twas sunset: When the sun will part\nThere comes a sullenness of heart\nTo him who still would look upon\nThe glory of the summer sun.\nThat soul will hate the ev’ning mist\nSo often lovely, and will list\nTo the sound of the coming darkness (known\nTo those whose spirits hearken) as one\nWho, in a dream of night, _would_ fly,\nBut _cannot_, from a danger nigh.\n\nWhat tho’ the moon--tho’ the white moon\nShed all the splendor of her noon,\n_Her_ smile is chilly--and _her_ beam,\nIn that time of dreariness, will seem\n(So like you gather in your breath)\nA portrait taken after death.\nAnd boyhood is a summer sun\nWhose waning is the dreariest one--\nFor all we live to know is known,\nAnd all we seek to keep hath flown--\nLet life, then, as the day-flower, fall\nWith the noon-day beauty--which is all.\nI reached my home--my home no more--\nFor all had flown who made it so.\nI passed from out its mossy door,\nAnd, tho’ my tread was soft and low,\nA voice came from the threshold stone\nOf one whom I had earlier known--\nO, I defy thee, Hell, to show\nOn beds of fire that burn below,\nAn humbler heart--a deeper woe.\n\nFather, I firmly do believe--\nI _know_--for Death who comes for me\nFrom regions of the blest afar,\nWhere there is nothing to deceive,\nHath left his iron gate ajar.\nAnd rays of truth you cannot see\nAre flashing thro’ Eternity--\nI do believe that Eblis hath\nA snare in every human path--\nElse how, when in the holy grove\nI wandered of the idol, Love,--\nWho daily scents his snowy wings\nWith incense of burnt-offerings\nFrom the most unpolluted things,\nWhose pleasant bowers are yet so riven\nAbove with trellised rays from Heaven\nNo mote may shun--no tiniest fly--\nThe light’ning of his eagle eye--\nHow was it that Ambition crept,\nUnseen, amid the revels there,\nTill growing bold, he laughed and leapt\nIn the tangles of Love’s very hair!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1827 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -81308,10 +84008,10 @@ "title": "“To Helen”", "body": "I saw thee once--once only--years ago:\nI must not say _how_ many--but _not_ many.\nIt was a July midnight; and from out\nA full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,\nSought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,\nThere fell a silvery-silken veil of light,\nWith quietude, and sultriness and slumber,\nUpon the upturn’d faces of a thousand\nRoses that grew in an enchanted garden,\nWhere no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe--\nFell on the upturn’d faces of these roses\nThat gave out, in return for the love-light,\nTheir odorous souls in an ecstatic death--\nFell on the upturn’d faces of these roses\nThat smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted\nBy thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.\n\nClad all in white, upon a violet bank I saw thee half-reclining; while the moon\nFell on the upturn’d faces of the roses,\nAnd on thine own, upturn’d--alas, in sorrow!\n\nWas it not Fate, that, on this July midnight--\nWas it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow),\nThat bade me pause before that garden-gate,\nTo breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?\nNo footstep stirred: the hated world all slept,\nSave only thee and me--(O Heaven!--O God!\nHow my heart beats in coupling those two words!)--\nSave only thee and me. I paused--I looked--\nAnd in an instant all things disappeared.\n(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)\nThe pearly lustre of the moon went out:\nThe mossy banks and the meandering paths,\nThe happy flowers and the repining trees,\nWere seen no more: the very roses’ odors\nDied in the arms of the adoring airs.\nAll--all expired save thee--save less than thou:\nSave only the divine light in thine eyes--\nSave but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.\nI saw but them--they were the world to me.\nI saw but them--saw only them for hours--\nSaw only them until the moon went down.\nWhat wild heart-histories seemed to lie unwritten\nUpon those crystalline, celestial spheres!\nHow dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope!\nHow silently serene a sea of pride!\nHow daring an ambition! yet how deep--\nHow fathomless a capacity for love!\n\nBut now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,\nInto a western couch of thunder-cloud;\nAnd thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees\nDidst glide away. _Only thine eyes remained._\nThey _would not_ go--they never yet have gone.\nLighting my lonely pathway home that night,\n_They_ have not left me (as my hopes have) since.\nThey follow me--they lead me through the years.\n\nThey are my ministers--yet I their slave.\nTheir office is to illumine and enkindle--\nMy duty, _to be saved_ by their bright light,\nAnd purified in their electric fire,\nAnd sanctified in their elysian fire.\nThey fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),\nAnd are far up in Heaven--the stars I kneel to\nIn the sad, silent watches of my night;\nWhile even in the meridian glare of day\nI see them still--two sweetly scintillant\nVenuses, unextinguished by the sun!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1848 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -81322,10 +84022,10 @@ "title": "“To Isadore”", "body": "Beneath the vine-clad eaves\n Whose shadows fall before\n Thy lowly cottage door--\nUnder the lilac’s tremulous leaves--\nWithin thy snowy clasped hand\n The purple flowers it bore.\nLast eve in dreams, I saw thee stand,\nLike queenly nymph from Fairy-land--\nEnchantress of the flowery wand,\n Most beauteous Isadore!\n\nAnd when I bade the dream\n Upon thy spirit flee,\n Thy violet eyes to me\nUpturned, did overflowing seem\nWith the deep, untold delight\n Of Love’s serenity;\nThy classic brow, like lilies white\nAnd pale as the Imperial Night\nUpon her throne, with stars bedight,\n Enthralled my soul to thee!\n\nAh! ever I behold\n Thy dreamy, passionate eyes,\n Blue as the languid skies\nHung with the sunset’s fringe of gold;\nNow strangely clear thine image grows,\n And olden memories\nAre startled from their long repose\nLike shadows on the silent snows\nWhen suddenly the night-wind blows\n Where quiet moonlight lies.\n\nLike music heard in dreams\n Like strains of harps unknown,\n Of birds for ever flown,--\nAudible as the voice of streams\nThat murmur in some leafy dell,\n I hear thy gentlest tone,\nAnd Silence cometh with her spell\nLike that which on my tongue doth dwell,\nWhen tremulous in dreams I tell\n My love to thee alone!\n\nIn every valley heard\n Floating from tree to tree,\n Less beautiful to me,\nThe music of the radiant bird,\nThan artless accents such as thine\n Whose echoes never flee!\nAh! how for thy sweet voice I pine:--\nFor uttered in thy tones benign\n(Enchantress!) this rude name of mine\n Doth seem a melody!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1845 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81333,10 +84033,10 @@ "title": "“To My Mother”", "body": "Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,\nThe angels, whispering to one another,\nCan find, among their burning terms of love,\nNone so devotional as that of “Mother,”\nTherefore by that dear name I long have called you--\nYou who are more than mother unto me,\nAnd fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you,\nIn setting my Virginia’s spirit free.\nMy mother--my own mother, who died early,\nWas but the mother of myself; but you\nAre mother to the one I loved so dearly,\nAnd thus are dearer than the mother I knew\nBy that infinity with which my wife\nWas dearer to my soul than its soul-life.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1849 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "mothers_day" @@ -81347,10 +84047,10 @@ "title": "“To One in Paradise”", "body": "Thou wast that all to me, love,\nFor which my soul did pine--\nA green isle in the sea, love,\nA fountain and a shrine,\nAll wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,\nAnd all the flowers were mine.\n\nAh, dream too bright to last!\nAh, starry Hope! that didst arise\nBut to be overcast!\nA voice from out the Future cries,\n“On! on!”--but o’er the Past\n(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies\nMute, motionless, aghast!\n\nFor, alas! alas! with me\nThe light of Life is o’er!\n“No more--no more--no more”--\n(Such language holds the solemn sea\nTo the sands upon the shore)\nShall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,\nOr the stricken eagle soar!\n\nAnd all my days are trances,\nAnd all my nightly dreams\nAre where thy dark eye glances,\nAnd where thy footstep gleams--\nIn what ethereal dances,\nBy what eternal streams!\n\nAlas! for that accursed time\nThey bore thee o’er the billow,\nFrom love to titled age and crime,\nAnd an unholy pillow!\nFrom me, and from our misty clime,\nWhere weeps the silver willow!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1835 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81358,10 +84058,10 @@ "title": "“To Science”", "body": "Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!\n Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.\nWhy preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,\n Vulture, whose wings are dull realities\nHow should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,\n Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering\nTo seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,\n Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing!\nHast thou not dragged Diana from her car?\n And driven the Hamadryad from the wood\nTo seek a shelter in some happier star?\n Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,\nThe Elfin from the green grass, and from me\nThe summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1829 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81369,10 +84069,10 @@ "title": "“To the River”", "body": "Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow\nOf crystal, wandering water,\nThou art an emblem of the glow\nOf beauty--the unhidden heart--\nThe playful maziness of art\nIn old Alberto’s daughter;\n\nBut when within thy wave she looks--\nWhich glistens then, and trembles--\nWhy, then, the prettiest of brooks\nHer worshipper resembles;\nFor in his heart, as in thy stream,\nHer image deeply lies--\nHis heart which trembles at the beam\nOf her soul-searching eyes.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1845 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81380,10 +84080,10 @@ "title": "“Ulalume”", "body": "The skies they were ashen and sober;\nThe leaves they were crisped and sere--\nThe leaves they were withering and sere;\nIt was night in the lonesome October\nOf my most immemorial year;\nIt was hard by the dim lake of Auber,\nIn the misty mid region of Weir--\nIt was down by the dank tarn of Auber,\nIn the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.\n\nHere once, through an alley Titanic.\nOf cypress, I roamed with my Soul--\nOf cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.\nThese were days when my heart was volcanic\nAs the scoriac rivers that roll--\nAs the lavas that restlessly roll\nTheir sulphurous currents down Yaanek\nIn the ultimate climes of the pole--\nThat groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek\nIn the realms of the boreal pole.\n\nOur talk had been serious and sober,\nBut our thoughts they were palsied and sere--\nOur memories were treacherous and sere--\nFor we knew not the month was October,\nAnd we marked not the night of the year--\n(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)\nWe noted not the dim lake of Auber--\n(Though once we had journeyed down here)--\nRemembered not the dank tarn of Auber,\nNor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.\n\nAnd now as the night was senescent\nAnd star-dials pointed to morn--\nAs the sun-dials hinted of morn--\nAt the end of our path a liquescent\nAnd nebulous lustre was born,\nOut of which a miraculous crescent\nArose with a duplicate horn--\nAstarte’s bediamonded crescent\nDistinct with its duplicate horn.\n\nAnd I said--“She is warmer than Dian:\nShe rolls through an ether of sighs--\nShe revels in a region of sighs:\nShe has seen that the tears are not dry on\nThese cheeks, where the worm never dies,\nAnd has come past the stars of the Lion\nTo point us the path to the skies--\nTo the Lethean peace of the skies--\nCome up, in despite of the Lion,\nTo shine on us with her bright eyes--\nCome up through the lair of the Lion,\nWith love in her luminous eyes.”\n\nBut Psyche, uplifting her finger,\nSaid--“Sadly this star I mistrust--\nHer pallor I strangely mistrust:--\nOh, hasten!--oh, let us not linger!\nOh, fly!--let us fly!--for we must.”\nIn terror she spoke, letting sink her\nWings till they trailed in the dust--\nIn agony sobbed, letting sink her\nPlumes till they trailed in the dust--\nTill they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.\n\nI replied--“This is nothing but dreaming:\nLet us on by this tremulous light!\nLet us bathe in this crystalline light!\nIts Sibyllic splendor is beaming\nWith Hope and in Beauty to-night:--\nSee!--it flickers up the sky through the night!\nAh, we safely may trust to its gleaming,\nAnd be sure it will lead us aright--\nWe safely may trust to a gleaming\nThat cannot but guide us aright,\nSince it flickers up to Heaven through the night.”\n\nThus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,\nAnd tempted her out of her gloom--\nAnd conquered her scruples and gloom;\nAnd we passed to the end of a vista,\nBut were stopped by the door of a tomb--\nBy the door of a legended tomb;\nAnd I said--“What is written, sweet sister,\nOn the door of this legended tomb?”\nShe replied--“Ulalume--Ulalume--\n’Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!”\n\nThen my heart it grew ashen and sober\nAs the leaves that were crisped and sere--\nAs the leaves that were withering and sere;\nAnd I cried--“It was surely October\nOn _this_ very night of last year\nThat I journeyed--I journeyed down here--\nThat I brought a dread burden down here!\nOn this night of all nights in the year,\nAh, what demon has tempted me here?\nWell I know, now, this dim lake of Auber--\nThis misty mid region of Weir--\nWell I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,--\nThis ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1847 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -81394,10 +84094,10 @@ "title": "“The Valley of Unrest”", "body": "_Once_ it smiled a silent dell\nWhere the people did not dwell;\nThey had gone unto the wars,\nTrusting to the mild-eyed stars,\nNightly, from their azure towers,\nTo keep watch above the flowers,\nIn the midst of which all day\nThe red sun-light lazily lay,\n_Now_ each visitor shall confess\nThe sad valley’s restlessness.\nNothing there is motionless--\nNothing save the airs that brood\nOver the magic solitude.\nAh, by no wind are stirred those trees\nThat palpitate like the chill seas\nAround the misty Hebrides!\nAh, by no wind those clouds are driven\nThat rustle through the unquiet Heaven\nUnceasingly, from morn till even,\nOver the violets there that lie\nIn myriad types of the human eye--\nOver the lilies that wave\nAnd weep above a nameless grave!\nThey wave:--from out their fragrant tops\nEternal dews come down in drops.\nThey weep:--from off their delicate stems\nPerennial tears descend in gems.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1831 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -81734,10 +84434,10 @@ "title": "“Ballad of the Goodly Fere”", "body": "_Simon Zelotes speaking after the Crucifixion. Fere=Mate, Companion._\n\nHa’ we lost the goodliest fere o’ all\nFor the priests and the gallows tree?\nAye lover he was of brawny men,\nO’ ships and the open sea.\n\nWhen they came wi’ a host to take Our Man\nHis smile was good to see,\n“First let these go!” quo’ our Goodly Fere,\n“Or I’ll see ye damned,” says he.\n\nAye he sent us out through the crossed high spears\nAnd the scorn of his laugh rang free,\n“Why took ye not me when I walked about\nAlone in the town?” says he.\n\nOh we drank his “Hale” in the good red wine\nWhen we last made company,\nNo capon priest was the Goodly Fere\nBut a man o’ men was he.\n\nI ha’ seen him drive a hundred men\nWi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free,\nThat they took the high and holy house\nFor their pawn and treasury.\n\nThey’ll no’ get him a’ in a book I think\nThough they write it cunningly;\nNo mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere\nBut aye loved the open sea.\n\nIf they think they ha’ snared our Goodly Fere\nThey are fools to the last degree.\n“I’ll go to the feast,” quo’ our Goodly Fere,\n“Though I go to the gallows tree.”\n\n“Ye ha’ seen me heal the lame and blind,\nAnd wake the dead,” says he,\n“Ye shall see one thing to master all:\n’Tis how a brave man dies on the tree.”\n\nA son of God was the Goodly Fere\nThat bade us his brothers be.\nI ha’ seen him cow a thousand men.\nI have seen him upon the tree.\n\nHe cried no cry when they drave the nails\nAnd the blood gushed hot and free,\nThe hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue\nBut never a cry cried he.\n\nI ha’ seen him cow a thousand men\nOn the hills o’ Galilee,\nThey whined as he walked out calm between,\nWi’ his eyes like the grey o’ the sea,\n\nLike the sea that brooks no voyaging\nWith the winds unleashed and free,\nLike the sea that he cowed at Genseret\nWi’ twey words spoke’ suddently.\n\nA master of men was the Goodly Fere,\nA mate of the wind and sea,\nIf they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere\nThey are fools eternally.\n\nI ha’ seen him eat o’ the honey-comb\nSin’ they nailed him to the tree.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "eastertide" @@ -81812,10 +84512,10 @@ "title": "“Canto 14”", "body": "Io venni in luogo d’ogni luce muto;\nThe stench of wet coal, politicians\n
 e and 
 n, their wrists bound to\n their ankles,\nStanding bare bum,\nFaces smeared on their rumps,\n wide eye on flat buttock,\nBush hanging for beard,\n Addressing crowds through their arse-holes,\nAddressing the multitudes in the ooze,\n newts, water-slugs, water-maggots,\nAnd with them 
 r,\n a scrupulously clean table-napkin\nTucked under his penis,\n and 
 m\nWho disliked colioquial language,\nstiff-starched, but soiled, collars\n circumscribing his legs,\nThe pimply and hairy skin\n pushing over the collar’s edge,\nProfiteers drinking blood sweetened with sh-t,\nAnd behind them 
 f and the financiers\n lashing them with steel wires.\n\nAnd the betrayers of language\n 
 n and the press gang\nAnd those who had lied for hire;\nthe perverts, the perverters of language,\n the perverts, who have set money-lust\nBefore the pleasures of the senses;\n\nhowling, as of a hen-yard in a printing-house,\n the clatter of presses,\nthe blowing of dry dust and stray paper,\nfretor, sweat, the stench of stale oranges,\ndung, last cess-pool of the universe,\nmysterium, acid of sulphur,\nthe pusillanimous, raging;\nplunging jewels in mud,\n and howling to find them unstained;\nsadic mothers driving their daughters to bed with decrepitude,\nsows eating their litters,\nand here the placard ΕΙΚΩΝ ΓΗΣ,\n and here: THE PERSONNEL CHANGES,\n\nmelting like dirty wax,\n decayed candles, the bums sinking lower,\nfaces submerged under hams,\nAnd in the ooze under them,\nreversed, foot-palm to foot-palm,\n hand-palm to hand-palm, the agents provocateurs\nThe murderers of Pearse and MacDonagh,\n Captain H. the chief torturer;\nThe petrified turd that was Verres,\n bigots, Calvin and St. Clement of Alexandria!\nblack-beetles, burrowing into the sh-t,\nThe soil a decrepitude, the ooze full of morsels,\nlost contours, erosions.\n\n Above the hell-rot\nthe great arse-hole,\n broken with piles,\nhanging stalactites,\n greasy as sky over Westminster,\nthe invisible, many English,\n the place lacking in interest,\nlast squalor, utter decrepitude,\nthe vice-crusaders, fahrting through silk,\n waving the Christian symbols,\n
 frigging a tin penny whistle,\nFlies carrying news, harpies dripping sh-t through the air.\n\nThe slough of unamiable liars,\n bog of stupidities,\nmalevolent stupidities, and stupidities,\nthe soil living pus, full of vermin,\ndead maggots begetting live maggots,\n slum owners,\nusurers squeezing crab-lice, pandars to authori\npets-de-loup, sitting on piles of stone books,\nobscuring the texts with philology,\n hiding them under their persons,\nthe air without refuge of silence,\n the drift of lice, teething,\nand above it the mouthing of orators,\n the arse-belching of preachers.\n And Invidia,\nthe corruptio, fretor, fungus,\nliquid animals, melted ossifications,\nslow rot, fretid combustion,\n chewed cigar-butts, without dignity, without tragedy\n
 m Episcopus, waving a condom full of black-beetles,\nmonopolists, obstructors of knowledge.\n obstructors of distribution.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81831,10 +84531,10 @@ "title": "“Coda”", "body": "O my songs,\nWhy do you look so eagerly and so curiously into people’s faces,\nWill you find your lost dead among them?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1916 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81842,10 +84542,10 @@ "title": "“Come My Cantilations”", "body": "Come my cantilations,\nLet us dump our hatreds into one bunch and be done with them,\nHot sun, clear water, fresh wind,\nLet me be free of pavements,\nLet me be free of the printers.\nLet come beautiful people\nWearing raw silk of good colour,\nLet come the graceful speakers,\nLet come the ready of wit,\nLet come the gay of manner, the insolent and the exulting.\nWe speak of burnished lakes,\nAnd of dry air, as clear as metal.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -81920,10 +84620,10 @@ "title": "“Francesca”", "body": "You came in out of the night\nAnd there were flowers in your hands,\nNow you will come out of a confusion of people,\nOut of a turmoil of speech about you.\n\nI who have seen you amid the primal things\nWas angry when they spoke your name\nIn ordinary places.\nI would that the cool waves might flow over my mind,\nAnd that the world should dry as a dead leaf,\nOr as a dandelion seed-pod and be swept away,\nSo that I might find you again,\nAlone.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1909 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -82106,10 +84806,10 @@ "title": "“Portrait D’une Femme”", "body": "Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,\nLondon has swept about you this score years\nAnd bright ships left you this or that in fee:\nIdeas, old gossip, oddments of all things,\nStrange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.\nGreat minds have sought you--lacking someone else.\nYou have been second always. Tragical?\nNo. You preferred it to the usual thing:\nOne dull man, dulling and uxorious,\nOne average mind--with one thought less, each year.\nOh, you are patient, I have seen you sit\nHours, where something might have floated up.\nAnd now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.\nYou are a person of some interest, one comes to you\nAnd takes strange gain away:\nTrophies fished up; some curious suggestion;\nFact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,\nPregnant with mandrakes, or with something else\nThat might prove useful and yet never proves,\nThat never fits a corner or shows use,\nOr finds its hour upon the loom of days:\nThe tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;\nIdols and ambergris and rare inlays,\nThese are your riches, your great store; and yet\nFor all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,\nStrange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:\nIn the slow float of differing light and deep,\nNo! there is nothing! In the whole and all,\nNothing that’s quite your own.\n Yet this is you.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -82117,10 +84817,10 @@ "title": "“The Return”", "body": "See, they return; ah, see the tentative\nMovements, and the slow feet,\nThe trouble in the pace and the uncertain\nWavering!\n\nSee, they return, one, and by one,\nWith fear, as half-awakened;\nAs if the snow should hesitate\nAnd murmur in the wind,\nand half turn back;\nThese were the “Wing’d-with-Awe,”\ninviolable.\n\nGods of the wingĂšd shoe!\nWith them the silver hounds,\nsniffing the trace of air!\n\nHaie! Haie!\nThese were the swift to harry;\nThese the keen-scented;\nThese were the souls of blood.\n\nSlow on the leash,\npallid the leash-men!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -82128,10 +84828,10 @@ "title": "“The River-Merchant’s Wife”", "body": "While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead\nI played about the front gate, pulling flowers.\nYou came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,\nYou walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.\nAnd we went on living in the village of Chƍkan:\nTwo small people, without dislike or suspicion.\n\nAt fourteen I married My Lord you.\nI never laughed, being bashful.\nLowering my head, I looked at the wall.\nCalled to, a thousand times, I never looked back.\n\nAt fifteen I stopped scowling,\nI desired my dust to be mingled with yours\nForever and forever, and forever.\nWhy should I climb the look out?\n\nAt sixteen you departed\nYou went into far Ku-tƍ-en, by the river of swirling eddies,\nAnd you have been gone five months.\nThe monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.\n\nYou dragged your feet when you went out.\nBy the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,\nToo deep to clear them away!\nThe leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.\nThe paired butterflies are already yellow with August\nOver the grass in the West garden;\nThey hurt me.\nI grow older.\nIf you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,\nPlease let me know beforehand,\nAnd I will come out to meet you\nAs far as Chƍ-fĆ«-Sa.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -82150,10 +84850,10 @@ "title": "“The Sea of Glass”", "body": "I looked and saw a sea\nroofed over with rainbows,\nIn the midst of each\ntwo lovers met and departed;\nThen the sky was full of faces\nwith gold glories behind them.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -82172,10 +84872,10 @@ "title": "“Sestina: Altaforte”", "body": "Loquitur: En Bertrans de Born.\n Dante Alighieri put this man in hell for that he was a\n stirrer-up of strife.\n Eccovi!\n Judge ye!\n Have I dug him up again?\nThe scene in at his castle, Altaforte. “Papiols” is his jongleur.\n“The Leopard,” the device of Richard (CĂșur de Lion).\n\n# I.\n\nDamn it all! all this our South stinks peace.\nYou whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let’s to music!\nI have no life save when the swords clash.\nBut ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing\nAnd the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,\nThen howl I my heart nigh mad with rejoicing.\n\n\n# II.\n\nIn hot summer have I great rejoicing\nWhen the tempests kill the earth’s foul peace,\nAnd the lightnings from black heav’n flash crimson,\nAnd the fierce thunders roar me their music\nAnd the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,\nAnd through all the riven skies God’s swords clash.\n\n\n# III.\n\nHell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!\nAnd the shrill neighs of destriers in battle rejoicing,\nSpiked breast to spiked breast opposing!\nBetter one hour’s stour than a year’s peace\nWith fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music!\nBah! there’s no wine like the blood’s crimson!\n\n\n# IV.\n\nAnd I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson.\nAnd I watch his spears through the dark clash\nAnd it fills all my heart with rejoicing\nAnd pries wide my mouth with fast music\nWhen I see him so scorn and defy peace,\nHis lone might ’gainst all darkness opposing.\n\n\n# V.\n\nThe man who fears war and squats opposing\nMy words for stour, hath no blood of crimson\nBut is fit only to rot in womanish peace\nFar from where worth’s won and the swords clash\nFor the death of such sluts I go rejoicing;\nYea, I fill all the air with my music.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nPapiols, Papiols, to the music!\nThere’s no sound like to swords swords opposing,\nNo cry like the battle’s rejoicing\nWhen our elbows and swords drip the crimson\nAnd our charges ’gainst “The Leopard’s” rush clash.\nMay God damn for ever all who cry “Peace!”\n\n\n# VII.\n\nAnd let the music of the swords make them crimson!\nHell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!\nHell blot black for always the thought “Peace!”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -82367,8 +85067,10 @@ "title": "“The Dictator in Prison”", "body": "The dictator is writing poetry,\npoor fellow,\npoor us for saying\npoor fellow,\nsince he, too, has a memory\nto conjure orange trees,\nlittle bowls of pudding,\nlaughter and pleasant conversation--\na paradise of lowly delights.\nThe impatiens have barely opened\nand the bees are already busy among them,\nturning the day perfect.\nLet’s not ridicule the bloodthirsty man\nwho, under the eyes of the guards,\npours his desire--equal to anyone’s--\ninto a notebook:\nI want to be happy, I want an elastic body,\nI want a horse, a sword and a good war!\nThe dictator is devout,\nhe observes his canonic hours\nlike the monks in the choir,\nand dozes over the Koran.\nI who live outside the walls\ntremble for the fate\nof a man who pounded the ground\nwith his iron boot.\nLet no one interrupt the outcast’s prayer\nor ridicule his verses.\nGod’s mercy is strange,\nits mystery crushing.\nFor some unfathomable reason\nI am not the prisoner.\nMy compassion is too large\nto be my own.\nHe who invented hearts\nloves this poor wretch with mine.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ellen DorĂ© Watson", "language": "Portuguese", + "translators": [ + "Ellen DorĂ© Watson" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -82419,8 +85121,10 @@ "title": "“Alicante”", "body": "An orange on the table\nyour dress on the rug\nand you in my bed\nsweet present of the present\ncool of night\nwarmth of my life.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lawrence Ferlinghetti", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Lawrence Ferlinghetti" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -82428,8 +85132,10 @@ "title": "“The Dunce”", "body": "He says no with his head\nbut he says yes with his heart\nhe says yes to what he loves\nhe says no to the teacher\nhe stands\nhe is questioned\nand all the problems are posed\nsudden laughter seizes him\nand he erases all\nthe words and figures\nnames and dates\nsentences and snares\nand despite the teacher’s threats\nto the jeers of infant prodigies\nwith chalk of every colour\non the blackboard of misfortune\nhe draws the face of happiness.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lawrence Ferlinghetti", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Lawrence Ferlinghetti" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -82437,8 +85143,10 @@ "title": "“For You My Love”", "body": "I went to the market, where they sell birds\nand I bought some birds\nfor you my love\n\nI went to the market, where they sell flowers\nand I bought some flowers\nfor you my love\nI went to the market, where they sell chains\n\nand I bought some chains\nheavy chains\nfor you my love\n\nAnd then I went to the slave market\nand I looked for you\nbut I did not find you there my love", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lawrence Ferlinghetti", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Lawrence Ferlinghetti" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -82446,8 +85154,10 @@ "title": "“It’s Like That”", "body": "A sailor has left the sea\nhis ship has left the port\nthe king has left the queen\nand a miser has left his gold\nit’s like that\n\nA widow has left her grief\na crazy woman has left the madhouse\nand your smile has left my lips\nit’s like that\n\nYou will leave me\nyou will leave me\nyou will leave me\nyou will come back to me\nyou will marry me\nyou will marry me\nThe knife marries the wound\nthe rainbow marries the rain\nthe smile marries the tears\nthe caress marries the frown\nit’s like that\n\nAnd fire marries ice\nand death marries life\nand life marries love\nYou will marry me\nyou will marry me\nyou will marry me", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lawrence Ferlinghetti", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Lawrence Ferlinghetti" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -82455,8 +85165,10 @@ "title": "“Paris At Night”", "body": "Three matches one by one struck in the night\nThe first to see your face in its entirety\nThe second to see your eyes\nThe last to see your mouth\nAnd the darkness all around to remind me of all these\nAs I hold you in my arms.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lawrence Ferlinghetti", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Lawrence Ferlinghetti" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -82464,8 +85176,10 @@ "title": "“Song of the Jailer”", "body": "Where are you going handsome jailer\nWith that key that’s touched with blood\nI am going to free the one I love\nIf there’s still time\nShe whom I’ve imprisoned\nTenderly and cruelly\nIn my most secret desire\nIn my deepest torment\nIn falsehoods of the future\nIn stupidities of vows\nI want to free her\nI want her to be free\nAnd even to forget me\nAnd even to go off\nAnd even to come back\nAnd even to love me again\nAnd love me again\nOr love another\nIf another pleases her\nAnd if I stay alone\nAnd she gone off\nI will only keep\nI will always keep\nIn my two hollowed hands\nTo the end of all my days\nThe softness of her breasts moulded by love.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lawrence Ferlinghetti", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Lawrence Ferlinghetti" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -82473,8 +85187,10 @@ "title": "“This Love”", "body": "This love\nSo violent\nSo fragile\nSo tender\nSo hopeless\nThis love\nAs beautiful as the day\nAnd as wretched as the weather\nWhen the weather is wretched\n\nThis love\nSo real\nThis love\nSo beautiful\nSo happy\nSo joyous\nAnd so ridiculous\nTrembling with fear\nLike a child in the dark\nAnd so sure of itself\nLike a tranquil man in the quiet of the night\nThis love\nWhich made others afraid\nWhich made them gossip\nWhich drained the colour from their cheeks\nThis love\nWatched for\nBecause we watched for them\nSnared, wounded, trampled, finished, denied, forgotten\nBecause we snared, wounded, trampled, finished, denied, forgot it\n\nThis love\nEntire\nStill so alive\nShining\nThis is yours\nThis is mine\nThis love\nWhich is always new\nAnd which never changes\nReal like a plant\nQuivering like a bird\nWarm and as alive as the summer\nWe can both\nGo and come back\nWe can forget\nAnd fall asleep\nAnd wake up\nTo suffer old age\nFall asleep again\nTo dream to death\nAwake\nTo smile and laugh\nYoung again\nOur love endures\nObstinate as a mule\nAs alive as the desire\nAs cruel as the memory\nAs stupid as the regret\nAs tender as the memory\nAs cold as marble\nAs beautiful as the day\nAs delicate as an infant\nIt watches us\nSmiling\nAnd speaks to us\nWithout saying a word\nAnd I\nI listen to it\nTrembling\nAnd I cry\nI cry for you\nI cry for myself\nAnd I beg you\nFor yourself\nFor me\nAnd for all those who love\nAnd who are loved\nYes\nI cry to it\nFor you\nFor me\nAnd for all the others\nI do not know\nStay there\nThere where you are\nThere where you were before\nStay there\nDon’t move\nDon’t go away\nWe who are loved\nWe have forgotten you\nDo not forget us\nWe had only you on this earth\nDo not let us grow cold\nFurther and further away every day\nIt doesn’t matter where\nGive us a sign of life\nIn a nook in the woods\nIn the forest of memory\nSuddenly arise\nTake us by the hand\nAnd save us", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lawrence Ferlinghetti", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Lawrence Ferlinghetti" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -82482,8 +85198,10 @@ "title": "“The Wonders of Life”", "body": "In the teeth of a trap\nThe paw of a white fox\nAnd on the snow, blood\nThe blood of the white fox\nAnd in the snow, tracks\nThe tracks of the white fox\nWho escaped on three legs\nAs the sun was setting\nA rabbit between his teeth\nStill alive", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lawrence Ferlinghetti", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Lawrence Ferlinghetti" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -82561,10 +85279,10 @@ "tags": [ "favorite" ], + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1942 }, - "language": "English", "context": { "holiday": "good_friday" } @@ -82862,8 +85580,10 @@ "title": "“An Evening Hymn”", "body": "See how the night approaches,\nBoding a time of rest;\nHeaven is decked in crimson\nSun’s setting in the west.\nStars will soon make their entrance\nFilling, up high, the skies,\nSoon will the living slumber,\nAll noise is hushed, and dies.\n\n_You, Lord, indwell the daybreak,\nAn endless morn you fill,\nYet we know night. So keep us,\nMake our hearts whole and still._\n\nSee how the day is ended,\nLayers of work and rest,\nShattered, at times, by sorrow,\nSometimes with pleasure blest.\nFather so rich in mercy,\nAll things come from your trove,\nYou wish to see creation\nEnthralled with but your love.\n\n_You, Lord, indwell the daybreak,\nAn endless morn you fill,\nYet we know night. So keep us,\nMake our hearts whole and still._\n\nSustain and clothe the needy,\nStand by them, Lord, today,\nComfort them, who are weeping,\nThe tired, with rest, repay.\nBeckon the sinner, gently,\nWho wronged you and his kin,\nLet none lie down in anguish\nA fear of doom within.\n\n_You, Lord, indwell the daybreak,\nAn endless morn you fill,\nYet we know night. So keep us,\nMake our hearts whole and still._", "metadata": { - "translator": "RenĂ© M. Micallef", "language": "Maltese", + "translators": [ + "RenĂ© M. Micallef" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -82944,11 +85664,13 @@ "title": "“Angel”", "body": "By gates of Eden, Angel, gentle,\nShone with his softly drooped head,\nAnd Demon, gloomy and resentful\nOver the hellish crevasse flapped.\n\nThe spirit of qualm and negation\nLooked at another one--of good,\nAnd fire of the forced elation\nFirst time he vaguely understood.\n\n“I’ve seen you,” he enunciated,--\n“And not in vain you’ve sent me light:\nNot all in heaven I have hated,\nNot all in world I have despised.”", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1827 }, - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -82956,13 +85678,15 @@ "title": "“Arion”", "body": "We numbered many in the ship,\nSome spread the sails, some pulled, together,\nThe mighty oars; ’twas placid weather.\nThe rudder in his steady grip,\nOur helmsman silently was steering\nThe heavy galley through the sea,\nWhile I, from doubts and sorrows free,\nSang to the crew 
 When suddenly,\nA storm! and the wide sea was rearing 
\nThe helmsman and the crew were lost.\nNo sailor by the storm was tossed\nAshore--but I, who had been singing.\nI chant the songs I loved of yore,\nAnd on the sunned and rocky shore\nI dry my robes, all wet and clinging.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1827, "month": "july", "day": 16 }, - "translator": "Irina Zheleznova", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Irina Zheleznova" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -82974,11 +85698,13 @@ "title": "“Autumn”", "body": "_“What does not enter then my drowsy mind 
?”_\n --Derzhavin\n\n\n# I.\n\nOctober comes at last. The grove is shaking\nThe last reluctant leaves from naked boughs.\nThe autumn cold has breathed, the road is freezing--\nThe brook still sounds behind the miller’s house,\nBut the pond’s hushed; now with his pack my neighbor\nMakes for the distant field--his hounds will rouse\nThe woods with barking, and his horse’s feet\nWill trample cruelly the winter wheat\n\n\n# II.\n\nThis is my time! What is the Spring to me?\nThaw is a bore: mud running thick and stinking--\nSpring makes me ill: my mind is never free\nFrom dizzy dreams, my blood’s in constant ferment.\nGive me instead Winter’s austerity,\nThe snows under the moon--and what is gayer\nThan to glide lightly in a sleigh with her\nWhose fingers are like fire beneath the fur?\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd oh, the fun, steel-shod to trace a pattern\nIn crystal on the river’s glassy face!\nThe shining stir of festivals in winter!\nBut there’s a limit--nobody could face\nSix months of snow--even that cave-dweller,\nThe bear, would growl “enough” in such a case.\nSleigh rides with young Armidas pall, by Jove,\nAnd you turn sour with loafing by the stove.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nOh, darling Summer, I could cherish you,\nIf heat and dust and gnats and flies were banished.\nThese dull the mind, the heart grows weary, too.\nWe, like the meadows, suffer drought: thought withers\nDrink is our only hope, and how we rue\nOld woman Winter, at whose funeral banquet\nPancakes and wine were served, but now we hold\nMemorial feasts of ices, sweet and cold.\n\n\n# V.\n\nThey say ill things of the last days of Autumn:\nBut I, friend reader, not a one will hear;\nHer quiet beauty touches me as surely\nAs does a wistful child, to no one dear.\nShe can rejoice me more, I tell you frankly,\nThan all the other seasons of the year.\nI am a humble lover, and I could\nFind, singularly, much in her that’s good.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nHow shall I make it clear? I find her pleasing\nAs you perhaps may like a sickly girl,\nCondemned to die, and shortly, who is drooping\nWithout a murmur of reproach to hurl\nAt life, forsaking her--upon her paling\nYoung lips a little smile is seen to curl.\nShe does not hear the grave’s horrific yawn.\nToday she lives--tomorrow she is gone.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nOh, mournful season that delights the eyes,\nYour farewell beauty captivates my spirit.\nI love the pomp of Nature’s fading dyes,\nThe forests, garmented in gold and purple,\nThe rush of noisy wind, and the pale skies\nHalf-hidden by the clouds in darkling billows,\nAnd the rare sun-ray and the early frost,\nAnd threats of grizzled Winter, heard and lost.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nEach time that Autumn comes I bloom afresh;\nFor me, I find, the Russian cold is good;\nAgain I go through life’s routine with relish:\nSleep comes in season, and the need for food;\nDesire seethes--and I am young and merry,\nMy heart beats fast with lightly leaping blood.\nI’m full of life--such is my organism.\n(if you will please excuse the prosaism.)\n\n\n# IX.\n\nMy horse is brought; far out onto the plain\nHe carries his glad rider, and the frozen\nDale echoes to his shining hooves, his mane\nStreams in the keen wind like a banner blowing,\nAnd the bright ice creaks under him again.\nBut day soon flickers out. At the forgotten\nHearth, where the fire purrs low or leaps like wind,\nI read, or nourish long thoughts in my mind.\n\n\n# X.\n\nAnd I forget the world in the sweet silence,\nWhile I am lulled by fancy, and once more\nThe soul oppressed with the old lyric fever\nTrembles, reverberates, and seeks to pour\nIts burden freely forth, and as though dreaming\nI watch the children that my visions bore,\nAnd I am host to the invisible throngs\nWho fill my reveries and build my songs.\n\n\n# XI.\n\nAnd thoughts stir bravely in my head, and rhymes\nRun forth to meet them on light feet, and fingers\nReach for the pen, and the good quill betimes\nAsks for the foolscap. Wait: the verses follow.\nThus a still ship sleeps on still seas. Hark: Chimes!\nAnd swiftly all hands leap to man the rigging,\nThe sails are filled, they belly in the wind--\nThe monster moves--a foaming track behind.\n\n\n# XII.\n\nIt sails, but whither is it our ship goes? 
", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1833 }, - "translator": "Avrahm Yarmolinsky", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Avrahm Yarmolinsky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -82990,11 +85716,13 @@ "title": "“The Awaking”", "body": "Ye dreams ye dreams\nWhere is your sweetness?\nWhere thou where thou\nO joy of night?\nDisappeared has it\nThe joyous dream;\nAnd solitary\nIn darkness deep\nI awaken.\nRound my bed\nIs silent night.\nAt once are cooled\nAt once are fled\nAll in a crowd\nThe dreams of Love--\nStill with longing\nThe soul is filled\nAnd grasps of sleep\nThe memory.\nO Love O Love\nO hear my prayer:\nAgain send me\nThose visions thine\nAnd on the morrow\nRaptured anew\nLet me die\nWithout awaking!", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1816 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83002,13 +85730,15 @@ "title": "“Below me the silver-capped Caucasus lies 
”", "body": "Below me the silver-capped Caucasus lies 
\nA stream at my feet rushes, foaming and roaring.\nI watch a lone eagle, o’er the peaks calmly soaring\nDrift near as he motionless circles the skies.\nHere rivers are born that tear mountain asunder\nAnd landslides begin with a crash as of thunder.\n\nHere float solemn storm-clouds; and through them cascade\nSwift torrents of water; they plunge o’er the edges\nOf great, naked cliffs and spill down to the ledges\nThat patches of moss and dry brushwood invade.\nBeneath spread green groves, lush with herbs and sweet-scented\nWhere birds dwell in peace and where deer browse, contented.\n\nLower still in the hills, nestle men; flocks of sheep\nThe pasturelands roam; to the gay, flowery meadow\nWhere courses Arafva, her banks clothed in shadow,\nA shepherd descends. In a narrow and deep\nRavine a poor horseman lurks, tense and unsleeping,\nAnd wild, laugh-crazed Terek goes tumbling and leaping.\n\nHe lashes about like a beast in a cage\nWith food out of reach, full of hunger and craving,\nAnd licks at the boulders, and, howling and raving,\nStrikes out at the shore in a frenzy and rage.\nAlas! He is thwarted: the mountains surround him;\nMute, threatening giants, they press darkly round him.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1829, "month": "september", "day": 20 }, - "translator": "Irina Zheleznova", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Irina Zheleznova" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september", @@ -83020,13 +85750,15 @@ "title": "“Beneath the azure of her native skies she drooped 
”", "body": "Beneath the azure of her native skies she drooped,\nTo fade, to vanish past returning;\nIt may be the young ghost above me briefly stooped\nAnd swept me with a shadowy yearning.\n\nBut now between us lies a line I may not cross.\nI cannot rouse the old devotion:\nIndifferent lips were those that told me of my loss,\nI learned of it without emotion.\n\nSo that is she who set my spirit all afire\nWith love that mingled tender sadness\nAnd grievous straining, weary ache of sharp desire,\nThat was heart’s torment and mind’s madness!\n\nWhere is the torment now, the love? Alas, the host\nOf memories that thus outlive you\nCan stir no tears, you credulous, poor ghost,\nIn one with no regrets to give you.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1826, "month": "july", "day": 31 }, - "translator": "Babette Deutsch", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -83038,11 +85770,13 @@ "title": "“The Birdlet”", "body": "God’s birdlet knows\nNor care nor toil;\nNor weaves it painfully\nAn everlasting nest.\nThro’ the long night on the twig it slumbers;\nWhen rises the red sun\nBirdie listens to the voice of God\nAnd it starts and it sings.\nWhen Spring Nature’s Beauty\nAnd the burning summer have passed\nAnd the fog and the rain\nBy the late fall are brought\nMen are wearied men are grieved\nBut birdie flies into distant lands\nInto warm climes beyond the blue sea:\nFlies away until the spring.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1824 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -83053,11 +85787,13 @@ "title": "“The Black Shawl”", "body": "I gaze demented on the black shawl\nAnd my cold soul is torn by grief.\n\nWhen young I was and full of trust\nI passionately loved a young Greek girl.\n\nThe charming maid she fondled me\nBut soon I lived the black day to see.\n\nOnce as were gathered my jolly guests\nA detested Jew knocked at my door.\n\nThou art feasting (he whispered) with friends\nBut betrayed thou art by thy Greek maid.\n\nMoneys I gave him and curses\nAnd called my servant the faithful.\n\nWe went: I flew on the wings of my steed;\nAnd tender mercy was silent in me.\n\nHer threshold no sooner I espied\nDark grew my eyes and my strength departed.\n\nThe distant chamber I enter alone\nAn Armenian embraces my faithless maid.\n\nDarkness around me; flashed the dagger;\nTo interrupt his kiss the wretch had no time.\n\nAnd long I trampled the headless corpse--\nAnd silent and pale at the maid I stared.\n\nI remember her prayers her flowing blood\nBut perished the girl and with her my love.\n\nThe shawl I took from the head now dead\nAnd wiped in silence the bleeding steel.\n\nWhen came the darkness of eve my serf\nThrew their bodies into the Danube’s billows--\n\nSince then I kiss no charming eyes\nSince then I know no cheerful days.\n\nI gaze demented on the black shawl\nAnd my cold soul is torn by grief.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1820 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83065,11 +85801,13 @@ "title": "“Bleak day has petered out 
”", "body": "Bleak day has petered out. The bleak night soon\nPuts out a leaden garment on the sky.\nThe thickets full of earthly pine now lie\nBefore a spectral moon.\nMy soul grows dark with what it all portends.\nYonder afar a brighter moon ascends\nThrough warmth that saturates the evening air;\nThe sea like a luxurious carpet there\nStirs under bluer skies 
\nIt is the time: straight down the hill she runs\nToward the shoreline where the sea intones.\nOut there beneath our hallowed stones\nShe sits alone and with her grief, and cries.\nShe is alone 
 and wrings a tear from none.\nNone kiss her knees in sweet oblivion;\nShe is alone 
 to none will she surrender\nHer shoulders, her moist lip or snowy breast.\n\nNone worth the holy way she might have loved.\nI know you weep alone 
 and am unmoved.\n\nBut if 
", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1824 }, - "translator": "A. Z. Foreman", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. Z. Foreman" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83077,11 +85815,13 @@ "title": "“The Burnt Letter”", "body": "Good-bye love-letter good-bye! ’T is her command 
\nHow long I waited how long my hand\nTo the fire my joys to yield was loath! 
\nBut eno’ the hour has come: burn letter of my love!\nI am ready: listens more my soul to nought.\nNow the greedy flame thy sheets shall lick 
\nA minute! 
 they crackle they blaze 
 a light smoke\nCurls and is lost with prayer mine.\nNow the finger’s faithful imprint losing\nBurns the melted wax 
 O Heavens!\nDone it is! curled in are the dark sheets;\nUpon their ashes light the lines adored\nAre gleaming 
 My breast is heavy. Ashes dear\nIn my sorrowful lot but poor consolation\nRemain for aye with me on my weary breast 
", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1825 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83089,11 +85829,13 @@ "title": "“The Cloud”", "body": "O last cloud of the scattered storm\nAlone thou sailest along the azure clear;\nAlone thou bringest the shadow sombre\nAlone thou marrest the joyful day.\n\nThou but recently had’st encircled the sky\nWhen sternly the lightning was winding about thee;\nThou gavest forth mysterious thunder\nWith rain hast watered the parched earth.\n\nEnough! Hie thyself: thy time hath passed:\nEarth is refreshed; the storm hath fled;\nAnd the breeze fondling the trees’ leaves\nForth thee chases from the quieted heavens!", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1835 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -83104,11 +85846,13 @@ "title": "“Confession”", "body": "I love you, though I rage at it,\nThough it is shame and toil misguided,\nAnd to my folly self-derided\nHere at your feet I will admit!\nIt ill befits my years, my station,\nGood sense has long been overdue!\nAnd yet, by every indication\nLove’s plague has stricken me anew:\nYou’re out of sight--I fall to yawning;\nYou’re here--I suffer and feel blue,\nAnd barely keep myself from owning,\nDear elf, how much I care for you!\nWhy, when your guileless girlish chatter\nDrifts from next door your airy tread,\nYour rustling dress, my senses scatter\nAnd I completely lose my head.\nYou smile--I flush with exultation;\nYou turn away--I’m plunged in gloom,\nYour pallid hand is compensation\nFor a whole day of fancied doom.\nWhen to the frame with artless motion\nYou bend to cross-stitch, all devotion,\nYour eyes and ringlets down-beguiled,\nMy heart goes out in mute emotion,\nRejoicing in you like a child!\nDare I confess to you my sighing,\nHow jealously I chafe and balk\nWhen you set forth, defying\nBad weather, on a lengthy walk?\nAnd then your solitary crying,\nThose twosome whispers out of sight,\nYour carriage to Opochka plying,\nAnd the piano late at night 
\nAline! I ask but to be pitied,\nI do not dare to plead for love;\nLove, for the sins I have committed,\nI am perhaps unworthy of.\nBut make believe! Your gaze, dear elf,\nIs fit to conjure with, believe me!\nAh, it is easy to deceive me! 
\nI long to be deceived myself!.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1826 }, - "translator": "Babette Deutsch", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83116,11 +85860,13 @@ "title": "“The Cossak”", "body": "Once at midnight hour\nDarkness thro’ and fog\nQuiet by the river\nRode a Cossak brave.\n\nBlack his cap upon his ear\nDust-covered is his coat\nBy his knee the pistols hang\nAnd nigh the ground his sword.\n\nThe faithful steed rein not feeling\nIs walking slowly on\n(Long its mane is and is waving)\nEver further it keeps on.\n\nNow before him two--three huts:\nBroken is the fence;\nTo the village here the road\nTo the forest there.\n\n“Not in forest maid is found”\nDennis thinks the brave.\n“To their chambers went the maids;\nAre gone for the night.”\n\nThe son of Don he pulls the rein\nAnd the spur he strikes:\nLike an arrow rushed the steed--\nTo the huts he turned.\n\nIn the clouds the distant sky\nWas silvering the moon;\nA Beauty-Maid in melancholy\nBy the window sits.\n\nEspies the brave the Beauty-Maid\nBeats his heart within:\nGently steed to left to left--\nUnder the window now is he.\n\n“Darker growing is the night\nAnd hidden is the moon;\nQuick my darling do come out\nWater give my steed.”\n\n“No not unto a man so young;\nRight fearful’t is to go;\nFearful’t is my house to leave\nAnd water give thy steed.”\n\n“Have no fear O Beauty-Maid\nAnd friendship close with me”--\n“Brings danger night to Beauty-Maids”\n“Fear me not O joy of mine!”\n\n“Trust me dear thy fear is vain\nAway with terror groundless!\nTime thou losest precious\nFear not O my darling!”\n\n“Mount my steed; with thee I will\nTo distant regions gallop;\nBlest with me be thou shalt\nHeaven with mate is everywhere.”\n\nAnd the maid? Over she bends\nHer fear is overcome\nBashfully to ride consents\nAnd the Cossak happy is.\n\nOff they dart away they fly;\nAre loving one another.\nFaithful he for two brief weeks\nForsook her on the third.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1815 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83128,11 +85874,13 @@ "title": "“Death-Thoughts”", "body": "Whether I roam along the noisy streets\nWhether I enter the peopled temple\nWhether I sit by thoughtless youth\nHaunt my thoughts me everywhere.\n\nI say Swiftly go the years by:\nHowever great our number now\nMust all descend the eternal vaults--\nAlready struck has some one’s hour.\n\nAnd if I gaze upon the lonely oak\nI think: the patriarch of the woods\nWill survive my passing age\nAs he survived my father’s age.\n\nAnd if a tender babe I fondle\nAlready I mutter Fare thee well!\nI yield my place to thee. For me\n’T is time to decay to bloom for thee\n\nEvery year thus every day\nWith death my thought I join\nOf coming death the day\nI seek among them to divine.\n\nWhere will Fortune send me death?\nIn battle? In wanderings or on the waves\nOr shall the valley neighboring\nReceive my chilled dust?\n\nBut tho’ the unfeeling body\nCan everywhere alike decay\nStill I my birthland nigh\nWould have my body lie.\n\nLet near the entrance to my grave\nCheerful youth be in play engaged\nAnd let indifferent creation\nWith beauty shine there eternally.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1829 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83140,11 +85888,13 @@ "title": "“Despair”", "body": "Dear my friend we are now parted\nMy soul’s asleep; I grieve in silence.\nGleams the day behind the mountain blue\nOr rises the night with moon autumnal--\nStill thee I seek my far off friend\nThee alone remember I everywhere\nThee alone in restless sleep I see.\nPauses my mind unwittingly thee I call;\nListens mine ear then thy voice I hear.\n\nAnd thou my lyre my despair dost share\nOf sick my soul companion thou!\nHollow is and sad the sound of thy string\nGrief’s sound alone hast not forgot 
\nFaithful lyre with me grieve thou!\nLet thine easy note and careless\nSing of love mine and despair\nAnd while listening to thy singing\nMay thoughtfully the maidens sigh!", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1816 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -83155,11 +85905,13 @@ "title": "“Devils”", "body": "Storm-clouds hurtle, storm-clouds hover;\nFlying snow is set alight\nBy the moon whose form they cover;\nBlurred the heavens, blurred the night.\nOn and on our coach advances,\nLittle bell goes din-din-din 
\nRound are vast, unknown expanses;\nTerror, terror is within.\n\n--Faster, coachman! “Can’t, sir, sorry:\nHorses, sir, are nearly dead.\nI am blinded, all is blurry,\nAll snowed up; can’t see ahead.\nSir, I tell you on the level:\nWe have strayed, we’ve lost the trail.\nWhat can WE do, when a devil\nDrives us, whirls us round the vale?”\n\n“There, look, there he’s playing, jolly!\nHuffing, puffing in my course;\nThere, you see, into the gully\nPushing the hysteric horse;\nNow in front of me his figure\nLooms up as a queer mile-mark--\nComing closer, growing bigger,\nSparking, melting in the dark.”\n\nStorm-clouds hurtle, storm-clouds hover;\nFlying snow is set alight\nBy the moon whose form they cover;\nBlurred the heavens, blurred the night.\nWe can’t whirl so any longer!\nSuddenly, the bell has ceased,\nHorses halted 
 --Hey, what’s wrong there?\n“Who can tell!--a stump? a beast? 
”\n\nBlizzard’s raging, blizzard’s crying,\nHorses panting, seized by fear;\nFar away his shape is flying;\nStill in haze the eyeballs glare;\nHorses pull us back in motion,\nLittle bell goes din-din-din 
\nI behold a strange commotion:\nEvil spirits gather in--\n\nSundry, ugly devils, whirling\nIn the moonlight’s milky haze:\nSwaying, flittering and swirling\nLike the leaves in autumn days 
\nWhat a crowd! Where are they carried?\nWhat’s the plaintive song I hear?\nIs a goblin being buried,\nOr a sorceress married there?\n\nStorm-clouds hurtle, storm-clouds hover;\nFlying snow is set alight\nBy the moon whose form they cover;\nBlurred the heavens, blurred the night.\nSwarms of devils come to rally,\nHurtle in the boundless height;\nHowling fills the whitening valley,\nPlaintive screeching rends my heart 
", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1830 }, - "translator": "Genia Gurarie", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Genia Gurarie" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -83178,11 +85930,13 @@ "title": "“The Drowned Man”", "body": "Children running into izba,\nCalling father, dripping sweat:\n“Daddy, daddy! come--there is a\nDeadman caught inside our net.”\n“Fancy, fancy fabrication 
”\nGrumbled off their weary Pa,\n“Have these imps imagination!\nDeadman, really! ya-ha-ha 
”\n\n“Well 
 the court may come to bother--\nWhat’ll I say before the judge?\nHey you brats, go have your mother\nBring my coat; I better trudge 
\nShow me, where?”--“Right there, Dad, farther!”\nOn the sand where netting ropes\nLay spread out, the peasant father\nSaw the veritable corpse.\n\nBadly mangled, ugly, frightening,\nBlue and swollen on each side 
\nHas he fished in storm and lightning,\nOr committed suicide?\nCould this be a careless drunkard,\nOr a mermaid-seeking monk,\nOr a merchandizer, conquered\nBy some bandits, robbed and sunk?\n\nTo the peasant, what’s it matter!\nQuick: he grabs the dead man’s hair,\nDrags his body to the water,\nLooks around: nobody’s there:\nGood 
 relieved of the concern he\nShoves his paddle at a loss,\nWhile the stiff resumes his journey\nDown the stream for grave and cross.\n\nLong the dead man as one living\nRocked on waves amid the foam 
\nSurly as he watched him leaving,\nSoon our peasant headed home.\n“Come you pups! let’s go, don’t scatter.\nEach of you will get his bun.\nBut remember: just you chatter--\nAnd I’ll whip you, every one.”\n\nDark and stormy it was turning.\nHigh the river ran in gloom.\nNow the torch has finished burning\nIn the peasant’s smoky room.\nKids asleep, the wife aslumber,\nHe lies listening to the rain 
\nBang! he hears a sudden comer\nKnocking on the window-pane.\n\n“What the 
”--“Let me in there, master!”\n“Damn, you found the time to roam!\nWell, what is it, your disaster?\nLet you in? It’s dark at home,\nDark and crowded 
 What a pest you are!\nWhere’d I put you in my cot 
”\nSlowly, with a lazy gesture,\nHe lifts up the pane and--what?\n\nThrough the clouds, the moon was showing 
\nWell? the naked man was there,\nDown his hair the water flowing,\nWide his eyes, unmoved the stare;\nNumb the dreadful-looking body,\nArms were hanging feeble, thin;\nCrabs and cancers, black and bloody,\nSucked into the swollen skin.\n\nAs the peasant slammed the shutter\n(Recognized his visitant)\nHorror-struck he could but mutter\n“Blast you!” and began to pant.\nHe was shuddering, awful chaos\nAll night through stirred in his brain,\nWhile the knocking shook the house\nBy the gates and at the pane.\n\nPeople tell a dreadful rumor:\nEvery year the peasant, say,\nWaiting in the worst of humor\nFor his visitor that day;\nAs the rainstorm is increasing,\nNightfall brings a hurricane--\nAnd the drowned man knocks, unceasing,\nBy the gates and at the pane.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1828 }, - "translator": "Genia Gurarie", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Genia Gurarie" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83190,11 +85944,13 @@ "title": "“Elegy”", "body": "Happy who to himself confess\nHis passion dares without terror;\nHappy who in fate uncertain\nBy modest hope is fondled;\nHappy who by foggy moonbeams\nIs led to midnight joyful\nAnd with faithful key who gently\nThe door unlocks of his beloved.\n\nBut for me in sad my life\nNo joy there is of secret pleasure;\nHope’s early flower faded is\nBy struggle withered is life’s flower.\nYouth away flies melancholy\nAnd droop with me life’s roses;\nBut by Love tho’ long forgot\nForget Love’s tears I cannot.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1816 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83202,8 +85958,10 @@ "title": "“An Elegy”", "body": "As leaden as the aftermath of wine\nIs the dead mirth of my delirious days;\nAnd as wine waxes strong with age, so weighs\nMore heavily the past on my decline.\nMy path is dim. The future’s troubled sea\nForetokens only toil and grief to me.\n\nBut oh! my friends, I do not ask to die!\nI crave more life, more dreams, more agony!\nMidmost the care, the panic, the distress,\nI know that I shall taste of happiness.\nOnce more I shall be drunk on strains divine,\nBe moved to tears by musings that are mine;\nAnd haply when the last sad hour draws nigh.\nLove with a farewell smile may gild the sky.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Maurice Baring", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Maurice Baring" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -83214,11 +85972,13 @@ "title": "“The Floweret”", "body": "A floweret, withered, odorless\nIn a book forgot I find;\nAnd already strange reflection\nCometh into my mind.\n\nBloomed, where? when? In what spring?\nAnd how long ago? And plucked by whom?\nWas it by a strange hand? Was it by a dear hand?\nAnd wherefore left thus here?\n\nWas it in memory of a tender meeting?\nWas it in memory of a fated parting?\nWas it in memory of a lonely walk?\nIn the peaceful fields or in the shady woods?\n\nLives he still? Lives she still?\nAnd where their nook this very day?\nOr are they too withered\nLike unto this unknown floweret?", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1828 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83226,11 +85986,13 @@ "title": "“For distant shores of homeland 
”", "body": "For distant shores of homeland\nYou left this alien land;\nIn that never-forgotten hour, that time of grief\nI wept long before you.\nWith hands turned to ice\nI tried to keep you with me;\nMy cries begged you to postpone\nThe dreadful anguish of parting.\n\nBut from my bitter kisses\nYou wrenched away your lips;\nAnd from this gloomy exile\nYou bade me to another land.\nYou said: ‘That day we meet again\nUnder skies forever blue,\nShaded by olive trees, our love\nWith kisses we’ll renew.’\n\nBut there, alas, where heaven’s arch\nShines down its brilliant blue,\nWhere waters murmur below the cliffs\nYou sleep eternal rest.\nYour beauty and your suffering\nHave vanished in the grave,\nWith them the long-awaited greeting kiss 
\nYet still I wait, I hold you to your promise!", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1830 }, - "translator": "Anthony Phillips", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Anthony Phillips" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83238,25 +86000,31 @@ "title": "“For one last time my thought embraces 
”", "body": "For one last time my thought embraces\nYour image, all but lost to me;\nThe heart with wistful longing traces\nA dream that hour on hour effaces,\nAnd dwells upon love’s memory.\n\nOur years roll onward, swiftly changing;\nThey change, and we change in the end--\nFar from your poet you are ranging,\nAnd darkness like the tomb’s, estranging,\nHas drawn you from that passionate friend.\n\nThis heart its leave of you has taken;\nAccept, my distant dear, love’s close,\nAs does the wife death leaves forsaken,\nAs does the exile’s comrade, shaken\nAnd mute, who clasps him once, and goes.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Autumn", + "season": "autumn", "year": 1830 }, - "translator": "Babette Deutsch", - "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "autumn" + } } }, "a-friend-of-my-severe-days": { "title": "“A friend of my severe days 
”", "body": "A friend of my severe days,\nDecrepit darling dove of mine!\nIn deep pine woods alone you wait\nFor me, you wait too long a time.\nIn your front room under the window\nYou grieve as if you sentry stand,\nAnd needles linger every minute\nIn your fatigued and puckered hands.\nYou look through old forgotten gates\nAt a pitch-black and distant path:\nDepression, premonitions, cares\nOppress incessantly your heart.\nIt seems to you
", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1826 }, - "translator": "Vladimir Panarin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Panarin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83264,11 +86032,13 @@ "title": "“The Gypsies”", "body": "Over the wooded banks\nIn the hour of evening quiet\nUnder the tents are song and bustle\nAnd the fires are scattered.\n\nThee I greet O happy race!\nI recognize thy blazes\nI myself at other times\nThese tents would have followed.\n\nWith the early rays to-morrow\nShall disappear your freedom’s trace\nGo you will--but not with you\nLonger go shall the bard of you.\n\nHe alas the changing lodgings\nAnd the pranks of days of yore\nHas forgot for rural comforts\nAnd for the quiet of a home.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1830 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -83279,11 +86049,13 @@ "title": "“The heavy clouds at length are scattering 
”", "body": "The heavy clouds at length are scattering.\nO Star of sorrow, star of evening,\nThy ray has silvered the fast-fading plain,\nThe quiet gulf, the black rocks of the main.\nI love thy feeble light in the far heaven,\nIt wakes old thoughts now unto slumber given.\nHave I not seen thee rise, remembered Star,\nAcross the peaceful land where all things are\nDear to the heart; where poplars stand in state\nAlong the vale, and myrtles delicate,\nAnd gloomy cypresses, and evermore\nThe south winds sing. Along the hills and shore,\nFull of sweet thoughts, in dreaming idleness,\nIn older days my feet were wont to press.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1820 }, - "translator": "Maud F. Jerrold", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Maud F. Jerrold" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -83294,11 +86066,13 @@ "title": "“I loved you; even now I may confess 
”", "body": "I loved you; even now I may confess,\nSome embers of my love their fire retain;\nBut do not let it cause you more distress,\nI do not want to sadden you again.\n\nHopeless and tongue-tied, yet I loved you dearly\nWith pangs the jealous and the timid know;\nSo tenderly I loved you, so sincerely,\nI pray God grant another love you so.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1829 }, - "translator": "Reginald Hewitt", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Reginald Hewitt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83306,11 +86080,13 @@ "title": "“I visited again 
”", "body": "
 I visited again\nThat corner of the earth where once I spent,\nIn placid exile, two unheeded years.\nA decade’s gone since then--and in my life\nThere have been many changes--in myself,\nWho from the general law am not exempt,\nThere have been changes, too--but here once more\nThe past envelops me, and suddenly\nIt seems that only yesterday I roamed\nThese groves.\n Here stands the exile’s cottage, where\nI lived with my poor nurse. The good old woman\nHas passed awayno longer do I hear\nThrough the thin wall her heavy tread as she\nGoes on her busy rounds.\n Here is the hill\nUpon whose wooded crest I often sat\nMotionless, staring down upon the lake--\nRecalling, as I looked, with melancholy,\nAnother shore, and other waves I knew 
\nAmong the golden meadows, the green fields,\nIt lies as then, that blue and spacious lake:\nA fisherman across its lonely waters\nIs rowing now, and dragging after him\nA wretched net. Upon the sloping shores\nAre scattered hamlets--and beyond them there\nA mill squats crookedly--it scarcely stirs\nIts wings in this soft wind 
\n Upon the edge\nOf the ancestral acres, on the spot\nWhere the rough road, trenched by the heavy rains,\nBegins its upward climb, three pine trees rise--\nOne stands apart, and two are close together,\nAnd I remember how, of moonlight nights,\nWhen I rode past, their rustling greeted me\nLike a familiar voice. I took that road,\nI saw the pines before me once again.\nThey are the same, and on the ear the same\nFamiliar whisper breaks from shaken boughs,\nBut at the base, beside their aged roots\n(Where everything had once been bare and bald),\nA glorious young grove had risen up,\nA verdant family; the bushes crowd\nLike children in their shadow. And apart,\nAlone as ever, their glum comrade stands,\nLike an old bachelor, about whose feet\nThere stretches only bareness as before.\nI hail you, race of youthful newcomers!\nI shall not witness your maturity,\nWhen you shall have outgrown my ancient friends,\nAnd with your shoulders hide their very heads\nFrom passers-by. But let my grandson hear\nYour wordless greeting when, as he returns,\nContent, lighthearted, from a talk with friends,\nHe too rides past you in the dark of night,\nAnd thinks, perhaps, of me.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1835 }, - "translator": "Babette Deutsch", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83326,13 +86102,15 @@ "title": "“The Incantation”", "body": "Oh, if it’s true that in the night\nWhen sleep has overcome the living\nAnd from the sky the moonbeams glide\nAcross the tombstones unforgiving,\nOh, if it’s true that there appear\nAll those from graves and leave them hollow,\nI call a shadow, wait in sorrow:\nMy Leila, love, I’m here! I’m here!\n\nCome, precious shadow face to face;\nBe what you were before we parted,\nAs pale and cold as winter days,\nOne final time by torment martyred.\nCome as a distant star, come near\nAs does a sound or breeze affluter\nOr as a ghost that makes one stutter--\nIt matters not: I’m here! I’m here!\n\nI call for you, but not because\nI blame the folks whose slight infernal\nHad killed my friend with countless wrongs,\nNor do I fathom rest eternal,\nAnd not because at times, o dear,\nI’m torn by doubt
 But dreaming of you\nI long to say that I still love you,\nThat I’m still yours: I’m here! I’m here!", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1830, "month": "october", "day": 17 }, - "translator": "Yuri Menis", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yuri Menis" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -83344,8 +86122,10 @@ "title": "“Insanity”", "body": "God grant I grow not insane:\nNo better the stick and beggar’s bag:\nNo better toil and hunger bear.\n\nNot that I upon my reason\nSuch value place; not that I\nWould fain not lose it.\n\nIf freedom to me they would leave\nHow I would lasciviously\n For the gloomy forest rush!\n\nIn hot delirium I would sing\nAnd unconscious would remain\nWith ravings wondrous and chaotic.\n\nAnd listen would I to the waves\nAnd gaze I would full of bliss\n Into the empty heavens.\n\nAnd free and strong then would I be\nLike a storm the fields updigging\n Forest-trees uprooting.\n\nBut here’s the trouble: if crazy once\nA fright thou art like pestilence\n And locked up now shalt thou be.\n\nTo a chain thee fool they’ll fasten\nAnd through the gate a circus beast\nThee to nettle the people come.\n\nAnd at night not hear shall I\nClear the voice of nightingale\n Nor the forest’s hollow sound\n\nBut cries alone of companions mine\nAnd the scolding guards of night\n And a whizzing of chains a ringing.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ivan Panin", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83353,11 +86133,13 @@ "title": "“Inspiring Love”", "body": "The moment wondrous I remember\nThou before me didst appear\nLike a flashing apparition\nLike a spirit of beauty pure.\n\n’Mid sorrows of hopeless grief\n’Mid tumults of noiseful bustle\nRang long to me thy tender voice\nCame dreams to me of thy lovely features.\n\nWent by the years. The storm’s rebellious rush\nThe former dreams had scattered\nAnd I forgot thy tender voice\nI forgot thy heavenly features.\n\nIn the desert in prison’s darkness\nQuietly my days were dragging;\nNo reverence nor inspiration\nNor tears nor life nor love.\n\nBut at last awakes my soul:\nAnd again didst thou appear:\nLike a flashing apparition\nLike a spirit of beauty pure.\n\nAnd enraptured beats my heart\nAnd risen are for it again\nBoth reverence and inspiration\nAnd life and tears and love.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1825 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83365,11 +86147,13 @@ "title": "“It’s time, my friend 
”", "body": "It’s time, my friend: it’s time! The heart wants rest--\nthe days slip by, the hours take away\nfragments of our life: and you and I\nplan how to live and,--just like that--we die.\nNo happiness on earth, yet there’s freedom, peace.\nI’ve long dreamt of an enviable fate--\nI’ve long thought, a weary slave, to fly\nto some far place of labour and true joy.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1834 }, - "translator": "A. S. Kline", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83377,11 +86161,13 @@ "title": "“I’ve lived to bury my desires 
”", "body": "I’ve lived to bury my desires,\nAnd see my dreams corrode with rust;\nNow all that’s left are fruitless fires\nThat burn my empty heart to dust.\n\nStruck by the storms of cruel Fate\nMy crown of summer bloom is sere;\nAlone and sad I watch and wait,\nAnd wonder if the end is near.\n\nAs conquered by the last cold air,\nWhen winter whistles in the wind,\nAlone upon a branch that’s bare\nA trembling leaf is left behind.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1821 }, - "translator": "Maurice Baring", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Maurice Baring" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83389,13 +86175,15 @@ "title": "“Life, the gift so idle and random 
”", "body": "Life, the gift so idle and random,\nWhy ’re you given to me at all?\nOr, else, why must you abandon\nMe, condemned to deadly call?\n\nWhat cruel force has called me, raising\nFrom nonentity to light,\nFilled my soul with passion blazing,\nStirred with doubt my eager mind? 
\n\nVoid’s my brain, and drained’s my spirit.\nNo goals for which I strive.\nI am sick to death of hearing\nThe monotonous buzz of life.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1828, "month": "may", "day": 26 }, - "translator": "Natasha Gotskaya", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Natasha Gotskaya" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -83407,8 +86195,10 @@ "title": "“Love’s Debt”", "body": "For the shores of thy distant home\nThou hast forsaken the foreign land;\nIn a memorable sad hour\nI before thee cried long.\nTho’ cold my hands were growing\nThee back to hold they tried;\nAnd begged of thee my parting groan\nThe gnawing weariness not to break.\n\nBut from my bitter kisses thou\nThy lips away hast torn;\nFrom the land of exile dreary\nCalling me to another land.\nThou saidst: on the day of meeting\nBeneath a sky forever blue\nOlives’ shade beneath love’s kisses\nAgain my friend we shall unite.\n\nBut where alas! the vaults of sky\nShining are with glimmer blue\nWhere ’neath the rocks the waters slumber--\nWith last sleep art sleeping thou.\nAnd beauty thine and sufferings\nIn the urnal grave have disappeared--\nBut the kiss of meeting is also gone 
\nBut still I wait: thou art my debtor! 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ivan Panin", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83424,11 +86214,13 @@ "title": "“My Demon”", "body": "In those days when new to me were\nOf existence all impressions:--\nThe maiden’s glances the forests’ whisper\nThe song of nightingale at night;\nWhen the sentiments elevated\nOf Freedom glory and of love\nAnd of art the inspiration\nStirred deeply so my blood:--\nMy hopeful hours and joyful\nWith melancholy sudden dark’ning\nA certain evil spirit then\nBegan in secret me to visit.\nGrievous were our meetings\nHis smile and his wonderful glance\nHis speeches these so stinging\nCold poison poured into my soul.\nProvidence with slander\nInexhaustible he tempted;\nOf Beauty as a dream he spake\nAnd inspiration he despised;\nNor love nor freedom trusted he\nOn life with scorn he looked--\nAnd nought in all nature\nTo bless he ever wished.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1823 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83436,11 +86228,13 @@ "title": "“My Muse”", "body": "In the days of my youth she was fond of me\nAnd the seven-stemmed flute she handed me.\nTo me with smile she listened; and already gently\nAlong the openings echoing of the woods\nWas playing I with fingers tender:\nBoth hymns solemn god-inspired\nAnd peaceful song of Phrygian shepherd.\nFrom morn till night in oak’s dumb shadow\nTo the strange maid’s teaching intent I listened;\nAnd with sparing reward me gladdening\nTossing back her curls from her forehead dear\nFrom my hands the flute herself she took.\nNow filled the wood was with breath divine\nAnd the heart with holy enchantment filled.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1823 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83448,8 +86242,10 @@ "title": "“The Name”", "body": "What is my name to you? ’T will die:\na wave that has but rolled to reach\nwith a lone splash a distant beach;\nor in the timbered night a cry 
\n\n’T will leave a lifeless trace among\nnames on your tablets: the design\nof an entangled gravestone line\nin an unfathomable tongue.\n\nWhat is it then? A long-dead past,\nlost in the rush of madder dreams,\nupon your soul it will not cast\nMnemosyne’s pure tender beams.\n\nBut if some sorrow comes to you,\nutter my name with sighs, and tell\nthe silence: “Memory is true--\nthere beats a heart wherein I dwell.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vladimir Nabokov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Nabokov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83465,11 +86261,13 @@ "title": "“The Nightingale”", "body": "In silent gardens in the spring in the darkness of the night\nSings above the rose from the east the nightingale;\nBut dear rose neither feeling has nor listens it\nBut under its lover’s hymn waveth it and slumbers.\n\nDost thou not sing thus to beauty cold?\nReflect O bard whither art thou striding?\nShe neither listens nor the bard she feels.\nThou gazest? Bloom she does; thou callest?--\n Answer none she gives!", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1827 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -83480,12 +86278,14 @@ "title": "“A Nightingale and a Rose”", "body": "In gardens’ muteness, in spring, in the nights’ mist,\nOver a rose sings the nightingale of East.\nBut doesn’t feel anything nor hear this charming rose,\nAnd to the loving hymn just swings and calmly dozes.\nNot in this way you sing for beauty, cold and hard?\nCome to your senses, bard, where do you stream your heart?\nShe does not hear nor feel the poet’s soul, fervent;\nYou look--she is in bloom, you call--the answer’s absent.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1827, "month": "february" }, - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -83496,11 +86296,13 @@ "title": "“The North Wind”", "body": "Why O wrathful north wind thou\nThe marshy shrub dost downward bend?\nWhy thus in the distant sky-vault\nWrathfully the cloud dost chase?\n\nThe black clouds but recently\nHad spread the whole heavens o’er\nThe oak on hill top but recently\nIn beauty wondrous itself was priding.\n\nThou hast risen and up hast played\nWith terror resounded and with splendor--\nAnd away are driven the stormy clouds;\nDown is hurled the mighty oak.\n\nLet now then the sun’s clear face\nWith joy henceforth ever shine\nWith the clouds now the zephyr play\nAnd the bush in quiet sway.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1824 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83508,11 +86310,13 @@ "title": "“On the hills of Georgia, darkness 
”", "body": "On the hills of Georgia, darkness\nI hear Aragva’s roar,\nlight and sad, my grief transparent;\nmy melancholy filled with you.\nYou, and you alone 
 my sorrow\nStill untouched and unmoved,\nAnd my heart flames again, and loves--\nfor what else can it do?", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1829 }, - "translator": "A. S. Kline", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83520,11 +86324,13 @@ "title": "“The Outcast”", "body": "On a rainy autumn evening\nInto desert places went a maid;\nAnd the secret fruit of unhappy love\nIn her trembling hands she held.\nAll was still: the hills and the woods\nAsleep in the darkness of the night.\nAnd her searching glances\nIn terror about she cast.\n\nAnd on this babe the innocent\nHer glance she paused with a sigh:\nAsleep thou art my child my grief.\nThou knowest not my sadness.\nThine eyes will ope and tho’ with longing\nTo my breast shalt no more cling.\nNo kiss for thee to-morrow\nFrom thine unhappy mother.\n\nBeckon in vain for her thou wilt\nMy everlasting shame my guilt!\nMe forget thou shalt for aye\nBut thee forget shall not I.\nShelter thou shalt receive from strangers\nWho’ll say: Thou art none of ours!\nThou wilt ask Where are my parents?\nBut for thee no kin is found!\n\nHapless one! With heart filled with sorrow\nLonely amid thy mates\nThy spirit sullen to the end\nThou shalt behold fondling mothers.\nA lonely wanderer everywhere\nCursing thy fate at all times\nThou the bitter reproach shalt hear 
\nForgive me oh forgive me then!\n\nAsleep! let me then O hapless one\nTo my bosom press thee once for all.\nA law unjust and terrible\nThee and me to sorrow dooms.\nWhile the years have not yet chased\nThe guiltless joy of thy days\nSleep my darling let no griefs bitter\nMar thy childhood’s quiet life!\n\nBut lo! behind the woods near by\nThe moon brings a hut to light.\nForlorn pale and trembling\nTo the doors nigh she came.\nShe stooped and gently laid she down\nThe babe on the threshold strange.\nIn terror away her eyes she turned\nAnd in the dark night disappeared.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1814 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -83535,13 +86341,15 @@ "title": "“A Prayer”", "body": "Hermits and blameless women full of Grace,\nTo raise the heart into celestial space.\nIn storm and strife below to strengthen it,\nA host of holy orisons have writ;\nBut one of all the multitudinous host\nOf orison and praise has moved me most,\nA prayer repeated by the priest in Lent,\nIn the dark days of fasting and lament\nUpon my lips more often it will dwell--\nAnd breathe on the faint soul a vital spell:\n“O Ruler of my days! Ward off from me\nThe evil angel of despondency\nAnd sloth; and let not from my lips be heard\nThe sharp repeating of the idle word;\nSave me from lust, that snake which lives within;\nAnd let me not be blind to my own sin,\nBlind to my brother’s trespass let me,\nQuicken the spirit of consent in me,\nOf love, long-suffering and of chastity.”", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1836, "month": "july", "day": 22 }, - "translator": "Maurice Baring", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Maurice Baring" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -83553,11 +86361,13 @@ "title": "“A Presentiment”", "body": "The clouds again are o’er me\nHave gathered in the stillness;\nAgain me with misfortune\nEnvious fate now threatens.\nWill I keep my defiance?\nWill I bring against her\nThe firmness and patience\nOf my youthful pride?\n\nWearied by a stormy life\nI await the storm fretless\nPerhaps once more safe again\nA harbor shall I find 
\nBut I feel the parting nigh\nUnavoidable fearful hour\nTo press thy hand for the last time\nI haste to thee my angel.\n\nAngel gentle angel calm\nGently tell me: fare thee well.\nBe thou grieved: thy tender gaze\nEither drop or to me raise.\nThe memory of thee now shall\nTo my soul replace\nThe strength the pride and the hope\nThe daring of my former days!", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1828 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83565,11 +86375,13 @@ "title": "“The Prophet”", "body": "Tormented by the thirst for the spirit\nI was dragging myself in a sombre desert\nAnd a six-winged seraph appeared\nUnto me on the parting of the roads.\nWith fingers as light as a dream\nMine eyes he touched:\nAnd mine eyes opened wise\nLike the eyes of a frightened eagle;\nHe touched mine ears\nAnd they filled with din and ringing.\nAnd I heard the trembling of the heavens\nAnd the flight of the angel’s wings\nAnd the creeping of the polyps in the sea\nAnd the growth of the vine in the valley.\nAnd he took hold of my lips\nAnd out he tore my sinful tongue\nWith its empty and false speech.\nAnd the fang of the wise serpent\nBetween my terrified lips he placed\nWith bloody hand.\nAnd ope he cut with sword my breast\nAnd out he took my trembling heart\nAnd a coal with flaming blaze\nInto the opened breast he shoved.\nLike a corpse I lay in the desert.\nAnd the voice of God unto me called:\nArise O prophet and listen and guide.\nBe thou filled with my will\nAnd going over land and sea\nFire with the word the hearts of men!", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1826 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -83580,11 +86392,13 @@ "title": "“A raven to his brother flies 
”", "body": "A raven to his brother flies,\nThe raven to his brother cries,\n“Brother dear, where shall we dine?\nTo get something would be fine.”\n\nThe raven answers, “Brother, yes,\nDinner is served for us, I guess.\nIn the middle of a field\nA young hunter is laying killed.\n\nWhy and how he lost his life\nKnow only his young wife,\nHis good falcon, his good horse,\nAnd his brother, who is worse.\n\nTo a grove the falcon ’s flown,\nThe horse got another owner,\nWhile his widow and his brother\nVery soon will get each other.”", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1828 }, - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83592,8 +86406,10 @@ "title": "“Regret”", "body": "Not ye regret I of spring my years\nIn dreams gone by of hopeless love;\nNot ye regret I O mysteries of nights.\nBy songstress passionate celebrated;\n\nNot ye regret I O my faithless friends\nNor crowns of feasts nor cups of circle\nNor ye regret I O traitresses young--\nTo pleasures melancholy stranger am I.\n\nBut where are ye O moments tender\nOf young my hopes of heartfelt peace?\nThe former heat and grace of inspiration?\nCome again O ye of spring my years!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ivan Panin", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -83604,13 +86420,15 @@ "title": "“Remembrance”", "body": "When the loud day for men who sow and reap\nGrows still, and on the silence of the town\nThe unsubstantial veils of night and sleep,\nThe meed of the day’s labour, settle down,\nThen for me in the stillness of the night\nThe wasting, watchful hours drag on their course,\nAnd in the idle darkness comes the bite\nOf all the burning serpents of remorse;\nDreams seethe; and fretful infelicities\nAre swarming in my over-burdened soul,\nAnd Memory before my wakeful eyes\nWith noiseless hand unwinds her lengthy scroll.\nThen, as with loathing I peruse the years,\nI tremble, and I curse my natal day,\nWail bitterly, and bitterly shed tears,\nBut cannot wash the woeful script away.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1828, "month": "may", "day": 19 }, - "translator": "Maurice Baring", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Maurice Baring" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -83622,11 +86440,13 @@ "title": "“Resurrection”", "body": "With sleepy brush the barbarian artist\nThe master’s painting blackens;\nAnd thoughtlessly his wicked drawing\nOver it he is daubing.\n\nBut in years the foreign colors\nPeal off an aged layer:\nThe work of genius is ’gain before us\nWith former beauty out it comes.\n\nThus my failings vanish too\nFrom my wearied soul\nAnd again within it visions rise\nOf my early purer days.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1819 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83634,14 +86454,16 @@ "title": "“The Roussalka”", "body": "By a lake once in forest darkness\nA monk his soul was saving\nEver in stern occupation\nOf prayer fast and labor.\nAlready with slackened shovel\nThe aged man his grave was digging\nAnd only for death in peace and quiet\nTo his saintly patrons prayed he.\n\nOnce in summer at the threshold\nOf his drooping little hut\nTo God was praying the hermit.\nDarker grew the forest.\nOver the lake was rising fog.\nAnd in the clouds the reddish moon\nWas gently rolling along the sky.\nUpon the waters the hermit gazed.\n\nHe looks and fears and knows not why\nHimself he cannot understand 
\nNow he sees: the waves are seething\nAnd suddenly again are quiet 
\nSuddenly 
 as light as shade of night\nAs white as early snow of hills\nOut cometh a woman naked\nAnd on the shore herself she seats.\n\nUpon the aged monk she gazes\nAnd she combs her moistened tresses--\nThe holy monk with terror trembles\nUpon her charms still he gazes;\nWith her hand to him she beckons\nAnd her head she’s quickly nodding 
\nAnd suddenly like a falling star\nThe dreamy wave she vanished under.\n\nThe sober monk all night he slept not\nAnd all day he prayed not\nThe shadow unwittingly before him\nOf the wondrous maid he ever sees.\nAgain the forest is clad in darkness\nAlong the clouds the moon is sailing.\nAgain the maid above the water\nPale and splendent there she sits.\n\nGaze her eyes nods her head\nThrows kisses and she’s sporting\nThe wave she sprinkles and she frolics;\nChild-like weeping now and laughing;\nSobbing tender--the monk she calls:\nMonk O monk to me to me!\nInto the waves transparent she dashes;\nAnd again is all in silence deep.\n\nBut on the third day the roused hermit\nThe enchanted shores nigh sitting was\nAnd the beautiful maid he awaited.\nUpon the trees were falling shades 
\nNight at last by dawn was chased--\nAnd nowhere monk could be found\nHis beard alone the gray one\nIn the water the boys could see.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1819 - }, "tags": [ "favorite" ], - "translator": "Ivan Panin", "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1819 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "context": { "season": "summer" } @@ -83651,13 +86473,15 @@ "title": "“Sing, lovely one, I beg, no more 
”", "body": "Sing, lovely one, I beg, no more\nThe songs of Georgia in my presence,\nFor of a distant life and shore\nTheir mournful sound calls up remembrance;\n\nFor of a moonlit steppe, and night\nThey cruelly, vengefully remind me,\nAnd of a face long lost to sight,\nWell loved, but left, alas, behind me.\n\nWhen you are nigh, I gaze at you,\nAnd lo! No fatal shadow haunts me:\nBut at your song’s first note, anew\nIt reappears, and plagues and taunts me.\n\nSing, lovely one, I beg, no more\nThe songs of Georgia in my presence,\nFor of a distant life and shore\nTheir mournful sound calls up remembrance.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1828, "month": "june", "day": 12 }, - "translator": "Irina Zheleznova", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Irina Zheleznova" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -83669,11 +86493,13 @@ "title": "“The Singer”", "body": "Did you hear beyond the grove the night voice\nOf the singer of love who sings of his sadness?\nIn the morning, when the fields were silent,\nIt was the plaintive and simple sound of the pipe.\n Did you hear it?\n\nDid you meet in the desolate darkness of the forest\nThe singer of love who sings of his sadness?\nDid you notice a trace of tears or smile,\nOr a gentle and mournful glance?\n Did you meet him?\n\nDid you sigh to hear the tender voice\nOf the singer of love who sings of the sadness?\nWhen you saw the young man in the forest,\nAnd met the look of his mournful eyes,\n Did you sigh?", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1816 }, - "translator": "Dmitri Smirnov-Sadovsky", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dmitri Smirnov-Sadovsky" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83689,13 +86515,15 @@ "title": "“Song of the Wise Prince Oleg”", "body": "The wise Prince Oleg has set out to repay\n Foolhardy Khazars with a vengeance;\nFor pillage, their dwellings and pastures as prey\n To fire and sword the prince pledges;\nIn Tsargrad’s fine armor, in front of a force\nOleg heads out riding his favorite horse.\n\nHere comes from the woods, lost in thoughts of his own,\n A warlock inspired like all sages,\nAn old man in service of Perun alone,\n A harbinger of future ages,\nIn pleadings and witchcraft forever engaged.\nThe prince then rides over to talk to the sage.\n\n“Now tell me, o wizard, the darling of Gods,\n How long shall I live on in comfort\nAnd what, to the joy of my foes, are the odds\n With earth before long I’ll be covered?\nYou don’t need to fear me; let truth here be known.\nSpeak up and you’ll have any horse that I own.”\n\n“No magus has fear of the mightiest lords\n Nor welcomes their gifts when they’re given;\nAuthentic and free are our vatical words\n And matched to the wisdom of heaven.\nIn darkness the future is hid anyhow;\nBut I see the fate on your luminous brow.\n\nNow heed what I tell you and mark every word:\n To warriors glory is sacred;\nYour fame has been earned by your glorious sword;\n Your shield decks the gateway to Tsargrad;\nThe sea and the earth both your orders await,\nAnd foes are but jealous of this wondrous fate.\n\nThe ocean’s high waves in a perilous string\n Brought on by the ominous weather,\nThe arrow, the treacherous blade, and the sling\n Have spared you in every endeavor
\nYou’ve suffered no wounds in your armor supreme;\nYour power is guarded by forces unseen.\n\nThe horse of your choosing braves dangers and woes;\n Obeying the sovereign’s bidding,\nHe stands unperturbed by the arrows of foes,\n Then charges with speed unremitting.\nNor weather nor battle will make him retreat
\nBut trust me, your death shall ensue from your steed.”\n\nOleg merely chuckled; however, his eye\n And forehead grew dark in reflection.\nStill silent, he gets off his horse with a sigh\n And a look of profound dejection.\nIn parting he offers his well-earned respect\nBy stroking and rubbing his friend’s slender neck.\n\n“Farewell, my companion, you’ve served as you should;\n It’s time for our ultimate breakup.\nNow rest and remember that never my foot\n Shall enter your gold-plated stirrup.\nForget not your master; take solace henceforth.\nMy dutiful servants, attend to my horse;\n\nProtect him with cloth and a good fluffy rug\n And walk him to my fairest pasture,\nProvide with choice grain and clean up with a scrub,\n And offer spring water hereafter.”\nAway goes the steed at the prince’s odd whim;\nAnother good horse is delivered to him.\n\nA feast of the prince and his soldiers is on\n To boisterous clinking of glasses.\nTheir locks are as white as the new snow at dawn\n The glorious kurgan amasses
\nThe troops reminisce on the days of the past\nAnd battles together they fought to the last 
\n\n“And where is my mate?”, asks Oleg amidst fun.\n “My favorite horse, once so mighty?\nIs he just as healthy, as light on the run,\n As dashing as ever and sprightly?”\nHe heeds their reply that a cliff high and steep\nHas sheltered his stallion’s unbreakable sleep.\n\nEncompassed by sadness, the mighty prince sits\n Reflecting, “The presage is fiction?\nOld quack, you’re a liar; you’re out of your wits!\n I wish I had spurned your prediction!\nMy horse would still bear me,” he gravely bemoans\nAnd wishes to look at his horse’s dead bones.\n\nThe mighty Oleg rides along with his band\n As Igor and guests duly follow.\nThey see on a hill, by the Dnieper’s steep bank,\n The horse’s remains gleaming hollow;\nThey are covered with dust and showered by rains,\nAnd winds sway the grass o’er the noble remains.\n\nThe prince put his foot on the skull of the steed\n And uttered, “Your sleep, friend, is lonely!\nYour master of old has survived you indeed:\n At my final feast, which comes promptly,\nYou won’t be the one, by a battle-ax cut,\nTo shower my ashes with hot streaming blood!”\n\n“So that’s what my doom was foretold to portend!\n Some bones that have threatened my passing!”.\nHe spoke and at once from the horse’s dead head\n A tomb snake slipped out to harass him;\nA black ribbon wrapped all the way round his feet--\nCaught suddenly off guard, the bitten prince screamed.\n\nThe goblets of brotherhood sparkle and foam:\n The feast for Oleg is in mourning;\nPrince Igor and Olga sit by on their own\n As others share drink until morning.\nThe troops reminisce on the days of the past\nAnd battles together they fought to the last.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1822, "month": "march", "day": 1 }, - "translator": "Yuri Menis", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yuri Menis" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -83707,13 +86535,15 @@ "title": "“The Storm-Cloud”", "body": "The last of the clouds, as the storm-centre scatters!\nAlone in bright azure you drift on your way.\nAlone you cast down your sad shadow in trailers,\nAlone you bedraggle the jubilant day\n\nMere moments ago you beleaguered high heaven,\nWith menacing lightning you lapped your domain;\nWith thunder mysterious the welkin would deafen,\nThe earth’s avid bosom you deluged with rain.\n\nEnough, and have done now! Your lime has passed over,\nThe earth is refreshed, and the storm fades and flies,\nAnd the breeze which caresses the trees’ leafy cover,\nWill harass you out of these tranquil blue skies.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1835, "month": "april", "day": 13 }, - "translator": "Walter May", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Walter May" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -83725,13 +86555,15 @@ "title": "“A Tale about a Fisherman and a Fish”", "body": "By the very edge of the blue sea\nlived an old man and his old woman.\nFor three and thirty years they had lived\nin a tumbledown hut made of mud.\nThe old man caught fish in his fishing net;\nthe old woman span with her spinning wheel.\nOne day the old man cast his net\nand all he caught in his net was slime.\nThe old man cast his net a second time\nand all he caught in his net was weed.\nA third time the old man cast his net\nand what he found in his net was a fish--\nno ordinary fish, but a golden fish.\nThe fish begged, the fish begged and implored;\nthe fish prayed in a human voice:\n“Release me, set me free in the sea--\nand in return you’ll receive a grand ransom,\nI’ll grant you whatever you wish.”\nThe old man was amazed and frightened.\n\nThree and thirty years he had fished--\nand not once had he heard a fish talk.\nHe returned the fish to the water,\nsaying gently as he let her go free,\n“God be with you, golden fish!\nI don’t need your grand ransom.\nOff you go--into the deep blue sea!\nSwim free, swim where you wish!”\n\nThe old man went back to his old woman\nand told her of this great wonder:\n“Today I caught a fish in my net--\nno ordinary fish, but a golden fish.\nThe fish spoke, she spoke in our tongue;\nshe begged to go home, into the blue sea.\nshe promised me a splendid ransom;\nshe said she would grant whatever I wished.\nBut I didn’t dare take this ransom.\nI set her free in the deep blue sea.”\nThe old woman scolded her old man:\n“Simple fool, fool of a simpleton!\nWhat stopped you taking this ransom?\nA mere fish--and you were too frightened!\nYou could at least have got a new washtub.\nOurs is cracked right down the middle.”\n\nOff he went towards the blue sea.\n(The blue sea looked a little troubled.)\nHe called out to the golden fish\nand the fish swam up and asked him,\n“What is it, old man, what do you want?”\nThe old man bowed to the fish and said,\n“Have mercy on me, Sovereign Fish.\nMy old woman is cursing and scolding me.\nThough I am old, she gives me no peace.\nShe needs a new washtub, she says.\nOurs is cracked right down the middle.”\nThe golden fish replied straightaway,\n“Take heart--and God be with you!\nOutside your hut you’ll find a new washtub!”\nThe old man went back to his old woman.\nHis old woman now had a new washtub,\nbut she was cursing more fiercely than ever:\n“Simple fool, fool of a simpleton,\nall you got from the fish was a washtub.\nWhat wealth can be found in a washtub?\nGet on back, you fool, to the fish.\nBow down to the fish and say\nyou want a handsome house built of wood.”\n\nOff he went towards the blue sea.\n(The blue sea was a little rough.)\nHe called out to the golden fish\nand the fish swam up and asked him,\n“What is it, old man, what do you want?”\nThe old man bowed to the fish and said,\n“Have mercy on me, Sovereign Fish.\nMy old woman is cursing and raging.\nThough I am old, she gives me no peace.\nShe wants a handsome house built of wood.”\nThe golden fish replied straightaway,\n“Take heart--and God be with you!\nYou shall have your house built of wood.”\nThe old man set off for his hut,\nbut not a trace of his hut could he find.\nIn its place stood a house built of wood\nwith a whitewashed brick chimney\nand two strong gates hewn from oak.\nSitting by the window was his old woman,\nswearing at him for all she was worth:\n“Simple fool, fool of a simpleton,\nall you got from the fish was a house.\nGet on back, you fool, to the fish.\nI don’t want to be a lowly peasant.\nI want to be a noble lady.”\n\nOff he went towards the blue sea.\n(The blue sea was not calm.)\nHe called out to the golden fish\nand the fish swam up and asked him,\n“What is it, old man, what do you want?”\nThe old man bowed to the fish and said,\n“Have mercy on me, Sovereign Fish.\nMy old woman is shouting and swearing,\ncursing me for all she is worth.\nThough I am old, she gives me no peace.\nShe doesn’t want to be a lowly peasant.\nShe wants to be a noble lady.”\nThe golden fish replied straightaway,\n“Take heart--and God be with you!”\n\nThe old man went back to his old woman\nand saw? He saw a tall mansion.\nHis old woman was standing there in the porch.\nShe was wearing a splendid ’soul-warmer’--\na precious waistcoat trimmed with sable.\nOn her head was a brocade head-dress;\nround her neck hung heavy pearls\nand gold rings encircled her fingers.\nOn her feet were fine red boots\nand before her stood zealous servants;\nshe was slapping them and pulling their hair.\nThe old man said to his old woman,\n“Good day, Lady Countess Baroness!\nI hope you’ve got all you want now!”\nThe old woman flew at her husband\nand packed him off to work in the stables.\n\nA week passed, and another week.\nThe old woman grew madder than ever.\nShe sent her old man back to the fish:\n“Go back to the fish, bow low and say\nI don’t want to be a fine lady--\nI want to be a mighty tsaritsa.”\nThe old man took fright. He implored her:\n“What’s got into you, woman? Are you crazy?\nHave you been eating black henbane?\nYou don’t know how to walk like a tsaritsa,\nYou don’t know how to talk like a tsaritsa.\nYou’ll be the laughing stock of your tsardom.”\nThe old woman flew into a fury.\nShe struck her husband across the cheek:\n“How dare you, peasant, answer me back?\nHow dare you talk like that to a lady?\nBack you go again to the sea--or, upon my word,\nYou’ll be dragged there against your will.”\n\nOff he went towards the blue sea.\n(The blue sea was blacker than black.)\nHe called out to the golden fish\nand the fish swam up and asked him,\n“What is it, old man, what do you want?”\nThe old man bowed to the fish and said,\n“Have mercy on me, Sovereign Fish.\nMy old woman is raging again.\nShe doesn’t want to be a fine lady.\nShe wants to be a mighty tsaritsa.”\nThe golden fish replied straightaway,\n“Take heart--and God be with you!\nYour old woman shall be a tsaritsa.”\n\nThe old man went back to his old woman.\nBefore him stands a splendid palace\nand his old woman is there in the hall.\nShe is a tsaritsa sitting at table.\nNobles are standing and waiting on her,\npouring her wines from over the seas\nwhile she nibbles on honeycakes.\nAll around stand fierce-looking guards\nwith sharp axes poised on their shoulders
\nThe old man was frightened. He bowed to the ground\nand said, “Greetings, O dread Tsaritsa--\nand I hope you’ve got all you want now!”\nThe old woman didn’t look at him;\nshe just ordered him out of her sight,\nand her nobles and courtiers came running\nand shoved the old man towards the door;\nand the guards ran up with their axes\nand all-but hacked him to pieces.\nand everyone laughed at the old man:\n“Serves you right, you ignorant lout!\nLet this be a lesson to you, bumpkin!\nDon’t get too big for your boots\nor sit in another man’s sleigh!”\n\nA week passed, and another week.\nThe old woman grew madder than ever.\nShe sent her courtiers to fetch her husband.\nThey found him and brought him before her\nand the old woman said to her old man,\n“Go back, bow down to the fish.\nI don’t want to be a mighty tsaritsa,\nI want to be a sea empress;\nI want to live in the Ocean-Sea\nwith the golden fish as my servant\nto bring me whatever I ask for.”\n\nThe old man did not dare say a word;\nhe was too frightened to open his mouth.\nOff he went towards the blue sea.\nRaging there was a black storm!\nWaves were flinging up spray;\nangry waves were crashing and howling.\nHe called out to the golden fish\nand the fish swam up and asked him,\n“What is it, old man, what do you need?”\nThe old man bowed to the fish and said,\n“Have mercy on me, Sovereign Fish!\nWhat am I to do with the wretched woman?\nShe no longer wants to be a tsaritsa,\nshe wants to be a sea empress.\nShe wants to live in the Ocean-Sea\nwith you as her faithful servant\nto bring her whatever she asks for.”\nNot a word did the fish reply.\nShe just slapped her tail on the water\nand dived deep into the blue sea.\nThe old man waited and waited\nBut that was all the answer he got.\nHe went back--to a hut made of mud.\nHis old woman was sitting outside it;\nAnd before her lay a broken washtub.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1836, "month": "october", "day": 14 }, - "translator": "Robert Chandler", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -83743,11 +86575,13 @@ "title": "“A tale of a dead princess and seven knights”", "body": "Long the Tsar sat lonely, brooding.\nBut he, too, was only human.\nTears for one sad year he shed 
\nAnd another woman wed.\nShe (if one be strictly truthful)\nWas a born Tsaritsa--youthful,\nSlim, tall, fair to look upon,\nClever, witty--and so on.\nBut she was in equal measure\nStubborn, haughty, wilful, jealous.\nIn her dowry rich and vast\nWas a little looking-glass.\nIt had this unique distinction:\nIt could speak with perfect diction.\nOnly with this glass would she\nIn a pleasant humour be.\nMany times a day she’d greet it\nAnd coquettishly entreat it:\n“Tell me, pretty looking-glass,\nNothing but the truth, I ask:\nWho in all the world is fairest\nAnd has beauty of the rarest?”\nAnd the looking-glass replied:\n“You, it cannot be denied.\nYou in all the world are fairest\nAnd your beauty is the rarest.”\nThe Tsaritsa laughed with glee,\nShrugged her shoulders merrily,\nPuffed her cheeks and bat her eyelids.\nFlicked her fingers coyly, slyly,\nPranced around with hand on hips.\nArrogance upon her lips.\n\nAll this time the Tsar’s own daughter\nQuietly, as Nature taught her,\nGrew and grew, and came quite soon\nLike a flower into bloom:\nRaven-browed, of fair complexion,\nBreathing kindness and affection.\nAnd the choice of fiancĂ©\nLighted on Prince Yelisei.\nSuit was made. The Tsar consented\nAnd her dowry was indented:\nSeven towns with wealthy store,\nMansion-houses--sevenscore.\n\nOn the night before the wedding\nFor a bridal party dressing\nThe Tsaritsa, time to pass,\nChatted with her looking-glass:\n“Who in all the world is fairest\nAnd has beauty of the rarest?”\nThen what did the glass reply?\n“You are fair, I can’t deny.\nBut the Princess is the fairest\nAnd her beauty is the rarest.”\nUp the proud Tsaritsa jumped.\nOn the table how she thumped,\nAngrily the mirror slapping,\nSlipper heel in fury tapping!\n“O you loathsome looking-glass,\nTelling lies as bold as brass!\nBy what right is she my riyal?\nSuch young folly I shall bridle.\nSo she’s grown up--me to spite!\nLittle wonder she’s so white:\nWith her bulging mother gazing\nAt that snow--what’s so amazing!\nNow look here, explain to me\nHow can she the fairer be?\nScour this realm of ours and seek well,\nNowhere shall you find my equal.\nIs not that the truth?” she cried.\nStill the looking-glass replied:\n“But the Princess is the fairest\nAnd her beauty is the rarest.”\nThe Tsaritsa burst with spite,\nHurled the mirror out of sight\nUnderneath the nearest cupboard\nAnd when breath she had recovered\nSummoned Smudge, her chamber maid,\nAnd to her instructions gave:\n“Take the Princess to the forest,\nBind her hand and foot and forehead\nTo a tree! When wolves arrive\nLet them eat the girl alive!”\n\nWoman’s wrath would daunt the devil!\nProtest was no use whatever.\nSoon the Princess left with Smudge\nFor the woods. So far they trudged\nThat the Princess guessed the reason.\nScared to death by such foul treason,\nLoud she pleaded: “Spare my life!\nInnocent of guilt am I!\nDo not kill me, I beseech you!\nAnd when I become Tsaritsa\nI shall give you rich reward.”\nSmudge, who really loved her ward,\nBeing loth to kill or bind her,\nLet her go, remarking kindly:\n“God be with you! Do not moan!”\nAnd, this said, went back alone.\n“Well?” demanded the Tsaritsa,\n“Where’s that pretty little creature?”\n“In the forest on her own,”\nSmudge replied. “And there she’ll stay.\nTo a tree I firmly lashed her.\nWhen a hungry beast attacks her\nShe’ll have little time to cry\nAnd the quicker she shall die!”\n\nRumour spread and caused a panic:\n“What, the Tsar’s own daughter vanished!”\nMournful was the Tsar that day.\nBut the young Prince Yelisei\nOffered God a fervent prayer\nAnd departed then and there\nTo seek out and homeward guide\nHis sweet-tempered, youthful bride.\n\nMeanwhile his young bride kept walking\nThrough the forest until morning,\nVague as to her whereabouts.\nSuddenly she spied a house.\nOut a dog ran growling, yapping,\nThen sat down, his tail tap-tapping.\nAt the gate there was no guard.\nAll was quiet in the yard.\nClose at heel the good dog bounded\nAs the Princess slowly mounted\nStairs to gain the living floor,\nTurned the ring upon the door.\nSilently the door swung open\nAnd before her eyes unfolded\nA bright chamber: all around\nBenches strewn with rugs she found,\nBoard of oak beneath the ikon\nAnd a stove with tiles to lie on.\nTo the Princess it was clear\nKindly folk were dwelling here\nWho would not deny her shelter.\nNo-one was at home, however.\nSo she set to, cleaned the pans,\nMade the whole house spick and span,\nLit a candle in the corner,\nFed the fire to be warmer,\nClimbed onto the platform bed\nThere to lay her sleepy head.\n\nDinner time. The yard resounded,\nHorses stamped and men dismounted.\nThick-moustached and ruddy-skinned,\nSeven lusty Knights walked in.\n\nSaid the Eldest: “How amazing!\nAll so neat! The fire blazing!\nSomebody’s been cleaning here\nAnd is waiting somewhere near.\nWho is there? Come out of hiding!\nBe a friend in peace abiding!\nIf you’re someone old and hoar,\nBe our uncle evermore!\nIf you’re young and love a scuffle,\nWe’ll embrace you as a brother.\nIf a venerable dame,\nThen shall ‘mother’ be your name.\nIf a maiden fair, we’ll call you\nOur dear sister and adore you.”\n\nSo the Princess rose, came down\nTo the Seven Knights and bowed,\nHer good wishes emphasising,\nBlushing and apologising\nThat to their delightful home\nUninvited she had come.\nStraight they saw her speech bore witness\nTo the presence of a Princess.\nSo they cleared a corner seat,\nOffered her a pie with meat,\nFilled a glass with wine and served it\nOn a tray, as she deserved it.\nBut the glass of heady wine\nShe politely did decline\nAnd the pie she broke with caution,\nSavouring a tiny portion.\nPleading she was very tired,\nSoon she gracefully retired\nAnd the Seven Knights conveyed her\nTo the best and brightest chamber\nAnd, away as they did creep,\nShe was falling fast asleep.\n\nDays flew by--the Princess living\nAll the time without misgiving\nIn the forest, never bored\nWith the Seven Knights abroad.\nDarkness would the earth still cover\nWhen at dawn the seven brothers\nWould ride out to try their luck\nWith a long-bow, shooting duck,\nOr to ply their sword in battle\nAnd a Saracen unsaddle,\nHeadlong at a Tartar go,\nChop his head off at a blow,\nOr give chase to a Circassian,\nFrom the forest send him dashing.\n\nShe, as lady of the house,\nRose much later, moved about\nDusting, polishing and cooking,\nNever once the Knights rebuking.\nThey, too, never chided her.\nDays flew by like gossamer.\n\nAnd in time they grew to love her.\nThereupon all seven brothers\nShortly after dawn one day\nTo her chamber made their way\nAnd the Eldest Knight addressed her:\n“As you know, you are our sister.\nBut all seven of us here\nAre in love with you, my dear,\nAnd we all desire your favours.\nBut that must not be, God save us!\nFind some way to give us peace!\nBe a wife to one at least,\nTo the rest remain a sister!\nBut you shake your head. Is this to\nSay our offer you refuse?\nNothing from our stock you’ll choose?”\n\n“O my brave and bonny brothers,\nVirtuous beyond all others!”\nIn reply the Princess said,\n\n“God in heaven strike me dead\nIf my answer be not honest:\nI’ve no choice--my hand is promised!\nYou’re all equal in my eyes,\nAll so valiant and wise,\nAnd I love you all, dear brothers!\nBut my heart is to another\nPledged for evermore. One day\nI shall wed Prince Yelisei!”\n\nHushed, the brothers kept their station,\nScratched their foreheads in frustration.\n“As you wish! So now we know,”\nSaid the Eldest with a bow.\n“Pray forgive us--and I promise\nYou’ll hear nothing further from us!”\n“I’m not angry,” she replied.\n“By my pledge I must abide.”\nBowing low, the seven suitors\nLeft her room with passions muted.\nSo in harmony again\nDid they live and friendship reign.\n\nThe Tsaritsa was still livid\nEvery time she saw in vivid\nMemory the Princess fair.\nLong the mirror, lying there,\nWas the object of her hatred;\nBut at last her wrath abated.\nSo one day it came to pass\nThat she took the looking-glass\nUp again and sat before it,\nSmiled and, as before, implored it:\n“Greetings, pretty looking-glass!\nTell me all the truth, I ask:\nWho in all the world is fairest\nAnd has beauty of the rarest?”\nSaid the mirror in reply:\n“You are fair, I can’t deny.\n\nBut where Seven Knights go riding\nIn a green oak-grove residing\nHumbly lives a person who\nIs more beautiful than you.”\nThe Tsaritsa’s wrath descended\nOn her maid: “What folly tempted\nYou to lie? You disobeyed!”\nSmudge a full confession made 
.\nUttering a threat of torture,\nThe Tsaritsa grimly swore to\nSend the Princess to her death\nOr not draw another breath.\nOne day by her window waiting\nFor her brothers homeward hasting\nSat the young Princess and span.\nSuddenly the dog began\nBarking. Through the courtyard scurried\nA poor beggar-woman, worried\nBy the dog she kept at bay\nWith her stick. “Don’t go away!\nStay there, stay!” the Princess shouted,\nFrom the window leaning outward.\n“Let me call the dog to heel\nAnd I’ll offer you a meal.”\n\nAnd the beggar-woman answered:\n“Pretty child, you take my fancy!\nFor that dog of yours, you see,\nCould well be the death of me.\nSee him snarling, bristling yonder!\nCome here, child!” The Princess wanted\nTo go out, and took a loaf.\nBut the dog its body wove\nRound her feet, refused to let her\nStep towards the woman-beggar.\nWhen the woman, too, drew near,\nWilder than an angry bear\nIt attacked her. How perplexing!\n“Had a bad night’s sleep, I reckon!”\nSaid the Princess. “Catch it! There!”\nAnd the bread flew through the air.\nThe poor beggar-woman caught it.\n“I most humbly thank you, daughter,\nGod be merciful!” said she.\n“In return take this from me!”\nThe bright apple she was holding,\nNewly picked, fresh, ripe and golden,\nStraight towards the Princess flew 
.\nHow the dog leapt in pursuit!\nBut the Princess neatly trapped it\nIn her palms. “Enjoy the apple\nAt your leisure, little pet!\nThank you for the loaf of bread 
,”\nSaid the beggar-woman, brandished\nIn the air her stick and vanished 
.\nUp the stairs the Princess ran\nWith the dog, which then began\nPitifully staring, whining\nJust as if its heart were pining\nFor the gift of speech to say:\n“Throw that apple far away!”\nHastily his neck she patted:\n“Hey, Sokolko, what’s the matter?\nLie down!” Entering once more\nHer own room, she shut the door,\nSat there with her spindle humming,\nWaiting for her brothers’ coming.\nBut she could not take her gaze\nFrom the apple where it lay\nFull of fragrance, rosy, glowing,\nFresh and juicy, ripe and golden,\nSweet as honey to the lips!\nShe could even see the pips 
.\nFirst the Princess thought of waiting\nUntil dinner. But temptation\nProved too strong. She grasped the bright\nApple, took a stealthy bite\nAnd with fair cheek sweetly hollowed\nA delicious morsel swallowed.\nAll at once her breathing stopped,\nListlessly her white arms dropped.\nFrom her lap the rosy apple\nTumbled to the floor. The hapless\nMaiden closed her swooning eyes,\nReeled and fell without a cry,\nOn the bench her forehead striking,\nThen lay still beneath the ikon 
.\n\nNow the brothers, as it chanced,\nWere returning in a band\nFrom another warlike foray.\nOut to meet them in the forest\nWent the dog and, running hard,\nLed them straight into the yard.\nSaid the Knights: “An evil omen!\nGrief in store!” The door they opened,\nWalked into the room and gasped.\nBut the dog like lightning dashed\nFor the apple and devoured it.\nDeath that instant overpowered it.\nFor the apple was, they saw,\nFilled with poison to the core.\nBy the dead Princess the brothers\nBent their heads in tears and uttered\nHoly prayer to save her soul;\nNothing could their grief console.\nFrom the bench they raised her, dressed her,\nWished within a grave to rest her,\nThen had second thoughts. For she\nWas as rosy as if sleep\nGarlands of repose were wreathing\nRound her--though she was not breathing.\nThree whole days they waited, but\nStill her eyes were tightly shut.\nSo that night with solemn ritual\nIn a coffin made of crystal\nThey laid out the body fair\nOf the Princess and from there\nTo a hollow mountain bore her,\nWhere a tomb they fashioned for her:\nIron chains they used to fix\nHer glass case to pillars six\nWith due caution, and erected\nIron railings to protect it.\n“Sun, dear Sun! The whole year coursing\nThrough the sky, in springtime thawing\nFrom the chill earth winter snow!\nYou observe us all below.\nSurely you’ll not grudge an answer?\nTell me, did you ever chance to\nSee the Princess I revere?\nI’m her fiancĂ©.” “My dear,”\nSaid the Sun with some insistence,\n“I have nowhere seen your Princess,\nSo she’s dead, we must presume,\nThat is, if my friend, the Moon,\nHas not met her on his travels\nOr seen clues you may unravel.”\n\nThrough the dark night Yelisei,\nFeeling anything but gay,\nWith a lover’s perseverance\nWaited for the Moon’s appearance.\n“Moon, O Moon, my friend!” he said,\n“Gold of horn and round of head,\nFrom the darkest shadows rising,\nWith your eye the world apprizing,\nYou whom stars with love regard\nAs you mount your nightly guard!\nSurely you’ll not grudge an answer?\nTell me, did you ever chance to\nSee the Princess I revere?\nI’m her fiancĂ©.” “O dear!”\nSaid the Moon in consternation,\n“No, I have not seen the maiden.\nOn my round I only go\nWhen it is my turn, you know.\nIt would seem that I was resting\nWhen she passed.” “How very vexing”\nCried aloud Prince Yelisei.\nBut the Moon went on to say:\n“Wait a minute! I suggest you\nHave the Wind come to the resclie.\nCall him now! It’s worth a try.\nAnd cheer up a bit! Goodbye!”\n\nYelisei, not losing courage,\nTo the Wind’s abode now hurried.\n“Wind, O Wind! Lord of the sky,\nHerding flocks of clouds on high,\nStirring up the dark-blue ocean,\nSetting all the air in motion,\nUnafraid of anyone\nSaving God in heaven alone!\nSurely you’ll not grudge an answer?\nTell me, did you ever chance to\nSee the Princess I revere?\nI’m her fiancĂ©.” “O hear!”\nSaid the Wind in turmoil blowing.\n“Where a quiet stream is flowing\nStands a mountain high and steep\nIn it lies a cavern deep;\nIn this cave in shadows dismal\nSways a coffin made of crystal.\nHung by chains from pillars six.\nRound it barren land in which\nNo man ever meets another.\nIn that tomb your bride discover!”\nWith a howl the Wind was gone.\nYelisei wept loud and long.\nTo the barren land he journeyed\nDesperately, sadly yearning\nOnce again to see his bride.\nOn he rode. A mountain high\nRose before him, soaring steeply\nFrom a land laid waste completely.\nAt its foot--an entrance dim.\nYelisei went quickly in.\nThere, he saw, in shadows dismal\nSwayed a coffin made of crystal\nWhere the Princess lay at rest\nIn the deep sleep of the blest.\nAnd the Prince in tears dissolving\nThrew himself upon the coffin 
\nAnd it broke! The maiden straight\nCame to life, sat up, in great\nWonder looked about and yawning\nAs she set her bed see-sawing\nSaid with pretty arms outstretched:\n“Gracious me! How long I’ve slept!”\nDown she stepped from out the coffin 
\nO the sighing and the sobbing!\nCarrying his bride, he strode\nBack to daylight. Home they rode,\nMaking pleasant conversation\nTill they reached their destination.\nSwiftly rumour spread around:\n“The Princess is safe and sound!”\n\nIt so happened the Tsaritsa\nIn her room was idly seated\nBy her magic looking-glass\nAnd to pass the time did ask:\n“Who in all the world is fairest\nAnd has beauty of the rarest?”\nSaid the mirror in reply:\n“You are fair, I can’t deny,\nBut the Princess is the fairest\nAnd her beauty is the rarest!”\nThe Tsaritsa leapt and smashed\nOn the floor her looking-glass,\nRushing to the door she saw the\nFair young Princess walk towards her.\n\nOvercome by grief and spite,\nThe Tsaritsa died that night.\nFrom the grave where she was buried\nTo a wedding people hurried,\nFor the good Prince Yelisei\nWed his Princess that same day.\nNever since the World’s creation\nWas there such a celebration;\nI was there, drank mead and yet\nBarely got my whiskers wet.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1833 }, - "translator": "Peter Tempest", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Peter Tempest" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83755,11 +86589,13 @@ "title": "“The tale of the golden rooster”", "body": "In a kingdom, far away\n(More precisely, I can’t say)\nKing Don, once upon a time,\nRuled with fame, and in the prime\nOf his glory, missed no chance\nTo hit his neighbors, and not once\nWaged victorious bloody war.\nYet, with years, he would prefer\nQuiet and peaceful life. But then,\nIn their turn, upon th’old man,\nTh’ neighbors took their cruel revenge\nAnd inflicted severe damage\nOn the kingdom. To defend\nThe large country every end\nPoor king Don was forced to keep\nA strong army. Without sleep,\nGenerals did watch and wait,\nYet, they always were too late:\nWould expect from south, and\nFrom the east invaders went;\nManaged there, to only see\nNew attackers from the sea.\n\nWhat a life in such vexation!\nOverwhelmed with indignation,\nPoor king Don just wept in rage.\nFinally, he found a sage\n(A castrate, extremely wise)\nAnd begged him for some advise.\nThe astrologer produced\nFrom his sack a golden rooster\nSaying to the ruler, “Sire,\nSet this rooster on a spire\nAnd he will become a smart,\nMost reliable border guard;\nWatching all your lands around,\nHe will not produce a sound,\nWhile ’tis quiet, but as soon as\nTh’ border is crossed by enemies,\nEvil people will invade it,\nOr some trouble uninvited,\nTh’ rooster will no longer rest;\nHe will raise his crimson crest,\nSpread his wings, and loudly crow;\nAnd directions also show,\nTurning to the dangerous place.”\nWell, king Don with a good grace\nThanks him, offers heaps of gold,\nAnd, at last, suggests, “Behold!\nSince you did me a good turn,\nI’ll be generous in return,\nAnd shall happily fulfill\nThe first your subsequent will.”\n\nRight away, the zealous cock\nOn his spire got dawn to work.\nWherever a danger is hardly seen,\nBoth his eyes, extremely keen,\nHe directs towards this side\nShakes his wings and with all might\nCrows, “cock-a-doodle-doo!\nReign without much to do!”\nAnd all neighbors quieted down\nCaring of their own crowns:\nSuch a vigorous reflection\nThey received in each direction.\n\nA year and another passed,\nTh’ rooster is mute 
 until, at last,\nWakes the city with the noise,\nIn extremely loud voice.\n“King! Get up! Be people’s father!”\nCry the generals. “Don’t bother!\nWhat ’s the matter?!” With a yawn\nAnswers sleepily king Don.\n“Well, you just look out, Sire!\nTh’ rooster is crying on his spire,\nFacing east, we’re all in fear.”\nAnd indeed, the king can hear\nFrom the window an’awful roar.\n“Bums! What are you waiting for?!\nIn no time, you have to sound\nThe alarm. All horsemen, mount!”\nTo the east, the troops have gone\nLeaded by the elder son.\n\nAnd the rooster did calm down,\nSo the king, took off his crown,\nWent to sleep. In eight days, yet,\nNo news from troops they get,\nNo message. Suddenly then\nTh’ rooster starts to cry again,\nGiving a terrible alarm.\nKing equips another army\nAnd directs his younger son\nTo help out the elder one.\nFor a while, the rooster ’s mute\nYet, again there’re no news\nFor another eight days. Then,\nHe begins to crow again,\nFacing east, from his high steeple.\nKing conscripts remaining people\nPlacing himself at the head,\nDoubting, what is good of that.\n\nTroops are marching day and night\nAnd the soldiers ’re getting tired.\nNo field camp, or burial mound,\nOr a battle place around\nThey can find. “Well, what a wonder?!”,\nThinks king Don. Or did we wander\nOut of the way? At last,\nWhen eight days ’ve already passed,\nIn high mountains they see\nA luxurious silk marquee.\nEverything is mute, around\nThe marquee, on bloody ground\nThe whole army slaughtered lies.\nKing Don can’t believe his eyes\nWatching a heart-ending sight:\nClearly, after a cruel fight\nIn the fierce single combat\nBoth his sons are laying dead,\nStabbed each one by brother’s sword.\nFirst, king Don couldn’t say a word,\nThen, he wailed, “Oh, my dear sons!\nWoe is me! In a net at once\nCaught both falcons, and I hear\nMy own death is creeping here.”\n\nAfter him, whole army wails,\nEven mountains and valleys\nAre shaken. Suddenly the tent\nDid sweep open, and out went,\nThe damsel, Shemakha’s queen.\nSuch a beauty was ne’er seen.\nShining like the morning dawn,\nShe met th’ king, in her gold crown.\nAs a’night bird before the Sun,\nIn front of her, he turned to stone.\nStared at her black-coal eye,\nAnd forgot his sons did die.\nShe smiled, bowed, and they went,\nArm in arm, to her silk tent.\nAt the table he was seated,\nWith delicious viands treated,\nFor the sweetest rest is laid\nTo a bed of gold brocade.\nAnd precisely, the whole week,\nObedient to her and meek,\nCharmed, with his neck humbly bent,\nHe was feasting in her tent.\n\nFinally, the time has come\nFor the return journey home,\nWith the army and new queen.\nFor two weeks king wasn’t seen,\nAnd the masses were not able\nAlways tell a fact from fable.\nPerished troops, and sons, and marriage 
\nRumors ran ahead of th’ carriage.\nThen, luxurious and proud,\nIt was met by th’ cheering crowd\nAt the city gates. The king\nWelcomes all his subjects, being\nIn good spirits 
 Straight ahead,\nIn a white saracenic hat,\nIs waiting his old friend, the sage,\nAlready in advanced age,\nGray as a swan. Don cries, “Come here!\nHow are you? What’s up, my dear?\nWhat d’you wish?” The old man says,\n“Sire, now you’ll pay me, yes.\nYou would square up with me if\nGive your damsel as a gift.”\n\nDon extremely was surprised;\nEven his eyebrows raised.\n“Are you crazy?!”, asked the king.\n“How dare you even think?!\nWell, I promised 
 Yes, I did.\nYour requests, howe’er, exceed\nAny bounds. And what for\nCould you, possibly, need her?!\nOver this, don’t lose your sleep,\nAnd my promise I will keep.\nAny reasonable task 
\nFor example, you may ask\nFor some gold, or a wine cellar,\nOr the rank of Lord Chancellor, 
\nHalf-a-kingdom, if you please!”\n“No, I do not want all these.\nUnder our contract, Sire,\nGive just her, as I require”,\nAnswers solidly the sage.\nKing spat out, “At your age,\nSuch a wish! I say again,\nDo not tease yourself in vain.\nYou will get just nothing then.\nGuards, pool off this wimp old man!”\nTh’ poor guy tried to argue, yet,\nHis big last mistake was that.\n(It is not a clever thing\nTo start wrangling with a king.)\nDon just hit him in his brow\nWith th’ warder, he fall down\nAnd gave up the ghost. Whole city\nShuddered. Yet, there was no pity\nShown by the damsel. She\nSaid just ha-ha and tee-hee,\nNot much scared by the sin,\nAnd although Don was in\nSome distress, but he only\nSmiled to her complaisantly.\n\nFinally, their coach entered\nThe square at the city center.\nThen, the air at once resounded\nWith a ringing, people around\nAt the spire together looked,\nWhere the rooster suddenly took\nWing and sat down right on\nThe very crown of king Don,\nThen pecked slightly the bald crown,\nThe same moment Don fall down\nFrom the coach, once he sighed,\nAnd immediately died.\nAnd the queen has disappeared\nAs if she was never here.\nThis tale is a fib, and yet,\nLessons can be learned from that.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1834 }, - "translator": "Vladimir Gurvich", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Gurvich" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83767,11 +86603,13 @@ "title": "“Talisman”", "body": "There in the land where the waves\nbreak, on empty shores, forever,\nand where the moonlight makes\na sweet, warm twilight hour,\nwhere the harem’s languid days\ndelight the Mussulman,\nthere an enchantress caressed me,\nand gave me this Talisman.\n\nAnd, caressingly, she said\n“My Talisman will not save you\nfrom sickness or from death\nin tempest or in storm,\nbut in it there is power,\nmy Beloved, mysterious virtue.\nIt is the gift of Love,\nso take care of my Talisman.”\n\n“It will not bring you riches\nout of the shining East.\nIt will not force the Prophet’s horde\nto obey you in the least.\nIt will not transport you\nfrom a dreary, alien land,\nfrom south to north, to your native place,\nto your friends, my Talisman.”\n\n“But when betraying eyes\nbewitch you, suddenly,\nor lips kiss without love\nin the night’s uncertainty,\nmy Beloved, it will save you\nfrom deceit, from oblivion,\nfrom fresh distress to your wounded heart,\nfrom wrong, my Talisman.”", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1827 }, - "translator": "A. S. Kline", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83787,11 +86625,13 @@ "title": "“There`s fire of love inside me, burning 
”", "body": "There`s fire of love inside me, burning,\nYou’ve hurt the heart and soul of mine,\nKeep kissing me: your kisses, darling\nAre sweeter than good myrrh and wine.\nNow cling to me, come closer, dear,\nAnd let me sleep in quiet, here,\nUntil the sunrise breaks the day\nAnd night-time shadows flow away.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1825 }, - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83799,11 +86639,13 @@ "title": "“Thirst for glory”", "body": "When, drunk with love, with rapturous bliss replete.\nOn bended knees, in silence at your feet,\nI looked on you and thought: you are mine own,--\nYou know, my sweet, if I sought glory’s crown:\nYou know: far from the fickle world of fame.\nAnd weary of a poet’s futile name,\nExhausted by long storms, I paid no heed\nTo buzz of distant blame, or praise indeed.\nCould rumours or rebukes disturb my ways\nWhen, bending on me your tormenting gaze,\nYour hand upon my head you gently laid,\nAnd whispered. “Say you love me, you are glad?\nYou’ll love no other, say, and true you’ll be?\nYou’ll never, dear, forget that you love me?”\nBut I, constrained to silence, answered nought,--\nMy soul with joy was overwhelmed, I thought,\nIt will not come, that dreadful parting day.\nNo, never And what then? Hot tears, dismay,\nBetrayal, slander,--all upon my head\nFell sudden down 
 What? Where? I stood as dead,\nA traveller lightning-struck, lost in the waste,\nWith everything before me overcast.\nBut now, a strange new wish sets me aflame;\nI yearn for glory, merely that my name\nEach hour may strike upon your ear, its sound\nEncompass vou with noisy fame all round,\nAnd all, yes all about you echo me.\nThat to my true voice listening silently,\nYou may remember what was my last prayer\nWithin your bower, the night we parted there.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1825 }, - "translator": "Walter May", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Walter May" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83811,14 +86653,16 @@ "title": "“Three springs in life’s unbroken joyless desert 
”", "body": "Three springs in life’s unbroken joyless desert\nMysteriously issue from the sands:\nThe spring of youth, uneven and rebellious,\nBears swift its sparkling stream through sunny lands;\nLife’s exiles drink the wave of inspiration\nThat swells the limpid fount of Castaly;\nBut ’tis the deep, cold wellspring of oblivion\nThat slakes most sweetly thirst and ecstasy.", "metadata": { + "place": "Saint Petersburg", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1827, "month": "june", "day": 18 }, - "place": "Saint Petersburg", - "translator": "Avrahm Yarmolinsky", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Avrahm Yarmolinsky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -83830,11 +86674,13 @@ "title": "“To Natasha”", "body": "The crimson summer now grows pale;\nClear, bright days now soar away;\nHazy mist spreads through the vale,\nAs the sleeping night turns gray;\nThe barren cornfields lose their gold;\nThe lively stream has now turned cold;\nThe curly woods are gray and stark,\nAnd the heavens have grown dark.\n\nWhere are you, my light, Natasha?\nNo one’s seen you,--I lament.\nDon’t you want to share the passion\nOf this moment with a friend?\nYou have not yet met with me\nBy the pond, or by our tree,\nThough the season has turned late,\nWe have not yet had a date.\n\nWinter’s cold will soon arrive\nFields will freeze with frost, so bitter.\nIn the smoky shack, a light,\nSoon enough, will shine and glitter.\nI won’t see my love,--I’ll rage\nLike a finch, inside a cage,\nAnd at home, depressed and dazed,\nI’ll recall Natasha’s grace.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1814 }, - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -83845,11 +86691,13 @@ "title": "“The Upas Tree”", "body": "Deep in the desert’s misery,\nfar in the fury of the sand,\nthere stands the awesome Upas Tree\nlone watchman of a lifeless land.\n\nThe wilderness, a world of thirst,\nin wrath engendered it and filled\nits every root, every accursed\ngrey leafstalk with a sap that killed.\n\nDissolving in the midday sun\nthe poison oozes through its bark,\nand freezing when the day is done\ngleams thick and gem-like in the dark.\n\nNo bird flies near, no tiger creeps;\nalone the whirlwind, wild and black,\nassails the tree of death and sweeps\naway with death upon its back.\n\nAnd though some roving cloud may stain\nwith glancing drops those leaden leaves,\nthe dripping of a poisoned rain\nis all the burning sand receives.\n\nBut man sent man with one proud look\ntowards the tree, and he was gone,\nthe humble one, and there he took\nthe poison and returned at dawn.\n\nHe brought the deadly gum; with it\nhe brought some leaves, a withered bough,\nwhile rivulets of icy sweat\nran slowly down his livid brow.\n\nHe came, he fell upon a mat,\nand reaping a poor slave’s reward,\ndied near the painted hut where sat\nhis now unconquerable lord.\n\nThe king, he soaked his arrows true\nin poison, and beyond the plains\ndispatched those messengers and slew\nhis neighbors in their own domains.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1828 }, - "translator": "Katharena Eiermann", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Katharena Eiermann" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83868,11 +86716,13 @@ "title": "“When in my arms your slender beauty 
”", "body": "When in my arms your slender beauty\nIs locked, O you whom I adore,\nAnd from my lips in gusts of rapture\nLove’s tender murmurs stintless pour,\nIn silence from my tight embraces\nYour supple form you gently free,\nAnd with a skeptic’s smile, my dear one,\nYou mockingly reply to me:\nThe sad tradition of betrayal\nYou have remembered all too well;\nYou listen with a sad indifference,\nNot heeding what I have to tell 
\nI curse the naughty zeal, the cunning,\nThe hot pursuit after delight\nThat filled my youth, the assignations,\nThe garden trysts in the hushed night;\nI curse the whispered lovers’ discourse,\nThe magic spells that lay in verse,\nThe gullible young girls’ caresses,\nTheir tears, their late regrets I curse.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1830 }, - "translator": "Babette Deutsch", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83880,11 +86730,13 @@ "title": "“Winter Evening”", "body": "The storm the sky with darkness covers\nThe snowy whirlings twisting;\nLike a beast wild now is howling\nLike an infant now is crying;\nOver the aged roof now sudden\nIn the straw it rustling is;\nLike a traveller now belated\nFor entrance at our window knocking.\n\nWith melancholy and with darkness\nOur little aged hut is filled\nWhy in silence then thou sittest\nBy the window wife old mine?\nOr by the howling storms art\nWearied thou O companion mine?\nOr perchance art slumbering\nBy the rustling spindle soothed?\n\nLet us drink O kindly friend\nOf my poverty and youth\nAway with grief--where is the cup?\nJoy it shall bring to our heart.\n\nA song now sing me how the bird\nBeyond the sea in quiet lived;\nA song now sing me how the maiden\nIn the morning for water went.\n\nThe storm the sky with darkness covers\nThe snowy whirlings twisting;\nLike a beast wild now is howling\nLike an infant now is crying.\nLet us drink O kindly friend\nOf my poverty and youth\nAway with grief--where is the cup\nJoy it shall bring to our heart!", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1826 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -83895,11 +86747,13 @@ "title": "“Winter Morning”", "body": "Frost and sun--the day is wondrous!\nThou still art slumbering charming friend.\n’Tis time O Beauty to awaken:\nOpe thine eyes now in sweetness closed\nTo meet the Northern Dawn of Morning\nThyself a north-star do thou appear!\n\nLast night remember the storm scolded\nAnd darkness floated in the clouded sky;\nLike a yellow clouded spot\nThro’ the clouds the moon was gleaming--\nAnd melancholy thou wert sitting--\nBut now 
 thro’ the window cast a look:\n\nStretched beneath the heavens blue\nCarpet-like magnificent\nIn the sun the snow is sparkling;\nDark alone is the wood transparent\nAnd thro’ the hoar gleams green the fir\nAnd under the ice the rivulet sparkles.\n\nEntire is lighted with diamond splendor\nThy chamber 
 with merry crackle\nThe wood is crackling in the oven.\nTo meditation invites the sofa.\nBut know you? In the sleigh not order why\nThe brownish mare to harness?\n\nOver the morning snow we gliding\nTrust we shall my friend ourselves\nTo the speed of impatient steed;\nVisit we shall the fields forsaken\nThe woods dense but recently\nAnd the banks so dear to me.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1829 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -83910,11 +86764,13 @@ "title": "“The Winter-Road”", "body": "Breaking thro’ the waving fogs\nForth the moon is coming\nAnd on the gloomy acres\nShe gloomy light is shedding.\n\nAlong the wintry cheerless road\nFlies the rapid troika\nThe little bell monotonous\nWearily is tinkling.\n\nA certain homefulness is heard\nIn the driver’s lengthy lays:\nNow light-hearted carelessness\nNow low-spirited sadness.\n\nNeither light nor a dark hut 
\nOnly snow and silence 
\nStriped mileposts are alone\nThe travellers who meet us.\n\nSad I feel and weary 
 On the morrow Nina\nTo my beloved I returning\nForget myself shall by the fire\nAnd scarce eno’ at her shall gaze.\n\nLoudly of my watch the spring\nIts measured circle is completing\nAnd us the parter of the wearied\nMidnight not shall separate.\n\nSad I’m Nina; my journey’s weary;\nSlumbering now my driver is quiet\nThe little bell is monotonous\nAnd darkened now is the moon’s face.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1826 }, - "translator": "Ivan Panin", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Ivan Panin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -83933,11 +86789,13 @@ "title": "“The wondrous moment of our meeting 
”", "body": "The wondrous moment of our meeting 
\nStill I remember you appear\nBefore me like a vision fleeting,\nA beauty’s angel pure and clear.\n\nIn hopeless ennui surrounding\nThe worldly bustle, to my ear\nFor long your tender voice kept sounding,\nFor long in dreams came features dear.\n\nTime passed. Unruly storms confounded\nOld dreams, and I from year to year\nForgot how tender you had sounded,\nYour heavenly features once so dear.\n\nMy backwoods days dragged slow and quiet--\nDull fence around, dark vault above--\nDevoid of God and uninspired,\nDevoid of tears, of fire, of love.\n\nSleep from my soul began retreating,\nAnd here you once again appear\nBefore me like a vision fleeting,\nA beauty’s angel pure and clear.\n\nIn ecstasy my heart is beating,\nOld joys for it anew revive;\nInspired and God-filled, it is greeting\nThe fire, and tears, and love alive.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1825 }, - "translator": "Genia Gurarie", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Genia Gurarie" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -83945,11 +86803,14 @@ "title": "“Work”", "body": "Here is the long-bided hour: the labor of years is accom⁠plished.\nWhy should this sadness unplumbed secretly weigh on ⁠my heart?\nIs it, my work being done, I stand like a laborer, useless,\nOne who has taken his pay, alien to unwonted tasks?\nIs it the work I regret, the silent companion of midnight,\nFriend of the golden-haired Dawn, friend of the gods ⁠of the hearth?", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1830 }, - "translator": "Babette Deutsch & Avrahm Yarmolinsky", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch", + "Avrahm Yarmolinsky" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -84161,8 +87022,10 @@ "title": "“And so Will I Wonder?”", "body": "I lived, but then in living I was feeble in life and\nalways knew that they would bury me here in the end,\nthat year piles upon year, clod on clod, stone on stone,\nthat the body swells and in the cool, maggot-\ninfested darkness, the naked bone will shiver.\nThat above, scuttling time is rummaging through my poems\nand that I will sink deeper into the ground.\nAll this I knew. But tell me, the work--did that live on?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Gina Gönczi", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "Gina Gönczi" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -84170,8 +87033,11 @@ "title": "“Foamy Sky”", "body": "The moon sways in a foamy sky.\nHow strange that I’m alive. A bland,\nefficient death searches this age\nand they turn white on whom it lays its hand.\n\nSometimes the year looks round and shrieks,\nlooks round and faints away.\nWhat kind of autumn lies in wait,\nwhat winter dulled with agony to grey?\n\nThe forest bled, and every hour\nin that revolving time bled too.\nThe wind was scrawling numbers, huge,\nand darkening in the unsettled snow.\n\nI have seen certain things, such things\nthat now the air feels dense as earth.\nA rustling tepid silence holds\nme fast, as in that time before my birth.\n\nI come to a standstill by this trunk.\nIt stirs its thick leaves angrily,\nreaches a branch down--for my neck?\nNow I am neither weak nor cowardly,\n\njust tired. Unmoving. And the branch\nsearches my hair, terrified, mute:\nsuch things one must forget, but I\nhave never yet been able to forget.\n\nFoam gushes forth upon the moon.\nA dark green venom streaks the sky.\nI roll myself a cigarette,\nam slowly, carefully, I live.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Zsuzsanna Ozsvath & Frederick Turner", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "Zsuzsanna Ozsvath", + "Frederick Turner" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -84182,8 +87048,11 @@ "title": "“Letter to My Wife”", "body": "Beneath, the nether worlds, deep, still, and mute.\nSilence howls in my ears, and I cry out.\nNo answer could come back, it is so far\nfrom that sad Serbia swooned into war.\nAnd you’re so distant. But my heart redeems\nyour voice all day, entangled in my dreams.\nSo I am still, while close about me sough\nthe great cold ferns, that slowly stir and bow.\n\nWhen I’ll see you, I don’t know. You whose calm\nis as the weight and sureness of a psalm,\nwhose beauty’s like the shadow and the light,\nwhom I could find if I were blind and mute,\nhide in the landscape now, and from within\nleap to my eye, as if cast by my brain.\nYou were real once; now you have fallen in\nto that deep well of teenage dreams again.\n\nJealous interrogations: tell me; speak.\nDo you still love me? will you on that peak\nof my past youth become my future wife?\n--But now I fall awake to real life\nand know that’s what you are: wife, friend of years,\n--just far away. Beyond three wild frontiers.\nAnd Fall comes. Will it also leave with me?\nKisses are sharper in the memory.\n\nDaylight and miracles seemed different things.\nAbove, the echelons of bombers’ wings:\nskies once amazing blue with your eyes’ glow\nare darkened now. Tight with desire to blow,\nthe bombs must fall. I live in spite of these,\na prisoner. All of my fantasies\nI measure out. And I will find you still;\nfor you I’ve walked the full length of the soul,\n\nthe highways of countries!--on coals of fire,\nif needs must, in the falling of the pyre,\nif all I have is magic, I’ll come back;\nI’ll stick as fast as bark upon an oak!\nAnd now that calm, whose habit is a power\nand weapon to the savage, in the hour\nof fate and danger, falls as cool and true\nas does a wave: the sober two times two.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Zsuzsanna Ozsvath & Frederick Turner", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "Zsuzsanna Ozsvath", + "Frederick Turner" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -84202,8 +87071,10 @@ "title": "“War Diary”", "body": "1. _Monday Evening_\n\nYou see, now fear often fingers your heart,\nand at times the world seems only distant news;\nthe old trees guard your childhood for you\nas an ever more ancient memory.\n\nBetween suspicious mornings and foreboding nights\nyou have lived half your life among wars,\nand now once more, order is glinting toward you\non the raised points of bayonets.\n\nIn dreams sometimes the landscape still rises before you,\nthe home of your poetry, where the scent of freedom\nwafts over the meadows, and in the morning when you wake,\nyou carry the scent with you.\n\nRarely, when you are working, you half-sit, frightened\nat your desk. And it’s as if you were living in soft mud;\nyour hand, adorned with a pen, moves heavily\nand ever more gravely.\n\nThe world is turning into another war--a hungry cloud\ngobbles the sky’s mild blue, and as it darkens,\nyour young wife puts her arms around you,\nand weeps.\n\n\n2. _Tuesday Evening_\n\nNow I sleep peacefully\nand slowly go about my work--\ngas, airplanes, bombs are poised against me,\nI can neither be afraid, nor cry;\nso I live hard, like the road builders\namong the cold mountains,\n\nwho, if their flimsy house\ncrumbles over them with age,\nput up a new one, and meanwhile\nsleep deeply on fragrant wood shavings,\nand in the morning, splash their faces\nin the cold and shining streams.\n\nI live high up, and peer around:\nit is getting darker.\nAs when from a ship’s prow\nat the flash of lightning\nthe watchman cries out, thinking he sees land,\nso I believe in the land also--and still I cry out life!\nwith a whitened voice.\n\nAnd the sound of my voice brightens\nand is carried far away\nwith a cool star and a cool evening wind.\n\n\n3. _Weary Afternoon_\n\nA dying wasp flies in at the window,\nmy dreaming wife talks in her sleep,\nand the hems of the browning clouds\nare blown to fringes by a gentle breeze.\n\nWhat can I talk about? Winter is coming, and war is coming;\nsoon I will lie broken, seen by no one;\nworm-ridden earth will fill my mouth and eyes\nand roots will pierce through my body.\n\nOh, gently rocking afternoon, give me peace--\nI will lie down too, and work later.\nThe light of your sun is already hanging on the hedges,\nand yonder the evening comes across the hills.\n\nThey have killed a cloud, its blood is falling on the sky;\nbelow, on the stems of the glowing leaves\nsit wine-scented yellow berries.\n\n\n4. _Evening Approaches_\n\nAcross the slick sky the sun is climbing down,\nand the evening is coming early along the road.\nIts coming is watched in vain by the sharp-eyed moon--\nlittle puffs of mist are gathering.\n\nThe hedgerow is wakening, it catches at a weary wanderer;\nthe evening is spinning among the tree branches\nand humming louder and louder, while these lines build up\nand lean on one another.\n\nA frightened squirrel springs into my quiet room,\nand here a six-footed iambic couplet scampers by.\nFrom the wall to the window, a brown moment--\nand it’s gone without a trace.\n\nThe fleeting peace disappears with it. Silent\nworms crawl over the far fields\nand slowly chew to pieces the endless\nrows of the reclining dead.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lucy Helen Boling", "language": "Hungarian", + "translators": [ + "Lucy Helen Boling" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -84661,11 +87532,13 @@ "title": "“Do not light the candles 
”", "body": "Do not light the candles, in the darkness of the fragrant night\nIt is a delight for me to sit alone with you,\nJust look--the stars, the eyes of the far-off heavens,\nSend down on us their kindly greeting, flickering in the heights.\n\nDo not light the candles, as their light will bring down on us\nThe familiar melancholy of futile vanity,\nRadiant sleep will disappear and happiness will flee 
\nDo not light the candles, do not drive away our dreams! 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Philip Ross Bullock", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1893 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Philip Ross Bullock" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -84673,11 +87546,13 @@ "title": "“We sat together by the sleepy river 
”", "body": "We sat together by the sleepy river.\nThe fishermen rowed home, singing their quiet songs.\nThe golden rays of the sun were dying out across the river 
\nAnd still I said nothing to you.\n\nThe thunder rolled in the distance 
 A storm moved in 
\nA tear rolled down your eyelashes 
\nAnd I fell at our feet, sobbing madly 
\nAnd I said nothing to you, nothing at all.\n\nAnd now, again, as before, I’m alone,\nI no longer expect anything from the years to come 
\nIn my heart, the cry of life fell silent long ago 
\nOh why did I say nothing to you!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Philip Ross Bullock", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1893 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Philip Ross Bullock" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -84720,8 +87595,10 @@ "title": "“The Sparrows of Butyrka”", "body": "Now even the snow has grown sad--\nLet overwhelmed reason go,\nAnd let’s smoke our cigarettes through the air-vent,\nLet’s at least set the smoke free.\nA sparrow flies up--\nAnd looks at us with a searching eye:\n“Share your crust with me!”\nAnd in honourable fashion you share it with him.\nThe sparrows--they know\nWho to ask for bread.\nEven though there’s a double grille on the windows--\nAnd only a crumb can get through.\nWhat do they care\nWhether you were on trial or not?\nIf you’ve fed them, you’re OK.\nThe real trial lies ahead.\nYou can’t entice a sparrow--\nKindness and talents are no use.\nHe won’t knock\nAt the urban double-glazing.\nTo understand birds\nYou have to be a convict.\nAnd if you share your bread,\nIt means your time is done.", "metadata": { - "translator": "David McDuff", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "David McDuff" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -84767,15 +87644,17 @@ "title": "“Afternoon”", "body": "In the morning that comes up behind the roof, in the shelter of the bridge, in the corner of the cypresses that rise above the wall, a rooster has crowed. In the bell tower that rips the air with its shining point, the notes ring out and already the morning din can be heard in the street; the only street that goes from the river to the mountain dividing the woods. One looks for some other words but the ideas are always just as dark, just as simple and singularly painful. There is hardly more than the eyes, the open air, the grass and the water in the distance with, around every bend, a well or a cool basin. In the right-hand corner the last house with a larger head at the window. The trees are extremely alive and all those familiar companions walk along the demolished wall that is crushed into the thorns with bursts of laughter. Above the ravine the din augments, swells, and if the car passes on the upper road one no longer knows if it is the flowers or the little bells that are chiming. Under the blazing sun, when the landscape is on fire, the traveler crosses the stream on a very narrow bridge, before a dark hole where the trees line the water that falls asleep in the afternoon. And, against the trembling background of the woods, the motionless man.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1921 - }, - "translator": "Lydia Davis", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Painted Stars", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1921 + }, + "translators": [ + "Lydia Davis" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -84786,15 +87665,17 @@ "title": "“Clock”", "body": "In the warm air of the ceiling the footlights of dreams are illuminated.\nThe white walls have curved. The burdened chest breathes confused words. In the mirror, the wind from the south spins, carrying leaves and feathers. The window is blocked. The heart is almost extinguished among the already cold ashes of the moon--the hands are without shelter--as all the trees lying down. In the wind from the desert the needles bend and my hour is past.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1955 - }, - "translator": "Lydia Davis", "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Sun on the Ceiling", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1955 + }, + "translators": [ + "Lydia Davis" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -84805,15 +87686,17 @@ "title": "“Dry Weather”", "body": "A wild flame blazes at the gate of the woods\nRooted down in the depths of memory\nDown unknown paths and the gully below\nThe hole dug in the sky where the beasts go to drink\nThere is but one fresher moment in the season\nwhen the freckles fade\non the anxious face of the wanderer\nalways driven away rejected\nby time overwhelming\nRocks long for rain\nFurrows long too\nAnd the tired man turns back to the dark night\nThe lighted way resembles a whirlwind\nA gust of warm words which want to speak\nAll the birds in the sky seek out their prayer\nThe trees are driven to folly\nEverything lost in reality\nEverything too far for the captive hand\nSeam of gold\nseam of light\nSummer’s final glimpse", "metadata": { - "translator": "Sam Gordon", - "time": { - "year": 1929 - }, "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Sources of the Wind", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1929 + }, + "translators": [ + "Sam Gordon" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september", @@ -84825,8 +87708,10 @@ "title": "“For the Moment”", "body": "Life is simple and gay\nThe bright sun rings with a quiet sound\nThe sound of the bells has quieted down\nThis morning the light hits it all\nThe footlights of my head are lit again\nAnd the room I live in is finally bright\n\nJust one beam is enough\nJust one burst of laughter\nMy joy that shakes the house\nRestrains those wanting to die\nBy the notes of its song\n\nI sing off-key\nAh it’s funny\nMy mouth open to every breeze\nSpews mad notes everywhere\nThat emerge I don’t know how\nTo fly toward other ears\n\nListen I’m not crazy\nI laugh at the bottom of the stairs\nBefore the wide-open door\nIn the sunlight scattered\nOn the wall among green vines\nAnd my arms are held out toward you\n\nIt’s today I love you", "metadata": { - "translator": "Kenneth Rexroth", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Kenneth Rexroth" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -84837,8 +87722,10 @@ "title": "“A Heart Divided”", "body": "He so spares himself\nHe so fears the coverings\nThe sky’s blue coverlet\nAnd pillows of cloud\nHe is ill-clothed by his faith\nHe is so afraid of steps that go awry\nAnd streets chipped in the ice\nHe is too tiny for winter\nHe so fears the cold\nHe is transparent in his mirror\nHe is so hazy he loses himself\nTime rolls him under its waves\nAt moments his blood flows the wrong way\nAnd his tears stain the linen\nHis hand gathers green trees\nAnd nosegays of seaweed from the strand\nHis faith is a thorn bush\nHis hands bleed against his heart\nHis eyes have lost their glow\nAnd his feet trail over the sea\nLike the dead arms of devil-fish\nHe is lost in the universe\nHe stumbles against cities\nAgainst himself and his own failings\nThen pray that the Lord\nErase even the memory\nOf this man from His mind", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anonymous", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Anonymous" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -84849,15 +87736,17 @@ "title": "“Sinister Dawn”", "body": "I have regained the island\nThe archipelago of words unbound\nThe cruelest sense of stolen gestures\nIn the shadows where fear conceals itself\nBehind the twitching curtain of thought\nThe sketch barely piercing the cracks\nA sliver of honey lines pursed lips\nThe groaning of the evening sky in every corner\nWhere hides an absence of any starlit love\nTurning face bound with hand checked\nDisaster of a fate coming late to bloom\nShip shattered at the edge of ice floes\nWe play word games of loser’s chess\nAnd on the salty soil baked solid by the light\nTired of hearing you eke out so many woes\nFlowers of the scorched morning\nHeart in my hands of ash\nThe desert’s rolling dunes", "metadata": { - "translator": "Sam Gordon", - "time": { - "year": 1948 - }, "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Song of the Dead", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1948 + }, + "translators": [ + "Sam Gordon" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -84868,8 +87757,10 @@ "title": "“To Double Lock”", "body": "I am so far from the voices\nFrom the festival’s distant murmur\nThe foaming mill wheel turns back\nThe sob of spring water ceases\nThe hour has painfully glided\nOver the moon’s great beaches\nAnd in the cramped warm spaces without a crevice\nI sleep head upon elbow\nIn the calm desert within the lamp’s circle\nTerrible time inhuman time\nHunted along muddy sidewalks\nFar from the limpid amphitheatre that declines glasses\nFar from the decanted song born of leisure\nIn a bitter tussle of laughter between the teeth\nA faded sorrow quaking at your roots\nI prefer death forgetfulness dignity\nI am so far away when I contemplate all I love", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anonymous", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Anonymous" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -84880,15 +87771,17 @@ "title": "“The Turning Heart”", "body": "We must not go any further\nThe jewels are set in the lyre\nDelirium’s black butterflies\nStir unthinkingly the ashes of the setting sun\n\nBarely back from bitter voyages\nAround hearts thrown to the back of windows\nOnto the foreground of prairies and pastures\nLike naked shells before the sea\n\nBarely roused by love for life\nLooks which gather around mine\nNameless faces of times gone by\nDiamonds of love floating on the dregs\n\nLooking in the depths of the sludge\nFor the moving secret in the veins of my misfortune\nI must sink a hand into the roots of my heart\nAnd my clumsy fingers shatter the vase’s edge\n\nThe blood which draws this thick curtain over your eyes\nThe unknown emotion which makes your lip quiver\nAnd this too cruel cold which drives your fever\nCrumples all the corners of the linen of your skin\n\nI love you having seen you only in the shadows\nIn the darkness of my dream where alone I can see\nI love you and you are as yet indistinct\nA mysterious form which moves through the evening\n\nFor what I love deep down is that which passes\nJust once through this two-way mirror\nWhich tears my heart and dies at the surface\nOf the closed sky before my ebbing desire", "metadata": { - "translator": "Sam Gordon", - "time": { - "year": 1937 - }, "language": "French", "source": { "title": "Cast Iron", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1937 + }, + "translators": [ + "Sam Gordon" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -85315,7 +88208,6 @@ "title": "“The Angels”", "body": "They all have tired mouths\nAnd luminous illimitable souls;\nAnd a longing (as if for sin)\nTrembles at times through their dreams.\n\nThey all resemble one another\nIn God’s garden they are silent\nLike many many intervals\nIn His mighty melody.\n\nBut when they spread their wings\nThey awaken the winds\nThat stir as though God\nWith His far-reaching master hands\nTurned the pages of the dark book of Beginning.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -85324,6 +88216,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -85358,7 +88253,6 @@ "title": "“Autumn”", "body": "The leaves fall fall as from far\nLike distant gardens withered in the heavens;\nThey fall with slow and lingering descent.\n\nAnd in the nights the heavy Earth too falls\nFrom out the stars into the Solitude.\n\nThus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fall\nAnd lo! the other one:--it is the law.\nBut there is One who holds this falling\nInfinitely softly in His hands.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -85367,6 +88261,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -85377,7 +88274,6 @@ "title": "“Autumnal Day”", "body": "Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.\nStretch out your shadow on the sundial’s face,\nand on the meadows let the winds go loose.\n\nCommand the last fruits to be full in time;\ngrant them even two more southerly days,\npress them toward fulfillment soon and chase\nthe last sweetness into the heavy wine.\n\nWhoever has no house now, will build none.\nWho is alone now, will stay long alone,\nwill lie awake, read, get long letters written,\nand through the streets that follow up and down\nwill wander restless, when the leaves are driven.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -85386,6 +88282,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "autumn_equinox" @@ -85434,7 +88333,6 @@ "title": "“The Book of a Monk’s Life”", "body": "# I.\n\nI live my life in circles that grow wide\nAnd endlessly unroll\nI may not reach the last but on I glide\nStrong pinioned toward my goal.\n\nAbout the old tower dark against the sky\nThe beat of my wings hums\nI circle about God sweep far and high\nOn through milleniums.\n\nAm I a bird that skims the clouds along\nOr am I a wild storm or a great song?\n\n\n# II.\n\nMany have painted her. But there was one\nWho drew his radiant colours from the sun.\nMysteriously glowing through a background dim\nWhen he was suffering she came to him\nAnd all the heavy pain within his heart\nRose in his hands and stole into his art.\nHis canvas is the beautiful bright veil\nThrough which her sorrow shines. There where the\nTexture o’er her sad lips is closely drawn\nA trembling smile softly begins to dawn 
\nThough angels with seven candles light the place\nYou cannot read the secret of her face.\n\n\n# III.\n\nIn cassocks clad I have had many brothers\nIn southern cloisters where the laurel grows\nThey paint Madonnas like fair human mothers\nAnd I dream of young Titians and of others\nIn which the God with shining radiance glows.\n\nBut though my vigil constantly I keep\nMy God is dark--like woven texture flowing\nA hundred drinking roots all intertwined;\nI only know that from His warmth I’m growing.\nMore I know not: my roots lie hidden deep\nMy branches only are swayed by the wind.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nThou Anxious One! And dost thou then not hear\nAgainst thee all my surging senses sing?\nAbout thy face in circles drawing near\nMy thought floats like a fluttering white wing.\n\nDost thou not see before thee stands my soul\nIn silence wrapt my Springtime’s prayer to pray?\nBut when thy glance rests on me then my whole\nBeing quickens and blooms like trees in May.\n\nWhen thou art dreaming then I am thy Dream\nBut when thou art awake I am thy Will\nPotent with splendour radiant and sublime\nExpanding like far space star-lit and still\nInto the distant mystic realm of Time.\n\n\n# V.\n\nI love my life’s dark hours\nIn which my senses quicken and grow deep\nWhile as from faint incense of faded flowers\nOr letters old I magically steep\nMyself in days gone by: again I give\nMyself unto the past:--again I live.\n\nOut of my dark hours wisdom dawns apace\nInfinite Life unrolls its boundless space 
\n\nThen I am shaken as a sweeping storm\nShakes a ripe tree that grows above a grave\n’Round whose cold clay the roots twine fast and warm--\nAnd Youth’s fair visions that glowed bright and brave\nDreams that were closely cherished and for long\nAre lost once more in sadness and in song.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Hours", @@ -85443,6 +88341,9 @@ "year": 1905 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -85453,7 +88354,6 @@ "title": "“The Book of Pilgrimage”", "body": "# I.\n\nBy day Thou are the Legend and the Dream\nThat like a whisper floats about all men\nThe deep and brooding stillnesses which seem\nAfter the hour has struck to close again.\n\nAnd when the day with drowsy gesture bends\nAnd sinks to sleep beneath the evening skies\nAs from each roof a tower of smoke ascends--\nSo does Thy Realm my God around me rise.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAll those who seek Thee tempt Thee\nAnd those who find would bind Thee\nTo gesture and to form.\n\nBut I would comprehend Thee\nAs the wide Earth unfolds Thee.\nThou growest with my maturity\nThou Art in calm and storm.\n\nI ask of Thee no vanity\nTo evidence and prove Thee.\nThou Wert in eons old.\n\nPerform no miracles for me\nBut justify Thy laws to me\nWhich as the years pass by me.\nAll soundlessly unfold.\n\n\n# III.\n\nIn a house was one who arose from the feast\nAnd went forth to wander in distant lands\nBecause there was somewhere far off in the East\nA spot which he sought where a great Church stands.\nAnd ever his children when breaking their bread\nThought of him and rose up and blessed him as dead.\n\nIn another house was the one who had died\nWho still sat at table and drank from the glass\nAnd ever within the walls did abide--\nFor out of the house he could no more pass.\nAnd his children set forth to seek for the spot\nWhere stands the great Church which he forgot.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nExtinguish my eyes I still can see you\nClose my ears I can hear your footsteps fall\nAnd without feet I still can follow you\nAnd without voice I still can to you call.\nBreak off my arms and I can embrace you\nEnfold you with my heart as with a hand.\nHold my heart my brain will take fire of you\nAs flax ignites from a lit fire-brand--\nAnd flame will sweep in a swift rushing flood\nThrough all the singing currents of my blood.\n\n\n# V.\n\nIn the deep nights I dig for you O Treasure!\nTo seek you over the wide world I roam\nFor all abundance is but meager measure\nOf your bright beauty which is yet to come.\n\nOver the road to you the leaves are blowing\nFew follow it the way is long and steep.\nYou dwell in solitude--Oh does your glowing\nHeart in some far off valley lie asleep?\n\nMy bloody hands with digging bruised I’ve lifted\nSpread like a tree I stretch them in the air\nTo find you before day to night has drifted;\nI reach out into space to seek you there 
\n\nThen as though with a swift impatient gesture\nFlashing from distant stars on sweeping wing\nYou come and over earth a magic vesture\nSteals gently as the rain falls in the spring.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Hours", @@ -85462,6 +88362,9 @@ "year": 1905 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -85472,7 +88375,6 @@ "title": "“The Book of Poverty and Death”", "body": "# I.\n\nHer mouth is like the mouth of a fine bust\nThat cannot utter sound nor breathe nor kiss\nBut that had once from Life received all this\nWhich shaped its subtle curves and ever must\nFrom fullness of past knowledge dwell alone\nA thing apart a parable in stone.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAlone Thou wanderest through space\nProfound One with the hidden face;\nThou art Poverty’s great rose\nThe eternal metamorphose\nOf gold into the light of sun.\n\nThou art the mystic homeless One;\nInto the world Thou never came\nToo mighty Thou too great to name;\nVoice of the storm Song that the wild wind sings\nThou Harp that shatters those who play Thy strings!\n\n\n# III.\n\nA watcher of Thy spaces make me\nMake me a listener at Thy stone\nGive to me vision and then wake me\nUpon Thy oceans all alone.\nThy rivers’ courses let me follow\nWhere they leap the crags in their flight\nAnd where at dusk in caverns hollow\nThey croon to music of the night.\nSend me far into Thy barren land\nWhere the snow clouds the wild wind drives\nWhere monasteries like gray shrouds stand--\nAugust symbols of unlived lives.\nThere pilgrims climb slowly one by one\nAnd behind them a blind man goes:\nWith him I will walk till day is done\nUp the pathway that no one knows 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Hours", @@ -85481,6 +88383,9 @@ "year": 1905 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -85488,7 +88393,6 @@ "title": "“The Boy”", "body": "I wish I might become like one of these\nWho in the night on horses wild astride\nWith torches flaming out like loosened hair\nOn to the chase through the great swift wind ride.\nI wish to stand as on a boat and dare\nThe sweeping storm mighty like flag unrolled\nIn darkness but with helmet made of gold\nThat shimmers restlessly. And in a row\nBehind me in the dark ten men that glow\nWith helmets that are restless too like mine\nNow old and dull now clear as glass they shine.\nOne stands by me and blows a blast apace\nOn his great flashing trumpet and the sound\nShrieks through the vast black solitude around\nThrough which as through a wild mad dream we race.\nThe houses fall behind us on their knees\nBefore us bend the streets and them we gain\nThe great squares yieled to us and them we seize--\nAnd on our steeds rush like the roar of rain.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -85497,6 +88401,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -85504,7 +88411,6 @@ "title": "“The Bride”", "body": "Call me Beloved! Call aloud to me!\nThy bride her vigil at the window keeps;\nThe evening wanes to dusk the dimness creeps\nDown empty alleys of the old plane-tree.\n\nO! Let thy voice enfold me close about\nOr from this dark house lonely and remote\nThrough deep blue gardens where gray shadows float\nI will pour forth my soul with hands stretched out 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -85513,6 +88419,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -85520,10 +88429,10 @@ "title": "“But you now, dear girl 
”", "body": "But you now, dear girl, whom I loved like a flower whose name\nI didn’t know, you who so early were taken away:\nI will once more call up your image and show it to them,\nbeautiful companion of the unsubduable cry.\n\nDancer whose body filled with your hesitant fate,\npausing, as though your young flesh had been cast in bronze;\ngrieving and listening--. Then, from the high dominions,\nunearthly music fell into your altered heart.\n\nAlready possessed by shadows, with illness near,\nyour blood flowed darkly; yet, though for a moment suspicious,\nit burst out into the natural pulses of spring.\n\nAgain and again interrupted by downfall and darkness,\nearthly, it gleamed. Till, after a terrible pounding,\nit entered the inconsolably open door.", "metadata": { + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "German", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -85590,11 +88499,13 @@ "title": "“Do you remember still the falling stars 
”", "body": "Do you remember still the falling stars\nthat like swift horses through the heavens raced\nand suddenly leaped across the hurdles\nof our wishes--do you recall? And we\ndid make so many! For there were countless numbers\nof stars: each time we looked above we were\nastounded by the swiftness of their daring play,\nwhile in our hearts we felt safe and secure\nwatching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,\nknowing somehow we had survived their fall.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Albert Ernest Flemming", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Albert Ernest Flemming" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -85602,7 +88513,6 @@ "title": "“Early Apollo”", "body": "As when at times there breaks through branches bare\nA morning vibrant with the breath of spring\nAbout this poet-head a splendour rare\nTransforms it almost to a mortal thing.\n\nThere is as yet no shadow in his glance\nToo cool his temples for the laurel’s glow;\nBut later o’er those marble brows perchance\nA rose-garden with bushes tall will grow\n\nAnd single petals one by one will fall\nO’er the still mouth and break its silent thrall\n--The mouth that trembles with a dawning smile\nAs though a song were rising there the while.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "New Poems", @@ -85611,6 +88521,9 @@ "year": 1907 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -85633,7 +88546,6 @@ "title": "“The Eighth Elegy”", "body": "With all its eyes the creature-world beholds\nthe open. But our eyes, as though reversed,\nencircle it on every side, like traps\nset round its unobstructed path to freedom.\nWhat is outside, we know from the brute’s face\nalone; for while a child is quite small we take it\nand turn it round and force it to look backwards\nat conformation, not that openness\nso deep within the brute’s face. Free from death.\nWe only see death; the free animal\nhas its decease perpetually behind it\nand God in front, and when it moves, it moves\ninto eternity, like running springs.\nWe’ve never, no, not for a single day,\npure space before us, such as that which flowers\nendlessly open into: always world,\nand never nowhere without no: that pure,\nunsuperintended element one breaths,\nendlessly knows, and never craves. A child\nsometimes gets quietly lost there, to be always\njogged back again. Or someone dies and is it.\nFor, nearing death, one perceives death no longer,\nand stares ahead--perhaps with large brute gaze.\nLovers--were not the other present, always\nspoiling the view!--draw near to it and wonder 
\nBehind the other, as though through oversight,\nthe thing is revealed 
 But no one gets beyond\nthe other, and so world returns once more.\nAlways facing Creation, we perceive there\nonly a mirroring of the free and open,\ndimmed by our breath. Or that a dumb brute is calmly\nraising its head to look us through and through.\nThat is what Destiny means: being opposite,\nand nothing else, and always opposite.\nDid consciousness such as we have exist\nin the sure animal that moves towards us\nupon a different course, the brute would drag us\nround in its wake. But its own being for it\nis infinite, inapprehensible,\nunintrospective, pure, like its outward gaze.\nWhere we see Future, it sees Everything,\nitself in Everything, for ever healed.\nAnd yet, within the wakefully-warm beast\nthere lies the weight and care of a great sadness.\nFor that which often overwhelms us clings\nto him as well,--a kind of memory\nthat what we are pressing after now was once\nnearer and truer and attached to us\nwith infinite tenderness. Here all is distance,\nthere it was breath. Compared with that first home\nthe second seems ambiguous and draughty.\nOh bliss of tiny creatures that remain\nfor ever in the womb that brought them forth!\nJoy of the gnat, that can still leap within,\neven on its wedding-day: for womb is all.\nLook at the half-assurance of the bird,\nthrough origin almost aware of both,\nlike one of those Etruscan souls, escaped\nfrom a dead man enclosed within a space\non which his resting figure forms a lid.\nAnd how dismayed is any womb-born thing\nthat has to fly! As though it were afraid\nof its own self, it zigzags through the air\nlike crack through cup. The way the track of a bat\ngoes rending through the evening is porcelain.\nAnd we, spectators always, everywhere,\nlooking at, never out of, everything!\nIt fills us. We arrange it. it decays.\nWe re-arrange it, and decay ourselves.\nWho is turned us round like this, so that we always,\ndo what we may, retain the attitude\nof someone who is departing? Just as he,\non the last hill, that shows him all this valley\nfor the last time, will turn and stop and linger,\nwe live our lives, for ever taking leave.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. B. Leishman & Stephen Spender", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Duineser Elegien", @@ -85642,6 +88554,10 @@ "year": 1923 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. B. Leishman", + "Stephen Spender" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -85665,10 +88581,10 @@ "title": "“Evening”", "body": "The bleak fields are asleep\nMy heart alone wakes;\nThe evening in the harbour\nDown his red sails takes.\n\nNight guardian of dreams\nNow wanders through the land;\nThe moon a lily white\nBlossoms within her hand.", "metadata": { + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "German", "tags": [] } }, @@ -85700,7 +88616,6 @@ "title": "“The Fifth Elegy”", "body": "But tell me, who are they, these acrobats, even a little\nmore fleeting than we ourselves,--so urgently, ever since childhood,\nwrung by an (oh, for the sake of whom?)\nnever-contented will? That keeps on wringing them,\nbending them, slinging them, swinging them,\nthrowing them and catching them back; as though from an oily\nsmoother air, they come down on the threadbare\ncarpet, thinned by their everlasting\nupspringing, this carpet forlornly\nlost in the cosmos.\nLaid on there like a plaster, as though the suburban\nsky had injured the earth.\nAnd hardly there,\nupright, shown there: the great initial\nletter of Thereness,--then even the strongest\nmen are rolled once more, in sport, by the ever-\nreturning grasp, as once by Augustus the Strong\na tin platter at table.\nAlas, and around this\ncentre the rose of onlooking\nblooms and unblossoms. Round this\npestle, this pistil, caught by its own\ndust-pollen, and fertilised over again\nto sham-fruit of boredom, their own\nnever-realised boredom, gleaming with thinnest\nlightly sham-smiling surface.\nThere, the withered wrinkled lifter,\nold now and only drumming,\nshrivelled up in his mighty skin as though it had once contained\ntwo men, and one were already\nlying in the churchyard, and he had outlasted the other,\ndeaf and sometimes a little\nstrange in his widowed skin.\nAnd the youngster, the man, like the son of a neck\nand a nun: so tautly and smartly filled\nwith muscle and simpleness.\nO you,\na pain that was still quite small\nreceived as a plaything once in one of its\nlong convalescences 
\nYou, that fall with the thud\nonly fruits know, unripe,\ndaily a hundred times from the tree\nof mutually built up motion (the tree that, swifter than water,\nhas spring and summer and autumn in so many minutes),\nfall and rebound on the grave:\nsometimes, in half-pauses, a tenderness tries\nto steal out over your face to your seldomly\ntender mother, but scatters over your body,\nwhose surface quickly absorbs the timidly rippling,\nhardly attempted look 
 And again\nthat man is clapping his hands for the downward spring, and before\na single pain has got within range of your ever-\ngalloping heart, comes the tingling\nin the soles of your feet, ahead of the spring that it springs from,\nchasing into your eyes a few physical tears.\nAnd, spite of all, blindly,\nyour smile 
\nAngel! Oh, take it, pluck it, that small-flowered herb of healing!\nShape a vase to preserve it. Set it among those joys\nnot yet opened to us; in a graceful urn\npraise it, with florally-soaring inscription:\n“Subrisio Saltat”.\nThen you, my darling,\nmutely elided\nby all the most exquisite joys. Perhaps\nyour frills are happy on your behalf,--\nor over your tight young breasts\nthe green metallic silk\nfeels itself endlessly spoilt and in need of nothing.\nYou, time after time, upon all of the quivering scale-pans of balance\nfreshly laid fruit of serenity,\npublicly shown among shoulders.\nWhere, oh where in the world is that place in my heart\nwhere they still were far from being able, still fell away\nfrom each other like mounting animals, not yet\nproperly paired;--\nwhere weights are still heavy,\nand hoops still stagger\naway from their vainly\ntwirling sticks? 
\nAnd then, in this wearisome nowhere, all of a sudden,\nthe ineffable spot where the pure too-little\nincomprehensibility changes,--springs round\ninto that empty too-much?\nWhere the many-digited sum\nsolves into zero?\nSquares, o square in Paris, infinite show-place,\nwhere the modiste Madame Lamort\nwinds and binds the restless ways of the world,\nthose endless ribbons, to ever-new\ncreations of bow, frill, flower, cockade and fruit,\nall falsely-coloured, to deck\nthe cheep winter-hats of Fate.\n
\nAngel: suppose there is a place we know nothing about, and there,\non some indescribable carpet, lovers show all that here\nthey’re for ever unable to manage--their daring\nlofty figures of heart-flight,\ntheir towers of pleasure, their ladders,\nlong since, where ground never was, just quiveringly\npropped by each other,--suppose they could manage it there,\nbefore the spectators ringed round, the countless unmurmuring dead:\nwould not the dead then fling their last, their for ever reserved,\never-concealed, unknown to us, ever-valid\ncoins of happiness down before the at last\ntruthfully smiling pair on the quietened carpet?", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. B. Leishman & Stephen Spender", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Duineser Elegien", @@ -85709,6 +88624,10 @@ "year": 1923 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. B. Leishman", + "Stephen Spender" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -85724,7 +88643,6 @@ "title": "“The First Elegy”", "body": "Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic\nOrders? And even if one of them suddenly\npressed me against his heart, I should fade in the strength of his\nstronger existence. For Beauty is nothing\nbut beginning of Terror we are still just able to bear,\nand why we adore it so is because it serenely\ndisdains to destroy us. Each single angel is terrible.\nAnd so I keep down my heart, and swallow the call-note\nof depth-dark sobbing. Alas, who is there\nwe can make use of? Not angels, not men;\nand already the knowing brutes are aware\nthat we don’t feel very securely at home\nwithin our interpreted world. There remains, perhaps,\nsome tree on a slope, to be looked at day after day,\nthere remains for us yesterday’s walk and the cupboard-love loyalty\nof a habit that liked us and stayed and never gave notice.\nOh, and there is Night, there is Night, when wind full of cosmic space\nfeeds on our faces: for whom would she not remain,\nlonged for, mild disenchantress, painfully there\nfor the lonely heart to achieve? Is she lighter for her lovers?\n\nAlas, with each other they only conceal their lot!\nDon’t you know yet?--Fling the emptiness out of your arms\ninto the spaces we breathe--maybe that the birds\nwill feel the extended air in more intimate flight.\nYes, the Springs had need of you. Many a star\nwas waiting for you to espy it. Many a wave\nwould rise on the past towards you; or, else, perhaps,\nas you went by an open window, a violin\nwould be giving itself to someone. All this was a trust.\nBut were you equal to it? Were you not always\ndistracted by expectation, as though all this\nwhere announcing someone to love? (As if you could hope\nto conceal her, with all those great strange thoughts\ngoing in and out and often staying overnight!)\nNo, when longing comes over you, sing the great lovers: the fame\nof all they can feel is far from immortal enough.\nThose whom you almost envied, those forsaken, you found\nso far beyond the requited in loving. Begin\never anew their never attainable praise.\nConsider: the Hero continues, even his fall\nwas a pretext for further existence, an ultimate birth.\nBut lovers are taken back by exhausted Nature\ninto herself, as though such creative force\ncould never be re-exerted. Have you so fully rememberanced\nGaspara Stampa, that any girl, whose beloved has\neluded her, may feel, from that far intenser\nexample of loving: “if I could become like her!”?\nOught not these oldest sufferings of ours to be yielding\nmore fruit by now? Is it not time that, in loving,\nwe freed ourselves from the loved one, and, quivering, endured:\nas the arrow endures the string, to become, in the gathering out-leap,\nsomething more than itself? For staying is nowhere.\nVoices, voices. Hear, O my heart, as only\nsaints have heard; heard till the giant-call\nlifted them off the ground; yet they went impossibly\non with their kneeling, in undistracted attention:\nso inherently hearers. Not that you could endure\nthe voice of God--far from it. But hark to the suspiration,\nthe uninterrupted news that grows out of silence.\nRustling towards you now from those youthfully-dead.\nWhenever you entered a church in Rome or in Naples\nwere you not always being quietly addressed by their fate?\nOr else an inscription sublimely imposed itself on you,\nas, lately, the tablet in Santa Maria Formosa.\nWhat they require of me? I must gently remove the appearance\nof suffered injustice, that hinders\na little, at times, their purely-proceeding spirits.\nTrue, it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer,\nto use no longer customs scarcely acquired,\nnot to interpret roses, and other things\nthat promise so much, in terms of human future;\nto be no longer all that one used to be\nin endlessly anxious hands, and to lay aside\neven one’s proper name like a broken toy.\nStrange, not to go on wishing one’s wishes. Strange,\nto see all that was once relation so loosely fluttering\nhither and thither in space. And it is hard, being dead,\nand full of retrieving before one begins to espy\na trace of eternity.--Yes, but all of the living\nmake the mistake of drawing to sharp distinctions.\nAngels, (they say) are often unable to tell\nwhether they move among the living or the dead. the eternal\ntorrent whirls all the ages through either realm\nfor ever, and sounds above their voices in both.\nThey’ve finally no more need of us, the early-departed,\none’s gently weaned from terrestrial things as one mildly\noutgrows the breasts of a mother. But we, that have need of\nsuch mighty secrets, we, for whom sorrow is so often\nsource of blessedest progress, could we exist without them?\nIs the story in vain, how once, in the mourning for Linos,\nventuring earliest music pierced barren numbness, and how,\nin the horrified space an almost deified youth\nsuddenly quitted for ever, emptiness first\nfelt the vibration that now charms us and comforts and helps?", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. B. Leishman & Stephen Spender", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Duineser Elegien", @@ -85733,6 +88651,10 @@ "year": 1923 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. B. Leishman", + "Stephen Spender" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -85743,7 +88665,6 @@ "title": "“The Fourth Elegy”", "body": "O trees of life, when will your winter come?\nWe are never single-minded, unperplexed,\nlike migratory birds. Outstript and late,\nwe suddenly thrust into the wind, and fall\ninto unfeeling ponds. We comprehend\nflowering and fading simultaneously.\nAnd somewhere lions still roam, all unaware,\nin being magnificent, of any weakness.\nWe, though, while we are intent upon one thing,\ncan feel the cost and conquest of another.\nHostility is our first response. Aren’t lovers\nfor ever reaching verges in each other,--\nlovers, that looked for spaces, hunting, home?\nThen, for the sudden sketchwork of a moment,\na ground of contrast’s painfully prepared,\nto make us see it. For they’re very clear\nwith us, we that don’t know our feeling’s shape,\nbut only that which forms it from outside.\nWho is not sat tense before his own heart’s curtain?\nUp it would go: the scenery was parting.\nEasy to understand. The well-known garden,\nswaying a little. Then appeared the dancer\nNot the! Enough! However light he foots it,\nhe is just disguised, and turns into a bourgeois,\nand passes through the kitchen to his dwelling.\nI will not have those half-filled masks! No, no,\nrather the doll. That is full. I’ll force myself\nto bear the husk, the wire, and even the face\nthat is all outside. Here! I’m already waiting.\nEven if the lights go out, even if I’m told\n‘There is nothing more,’--even if greyish draughts\nof emptiness come drifting from the stage,--\neven if of all my silent forebears none\nsits by me any longer, not a woman,\nnot even the boy with the brown squinting eyes:\nI’ll still remain. For one can always watch.\nAm I not right? You, to whom life would taste\nso bitter, Father, when you tasted mine,\nthat turbid first infusion of my Must,\nyou kept on tasting as I kept on growing,\nand, fascinated by the after-taste\nof such queer future, tried my clouded gaze,--\nyou, who so often since you died, my Father,\nhave been afraid within my inmost hope,\nsurrendering realms of that serenity\nthe dead are lords of for my bit of fate,--\nam I not right? And you, am I not right,--\nyou that would love me for that small beginning\nof love for you I always turned away from,\nbecause the space within your faces changed,\neven while I loved it, into cosmic space\nwhere you no longer were 
 , when I feel like it,\nto wait before the puppet stage,--no, rather\ngaze so intensely on it that at last,\nto upweigh my gaze, an angel has to come\nand play a part there, snatching up the husks?\nAngel and doll! Then there is at last a play.\nThen there unites what we continually\npart by our being there. Then at last\ncan spring from our own turning years the cycle\nof the whole going-on. Over and above us\nthere is then the angel playing. Look, the dying,--\nsurely they must suspect how full of pretext\nis all that we accomplish here, where nothing\nis what it really is. O hours of childhood,\nhours when behind the figures there was more\nthan the mere past, and when what lay before us\nwas not the future! We were growing, and sometimes\nimpatient to grow up, half for the sake\nof those who’d nothing left but their grown-upness.\nYet, when alone, we entertained ourselves\nwith everlastingness: there we would stand,\nwithin the gap left between world and toy,\nupon a spot which, from the first beginning,\nhad been established for a pure event.\nWho’ll show a child just as it is? Who’ll place it\nwithin its constellation, with the measure\nof distance in its hand? Who’ll make its death\nfrom grey bread, that grows hard,--or leave it there,\nwithin the round mouth, like the choking core\nof a sweet apple? 
 Minds of murderers\nare easily divined. But this, though: death,\nthe whole of death,--even before life has begun,\nto hold it all so gently, and be good:\nthis is beyond description!", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. B. Leishman & Stephen Spender", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Duineser Elegien", @@ -85752,6 +88673,10 @@ "year": 1923 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. B. Leishman", + "Stephen Spender" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -85778,11 +88703,13 @@ "title": "“Going Blind”", "body": "She sat at tea just like the others. First\nI merely had a notion that this guest\nHeld up her cup not quite like all the rest.\nAnd once she gave a smile. It almost hurt.\n\nWhen they arose at last, with talk and laughter,\nAnd ambled slowly and as chance dictated\nThrough many rooms, their voices animated,\nI saw her seek the noise and follow after,\n\nHeld in like one who in a little bit\nWould have to sing where many people listened;\nHer lighted eyes, which spoke of gladness, glistened\nWith outward luster, as a pond is lit.\n\nShe followed slowly, and it took much trying,\nAs though some obstacle still barred her stride;\nAnd yet as if she on the farther side\nMight not be walking any more, but flying.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Walter Arndt", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Walter Arndt" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -85801,7 +88728,6 @@ "title": "“Growing Blind”", "body": "Among all the others there sat a guest\nWho sipped her tea as if one apart\nAnd she held her cup not quite like the rest;\nOnce she smiled so it pierced one’s heart.\n\nWhen the group of people arose at last\nAnd laughed and talked in a merry tone\nAs lingeringly through the rooms they passed\nI saw that she followed alone.\n\nTense and still like one who to sing must rise\nBefore a throng on a festal night\nShe lifted her head and her bright glad eyes\nWere like pools which reflected light.\n\nShe followed on slowly after the last\nAs though some object must be passed by\nAnd yet as if were it once but passed\nShe would no longer walk but fly.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "New Poems", @@ -85810,6 +88736,9 @@ "year": 1907 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -85852,7 +88781,6 @@ "title": "“In April”", "body": "Again the woods are odorous the lark\nLifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray\nThat hung above the tree-tops veiled and dark\nWhere branches bare disclosed the empty day.\n\nAfter long rainy afternoons an hour\nComes with its shafts of golden light and flings\nThem at the windows in a radiant shower\nAnd rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.\n\nThen all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep\nBy the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;\nAnd cradled in the branches hidden deep\nIn each bright bud a slumbering silence lies.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -85861,6 +88789,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -85912,7 +88843,6 @@ "title": "“Lament”", "body": "Oh! All things are long passed away and far.\nA light is shining but the distant star\nFrom which it still comes to me has been dead\nA thousand years 
 In the dim phantom boat\nThat glided past some ghastly thing was said.\nA clock just struck within some house remote.\nWhich house?--I long to still my beating heart.\nBeneath the sky’s vast dome I long to pray 
\nOf all the stars there must be far away\nA single star which still exists apart.\nAnd I believe that I should know the one\nWhich has alone endured and which alone\nLike a white City that all space commands\nAt the ray’s end in the high heaven stands.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -85921,6 +88851,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -85966,7 +88899,6 @@ "title": "“Love Song”", "body": "When my soul touches yours a great chord sings!\nHow shall I tune it then to other things?\nO! That some spot in darkness could be found\nThat does not vibrate whene’er your depths sound.\nBut everything that touches you and me\nWelds us as played strings sound one melody.\nWhere is the instrument whence the sounds flow?\nAnd whose the master-hand that holds the bow?\nO! Sweet song--", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "New Poems", @@ -85975,6 +88907,9 @@ "year": 1907 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -85990,7 +88925,6 @@ "title": "“Maiden Melancholy”", "body": "A young knight comes into my mind\nAs from some myth of old.\n\nHe came! You felt yourself entwined\nAs a great storm would round you wind.\nHe went! A blessing undefined\nSeemed left as when church-bells declined\nAnd left you wrapt in prayer.\nYou fain would cry aloud--but bind\nYour scarf about you and tear-blind\nWeep softly in its fold.\n\nA young knight comes into my mind\nFull armored forth to fare.\n\nHis smile was luminously kind\nLike glint of ivory enshrined\nLike a home longing undivined\nLike Christmas snows where dark ways wind\nLike sea-pearls about turquoise twined\nLike moonlight silver when combined\nWith a loved book’s rare gold.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -85999,6 +88933,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "christmastide" @@ -86009,7 +88946,6 @@ "title": "“Maidens”", "body": "# I.\n\nOthers must by a long dark way\nStray to the mystic bards\nOr ask some one who has heard them sing\nOr touch the magic chords.\nOnly the maidens question not\nThe bridges that lead to Dream;\nTheir luminous smiles are like strands of pearls\nOn a silver vase agleam.\n\nThe maidens’ doors of Life lead out\nWhere the song of the poet soars\nAnd out beyond to the great world--\nTo the world beyond the doors.\n\n\n# II.\n\nMaidens the poets learn from you to tell\nHow solitary and remote you are\nAs night is lighted by one high bright star\nThey draw light from the distance where you dwell.\n\nFor poet you must always maiden be\nEven though his eyes the woman in you wake\nWedding brocade your fragile wrists would break\nMysterious elusive from him flee.\n\nWithin his garden let him wait alone\nWhere benches stand expectant in the shade\nWithin the chamber where the lyre was played\nWhere he received you as the eternal One.\n\nGo! It grows dark--your voice and form no more\nHis senses seek; he now no longer sees\nA white robe fluttering under dark beech trees\nAlong the pathway where it gleamed before.\n\nHe loves the long paths where no footfalls ring\nAnd he loves much the silent chamber where\nLike a soft whisper through the quiet air\nHe hears your voice far distant vanishing.\n\nThe softly stealing echo comes again\nFrom crowds of men whom wearily he shuns;\nAnd many see you there--so his thought runs--\nAnd tenderest memories are pierced with pain.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -86018,6 +88954,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -86025,12 +88964,7 @@ "title": "“Maidens at Confirmation”", "body": "The white veiled maids to confirmation go\nThrough deep green garden paths they slowly wind;\nTheir childhood they are leaving now behind:\nThe future will be different they know.\n\nOh! Will it come? They wait--It must come soon!\nThe next long hour slowly strikes at last\nThe whole house stirs again the feast is past\nAnd sadly passes by the afternoon 
\n\nLike resurrection were the garments white\nThe wreathed procession walked through trees arched wide\nInto the church as cool as silk inside\nWith long aisles of tall candles flaming bright:\nThe lights all shone like jewels rich and rare\nTo solemn eyes that watched them gleam and flare.\n\nThen through the silence the great song rose high\nUp to the vaulted dome like clouds it soared\nThen luminously gently down it poured--\nOver white veils like rain it seemed to die.\n\nThe wind through the white garments softly stirred\nAnd they grew vari-coloured in each fold\nAnd each fold hidden blossoms seemed to hold\nAnd flowers and stars and fluting notes of bird\nAnd dim quaint figures shimmering like gold\nSeemed to come forth from distant myths of old.\n\nOutside the day was one of green and blue\nWith touches of a luminous glowing red\nAcross the quiet pond the small waves sped.\nBeyond the city gardens hidden from view\nSent odors of sweet blossoms on the breeze\nAnd singing sounded through the far off trees.\n\nIt was as though garlands crowned everything\nAnd all things were touched softly by the sun;\nAnd many windows opened one by one\nAnd the light trembled on them glistening.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1903, - "month": "may" - }, "place": "Paris", - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -86039,6 +88973,13 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1903, + "month": "may" + }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -86068,7 +89009,6 @@ "title": "“Music”", "body": "What play you O Boy? Through the garden it stole\nLike wandering steps like a whisper--then mute;\nWhat play you O Boy? Lo! your gypsying soul\nIs caught and held fast in the pipes of Pan’s flute.\n\nAnd what conjure you? Imprisoned is the song\nIt lingers and longs in the reeds where it lies;\nYour young life is strong but how much more strong\nIs the longing that through your music sighs.\n\nLet your flute be still and your soul float through\nWaves of sound formless as waves of the sea\nFor here your song lived and it wisely grew\nBefore it was forced into melody.\n\nIts wings beat gently its note no more calls\nIts flight has been spent by you dreaming Boy!\nNow it no longer steals over my walls--\nBut in my garden I’d woo it to joy.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -86077,6 +89017,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -86108,7 +89051,6 @@ "title": "“The Ninth Elegy”", "body": "Why, when this span of life might be fleeted away\nas laurel, a little darker than all\nthe surrounding green, with tiny waves on the border\nof every leaf (like the smile of a wind):--oh, why\nhave to be human, and, shunning Destiny,\nlong for Destiny? 
\nNot because happiness really\nexists, that premature profit of imminent loss.\nNot out of curiosity, not just to practise the heart,\nthat could still be there in laurel 
\nBut because being here amounts to so much, because all\nthis Here and Now, so fleeting, seems to require us and strangely\nconcern us. Us the most fleeting of all. Just once,\neverything, only for once. Once and no more. And we, too,\nonce. And never again. But this\nhaving been once, though only once,\nhaving been once on earth--can it ever be cancelled?\nAnd so we keep pressing on and trying to perform it,\ntrying to contain it within our simple hands,\nin the more and more crowded gaze, in the speechless heart.\nTrying to become it. To give it to whom? We’d rather\nhold on to it all for ever 
 Alas, but the other relation,--\nwhat can be taken across? Not the art of seeing, learnt here\nso slowly, and nothing that has happened here. Nothing at all.\nSufferings, then. Above all, the hardness of life,\nthe long experience of love; in fact,\npurely untellable things. But later,\nunder the stars, what then? the more deeply untellable stars?\nFor the wanderer doesn’t bring from the mountain slope\na handful of earth to the valley, untellable earth, but only\nsome word he has won, a pure word, the yellow and blue\ngentian. Are we, perhaps, here just for saying: House,\nBridge, Fountain, Gate, Jug, Olive tree, Window,--\npossibly: Pillar, Tower? 
 but for saying, remember,\noh, for such saying as never the things themselves\nhoped so intensely to be. Is not the secret purpose\nof this sly earth, in urging a pair of lovers,\njust to make everything leap with ecstasy in them?\nThreshold: how much it can mean\nto two lovers, that they should be wearing their own\nworn threshold a little, they too, after the many before,\nbefore the many to come, 
 as a matter of course!\nHere is the time for the Tellable, here is its home.\nSpeak and proclaim. More than ever\nthe things we can live with are falling away, and their place\nbeing oustingly taken up by an imageless act.\nAct under crusts, that will readily split as soon\nas the doing within outgrows them and takes a new outline.\nBetween the hammers lives on\nour heart, as between the teeth\nthe tongue, which, nevertheless,\nremains the bestower of praise.\nPraise the world to the Angel, not the untellable: you\ncan’t impress him with the splendour you’ve felt; in the cosmos\nwhere he more feelingly feels you’re only a tyro. So show him\nsome simple thing, remoulded by age after age,\ntill it lives in your hands and eyes as a part of ourselves.\nTell him things. He’ll stand more astonished; as you did\nbeside the roper in Rome or the potter in Egypt.\nShow him how happy a thing can be, how guileless and ours;\nhow even the moaning of grief purely determines on form,\nserves as a thing, or dies into a thing,--to escape\nto a bliss beyond the fiddle. These things that live on departure\nunderstand when you praise them: fleeting, they look for\nrescue through something in us, the most fleeting of all.\nWant us to change them entirely, within our invisible hearts,\ninto--oh, endlessly--into ourselves! Whosoever we are.\nEarth, isn’t this what you want: an invisible\nre-arising in us? Is it not your dream\nto be one day invisible? Earth! invisible!\nWhat is your urgent command, if not transformation?\nEarth, you darling, I will! Oh, believe me, you need\nyour Springs no longer to win me: a single one,\njust one, is already more than my blood can endure.\nI’ve now been unspeakably yours for ages and ages.\nYou were always right, and your holiest inspiration is\nDeath, that friendly Death.\nLook, I am living. On what? Neither childhood nor future\nare growing less 
 Supernumerous existence\nwells up in my heart.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. B. Leishman & Stephen Spender", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Duineser Elegien", @@ -86117,6 +89059,10 @@ "year": 1923 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. B. Leishman", + "Stephen Spender" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -86140,7 +89086,6 @@ "title": "“Offering”", "body": "My body glows in every vein and blooms\nTo fullest flower since I first knew thee\nMy walk unconscious pride and power assumes;\nWho art thou then--thou who awaitest me?\n\nWhen from the past I draw myself the while\nI lose old traits as leaves of autumn fall;\nI only know the radiance of thy smile\nLike the soft gleam of stars transforming all.\n\nThrough childhood’s years I wandered unaware\nOf shimmering visions my thoughts now arrests\nTo offer thee as on an altar fair\nThat’s lighted by the bright flame of thy hair\nAnd wreathĂ©d by the blossoms of thy breasts.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "New Poems", @@ -86149,6 +89094,9 @@ "year": 1907 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -86186,10 +89134,10 @@ "title": "“Pietà”", "body": "Thus, Jesus, I behold your feet again\nthat were a young man’s feet when I, with fear,\nstripped them of their shoes and washed them down;\nhow they stood, entangled in my hair\nlike a white stag within a bush of brier.\n\nThus I behold your never-cherished limbs\nin this, our night of love, and not before.\nWe never lay in one another’s arms,\nand now I’ll only watch you and admire.\n\nBut, look, beloved, your poor hands are torn--\nand not by me, not love-bites of my own.\nYour heart stands wide for all to enter in:\nit should have been a door for me alone.\n\nYou’re weary, and your weary mouth has now\nno longing for my mouth, that aches for you.\nO Jesus, Jesus, when was our time? How\ncuriously we’re perishing, we two.", "metadata": { + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "German", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "holy_thursday" @@ -86208,7 +89156,6 @@ "title": "“Pont du Carrousel”", "body": "Upon the bridge the blind man stands alone,\nGray like a mist veiled monument he towers\nAs though of nameless realms the boundary stone\nAbout which circle distant starry hours.\n\nHe seems the center around which stars glow\nWhile all earth’s ostentations surge below.\n\nImmovably and silently he stands\nPlaced where the confused current ebbs and flows;\nPast fathomless dark depths that he commands\nA shallow generation drifting goes 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -86217,6 +89164,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -86224,7 +89174,6 @@ "title": "“Presaging”", "body": "I am like a flag unfurled in space\nI scent the oncoming winds and must bend with them\nWhile the things beneath are not yet stirring\nWhile doors close gently and there is silence in the chimneys\nAnd the windows do not yet tremble and the dust is still heavy--\nThen I feel the storm and am vibrant like the sea\nAnd expand and withdraw into myself\nAnd thrust myself forth and am alone in the great storm.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -86233,6 +89182,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -86283,7 +89235,6 @@ "title": "“The Second Elegy”", "body": "Every Angel is terrible. Still, though, alas!\nI invoke you, almost deadly birdst of the soul,\nknowing what you are. Oh, where are the days of Tobias,\nwhen one of the shining-most stood on the simple threshold,\na little disguised for the journey, no longer appalling,\n(a youth to the youth as he curiously peered outside).\nLet the archangel perilous now, from behind the stars,\nstep but a step down hitherwards: high up-beating,\nour heart would out-beat us. Who are you?\nEarly successes, Creation’s pampered darlings,\nranges, summits, dawn-red ridges\nof all beginning,--pollen of blossoming godhead,\nhinges of light, corridors, stairways, thrones,\nspaces of being, shields of felicity, tumults\nof stormily-rapturous feeling, and suddenly, separate,\nmirrors, drawing up their own\noutstreamed beauty into their faces again.\nFor we, when we feel, evaporate; oh, we\nbreathe ourselves out and away; from ember to ember\nyielding a fainter scent. True, someone may tell us:\n‘You’ve got in my blood, the room, the Spring’s\ngrowing full of you’ 
 What is the use? He cannot retain us.\nWe vanish within and around him. And those that have beauty,\noh, who shall hold them back? Incessant appearance\ncomes and goes in their faces. Like dew from the morning grass\nexhales from us that which is ours, like heat\nfrom a smoking dish. O smile, whither? O upturned glance:\nnew, warm, vanishing wave of the heart--alas,\nbut we are all that. Does the cosmic space\nwe dissolve into taste of us, then? Do the angels really\nonly catch up what is theirs, what has streamed from them, or at times,\n\nas though through an oversight, is a little of our\nexistence in them as well? Is there just so much of us\nmixed with their features as that vague look in the faces\nof pregnant women? Unmarked by them in their whirling\nreturn to themselves. (How should they remark it?)\nLovers, if Angels could understand them, might utter\nstrange things in the midnight air. For it seems that everything is\ntrying to hide us. Look, the trees exist; the houses\nwe live in still stand where they were. We only\npass everything by like a transposition of air.\nAnd all combines to suppress us, partly as shame,\nperhaps, and partly as inexpressible hope.\nLovers, to you, each satisfied in the other,\nI turn with my question about us. You grasp yourselves. Have you proofs?\n\nLook, with me it may happen at times that my hands\ngrow aware of each other, or else that my hard-worn face\nseeks refuge within them. That gives me a little\nsensation. But who, just for that, could presume to exist?\nYou, though, that go on growing\nin the other’s rapture till, overwhelmed, he implores\n‘No more’; you that under each other’s hands\ngrow more abundant like vintage grapes;\nsinking at times, but only because the other\nhas to completely emerged; I ask you about us. I know\nwhy you so blissfully touch: because he caress persists,\nbecause it does not vanish, the place that you\nso tenderly cover; because you perceive thereunder\npure duration. Until your embraces almost\npromise eternity. Yet, when you’ve once withstood\nthe startled first encounter, the window-longing,\nand that first walk, just once, through the garden together:\nLovers, are you the same? When you lift yourselves\nup to each other’s lips--dring unto drink:\noh, how strangely the drinker eludes his part!\nOn Attic stelĂȘs, did not the circumspection\nof human gesture amazing? Were no love and farewell\nso lightly laid upon shoulders, they seemed to be made\nof other stuff than with us? Remember the hands,\nhow they rest without pressure, though power is there in the torsos.\n\nThe wisdom of those self-masters was this: we have got so far;\nours is to touch one another like this; the gods\nmay press more strongly upon us. But that is the gods’ affair.\nIf only we could discover some pure, contained,\nnarrow, human, own little strip of orchard\nin between river and rock! For our heart transcends us\njust as it did those others. And we can no longer\ngaze after it into figures that soothe it, or godlike\nbodies, wherein it achieves a grander restraint.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. B. Leishman & Stephen Spender", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Duineser Elegien", @@ -86292,6 +89243,10 @@ "year": 1923 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. B. Leishman", + "Stephen Spender" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -86315,7 +89270,6 @@ "title": "“The Seventh Elegy”", "body": "Not wooing, no longer shall wooing, voice that has outgrown it,\nbe now the form of your cry; though you cried as pure as the bird\nwhen the surging season uplifts him, almost forgetting\nhe is merely a fretful creature and not just a single heart\nshe is tossing to brightness, to intimate azure. No less\nthan he, you, too, would be wooing some silent companion\nto feel you, as yet unseen, some mate in whom a reply\nwas slowly awaking and warming itself as she listened,--\nyour own emboldened feeling’s glowing fellow-feeling.\nOh, and Spring would understand--not a nook would fail\nto re-echo annunciation. Re-echoing first the tiny\nquestioning pipe a purely affirmative day\nquietly invests all round with magnifying stillness.\nThen the long flight of steps, the call-steps, up to the dreamt-of\ntemple of what is to come;--then the trill, that fountain\ncaught as it rises by falling, in promiseful play,\nfor another thrusting jet 
 And before it, the Summer!\nNot only all the summer dawns, not only\nthe way they turn into day and shine before sunrise.\nNot only the days, so gentle round flowers, and, above,\naround the configured trees, so mighty and strong.\nNot only the fervour of these unfolded forces,\nnot only the walks, not only the evening meadows,\nnot only, after late thunder, the breathing clearness,\nnot only, with evening, sleep coming, and something surmised 
\nNo, but the nights as well! the lofty, the summer\nnights,--but the stars as well, the stars of the earth!\nOh, to be dead at last and endlessly know them,\nall the stars! For how, how, how to forget them!\nLook, I’ve been calling the lover. But not only she\nwould come 
 Out of unwithholding graves\ngirls would come and gather 
 For how could I limit\nthe call I had called? The sunken are always seeking\nearth again.--You children, I’d say, a single\nthing comprehended here is as good as a thousand.\nDon’t think Destiny is more than what is packed into childhood.\nHow often you’d overtake the beloved, panting,\npanting for blissful career, without end, into freedom!\nLife here is glorious! Even you knew it, you girls,\nwho went without, as it seemed, sank under,--you, in the vilest\nstreets of cities, festering, or open for refuse.\nFor to each was granted an hour,--perhaps not quite\nso much as an hour--some span that could scarcely be measured\nbe measures of time, in between two whiles, when she really\npossessed an existence. All. Veins full of existence.\nBut we so lightly forget what our laughing neighbour\nneither confirms nor envies. We want to be visibly\nable to show it, whereas the most visible joy\ncan only reveal itself to us when we’ve transformed it, within.\nNowhere, beloved, can world exist but within.\nLife passes in transformation. And, ever diminishing,\nvanishes what is outside. Where once was a lasting house,\nup starts some invented structure across our vision, as fully\nat home among concepts as though it still stood in a brain.\nSpacious garners of power are transformed by the Time Spirit, formless\nas that tense urge he is extracting from everything else.\nTemples he knows no longer. We are now more secretly saving\nsuch lavish expenses of heart. Nay, even where one survives,\none single thing once prayed or tended or knelt to,\nit is reaching, just as it is, into the unseen world.\nMany perceive it no more, but neglect the advantage\nof building it grandlier now, with pillars and statues, within!\nEach torpid turn of the world has such disinherited children,\nto whom no longer what has been, and not yet what is coming, belongs.\nFor the nearest, next coming, is remote for mankind. Though this\nshall not confuse us, shall rather confirm us in keeping\nstill recognisable form. This stood once among mankind,\nin the midst of not-knowing-whither, as though it existed, and bowed\nstars from established heavens towards it. Angel,\nI’ll show it to you as well--there! In your gaze\nit shall stand redeemed at last, in a final uprightness.\nPillars, pylons, the Sphinx, all the striving thrust,\ngrey, from fading or foreign town, of the spire!\nWasn’t all this a miracle? Angel, gaze, for it is we--\nO mightiness, tell them that we were capable of it--my breath is\ntoo short for this celebration. So, after all, we have not\nfailed to make use of the spaces, these generous spaces, these,\nour spaces. (How terribly big they must be,\nwhen, with thousands of years of our feeling, they’re not over-crowded.)\nBut a tower was great, was it not? Oh, Angel, it was, though,--\neven compared with you? Chartres was great--and music\ntowered still higher and passed beyond us. Why, even\na girl in love, alone, at her window, at night 
\ndid she not reach to your knee?\nDon’t think that I’m wooing!\nAngel, even if I were, you’d never come. For my call\nis always full of ‘Away!’ Against such a powerful\ncurrent you cannot advance. Like an outstretched\narm is my call. And its clutching, upwardly\nopen hand is always before you\nas open for warding and warning,\naloft there, Inapprehensible.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. B. Leishman & Stephen Spender", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Duineser Elegien", @@ -86324,6 +89278,10 @@ "year": 1923 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. B. Leishman", + "Stephen Spender" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -86331,7 +89289,6 @@ "title": "“Silent Hour”", "body": "Whoever now weeps somewhere in the world,\nweeps without reason in the world,\nweeps over me.\n\nWhoever now laughs somewhere in the night,\nlaughs without reason in the night,\nlaughs at me.\n\nWhoever now wanders somewhere in the world,\nwanders without reason out in the world,\nwanders toward me.\n\nWhoever now dies somewhere in the world,\ndies without reason in the world,\nlooks at me.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -86340,6 +89297,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "holy_thursday" @@ -86358,7 +89318,6 @@ "title": "“The Sixth Elegy”", "body": "Fig tree, how long it has been full meaning for me,\nthe way you almost entirely omit to flower\nand into the seaonably-resolute fruit\nuncelebratedly thrust your purest secret.\nLike the tube of a fountain, your bent bough drives the sap\ndownwards and up: and it leaps from its sleep, scarce waking,\ninto the joy of its sweetest achievement. Look,\nlike Jupiter into the swan.\n
 But we, we linger,\nalas, we glory in flowering; already betrayed\nwe reach the retarded core of our ultimate fruit.\nIn few the pressure of action rises so strongly\nthat already they’re stationed and glowing in fulness of heart,\nwhen, seductive as evening air, the temptation to flower,\ntouching the youth of their mouths, touching their eyelids, appears:\nonly in heroes, perhaps, and those marked for early removal,\nthose in whom gardening Death has differently twisted the veins.\nThese go plunging ahead: preceding their own\nvictorious smile, as the team of horse in the mildly-\nmoulded reliefs of Karnak the conquering King.\nYes, the Hero is strangely akin to the youthfully-dead. Continuance\ndoesn’t concern him. His rising existence. Time and again\nhe takes himself off and enters the changed constellation\nhis changeless peril has assumed. There few could find him. But Fate,\nwho deals so darkly with us, enraptured all of a sudden,\nsings him into the storm of her roaring world.\nNone do I hear like him. There suddenly rushing through me,\nborne by the streaming air, his dull-thunderous tone.\nAnd then how gladly I’d hide from the longing: oh would,\nwould that I were a boy and might come to it yet, and be sitting,\npropped upon arms still to be, and reading of Samson,\nhow his mother at first bore nothing, and, afterwards, all.\nWas he not hero already, within you, O mother, and did not\nhis lordly choice being there, already, within you?\nThousands were brewing in the womb and trying to be he,\nbut, look! he seized and discarded, chose and was able to do.\nAnd if ever he shattered columns, that was the time, when he burst\nout of the world of your body into the narrower world,\nwhere he went on choosing and doing. O mothers of heroes!\nSources of ravaging rivers! Gorges wherein,\nfrom high on the heart’s edge, weeping,\nmaids have already plunged, victims--to be for the son.\nFor whenever the Hero stormed through the halts of love,\neach heart beating for him could only lift him beyond it:\nturning away, he’d stand at the end of the smiles--another.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. B. Leishman & Stephen Spender", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Duineser Elegien", @@ -86367,6 +89326,10 @@ "year": 1923 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. B. Leishman", + "Stephen Spender" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -86404,7 +89367,6 @@ "title": "“Solitude”", "body": "Solitude is like a rain\nThat from the sea at dusk begins to rise;\nIt floats remote across the far-off plain\nUpward into its dwelling-place the skies\nThen o’er the town it slowly sinks again.\nLike rain it softly falls at that dim hour\nWhen ghostly lanes turn toward the shadowy morn;\nWhen bodies weighed with satiate passion’s power\nSad disappointed from each other turn;\nWhen men with quiet hatred burning deep\nTogether in a common bed must sleep--\nThrough the gray phantom shadows of the dawn\nLo! Solitude floats down the river wan 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -86413,6 +89375,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -86476,7 +89441,6 @@ "title": "“The Spanish Dancer”", "body": "As a lit match first flickers in the hands\nBefore it flames and darts out from all sides\nBright twitching tongues so ringed by growing bands\nOf spectators--she quivering glowing stands\nPoised tensely for the dance--then forward glides\n\nAnd suddenly becomes a flaming torch.\nHer bright hair flames her burning glances scorch\nAnd with a daring art at her command\nHer whole robe blazes like a fire-brand\nFrom which is stretched each naked arm awake\nGleaming and rattling like a frightened snake.\n\nAnd then as though the fire fainter grows\nShe gathers up the flame--again it glows\nAs with proud gesture and imperious air\nShe flings it to the earth; and it lies there\nFuriously flickering and crackling still--\nThen haughtily victorious but with sweet\nSwift smile of greeting she puts forth her will\nAnd stamps the flames out with her small firm feet.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "New Poems", @@ -86485,6 +89449,9 @@ "year": 1907 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -86524,7 +89491,6 @@ "title": "“The Tenth Elegy”", "body": "Someday, emerging at last from this terrifying vision,\nmay I burst into jubilant praise to assenting Angels!\nMay not even one of the clear-struck keys of the heart\nfail to respond through alighting on slack or doubtful\nor rending strings! May a new-found splendour appear\nin my streaming face! May inconspicuous Weeping\nflower! How dear you will be to me then, you Nights\nof Affliction! Oh, why did I not, inconsolable sisters,\nmore bendingly kneel to receive you, more loosely surrender\nmyself to your loosened hair? We wasters of sorrows!\nHow we stare away into sad endurance beyond them,\ntrying to foresee their end! Whereas they are nothing else\nthan our winter foliage, our sombre evergreen, one\nof the seasons of our interior year,--not only\nseasons--they’re also place, settlement, camp, soil, dwelling.\nStrange, though, alas! are the streets of the City of Pain,\nwhere, in the seeming stillness of uproar outroared,\nstoutly, a thing cast out from the mould of vacuity,\nswaggers that gilded fuss, the bursting memorial.\nHow an Angel would tread beyond trace their market of comfort,\nwith the church alongside, bought ready for use: as clean\nand disenchanted and shut as the Post on a Sunday!\nOutside, though, there is always the billowing edge of the fair.\nSwings of Freedom! Divers and Jugglers of Zeal!\nAnd the life-like shooting-ranges of bedizened Happiness: targets\ntumbling in tinny contortions whenever some better shot\nhappens to hit one. Cheer-struck, on he goes reeling\nafter his luck. For booths that can please\nthe most curious tastes are drumming and bawling. Especially\nworth seeing (for adults only): the breeding of money!\nAnatomy made amusing! Money’s organs on view!\nNothing concealed! Instructive, and guaranteed\nto increase fertility! 
\n
 Oh, and then just outside,\nbehind the last hoarding, plastered with placards for “Deathless,”\nthat bitter beer that tastes quite sweet to its drinkers\nso long as they chew with it plenty of fresh distractions,--\njust at the back of the hoardings, just behind them, it is real!\nChildren are playing, and lovers holding each other,--aside,\ngravely, in pitiful grass, and dogs are following nature.\nThe youth is drawn further on; perhaps he is in love with a youthful\nLament 
 He emerges behind her into the meadows, she says:\nA long way. We live out there 
\nWhere? And the youth\nfollows. He is touched by her manner. Her shoulder, her neck,--perhaps\nshe comes from a famous stock? But he leaves her, turns back,\nlooks round, nods 
 What is the use? She is just a Lament.\nOnly the youthfully-dead, in their first condition\nof timeless serenity, that of being weaned,\nfollow her lovingly. Girls\nshe awaits and befriends. Gently, she shows them\nwhat she is wearing. Pearls of Pain and the fine-spun\nVeils of Patience.--Youths\nshe walks with in silence.\nBut there, where they live, in the valley, one of the elder Laments\ntakes to the youth when he questions her:--We were once,\nshe says, a great family, we Lamentations. Our fathers\nworked the mines in that mountain-range: among men\nyou’ll find a lump, now and then, of polished original pain,\nor of drossy petrified rage from some old volcano.\nYes, that came from there. We used to be rich.\nAnd lightly she leads him on through the spacious landscape\nof Lamentations, shows him the temple columns, the ruins\nof towers from which, long ago, Lords of the House of Lament\nwisely governed the land. Shows him the tall\nTear trees, shows him the fields of flowering Sadness\n(only as tender foliage known to the living);\nshows him the pasturing herds of Grief,--and, at times,\na startled bird, flying straight through their field of vision,\nscrawls the far-stretching screed of its lonely cry.--\nAt evening she leads him on to the graves of the longest\nlived of the House of Lament, the sibyls and warners.\nBut, night approaching, they move more gently, and soon\nupsurges, bathed in moonlight, the all-\nguarding sepulchral stone. Twin-brother to that on the Nile,\nthe lofty Sphinx, the taciturn chamber’s gaze.\nAnd they start at the regal head that has silently poised,\nfor ever, the human face\non the scale of the stars.\nHis sight, still dizzy with early death,\ncan’t take it in. But her gaze\nfrightens an owl from behind the pschent. And the bird,\nbrushing, in slow neat-quitting, along the cheek,\nthe one with the ripest curve,\nfaintly inscribes on the new\ndeath-born hearing, as though on the double\npage of an opened book, the indescribable outline.\nAnd, higher, the stars. New ones. Stars of the Land of Pain.\nSlowly she names them: “There,\nlook: the Rider, the Staff, and that fuller constellation\nthey call Fruitgarland. Then, further, towards the Pole:\nCradle, Way, The Burning Book, Doll, Window.\nBut up in the southern sky, pure as within the palm\nof a consecrated hand, the clearly-resplendent M,\nstanding for Mothers 
”\nBut the dead must go on, and, in silence, the elder Lament\nbrings him as far as the gorge\nwhere it gleams in the moonlight,--\nthere, the source of Joy. With awe\nshe names it, says “Among men\nit is a carrying stream.”\nThey stand at the foot of the range.\nAnd there she embraces him, weeping.\nAlone, he climbs to the mountains of Primal Pain.\nAnd never once does his step resound from the soundless fate.\nAnd yet, were they waking a likeness within us, the endlessly dead,\nlook, they’d be pointing, perhaps, to the catkins, hanging\nfrom empty hazels, or else they’d be meaning the rain\nthat falls on the dark earth in the early Spring.\nAnd we, who have always thought\nof happiness climbing, would feel\nthe emotion that almost startles\nwhen happiness falls.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. B. Leishman & Stephen Spender", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Duineser Elegien", @@ -86533,6 +89499,10 @@ "year": 1923 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. B. Leishman", + "Stephen Spender" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -86544,7 +89514,6 @@ "title": "“The Third Elegy”", "body": "One thing to sing the beloved, another, alas!\nthat hidden guilty river-god of the blood.\nHe whom she knows from afar, her lover, what does he know\nof that Lord of Pleasure, who often, out of his lonely heart,\nbefore she had soothed him, often as though she did not exist,\nstreaming from, oh, what unknowable depths, would uplift\nhis god-head, uprousing the night to infinite uproar?\nOh, the Neptune within our blood, oh, his terrible trident!\nOh, the gloomy blast of his breast from the twisted shell!\nHark, how the night grows fluted and hollowed. You stars,\nis it not from you that the lover’s delight in the loved one’s\nface arises? Does not his intimate insight\ninto her purest face come from the purest stars?\nIt was not you, alas! It was not his mother\nthat bent his brows into such an expectant arch.\nNot to meet yours, girl feeling him, not to meet yours\ndid his lips begin to assume that more fruitful curve.\nDo you really suppose your gentle approach could have so\nconvulsed him, you, that wander like morning-breezes?\nYou terrified his heart, indeed; but more ancient terrors\nrushed into him in that instant of shattering contact.\nCall him 
 you can’t quite call him away from those sombre companions.\n\nTruly, he tries to, he does escape them; disburdenedly settles\ninto your intimate heart, receives and begins himself there.\nDid he ever begin himself, though?\nMother, you made him small, it was you that began him;\nhe was new to you, you arched over those new eyes\nthe friendly world, averting the one that was strange.\nWhere, oh where, are the years when you simply displaced\nfor him, with your slender figure, the surging abyss?\nYou hid so much form him then; made the nightly-suspected room\nharmless, and out of your heart full of refuge\nmingled more human space with that of his nights.\nNot in the darkness, no, but within your far nearer presence\nyou placed the light, and it shone as though out of friendship.\nNowhere a creak you could not explain with a smile,\nas though you had long known when the floor would behave itself thus 
\n\nAnd he listened to you and was soothed. So much it availed,\ngently, your coming; his tall cloaked destiny stepped\nbehind the chest of drawers, and his restless future,\nthat easily got out of place, conformed to the folds of the curtain.\nAnd he himself as he lay there in such relief,\nmingling, under his drowsy eyelids, the sweetness\nof your light shaping with the foretaste of coming sleep,\nseemed to be under protection 
 Within, though: who could avert,\ndivert, the floods of origin flowing within him?\nAlas! there was no caution within that sleeper; sleeping,\nyes, but dreaming, yes, but feverish: what he embarked on!\nHe, so new, so timorous, how he got tangled\nin ever-encroaching roots of inner event,\ntwisted to primitive patterns, to throttling growths, to bestial\npreying forms! How he gave himself up to it! Loved.\nLoved his interior world, his interior jungle,\nthat primal forest within, on whose mute overthrownness,\ngreen-lit, his heart stood. Loved. Left it, continued\ninto his own roots and out into violent beginning\nwhere his tiny birth was already outlived. Descended,\nlovingly, into the older blood, the ravines\nwhere Frightfulness lurked, still gorged with his fathers. And every\nterror knew him, and winked, and quite understood.\nYes, Horror smiled at him 
 Seldom\ndid you, Mother, smile so tenderly. How could he help\nloving what smiled at him? Long before you\nhe loved it, for, even while you bore him,\nit was there, dissolved in the water that lightens the seed.\nLook, we don’t love like flowers, with only a single\nseason behind us; immemorial sap\nmounts in our arms when we love. Oh, maid,\nthis: that we’ve loved, within, not one, still to come, but all\nthe innumerable fermentation; not just a single child,\nbut the fathers, resting like mountain-ruins\nwithin our depths;--but the dry river-bed\nof former mothers;--yes, and the whole of that\nsoundless landscape under its cloudy or\ncloudless destiny:--this got the start of you, maid.\nAnd you yourself, how can you tell,--you have conjured up\nprehistoric time in your lover. What feelings\nwhelmed up from beings gone by! What women\nhated you in him! What sinister men\nyou roused in his youthful veins! Dead children\nwere trying to reach you 
 Oh gently, gently\nshow him daily a loving, confident task done,--guide him\nclose to the garden, give him those counter-\nbalancing nights 
\nWithhold him 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. B. Leishman & Stephen Spender", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Duineser Elegien", @@ -86553,6 +89522,10 @@ "year": 1923 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. B. Leishman", + "Stephen Spender" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -86592,7 +89565,6 @@ "title": "“The Tomb of a Young Girl”", "body": "We still remember! The same as of yore\nAll that has happened once again must be.\nAs grows a lemon-tree upon the shore--\nIt was like that--your light small breasts you bore\nAnd his blood’s current coursed like the wild sea.\n\nThat god--who was the wanderer the slim\nDespoiler of fair women; he--the wise--\nBut sweet and glowing as your thoughts of him\nWho cast a shadow over your young limb\nWhile bending like your arched brows o’er your eyes.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "New Poems", @@ -86601,6 +89573,9 @@ "year": 1907 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -86683,11 +89658,14 @@ "title": "“What will you do, God, when I die? 
”", "body": "What will you do, God, when I die?\nI am your jar (if cracked, I lie?)\nYour well-spring (if the well go dry?)\nI am your craft, your vesture I--\nYou lose your purport, losing me.\n\nWhen I go, your cold house will be\nEmpty of words that made it sweet.\nI am the sandals your bare feet\nWill seek and long for, wearily.\n\nYour cloak will fall from aching bones.\nYour glance, that my warm cheeks have cheered\nAs with a cushion long endeared,\nWill wonder at a loss so weird;\nAnd, when the sun has disappeared,\nLie in the lap of alien stones.\n\nWhat will you do, God? I am feared.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Babette Deutsch & Avrahm Yarmolinsky", + "language": "German", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch", + "Avrahm Yarmolinsky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -86714,7 +89692,6 @@ "title": "“The Woman Who Loves”", "body": "Ah yes! I long for you. To you I glide\nAnd lose myself--for to you I belong.\nThe hope that hitherto I have denied\nImperious comes to me as from your side\nSerious unfaltering and swift and strong.\n\nThose times: the times when I was quite alone\nBy memories wrapt that whispered to me low\nMy silence was the quiet of a stone\nOver which rippling murmuring waters flow.\n\nBut in these weeks of the awakening Spring\nSomething within me has been freed--something\nThat in the past dark years unconscious lay\nWhich rises now within me and commands\nAnd gives my poor warm life into your hands\nWho know not what I was that Yesterday.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jessie Lemont", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "The Book of Images", @@ -86723,6 +89700,9 @@ "year": 1902 } }, + "translators": [ + "Jessie Lemont" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -86995,7 +89975,6 @@ "title": "“Absence”", "body": "In our hands we hold the shadow of our hands.\nThe night is kind--the others do not see us holding our shadow\nWe reinforce the night. We watch ourselves.\nSo we think better of others.\nThe sea still seeks our eyes and we are not there.\nA young girl buttons up her love in her breast\nand we look away smiling at the great distance.\nPerhaps high up, in the starlight, a skylight opens up\nthat looks out on the sea, the olive trees and the burnt houses\nWe listen to the butterfly gyrating in the glass of All Souls’ Day,\nand the fisherman’s daughter grinding serenity in her coffee-grinder.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87005,6 +89984,9 @@ "month": "august" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "all_souls" @@ -87015,7 +89997,6 @@ "title": "“Achievement”", "body": "What we had expected like the justification of our lives\nwas achieved. No trace of desire, recall or terror\nremained in the center of our cells.\nTwo hollow bodies cast on the shore of the night.\nLater as you were putting on your stockings--I looked closely at the bed,\nit was a very ancient animal turned into marble in the stance of coition\ntreading with his four dead feet into the void.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87025,6 +90006,9 @@ "month": "august" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87032,7 +90016,6 @@ "title": "“The Architect”", "body": "A group of young girls wearing flowery dresses\nlaugh again at the corner of a ramshackle house. The builders\nhang their trousers and their shirts on a nail of the new edifice,\nthey take the hod-carrier, the trowel, and they climb up\nthe huge, naked scaffolding as if they were climbing up to heaven. The architect\ncalculates, he remembers, he compares, he supervises,\nhe appears a bit saddened, as if his blueprint had been left half-completed,\nas if the enormous edifice will never be completed. He takes a nail\nand he himself sinks it down into the plank. The nail goes in crooked.\nThe workers laughed. He also laughed. He took off his shirt,\nsensing that in this their general laughter, his hands,\nhis blue-print and their edifice had been completed.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87042,6 +90025,9 @@ "month": "february" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87076,7 +90062,6 @@ "title": "“Estrangement”", "body": "Only a flower immersed in its perfume,\na face anchored in its smile;--\n--does it exist? doesn’t it exist? lost;\nif you speak to it it will return, as if after thousands of years,\nperplexed, inept--it will not know its whereabouts, it will not know\nwhat expression to assume that will be a response.\nThere is a praying stool of stone in an old, abandoned street.\nEvery so often, at twilight, he walks down his marble stairway,\nhe gathers wild flowers from among the rocks,\nhe makes a wreath and he hangs it on his sacred image. Every so often\nsome strayaway sheep stands there as if it is praying,\nchewing slowly, stupidly, the withered wreath.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87086,6 +90071,9 @@ "month": "february" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87101,7 +90089,6 @@ "title": "“The Heard and the Unheard”", "body": "A sudden unexpected motion; the palm of his hand\nmade a fist over his wound to stanch the blood\neven though we had not heard any gun-shot,\nnor the whizz of the bullet. A little later,\nhe lowered his hand and he smiled to himself;\nbut again slowly he placed the palm of his hand\nover the same spot; he took out his wallet,\npaid the boy politely and departed.\nAnd the coffee cup cracked of itself.\nThat at least we heard very clearly.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87111,6 +90098,9 @@ "month": "february" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87118,7 +90108,6 @@ "title": "“His Lamp”", "body": "The lamp is peaceful, serviceable; he prefers it\nto any other lighting. He adjusts his light\nto the needs of the moment, to the age-old\nunavowable desire. And always\nthis odor of kerosene, this subtle presence,\nvery unobtrusive, at night, when he returns alone\nwith so much fatigue in his limbs, so much futility\nin the texture of his coat, in the seams of the pockets,\nthat every movement seems useless, unendurable--\nonce more, to distract him, here’s the lamp--the wick,\nthe match, the flickering flame (with its shadows\non the bed, on the desk, on the walls), but especially\nthe glass cover--its fragile transparency\nwhich, in a simple and human gesture,\nonce more involves you: in saving yourself or in saving.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bertrand Mathieu", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87128,6 +90117,9 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "translators": [ + "Bertrand Mathieu" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87135,7 +90127,6 @@ "title": "“His Lamp at the Break of Day”", "body": "Well now, good evening; here they both are again, face to face,\nhe and his lamp--he loves it, even though he seems\nindifferent and self-absorbed; and not solely\nbecause it’s useful to him, but also and especially\nbecause it insists on his caring.--Fragile relic\nof antique Greek lamps, it collects around itself\nmemories and insects conscious of the night, it wipes out\nthe wrinkles of old people, it enlarges brows,\nit magnifies the shadows of adolescent bodies, it covers up\nwith a soft glow the whiteness of empty pages\nand the hidden crimson of poems. And when,\nat dawn, its light grows dim and blends with\nthe pink of day, with the first noises\nof shutters, of push-carts, of fruit peddlers,\nit’s a palpable symbol of his own vigil, and more:\na bridge of glass that connects his eyeglass lenses with the glass of the lamp,\nthe lamp with the glass of the windows, as far as outdoors, as far as the distance and farther still--\na bridge of glass that holds him up over the city, at the heart of the city,\ncombining now, of its own free will, the night and the day.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bertrand Mathieu", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87145,6 +90136,9 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "translators": [ + "Bertrand Mathieu" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87160,8 +90154,10 @@ "title": "“If Only I Had the Immortal’s Potion”", "body": "If only I had the immortals’ potion if only I had\nA new soul to give you, if only you’d wake for a moment,\n\nTo see and to speak and delight in the whole of your dream\nStanding right there by your side, next to you, bursting with life.\n\nRoadways and public places, balconies, lanes in an uproar,\nyoung maidens are picking flowers to sprinkle on your hair.\n\nMy fragrant forest full of tens of thousands of roots and leaves,\nhow can I the ill-fated believe I can ever lose you?\n\nMy son, all things have vanished and abandoned me back here\nI have no eyes and cannot see, no mouth to let me speak.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Amy Mims", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Amy Mims" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -87172,7 +90168,6 @@ "title": "“Immobility of the Voyage”", "body": "Enormous nocturnal steamers arrested in their lights--\nthe stewards, the porters, the automobiles, the naval guard,\nvalises made of leather, pasted with foreign stamps,\ndomestic baskets of reed or of wicker, a disconcerted goat,\nlong lingering farewells, up above by the masts.\n\nYou heard neither voice nor sob.--Is it perhaps that you did not notice?\nEverything was mute and spectral--motionless\nin movement--phantoms of other epochs and countries.\n\nThe harbor is petrified in the perpetually moving lights,\nwithin the reflections of the deep. The pier,\na prodigious pure white cube of silence\nand the voyage is neither a leave-taking nor a home-coming--an ethereal bridge\nover names that are familiar and names that are unfamiliar. And on this bridge,\ndressed in his white uniform, the youthful captain slowly paced.\n(Or was it perhaps the moon?)", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87182,6 +90177,9 @@ "month": "february" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87189,7 +90187,6 @@ "title": "“Injustice”", "body": "Night. Only a single glance. A noiseless bullet.\nThe metal shield of loneliness is riddled with holes.\nThat fragmented rotundity.\nAnd pride on her knees.\n\nBeloved night. Beloved wound.\nThe road, the sky, the stars,--exist\nthat they might sink once more. Only a single glance.\nOutside of the loneliness the great peril\nof loneliness is lying in wait--beloved peril\nto measure yourself with another and the right to be yours\nand the whole injustice of it that the other person is also right.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87199,6 +90196,9 @@ "month": "august" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87206,7 +90206,6 @@ "title": "“The Lamp that Goes Out”", "body": "Comes the hour of immense lassitude. Dazzling forenoon,\ninsidious--it marks the end of another of his nights, it goes\nthe smooth remorse of the mirror one better, maliciously etching\ntraces around the lips and the eyes. From here on out\nwhat good are the affability of the lamp and the closing of shutters.\nInexorable awareness of the end of the sheets where the hot breath\nof a summer night cools down, where only a few ringlets\nnipped from youthful curls remain--a severed chain--\nthat self-same chain--who devised it? No,\nwhat good are memory and poetry. And yet,\nat the very last moment, before falling asleep, bending\nover the glass of the lamp\nto blow out the flame so it too will go out--he realizes\nhe’s blowing right into the crystalline ear of eternity\nan immortal word that’s his alone, his own breath, the moaning of matter.\nHow the smoke from the lamp embalms his room at dawn!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bertrand Mathieu", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87216,6 +90215,9 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "translators": [ + "Bertrand Mathieu" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -87226,7 +90228,6 @@ "title": "“Last Hour”", "body": "A perfume lingered in his room, nothing but memory\nperhaps, or a whiff of the spring evening\nthrough the half-open window. He set aside\nthe things he had to take along. He covered the big mirror\nwith a sheet. At his fingertips as always\nthe feel of well-knit bodies\nand, a bit lonelier, that of his pen--nothing unexpected:\nsure-fire combination for poetry. He didn’t want\nto trick anyone. He was nearing the end. He asked\none more time: “Is it a question of gratitude or of the will\nto gratitude?” His two old man’s slippers were sticking out\nfrom under his bed. He hadn’t bothered\nto cover them again--(O no doubt long ago). Only\nas he was putting the key in the pocket of his sweater\nhe sat down on his suit-case, in the middle of the room,\nand, all alone, began to cry, measuring\nfor the first time with this much precision his own innocence.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bertrand Mathieu", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87236,6 +90237,9 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "translators": [ + "Bertrand Mathieu" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87243,7 +90247,6 @@ "title": "“The Legacy”", "body": "No doubt, the one who died was an eminent being,\nunequalled; he’s bequeathed us a much better measure\nto measure ourselves and especially to measure our neighbor:\n--so-and-so no taller than this,\ninfinitesimal, that one skimpy, and a third\nas spindle-legged as a gawk--not one\nwho doesn’t have his price: nothing, not a thing.\nNothing but ourselves making use of this measure\nfor all its worth--but what measure are you talking about?\nIt must be Nemesis, the archangel’s sword.\nBy now we’ve got it polished, able hereafter\nto sever everything head after head.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bertrand Mathieu", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87253,6 +90256,9 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "translators": [ + "Bertrand Mathieu" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87260,7 +90266,6 @@ "title": "“The Meaning of Simplicity”", "body": "I hide myself behind simple objects so you may find me,\nif you do not fund me, you will fund the objects,\nyou will touch those objects my hand has touched\nthe traces of our hands will mingle.\n\nThe August moon gleams like a tin kitchen kettle\n(what I am telling you becomes like that),\nit lights the empty table and silence kneeling in the house\nsilence is always kneeling.\n\nEvery single word is an exodus\nfor a meeting, cancelled many times,\nit is a true word when it insists on the meeting.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87270,6 +90275,9 @@ "month": "august" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -87280,7 +90288,6 @@ "title": "“A Minimum Delay”", "body": "At the very last moment, when you thought it would crumble to the bottom\nthe noise of the speed of the fall transmitted it into light,\ninto a soft light, while at the same time it had the presentiment\nthat the shut-in and the asphyxiated were becoming open and free.\n\nThere, at the foot of the cliff, a broader meadow spread out,\nmusical hills, trees as if on knees bent beneath the weight of their fruit\nthe verdant light of the moss puts an adolescent fluff on the legs of the statues\nand the perilous ravines that terrified them as it fell,\nwere the attractive antinomies, the indispensable ones for the knowledge of the extent.\n\nA little patience then. A delay of only a second,\nonly as much as is needed to remove his glove or his skin,\nto squeeze more tightly the naked flesh of our hand.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87290,6 +90297,9 @@ "month": "august" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87297,7 +90307,6 @@ "title": "“Misunderstandings”", "body": "His equivocations, unbearable. They put us to the test,\nand he himself is burdened by them; he clearly betrays\nhis confusion, his indecision, his ignorance, his cowardice,\nhis lack of firm principles. “Words,” he says,\n“are--not really drops of blood--I’d summon to mind rather when it rains\nand the puddles of water are stained by the red station signal--\nwords, so to speak--a transfusion, an identification, unprecedented encounter, poetry.”\nThen he was silent. He was tricking us. What rain? What words? What blood?\nWho’d said that? Was it us? There’s no doubt he wants to trap us\nin his own incoherences. But he kept on looking somewhere in the distance,\nappearing generous and forbearing (like those who need others to be that way toward them)\nin a spotless shirt, a lead-gray suit, impeccable,\na chrysanthemum in his buttonhole. In spite of it all,\nwhen he left we detected on the floor where he’d been standing\na little pool of bright red, of exquisite design,\nlike a rough map of Greece, like a map of the world\nwith quite a few omissions and inaccuracies in the layout of the frontiers,\nfrontiers that were practically invisible in the uniformity of the color,\na map of the world in a school completely empty and closed, in July,\nwhere all the students have gone to the seashore for a tremendous and dazzling trip.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bertrand Mathieu", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87307,6 +90316,9 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "translators": [ + "Bertrand Mathieu" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -87317,7 +90329,6 @@ "title": "“Moment”", "body": "An exhausted maritime district. The lamps are getting drowsy\nMiserable beer saloons in a row like poverty-stricken women\nwho wait in front of the Municipal Hospital.\nThe street is dark. They thought they would go to bed early. Suddenly\nthe beer saloons were illuminated up to the very last chairs\nby the pure white laughter of an adolescent. And directly after,\nthe vast expanse of the sea was heard, invincible, undivided.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87327,6 +90338,9 @@ "month": "february" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87334,8 +90348,11 @@ "title": "“Moonlight Sonata”", "body": "I know that each one of us travels to love alone,\nalone to faith and to death.\nI know it. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t help.\nLet me come with you.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Peter Green & Beverly Bardsley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Peter Green", + "Beverly Bardsley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87343,8 +90360,10 @@ "title": "“My star, you’ve set 
”", "body": "My star, you’ve set, fading out in the dark, all Creation has set,\nand the sun, a black ball of twine, has gathered in its bright light\n\nCrowds keep passing by and jostling me, soldiers trample on me,\nbut my own gaze never swerves and my eyes never leave you.\n\nThe misty aura of your breath I feel against my cheek;\nah, a buoyant great light’s a-float at the end of the road.\n\nThe palm of a hand bathed in light is wiping the tears from my eyes;\nah my son, the words you spoke rush into my innermost core.\n\nAnd look now; I’ve risen again, my limbs can still stand firm;\na blithe light, my brave lad; has lifted me up from the ground.\n\nNow you are shrouded in banners. My child, now go to sleep\nI’m on my way to your brothers, beaming your voice with me.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Amy Mims", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Amy Mims" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87363,7 +90382,6 @@ "title": "“Not Unsuspecting”", "body": "Not that he was unsuspecting\nnor less just and sincere--\noften he had seen beyond the smile of the mirror\nall of the ineffable night and her ramifications\noften he had seen in the mirror\nnot the face but the skull.\n\nHowever the tiny reflections on the window panes again convinced him,\nthe convalescence of the furniture, the calm look of the morning\nthat made no demands, requested no control,--these thin little lines\non the floor left by the passing of the broom convinced him.\n\nThen there was a woman who smiled,\nsoftly, ardently, a fluffy smile,\nlike the blanket hanging on the window,\nheated by the sun.\n\nAnd he felt in his nostrils the presentiment of ocean freshness.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87373,6 +90391,9 @@ "month": "august" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87380,8 +90401,10 @@ "title": "“On a day in May you left me 
”", "body": "On a day in May you left me, on that May day I lost you,\nin springtime you loved so well, my son, when you went upstairs,\n\nTo the sun-drenched roof and looked out and your eyes never had\ntheir lill of drinking in the light of the whole wide world at large.\n\nWith your manly voice so sweet and so warm, you recounted\nas many things as all the pebbles strewn along the seashore.\n\nMy son, you told me that all these wonderful things will be ours,\nbut now your light has died out, our brightness and fire are gone.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Amy Mims", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Amy Mims" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -87392,7 +90415,6 @@ "title": "“On the Subject of Form”", "body": "He announced: “Form is neither invented nor imposed, it’s\ncontained in its material and reveals itself every now and then\nin its impulse toward an outcome.” Commonplaces, we answered.\nabstract notions--what revelations is he talking about? He said nothing further,\nhe stuck his chin between his two hands like a word\nbetween quotes--his indistinct cigarette remained\nin his closed lips--a white dash glowing\nin place of the points of suspension which he omitted on principle\n(or perhaps unconsciously) not to draw attention to his own silence.\n\nIn that attitude, it vaguely seemed to us that he was waiting\nin a little railroad station under the shelter\nwhere for a brief instant, on a winter night,\nsome solitary travelers, with that taste they share for coal,\nfor the unlikely, for the voyage, and for the absolute\nin their secret and age-old company, meet. The smoke from the train\nwas floating, placidly, above the two horizontal beams\nof the headlights, compact and sculptural, between\ntwo departures. He put out his cigarette and left.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bertrand Mathieu", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87402,6 +90424,9 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "translators": [ + "Bertrand Mathieu" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -87412,7 +90437,6 @@ "title": "“Posthumous”", "body": "Many people laid claim to him, quarreled around him,\nperhaps because of his apparel--a strange outfit,\nsolemn, imposing, yet not without a certain charm,\na certain dash, like those phantasmal clothes worn by the gods\nwhen they consorted with humans--disguised,\nand while they were transacting business in a common tongue, abruptly--we’re told--\na fold of their garment would blow outward with the breath of the infinite or the beyond.\nWell then, they quarreled. But what could he do about it? They ripped\nhis clothes and his undergarments, they even tore off his belt. He became nothing more\nthan an ordinary mortal, stripped naked, in a state of utter shame. Everybody\nabandoned him. It was at that very spot that he turned into stone. Many years later\nthey discovered there the brilliant statue--\ntall, nude, haughty, made of Pentelic marble,\nof the Eternal Ephebe HeautontimoroĂșmenos--that’s the name they gave him.\nThey covered him up with a large canvas and prepared\nan exceptional ceremony for the public unveiling.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bertrand Mathieu", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87422,6 +90446,9 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "translators": [ + "Bertrand Mathieu" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87437,7 +90464,6 @@ "title": "“Rainy”", "body": "Poor music of Saturday night\ncoming from the dancing school in the neighborhood,\npoor music, frozen by the cold, by the clog-dancing shoes,\nevery time the unpainted door is flung open, it flies out on the streets,\nit shivers with the cold under the lantern on the corner,\nit casts a glance upward at a tall window, or at the night,\nand then it casts its glance down to the mud,\nit looks for something, it expects something\nas if someone is ailing and the doctor is late.\n\nPoor music. It is cold. Nobody is opening the window\nto treat you to a litle lamplight, to a few black raisins,\nto tell you: “I remember,” twenty or thirty years ago\nsome echoes of old carriages in the rain,\na vapoury landscape painted on the spectacles of a certain poet.\n\nBut the shoes are full of holes and covered with mud.\nThe young couples are hurrying down the street, they do not hear.\nSomebody has stopped, standing close against the wall. He does not hear you, no.\nHe is pasting something on the wall. Only the knife\non the table is a thought and a lustre.\n\nPoor music, if you can squeeze in,\nenter through the holey elbow of the neighborhood.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87447,6 +90473,9 @@ "month": "february" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "saturday", @@ -87458,7 +90487,6 @@ "title": "“Recollection”", "body": "A warm aroma had remained on the armpits of her coat.\nHer coat on the hanger in the corridor like a drawn curtain.\nWhat was happening now, belonged to another time. The light altered the faces,\nall unfamiliar. And if someone was about to enter the house\nthat empty coat lifted its arms slowly, bitterly\nand silently it shut the door once more.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87468,6 +90496,9 @@ "month": "february" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87475,7 +90506,6 @@ "title": "“Shelters”", "body": "“Expressing oneself,” he said, “doesn’t mean saying something\nbut simply talking; and the fact of talking\nmeans exposing oneself:--how do we talk?”\nHis silence became so transparent at that moment\nthat it concealed him completely behind the curtain\nwhile he pretended to be looking out the window.\nBut--it was as if he felt our eyes on his back--\nhe turned around, allowing his face to show\nas if he were wearing a long white tunic,\nrather comical, rather unfashionable in our era,\nand it was certainly intentional (he preferred it) because he figured\nthat this way he would stave off\nour suspicion, our hostility, or our pity\nor that he was conceding us an excuse\nfor our admiration in the future (which he’d predicted).", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bertrand Mathieu", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87485,6 +90515,9 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "translators": [ + "Bertrand Mathieu" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87492,7 +90525,6 @@ "title": "“Suspicious Sleep”", "body": "Up there, at the edge of the sky, a little above the mountain,\na tiny little star shrieked out its happiness,\n--in a voice both rhythmic and dissonant\nlike that of the small vegetable dealer who shrieks out the first fruits of summer,\n--in a voice so persistent, almost to seem desolate.\nAnd you felt guilty for lacking the desire,\nthat you could not respond. At least not to have seen,\nnot to have understood. Guilty,\nnot reckoning the guilt of others. Alone by yourself you have loaded\nall responsibility on your shoulders. Then you understood\nyour utter innocence. You went into the house not to see any more,\nand dressed as you were and with your shoes on, you lay down and went to sleep.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87502,6 +90534,9 @@ "month": "august" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87509,7 +90544,6 @@ "title": "“Twilight”", "body": "You’re familiar with that moment of twilight in the summer\nin the locked room; a feeble pinkish reflection\nslanted across the beams of the ceiling; and the poem\nunfinished on the table--two lines and not a jot more\nthe unkept promise of a marvelous journey,\nof a certain freedom, a certain autonomy,\na certain immortality (relative, quite naturally).\n\nOutside, in the street, already the call of the night,\nthe nimble shadows of divinities, of human beings, of bikes,\nat the hour when work places let out and the young workmen\nwith their tools, their drenched and scruffy hair,\nand their threadbare clothes all smirched with quicklime\ndisappear into the apotheosis of clouds at nightfall.\nEight brisk strokes of the clock, at the top of the stairs,\nin the hollow of the passageway--the inexorable strokes\nof an imperative hammer hidden behind the darkened\nglass--and at that exact moment the age-old sound\nof those keys about which he’s never been able to make up his mind\nwhether they’re unlocking or passing judgment.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bertrand Mathieu", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87519,6 +90553,9 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "translators": [ + "Bertrand Mathieu" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -87529,7 +90566,6 @@ "title": "“Ultimate Landing”", "body": "It was a beautiful nocturnal adventure in a dead landscape,\na voyage almost without a where or a why--\ndiaphanous, ethereal colors, like mystic flowers without any form,\nI do not recall that we even sensed the perfume. Light of the moon\non the shivering shoulders of the statues. Certainly some statues of juveniles\nwere pacing soundlessly in the Municipal Garden, and perhaps they were feeding the swans of the lake.\n\nAfterward, I believe, the military trucks passed by, blindly, looking straight ahead of them, full of conquered infantrymen,\nand dead sergeant-majors, with eyes wide open, were driving them.\nThe noise of the motors was not heard, and this we felt\nAs something improbable and somewhat suspect; like the first lack in the nocturnal magic.\n\nEverybody became quiet, fatigued by a futile, almost pursued intensity,\nand the seconds were heard falling in the silence\nlike the dandruff on the black jacket of the dead man.\n\nThen, unexpectedly, someone banged his fist on the table.\n“What is it?” we inquired. “What was it?” Precisely that. Nothing else.\nA square of sunlight was falling on the floor. And it was day.\nIn the corner, a woman made the sight of the cross and said for no reason: “God be praised.”\nA little later, the wheels of the grocery wagon were heard,\nfamiliar, positive and useful, on a level with the house.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87539,6 +90575,9 @@ "month": "february" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87546,8 +90585,10 @@ "title": "“Whenever you stood near the window 
”", "body": "Whenever you stood near the window, your brawny shoulder-blades\nfilled up the whole entranceway, the sea and the fishermen’s boats\n\nThe house overflowed with your shadow, tall as an archangel,\nand the bright bud of the evening-star sparkled up there in your ear.\n\nOur window was the gateway for all the world, leading out\ntowards paradise, my dear night, where the stars were all in bloom.\n\nAs you stood there with your gaze fixed on the glimmering sunset,\nyou looked like a helmsman steering a ship, which was your own room.\n\nln the warm blue twilight of evening--ahoy, away--\nyou sailed me straight into the stillness of the milky way.\n\nBut now this ship has foundered, its rudder has broken down,\nand down in the depths of the ocean, I’m drifting all alone.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Amy Mims", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Amy Mims" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87563,7 +90604,6 @@ "title": "“Without Position”", "body": "What was wide and serious like a foot stepping down\non the first rock at a tempestuous hour, before night had actually fallen,\nand the stars had left a noise like the flasks of an army that suddenly spread over the earth,--\nthat terrified him. He let out a little cry, like a sparrow over the well.\nThe only thing he managed to hear was his own voice, he thought it was funny,\nand one moment, in his terror, the audacity of even this characteristic intoxicated him.\n\nConsider then, how the others must have been terrified. He turned back\nbefore he could get to feel gratitude\nfor the journey or for his weariness.\nAnd he found everyone’s censure justified\nand justifying too for him to be proud of his justice.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rae Dalven", "language": "Greek", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -87573,6 +90613,9 @@ "month": "august" } }, + "translators": [ + "Rae Dalven" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87580,8 +90623,10 @@ "title": "“You Were Kind and Sweet of Temper”", "body": "You were kind and sweet of temper, all the good graces were yours,\nall the wind’s caresses, all the gillyflowers of the garden.\n\nYou were light of foot, treading as softly as a gazelle,\nwhen you stepped past our threshold it always glittered like gold\n\nI drew youth from your youth and to boot, I could even smile.\nOld age never daunted me and death I could disregard.\n\nBut now where can I hold my ground? Where can I find shelter?\nI’m stranded like a withered tree in a plain buried in snow.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Amy Mims", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Amy Mims" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -87592,8 +90637,10 @@ "title": "“Your Sweet Scented Lips”", "body": "My fingers would slip through your curly hair, all through the night,\nwhile you were fast asleep and I was keeping watch by your side.\n\nYour eyebrows well shaped, as if drawn with a delicate pencil,\nseemed to sketch an arch where my gaze could nestle and be at rest.\n\nYour glistening eyes reflected the distances of the sky\nat dawn and I tried to keep a single tear from misting them.\n\nYour sweetly scented lips, whenever you spoke, made the boulders\nand blighted trees blossom and nightingales flutter their wings.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Amy Mims", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Amy Mims" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -87637,8 +90684,10 @@ "title": "“A Poem that Has No Title”", "body": "To my Creator I sing\nWho did soothe me in my great loss;\nTo the Merciful and Kind\nWho in my troubles gave me repose.\n\nThou with that pow’r of thine\nSaid: Live! And with life myself I found;\nAnd shelter gave me thou\nAnd a soul impelled to the good\nLike a compass whose point to the North is bound.\n\nThou did make me descend\nFrom honorable home and respectable stock,\nAnd a homeland thou gavest me\nWithout limit, fair and rich\nThough fortune and prudence it does lack.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Nick Joaquin", "language": "Tagalog", + "translators": [ + "Nick Joaquin" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -87646,8 +90695,10 @@ "title": "“To the Virgin Mary”", "body": "Mary, sweet peace and dearest consolation\nof suffering mortal: you are the fount whence springs\nthe current of solicitude that brings\nunto our soil unceasing fecundation.\n\nFrom your abode, enthroned on heaven’s height,\nin mercy deign to hear my cry of woe\nand to the radiance of your mantle draw\nmy voice that rises with so swift a flight.\n\nYou are my mother, Mary, and shall be\nmy life, my stronghold, my defense most thorough;\nand you shall be my guide on this wild sea.\n\nIf vice pursues me madly on the morrow,\nif death harasses me with agony:\ncome to my aid and dissipate my sorrow!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Nick Joaquin", "language": "Tagalog", + "translators": [ + "Nick Joaquin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "immaculate_conception" @@ -87794,19 +90845,36 @@ "name": "Theodore Roethke", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1908 + "year": 1908, + "month": "may", + "day": 25 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Saginaw", + "state": "Michigan", + "country": "USA" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1963 + "year": 1963, + "month": "august", + "day": 1 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Bainbridge Island", + "state": "Washington", + "country": "USA" } }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ "poet" ], - "education": null, + "education": { + "bachelors": "University of Michigan", + "masters": "Harvard University" + }, "movement": [], "religion": null, "nationality": [ @@ -88035,12 +91103,12 @@ "title": "“From the Antique”", "body": "It’s a weary life, it is, she said:\nDoubly blank in a woman’s lot:\nI wish and I wish I were a man:\nOr, better then any being, were not:\n\nWere nothing at all in all the world,\nNot a body and not a soul:\nNot so much as a grain of dust\nOr a drop of water from pole to pole.\n\nStill the world would wag on the same,\nStill the seasons go and come:\nBlossoms bloom as in days of old,\nCherries ripen and wild bees hum.\n\nNone would miss me in all the world,\nHow much less would care or weep:\nI should be nothing, while all the rest\nWould wake and weary and fall asleep.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1852, "month": "december", "day": 10 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december", @@ -88081,12 +91149,12 @@ "title": "“Ash Wednesday”", "body": "I.\n\nMy God, my God, have mercy on my sin,\nFor it is great; and if I should begin\nTo tell it all, the day would be too small\nTo tell it in.\n\nMy God, Thou wilt have mercy on my sin\nFor Thy Love’s sake: yea, if I should begin\nTo tell This all, the day would be too small\nTo tell it in.\n\n\nII.\n\nGood Lord, today\nI scarce find breath to say:\nScourge, but receive me.\nFor stripes are hard to bear, but worse\nThy intolerable curse;\nSo do not leave me.\n\nGood Lord, lean down\nIn pity, tho’ Thou frown;\nSmite, but retrieve me:\nFor so Thou hold me up to stand\nAnd kiss Thy smiting hand,\nIt less will grieve me.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1859, "month": "march", "day": 21 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "ash_wednesday" @@ -88526,11 +91594,11 @@ "title": "“Cobwebs”", "body": "It is a land with neither night nor day,\nNor heat nor cold, nor any wind, nor rain,\nNor hills nor valleys; but one even plain\nStretches thro’ long unbroken miles away:\nWhile thro’ the sluggish air a twilight grey\nBroodeth; no moons or seasons wax and wane,\nNo ebb and flow are there among the main,\nNo bud-time no leaf-falling there for aye,\nNo ripple on the sea, no shifting sand,\nNo beat of wings to stir the stagnant space,\nAnd loveless sea: no trace of days before,\nNo guarded home, no time-worn restingplace\nNo future hope no fear forevermore.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1855, "month": "october" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -88793,9 +91861,6 @@ "title": "“Enrica”", "body": "She came among us from the South\n And made the North her home awhile\n Our dimness brightened in her smile,\nOur tongue grew sweeter in her mouth.\n\nWe chilled beside her liberal glow,\n She dwarfed us by her ampler scale,\n Her full-blown blossom made us pale,\nShe summer-like and we like snow.\n\nWe Englishwomen, trim, correct,\n All minted in the self-same mould,\n Warm-hearted but of semblance cold,\nAll-courteous out of self-respect.\n\nShe woman in her natural grace,\n Less trammelled she by lore of school,\n Courteous by nature not by rule,\nWarm-hearted and of cordial face.\n\nSo for awhile she made her home\n Among us in the rigid North,\n She who from Italy came forth\nAnd scaled the Alps and crossed the foam.\n\nBut if she found us like our sea,\n Of aspect colourless and chill,\n Rock-girt; like it she found us still\nDeep at our deepest, strong and free.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1865 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems", @@ -88804,6 +91869,9 @@ "year": 1866 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1865 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -88986,10 +92054,6 @@ "title": "“Goblin Market”", "body": "Morning and evening\nMaids heard the goblins cry:\n“Come buy our orchard fruits\nCome buy come buy:\nApples and quinces\nLemons and oranges\nPlump unpeck’d cherries\nMelons and raspberries\nBloom-down-cheek’d peaches\nSwart-headed mulberries\nWild free-born cranberries\nCrab-apples dewberries\nPine-apples blackberries\nApricots strawberries;--\nAll ripe together\nIn summer weather--\nMorns that pass by\nFair eves that fly;\nCome buy come buy:\nOur grapes fresh from the vine\nPomegranates full and fine\nDates and sharp bullaces\nRare pears and greengages\nDamsons and bilberries\nTaste them and try:\nCurrants and gooseberries\nBright-fire-like barberries\nFigs to fill your mouth\nCitrons from the South\nSweet to tongue and sound to eye;\nCome buy come buy.”\n\nEvening by evening\nAmong the brookside rushes\nLaura bow’d her head to hear\nLizzie veil’d her blushes:\nCrouching close together\nIn the cooling weather\nWith clasping arms and cautioning lips\nWith tingling cheeks and finger tips.\n“Lie close” Laura said\nPricking up her golden head:\n“We must not look at goblin men\nWe must not buy their fruits:\nWho knows upon what soil they fed\nTheir hungry thirsty roots?”\n“Come buy” call the goblins\nHobbling down the glen.\n\n“Oh” cried Lizzie “Laura Laura\nYou should not peep at goblin men.”\nLizzie cover’d up her eyes\nCover’d close lest they should look;\nLaura rear’d her glossy head\nAnd whisper’d like the restless brook:\n“Look Lizzie look Lizzie\nDown the glen tramp little men.\nOne hauls a basket\nOne bears a plate\nOne lugs a golden dish\nOf many pounds weight.\nHow fair the vine must grow\nWhose grapes are so luscious;\nHow warm the wind must blow\nThrough those fruit bushes.”\n“No” said Lizzie “No no no;\nTheir offers should not charm us\nTheir evil gifts would harm us.”\nShe thrust a dimpled finger\nIn each ear shut eyes and ran:\nCurious Laura chose to linger\nWondering at each merchant man.\nOne had a cat’s face\nOne whisk’d a tail\nOne tramp’d at a rat’s pace\nOne crawl’d like a snail\nOne like a wombat prowl’d obtuse and furry\nOne like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.\nShe heard a voice like voice of doves\nCooing all together:\nThey sounded kind and full of loves\nIn the pleasant weather.\n\nLaura stretch’d her gleaming neck\nLike a rush-imbedded swan\nLike a lily from the beck\nLike a moonlit poplar branch\nLike a vessel at the launch\nWhen its last restraint is gone.\n\nBackwards up the mossy glen\nTurn’d and troop’d the goblin men\nWith their shrill repeated cry\n“Come buy come buy.”\nWhen they reach’d where Laura was\nThey stood stock still upon the moss\nLeering at each other\nBrother with queer brother;\nSignalling each other\nBrother with sly brother.\nOne set his basket down\nOne rear’d his plate;\nOne began to weave a crown\nOf tendrils leaves and rough nuts brown\n(Men sell not such in any town);\nOne heav’d the golden weight\nOf dish and fruit to offer her:\n“Come buy come buy” was still their cry.\nLaura stared but did not stir\nLong’d but had no money:\nThe whisk-tail’d merchant bade her taste\nIn tones as smooth as honey\nThe cat-faced purr’d\nThe rat-faced spoke a word\nOf welcome and the snail-paced even was heard;\nOne parrot-voiced and jolly\nCried “Pretty Goblin” still for “Pretty Polly;”--\nOne whistled like a bird.\n\nBut sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:\n“Good folk I have no coin;\nTo take were to purloin:\nI have no copper in my purse\nI have no silver either\nAnd all my gold is on the furze\nThat shakes in windy weather\nAbove the rusty heather.”\n“You have much gold upon your head”\nThey answer’d all together:\n“Buy from us with a golden curl.”\nShe clipp’d a precious golden lock\nShe dropp’d a tear more rare than pearl\nThen suck’d their fruit globes fair or red:\nSweeter than honey from the rock\nStronger than man-rejoicing wine\nClearer than water flow’d that juice;\nShe never tasted such before\nHow should it cloy with length of use?\nShe suck’d and suck’d and suck’d the more\nFruits which that unknown orchard bore;\nShe suck’d until her lips were sore;\nThen flung the emptied rinds away\nBut gather’d up one kernel stone\nAnd knew not was it night or day\nAs she turn’d home alone.\n\nLizzie met her at the gate\nFull of wise upbraidings:\n“Dear you should not stay so late\nTwilight is not good for maidens;\nShould not loiter in the glen\nIn the haunts of goblin men.\nDo you not remember Jeanie\nHow she met them in the moonlight\nTook their gifts both choice and many\nAte their fruits and wore their flowers\nPluck’d from bowers\nWhere summer ripens at all hours?\nBut ever in the noonlight\nShe pined and pined away;\nSought them by night and day\nFound them no more but dwindled and grew grey;\nThen fell with the first snow\nWhile to this day no grass will grow\nWhere she lies low:\nI planted daisies there a year ago\nThat never blow.\nYou should not loiter so.”\n“Nay hush” said Laura:\n“Nay hush my sister:\nI ate and ate my fill\nYet my mouth waters still;\nTo-morrow night I will\nBuy more;” and kiss’d her:\n“Have done with sorrow;\nI’ll bring you plums to-morrow\nFresh on their mother twigs\nCherries worth getting;\nYou cannot think what figs\nMy teeth have met in\nWhat melons icy-cold\nPiled on a dish of gold\nToo huge for me to hold\nWhat peaches with a velvet nap\nPellucid grapes without one seed:\nOdorous indeed must be the mead\nWhereon they grow and pure the wave they drink\nWith lilies at the brink\nAnd sugar-sweet their sap.”\n\nGolden head by golden head\nLike two pigeons in one nest\nFolded in each other’s wings\nThey lay down in their curtain’d bed:\nLike two blossoms on one stem\nLike two flakes of new-fall’n snow\nLike two wands of ivory\nTipp’d with gold for awful kings.\nMoon and stars gaz’d in at them\nWind sang to them lullaby\nLumbering owls forbore to fly\nNot a bat flapp’d to and fro\nRound their rest:\nCheek to cheek and breast to breast\nLock’d together in one nest.\n\nEarly in the morning\nWhen the first cock crow’d his warning\nNeat like bees as sweet and busy\nLaura rose with Lizzie:\nFetch’d in honey milk’d the cows\nAir’d and set to rights the house\nKneaded cakes of whitest wheat\nCakes for dainty mouths to eat\nNext churn’d butter whipp’d up cream\nFed their poultry sat and sew’d;\nTalk’d as modest maidens should:\nLizzie with an open heart\nLaura in an absent dream\nOne content one sick in part;\nOne warbling for the mere bright day’s delight\nOne longing for the night.\n\nAt length slow evening came:\nThey went with pitchers to the reedy brook;\nLizzie most placid in her look\nLaura most like a leaping flame.\nThey drew the gurgling water from its deep;\nLizzie pluck’d purple and rich golden flags\nThen turning homeward said: “The sunset flushes\nThose furthest loftiest crags;\nCome Laura not another maiden lags.\nNo wilful squirrel wags\nThe beasts and birds are fast asleep.”\nBut Laura loiter’d still among the rushes\nAnd said the bank was steep.\n\nAnd said the hour was early still\nThe dew not fall’n the wind not chill;\nListening ever but not catching\nThe customary cry\n“Come buy come buy”\nWith its iterated jingle\nOf sugar-baited words:\nNot for all her watching\nOnce discerning even one goblin\nRacing whisking tumbling hobbling;\nLet alone the herds\nThat used to tramp along the glen\nIn groups or single\nOf brisk fruit-merchant men.\n\nTill Lizzie urged “O Laura come;\nI hear the fruit-call but I dare not look:\nYou should not loiter longer at this brook:\nCome with me home.\nThe stars rise the moon bends her arc\nEach glowworm winks her spark\nLet us get home before the night grows dark:\nFor clouds may gather\nThough this is summer weather\nPut out the lights and drench us through;\nThen if we lost our way what should we do?”\n\nLaura turn’d cold as stone\nTo find her sister heard that cry alone\nThat goblin cry\n“Come buy our fruits come buy.”\nMust she then buy no more such dainty fruit?\nMust she no more such succous pasture find\nGone deaf and blind?\nHer tree of life droop’d from the root:\nShe said not one word in her heart’s sore ache;\nBut peering thro’ the dimness nought discerning\nTrudg’d home her pitcher dripping all the way;\nSo crept to bed and lay\nSilent till Lizzie slept;\nThen sat up in a passionate yearning\nAnd gnash’d her teeth for baulk’d desire and wept\nAs if her heart would break.\n\nDay after day night after night\nLaura kept watch in vain\nIn sullen silence of exceeding pain.\nShe never caught again the goblin cry:\n“Come buy come buy;”--\nShe never spied the goblin men\nHawking their fruits along the glen:\nBut when the noon wax’d bright\nHer hair grew thin and grey;\nShe dwindled as the fair full moon doth turn\nTo swift decay and burn\nHer fire away.\n\nOne day remembering her kernel-stone\nShe set it by a wall that faced the south;\nDew’d it with tears hoped for a root\nWatch’d for a waxing shoot\nBut there came none;\nIt never saw the sun\nIt never felt the trickling moisture run:\nWhile with sunk eyes and faded mouth\nShe dream’d of melons as a traveller sees\nFalse waves in desert drouth\nWith shade of leaf-crown’d trees\nAnd burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.\n\nShe no more swept the house\nTended the fowls or cows\nFetch’d honey kneaded cakes of wheat\nBrought water from the brook:\nBut sat down listless in the chimney-nook\nAnd would not eat.\n\nTender Lizzie could not bear\nTo watch her sister’s cankerous care\nYet not to share.\nShe night and morning\nCaught the goblins’ cry:\n“Come buy our orchard fruits\nCome buy come buy;”--\nBeside the brook along the glen\nShe heard the tramp of goblin men\nThe yoke and stir\nPoor Laura could not hear;\nLong’d to buy fruit to comfort her\nBut fear’d to pay too dear.\nShe thought of Jeanie in her grave\nWho should have been a bride;\nBut who for joys brides hope to have\nFell sick and died\nIn her gay prime\nIn earliest winter time\nWith the first glazing rime\nWith the first snow-fall of crisp winter time.\n\nTill Laura dwindling\nSeem’d knocking at Death’s door:\nThen Lizzie weigh’d no more\nBetter and worse;\nBut put a silver penny in her purse\nKiss’d Laura cross’d the heath with clumps of furze\nAt twilight halted by the brook:\nAnd for the first time in her life\nBegan to listen and look.\n\nLaugh’d every goblin\nWhen they spied her peeping:\nCame towards her hobbling\nFlying running leaping\nPuffing and blowing\nChuckling clapping crowing\nClucking and gobbling\nMopping and mowing\nFull of airs and graces\nPulling wry faces\nDemure grimaces\nCat-like and rat-like\nRatel- and wombat-like\nSnail-paced in a hurry\nParrot-voiced and whistler\nHelter skelter hurry skurry\nChattering like magpies\nFluttering like pigeons\nGliding like fishes--\nHugg’d her and kiss’d her:\nSqueez’d and caress’d her:\nStretch’d up their dishes\nPanniers and plates:\n“Look at our apples\nRusset and dun\nBob at our cherries\nBite at our peaches\nCitrons and dates\nGrapes for the asking\nPears red with basking\nOut in the sun\nPlums on their twigs;\nPluck them and suck them\nPomegranates figs.”--\n\n“Good folk” said Lizzie\nMindful of Jeanie:\n“Give me much and many:--\nHeld out her apron\nToss’d them her penny.”\n“Nay take a seat with us\nHonour and eat with us”\nThey answer’d grinning:\n“Our feast is but beginning.\nNight yet is early\nWarm and dew-pearly\nWakeful and starry:\nSuch fruits as these\nNo man can carry:\nHalf their bloom would fly\nHalf their dew would dry\nHalf their flavour would pass by.\nSit down and feast with us\nBe welcome guest with us\nCheer you and rest with us.”--\n“Thank you” said Lizzie: “But one waits\nAt home alone for me:\nSo without further parleying\nIf you will not sell me any\nOf your fruits though much and many\nGive me back my silver penny\nI toss’d you for a fee.”--\nThey began to scratch their pates\nNo longer wagging purring\nBut visibly demurring\nGrunting and snarling.\nOne call’d her proud\nCross-grain’d uncivil;\nTheir tones wax’d loud\nTheir looks were evil.\nLashing their tails\nThey trod and hustled her\nElbow’d and jostled her\nClaw’d with their nails\nBarking mewing hissing mocking\nTore her gown and soil’d her stocking\nTwitch’d her hair out by the roots\nStamp’d upon her tender feet\nHeld her hands and squeez’d their fruits\nAgainst her mouth to make her eat.\n\nWhite and golden Lizzie stood\nLike a lily in a flood--\nLike a rock of blue-vein’d stone\nLash’d by tides obstreperously--\nLike a beacon left alone\nIn a hoary roaring sea\nSending up a golden fire--\nLike a fruit-crown’d orange-tree\nWhite with blossoms honey-sweet\nSore beset by wasp and bee--\nLike a royal virgin town\nTopp’d with gilded dome and spire\nClose beleaguer’d by a fleet\nMad to tug her standard down.\n\nOne may lead a horse to water\nTwenty cannot make him drink.\nThough the goblins cuff’d and caught her\nCoax’d and fought her\nBullied and besought her\nScratch’d her pinch’d her black as ink\nKick’d and knock’d her\nMaul’d and mock’d her\nLizzie utter’d not a word;\nWould not open lip from lip\nLest they should cram a mouthful in:\nBut laugh’d in heart to feel the drip\nOf juice that syrupp’d all her face\nAnd lodg’d in dimples of her chin\nAnd streak’d her neck which quaked like curd.\nAt last the evil people\nWorn out by her resistance\nFlung back her penny kick’d their fruit\nAlong whichever road they took\nNot leaving root or stone or shoot;\nSome writh’d into the ground\nSome div’d into the brook\nWith ring and ripple\nSome scudded on the gale without a sound\nSome vanish’d in the distance.\n\nIn a smart ache tingle\nLizzie went her way;\nKnew not was it night or day;\nSprang up the bank tore thro’ the furze\nThreaded copse and dingle\nAnd heard her penny jingle\nBouncing in her purse--\nIts bounce was music to her ear.\nShe ran and ran\nAs if she fear’d some goblin man\nDogg’d her with gibe or curse\nOr something worse:\nBut not one goblin scurried after\nNor was she prick’d by fear;\nThe kind heart made her windy-paced\nThat urged her home quite out of breath with haste\nAnd inward laughter.\n\nShe cried “Laura” up the garden\n“Did you miss me?\nCome and kiss me.\nNever mind my bruises\nHug me kiss me suck my juices\nSqueez’d from goblin fruits for you\nGoblin pulp and goblin dew.\nEat me drink me love me;\nLaura make much of me;\nFor your sake I have braved the glen\nAnd had to do with goblin merchant men.”\n\nLaura started from her chair\nFlung her arms up in the air\nClutch’d her hair:\n“Lizzie Lizzie have you tasted\nFor my sake the fruit forbidden?\nMust your light like mine be hidden\nYour young life like mine be wasted\nUndone in mine undoing\nAnd ruin’d in my ruin\nThirsty canker’d goblin-ridden?”--\nShe clung about her sister\nKiss’d and kiss’d and kiss’d her:\nTears once again\nRefresh’d her shrunken eyes\nDropping like rain\nAfter long sultry drouth;\nShaking with aguish fear and pain\nShe kiss’d and kiss’d her with a hungry mouth.\n\nHer lips began to scorch\nThat juice was wormwood to her tongue\nShe loath’d the feast:\nWrithing as one possess’d she leap’d and sung\nRent all her robe and wrung\nHer hands in lamentable haste\nAnd beat her breast.\nHer locks stream’d like the torch\nBorne by a racer at full speed\nOr like the mane of horses in their flight\nOr like an eagle when she stems the light\nStraight toward the sun\nOr like a caged thing freed\nOr like a flying flag when armies run.\n\nSwift fire spread through her veins knock’d at her heart\nMet the fire smouldering there\nAnd overbore its lesser flame;\nShe gorged on bitterness without a name:\nAh! fool to choose such part\nOf soul-consuming care!\nSense fail’d in the mortal strife:\nLike the watch-tower of a town\nWhich an earthquake shatters down\nLike a lightning-stricken mast\nLike a wind-uprooted tree\nSpun about\nLike a foam-topp’d waterspout\nCast down headlong in the sea\nShe fell at last;\nPleasure past and anguish past\nIs it death or is it life?\n\nLife out of death.\nThat night long Lizzie watch’d by her\nCounted her pulse’s flagging stir\nFelt for her breath\nHeld water to her lips and cool’d her face\nWith tears and fanning leaves:\nBut when the first birds chirp’d about their eaves\nAnd early reapers plodded to the place\nOf golden sheaves\nAnd dew-wet grass\nBow’d in the morning winds so brisk to pass\nAnd new buds with new day\nOpen’d of cup-like lilies on the stream\nLaura awoke as from a dream\nLaugh’d in the innocent old way\nHugg’d Lizzie but not twice or thrice;\nHer gleaming locks show’d not one thread of grey\nHer breath was sweet as May\nAnd light danced in her eyes.\n\nDays weeks months years\nAfterwards when both were wives\nWith children of their own;\nTheir mother-hearts beset with fears\nTheir lives bound up in tender lives;\nLaura would call the little ones\nAnd tell them of her early prime\nThose pleasant days long gone\nOf not-returning time:\nWould talk about the haunted glen\nThe wicked quaint fruit-merchant men\nTheir fruits like honey to the throat\nBut poison in the blood;\n(Men sell not such in any town):\nWould tell them how her sister stood\nIn deadly peril to do her good\nAnd win the fiery antidote:\nThen joining hands to little hands\nWould bid them cling together\n“For there is no friend like a sister\nIn calm or stormy weather;\nTo cheer one on the tedious way\nTo fetch one if one goes astray\nTo lift one if one totters down\nTo strengthen whilst one stands.”", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1859, - "month": "april" - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Golbin Market and Other Poems", @@ -88998,6 +92062,10 @@ "year": 1862 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1859, + "month": "april" + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -89231,10 +92299,6 @@ "body": "In the bleak mid-winter\n Frosty wind made moan,\nEarth stood hard as iron,\n Water like a stone;\nSnow had fallen, snow on snow,\n Snow on snow,\nIn the bleak mid-winter\n Long ago.\n\nOur God, Heaven cannot hold Him\n Nor earth sustain;\nHeaven and earth shall flee away\n When He comes to reign:\nIn the bleak mid-winter\n A stable-place sufficed\nThe Lord God Almighty\n Jesus Christ.\n\nEnough for Him whom cherubim\n Worship night and day,\nA breastful of milk\n And a mangerful of hay;\nEnough for Him whom angels\n Fall down before,\nThe ox and ass and camel\n Which adore.\n\nAngels and archangels\n May have gathered there,\nCherubim and seraphim\n Throng’d the air,\nBut only His mother\n In her maiden bliss\nWorshipped her Beloved\n With a kiss.\n\nWhat can I give Him,\n Poor as I am?\nIf I were a shepherd\n I would bring a lamb,\nIf I were a wise man\n I would do my part,--\nYet what I can I give Him,\n Give my heart.", "metadata": { "magazine": "Scribner’s Monthly", - "time": { - "year": 1872, - "month": "january" - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems", @@ -89243,6 +92307,10 @@ "year": 1866 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1872, + "month": "january" + }, "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "christmastide" @@ -89328,9 +92396,6 @@ "title": "“The Lambs of Grasmere”", "body": "The upland flocks grew starved and thinned:\n Their shepherds scarce could feed the lambs\nWhose milkless mothers butted them,\n Or who were orphaned of their dams.\nThe lambs athirst for mother’s milk\n Filled all the place with piteous sounds:\nTheir mothers’ bones made white for miles\n The pastureless wet pasture grounds.\n\nDay after day, night after night,\n From lamb to lamb the shepherds went,\nWith teapots for the bleating mouths\n Instead of nature’s nourishment.\nThe little shivering gaping things\n Soon knew the step that brought them aid,\nAnd fondled the protecting hand,\n And rubbed it with a woolly head.\n\nThen, as the days waxed on to weeks,\n It was a pretty sight to see\nThese lambs with frisky heads and tails\n Skipping and leaping on the lea,\nBleating in tender, trustful tones,\n Resting on rocky crag or mound,\nAnd following the beloved feet\n That once had sought for them and found.\n\nThese very shepherds of their flocks,\n These loving lambs so meek to please,\nAre worthy of recording words\n And honor in their due degrees:\nSo I might live a hundred years,\n And roam from strand to foreign strand,\nYet not forget this flooded spring\n And scarce-saved lambs of Westmoreland.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1860 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Golbin Market and Other Poems", @@ -89339,6 +92404,9 @@ "year": 1862 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1860 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -90029,12 +93097,12 @@ "title": "“A Pause”", "body": "They made the chamber sweet with flowers and leaves,\nAnd the bed sweet with flowers on which I lay;\nWhile my soul, love-bound, loitered on its way.\nI did not hear the birds about the eaves,\nNor hear the reapers talk among the sheaves:\nOnly my soul kept watch from day to day,\nMy thirsty soul kept watch for one away:--\nPerhaps he loves, I thought, remembers, grieves.\nAt length there came the step upon the stair,\nUpon the lock the old familiar hand:\nThen first my spirit seemed to scent the air\nOf Paradise; then first the tardy sand\nOf time ran golden; and I felt my hair\nPut on a glory, and my soul expand.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1853, "month": "june", "day": 10 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -90139,11 +93207,11 @@ "title": "“Promises Like Pie-Crust”", "body": "Promise me no promises,\nSo will I not promise you:\nKeep we both our liberties,\nNever false and never true:\nLet us hold the die uncast,\nFree to come as free to go:\nFor I cannot know your past,\nAnd of mine what can you know?\n\nYou, so warm, may once have been\nWarmer towards another one:\nI, so cold, may once have seen\nSunlight, once have felt the sun:\nWho shall show us if it was\nThus indeed in time of old?\nFades the image from the glass,\nAnd the fortune is not told.\n\nIf you promised, you might grieve\nFor lost liberty again:\nIf I promised, I believe\nI should fret to break the chain.\nLet us be the friends we were,\nNothing more but nothing less:\nMany thrive on frugal fare\nWho would perish of excess.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1860, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -90307,11 +93375,11 @@ "title": "“Sleeping at Last”", "body": "Sleeping at last, the trouble and tumult over,\nSleeping at last, the struggle and horror past,\nCold and white, out of sight of friend and of lover,\nSleeping at last.\n\nNo more a tired heart downcast or overcast,\nNo more pangs that wring or shifting fears that hover,\nSleeping at last in a dreamless sleep locked fast.\n\nFast asleep. Singing birds in their leafy cover\nCannot wake her, nor shake her the gusty blast.\nUnder the purple thyme and the purple clover\nSleeping at last.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1893, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -90694,12 +93762,12 @@ "title": "“A Triad”", "body": "Three sang of love together: one with lips\nCrimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,\nFlushed to the yellow hair and finger tips;\nAnd one there sang who soft and smooth as snow\nBloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;\nAnd one was blue with famine after love,\nWho like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low\nThe burden of what those were singing of.\nOne shamed herself in love; one temperately\nGrew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;\nOne famished died for love. Thus two of three\nTook death for love and won him after strife;\nOne droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:\nAll on the threshold, yet all short of life.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1856, "month": "december", "day": 18 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december", @@ -91223,11 +94291,13 @@ "title": "“I am going to ride my bicycle long-long 
”", "body": "I am going to ride my bicycle long-long,\nI’ll gather flowers in the colorful field,\nShe isn’t mine but yet my love is strong,\nShe’ll have to know surely what I feel.\n\nThen I’ll say her:--You love another guy,\nBut look at the flowers--they are all for you.\nBy this bouquet I only say ‘goodbye’,\nRemember me--it is all you can do.\n\nShe’ll take them all. Once meeting me tonight,\nWhen a blue fog is spreading everywhere,\nShe won’t turn her apathetic eyes,\nShe even won’t smile, but I won’t care.\n\nI am going to ride my bicycle far-long,\nI’ll gather flowers in the colorful field,\nShe isn’t mine but yet my love is strong,\nShe’ll have to know surely what I feel.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Eugene Ratkov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1965 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Eugene Ratkov" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -91238,11 +94308,13 @@ "title": "“From the poplars leaves have flown away 
”", "body": "From the poplars leaves have flown away,\nInescapability repeated.\nDo not cry for leaves in any way,\nCry for love and tenderness frostbitten.\n\nLet the poplars now naked stand.\nDo not curse the noisy storms of snow.\nNobody is to blame, my friend,\nThat off poplars all dead leaves have flown.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Lyubov Kalmykova", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Lyubov Kalmykova" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -91253,11 +94325,13 @@ "title": "“A winter song”", "body": "This here village is still full of light,\nDon’t you dare to predict me more pain!\nWinter skies are all gleaming with stars\nThat so gently adorn it again.\n\nSolemnly shining, dreamily shining,\nMeadow’s soft murmur is heard 
\nSomehow my painful most memories\nStarting to loosen their hold!\n\nOdd village girl stands there smiling,\nMe 
 I feel I’m drunk with wine!\nAll that was aching is dying down,\nSkies up above are divine!\n\nSomeone keeps saying no voice survives,\nMust one rejoice storm had won?\nWho there is set on convincing me,\nAll I still hoped for is gone?\n\nThis here village is still full of light,\nDon’t you dare to predict me more pain!\nWinter skies are all gleaming with stars\nThat so gently adorn it again.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anonymous", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1964 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Anonymous" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -91322,8 +94396,10 @@ "title": "“The breeze at dawn 
”", "body": "The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.\nDon’t go back to sleep.\n\nYou must ask for what you really want.\nDon’t go back to sleep.\n\nPeople are going back and forth across the doorsill\nwhere the two worlds touch.\n\nThe door is round and open.\nDon’t go back to sleep.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Coleman Barks", "language": "Persian", + "translators": [ + "Coleman Barks" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -91339,8 +94415,10 @@ "title": "“Tonight is the night 
”", "body": "Tonight\n is the night\nIt’s the creation of that land of eternity\nIt’s not an ordinary night,\n it’s a wedding of those who seek God.\nTonight, the bride and groom\n speak in one tongue.\nTonight, the bridal chamber\n is looking particularly well.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Shahram Shiva", "language": "Persian", + "translators": [ + "Shahram Shiva" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -91589,8 +94667,10 @@ "title": "“Deaths”", "body": "First I forgot you in your voice.\nIf you were talking to me now,\nhere by my side,\nI would ask, “Who’s there?”\n\nThen your step became unfamiliar.\nIf a shadow--even one of flesh\nand blood--escapes in the wind,\nI can’t tell if it’s you.\n\nYou shed your leaves slowly\nin the face of one winter: your smile,\nyour eyes, the color of your clothing, the size\nof your shoes.\n\nMore leaves:\nyour flesh, your body fell away,\nuntil all that was left was your name: seven letters.\nAnd you went on living,\ndying, hanging on\nto those letters with body and soul.\nYour skeleton, the remains of it,\nyour voice, your laughter, those seven letters.\nAnd then your body alone uttered them.\nYour name slipped away from me.\nNow those seven letters drift unattached,\nunknown to each other.\nAdvertisements go by on streetcars; your letters\nlight up the night with their colors,\nthey travel on envelopes spelling out\nother names.\n\nYou will wander there,\ndissolved, undone, irretrievable,\nin the name that was you,\nrisen up\nto some crazy heaven,\nsome abstract glory in the alphabet.", "metadata": { - "translator": "David Lee Garrison", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "David Lee Garrison" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -91648,11 +94728,13 @@ "title": "“In the Country”", "body": "That scent of hair clean and light,\nSweet smell of skin so fresh and clear,\nThe kiss in eyelids, in the eyes,\nAll wet and salty with the tears.\n\nAnd clouds, high over the leaves,\nAre curling all day long above us.\nYour sleeping hands, your sleeping eaves,\nYour sleeping forehead, sleeping brows.\n\n _Don’t hurry, Bard of Parting, please!\n We’ll soon take leave without whining.\n Do not untwist the arms entwining,\n Don’t tear away the lips from lips._\n\n _Don’t tear away the lips from lips,\n Do not untwist the arms entwining.\n We’ll soon take leave without whining.\n Don’t hurry, Bard of Parting, please!_\n\nYou see, the clouds curl all day\nAbove the grove, as fluffy hair.\nA cuckoo’s crying far away,\nIt counts days, it counts years.\n\nDo not cuckoo, the bird, don’t lie,--\nDon’t count days--we live by instants 
\nOh, Bard of Parting, wait awhile,--\nWe’ll drift apart, we’ll soon get distant.\n\n _Don’t hurry, Bard of Parting, please!\n We’ll soon take leave without whining.\n Do not untwist the arms entwining,\n Don’t tear away the lips from lips._\n\n _Don’t tear away the lips from lips,\n Do not untwist the arms entwining.\n We’ll soon take leave without whining.\n Don’t hurry, Bard of Parting, please!_", "metadata": { - "translator": "Natasha Gotskaya", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1985 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Natasha Gotskaya" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -91663,11 +94745,13 @@ "title": "“Old Don Juan”", "body": "[_Shabby room in the inn._]\n\n> _Don Juan:_\nCurse! Endless drumming!\nDreadful nights of nothing in a\nWretched dwelling! Catalina!\n\n> _Catalina:_\n[_Enters._]\nComing!\n\n> _Don Juan:_\nAt last! Your gentle\nGaze falls on the truly loving!\nDraw some closer to the candle.\nLet my suffering have merit!\nHold my hand and 
\n\n> _Catalina:_\nQuit it! How unbecoming\nOf your age.\n[_Proceeds to exit._]\n\n> _Don Juan:_\nShe flees my torment!\nEve incarne, wicked gender!\nRather choosing youthful servant,\nGladly ready to befriend her.\nEvenings spent with boring infants,\nLeaving passion unrequited!\nWhat’s the body’s purpose if its\nFreshness has forever withered?\nMirror, hide this disappointment!\nWrinkled skin, teeth’s rare count!\nHair no longer fragrant!\n\n[_Drops the mirror to the ground._]\nStubbornness to leave arena\nBattles our feeble conscience.\nEvery Helen, every Venus\nLeave us for seductive servants.\nNo substance can be soothing,\nOnly youth enraptured matters\nFor a whore of highest schooling,\nOr a slut, derived from masses.\nAging--what an inhibition!\nI have been reduced to torpor\nBy the rotten contradiction\nOf the content and its cover 
\nJoys of living should be youthful\nEven if you in the process\nAre unkind, uncouth, untruthful.\nAging--that’s the worst of tortures!\nVengeful Lord, in your destruction\nDon’t punish twice but rather\nCrush the longing for seduction,\nTake away the drives for pleasure!\nLusty serenades! Erotic\nUrges by the moonlight dancing!\nWhy have you become despotic\nOn the verge of slow passing?\nThus, my ties with wicked gender\nMark an end. Thus ends an era!\nCatalina! Catalina!\n\n[_Enters Skull of the Commander_]\n\n> _Skull:_\nWell, greetings, Caballero!\nDecades lost, without water,\nLight and heat--just sand and ashes.\n\n> _Don Juan:_\n[_Retreats in horror._]\nHoly Mary! Goodness gracious!\nName yourself!\n\n> _Skull:_\nThink of Anna 
\n\n> _Don Juan:_\nWhich one of Annas?\nOf Toledo? Of Grenada?\nOr perhaps the one who echoes\nTo this day the song of ardor?\nWeeks of mirth, indeed, they happened.\nI remember us! Together!\nWell, and how is she at present--\nOr 
 I should not raise the matter.\nAm I right that once her spouse\nFell a victim to misfortune?\nSkull, is that what you are broaching?\nI am fully at your service.\n\n> _Skull:_\nLet Higher Institution\nGuilt to vile creatures render.\nYou have faced the retribution\nThrough demise of youthful splendor.\nI, Old Skull of the Commander,\nCame to gloat, for from this moment\nWe shall lie together under\nSame graveyard, forever dormant.\nWe shall lie together under\nSame graveyard, same gravely features.\nI, Old Skull of the Commander,\nYou, Old Skull of Vile Creature.\n\n> _Don Juan:_\n[_With laughter_]\nRather?\nVengeful for an old affair?\nEither you adore to pamper?\nOr intend to truly scare?\nScare not! I’ve known reason\nWith demise at close distance.\nWhile today age yearns to weaken\nFleeting grasp on my existence.\n\n> _Skull:_\nThe touch of death--contrast it\nto pursuits of whore’s embraces.\nYour life passed, devoid of spirit.\nFilled instead with earthly pleasures.\n\n> _Don Juan:_\nIn earthy pleasures\nPassed my life, and mighty precious\nShall become a sleeping blanket.\nWhat remorse cannot encounter,\nAn oblivion surrounds.\n\n> _Skull:_\nIt’s time. The midnight’s thunder.\nMoles and worms are making rounds.\n\n> _Don Juan:_\nDivinely given,\nFlesh and charm have been exhausted.\nLead the way, o morbid villain,\nHave your foe remotely hosted,\nServing justice to your mission.\nBut do tell me, Skull, what cometh\nAt that juncture, beyond numbness,\nBeyond silence.\n\n> _Skull:_\nWhat cometh?\nDarkness, sealed from will and vision 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alexander Weizman", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1976 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alexander Weizman" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -94555,8 +97639,10 @@ "title": "“Bridal Song”", "body": "Bride, that goest to the bridal chamber\nIn the dove-drawn car of Aphrodite,\n By a band of dimpled\n Loves surrounded;\n\nBride, of maidens all the fairest image\nMitylene treasures of the Goddess,\n Rosy-ankled Graces\n Are thy playmates;\n\nBride, O fair and lovely, thy companions\nAre the gracious hours that onward passing\n For thy gladsome footsteps\n Scatter garlands.\n\nBride, that blushing like the sweetest apple\nOn the very branch’s end, so strangely\n Overlooked, ungathered\n By the gleaners;\n\nBride, that like the apple that was never\nOverlooked but out of reach so plainly,\n Only one thy rarest\n Fruit may gather;\n\nBride, that into womanhood has ripened\nFor the harvest of the bridegroom only,\n He alone shall taste thy\n Hoarded sweetness.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -94567,8 +97653,10 @@ "title": "“Death”", "body": "Death is an evil; so the Gods decree,\nSo they have judged, and such must rightly be\nOur mortal view; for they who dwell on high\nHad never lived, had it been good to die.\n\nAnd so the poet’s house should never know\nOf tears and lamentations any show;\nSuch things befit not us who deathless sing\nOf love and beauty, gladness and the spring.\n\nNo hint of grief should mar the features of\nOur dreams of endless beauty, lasting love;\nFor they reflect the joy inviolate,\nEternal calm that fronts whatever fate.\n\nClĂ«is, my darling, grieve no more, I pray!\nLet wandering winds thy sorrow bear away,\nAnd all our care; my daughter, let thy smile\nShine through thy tears and gladden me the while.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -94579,8 +97667,10 @@ "title": "“Eros”", "body": "From the gnarled branches of the apple trees\nThe heavy petals, lifted by the breeze,\nFluttered on puffs of odor fine and fell\nIn the clear water of the garden well;\n\nAnd some a bolder zephyr blew in sport\nAcross the marble reaches of my court,\nAnd some by sudden gusts were wafted wide\nToward sea and city, down the mountain side.\n\nLesbos seemed Paphos, isled in rosy glow,\nGreen olive hills, the violet vale below;\nThe air was azure fire and o’er the blue\nStill sea the doves of Aphrodite flew.\n\nMy dreaming eyes saw Eros from afar\nComing from heaven in his mother’s car,\nIn purple tunic clad; and at my heart\nThe God-was aiming his relentless dart.\n\nHe whom fair Aphrodite called her son,\nShe, the adored, she, the imperial One;\nHe passed as winds that shake the soul, as pains\nSweet to the heart, as fire that warms the veins;\n\nHe passed and left my limbs dissolved in dew,\nRelaxed and faint, with passion quivered through;\nExhausted with spent thrills of dread delight,\nA sudden darkness rushing on my sight.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -94591,8 +97681,10 @@ "title": "“Ever Maiden”", "body": "I shall be ever maiden,\nEver the little child,\nIn my passionate quest for the lovely,\nBy earth’s glad wonder beguiled.\n\nI shall be ever maiden,\nStanding in soul apart,\nFor the Gods give the secret of beauty\nAlone to the virgin heart.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -94600,8 +97692,10 @@ "title": "“The First Kiss”", "body": "And down I set the cushion\nUpon the couch that she,\nRelaxed supine upon it,\nMight give her lips to me.\n\nAs some enamored priestess\nAt Aphrodite’s shrine,\nEntranced I bent above her\nWith sense of the divine.\n\nShe had, by nature nubile,\nIn years a child, no hint\nOf any secret knowledge\nOf passion’s least intent.\n\nHer mouth for immolation\nWas ripe, and mine the art;\nAnd one long kiss of passion\nDeflowered her virgin heart.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -94609,8 +97703,10 @@ "title": "“The Garden of the Nynphs”", "body": "All around through the apple boughs in blossom\nMurmur cool the breezes of early summer,\nAnd from leaves that quiver above me gently\n Slumber is shaken;\n\nGlades of poppies swoon in the drowsy languor,\nDreaming roses bend, and the oleanders\nBask and nod to drone of bees in the silent\n Fervor of noontide;\n\nMyrtle coverts hedging the open vista,\nDear to nightly frolic of Nymph and Satyr,\nYield a mossy bed for the brown and weary\n Limbs of the shepherd.\n\nEcho ever wafts through the drooping frondage,\nCeaseless silver murmur of water falling\nIn the grotto cool of the Nymphs, the sacred\n Haunt of Immortals;\n\nDown the sides of rocks that are gray and lichened\nTrickle tiny rills, whose expectant tinkle\nDrips with gurgle hushed in the clear glimmering\n Depths of the basin.\n\nFair on royal couches of leaves recumbent,\nInterspersed with languor of waxen lilies,\nLotus flowers empurple the pool whose edge is\n Cushioned with mosses;\n\nHere recline the Nymphs at the hour of twilight,\nBack in shadows dim of the cave, their golden\nSea-green eyes half lidded, up to their supple\n Waists in the water.\n\nSheltered once by ferns I espied them binding\nTresses long, the tint of lilac and orange;\nJust beyond the shimmer of light their bodies\n Roseate glistened;\n\nDeftly, then, they girdled their loins with garlands,\nLinked with leaves luxuriant limb and shoulder;\nOn their breasts they bruised the red blood of roses\n Fresh from the garden.\n\nShe of orange hair was the Nymph Euxanthis,\nAnd the lilac-tressed were Iphis and Io;\nHow they laughed, relating at length their ease in\n Evading the Satyr.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -94621,8 +97717,10 @@ "title": "“Gnomics”", "body": "# I.\n\nMy ways are quiet, none may find\nMy temper of malignant kind;\nFor one should check the words that start\nWhen anger spreads within the heart.\n\n\n# II.\n\nWho from my hands what I can spare\nOf gifts accept the largest share,\nThose are the very ones who boast\nNo gratitude and wrong me most.\n\n\n# III.\n\nHe who in face and form is fair\nMust needs be good, the Gods declare;\nBut he whose thought and act are right\nWill soon be equal fair to sight.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nBeauty of youth is but the flower\nOf spring, whose pleasure lasts an hour;\nWhile worth that knows no mortal doom\nIs like the amaranthine bloom.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -94633,8 +97731,10 @@ "title": "“If Death Be Good”", "body": "If death be good,\nWhy do the gods not die?\nIf life be ill,\nWhy do the gods still live?\nIf love be naught,\nWhy do the gods still love?\nIf love be all,\nWhat should men do but love?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bliss Carman", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "Bliss Carman" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -94642,8 +97742,10 @@ "title": "“Lament for Adonis”", "body": "Ah, for Adonis!\nSee, he is dying,\nDelicate, lovely,\nSlender Adonis.\n\nAh, for Adonis!\nWeep, O ye maidens,\nBeating your bosoms,\nRending your tunics.\n\nO Cytherea,\nHasten, for never\nLoved thou another\nAs thy Adonis.\n\nSee, on the rosy\nCheek with its dimple,\nBlushing no longer,\nThanatos’ shadow.\n\nSave him, O Goddess!\nThou, the beguiler,\nAll-powerful, holy,\nStay the dread evil.\n\nAh, for Adonis!\nNo more at vintage\nTime will he come with\nBloom of the meadows.\n\nAh, for Adonis!\nSee, he is dying,\nFading as flowers\nWith the lost summer.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -94654,8 +97756,10 @@ "title": "“Leto and Niobe”", "body": "Leto and Niobe were friends full dear,\nThe Goddess’ heart and woman’s heart were one\nIn that maternal love that men revere,\nLove that endures when other loves are done.\n\nBut Niobe with all a mother’s pride,\nArtless and foolish, would not be denied;\nAnd boasted that her children were more fair\nThan Leto’s lovely children of the air.\n\nThe proud Olympians vowed revenge for this,\nIrate Apollo, angered Artemis;\nThey slew her children, heedless of her moan,\nAnd with the last her heart was turned to stone.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -94666,8 +97770,10 @@ "title": "“Maidenhood”", "body": "Do I long for maidenhood?\nDo I long for days\nWhen upon the mountain slope\nI would stand and gaze\nOver the Aegean’s blue\nMelting into mist,\nEre with love my virgin lips\nCercolas had kissed?\n\nMaidenhood, O maidenhood,\nWhither hast thou flown?\n_To a land beyond the sea\nThou hast never known._\nMaidenhood, O maidenhood,\nWilt return to me?\n_Never will my bloom again\nGive its grace to thee._\n\nNow the autumn skies are low,\nYouth and summer sped;\nShepherd hills are far away,\nCercolas is dead.\nMitylene’s marble courts\nEcho with my name;--\nMaidenhood, we never dreamed,\nLong ago of fame.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -94678,8 +97784,10 @@ "title": "“Ode to Aphrodite”", "body": "Aphrodite, subtle of soul and deathless,\nDaughter of God, weaver of wiles, I pray thee\nNeither with care, dread Mistress, nor with anguish,\n Slay thou my spirit!\n\nBut in pity hasten, come now if ever\nFrom afar of old when my voice implored thee,\nThou hast deigned to listen, leaving the golden\n House of thy father\n\nWith thy chariot yoked; and with doves that drew thee,\nFair and fleet around the dark earth from heaven,\nDipping vibrant wings down he azure distance,\n Through the mid-ether;\n\nVery swift they came; and thou, gracious Vision,\nLeaned with face that smiled in immortal beauty,\nLeaned to me and asked, “What misfortune threatened?\n Why I had called thee?”\n\n“What my frenzied heart craved in utter yearning,\nWhom its wild desire would persuade to passion?\nWhat disdainful charms, madly worshipped, slight thee?\n Who wrongs thee, Sappho?”\n\n“She that fain would fly, she shall quickly follow,\nShe that now rejects, yet with gifts shall woo thee,\nShe that heeds thee not, soon shall love to madness,\n Love thee, the loth one!”\n\nCome to me now thus, Goddess, and release me\nFrom distress and pain; and all my distracted\nHeart would seek, do thou, once again fulfilling,\n Still be my ally!", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -94687,8 +97795,10 @@ "title": "“Ode to Atthis”", "body": "I loved thee, Atthis, in the long ago,\nWhen the great oleanders were in flower\nIn the broad herded meadows full of sun.\nAnd we would often at the fall of dusk\nWander together by the silver stream,\nWhen the soft grass-heads were all wet with dew\nAnd purple-misted in the fading light.\nAnd joy I knew and sorrow at thy voice,\nAnd the superb magnificence of love,--\nThe loneliness that saddens solitude,\nAnd the sweet speech that makes it durable,--\nThe bitter longing and the keen desire,\nThe sweet companionship through quiet days\nIn the slow ample beauty of the world,\nAnd the unutterable glad release\nWithin the temple of the holy night.\nO Atthis, how I loved thee long ago\nIn that fair perished summer by the sea!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bliss Carman", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "Bliss Carman" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -94699,8 +97809,10 @@ "title": "“One Girl”", "body": "# I.\n\nLike the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,\nAtop on the topmost twig,--which the pluckers forgot, somehow,--\nForget it not, nay; but got it not, for none could get it till now.\n\n\n# II.\n\nLike the wild hyacinth flower which on the hills is found,\nWhich the passing feet of the shepherds for ever tear and wound,\nUntil the purple blossom is trodden in the ground.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -94708,8 +97820,10 @@ "title": "“Passion”", "body": "Now Love shakes my soul, a mighty\n Wind from the high mountain falling\n Full on the oaks of the forest;\n\nNow, limb-relaxing, it masters\n My life and implacable thrills me,\n Rending with anguish and rapture.\n\nNow my heart, paining my bosom,\n Pants with desire as a maenad\n Mad for the orgiac revel.\n\nNow under my skin run subtle\n Arrows of flame, and my body\n Quivers with surge of emotion.\n\nNow long importunate yearnings\n Vanquish with surfeit my reason;\n Fainting my senses forsake me.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -94717,8 +97831,10 @@ "title": "“Persephone”", "body": "I saw a tender maiden plucking flowers\nOnce, long ago, in the bright morning hours;\nAnd then from heaven I saw a sudden cloud\nFall swift and dark, and heard her cry aloud.\n\nAgain I looked, but from my open door\nMy anxious eyes espied the maid no more;\nThe cloud had vanished, bearing her away\nTo underlands beyond the smiling day.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -94729,8 +97845,10 @@ "title": "“The Stricken Flower”", "body": "Think not to ever look as once of yore,\nAtthis, upon my love; for thou no more\nWilt find intact upon its stem the flower\nThy guile left slain and bleeding in that hour.\n\nSo ruthless shepherds crush beneath their feet\nThe hill flower blooming in the summer heat;\nThe hyacinth whose purple heart is found\nLeft bruised and dead, to darken on the ground.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Myers O’Hara", "language": "Ancient Greek", + "translators": [ + "John Myers O’Hara" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -96070,8 +99188,10 @@ "title": "“The Companions in Hades”", "body": "_fools, who ate the cattle of Helios Hyperion;\nbut he deprived them of the day of their return._\n --Odyssey\n\nSince we still had some hardtack\nhow stupid of us\nto go ashore and eat\nthe Sun’s slow cattle,\n\nfor each was a castle\nyou’d have to battle\nforty years, till you’d become\na hero and a star!\n\nOn the earth’s back we hungered,\nbut when we’d eaten well\nwe fell to these lower regions\nmindless and satisfied.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -96079,8 +99199,10 @@ "title": "“Denial”", "body": "On the secret seashore\nwhite like a pigeon\nwe thirsted at noon;\nbut the water was brackish.\n\nOn the golden sand\nwe wrote her name;\nbut the sea-breeze blew\nand the writing vanished.\n\nWith what spirit, what heart,\nwhat desire and passion\nwe lived our life: a mistake!\nSo we changed our life.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -96091,8 +99213,10 @@ "title": "“Epiphany”", "body": "The flowering sea and the mountains in the moon’s waning\nthe great stone close to the Barbary figs and the asphodels\nthe jar that refused to go dry at the end of day\nand the closed bed by the cypress trees and your hair\ngolden; the stars of the Swan and that other star, Aldebaran.\n\nI’ve kept a rein on my life, kept a rein on my life, travelling\namong yellow trees in driving rain\non silent slopes loaded with beech leaves,\nno fire on their peaks; it’s getting dark.\nI’ve kept a rein on my life; on your left hand a line\na scar at your knee, perhaps they exist\non the sand of the past summer perhaps\nthey remain there where the north wind blew as I hear\nan alien voice around the frozen lake.\nThe faces I see do not ask questions nor does the woman\nbent as she walks giving her child the breast.\nI climb the mountains; dark ravines; the snow-covered\nplain, into the distance stretches the snow-covered plain, they ask nothing\nneither time shut up in dumb chapels nor\nhands outstretched to beg, nor the roads.\nI’ve kept a rein on my life whispering in a boundless silence\nI no longer know how to speak nor how to think; whispers\nlike the breathing of the cypress tree that night\nlike the human voice of the night sea on pebbles\nlike the memory of your voice saying “happiness”.\n\nI close my eyes looking for the secret meeting-place of the waters\nunder the ice the sea’s smile, the closed wells\ngroping with my veins for those veins that escape me\nthere where the water-lilies end and that man\nwho walks blindly across the snows of silence.\nI’ve kept a rein on my life, with him, looking for the water that touches you\nheavy drops on green leaves, on your face\nin the empty garden, drops in the motionless reservoir\nstriking a swan dead in its white wings\nliving trees and your eyes riveted.\n\nThis road has no end, has no relief, however hard you try\nto recall your childhood years, those who left, those\nlost in sleep, in the graves of the sea,\nhowever much you ask bodies you’ve loved to stoop\nunder the harsh branches of the plane trees there\nwhere a ray of the sun, naked, stood still\nand a dog leapt and your heart shuddered,\nthe road has no relief; I’ve kept a rein on my life.\n\nThe snow and the water frozen in the hoofmarks of the horses.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "epiphany" @@ -96103,8 +99227,10 @@ "title": "“Erotikos Logos”", "body": "# I.\n\nRose of fate, you looked for ways to wound us\nyet you bent like the secret about to be released\nand the command you chose to give us was beautiful\nand your smile was like a ready sword.\n\nThe ascent of your cycle livened creation\nfrom your thorn emerged the way’s thought\nour impulse dawned naked to possess you\nthe world was easy: a simple pulsation.\n\n\n# II.\n\nThe secrets of the sea are forgotten on the shores\nthe darkness of the depths is forgotten in the surf;\nthe corals of memory suddenly shine purple 
\nO do not stir 
 listen to hear its light\n\nmotion 
 you touched the tree with the apples\nthe hand reached out, the thread points the way and guides you 
\nO dark shivering in the roots and the leaves\nif it were but you who would bring the forgotten dawn!\n\nMay lilies blossom again on the meadow of separation\nmay days open mature, the embrace of the heavens,\nmay those eyes alone shine in the glare\nthe pure soul be outlined like the song of a flute.\n\nWas it night that shut its eyes? Ashes remain,\nas from the string of a bow a choked hum remains,\nash and dizziness on the black shore\nand dense fluttering imprisoned in surmise.\n\nRose of the wind, you knew but took us unknowing\nat a time when thought was building bridges\nso that fingers would knit and two fates pass by\nand spill into the low and rested light.\n\n\n# III.\n\nO dark shivering in the roots and the leaves!\nCome forth sleepless form in the gathering silence\nraise your head from your cupped hands\nso that your will be done and you tell me again\n\nthe words that touched and merged with the blood like an embrace;\nand let your desire, deep like the shade of a walnut tree, bend\nand flood us with your lavish hair\nfrom the down of the kiss to the leaves of the heart.\n\nYou lowered your eyes and you had the smile\nthat masters of another time humbly painted.\nForgotten reading from an ancient gospel,\nyour words breathed and your voice was gentle:\n\n“The passing of time is soft and unworldly\nand pain floats lightly in my soul\ndawn breaks in the heavens, the dream remains afloat\nand it’s as if scented shrubs were passing.”\n\n“With my eyes’ startling, with my body’s blush\na flock of doves awakens and descends\ntheir low, circling flight entangles me\nthe stars are a human touch on my breast.”\n\n“I hear, as in a sea shell, the distant\nadverse and confused lament of the world\nbut these are moments only, they disappear,\nand the two-branched thought of my desire reigns alone.”\n\n“It seemed I’d risen naked in a vanished recollection\nwhen you came, strange and familiar, my beloved\nto grant me, bending, the boundless deliverance\nI was seeking from the wind’s quick sistrum 
”\n\nThe broken sunset declined and was gone\nand it seemed a delusion to ask for the gifts of the sky.\nYou lowered your eyes. The moon’s thorn blossomed\nand you became afraid of the mountain’s shadows.\n\n_
 In the mirror how our love diminishes\nin sleep the dreams, school of oblivion\nin the depths of time, how the heart contracts\nand vanishes in the rocking of a foreign embrace 
_\n\n\n# IV.\n\nTwo serpents, beautiful, apart, tentacles of separation\ncrawl and search, in the night of the trees,\nfor a secret love in hidden bowers;\nsleepless they search, they neither drink nor eat.\n\nCircling, twisting, their insatiable intent\nspins, multiplies, turns, spreads rings on the body\nwhich the laws of the starry dome silently govern,\nstirring its hot, irrepressible frenzy.\n\nThe forest stands as a shivering pillar for night\nand the silence is a silver cup where moments fall\nechoes distinct, whole, a careful chisel\nsustained by carved lines 
\n\nThe statue suddenly dawns. But the bodies have vanished\nin the sea in the wind in the sun in the rain.\nSo the beauties nature grants us are born\nbut who knows if a soul hasn’t died in the world.\n\nThe parted serpents must have circled in fantasy\n(the forest shimmers with birds, shoots, blossoms)\ntheir wavy searching still remains,\nlike the turnings of the cycle that bring sorrow.\n\n\n# V.\n\nWhere is the double-edged day that had changed everything?\nWon’t there be a navigable river for us?\nWon’t there be a sky to drop refreshing dew\nfor the soul benumbed and nourished by the lotus?\n\nOn the stone of patience we wait for the miracle\nthat opens the heavens and makes all things possible\nwe wait for the angel as in the age-old drama\nat the moment when the open roses of twilight\n\ndisappear 
 Red rose of the wind and of fate,\nyou remained in memory only, a heavy rhythm\nrose of the night, you passed, undulating purple\nundulation of the sea 
 The world is simple.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -96112,8 +99238,10 @@ "title": "“Interval of Joy”", "body": "We were happy all that morning\nΟ God how happy.\nFirst the stones the leaves and the flowers shone\nand then the sun\na huge sun all thorns but so very high in the heavens.\nΑ Nymph was gathering our cares and hanging them on the trees\na forest of Judas trees.\nCupids and satyrs were singing and playing\nand rosy limbs could be glimpsed amid black laurel\nthe flesh of young children.\nWe were happy all that morning;\nthe abyss was a closed well\non which the tender foot of a young faun stamped\ndo you remember its laughter: how happy we were!\nAnd then clouds rain and the damp earth;\nyou stopped laughing when you reclined in the hut,\nand opened your large eyes and gazed\non the archangel wielding a fiery sword\n\n“Ι cannot explain it,” you said, “Ι cannot explain it,”\nΙ find people impossible to understand\nhowever much they may play with colors\nthey are all black.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -96124,8 +99252,10 @@ "title": "“Just a Little More”", "body": "Just a little more\nAnd we shall see the almond trees in blossom\nThe marbles shining in the sun\nThe sea, the curling waves.\nJust a little more\nLet us rise just a little higher.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -96136,8 +99266,10 @@ "title": "“The Last Day”", "body": "The day was cloudy. No one could come to a decision;\na light wind was blowing. “Not a north-easter, the sirocco,” someone said.\nA few slender cypresses nailed to the slope, and, beyond, the sea\ngrey with shining pools.\nThe soldiers presented arms as it began to drizzle.\n“Not a north-easter, the sirocco,” was the only decision heard.\nAnd yet we knew that by the following dawn\nnothing would be left to us, neither the woman drinking sleep at our side\nnor the memory that we were once men,\nnothing at all by the following dawn.\n\n“This wind reminds me of spring,” said my friend\nas she walked beside me gazing into the distance, “the spring\nthat came suddenly in the winter by the closed-in sea.\nSo unexpected. So many years have gone. How are we going to die?”\n\nA funeral march meandered through the thin rain.\n\nHow does a man die? Strange no one’s thought about it.\nAnd for those who thought about it, it was like a recollection from old chronicles\nfrom the time of the Crusades or the battle of Salamis.\nYet death is something that happens: how does a man die?\nYet each of us earns his death, his own death, which belongs to no one else\nand this game is life.\n\nThe light was fading from the clouded day, no one decided anything.\nThe following dawn nothing would be left to us, everything surrendered, even our hands,\nand our women slaves at the springheads and our children in the quarries.\nMy friend, walking beside me, was singing a disjointed song:\n“In spring, in summer, slaves 
”\nOne recalled old teachers who’d left us orphans.\nA couple passed, talking:\n“I’m sick of the dusk, let’s go home,\nlet’s go home and turn on the light.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -96148,8 +99280,10 @@ "title": "“Letter of Mathios Paskalis”", "body": "The skyscrapers of New York will never know the coolness that comes down on Kifisia\nbut when I see the two cypress trees above your familiar church\nwith the paintings of the damned being tortured in fire and brimstone\nthen I recall the two chimneys behind the cedars I used to like so much when I was abroad.\n\nAll through March rheumatism wracked your lovely loins and in summer you went to Aidipsos.\nGod! what a struggle it is for life to keep going, as though it were a swollen river passing through the eye of a needle.\nHeavy heat till nightfall, the stars discharging midges, I myself drinking bitter lemonades and still remaining thirsty;\nMoon and movies, phantoms and the suffocating pestiferous harbour.\n\nVerina, life has ruined us, along with the Attic skies and the intellectuals clambering up their own heads\nand the landscapes reduced by drought and hunger to posing\nlike young men selling their souls in order to wear a monocle\nlike young girls--sunflowers swallowing their heads so as to become lilies.\n\nThe days go by slowly; my own days circulate among the clocks dragging the second hand in tow.\nRemember how we used to twist breathless through the alleys so as not to be gutted by the headlights of cars.\nThe idea of the world abroad enveloped us and closed us in like a net\nand we left with a sharp knife hidden within us and you said “Harmodios and Aristogeiton”.\n\nVerina, lower your head so that I can see you, though even if I were to see you I’d want to look beyond.\nWhat’s a man’s value? What does he want and how will he justify his existence at the Second Coming?\nAh, to find myself on a derelict ship lost in the Pacific Ocean alone with the sea and the wind\nalone and without a wireless or strength to fight the elements.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -96160,11 +99294,13 @@ "title": "“Mythistorema”", "body": "# I.\n\nThe angel--\nthree years we waited for him, attention riveted,\nclosely scanning\nthe pines the shore the stars.\nOne with the blade of the plough or the ship’s keel\nwe were searching to find once more the first seed\nso that the age-old drama could begin again.\n\nWe returned to our homes broken,\nlimbs incapable, mouths cracked\nby the tastes of rust and brine.\nwhen we woke we traveled towards the north, strangers\nplunged into mist by the immaculate wings of swans that wounded us.\nOn winter nights the strong wind from the east maddened us,\nin the summers we were lost in the agony of days that couldn’t die.\n\nWe brought back\nthese carved reliefs of a humble art.\n\n\n# II.\n\nStill one more well inside a cave.\nIt used to be easy for us to draw up idols and ornaments\nto please those friends who still remained loyal to us.\n\nThe ropes have broken; only the grooves on the well’s lip\nremind us of our past happiness:\nthe fingers on the rim, as the poet put it.\nThe fingers feel the coolness of the stone a little,\nThen the body’s fever prevails over it\nand the cave stakes its soul and loses it\nevery moment, full of silence, without a drop of water.\n\n\n# III.\n\n_Remember the baths where you were murdered_\n\nI woke with this marble head in my hands;\nit exhausts my elbow and I don’t know where to put it down.\nIt was falling into the dream as I was coming out of the dream\nso our life became one and it will be very difficult for it to separate again.\n\nI look at the eyes: neither open nor closed\nI speak to the mouth which keeps trying to speak\nI hold the cheeks which have broken through the skin.\nThat’s all I’m able to do.\n\nMy hands disappear and come towards me\nmutilated.\n\n\n# IV.\n\n_Argonauts_\n\nAnd a soul\nif it is to know itself\nmust look\ninto its own soul:\nthe stranger and enemy, we’ve seen him in the mirror.\n\nThey were good, the companions, they didn’t complain\nabout the work or the thirst or the frost,\nthey had the bearing of trees and waves\nthat accept the wind and the rain\naccept the night and the sun\nwithout changing in the midst of change.\nThey were fine, whole days\nthey sweated at the oars with lowered eyes\nbreathing in rhythm\nand their blood reddened a submissive skin.\nSometimes they sang, with lowered eyes\nas we were passing the deserted island with the Barbary figs\nto the west, beyond the cape of the dogs\nthat bark.\nIf it is to know itself, they said\nit must look into its own soul, they said\nand the oar’s struck the sea’s gold\nin the sunset.\nWe went past many capes many islands the sea\nleading to another sea, gulls and seals.\nSometimes disconsolate women wept\nlamenting their lost children\nand others frantic sought Alexander the Great\nand glories buried in the depths of Asia.\n\nWe moored on shores full of night-scenes,\nthe birds singing, with waters that left on the hands\nthe memory of a great happiness.\nBut the voyages did not end.\nTheir souls became one with the oars and the oarlocks\nwith the solemn face of the prow\nwith the rudder’s wake\nwith the water that shattered their image.\nThe companions died one by one,\nwith lowered eyes. Their oars\nmark the place where they sleep on the shore.\n\nNo one remembers them. Justice\n\n\n# V.\n\nWe didn’t know them\ndeep down it was hope that said\nwe’d known them since early childhood.\nWe saw them perhaps twice and then they took to the ships:\ncargoes of coal, cargoes of grain, and our friends\nlost beyond the ocean forever.\nDawn finds us beside the tired lamp\ndrawing on paper, awkwardly, painfully,\nships mermaids or sea shells;\nat dusk we go down to the river\nbecause it shows us the way to the sea;\nand we spend the nights in cellars that smell of tar.\n\nOur friends have left us\nperhaps we never saw them, perhaps\nwe met them when sleep\nstill brought us close to the breathing wave\nperhaps we search for them because we search for the other life,\nbeyond the statues.\n\n\n# VI.\n\n_M.R._\n\nThe garden with its fountains in the rain\nyou will see only from behind the clouded glass\nof the low window. Your room\nwill be lit only by the flames from the fireplace\nand sometimes the distant lightning will reveal\nthe wrinkles on your forehead, my old Friend.\n\nThe garden with the fountains that in your hands\nwas a rhythm of the other life, beyond the broken\nstatues and the tragic columns\nand a dance among the oleanders\nnear the new quarries--\nmisty glass will have cut it off from your life.\nYou won’t breathe; earth and the sap of the trees\nwill spring from your memory to strike\nthis window struck by rain\nfrom the outside world.\n\n\n# VII.\n\n_South wind_\n\nWestward the sea merges with a mountain range.\nFrom our left the south wind blows and drives us mad,\nthe kind of wind that strips bones of their flesh.\nOur house among pines and carobs.\nLarge windows. Large tables\nfor writing you the letters we’ve been writing\nso many months now, dropping them\ninto the space between us in order to fill it up.\n\nStar of dawn, when you lowered your eyes\nour hours were sweeter than oil\non a wound, more joyful than cold water\nto the palate, more peaceful than a swan’s wings.\nYou held our life in the palm of your hand.\nAfter the bitter bread of exile,\nat night if we remain in front of the white wall\nyour voice approaches us like the hope of fire;\nand again this wind hones\na razor against our nerves.\n\nEach of us writes you the same thing\nand each falls silent in the other’s presence,\nwatching, each of us, the same world separately\nthe light and darkness on the mountain range\nand you.\nWho will lift this sorrow from our hearts?\nYesterday evening a heavy rain and again today\nthe covered sky burdens us. Our thoughts--\nlike the pine needles of yesterday’s downpour\nbunched up and useless in front of our doorway--\nwould build a collapsing tower.\n\nAmong these decimated villages\non this promontory, open to the south wind\nwith the mountain range in front of us hiding you,\nwho will appraise for us the sentence to oblivion?\nWho will accept our offering, at this close of autumn?\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nWhat are they after, our souls, travelling\non the decks of decayed ships\ncrowded in with sallow women and crying babies\nunable to forget themselves either with the flying fish\nor with the stars that the masts point our at their tips;\ngrated by gramophone records\ncommitted to non-existent pilgrimages unwillingly\nmurmuring broken thoughts from foreign languages.\n\nWhat are they after, our souls, travelling\non rotten brine-soaked timbers\nfrom harbour to harbour?\n\nShifting broken stones, breathing in\nthe pine’s coolness with greater difficulty each day,\nswimming in the waters of this sea\nand of that sea,\nwithout the sense of touch\nwithout men\nin a country that is no longer ours\nnor yours.\n\nWe knew that the islands were beautiful\nsomewhere round about here where we grope,\nslightly lower down or slightly higher up,\na tiny space.\n\n\n# IX.\n\nThe harbour is old, I can’t wait any longer\nfor the friend who left the island with the pine trees\nfor the friend who left the island with the plane trees\nfor the friend who left for the open sea.\nI stroke the rusted cannons, I stroke the oars\nso that my body may revive and decide.\nThe sails give off only the smell\nof salt from the other storm.\n\nIf I chose to remain alone, what I longed for\nwas solitude, not this kind of waiting,\nmy soul shattered on the horizon,\nthese lines, these colours, this silence.\n\nThe night’s stars take me back to Odysseus,\nto his anticipation of the dead among the asphodels.\nWhen we moored here we hoped to find among the asphodels\nthe gorge that knew the wounded Adonis.\n\n\n# X.\n\nOur country is closed in, all mountains\nthat day and night have the low sky as their roof.\nWe have no rivers, we have no wells, we have no springs,\nonly a few cisterns--and these empty--that echo, and that we worship.\nA stagnant hollow sound, the same as our loneliness\nthe same as our love, the same as our bodies.\nWe find it strange that once we were able to build\nour houses, huts and sheep-folds.\nAnd our marriages, the cool coronals and the fingers,\nbecome enigmas inexplicable to our soul.\nHow were our children born, how did they grow strong?\n\nOur country is closed in. The two black Symplegades\nclose it in. When we go down\nto the harbours on Sunday to breathe freely\nwe see, lit in the sunset,\nthe broken planks from voyages that never ended,\nbodies that no longer know how to love.\n\n\n# XI.\n\nSometimes your blood froze like the moon\nin the limitless night your blood\nspread its white wings over\nthe black rocks, the shapes of trees and houses,\nwith a little light from our childhood years.\n\n\n# XII.\n\n_Bottle in the sea_\n\nThree rocks, a few burnt pines, a lone chapel\nand farther above\nthe same landscape repeated starts again:\nthree rocks in the shape of a gateway, rusted,\na few burnt pines, black and yellow,\nand a square hut buried in whitewash;\nand still farther above, many times over,\nthe same landscape recurs level after level\nto the horizon, to the twilit sky.\n\nHere we moored the ship to splice the broken oars,\nto drink water and to sleep.\nThe sea that embittered us is deep and unexplored\nand unfolds a boundless calm.\nHere among the pebbles we found a coin\nand threw dice for it.\nThe youngest won it and disappeared.\n\nWe put to sea again with our broken oars.\n\n\n# XIII.\n\n_Hydra_\n\nDolphins banners and the sound of cannons.\nThe sea once so bitter to your soul\nbore the many-coloured and glittering ships\nit swayed, rolled and tossed them, all blue with white wings,\nonce so bitter to your soul\nnow full of colours in the sun.\n\nWhite sails and sunlight and wet oars\nstruck with a rhythm of drums on stilled waves.\n\nYour eyes, watching, would be beautiful,\nyour arms, reaching out, would glow,\nyour lips would come alive, as they used to,\nat such a miracle:\nthat’s what you were looking for\n what were you looking for in front of ashes\nor in the rain in the fog in the wind\neven when the lights were growing dim\nand the city was sinking and on the stone pavement\nthe Nazarene showed you his heart,\nwhat were you looking for? why don’t you come? what were you looking for?\n\n\n# XIV.\n\nThree red pigeons in the light\ninscribing our fate in the light\nwith colours and gestures of people\nwe once loved.\n\n\n# XV.\n\n_Quid πλαταΜωΜ opacissimus_\n\nSleep wrapped you in green leaves like a tree\nyou breathed like a tree in the quiet light\nin the limpid spring I looked at your face:\neyelids closed, eyelashes brushing the water.\nIn the soft grass my fingers found your fingers\nI held your pulse a moment\nand felt elsewhere your heart’s pain.\n\nUnder the plane tree, near the water, among laurel\nsleep moved you and scattered you\naround me, near me, without my being able to touch the whole of you--\none as you were with your silence;\nseeing your shadow grow and diminish,\nlose itself in the other shadows, in the other\nworld that let you go yet held you back.\n\nThe life that they gave us to live, we lived.\nPity those who wait with such patience\nlost in the black laurel under the heavy plane trees\nand those, alone, who speak to cisterns and wells\nand drown in the voice’s circles.\nPity the companion who shared our privation and our sweat\nand plunged into the sun like a crow beyond the ruins,\nwithout hope of enjoying our reward.\n\nGive us, outside sleep, serenity.\n\n\n# XVI.\n\n_The name is Orestes_\n\nOn the track, once more on the track, on the track,\nhow many times around, how many blood-stained laps, how many black\nrows; the people who watch me,\nwho watched me when, in the chariot,\nI raised my hand glorious, and they roared triumphantly.\n\nThe froth of the horses strikes me, when will the horses tire?\nThe axle creaks, the axle burns, when will the axle burst into flame?\nWhen will the reins break, when will the hooves\ntread flush on the ground\non the soft grass, among the poppies\nwhere, in the spring, you picked a daisy.\nThey were lovely, your eyes, but you didn’t know where to look\nnor did I know where to look, I, without a country,\nI who go on struggling here, how many times around?\nand I feel my knees give way over the axle\nover the wheels, over the wild track\nknees buckle easily when the gods so will it,\nno one can escape, what use is strength, you can’t\nescape the sea that cradled you and that you search for\nat this time of trial, with the horses panting,\nwith the reeds that used to sing in autumn to the Lydian mode\nthe sea you cannot find no matter how you run\nno matter how you circle past the black, bored Eumenides,\nunforgiven.\n\n\n# XVII.\n\n_Astyanax_\n\nNow that you are leaving, take the boy with you as well,\nthe boy who saw the light under the plane tree,\none day when trumpets resounded and weapons shone\nand the sweating horses\nbent to the trough to touch with wet nostrils\nthe green surface of the water.\n\nThe olive trees with the wrinkles of our fathers\nthe rocks with the wisdom of our fathers\nand our brother’s blood alive on the earth\nwere a vital joy, a rich pattern\nfor the souls who knew their prayer.\n\nNow that you are leaving, now that the day of payment\ndawns, now that no one knows\nwhom he will kill and how he will die,\ntake with you the boy who saw the light\nunder the leaves of that plane tree\nand teach him to study the trees.\n\n\n\n# XVIII.\n\nI regret having let a broad river slip through my fingers\nwithout drinking a single drop.\nNow I’m sinking into the stone.\nA small pine tree in the red soil\nis all the company I have.\nWhatever I loved vanished with the houses\nthat were new last summer\nand crumbled in the winds of autumn.\n\n\n# XIX.\n\nEven if the wind blows it doesn’t cool us\nand the shade is meagre under the cypress trees\nand all around slopes ascending to the mountains;\n\nthey’re a burden for us\nthe friends who no longer know how to die.\n\n\n# XX.\n\nIn my breast the wound opens again\nwhen the stars descend and become kin to my body\nwhen silence falls under the footsteps of men.\n\nThese stones sinking into time, how far will they drag me with them?\nThe sea, the sea, who will be able to drain it dry?\nI see the hands beckon each drawn to the vulture and the hawk\nbound as I am to the rock that suffering has made mine,\nI see the trees breathing the black serenity of the dead\nand then the smiles, so static, of the statues.\n\n\n# XXI.\n\nWe who set out on this pilgrimage\nlooked at the broken statues\nbecame distracted and said that life is not so easily lost\nthat death has unexplored paths\nand its own particular justice;\n\nthat while we, still upright on our feet, are dying,\naffiliated in stone\nunited in hardness and weakness,\nthe ancient dead have escaped the circle and risen again\nand smile in a strange silence.\n\n\n# XXII.\n\nSo very much having passed before our eyes\nthat even our eyes saw nothing, but beyond\nand behind was memory like the white sheet one night in an enclosure\nwhere we saw strange visions, even stranger than you,\npass by and vanish into the motionless foliage of a pepper tree;\n\nhaving known this fate of ours so well\nwandering among broken stones, three or six thousand years\nsearching in collapsed buildings that might have been our homes\ntrying to remember dates and heroic deeds:\nwill we be able?\n\nhaving been bound and scattered,\nhaving struggled, as they said, with non-existent difficulties\nlost, then finding again a road full of blind regiments\nsinking in marshes and in the lake of Marathon,\nwill we be able to die as we should?\n\n\n# XXIII.\n\nA little farther\nwe will see the almond trees blossoming\nthe marble gleaming in the sun\nthe sea breaking into waves\n\na little farther,\nlet us rise a little higher.\n\n\n# XIV.\n\nHere end the works of the sea, the works of love.\nThose who will some day live here where we end--\nshould the blood happen to darken in their memory and overflow--\nlet them not forget us, the weak souls among the asphodels,\nlet them turn the heads of the victims towards Erebus:\n\nWe who had nothing will school them in serenity.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", + "language": "Greek", "time": { "year": 1995 }, - "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -96172,8 +99308,11 @@ "title": "“An Old Man on the River Bank”", "body": "And yet we should consider how we go forward.\nTo feel is not enough, nor to think, nor to move\nnor to put your body in danger in front of an old loophole\nwhen scalding oil and molten lead furrow the walls.\n\nAnd yet we should consider towards what we go forward,\nnot as our pain would have it, and our hungry children\nand the chasm between us and the companions calling from the opposite shore;\nnor as the bluish light whispers it in an improvised hospital,\nthe pharmaceutic glimmer on the pillow of the youth operated on at noon;\nbut it should be in some other way, I would say like\nthe long river that emerges from the great lakes enclosed deep in Africa,\nthat was once a god and then became a road and a benefactor, a judge and a delta;\nthat is never the same, as the ancient wise men taught,\nand yet always remains the same body, the same bed, and the same Sign,\nthe same orientation.\n\nI want nothing more than to speak simply, to be granted that grace.\nBecause we’ve loaded even our song with so much music that it’s slowly sinking\nand we’ve decorated our art so much that its features have been eaten away by gold\nand it’s time to say our few words because tomorrow our soul sets sail.\n\nIf pain is human we are not human beings merely to suffer pain;\nthat’s why I think so much these days about the great river,\nthis meaning that moves forward among herbs and greenery\nand beasts that graze and drink, men who sow and harvest,\ngreat tombs even and small habitations of the dead.\nThis current that goes its way and that is not so different from the blood of men,\nfrom the eyes of men when they look straight ahead without fear in their hearts,\nwithout the daily tremor for trivialities or even for important things;\nwhen they look straight ahead like the traveller who is used to gauging his way by the stars,\nnot like us, the other day, gazing at the enclosed garden of a sleepy Arab house,\nbehind the lattices the cool garden changing shape, growing larger and smaller,\nwe too changing, as we gazed, the shape of our desire and our hearts,\nat noon’s precipitation, we the patient dough of a world that throws us out and kneads us,\ncaught in the embroidered nets of a life that was as it should be and then became dust and sank into the sands\nleaving behind it only that vague dizzying sway of a tall palm tree.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley", + "Philip Sherrard" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -96181,8 +99320,10 @@ "title": "“Our Sun”", "body": "This sun was mine and yours; we shared it.\nWho’s suffering behind the golden silk, who’s dying?\nA woman beating her dry breasts cried out: “Cowards,\nthey’ve taken my children and torn them to shreds, you’ve killed them\ngazing at the fire-flies at dusk with a strange look,\nlost in blind thought.”\nThe blood was drying on a hand that a tree made green,\na warrior was asleep clutching the lance that cast light against his side.\n\nIt was ours, this sun, we saw nothing behind the gold embroidery\nthen the messengers came, dirty and breathless,\nstuttering unintelligible words\ntwenty days and nights on the barren earth with thorns only\ntwenty days and nights feeling the bellies of the horses bleeding\nand not a moment’s break to drink the rain-water.\nYou told them to rest first and then to speak, the light had dazzled you.\nThey died saying “We don’t have time,” touching some rays of the sun.\nYou’d forgotten that no one rests.\n\nA woman howled “Cowards,” like a dog in the night.\nOnce she would have been beautiful like you\nwith wet mouth, veins alive beneath the skin,\nwith love.\n\nThis sun was ours; you kept all of it, you wouldn’t follow me.\nAnd it was then I found out about those things behind the gold and the silk:\nwe don’t have time. The messengers were right.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -96193,14 +99334,16 @@ "title": "“Thrush”", "body": "# I. _The house near the sea_\n\nThe houses I had they took away from me. The times\nhappened to be unpropitious: war, destruction, exile;\nsometimes the hunter hits the migratory birds,\nsometimes he doesn’t hit them. Hunting\nwas good in my time, many felt the pellet;\nthe rest circle aimlessly or go mad in the shelters.\n\nDon’t talk to me about the nightingale or the lark\nor the little wagtail\ninscribing figures with his tail in the light;\nI don’t know much about houses\nI know they have their own nature, nothing else.\nNew at first, like babies\nwho play in gardens with the tassels of the sun,\nthey embroider coloured shutters and shining doors\nover the day.\nWhen the architect’s finished, they change,\nthey frown or smile or even grow resentful\nwith those who stayed behind, with those who went away\nwith others who’d come back if they could\nor others who disappeared, now that the world’s become\nan endless hotel.\n\nI don’t know much about houses,\nI remember their joy and their sorrow\nsometimes, when I stop to think;\n again\nsometimes, near the sea, in naked rooms\nwith a single iron bed and nothing of my own,\nwatching the evening spider, I imagine\nthat someone is getting ready to come, that they dress him up\nin white and black robes, with many-coloured jewels,\nand around him venerable ladies,\ngrey hair and dark lace shawls, talk softly,\nthat he is getting ready to come and say goodbye to me;\nor that a woman--eyelashes quivering, slim-waisted,\nreturning from southern ports,\nSmyrna Rhodes Syracuse Alexandria,\nfrom cities closed like hot shutters,\nwith perfume of golden fruit and herbs--\nclimbs the stairs without seeing\nthose who’ve fallen asleep under the stairs.\n\nHouses, you know, grow resentful easily when you strip them bare.\n\n\n# II. _Sensual Elpenor_\n\nI saw him yesterday standing by the door\nbelow my window; it was about\nseven o’clock; there was a woman with him.\nHe had the look of Elpenor just before he fell\nand smashed himself, yet he wasn’t drunk.\nHe was speaking fast, and she\nwas gazing absently towards the gramophones;\nnow and then she cut him short to say a word\nand then would glance impatiently\ntowards where they were frying fish: like a cat.\nHe muttered with a dead cigarette-butt between his lips:\n\n--“Listen. There’s this too. In the moonlight\nthe statues sometimes bend like reeds\nin the midst of ripe fruit--the statues;\nand the flame becomes a cool oleander,\nthe flame that burns one, I mean.”\n\n--“It’s just the light 
 shadows of the night.”\n\n--“Maybe the night that split open, a blue pomegranate,\na dark breast, and filled you with stars,\ncleaving time.\n And yet the statues\nbend sometimes, dividing desire in two,\nlike a peach; and the flame\nbecomes a kiss on the limbs, then a sob,\nthen a cool leaf carried off by the wind;\nthey bend; they become light with a human weight.\nYou don’t forget it.”\n\n--“The statues are in the museum.”\n\n--“No, they pursue you, why can’t you see it?\nI mean with their broken limbs,\nwith their shape from another time, a shape you don’t recognize\nyet know.\n It’s as though\nin the last days of your youth you loved\na woman who was still beautiful, and you were always afraid,\nas you held her naked at noon,\nof the memory aroused by your embrace;\nwere afraid the kiss might betray you\nto other beds now of the past\nwhich nevertheless could haunt you\nso easily, so easily, and bring to life\nimages in the mirror, bodies once alive:\ntheir sensuality.\n It’s as though\nreturning home from some foreign country you happen to open\nan old trunk that’s been locked up a long time\nand find the tatters of clothes you used to wear\non happy occasions, at festivals with many-coloured lights,\nmirrored, now becoming dim,\nand all that remains is the perfume of the absence\nof a young form.\n Really, those statues are not\nthe fragments. You yourself are the relic;\nthey haunt you with a strange virginity\nat home, at the office, at receptions for the celebrated,\nin the unconfessed terror of sleep;\nthey speak of things you wish didn’t exist\nor would happen years after your death,\nand that’s difficult because 
”\n\n--“The statues are in the museum.\nGood night.”\n\n--“
 because the statues are no longer\nfragments. We are. The statues bend lightly 
 Good night.”\n\nAt this point they separated. He took\nthe road leading uphill toward the North\nand she moved on towards the light-flooded beach\nwhere the waves are drowned in the noise from the radio:\n\nThe radio\n\n--“Sails puffed out by the wind\nare all that stay in the mind.\nPerfume of silence and pine\nwill soon be an anodyne\nnow that the sailor’s set sail,\nflycatcher, catfish and wagtail.\nO woman whose touch is dumb,\nhear the wind’s requiem.”\n\n“Drained is the golden keg\nthe sun’s become a rag\nround a middle-aged woman’s neck\nwho coughs and coughs without break;\nfor the summer that’s gone she sighs,\nfor the gold on her shoulders, her thighs.\nO woman, O sightless thing,\nHear the blind man sing.”\n\n“Close the shutters: the day recedes;\nmake flutes from yesteryear’s reeds\nand don’t open, knock how they may:\nthey shout but have nothing to say.\nTake cyclamen, pine-needles, the lily,\nanemones out of the sea;\nO woman whose wits are lost,\nlisten, the water’s ghost 
”\n\n--“Athens. The public has heard\nthe news with alarm; it is feared\na crisis is near. The prime\nminister declared: ‘There is no more time 
’\nTake cyclamen 
 needles of pine 
\nthe lily 
 needles of pine 
\nO woman 
\n--
 is overwhelmingly stronger.\nThe war 
”\n Soulmonger.\n\n\n# III. _The wreck ‘Thrush’_\n\n“This wood that cooled my forehead\nat times when noon burned my veins\nwill flower in other hands. Take it. I’m giving it to you;\nlook, it’s wood from a lemon tree 
”\n I heard the voice\nas I was gazing at the sea trying to make out\na ship they’d sunk there years ago;\nit was called ‘Thrush’, a small wreck; the masts,\nbroken, swayed at odd angles deep underwater, like tentacles,\nor the memory of dreams, marking the hull:\nvague mouth of some huge dead sea-monster\nextinguished in the water. Calm spread all around.\n\nAnd gradually, in turn, other voices followed,\nwhispers thin and thirsty\nemerging from the other side of the sun, the dark side;\nyou might say they were asking to drink a drop of blood;\nfamiliar voices, but I couldn’t distinguish one from the other.\nAnd then the voice of the old man reached me; I felt it\nfalling into the heart of day,\nquietly, as though motionless:\n“And if you condemn me to drink poison, I thank you.\nYour law will be my law; how can I go\nwandering from one foreign country to another, a rolling stone.\nI prefer death.\nWhose path is for the better only God knows.”\n\nCountries of the sun yet you cannot face the sun.\nCountries of men yet you cannot face man.\n\n The light\n\nAs the years go by\nthe judges who condemn you grow in number;\nas the years go by and you converse with fewer voices,\nyou see the sun with different eyes:\nyou know that those who stayed behind were deceiving you\nthe delirium of flesh, the lovely dance\nthat ends in nakedness.\nIt’s as though, turning at night into an empty highway,\nyou suddenly see the eyes of an animal shine,\neyes already gone; so you feel your own eyes:\nyou gaze at the sun, then you’re lost in darkness.\nThe Doric chiton\nthat swayed like the mountains when your fingers touched it\nis a marble figure in the light, but its head is in darkness.\nAnd those who abandoned the stadium to take up arms\nstruck the obstinate marathon runner\nand he saw the track sail in blood,\nthe world empty like the moon,\nthe gardens of victory wither:\nyou see them in the sun, behind the sun.\nAnd the boys who dived from the bowsprits\ngo like spindles twisting still,\nnaked bodies plunging into black light\nwith a coin between the teeth, swimming still,\nwhile the sun with golden needles sews\nsails and wet wood and colours of the sea;\neven now they’re going down obliquely\ntoward the pebbles on the sea floor,\nwhite oil-flasks.\n\nLight, angelic and black,\nlaughter of waves on the sea’s highways\ntear-stained laughter,\nthe old suppliant sees you\nas he moves to cross the invisible fields--\nlight mirrored in his blood,\nthe blood that gave birth to Eteocles and Polynices.\nDay, angelic and black;\nthe brackish taste of woman that poisons the prisoner\nemerges from the wave a cool branch adorned with drops.\nSing little Antigone, sing, O sing 
\nI’m not speaking to you about things past, I’m speaking about love;\nadorn your hair with the sun’s thorns,\ndark girl;\nthe heart of the Scorpion has set,\nthe tyrant in man has fled,\nand all the daughters of the sea, Nereids, Graeae,\nhurry toward the shimmering of the rising goddess:\nwhoever has never loved will love,\nin the light;\n and you find yourself\nin a large house with many windows open\nrunning from room to room, not knowing from where to look out first,\nbecause the pine trees will vanish, and the mirrored mountains, and the chirping of birds\nthe sea will empty, shattered glass, from north and south\nyour eyes will empty of the light of day\nthe way the cicadas all together suddenly fall silent.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "place": "Poros", + "language": "Greek", "time": { "year": 1946, "month": "october", "day": 31 }, - "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -96212,8 +99355,10 @@ "title": "“A Word for Summer”", "body": "We have returned again to autumn; summer\nlike a notebook that has tired us with writing remains\nfull of erasures, abstract scribblings\non the margins and question marks; we have returned\nto the season of eyes that gaze\nin a mirror beneath the electric light,\nlips compressed and the people strangers,\nto rooms, to roads under the pepper trees\nwhile the headlights of motorcars kill\nthousands of pallid masks.\nWe have returned; we always set out to return\nto solitude, a handful of earth in our empty palms.\n\nAnd yet I have once loved Syngros Avenue\nthe double rocking of the wide road\nthat would leave us miraculously by the sea,\nthe everlasting sea, to be cleansed of our sins;\nI have loved a few unknown persons\nsuddenly met at the day’s ending\ntalking to themselves like captains of sunken armadas,\na sign that the world is wide.\nAnd yet I have loved these very roads, these columns;\nno matter if I was born on the other shore near\nrushes and reeds, islands\nwhere there were wells in the sand that a rower\nmight quench his thirst, no matter if I was born\nby the sea which I wind and unwind in my fingers\nwhen I am weary--I no longer know where I was born.\n\nThere still remains the yellow distillate, summer,\nand your hands touching medusae on the water,\nyour eyes suddenly unveiled, the first\neyes of the world, and caverns of the sea;\nbare feet on the red earth.\nThere still remains the blond enmarbled youth, summer,\na little salt dried up in the hollow of a rock\na few red pine-needles after the rain\nscattered about like tattered fishing nets.\n\nI do not understand these faces, I do not understand them;\nsometimes they imitate death and then again\nthey shine with the lowly life of the glowworm\nwith an effort at once restrained and desperate\ncompressed between two wrinkles\non two soiled coffee-house tables;\nthey kill one another, they decrease,\nthey stick like postage-stamps to the windowpanes,\nfaces of the other tribe.\n\nWe walked together, we shared bread and sleep\nwe tasted the same bitterness of parting\nwe built our houses with whatever stones we had\nwe took to the ships, we left our native land, we returned\nwe found our women waiting for us\nbut they recognized us with difficulty, no one knows us.\nAnd our comrades put on the statues, put on the bare\nand empty chairs of autumn, and our comrades\nslew their own faces. I do not understand them.\nThere still remains the yellow distillate, summer,\nwaves of sand receding as far as the last circle\na rhythm of drums pitiless and endless\nblood-shut eyes sinking in the sun\nhands with the manner of birds cutting the sky\nsaluting the ranks of the dead that stand at attention\nlost to a degree I cannot control and which commands me;\nyour hands touching the untrammeled wave.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Edmund Keeley", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Edmund Keeley" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -96275,7 +99420,6 @@ "title": "“A Chaplet of Sage”", "body": "Noon was approaching and the quiet\nwas cut by the buzzing of flies\nas though with a diamond.\nWe were lying in the grass by the Sßzava,\ndrinking Chablis\nchilled in a forest spring.\n\nOnce at Konopiste Castle\nI was allowed to view\nan ancient dagger on display.\nOnly in the wound did a secret sprig\nrelease a triple blade.\nPoems are sometimes like that.\nNot many of them perhaps\nbut it is difficult to extract them from the wound.\n\nA poet often is like a lover.\nHe easily forgets\nhis one-time whispered promise of gentleness\nand the most fragile gracefulness\nhe treats with brutal gesture.\n\nHe has the right to rape.\nUnder the banner of beauty\nor that of terror.\nOr under the banner of both.\nIndeed it is his mission.\n\nEvents themselves hand him\na ready pen\nthat with its tip he may indelibly tattoo\nhis message.\nNot on the skin of the breast\nbut straight into the muscle\nwhich throbs with blood.\nBut rose and heart are not just love,\nnor a ship a voyage or adventure,\nnor a knife murder,\nnor an anchor fidelity unto death.\n\nThese foolish symbols lie.\nLife has long outgrown them.\nReality is totally different\nand a lot worse still.\n\nAnd so the poet drunk with life\nshould spew out all bitterness,\nanger and despair\nrather than let his song become a tinkling bell\non a sheep’s neck.\n\nWhen we had drunk our fill\nand rose from the flattened grass,\na bunch of naked children on the bank\nhopped into the river below us.\nAnd one of the young girls,\nthe one who on her straw-blonde hair\nwore a chaplet of wet sage,\nclimbed up on a large rock\nto stretch out on its sun-warmed surface.\n\nI was taken aback:\n Good Lord,\nshe’s no longer a child!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ewald Osers", "language": "Czech", "source": { "title": "The Plague Column", @@ -96284,6 +99428,9 @@ "year": 1978 } }, + "translators": [ + "Ewald Osers" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -96294,7 +99441,6 @@ "title": "“Dance of Girls’ Chemises”", "body": "A dozen girls’ chemises\ndrying on a line,\nfloral lace at the breast\nlike rose windows in a Gothic cathedral.\n\nLord,\nshield Thou me from all evil.\n\nA dozen girls’ chemises,\nthat’s love,\ninnocent girls’ games on a sunlit lawn,\nthe thirteenth, a man’s shirt,\nthat’s marriage,\nending in adultery and a pistol shot.\n\nThe wind that’s streaming through the chemises,\nthat’s love,\nour earth embraced by its sweet breezes:\na dozen airy bodies.\n\nThose dozen girls made of light air\nare dancing on the green lawn,\ngently the wind is modelling their bodies,\nbreasts, hips, a dimple on the belly there--\nopen fast, oh my eyes.\n\nNot wishing to disturb their dance\nI softly slipped under the chemises’ knees,\nand when any of them fell\nI greedily inhaled it through my teeth\nand bit its breast.\n\nLove,\nwhich we inhale and feed on,\ndisenchanted,\nlove that our dreams are keyed on,\nlove,\nthat dogs our rise and fall:\nnothing\nyet the sum of all.\n\nIn our all-electric age\nnightclubs not christenings are the rage\nand love is pumped into our tyres.\nMy sinful Magdalen, don’t cry:\nRomantic love has spent its fires.\nFaith, motorbikes, and hope.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ewald Osers", "language": "Czech", "source": { "title": "Carrier Pigeon", @@ -96303,6 +99449,9 @@ "year": 1929 } }, + "translators": [ + "Ewald Osers" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -96310,7 +99459,6 @@ "title": "“Fragment of a Letter”", "body": "All night rain lashed the windows.\nI couldn’t go to sleep.\nSo I switched on the light\nand wrote a letter.\n\nIf love could fly,\nas of course it can’t,\nand didn’t so often stay close to the ground,\nit would be delightful to be enveloped\nin its breeze.\n\nBut like infuriated bees\njealous kisses swarm down upon\nthe sweetness of the female body\nand an impatient hand grasps\nwhatever it can reach,\nand desire does not flag.\nEven death might be without terror\nat the moment of exultation.\n\nBut who has ever calculated\nhow much love goes\ninto one pair of open arms!\n\nLetters to women\nI always sent by pigeon post.\nMy conscience is clear.\nI never entrusted them to sparrowhawks\nor goshawks.\n\nUnder my pen the verses dance no longer\nand like a tear in the corner of an eye\nthe word hangs back.\nAnd all my life, at its end,\nis now only a fast journey on a train:\n\nI’m standing by the window of the carriage\nand day after day\nspeeds back into yesterday\nto join the black mists of sorrow.\nAt times I helplessly catch hold\nof the emergency brake.\n\nPerhaps I shall once more catch sight\nof a woman’s smile,\ntrapped like a torn-off flower\non the lashes of her eyes.\nPerhaps I may still be allowed\nto send those eyes at least one kiss\nbefore they’re lost to me in the dark.\n\nPerhaps once more I shall even see\na slender ankle\nchiselled like a gem\nout of warm tenderness,\nso that I might once more\nhalf choke with longing.\n\nHow much is there that man must leave behind\nas the train inexorably approaches\nLethe Station\nwith its plantations of shimmering asphodels\namidst whose perfume everything is forgotten.\nIncluding human love.\n\nThat is the final stop:\nthe train goes no further.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ewald Osers", "language": "Czech", "source": { "title": "An Umbrella from Picadilly", @@ -96319,6 +99467,9 @@ "year": 1979 } }, + "translators": [ + "Ewald Osers" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -96326,7 +99477,6 @@ "title": "“Halley’s Comet”", "body": "I saw nothing at that moment,\n nothing but strangers’ backs,\nheads under their hats craning.\nThe street was crowded.\n\nI’d have liked to scramble up that blank wall\nby my fingernails,\n the way addicts of ether try to do,\nbut just then my hand was seized\n by a woman’s hand,\nI took a few steps\nand before me opened those depths\nwe call the heavens.\n\nThe spires of the Cathedral down on the horizon\n looked as if cut out\nfrom matte silver foil,\nbut high above them the stars were drowning.\n\nThere it is! See it now?\n Yes, I see it!\nIn trails of sparks which would not die out\nthe star was vanishing without return.\n\nIt was a spring night, sweet and mild,\n after mid-May,\nthe balmy air was laden with perfumes\nand I inhaled it\n together with the stardust.\n\nOnce when in summer I had tried to smell\n --and only furtively--\nthe scent of some tall lilies\n--they used to sell them in our market-place\nin kitchen jugs--\npeople would laugh at me.\nFor on my face was golden pollen", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ewald Osers", "language": "Czech", "source": { "title": "Halley’s Comet", @@ -96335,6 +99485,9 @@ "year": 1967 } }, + "translators": [ + "Ewald Osers" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -96346,7 +99499,6 @@ "title": "“Lost Paradise”", "body": "The Old Jewish Cemetery\nis one great bouquet of grey stone\non which time has trodden.\nI was drifting among the graves,\nthinking of my mother.\nShe used to read the Bible.\n\nThe letters in two columns\nwelled up before her eyes\nlike blood from a wound.\nThe lamp guttered and smoked\nand Mother put on her glasses.\nAt times she had to blow it out\nand with her hairpin straighten\nthe glowing wick.\n\nBut when she closed her tired eyes\nshe dreamed of Paradise\nbefore God had garrisoned it\nwith armed cherubim.\nOften she fell asleep and the Book\nslipped from her lap.\n\nI was still young\nwhen I discovered in the Old Testament\nthose fascinating verses about love\nand eagerly searched for\nthe passages on incest.\nThen I did not yet suspect\nhow much tenderness is hidden in the names\nof Old Testament women.\n\nAdah is Ornament and Orpah\nis a Hind,\nNaamah is the Sweetness\nand Nikol is the Little Brook.\n\nAbigail is the Fount of Delight.\nBut if I recall how helplessly I watched\nas they dragged off the Jews,\neven the crying children,\nI still shudder with horror\nand a chill runs down my spine.\n\nJemima is the Dove and Tamar\nthe Palm Tree.\nTirzah is Grace\nand Zilpah a Dewdrop.\nMy God, how beautiful this is.\n\nWe were living in hell\nyet no one dared to strike a weapon\nfrom the murderers’ hands.\nAs if within our hearts we did not have\na spark of humanity!\n\nThe name Jecholiah means\nThe Lord is Mighty.\nAnd yet their frowning God\ngazed over the barbed wire\nand did not move a finger--\n\nDelilah is the Delicate, Rachel\nthe Ewe Lamb,\nDeborah the Bee\nand Esther the Bright Star.\n\nI’d just returned from the cemetery\nwhen the June evening, with its scents,\nrested on the windows.\nBut from the silent distance now and then\ncame thunder of a future war.\nThere is no time without murder.\n\nI almost forgot:\nRhoda is the Rose.\nAnd this flower perhaps is the only thing\nthat’s left us on earth\nfrom the Paradise that was.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ewald Osers", "language": "Czech", "source": { "title": "An Umbrella from Picadilly", @@ -96355,6 +99507,9 @@ "year": 1979 } }, + "translators": [ + "Ewald Osers" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -96365,7 +99520,6 @@ "title": "“Lovers, those evening pilgrims 
”", "body": "Lovers, those evening pilgrims,\nwalk from darkness into darkness\n to an empty bench\nand wake the birds.\n\nOnly the rats, which nest with the swan\non the pond’s bank under the willow branches,\nsometimes alarm them.\n\nKeyholes are glittering in the sky,\nand when a cloud covers them\nsomebody’s hand is on the door-knob\nand the eye, which had hoped to see a mystery,\ngazes in vain.\n\n--I wouldn’t mind opening that door,\nexcept I don’t know which,\nand then I fear what I might find.\n\nBy now that pair were falling down together\nin a close embrace,\nand in that state of weightlessness\nwere reeling in spasms of wonderment.\n\nThe mists are dancing, wearing wreaths\nof daisies, bird droppings, and rust\n their swirling cloaks\nstill red from the extinguished evening sky.\n\nBut those two, lips to lips,\nare still beyond this world,\n beyond the door of heaven.\n\n--When you start falling, hold to me tight\nand hang on to your scarf!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ewald Osers", "language": "Czech", "source": { "title": "Concert on the Island", @@ -96374,6 +99528,9 @@ "year": 1965 } }, + "translators": [ + "Ewald Osers" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -96384,7 +99541,6 @@ "title": "“Once only 
”", "body": "Once only did I see\nthe sun so blood-red.\n And never again.\nIt sank ominously towards the horizon\nand it seemed as if\nsomeone had kicked apart the gates of hell.\nI asked at the observatory\nand now I know why.\n\nHell we all know, it’s everywhere\nand walks upon two legs.\n But paradise?\nIt may well be that paradise is only\na smile\n we have long waited for,\nand lips\n whispering our name.\nAnd then that brief vertiginous moment\nwhen we’re allowed to forget\nthat hell exists.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ewald Osers", "language": "Czech", "source": { "title": "The Casting of the Bells", @@ -96393,6 +99549,9 @@ "year": 1967 } }, + "translators": [ + "Ewald Osers" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -96400,7 +99559,6 @@ "title": "“Our Lady of ĆœiĆŸkov”", "body": "When May arrived at last,\nand spring\nsoiled its flowery rays\non the roofs of the tenements,\nmy mother would sink to her knees\nin the church of St Procopius\nand pray to the Holy Virgin.\nIn May she felt closest to her.\n\nHuddled before the altar\nshe resembled a bundle of cast-off clothes\nleft behind by someone.\n--It’s you I’m praying for, ungrateful boy!\nBut I smiled inwardly.\n\nI enjoyed Latin at school.\nWe were reading Virgil,\nand in my head echoed the rhythms\nof the Roman poets.\nI also started writing poetry.\nI walked along and sang.\nSoftly and badly.\n\nI hated mathematics.\nWhenever we had to write an essay\nI was terrified\nand during the night would toss\nfrom side to side.\n\nSometimes I thought of praying\nbut soon rejected the idea. It would be shameful\nto ask Heaven for help.\nUntil one day I came to know\nwhat terror was.\nTerrifying terror.\n\nI remembered my mother’s faith\nand calculatingly I thought:\nJust suppose!\nSoon I was walking up the cold stone steps\nto the ĆœiĆŸkov church,\nto the altar decked with lilies.\nBut their smell turned bitter on my tongue\nlike the milky sap\nof dandelions.\n\nHurriedly I asked the Virgin\nto have mercy!\nTo have mercy and intercede\nso that the girl I loved,\nwho was barely eighteen\nand was walking about in deep despair,\nnot eating and not sleeping,\nunhappy and in tears,\nand would rather die,\nshould not, for Heaven’s sake, be pregnant.\n\nThe statue of the Virgin gazed\nstolidly into my eyes.\n\nBut a few days later the flowers\non the altar smelled\nsweet as before.\n\nAnd once more I felt on my lips\nthe taste of happy kisses.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ewald Osers", "language": "Czech", "source": { "title": "To Be A Poet", @@ -96409,6 +99567,9 @@ "year": 1983 } }, + "translators": [ + "Ewald Osers" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -96419,7 +99580,6 @@ "title": "“Place of Pilgrimage”", "body": "After a long journey we awoke\nin the cathedral’s cloisters, where men slept\non the bare floor.\nThere were no buses in those days,\nonly trams and the train,\nand on a pilgrimage one went on foot.\n\nWe were awakened by bells. They boomed\nfrom square-set towers.\nUnder their clangour trembled not only the church\nbut the dew on the stalks\nas though somewhere quite close above our heads\nelephants were trampling on the clouds\nin a morning dance.\n\nA few yards from us the women were dressing.\nThus did I catch a glimpse\nfor only a second or two\nof the nakedness of female bodies\nas hands raised skirts above heads.\n\nBut at that moment someone clamped\nhis hand upon my mouth\nso that I could not even let out my breath.\nAnd I groped for the wall.\n\nA moment later all were kneeling\nbefore the golden reliquary\nhailing each other with their songs.\nI sang with them.\nBut I was hailing something different,\nyes and a thousand times,\ngripped by first knowledge.\nThe singing quickly bore my head away\nout of the church.\nIn the Bible the Evangelist Luke\nwrites in his gospel,\nChapter One, Verse Twenty-six\nthe following:\n\nAnd the winged messenger flew in by the window\ninto the virgin’s chamber\nsoftly as the barn-owl flies by night,\nand hovered in the air before the maiden\na foot above the ground,\nimperceptibly beating his wings.\nHe spoke in Hebrew about David’s throne.\n\nShe dropped her eyes in surprise\nand whispered: Amen\nand her nut-brown hair\nfell from her forehead onto her prie-dieu.\n\nNow I know how at that fateful moment\nwomen act\nto whom an angel has announced nothing.\n\nThey first shriek with delight,\nthen they sob\nand mercilessly dig their nails\ninto man’s flesh.\nAnd as they close their womb\nand tense their muscles\na heart in tumult hurls wild words\nup to their lips.\n\nI was beginning to get ready for life\nand headed wherever\nthe world was most exciting.\nI well recall the rattle of rosaries\nat fairground stalls\nlike rain on a tin roof,\nand the girls, as they strolled among the stalls,\nnervously clutching their scarves,\nliberally cast their sparkling eyes\nin all directions,\nand their lips launched on the empty air\nthe flavour of kisses to come.\n\nLife is a hard and agonizing flight\nof migratory birds\nto regions where you are alone.\nAnd whence there’s no return.\nAnd all that you have left behind,\nthe pain, the sorrows, all your disappointments\nseem easier to bear\nthan is this loneliness,\nwhere there is no consolation\nto bring a little comfort to\nyour tear-stained soul.\n\nWhat use to me are those sweet sultanas!\nGood thing that at the rifle booth I won\na bright-red paper rose!\nI kept it a long time\nand still it smelled of carbide.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ewald Osers", "language": "Czech", "source": { "title": "The Plague Column", @@ -96428,6 +99588,9 @@ "year": 1978 } }, + "translators": [ + "Ewald Osers" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -96435,7 +99598,6 @@ "title": "“The Plague Column”", "body": "To the four corners of the earth they turn:\nthe four demobilized knights of the heavenly host.\nAnd the four corners of the earth\nare barred\nbehind four heavy locks.\n\nDown the sunny path the ancient shadow\nof the column staggers\nfrom the hour of Shackles\nto the hour of Dance.\nFrom the hour of the Rose\nto the hour of the Dragon’s Claw.\nFrom the hour of Smiles\nto the hour of Wrath.\n\nFrom the hour of Hope\nto the hour of Never,\nwhence it is just a short step\nto the hour of Despair,\nto Death’s turnstile.\n\nOur lives run\nlike fingers over sandpaper,\ndays, weeks, years, centuries.\nAnd there were times when we spent\nlong years in tears.\nI still walk around the column\nwhere so often I waited,\nlistening to the water gurgling\nfrom apocalyptic mouths,\nalways astonished\nat the water’s flirtatiousness\nas it splintered on the basin’s surface\nuntil the Column’s shadow fell across your face.\n\nThat was the hour of the Rose.\n\nYou there, young lad, do me a favour: climb\nup on the fountain and read out to me\nthe words the four Evangelists are writing\non their stone pages.\n\nThe Evangelist Matthew is first.\n And which of us from pure joy\n can add to his life’s span\n one cubit?\n\nAnd what does Mark, the second, write?\n Is a candle bought\n to be put under a bushel\n and not to be set on a candlestick?\n\nAnd the Evangelist Luke?\n The light of the body is in the eye.\n But where many bodies are\n thither will many eagles be gathered\n together.\n\nAnd lastly, John, the favourite of the Lord,\nwhat does he write?\nHe has his book shut on his lap.\nThen open it, boy. If needs be\nwith your teeth.\nI was christened on the edge of Olsany\nin the plague chapel of Saint Roch.\n\nWhen bubonic plague was raging in Prague\nthey laid the dead around the chapel.\nBody upon body, in layers.\nTheir bones, over the years, grew into\nrough-stacked pyres\nwhich blazed\nin the quicklime whirlwind of clay.\n\nFor a long time I would visit\nthese mournful places,\nbut I did not forsake the sweetness of life.\n\nI felt happy in the warmth of human breath\nand when I roamed among people\nI tried to catch the perfume of women’s hair.\n\nOn the steps of the Olsany taverns\nI used to crouch at night to hear\nthe coffin-bearers and grave-diggers\nsinging their rowdy songs.\n\nBut that was long ago\nthe taverns have fallen silent,\nthe grave-diggers in the end\nburied each other.\n\nWhen spring came within reach,\nwith feather and lute,\nI’d walk around the lawn with the Japanese cherries\non the south side of the chapel\nand, bewitched by their aging splendour,\nthink about girls\nsilently undressing at night.\nI did not know their names\nbut one of them,\nwhen sleep would not come,\ntapped softly on my window.\n\nAnd who was it that wrote\nthose poems on my pillow?\n\nSometimes I would stand by the wooden bell tower.\nThe bell was tolled\nwhenever they lifted up a corpse in the chapel.\nIt too is silent now.\n\nI gazed on the neo-classical statuary\nin the Mal Strana cemetery.\nThe statues were still grieving over their dead\nfrom whom they’d had to part.\nLeaving, they walked slowly\nwith the smile of their ancient beauty.\n\nAnd there were among them not only women\nbut also soldiers with helmets, and armed\nunless I’m mistaken.\n\nI haven’t been here for a long time.\n\nDon’t let them dupe you\nthat the plague’s at an end:\nI’ve seen too many coffins hauled\nthrough this dark gateway,\nwhich is not the only one.\n\nThe plague still rages and it seems that the doctors\nare giving different names to the disease\nto avoid a panic.\nYet it is still the same old death\nand nothing else,\nand it is so contagious\nno one alive can escape it.\n\nWhenever I have looked out of my window,\nemaciated horses have been drawing that ill-boding cart\nwith a gaunt coffin.\nOnly, those bells aren’t tolled so often now,\ncrosses no longer painted on front doors,\njuniper twigs no longer burnt for fumigation.\n\nIn the Julian Fields\nwe’d sometimes lie at nightfall,\nas Brno was sinking into the darkness,\nand in the branches of the Svitava\nthe frogs began their plaint.\n\nOnce a young gipsy sat down beside us.\nHer blouse was half unbuttoned\nand she read our hands.\nTo Halas she said:\n You won’t live to be fifty.\nTo Artus Chernfk:\n You’ll live till just after that.\nI didn’t want her to tell my fortune,\nI was afraid.\n\nShe seized my hand\nand angrily exclaimed:\n You’ll live a long time!\nIt sounded like a threat.\n\nThe many rondels and songs I wrote!\nThere was a war all over the world\nand all over the world\nwas grief.\nAnd yet I whispered into jewelled ears\nverses of love.\nIt makes me feel ashamed.\nBut no, not really.\nA wreath of sonnets I laid upon\nthe curves of your lap as you fell asleep.\nIt was more beautiful than the laurel wreaths\nof speedway winners.\n\nBut suddenly we met\nat the steps of the fountain,\nwe each went somewhere else, at another time\nand by another path.\n\nFor a long time I felt\nI kept seeing your legs,\nsometimes I even heard your laughter\nbut it wasn’t you.\nAnd finally I even saw your eyes.\nBut only once.\n\nMy skin thrice dabbed with a swab\nsoaked in iodine\nwas golden brown,\nthe colour of the skin of dancing girls\nin Indian temples.\nI stared fixedly at the ceiling\nto see them better\nand the flower-decked procession\nmoved round the temple.\n\nOne of them, the one in the middle\nwith the blackest eyes,\nsmiled at me.\nGod,\nwhat foolishness is racing through my head\nas I lie on the operating table\nwith drugs in my blood.\n\nAnd now they’ve lit the lamp above me,\nthe surgeon brings his scalpel down\nand firmly makes a long incision.\nBecause I came round quickly\nI firmly closed my eyes again.\nEven so I caught a glimpse\nof female eyes above a sterile mask\njust long enough for me to smile.\nHallo, beautiful eyes.\n\nBy now they had ligatures around my blood vessels\nand hooks opening up my wounds\nto let the surgeon separate\nthe paravertebral muscles\nand expose the spines and arches.\nI uttered a soft moan.\n\nI was lying on my side,\nmy hands tied at the wrists\nbut with my palms free:\nthese a nurse was holding in her lap\nup by my head.\nI firmly gripped her thigh\nand fiercely pressed it to me\nas a diver clutches a slim amphora\nstreaking up to the surface.\n\nJust then the pentothol began to flow\ninto my veins\nand all went black before me.\nThere was a darkness as at the end of the world\nand I remember no more.\n\nDear nurse, you got a few bruises.\nI’m very sorry.\nBut in my mind I say:\n A pity\nI couldn’t bring this alluring booty\nup with me from the darkness\ninto the light and\nbefore my eyes.\n\nThe worst is over now,\nI tell myself: I’m old.\nThe worst is yet to come:\nI’m still alive.\nIf you really must know:\nI have been happy.\n\nSometimes a whole day, sometimes whole hours,\nsometimes just a few minutes.\n\nAll my life I have been faithful to love.\nAnd if a woman’s hands are more than wings\nwhat then are her legs?\nHow I enjoyed testing their strength.\nThat soft strength in their grip.\nLet those knees then crush my head!\n\nIf I closed my eyes in this embrace\nI would not be so drunk\nand there wouldn’t be that feverish drumming\nin my temples.\nBut why should I close them?\n\nWith open eyes\nI have walked through this land.\nIt’s beautiful--but you know that.\nIt has meant more to me perhaps than all my loves,\nand her embrace has lasted all my life.\nWhen I was hungry\nI fed almost daily\non the words of her songs.\n\nThose who have left\nhastily fled to distant lands,\nmust realize it by now:\nthe world is terrible.\nThey do not love and are not loved.\nWe at least love.\nSo let her knees then crush\nmy head!\n\nHere is an accurate catalogue of guided missiles.\n\nSurface-to-air\nSurface-to-surface\nSurface-to-sea\nAir-to-air\nAir-to-surface\nAir-to-sea\nSea-to-air\nSea-to-sea\nSea-to-surface\n\nHush, city, I can’t make out the whispering of the weir.\nAnd people go about, quite unsuspecting\nthat above their heads fly\nfiery kisses\ndelivered by hand from window to window.\n\nMouth-to-eye\nMouth-to-face\nMouth-to-mouth\nAnd so on\n\nUntil a hand at night pulls down a blind\nand hides the target.\n\nOn the narrow horizon of home\nbetween sewing box\nand slippers with swansdown pompoms\nher belly’s hot moon\nis quickly waxing.\n\nAlready she counts the days of the lark\nthough the sparrows are still pecking poppyseed\nbehind frost-etched flowers.\nIn the wild-thyme nest\nsomeone’s already winding up the spring\nof the tiny heart\nso it should go accurately\nall life long.\n\nWhat’s all this talk of grey hair\nand wisdom?\nWhen the bush of life burns down\nexperience is worthless.\nIndeed it always is.\n\nAfter the hailstorm of graves\nthe column was thrust up high\nand four old poets\nleaned back on it\nto write on the books pages\ntheir bestsellers.\n\nThe basin now is empty,\nlittered with cigarette stubs,\nand the sun only hesitantly uncovers\nthe grief of the stones pushed aside.\nA place perhaps for begging.\n\nBut to cast my life away just like that\nfor nothing at all--that\nI won’t do.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ewald Osers", "language": "Czech", "source": { "title": "The Plague Column", @@ -96444,6 +99606,9 @@ "year": 1978 } }, + "translators": [ + "Ewald Osers" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -96451,7 +99616,6 @@ "title": "“A Song at the End”", "body": "Listen: about little Hendele.\nShe came back to me yesterday\nand she was twenty-four already.\nAnd as graceful as Shulamite.\n\nShe wore an ash-gray squirrel fur\nand a pert little cap\nand round her neck she’d tied a scarf\nthe colour of pale smoke.\n\nHendele, how well this suits you!\nI thought that you were dead\nand meanwhile you have grown more beautiful.\nI am glad you’ve come!\n\nHow wrong you are, dear friend!\nI’ve been dead twenty years,\nand very well you know it.\nI’ve only come to meet you.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ewald Osers", "language": "Czech", "source": { "title": "Concert on the Island", @@ -96460,6 +99624,9 @@ "year": 1965 } }, + "translators": [ + "Ewald Osers" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -96467,7 +99634,6 @@ "title": "“Struggle with the Angel”", "body": "God knows who first thought up\nthat gloomy image\nand spoke of the dead\nas living shades\nstraying about amongst us.\n\nAnd yet those shades are really here--\nyou can’t miss them.\nOver the years I’ve gathered around me\na numerous cluster.\nBut it is I amidst them all\nwho is straying.\n\nThey’re dark\nand their muteness keeps time\nwith my muteness\nwhen the evening’s closing in\nand I’m alone.\nNow and again they stay my writing hand\nwhen I’m not right,\nand blow away an evil thought\nthat’s painful.\n\nSome of them are so dim\nand faded\nI’m losing sight of them in the distance.\nOne of the shades, however, is rose-red\nand weeps.\nIn every person’s life\nthere comes a moment\nwhen everything suddenly goes black before his eyes\nand he longs passionately to take in his hands\na smiling head.\nHis heart wants to be tied\nto another heart,\neven by deep stitches,\nwhile his lips desire nothing more\nthan to touch down on the spots where\nthe midnight raven settled on Pallas Athene\nwhen uninvited it flew in to visit\na melancholy poet.\n\nIt is called love.\nAll right,\nperhaps that’s what it is!\nBut only rarely does it last for long,\nlet alone unto death\nas in the case of swans.\nOften loves succeed each other\nlike suits of cards in your hand.\n\nSometimes it’s just a tremor of delight,\nmore often long and bitter pain.\nAt other times all sighs and tears.\nAnd sometimes even boredom.\nThat’s the saddest kind.\n\nSome time in the past I saw a rose-red shade.\nIt stood by the entrance to a house\nfacing Prague’s railway station,\neternally swathed in smoke.\n\nWe used to sit there by the window.\nI held her delicate hands\nand talked of love.\nI’m good at that!\nShe’s long been dead.\nThe red lights were winking\ndown by the track.\n\nAs soon as the wind sprang up a little\nit blew away the grey veil\nand the rails glistened\nlike the strings of some monstrous piano.\nAt times you could also hear the whistle of steam\nand the puffing of engines\nas they carried off people’s wretched longings\nfrom the grimy platforms\nto all possible destinations.\nSometimes they also carried away the dead\nreturning to their homes\nand to their cemeteries.\n\nNow I know why it hurts so\nto tear hand from hand,\nlips from lips,\nwhen the stitches tear\nand the guard slams shut\nthe last carriage door.\n\nLove’s an eternal struggle with the angel.\nFrom dawn to night.\nWithout mercy.\nThe opponent is often stronger.\nBut woe to him\nwho doesn’t realize\nthat his angel has no wings\nand will not bless.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ewald Osers", "language": "Czech", "source": { "title": "An Umbrella from Picadilly", @@ -96476,6 +99642,9 @@ "year": 1979 } }, + "translators": [ + "Ewald Osers" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -96483,7 +99652,6 @@ "title": "“The Year 1934”", "body": "The happiness of youth\nis pleasant to remember.\nOnly the river doesn’t age.\nThe windmill has collapsed,\ncapricious winds\nare whistling, unconcerned.\n\nA touching wayside cross remains.\nA cornflower wreath like a nest without birds\nupon Christ’s shoulder,\nand a frog blaspheming in the sedge.\n\nHave mercy upon us!\nA bitter time has come\nto the banks of sweet rivers,\ntwo years the factories have stood empty\nand children learn the language of hunger\nat their mothers’ knees.\n\nAnd still their laughter rings\nunder the willow sadly silent\nin its silver.\n\nMay they give us a happier old age\nthan the childhood we’re giving them!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Ewald Osers", "language": "Czech", "source": { "title": "The Hands of Venus", @@ -96492,6 +99660,9 @@ "year": 1936 } }, + "translators": [ + "Ewald Osers" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -96534,11 +99705,14 @@ "title": "“A rabbit made strong by decree”", "body": "The Lion once gathered the beastly throng.\nAnd he decreed, without a stuttering habit,\nThat from now on the one most strong\n Would be simply--the Rabbit.\nThe little Rabbit went into the wood,\nAnd there was dancing, there was singing there!\nBut from where a birch tree stood Climbed down a Bear.\n“Get out of my way,” the Rabbit squeaked, “You dummy!\n Don’t you see who’s coming?”\nThe Bear guffawed (“How ludicrous and grim!”)\nHe whacked the bunny in the midst of laughter\nAnd not one spot was left of him\n --Not even any fur thereafter.\nBut from an oak the Owl raised up a fuss\nWith its prophetic voice, “You’ll rue this blunder.\n The Rabbit was the strongest among us,\n According to the Lion’s law we’re under.\nHe told us when we met, the wood’s aristocracy.”\n\nAnd here the Bear began to cry--repeating\n“O heaven, how could I know about the Rabbit? See,\n I wasn’t at the meeting.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Merrill Sparks & Vladimir Markov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1936 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Merrill Sparks", + "Vladimir Markov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -96546,11 +99720,13 @@ "title": "“Sebastopol”", "body": "I was in prison in that town,\nMy cell was four by three. Still\nI could hear the sea through the bars,\nAnd I was happy.\n Every day at noon\nA cannon sounded over the town.\nFrom early morning, barely awake\nI was waiting for its thunder.\nAnd was as glad as if the booming clock\nWas a present for me.\n When the chief,\nNot so much a Wrangel man as a tsarist,\nLieutenant Colonel Ivanov of the infantry,\nAllowed me to be indulged with a book,\nAnd I, in love with Blok’s mist and shadows,\nWas sent 
 a telephone directory--I\nTook no offense at all. On the contrary!\nWith an amused expression, I read: “Sobakin.\n Sobakin-Sobakovsky,\n Sobachevky,\n Sobashnikov”\n and simply, “Sobaka”--\nAnd I was happy for nineteen days.\nLater I got out and saw the beach,\nAnd in the distance a three-decked schooner,\nAnd behind her a dinghy.\n My amusement\nDid not fade in the least. I thought\nThat if this thing dropped anchor,\nI would swim to its captain\nAnd would sail then to Constantinople\nOr somewhere else 
 But the schooner\nMelted into the blue of the sea.\n\nAll the same, I was blissfully serene:\nActually, there’s no sense regretting\nThe transience of happiness! It was already a blessing\nThat I was happy. And there seemed\nNo reason for it, so much the better;\nAs things are, happiness\n was mine in vain.\n\nSo I loafed about, rolling like a brig,\nAlong Count’s Dock and past the bronze\nNakhimov, and past the vistas\nOf the eleven-month-old battle,\nAnd past the little house where in the window\nSat a large-headed, stumpy,\nTame raven with blue eyes.\n\nYes, I was happy! Of course, I was happy.\nMadly happy. Nineteen years old\nAnd not a penny. All I had then\nWas a smile. That was all my wealth.\n\nDo you like girls, tanned\nDarker than their gingery hair?\nWith eyes filled out with the sea’s distances?\nWith shoulders wider than their hips, eh? Furthermore,\nLips turning up just a little, like a child’s?\nOne such walked toward me.\nThat is, not so much toward me. But anyway, we walked.\nHow my heart thumped 
 Now she is passing.\nNo, she can’t be allowed\nTo get away 
\n “Excuse me!”\nShe stopped:\n “Yes?”\n She looked.\nQuick, I must think of something!\n She waited.\nOh, hell! What can I say to her?\n“I 
 You see 
 I 
 Sorry, but 
”\n\nAnd suddenly she gave me\nA really warm look,\nAnd thrusting her hand into a little pink pocket\nOn the white skirt (that was the fashion then),\nHanded me a “Kerenka.” So that was it!\nShe’s taken me for a beggar 
 Fine thing!\nI ran after her:\n “Stop!\nReally, I’m not 
 How dare you!\nTake it back, I beg you--take it back!\nIt’s just I like you, and I 
”\nAnd suddenly I started sobbing. I’d just realized\nThat all my prison happiness\nWas simply trying to hold down the horror.\n Ah!\nWhy was I doing this? Far easier\nTo give way to the feeling. The cannon’s salvo 
\nAnd this book 
 a telephone directory.\n\nBut the girl took me by the arm,\nAnd, thrusting bystanders aside, led me off\nInto some gateway. Two hands\nLay on my shoulders: “There there, darling!\nI didn’t mean to upset you, darling.\nStop crying, darling, stop it 
”\nShe whispered, breathing hard,\nProbably becoming a little inebriated in the half-dark\nWith her own whispering and that word,\nSo bewitching, so sweet,\nSo enticing, which, perhaps,\nShe’d never had occasion to use before,\nThat loveliest, most lyrical word: “Darling.”\nI was in prison in that town.\nI was nineteen!\n And today\nAgain I am walking over blackened corpses\nOn the Balaklava-Sebastopol Road,\nWhere our cavalry division has passed.\n\nOn this vacant piece of land was the prison,\nThere. Turn right. I walk\nToward the steep-rising lane, as if someone\nWere directing my footsteps. Why?\nDebris 
 Craters 
 Smoldering ruins.\nAnd suddenly, in the middle of the gray, burnt-out place,\nSome iron gates,\nOpening onto a blue emptiness.\nI recognize them at once. Yes, yes!\n It is they.\n\nAnd then for some reason, I look around,\nAs sometimes one does,\nSensing someone’s gaze:\nAcross the road, in the little room, overgrown\nWith lilac, burdock and couch grass,\nIn the window frame, thrown out by an explosion,\nThat same, tame, big-headed\nCentenarian raven with the blue eyes.\n\nAh, what a poem that was! For the world\nThe unconquerable city of Sebastopol\nIs history. A museum town.\nAn encyclopedia of names and dates.\nBut for me 
 For my heart 
\nFor my whole soul 
 No, I could not live\nAt peace, if this town\nHad remained in enemy hands.\n Nowhere in the world\n\nWill I find just this lane,\nWith its slope from heaven to sea,\nFrom light blue to dark blue--crooked,\nSlightly drunk, hobbling,\nWhere once I sobbed, growing tipsy\nOn the irrepressible whispering of love 
\nThis was the very lane!\n And at once I understood\nThat poetry and the homeland are the same,\nThat the homeland too is a book\nWhich one writes for oneself,\nWith the sacred pen of memory,\nCutting out the prose, the tedious passages,\nAnd leaving sun and love.\n\nRaven, do you recall my girl?\nHow I would like to burst out sobbing now!\nBut it’s no longer possible. I am old.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Daniel Weissbort", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1944 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Daniel Weissbort" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -97935,10 +101111,10 @@ "title": "“Troubles”", "body": "I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.\nSome come from ahead and some come from behind.\nBut I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see.\nNow my troubles are going to have troubles with me!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1965 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -100435,11 +103611,13 @@ "title": "“Alive not by bread alone 
”", "body": "Alive not by bread alone,\n I dip a crust of sky,\nin the morning chill,\n in the stream flowing by.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Chandler", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1955 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -100450,11 +103628,13 @@ "title": "“All that is human slips away 
”", "body": "All that is human slips away;\neverything was mere husk.\nAll that is left, indivisible,\nis birdsong and dusk.\nA sharp scent of warm mint,\nthe river’s far-off noise;\nall equal, and equally light--\nall my losses and joys.\nSlowly, with its warm towel\nthe wind dries my face;\nmoths immolate themselves\nin the campfire’s flames.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Chandler", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1955 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -100465,11 +103645,13 @@ "title": "“And so I keep going 
”", "body": "And so I keep going;\ndeath remains close;\nI carry my life\nin a blue envelope.\n\nThe letter’s been ready\never since autumn:\njust one little word--\nit couldn’t be shorter.\n\nBut I still don’t know\nwhere I should send it;\nif I had the address,\nmy life might have ended.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Chandler", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1955 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -100480,8 +103662,10 @@ "title": "“I believe”", "body": "Off once more to the post:\nwill I find your letter?\nMy mind races all night\nand daytime’s no better.\n\nI believe, I believe in omens,\nin dreams and spiders.\nI have confidence in skis,\nin slim boats on rivers.\n\nI have faith in diesel engines,\nin their roars and growls,\nin the wings of carrier pigeons\nin tall ships with white sails.\n\nI place my trust in steamers\nand in the strength of trains;\nI have even dreamed of\nthe right weather for planes.\n\nI believe in reindeer sledges,\nin the worth of a compass\nand a frost-stiffened map\nwhen there is no path;\n\nin teams of huskies,\nin daredevil coachmen,\nin tortoise indolence\nand the snail’s composure.\n\nI believe in the powers\nof that wish-granting pike\nin my thinning blood 
\nI believe in my own endurance;\nand in your love.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Chandler", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -100492,8 +103676,11 @@ "title": "“I raise my glass to a road in the forest 
”", "body": "I raise my glass to a road in the forest\nTo those who fall on their way\nTo those who can’t drag themselves farther\nBut are forced to drag on.\n\nTo their bluish hard lips\nTo their identical faces\nTo their torn, frost-covered coats\nTo their hands without gloves\n\nTo the water they sip, from an old tin can\nTo the scurvy which sticks to their teeth.\nTo the teeth of fattened gray dogs\nWhich awake them in the morning\n\nTo the sullen sun,\nWhich regards them without interest\nTo the snow-white tombstones,\nThe work of clever snowstorms\n\nTo the ration of raw, sticky bread\nSwallowed quickly\nTo the pale, too high sky\nTo the Ayan-Yuryakh River!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anne Applebaum & Galya Vinogradova", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Anne Applebaum", + "Galya Vinogradova" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -100504,11 +103691,13 @@ "title": "“I thought they would make us the heroes 
”", "body": "I thought they would make us the heroes\nof cantantas, posters, books of all kinds;\nthat hats would be flung in the air\nand streets go out of their minds.\n\nWe had returned.\nWe were unbowed.\nWe had stayed true.\n\nBut the city had thoughts of its own;\nit just muttered a word or two.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Chandler", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1961 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -100516,11 +103705,13 @@ "title": "“I went out in the clear air 
”", "body": "I went out in the clear air\nand raised my eyes to the heavens\nto understand our stars\nand their January brilliance.\n\nI found the key to the riddle;\nI grasped the heiroglyph’s secret;\nI carried into our own tongue\nthe work of the star-poet.\n\nI recorded all this on a stump,\non frozen bark,\nsince I had no paper with me\nin that January dark.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Chandler", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january" @@ -100531,11 +103722,13 @@ "title": "“Memory has veiled much evil 
”", "body": "Memory has veiled\n much evil;\nher long lies leave nothing\n to believe.\n\nThere may be no cities\n or green gardens;\nonly fields of ice\n and salty oceans.\n\nThe world may be pure snow,\n a starry road;\njust northern forest\n in the mind of God.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Chandler", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1952 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -100546,11 +103739,13 @@ "title": "“Roncesvalles”", "body": "I was captivated straight away,\ntired of the lies all around me,\nby that proud, tragic tale\nof a warrior’s death in the mountains.\n\nAnd it may have been Roland’s horn\nthat called me, like Charlemagne,\nto a silent pass where the boldest\nof many bold fighters lay slain.\n\nI saw a sword lying shattered\nafter long combat with stone--\na witness to forgotten battles\nrecorded by stone alone.\n\nAnd those bitter splinters of steel\nhave dazzled me many a time.\nThat tale of helpless defeat\ncan’t help but overwhelm.\n\nI have held that horn to my lips\nand tried more than once to blow,\nbut I cannot call up the power\nof that ballad from long ago.\n\nThere may be some skill I’m lacking--\nor else I’m not bold enough\nto blow in my shy anguish\non Roland’s rust-eaten horn.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Chandler", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1950 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robert Chandler" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -100858,10 +104053,10 @@ "title": "“From the Arabic, an Imitation”", "body": "My faint spirit was sitting in the light\nOf thy looks, my love;\nIt panted for thee like the hind at noon\nFor the brooks, my love.\nThy barb, whose hoofs outspeed the tempest’s flight,\nBore thee far from me;\nMy heart, for my weak feet were weary soon,\nDid companion thee.\n\nAh! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed,\nOr the death they bear,\nThe heart which tender thought clothes like a dove\nWith the wings of care;\nIn the battle, in the darkness, in the need,\nShall mine cling to thee,\nNor claim one smile for all the comfort, love,\nIt may bring to thee.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -100869,10 +104064,10 @@ "title": "“Autumn”", "body": "The warm sun is falling, the bleak wind is wailing,\nThe bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,\nAnd the Year\nOn the earth is her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,\nIs lying.\nCome, Months, come away,\nFrom November to May,\nIn your saddest array;\nFollow the bier\nOf the dead cold Year,\nAnd like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.\n\nThe chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,\nThe rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling\nFor the Year;\nThe blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone\nTo his dwelling.\nCome, Months, come away;\nPut on white, black and gray;\nLet your light sisters play--\nYe, follow the bier\nOf the dead cold Year,\nAnd make her grave green with tear on tear.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -100883,10 +104078,10 @@ "title": "“Bereavement”", "body": "How stern are the woes of the desolate mourner\nAs he bends in still grief o’er the hallowed bier,\nAs enanguished he turns from the laugh of the scorner,\nAnd drops to perfection’s remembrance a tear;\nWhen floods of despair down his pale cheeks are streaming,\nWhen no blissful hope on his bosom is beaming,\nOr, if lulled for a while, soon he starts from his dreaming,\nAnd finds torn the soft ties to affection so dear.\nAh, when shall day dawn on the night of the grave,\nOr summer succeed to the winter of death?\nRest awhle, hapless victim! and Heaven will save\nThe spirit that hath faded away with the breath.\nEternity points, in its amaranth bower\nWhere no clouds of fate o’er the sweet prospect lour,\nUnspeakable pleasure, of goodness the dower,\nWhen woe fades away like the mist of the heath.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -100894,12 +104089,12 @@ "title": "“The Cloud”", "body": "I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,\nFrom the seas and the streams;\nI bear light shade for the leaves when laid\nIn their noonday dreams.\nFrom my wings are shaken the dews that waken\nThe sweet buds every one,\nWhen rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,\nAs she dances about the sun.\nI wield the flail of the lashing hail,\nAnd whiten the green plains under,\nAnd then again I dissolve it in rain,\nAnd laugh as I pass in thunder.\n\nI sift the snow on the mountains below,\nAnd their great pines groan aghast;\nAnd all the night ’tis my pillow white,\nWhile I sleep in the arms of the blast.\nSublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,\nLightning, my pilot, sits;\nIn a cavern under is fettered the thunder,\nIt struggles and howls at fits;\n\nOver earth and ocean, with gentle motion,\nThis pilot is guiding me,\nLured by the love of the genii that move\nIn the depths of the purple sea;\nOver the rills, and the crags, and the hills,\nOver the lakes and the plains,\nWherever he dream, under mountain or stream,\nThe Spirit he loves remains;\nAnd I all the while bask in Heaven’s blue smile,\nWhilst he is dissolving in rains.\n\nThe sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,\nAnd his burning plumes outspread,\nLeaps on the back of my sailing rack,\nWhen the morning star shines dead;\nAs on the jag of a mountain crag,\nWhich an earthquake rocks and swings,\nAn eagle alit one moment may sit\nIn the light of its golden wings.\nAnd when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,\nIts ardors of rest and of love,\n\nAnd the crimson pall of eve may fall\nFrom the depth of Heaven above,\nWith wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,\nAs still as a brooding dove.\nThat orbed maiden with white fire laden,\nWhom mortals call the Moon,\nGlides glimmering o’er my fleece-like floor,\nBy the midnight breezes strewn;\nAnd wherever the beat of her unseen feet,\nWhich only the angels hear,\nMay have broken the woof of my tent’s thin roof,\nThe stars peep behind her and peer;\nAnd I laugh to see them whirl and flee,\nLike a swarm of golden bees,\nWhen I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,\nTill the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,\nLike strips of the sky fallen through me on high,\nAre each paved with the moon and these.\n\nI bind the Sun’s throne with a burning zone,\nAnd the Moon’s with a girdle of pearl;\nThe volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim\nWhen the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.\nFrom cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,\nOver a torrent sea,\nSunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,--\nThe mountains its columns be.\nThe triumphal arch through which I march\nWith hurricane, fire, and snow,\nWhen the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,\nIs the million-colored bow;\nThe sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,\nWhile the moist Earth was laughing below.\n\nI am the daughter of Earth and Water,\nAnd the nursling of the Sky;\nI pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;\nI change, but I cannot die.\nFor after the rain when with never a stain\nThe pavilion of Heaven is bare,\nAnd the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams\nBuild up the blue dome of air,\nI silently laugh at my own cenotaph,\nAnd out of the caverns of rain,\nLike a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,\nI arise and unbuild it again.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1820, "month": "july", "day": 12 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -100911,10 +104106,10 @@ "title": "From “Epipsychidion”", "body": "Emily,\nA ship is floating in the harbour now,\nA wind is hovering o’er the mountain’s brow;\nThere is a path on the sea’s azure floor,\nNo keel has ever plough’d that path before;\nThe halcyons brood around the foamless isles;\nThe treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles;\nThe merry mariners are bold and free:\nSay, my heart’s sister, wilt thou sail with me?\nOur bark is as an albatross, whose nest\nIs a far Eden of the purple East;\nAnd we between her wings will sit, while Night,\nAnd Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight,\nOur ministers, along the boundless Sea,\nTreading each other’s heels, unheededly.\nIt is an isle under Ionian skies,\nBeautiful as a wreck of Paradise,\nAnd, for the harbours are not safe and good,\nThis land would have remain’d a solitude\nBut for some pastoral people native there,\nWho from the Elysian, clear, and golden air\nDraw the last spirit of the age of gold,\nSimple and spirited; innocent and bold.\nThe blue Aegean girds this chosen home,\nWith ever-changing sound and light and foam,\nKissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar;\nAnd all the winds wandering along the shore\nUndulate with the undulating tide:\nThere are thick woods where sylvan forms abide;\nAnd many a fountain, rivulet and pond,\nAs clear as elemental diamond,\nOr serene morning air; and far beyond,\nThe mossy tracks made by the goats and deer\n(Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year)\nPierce into glades, caverns and bowers, and halls\nBuilt round with ivy, which the waterfalls\nIllumining, with sound that never fails\nAccompany the noonday nightingales;\nAnd all the place is peopled with sweet airs;\nThe light clear element which the isle wears\nIs heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers,\nWhich floats like mist laden with unseen showers,\nAnd falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep;\nAnd from the moss violets and jonquils peep\nAnd dart their arrowy odour through the brain\nTill you might faint with that delicious pain.\nAnd every motion, odour, beam and tone,\nWith that deep music is in unison:\nWhich is a soul within the soul--they seem\nLike echoes of an antenatal dream.\nIt is an isle ’twixt Heaven, Air, Earth and Sea,\nCradled and hung in clear tranquillity;\nBright as that wandering Eden Lucifer,\nWash’d by the soft blue Oceans of young air.\nIt is a favour’d place. Famine or Blight,\nPestilence, War and Earthquake, never light\nUpon its mountain-peaks; blind vultures, they\nSail onward far upon their fatal way:\nThe wingĂšd storms, chanting their thunder-psalm\nTo other lands, leave azure chasms of calm\nOver this isle, or weep themselves in dew,\nFrom which its fields and woods ever renew\nTheir green and golden immortality.\nAnd from the sea there rise, and from the sky\nThere fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright,\nVeil after veil, each hiding some delight,\nWhich Sun or Moon or zephyr draw aside,\nTill the isle’s beauty, like a naked bride\nGlowing at once with love and loveliness,\nBlushes and trembles at its own excess:\nYet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less\nBurns in the heart of this delicious isle,\nAn atom of th’ Eternal, whose own smile\nUnfolds itself, and may be felt not seen\nO’er the gray rocks, blue waves and forests green,\nFilling their bare and void interstices.\nBut the chief marvel of the wilderness\nIs a lone dwelling, built by whom or how\nNone of the rustic island-people know:\n’Tis not a tower of strength, though with its height\nIt overtops the woods; but, for delight,\nSome wise and tender Ocean-King, ere crime\nHad been invented, in the world’s young prime,\nRear’d it, a wonder of that simple time,\nAn envy of the isles, a pleasure-house\nMade sacred to his sister and his spouse.\nIt scarce seems now a wreck of human art,\nBut, as it were, Titanic; in the heart\nOf Earth having assum’d its form, then grown\nOut of the mountains, from the living stone,\nLifting itself in caverns light and high:\nFor all the antique and learned imagery\nHas been eras’d, and in the place of it\nThe ivy and the wild-vine interknit\nThe volumes of their many-twining stems;\nParasite flowers illume with dewy gems\nThe lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky\nPeeps through their winter-woof of tracery\nWith moonlight patches, or star atoms keen,\nOr fragments of the day’s intense serene;\nWorking mosaic on their Parian floors.\nAnd, day and night, aloof, from the high towers\nAnd terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem\nTo sleep in one another’s arms, and dream\nOf waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we\nRead in their smiles, and call reality.\n\nThis isle and house are mine, and I have vow’d\nThee to be lady of the solitude.\nAnd I have fitted up some chambers there\nLooking towards the golden Eastern air,\nAnd level with the living winds, which flow\nLike waves above the living waves below.\nI have sent books and music there, and all\nThose instruments with which high Spirits call\nThe future from its cradle, and the past\nOut of its grave, and make the present last\nIn thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die,\nFolded within their own eternity.\nOur simple life wants little, and true taste\nHires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste\nThe scene it would adorn, and therefore still,\nNature with all her children haunts the hill.\nThe ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet\nKeeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit\nRound the evening tower, and the young stars glance\nBetween the quick bats in their twilight dance;\nThe spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight\nBefore our gate, and the slow, silent night\nIs measur’d by the pants of their calm sleep.\nBe this our home in life, and when years heap\nTheir wither’d hours, like leaves, on our decay,\nLet us become the overhanging day,\nThe living soul of this Elysian isle,\nConscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile\nWe two will rise, and sit, and walk together,\nUnder the roof of blue Ionian weather,\nAnd wander in the meadows, or ascend\nThe mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend\nWith lightest winds, to touch their paramour;\nOr linger, where the pebble-paven shore,\nUnder the quick, faint kisses of the sea,\nTrembles and sparkles as with ecstasy--\nPossessing and possess’d by all that is\nWithin that calm circumference of bliss,\nAnd by each other, till to love and live\nBe one: or, at the noontide hour, arrive\nWhere some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep\nThe moonlight of the expir’d night asleep,\nThrough which the awaken’d day can never peep;\nA veil for our seclusion, close as night’s,\nWhere secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights;\nSleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain\nWhose drops quench kisses till they burn again.\nAnd we will talk, until thought’s melody\nBecome too sweet for utterance, and it die\nIn words, to live again in looks, which dart\nWith thrilling tone into the voiceless heart,\nHarmonizing silence without a sound.\nOur breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound,\nAnd our veins beat together; and our lips\nWith other eloquence than words, eclipse\nThe soul that burns between them, and the wells\nWhich boil under our being’s inmost cells,\nThe fountains of our deepest life, shall be\nConfus’d in Passion’s golden purity,\nAs mountain-springs under the morning sun.\nWe shall become the same, we shall be one\nSpirit within two frames, oh! wherefore two?\nOne passion in twin-hearts, which grows and grew,\nTill like two meteors of expanding flame,\nThose spheres instinct with it become the same,\nTouch, mingle, are transfigur’d; ever still\nBurning, yet ever inconsumable:\nIn one another’s substance finding food,\nLike flames too pure and light and unimbu’d\nTo nourish their bright lives with baser prey,\nWhich point to Heaven and cannot pass away:\nOne hope within two wills, one will beneath\nTwo overshadowing minds, one life, one death,\nOne Heaven, one Hell, one immortality,\nAnd one annihilation. Woe is me!\nThe winged words on which my soul would pierce\nInto the height of Love’s rare Universe,\nAre chains of lead around its flight of fire--\nI pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1821 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -100922,10 +104117,10 @@ "title": "“The Flower that Smiles To-Day”", "body": "The flower that smiles to-day\nTo-morrow dies;\nAll that we wish to stay\nTempts and then flies.\nWhat is this world’s delight?\nLightning that mocks the night,\nBrief even as bright.\n\nVirtue, how frail it is!\nFriendship how rare!\nLove, how it sells poor bliss\nFor proud despair!\nBut we, though soon they fall,\nSurvive their joy, and all\nWhich ours we call.\n\nWhilst skies are blue and bright,\nWhilst flowers are gay,\nWhilst eyes that change ere night\nMake glad the day;\nWhilst yet the calm hours creep,\nDream thou--and from thy sleep\nThen wake to weep.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -100936,10 +104131,10 @@ "title": "“Good-Night”", "body": "Good-night? ah! no; the hour is ill\nWhich severs those it should unite;\nLet us remain together still,\nThen it will be good night.\n\nHow can I call the lone night good,\nThough thy sweet wishes wing its flight?\nBe it not said, thought, understood--\nThen it will be--good night.\n\nTo hearts which near each other move\nFrom evening close to morning light,\nThe night is good; because, my love,\nThey never say good-night.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1819 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -100955,10 +104150,10 @@ "title": "“Indian Serenade”", "body": "I arise from dreams of thee\nIn the first sweet sleep of night,\nWhen the winds are breathing low,\nAnd the stars are shining bright:\nI arise from dreams of thee,\nAnd a spirit in my feet\nHath led me--who knows how?\nTo thy chamber window, Sweet!\n\nThe wandering airs they faint\nOn the dark, the silent stream--\nThe Champak odours fail\nLike sweet thoughts in a dream;\nThe Nightingale’s complaint,\nIt dies upon her heart;--\nAs I must on thine,\nOh, belovĂšd as thou art!\n\nOh lift me from the grass!\nI die! I faint! I fail!\nLet thy love in kisses rain\nOn my lips and eyelids pale.\nMy cheek is cold and white, alas!\nMy heart beats loud and fast;--\nOh! press it to thine own again,\nWhere it will break at last.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -100974,10 +104169,10 @@ "title": "“The Invitation”", "body": "Best and brightest, come away,\nFairer far than this fair day,\nWhich, like thee, to those in sorrow\nComes to bid a sweet good-morrow\nTo the rough year just awake\nIn its cradle on the brake.\nThe brightest hour of unborn Spring\nThrough the Winter wandering,\nFound, it seems, the halcyon morn\nTo hoar February born;\nBending from Heaven, in azure mirth,\nIt kissed the forehead of the earth,\nAnd smiled upon the silent sea,\nAnd bade the frozen streams be free,\nAnd waked to music all their fountains,\nAnd breathed upon the frozen mountains,\nAnd like a prophetess of May\nStrewed flowers upon the barren way,\nMaking the wintry world appear\nLike one on whom thou smilest, dear.\n\nAway, away, from men and towns,\nTo the wild wood and the downs--\nTo the silent wilderness\nWhere the soul need not repress\nIts music, lest it should not find\nAn echo in another’s mind,\nWhile the touch of Nature’s art\nHarmonizes heart to heart.\n\nRadiant Sister of the Day\nAwake! arise! and come away!\nTo the wild woods and the plains,\nTo the pools where winter rains\nImage all their roof of leaves,\nWhere the pine its garland weaves\nOf sapless green, and ivy dun,\nRound stems that never kiss the sun,\nWhere the lawns and pastures be\nAnd the sandhills of the sea,\nWhere the melting hoar-frost wets\nThe daisy-star that never sets,\nAnd wind-flowers and violets\nWhich yet join not scent to hue\nCrown the pale year weak and new;\nWhen the night is left behind\nIn the deep east, dim and blind,\nAnd the blue noon is over us,\nAnd the multitudinous\nBillows murmur at our feet,\nWhere the earth and ocean meet,\nAnd all things seem only one\nIn the universal Sun.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -100988,10 +104183,10 @@ "title": "From “Julian and Maddalo”", "body": "I rode one evening with Count Maddalo\nUpon the bank of land which breaks the flow\nOf Adria towards Venice: a bare strand\nOf hillocks, heap’d from ever-shifting sand,\nMatted with thistles and amphibious weeds,\nSuch as from earth’s embrace the salt ooze breeds,\nIs this; an uninhabited sea-side,\nWhich the lone fisher, when his nets are dried,\nAbandons; and no other object breaks\nThe waste, but one dwarf tree and some few stakes\nBroken and unrepair’d, and the tide makes\nA narrow space of level sand thereon,\nWhere ’twas our wont to ride while day went down.\nThis ride was my delight. I love all waste\nAnd solitary places; where we taste\nThe pleasure of believing what we see\nIs boundless, as we wish our souls to be:\nAnd such was this wide ocean, and this shore\nMore barren than its billows; and yet more\nThan all, with a remember’d friend I love\nTo ride as then I rode; for the winds drove\nThe living spray along the sunny air\nInto our faces; the blue heavens were bare,\nStripp’d to their depths by the awakening north;\nAnd, from the waves, sound like delight broke forth\nHarmonizing with solitude, and sent\nInto our hearts aĂ«real merriment.\nSo, as we rode, we talk’d; and the swift thought,\nWinging itself with laughter, linger’d not,\nBut flew from brain to brain--such glee was ours,\nCharg’d with light memories of remember’d hours,\nNone slow enough for sadness: till we came\nHomeward, which always makes the spirit tame.\nThis day had been cheerful but cold, and now\nThe sun was sinking, and the wind also.\nOur talk grew somewhat serious, as may be\nTalk interrupted with such raillery\nAs mocks itself, because it cannot scorn\nThe thoughts it would extinguish: ’twas forlorn,\nYet pleasing, such as once, so poets tell,\nThe devils held within the dales of Hell\nConcerning God, freewill and destiny:\nOf all that earth has been or yet may be,\nAll that vain men imagine or believe,\nOr hope can paint or suffering may achieve,\nWe descanted, and I (for ever still\nIs it not wise to make the best of ill?)\nArgu’d against despondency, but pride\nMade my companion take the darker side.\nThe sense that he was greater than his kind\nHad struck, methinks, his eagle spirit blind\nBy gazing on its own exceeding light.\nMeanwhile the sun paus’d ere it should alight,\nOver the horizon of the mountains--Oh,\nHow beautiful is sunset, when the glow\nOf Heaven descends upon a land like thee,\nThou Paradise of exiles, Italy!\nThy mountains, seas, and vineyards, and the towers\nOf cities they encircle! It was ours\nTo stand on thee, beholding it: and then,\nJust where we had dismounted, the Count’s men\nWere waiting for us with the gondola.\nAs those who pause on some delightful way\nThough bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood\nLooking upon the evening, and the flood\nWhich lay between the city and the shore,\nPav’d with the image of the sky 
 The hoar\nAnd aĂ«ry Alps towards the North appear’d\nThrough mist, an heaven-sustaining bulwark rear’d\nBetween the East and West; and half the sky\nWas roof’d with clouds of rich emblazonry\nDark purple at the zenith, which still grew\nDown the steep West into a wondrous hue\nBrighter than burning gold, even to the rent\nWhere the swift sun yet paus’d in his descent\nAmong the many-folded hills: they were\nThose famous Euganean hills, which bear,\nAs seen from Lido thro’ the harbour piles,\nThe likeness of a clump of peakĂšd isles--\nAnd then--as if the Earth and Sea had been\nDissolv’d into one lake of fire, were seen\nThose mountains towering as from waves of flame\nAround the vaporous sun, from which there came\nThe inmost purple spirit of light, and made\nTheir very peaks transparent. “Ere it fade,”\nSaid my companion, “I will show you soon\nA better station”--so, o’er the lagune\nWe glided; and from that funereal bark\nI lean’d, and saw the city, and could mark\nHow from their many isles, in evening’s gleam,\nIts temples and its palaces did seem\nLike fabrics of enchantment pil’d to Heaven.\nI was about to speak, when--“We are even\nNow at the point I meant,” said Maddalo,\nAnd bade the gondolieri cease to row.\n“Look, Julian, on the west, and listen well\nIf you hear not a deep and heavy bell.”\nI look’d, and saw between us and the sun\nA building on an island; such a one\nAs age to age might add, for uses vile,\nA windowless, deform’d and dreary pile;\nAnd on the top an open tower, where hung\nA bell, which in the radiance sway’d and swung;\nWe could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue:\nThe broad sun sunk behind it, and it toll’d\nIn strong and black relief. “What we behold\nShall be the madhouse and its belfry tower,”\nSaid Maddalo, “and ever at this hour\nThose who may cross the water, hear that bell\nWhich calls the maniacs, each one from his cell,\nTo vespers.” “As much skill as need to pray\nIn thanks or hope for their dark lot have they\nTo their stern Maker,” I replied. “O ho!\nYou talk as in years past,” said Maddalo.\n“’Tis strange men change not. You were ever still\nAmong Christ’s flock a perilous infidel,\nA wolf for the meek lambs--if you can’t swim\nBeware of Providence.” I look’d on him,\nBut the gay smile had faded in his eye.\n“And such,” he cried, “is our mortality,\nAnd this must be the emblem and the sign\nOf what should be eternal and divine!\nAnd like that black and dreary bell, the soul,\nHung in a heaven-illumin’d tower, must toll\nOur thoughts and our desires to meet below\nRound the rent heart and pray--as madmen do\nFor what? they know not--till the night of death,\nAs sunset that strange vision, severeth\nOur memory from itself, and us from all\nWe sought and yet were baffled.” I recall\nThe sense of what he said, although I mar\nThe force of his expressions. The broad star\nOf day meanwhile had sunk behind the hill,\nAnd the black bell became invisible,\nAnd the red tower look’d gray, and all between\nThe churches, ships and palaces were seen\nHuddled in gloom;--into the purple sea\nThe orange hues of heaven sunk silently.\nWe hardly spoke, and soon the gondola\nConvey’d me to my lodgings by the way.\n\nThe following morn was rainy, cold and dim:\nEre Maddalo arose, I call’d on him,\nAnd whilst I waited with his child I play’d;\nA lovelier toy sweet Nature never made,\nA serious, subtle, wild, yet gentle being,\nGraceful without design and unforeseeing,\nWith eyes--Oh speak not of her eyes!--which seem\nTwin mirrors of Italian Heaven, yet gleam\nWith such deep meaning, as we never see\nBut in the human countenance: with me\nShe was a special favourite: I had nurs’d\nHer fine and feeble limbs when she came first\nTo this bleak world; and she yet seem’d to know\nOn second sight her ancient playfellow,\nLess chang’d than she was by six months or so;\nFor after her first shyness was worn out\nWe sate there, rolling billiard balls about,\nWhen the Count enter’d. Salutations past--\n“The word you spoke last night might well have cast\nA darkness on my spirit--if man be\nThe passive thing you say, I should not see\nMuch harm in the religions and old saws\n(Though I may never own such leaden laws)\nWhich break a teachless nature to the yoke:\nMine is another faith”--thus much I spoke\nAnd noting he replied not, added: “See\nThis lovely child, blithe, innocent and free;\nShe spends a happy time with little care,\nWhile we to such sick thoughts subjected are\nAs came on you last night. It is our will\nThat thus enchains us to permitted ill.\nWe might be otherwise. We might be all\nWe dream of happy, high, majestical.\nWhere is the love, beauty, and truth we seek\nBut in our mind? and if we were not weak\nShould we be less in deed than in desire?”\n“Ay, if we were not weak--and we aspire\nHow vainly to be strong!” said Maddalo:\n“You talk Utopia.” “It remains to know,”\nI then rejoin’d, “and those who try may find\nHow strong the chains are which our spirit bind;\nBrittle perchance as straw 
 We are assur’d\nMuch may be conquer’d, much may be endur’d,\nOf what degrades and crushes us. We know\nThat we have power over ourselves to do\nAnd suffer--what, we know not till we try;\nBut something nobler than to live and die:\nSo taught those kings of old philosophy\nWho reign’d, before Religion made men blind;\nAnd those who suffer with their suffering kind\nYet feel their faith, religion.” “My dear friend,”\nSaid Maddalo, “my judgement will not bend\nTo your opinion, though I think you might\nMake such a system refutation-tight\nAs far as words go. I knew one like you\nWho to this city came some months ago,\nWith whom I argu’d in this sort, and he\nIs now gone mad--and so he answer’d me--\nPoor fellow! but if you would like to go\nWe’ll visit him, and his wild talk will show\nHow vain are such aspiring theories.”\n“I hope to prove the induction otherwise,\nAnd that a want of that true theory, still,\nWhich seeks a ‘soul of goodness’ in things ill\nOr in himself or others, has thus bow’d\nHis being. There are some by nature proud,\nWho patient in all else demand but this--\nTo love and be belov’d with gentleness;\nAnd being scorn’d, what wonder if they die\nSome living death? this is not destiny\nBut man’s own wilful ill.”\n\nAs thus I spoke\nServants announc’d the gondola, and we\nThrough the fast-falling rain and high-wrought sea\nSail’d to the island where the madhouse stands.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -100999,10 +104194,10 @@ "title": "“A Lament”", "body": "O world! O life! O time!\nOn whose last steps I climb,\nTrembling at that where I had stood before;\nWhen will return the glory of your prime?\nNo more--Oh, never more!\n\nOut of the day and night\nA joy has taken flight;\nFresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar,\nMove my faint heart with grief, but with delight\nNo more--Oh, never more!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101010,10 +104205,10 @@ "title": "“Lift not the painted veil which those who live 
”", "body": "Lift not the painted veil which those who live\nCall Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,\nAnd it but mimic all we would believe\nWith colours idly spread,--behind, lurk Fear\nAnd Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave\nTheir shadows, o’er the chasm, sightless and drear.\nI knew one who had lifted it--he sought,\nFor his lost heart was tender, things to love,\nBut found them not, alas! nor was there aught\nThe world contains, the which he could approve.\nThrough the unheeding many he did move,\nA splendour among shadows, a bright blot\nUpon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove\nFor truth, and like the Preacher found it not.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101021,10 +104216,10 @@ "title": "“Lines”", "body": "When the lamp is shatter’d,\nThe light in the dust lies dead;\nWhen the cloud is scatter’d,\nThe rainbow’s glory is shed;\nWhen the lute is broken,\nSweet tones are remember’d not\nWhen the lips have spoken,\nLoved accents are soon forgot.\n\nAs music and splendour\nSurvive not the lamp and the lute,\nThe heart’s echoes render\nNo song when the spirit is mute--\nNo song but sad dirges,\nLike the wind through a ruin’d cell,\nOr the mournful surges\nThat ring the dead seaman’s knell.\n\nWhen hearts have once mingled,\nLove first leaves the well-built nest;\nThe weak one is singled\nTo endure what it once possest.\nO Love, who bewailest\nThe frailty of all things here,\nWhy choose you the frailest\nFor your cradle, your home, and your bier?\n\nIts passions will rock thee,\nAs the storms rock the ravens on high:\nBright reason will mock thee,\nLike the sun from a wintry sky.\nFrom thy nest every rafter\nWill rot, and thine eagle home\nLeave thee naked to laughter,\nWhen leaves fall and cold winds come.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -101043,10 +104238,10 @@ "title": "“Love’s Philosophy”", "body": "The fountains mingle with the river\nAnd the rivers with the ocean,\nThe winds of heaven mix for ever\nWith a sweet emotion;\nNothing in the world is single;\nAll things by a law divine\nIn one spirit meet and mingle.\nWhy not I with thine?--\n\nSee the mountains kiss high heaven\nAnd the waves clasp one another;\nNo sister-flower would be forgiven\nIf it disdained its brother;\nAnd the sunlight clasps the earth\nAnd the moonbeams kiss the sea:\nWhat is all this sweet work worth\nIf thou kiss not me?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1819 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101054,10 +104249,10 @@ "title": "“Mont Blanc”", "body": "# I.\n\nThe everlasting universe of things\nFlows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,\nNow dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom--\nNow lending splendour, where from secret springs\nThe source of human thought its tribute brings\nOf waters--with a sound but half its own,\nSuch as a feeble brook will oft assume,\nIn the wild woods, among the mountains lone,\nWhere waterfalls around it leap for ever,\nWhere woods and winds contend, and a vast river\nOver its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.\n\n\n# II.\n\nThus thou, Ravine of Arve--dark, deep Ravine--\nThou many-colour’d, many-voiced vale,\nOver whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail\nFast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene,\nWhere Power in likeness of the Arve comes down\nFrom the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne,\nBursting through these dark mountains like the flame\nOf lightning through the tempest;--thou dost lie,\nThy giant brood of pines around thee clinging,\nChildren of elder time, in whose devotion\nThe chainless winds still come and ever came\nTo drink their odours, and their mighty swinging\nTo hear--an old and solemn harmony;\nThine earthly rainbows stretch’d across the sweep\nOf the aethereal waterfall, whose veil\nRobes some unsculptur’d image; the strange sleep\nWhich when the voices of the desert fail\nWraps all in its own deep eternity;\nThy caverns echoing to the Arve’s commotion,\nA loud, lone sound no other sound can tame;\nThou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion,\nThou art the path of that unresting sound--\nDizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee\nI seem as in a trance sublime and strange\nTo muse on my own separate fantasy,\nMy own, my human mind, which passively\nNow renders and receives fast influencings,\nHolding an unremitting interchange\nWith the clear universe of things around;\nOne legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings\nNow float above thy darkness, and now rest\nWhere that or thou art no unbidden guest,\nIn the still cave of the witch Poesy,\nSeeking among the shadows that pass by\nGhosts of all things that are, some shade of thee,\nSome phantom, some faint image; till the breast\nFrom which they fled recalls them, thou art there!\n\n\n# III.\n\nSome say that gleams of a remoter world\nVisit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber,\nAnd that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber\nOf those who wake and live.--I look on high;\nHas some unknown omnipotence unfurl’d\nThe veil of life and death? or do I lie\nIn dream, and does the mightier world of sleep\nSpread far around and inaccessibly\nIts circles? For the very spirit fails,\nDriven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep\nThat vanishes among the viewless gales!\nFar, far above, piercing the infinite sky,\nMont Blanc appears--still, snowy, and serene;\nIts subject mountains their unearthly forms\nPile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between\nOf frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,\nBlue as the overhanging heaven, that spread\nAnd wind among the accumulated steeps;\nA desert peopled by the storms alone,\nSave when the eagle brings some hunter’s bone,\nAnd the wolf tracks her there--how hideously\nIts shapes are heap’d around! rude, bare, and high,\nGhastly, and scarr’d, and riven.--Is this the scene\nWhere the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young\nRuin? Were these their toys? or did a sea\nOf fire envelop once this silent snow?\nNone can reply--all seems eternal now.\nThe wilderness has a mysterious tongue\nWhich teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,\nSo solemn, so serene, that man may be,\nBut for such faith, with Nature reconcil’d;\nThou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal\nLarge codes of fraud and woe; not understood\nBy all, but which the wise, and great, and good\nInterpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nThe fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams,\nOcean, and all the living things that dwell\nWithin the daedal earth; lightning, and rain,\nEarthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane,\nThe torpor of the year when feeble dreams\nVisit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep\nHolds every future leaf and flower; the bound\nWith which from that detested trance they leap;\nThe works and ways of man, their death and birth,\nAnd that of him and all that his may be;\nAll things that move and breathe with toil and sound\nAre born and die; revolve, subside, and swell.\nPower dwells apart in its tranquillity,\nRemote, serene, and inaccessible:\nAnd this, the naked countenance of earth,\nOn which I gaze, even these primeval mountains\nTeach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep\nLike snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains,\nSlow rolling on; there, many a precipice\nFrost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power\nHave pil’d: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle,\nA city of death, distinct with many a tower\nAnd wall impregnable of beaming ice.\nYet not a city, but a flood of ruin\nIs there, that from the boundaries of the sky\nRolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing\nIts destin’d path, or in the mangled soil\nBranchless and shatter’d stand; the rocks, drawn down\nFrom yon remotest waste, have overthrown\nThe limits of the dead and living world,\nNever to be reclaim’d. The dwelling-place\nOf insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil;\nTheir food and their retreat for ever gone,\nSo much of life and joy is lost. The race\nOf man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling\nVanish, like smoke before the tempest’s stream,\nAnd their place is not known. Below, vast caves\nShine in the rushing torrents’ restless gleam,\nWhich from those secret chasms in tumult welling\nMeet in the vale, and one majestic River,\nThe breath and blood of distant lands, for ever\nRolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves,\nBreathes its swift vapours to the circling air.\n\n\n# V.\n\nMont Blanc yet gleams on high:--the power is there,\nThe still and solemn power of many sights,\nAnd many sounds, and much of life and death.\nIn the calm darkness of the moonless nights,\nIn the lone glare of day, the snows descend\nUpon that Mountain; none beholds them there,\nNor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,\nOr the star-beams dart through them. Winds contend\nSilently there, and heap the snow with breath\nRapid and strong, but silently! Its home\nThe voiceless lightning in these solitudes\nKeeps innocently, and like vapour broods\nOver the snow. The secret Strength of things\nWhich governs thought, and to the infinite dome\nOf Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!\nAnd what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,\nIf to the human mind’s imaginings\nSilence and solitude were vacancy?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1816 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101065,10 +104260,10 @@ "title": "“Music, when soft voices die 
”", "body": "Music, when soft voices die,\nVibrates in the memory--\nOdours, when sweet violets sicken,\nLive within the sense they quicken.\n\nRose leaves, when the rose is dead,\nAre heaped for the belovĂšd’s bed;\nAnd so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,\nLove itself shall slumber on.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1821 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101076,10 +104271,10 @@ "title": "“Mutability”", "body": "We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;\nHow restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,\nStreaking the darkness radiantly!--yet soon\nNight closes round, and they are lost for ever:\n\nOr like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings\nGive various response to each varying blast,\nTo whose frail frame no second motion brings\nOne mood or modulation like the last.\n\nWe rest.--A dream has power to poison sleep;\nWe rise.--One wandering thought pollutes the day;\nWe feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;\nEmbrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:\n\nIt is the same!--For, be it joy or sorrow,\nThe path of its departure still is free:\nMan’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;\nNought may endure but Mutablilty.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1816 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101087,10 +104282,10 @@ "title": "“Night”", "body": "Swiftly walk o’er the western wave,\n Spirit of Night!\nOut of the misty eastern cave,--\nWhere, all the long and lone daylight,\nThou wovest dreams of joy and fear\nWhich make thee terrible and dear,--\n Swift be thy flight!\n\nWrap thy form in a mantle grey,\n Star-inwrought!\nBlind with thine hair the eyes of Day;\nKiss her until she be wearied out.\nThen wander o’er city and sea and land,\nTouching all with thine opiate wand--\n Come, long-sought!\n\nWhen I arose and saw the dawn,\n I sigh’d for thee;\nWhen light rode high, and the dew was gone,\nAnd noon lay heavy on flower and tree,\nAnd the weary Day turn’d to his rest,\nLingering like an unloved guest,\n I sigh’d for thee.\n\nThy brother Death came, and cried,\n ‘Wouldst thou me?’\nThy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,\nMurmur’d like a noontide bee,\n‘Shall I nestle near thy side?\nWouldst thou me?’--And I replied,\n ‘No, not thee!’\n\nDeath will come when thou art dead,\n Soon, too soon--\nSleep will come when thou art fled.\nOf neither would I ask the boon\nI ask of thee, beloved Night--\nSwift be thine approaching flight,\n Come soon, soon!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1821 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101098,10 +104293,10 @@ "title": "“Ode to the West Wind”", "body": "# I.\n\nO wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,\nThou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead\nAre driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,\n\nYellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,\nPestilence-stricken multitudes: 0 thou,\nWho chariotest to their dark wintry bed\n\nThe wingĂšd seeds, where they lie cold and low,\nEach like a corpse within its grave, until\nThine azure sister of the Spring shall blow\n\nHer clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill\n(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)\nWith living hues and odours plain and hill:\n\nWild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;\nDestroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!\n\n\n# II.\n\nThou on whose stream, ’mid the steep sky’s commotion,\nLoose clouds like Earth’s decaying leaves are shed,\nShook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,\n\nAngels of rain and lightning: there are spread\nOn the blue surface of thine airy surge,\nLike the bright hair uplifted from the head\n\nOf some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge\nOf the horizon to the zenith’s height,\nThe locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge\n\nOf the dying year, to which this closing night\nWill be the dome of a vast sepulchre\nVaulted with all thy congregated might\n\nOf vapours, from whose solid atmosphere\nBlack rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!\n\n\n# III.\n\nThou who didst waken from his summer dreams\nThe blue Mediterranean, where he lay,\nLulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,\n\nBeside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay,\nAnd saw in sleep old palaces and towers\nQuivering within the wave’s intenser day,\n\nAll overgrown with azure moss and flowers\nSo sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou\nFor whose path the Atlantic’s level powers\n\nCleave themselves into chasms, while far below\nThe sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear\nThe sapless foliage of the ocean, know\n\nThy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,\nAnd tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!\n\n\n# IV.\n\nIf I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;\nIf I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;\nA wave to pant beneath thy power, and share\n\nThe impulse of thy strength, only less free\nThan thou, O Uncontrollable! If even\nI were as in my boyhood, and could be\n\nThe comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,\nAs then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed\nScarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven\n\nAs thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.\nOh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!\nI fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!\n\nA heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed\nOne too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.\n\n\n# V.\n\nMake me thy lyre, even as the forest is:\nWhat if my leaves are falling like its own!\nThe tumult of thy mighty harmonies\n\nWill take from both a deep, autumnal tone,\nSweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,\nMy spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!\n\nDrive my dead thoughts over the universe\nLike withered leaves to quicken a new birth!\nAnd, by the incantation of this verse,\n\nScatter, as from an unextinguished hearth\nAshes and sparks, my words among mankind!\nBe through my lips to unawakened Earth\n\nThe trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,\nIf Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1820 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -101112,10 +104307,10 @@ "title": "“On a Dead Violet”", "body": "The odor from the flower is gone\nWhich like thy kisses breathed on me;\nThe color from the flower is flown\nWhich glowed of thee and only thee!\n\nA shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form,\nIt lies on my abandoned breast;\nAnd mocks the heart, which yet is warm,\nWith cold and silent rest.\n\nI weep--my tears revive it not;\nI sigh--it breathes no more on me:\nIts mute and uncomplaining lot\nIs such as mine should be.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101123,10 +104318,10 @@ "title": "“On Death”", "body": "The pale, the cold, and the moony smile\nWhich the meteor beam of a starless night\nSheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,\nEre the dawning of morn’s undoubted light,\nIs the flame of life so fickle and wan\nThat flits round our steps till their strength is gone.\n\nO man! hold thee on in courage of soul\nThrough the stormy shades of thy wordly way,\nAnd the billows of clouds that around thee roll\nShall sleep in the light of a wondrous day,\nWhere hell and heaven shall leave thee free\nTo the universe of destiny.\n\nThis world is the nurse of all we know,\nThis world is the mother of all we feel,\nAnd the coming of death is a fearful blow\nTo a brain unencompass’d by nerves of steel:\nWhen all that we know, or feel, or see,\nShall pass like an unreal mystery.\n\nThe secret things of the grave are there,\nWhere all but this frame must surely be,\nThough the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear\nNo longer will live, to hear or to see\nAll that is great and all that is strange\nIn the boundless realm of unending change.\n\nWho telleth a tale of unspeaking death?\nWho lifteth the veil of what is to come?\nWho painteth the shadows that are beneath\nThe wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?\nOr uniteth the hopes of what shall be\nWith the fears and the love for that which we see?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101142,10 +104337,10 @@ "title": "“One word is too often profaned 
”", "body": "One word is too often profaned\nFor me to profane it;\nOne feeling too falsely disdained\nFor thee to disdain it;\nOne hope is too like despair\nFor prudence to smother;\nAnd pity from thee more dear\nThan that from another.\n\nI can give not what men call love;\nBut wilt thou accept not\nThe worship the heart lifts above\nAnd the heavens reject not,--\nThe desire of the moth for the star,\nOf the night for the morrow,\nThe devotion to something afar\nFrom the sphere of our sorrow?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101153,12 +104348,12 @@ "title": "“Ozymandias”", "body": "I met a traveller from an antique land,\nWho said--“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone\nStand in the desert 
 Near them, on the sand,\nHalf sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,\nAnd wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,\nTell that its sculptor well those passions read\nWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,\nThe hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;\nAnd on the pedestal, these words appear:\nMy name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;\nLook on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!\nNothing beside remains. Round the decay\nOf that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare\nThe lone and level sands stretch far away.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1818, "month": "january", "day": 11 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -101170,10 +104365,10 @@ "title": "From “Prometheus Unbound”", "body": "My soul is an enchanted boat,\nWhich, like a sleeping swan, doth float\nUpon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;\nAnd thine doth like an angel sit\nBeside a helm conducting it,\nWhilst all the winds with melody are ringing.\nIt seems to float ever, for ever,\nUpon that many-winding river,\nBetween mountains, woods, abysses,\nA paradise of wildernesses!\nTill, like one in slumber bound,\nBorne to the ocean, I float down, around,\nInto a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound:\n\nMeanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions\nIn music’s most serene dominions;\nCatching the winds that fan that happy heaven.\nAnd we sail on, away, afar,\nWithout a course, without a star,\nBut, by the instinct of sweet music driven;\nTill through Elysian garden islets\nBy thee, most beautiful of pilots,\nWhere never mortal pinnace glided,\nThe boat of my desire is guided:\nRealms where the air we breathe is love,\nWhich in the winds and on the waves doth move,\nHarmonizing this earth with what we feel above.\n\nWe have past Age’s icy caves,\nAnd Manhood’s dark and tossing waves,\nAnd Youth’s smooth ocean, smiling to betray:\nBeyond the glassy gulfs we flee\nOf shadow-peopled Infancy,\nThrough Death and Birth, to a diviner day;\nA paradise of vaulted bowers,\nLit by downward-gazing flowers,\nAnd watery paths that wind between\nWildernesses calm and green,\nPeopled by shapes too bright to see,\nAnd rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee;\nWhich walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101181,10 +104376,10 @@ "title": "“The Question”", "body": "I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way,\nBare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,\nAnd gentle odours led my steps astray,\nMixed with a sound of waters murmuring\nAlong a shelving bank of turf, which lay\nUnder a copse, and hardly dared to fling\nIts green arms round the bosom of the stream,\nBut kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.\n\nThere grew pied wind-flowers and violets,\nDaisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,\nThe constellated flower that never sets;\nFaint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth\nThe sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets--\nLike a child, half in tenderness and mirth--\nIts mother’s face with Heaven’s collected tears,\nWhen the low wind, its playmate’s voice, it hears.\n\nAnd in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,\nGreen cowbind and the moonlight-coloured may,\nAnd cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine\nWas the bright dew, yet drained not by the day;\nAnd wild roses, and ivy serpentine,\nWith its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;\nAnd flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold,\nFairer than any wakened eyes behold.\n\nAnd nearer to the river’s trembling edge\nThere grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white,\nAnd starry river buds among the sedge,\nAnd floating water-lilies, broad and bright,\nWhich lit the oak that overhung the hedge\nWith moonlight beams of their own watery light;\nAnd bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green\nAs soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.\n\nMethought that of these visionary flowers\nI made a nosegay, bound in such a way\nThat the same hues, which in their natural bowers\nWere mingled or opposed, the like array\nKept these imprisoned children of the Hours\nWithin my hand,--and then, elate and gay,\nI hastened to the spot whence I had come,\nThat I might there present it!--Oh! to whom?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1816 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -101195,10 +104390,10 @@ "title": "“Rarely, rarely, comest thou 
”", "body": "Rarely, rarely, comest thou,\nSpirit of Delight!\nWherefore hast thou left me now\nMany a day and night?\nMany a weary night and day\n’Tis since thou are fled away.\n\nHow shall ever one like me\nWin thee back again?\nWith the joyous and the free\nThou wilt scoff at pain.\nSpirit false! thou hast forgot\nAll but those who need thee not.\n\nAs a lizard with the shade\nOf a trembling leaf,\nThou with sorrow art dismay’d;\nEven the sighs of grief\nReproach thee, that thou art not near,\nAnd reproach thou wilt not hear.\n\nLet me set my mournful ditty\nTo a merry measure;\nThou wilt never come for pity,\nThou wilt come for pleasure;\nPity then will cut away\nThose cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.\n\nI love all that thou lovest,\nSpirit of Delight!\nThe fresh Earth in new leaves dress’d,\nAnd the starry night;\nAutumn evening, and the morn\nWhen the golden mists are born.\n\nI love snow, and all the forms\nOf the radiant frost;\nI love waves, and winds, and storms,\nEverything almost\nWhich is Nature’s, and may be\nUntainted by man’s misery.\n\nI love tranquil solitude,\nAnd such society\nAs is quiet, wise, and good;\nBetween thee and me\nWhat difference? but thou dost possess\nThe things I seek, not love them less.\n\nI love Love--though he has wings,\nAnd like light can flee,\nBut above all other things,\nSpirit, I love thee--\nThou art love and life! Oh come,\nMake once more my heart thy home.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -101220,10 +104415,10 @@ "title": "“Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples”", "body": "The sun is warm, the sky is clear,\nThe waves are dancing fast and bright,\nBlue isles and snowy mountains wear\nThe purple noon’s transparent might,\nThe breath of the moist earth is light,\nAround its unexpanded buds;\nLike many a voice of one delight,\nThe winds, the birds, the ocean floods,\nThe City’s voice itself, is soft like Solitude’s.\n\nI see the Deep’s untrampled floor\nWith green and purple seaweeds strown;\nI see the waves upon the shore,\nLike light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:\nI sit upon the sands alone,--\nThe lightning of the noontide ocean\nIs flashing round me, and a tone\nArises from its measured motion,\nHow sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.\n\nAlas! I have nor hope nor health,\nNor peace within nor calm around,\nNor that content surpassing wealth\nThe sage in meditation found,\nAnd walked with inward glory crowned--\nNor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.\nOthers I see whom these surround--\nSmiling they live, and call life pleasure;\nTo me that cup has been dealt in another measure.\n\nYet now despair itself is mild,\nEven as the winds and waters are;\nI could lie down like a tired child,\nAnd weep away the life of care\nWhich I have borne and yet must bear,\nTill death like sleep might steal on me,\nAnd I might feel in the warm air\nMy cheek grow cold, and hear the sea\nBreathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony.\n\nSome might lament that I were cold,\nAs I, when this sweet day is gone,\nWhich my lost heart, too soon grown old,\nInsults with this untimely moan;\nThey might lament--for I am one\nWhom men love not,--and yet regret,\nUnlike this day, which, when the sun\nShall on its stainless glory set,\nWill linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -101235,10 +104430,10 @@ "body": "The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere\nEach vapour that obscured the sunset’s ray,\nAnd pallid Evening twines its beaming hair\nIn duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day:\nSilence and Twilight, unbeloved of men,\nCreep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.\n\nThey breathe their spells towards the departing day,\nEncompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea;\nLight, sound, and motion, own the potent sway,\nResponding to the charm with its own mystery.\nThe winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass\nKnows not their gentle motions as they pass.\n\nThou too, aerial pile, whose pinnacles\nPoint from one shrine like pyramids of fire,\nObey’st I in silence their sweet solemn spells,\nClothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,\nAround whose lessening and invisible height\nGather among the stars the clouds of night.\n\nThe dead are sleeping in their sepulchres:\nAnd, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound,\nHalf sense half thought, among the darkness stirs,\nBreathed from their wormy beds all living things around,\nAnd, mingling with the still night and mute sky,\nIts awful hush is felt inaudibly.\n\nThus solemnized and softened, death is mild\nAnd terrorless as this serenest night.\nHere could I hope, like some enquiring child\nSporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight\nSweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep\nThat loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep.", "metadata": { "place": "Lechlade", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1815 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -101249,10 +104444,10 @@ "title": "“Time”", "body": "Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,\nOcean of Time, whose waters of deep woe\nAre brackish with the salt of human tears!\nThou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow\nClaspest the limits of mortality,\nAnd sick of prey, yet howling on for more,\nVomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore;\nTreacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,\nWho shall put forth on thee,\nUnfathomable Sea?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101260,10 +104455,10 @@ "title": "“Time Long Past”", "body": "Like the ghost of a dear friend dead\nIs Time long past.\nA tone which is now forever fled,\nA hope which is now forever past,\nA love so sweet it could not last,\nWas Time long past.\n\nThere were sweet dreams in the night\nOf Time long past:\nAnd, was it sadness or delight,\nEach day a shadow onward cast\nWhich made us wish it yet might last--\nThat Time long past.\n\nThere is regret, almost remorse,\nFor Time long past.\n’Tis like a child’s belovĂšd corse\nA father watches, till at last\nBeauty is like remembrance, cast\nFrom Time long past.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1819 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101271,10 +104466,10 @@ "title": "“To a Lady, with a Guitar”", "body": "Ariel to Miranda:--Take\nThis slave of music, for the sake\nOf him who is the slave of thee;\nAnd teach it all the harmony\nIn which thou canst, and only thou,\nMake the delighted spirit glow,\nTill joy denies itself again\nAnd, too intense, is turned to pain.\nFor by permission and command\nOf thine own Prince Ferdinand,\nPoor Ariel sends this silent token\nOf more than ever can be spoken;\nYour guardian spirit, Ariel, who\nFrom life to life must still pursue\nYour happiness, for thus alone\nCan Ariel ever find his own.\nFrom Prospero’s enchanted cell,\nAs the mighty verses tell,\nTo the throne of Naples he\nLit you o’er the trackless sea,\nFlitting on, your prow before,\nLike a living meteor.\nWhen you die, the silent Moon\nIn her interlunar swoon\nIs not sadder in her cell\nThan deserted Ariel.\nWhen you live again on earth,\nLike an unseen Star of birth\nAriel guides you o’er the sea\nOf life from your nativity.\nMany changes have been run\nSince Ferdinand and you begun\nYour course of love, and Ariel still\nHas tracked your steps and served your will.\nNow in humbler, happier lot,\nThis is all remembered not;\nAnd now, alas! the poor sprite is\nImprisoned for some fault of his\nIn a body like a grave--\nFrom you he only dares to crave,\nFor his service and his sorrow,\nA smile today, a song tomorrow.\n\nThe artist who this idol wrought\nTo echo all harmonious thought,\nFelled a tree, while on the steep\nThe woods were in their winter sleep,\nRocked in that repose divine\nOn the wind-swept Apennine;\nAnd dreaming, some of Autumn past,\nAnd some of Spring approaching fast,\nAnd some of April buds and showers,\nAnd some of songs in July bowers,\nAnd all of love; and so this tree,--\nO that such our death may be!--\nDied in sleep, and felt no pain,\nTo live in happier form again:\nFrom which, beneath Heaven’s fairest star,\nThe artist wrought this loved Guitar;\nAnd taught it justly to reply\nTo all who question skilfully\nIn language gentle as thine own;\nWhispering in enamoured tone\nSweet oracles of woods and dells,\nAnd summer winds in sylvan cells;\n--For it had learnt all harmonies\nOf the plains and of the skies,\nOf the forests and the mountains,\nAnd the many-voiced fountains;\nThe clearest echoes of the hills,\nThe softest notes of falling rills,\nThe melodies of birds and bees,\nThe murmuring of summer seas,\nAnd pattering rain, and breathing dew,\nAnd airs of evening; and it knew\nThat seldom-heard mysterious sound\nWhich, driven on its diurnal round,\nAs it floats through boundless day,\nOur world enkindles on its way:\n--All this it knows, but will not tell\nTo those who cannot question well\nThe Spirit that inhabits it;\nIt talks according to the wit\nOf its companions; and no more\nIs heard than has been felt before\nBy those who tempt it to betray\nThese secrets of an elder day.\nBut, sweetly as its answers will\nFlatter hands of perfect skill,\nIt keeps its highest holiest tone\nFor one beloved Friend alone.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -101285,10 +104480,10 @@ "title": "“To Jane”", "body": "The keen stars were twinkling,\nAnd the fair moon was rising among them,\nDear Jane.\nThe guitar was tinkling,\nBut the notes were not sweet till you sung them\nAgain.\n\nAs the moon’s soft splendour\nO’er the faint cold starlight of Heaven\nIs thrown,\nSo your voice most tender\nTo the strings without soul had then given\nIts own.\n\nThe stars will awaken,\nThough the moon sleep a full hour later\nTo-night;\nNo leaf will be shaken\nWhilst the dews of your melody scatter\nDelight.\n\nThough the sound overpowers,\nSing again, with your dear voice revealing\nA tone\nOf some world far from ours,\nWhere music and moonlight and feeling\nAre one.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101296,10 +104491,10 @@ "title": "“To the Moon”", "body": "And, like a dying lady lean and pale,\nWho totters forth, wrapp’d in a gauzy veil,\nOut of her chamber, led by the insane\nAnd feeble wanderings of her fading brain,\nThe moon arose up in the murky east,\nA white and shapeless mass.\n\nArt thou pale for weariness\nOf climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,\nWandering companionless\nAmong the stars that have a different birth,\nAnd ever changing, like a joyless eye\nThat finds no object worth its constancy?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101307,10 +104502,10 @@ "title": "“The Waning Moon”", "body": "And like a dying lady, lean and pale,\nWho totters forth, wrapped in a gauzy veil,\nOut of her chamber, led by the insane\nAnd feeble wanderings of her fading brain,\nThe moon arose up in the murky east,\nA white and shapeless mass.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -101318,10 +104513,10 @@ "title": "“A Widow Bird Sat Mourning for Her Love”", "body": "A widow bird sat mourning for her Love\nUpon a wintry bough;\nThe frozen wind crept on above,\nThe freezing stream below.\n\nThere was no leaf upon the forest bare,\nNo flower upon the ground,\nAnd little motion in the air\nExcept the mill-wheel’s sound.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1822 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -101367,11 +104562,13 @@ "title": "“Perebendya”", "body": "Old Perebendya, minstrel blind,\nIs known both near and far.\nHe wanders all the country ’round\nAnd plays on his kobza.\nThe people know the man who plays,\nThey listen and are glad,\nBecause he chases gloom away,\nThough he himself is sad.\nNo matter what the weather holds,\nHis days and nights he spends\nWithout a shelter out-of-doors;\nMisfortune dogs his steps,\nAnd mocks his head with silver thatched,\nBut he no longer heeds;\nHe seats himself beside a hedge\nAnd sings, “Oh rustling leaves!”\nAnd singing, how he’s all alone\nHe thinks and bows his head,\nAs melancholy sears his soul,\nAlone beside the hedge.\n\nThat’s what old Perebendya’s like,\nHe’s very changeful, too:\nHe’ll sing about heroic deeds,\nThen change to comic tunes;\nTo maidens on the commons grass\nHe’ll sing of love and spring,\nAnd at the inn for merry lads\nGood rousing songs hell sing;\nFor married couples at a feast\n(Where mother-’n-law is strict)\nSuch songs as tell of women’s grief\nAnd hardship he will pick;\nAt market-place--of Lazarus,\nOr else, a mournful lay\n(So that the memory should live)\nOf how the Sich was razed.\nSo that’s what Perebendya’s like,\nCapricious in old age:\nHe’ll sing a merry song and then\nTo one of tears he’ll change.\n\nAsweeping freely o’er the steppes,\nThe wind blows from afar.\nUpon a mound the minstrel sits\nAnd plays on his kobza.\nThe boundless steppes, blue as the sea,\nReach out on every side;\nThe grave mounds also stretch away\nTill they are lost to sight.\n\nHis grey moustache and thatch of hair\nThe wind blows every way,\nThen it subsides and lends an ear To the old jminstrel’s lay,\nHis heart’s wild beat, the tears of sightless eyes 
\nThen blows again 
\n This is his hide-away\nAmid the steppe where nobody can spy\nAnd where his words are scattered o’er the plains\nAway from human ears, the sacred words\nPronounced in free communion with God,\nThe praises sung in homage to the Lord.\nHis thoughts the while go floating on a cloud,\nLike eagles in the blue they soar o’erhead\nTill with their wings the very sky is churned;\nThey rest upon the sun and ask where it\nRetires at night, how rises in the morn;\nThey listen as the sea its tale unfolds,\n“Why are you mute?” they ask the mountain top,\nThen back to the sky, for earth’s full of woe;\nIn all the wide, wide world there’s not a spot\nFor him who all things knows and hears and sees--\nThe secrets of the sun, and sea, and fields--\nNo one to bid him welcome with his heart.\nHe’s all alone, as is the sun alone.\nThe people know him and they let him be 
\nBut if they learned how he, alone, intones\nSongs in the steppe, converses with the sea--\nThey would make sport of words that are divine,\nAnd call him mad and from their midst they’d drive\nHim off to die. “Go to the sea!” they’d say.\n\nYou’re doing right, my minstrel friend,\nYou’re doing right, I know,\nThat to the grave mound in the steppe\nTo talk and sing you go!\nKeep going there, my hearty one,\nUntil the day your heart\nFalls fast asleep, and sing your songs\nWhere you will not be heard.\nAnd that the people shouldn’t shy\nYou must indulge them, friend! 
\nSo dance the way the master says--\nThe money’s his to spend.\n\nSo that’s what Perebendya’s like,\nCapricious in old age:\nHe’ll sing a wedding song and then\nTo one of grief he’ll change.", "metadata": { - "translator": "John Weir", + "language": "Ukrainian", "time": { "year": 1839 }, - "language": "Ukrainian", + "translators": [ + "John Weir" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -101473,8 +104670,10 @@ "title": "“Agraphon”", "body": "Once at sunset Jesus and his disciples were on the road outside the walls of Zion when suddenly they came to where the town for years had dumped its garbage:\nCrowning the highest pile, its legs pointing at the sky, lay a dog’s bloated carcass; such a stench rose up from it that all the disciples, hands cupped over their nostrils, drew back as one man.\nBut Jesus stood there, and He gazed so closely at the carcass that one disciple called out from a distance, “Rabbi, don’t you smell that dreadful stench? How can you go on standing there?”\nJesus, His eyes fixed on the carcass, answered: “If your breath is pure, you’ll smell the same stench inside the town behind us, but Look how that dog’s teeth glitter in the sun: like hailstones, like a lily, beyond decay, a great pledge, mirror of the Eternal, but also the harsh lightning-flash, the hope of Justice!”\n“And now, Lord, I, the very least of men, stand before You, give me, as now I walk outside this Zion, as I walk through this terrible stench, one single moment of Your holy calm, so that I may also pause among this carrion and with my own eyes somewhere see deep inside me, beyond the world’s decay, like the dog’s teeth at which, Lord, that sunset You gazed in wonder: a great pledge Eternal, but also the harsh lightning-flash, the hope of Justice!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Gregory Jusdanis", "language": "Greek", + "translators": [ + "Gregory Jusdanis" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -101532,7 +104731,6 @@ "title": "“All into one again”", "body": "The All proceedeth from the One,\nAnd into One must All regress:\nIf otherwise, the All remains\nAsunder-riven manyness.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101541,6 +104739,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101548,7 +104749,6 @@ "title": "“The blame is thine”", "body": "If gazing on the Sun endangereth thy sight,\nThe blame is in thine eyes, and not in that great Light.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101557,6 +104757,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101564,7 +104767,6 @@ "title": "“God becomes what he wills”", "body": "Eternal Spirit, God becomes\nAll that He wills to be--but still\nAbideth ever as He is,\nWithout a form, an aim, a will.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101573,6 +104775,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101580,7 +104785,6 @@ "title": "“God becometh what he never was”", "body": "Here in the midst of Time God doth become what He,\nThe Unbecome, was not in all Eternity.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101589,6 +104793,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101596,7 +104803,6 @@ "title": "“God denieth himself to none”", "body": "Take, drink, all that thou wilt or canst--’tis given thee free,\nThou hast the whole of Godhead for thy Hostelry.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101605,6 +104811,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101612,7 +104821,6 @@ "title": "“God is and liveth not”", "body": "God is, but in God-wise. He loves and lives, ’tis true,\nBut not as I or thou or other beings do.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101621,6 +104829,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101628,7 +104839,6 @@ "title": "“God is not grasped”", "body": "God is an utter Nothingness,\nBeyond the touch of Time and Place:\nThe more thou graspest after Him,\nThe more he fleeth thy embrace.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101637,6 +104847,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101644,7 +104857,6 @@ "title": "“God loveth naught but himself”", "body": "God is so dear unto Himself,\nFolded in self so utterly,\nThat He can never cherish love\nFor anything that is not He.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101653,6 +104865,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101660,7 +104875,6 @@ "title": "“God naught and all”", "body": "God is a Spirit, a Fire, a Being and a Flame,\nAnd yet again He is not one of all these same.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101669,6 +104883,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101676,7 +104893,6 @@ "title": "“God never exploreth himself”", "body": "The Thought and Deed of Deity\nAre of such richness and extent\nThat It remaineth to Itself\nAn Undiscovered Continent.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101685,6 +104901,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101692,7 +104911,6 @@ "title": "“In the sea many are one”", "body": "A Loaf holds many grains of corn\nAnd many myriad drops the Sea:\nSo is God’s Oneness Multitude\nAnd that great Multitude are we.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101701,6 +104919,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101708,7 +104929,6 @@ "title": "“The knower must become the known”", "body": "Naught ever can be known in God: One and Alone\nIs He. To know Him, Knower must be one with Known.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101717,6 +104937,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101724,7 +104947,6 @@ "title": "“Man loveth even without knowing”", "body": "One only Thing I love and know not what it is:\nBecause I know it not, therefore I’ve chosen this.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101733,6 +104955,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101740,7 +104965,6 @@ "title": "“Man must go beyond all knowledge”", "body": "What Cherubs know sufficeth not: beyond their zone\nI fain would take my flight unto where nothing’s known.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101749,6 +104973,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101756,7 +104983,6 @@ "title": "“More known less understood”", "body": "The more thou knowest God, the more thou wilt confess\nThat what He truly is, thou knowest less and less.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101765,6 +104991,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101772,7 +105001,6 @@ "title": "“Of eternal motion”", "body": "The secret of Eternal Motion thou wouldst learn,\nI, of Eternal Rest: which is of more concern?", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101781,6 +105009,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101788,7 +105019,6 @@ "title": "“The rest and work of god”", "body": "Rested God never hath, nor toiled--’tis manifest,\nFor all His rest is work and all His work is rest.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101797,6 +105027,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101804,7 +105037,6 @@ "title": "“Rest is the highest good”", "body": "Rest is the highest Good. I’d keep both eyes close pressed,\nThat He might have repose, were God Himself not Rest.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101813,6 +105045,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101820,7 +105055,6 @@ "title": "“Sin troubleth not god”", "body": "God feeleth pain for sin in thee\nAs in His son,\nBut in His Self of Deity\nHe feeleth none.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101829,6 +105063,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101836,7 +105073,6 @@ "title": "“The something must be forsaken”", "body": "If thou dost love a Something, Man,\nThou lovest naught that doth abide.\nGod is not This nor That--do thou\nLeave Somethings utterly aside.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101845,6 +105081,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101852,7 +105091,6 @@ "title": "“Thou must thyself be sun”", "body": "I must myself be Sun. I with my beams must dye\nThe all-uncoloured Sea of the whole Deity.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101861,6 +105099,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101868,7 +105109,6 @@ "title": "“Through thee god loseth naught”", "body": "Choose, Man, which of the twain thou wilt,\nThy self-destruction or thy peace.\nThrough thee God suffereth no loss,\nNeither through thee hath He increase.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101877,6 +105117,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -101884,7 +105127,6 @@ "title": "“What is spoken of god is more false than true”", "body": "Since thou dost measure God by creature qualities,\nThere’s more of lie than truth in thy theologies.", "metadata": { - "translator": "J. E. Crawford Flitch", "language": "German", "source": { "title": "Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann", @@ -101893,6 +105135,9 @@ "year": 1674 } }, + "translators": [ + "J. E. Crawford Flitch" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -102203,10 +105448,10 @@ "title": "“When She Cries”", "body": "No one knows my lady when she’s lonely\nNo one sees the fantasies and fears my lady hides\nThere are those who’ve shared her love and laughter\nBut no one hears my lady when she cries 
 but me\nNo one hears my lady when she cries\n\nAnd when she cries she makes you wanna run\nAnd chase the sun and bring it back\nTo brighten up a corner of her dark and troubled skies\nWhen she cries\n\nShe walks barefoot through the misty mornin’\nDreams of golden yesterdays reflectin’ in her eyes\nBut soon the evenin’ shadows crowd around her\nFrightening my lady till she cries 
 for me\nFrightening my lady, till she cries\n\nYou may have seen her lyin’ in your lamplight\nAnd if you’ve heard her whispered words, it comes as no surprise\nSo be the one she shares her secret smiles with\nBut send me back my lady when she cries 
 for me\nMy lady’s gonna need me when she cries", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1972 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -103107,14 +106352,14 @@ "title": "“Five Visions of Captain Cook”", "body": "# I.\n\nCook was a captain of the Admiralty\nWhen sea-captains had the evil eye,\nOr should have, what with beating krakens off\nAnd casting nativities of ships;\nCook was a captain of the powder-days\nWhen captains, you might have said, if you had been\nFixed by their glittering stare, half-down the side,\nOr gaping at them up companionways,\nWere more like warlocks than a humble man--\nAnd men were humble then who gazed at them,\nPoor horn-eyed sailors, bullied by devils’ fists\nOf wind or water, or the want of both,\nChildlike and trusting, filled with eager trust--\nCook was a captain of the sailing days\nWhen sea-captains were kings like this,\nNot cold executives of company-rules\nCracking their boilers for a dividend\nOr bidding their engineers go wink\nAt bells and telegraphs, so plates would hold\nAnother pound. Those captains drove their ships\nBy their own blood, no laws of schoolbook steam,\nTill yards were sprung, and masts went overboard--\nDaemons in periwigs, doling magic out,\nWho read fair alphabets in stars\nWhere humbler men found but a mess of sparks,\nWho steered their crews by mysteries\nAnd strange, half-dreadful sortilege with books,\nUsed medicines that only gods could know\nThe sense of, but sailors drank\nIn simple faith. That was the captain\nCook was when he came to the Coral Sea\nAnd chose a passage into the dark.\n\nHow many mariners had made that choice\nPaused on the brink of mystery! “Choose now!”\nThe winds roared, blowing home, blowing home,\nOver the Coral Sea. “Choose now!” the trades\nCried once to Tasman, throwing him for choice\nTheir teeth or shoulders, and the Dutchman chose\nThe wind’s way, turning north. “Choose, Bougainville!”\nThe wind cried once, and Bougainville had heard\nThe voice of God, calling him prudently\nOut of the dead lee shore, and chose the north,\nThe wind’s way. So, too, Cook made choice,\nOver the brink, into the devil’s mouth,\nWith four months’ food, and sailors wild with dreams\nOf English beer, the smoking barns of home.\nSo Cook made choice, so Cook sailed westabout,\nSo men write poems in Australia.\n\n\n# II.\n\nFlowers turned to stone! Not all the botany\nOf Joseph Banks, hung pensive in a porthole,\nCould find the Latin for this loveliness,\nCould put the Barrier Reef in a glass box\nTagged by the horrid Gorgon squint\nOf horticulture. Stone turned to flowers\nIt seemed--you’d snap a crystal twig,\nOne petal even of the water-garden,\nAnd have it dying like a cherry-bough.\nThey’d sailed all day outside a coral hedge,\nAnd half the night. Cook sailed at night,\nLet there be reefs a fathom from the keel\nAnd empty charts. The sailors didn’t ask,\nNor Joseph Banks. Who cared? It was the spell\nOf Cook that lulled them, bade them turn below,\nKick off their sea-boots, puff themselves to sleep,\nThough there were more shoals outside\nThan teeth in a shark’s head. Cook snored loudest himself.\n\nOne day, a morning of light airs and calms,\nThey slid towards a reef that would have knifed\nTheir boards to mash, and murdered every man.\nSo close it sucked them, one wave shook their keel,\nThe next blew past the coral. Three officers,\nIn gilt and buttons, languidly on deck\nPointed their sextants at the sun. One yawned,\nOne held a pencil, one put eye to lens:\nThree very peaceful English mariners\nTaking their sights for longitude.\nI’ve never heard\nOf sailors aching for the longitude\nOf shipwrecks before or since. It was the spell\nOf Cook did this, the phylacteries of Cook.\nMen who ride broomsticks with a mesmerist\nMock the typhoon. So, too, it was with Cook.\n\n\n# III.\n\nTwo chronometers the captain had,\nOne by Arnold that ran like mad,\nOne by Kendal in a walnut case,\nPoor devoted creature with a hangdog face.\n\nArnold always hurried with a crazed click-click\nDancing over Greenwich like a lunatic,\nKendal panted faithfully his watch-dog beat,\nClimbing out of Yesterday with sticky little feet.\n\nArnold choked with appetite to wolf up time,\nMadly round the numerals his hands would climb,\nHis cogs rushed over and his wheels ran miles,\nDragging Captain Cook to the Sandwich Isles.\n\nBut Kendal dawdled in the tombstoned past,\nWith a sentimental prejudice to going fast,\nAnd he thought very often of a haberdasher’s door\nAnd a yellow-haired boy who would knock no more.\n\nAll through the night-time, clock talked to clock,\nIn the captain’s cabin, tock-tock-tock,\nOne ticked fast and one ticked slow,\nAnd Time went over them a hundred years ago.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nSometimes the god would fold his wings\nAnd, stone of Caesars turned to flesh,\nTalk of the most important things\nThat serious-minded midshipmen could wish,\n\nOf plantains, and the lack of rum\nOr spearing sea-cows--things like this\nThat hungry schoolboys, five days dumb,\nIn jolly-boats are wonted to discuss.\n\nWhat midshipman would pause to mourn\nThe sun that beat about his ears,\nOr curse the tide, if he could horn\nHis fists by tugging on those lumbering oars?\n\nLet rum-tanned mariners prefer\nTo hug the weather-side of yards,\n“Cats to catch mice” before they purr,\nThose were the captain’s enigmatic words.\n\nHere, in this jolly-boat they graced,\nWere food and freedom, wind and storm,\nWhile, fowling-piece across his waist,\nCook mapped the coast, with one eye cocked for game.\n\n\n# V.\n\nAfter the candles had gone out, and those\nWho listened had gone out, and a last wave\nOf chimney-haloes caked their smoky rings\nLike fish-scales on the ceiling, a Yellow Sea\nOf swimming circles, the old man,\nOld Captain-in-the-Corner, drank his rum\nWith friendly gestures to four chairs. They stood\nEmpty, still warm from haunches, with rubbed nails\nAnd leather glazed, like aged serving-men\nFeeding a king’s delight, the sticky, drugged\nSweet agony of habitual anecdotes.\nBut these, his chairs, could bear an old man’s tongue,\nSleep when he slept, be flattering when he woke,\nAnd wink to hear the same eternal name\nFrom lips new-dipped in rum.\n\n“Then Captain Cook,\nI heard him, told them they could go\nIf so they chose, but he would get them back,\nDead or alive, he’d have them,”\nThe old man screeched, half-thinking to hear “Cook!\nCook again! Cook! It’s other cooks he’ll need,\nCooks who can bake a dinner out of pence,\nThat’s what he lives on, talks on, half-a-crown\nA day, and sits there full of Cook.\nWho’d do your cooking now, I’d like to ask,\nIf someone didn’t grind her bones away?\nBut that’s the truth, six children and half-a-crown\nA day, and a man gone daft with Cook.”\n\nThat was his wife,\nElizabeth, a noble wife but brisk,\nWho lived in a present full of kitchen-fumes\nAnd had no past. He had not seen her\nFor seven years, being blind, and that of course\nWas why he’d had to strike a deal with chairs,\nNot knowing when those who chafed them had gone to sleep\nOr stolen away. Darkness and empty chairs,\nThis was the port that Alexander Home\nHad come to with his useless cutlass-wounds\nAnd tales of Cook, and half-a-crown a day--\nThis was the creek he’d run his timbers to,\nWhere grateful countrymen repaid his wounds\nAt half-a-crown a day. Too good, too good,\nThis eloquent offering of birdcages\nTo gulls, and Greenwich Hospital to Cook,\nBritannia’s mission to the sea-fowl.\n\nIt was not blindness picked his flesh away,\nNor want of sight made penny-blank the eyes\nOf Captain Home, but that he lived like this\nIn one place, and gazed elsewhere. His body moved\nIn Scotland, but his eyes were dazzle-full\nOf skies and water farther round the world--\nAir soaked with blue, so thick it dripped like snow\nOn spice-tree boughs, and water diamond-green,\nBeaches wind-glittering with crumbs of gilt,\nAnd birds more scarlet than a duchy’s seal\nThat had come whistling long ago, and far\nAway. His body had gone back,\nHere it sat drinking rum in Berwickshire,\nBut not his eyes--they were left floating there\nHalf-round the earth, blinking at beaches milked\nBy suck-mouth tides, foaming with ropes of bubbles\nAnd huge half-moons of surf. Thus it had been\nWhen Cook was carried on a sailor’s back,\nVengeance in a cocked hat, to claim his price,\nA prince in barter for a longboat.\nAnd then the trumpery springs of fate--a stone,\nA musket-shot, a round of gunpowder,\nAnd puzzled animals, killing they knew not what\nOr why, but killing 
 the surge of goatish flanks\nArmoured in feathers, like cruel birds:\nWild, childish faces, killing; a moment seen,\nMarines with crimson coats and puffs of smoke\nToppling face-down; and a knife of English iron,\nForged aboard ship, that had been changed for pigs,\nGiven back to Cook between the shoulder-blades.\nThere he had dropped, and the old floundering sea,\nThe old, fumbling, witless lover-enemy,\nHad taken his breath, last office of salt water.\n\nCook died. The body of Alexander Home\nFlowed round the world and back again, with eyes\nMarooned already, and came to English coasts,\nThe vague ancestral darknesses of home,\nSeeing them faintly through a glass of gold,\nDim fog-shapes, ghosted like the ribs of trees\nAgainst his blazing waters and blue air.\nBut soon they faded, and there was nothing left,\nOnly the sugar-cane and the wild granaries\nOf sand, and.palm-trees and the flying blood\nOf cardinal-birds; and putting out one hand\nTremulously in the direction of the beach,\nHe felt a chair in Scotland. And sat down.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1931 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Trio: A Book of Poems", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1931 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -103449,8 +106694,10 @@ "title": "“Real people have children 
”", "body": "Real people have children. We only have cacti\nstanding there speechless and cold.\nThe intelligentsia, where is it rolling away to?\nLearned people, where are your sons?\n\nI have lived in an environment where there are many fewer\nnieces than aunts and uncles.\nAnd not a single Flemish painter\nwould daub on big breasts if he painted her.\n\nWhat for? Because there came a time when she\ngot finicky about wiping away infant dribblings\nher nipples have dried up forever,\nher eyes and cheeks have started getting old.\n\nThe more books, the fewer kids,\nthe more ideas, the fewer children.\nThe more wives, tastefully dressed,\nthe emptier it gets in these well-lit apartments.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Gerald S. Smith", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Gerald S. Smith" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -104331,13 +107578,15 @@ "title": "“The Devil’s Swing”", "body": "Beneath a shaggy fir tree,\nAbove a noisy stream\nThe devil’s swing is swinging,\nPushed by his hairy hand.\n\nHe swings the swing while laughing,\nSwing high, swing low,\nSwing high, swing low,\nThe board is bent and creaking,\nThe rope is taut and chafing\nAgainst a heavy branch.\n\nThe swaying board is rushing\nWith long and drawn-out creaks;\nWith hand on hip, the devil\nIs laughing with a wheeze.\n\nI clutch, I swoon. I’m swinging.\nSwing high, swing low,\nSwing high, swing low,\nI’m clinging and I’m dangling.\nAnd from the devil trying\nTo turn my languid gaze.\n\nAbove the dusky fir tree\nThe azure sky guffaws:\n“You’re caught upon the swings, love,\nThe devil take you, swing!”\n\nBeneath the shaggy fir tree\nThe screeching throng whirls round:\n“You’re caught upon the swings, love,\nThe devil take you, swing!”\n\nThe devil will not slacken\nThe swift board’s pace, I know,\nUntil his hand unseats me\nWith a ferocious blow.\n\nUntil the jute, while twisting,\nIs frayed through till it breaks,\nUntil my ground beneath me\nTurns upward to my face.\n\nI’ll fly above the fir tree\nAnd fall flat on the ground.\nSo swing the swing, you devil,\nGo higher, higher 
 oh!", "metadata": { - "translator": "April FitzLyon", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1907, "month": "june", "day": 14 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "April FitzLyon" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -104349,13 +107598,15 @@ "title": "“In this hour 
”", "body": "In this hour when darkened skies arc by the awful thunder rent,\nIn this hour when shakes our dwelling to its very fundament,\nIn this hour when every hope and every love are in despair,\nWhen the mightiest in spirit purse the brow in restless care\nIn this hour your hearts shall rouse them higher, higher in their pride,\nVictory is theirs alone who faithful to the end abide.\nOnly theirs who trust with blindness, even though in spite of fate,\nOnly theirs who on their mother fling not grievous stones of hate.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Selver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1915, "month": "june", "day": 25 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Selver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june", @@ -104367,13 +107618,15 @@ "title": "“The Jare”", "body": "Inside a jar with painted flowers\nA surly servant carries wine.\nIn skies above the darkness lowers,\nThe road is rough and no stars shine.\nWith straining eyes to guide his going.\nHe peers into the darkness dim.\nLest the wine flood and overflowing\nDrip down and soak his breast for him.\n\nI also bear a jar, and filled it\nWith sufferings of long ago;\nI lulled and cunningly distilled it.\nMy poison of remembered woe.\nBy devious ways I travel bearing\nMy jar that brims with evil, lest\nSomeone should come with hands uncaring\nAnd spill it down upon my breast.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Cecil Maurice Bowra", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1895, "month": "september", "day": 12 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Cecil Maurice Bowra" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september", @@ -104385,13 +107638,15 @@ "title": "“Over the river the hazes that flow 
”", "body": "Over the river the hazes that flow\n’Neath the moon in the lonesome night,\nThey beset me with hate, and they bring me delight\nFor the stillness thereof and the woe.\n\nForgotten the beauty of day,\nAnd thro’ mist I stealthily pace,\nA track scarce beheld, in my travail I trace\nAnd I carry my lonely despair on my way.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Selver", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1895, "month": "may", "day": 14 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Selver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -104438,8 +107693,10 @@ "title": "“The Court of My Empress is Lofty of Height”", "body": "The court of my empress is lofty of height,\nWith seven golden pillars around.\nThe crown of my empress is sevenfold bedight,\nWith jewels unnumbered ’tis bound.\n\nAnd in the green garden, my empress’ own,\nThe roses and lilies bloom fair;\nIn the waves of a silvery streamlet is thrown\nThe flash of her brow and her hair.\n\nBut my empress ne’er harks to the whispering rill,\nOn the blossoms she turns not her gaze:\nAnd the glow of her eyes in despair has grown chill,\nAnd grief on her pondering preys.\n\nShe beholds: in a midnight domain far away,\n’Mid the chillness of hazes and snow,\nHow the gloom’s evil powers in a single affray\nHer lover of old overthrow.\n\nAnd her gem-studded crown from her brow she has torn,\nFrom her golden-wrought palace she wends;\nOf a sudden, approaching her comrade forsworn,\nBenignant, her hand she extends.\n\nAnd as o’er the dark winter young spring-tide has cast\nHis glow, she in tenderest love\nHas bent herself o’er him, and shielded him fast\nWith her glittering shelter above.\n\nAs the powers of the gloom in the dust he descries,\nHe is kindled with purest of flames;\nAnd with perishless love in her radiant eyes\nThus softly her friend she acclaims:\n\n“I know thee inconstant as waves of the sea;\nThou hast sworn to me trueness alway,--\nThine oath thou betrayed,--by betrayal of me,\nMy heart couldst thou likewise betray?”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Selver", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Paul Selver" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -104450,8 +107707,10 @@ "title": "“Do You Not See, Beloved?”", "body": "Do you not see, Beloved?\nAll that about us lies\nIs but the shade, the mirrored image\nOf things not seen with eyes.\n\nDo you not hear, Beloved?\nThe sounds that to earth belong\nAre but the muffled and broken echo\nOf a noble triumph-song.\n\nDo you not feel, Beloved?\nOur joy that will not end--\nThe joy of a silent love-greeting\nThat friend bestows on friend.", "metadata": { - "translator": "R. M. Hewitt", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "R. M. Hewitt" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -104459,8 +107718,10 @@ "title": "“Nature”", "body": "Nature does not allow one to\nRemove the veil from her beauty,\nAnd you will not yield from her with machines\nThat which your spirit cannot fathom.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alex Cigale", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alex Cigale" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -105425,10 +108686,10 @@ "title": "“Anecdote of the Jar”", "body": "I placed a jar in Tennessee,\nAnd round it was, upon a hill.\nIt made the slovenly wilderness\nSurround that hill.\n\nThe wilderness rose up to it,\nAnd sprawled around, no longer wild.\nThe jar was round upon the ground\nAnd tall and of a port in air.\n\nIt took dominion everywhere.\nThe jar was gray and bare.\nIt did not give of bird or bush,\nLike nothing else in Tennessee.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -105460,10 +108721,10 @@ "title": "“The Auroras of Autumn”", "body": "# I.\n\nThis is where the serpent lives, the bodiless.\nHis head is air. Beneath his tip at night\nEyes open and fix on us in every sky.\n\nOr is this another wriggling out of the egg,\nAnother image at the end of the cave,\nAnother bodiless for the body’s slough?\n\nThis is where the serpent lives. This is his nest,\nThese fields, these hills, these tinted distances,\nAnd the pines above and along and beside the sea.\n\nThis is form gulping after formlessness,\nSkin flashing to wished-for disappearances\nAnd the serpent body flashing without the skin.\n\nThis is the height emerging and its base\nThese lights may finally attain a pole\nIn the midmost midnight and find the serpent there,\n\nIn another nest, the master of the maze\nOf body and air and forms and images,\nRelentlessly in possession of happiness.\n\nThis is his poison: that we should disbelieve\nEven that. His meditations in the ferns,\nWhen he moved so slightly to make sure of sun,\n\nMade us no less as sure. We saw in his head,\nBlack beaded on the rock, the flecked animal,\nThe moving grass, the Indian in his glade.\n\n\n# II.\n\nFarewell to an idea 
 A cabin stands,\nDeserted, on a beach. It is white,\nAs by a custom or according to\n\nAn ancestral theme or as a consequence\nOf an infinite course. The flowers against the wall\nAre white, a little dried, a kind of mark\n\nReminding, trying to remind, of a white\nThat was different, something else, last year\nOr before, not the white of an aging afternoon,\n\nWhether fresher or duller, whether of winter cloud\nOr of winter sky, from horizon to horizon.\nThe wind is blowing the sand across the floor.\n\nHere, being visible is being white,\nIs being of the solid of white, the accomplishment\nOf an extremist in an exercise 
\n\nThe season changes. A cold wind chills the beach.\nThe long lines of it grow longer, emptier,\nA darkness gathers though it does not fall\n\nAnd the whiteness grows less vivid on the wall.\nThe man who is walking turns blankly on the sand.\nHe observes how the north is always enlarging the change,\n\nWith its frigid brilliances, its blue-red sweeps\nAnd gusts of great enkindlings, its polar green,\nThe color of ice and fire and solitude.\n\n\n# III.\n\nFarewell to an idea 
 The mother’s face,\nThe purpose of the poem, fills the room.\nThey are together, here, and it is warm,\n\nWith none of the prescience of oncoming dreams.\nIt is evening. The house is evening, half dissolved.\nOnly the half they can never possess remains,\n\nStill-starred. It is the mother they possess,\nWho gives transparence to their present peace.\nShe makes that gentler that can gentle be.\n\nAnd yet she too is dissolved, she is destroyed.\nShe gives transparence. But she has grown old.\nThe necklace is a carving not a kiss.\n\nThe soft hands are a motion not a touch.\nill crumble and the books will burn.\nThey are at ease in a shelter of the mind\n\nAnd the house is of the mind and they and time,\nTogether, all together. Boreal night\nWill look like frost as it approaches them\n\nAnd to the mother as she falls asleep\nAnd as they say good-night, good-night. Upstairs\nThe windows will be lighted, not the rooms.\n\nA wind will spread its windy grandeurs round\nAnd knock like a rifle-butt against the door.\nThe wind will command them with invincible sound.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nFarewell to an idea 
 The cancellings,\nThe negations are never final. The father sits\nIn space, wherever he sits, of bleak regard,\n\nAs one that is strong in the bushes of his eyes.\nHe says no to no and yes to yes. He says yes\nTo no; and in saying yes he says farewell.\n\nHe measures the velocities of change.\nHe leaps from heaven to heaven more rapidly\nThan bad angels leap from heaven to hell in flames.\n\nBut now he sits in quiet and green-a-day.\nHe assumes the great speeds of space and flutters them\nFrom cloud to cloudless, cloudless to keen clear\n\nIn flights of eye and ear, the highest eye\nAnd the lowest ear, the deep ear that discerns,\nAt evening, things that attend it until it hears\n\nThe supernatural preludes of its own,\nAt the moment when the angelic eye defines\nIts actors approaching, in company, in their masks.\n\nMaster O master seated by the fire\nAnd yet in space and motionless and yet\nOf motion the ever-brightening origin,\n\nProfound, and yet the king and yet the crown,\nLook at this present throne. What company,\nIn masks, can choir it with the naked wind?\n\n\n# V.\n\nThe mother invites humanity to her house\nAnd table. The father fetches tellers of tales\nAnd musicians who mute much, muse much, on the tales.\n\nThe father fetches negresses to dance,\nAmong the children, like curious ripenesses\nOf pattern in the dance’s ripening.\n\nFor these the musicians make insidious tones,\nClawing the sing-song of their instruments.\nThe children laugh and jangle a tinny time.\n\nThe father fetches pageants out of air,\nScenes of the theatre, vistas and blocks of woods\nAnd curtains like a naive pretence of sleep.\n\nAmong these the musicians strike the instinctive poem.\nThe father fetches his unherded herds,\nOf barbarous tongue, slavered and panting halves\n\nOf breath, obedient to his trumpet’s touch.\nThis then is Chatillon or as you please.\nWe stand in the tumult of a festival.\n\nWhat festival? This loud, disordered mooch?\nThese hospitaliers? These brute-like guests?\nThese musicians dubbing at a tragedy,\n\nA-dub, a-dub, which is made up of this:\nThat there are no lines to speak? There is no play.\nOr, the persons act one merely by being here.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nIt is a theatre floating through the clouds,\nItself a cloud, although of misted rock\nAnd mountains running like water, wave on wave,\n\nThrough waves of light. It is of cloud transformed\nTo cloud transformed again, idly, the way\nA season changes color to no end,\n\nExcept the lavishing of itself in change,\nAs light changes yellow into gold and gold\nTo its opal elements and fire’s delight,\n\nSplashed wide-wise because it likes magnificence\nAnd the solemn pleasures of magnificent space\nThe cloud drifts idly through half-thought-of forms.\n\nThe theatre is filled with flying birds,\nWild wedges, as of a volcano’s smoke, palm-eyed\nAnd vanishing, a web in a corridor\n\nOr massive portico. A capitol,\nIt may be, is emerging or has just\nCollapsed. The denouement has to be postponed 
\n\nThis is nothing until in a single man contained,\nNothing until this named thing nameless is\nAnd is destroyed. He opens the door of his house\n\nOn flames. The scholar of one candle sees\nAn Arctic effulgence flaring on the frame\nOf everything he is. And he feels afraid.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nIs there an imagination that sits enthroned\nAs grim as it is benevolent, the just\nAnd the unjust, which in the midst of summer stops\n\nTo imagine winter? When the leaves are dead,\nDoes it take its place in the north and enfold itself,\nGoat-leaper, crystalled and luminous, sitting\n\nIn highest night? And do these heavens adorn\nAnd proclaim it, the white creator of black, jetted\nBy extinguishings, even of planets as may be,\n\nEven of earth, even of sight, in snow,\nExcept as needed by way of majesty,\nIn the sky, as crown and diamond cabala?\n\nIt leaps through us, through all our heavens leaps,\nExtinguishing our planets, one by one,\nLeaving, of where we were and looked, of where\n\nWe knew each other and of each other thought,\nA shivering residue, chilled and foregone,\nExcept for that crown and mystical cabala.\n\nBut it dare not leap by chance in its own dark.\nIt must change from destiny to slight caprice.\nAnd thus its jetted tragedy, its stele\n\nAnd shape and mournful making move to find\nWhat must unmake it and, at last, what can,\nSay, a flippant communication under the moon.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nThere may be always a time of innocence.\nThere is never a place. Or if there is no time,\nIf it is not a thing of time, nor of place,\n\nExisting in the idea of it, alone,\nIn the sense against calamity, it is not\nLess real. For the oldest and coldest philosopher,\n\nThere is or may be a time of innocence\nAs pure principle. Its nature is its end,\nThat it should be, and yet not be, a thing\n\nThat pinches the pity of the pitiful man,\nLike a book at evening beautiful but untrue,\nLike a book on rising beautiful and true.\n\n\nIt is like a thing of ether that exists\nAlmost as predicate. But it exists,\nIt exists, it is visible, it is, it is.\n\nSo, then, these lights are not a spell of light,\nA saying out of a cloud, but innocence.\nAn innocence of the earth and no false sign\n\nOr symbol of malice. That we partake thereof,\nLie down like children in this holiness,\nAs if, awake, we lay in the quiet of sleep,\n\nAs if the innocent mother sang in the dark\nOf the room and on an accordion, half-heard,\nCreated the time and place in which we breathed 
\n\n\n# IX.\n\nAnd of each other thought--in the idiom\nOf the work, in the idiom of an innocent earth,\nNot of the enigma of the guilty dream.\n\nWe were as Danes in Denmark all day long\nAnd knew each other well, hale-hearted landsmen,\nFor whom the outlandish was another day\n\nOf the week, queerer than Sunday. We thought alike\nAnd that made brothers of us in a home\nIn which we fed on being brothers, fed\n\nAnd fattened as on a decorous honeycomb.\nThis drama that we live--We lay sticky with sleep.\nThis sense of the activity of fate--\n\nThe rendezvous, when she came alone,\nBy her coming became a freedom of the two,\nAn isolation which only the two could share.\n\nShall we be found hanging in the trees next spring?\nOf what disaster in this the imminence:\nBare limbs, bare trees and a wind as sharp as salt?\n\nThe stars are putting on their glittering belts.\nThey throw around their shoulders cloaks that flash\nLike a great shadow’s last embellishment.\n\nIt may come tomorrow in the simplest word,\nAlmost as part of innocence, almost,\nAlmost as the tenderest and the truest part.\n\n\n# X.\n\nAn unhappy people in a happy world--\nRead, rabbi, the phases of this difference.\nAn unhappy people in an unhappy world--\n\nHere are too many mirrors for misery.\nA happy people in an unhappy world--\nIt cannot be. There’s nothing there to roll\n\nOn the expressive tongue, the finding fang.\nA happy people in a happy world--\nBuffo! A ball, an opera, a bar.\n\nTurn back to where we were when we began:\nAn unhappy people in a happy world.\nNow, solemnize the secretive syllables.\n\nRead to the congregation, for today\nAnd for tomorrow, this extremity,\nThis contrivance of the spectre of the spheres,\n\nContriving balance to contrive a whole,\nThe vital, the never-failing genius,\nFulfilling his meditations, great and small.\n\nIn these unhappy he meditates a whole,\nThe full of fortune and the full of fate,\nAs if he lived all lives, that he might know,\n\nIn hall harridan, not hushful paradise,\nTo a haggling of wind and weather, by these lights\nLike a blaze of summer straw, in winter’s nick.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1950 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -105485,10 +108746,10 @@ "title": "“Bantams in the Pine-Woods”", "body": "Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan\nOf tan with henna hackles, halt!\n\nDamned universal cock, as if the sun\nWas blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.\n\nFat! Fat! Fat! Fat! I am the personal.\nYour world is you. I am my world.\n\nYou ten-foot poet among inchlings. Fat!\nBegone! An inchling bristles in these pines,\n\nBristles, and points their Appalachian tangs,\nAnd fears not portly Azcan nor his hoos.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -105589,10 +108850,10 @@ "title": "“Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock”", "body": "The houses are haunted\nBy white night-gowns.\nNone are green,\nOr purple with green rings,\nOr green with yellow rings,\nOr yellow with blue rings.\nNone of them are strange,\nWith socks of lace\nAnd beaded ceintures.\nPeople are not going\nTo dream of baboons and periwinkles.\nOnly, here and there, an old sailor,\nDrunk and asleep in his boots,\nCatches tigers\nIn red weather.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -105608,10 +108869,10 @@ "title": "“Earthy Anecdote”", "body": "Every time the bucks went clattering,\nOver Oklahoma\nA firecat bristled in the way.\n\nWherever they went,\nThey went clattering.\nUntil they swerved,\nIn a swift, circular line,\nTo the right,\nBecause of the firecat.\n\nOr until they swerved,\nIn a swift, circular line,\nTo the left,\nBecause of the firecat.\n\nThe bucks clattered.\nThe firecat went leaping,\nTo the right, to the left,\nAnd\nBristled in the way.\n\nLater, the firecat closed his bright eyes\nAnd slept.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -105619,10 +108880,10 @@ "title": "“The Emperor of Ice-Cream”", "body": "Call the roller of big cigars,\nThe muscular one, and bid him whip\nIn kitchen cups concupiscent curds.\nLet the wenches dawdle in such dress\nAs they are used to wear, and let the boys\nBring flowers in last month’s newspapers.\nLet be be finale of seem.\nThe only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.\n\nTake from the dresser of deal.\nLacking the three glass knobs, that sheet\nOn which she embroidered fantails once\nAnd spread it so as to cover her face.\nIf her horny feet protrude, they come\nTo show how cold she is, and dumb.\nLet the lamp affix its beam.\nThe only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -105638,10 +108899,10 @@ "title": "“Fabliau of Florida”", "body": "Barque of phosphor\nOn the palmy beach,\n\nMove outward into heaven,\nInto the alabasters\nAnd night blues.\n\nFoam and cloud are one.\nSultry moon-monsters\nAre dissolving.\n\nFill your black hull\nWith white moonlight.\n\nThere will never be an end\nTo this droning of the surf.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -105649,10 +108910,10 @@ "title": "“Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour”", "body": "Light the first light of evening, as in a room\nIn which we rest and, for small reason, think\nThe world imagined is the ultimate good.\n\nThis is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous.\nIt is in that thought that we collect ourselves,\nOut of all the indifferences, into one thing:\n\nWithin a single thing, a single shawl\nWrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth,\nA light, a power, the miraculous influence.\n\nHere, now, we forget each other and ourselves.\nWe feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,\nA knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.\n\nWithin its vital boundary, in the mind.\nWe say God and the imagination are one 
\nHow high that highest candle lights the dark.\n\nOut of this same light, out of the central mind,\nWe make a dwelling in the evening air,\nIn which being there together is enough.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1954 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -105660,10 +108921,10 @@ "title": "“Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs.”", "body": "It is true that the rivers went nosing like swine,\nTugging at banks, until they seemed\nBland belly-sounds in somnolent troughs,\n\nThat the air was heavy with the breath of these swine,\nThe breath of turgid summer, and\nHeavy with thunder’s rattapallax,\n\nThat the man who erected this cabin, planted\nThis field, and tended it awhile,\nKnew not the quirks of imagery,\n\nThat the hours of his indolent, arid days,\nGrotesque with this nosing in banks,\nThis somnolence and rattapallax,\n\nSeemed to suckle themselves on his arid being,\nAs the swine-like rivers suckled themselves\nWhile they went seaward to the sea-mouths.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -105685,10 +108946,10 @@ "title": "“Gubbinal”", "body": "That strange flower, the sun,\nIs just what you say.\nHave it your way.\n\nThe world is ugly,\nAnd the people are sad.\n\nThat tuft of jungle feathers,\nThat animal eye,\nIs just what you say.\n\nThat savage of fire,\nThat seed--\nHave it your way.\n\nThe world is ugly,\nAnd the people are sad.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -105704,10 +108965,10 @@ "title": "“The house was quiet and the world was calm 
”", "body": "The house was quiet and the world was calm.\nThe reader became the book; and summer night\n\nWas like the conscious being of the book.\nThe house was quiet and the world was calm.\n\nThe words were spoken as if there was no book,\nExcept that the reader leaned above the page,\n\nWanted to lean, wanted much most to be\nThe scholar to whom his book is true, to whom\n\nThe summer night is like a perfection of thought.\nThe house was quiet because it had to be.\n\nThe quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:\nThe access of perfection to the page.\n\nAnd the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,\nIn which there is no other meaning, itself\n\nIs calm, itself is summer and night, itself\nIs the reader leaning late and reading there.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1954 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -105726,10 +108987,10 @@ "title": "“The Idea of Order at Key West”", "body": "She sang beyond the genius of the sea.\nThe water never formed to mind or voice,\nLike a body wholly body, fluttering\nIts empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion\nMade constant cry, caused constantly a cry,\nThat was not ours although we understood,\nInhuman, of the veritable ocean.\n\nThe sea was not a mask. No more was she.\nThe song and water were not medleyed sound\nEven if what she sang was what she heard,\nSince what she sang was uttered word by word.\nIt may be that in all her phrases stirred\nThe grinding water and the gasping wind;\nBut it was she and not the sea we heard.\n\nFor she was the maker of the song she sang.\nThe ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea\nWas merely a place by which she walked to sing.\nWhose spirit is this? we said, because we knew\nIt was the spirit that we sought and knew\nThat we should ask this often as she sang.\n\nIf it was only the dark voice of the sea\nThat rose, or even colored by many waves;\nIf it was only the outer voice of sky\nAnd cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,\nHowever clear, it would have been deep air,\nThe heaving speech of air, a summer sound\nRepeated in a summer without end\nAnd sound alone. But it was more than that,\nMore even than her voice, and ours, among\nThe meaningless plungings of water and the wind,\nTheatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped\nOn high horizons, mountainous atmospheres\nOf sky and sea.\n\nIt was her voice that made\nThe sky acutest at its vanishing.\nShe measured to the hour its solitude.\nShe was the single artificer of the world\nIn which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,\nWhatever self it had, became the self\nThat was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,\nAs we beheld her striding there alone,\nKnew that there never was a world for her\nExcept the one she sang and, singing, made.\n\nRamon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,\nWhy, when the singing ended and we turned\nToward the town, tell why the glassy lights,\nThe lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,\nAs the night descended, tilting in the air,\nMastered the night and portioned out the sea,\nFixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,\nArranging, deepening, enchanting night.\n\nOh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,\nThe maker’s rage to order words of the sea,\nWords of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,\nAnd of ourselves and of our origins,\nIn ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -105775,10 +109036,10 @@ "title": "“Le Monocle de Mon Oncle”", "body": "# I.\n\n“Mother of heaven, regina of the clouds,\nO sceptre of the sun, crown of the moon,\nThere is not nothing, no, no, never nothing,\nLike the clashed edges of two words that kill.”\nAnd so I mocked her in magnificent measure.\nOr was it that I mocked myself alone?\nI wish that I might be a thinking stone.\nThe sea of spuming thought foists up again\nThe radiant bubble that she was. And then\nA deep up-pouring from some saltier well\nWithin me, bursts its watery syllable.\n\n\n# II.\n\nA red bird flies across the golden floor.\nIt is a red bird that seeks out his choir\nAmong the choirs of wind and wet and wing.\nA torrent will fall from him when he finds.\nShall I uncrumple this much-crumpled thing?\nI am a man of fortune greeting heirs;\nFor it has come that thus I greet the spring.\nThese choirs of welcome choir for me farewell.\nNo spring can follow past meridian.\nYet you persist with anecdotal bliss\nTo make believe a starry connaissance.\n\n\n# III.\n\nIs it for nothing, then, that old Chinese\nSat tittivating by their mountain pools\nOr in the Yangtse studied out their beards?\nI shall not play the flat historic scale.\nYou know how Utamaro’s beauties sought\nThe end of love in their all-speaking braids.\nYou know the mountainous coiffures of Bath.\nAlas! Have all the barbers lived in vain\nThat not one curl in nature has survived?\nWhy, without pity on these studious ghosts,\nDo you come dripping in your hair from sleep?\n\n\n# IV.\n\nThis luscious and impeccable fruit of life\nFalls, it appears, of its own weight to earth.\nWhen you were Eve, its acrid juice was sweet,\nUntasted, in its heavenly, orchard air.\nAn apple serves as well as any skull\nTo be the book in which to read a round,\nAnd is as excellent, in that it is composed\nOf what, like skulls, comes rotting back to ground.\nBut it excels in this, that as the fruit\nOf love, it is a book too mad to read\nBefore one merely reads to pass the time.\n\n\n# V.\n\nIn the high west there burns a furious star.\nIt is for fiery boys that star was set\nAnd for sweet-smelling virgins close to them.\nThe measure of the intensity of love\nIs measure, also, of the verve of earth.\nFor me, the firefly’s quick, electric stroke\nTicks tediously the time of one more year.\nAnd you? Remember how the crickets came\nOut of their mother grass, like little kin,\nIn the pale nights, when your first imagery\nFound inklings of your bond to all that dust.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nIf men at forty will be painting lakes\nThe ephemeral blues must merge for them in one,\nThe basic slate, the universal hue.\nThere is a substance in us that prevails.\nBut in our amours amorists discern\nSuch fluctuations that their scrivening\nIs breathless to attend each quirky turn.\nWhen amorists grow bald, then amours shrink\nInto the compass and curriculum\nOf introspective exiles, lecturing.\nIt is a theme for Hyacinth alone.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nThe mules that angels ride come slowly down\nThe blazing passes, from beyond the sun.\nDescensions of their tinkling bells arrive.\nThese muleteers are dainty of their way.\nMeantime, centurions guffaw and beat\nTheir shrilling tankards on the table-boards.\nThis parable, in sense, amounts to this:\nThe honey of heaven may or may not come,\nBut that of earth both comes and goes at once.\nSuppose these couriers brought amid their train\nA damsel heightened by eternal bloom.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nLike a dull scholar, I behold, in love,\nAn ancient aspect touching a new mind.\nIt comes, it blooms, it bears its fruit and dies.\nThis trivial trope reveals a way of truth.\nOur bloom is gone. We are the fruit thereof.\nTwo golden gourds distended on our vines,\nInto the autumn weather, splashed with frost,\nDistorted by hale fatness, turned grotesque.\nWe hang like warty squashes, streaked and rayed,\nThe laughing sky will see the two of us\nWashed into rinds by rotting winter rains.\n\n\n# IX.\n\nIn verses wild with motion, full of din,\nLoudened by cries, by clashes, quick and sure\nAs the deadly thought of men accomplishing\nTheir curious fates in war, come, celebrate\nThe faith of forty, ward of Cupido.\nMost venerable heart, the lustiest conceit\nIs not too lusty for your broadening.\nI quiz all sounds, all thoughts, all everything\nFor the music and manner of the paladins\nTo make oblation fit. Where shall I find\nBravura adequate to this great hymn?\n\n\n# X.\n\nThe fops of fancy in their poems leave\nMemorabilia of the mystic spouts,\nSpontaneously watering their gritty soils.\nI am a yeoman, as such fellows go.\nI know no magic trees, no balmy boughs,\nNo silver-ruddy, gold-vermilion fruits.\nBut, after all, I know a tree that bears\nA semblance to the thing I have in mind.\nIt stands gigantic, with a certain tip\nTo which all birds come sometime in their time.\nBut when they go that tip still tips the tree.\n\n\n# XI.\n\nIf sex were all, then every trembling hand\nCould make us squeak, like dolls, the wished-for words.\nBut note the unconscionable treachery of fate,\nThat makes us weep, laugh, grunt and groan, and shout\nDoleful heroics, pinching gestures forth\nFrom madness or delight, without regard\nTo that first, foremost law. Anguishing hour!\nLast night, we sat beside a pool of pink,\nClippered with lilies scudding the bright chromes,\nKeen to the point of starlight, while a frog\nBoomed from his very belly odious chords.\n\n\n# XII.\n\nA blue pigeon it is, that circles the blue sky,\nOn sidelong wing, around and round and round.\nA white pigeon it is, that flutters to the ground,\nGrown tired of flight. Like a dark rabbi, I\nObserved, when young, the nature of mankind,\nIn lordly study. Every day, I found\nMan proved a gobbet in my mincing world.\nLike a rose rabbi, later, I pursued,\nAnd still pursue, the origin and course\nOf love, but until now I never knew\nThat fluttering things have so distinct a shade.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -105786,12 +109047,12 @@ "title": "“Lo, even as I passed beside the booth 
”", "body": "Lo, even as I passed beside the booth\nOf roses, and beheld them brightly twine\nTo damask heights, taking them as a sign\nOf my own self still unconcerned with truth;\nEven as I held up in hands uncouth\nAnd drained with joy the golden-bodied wine,\nDeeming it half-unworthy, half divine,\nFrom out the sweet-rimmed goblet of my youth.\n\nEven in that pure hour I heard the tone\nOf grievous music stir in memory,\nTelling me of the time already flown\nFrom my first youth. It sounded like the rise\nOf distant echo from dead melody,\nSoft as a song heard far in Paradise.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1900, "month": "may", "day": 10 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may", @@ -105811,10 +109072,10 @@ "title": "“Lunar Paraphrase”", "body": "The moon is the mother of pathos and pity.\n\nWhen, at the wearier end of November,\nHer old light moves along the branches,\nFeebly, slowly, depending upon them;\nWhen the body of Jesus hangs in a pallor,\nHumanly near, and the figure of Mary,\nTouched on by hoar-frost, shrinks in a shelter\nMade by the leaves, that have rotted and fallen;\nWhen over the houses, a golden illusion\nBrings back an earlier season of quiet\nAnd quieting dreams in the sleepers in darkness--\n\nThe moon is the mother of pathos and pity.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1931 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november", @@ -105834,10 +109095,10 @@ "title": "“The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad”", "body": "The time of year has grown indifferent.\nMildew of summer and the deepening snow\nAre both alike in the routine I know.\nI am too dumbly in my being pent.\n\nThe wind attendant on the solstices\nBlows on the shutters of the metropoles,\nStirring no poet in his sleep, and tolls\nThe grand ideas of the villages.\n\nThe malady of the quotidian 
\nPerhaps, if summer ever came to rest\nAnd lengthened, deepened, comforted, caressed\nThrough days like oceans in obsidian\n\nHorizons full of night’s midsummer blaze;\nPerhaps, if winter once could penetrate\nThrough all its purples to the final slate,\nPersisting bleakly in an icy haze;\n\nOne might in turn become less diffident--\nOut of such mildew plucking neater mould\nAnd spouting new orations of the cold.\nOne might. One might. But time will not relent.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -105856,10 +109117,10 @@ "title": "“Metaphors of a Magnifico”", "body": "Twenty men crossing a bridge,\nInto a village,\nAre twenty men crossing twenty bridges,\nInto twenty villages,\nOr one man\nCrossing a single bridge into a village.\n\nThis is old song\nThat will not declare itself 
\n\nTwenty men crossing a bridge,\nInto a village,\nAre\nTwenty men crossing a bridge\nInto a village.\n\nThat will not declare itself\nYet is certain as meaning 
\n\nThe boots of the men clump\nOn the boards of the bridge.\nThe first white wall of the village\nRises through fruit-trees.\nOf what was it I was thinking?\nSo the meaning escapes.\n\nThe first white wall of the village 
\nThe fruit-trees 
", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -105875,10 +109136,10 @@ "title": "“Nomad Exquisite”", "body": "As the immense dew of Florida\nBrings forth\nThe big-finned palm\nAnd green vine angering for life,\n\nAs the immense dew of Florida\nBrings forth hymn and hymn\nFrom the beholder,\nBeholding all these green sides\nAnd gold sides of green sides,\n\nAnd blessed mornings,\nMeet for the eye of the young alligator,\nAnd lightning colors\nSo, in me, come flinging\nForms, flames, and the flakes of flames.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -105886,10 +109147,10 @@ "title": "“Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself”", "body": "At the earliest ending of winter,\nIn March, a scrawny cry from outside\nSeemed like a sound in his mind.\n\nHe knew that he heard it,\nA bird’s cry at daylight or before,\nIn the early March wind.\n\nThe sun was rising at six,\nNo longer a battered panache above snow 
\nIt would have been outside.\n\nIt was not from the vast ventriloquism\nOf sleep’s faded papier mĂąchĂ© 
\nThe sun was coming from outside.\n\nThat scrawny cry--it was\nA chorister whose C preceded the choir.\nIt was part of the colossal sun,\n\nSurrounded by its choral rings,\nStill far away. It was like\nA new knowledge of reality.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1954 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -105941,10 +109202,10 @@ "title": "“Of the Surface of Things”", "body": "In my room, the world is beyond my understanding;\nBut when I walk I see that it consists of three or four hills\nand a cloud.\n\nFrom my balcony, I survey the yellow air,\nReading where I have written,\n“The spring is like a belle undressing.”\n\nThe gold tree is blue.\nThe singer has pulled his cloak over his head.\nThe moon is in the folds of the cloak.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -105955,10 +109216,10 @@ "title": "“The Owl in the Sarcophagus”", "body": "# I.\n\nTwo forms move among the dead, high sleep\nWho by his highness quiets them, high peace\nUpon whose shoulders even the heavens rest,\n\nTwo brothers. And a third form, she that says\nGood-by in the darkness, speaking quietly there,\nTo those that cannot say good-by themselves.\n\nThese forms are visible to the eye that needs,\nNeeds out of the whole necessity of sight.\nThe third form speaks, because the ear repeats,\n\nWithout a voice, inventions of farewell.\nThese forms are not abortive figures, rocks,\nImpenetrable symbols, motionless. They move\n\nAbout the night. They live without our light,\nIn an element not the heaviness of time,\nIn which reality is prodigy.\n\nThere sleep the brother is the father, too,\nAnd peace is cousin by a hundred names\nAnd she that in the syllable between life\n\nAnd death cries quickly, in a flash of voice,\nKeep you, keep you, I am gone, oh keep you as\nMy memory, is the mother of us all,\n\nThe earthly mother and the mother of\nThe dead. Only the thought of those dark three\nIs dark, thought of the forms of dark desire.\n\n\n# II.\n\nThere came a day, there was a day--one day\nA man walked living among the forms of thought\nTo see their lustre truly as it is\n\nAnd in harmonious prodigy to be,\nA while, conceiving his passage as into a time\nThat of itself stood still, perennial,\n\nLess time than place, less place than thought of place\nAnd, if of substance, a likeness of the earth,\nThat by resemblance twanged him through and through,\n\nReleasing an abysmal melody,\nA meeting, an emerging in the light,\nA dazzle of remembrance and of sight.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThere he saw well the foldings in the height\nOf sleep, the whiteness folded into less,\nLike many robings, as moving masses are,\n\nAs a moving mountain is, moving through day\nAnd night, colored from distances, central\nWhere luminous agitations come to rest,\n\nIn an ever-changing, calmest unity,\nThe unique composure, harshest streakings joined\nIn a vanishing-vanished violet that wraps round\n\nThe giant body the meanings of its folds,\nThe weaving and the crinkling and the vex,\nAs on water of an afternoon in the wind\n\nAfter the wind has passed. Sleep realized\nWas the whiteness that is the ultimate intellect,\nA diamond jubilance beyond the fire,\n\nThat gives its power to the wild-ringed eye.\nThen he breathed deeply the deep atmosphere\nOf sleep, the accomplished, the fulfilling air.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nThere peace, the godolphin and fellow, estranged, estranged,\nHewn in their middle as the beam of leaves,\nThe prince of shither-shade and tinsel lights,\n\nStood flourishing the world. The brilliant height\nAnd hollow of him by its brilliance calmed,\nIts brightness burned the way good solace seethes.\n\nThis was peace after death, the brother of sleep,\nThe inhuman brother so much like, so near,\nYet vested in a foreign absolute,\n\nAdorned with cryptic stones and sliding shines,\nAn immaculate personage in nothingness,\nWith the whole spirit sparkling in its cloth,\n\nGenerations of the imagination piled\nIn the manner of its stitchings, of its thread,\nIn the weaving round the wonder of its need,\n\nAnd the first flowers upon it, an alphabet\nBy which to spell out holy doom and end,\nA bee for the remembering of happiness.\n\nPeace stood with our last blood adorned, last mind,\nDamasked in the originals of green,\nA thousand begettings of the broken bold.\n\nThis is that figure stationed at our end,\nAlways, in brilliance, fatal, final, formed\nOut of our lives to keep us in our death,\n\nTo watch us in the summer of Cyclops\nUnderground, a king as candle by our beds\nIn a robe that is our glory as he guards.\n\n\n# V.\n\nBut she that says good-by losing in self\nThe sense of self, rosed out of prestiges\nOf rose, stood tall in self not symbol, quick\n\nAnd potent, an influence felt instead of seen.\nShe spoke with backward gestures of her hand.\nShe held men closely with discovery,\n\nAlmost as speed discovers, in the way\nInvisible change discovers what is changed,\nIn the way what was has ceased to be what is.\n\nIt was not her look but a knowledge that she had.\nShe was a self that knew, an inner thing,\nSubtler than look’s declaiming, although she moved\n\nWith a sad splendor, beyond artifice,\nImpassioned by the knowledge that she had,\nThere on the edges of oblivion.\n\nO exhalation, O fling without a sleeve\nAnd motion outward, reddened and resolved\nFrom sight, in the silence that follows her last word--\n\n\n# VI.\n\nThis is the mythology of modern death\nAnd these, in their mufflings, monsters of elegy,\nOf their own marvel made, of pity made,\n\nCompounded and compounded, life by life,\nThese are death’s own supremest images,\nThe pure perfections of parental space,\n\nThe children of a desire that is the will,\nEven of death, the beings of the mind\nIn the light-bound space of the mind, the floreate flare 
\n\nIt is a child that sings itself to sleep,\nThe mind, among the creatures that it makes,\nThe people, those by which it lives and dies.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1947 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -105974,10 +109235,10 @@ "title": "“The Paltry Nude Starts on a Spring Voyage”", "body": "But not on a shell, she starts,\nArchaic, for the sea.\nBut on the first-found weed\nShe scuds the glitters,\nNoiselessly, like one more wave.\n\nShe too is discontent\nAnd would have purple stuff upon her arms,\nTired of the salty harbors,\nEager for the brine and bellowing\nOf the high interiors of the sea.\n\nThe wind speeds her,\nBlowing upon her hands\nAnd watery back.\nShe touches the clouds, where she goes,\nIn the circle of her traverse of the sea.\n\nYet this is meagre play\nIn the scurry and water-shine,\nAs her heels foam--\nNot as when the goldener nude\nOf a later day\n\nWill go, like the centre of sea-green pomp,\nIn an intenser calm,\nScullion of fate,\nAcross the spick torrent, ceaselessly,\nUpon her irretrievable way.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -106053,10 +109314,10 @@ "title": "“Poetry is a Destructive Force”", "body": "That’s what misery is,\nNothing to have at heart.\nIt is to have or nothing.\n\nIt is a thing to have,\nA lion, an ox in his breast,\nTo feel it breathing there.\n\nCorazĂłn, stout dog,\nYoung ox, bow-legged bear,\nHe tastes its blood, not spit.\n\nHe is like a man\nIn the body of a violent beast.\nIts muscles are his own 
\n\nThe lion sleeps in the sun.\nIts nose is on its paws.\nIt can kill a man.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1954 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -106086,11 +109347,11 @@ "title": "“Re-Statement of Romance”", "body": "The night knows nothing of the chants of night.\nIt is what it is as I am what I am:\nAnd in perceiving this I best perceive myself\n\nAnd you. Only we two may interchange\nEach in the other what each has to give.\nOnly we two are one, not you and night,\n\nNor night and I, but you and I, alone,\nSo much alone, so deeply by ourselves,\nSo far beyond the casual solitudes,\n\nThat night is only the background of our selves,\nSupremely true each to its separate self,\nIn the pale light that each upon the other throws.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1935, "month": "march" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -106121,10 +109382,10 @@ "title": "“The Snow Man”", "body": "One must have a mind of winter\nTo regard the frost and the boughs\nOf the pine-trees crusted with snow;\n\nAnd have been cold a long time\nTo behold the junipers shagged with ice,\nThe spruces rough in the distant glitter\n\nOf the January sun; and not to think\nOf any misery in the sound of the wind,\nIn the sound of a few leaves,\n\nWhich is the sound of the land\nFull of the same wind\nThat is blowing in the same bare place\n\nFor the listener, who listens in the snow,\nAnd, nothing himself, beholds\nNothing that is not there and the nothing that is.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january" @@ -106143,10 +109404,10 @@ "title": "“Sunday Morning”", "body": "# I.\n\nComplacencies of the peignoir, and late\nCoffee and oranges in a sunny chair,\nAnd the green freedom of a cockatoo\nUpon a rug mingle to dissipate\nThe holy hush of ancient sacrifice.\nShe dreams a little, and she feels the dark\nEncroachment of that old catastrophe,\nAs a calm darkens among water-lights.\nThe pungent oranges and bright, green wings\nSeem things in some procession of the dead,\nWinding across wide water, without sound.\nThe day is like wide water, without sound,\nStilled for the passing of her dreaming feet\nOver the seas, to silent Palestine,\nDominion of the blood and sepulchre.\n\n\n# II.\n\nWhy should she give her bounty to the dead?\nWhat is divinity if it can come\nOnly in silent shadows and in dreams?\nShall she not find in comforts of the sun,\nIn pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else\nIn any balm or beauty of the earth,\nThings to be cherished like the thought of heaven?\nDivinity must live within herself:\nPassions of rain, or moods in falling snow;\nGrievings in loneliness, or unsubdued\nElations when the forest blooms; gusty\nEmotions on wet roads on autumn nights;\nAll pleasures and all pains, remembering\nThe bough of summer and the winter branch.\nThese are the measures destined for her soul.\n\n\n# III.\n\nJove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.\nNo mother suckled him, no sweet land gave\nLarge-mannered motions to his mythy mind.\nHe moved among us, as a muttering king,\nMagnificent, would move among his hinds,\nUntil our blood, commingling, virginal,\nWith heaven, brought such requital to desire\nThe very hinds discerned it, in a star.\nShall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be\nThe blood of paradise? And shall the earth\nSeem all of paradise that we shall know?\nThe sky will be much friendlier then than now,\nA part of labor and a part of pain,\nAnd next in glory to enduring love,\nNot this dividing and indifferent blue.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nShe says, “I am content when wakened birds,\nBefore they fly, test the reality\nOf misty fields, by their sweet questionings;\nBut when the birds are gone, and their warm fields\nReturn no more, where, then, is paradise?”\nThere is not any haunt of prophecy,\nNor any old chimera of the grave,\nNeither the golden underground, nor isle\nMelodious, where spirits gat them home,\nNor visionary south, nor cloudy palm\nRemote on heaven’s hill, that has endured\nAs April’s green endures; or will endure\nLike her remembrance of awakened birds,\nOr her desire for June and evening, tipped\nBy the consummation of the swallow’s wings.\n\n\n# V.\n\nShe says, “But in contentment I still feel\nThe need of some imperishable bliss.”\nDeath is the mother of beauty; hence from her,\nAlone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams\nAnd our desires. Although she strews the leaves\nOf sure obliteration on our paths,\nThe path sick sorrow took, the many paths\nWhere triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love\nWhispered a little out of tenderness,\nShe makes the willow shiver in the sun\nFor maidens who were wont to sit and gaze\nUpon the grass, relinquished to their feet.\nShe causes boys to pile new plums and pears\nOn disregarded plate. The maidens taste\nAnd stray impassioned in the littering leaves.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nIs there no change of death in paradise?\nDoes ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs\nHang always heavy in that perfect sky,\nUnchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,\nWith rivers like our own that seek for seas\nThey never find, the same receding shores\nThat never touch with inarticulate pang?\nWhy set the pear upon those river-banks\nOr spice the shores with odors of the plum?\nAlas, that they should wear our colors there,\nThe silken weavings of our afternoons,\nAnd pick the strings of our insipid lutes!\nDeath is the mother of beauty, mystical,\nWithin whose burning bosom we devise\nOur earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nSupple and turbulent, a ring of men\nShall chant in orgy on a summer morn\nTheir boisterous devotion to the sun,\nNot as a god, but as a god might be,\nNaked among them, like a savage source.\nTheir chant shall be a chant of paradise,\nOut of their blood, returning to the sky;\nAnd in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,\nThe windy lake wherein their lord delights,\nThe trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,\nThat choir among themselves long afterward.\nThey shall know well the heavenly fellowship\nOf men that perish and of summer morn.\nAnd whence they came and whither they shall go\nThe dew upon their feet shall manifest.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nShe hears, upon that water without sound,\nA voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine\nIs not the porch of spirits lingering.\nIt is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.”\nWe live in an old chaos of the sun,\nOr old dependency of day and night,\nOr island solitude, unsponsored, free,\nOf that wide water, inescapable.\nDeer walk upon our mountains, and the quail\nWhistle about us their spontaneous cries;\nSweet berries ripen in the wilderness;\nAnd, in the isolation of the sky,\nAt evening, casual flocks of pigeons make\nAmbiguous undulations as they sink,\nDownward to darkness, on extended wings.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "sunday" @@ -106157,10 +109418,10 @@ "title": "“Tea at the Palaz of Hoon”", "body": "Not less because in purple I descended\nThe western day through what you called\nThe loneliest air, not less was I myself.\n\nWhat was the ointment sprinkled on my beard?\nWhat were the hymns that buzzed beside my ears?\nWhat was the sea whose tide swept through me there?\n\nOut of my mind the golden ointment rained,\nAnd my ears made the blowing hymns they heard.\nI was myself the compass of that sea:\n\nI was the world in which I walked, and what I saw\nOr heard or felt came not but from myself:\nAnd there I found myself more truly and more strange.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -106179,11 +109440,11 @@ "title": "“Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”", "body": "# I.\n\nAmong twenty snowy mountains,\nThe only moving thing\nWas the eye of the blackbird.\n\n\n# II.\n\nI was of three minds,\nLike a tree\nIn which there are three blackbirds.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThe blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.\nIt was a small part of the pantomime.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nA man and a woman\nAre one.\nA man and a woman and a blackbird\nAre one.\n\n\n# V.\n\nI do not know which to prefer,\nThe beauty of inflections\nOr the beauty of innuendoes,\nThe blackbird whistling\nOr just after.\n\n\n# VI.\n\nIcicles filled the long window\nWith barbaric glass.\nThe shadow of the blackbird\nCrossed it, to and fro.\nThe mood\nTraced in the shadow\nAn indecipherable cause.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nO thin men of Haddam,\nWhy do you imagine golden birds?\nDo you not see how the blackbird\nWalks around the feet\nOf the women about you?\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nI know noble accents\nAnd lucid, inescapable rhythms;\nBut I know, too,\nThat the blackbird is involved\nIn what I know.\n\n\n# IX.\n\nWhen the blackbird flew out of sight,\nIt marked the edge\nOf one of many circles.\n\n\n# X.\n\nAt the sight of blackbirds\nFlying in a green light,\nEven the bawds of euphony\nWould cry out sharply.\n\n\n# XI.\n\nHe rode over Connecticut\nIn a glass coach.\nOnce, a fear pierced him,\nIn that he mistook\nThe shadow of his equipage\nFor blackbirds.\n\n\n# XII.\n\nThe river is moving.\nThe blackbird must be flying.\n\n\n# XIII.\n\nIt was evening all afternoon.\nIt was snowing\nAnd it was going to snow.\nThe blackbird sat\nIn the cedar-limbs.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917, "month": "october" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -106233,20 +109494,37 @@ "name": "Robert Louis Stevenson", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1850 + "year": 1850, + "month": "november", + "day": 13 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Edinburgh", + "country": "Scotland" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1894 + "year": 1894, + "month": "december", + "day": 3 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Vailima", + "state": "Upolu", + "country": "Samoa" } }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ "poet" ], - "education": null, - "movement": [], + "education": { + "bachelors": "University of Edinburgh" + }, + "movement": [ + "Neo-romanticism" + ], "religion": null, "nationality": [ "scotland" @@ -106258,7 +109536,8 @@ "favorite": false, "tags": [ "Scottish", - "English" + "English", + "Neo-romanticism" ] }, "poems": { @@ -106385,10 +109664,10 @@ "title": "“Achilles in the Trench”", "body": "I saw a man this morning\nWho did not wish to die;\nI ask, and cannot answer,\nIf otherwise wish I.\n\nFair broke the day this morning\nUpon the Dardanelles:\nThe breeze blew soft, the morn’s cheeks\nWere cold as cold sea-shells.\n\nBut other shells are waiting\nAcross the Aegean Sea;\nShrapnel and high explosives,\nShells and hells for me.\n\nOh Hell of ships and cities,\nHell of men like me,\nFatal second Helen,\nWhy must I follow thee?\n\nAchilles came to Troyland\nAnd I to Chersonese;\nHe turned from wrath to battle,\nAnd I from three days’ peace.\n\nWas it so hard, Achilles,\nSo very hard to die?\nThou knowest, and I know not;\nSo much the happier am I.\n\nI will go back this morning\nFrom Imbros o’er the sea.\nStand in the trench, Achilles,\nFlame-capped, and shout for me.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -106416,7 +109695,8 @@ }, "place": { "city": "Boston", - "country": "Massachusetts" + "state": "Massachusetts", + "country": "USA" } }, "gender": "male", @@ -106508,7 +109788,7 @@ } }, "live-blindly-and-upon-the-hour": { - "title": "“Live Blindly and upon the Hour”", + "title": "“Live blindly and upon the hour 
”", "body": "Live blindly and upon the hour. The Lord,\nWho was the Future, died full long ago.\nKnowledge which is the Past is folly. Go,\nPoor child, and be not to thyself abhorred.\nAround thine earth sun-wingĂšd winds do blow\nAnd planets roll; a meteor draws his sword;\nThe rainbow breaks his seven-coloured chord\nAnd the long strips of river-silver flow:\nAwake! Give thyself to the lovely hours.\nDrinking their lips, catch thou the dream in flight\nAbout their fragile hairs’ aĂ«rial gold.\nThou art divine, thou livest,--as of old\nApollo springing naked to the light,\nAnd all his island shivered into flowers.", "metadata": { "language": "English", @@ -107049,8 +110329,10 @@ "title": "“In vain I hide my heart’s fierce pain 
”", "body": "In vain I hide my heart’s fierce pain,\nIn vain pretend to inner calm.\nI can’t be calm a single hour,\nI can’t no matter how I try.\nMy heart by sighs, my eyes by tears,\nreveal the secret misery.\nYou make all my efforts vain,\nyou, who stole my liberty!\n\nBringing a savage fate to me,\nyou troubled my spirit’s peace,\nyou changed my freedom to a jail,\nyou turned my delight to sorrow.\nAnd secretly, to my bitterest hurt,\nperhaps you sigh for some other woman,\nperhaps devoured by a useless passion,\nas I for you, you suffer too for her.\n\nI long to see you: when I do I’m mad,\nanxious, lest my eyes give me away:\nI’m troubled in your presence, in your absence\nI’m sad that you can’t know how I love.\nShame tries to drive desire from my heart\nwhile love in turn tries to drive out shame.\nAnd in this fierce conflict thought is clouded,\nthe heart is torn, it suffers, and it burns.\n\nSo I fling myself from torment to torment.\nI want to show my heart, ashamed to do it,\nI don’t know what I want, oh, that’s true,\nwhat I do know is I’m filled with sorrow.\nI know my mind’s held prisoner by you,\nwherever I am it conjures your dear image:\nI know, consumed by the cruellest passion,\nthere’s no way to forget you on this earth.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -107058,8 +110340,10 @@ "title": "“My fair girl, don’t waist your time for nothing 
”", "body": "My fair girl, don’t waist your time for nothing, easily,\nLove someone,--all is vanity without love,\nBe nice and good, don’t lose the charm you have,\nSo you might not regret you’ve lived a life of misery.\n\nLove while you’re young and while your heart is ardent:\nYou’ll change when youth is gone, I should presume.\nTwine wreaths while flowers in the garden bloom,\nTake walks in spring, in autumn you’ll be saddened.\n\nLook at the rosy flower, view it at the time\nWhen it has grown dim and faded, past its prime.\nLikewise, your charm will fade and disappear,\nso do not waste your time before you’ve seen your day\n\nRemember, nobody will ever look at you, my dear,\nWhen, like the rose, you fade and waste away.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -107070,8 +110354,10 @@ "title": "“You looked for me but now that time is gone for ever 
”", "body": "You looked for me but now that time is gone for ever,\nAnd all the joy we shared is lost, as I can see.\nYou are unfaithful to me, and you lost my favour,\nYou’re quite different from what you used to be.\n\nMy moans and grieves are torments\nYou know how it can be.\nRecall the happy moments\nWhen you did care for me.\n\nLook at the places where you and I have dated\nThey’ll help us to recall the way it used to be.\nWhere are my joys? Where is your passion, fated?\nTheу’re gone and never ever will come back to me.\n\nAnother life is here;\nBut did I wait for it?\nGone are my life, so dear,\nMy hope, and dream, so sweet.\n\nI am unhappy to have met you, so elated,\nIt started with the painful torments that I feel,\nI was unhappy to be charmed by you and tempted\nAnd worst unhappy to adore and love you still.\n\nYou caused an inflammation\nAnd heated up my blood.\nWhy have you turned affection\nTo enmity, so hard?\n\nBut what’s the use of worrying and grieving\nWhen, having lost my freedom, my passion I retain.\nAnd what’s the use of blaming and revealing,\nYou do not love me--all my arguments are vain.\n\nYou’ve overwhelmed me, really,\nForgetting all at one:\nThe way you loved me dearly,\nThe time when we had fun.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -107107,10 +110393,11 @@ "poet" ], "education": { - "bachelors": "eton-college, oxford-university" + "secondary": "Eton College", + "bachelors": "Balliol College, University of Oxford" }, "movement": [ - "victorian" + "Victorian" ], "religion": "none", "nationality": [ @@ -107123,7 +110410,7 @@ "favorite": true, "tags": [ "English", - "victorian" + "Victorian" ] }, "poems": { @@ -107131,10 +110418,10 @@ "title": "“After Death”", "body": "The four boards of the coffin lid\nHeard all the dead man did.\n\nThe first curse was in his mouth,\nMade of grave’s mould and deadly drouth.\n\nThe next curse was in his head,\nMade of God’s work discomfited.\n\nThe next curse was in his hands,\nMade out of two grave-bands.\n\nThe next curse was in his feet,\nMade out of a grave-sheet.\n\n“I had fair coins red and white,\nAnd my name was as great light;\n\nI had fair clothes green and red,\nAnd strong gold bound round my head.\n\nBut no meat comes in my mouth,\nNow I fare as the worm doth;\n\nAnd no gold binds in my hair,\nNow I fare as the blind fare.\n\nMy live thews were of great strength,\nNow am I waxen a span’s length;\n\nMy live sides were full of lust,\nNow are they dried with dust.”\n\nThe first board spake and said:\n“Is it best eating flesh or bread?”\n\nThe second answered it:\n“Is wine or honey the more sweet?”\n\nThe third board spake and said:\n“Is red gold worth a girl’s gold head?”\n\nThe fourth made answer thus:\n“All these things are as one with us.”\n\nThe dead man asked of them:\n“Is the green land stained brown with flame?\n\nHave they hewn my son for beasts to eat,\nAnd my wife’s body for beasts’ meat?\n\nHave they boiled my maid in a brass pan,\nAnd built a gallows to hang my man?”\n\nThe boards said to him:\n“This is a lewd thing that ye deem.\n\nYour wife has gotten a golden bed,\nAll the sheets are sewn with red.\n\nYour son has gotten a coat of silk,\nThe sleeves are soft as curded milk.\n\nYour maid has gotten a kirtle new,\nAll the skirt has braids of blue.\n\nYour man has gotten both ring and glove,\nWrought well for eyes to love.”\n\nThe dead man answered thus:\n“What good gift shall God give us?”\n\nThe boards answered him anon:\n“Flesh to feed hell’s worm upon.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107142,10 +110429,10 @@ "title": "“After Sunset”", "body": "_“Si quis piorum Manibus locus.”_\n\n# I.\n\nStraight from the sun’s grave in the deep clear west\nA sweet strong wind blows, glad of life: and I,\nUnder the soft keen stardawn whence the sky\nTakes life renewed, and all night’s godlike breast\nPalpitates, gradually revealed at rest\nBy growth and change of ardours felt on high,\nMake onward, till the last flame fall and die\nAnd all the world by night’s broad hand lie blest.\nHaply, meseems, as from that edge of death,\nWhereon the day lies dark, a brightening breath\nBlows more of benediction than the morn,\nSo from the graves whereon grief gazing saith\nThat half our heart of life there lies forlorn\nMay light or breath at least of hope be born.\n\n\n# II.\n\nThe wind was soft before the sunset fled:\nNow, while the cloud-enshrouded corpse of day\nIs lowered along a red funereal way\nDown to the dark that knows not white from red,\nA clear sheer breeze against the night makes head,\nSerene, but sure of life as ere a ray\nSprings, or the dusk of dawn knows red from grey,\nBeing as a soul that knows not quick from dead.\nFrom far beyond the sunset, far above,\nFull toward the starry soundless east it blows\nBright as a child’s breath breathing on a rose,\nSmooth to the sense as plume of any dove;\nTill more and more as darkness grows and glows\nSilence and night seem likest life and love.\n\n\n# III.\n\nIf light of life outlive the set of sun\nThat men call death and end of all things, then\nHow should not that which life held best for men\nAnd proved most precious, though it seem undone\nBy force of death and woful victory won,\nBe first and surest of revival, when\nDeath shall bow down to life arisen again?\nSo shall the soul seen be the self-same one\nThat looked and spake with even such lips and eyes\nAs love shall doubt not then to recognise,\nAnd all bright thoughts and smiles of all time past\nRevive, transfigured, but in spirit and sense\nNone other than we knew, for evidence\nThat love’s last mortal word was not his last.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107153,10 +110440,10 @@ "title": "From “Anactoria”", "body": "Yea, thou shalt be forgotten like spilt wine,\nExcept these kisses of my lips on thine\nBrand them with immortality; but me--\nMen shall not see bright fire nor hear the sea,\nNor mix their hearts with music, nor behold\nCast forth of heaven, with feet of awful gold\nAnd plumeless wings that make the bright air blind,\nLightning, with thunder for a hound behind\nHunting through fields unfurrowed and unsown,\nBut in the light and laughter, in the moan\nAnd music, and in grasp of lip and hand\nAnd shudder of water that makes felt on land\nThe immeasurable tremor of all the sea,\nMemories shall mix and metaphors of me.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107164,10 +110451,10 @@ "title": "“At Eleusis”", "body": "Men of Eleusis, ye that with long staves\nSit in the market-houses, and speak words\nMade sweet with wisdom as the rare wine is\nThickened with honey; and ye sons of these\nWho in the glad thick streets go up and down\nFor pastime or grave traffic or mere chance;\nAnd all fair women having rings of gold\nOn hands or hair; and chiefest over these\nI name you, daughters of this man the king,\nWho dipping deep smooth pitchers of pure brass\nUnder the bubbled wells, till each round lip\nStooped with loose gurgle of waters incoming,\nFound me an old sick woman, lamed and lean,\nBeside a growth of builded olive-boughs\nWhence multiplied thick song of thick-plumed throats--\nAlso wet tears filled up my hollow hands\nBy reason of my crying into them--\nAnd pitied me; for as cold water ran\nAnd washed the pitchers full from lip to lip,\nSo washed both eyes full the strong salt of tears.\nAnd ye put water to my mouth, made sweet\nWith brown hill-berries; so in time I spoke\nAnd gathered my loose knees from under me.\nMoreover in the broad fair halls this month\nHave I found space and bountiful abode\nTo please me. I Demeter speak of this,\nWho am the mother and the mate of things:\nFor as ill men by drugs or singing words\nShut the doors inward of the narrowed womb\nLike a lock bolted with round iron through,\nThus I shut up the body and sweet mouth\nOf all soft pasture and the tender land,\nSo that no seed can enter in by it\nThough one sow thickly, nor some grain get out\nPast the hard clods men cleave and bite with steel\nTo widen the sealed lips of them for use.\nNone of you is there in the peopled street\nBut knows how all the dry-drawn furrows ache\nWith no green spot made count of in the black:\nHow the wind finds no comfortable grass\nNor is assuaged with bud nor breath of herbs;\nAnd in hot autumn when ye house the stacks,\nAll fields are helpless in the sun, all trees\nStand as a man stripped out of all but skin.\nNevertheless ye sick have help to get\nBy means and stablished ordinance of God;\nFor God is wiser than a good man is.\nBut never shall new grass be sweet in earth\nTill I get righted of my wound and wrong\nBy changing counsel of ill-minded Zeus.\nFor of all other gods is none save me\nClothed with like power to build and break the year.\nI make the lesser green begin, when spring\nTouches not earth but with one fearful foot;\nAnd as a careful gilder with grave art\nSoberly colours and completes the face,\nMouth, chin and all, of some sweet work in stone,\nI carve the shapes of grass and tender corn\nAnd colour the ripe edges and long spikes\nWith the red increase and the grace of gold,\nNo tradesman in soft wools is cunninger\nTo kill the secret of the fat white fleece\nWith stains of blue and purple wrought in it.\nThree moons were made and three moons burnt away\nWhile I held journey hither out of Crete\nComfortless, tended by grave Hecate\nWhom my wound stung with double iron point;\nFor all my face was like a cloth wrung out\nWith close and weeping wrinkles, and both lids\nSodden with salt continuance of tears.\nFor Hades and the sidelong will of Zeus\nAnd that lame wisdom that has writhen feet,\nCunning, begotten in the bed of Shame,\nThese three took evil will at me, and made\nSuch counsel that when time got wing to fly\nThis Hades out of summer and low fields\nForced the bright body of Persephone:\nOut of pure grass, where she lying down, red flowers\nMade their sharp little shadows on her sides,\nPale heat, pale colour on pale maiden flesh--\nAnd chill water slid over her reddening feet,\nKilling the throbs in their soft blood; and birds,\nPerched next her elbow and pecking at her hair,\nStretched their necks more to see her than even to sing.\nA sharp thing is it I have need to say;\nFor Hades holding both white wrists of hers\nUnloosed the girdle and with knot by knot\nBound her between his wheels upon the seat,\nBound her pure body, holiest yet and dear\nTo me and God as always, clothed about\nWith blossoms loosened as her knees went down.\nLet fall as she let go of this and this\nBy tens and twenties, tumbled to her feet,\nWhite waifs or purple of the pasturage.\nTherefore with only going up and down\nMy feet were wasted, and the gracious air,\nTo me discomfortable and dun, became\nAs weak smoke blowing in the under world.\nAnd finding in the process of ill days\nWhat part had Zeus herein, and how as mate\nHe coped with Hades, yokefellow in sin,\nI set my lips against the meat of gods\nAnd drank not neither ate or slept in heaven.\nNor in the golden greeting of their mouths\nDid ear take note of me, nor eye at all\nTrack my feet going in the ways of them.\nLike a great fire on some strait slip of land\nBetween two washing inlets of wet sea\nThat burns the grass up to each lip of beach\nAnd strengthens, waxing in the growth of wind,\nSo burnt my soul in me at heaven and earth,\nEach way a ruin and a hungry plague,\nVisible evil; nor could any night\nPut cool between mine eyelids, nor the sun\nWith competence of gold fill out my want.\nYea so my flame burnt up the grass and stones,\nShone to the salt-white edges of thin sea,\nDistempered all the gracious work, and made\nSick change, unseasonable increase of days\nAnd scant avail of seasons; for by this\nThe fair gods faint in hollow heaven: there comes\nNo taste of burnings of the twofold fat\nTo leave their palates smooth, nor in their lips\nSoft rings of smoke and weak scent wandering;\nAll cattle waste and rot, and their ill smell\nGrows alway from the lank unsavoury flesh\nThat no man slays for offering; the sea\nAnd waters moved beneath the heath and corn\nPreserve the people of fin-twinkling fish,\nAnd river-flies feed thick upon the smooth;\nBut all earth over is no man or bird\n(Except the sweet race of the kingfisher)\nThat lacks not and is wearied with much loss.\nMeantime the purple inward of the house\nWas softened with all grace of scent and sound\nIn ear and nostril perfecting my praise;\nFaint grape-flowers and cloven honey-cake\nAnd the just grain with dues of the shed salt\nMade me content: yet my hand loosened not\nIts gripe upon your harvest all year long.\nWhile I, thus woman-muffled in wan flesh\nAnd waste externals of a perished face,\nPreserved the levels of my wrath and love\nPatiently ruled; and with soft offices\nCooled the sharp noons and busied the warm nights\nIn care of this my choice, this child my choice,\nTriptolemus, the king’s selected son:\nThat this fair yearlong body, which hath grown\nStrong with strange milk upon the mortal lip\nAnd nerved with half a god, might so increase\nOutside the bulk and the bare scope of man:\nAnd waxen over large to hold within\nBase breath of yours and this impoverished air,\nI might exalt him past the flame of stars,\nThe limit and walled reach of the great world.\nTherefore my breast made common to his mouth\nImmortal savours, and the taste whereat\nTwice their hard life strains out the coloured veins\nAnd twice its brain confirms the narrow shell.\nAlso at night, unwinding cloth from cloth\nAs who unhusks an almond to the white\nAnd pastures curiously the purer taste,\nI bared the gracious limbs and the soft feet,\nUnswaddled the weak hands, and in mid ash\nLaid the sweet flesh of either feeble side,\nMore tender for impressure of some touch\nThan wax to any pen; and lit around\nFire, and made crawl the white worm-shapen flame,\nAnd leap in little angers spark by spark\nAt head at once and feet; and the faint hair\nHissed with rare sprinkles in the closer curl,\nAnd like scaled oarage of a keen thin fish\nIn sea-water, so in pure fire his feet\nStruck out, and the flame bit not in his flesh,\nBut like a kiss it curled his lip, and heat\nFluttered his eyelids; so each night I blew\nThe hot ash red to purge him to full god.\nIll is it when fear hungers in the soul\nFor painful food, and chokes thereon, being fed;\nAnd ill slant eyes interpret the straight sun,\nBut in their scope its white is wried to black:\nBy the queen Metaneira mean I this;\nFor with sick wrath upon her lips, and heart\nNarrowing with fear the spleenful passages,\nShe thought to thread this web’s fine ravel out,\nNor leave her shuttle split in combing it;\nTherefore she stole on us, and with hard sight\nPeered, and stooped close; then with pale open mouth\nAs the fire smote her in the eyes between\nCried, and the child’s laugh, sharply shortening\nAs fire doth under rain, fell off; the flame\nWrithed once all through and died, and in thick dark\nTears fell from mine on the child’s weeping eyes,\nEyes dispossessed of strong inheritance\nAnd mortal fallen anew. Who not the less\nFrom bud of beard to pale-grey flower of hair\nShall wax vinewise to a lordly vine, whose grapes\nBleed the red heavy blood of swoln soft wine,\nSubtle with sharp leaves’ intricacy, until\nFull of white years and blossom of hoary days\nI take him perfected; for whose one sake\nI am thus gracious to the least who stands\nFilleted with white wool and girt upon\nAs he whose prayer endures upon the lip\nAnd falls not waste: wherefore let sacrifice\nBurn and run red in all the wider ways;\nSeeing I have sworn by the pale temples’ band\nAnd poppied hair of gold Persephone\nSad-tressed and pleached low down about her brows,\nAnd by the sorrow in her lips, and death\nHer dumb and mournful-mouthĂšd minister,\nMy word for you is eased of its harsh weight\nAnd doubled with soft promise; and your king\nTriptolemus, this Celeus dead and swathed\nPurple and pale for golden burial,\nShall be your helper in my services,\nDividing earth and reaping fruits thereof\nIn fields where wait, well-girt, well-wreathen, all\nThe heavy-handed seasons all year through;\nSaving the choice of warm spear-headed grain,\nAnd stooping sharp to the slant-sided share\nAll beasts that furrow the remeasured land\nWith their bowed necks of burden equable.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -107178,10 +110465,10 @@ "title": "“August”", "body": "There were four apples on the bough,\nHalf gold half red, that one might know\nThe blood was ripe inside the core;\nThe colour of the leaves was more\nLike stems of yellow corn that grow\nThrough all the gold June meadow’s floor.\n\nThe warm smell of the fruit was good\nTo feed on, and the split green wood,\nWith all its bearded lips and stains\nOf mosses in the cloven veins,\nMost pleasant, if one lay or stood\nIn sunshine or in happy rains.\n\nThere were four apples on the tree,\nRed stained through gold, that all might see\nThe sun went warm from core to rind;\nThe green leaves made the summer blind\nIn that soft place they kept for me\nWith golden apples shut behind.\n\nThe leaves caught gold across the sun,\nAnd where the bluest air begun\nThirsted for song to help the heat;\nAs I to feel my lady’s feet\nDraw close before the day were done;\nBoth lips grew dry with dreams of it.\n\nIn the mute August afternoon\nThey trembled to some undertune\nOf music in the silver air;\nGreat pleasure was it to be there\nTill green turned duskier and the moon\nColoured the corn-sheaves like gold hair.\n\nThat August time it was delight\nTo watch the red moons wane to white\n’Twixt grey seamed stems of apple-trees;\nA sense of heavy harmonies\nGrew on the growth of patient night,\nMore sweet than shapen music is.\n\nBut some three hours before the moon\nThe air, still eager from the noon,\nFlagged after heat, not wholly dead;\nAgainst the stem I leant my head;\nThe colour soothed me like a tune,\nGreen leaves all round the gold and red.\n\nI lay there till the warm smell grew\nMore sharp, when flecks of yellow dew\nBetween the round ripe leaves had blurred\nThe rind with stain and wet; I heard\nA wind that blew and breathed and blew,\nToo weak to alter its one word.\n\nThe wet leaves next the gentle fruit\nFelt smoother, and the brown tree-root\nFelt the mould warmer: I too felt\n(As water feels the slow gold melt\nRight through it when the day burns mute)\nThe peace of time wherein love dwelt.\n\nThere were four apples on the tree,\nGold stained on red that all might see\nThe sweet blood filled them to the core:\nThe colour of her hair is more\nLike stems of fair faint gold, that be\nMown from the harvest’s middle floor.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -107192,10 +110479,10 @@ "title": "“Autumn and Winter”", "body": "Three months bade wane and wax the wintering moon\nBetween two dates of death, while men were fain\nYet of the living light that all too soon\n Three months bade wane.\n\nCold autumn, wan with wrath of wind and rain,\nSaw pass a soul sweet as the sovereign tune\nThat death smote silent when he smote again.\n\nFirst went my friend, in life’s mid light of noon,\nWho loved the lord of music: then the strain\nWhence earth was kindled like as heaven in June\n Three months bade wane.\n\nA herald soul before its master’s flying\nTouched by some few moons first the darkling goal\nWhere shades rose up to greet the shade, espying\n A herald soul;\n\nShades of dead lords of music, who control\nMen living by the might of men undying,\nWith strength of strains that make delight of dole.\n\nThe deep dense dust on death’s dim threshold lying\nTrembled with sense of kindling sound that stole\nThrough darkness, and the night gave ear, descrying\n A herald soul.\n\nOne went before, one after, but so fast\nThey seem gone hence together, from the shore\nWhence we now gaze: yet ere the mightier passed\n One went before;\n\nOne whose whole heart of love, being set of yore\nOn that high joy which music lends us, cast\nLight round him forth of music’s radiant store.\n\nThen went, while earth on winter glared aghast,\nThe mortal god he worshipped, through the door\nWherethrough so late, his lover to the last,\n One went before.\n\nA star had set an hour before the sun\nSank from the skies wherethrough his heart’s pulse yet\nThrills audibly: but few took heed, or none,\n A star had set.\n\nAll heaven rings back, sonorous with regret,\nThe deep dirge of the sunset: how should one\nSoft star be missed in all the concourse met?\n\nBut, O sweet single heart whose work is done,\nWhose songs are silent, how should I forget\nThat ere the sunset’s fiery goal was won\n A star had set?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1883 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -107206,10 +110493,10 @@ "title": "“Ave Atque Vale”", "body": "Shall I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel,\n Brother, on this that was the veil of thee?\n Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea,\nOr simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel,\n Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave,\n Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve?\nOr wilt thou rather, as on earth before,\n Half-faded fiery blossoms, pale with heat\n And full of bitter summer, but more sweet\nTo thee than gleanings of a northern shore\n Trod by no tropic feet?\n\nFor always thee the fervid languid glories\n Allured of heavier suns in mightier skies;\n Thine ears knew all the wandering watery sighs\nWhere the sea sobs round Lesbian promontories,\n The barren kiss of piteous wave to wave\n That knows not where is that Leucadian grave\nWhich hides too deep the supreme head of song.\n Ah, salt and sterile as her kisses were,\n The wild sea winds her and the green gulfs bear\nHither and thither, and vex and work her wrong,\n Blind gods that cannot spare.\n\nThou sawest, in thine old singing season, brother,\n Secrets and sorrows unbeheld of us:\n Fierce loves, and lovely leaf-buds poisonous,\nBare to thy subtler eye, but for none other\n Blowing by night in some unbreathed-in clime;\n The hidden harvest of luxurious time,\nSin without shape, and pleasure without speech;\n And where strange dreams in a tumultuous sleep\n Make the shut eyes of stricken spirits weep;\nAnd with each face thou sawest the shadow on each,\n Seeing as men sow men reap.\n\nO sleepless heart and sombre soul unsleeping,\n That were athirst for sleep and no more life\n And no more love, for peace and no more strife!\nNow the dim gods of death have in their keeping\n Spirit and body and all the springs of song,\n Is it well now where love can do no wrong,\nWhere stingless pleasure has no foam or fang\n Behind the unopening closure of her lips?\n Is it not well where soul from body slips\nAnd flesh from bone divides without a pang\n As dew from flower-bell drips?\n\nIt is enough; the end and the beginning\n Are one thing to thee, who art past the end.\n O hand unclasped of unbeholden friend,\nFor thee no fruits to pluck, no palms for winning,\n No triumph and no labour and no lust,\n Only dead yew-leaves and a little dust.\nO quiet eyes wherein the light saith nought,\n Whereto the day is dumb, nor any night\n With obscure finger silences your sight,\nNor in your speech the sudden soul speaks thought,\n Sleep, and have sleep for light.\n\nNow all strange hours and all strange loves are over,\n Dreams and desires and sombre songs and sweet,\n Hast thou found place at the great knees and feet\nOf some pale Titan-woman like a lover,\n Such as thy vision here solicited,\n Under the shadow of her fair vast head,\nThe deep division of prodigious breasts,\n The solemn slope of mighty limbs asleep,\n The weight of awful tresses that still keep\nThe savour and shade of old-world pine-forests\n Where the wet hill-winds weep?\n\nHast thou found any likeness for thy vision?\n O gardener of strange flowers, what bud, what bloom,\n Hast thou found sown, what gathered in the gloom?\nWhat of despair, of rapture, of derision,\n What of life is there, what of ill or good?\n Are the fruits grey like dust or bright like blood?\nDoes the dim ground grow any seed of ours,\n The faint fields quicken any terrene root,\n In low lands where the sun and moon are mute\nAnd all the stars keep silence? Are there flowers\n At all, or any fruit?\n\nAlas, but though my flying song flies after,\n O sweet strange elder singer, thy more fleet\n Singing, and footprints of thy fleeter feet,\nSome dim derision of mysterious laughter\n From the blind tongueless warders of the dead,\n Some gainless glimpse of Proserpine’s veiled head,\nSome little sound of unregarded tears\n Wept by effaced unprofitable eyes,\n And from pale mouths some cadence of dead sighs--\nThese only, these the hearkening spirit hears,\n Sees only such things rise.\n\nThou art far too far for wings of words to follow,\n Far too far off for thought or any prayer.\n What ails us with thee, who art wind and air?\nWhat ails us gazing where all seen is hollow?\n Yet with some fancy, yet with some desire,\n Dreams pursue death as winds a flying fire,\nOur dreams pursue our dead and do not find.\n Still, and more swift than they, the thin flame flies,\n The low light fails us in elusive skies,\nStill the foiled earnest ear is deaf, and blind\n Are still the eluded eyes.\n\nNot thee, O never thee, in all time’s changes,\n Not thee, but this the sound of thy sad soul,\n The shadow of thy swift spirit, this shut scroll\nI lay my hand on, and not death estranges\n My spirit from communion of thy song--\n These memories and these melodies that throng\nVeiled porches of a Muse funereal--\n These I salute, these touch, these clasp and fold\n As though a hand were in my hand to hold,\nOr through mine ears a mourning musical\n Of many mourners rolled.\n\nI among these, I also, in such station\n As when the pyre was charred, and piled the sods,\n And offering to the dead made, and their gods,\nThe old mourners had, standing to make libation,\n I stand, and to the gods and to the dead\n Do reverence without prayer or praise, and shed\nOffering to these unknown, the gods of gloom,\n And what of honey and spice my seedlands bear,\n And what I may of fruits in this chilled air,\nAnd lay, Orestes-like, across the tomb\n A curl of severed hair.\n\nBut by no hand nor any treason stricken,\n Not like the low-lying head of Him, the King,\n The flame that made of Troy a ruinous thing,\nThou liest, and on this dust no tears could quicken\n There fall no tears like theirs that all men hear\n Fall tear by sweet imperishable tear\nDown the opening leaves of holy poets’ pages.\n Thee not Orestes, not Electra mourns;\n But bending us-ward with memorial urns\nThe most high Muses that fulfil all ages\n Weep, and our God’s heart yearns.\n\nFor, sparing of his sacred strength, not often\n Among us darkling here the lord of light\n Makes manifest his music and his might\nIn hearts that open and in lips that soften\n With the soft flame and heat of songs that shine.\n Thy lips indeed he touched with bitter wine,\nAnd nourished them indeed with bitter bread;\n Yet surely from his hand thy soul’s food came,\n The fire that scarred thy spirit at his flame\nWas lighted, and thine hungering heart he fed\n Who feeds our hearts with fame.\n\nTherefore he too now at thy soul’s sunsetting,\n God of all suns and songs, he too bends down\n To mix his laurel with thy cypress crown,\nAnd save thy dust from blame and from forgetting.\n Therefore he too, seeing all thou wert and art,\n Compassionate, with sad and sacred heart,\nMourns thee of many his children the last dead,\n And hallows with strange tears and alien sighs\n Thine unmelodious mouth and sunless eyes,\nAnd over thine irrevocable head\n Sheds light from the under skies.\n\nAnd one weeps with him in the ways Lethean,\n And stains with tears her changing bosom chill:\n That obscure Venus of the hollow hill,\nThat thing transformed which was the Cytherean,\n With lips that lost their Grecian laugh divine\n Long since, and face no more called Erycine;\nA ghost, a bitter and luxurious god.\n Thee also with fair flesh and singing spell\n Did she, a sad and second prey, compel\nInto the footless places once more trod,\n And shadows hot from hell.\n\nAnd now no sacred staff shall break in blossom,\n No choral salutation lure to light\n A spirit sick with perfume and sweet night\nAnd love’s tired eyes and hands and barren bosom.\n There is no help for these things; none to mend\n And none to mar; not all our songs, O friend,\nWill make death clear or make life durable.\n Howbeit with rose and ivy and wild vine\n And with wild notes about this dust of thine\nAt least I fill the place where white dreams dwell\n And wreathe an unseen shrine.\n\nSleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon,\n If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live;\n And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.\nOut of the mystic and the mournful garden\n Where all day through thine hands in barren braid\n Wove the sick flowers of secrecy and shade,\nGreen buds of sorrow and sin, and remnants grey,\n Sweet-smelling, pale with poison, sanguine-hearted,\n Passions that sprang from sleep and thoughts that started,\nShall death not bring us all as thee one day\n Among the days departed?\n\nFor thee, O now a silent soul, my brother,\n Take at my hands this garland, and farewell.\n Thin is the leaf, and chill the wintry smell,\nAnd chill the solemn earth, a fatal mother,\n With sadder than the Niobean womb,\n And in the hollow of her breasts a tomb.\nContent thee, howsoe’er, whose days are done;\n There lies not any troublous thing before,\n Nor sight nor sound to war against thee more,\nFor whom all winds are quiet as the sun,\n All waters as the shore.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -107220,10 +110507,10 @@ "title": "“A Baby’s Death”", "body": "A little soul scarce fledged for earth\nTakes wing with heaven again for goal\nEven while we hailed as fresh from birth\n A little soul.\n\nOur thoughts ring sad as bells that toll,\nNot knowing beyond this blind world’s girth\nWhat things are writ in heaven’s full scroll.\n\nOur fruitfulness is there but dearth,\nAnd all things held in time’s control\nSeem there, perchance, ill dreams, not worth\n A little soul.\n\nThe little feet that never trod\nEarth, never strayed in field or street,\nWhat hand leads upward back to God\n The little feet?\n\nA rose in June’s most honied heat,\nWhen life makes keen the kindling sod,\nWas not so soft and warm and sweet.\n\nTheir pilgrimage’s period\nA few swift moons have seen complete\nSince mother’s hands first clasped and shod\n The little feet.\n\nThe little hands that never sought\nEarth’s prizes, worthless all as sands,\nWhat gift has death, God’s servant, brought\n The little hands?\n\nWe ask: but love’s self silent stands,\nLove, that lends eyes and wings to thought\nTo search where death’s dim heaven expands.\n\nEre this, perchance, though love know nought,\nFlowers fill them, grown in lovelier lands,\nWhere hands of guiding angels caught\n The little hands.\n\nThe little eyes that never knew\nLight other than of dawning skies,\nWhat new life now lights up anew\n The little eyes?\n\nWho knows but on their sleep may rise\nSuch light as never heaven let through\nTo lighten earth from Paradise?\n\nNo storm, we know, may change the blue\nSoft heaven that haply death descries\nNo tears, like these in ours, bedew\n The little eyes.\n\nWas life so strange, so sad the sky,\n So strait the wide world’s range,\nHe would not stay to wonder why\n Was life so strange?\n\nWas earth’s fair house a joyless grange\n Beside that house on high\nWhence Time that bore him failed to estrange?\n\nThat here at once his soul put by\n All gifts of time and change,\nAnd left us heavier hearts to sigh\n “Was life so strange?”\n\nAngel by name love called him, seeing so fair\n The sweet small frame;\nMeet to be called, if ever man’s child were,\n Angel by name.\n\nRose-bright and warm from heaven’s own heart he came,\n And might not bear\nThe cloud that covers earth’s wan face with shame.\n\nHis little light of life was all too rare\n And soft a flame:\nHeaven yearned for him till angels hailed him there\n Angel by name.\n\nThe song that smiled upon his birthday here\nWeeps on the grave that holds him undefiled\nWhose loss makes bitterer than a soundless tear\n The song that smiled.\n\nHis name crowned once the mightiest ever styled\nSovereign of arts, and angel: fate and fear\nKnew then their master, and were reconciled.\n\nBut we saw born beneath some tenderer sphere\nMichael, an angel and a little child,\nWhose loss bows down to weep upon his bier\n The song that smiled.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -107234,10 +110521,10 @@ "title": "“A Ballad of Burdens”", "body": "The burden of fair women. Vain delight,\nAnd love self-slain in some sweet shameful way,\nAnd sorrowful old age that comes by night\nAs a thief comes that has no heart by day,\nAnd change that finds fair cheeks and leaves them grey,\nAnd weariness that keeps awake for hire,\nAnd grief that says what pleasure used to say;\nThis is the end of every man’s desire.\n\nThe burden of bought kisses. This is sore,\nA burden without fruit in childbearing;\nBetween the nightfall and the dawn threescore,\nThreescore between the dawn and evening.\nThe shuddering in thy lips, the shuddering\nIn thy sad eyelids tremulous like fire,\nMakes love seem shameful and a wretched thing,\nThis is the end of every man’s desire.\n\nThe burden of sweet speeches. Nay, kneel down,\nCover thy head, and weep; for verily\nThese market-men that buy thy white and brown\nIn the last days shall take no thought for thee.\nIn the last days like earth thy face shall be,\nYea, like sea-marsh made thick with brine and mire,\nSad with sick leavings of the sterile sea.\nThis is the end of every man’s desire.\n\nThe burden of long living. Thou shalt fear\nWaking, and sleeping mourn upon thy bed;\nAnd say at night “Would God the day were here,”\nAnd say at dawn “Would God the day were dead.”\nWith weary days thou shalt be clothed and fed,\nAnd wear remorse of heart for thine attire,\nPain for thy girdle and sorrow upon thine head;\nThis is the end of every man’s desire.\n\nThe burden of bright colours. Thou shalt see\nGold tarnished, and the grey above the green;\nAnd as the thing thou seest thy face shall be,\nAnd no more as the thing beforetime seen.\nAnd thou shalt say of mercy “It hath been,”\nAnd living, watch the old lips and loves expire,\nAnd talking, tears shall take thy breath between;\nThis is the end of every man’s desire.\n\nThe burden of sad sayings. In that day\nThou shalt tell all thy days and hours, and tell\nThy times and ways and words of love, and say\nHow one was dear and one desirable,\nAnd sweet was life to hear and sweet to smell,\nBut now with lights reverse the old hours retire\nAnd the last hour is shod with fire from hell;\nThis is the end of every man’s desire.\n\nThe burden of four seasons. Rain in spring,\nWhite rain and wind among the tender trees;\nA summer of green sorrows gathering,\nRank autumn in a mist of miseries,\nWith sad face set towards the year, that sees\nThe charred ash drop out of the dropping pyre,\nAnd winter wan with many maladies;\nThis is the end of every man’s desire.\n\nThe burden of dead faces. Out of sight\nAnd out of love, beyond the reach of hands,\nChanged in the changing of the dark and light,\nThey walk and weep about the barren lands\nWhere no seed is nor any garner stands,\nWhere in short breaths the doubtful days respire,\nAnd time’s turned glass lets through the sighing sands;\nThis is the end of every man’s desire.\n\nThe burden of much gladness. Life and lust\nForsake thee, and the face of thy delight;\nAnd underfoot the heavy hour strews dust,\nAnd overhead strange weathers burn and bite;\nAnd where the red was, lo the bloodless white,\nAnd where truth was, the likeness of a liar,\nAnd where day was, the likeness of the night;\nThis is the end of every man’s desire.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -107248,10 +110535,10 @@ "title": "“A Ballad of Death”", "body": "Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears,\nGirdle thyself with sighing for a girth\nUpon the sides of mirth,\nCover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears\nBe filled with rumour of people sorrowing;\nMake thee soft raiment out of woven sighs\nUpon the flesh to cleave,\nSet pains therein and many a grievous thing,\nAnd many sorrows after each his wise\nFor armlet and for gorget and for sleeve.\n\nO Love’s lute heard about the lands of death,\nLeft hanged upon the trees that were therein;\nO Love and Time and Sin,\nThree singing mouths that mourn now underbreath,\nThree lovers, each one evil spoken of;\nO smitten lips wherethrough this voice of mine\nCame softer with her praise;\nAbide a little for our lady’s love.\nThe kisses of her mouth were more than wine,\nAnd more than peace the passage of her days.\n\nO Love, thou knowest if she were good to see.\nO Time, thou shalt not find in any land\nTill, cast out of thine hand,\nThe sunlight and the moonlight fail from thee,\nAnother woman fashioned like as this.\nO Sin, thou knowest that all thy shame in her\nWas made a goodly thing;\nYea, she caught Shame and shamed him with her kiss,\nWith her fair kiss, and lips much lovelier\nThan lips of amorous roses in late spring.\n\nBy night there stood over against my bed\nQueen Venus with a hood striped gold and black,\nBoth sides drawn fully back\nFrom brows wherein the sad blood failed of red,\nAnd temples drained of purple and full of death.\nHer curled hair had the wave of sea-water\nAnd the sea’s gold in it.\nHer eyes were as a dove’s that sickeneth.\nStrewn dust of gold she had shed over her,\nAnd pearl and purple and amber on her feet.\n\nUpon her raiment of dyed sendaline\nWere painted all the secret ways of love\nAnd covered things thereof,\nThat hold delight as grape-flowers hold their wine;\nRed mouths of maidens and red feet of doves,\nAnd brides that kept within the bride-chamber\nTheir garment of soft shame,\nAnd weeping faces of the wearied loves\nThat swoon in sleep and awake wearier,\nWith heat of lips and hair shed out like flame.\n\nThe tears that through her eyelids fell on me\nMade mine own bitter where they ran between\nAs blood had fallen therein,\nShe saying; Arise, lift up thine eyes and see\nIf any glad thing be or any good\nNow the best thing is taken forth of us;\nEven she to whom all praise\nWas as one flower in a great multitude,\nOne glorious flower of many and glorious,\nOne day found gracious among many days:\n\nEven she whose handmaiden was Love--to whom\nAt kissing times across her stateliest bed\nKings bowed themselves and shed\nPale wine, and honey with the honeycomb,\nAnd spikenard bruised for a burnt-offering;\nEven she between whose lips the kiss became\nAs fire and frankincense;\nWhose hair was as gold raiment on a king,\nWhose eyes were as the morning purged with flame,\nWhose eyelids as sweet savour issuing thence.\n\nThen I beheld, and lo on the other side\nMy lady’s likeness crowned and robed and dead.\nSweet still, but now not red,\nWas the shut mouth whereby men lived and died.\nAnd sweet, but emptied of the blood’s blue shade,\nThe great curled eyelids that withheld her eyes.\nAnd sweet, but like spoilt gold,\nThe weight of colour in her tresses weighed.\nAnd sweet, but as a vesture with new dyes,\nThe body that was clothed with love of old.\n\nAh! that my tears filled all her woven hair\nAnd all the hollow bosom of her gown--\nAh! that my tears ran down\nEven to the place where many kisses were,\nEven where her parted breast-flowers have place,\nEven where they are cloven apart--who knows not this?\nAh! the flowers cleave apart\nAnd their sweet fills the tender interspace;\nAh! the leaves grown thereof were things to kiss\nEre their fine gold was tarnished at the heart.\n\nAh! in the days when God did good to me,\nEach part about her was a righteous thing;\nHer mouth an almsgiving,\nThe glory of her garments charity,\nThe beauty of her bosom a good deed,\nIn the good days when God kept sight of us;\nLove lay upon her eyes,\nAnd on that hair whereof the world takes heed;\nAnd all her body was more virtuous\nThan souls of women fashioned otherwise.\n\nNow, ballad, gather poppies in thine hands\nAnd sheaves of brier and many rusted sheaves\nRain-rotten in rank lands,\nWaste marigold and late unhappy leaves\nAnd grass that fades ere any of it be mown;\nAnd when thy bosom is filled full thereof\nSeek out Death’s face ere the light altereth,\nAnd say “My master that was thrall to Love\nIs become thrall to Death.”\nBow down before him, ballad, sigh and groan,\nBut make no sojourn in thy outgoing;\nFor haply it may be\nThat when thy feet return at evening\nDeath shall come in with thee.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -107262,10 +110549,10 @@ "title": "“A Ballad of Dreamland”", "body": "I hid my heart in a nest of roses,\n Out of the sun’s way, hidden apart;\nIn a softer bed than the soft white snow’s is,\n Under the roses I hid my heart.\n Why would it sleep not? why should it start,\nWhen never a leaf of the rose-tree stirred?\n What made sleep flutter his wings and part?\nOnly the song of a secret bird.\n\nLie still, I said, for the wind’s wing closes,\n And mild leaves muffle the keen sun’s dart;\nLie still, for the wind on the warm sea dozes,\n And the wind is unquieter yet than thou art.\n Does a thought in thee still as a thorn’s wound smart?\nDoes the fang still fret thee of hope deferred?\n What bids the lids of thy sleep dispart?\nOnly the song of a secret bird.\n\nThe green land’s name that a charm encloses,\n It never was writ in the traveller’s chart,\nAnd sweet on its trees as the fruit that grows is,\n It never was sold in the merchant’s mart.\n The swallows of dreams through its dim fields dart,\nAnd sleep’s are the tunes in its tree-tops heard;\n No hound’s note wakens the wildwood hart,\nOnly the song of a secret bird.\n\n\n# _Envoi_\n\nIn the world of dreams I have chosen my part,\n To sleep for a season and hear no word\nOf true love’s truth or of light love’s art,\n Only the song of a secret bird.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1878 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107273,10 +110560,10 @@ "title": "“A Ballad of Life”", "body": "I found in dreams a place of wind and flowers,\nFull of sweet trees and colour of glad grass,\nIn midst whereof there was\nA lady clothed like summer with sweet hours.\nHer beauty, fervent as a fiery moon,\nMade my blood burn and swoon\n Like a flame rained upon.\nSorrow had filled her shaken eyelids’ blue,\nAnd her mouth’s sad red heavy rose all through\n Seemed sad with glad things gone.\n\nShe held a little cithern by the strings,\nShaped heartwise, strung with subtle-coloured hair\nOf some dead lute-player\nThat in dead years had done delicious things.\nThe seven strings were named accordingly;\nThe first string charity,\n The second tenderness,\nThe rest were pleasure, sorrow, sleep, and sin,\nAnd loving-kindness, that is pity’s kin\n And is most pitiless.\n\nThere were three men with her, each garmented\nWith gold and shod with gold upon the feet;\nAnd with plucked ears of wheat\nThe first man’s hair was wound upon his head:\nHis face was red, and his mouth curled and sad;\nAll his gold garment had\n Pale stains of dust and rust.\nA riven hood was pulled across his eyes;\nThe token of him being upon this wise\n Made for a sign of Lust.\n\nThe next was Shame, with hollow heavy face\nColoured like green wood when flame kindles it.\nHe hath such feeble feet\nThey may not well endure in any place.\nHis face was full of grey old miseries,\nAnd all his blood’s increase\n Was even increase of pain.\nThe last was Fear, that is akin to Death;\nHe is Shame’s friend, and always as Shame saith\n Fear answers him again.\n\nMy soul said in me; This is marvellous,\nSeeing the air’s face is not so delicate\nNor the sun’s grace so great,\nIf sin and she be kin or amorous.\nAnd seeing where maidens served her on their knees,\nI bade one crave of these\n To know the cause thereof.\nThen Fear said: I am Pity that was dead.\nAnd Shame said: I am Sorrow comforted.\n And Lust said: I am Love.\n\nThereat her hands began a lute-playing\nAnd her sweet mouth a song in a strange tongue;\nAnd all the while she sung\nThere was no sound but long tears following\nLong tears upon men’s faces, waxen white\nWith extreme sad delight.\n But those three following men\nBecame as men raised up among the dead;\nGreat glad mouths open and fair cheeks made red\n With child’s blood come again.\n\nThen I said: Now assuredly I see\nMy lady is perfect, and transfigureth\nAll sin and sorrow and death,\nMaking them fair as her own eyelids be,\nOr lips wherein my whole soul’s life abides;\nOr as her sweet white sides\n And bosom carved to kiss.\nNow therefore, if her pity further me,\nDoubtless for her sake all my days shall be\n As righteous as she is.\n\nForth, ballad, and take roses in both arms,\nEven till the top rose touch thee in the throat\nWhere the least thornprick harms;\nAnd girdled in thy golden singing-coat,\nCome thou before my lady and say this;\nBorgia, thy gold hair’s colour burns in me,\n Thy mouth makes beat my blood in feverish rhymes;\nTherefore so many as these roses be,\n Kiss me so many times.\nThen it may be, seeing how sweet she is,\nThat she will stoop herself none otherwise\n Than a blown vine-branch doth,\nAnd kiss thee with soft laughter on thine eyes,\n Ballad, and on thy mouth.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -107287,10 +110574,10 @@ "title": "“Before Dawn”", "body": "Sweet life, if life were stronger,\nEarth clear of years that wrong her,\nThen two things might live longer,\nTwo sweeter things than they;\nDelight, the rootless flower,\nAnd love, the bloomless bower;\nDelight that lives an hour,\nAnd love that lives a day.\n\nFrom evensong to daytime,\nWhen April melts in Maytime,\nLove lengthens out his playtime,\nLove lessens breath by breath,\nAnd kiss by kiss grows older\nOn listless throat or shoulder\nTurned sideways now, turned colder\nThan life that dreams of death.\n\nThis one thing once worth giving\nLife gave, and seemed worth living;\nSin sweet beyond forgiving\nAnd brief beyond regret:\nTo laugh and love together\nAnd weave with foam and feather\nAnd wind and words the tether\nOur memories play with yet.\n\nAh, one thing worth beginning,\nOne thread in life worth spinning,\nAh sweet, one sin worth sinning\nWith all the whole soul’s will;\nTo lull you till one stilled you,\nTo kiss you till one killed you,\nTo feed you till one filled you,\nSweet lips, if love could fill;\n\nTo hunt sweet Love and lose him\nBetween white arms and bosom,\nBetween the bud and blossom,\nBetween your throat and chin;\nTo say of shame--what is it?\nOf virtue--we can miss it,\nOf sin--we can but kiss it,\nAnd it’s no longer sin:\n\nTo feel the strong soul, stricken\nThrough fleshly pulses, quicken\nBeneath swift sighs that thicken,\nSoft hands and lips that smite;\nLips that no love can tire,\nWith hands that sting like fire,\nWeaving the web Desire\nTo snare the bird Delight.\n\nBut love so lightly plighted,\nOur love with torch unlighted,\nPaused near us unaffrighted,\nWho found and left him free;\nNone, seeing us cloven in sunder,\nWill weep or laugh or wonder;\nLight love stands clear of thunder,\nAnd safe from winds at sea.\n\nAs, when late larks give warning\nOf dying lights and dawning,\nNight murmurs to the morning,\n“Lie still, O love, lie still;”\nAnd half her dark limbs cover\nThe white limbs of her lover,\nWith amorous plumes that hover\nAnd fervent lips that chill;\n\nAs scornful day represses\nNight’s void and vain caresses,\nAnd from her cloudier tresses\nUnwinds the gold of his,\nWith limbs from limbs dividing\nAnd breath by breath subsiding;\nFor love has no abiding,\nBut dies before the kiss;\n\nSo hath it been, so be it;\nFor who shall live and flee it?\nBut look that no man see it\nOr hear it unaware;\nLest all who love and choose him\nSee Love, and so refuse him;\nFor all who find him lose him,\nBut all have found him fair.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107298,10 +110585,10 @@ "title": "“Before Parting”", "body": "A month or twain to live on honeycomb\n Is pleasant; but one tires of scented time,\n Cold sweet recurrence of accepted rhyme,\nAnd that strong purple under juice and foam\nWhere the wine’s heart has burst;\nNor feel the latter kisses like the first.\n\nOnce yet, this poor one time; I will not pray\n Even to change the bitterness of it,\n The bitter taste ensuing on the sweet,\nTo make your tears fall where your soft hair lay\nAll blurred and heavy in some perfumed wise\nOver my face and eyes.\n\nAnd yet who knows what end the scythĂšd wheat\n Makes of its foolish poppies’ mouths of red?\n These were not sown, these are not harvested,\nThey grow a month and are cast under feet\nAnd none has care thereof,\nAs none has care of divided love.\n\nI know each shadow of your lips by rote,\n Each change of love in eyelids and eyebrows;\n The fashion of fair temples tremulous\nWith tender blood, and colour of your throat;\nI know not how love is gone out of this,\nSeeing that all was his.\n\nLove’s likeness there endures upon all these:\n But out of these one shall not gather love.\n Day hath not strength nor the night shade enough\nTo make love whole and fill his lips with ease,\nAs some bee-builded cell\nFeels at filled lips the heavy honey swell.\n\nI know not how this last month leaves your hair\n Less full of purple colour and hid spice,\n And that luxurious trouble of closed eyes\nIs mixed with meaner shadows and waste care;\nAnd love, kissed out by pleasure, seems not yet\nWorth patience to regret.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -107312,10 +110599,10 @@ "title": "“A Cameo”", "body": "There was a graven image of Desire\n Painted with red blood on a ground of gold\n Passing between the young men and the old,\nAnd by him Pain, whose body shone like fire,\nAnd Pleasure with gaunt hands that grasped their hire.\n Of his left wrist, with fingers clenched and cold,\n The insatiable Satiety kept hold,\nWalking with feet unshod that pashed the mire.\nThe senses and the sorrows and the sins,\n And the strange loves that suck the breasts of Hate\nTill lips and teeth bite in their sharp indenture,\nFollowed like beasts with flap of wings and fins.\n Death stood aloof behind a gaping grate,\nUpon whose lock was written _Peradventure_.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107323,10 +110610,10 @@ "title": "“A Channel Crossing”", "body": "Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone,\nFared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone:\nSoft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour\nGleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a field in flower,\nStars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the star-bright air\nMade the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of the sea, more fair.\nWhence came change? Was the sweet night weary of rest? What anguish awoke in the dark?\nSudden, sublime, the strong storm spake: we heard the thunders as hounds that bark.\nLovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, we saw the lightnings exalt the sky,\nLiving and lustrous and rapturous as love that is born but to quicken and lighten and die.\nHeaven’s own heart at its highest of delight found utterance in music and semblance in fire:\nThunder on thunder exulted, rejoicing to live and to satiate the night’s desire.\n\nAnd the night was alive and anhungered of life as a tiger from toils cast free:\nAnd a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength of the soul of the sea.\nAll the weight of the wind bore down on it, freighted with death for fraught:\nAnd the keen waves kindled and quickened as things transfigured or things distraught.\nAnd madness fell on them laughing and leaping; and madness came on the wind:\nAnd the might and the light and the darkness of storm were as storm in the heart of Ind.\nSuch glory, such terror, such passion, as lighten and harrow the far fierce East,\nRang, shone, spake, shuddered around us: the night was an altar with death for priest.\nThe channel that sunders England from shores where never was man born free\nWas clothed with the likeness and thrilled with the strength and the wrath of a tropic sea.\nAs a wild steed ramps in rebellion, and rears till it swerves from a backward fall,\nThe strong ship struggled and reared, and her deck was upright as a sheer cliff’s wall.\nStern and prow plunged under, alternate: a glimpse, a recoil, a breath,\nAnd she sprang as the life in a god made man would spring at the throat of death.\nThree glad hours, and it seemed not an hour of supreme and supernal joy,\nFilled full with delight that revives in remembrance a sea-bird’s heart in a boy.\nFor the central crest of the night was cloud that thundered and flamed, sublime\nAs the splendour and song of the soul everlasting that quickens the pulse of time.\nThe glory beholden of man in a vision, the music of light overheard,\nThe rapture and radiance of battle, the life that abides in the fire of a word,\nIn the midmost heaven enkindled, was manifest far on the face of the sea,\nAnd the rage in the roar of the voice of the waters was heard but when heaven breathed free.\nFar eastward, clear of the covering of cloud, the sky laughed out into light\nFrom the rims of the storm to the sea’s dark edge with flames that were flowerlike and white.\nThe leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning that laugh as they fade\nFrom the cloud’s black base to the black wave’s brim rejoiced in the light they made.\nFar westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in lustrous tune,\nShone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the steadfast smile of the moon.\nThe limitless heaven that enshrined them was lovelier than dreams may behold, and deep\nAs life or as death, revealed and transfigured, may shine on the soul through sleep.\nAll glories of toil and of triumph and passion and pride that it yearns to know\nBore witness there to the soul of its likeness and kinship, above and below.\nThe joys of the lightnings, the songs of the thunders, the strong sea’s labour and rage,\nWere tokens and signs of the war that is life and is joy for the soul to wage.\nNo thought strikes deeper or higher than the heights and the depths that the night made bare,\nIllimitable, infinite, awful and joyful, alive in the summit of air--\nAir stilled and thrilled by the tempest that thundered between its reign and the sea’s,\nRebellious, rapturous, and transient as faith or as terror that bows men’s knees.\nNo love sees loftier and fairer the form of its godlike vision in dreams\nThan the world shone then, when the sky and the sea were as love for a breath’s length seems--\nOne utterly, mingled and mastering and mastered and laughing with love that subsides\nAs the glad mad night sank panting and satiate with storm, and released the tides.\nIn the dense mid channel the steam-souled ship hung hovering, assailed and withheld\nAs a soul born royal, if life or if death be against it, is thwarted and quelled.\nAs the glories of myriads of glowworms in lustrous grass on a boundless lawn\nWere the glories of flames phosphoric that made of the water a light like dawn.\nA thousand Phosphors, a thousand Hespers, awoke in the churning sea,\nAnd the swift soft hiss of them living and dying was clear as a tune could be;\nAs a tune that is played by the fingers of death on the keys of life or of sleep,\nAudible alway alive in the storm, too fleet for a dream to keep:\nToo fleet, too sweet for a dream to recover and thought to remember awake:\nLight subtler and swifter than lightning, that whispers and laughs in the live storm’s wake,\nIn the wild bright wake of the storm, in the dense loud heart of the labouring hour,\nA harvest of stars by the storm’s hand reaped, each fair as a star-shaped flower.\nAnd sudden and soft as the passing of sleep is the passing of tempest seemed\nWhen the light and the sound of it sank, and the glory was gone as a dream half dreamed.\nThe glory, the terror, the passion that made of the midnight a miracle, died,\nNot slain at a stroke, nor in gradual reluctance abated of power and of pride;\nWith strong swift subsidence, awful as power that is wearied of power upon earth,\nAs a God that were wearied of power upon heaven, and were fain of a new God’s birth,\nThe might of the night subsided: the tyranny kindled in darkness fell:\nAnd the sea and the sky put off them the rapture and radiance of heaven and of hell.\nThe waters, heaving and hungering at heart, made way, and were wellnigh fain,\nFor the ship that had fought them, and wrestled, and revelled in labour, to cease from her pain.\nAnd an end was made of it: only remembrance endures of the glad loud strife;\nAnd the sense that a rapture so royal may come not again in the passage of life.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -107337,10 +110624,10 @@ "title": "“A Christmas Carol”", "body": "Three damsels in the queen’s chamber,\n The queen’s mouth was most fair;\nShe spake a word of God’s mother\n As the combs went in her hair.\n Mary that is of might,\n Bring us to thy Son’s sight.\n\nThey held the gold combs out from her,\n A span’s length off her head;\nShe sang this song of God’s mother\n And of her bearing-bed.\n Mary most full of grace,\n Bring us to thy Son’s face.\n\nWhen she sat at Joseph’s hand,\n She looked against her side;\nAnd either way from the short silk band\n Her girdle was all wried.\n Mary that all good may,\n Bring us to thy Son’s way.\n\nMary had three women for her bed,\n The twain were maidens clean;\nThe first of them had white and red,\n The third had riven green.\n Mary that is so sweet,\n Bring us to thy Son’s feet.\n\nShe had three women for her hair,\n Two were gloved soft and shod;\nThe third had feet and fingers bare,\n She was the likest God.\n Mary that wieldeth land,\n Bring us to thy Son’s hand.\n\nShe had three women for her ease,\n The twain were good women:\nThe first two were the two Maries,\n The third was Magdalen.\n Mary that perfect is,\n Bring us to thy Son’s kiss.\n\nJoseph had three workmen in his stall,\n To serve him well upon;\nThe first of them were Peter and Paul,\n The third of them was John.\n Mary, God’s handmaiden,\n Bring us to thy Son’s ken.\n\n“If your child be none other man’s,\n But if it be very mine,\nThe bedstead shall be gold two spans,\n The bedfoot silver fine.”\n Mary that made God mirth,\n Bring us to thy Son’s birth.\n\n“If the child be some other man’s,\n And if it be none of mine,\nThe manger shall be straw two spans,\n Betwixen kine and kine.”\n Mary that made sin cease,\n Bring us to thy Son’s peace.\n\nChrist was born upon this wise,\n It fell on such a night,\nNeither with sounds of psalteries,\n Nor with fire for light.\n Mary that is God’s spouse,\n Bring us to thy Son’s house.\n\nThe star came out upon the east\n With a great sound and sweet:\nKings gave gold to make him feast\n And myrrh for him to eat.\n Mary, of thy sweet mood,\n Bring us to thy Son’s good.\n\nHe had two handmaids at his head,\n One handmaid at his feet;\nThe twain of them were fair and red,\n The third one was right sweet.\n Mary that is most wise,\n Bring us to thy Son’s eyes. Amen.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "christmastide" @@ -107351,10 +110638,10 @@ "title": "“The Complaint of Lisa”", "body": "There is no woman living that draws breath\nSo sad as I, though all things sadden her.\nThere is not one upon life’s weariest way\nWho is weary as I am weary of all but death.\nToward whom I look as looks the sunflower\nAll day with all his whole soul toward the sun;\nWhile in the sun’s sight I make moan all day,\nAnd all night on my sleepless maiden bed\nWeep and call out on death, O Love, and thee,\nThat thou or he would take me to the dead,\nAnd know not what thing evil I have done\nThat life should lay such heavy hand on me.\n\nAlas, Love, what is this thou wouldst with me?\nWhat honour shalt thou have to quench my breath,\nOr what shall my heart broken profit thee?\nO Love, O great god Love, what have I done,\nThat thou shouldst hunger so after my death?\nMy heart is harmless as my life’s first day:\nSeek out some false fair woman, and plague her\nTill her tears even as my tears fill her bed:\nI am the least flower in thy flowery way,\nBut till my time be come that I be dead\nLet me live out my flower-time in the sun\nThough my leaves shut before the sunflower.\n\nO Love, Love, Love, the kingly sunflower!\nShall he the sun hath looked on look on me,\nThat live down here in shade, out of the sun,\nHere living in the sorrow and shadow of death?\nShall he that feeds his heart full of the day\nCare to give mine eyes light, or my lips breath?\nBecause she loves him shall my lord love her\nWho is as a worm in my lord’s kingly way?\nI shall not see him or know him alive or dead;\nBut thou, I know thee, O Love, and pray to thee\nThat in brief while my brief life-days be done,\nAnd the worm quickly make my marriage-bed.\n\nFor underground there is no sleepless bed:\nBut here since I beheld my sunflower\nThese eyes have slept not, seeing all night and day\nHis sunlike eyes, and face fronting the sun.\nWherefore if anywhere be any death,\nI would fain find and fold him fast to me,\nThat I may sleep with the world’s eldest dead,\nWith her that died seven centuries since, and her\nThat went last night down the night-wandering way.\nFor this is sleep indeed, when labour is done,\nWithout love, without dreams, and without breath,\nAnd without thought, O name unnamed! of thee.\n\nAh, but, forgetting all things, shall I thee?\nWilt thou not be as now about my bed\nThere underground as here before the sun?\nShall not thy vision vex me alive and dead,\nThy moving vision without form or breath?\nI read long since the bitter tale of her\nWho read the tale of Launcelot on a day,\nAnd died, and had no quiet after death,\nBut was moved ever along a weary way,\nLost with her love in the underworld; ah me,\nO my king, O my lordly sunflower,\nWould God to me too such a thing were done!\n\nBut if such sweet and bitter things be done,\nThen, flying from life, I shall not fly from thee.\nFor in that living world without a sun\nThy vision will lay hold upon me dead,\nAnd meet and mock me, and mar my peace in death.\nYet if being wroth God had such pity on her,\nWho was a sinner and foolish in her day,\nThat even in hell they twain should breathe one breath,\nWhy should he not in some wise pity me?\nSo if I sleep not in my soft strait bed\nI may look up and see my sunflower\nAs he the sun, in some divine strange way.\n\nO poor my heart, well knowest thou in what way\nThis sore sweet evil unto us was done.\nFor on a holy and a heavy day\nI was arisen out of my still small bed\nTo see the knights tilt, and one said to me\n“The king,” and seeing him, somewhat stopped my breath,\nAnd if the girl spake more, I heard not her,\nFor only I saw what I shall see when dead,\nA kingly flower of knights, a sunflower,\nThat shone against the sunlight like the sun,\nAnd like a fire, O heart, consuming thee,\nThe fire of love that lights the pyre of death.\n\nHowbeit I shall not die an evil death\nWho have loved in such a sad and sinless way,\nThat this my love, lord, was no shame to thee.\nSo when mine eyes are shut against the sun,\nO my soul’s sun, O the world’s sunflower,\nThou nor no man will quite despise me dead.\nAnd dying I pray with all my low last breath\nThat thy whole life may be as was that day,\nThat feast-day that made trothplight death and me,\nGiving the world light of thy great deeds done;\nAnd that fair face brightening thy bridal bed,\nThat God be good as God hath been to her.\n\nThat all things goodly and glad remain with her,\nAll things that make glad life and goodly death;\nThat as a bee sucks from a sunflower\nHoney, when summer draws delighted breath,\nHer soul may drink of thy soul in like way,\nAnd love make life a fruitful marriage-bed\nWhere day may bring forth fruits of joy to day\nAnd night to night till days and nights be dead.\nAnd as she gives light of her love to thee,\nGive thou to her the old glory of days long done;\nAnd either give some heat of light to me,\nTo warm me where I sleep without the sun.\n\nO sunflower made drunken with the sun,\nO knight whose lady’s heart draws thine to her,\nGreat king, glad lover, I have a word to thee.\nThere is a weed lives out of the sun’s way,\nHid from the heat deep in the meadow’s bed,\nThat swoons and whitens at the wind’s least breath,\nA flower star-shaped, that all a summer day\nWill gaze her soul out on the sunflower\nFor very love till twilight finds her dead.\nBut the great sunflower heeds not her poor death,\nKnows not when all her loving life is done;\nAnd so much knows my lord the king of me.\n\nAye, all day long he has no eye for me;\nWith golden eye following the golden sun\nFrom rose-coloured to purple-pillowed bed,\nFrom birthplace to the flame-lit place of death,\nFrom eastern end to western of his way.\nSo mine eye follows thee, my sunflower,\nSo the white star-flower turns and yearns to thee,\nThe sick weak weed, not well alive or dead,\nTrod underfoot if any pass by her,\nPale, without colour of summer or summer breath\nIn the shrunk shuddering petals, that have done\nNo work but love, and die before the day.\n\nBut thou, to-day, to-morrow, and every day,\nBe glad and great, O love whose love slays me.\nThy fervent flower made fruitful from the sun\nShall drop its golden seed in the world’s way,\nThat all men thereof nourished shall praise thee\nFor grain and flower and fruit of works well done;\nTill thy shed seed, O shining sunflower,\nBring forth such growth of the world’s garden-bed\nAs like the sun shall outlive age and death.\nAnd yet I would thine heart had heed of her\nWho loves thee alive; but not till she be dead.\nCome, Love, then, quickly, and take her utmost breath.\n\nSong, speak for me who am dumb as are the dead;\nFrom my sad bed of tears I send forth thee,\nTo fly all day from sun’s birth to sun’s death\nDown the sun’s way after the flying sun,\nFor love of her that gave thee wings and breath,\nEre day be done, to seek the sunflower.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -107365,10 +110652,10 @@ "title": "“Dead Love”", "body": "Dead love, by treason slain, lies stark,\nWhite as a dead stark-stricken dove:\nNone that pass by him pause to mark\n Dead love.\n\nHis heart, that strained and yearned and strove\nAs toward the sundawn strives the lark,\nIs cold as all the old joy thereof.\n\nDead men, re-arisen from dust, may hark\nWhen rings the trumpet blown above:\nIt will not raise from out the dark\n Dead love.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107376,10 +110663,10 @@ "title": "“A Death on Easter Day”", "body": "The strong spring sun rejoicingly may rise,\nRise and make revel, as of old men said,\nLike dancing hearts of lovers newly wed:\nA light more bright than ever bathed the skies\nDeparts for all time out of all men’s eyes.\nThe crowns that girt last night a living head\nShine only now, though deathless, on the dead:\nArt that mocks death, and Song that never dies.\nAlbeit the bright sweet mothlike wings be furled,\nHope sees, past all division and defection,\nAnd higher than swims the mist of human breath,\nThe soul most radiant once in all the world\nRequickened to regenerate resurrection\nOut of the likeness of the shadow of death.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "easter_sunday" @@ -107393,10 +110680,10 @@ "tags": [ "favorite" ], + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "context": { "holiday": "our_lady_of_sorrows" } @@ -107406,10 +110693,10 @@ "title": "“Dysthanatos”", "body": "_“Ad generem Cereris sine caede et vulnere pauci\nDescendunt reges, aut siccĂą morte tyranni.”_\n\nBy no dry death another king goes down\nThe way of kings. Yet may no free man’s voice,\nFor stern compassion and deep awe, rejoice\nThat one sign more is given against the crown,\nThat one more head those dark red waters drown\nWhich rise round thrones whose trembling equipoise\nIs propped on sand and bloodshed and such toys\nAs human hearts that shrink at human frown.\nThe name writ red on Polish earth, the star\nThat was to outshine our England’s in the far\nEast heaven of empire--where is one that saith\nProud words now, prophesying of this White Czar?\n“In bloodless pangs few kings yield up their breath,\nFew tyrants perish by no violent death.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107417,10 +110704,10 @@ "title": "“Erotion”", "body": "Sweet for a little even to fear, and sweet,\nO love, to lay down fear at love’s fair feet;\nShall not some fiery memory of his breath\nLie sweet on lips that touch the lips of death?\nYet leave me not; yet, if thou wilt, be free;\nLove me no more, but love my love of thee.\nLove where thou wilt, and live thy life; and I,\nOne thing I can, and one love cannot--die.\nPass from me; yet thine arms, thine eyes, thine hair,\nFeed my desire and deaden my despair.\nYet once more ere time change us, ere my cheek\nWhiten, ere hope be dumb or sorrow speak,\nYet once more ere thou hate me, one full kiss;\nKeep other hours for others, save me this.\nYea, and I will not (if it please thee) weep,\nLest thou be sad; I will but sigh, and sleep.\nSweet, does death hurt? thou canst not do me wrong:\nI shall not lack thee, as I loved thee, long.\nHast thou not given me above all that live\nJoy, and a little sorrow shalt not give?\nWhat even though fairer fingers of strange girls\nPass nestling through thy beautiful boy’s curls\nAs mine did, or those curled lithe lips of thine\nMeet theirs as these, all theirs come after mine;\nAnd though I were not, though I be not, best,\nI have loved and love thee more than all the rest.\nO love, O lover, loose or hold me fast,\nI had thee first, whoever have thee last;\nFairer or not, what need I know, what care?\nTo thy fair bud my blossom once seemed fair.\nWhy am I fair at all before thee, why\nAt all desired? seeing thou art fair, not I.\nI shall be glad of thee, O fairest head,\nAlive, alone, without thee, with thee, dead;\nI shall remember while the light lives yet,\nAnd in the night-time I shall not forget.\nThough (as thou wilt) thou leave me ere life leave,\nI will not, for thy love I will not, grieve;\nNot as they use who love not more than I,\nWho love not as I love thee though I die;\nAnd though thy lips, once mine, be oftener prest\nTo many another brow and balmier breast,\nAnd sweeter arms, or sweeter to thy mind,\nLull thee or lure, more fond thou wilt not find.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107428,10 +110715,10 @@ "title": "“A Forsaken Garden”", "body": "In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,\nAt the sea-down’s edge between windward and lee,\nWalled round with rocks as an inland island,\nThe ghost of a garden fronts the sea.\nA girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses\nThe steep square slope of the blossomless bed\nWhere the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses\nNow lie dead.\n\nThe fields fall southward, abrupt and broken,\nTo the low last edge of the long lone land.\nIf a step should sound or a word be spoken,\nWould a ghost not rise at the strange guest’s hand?\nSo long have the grey bare walks lain guestless,\nThrough branches and briars if a man make way,\nHe shall find no life but the sea-wind’s, restless\nNight and day.\n\nThe dense hard passage is blind and stifled\nThat crawls by a track none turn to climb\nTo the strait waste place that the years have rifled\nOf all but the thorns that are touched not of time.\nThe thorns he spares when the rose is taken;\nThe rocks are left when he wastes the plain.\nThe wind that wanders, the weeds wind-shaken,\nThese remain.\n\nNot a flower to be pressed of the foot that falls not;\nAs the heart of a dead man the seed-plots are dry;\nFrom the thicket of thorns whence the nightingale calls not,\nCould she call, there were never a rose to reply.\nOver the meadows that blossom and wither\nRings but the note of a sea-bird’s song;\nOnly the sun and the rain come hither\nAll year long.\n\nThe sun burns sere and the rain dishevels\nOne gaunt bleak blossom of scentless breath.\nOnly the wind here hovers and revels\nIn a round where life seems barren as death.\nHere there was laughing of old, there was weeping,\nHaply, of lovers none ever will know,\nWhose eyes went seaward a hundred sleeping\nYears ago.\n\nHeart handfast in heart as they stood, “Look thither,”\nDid he whisper? “look forth from the flowers to the sea;\nFor the foam-flowers endure when the rose-blossoms wither,\nAnd men that love lightly may die--but we?”\nAnd the same wind sang and the same waves whitened,\nAnd or ever the garden’s last petals were shed,\nIn the lips that had whispered, the eyes that had lightened,\nLove was dead.\n\nOr they loved their life through, and then went whither?\nAnd were one to the end--but what end who knows?\nLove deep as the sea as a rose must wither,\nAs the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose.\nShall the dead take thought for the dead to love them?\nWhat love was ever as deep as a grave?\nThey are loveless now as the grass above them\nOr the wave.\n\nAll are at one now, roses and lovers,\nNot known of the cliffs and the fields and the sea.\nNot a breath of the time that has been hovers\nIn the air now soft with a summer to be.\nNot a breath shall there sweeten the seasons hereafter\nOf the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep,\nWhen as they that are free now of weeping and laughter\nWe shall sleep.\n\nHere death may deal not again for ever;\nHere change may come not till all change end.\nFrom the graves they have made they shall rise up never,\nWho have left nought living to ravage and rend.\nEarth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing,\nWhile the sun and the rain live, these shall be;\nTill a last wind’s breath upon all these blowing\nRoll the sea.\n\nTill the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,\nTill terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,\nTill the strength of the waves of the high tides humble\nThe fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink,\nHere now in his triumph where all things falter,\nStretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,\nAs a god self-slain on his own strange altar,\nDeath lies dead.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1878 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -107442,10 +110729,10 @@ "title": "“The Garden of Proserpine”", "body": "Here, where the world is quiet;\nHere, where all trouble seems\nDead winds’ and spent waves’ riot\nIn doubtful dreams of dreams;\nI watch the green field growing\nFor reaping folk and sowing,\nFor harvest-time and mowing,\nA sleepy world of streams.\n\nI am tired of tears and laughter,\nAnd men that laugh and weep;\nOf what may come hereafter\nFor men that sow to reap:\nI am weary of days and hours,\nBlown buds of barren flowers,\nDesires and dreams and powers\nAnd everything but sleep.\n\nHere life has death for neighbour,\nAnd far from eye or ear\nWan waves and wet winds labour,\nWeak ships and spirits steer;\nThey drive adrift, and whither\nThey wot not who make thither;\nBut no such winds blow hither,\nAnd no such things grow here.\n\nNo growth of moor or coppice,\nNo heather-flower or vine,\nBut bloomless buds of poppies,\nGreen grapes of Proserpine,\nPale beds of blowing rushes\nWhere no leaf blooms or blushes\nSave this whereout she crushes\nFor dead men deadly wine.\n\nPale, without name or number,\nIn fruitless fields of corn,\nThey bow themselves and slumber\nAll night till light is born;\nAnd like a soul belated,\nIn hell and heaven unmated,\nBy cloud and mist abated\nComes out of darkness morn.\n\nThough one were strong as seven,\nHe too with death shall dwell,\nNor wake with wings in heaven,\nNor weep for pains in hell;\nThough one were fair as roses,\nHis beauty clouds and closes;\nAnd well though love reposes,\nIn the end it is not well.\n\nPale, beyond porch and portal,\nCrowned with calm leaves, she stands\nWho gathers all things mortal\nWith cold immortal hands;\nHer languid lips are sweeter\nThan love’s who fears to greet her\nTo men that mix and meet her\nFrom many times and lands.\n\nShe waits for each and other,\nShe waits for all men born;\nForgets the earth her mother,\nThe life of fruits and corn;\nAnd spring and seed and swallow\nTake wing for her and follow\nWhere summer song rings hollow\nAnd flowers are put to scorn.\n\nThere go the loves that wither,\nThe old loves with wearier wings;\nAnd all dead years draw thither,\nAnd all disastrous things;\nDead dreams of days forsaken,\nBlind buds that snows have shaken,\nWild leaves that winds have taken,\nRed strays of ruined springs.\n\nWe are not sure of sorrow,\nAnd joy was never sure;\nTo-day will die to-morrow;\nTime stoops to no man’s lure;\nAnd love, grown faint and fretful,\nWith lips but half regretful\nSighs, and with eyes forgetful\nWeeps that no loves endure.\n\nFrom too much love of living,\nFrom hope and fear set free,\nWe thank with brief thanksgiving\nWhatever gods may be\nThat no life lives for ever;\nThat dead men rise up never;\nThat even the weariest river\nWinds somewhere safe to sea.\n\nThen star nor sun shall waken,\nNor any change of light:\nNor sound of waters shaken,\nNor any sound or sight:\nNor wintry leaves nor vernal,\nNor days nor things diurnal;\nOnly the sleep eternal\nIn an eternal night.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -107456,10 +110743,10 @@ "title": "“Hesparia”", "body": "Out of the golden remote wild west where the sea without shore is,\nFull of the sunset, and sad, if at all, with the fulness of joy,\nAs a wind sets in with the autumn that blows from the region of stories,\nBlows with a perfume of songs and of memories beloved from a boy,\nBlows from the capes of the past oversea to the bays of the present,\nFilled as with shadow of sound with the pulse of invisible feet,\nFar out to the shallows and straits of the future, by rough ways or pleasant,\nIs it thither the wind’s wings beat? is it hither to me, O my sweet?\nFor thee, in the stream of the deep tide-wind blowing in with the water,\nThee I behold as a bird borne in with the wind from the west,\nStraight from the sunset, across white waves whence rose as a daughter\nVenus thy mother, in years when the world was a water at rest.\nOut of the distance of dreams, as a dream that abides after slumber,\nStrayed from the fugitive flock of the night, when the moon overhead\nWanes in the wan waste heights of the heaven, and stars without number\nDie without sound, and are spent like lamps that are burnt by the dead,\nComes back to me, stays by me, lulls me with touch of forgotten caresses,\nOne warm dream clad about with a fire as of life that endures;\nThe delight of thy face, and the sound of thy feet, and the wind of thy tresses,\nAnd all of a man that regrets, and all of a maid that allures.\nBut thy bosom is warm for my face and profound as a manifold flower,\nThy silence as music, thy voice as an odour that fades in a flame;\nNot a dream, not a dream is the kiss of thy mouth, and the bountiful hour\nThat makes me forget what was sin, and would make me forget were it shame.\nThine eyes that are quiet, thine hands that are tender, thy lips that are loving,\nComfort and cool me as dew in the dawn of a moon like a dream;\nAnd my heart yearns baffled and blind, moved vainly toward thee, and moving\nAs the refluent seaweed moves in the languid exuberant stream,\nFair as a rose is on earth, as a rose under water in prison,\nThat stretches and swings to the slow passionate pulse of the sea,\nClosed up from the air and the sun, but alive, as a ghost rearisen,\nPale as the love that revives as a ghost rearisen in me.\nFrom the bountiful infinite west, from the happy memorial places\nFull of the stately repose and the lordly delight of the dead,\nWhere the fortunate islands are lit with the light of ineffable faces,\nAnd the sound of a sea without wind is about them, and sunset is red,\nCome back to redeem and release me from love that recalls and represses,\nThat cleaves to my flesh as a flame, till the serpent has eaten his fill;\nFrom the bitter delights of the dark, and the feverish, the furtive caresses\nThat murder the youth in a man or ever his heart have its will.\nThy lips cannot laugh and thine eyes cannot weep; thou art pale as a rose is,\nPaler and sweeter than leaves that cover the blush of the bud;\nAnd the heart of the flower is compassion, and pity the core it encloses,\nPity, not love, that is born of the breath and decays with the blood.\nAs the cross that a wild nun clasps till the edge of it bruises her bosom,\nSo love wounds as we grasp it, and blackens and burns as a flame;\nI have loved overmuch in my life; when the live bud bursts with the blossom,\nBitter as ashes or tears is the fruit, and the wine thereof shame.\nAs a heart that its anguish divides is the green bud cloven asunder;\nAs the blood of a man self-slain is the flush of the leaves that allure;\nAnd the perfume as poison and wine to the brain, a delight and a wonder;\nAnd the thorns are too sharp for a boy, too slight for a man, to endure.\nToo soon did I love it, and lost love’s rose; and I cared not for glory’s:\nOnly the blossoms of sleep and of pleasure were mixed in my hair.\nWas it myrtle or poppy thy garland was woven with, O my Dolores?\nWas it pallor of slumber, or blush as of blood, that I found in thee fair?\nFor desire is a respite from love, and the flesh not the heart is her fuel;\nShe was sweet to me once, who am fled and escaped from the rage of her reign;\nWho behold as of old time at hand as I turn, with her mouth growing cruel,\nAnd flushed as with wine with the blood of her lovers, Our Lady of Pain.\nLow down where the thicket is thicker with thorns than with leaves in the summer,\nIn the brake is a gleaming of eyes and a hissing of tongues that I knew;\nAnd the lithe long throats of her snakes reach round her, their mouths overcome her,\nAnd her lips grow cool with their foam, made moist as a desert with dew.\nWith the thirst and the hunger of lust though her beautiful lips be so bitter,\nWith the cold foul foam of the snakes they soften and redden and smile;\nAnd her fierce mouth sweetens, her eyes wax wide and her eyelashes glitter,\nAnd she laughs with a savour of blood in her face, and a savour of guile.\nShe laughs, and her hands reach hither, her hair blows hither and hisses,\nAs a low-lit flame in a wind, back-blown till it shudder and leap;\nLet her lips not again lay hold on my soul, nor her poisonous kisses,\nTo consume it alive and divide from thy bosom, Our Lady of Sleep.\nAh daughter of sunset and slumber, if now it return into prison,\nWho shall redeem it anew? but we, if thou wilt, let us fly;\nLet us take to us, now that the white skies thrill with a moon unarisen,\nSwift horses of fear or of love, take flight and depart and not die.\nThey are swifter than dreams, they are stronger than death; there is none that hath ridden,\nNone that shall ride in the dim strange ways of his life as we ride;\nBy the meadows of memory, the highlands of hope, and the shore that is hidden,\nWhere life breaks loud and unseen, a sonorous invisible tide;\nBy the sands where sorrow has trodden, the salt pools bitter and sterile,\nBy the thundering reef and the low sea-wall and the channel of years,\nOur wild steeds press on the night, strain hard through pleasure and peril,\nLabour and listen and pant not or pause for the peril that nears;\nAnd the sound of them trampling the way cleaves night as an arrow asunder,\nAnd slow by the sand-hill and swift by the down with its glimpses of grass,\nSudden and steady the music, as eight hoofs trample and thunder,\nRings in the ear of the low blind wind of the night as we pass;\nShrill shrieks in our faces the blind bland air that was mute as a maiden,\nStung into storm by the speed of our passage, and deaf where we past;\nAnd our spirits too burn as we bound, thine holy but mine heavy-laden,\nAs we burn with the fire of our flight; ah love, shall we win at the last?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "our_lady_of_sorrows" @@ -107470,10 +110757,10 @@ "title": "“Hope and Fear”", "body": "Beneath the shadow of dawn’s aerial cope,\nWith eyes enkindled as the sun’s own sphere,\nHope from the front of youth in godlike cheer\nLooks Godward, past the shades where blind men grope\nRound the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope,\nAnd makes for joy the very darkness dear\nThat gives her wide wings play; nor dreams that fear\nAt noon may rise and pierce the heart of hope.\nThen, when the soul leaves off to dream and yearn,\nMay truth first purge her eyesight to discern\nWhat once being known leaves time no power to appal;\nTill youth at last, ere yet youth be not, learn\nThe kind wise word that falls from years that fall--\n“Hope thou not much, and fear thou not at all.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107481,10 +110768,10 @@ "title": "“Ilicet”", "body": "There is an end of joy and sorrow;\nPeace all day long, all night, all morrow,\nBut never a time to laugh or weep.\nThe end is come of pleasant places,\nThe end of tender words and faces,\nThe end of all, the poppied sleep.\n\nNo place for sound within their hearing,\nNo room to hope, no time for fearing,\nNo lips to laugh, no lids for tears.\nThe old years have run out all their measure;\nNo chance of pain, no chance of pleasure,\nNo fragment of the broken years.\n\nOutside of all the worlds and ages,\nThere where the fool is as the sage is,\nThere where the slayer is clean of blood,\nNo end, no passage, no beginning,\nThere where the sinner leaves off sinning,\nThere where the good man is not good.\n\nThere is not one thing with another,\nBut Evil saith to Good: My brother,\nMy brother, I am one with thee:\nThey shall not strive nor cry for ever:\nNo man shall choose between them: never\nShall this thing end and that thing be.\n\nWind wherein seas and stars are shaken\nShall shake them, and they shall not waken;\nNone that has lain down shall arise;\nThe stones are sealed across their places;\nOne shadow is shed on all their faces,\nOne blindness cast on all their eyes.\n\nSleep, is it sleep perchance that covers\nEach face, as each face were his lover’s?\nFarewell; as men that sleep fare well.\nThe grave’s mouth laughs unto derision\nDesire and dread and dream and vision,\nDelight of heaven and sorrow of hell.\n\nNo soul shall tell nor lip shall number\nThe names and tribes of you that slumber;\nNo memory, no memorial.\n“Thou knowest”--who shall say thou knowest?\nThere is none highest and none lowest:\nAn end, an end, an end of all.\n\nGood night, good sleep, good rest from sorrow\nTo these that shall not have good morrow;\nThe gods be gentle to all these.\nNay, if death be not, how shall they be?\nNay, is there help in heaven? it may be\nAll things and lords of things shall cease.\n\nThe stooped urn, filling, dips and flashes;\nThe bronzĂšd brims are deep in ashes;\nThe pale old lips of death are fed.\nShall this dust gather flesh hereafter?\nShall one shed tears or fall to laughter,\nAt sight of all these poor old dead?\n\nNay, as thou wilt; these know not of it;\nThine eyes’ strong weeping shall not profit,\nThy laughter shall not give thee ease;\nCry aloud, spare not, cease not crying,\nSigh, till thou cleave thy sides with sighing,\nThou shalt not raise up one of these.\n\nBurnt spices flash, and burnt wine hisses,\nThe breathing flame’s mouth curls and kisses\nThe small dried rows of frankincense;\nAll round the sad red blossoms smoulder,\nFlowers coloured like the fire, but colder,\nIn sign of sweet things taken hence;\n\nYea, for their sake and in death’s favour\nThings of sweet shape and of sweet savour\nWe yield them, spice and flower and wine;\nYea, costlier things than wine or spices,\nWhereof none knoweth how great the price is,\nAnd fruit that comes not of the vine.\n\nFrom boy’s pierced throat and girl’s pierced bosom\nDrips, reddening round the blood-red blossom,\nThe slow delicious bright soft blood,\nBathing the spices and the pyre,\nBathing the flowers and fallen fire,\nBathing the blossom by the bud.\n\nRoses whose lips the flame has deadened\nDrink till the lapping leaves are reddened\nAnd warm wet inner petals weep;\nThe flower whereof sick sleep gets leisure,\nBarren of balm and purple pleasure,\nFumes with no native steam of sleep.\n\nWhy will ye weep? what do ye weeping?\nFor waking folk and people sleeping,\nAnd sands that fill and sands that fall,\nThe days rose-red, the poppied hours,\nBlood, wine, and spice and fire and flowers,\nThere is one end of one and all.\n\nShall such an one lend love or borrow?\nShall these be sorry for thy sorrow?\nShall these give thanks for words or breath?\nTheir hate is as their loving-kindness;\nThe frontlet of their brows is blindness,\nThe armlet of their arms is death.\n\nLo, for no noise or light of thunder\nShall these grave-clothes be rent in sunder;\nHe that hath taken, shall he give?\nHe hath rent them: shall he bind together?\nHe hath bound them: shall he break the tether?\nHe hath slain them: shall he bid them live?\n\nA little sorrow, a little pleasure,\nFate metes us from the dusty measure\nThat holds the date of all of us;\nWe are born with travail and strong crying,\nAnd from the birth-day to the dying\nThe likeness of our life is thus.\n\nOne girds himself to serve another,\nWhose father was the dust, whose mother\nThe little dead red worm therein;\nThey find no fruit of things they cherish;\nThe goodness of a man shall perish,\nIt shall be one thing with his sin.\n\nIn deep wet ways by grey old gardens\nFed with sharp spring the sweet fruit hardens;\nThey know not what fruits wane or grow;\nRed summer burns to the utmost ember;\nThey know not, neither can remember,\nThe old years and flowers they used to know.\n\nAh, for their sakes, so trapped and taken,\nFor theirs, forgotten and forsaken,\nWatch, sleep not, gird thyself with prayer.\nNay, where the heart of wrath is broken,\nWhere long love ends as a thing spoken,\nHow shall thy crying enter there?\n\nThough the iron sides of the old world falter,\nThe likeness of them shall not alter\nFor all the rumour of periods,\nThe stars and seasons that come after,\nThe tears of latter men, the laughter\nOf the old unalterable gods.\n\nFar up above the years and nations,\nThe high gods, clothed and crowned with patience,\nEndure through days of deathlike date;\nThey bear the witness of things hidden;\nBefore their eyes all life stands chidden,\nAs they before the eyes of Fate.\n\nNot for their love shall Fate retire,\nNor they relent for our desire,\nNor the graves open for their call.\nThe end is more than joy and anguish,\nThan lives that laugh and lives that languish,\nThe poppied sleep, the end of all.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -107495,10 +110782,10 @@ "title": "“In the Orchard”", "body": "Leave go my hands, let me catch breath and see;\nLet the dew-fall drench either side of me;\n Clear apple-leaves are soft upon that moon\nSeen sidelong like a blossom in the tree;\n And God, ah God, that day should be so soon.\n\nThe grass is thick and cool, it lets us lie.\nKissed upon either cheek and either eye,\n I turn to thee as some green afternoon\nTurns toward sunset, and is loth to die;\n Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.\n\nLie closer, lean your face upon my side,\nFeel where the dew fell that has hardly dried,\n Hear how the blood beats that went nigh to swoon;\nThe pleasure lives there when the sense has died,\n Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.\n\nO my fair lord, I charge you leave me this:\nIt is not sweeter than a foolish kiss?\n Nay take it then, my flower, my first in June,\nMy rose, so like a tender mouth it is:\n Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.\n\nLove, till dawn sunder night from day with fire\nDividing my delight and my desire,\n The crescent life and love the plenilune,\nLove me though dusk begin and dark retire;\n Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.\n\nAh, my heart fails, my blood draws back; I know,\nWhen life runs over, life is near to go;\n And with the slain of love love’s ways are strewn,\nAnd with their blood, if love will have it so;\n Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.\n\nAh, do thy will now; slay me if thou wilt;\nThere is no building now the walls are built,\n No quarrying now the corner-stone is hewn,\nNo drinking now the vine’s whole blood is spilt;\n Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.\n\nNay, slay me now; nay, for I will be slain;\nPluck thy red pleasure from the teeth of pain,\n Break down thy vine ere yet grape-gatherers prune,\nSlay me ere day can slay desire again;\n Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.\n\nYea, with thy sweet lips, with thy sweet sword; yea\nTake life and all, for I will die, I say;\n Love, I gave love, is life a better boon?\nFor sweet night’s sake I will not live till day;\n Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.\n\nNay, I will sleep then only; nay, but go.\nAh sweet, too sweet to me, my sweet, I know\n Love, sleep, and death go to the sweet same tune;\nHold my hair fast, and kiss me through it soon.\n Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -107509,12 +110796,12 @@ "title": "“Inferiae”", "body": "Spring, and the light and sound of things on earth\nRequickening, all within our green sea’s girth;\nA time of passage or a time of birth\n Fourscore years since as this year, first and last.\n\nThe sun is all about the world we see,\nThe breath and strength of very spring; and we\nLive, love, and feed on our own hearts; but he\n Whose heart fed mine has passed into the past.\n\nPast, all things born with sense and blood and breath;\nThe flesh hears nought that now the spirit saith.\nIf death be like as birth and birth as death,\n The first was fair--more fair should be the last.\n\nFourscore years since, and come but one month more\nThe count were perfect of his mortal score\nWhose sail went seaward yesterday from shore\n To cross the last of many an unsailed sea.\n\nLight, love and labour up to life’s last height,\nThese three were stars unsetting in his sight;\nEven as the sun is life and heat and light\n And sets not nor is dark when dark are we.\n\nThe life, the spirit, and the work were one\nThat here--ah, who shall say, that here are done?\nNot I, that know not; father, not thy son,\n For all the darkness of the night and sea.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1877, "month": "march", "day": 5 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -107526,10 +110813,10 @@ "title": "“An Interlude”", "body": "In the greenest growth of the Maytime,\nI rode where the woods were wet,\nBetween the dawn and the daytime;\nThe spring was glad that we met.\n\nThere was something the season wanted,\nThough the ways and the woods smelt sweet;\nThe breath at your lips that panted,\nThe pulse of the grass at your feet.\n\nYou came, and the sun came after,\nAnd the green grew golden above;\nAnd the flag-flowers lightened with laughter,\nAnd the meadow-sweet shook with love.\n\nYour feet in the full-grown grasses\nMoved soft as a weak wind blows;\nYou passed me as April passes,\nWith face made out of a rose.\n\nBy the stream where the stems were slender,\nYour bright foot paused at the sedge;\nIt might be to watch the tender\nLight leaves in the springtime hedge,\n\nOn boughs that the sweet month blanches\nWith flowery frost of May:\nIt might be a bird in the branches,\nIt might be a thorn in the way.\n\nI waited to watch you linger\nWith foot drawn back from the dew,\nTill a sunbeam straight like a finger\nStruck sharp through the leaves at you.\n\nAnd a bird overhead sang _Follow_,\nAnd a bird to the right sang _Here_;\nAnd the arch of the leaves was hollow,\nAnd the meaning of May was clear.\n\nI saw where the sun’s hand pointed,\nI knew what the bird’s note said;\nBy the dawn and the dewfall anointed,\nYou were queen by the gold on your head.\n\nAs the glimpse of a burnt-out ember\nRecalls a regret of the sun,\nI remember, forget, and remember\nWhat Love saw done and undone.\n\nI remember the way we parted,\nThe day and the way we met;\nYou hoped we were both broken-hearted,\nAnd knew we should both forget.\n\nAnd May with her world in flower\nSeemed still to murmur and smile\nAs you murmured and smiled for an hour;\nI saw you turn at the stile.\n\nA hand like a white wood-blossom\nYou lifted, and waved, and passed,\nWith head hung down to the bosom,\nAnd pale, as it seemed, at last.\n\nAnd the best and the worst of this is\nThat neither is most to blame\nIf you’ve forgotten my kisses\nAnd I’ve forgotten your name.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -107540,10 +110827,10 @@ "title": "“Kissing Her Hair”", "body": "Kissing her hair I sat against her feet,\nWove and unwove it, wound and found it sweet;\nMade fast therewith her hands, drew down her eyes,\nDeep as deep flowers and dreamy like dim skies;\nWith her own tresses bound and found her fair,\n Kissing her hair.\n\nSleep were no sweeter than her face to me,\nSleep of cold sea-bloom under the cold sea;\nWhat pain could get between my face and hers?\nWhat new sweet thing would love not relish worse?\nUnless, perhaps, white death had kissed me there,\n Kissing her hair?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107551,10 +110838,10 @@ "title": "“A Lamentation”", "body": "# I.\n\nWho hath known the ways of time\nOr trodden behind his feet?\n There is no such man among men.\nFor chance overcomes him, or crime\nChanges; for all things sweet\n In time wax bitter again.\nWho shall give sorrow enough,\nOr who the abundance of tears?\nMine eyes are heavy with love\nAnd a sword gone thorough mine ears,\n A sound like a sword and fire,\n For pity, for great desire;\nWho shall ensure me thereof,\nLest I die, being full of my fears?\n\nWho hath known the ways and the wrath,\nThe sleepless spirit, the root\n And blossom of evil will,\n The divine device of a god?\nWho shall behold it or hath?\nThe twice-tongued prophets are mute,\n The many speakers are still;\n No foot has travelled or trod,\nNo hand has meted, his path.\nMan’s fate is a blood-red fruit,\n And the mighty gods have their fill\n And relax not the rein, or the rod.\n\nYe were mighty in heart from of old,\nYe slew with the spear, and are slain.\nKeen after heat is the cold,\nSore after summer is rain,\nAnd melteth man to the bone.\nAs water he weareth away,\nAs a flower, as an hour in a day,\nFallen from laughter to moan.\nBut my spirit is shaken with fear\nLest an evil thing begin,\nNew-born, a spear for a spear,\nAnd one for another sin.\nOr ever our tears began,\nIt was known from of old and said;\nOne law for a living man,\nAnd another law for the dead.\nFor these are fearful and sad,\nVain, and things without breath;\n While he lives let a man be glad,\n For none hath joy of his death.\n\n\n# II.\n\nWho hath known the pain, the old pain of earth,\nOr all the travail of the sea,\nThe many ways and waves, the birth\nFruitless, the labour nothing worth?\nWho hath known, who knoweth, O gods? not we.\nThere is none shall say he hath seen,\nThere is none he hath known.\nThough he saith, Lo, a lord have I been,\nI have reaped and sown;\nI have seen the desire of mine eyes,\nThe beginning of love,\nThe season of kisses and sighs\nAnd the end thereof.\nI have known the ways of the sea,\nAll the perilous ways,\nStrange winds have spoken with me,\nAnd the tongues of strange days.\nI have hewn the pine for ships;\nWhere steeds run arow,\nI have seen from their bridled lips\nFoam blown as the snow.\nWith snapping of chariot-poles\nAnd with straining of oars\nI have grazed in the race the goals,\nIn the storm the shores;\nAs a greave is cleft with an arrow\nAt the joint of the knee,\nI have cleft through the sea-straits narrow\nTo the heart of the sea.\nWhen air was smitten in sunder\nI have watched on high\nThe ways of the stars and the thunder\nIn the night of the sky;\nWhere the dark brings forth light as a flower,\nAs from lips that dissever;\nOne abideth the space of an hour,\nOne endureth for ever.\nLo, what hath he seen or known,\nOf the way and the wave\nUnbeholden, unsailed on, unsown,\nFrom the breast to the grave?\n\nOr ever the stars were made, or skies,\nGrief was born, and the kinless night,\n Mother of gods without form or name.\nAnd light is born out of heaven and dies,\nAnd one day knows not another’s light,\n But night is one, and her shape the same.\n\nBut dumb the goddesses underground\nWait, and we hear not on earth if their feet\n Rise, and the night wax loud with their wings;\nDumb, without word or shadow of sound;\nAnd sift in scales and winnow as wheat\n Men’s souls, and sorrow of manifold things.\n\n\n# III.\n\nNor less of grief than ours\nThe gods wrought long ago\n To bruise men one by one;\nBut with the incessant hours\nFresh grief and greener woe\n Spring, as the sudden sun\nYear after year makes flowers;\nAnd these die down and grow,\n And the next year lacks none.\n\nAs these men sleep, have slept\nThe old heroes in time fled,\n No dream-divided sleep;\nAnd holier eyes have wept\nThan ours, when on her dead\n Gods have seen Thetis weep,\nWith heavenly hair far-swept\nBack, heavenly hands outspread\n Round what she could not keep,\n\nCould not one day withhold,\nOne night; and like as these\n White ashes of no weight,\nHeld not his urn the cold\nAshes of Heracles?\n For all things born one gate\nOpens, no gate of gold;\nOpens; and no man sees\n Beyond the gods and fate.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107565,10 +110852,10 @@ "tags": [ "favorite" ], + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "context": { "liturgy": "advent" } @@ -107578,10 +110865,10 @@ "title": "“A Leave-Taking”", "body": "Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear.\nLet us go hence together without fear;\nKeep silence now, for singing-time is over,\nAnd over all old things and all things dear.\nShe loves not you nor me as all we love her.\nYea, though we sang as angels in her ear,\nShe would not hear.\n\nLet us rise up and part; she will not know.\nLet us go seaward as the great winds go,\nFull of blown sand and foam; what help is here?\nThere is no help, for all these things are so,\nAnd all the world is bitter as a tear.\nAnd how these things are, though ye strove to show,\nShe would not know.\n\nLet us go home and hence; she will not weep.\nWe gave love many dreams and days to keep,\nFlowers without scent, and fruits that would not grow,\nSaying “If thou wilt, thrust in thy sickle and reap.”\nAll is reaped now; no grass is left to mow;\nAnd we that sowed, though all we fell on sleep,\nShe would not weep.\n\nLet us go hence and rest; she will not love.\nShe shall not hear us if we sing hereof,\nNor see love’s ways, how sore they are and steep.\nCome hence, let be, lie still; it is enough.\nLove is a barren sea, bitter and deep;\nAnd though she saw all heaven in flower above,\nShe would not love.\n\nLet us give up, go down; she will not care.\nThough all the stars made gold of all the air,\nAnd the sea moving saw before it move\nOne moon-flower making all the foam-flowers fair;\nThough all those waves went over us, and drove\nDeep down the stifling lips and drowning hair,\nShe would not care.\n\nLet us go hence, go hence; she will not see.\nSing all once more together; surely she,\nShe too, remembering days and words that were,\nWill turn a little toward us, sighing; but we,\nWe are hence, we are gone, as though we had not been there.\nNay, and though all men seeing had pity on me,\nShe would not see.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -107592,10 +110879,10 @@ "title": "“The Leper”", "body": "Nothing is better, I well think,\nThan love; the hidden well-water\nIs not so delicate to drink:\nThis was well seen of me and her.\n\nI served her in a royal house;\nI served her wine and curious meat.\nFor will to kiss between her brows,\nI had no heart to sleep or eat.\n\nMere scorn God knows she had of me,\nA poor scribe, nowise great or fair,\nWho plucked his clerk’s hood back to see\nHer curled-up lips and amorous hair.\n\nI vex my head with thinking this.\nYea, though God always hated me,\nAnd hates me now that I can kiss\nHer eyes, plait up her hair to see\n\nHow she then wore it on the brows,\nYet am I glad to have her dead\nHere in this wretched wattled house\nWhere I can kiss her eyes and head.\n\nNothing is better, I well know,\nThan love; no amber in cold sea\nOr gathered berries under snow:\nThat is well seen of her and me.\n\nThree thoughts I make my pleasure of:\nFirst I take heart and think of this:\nThat knight’s gold hair she chose to love,\nHis mouth she had such will to kiss.\n\nThen I remember that sundawn\nI brought him by a privy way\nOut at her lattice, and thereon\nWhat gracious words she found to say.\n\n(Cold rushes for such little feet--\nBoth feet could lie into my hand.\nA marvel was it of my sweet\nHer upright body could so stand.)\n\n“Sweet friend, God give you thank and grace;\nNow am I clean and whole of shame,\nNor shall men burn me in the face\nFor my sweet fault that scandals them.”\n\nI tell you over word by word.\nShe, sitting edgewise on her bed,\nHolding her feet, said thus. The third,\nA sweeter thing than these, I said.\n\nGod, that makes time and ruins it\nAnd alters not, abiding God,\nChanged with disease her body sweet,\nThe body of love wherein she abode.\n\nLove is more sweet and comelier\nThan a dove’s throat strained out to sing.\nAll they spat out and cursed at her\nAnd cast her forth for a base thing.\n\nThey cursed her, seeing how God had wrought\nThis curse to plague her, a curse of his.\nFools were they surely, seeing not\nHow sweeter than all sweet she is.\n\nHe that had held her by the hair,\nWith kissing lips blinding her eyes,\nFelt her bright bosom, strained and bare,\nSigh under him, with short mad cries\n\nOut of her throat and sobbing mouth\nAnd body broken up with love,\nWith sweet hot tears his lips were loth\nHer own should taste the savour of,\n\nYea, he inside whose grasp all night\nHer fervent body leapt or lay,\nStained with sharp kisses red and white,\nFound her a plague to spurn away.\n\nI hid her in this wattled house,\nI served her water and poor bread.\nFor joy to kiss between her brows\nTime upon time I was nigh dead.\n\nBread failed; we got but well-water\nAnd gathered grass with dropping seed.\nI had such joy of kissing her,\nI had small care to sleep or feed.\n\nSometimes when service made me glad\nThe sharp tears leapt between my lids,\nFalling on her, such joy I had\nTo do the service God forbids.\n\n“I pray you let me be at peace,\nGet hence, make room for me to die.”\nShe said that: her poor lip would cease,\nPut up to mine, and turn to cry.\n\nI said, “Bethink yourself how love\nFared in us twain, what either did;\nShall I unclothe my soul thereof?\nThat I should do this, God forbid.”\n\nYea, though God hateth us, he knows\nThat hardly in a little thing\nLove faileth of the work it does\nTill it grow ripe for gathering.\n\nSix months, and now my sweet is dead\nA trouble takes me; I know not\nIf all were done well, all well said,\nNo word or tender deed forgot.\n\nToo sweet, for the least part in her,\nTo have shed life out by fragments; yet,\nCould the close mouth catch breath and stir,\nI might see something I forget.\n\nSix months, and I sit still and hold\nIn two cold palms her cold two feet.\nHer hair, half grey half ruined gold,\nThrills me and burns me in kissing it.\n\nLove bites and stings me through, to see\nHer keen face made of sunken bones.\nHer worn-off eyelids madden me,\nThat were shot through with purple once.\n\nShe said, “Be good with me; I grow\nSo tired for shame’s sake, I shall die\nIf you say nothing:” even so.\nAnd she is dead now, and shame put by.\n\nYea, and the scorn she had of me\nIn the old time, doubtless vexed her then.\nI never should have kissed her. See\nWhat fools God’s anger makes of men!\n\nShe might have loved me a little too,\nHad I been humbler for her sake.\nBut that new shame could make love new\nShe saw not--yet her shame did make.\n\nI took too much upon my love,\nHaving for such mean service done\nHer beauty and all the ways thereof,\nHer face and all the sweet thereon.\n\nYea, all this while I tended her,\nI know the old love held fast his part:\nI know the old scorn waxed heavier,\nMixed with sad wonder, in her heart.\n\nIt may be all my love went wrong--\nA scribe’s work writ awry and blurred,\nScrawled after the blind evensong--\nSpoilt music with no perfect word.\n\nBut surely I would fain have done\nAll things the best I could. Perchance\nBecause I failed, came short of one,\nShe kept at heart that other man’s.\n\nI am grown blind with all these things:\nIt may be now she hath in sight\nSome better knowledge; still there clings\nThe old question. Will not God do right?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107603,10 +110890,10 @@ "title": "“Les Noyades”", "body": "Whatever a man of the sons of men\nShall say to his heart of the lords above,\nThey have shown man verily, once and again,\nMarvellous mercies and infinite love.\n\nIn the wild fifth year of the change of things,\nWhen France was glorious and blood-red, fair\nWith dust of battle and deaths of kings,\nA queen of men, with helmeted hair,\n\nCarrier came down to the Loire and slew,\nTill all the ways and the waves waxed red:\nBound and drowned, slaying two by two,\nMaidens and young men, naked and wed.\n\nThey brought on a day to his judgment-place\nOne rough with labour and red with fight,\nAnd a lady noble by name and face,\nFaultless, a maiden, wonderful, white.\n\nShe knew not, being for shame’s sake blind,\nIf his eyes were hot on her face hard by.\nAnd the judge bade strip and ship them, and bind\nBosom to bosom, to drown and die.\n\nThe white girl winced and whitened; but he\nCaught fire, waxed bright as a great bright flame\nSeen with thunder far out on the sea,\nLaughed hard as the glad blood went and came.\n\nTwice his lips quailed with delight, then said,\n“I have but a word to you all, one word;\nBear with me; surely I am but dead”;\nAnd all they laughed and mocked him and heard.\n\n“Judge, when they open the judgment-roll,\nI will stand upright before God and pray:\n‘Lord God, have mercy on one man’s soul,\nFor his mercy was great upon earth, I say.’”\n\n“‘Lord, if I loved thee--Lord, if I served--\nIf these who darkened thy fair Son’s face\nI fought with, sparing not one, nor swerved\nA hand’s-breadth, Lord, in the perilous place--’”\n\n“‘I pray thee say to this man, O Lord,\n_Sit thou for him at my feet on a throne_.\nI will face thy wrath, though it bite as a sword,\nAnd my soul shall burn for his soul, and atone.’”\n\n“‘For, Lord, thou knowest, O God most wise,\nHow gracious on earth were his deeds towards me.\nShall this be a small thing in thine eyes,\nThat is greater in mine than the whole great sea?’”\n\n“I have loved this woman my whole life long,\nAnd even for love’s sake when have I said\n‘I love you’? when have I done you wrong,\nLiving? but now I shall have you dead.”\n\n“Yea, now, do I bid you love me, love?\nLove me or loathe, we are one not twain.\nBut God be praised in his heaven above\nFor this my pleasure and that my pain!”\n\n“For never a man, being mean like me,\nShall die like me till the whole world dies.\nI shall drown with her, laughing for love; and she\nMix with me, touching me, lips and eyes.”\n\n“Shall she not know me and see me all through,\nMe, on whose heart as a worm she trod?\nYou have given me, God requite it you,\nWhat man yet never was given of God.”\n\nO sweet one love, O my life’s delight,\nDear, though the days have divided us,\nLost beyond hope, taken far out of sight,\nNot twice in the world shall the gods do thus.\n\nHad it been so hard for my love? but I,\nThough the gods gave all that a god can give,\nI had chosen rather the gift to die,\nCease, and be glad above all that live.\n\nFor the Loire would have driven us down to the sea,\nAnd the sea would have pitched us from shoal to shoal;\nAnd I should have held you, and you held me,\nAs flesh holds flesh, and the soul the soul.\n\nCould I change you, help you to love me, sweet,\nCould I give you the love that would sweeten death,\nWe should yield, go down, locked hands and feet,\nDie, drown together, and breath catch breath;\n\nBut you would have felt my soul in a kiss,\nAnd known that once if I loved you well;\nAnd I would have given my soul for this\nTo burn for ever in burning hell.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -107617,10 +110904,10 @@ "title": "“Love and Sleep”", "body": "Lying asleep between the strokes of night\n I saw my love lean over my sad bed,\n Pale as the duskiest lily’s leaf or head,\nSmooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,\nToo wan for blushing and too warm for white,\n But perfect-coloured without white or red.\n And her lips opened amorously, and said--\nI wist not what, saving one word--Delight.\n\nAnd all her face was honey to my mouth,\n And all her body pasture to mine eyes;\n The long lithe arms and hotter hands than fire,\nThe quivering flanks, hair smelling of the south,\n The bright light feet, the splendid supple thighs\n And glittering eyelids of my soul’s desire.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107628,10 +110915,10 @@ "title": "“Love Lies Bleeding”", "body": "Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover\nRoses lean with smiling mouths or pleading:\nEarth lies laughing where the sun’s dart clove her:\n Love lies bleeding.\n\nStately shine his purple plumes, exceeding\nPride of princes: nor shall maid or lover\nFind on earth a fairer sign worth heeding.\n\nYet may love, sore wounded scarce recover\nStrength and spirit again, with life receding:\nHope and joy, wind-winged, about him hover:\n Love lies bleeding.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107639,10 +110926,10 @@ "title": "“March”", "body": "Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and the splendour of winter had passed out of sight,\nThe ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that fulfil us in sleep with delight;\nThe breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and branches that glittered and swayed\nSuch wonders and glories of blossomlike snow or of frost that outlightens all flowers till it fade\nThat the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night than the day, nor the day than the night,\nNor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had the madness and might in thee made,\nMarch, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that enkindle the season they smite.\n\nAnd now that the rage of thy rapture is satiate with revel and ravin and spoil of the snow,\nAnd the branches it brightened are broken, and shattered the tree-tops that only thy wrath could lay low,\nHow should not thy lovers rejoice in thee, leader and lord of the year that exults to be born\nSo strong in thy strength and so glad of thy gladness whose laughter puts winter and sorrow to scorn?\nThou hast shaken the snows from thy wings, and the frost on thy forehead is molten: thy lips are aglow\nAs a lover’s that kindle with kissing, and earth, with her raiment and tresses yet wasted and torn,\nTakes breath as she smiles in the grasp of thy passion to feel through her spirit the sense of thee flow.\n\nFain, fain would we see but again for an hour what the wind and the sun have dispelled and consumed,\nThose full deep swan-soft feathers of snow with whose luminous burden the branches implumed\nHung heavily, curved as a half-bent bow, and fledged not as birds are, but petalled as flowers,\nEach tree-top and branchlet a pinnacle jewelled and carved, or a fountain that shines as it showers,\nBut fixed as a fountain is fixed not, and wrought not to last till by time or by tempest entombed,\nAs a pinnacle carven and gilded of men: for the date of its doom is no more than an hour’s,\nOne hour of the sun’s when the warm wind wakes him to wither the snow-flowers that froze as they bloomed.\n\nAs the sunshine quenches the snowshine; as April subdues thee, and yields up his kingdom to May;\nSo time overcomes the regret that is born of delight as it passes in passion away,\nAnd leaves but a dream for desire to rejoice in or mourn for with tears or thanksgivings; but thou,\nBright god that art gone from us, maddest and gladdest of months, to what goal hast thou gone from us now?\nFor somewhere surely the storm of thy laughter that lightens, the beat of thy wings that play,\nMust flame as a fire through the world, and the heavens that we know not rejoice in thee: surely thy brow\nHath lost not its radiance of empire, thy spirit the joy that impelled it on quest as for prey.\n\nAre thy feet on the ways of the limitless waters, thy wings on the winds of the waste north sea?\nAre the fires of the false north dawn over heavens where summer is stormful and strong like thee\nNow bright in the sight of thine eyes? are the bastions of icebergs assailed by the blast of thy breath?\nIs it March with the wild north world when April is waning? the word that the changed year saith,\nIs it echoed to northward with rapture of passion reiterate from spirits triumphant as we\nWhose hearts were uplift at the blast of thy clarions as men’s rearisen from a sleep that was death\nAnd kindled to life that was one with the world’s and with thine? hast thou set not the whole world free?\n\nFor the breath of thy lips is freedom, and freedom’s the sense of thy spirit, the sound of thy song,\nGlad god of the north-east wind, whose heart is as high as the hands of thy kingdom are strong,\nThy kingdom whose empire is terror and joy, twin-featured and fruitful of births divine,\nDays lit with the flame of the lamps of the flowers, and nights that are drunken with dew for wine,\nAnd sleep not for joy of the stars that deepen and quicken, a denser and fierier throng,\nAnd the world that thy breath bade whiten and tremble rejoices at heart as they strengthen and shine,\nAnd earth gives thanks for the glory bequeathed her, and knows of thy reign that it wrought not wrong.\n\nThy spirit is quenched not, albeit we behold not thy face in the crown of the steep sky’s arch,\nAnd the bold first buds of the whin wax golden, and witness arise of the thorn and the larch:\nWild April, enkindled to laughter and storm by the kiss of the wildest of winds that blow,\nCalls loud on his brother for witness; his hands that were laden with blossom are sprinkled with snow,\nAnd his lips breathe winter, and laugh, and relent; and the live woods feel not the frost’s flame parch;\nFor the flame of the spring that consumes not but quickens is felt at the heart of the forest aglow,\nAnd the sparks that enkindled and fed it were strewn from the hands of the gods of the winds of March.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -107654,10 +110941,10 @@ "title": "“A Match”", "body": "If love were what the rose is,\nAnd I were like the leaf,\nOur lives would grow together\nIn sad or singing weather,\nBlown fields or flowerful closes,\nGreen pleasure or gray grief;\nIf love were what the rose is,\nAnd I were like the leaf.\n\nIf I were what the words are,\nAnd love were like the tune,\nWith double sound and single\nDelight our lips would mingle,\nWith kisses glad as birds are\nThat get sweet rain at noon;\nIf I were what the words are,\nAnd love were like the tune.\n\nIf you were life, my darling,\nAnd I your love were death,\nWe’d shine and snow together\nEre March made sweet the weather\nWith daffodil and starling\nAnd hours of fruitful breath;\nIf you were life, my darling,\nAnd I your love were death.\n\nIf you were thrall to sorrow,\nAnd I were page to joy,\nWe’d play for lives and seasons\nWith loving looks and treasons\nAnd tears of night and morrow\nAnd laughs of maid and boy;\nIf you were thrall to sorrow,\nAnd I were page to joy.\n\nIf you were April’s lady,\nAnd I were lord in May,\nWe’d throw with leaves for hours\nAnd draw for days with flowers,\nTill day like night were shady\nAnd night were bright like day;\nIf you were April’s lady,\nAnd I were lord in May.\n\nIf you were queen of pleasure,\nAnd I were king of pain,\nWe’d hunt down love together,\nPluck out his flying-feather,\nAnd teach his feet a measure,\nAnd find his mouth a rein;\nIf you were queen of pleasure,\nAnd I were king of pain.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", @@ -107669,10 +110956,10 @@ "title": "“The Oblation”", "body": "Ask nothing more of me, sweet;\n All I can give you I give.\n Heart of my heart, were it more,\nMore would be laid at your feet--\n Love that should help you to live,\n Song that should spur you to soar.\n\nAll things were nothing to give,\n Once to have sense of you more,\n Touch you and taste of you, sweet,\nThink you and breathe you and live,\n Swept of your wings as they soar,\n Trodden by chance of your feet.\n\nI that have love and no more\n Give you but love of you, sweet.\n He that hath more, let him give;\nHe that hath wings, let him soar;\n Mine is the heart at your feet\n Here, that must love you to live.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107680,10 +110967,10 @@ "title": "“The Pilgrims”", "body": "Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass\nSinging? and is it for sorrow of that which was\n That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?\n For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing.\n--Our lady of love by you is unbeholden;\nFor hands she hath none, nor eyes, nor lips, nor golden\n Treasure of hair, nor face nor form; but we\n That love, we know her more fair than anything.\n\n--Is she a queen, having great gifts to give?\n--Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live\n Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain,\n Travail and bloodshedding and bitterer tears;\nAnd when she bids die he shall surely die.\nAnd he shall leave all things under the sky\n And go forth naked under sun and rain\n And work and wait and watch out all his years.\n\n--Hath she on earth no place of habitation?\n--Age to age calling, nation answering nation,\n Cries out, Where is she? and there is none to say;\n For if she be not in the spirit of men,\nFor if in the inward soul she hath no place,\nIn vain they cry unto her, seeking her face,\n In vain their mouths make much of her; for they\n Cry with vain tongues, till the heart lives again.\n\n--O ye that follow, and have ye no repentance?\nFor on your brows is written a mortal sentence,\n An hieroglyph of sorrow, a fiery sign,\n That in your lives ye shall not pause or rest,\nNor have the sure sweet common love, nor keep\nFriends and safe days, nor joy of life nor sleep.\n --These have we not, who have one thing, the divine\n Face and clear eyes of faith and fruitful breast.\n\n--And ye shall die before your thrones be won.\n--Yea, and the changed world and the liberal sun\n Shall move and shine without us, and we lie\n Dead; but if she too move on earth and live,\nBut if the old world with all the old irons rent\nLaugh and give thanks, shall we be not content?\n Nay, we shall rather live, we shall not die,\n Life being so little and death so good to give.\n\n--And these men shall forget you.--Yea, but we\nShall be a part of the earth and the ancient sea,\n And heaven-high air august, and awful fire,\n And all things good; and no man’s heart shall beat\nBut somewhat in it of our blood once shed\nShall quiver and quicken, as now in us the dead\n Blood of men slain and the old same life’s desire\n Plants in their fiery footprints our fresh feet.\n\n--But ye that might be clothed with all things pleasant,\nYe are foolish that put off the fair soft present,\n That clothe yourselves with the cold future air;\n When mother and father and tender sister and brother\nAnd the old live love that was shall be as ye,\nDust, and no fruit of loving life shall be.\n --She shall be yet who is more than all these were,\n Than sister or wife or father unto us or mother.\n\n--Is this worth life, is this, to win for wages?\nLo, the dead mouths of the awful grey-grown ages,\n The venerable, in the past that is their prison,\n In the outer darkness, in the unopening grave,\nLaugh, knowing how many as ye now say have said,\nHow many, and all are fallen, are fallen and dead:\n Shall ye dead rise, and these dead have not risen?\n --Not we but she, who is tender and swift to save.\n\n--Are ye not weary and faint not by the way,\nSeeing night by night devoured of day by day,\n Seeing hour by hour consumed in sleepless fire?\n Sleepless: and ye too, when shall ye too sleep?\n--We are weary in heart and head, in hands and feet,\nAnd surely more than all things sleep were sweet,\n Than all things save the inexorable desire\n Which whoso knoweth shall neither faint nor weep.\n\n--Is this so sweet that one were fain to follow?\nIs this so sure where all men’s hopes are hollow.\n Even this your dream, that by much tribulation\n Ye shall make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight?\n--Nay, though our life were blind, our death were fruitless,\nNot therefore were the whole world’s high hope rootless;\n But man to man, nation would turn to nation,\n And the old life live, and the old great world be great.\n\n--Pass on then and pass by us and let us be,\nFor what light think ye after life to see?\n And if the world fare better will ye know?\n And if man triumph who shall seek you and say?\n--Enough of light is this for one life’s span,\nThat all men born are mortal, but not man:\n And we men bring death lives by night to sow,\n That man may reap and eat and live by day.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107691,10 +110978,10 @@ "title": "“Prelude”", "body": "Between the green bud and the red\nYouth sat and sang by Time, and shed\n From eyes and tresses flowers and tears,\n From heart and spirit hopes and fears,\nUpon the hollow stream whose bed\n Is channelled by the foamless years;\nAnd with the white the gold-haired head\n Mixed running locks, and in Time’s ears\nYouth’s dreams hung singing, and Time’s truth\nWas half not harsh in the ears of Youth.\n\nBetween the bud and the blown flower\nYouth talked with joy and grief an hour,\n With footless joy and wingless grief\n And twin-born faith and disbelief\nWho share the seasons to devour;\n And long ere these made up their sheaf\nFelt the winds round him shake and shower\n The rose-red and the blood-red leaf,\nDelight whose germ grew never grain,\nAnd passion dyed in its own pain.\n\nThen he stood up, and trod to dust\nFear and desire, mistrust and trust,\n And dreams of bitter sleep and sweet,\n And bound for sandals on his feet\nKnowledge and patience of what must\n And what things may be, in the heat\nAnd cold of years that rot and rust\n And alter; and his spirit’s meat\nWas freedom, and his staff was wrought\nOf strength, and his cloak woven of thought.\n\nFor what has he whose will sees clear\nTo do with doubt and faith and fear,\n Swift hopes and slow despondencies?\n His heart is equal with the sea’s\nAnd with the sea-wind’s, and his ear\n Is level to the speech of these,\nAnd his soul communes and takes cheer\n With the actual earth’s equalities,\nAir, light, and night, hills, winds, and streams,\nAnd seeks not strength from strengthless dreams.\n\nHis soul is even with the sun\nWhose spirit and whose eye are one,\n Who seeks not stars by day, nor light\n And heavy heat of day by night.\nHim can no God cast down, whom none\n Can lift in hope beyond the height\nOf fate and nature and things done\n By the calm rule of might and right\nThat bids men be and bear and do,\nAnd die beneath blind skies or blue.\n\nTo him the lights of even and morn\nSpeak no vain things of love or scorn,\n Fancies and passions miscreate\n By man in things dispassionate.\nNor holds he fellowship forlorn\n With souls that pray and hope and hate,\nAnd doubt they had better not been born,\n And fain would lure or scare off fate\nAnd charm their doomsman from their doom\nAnd make fear dig its own false tomb.\n\nHe builds not half of doubts and half\nOf dreams his own soul’s cenotaph,\n Whence hopes and fears with helpless eyes,\n Wrapt loose in cast-off cerecloths, rise\nAnd dance and wring their hands and laugh,\n And weep thin tears and sigh light sighs,\nAnd without living lips would quaff\n The living spring in man that lies,\nAnd drain his soul of faith and strength\nIt might have lived on a life’s length.\n\nHe hath given himself and hath not sold\nTo God for heaven or man for gold,\n Or grief for comfort that it gives,\n Or joy for grief’s restoratives.\nHe hath given himself to time, whose fold\n Shuts in the mortal flock that lives\nOn its plain pasture’s heat and cold\n And the equal year’s alternatives.\nEarth, heaven, and time, death, life, and he,\nEndure while they shall be to be.\n\n“Yet between death and life are hours\nTo flush with love and hide in flowers;\n What profit save in these?” men cry:\n “Ah, see, between soft earth and sky,\nWhat only good things here are ours!”\n They say, “what better wouldst thou try,\nWhat sweeter sing of? or what powers\n Serve, that will give thee ere thou die\nMore joy to sing and be less sad,\nMore heart to play and grow more glad?”\n\nPlay then and sing; we too have played,\nWe likewise, in that subtle shade.\n We too have twisted through our hair\n Such tendrils as the wild Loves wear,\nAnd heard what mirth the MĂŠnads made,\n Till the wind blew our garlands bare\nAnd left their roses disarrayed,\n And smote the summer with strange air,\nAnd disengirdled and discrowned\nThe limbs and locks that vine-wreaths bound.\n\nWe too have tracked by star-proof trees\nThe tempest of the Thyiades\n Scare the loud night on hills that hid\n The blood-feasts of the Bassarid,\nHeard their song’s iron cadences\n Fright the wolf hungering from the kid,\nOutroar the lion-throated seas,\n Outchide the north-wind if it chid,\nAnd hush the torrent-tongued ravines\nWith thunders of their tambourines.\n\nBut the fierce flute whose notes acclaim\nDim goddesses of fiery fame,\n Cymbal and clamorous kettledrum,\n Timbrels and tabrets, all are dumb\nThat turned the high chill air to flame;\n The singing tongues of fire are numb\nThat called on Cotys by her name\n Edonian, till they felt her come\nAnd maddened, and her mystic face\nLightened along the streams of Thrace.\n\nFor Pleasure slumberless and pale,\nAnd Passion with rejected veil,\n Pass, and the tempest-footed throng\n Of hours that follow them with song\nTill their feet flag and voices fail,\n And lips that were so loud so long\nLearn silence, or a wearier wail;\n So keen is change, and time so strong,\nTo weave the robes of life and rend\nAnd weave again till life have end.\n\nBut weak is change, but strengthless time,\nTo take the light from heaven, or climb\n The hills of heaven with wasting feet.\n Songs they can stop that earth found meet,\nBut the stars keep their ageless rhyme;\n Flowers they can slay that spring thought sweet,\nBut the stars keep their spring sublime;\n Passions and pleasures can defeat,\nActions and agonies control,\nAnd life and death, but not the soul.\n\nBecause man’s soul is man’s God still,\nWhat wind soever waft his will\n Across the waves of day and night\n To port or shipwreck, left or right,\nBy shores and shoals of good and ill;\n And still its flame at mainmast height\nThrough the rent air that foam-flakes fill\n Sustains the indomitable light\nWhence only man hath strength to steer\nOr helm to handle without fear.\n\nSave his own soul’s light overhead,\nNone leads him, and none ever led,\n Across birth’s hidden harbour-bar,\n Past youth where shoreward shallows are,\nThrough age that drives on toward the red\n Vast void of sunset hailed from far,\nTo the equal waters of the dead;\n Save his own soul he hath no star,\nAnd sinks, except his own soul guide,\nHelmless in middle turn of tide.\n\nNo blast of air or fire of sun\nPuts out the light whereby we run\n With girded loins our lamplit race,\n And each from each takes heart of grace\nAnd spirit till his turn be done,\n And light of face from each man’s face\nIn whom the light of trust is one;\n Since only souls that keep their place\nBy their own light, and watch things roll,\nAnd stand, have light for any soul.\n\nA little time we gain from time\nTo set our seasons in some chime,\n For harsh or sweet or loud or low,\n With seasons played out long ago\nAnd souls that in their time and prime\n Took part with summer or with snow,\nLived abject lives out or sublime,\n And had their chance of seed to sow\nFor service or disservice done\nTo those days daed and this their son.\n\nA little time that we may fill\nOr with such good works or such ill\n As loose the bonds or make them strong\n Wherein all manhood suffers wrong.\nBy rose-hung river and light-foot rill\n There are who rest not; who think long\nTill they discern as from a hill\n At the sun’s hour of morning song,\nKnown of souls only, and those souls free,\nThe sacred spaces of the sea.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1871 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -107705,10 +110992,10 @@ "title": "“A Reminiscence”", "body": "The rose to the wind has yielded: all its leaves\n Lie strewn on the graveyard grass, and all their light\n And colour and fragrance leave our sense and sight\nBereft as a man whom bitter time bereaves\nOf blossom at once and hope of garnered sheaves,\n Of April at once and August. Day to night\n Calls wailing, and life to death, and depth to height,\nAnd soul upon soul of man that hears and grieves.\n\nWho knows, though he see the snow-cold blossom shed,\n If haply the heart that burned within the rose,\nThe spirit in sense, the life of life be dead?\n If haply the wind that slays with storming snows\nBe one with the wind that quickens? Bow thine head,\n O Sorrow, and commune with thine heart: who knows?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1894 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -107719,10 +111006,10 @@ "title": "“Rondel”", "body": "These many years since we began to be,\nWhat have the gods done with us? what with me,\nWhat with my love? they have shown me fates and fears,\nHarsh springs, and fountains bitterer than the sea,\nGrief a fixed star, and joy a vane that veers,\nThese many years.\n\nWith her, my love, with her have they done well?\nBut who shall answer for her? who shall tell\nSweet things or sad, such things as no man hears?\nMay no tears fall, if no tears ever fell,\nFrom eyes more dear to me than starriest spheres\nThese many years!\n\nBut if tears ever touched, for any grief,\nThose eyelids folded like a white-rose leaf,\nDeep double shells wherethrough the eye-flower peers,\nLet them weep once more only, sweet and brief,\nBrief tears and bright, for one who gave her tears\nThese many years.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107730,10 +111017,10 @@ "title": "“Sapphics”", "body": "All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,\nShed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,\nYet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron\nStood and beheld me.\n\nThen to me so lying awake a vision\nCame without sleep over the seas and touched me,\nSoftly touched mine eyelids and lips; and I too,\nFull of the vision,\n\nSaw the white implacable Aphrodite,\nSaw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled\nShine as fire of sunset on western waters;\nSaw the reluctant\n\nFeet, the straining plumes of the doves that drew her,\nLooking always, looking with necks reverted,\nBack to Lesbos, back to the hills whereunder\nShone Mitylene;\n\nHeard the flying feet of the Loves behind her\nMake a sudden thunder upon the waters,\nAs the thunder flung from the strong unclosing\nWings of a great wind.\n\nSo the goddess fled from her place, with awful\nSound of feet and thunder of wings around her;\nWhile behind a clamour of singing women\nSevered the twilight.\n\nAh the singing, ah the delight, the passion!\nAll the Loves wept, listening; sick with anguish,\nStood the crowned nine Muses about Apollo;\nFear was upon them,\n\nWhile the tenth sang wonderful things they knew not.\nAh the tenth, the Lesbian! the nine were silent,\nNone endured the sound of her song for weeping;\nLaurel by laurel,\n\nFaded all their crowns; but about her forehead,\nRound her woven tresses and ashen temples\nWhite as dead snow, paler than grass in summer,\nRavaged with kisses,\n\nShone a light of fire as a crown for ever.\nYea, almost the implacable Aphrodite\nPaused, and almost wept; such a song was that song.\nYea, by her name too\n\nCalled her, saying, “Turn to me, O my Sappho;”\nYet she turned her face from the Loves, she saw not\nTears for laughter darken immortal eyelids,\nHeard not about her\n\nFearful fitful wings of the doves departing,\nSaw not how the bosom of Aphrodite\nShook with weeping, saw not her shaken raiment,\nSaw not her hands wrung;\n\nSaw the Lesbians kissing across their smitten\nLutes with lips more sweet than the sound of lute-strings,\nMouth to mouth and hand upon hand, her chosen,\nFairer than all men;\n\nOnly saw the beautiful lips and fingers,\nFull of songs and kisses and little whispers,\nFull of music; only beheld among them\nSoar, as a bird soars\n\nNewly fledged, her visible song, a marvel,\nMade of perfect sound and exceeding passion,\nSweetly shapen, terrible, full of thunders,\nClothed with the wind’s wings.\n\nThen rejoiced she, laughing with love, and scattered\nRoses, awful roses of holy blossom;\nThen the Loves thronged sadly with hidden faces\nRound Aphrodite,\n\nThen the Muses, stricken at heart, were silent;\nYea, the gods waxed pale; such a song was that song.\nAll reluctant, all with a fresh repulsion,\nFled from before her.\n\nAll withdrew long since, and the land was barren,\nFull of fruitless women and music only.\nNow perchance, when winds are assuaged at sunset,\nLulled at the dewfall,\n\nBy the grey sea-side, unassuaged, unheard of,\nUnbeloved, unseen in the ebb of twilight,\nGhosts of outcast women return lamenting,\nPurged not in Lethe,\n\nClothed about with flame and with tears, and singing\nSongs that move the heart of the shaken heaven,\nSongs that break the heart of the earth with pity,\nHearing, to hear them.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107741,10 +111028,10 @@ "title": "“Sestina”", "body": "I saw my soul at rest upon a day\n As a bird sleeping in the nest of night,\nAmong soft leaves that give the starlight way\n To touch its wings but not its eyes with light;\nSo that it knew as one in visions may,\n And knew not as men waking, of delight.\n\nThis was the measure of my soul’s delight;\n It had no power of joy to fly by day,\nNor part in the large lordship of the light;\n But in a secret moon-beholden way\nHad all its will of dreams and pleasant night,\n And all the love and life that sleepers may.\n\nBut such life’s triumph as men waking may\n It might not have to feed its faint delight\nBetween the stars by night and sun by day,\n Shut up with green leaves and a little light;\nBecause its way was as a lost star’s way,\n A world’s not wholly known of day or night.\n\nAll loves and dreams and sounds and gleams of night\n Made it all music that such minstrels may,\nAnd all they had they gave it of delight;\n But in the full face of the fire of day\nWhat place shall be for any starry light,\n What part of heaven in all the wide sun’s way?\n\nYet the soul woke not, sleeping by the way,\n Watched as a nursling of the large-eyed night,\nAnd sought no strength nor knowledge of the day,\n Nor closer touch conclusive of delight,\nNor mightier joy nor truer than dreamers may,\n Nor more of song than they, nor more of light.\n\nFor who sleeps once and sees the secret light\n Whereby sleep shows the soul a fairer way\nBetween the rise and rest of day and night,\n Shall care no more to fare as all men may,\nBut be his place of pain or of delight,\n There shall he dwell, beholding night as day.\n\nSong, have thy day and take thy fill of light\n Before the night be fallen across thy way;\nSing while he may, man hath no long delight.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1878 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107752,10 +111039,10 @@ "title": "“Songs before Sunrise”", "body": "Between the wave-ridge and the strand\nI let you forth in sight of land,\n Songs that with storm-crossed wings and eyes\n Strain eastward till the darkness dies;\nLet signs and beacons fall or stand,\n And stars and balefires set and rise;\nYe, till some lordlier lyric hand\n Weave the beloved brows their crown,\n At the beloved feet lie down.\n\nO, whatsoever of life or light\nLove hath to give you, what of might\n Or heart or hope is yours to live,\n I charge you take in trust to give\nFor very love’s sake, in whose sight,\n Through poise of hours alternative\nAnd seasons plumed with light or night,\n Ye live and move and have your breath\n To sing with on the ridge of death.\n\nI charge you faint not all night through\nFor love’s sake that was breathed on you\n To be to you as wings and feet\n For travel, and as blood to heat\nAnd sense of spirit to renew\n And bloom of fragrance to keep sweet\nAnd fire of purpose to keep true\n The life, if life in such things be,\n That I would give you forth of me.\n\nOut where the breath of war may bear,\nOut in the rank moist reddened air\n That sounds and smells of death, and hath\n No light but death’s upon its path\nSeen through the black wind’s tangled hair,\n I send you past the wild time’s wrath\nTo find his face who bade you bear\n Fruit of his seed to faith and love,\n That he may take the heart thereof.\n\nBy day or night, by sea or street,\nFly till ye find and clasp his feet\n And kiss as worshippers who bring\n Too much love on their lips to sing,\nBut with hushed heads accept and greet\n The presence of some heavenlier thing\nIn the near air; so may ye meet\n His eyes, and droop not utterly\n For shame’s sake at the light you see.\n\nNot utterly struck spiritless\nFor shame’s sake and unworthiness\n Of these poor forceless hands that come\n Empty, these lips that should be dumb,\nThis love whose seal can but impress\n These weak word-offerings wearisome\nWhose blessings have not strength to bless\n Nor lightnings fire to burn up aught\n Nor smite with thunders of their thought.\n\nOne thought they have, even love; one light,\nTruth, that keeps clear the sun by night;\n One chord, of faith as of a lyre;\n One heat, of hope as of a fire;\nOne heart, one music, and one might,\n One flame, one altar, and one choir;\nAnd one man’s living head in sight\n Who said, when all time’s sea was foam,\n “Let there be Rome”--and there was Rome.\n\nAs a star set in space for token\nLike a live word of God’s mouth spoken,\n Visible sound, light audible,\n In the great darkness thick as hell\nA stanchless flame of love unsloken,\n A sign to conquer and compel,\nA law to stand in heaven unbroken\n Whereby the sun shines, and wherethrough\n Time’s eldest empires are made new;\n\nSo rose up on our generations\nThat light of the most ancient nations,\n Law, life, and light, on the world’s way,\n The very God of very day,\nThe sun-god; from their star-like stations\n Far down the night in disarray\nFled, crowned with fires of tribulations,\n The suns of sunless years, whose light\n And life and law were of the night.\n\nThe naked kingdoms quenched and stark\nDrave with their dead things down the dark,\n Helmless; their whole world, throne by throne,\n Fell, and its whole heart turned to stone,\nHopeless; their hands that touched our ark\n Withered; and lo, aloft, alone,\nOn time’s white waters man’s one bark,\n Where the red sundawn’s open eye\n Lit the soft gulf of low green sky.\n\nSo for a season piloted\nIt sailed the sunlight, and struck red\n With fire of dawn reverberate\n The wan face of incumbent fate\nThat paused half pitying overhead\n And almost had foregone the freight\nOf those dark hours the next day bred\n For shame, and almost had forsworn\n Service of night for love of morn.\n\nThen broke the whole night in one blow,\nThundering; then all hell with one throe\n Heaved, and brought forth beneath the stroke\n Death; and all dead things moved and woke\nThat the dawn’s arrows had brought low,\n At the great sound of night that broke\nThundering, and all the old world-wide woe;\n And under night’s loud-sounding dome\n Men sought her, and she was not Rome.\n\nStill with blind hands and robes blood-wet\nNight hangs on heaven, reluctant yet,\n With black blood dripping from her eyes\n On the soiled lintels of the skies,\nWith brows and lips that thirst and threat,\n Heart-sick with fear lest the sun rise,\nAnd aching with her fires that set,\n And shuddering ere dawn bursts her bars,\n Burns out with all her beaten stars.\n\nIn this black wind of war they fly\nNow, ere that hour be in the sky\n That brings back hope, and memory back,\n And light and law to lands that lack;\nThat spiritual sweet hour whereby\n The bloody-handed night and black\nShall be cast out of heaven to die;\n Kingdom by kingdom, crown by crown,\n The fires of darkness are blown down.\n\nYet heavy, grievous yet the weight\nSits on us of imperfect fate.\n From wounds of other days and deeds\n Still this day’s breathing body bleeds;\nStill kings for fear and slaves for hate\n Sow lives of men on earth like seeds\nIn the red soil they saturate;\n And we, with faces eastward set,\n Stand sightless of the morning yet.\n\nAnd many for pure sorrow’s sake\nLook back and stretch back hands to take\n Gifts of night’s giving, ease and sleep,\n Flowers of night’s grafting, strong to steep\nThe soul in dreams it will not break,\n Songs of soft hours that sigh and sweep\nIts lifted eyelids nigh to wake\n With subtle plumes and lulling breath\n That soothe its weariness to death.\n\nAnd many, called of hope and pride,\nFall ere the sunrise from our side.\n Fresh lights and rumours of fresh fames\n That shift and veer by night like flames,\nShouts and blown trumpets, ghosts that glide\n Calling, and hail them by dead names,\nFears, angers, memories, dreams divide\n Spirit from spirit, and wear out\n Strong hearts of men with hope and doubt.\n\nTill time beget and sorrow bear\nThe soul-sick eyeless child despair,\n That comes among us, mad and blind,\n With counsels of a broken mind,\nTales of times dead and woes that were,\n And, prophesying against mankind,\nShakes out the horror of her hair\n To take the sunlight with its coils\n And hold the living soul in toils.\n\nBy many ways of death and moods\nSouls pass into their servitudes.\n Their young wings weaken, plume by plume\n Drops, and their eyelids gather gloom\nAnd close against man’s frauds and feuds,\n And their tongues call they know not whom\nTo help in their vicissitudes;\n For many slaveries are, but one\n Liberty, single as the sun.\n\nOne light, one law, that burns up strife,\nAnd one sufficiency of life.\n Self-stablished, the sufficing soul\n Hears the loud wheels of changes roll,\nSees against man man bare the knife,\n Sees the world severed, and is whole;\nSees force take dowerless fraud to wife,\n And fear from fraud’s incestuous bed\n Crawl forth and smite his father dead:\n\nSees death made drunk with war, sees time\nWeave many-coloured crime with crime,\n State overthrown on ruining state,\n And dares not be disconsolate.\nOnly the soul hath feet to climb,\n Only the soul hath room to wait,\nHath brows and eyes to hold sublime\n Above all evil and all good,\n All strength and all decrepitude.\n\nShe only, she since earth began,\nThe many-minded soul of man,\n From one incognizable root\n That bears such divers-coloured fruit,\nHath ruled for blessing or for ban\n The flight of seasons and pursuit;\nShe regent, she republican,\n With wide and equal eyes and wings\n Broods on things born and dying things.\n\nEven now for love or doubt of us\nThe hour intense and hazardous\n Hangs high with pinions vibrating\n Whereto the light and darkness cling,\nDividing the dim season thus,\n And shakes from one ambiguous wing\nShadow, and one is luminous,\n And day falls from it; so the past\n Torments the future to the last.\n\nAnd we that cannot hear or see\nThe sounds and lights of liberty,\n The witness of the naked God\n That treads on burning hours unshod\nWith instant feet unwounded; we\n That can trace only where he trod\nBy fire in heaven or storm at sea,\n Not know the very present whole\n And naked nature of the soul;\n\nWe that see wars and woes and kings,\nAnd portents of enormous things,\n Empires, and agonies, and slaves,\n And whole flame of town-swallowing graves;\nThat hear the harsh hours clap sharp wings\n Above the roar of ranks like waves,\nFrom wreck to wreck as the world swings;\n Know but that men there are who see\n And hear things other far than we.\n\nBy the light sitting on their brows,\nThe fire wherewith their presence glows,\n The music falling with their feet,\n The sweet sense of a spirit sweet\nThat with their speech or motion grows\n And breathes and burns men’s hearts with heat;\nBy these signs there is none but knows\n Men who have life and grace to give,\n Men who have seen the soul and live.\n\nBy the strength sleeping in their eyes,\nThe lips whereon their sorrow lies\n Smiling, the lines of tears unshed,\n The large divine look of one dead\nThat speaks out of the breathless skies\n In silence, when the light is shed\nUpon man’s soul of memories;\n The supreme look that sets love free,\n The look of stars and of the sea;\n\nBy the strong patient godhead seen\nImplicit in their mortal mien,\n The conscience of a God held still\n And thunders ruled by their own will\nAnd fast-bound fires that might burn clean\n This worldly air that foul things fill,\nAnd the afterglow of what has been,\n That, passing, shows us without word\n What they have seen, what they have heard,\n\nBy all these keen and burning signs\nThe spirit knows them and divines.\n In bonds, in banishment, in grief,\n Scoffed at and scourged with unbelief,\nFoiled with false trusts and thwart designs,\n Stripped of green days and hopes in leaf,\nTheir mere bare body of glory shines\n Higher, and man gazing surelier sees\n What light, what comfort is of these.\n\nSo I now gazing; till the sense\nBeing set on fire of confidence\n Strains itself sunward, feels out far\n Beyond the bright and morning star,\nBeyond the extreme wave’s refluence,\n To where the fierce first sunbeams are\nWhose fire intolerant and intense\n As birthpangs whence day burns to be\n Parts breathless heaven from breathing sea.\n\nI see not, know not, and am blest,\nMaster, who know that thou knowest,\n Dear lord and leader, at whose hand\n The first days and the last days stand,\nWith scars and crowns on head and breast,\n That fought for love of the sweet land\nOr shall fight in her latter quest;\n All the days armed and girt and crowned\n Whose glories ring thy glory round.\n\nThou sawest, when all the world was blind,\nThe light that should be of mankind,\n The very day that was to be;\n And how shalt thou not sometime see\nThy city perfect to thy mind\n Stand face to living face with thee,\nAnd no miscrowned man’s head behind;\n The hearth of man, the human home,\n The central flame that shall be Rome?\n\nAs one that ere a June day rise\nMakes seaward for the dawn, and tries\n The water with delighted limbs\n That taste the sweet dark sea, and swims\nRight eastward under strengthening skies,\n And sees the gradual rippling rims\nOf waves whence day breaks blossom-wise\n Take fire ere light peer well above,\n And laughs from all his heart with love;\n\nAnd softlier swimming with raised head\nFeels the full flower of morning shed\n And fluent sunrise round him rolled\n That laps and laves his body bold\nWith fluctuant heaven in water’s stead,\n And urgent through the growing gold\nStrikes, and sees all the spray flash red,\n And his soul takes the sun, and yearns\n For joy wherewith the sea’s heart burns;\n\nSo the soul seeking through the dark\nHeavenward, a dove without an ark,\n Transcends the unnavigable sea\n Of years that wear out memory;\nSo calls, a sunward-singing lark,\n In the ear of souls that should be free;\nSo points them toward the sun for mark\n Who steer not for the stress of waves,\n And seek strange helmsmen, and are slaves.\n\nFor if the swimmer’s eastward eye\nMust see no sunrise--must put by\n The hope that lifted him and led\n Once, to have light about his head,\nTo see beneath the clear low sky\n The green foam-whitened wave wax red\nAnd all the morning’s banner fly--\n Then, as earth’s helpless hopes go down,\n Let earth’s self in the dark tides drown.\n\nYea, if no morning must behold\nMan, other than were they now cold,\n And other deeds than past deeds done,\n Nor any near or far-off sun\nSalute him risen and sunlike-souled,\n Free, boundless, fearless, perfect, one,\nLet man’s world die like worlds of old,\n And here in heaven’s sight only be\n The sole sun on the worldless sea.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -107766,10 +111053,10 @@ "title": "“Sundew”", "body": "A little marsh-plant, yellow green,\nAnd pricked at lip with tender red.\nTread close, and either way you tread\nSome faint black water jets between\nLest you should bruise the curious head.\n\nA live thing maybe; who shall know?\nThe summer knows and suffers it;\nFor the cool moss is thick and sweet\nEach side, and saves the blossom so\nThat it lives out the long June heat.\n\nThe deep scent of the heather burns\nAbout it; breathless though it be,\nBow down and worship; more than we\nIs the least flower whose life returns,\nLeast weed renascent in the sea.\n\nWe are vexed and cumbered in earth’s sight\nWith wants, with many memories;\nThese see their mother what she is,\nGlad-growing, till August leave more bright\nThe apple-coloured cranberries.\n\nWind blows and bleaches the strong grass,\nBlown all one way to shelter it\nFrom trample of strayed kine, with feet\nFelt heavier than the moorhen was,\nStrayed up past patches of wild wheat.\n\nYou call it sundew: how it grows,\nIf with its colour it have breath,\nIf life taste sweet to it, if death\nPain its soft petal, no man knows:\nMan has no sight or sense that saith.\n\nMy sundew, grown of gentle days,\nIn these green miles the spring begun\nThy growth ere April had half done\nWith the soft secret of her ways\nOr June made ready for the sun.\n\nO red-lipped mouth of marsh-flower,\nI have a secret halved with thee.\nThe name that is love’s name to me\nThou knowest, and the face of her\nWho is my festival to see.\n\nThe hard sun, as thy petals knew,\nColoured the heavy moss-water:\nThou wert not worth green midsummer\nNor fit to live to August blue,\nO sundew, not remembering her.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -107780,10 +111067,10 @@ "title": "“A Swimmer’s Dream”", "body": "# I.\n\nDawn is dim on the dark soft water,\n Soft and passionate, dark and sweet.\nLove’s own self was the deep sea’s daughter,\n Fair and flawless from face to feet,\nHailed of all when the world was golden,\nLoved of lovers whose names beholden\nThrill men’s eyes as with light of olden\n Days more glad than their flight was fleet.\n\nSo they sang: but for men that love her,\n Souls that hear not her word in vain,\nEarth beside her and heaven above her\n Seem but shadows that wax and wane.\nSofter than sleep’s are the sea’s caresses,\nKinder than love’s that betrays and blesses,\nBlither than spring’s when her flowerful tresses\n Shake forth sunlight and shine with rain.\n\nAll the strength of the waves that perish\n Swells beneath me and laughs and sighs,\nSighs for love of the life they cherish,\n Laughs to know that it lives and dies,\nDies for joy of its life, and lives\nThrilled with joy that its brief death gives--\nDeath whose laugh or whose breath forgives\n Change that bids it subside and rise.\n\n\n# II.\n\nHard and heavy, remote but nearing,\n Sunless hangs the severe sky’s weight,\nCloud on cloud, though the wind be veering\n Heaped on high to the sundawn’s gate.\nDawn and even and noon are one,\nVeiled with vapour and void of sun;\nNought in sight or in fancied hearing\n Now less mighty than time or fate.\n\nThe grey sky gleams and the grey seas glimmer,\n Pale and sweet as a dream’s delight,\nAs a dream’s where darkness and light seem dimmer,\n Touched by dawn or subdued by night.\nThe dark wind, stern and sublime and sad,\nSwings the rollers to westward, clad\nWith lustrous shadow that lures the swimmer,\n Lures and lulls him with dreams of light.\n\nLight, and sleep, and delight, and wonder,\n Change, and rest, and a charm of cloud,\nFill the world of the skies whereunder\n Heaves and quivers and pants aloud\nAll the world of the waters, hoary\nNow, but clothed with its own live glory,\nThat mates the lightning and mocks the thunder\n With light more living and word more proud.\n\n\n# III.\n\nFar off westward, whither sets the sounding strife,\n Strife more sweet than peace, of shoreless waves whose glee\n Scorns the shore and loves the wind that leaves them free,\nStrange as sleep and pale as death and fair as life,\n Shifts the moonlight-coloured sunshine on the sea.\n\nToward the sunset’s goal the sunless waters crowd,\n Fast as autumn days toward winter: yet it seems\n Here that autumn wanes not, here that woods and streams\nLose not heart and change not likeness, chilled and bowed,\n Warped and wrinkled: here the days are fair as dreams.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nO russet-robed November,\n What ails thee so to smile?\nChill August, pale September,\n Endured a woful while,\nAnd fell as falls an ember\n From forth a flameless pile:\nBut golden-girt November\n Bids all she looks on smile.\n\nThe lustrous foliage, waning\n As wanes the morning moon,\nHere falling, here refraining,\n Outbraves the pride of June\nWith statelier semblance, feigning\n No fear lest death be soon:\nAs though the woods thus waning\n Should wax to meet the moon.\n\nAs though, when fields lie stricken\n By grey December’s breath,\nThese lordlier growths that sicken\n And die for fear of death\nShould feel the sense requicken\n That hears what springtide saith\nAnd thrills for love, spring-stricken\n And pierced with April’s breath.\n\nThe keen white-winged north-easter\n That stings and spurs thy sea\nDoth yet but feed and feast her\n With glowing sense of glee:\nCalm chained her, storm released her,\n And storm’s glad voice was he:\nSouth-wester or north-easter,\n Thy winds rejoice the sea.\n\n\n# V.\n\nA dream, a dream is it all--the season,\n The sky, the water, the wind, the shore?\nA day-born dream of divine unreason,\n A marvel moulded of sleep--no more?\nFor the cloudlike wave that my limbs while cleaving\nFeel as in slumber beneath them heaving\nSoothes the sense as to slumber, leaving\n Sense of nought that was known of yore.\n\nA purer passion, a lordlier leisure,\n A peace more happy than lives on land,\nFulfils with pulse of diviner pleasure\n The dreaming head and the steering hand.\nI lean my cheek to the cold grey pillow,\nThe deep soft swell of the full broad billow,\nAnd close mine eyes for delight past measure,\n And wish the wheel of the world would stand.\n\nThe wild-winged hour that we fain would capture\n Falls as from heaven that its light feet clomb,\nSo brief, so soft, and so full the rapture\n Was felt that soothed me with sense of home.\nTo sleep, to swim, and to dream, for ever--\nSuch joy the vision of man saw never;\nFor here too soon will a dark day sever\n The sea-bird’s wing from the sea-wave’s foam.\n\nA dream, and more than a dream, and dimmer\n At once and brighter than dreams that flee,\nThe moment’s joy of the seaward swimmer\n Abides, remembered as truth may be.\nNot all the joy and not all the glory\nMust fade as leaves when the woods wax hoary;\nFor there the downs and the sea-banks glimmer,\n And here to south of them swells the sea.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1894 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november", @@ -107795,10 +111082,10 @@ "title": "“The Triumph of Time”", "body": "Before our lives divide for ever,\nWhile time is with us and hands are free,\n(Time, swift to fasten and swift to sever\nHand from hand, as we stand by the sea)\nI will say no word that a man might say\nWhose whole life’s love goes down in a day;\nFor this could never have been; and never,\nThough the gods and the years relent, shall be.\n\nIs it worth a tear, is it worth an hour,\nTo think of things that are well outworn?\nOf fruitless husk and fugitive flower,\nThe dream foregone and the deed forborne?\nThough joy be done with and grief be vain,\nTime shall not sever us wholly in twain;\nEarth is not spoilt for a single shower;\nBut the rain has ruined the ungrown corn.\n\nIt will grow not again, this fruit of my heart,\nSmitten with sunbeams, ruined with rain.\nThe singing seasons divide and depart,\nWinter and summer depart in twain.\nIt will grow not again, it is ruined at root,\nThe bloodlike blossom, the dull red fruit;\nThough the heart yet sickens, the lips yet smart,\nWith sullen savour of poisonous pain.\n\nI have given no man of my fruit to eat;\nI trod the grapes, I have drunken the wine.\nHad you eaten and drunken and found it sweet,\nThis wild new growth of the corn and vine,\nThis wine and bread without lees or leaven,\nWe had grown as gods, as the gods in heaven,\nSouls fair to look upon, goodly to greet,\nOne splendid spirit, your soul and mine.\n\nIn the change of years, in the coil of things,\nIn the clamour and rumour of life to be,\nWe, drinking love at the furthest springs,\nCovered with love as a covering tree,\nWe had grown as gods, as the gods above,\nFilled from the heart to the lips with love,\nHeld fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings,\nO love, my love, had you loved but me!\n\nWe had stood as the sure stars stand, and moved\nAs the moon moves, loving the world; and seen\nGrief collapse as a thing disproved,\nDeath consume as a thing unclean.\nTwain halves of a perfect heart, made fast\nSoul to soul while the years fell past;\nHad you loved me once, as you have not loved;\nHad the chance been with us that has not been.\n\nI have put my days and dreams out of mind,\nDays that are over, dreams that are done.\nThough we seek life through, we shall surely find\nThere is none of them clear to us now, not one.\nBut clear are these things; the grass and the sand,\nWhere, sure as the eyes reach, ever at hand,\nWith lips wide open and face burnt blind,\nThe strong sea-daisies feast on the sun.\n\nThe low downs lean to the sea; the stream,\nOne loose thin pulseless tremulous vein,\nRapid and vivid and dumb as a dream,\nWorks downward, sick of the sun and the rain;\nNo wind is rough with the rank rare flowers;\nThe sweet sea, mother of loves and hours,\nShudders and shines as the grey winds gleam,\nTurning her smile to a fugitive pain.\n\nMother of loves that are swift to fade,\nMother of mutable winds and hours.\nA barren mother, a mother-maid,\nCold and clean as her faint salt flowers.\nI would we twain were even as she,\nLost in the night and the light of the sea,\nWhere faint sounds falter and wan beams wade,\nBreak, and are broken, and shed into showers.\n\nThe loves and hours of the life of a man,\nThey are swift and sad, being born of the sea.\nHours that rejoice and regret for a span,\nBorn with a man’s breath, mortal as he;\nLoves that are lost ere they come to birth,\nWeeds of the wave, without fruit upon earth.\nI lose what I long for, save what I can,\nMy love, my love, and no love for me!\n\nIt is not much that a man can save\nOn the sands of life, in the straits of time,\nWho swims in sight of the great third wave\nThat never a swimmer shall cross or climb.\nSome waif washed up with the strays and spars\nThat ebb-tide shows to the shore and the stars;\nWeed from the water, grass from a grave,\nA broken blossom, a ruined rhyme.\n\nThere will no man do for your sake, I think,\nWhat I would have done for the least word said.\nI had wrung life dry for your lips to drink,\nBroken it up for your daily bread:\nBody for body and blood for blood,\nAs the flow of the full sea risen to flood\nThat yearns and trembles before it sink,\nI had given, and lain down for you, glad and dead.\n\nYea, hope at highest and all her fruit,\nAnd time at fullest and all his dower,\nI had given you surely, and life to boot,\nWere we once made one for a single hour.\nBut now, you are twain, you are cloven apart,\nFlesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart;\nAnd deep in one is the bitter root,\nAnd sweet for one is the lifelong flower.\n\nTo have died if you cared I should die for you, clung\nTo my life if you bade me, played my part\nAs it pleased you--these were the thoughts that stung,\nThe dreams that smote with a keener dart\nThan shafts of love or arrows of death;\nThese were but as fire is, dust, or breath,\nOr poisonous foam on the tender tongue\nOf the little snakes that eat my heart.\n\nI wish we were dead together to-day,\nLost sight of, hidden away out of sight,\nClasped and clothed in the cloven clay,\nOut of the world’s way, out of the light,\nOut of the ages of worldly weather,\nForgotten of all men altogether,\nAs the world’s first dead, taken wholly away,\nMade one with death, filled full of the night.\n\nHow we should slumber, how we should sleep,\nFar in the dark with the dreams and the dews!\nAnd dreaming, grow to each other, and weep,\nLaugh low, live softly, murmur and muse;\nYea, and it may be, struck through by the dream,\nFeel the dust quicken and quiver, and seem\nAlive as of old to the lips, and leap\nSpirit to spirit as lovers use.\n\nSick dreams and sad of a dull delight;\nFor what shall it profit when men are dead\nTo have dreamed, to have loved with the whole soul’s might,\nTo have looked for day when the day was fled?\nLet come what will, there is one thing worth,\nTo have had fair love in the life upon earth:\nTo have held love safe till the day grew night,\nWhile skies had colour and lips were red.\n\nWould I lose you now? would I take you then,\nIf I lose you now that my heart has need?\nAnd come what may after death to men,\nWhat thing worth this will the dead years breed?\nLose life, lose all; but at least I know,\nO sweet life’s love, having loved you so,\nHad I reached you on earth, I should lose not again,\nIn death nor life, nor in dream or deed.\n\nYea, I know this well: were you once sealed mine,\nMine in the blood’s beat, mine in the breath,\nMixed into me as honey in wine,\nNot time, that sayeth and gainsayeth,\nNor all strong things had severed us then;\nNot wrath of gods, nor wisdom of men,\nNor all things earthly, nor all divine,\nNor joy nor sorrow, nor life nor death.\n\nI had grown pure as the dawn and the dew,\nYou had grown strong as the sun or the sea.\nBut none shall triumph a whole life through:\nFor death is one, and the fates are three.\nAt the door of life, by the gate of breath,\nThere are worse things waiting for men than death;\nDeath could not sever my soul and you,\nAs these have severed your soul from me.\n\nYou have chosen and clung to the chance they sent you,\nLife sweet as perfume and pure as prayer.\nBut will it not one day in heaven repent you?\nWill they solace you wholly, the days that were?\nWill you lift up your eyes between sadness and bliss,\nMeet mine, and see where the great love is,\nAnd tremble and turn and be changed? Content you;\nThe gate is strait; I shall not be there.\n\nBut you, had you chosen, had you stretched hand,\nHad you seen good such a thing were done,\nI too might have stood with the souls that stand\nIn the sun’s sight, clothed with the light of the sun;\nBut who now on earth need care how I live?\nHave the high gods anything left to give,\nSave dust and laurels and gold and sand?\nWhich gifts are goodly; but I will none.\n\nO all fair lovers about the world,\nThere is none of you, none, that shall comfort me.\nMy thoughts are as dead things, wrecked and whirled\nRound and round in a gulf of the sea;\nAnd still, through the sound and the straining stream,\nThrough the coil and chafe, they gleam in a dream,\nThe bright fine lips so cruelly curled,\nAnd strange swift eyes where the soul sits free.\n\nFree, without pity, withheld from woe,\nIgnorant; fair as the eyes are fair.\nWould I have you change now, change at a blow,\nStartled and stricken, awake and aware?\nYea, if I could, would I have you see\nMy very love of you filling me,\nAnd know my soul to the quick, as I know\nThe likeness and look of your throat and hair?\n\nI shall not change you. Nay, though I might,\nWould I change my sweet one love with a word?\nI had rather your hair should change in a night,\nClear now as the plume of a black bright bird;\nYour face fail suddenly, cease, turn grey,\nDie as a leaf that dies in a day.\nI will keep my soul in a place out of sight,\nFar off, where the pulse of it is not heard.\n\nFar off it walks, in a bleak blown space,\nFull of the sound of the sorrow of years.\nI have woven a veil for the weeping face,\nWhose lips have drunken the wine of tears;\nI have found a way for the failing feet,\nA place for slumber and sorrow to meet;\nThere is no rumour about the place,\nNor light, nor any that sees or hears.\n\nI have hidden my soul out of sight, and said\n“Let none take pity upon thee, none\nComfort thy crying: for lo, thou art dead,\nLie still now, safe out of sight of the sun.\nHave I not built thee a grave, and wrought\nThy grave-clothes on thee of grievous thought,\nWith soft spun verses and tears unshed,\nAnd sweet light visions of things undone?”\n\n“I have given thee garments and balm and myrrh,\nAnd gold, and beautiful burial things.\nBut thou, be at peace now, make no stir;\nIs not thy grave as a royal king’s?\nFret not thyself though the end were sore;\nSleep, be patient, vex me no more.\nSleep; what hast thou to do with her?\nThe eyes that weep, with the mouth that sings?”\n\nWhere the dead red leaves of the years lie rotten,\nThe cold old crimes and the deeds thrown by,\nThe misconceived and the misbegotten,\nI would find a sin to do ere I die,\nSure to dissolve and destroy me all through,\nThat would set you higher in heaven, serve you\nAnd leave you happy, when clean forgotten,\nAs a dead man out of mind, am I.\n\nYour lithe hands draw me, your face burns through me,\nI am swift to follow you, keen to see;\nBut love lacks might to redeem or undo me;\nAs I have been, I know I shall surely be;\n“What should such fellows as I do?” Nay,\nMy part were worse if I chose to play;\nFor the worst is this after all; if they knew me,\nNot a soul upon earth would pity me.\n\nAnd I play not for pity of these; but you,\nIf you saw with your soul what man am I,\nYou would praise me at least that my soul all through\nClove to you, loathing the lives that lie;\nThe souls and lips that are bought and sold,\nThe smiles of silver and kisses of gold,\nThe lapdog loves that whine as they chew,\nThe little lovers that curse and cry.\n\nThere are fairer women, I hear; that may be;\nBut I, that I love you and find you fair,\nWho are more than fair in my eyes if they be,\nDo the high gods know or the great gods care?\nThough the swords in my heart for one were seven,\nWould the iron hollow of doubtful heaven,\nThat knows not itself whether night-time or day be,\nReverberate words and a foolish prayer?\n\nI will go back to the great sweet mother,\nMother and lover of men, the sea.\nI will go down to her, I and none other,\nClose with her, kiss her and mix her with me;\nCling to her, strive with her, hold her fast:\nO fair white mother, in days long past\nBorn without sister, born without brother,\nSet free my soul as thy soul is free.\n\nO fair green-girdled mother of mine,\nSea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain,\nThy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine,\nThy large embraces are keen like pain.\nSave me and hide me with all thy waves,\nFind me one grave of thy thousand graves,\nThose pure cold populous graves of thine\nWrought without hand in a world without stain.\n\nI shall sleep, and move with the moving ships,\nChange as the winds change, veer in the tide;\nMy lips will feast on the foam of thy lips,\nI shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside;\nSleep, and not know if she be, if she were,\nFilled full with life to the eyes and hair,\nAs a rose is fulfilled to the roseleaf tips\nWith splendid summer and perfume and pride.\n\nThis woven raiment of nights and days,\nWere it once cast off and unwound from me,\nNaked and glad would I walk in thy ways,\nAlive and aware of thy ways and thee;\nClear of the whole world, hidden at home,\nClothed with the green and crowned with the foam,\nA pulse of the life of thy straits and bays,\nA vein in the heart of the streams of the sea.\n\nFair mother, fed with the lives of men,\nThou art subtle and cruel of heart, men say.\nThou hast taken, and shalt not render again;\nThou art full of thy dead, and cold as they.\nBut death is the worst that comes of thee;\nThou art fed with our dead, O mother, O sea,\nBut when hast thou fed on our hearts? or when,\nHaving given us love, hast thou taken away?\n\nO tender-hearted, O perfect lover,\nThy lips are bitter, and sweet thine heart.\nThe hopes that hurt and the dreams that hover,\nShall they not vanish away and apart?\nBut thou, thou art sure, thou art older than earth;\nThou art strong for death and fruitful of birth;\nThy depths conceal and thy gulfs discover;\nFrom the first thou wert; in the end thou art.\n\nAnd grief shall endure not for ever, I know.\nAs things that are not shall these things be;\nWe shall live through seasons of sun and of snow,\nAnd none be grievous as this to me.\nWe shall hear, as one in a trance that hears,\nThe sound of time, the rhyme of the years;\nWrecked hope and passionate pain will grow\nAs tender things of a spring-tide sea.\n\nSea-fruit that swings in the waves that hiss,\nDrowned gold and purple and royal rings.\nAnd all time past, was it all for this?\nTimes unforgotten, and treasures of things?\nSwift years of liking and sweet long laughter,\nThat wist not well of the years thereafter\nTill love woke, smitten at heart by a kiss,\nWith lips that trembled and trailing wings?\n\nThere lived a singer in France of old\nBy the tideless dolorous midland sea.\nIn a land of sand and ruin and gold\nThere shone one woman, and none but she.\nAnd finding life for her love’s sake fail,\nBeing fain to see her, he bade set sail,\nTouched land, and saw her as life grew cold,\nAnd praised God, seeing; and so died he.\n\nDied, praising God for his gift and grace:\nFor she bowed down to him weeping, and said\n“Live”; and her tears were shed on his face\nOr ever the life in his face was shed.\nThe sharp tears fell through her hair, and stung\nOnce, and her close lips touched him and clung\nOnce, and grew one with his lips for a space;\nAnd so drew back, and the man was dead.\n\nO brother, the gods were good to you.\nSleep, and be glad while the world endures.\nBe well content as the years wear through;\nGive thanks for life, and the loves and lures;\nGive thanks for life, O brother, and death,\nFor the sweet last sound of her feet, her breath,\nFor gifts she gave you, gracious and few,\nTears and kisses, that lady of yours.\n\nRest, and be glad of the gods; but I,\nHow shall I praise them, or how take rest?\nThere is not room under all the sky\nFor me that know not of worst or best,\nDream or desire of the days before,\nSweet things or bitterness, any more.\nLove will not come to me now though I die,\nAs love came close to you, breast to breast.\n\nI shall never be friends again with roses;\nI shall loathe sweet tunes, where a note grown strong\nRelents and recoils, and climbs and closes,\nAs a wave of the sea turned back by song.\nThere are sounds where the soul’s delight takes fire,\nFace to face with its own desire;\nA delight that rebels, a desire that reposes;\nI shall hate sweet music my whole life long.\n\nThe pulse of war and passion of wonder,\nThe heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine,\nThe stars that sing and the loves that thunder,\nThe music burning at heart like wine,\nAn armed archangel whose hands raise up\nAll senses mixed in the spirit’s cup\nTill flesh and spirit are molten in sunder--\nThese things are over, and no more mine.\n\nThese were a part of the playing I heard\nOnce, ere my love and my heart were at strife;\nLove that sings and hath wings as a bird,\nBalm of the wound and heft of the knife.\nFairer than earth is the sea, and sleep\nThan overwatching of eyes that weep,\nNow time has done with his one sweet word,\nThe wine and leaven of lovely life.\n\nI shall go my ways, tread out my measure,\nFill the days of my daily breath\nWith fugitive things not good to treasure,\nDo as the world doth, say as it saith;\nBut if we had loved each other--O sweet,\nHad you felt, lying under the palms of your feet,\nThe heart of my heart, beating harder with pleasure\nTo feel you tread it to dust and death--\n\nAh, had I not taken my life up and given\nAll that life gives and the years let go,\nThe wine and honey, the balm and leaven,\nThe dreams reared high and the hopes brought low?\nCome life, come death, not a word be said;\nShould I lose you living, and vex you dead?\nI never shall tell you on earth; and in heaven,\nIf I cry to you then, will you hear or know?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -107809,10 +111096,10 @@ "title": "“The Two Dreams”", "body": "I will that if I say a heavy thing\nYour tongues forgive me; seeing ye know that spring\nHas flecks and fits of pain to keep her sweet,\nAnd walks somewhile with winter-bitten feet.\nMoreover it sounds often well to let\nOne string, when ye play music, keep at fret\nThe whole song through; one petal that is dead\nConfirms the roses, be they white or red;\nDead sorrow is not sorrowful to hear\nAs the thick noise that breaks mid weeping were;\nThe sick sound aching in a lifted throat\nTurns to sharp silver of a perfect note;\nAnd though the rain falls often, and with rain\nLate autumn falls on the old red leaves like pain,\nI deem that God is not disquieted.\nAlso while men are fed with wine and bread,\nThey shall be fed with sorrow at his hand.\nThere grew a rose-garden in Florence land\nMore fair than many; all red summers through\nThe leaves smelt sweet and sharp of rain, and blew\nSideways with tender wind; and therein fell\nSweet sound wherewith the green waxed audible,\nAs a bird’s will to sing disturbed his throat\nAnd set the sharp wings forward like a boat\nPushed through soft water, moving his brown side\nSmooth-shapen as a maid’s, and shook with pride\nHis deep warm bosom, till the heavy sun’s\nSet face of heat stopped all the songs at once.\nThe ways were clean to walk and delicate;\nAnd when the windy white of March grew late,\nBefore the trees took heart to face the sun\nWith ravelled raiment of lean winter on,\nThe roots were thick and hot with hollow grass.\nSome roods away a lordly house there was,\nCool with broad courts and latticed passage wet\nFrom rush-flowers and lilies ripe to set,\nSown close among the strewings of the floor;\nAnd either wall of the slow corridor\nWas dim with deep device of gracious things;\nSome angel’s steady mouth and weight of wings\nShut to the side; or Peter with straight stole\nAnd beard cut black against the aureole\nThat spanned his head from nape to crown; thereby\nMary’s gold hair, thick to the girdle-tie\nWherein was bound a child with tender feet;\nOr the broad cross with blood nigh brown on it.\nWithin this house a righteous lord abode,\nSer Averardo; patient of his mood,\nAnd just of judgment; and to child he had\nA maid so sweet that her mere sight made glad\nMen sorrowing, and unbound the brows of hate;\nAnd where she came, the lips that pain made strait\nWaxed warm and wide, and from untender grew\nTender as those that sleep brings patience to.\nSuch long locks had she, that with knee to chin\nShe might have wrapped and warmed her feet therein.\nRight seldom fell her face on weeping wise;\nGold hair she had, and golden-coloured eyes,\nFilled with clear light and fire and large repose\nLike a fair hound’s; no man there is but knows\nHer face was white, and thereto she was tall;\nIn no wise lacked there any praise at all\nTo her most perfect and pure maidenhood;\nNo sin I think there was in all her blood.\nShe, where a gold grate shut the roses in,\nDwelt daily through deep summer weeks, through green\nFlushed hours of rain upon the leaves; and there\nLove made him room and space to worship her\nWith tender worship of bowed knees, and wrought\nSuch pleasure as the pained sense palates not\nFor weariness, but at one taste undoes\nThe heart of its strong sweet, is ravenous\nOf all the hidden honey; words and sense\nFail through the tune’s imperious prevalence.\nIn a poor house this lover kept apart,\nLong communing with patience next his heart\nIf love of his might move that face at all,\nTuned evenwise with colours musical;\nThen after length of days he said thus: “Love,\nFor love’s own sake and for the love thereof\nLet no harsh words untune your gracious mood;\nFor good it were, if anything be good,\nTo comfort me in this pain’s plague of mine;\nSeeing thus, how neither sleep nor bread nor wine\nSeems pleasant to me, yea no thing that is\nSeems pleasant to me; only I know this,\nLove’s ways are sharp for palms of piteous feet\nTo travel, but the end of such is sweet:\nNow do with me as seemeth you the best.”\nShe mused a little, as one holds his guest\nBy the hand musing, with her face borne down:\nThen said: “Yea, though such bitter seed be sown,\nHave no more care of all that you have said;\nSince if there is no sleep will bind your head,\nLo, I am fain to help you certainly;\nChrist knoweth, sir, if I would have you die;\nThere is no pleasure when a man is dead.”\nThereat he kissed her hands and yellow head\nAnd clipped her fair long body many times;\nI have no wit to shape in written rhymes\nA scanted tithe of this great joy they had.\nThey were too near love’s secret to be glad;\nAs whoso deems the core will surely melt\nFrom the warm fruit his lips caress, hath felt\nSome bitter kernel where the teeth shut hard:\nOr as sweet music sharpens afterward,\nBeing half disrelished both for sharp and sweet;\nAs sea-water, having killed over-heat\nIn a man’s body, chills it with faint ache;\nSo their sense, burdened only for love’s sake,\nFailed for pure love; yet so time served their wit,\nThey saved each day some gold reserves of it,\nBeing wiser in love’s riddle than such be\nWhom fragments feed with his chance charity.\nAll things felt sweet were felt sweet overmuch;\nThe rose-thorn’s prickle dangerous to touch,\nAnd flecks of fire in the thin leaf-shadows;\nToo keen the breathed honey of the rose,\nIts red too harsh a weight on feasted eyes;\nThey were so far gone in love’s histories,\nBeyond all shape and colour and mere breath,\nWhere pleasure has for kinsfolk sleep and death,\nAnd strength of soul and body waxen blind\nFor weariness, and flesh entailed with mind,\nWhen the keen edge of sense foretasteth sin.\nEven this green place the summer caught them in\nSeemed half deflowered and sick with beaten leaves\nIn their strayed eyes; these gold flower-fumĂšd eves\nBurnt out to make the sun’s love-offering,\nThe midnoon’s prayer, the rose’s thanksgiving,\nThe trees’ weight burdening the strengthless air,\nThe shape of her stilled eyes, her coloured hair,\nHer body’s balance from the moving feet--\nAll this, found fair, lacked yet one grain of sweet\nIt had some warm weeks back: so perisheth\nOn May’s new lip the tender April breath:\nSo those same walks the wind sowed lilies in\nAll April through, and all their latter kin\nOf languid leaves whereon the Autumn blows--\nThe dead red raiment of the last year’s rose--\nThe last year’s laurel, and the last year’s love,\nFade, and grow things that death grows weary of.\nWhat man will gather in red summer-time\nThe fruit of some obscure and hoary rhyme\nHeard last midwinter, taste the heart in it,\nMould the smooth semitones afresh, refit\nThe fair limbs ruined, flush the dead blood through\nWith colour, make all broken beauties new\nFor love’s new lesson--shall not such find pain\nWhen the marred music labouring in his brain\nFrets him with sweet sharp fragments, and lets slip\nOne word that might leave satisfied his lip--\nOne touch that might put fire in all the chords?\nThis was her pain: to miss from all sweet words\nSome taste of sound, diverse and delicate--\nSome speech the old love found out to compensate\nFor seasons of shut lips and drowsiness--\nSome grace, some word the old love found out to bless\nPassionless months and undelighted weeks.\nThe flowers had lost their summer-scented cheeks,\nTheir lips were no more sweet than daily breath:\nThe year was plagued with instances of death.\nSo fell it, these were sitting in cool grass\nWith leaves about, and many a bird there was\nWhere the green shadow thickliest impleached\nSoft fruit and writhen spray and blossom bleached\nDry in the sun or washed with rains to white:\nHer girdle was pure silk, the bosom bright\nWith purple as purple water and gold wrought in.\nOne branch had touched with dusk her lips and chin,\nMade violet of the throat, abashed with shade\nThe breast’s bright plaited work: but nothing frayed\nThe sun’s large kiss on the luxurious hair.\nHer beauty was new colour to the air\nAnd music to the silent many birds.\nLove was an-hungred for some perfect words\nTo praise her with; but only her low name\n‘Andrevuola’ came thrice, and thrice put shame\nIn her clear cheek, so fruitful with new red\nThat for pure love straightway shame’s self was dead.\nThen with lids gathered as who late had wept\nShe began saying: “I have so little slept\nMy lids drowse now against the very sun;\nYea, the brain aching with a dream begun\nBeats like a fitful blood; kiss but both brows,\nAnd you shall pluck my thoughts grown dangerous\nAlmost away.” He said thus, kissing them:\n“O sole sweet thing that God is glad to name,\nMy one gold gift, if dreams be sharp and sore\nShall not the waking time increase much more\nWith taste and sound, sweet eyesight or sweet scent?\nHas any heat too hard and insolent\nBurnt bare the tender married leaves, undone\nThe maiden grass shut under from the sun?\nWhere in this world is room enough for pain?”\nThe feverish finger of love had touched again\nHer lips with happier blood; the pain lay meek\nIn her fair face, nor altered lip nor cheek\nWith pallor or with pulse; but in her mouth\nLove thirsted as a man wayfaring doth,\nMaking it humble as weak hunger is.\nShe lay close to him, bade do this and this,\nSay that, sing thus: then almost weeping-ripe\nCrouched, then laughed low. As one that fain would wipe\nThe old record out of old things done and dead,\nShe rose, she heaved her hands up, and waxed red\nFor wilful heart and blameless fear of blame;\nSaying “Though my wits be weak, this is no shame\nFor a poor maid whom love so punisheth\nWith heats of hesitation and stopped breath\nThat with my dreams I live yet heavily\nFor pure sad heart and faith’s humility.\nNow be not wroth and I will show you this.”\n“Methought our lips upon their second kiss\nMet in this place, and a fair day we had\nAnd fair soft leaves that waxed and were not sad\nWith shaken rain or bitten through with drouth;\nWhen I, beholding ever how your mouth\nWaited for mine, the throat being fallen back,\nSaw crawl thereout a live thing flaked with black\nSpecks of brute slime and leper-coloured scale,\nA devil’s hide with foul flame-writhen grail\nFashioned where hell’s heat festers loathsomest;\nAnd that brief speech may ease me of the rest,\nThus were you slain and eaten of the thing.\nMy waked eyes felt the new day shuddering\nOn their low lids, felt the whole east so beat,\nPant with close pulse of such a plague-struck heat,\nAs if the palpitating dawn drew breath\nFor horror, breathing between life and death,\nTill the sun sprang blood-bright and violent.”\nSo finishing, her soft strength wholly spent,\nShe gazed each way, lest some brute-hoovĂšd thing,\nThe timeless travail of hell’s childbearing,\nShould threat upon the sudden: whereat he,\nFor relish of her tasted misery\nAnd tender little thornprick of her pain,\nLaughed with mere love. What lover among men\nBut hath his sense fed sovereignly ’twixt whiles\nWith tears and covered eyelids and sick smiles\nAnd soft disaster of a painĂšd face?\nWhat pain, established in so sweet a place,\nBut the plucked leaf of it smells fragrantly?\nWhat colour burning man’s wide-open eye\nBut may be pleasurably seen? what sense\nKeeps in its hot sharp extreme violence\nNo savour of sweet things? The bereaved blood\nAnd emptied flesh in their most broken mood\nFail not so wholly, famish not when thus\nPast honey keeps the starved lip covetous.\nTherefore this speech from a glad mouth began,\nBreathed in her tender hair and temples wan\nLike one prolonged kiss while the lips had breath.\n“Sleep, that abides in vassalage of death\nAnd in death’s service wears out half his age,\nHath his dreams full of deadly vassalage,\nShadow and sound of things ungracious;\nFair shallow faces, hooded bloodless brows,\nAnd mouths past kissing; yea, myself have had\nAs harsh a dream as holds your eyelids sad.”\n“This dream I tell you came three nights ago;\nIn full mid sleep I took a whim to know\nHow sweet things might be; so I turned and thought;\nBut save my dream all sweet availed me not.\nFirst came a smell of pounded spice and scent\nSuch as God ripens in some continent\nOf utmost amber in the Syrian sea;\nAnd breaths as though some costly rose could be\nSpoiled slowly, wasted by some bitter fire\nTo burn the sweet out leaf by leaf, and tire\nThe flower’s poor heart with heat and waste, to make\nStrong magic for some perfumed woman’s sake.\nThen a cool naked sense beneath my feet\nOf bud and blossom; and sound of veins that beat\nAs if a lute should play of its own heart\nAnd fearfully, not smitten of either part;\nAnd all my blood it filled with sharp and sweet\nAs gold swoln grain fills out the huskĂšd wheat;\nSo I rose naked from the bed, and stood\nCounting the mobile measure in my blood\nSome pleasant while, and through each limb there came\nSwift little pleasures pungent as a flame,\nFelt in the thrilling flesh and veins as much\nAs the outer curls that feel the comb’s first touch\nThrill to the roots and shiver as from fire;\nAnd blind between my dream and my desire\nI seemed to stand and held my spirit still\nLest this should cease. A child whose fingers spill\nHoney from cells forgotten of the bee\nIs less afraid to stir the hive and see\nSome wasp’s bright back inside, than I to feel\nSome finger-touch disturb the flesh like steel.\nI prayed thus; Let me catch a secret here\nSo sweet, it sharpens the sweet taste of fear\nAnd takes the mouth with edge of wine; I would\nHave here some colour and smooth shape as good\nAs those in heaven whom the chief garden hides\nWith low grape-blossom veiling their white sides\nAnd lesser tendrils that so bind and blind\nTheir eyes and feet, that if one come behind\nTo touch their hair they see not, neither fly;\nThis would I see in heaven and not die.\nSo praying, I had nigh cried out and knelt,\nSo wholly my prayer filled me: till I felt\nIn the dumb night’s warm weight of glowing gloom\nSomewhat that altered all my sleeping-room,\nAnd made it like a green low place wherein\nMaids mix to bathe: one sets her small warm chin\nAgainst a ripple, that the angry pearl\nMay flow like flame about her: the next curl\nDips in some eddy coloured of the sun\nTo wash the dust well out; another one\nHolds a straight ankle in her hand and swings\nWith lavish body sidelong, so that rings\nOf sweet fierce water, swollen and splendid, fail\nAll round her fine and floated body pale,\nSwayed flower-fashion, and her balanced side\nSwerved edgeways lets the weight of water slide,\nAs taken in some underflow of sea\nSwerves the banked gold of sea-flowers; but she\nPulls down some branch to keep her perfect head\nClear of the river: even from wall to bed,\nI tell you, was my room transfigured so.\nSweet, green and warm it was, nor could one know\nIf there were walls or leaves, or if there was\nNo bed’s green curtain, but mere gentle grass.\nThere were set also hard against the feet\nGold plates with honey and green grapes to eat,\nWith the cool water’s noise to hear in rhymes:\nAnd a wind warmed me full of furze and limes\nAnd all hot sweets the heavy summer fills\nTo the round brim of smooth cup-shapen hills.\nNext the grave walking of a woman’s feet\nMade my veins hesitate, and gracious heat\nMade thick the lids and leaden on mine eyes:\nAnd I thought ever, surely it were wise\nNot yet to see her: this may last (who knows?)\nFive minutes; the poor rose is twice a rose\nBecause it turns a face to her, the wind\nSings that way; hath this woman ever sinned,\nI wonder? as a boy with apple-rind,\nI played with pleasures, made them to my mind,\nChanged each ere tasting. When she came indeed,\nFirst her hair touched me, then I grew to feed\nOn the sense of her hand; her mouth at last\nTouched me between the cheek and lip and past\nOver my face with kisses here and there\nSown in and out across the eyes and hair.\nStill I said nothing; till she set her face\nMore close and harder on the kissing-place,\nAnd her mouth caught like a snake’s mouth, and stung\nSo faint and tenderly, the fang scarce clung\nMore than a bird’s foot: yet a wound it grew,\nA great one, let this red mark witness you\nUnder the left breast; and the stroke thereof\nSo clove my sense that I woke out of love\nAnd knew not what this dream was nor had wit;\nBut now God knows if I have skill of it.”\nHereat she laid one palm against her lips\nTo stop their trembling; as when water slips\nOut of a beak-mouthed vessel with faint noise\nAnd chuckles in the narrowed throat and cloys\nThe carven rims with murmuring, so came\nWords in her lips with no word right of them,\nA beaten speech thick and disconsolate,\nTill his smile ceasing waxed compassionate\nOf her sore fear that grew from anything--\nThe sound of the strong summer thickening\nIn heated leaves of the smooth apple-trees:\nThe day’s breath felt about the ash-branches,\nAnd noises of the noon whose weight still grew\nOn the hot heavy-headed flowers, and drew\nTheir red mouths open till the rose-heart ached;\nFor eastward all the crowding rose was slaked\nAnd soothed with shade: but westward all its growth\nSeemed to breathe hard with heat as a man doth\nWho feels his temples newly feverous.\nAnd even with such motion in her brows\nAs that man hath in whom sick days begin,\nShe turned her throat and spake, her voice being thin\nAs a sick man’s, sudden and tremulous;\n“Sweet, if this end be come indeed on us,\nLet us love more;” and held his mouth with hers.\nAs the first sound of flooded hill-waters\nIs heard by people of the meadow-grass,\nOr ever a wandering waif of ruin pass\nWith whirling stones and foam of the brown stream\nFlaked with fierce yellow: so beholding him\nShe felt before tears came her eyelids wet,\nSaw the face deadly thin where life was yet,\nHeard his throat’s harsh last moan before it clomb:\nAnd he, with close mouth passionate and dumb,\nBurned at her lips: so lay they without speech,\nEach grasping other, and the eyes of each\nFed in the other’s face: till suddenly\nHe cried out with a little broken cry\nThis word, “O help me, sweet, I am but dead.”\nAnd even so saying, the colour of fair red\nWas gone out of his face, and his blood’s beat\nFell, and stark death made sharp his upward feet\nAnd pointed hands; and without moan he died.\nPain smote her sudden in the brows and side,\nStrained her lips open and made burn her eyes:\nFor the pure sharpness of her miseries\nShe had no heart’s pain, but mere body’s wrack;\nBut at the last her beaten blood drew back\nSlowly upon her face, and her stunned brows\nSuddenly grown aware and piteous\nGathered themselves, her eyes shone, her hard breath\nCame as though one nigh dead came back from death;\nHer lips throbbed, and life trembled through her hair.\nAnd in brief while she thought to bury there\nThe dead man that her love might lie with him\nIn a sweet bed under the rose-roots dim\nAnd soft earth round the branchĂšd apple-trees,\nFull of hushed heat and heavy with great ease,\nAnd no man entering divide him thence.\nWherefore she bade one of her handmaidens\nTo be her help to do upon this wise.\nAnd saying so the tears out of her eyes\nFell without noise and comforted her heart:\nYea, her great pain eased of the sorest part\nBegan to soften in her sense of it.\nThere under all the little branches sweet\nThe place was shapen of his burial;\nThey shed thereon no thing funereal,\nBut coloured leaves of latter rose-blossom,\nStems of soft grass, some withered red and some\nFair and fresh-blooded; and spoil splendider\nOf marigold and great spent sunflower.\nAnd afterward she came back without word\nTo her own house; two days went, and the third\nWent, and she showed her father of this thing.\nAnd for great grief of her soul’s travailing\nHe gave consent she should endure in peace\nTill her life’s end; yea, till her time should cease,\nShe should abide in fellowship of pain.\nAnd having lived a holy year or twain\nShe died of pure waste heart and weariness.\nAnd for love’s honour in her love’s distress\nThis word was written over her tomb’s head;\n“Here dead she lieth, for whose sake Love is dead.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -107823,10 +111110,10 @@ "title": "“Wasted Love”", "body": "What shall be done for sorrow\n With love whose race is run?\nWhere help is none to borrow,\n What shall be done?\n\nIn vain his hands have spun\n The web, or drawn the furrow:\nNo rest their toil hath won.\n\nHis task is all gone thorough,\n And fruit thereof is none:\nAnd who dare say to-morrow\n What shall be done?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -107834,10 +111121,10 @@ "title": "“The Year of Love”", "body": "There were four loves that one by one,\nFollowing the seasons and the sun,\nPassed over without tears, and fell\nAway without farewell.\n\nThe first was made of gold and tears,\nThe next of aspen-leaves and fears,\nThe third of rose-boughs and rose-roots,\nThe last love of strange fruits.\n\nThese were the four loves faded. Hold\nSome minutes fast the time of gold\nWhen our lips each way clung and clove\nTo a face full of love.\n\nThe tears inside our eyelids met,\nWrung forth with kissing, and wept wet\nThe faces cleaving each to each\nWhere the blood served for speech.\n\nThe second, with low patient brows\nBound under aspen-coloured boughs\nAnd eyes made strong and grave with sleep\nAnd yet too weak to weep--\n\nThe third, with eager mouth at ease\nFed from late autumn honey, lees\nOf scarce gold left in latter cells\nWith scattered flower-smells--\n\nHair sprinkled over with spoilt sweet\nOf ruined roses, wrists and feet\nSlight-swathed, as grassy-girdled sheaves\nHold in stray poppy-leaves--\n\nThe fourth, with lips whereon has bled\nSome great pale fruit’s slow colour, shed\nFrom the rank bitter husk whence drips\nFaint blood between her lips--\n\nMade of the heat of whole great Junes\nBurning the blue dark round their moons\n(Each like a mown red marigold)\nSo hard the flame keeps hold--\n\nThese are burnt thoroughly away.\nOnly the first holds out a day\nBeyond these latter loves that were\nMade of mere heat and air.\n\nAnd now the time is winterly\nThe first love fades too: none will see,\nWhen April warms the world anew,\nThe place wherein love grew.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1866 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -107967,7 +111254,6 @@ "title": "“Advertisement”", "body": "I’m a tranquilizer.\nI’m effective at home.\nI work in the office.\nI can take exams\non the witness stand.\nI mend broken cups with care.\nAll you have to do is take me,\nlet me melt beneath your tongue,\njust gulp me\nwith a glass of water.\n\nI know how to handle misfortune,\nhow to take bad news.\nI can minimize injustice,\nlighten up God’s absence,\nor pick the widow’s veil that suits your face.\nWhat are you waiting for--\nhave faith in my chemical compassion.\n\nYou’re still a young man/woman.\nIt’s not too late to learn how to unwind.\nWho said\nyou have to take it on the chin?\n\nLet me have your abyss.\nI’ll cushion it with sleep.\nYou’ll thank me for giving you\nfour paws to fall on.\n\nSell me your soul.\nThere are no other takers.\n\nThere is no other devil anymore.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Could Have", @@ -107976,6 +111262,9 @@ "year": 1972 } }, + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -107983,8 +111272,11 @@ "title": "“Birthday”", "body": "So much world all at once--how it rustles and bustles!\nMoraines and morays and morasses and mussels,\nThe flame, the flamingo, the flounder, the feather--\nHow to line them all up, how to put them together?\nAll the tickets and crickets and creepers and creeks!\nThe beeches and leeches alone could take weeks.\nChinchillas, gorillas, and sarsaparillas--\nThanks do much, but all this excess of kindness could kill us.\nWhere’s the jar for this burgeoning burdock, brooks’ babble,\nRooks’ squabble, snakes’ quiggle, abundance, and trouble?\nHow to plug up the gold mines and pin down the fox,\nHow to cope with the linx, bobolinks, strptococs!\nTale dioxide: a lightweight, but mighty in deeds:\nWhat about octopodes, what about centipedes?\nI could look into prices, but don’t have the nerve:\nThese are products I just can’t afford, don’t deserve.\nIsn’t sunset a little too much for two eyes\nThat, who knows, may not open to see the sun rise?\nI am just passing through, it’s a five-minute stop.\nI won’t catch what is distant: what’s too close, I’ll mix up.\nWhile trying to plumb what the void’s inner sense is,\nI’m bound to pass by all these poppies and pansies.\nWhat a loss when you think how much effort was spent\nperfecting this petal, this pistil, this scent\nfor the one-time appearance, which is all they’re allowed,\nso aloofly precise and so fragilely proud.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Clare Cavanagh & StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Clare Cavanagh", + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -107992,7 +111284,6 @@ "title": "“Children of Our Age”", "body": "We are children of our age,\nit’s a political age.\n\nAll day long, all through the night,\nall affairs--yours, ours, theirs--\nare political affairs.\n\nWhether you like it or not,\nyour genes have a political past,\nyour skin, a political cast,\nyour eyes, a political slant.\n\nWhatever you say reverberates,\nwhatever you don’t say speaks for itself.\nSo either way you’re talking politics.\n\nEven when you take to the woods,\nyou’re taking political steps\non political grounds.\n\nApolitical poems are also political,\nand above us shines a moon\nno longer purely lunar.\nTo be or not to be, that is the question.\nAnd though it troubles the digestion\nit’s a question, as always, of politics.\n\nTo acquire a political meaning\nyou don’t even have to be human.\nRaw material will do,\nor protein feed, or crude oil,\n\nor a conference table whose shape\nwas quarreled over for months;\nShould we arbitrate life and death\nat a round table or a square one?\n\nMeanwhile, people perished,\nanimals died,\nhouses burned,\nand the fields ran wild\njust as in times immemorial\nand less political.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak & Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "People on the Bridge", @@ -108001,6 +111292,10 @@ "year": 1986 } }, + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108008,7 +111303,6 @@ "title": "“Dreams”", "body": "Despite the geologists’ knowledge and craft,\nmocking magnets, graphs, and maps--\nin a split second the dream\npiles before us mountains as stony\nas real life.\n\nAnd since mountains, then valleys, plains\nwith perfect infrastructures.\nWithout engineers, contractors, workers,\nbulldozers, diggers, or supplies--\nraging highways, instant bridges,\nthickly populated pop-up cities.\n\nWithout directors, megaphones, and cameramen--\ncrowds knowing exactly when to frighten us\nand when to vanish.\n\nWithout architects deft in their craft,\nwithout carpenters, bricklayers, concrete pourers--\non the path a sudden house just like a toy,\nand in it vast halls that echo with our steps\nand walls constructed out of solid air.\n\nNot just the scale, it’s also the precision--\na specific watch, an entire fly,\non the table a cloth with cross-stitched flowers,\na bitten apple with teeth marks.\n\nAnd we--unlike circus acrobats,\nconjurers, wizards, and hypnotists--\ncan fly unfledged,\nwe light dark tunnels with our eyes,\nwe wax eloquent in unknown tongues,\ntalking not with just anyone, but with the dead.\n\nAnd as a bonus, despite our own freedom,\nthe choices of our heart, our tastes,\nwe’re swept away\nby amorous yearnings for--\nand the alarm clock rings.\n\nSo what can they tell us, the writers of dream books,\nthe scholars of oneiric signs and omens,\nthe doctors with couches for analyses--\nif anything fits,\nit’s accidental,\nand for one reason only,\nthat in our dreamings,\nin their shadowings and gleamings,\nin their multiplings, inconceivablings,\nin their haphazardings and widescatterings\nat times even a clear-cut meaning\nmay slip through.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Clare Cavanagh & StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -108018,6 +111312,10 @@ "month": "september" } }, + "translators": [ + "Clare Cavanagh", + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108025,8 +111323,10 @@ "title": "“The End and the Beginning”", "body": "After every war\nsomeone has to clean up.\nThings won’t\nstraighten themselves up, after all.\n\nSomeone has to push the rubble\nto the side of the road,\nso the corpse-filled wagons\ncan pass.\n\nSomeone has to get mired\nin scum and ashes,\nsofa springs,\nsplintered glass,\nand bloody rags.\n\nSomeone has to drag in a girder\nto prop up a wall.\nSomeone has to glaze a window,\nrehang a door.\n\nPhotogenic it’s not,\nand takes years.\nAll the cameras have left\nfor another war.\n\nWe’ll need the bridges back,\nand new railway stations.\nSleeves will go ragged\nfrom rolling them up.\n\nSomeone, broom in hand,\nstill recalls the way it was.\nSomeone else listens\nand nods with unsevered head.\nBut already there are those nearby\nstarting to mill about\nwho will find it dull.\n\nFrom out of the bushes\nsometimes someone still unearths\nrusted-out arguments\nand carries them to the garbage pile.\n\nThose who knew\nwhat was going on here\nmust make way for\nthose who know little.\nAnd less than little.\nAnd finally as little as nothing.\n\nIn the grass that has overgrown\ncauses and effects,\nsomeone must be stretched out\nblade of grass in his mouth\ngazing at the clouds.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Joanna Trzeciak", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Joanna Trzeciak" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108034,8 +111334,11 @@ "title": "“Family Album”", "body": "No one in this family has ever died of love.\nNo food for myth and nothing magisterial.\nConsumptive Romeos? Juliets diphtherial?\nA doddering second childhood was enough.\nNo death-defying vigils, love-struck poses\nover unrequited letters strewn with tears!\nHere, in conclusion, as scheduled, appears\na portly, pince-nez’d neighbor bearing roses.\nNo suffocation-in-the-closet gaffes\nbecause the cuckold returned home too early!\nThose frills or furbelows, however flounced and whirly,\nbarred no one from the family photographs.\nNo Bosch-like hell within their souls, no wretches\nfound bleeding in the garden, shirts in stains!\n(True, some did die with bullets in their brains,\nfor other reasons, though, and on field stretchers.)\nEven this belle with rapturous coiffure\nwho may have danced till dawn--but nothing smarter--\nhemorrhaged to a better world, b i e n s u r,\nbut not to taunt or hurt y o u, slick-haired partner.\nFor others, Death was mad and monumental--\nnot for these citizens of a sepia past.\nTheir griefs turned into smiles, their days flew fast,\ntheir vanishing was due to influenza.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak & Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108043,7 +111346,6 @@ "title": "“A Few Words on the Soul”", "body": "We have a soul at times.\nNo one’s got it non-stop,\nfor keeps.\n\nDay after day,\nyear after year\nmay pass without it.\n\nSometimes\nit will settle for awhile\nonly in childhood’s fears and raptures.\nSometimes only in astonishment\nthat we are old.\n\nIt rarely lends a hand\nin uphill tasks,\nlike moving furniture,\nor lifting luggage,\nor going miles in shoes that pinch.\n\nIt usually steps out\nwhenever meat needs chopping\nor forms have to be filled.\n\nFor every thousand conversations\nit participates in one,\nif even that,\nsince it prefers silence.\n\nJust when our body goes from ache to pain,\nit slips off-duty.\n\nIt’s picky:\nit doesn’t like seeing us in crowds,\nour hustling for a dubious advantage\nand creaky machinations make it sick.\n\nJoy and sorrow\naren’t two different feelings for it.\nIt attends us\nonly when the two are joined.\n\nWe can count on it\nwhen we’re sure of nothing\nand curious about everything.\n\nAmong the material objects\nit favors clocks with pendulums\nand mirrors, which keep on working\neven when no one is looking.\n\nIt won’t say where it comes from\nor when it’s taking off again,\nthough it’s clearly expecting such questions.\n\nWe need it\nbut apparently\nit needs us\nfor some reason too.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Clare Cavanagh & StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "A Large Number", @@ -108052,6 +111354,10 @@ "year": 1976 } }, + "translators": [ + "Clare Cavanagh", + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108059,8 +111365,10 @@ "title": "“A Funeral”", "body": "“so suddenly, who would’ve expected this”\n“stress and cigarettes, I was warning him”\n“fair to middling, thanks”\n“unwrap these flowers”\n“his brother snuffed because of his ticker too, must be running in the family”\n“I’d never recognise you with your beard”\n“it’s all his fault, he was always up to some funny business”\n“the new one was to give a speech, can’t see him, though”\n“Kazek’s in Warsaw and Tadek abroad”\n“you’re the only wise one here, having an umbrella”\n“it won’t help him now that he was the most talented of them all”\n“that’s a connecting room. Baƛka won’t like it”\n“he was right, true, but that’s not the reason for”\n“with door varnishing, guess how much”\n“two eggs and a spoonful of sugar”\n“none of his business, what was the point then”\n“blue and small sizes only”\n“five times and never a single answer”\n“I’ll give your that, I could’ve, but so could you”\n“so good at least she had that job”\n“I’ve no idea, must be relatives”\n“the priest, very much like Belmondo”\n“I’ve never been to this part of the cemetery”\n“I saw him in my dream last week, must’ve been a premonition”\n“pretty, that little daughter”\n“we’re all going to end up this way”\n“give mine to the widow, I’ve got to hurry to”\n“but still it sounded more solemn in Latin”\n“you can’t turn back the clock”\n“goodbye”\n“how about a beer”\n“give me a ring, we’ll have a chat”\n“number four or number twelve”\n“me, this way”\n“we, that way”.", "metadata": { - "translator": "MikoƂaj Sekreck", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "MikoƂaj Sekreck" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108068,8 +111376,11 @@ "title": "“Going Home”", "body": "He came home. Said nothing.\nIt was clear, though, that something had gone wrong.\nHe lay down fully dressed.\nPulled the blanket over his head.\nTucked up his knees.\nHe’s nearly forty, but not at the moment.\nHe exists just as he did inside his mother’s womb,\nclad in seven walls of skin, in sheltered darkness.\nTomorrow he’ll give a lecture\non homeostasis in metagalactic cosmonautics.\nFor now, though, he has curled up and gone to sleep.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Clare Cavanagh & StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Clare Cavanagh", + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108077,7 +111388,6 @@ "title": "“A Great Man’s House”", "body": "It was written in marble in golden letters:\nhere a great man lived and worked and died.\nHe laid the gravel for these paths personally.\nThis bench--do not touch--he chiseled by himself out of stone.\nAnd--careful, three steps--we’re going inside.\n\nHe made it into the world at just the right time.\nEverything that had to pass, passed in this house.\nNot in a high rise,\nnot in square feet, furnished yet empty,\namidst unknown neighbors,\non some fifteenth floor,\nwhere it’s hard to drag school field trips.\n\nIn this room he pondered,\nin this chamber he slept,\nand over here he entertained guests.\nPortraits, an armchair, a desk, a pipe, a globe, a flute,\na worn-out rug, a sun room.\nFrom here he exchanged nods with his tailor and shoemaker\nwho custom made for him.\n\nThis is not the same as photographs in boxes,\ndried out pens in a plastic cup,\na store-bought wardrobe in a store-bought closet,\na window, from which you can see clouds better than people.\n\nHappy? Unhappy?\nThat’s not relevant here.\nHe still confided in his letters,\nwithout thinking they would be opened on their way.\n\nHe still kept a detailed and honest diary,\nwithout the fear that he would lose it during a search.\nThe passing of a comet worried him most.\nThe destruction of the world was only in the hands of God.\n\nHe still managed not to die in the hospital,\nbehind a white screen, who knows which one.\nThere was still someone with him who remembered\nhis muttered words.\n\nHe partook of life\nas if it were reusable:\nhe sent his books to be bound;\nhe wouldn’t cross out the last names of the dead from\nhis address book. And the trees he had planted in the garden behind the house\ngrew for him as _Juglans regia_\nand _Quercus rubra_ and _Ulmus_ and _Larix_\nand _Fraxinus excelsior_.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Joanna Trzeciak", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Poetry", @@ -108087,6 +111397,9 @@ "month": "october" } }, + "translators": [ + "Joanna Trzeciak" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108094,8 +111407,11 @@ "title": "“Hunger Camp at Jaslo”", "body": "Write it. Write. In ordinary ink\non ordinary paper: they were given no food,\nthey all died of hunger. “All. How many?\nIt’s a big meadow. How much grass\nfor each one?” Write: I don’t know.\nHistory counts its skeletons in round numbers.\nA thousand and one remains a thousand,\nas though the one had never existed:\nan imaginary embryo, an empty cradle,\nan ABC never read,\nair that laughs, cries, grows,\nemptiness running down steps toward the garden,\nnobody’s place in the line.\n\nWe stand in the meadow where it became flesh,\nand the meadow is silent as a false witness.\nSunny. Green. Nearby, a forest\nwith wood for chewing and water under the bark--\nevery day a full ration of the view\nuntil you go blind. Overhead, a bird--\nthe shadow of its life-giving wings\nbrushed their lips. Their jaws opened.\nTeeth clacked against teeth.\nAt night, the sickle moon shone in the sky\nand reaped wheat for their bread.\nHands came floating from blackened icons,\nempty cups in their fingers.\nOn a spit of barbed wire,\na man was turning.\nThey sang with their mouths full of earth.\n“A lovely song of how war strikes straight\nat the heart.” Write: how silent.\n“Yes.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Clare Cavanagh & StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Clare Cavanagh", + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -108106,8 +111422,11 @@ "title": "“I Am too Close for Him”", "body": "I am too close for him to dream about me.\nI’m not flying over him, not fleeing him\nunder the roots of trees. I am too close.\nNot with my voice sings the fish in the net.\nNot from my finger rolls the ring.\nI am too close. A large house is on fire\nwithout my calling for help. Too close\nfor a bell dangling from my hair to chime.\nToo close for me to enter as a guest\nbefore whom the walls part.\nNever again will I die so readily,\nso far beyond the flesh, so inadvertently\nas once in his dream. I am too close,\ntoo close--I hear the hiss\nand see the glittering husk of that word,\nas I lie immobilized in his embrace. He sleeps,\nmore available at this moment\nto the ticket lady of a one-lion traveling circus\nseen but once in his life\nthan to me lying beside him.\nNow a valley grows for her in him, ochre-leaved,\nclosed off by a snowy mountain\nin the azure air. I am too close\nto fall out of the sky for him. My scream\nmight only awaken him. Poor me,\nlimited to my own form,\nbut I was a birch tree, I was a lizard,\nI emerged from satins and sundials\nmy skins shimmering in different colors. I possessed\nthe grace to disappear from astonished eyes,\nand that is the rich man’s riches. I am too close,\ntoo close for him to dream about me.\nI slip my arm out from under his sleeping head.\nIt’s numb, full of imaginary pins and needles.\nAnd on the head of each, ready to be counted,\ndance the fallen angels.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak & Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108115,8 +111434,11 @@ "title": "“Identification”", "body": "It’s good you came--she says.\nYou heard a plane crashed on Thursday?\nWell so they came to see me\nabout it.\nThe story is he was on the passenger list.\nSo what, he might have changed his mind.\nThey gave me some pills so I wouldn’t fall apart.\nThen they showed me I don’t know who.\nAll black, burned except one hand.\nA scrap of shirt, a watch, a wedding ring.\nI got furious, that can’t be him.\nHe wouldn’t do that to me, look like that.\nThe stores are bursting with those shirts.\nThe watch is just a regular old watch.\nAnd our names on that ring,\nthey’re only the most ordinary names.\nIt’s good you came. Sit here beside me.\nHe really was supposed to get back Thursday.\nBut we’ve got so many Thursdays left this year.\nI’ll put the kettle on for tea.\nI’ll wash my hair, then what,\ntry to wake up from all this.\nIt’s good you came, since it was cold there,\nand him just in some rubber sleeping bag,\nhim, I mean, you know, that unlucky man.\nI’ll put the Thursday on, wash the tea,\nsince our names are completely ordinary.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak & Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108124,7 +111446,6 @@ "title": "“In Praise of Feeling Bad about Yourself”", "body": "The buzzard never says it is to blame.\nThe panther wouldn’t know what scruples mean.\nWhen the piranha strikes, it feels no shame.\nIf snakes had hands, they’d claim their hands were clean.\n\nA jackal doesn’t understand remorse.\nLions and lice don’t waver in their course.\nWhy should they, when they know they’re right?\n\nThough hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton,\nin every other way they’re light.\n\nOn this third planet of the sun\namong the signs of bestiality\na clear conscience is Number One.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak & Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "A Large Number", @@ -108133,6 +111454,10 @@ "year": 1976 } }, + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -108143,8 +111468,11 @@ "title": "“Lot’s Wife”", "body": "They say I looked back out of curiosity.\nBut I could have had other reasons.\nI looked back mourning my silver bowl.\nCarelessly, while tying my sandal strap.\nSo I wouldn’t have to keep staring at the righteous nape\nof my husband Lot’s neck.\nFrom the sudden conviction that if I dropped dead\nhe wouldn’t so much as hesitate.\nFrom the disobedience of the meek.\nChecking for pursuers.\nStruck by the silence, hoping God had changed his mind.\nOur two daughters were already vanishing over the hilltop.\nI felt age within me. Distance.\nThe futility of wandering. Torpor.\nI looked back setting my bundle down.\nI looked back not knowing where to set my foot.\nSerpents appeared on my path,\nspiders, field mice, baby vultures.\nThey were neither good nor evil now--every living thing\nwas simply creeping or hopping along in the mass panic.\nI looked back in desolation.\nIn shame because we had stolen away.\nWanting to cry out, to go home.\nOr only when a sudden gust of wind\nunbound my hair and lifted up my robe.\nIt seemed to me that they were watching from the walls of Sodom\nand bursting into thunderous laughter again and again.\nI looked back in anger.\nTo savor their terrible fate.\nI looked back for all the reasons given above.\nI looked back involuntarily.\nIt was only a rock that turned underfoot, growling at me.\nIt was a sudden crack that stopped me in my tracks.\nA hamster on its hind paws tottered on the edge.\nIt was then we both glanced back.\nNo, no. I ran on,\nI crept, I flew upward\nuntil darkness fell from the heavens\nand with it scorching gravel and dead birds.\nI couldn’t breathe and spun around and around.\nAnyone who saw me must have thought I was dancing.\nIt’s not inconceivable that my eyes were open.\nIt’s possible I fell facing the city.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak & Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108152,8 +111480,11 @@ "title": "“Love at First Sight”", "body": "They both thought\nthat a sudden feeling had united them\nThis certainty is beautiful,\nEven more beautiful than uncertainty.\n\nThey thought they didn’t know each other,\nnothing had ever happened between them,\nThese streets, these stairs, this corridors,\nWhere they could have met so long ago?\n\nI would like to ask them,\nif they can remember--\nperhaps in a revolving door\nface to face one day?\nA “sorry” in the crowd?\n“Wrong number” on the phone?\n--but I know the answer.\nNo, they don’t remember.\n\nHow surprised they would be\nFor such a long time already\nFate has been playing with them.\n\nNot quite yet ready\nto change into destiny,\nwhich brings them nearer and yet further,\ncutting their path\nand stifling a laugh,\nescaping ever further;\nThere were sings, indications,\nundecipherable, what does in matter.\nThree years ago, perhaps\nor even last Tuesday,\nthis leaf flying\nfrom one shoulder to another?\nSomething lost and gathered.\nWho knows, perhaps a ball already\nin the bushes, in childhood?\n\nThere were handles, door bells,\nwhere, on the trace of a hand,\nanother hand was placed;\nsuitcases next to one another in the\nleft luggage.\nAnd maybe one night the same dream\nforgotten on walking;\n\nBut every beginning\nis only a continuation\nand the book of fate is\nalways open in the middle.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak & Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108161,11 +111492,14 @@ "title": "“Nothing Twice”", "body": "Nothing can ever happen twice.\nIn consequence, the sorry fact is\nthat we arrive here improvised\nand leave without the chance to practice.\n\nEven if there is no one dumber,\nif you’re the planet’s biggest dunce,\nyou can’t repeat the class in summer:\nthis course is only offered once.\n\nNo day copies yesterday,\nno two nights will teach what bliss is\nin precisely the same way,\nwith precisely the same kisses.\n\nOne day, perhaps some idle tongue\nmentions your name by accident:\nI feel as if a rose were flung\ninto the room, all hue and scent.\n\nThe next day, though you’re here with me,\nI can’t help looking at the clock:\nA rose? A rose? What could that be?\nIs it a flower or a rock?\n\nWhy do we treat the fleeting day\nwith so much needless fear and sorrow?\nIt’s in its nature not to stay:\nToday is always gone tomorrow.\n\nWith smiles and kisses, we prefer\nto seek accord beneath our star,\nalthough we’re different (we concur)\njust as two drops of water are.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak & Clare Cavanagh", + "language": "Polish", "time": { "year": 1998 }, - "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108173,7 +111507,6 @@ "title": "“On Death, without Exaggeration”", "body": "It can’t take a joke,\nfind a star, make a bridge.\nIt knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,\nbuilding ships, or baking cakes.\n\nIn our planning for tomorrow,\nit has the final word,\nwhich is always beside the point.\n\nIt can’t even get the things done\nthat are part of its trade:\ndig a grave,\nmake a coffin,\nclean up after itself.\n\nPreoccupied with killing,\nit does the job awkwardly,\nwithout system or skill.\nAs though each of us were its first kill.\n\nOh, it has its triumphs,\nbut look at its countless defeats,\nmissed blows,\nand repeat attempts!\n\nSometimes it isn’t strong enough\nto swat a fly from the air.\nMany are the caterpillars\nthat have outcrawled it.\n\nAll those bulbs, pods,\ntentacles, fins, tracheae,\nnuptial plumage, and winter fur\nshow that it has fallen behind\nwith its halfhearted work.\n\nIll will won’t help\nand even our lending a hand with wars and coups d’etat\nis so far not enough.\n\nHearts beat inside eggs.\nBabies’ skeletons grow.\nSeeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves\nand sometimes even tall trees fall away.\n\nWhoever claims that it’s omnipotent\nis himself living proof\nthat it’s not.\n\nThere’s no life\nthat couldn’t be immortal\nif only for a moment.\n\nDeath\nalways arrives by that very moment too late.\n\nIn vain it tugs at the knob\nof the invisible door.\nAs far as you’ve come\ncan’t be undone.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak & Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "The People on the Bridge", @@ -108182,6 +111515,10 @@ "year": 1986 } }, + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108189,7 +111526,6 @@ "title": "“The Onion”", "body": "The onion, now that’s something else\nits innards don’t exist\nnothing but pure onionhood\nfills this devout onionist\noniony on the inside\nonionesque it appears\nit follows its own daimonion\nwithout our human tears\n\nour skin is just a coverup\nfor the land where none dare to go\nan internal inferno\nthe anathema of anatomy\nin an onion there’s only onion\nfrom its top to it’s toe\nonionymous monomania\nunanimous omninudity\n\nat peace, at peace\ninternally at rest\ninside it, there’s a smaller one\nof undiminished worth\nthe second holds a third one\nthe third contains a fourth\na centripetal fugue\npolypony compressed\n\nnature’s rotundest tummy\nits greatest success story\nthe onion drapes itself in it’s\nown aureoles of glory\nwe hold veins, nerves, and fat\nsecretions’ secret sections\nnot for us such idiotic\nonionoid perfections.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak & Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "A Large Number", @@ -108198,6 +111534,10 @@ "year": 1976 } }, + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108205,7 +111545,6 @@ "title": "“Plato, or Why”", "body": "For unclear reasons\nunder unknown circumstances\nIdeal Being ceased to be satisfied.\n\nIt could have gone on forever,\nhewn from darkness, forged from light,\nin its sleepy gardens above the world.\n\nWhy on earth did it start seeking thrills\nin the bad company of matter?\n\nWhat use could it have for imitators,\ninept, ill-starred,\nlacking all prospects for eternity?\n\nWisdom limping\nwith a thorn stuck in its heel?\nHarmony derailed\nby roiling waters?\nBeauty\nholding unappealing entrails\nand Good--\nwhy the shadow\nwhen it didn’t have one before?\n\nThere must have been some reason,\nhowever slight,\nbut even the Naked Truth, busy ransacking\nthe earth’s wardrobe,\nwon’t betray it.\n\nNot to mention, Plato, those appalling poets,\nlitter scattered by the breeze from under statues,\nscraps from that great Silence up on high 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Justyna Kostkowska", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Monologue of a Dog", @@ -108214,6 +111553,9 @@ "year": 2006 } }, + "translators": [ + "Justyna Kostkowska" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108221,8 +111563,11 @@ "title": "“Some People”", "body": "Some people fleeing some other people.\nIn some country under the sun\nand some clouds.\n\nThey leave behind some of their everything,\nsown fields, some chickens, dogs,\nmirrors in which fire now sees itself reflected.\n\nOn their backs are pitchers and bundles,\nthe emptier, the heavier from one day to the next.\n\nTaking place stealthily is somebody’s stopping,\nand in the commotion, somebody’s bread somebody’s snatching\nand a dead child somebody’s shaking.\n\nIn front of them some still not the right way,\nnor the bridge that should be\nover a river strangely rosy.\nAround them, some gunfire, at times closer, at times farther off,\nand, above, a plane circling somewhat.\n\nSome invisibility would come in handy,\nsome grayish stoniness,\nor even better, non-being\nfor a little or a long while.\n\nSomething else is yet to happen, only where and what?\nSomeone will head toward them, only when and who,\nin how many shapes and with what intentions?\nGiven a choice,\nmaybe he will choose not to be the enemy and\nleave them with some kind of life.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak & Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108230,7 +111575,6 @@ "title": "“A Thank You Note”", "body": "There is much I owe\nto those I do not love.\nThe relief in accepting\nthey are closer to another.\nJoy that I am not\nthe wolf to their sheep.\nMy peace be with them\nfor with them I am free,\nand this, love can neither give,\nnor know how to take.\nI don’t wait for them\nfrom window to door.\nAlmost as patient\nas a sun dial,\nI understand\nwhat love does not understand.\nI forgive\nwhat love would never have forgiven.\nBetween rendezvous and letter\nno eternity passes,\nonly a few days or weeks.\nMy trips with them always turn out well.\nConcerts are heard.\nCathedrals are toured.\nLandscapes are distinct.\nAnd when seven rivers and mountains\ncome between us,\nthey are rivers and mountains\nwell known from any map.\nIt is thanks to them\nthat I live in three dimensions,\nin a non-lyrical and non-rhetorical space,\nwith a shifting, thus real, horizon.\nThey don’t even know\nhow much they carry in their empty hands.\n“I don’t owe them anything,”\nlove would have said\non this open topic.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Joanna Trzeciak", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "A Large Number", @@ -108239,6 +111583,9 @@ "year": 1976 } }, + "translators": [ + "Joanna Trzeciak" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108246,8 +111593,11 @@ "title": "“True Love”", "body": "True love. Is it normal\nis it serious, is it practical?\nWhat does the world get from two people\nwho exist in a world of their own?\n\nPlaced on the same pedestal for no good reason,\ndrawn randomly from millions but convinced\nit had to happen this way--in reward for what?\nFor nothing.\nThe light descends from nowhere.\nWhy on these two and not on others?\nDoesn’t this outrage justice? Yes it does.\nDoesn’t it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles,\nand cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts.\n\nLook at the happy couple.\nCouldn’t they at least try to hide it,\nfake a little depression for their friends’ sake?\nListen to them laughing--its an insult.\nThe language they use--deceptively clear.\nAnd their little celebrations, rituals,\nthe elaborate mutual routines--\nit’s obviously a plot behind the human race’s back!\n\nIt’s hard even to guess how far things might go\nif people start to follow their example.\nWhat could religion and poetry count on?\nWhat would be remembered? What renounced?\nWho’d want to stay within bounds?\n\nTrue love. Is it really necessary?\nTact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence,\nlike a scandal in Life’s highest circles.\nPerfectly good children are born without its help.\nIt couldn’t populate the planet in a million years,\nit comes along so rarely.\n\nLet the people who never find true love\nkeep saying that there’s no such thing.\n\nTheir faith will make it easier for them to live and die.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak & Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108255,8 +111605,11 @@ "title": "“Under One Small Star”", "body": "My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.\nMy apologies to necessity if I’m mistaken, after all.\nPlease, don’t be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.\nMay my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.\nMy apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.\nMy apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.\nForgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.\nForgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.\nI apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.\nI apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.\nPardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.\nPardon me, deserts, that I don’t rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.\nAnd you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage,\nyour gaze always fixed on the same point in space,\nforgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.\nMy apologies to the felled tree for the table’s four legs.\nMy apologies to great questions for small answers.\nTruth, please don’t pay me much attention.\nDignity, please be magnanimous.\nBear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.\nSoul, don’t take offense that I’ve only got you now and then.\nMy apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere at once.\nMy apologies to everyone that I can’t be each woman and each man.\nI know I won’t be justified as long as I live,\nsince I myself stand in my own way.\nDon’t bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,\nthen labor heavily so that they may seem light.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak & Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108264,7 +111617,6 @@ "title": "“Utopia”", "body": "Island where all becomes clear.\nSolid ground beneath your feet.\n\nThe only roads are those that offer access.\n\nBushes bend beneath the weight of proofs.\n\nThe Tree of Valid Supposition grows here\nwith branches disentangled since time immemorial.\n\nThe Tree of Understanding, dazzling straight and simple.\nsprouts by the spring called Now I Get It.\n\nThe thicker the woods, the vaster the vista:\nthe Valley of Obviously.\n\nIf any doubts arise, the wind dispels them instantly.\n\nEchoes stir unsummoned\nand eagerly explain all the secrets of the worlds.\n\nOn the right a cave where Meaning lies.\n\nOn the left the Lake of Deep Conviction.\nTruth breaks from the bottom and bobs to the surface.\n\nUnshakable Confidence towers over the valley.\nIts peak offers an excellent view of the Essence of Things.\n\nFor all its charms, the island is uninhabited,\nand the faint footprints scattered on its beaches\nturn without exception to the sea.\n\nAs if all you can do here is leave\nand plunge, never to return, into the depths.\n\nInto unfathomable life.", "metadata": { - "translator": "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak & Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "A Large Number", @@ -108273,6 +111625,10 @@ "year": 1976 } }, + "translators": [ + "StanisƂaw BaraƄczak", + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108280,7 +111636,6 @@ "title": "“A Word on Statistics”", "body": "Out of every hundred people\n\nthose who always know better:\nfifty-two.\n\nUnsure of every step:\nalmost all the rest.\n\nReady to help,\nif it doesn’t take long:\nforty-nine.\n\nAlways good,\nbecause they cannot be otherwise:\nfour--well, maybe five.\n\nAble to admire without envy:\neighteen.\n\nLed to error\nby youth (which passes):\nsixty, plus or minus.\n\nThose not to be messed with:\nforty and four.\n\nLiving in constant fear\nof someone or something:\nseventy-seven.\n\nCapable of happiness:\ntwenty-some-odd at most.\n\nHarmless alone,\nturning savage in crowds:\nmore than half, for sure.\n\nCruel\nwhen forced by circumstances:\nit’s better not to know,\nnot even approximately.\n\nWise in hindsight:\nnot many more\nthan wise in foresight.\n\nGetting nothing out of life except things:\nthirty\n(though I would like to be wrong).\n\nDoubled over in pain\nand without a flashlight in the dark:\neighty-three, sooner or later.\n\nThose who are just:\nquite a few at thirty-five.\n\nBut if it takes effort to understand:\nthree.\n\nWorthy of empathy:\nninety-nine.\n\nMortal:\none hundred out of one hundred--\na figure that has never varied yet.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Joanna Trzeciak", "language": "Polish", "source": { "title": "Miracle Fair", @@ -108289,6 +111644,9 @@ "year": 2001 } }, + "translators": [ + "Joanna Trzeciak" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -108346,8 +111704,10 @@ "title": "“Blue Horses”", "body": "Like snowdrifts of mist gilded in sunset,\nthe shore was sun-lit in eternity’s realm.\nNo promise in sight, nothing to look at,\nOnly the quiet--nomadic and numb.\nOnly the quiet: the cold, rampant storm\nof eternity’s realm holding nothing but grief.\nEyes covered in ash, you lie prone in your tomb,\nlying in heaven, and still your soul grieves.\nThrough a thin forest of disfigured faces\neach barren day races: hurrying, gone.\nI’ve terrible visions of my blue stallions\nbearing your coffin, as the world looks on.\nAnd seconds race by. I am not concerned:\nthose immortal linens won’t shine with your tears.\nThe tortures that churned in you died--all illusions\nof night: a burning soul howling with prayer.\nAt wildfire’s rate, like a swift turn of fate,\nmy blue horses dart with a thunderous roar!\nThere are no bouquets, no calm reveries,\nonly your new home--this grave’s sepulcher.\nWho’ll remember your face? Who’ll speak your name?\nIf you moan, who’ll come? Who’ll hear you whisper?\nThere’s no one for solace upon those strange shores,\nwhere cryptic chimeras sleep, darkly twisted.\nNothing could block out the light from this chamber:\nfrom only dry numbers, still, desert winds rise!\nThrough a thin forest of disfigured faces\neach barren day surges then, hurrying, dies.\nIn the mist’s rampant storm, eternity’s realm,\nIn heaven or tomb, by dark curse deplored:\nat a hurricane’s rate, like a swift turn of fate,\nmy blue horses dart with a thunderous roar!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher Michel", "language": "Georgian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher Michel" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -108358,8 +111718,10 @@ "title": "“The Fields”", "body": "Swaying, a slender figure appears\nwalking alone, sickle in hand,\nsinging a song, her voice is the pasture\nat village’s edge, where an old outpost stands.\nThe song is a soulful hymn of farewell\nsung to a row of cranes facing the sea,\nwhile the sun, like a spider is closing itself\nin the delicate criss-crossing thicket of trees.\nBut what does the soul know of slavery? Nothing!\nThe rustle and braying of sheep fill the streets:\na young village virgin and flock are returning.\nAnd the Virgin will soon return to the huts.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher Michel", "language": "Georgian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher Michel" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108367,8 +111729,10 @@ "title": "“Last Train”", "body": "Like the chariot of time, this car\ncannot be stopped, it will soon leave.\nAnd hope, like Fortune’s fickle star\nis fading far and fast from me.\n\nI know this voyage’s real name.\nWhy even bother, now, to grieve?\nWhen have I received from a train\neither solace, or sympathy?\n\nThe train--like lava--rumbles, dozing.\nConductors call out: All aboard, please!\nYou must depart, sir, doors are closing.\nConductors call out: All aboard, please!\n\nAh. Now iron starts to move.\nChoked with tears, I’m chasing after,\ncalling last words to my love:\nthe last we will speak to each other.\n\nLord, why curse me with such fortune,\nEach time losing hope anew?\nFor the art of valediction,\nWill no one but a poet truly do?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher Michel", "language": "Georgian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher Michel" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -108379,8 +111743,10 @@ "title": "“My heart’s the Black Sea 
”", "body": "_I was travelling, night approaching,\nThe sea showed me its gardens._\n --Shota Rustaveli\n\nMy heart’s the Black Sea leaning on\nand beating on Adjaran slopes.\nThe furious storms I’ve undergone:\nlet them miss your placid boats.\n\nAnd though the others cannot tell,\nYour pine and fir will understand\nthat I’m not carved from mud or shale,\nbut made of doubt and faith: a man.\n\nAs such, I’ll suffer what may come:\nThirst, thunderstorm or freezing rain,\nAs long as, with the rising dawn\none hope has light enough to shine.\n\nI’ll suffer every obstacle--\neach prison cell, each bitter slight,\nAs long as I can still see well\nenough to know my country’s plight.\n\nThe darkest taste of loneliness,\nthe saddest unbefriended state:\nI’ll suffer all, as long as I\ncan see my country’s shining light.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher Michel", "language": "Georgian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher Michel" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108388,8 +111754,10 @@ "title": "“Snow”", "body": "I am vicious with love for the indigo snow\nUntouched, as it blankets the river.\nMy mad love will undergo every woe,\nEvery wet frigid grief will endure.\nMy darling, my soul is a bottle of snow:\nI grow old, and the days faster flee.\nI have traveled my homeland only to know\nIt when it was a velvet blue sea.\nBut I am not troubled. I am winter’s kin\nAnd this is the life that I know,\nYet I will remember forever the skin\nOf your pale hands embedded in snow.\nMy darling, I still can envision your fingers,\nIn a garland of snow, humbly bent:\nA glimse of your scarf in the blue desert lingers\nDisappears, and then glimmers again.\nAnd thus my mad love for the indigo snow\nUntouched, as it blankets the river,\nIt drifts as the grieving winds pivot and flow,\nIt coats every broken blue flower.\nThe snow comes! A bright day arrives with its tiding.\nI’m covered with tired blue dreams.\nSomehow either winter or I must keep striving.\nSomehow I or the wind must remain.\nHere is a gentle game. Here is a road 
\nAll alone, all alone you traverse it.\nBut I love the snow, just as I once loved\nThe sorrow your voice kept so secret.\nIt called to me then, it was so potent then:\nThe placid days, crystal and fair.\nYour hair rushing ’round in the scattering wind\nAnd leaves from the field in your hair.\nI pine for you now. How I wish you were mine!\nI’m a vagrant who longs for his home.\nNow my only companion’s a copse of white pine.\nI must face myself once more, alone.\nThe snow comes! A bright day arrives with its tiding,\nI’m covered with tired blue thoughts.\nSomehow either winter or I must keep striving!\nSomehow I or the wind must pick up!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher Michel", "language": "Georgian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher Michel" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -108400,8 +111768,10 @@ "title": "“Sweeping Wind”", "body": "Sweeping wind, sweeping wind, sweeping wind,\nBrushing leaves, rushing up, gusting throug 
\nRows of trees, whole armies, bow and bend\nWhere are you, where are you, where are you?\n\nFirst it rains, then it snows, then it snows.\nWhere you are, I’ll never know, never know!\nEverywhere, haunting me, is your face.\nEvery day, all the time, every place 
\n\nAn endless sky sifts its misty musings in\nSweeping wind, sweeping wind, sweeping wind 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher Michel", "language": "Georgian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher Michel" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108409,8 +111779,10 @@ "title": "“The Tangled Window”", "body": "The tangled window,\nnight and curtain,\na flickering candle\nleft, forgotten\nafter a vision\nof you, in the twilight\ndeparted\nto never return.\n\nLaughter, fire,\nbitter tears,\nextraordinary\nshining eyes--\nglorious and dismal,\nA tempest of ideas\ndeparted\nto never return.\n\nThose brilliant\nextraordinary eyes\nthat so vividly pierced\nthe darkness\nlike a far-off\nflash of lightning,\ndeparted\nto never return.\n\nAnd with those eyes\nI think, a song\nmiserable, vile, died\nwith an avalanche.\nAnd my own life\ntook this path:\ndeparting\nto never return.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher Michel", "language": "Georgian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher Michel" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108418,8 +111790,10 @@ "title": "“Uncertainty”", "body": "There is inside your heart\na bitter, brutal death,\na place of deep upset\nwhere the lyre cannot breathe.\n\nOnce a boiling fire,\nnow your blood is frozen.\nAnd your eye has no tear,\nyour heart--no compassion.\n\nAnd when asked: “What occured,\nwhat does your heart yearn for?”\nHe raises his arms skyward\nyet gives to men no answer.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher Michel", "language": "Georgian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher Michel" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108427,11 +111801,13 @@ "title": "“What is the Time?”", "body": "The hour, no doubt has grown late,\nThis night’s long grief is my heart’s constant servant.\nThis stinging remorse gives me no peace\nWhat is the time? What is the time?\nThrough the window the night won’t wane an inch,\nAll of Autumn’s miseries deluge me.\nIt might only be three!\nWhat is the time? What is the time?\nIt must be a quarter past three, surely?\nBut the night is still as dark as pitch.\nThe station bell screams thirteen--\nWhat is the time? What is the time?\nAh, strains the gloom-shrouded corridor\nThis night coachman to accommodate fi tly.\nAgain the telephone--ringing nervously:\nWhat is the time? What is the time?\nGod, this vengeful early morning rain\nPours incessantly like a jet of pitch!\nWon’t it end, this spiteful night?\nWhat time is it? What time is it?\n“Time for drunkenness,\nBitter and precious\nWine’s hour has struck!”\nSo answered Charles Baudelaire,\nWhen the question was asked--\nWhat is the time?", "metadata": { + "language": "Georgian", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "translator": "Nana Bukhradze", - "language": "Georgian", + "translators": [ + "Nana Bukhradze" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -108442,8 +111818,10 @@ "title": "“The Wind Blows”", "body": "Blowing wind, blowing wind, blowing wind,\nIn the breeze flying leaves night through 
\nGroup of trees, troop of trees roundly swaying,\nWhere are you, where are you, where are you?\n\nFalling rain, falling snow, falling snow,\nHow to find, when to find never know!\nPure of yours image rolls tired my mind\nEveryday, every step, every time!\n\nDrizzling sky misty thoughts on the field 
\nBlowing wind, blowing wind, blowing wind!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher Michel", "language": "Georgian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher Michel" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -108454,8 +111832,10 @@ "title": "“You’re going away
”", "body": "You’re going away 
 and reaping your torment,\nlike hay from a seaside recently shorn.\nWhoever said you’ve lived your last moments?\nNo: today is the day you were born.\n\nYou’re going away 
 but no one is angry,\neither on earth or in paradise.\nWhoever said that you were unlucky?\nNo: today is the day you were blessed.\n\nYou’re going away 
 may your journey be sweet.\nTales of your other dwellings are fiction.\nWhoever said that you slept on the street?\nNo. You are sheltered now: you have protection.\n\nYou’re going 
 and many long for such fortune.\nFor anywhere else, fortune doesn’t exist.\nNow you are finally up in the heavens--\nnow you reside as Eternity’s guest.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher Michel", "language": "Georgian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher Michel" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -108463,8 +111843,10 @@ "title": "“You’re Thirteen”", "body": "You’re thirteen and you’ve ensnared\na graying lover’s evil dreams.\nLine up thirteen bullets here:\nI’ll kill myself thirteen times.\n\nAnother thirteen years go by,\nsoon you’ll arrive at twenty-six.\nThe tallest iris gets the scythe:\ntime and poem mourn their necks.\n\nHow hastily youth slips away--\nremorseless wishes of the lion.\nAnd everything glows tenderly\nwhen Autumn sunlight’s pouring in.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher Michel", "language": "Georgian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher Michel" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -108957,23 +112339,25 @@ "title": "“Anatomy”", "body": "The beautiful one studies anatomy from dawn to dusk and then just sits there crying. No one speaks to her in a friendly manner. They know she is dying inside, they can see in her beautiful face. They exchange glances that say “It won’t be long now. Soon we’ll have this city back to ourselves and our ugliness will become the standard.” But the beautiful one must walk the streets to escape her mirrors, and she must read her anatomy book in the park under the maple tree to understand the looks the others give her. She needs love, she tries to approach them with kindness, with a smile and a kind word, but they shuffle past her growling, their faces stuffed down into their overcoats. She is shunned in the little vegetable store, she is shunned in the museum, and in the church. The beautiful one is dying, all alone, no merciful words, no soft touch, no flowers. Perhaps the city will be a better place to visit, I don’t know.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1989 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "at-the-clothesline": { "title": "“At the Clothesline”", "body": "Millie was in the backyard hanging the laundry. I was watching her from the kitchen window. Why does this give me so much pleasure? Because I love her in a million ways, and because I love the idea of clean laundry flapping in the wind. It’s timeless, a new beginning, a promise of tomorrow. Clothespins! God, I love clothespins. We should stock up on them. Some day they may stop making them, and then what? If I were a painter, I would paint Millie hanging the laundry. That would be a painting that would make you happy, and break your heart. You would never know what was in her mind, big thoughts, little thoughts, no thoughts. Did she see the hawk circling overheard? Did she hate hanging laundry? Was she going to run away with a sailor? The sheets billowing like sails on an ancient skiff, the socks waving goodbye. Millie, O Millie, do you remember me? The man who traveled with cloth napkins and loved you in the great storm.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2003 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -108981,10 +112365,10 @@ "title": "“The Aviary”", "body": "I flew low over the neighborhood. Then a blackbird flew into my mouth and I swallowed it. It was still alive. I could hear it squawking and feel it kicking. I did several somersaults in the air and finally straightened out. I could see the Stewards watching television. They were eating popcorn. The Goodwins were just having dinner. A roast chicken, lovely! Then I hit a power line and started to fall, then gained my balance and flew on. This time of night is most beautiful, the stars just coming out, the moon a pale shadow up there, several stray dogs wandering the streets. That’s my house down there. My wife is starting to set the table, music is playing on the radio. I land in the driveway, dust myself off. I pick a couple of feathers out of my teeth. I walk up to the door and let myself in. “Hi, honey, sorry if I’m late,” I said. “You’re just in time for dinner,” she said. I pulled out my chair and sat myself down. The blackbird squawked. “What was that?” she said. “I didn’t hear anything,” I said. She served us a delicious beef stew. “How was work?” she said. “Oh, work was fine. You know, a little of this and a little of that. It ends up evening about,” I said. “That doesn’t make much sense,” she said. The blackbird was in my throat now. I tried to swallow some stew, but it flew out. “My god, what the hell is that?” she screamed. “I guess that’s a blackbird,” I said. “But it came out of your mouth!” she said. “I’ll catch it and put it back in,” I said, “No, a thing like that doesn’t belong there,” she said. “Well, where else are we going to put it?” I said. “In the aviary,” she said. “We don’t have an aviary,” I said. “Well, we do now,” she said.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2012 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109000,10 +112384,10 @@ "title": "“Banking Rules”", "body": "I was standing in line at the bank and the fellow in front of me was humming. The line was long and slow, and after a while the humming began to irritate me. I said to the fellow, “Excuse me, would you mind not humming.” And he said, “Was I humming? I’m sorry I didn’t realize it.” And he went right on humming. I said, “Sir, you’re humming again.” “Me, humming?” he said. “I don’t think so.” And then he went on humming. I was about to blow my lid. Instead, I went to find the manager. I said, “See that man over there in the blue suit?” “Yes,” he said, “what about him?” “He won’t stop humming,” I said, “I’ve asked him politely several times, but he won’t stop.” “There’s no crime in humming,” he said. I went back and took my place in line. I listened, but there was nothing coming out of him. I said, “Are you okay, pal?” He looked mildly peeved, and gave me no reply. I felt myself shrinking. The manager of the bank walked briskly up to me and said, “Sir, are you aware of the fact that you’re shrinking?” I said I was. And he said, “I’m afraid we don’t allow that kind of behavior in this bank. I have to ask you to leave.” The air was whistling out of me, I was almost gone.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2004 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109011,23 +112395,25 @@ "title": "“The Banner”", "body": "I tugged at her sleeve: doorbell? She hugged the arm: magpie. Intervals went by spotlessly, but somehow foetid, too. She stitched, I read the Apocrypha, abruptly slammed shut the covers, suspicious of fumes rippling through the room. I was poking around under cushions, bracing myself for the worst, dead fruit, something under the rug, a gelatinous potato. Would you stop? she pleaded. Vm cooking. Oh, I said, that explains everything. I stared at her for a very long time, I felt horns growing, meagre horns denting my baldspot. That book was a fake, a neon sneer across the ages, a prolonged rasp corrupting the squeamish, among whom I loomed as a negligible connoisseur. I felt discouraged now as I watched her leathery fingers unfold her munificent banner: Endurance, it read, as though the Bridegroom had endowed her, and she were the Bride? I tugged at her sleeve: telephone? She rocked in her trance: coyotes.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1988 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "barroom-confession": { "title": "“Barroom Confession”", "body": "When I was a young boy, whenever trouble visited me, I would head for the forest in back of our house, and follow the Crystal Springs with its twists and turns, its hills and bluffs and valleys. I couldn’t walk ten feet without something catching my eye, a wood lily, a patch of purple trillium, milkweed bursting open and floating everywhere, some cattails, and enormous bullfrog staring me in the eye. I felt entirely at home in those woods. In my mind, they went on forever. I never saw another human being in here, though, occasionally, I would find a really old soda or medicine bottle half-buried in the mud, and, this, of course, gave me thoughts of what the previous life of the forest might have been, a few campers from the past century, nothing more. Some days I would be gone all day. Just as long as I got home for supper I wouldn’t be missed. No one would even ask me where I had been, and I never volunteered anything. There wasn’t much conversation around the table, but I didn’t mind. I was always hungry, and loved mother’s cooking. One day I had started out early, right after breakfast, and wanted to see how far I could get. Three deer had crossed my path right in front of me, and I felt lucky. Later, I spotted a porcupine clinging to a branch above my head. When I got hungry, I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a log beside the stream with butterflies flitting about. That was my home, that was where I really lived. I walked on and on, until nothing was familiar any longer. I was very excited to be entering unknown territory. I remember thinking, perhaps I was the first person to have ever stepped on these grounds. The bluffs were steeper, and there was no trace of a path anywhere. My arms and legs were pricked by thorny bushes, and clouds of insects occasionally pestered me and got into my eyes so that I was blinded for moments at a time. I wasn’t sure if I could find my way back, as I had lost all sense of direction. Sometimes I thought I heard something following me. The woods were so thick it was practically dark. I had no idea what time it was, but I definitely did not want to spend the night in there. As much as I had wanted to know what lay beyond, I now longed for the safety of the familiar. I turned and started to fight my way back through the thick brush. Once, I stopped for breath, but and a copperhead slithered over my shoe. I started to run, but soon fell and started to slide down a slope. I caught hold of a sapling and pulled myself up, sweating. My hands were bleeding. I stood still and tried to get my bearings. I heard a girl’s voice singing, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. “I’m over here,” I yelled, and the voice stopped. It was ten years before I ever got out of that forest. By then, my parents had moved, or died. I never found them. I don’t even have any pictures of them. “Eat you green beans,” my mother would say. “I never ate my green beans, and look at me,” my father said. These are my memories of a happy childhood.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2003 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -109038,23 +112424,25 @@ "title": "“Bewitched”", "body": "I was standing in the lobby, some irritant in my eye, thinking back on a soloist I once heard in Venezuela, and then, for some reason, on a crate of oranges recently arrived from a friend in Florida, and then this colleague came up to me and asked me what time it was, and I don’t know what came over me but I was certain that I was standing there naked and I was certain she could see my thoughts, so I tried to hide them quickly, I was embarrassed that there was no apparent connection to them, will-o’-the-wisps, and I needed an alibi, so I told her I had seen a snapshot of a murder victim recently that greatly resembled her, and that she should take precaution, my intonation getting me into deeper trouble and I circled the little space I had cut out as if looking for all the sidereal years she had inquired into moments before, and the dazzling lunar poverty of some thoughts had me pinned like a moth and my dubious tactic to hide my malady had prompted this surreptitious link to the whirling Sufi dancers, once so popular in these halls. “It’s five minutes past four,” I said, knowing I had perjured myself for all time. I veered into the men’s room, astonished to have prevailed, my necktie, a malediction stapled in place, my zipper synchronized with the feminine motive. In Zagreb, just now, a hunter is poaching some cherries.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1988 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "the-blue-booby": { "title": "“The Blue Booby”", "body": "The blue booby lives on the bare rocks of GalĂĄpagos and fears nothing. It is a simple life: they live on fish, and there are few predators. Also, the males do not make fools of themselves chasing after the young ladies. Rather, they gather the blue objects of the world and construct from them a nest--an occasional Gaulois package, a string of beads, a piece of cloth from a sailor’s suit. This replaces the need fo dazzling plumage; in fact, in the past fifty million years the male has grown considerably duller, nor can he sing well. The female, though, asks little of him--the blue satisfies her completely, has a magical effect on her. When she returns from her day of gossip and shopping, she sees he has found her a new shred of blue foil: for this she rewards him with her dark body, the stars turn slowly in the blue foil beside them like the eyes of a mild savior.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1969 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109062,10 +112450,10 @@ "title": "“Bounden Duty”", "body": "I got a call from the White House, from the President himself, asking me if I’d do him a personal favor. I like the President, so I said, “Sure, Mr. President, anything you like.” He said, “Just act like nothing’s going on. Act normal. That would mean the world to me. Can you do that, Leon?” “Why, sure, Mr. President, you’ve got it. Normal, that’s how I’m going to act. I won’t let on, even if I’m tortured,” I said, immediately regretting that “tortured” bit. He thanked me several times and hung up. I was dying to tell someone that the President himself called me, but I knew I couldn’t. The sudden pressure to act normal was killing me. And what was going on anyway. I didn’t know anything was going on. I saw the President on TV yesterday. He was shaking hands with a farmer. What if it wasn’t really a farmer? I needed to buy some milk, but suddenly I was afraid to go out. I checked what I had on. I looked “normal” to me, but maybe I looked more like I was trying to be normal. That’s pretty suspicious. I opened the door and looked around. What was going on? There was a car parked in front of my car that I had never seen before, a car that was trying to look normal, but I wasn’t fooled. If you need milk, you have to get milk, otherwise people will think something’s going on. I got into my car and sped down the road. I could feel those little radar guns popping behind every tree and bush, but, apparently, they were under orders not to stop me. I ran into Kirsten in the store. “Hey, what’s going on, Leon?” she said. She had a very nice smile. I hated to lie to her. “Nothing’s going on. Just getting milk for my cat,” I said. “I didn’t know you had a cat,” she said. “I meant to say coffee. You’re right, I don’t have a cat. Sometimes I refer to my coffee as my cat. It’s just a private joke. Sorry,” I said. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Nothing’s going on, Kirsten. I promise you. Everything is normal. The President shook hands with a farmer, a real farmer. Is that such a big deal?” I said. “I saw that,” she said, “and that man was definitely not a farmer.” “Yeah, I know,” I said, feeling better.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2004 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109073,10 +112461,10 @@ "title": "“Breathing”", "body": "I hear something coming,\nsomething like a motorcycle,\nsomething horrible with pistons awry,\nwith camshafts about to fill the air\nwith redhot razor-y shrapnel.\nAt the window, I see nothing.\nCorrection: I see two girls\n\nplaying tennis, they have no\nvoices, only the muted thump\nof the ball kissing the racket,\nthe sound of a snowball\nhitting a snowman, the sound\n\nof a snowman’s head rolling\ninto a river, a snowman with\nan alarmclock for a heart\ndeep inside him. Listen:\nsomeone is breathing.\n\nSomeone has a problem\nbreathing. Someone is blowing\nsmoke through a straw.\nSomeone has stopped breathing.\nAmazing. Someone broke\nhis wrist this morning,\nbroke it into powder.\nHe did it intentionally.\nHe had an accident\n\nwhile breathing.\nHe was exhaling\nwhen his wrist broke.\nActually\n\nit’s a woman breathing.\nShe’s not even thinking\nabout it. She’s thinking\nabout something else.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1970 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109084,10 +112472,10 @@ "title": "“Brittle Family Photographs”", "body": "It’s hard work and the pay is low, but at least you get to hang out with a bunch of nasty, bitter people. So I took the job. The first week I thought I’d die. I couldn’t stop my hands from bleeding, and my legs could barely hold me up. The second week my eyes were blurred and I couldn’t keep my food down. By the fourth week I was beginning to like it. I felt strong. After a year I felt nothing. I didn’t know my name, I didn’t know where I was. Whatever it was I was supposed to do got done, but I don’t know how. Then I met Deidre in the cafeteria and she said, “Mr. President, you’re doing a great job.” “What did you call me?” I said. “Mr. President,” she said. “How time pisses away,” I said. “I can hear the birdies singing.” My eye was on the jello.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2005 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109095,23 +112483,25 @@ "title": "“Burn Down The Town, No Survivors”", "body": "Those were my orders, issued with a sense of Tightness I’d rarely known. I was tired of how June was treating John, how Mary was victimizing herself with nearly everyone, Mark was a loose cannon, and Carlotta would never find any peace; It seemed to me that there could be no acceptable resolution for anyone, except those who didn’t deserve one. And when, for a moment, I held the power, I surveyed the landscape?it was just a typical mid-sized town in the middle of nowhere?and the citizens showed no signs of remorse, as if what they were doing to one another (and to me) was what we were here for (and I recognize the mistake in that kind of thinking, but still?) a bold and decisive action seemed so appealing, even healing. I was with a friend’s wife, her wild mane would make such ideal kindling? I could have loved her but it would have been just more of the same, more petty crimes and slow death, more passion leading to betrayal, more ecstasy guaranteeing tears. I saw how dangerous and fragile I had become. I could have loved a fig right then with my gasoline in one hand, and the other fluttering between her breast and a packet of matches. My contagious laughter frightening us both, “No survivors,” I repeated, and we looked through one another, the work already completed.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1988 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "the-cages": { "title": "“The Cages”", "body": "The insular firebird\n(meaning the sun) gives up\nthe day, and is tucked into\n\na corner. Order, like\na giant janitor, shuttles\nabout naming and replacing\n\nthe various humanities.\nI look at you, you look\nat me--we wave again\n\n(the same), our hands like\nswollen flags falling, words\nmarooned in the brain.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1967 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109119,10 +112509,10 @@ "title": "“Camp of No Return”", "body": "I sat in the old tree swing without swinging. My loafer had fallen off and I left it on the ground. My sister came running out of the house to tell me something. She said, “I’m going to camp tomorrow.” I said, “I don’t believe you.” She said, “I am. It’s a fact. Mother told me.” We didn’t speak for the rest of the day. I was mad at her for getting to do something I didn’t. At dinner I asked mother what kind of camp it was. She said, “Oh, just a camp like any other.” I didn’t really know what that meant. The next day they got her ready to go, and then they drove off, leaving me with the neighbors. When they got back everything was normal, except I missed Maisie. And I missed her more each following day. I didn’t know how much she had meant to me before. I asked my parents over and over how much longer it would be. All they said was soon. I told some kids at school how long my sister had been gone. One of them said, “She’ll never be back. That’s the death camp.” When I got home I told my parents what that boy had said. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” my father said. But after a couple of more weeks of her absence I began to wonder. That’s when they began to clean out Maisie’s room. I said, “What are you doing? You said Maise will be back soon.” My mother said, “Maisie’s not coming back. She likes it there better than she does here.” “That’s not true. I don’t believe you,” I said. My father gave me a look that let me know I might be next if I didn’t mend my ways. I never said a word about Maisie again.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2012 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109130,23 +112520,25 @@ "title": "“Certain Nuances, Certain Gestures”", "body": "The way a lady entertaining an illicit desire touches her earlobe in a crowded room, and the way that room seems to single her out and undress her with murmuring torchlight? if the right spectator is present, even though the band is playing loudly and the myriad celebrants are toasting their near-tragic rise to glory, and the Vice President of an important bank is considering an assassination, and even the mice in the boiler room are planning a raid on an old bag of cookies in the attic? Even so, this spectator senses the moisture on her palms, can feel her thoughts wander in and out of the cavernous room; knows, too, their approximate destination. Beyond this, he refuses to follow. She stands alone there on the quay, waiting. The river of life is flowing. The spectator returns to his room, a few hours closer to his own death or ecstacy. He makes a few hasty entries into his diary before turning off the light. And, yes, he dreams, but of a gazelle frozen in the path of a runaway truck.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1989 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "the-chaste-stranger": { "title": "“The Chaste Stranger”", "body": "All the sexually active people in Westport look so clean and certain, I wonder if they’re dead. Their lives are tennis without end, the avocado-green Mercedes waiting calm as you please. Perhaps it is my brain that is unplugged, and these shadow-people don’t know how to drink martinis anymore. They are suddenly and mysteriously not in the least interested in fornicating with strangers. Well, there are a lot of unanswered questions here, and certainly no dinner invitations where a fella could probe Buffy’s inner-mush, a really complicated adventure, in a 1930ish train station, outlandish bouquets, a poisonous insect found burrowing its way through the walls of the special restaurant and into one of her perfect nostrils--she was reading _Meetings with Remarkable Men_, needing succor, dreaming of a village near Bosnia, when a clattering of carts broke her thoughts--“Those billy goats and piglets, they are all so ephemeral 
” But now, in Westport Connecticut, a boy, a young man really, looking as if he had just come through a carwash, and dressed for the kind of success that made her girlfriends froth and lather, can be overheard speaking to no one in particular: “That _Paris Review_ crowd, I couldn’t tell if they were bright or just overbred.” Whereupon Buffy swings into action, pinning him to the floor: “I will unglue your very being from this planet, if ever 
” He could appreciate her sincerity, not to mention her spiffy togs. Didymus the Blind has put three dollars on Total Departure, and I am tired of pumping my own gas. I’m Lewis your aluminum man, and we are whirling in a spangled frenzy toward a riddle and a doom--here’s looking up your old address.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1991 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109162,10 +112554,10 @@ "title": "“Coda”", "body": "Love is not worth so much;\nI regret everything.\nNow on our backs\nin Fayetteville, Arkansas,\nthe stars are falling\n\ninto our cracked eyes.\nWith my good arm\nI reach for the sky,\nand let the air out of the moon,\nIt goes whizzing off\nto shrivel and sink\nin the ocean.\n\nYou cannot weep;\nI cannot do anything\nthat once held an ounce\nof meaning for us.\nI cover you\nwith pine needles.\n\nWhen morning comes,\nI will build a cathedral\naround our bodies.\nAnd the crickets,\nwho sing with their knees,\nwill come there\nin the night to be sad,\nwhen they can sing no more.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1967 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109181,10 +112573,10 @@ "title": "“Collect Call from Nepal”", "body": "I popped myself a beer, and went to sit on the porch with the newspaper. It was six o’clock in the afternoon on a Saturday, middle of July, beautiful day. But, then, the phone was ringing. It was a collect call from Katmandu, Nepal, from Darcy Symonds. I hadn’t seen Darcy in years. “Yes, I’ll take it,” I said. “Judson, this is Darcy. Listen, I’m in a lot of trouble here. There’s a revolution going on, and I need to get out of here. The airports are closed. There’s fighting in the streets. I’m suspected of being a spy and an informer for the government, but I’m not, Judson, I swear it. You’ve got to get me out of here,” she said. “Okay, Darcy, calm down. We’ll think of something. How can I get a hold of you? I need to know where you are,” I said. “That’s the trouble, you can’t. I’m running for my life. The whole town is on fire,” she said. “Call me again when you know where you are. Meanwhile, I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “Judson, there isn’t much time,” she said. She hung up. I took a long pull on my beer and picked up the paper. There was a front page story about a two-year-old boy whose dog had saved him from drowning in the town reservoir. And another about a man who had found a six-foot boa constrictor in his bed. Police suspected that its owner will be found. Why would Darcy call me after all these years? And what was I supposed to do? I tried calling the State Department in D.C., but they put me on hold and then switched me over to somebody else, who put me on hold and so on, until I finally screamed at an actual human being “My wife is trapped in Katmandu. They’re going to kill her if you don’t help me get her out of there!” “Calm down, sir. What is your wife’s name?” he said. “Darcy Symonds,” I said. “And who is going to kill her?” he said. “The revolutionaries. They think she’s a spy and an informer,” I said. He asked for my phone number and said he would get back to me as soon as he knows something. I drained my beer and got another one. I looked at the weather forecast for tomorrow: another perfect day, I tried to read the article about the mayoral election, but lost interest. Mr. Giddings trimmed his hedges until the last light was gone. I ate some cheese and crackers and a handful of grapes. I waited up most of the night waiting for Darcy to call back, and also for the man from the State Department. The phone never rang. I got out my atlas and looked up Nepal. I read about it in my encyclopedia. But, still, my imagination failed to picture anything, just screaming and gunfire and fires, and Darcy’s frightened face I could see, one among the many, running for cover. It was just another bad movie, and, yet, she was my wife, or so I now believed, and it had to end happily, safe but for a few scratches, reunited. I sat there staring at the stars and listening to the crickets, feeling emptier than I had ever known. “Who’s in charge here?” I said, “A few good men is all we’ll need. We’ll need some technical support. You, Jones, take out the Himalayas. Martinez, nullify the Buddha.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2003 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -109197,25 +112589,26 @@ "title": "“The Condemned Man”", "body": "The condemned man clutches his lucky penny. He paces the park, famished, recounting incurable injuries, condemning the scoundrel in him, banishing the swindler, pleading with his jury to show no mercy. The grocer watches from his doorway, recoiling from the dreary display?he has goatcheese and radishes to consider, turnips under intense surveillance. A limousine squeezes through the traffic, smothering the thoughts of little people. An errand boy percolates down the sidewalk, cracking codes in his mind, lumping forecasts and rituals into sure treasure by tomorrow. A plump and dusky woman with something on a leash pauses to inspect some loaves’ and peppers, licking her lips and speaking a private language to her nervous pet, who’s ready to croak. “Fiber, Mrs. Zumstein, fiber’s the only thing!” the grocer quips, swatting flies from the lumpy morsels. And, across the street, a net is dropped from the trees. Men in blue costumes fan-out and sweep through the park. Dogs pick up a scent in the breeze and dash yapping over the ridge where, in their teeming zest, they up-end a baby carriage and frighten a young mother nearly to death. The condemned man briskly apologizes to his condemned god and withdraws from the park quietly.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1988 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "consolations-after-an-affair": { "title": "“Consolations After An Affair”", "body": "My plants are whispering to one another: they are planning a little party later on in the week about watering time. I have quilts on beds and walls that think it is still the 19th century. They know nothing of automobiles and jet planes. For them a wheat field in January is their mother and enough. I’ve discovered that I don’t need a retirement plan, a plan to succeed. A snow leopard sleeps beside me like a slow, warm breeze. And I can hear the inner birds singing alone in this house I love.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1989 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january" @@ -109226,10 +112619,10 @@ "title": "“Conspiracy”", "body": "I said, “Well, I certainly don’t know anything about any of this.” Mr. Black said, “Well, you’ve certainly landed in the middle of it.” I said, “I don’t even know what it is.” “It’s a conspiracy of like-minded sous to undermine the government,” he said. “Why would I care to be a part of something like that?” I said. “You would like to bring down our government,” he said. “I don’t think about our government one way or another,” I said. “Of course you do. Everybody thinks about our government one way or another,” he said. “But I don’t. I am completely oblivious to our government,” he said. “That’s not possible. You pay your taxes, don’t you? You follow certain laws. The government is always telling you what to do,” he said. “Yes, but I try to ignore it. I just do things my own way,” I said. “And your way happens to coincide with what the government is telling you?” he said. “I’ve never really thought about it, I guess so,” I said. “I don’t believe you. You are out to tear the whole thing down. I know your type,” he said. “I am not, I assure you. I don’t care one bit about the government,” I said. “See, that’s what I mean. Only somebody like yourself could have made these plans,” he said. “I’m not like anybody you have met before. I don’t care what you say. You’re not going to twist me into this thing,” I said. “You are already there. Everything you say points towards your guilt,” he said. “Then I’ll not say anything more,” I said. We sat there in our chairs for a long time until he finally fell asleep. Crickets were chirruping outside. I thought about the keys on his belt, then fell into my own deep sleep, where antelope jumped the fence each night and were caught captive by the farmer in the morning.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2012 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109237,10 +112630,10 @@ "title": "“Constant Defender”", "body": "My little finger’s stuck in a Coca-Cola bottle and I’ve got three red checkers lodged in my watchpocket. In a rush to meet my angel, now I don’t even know who my angel was. I can see seven crimson jeeps lined up outside Pigboy’s Barbecue Shack--must be a napkin salesmen’s convention. I don’t care what cargo as long as their hats are back on by eleven. The thing I’m trying to avoid is talking to my mule about glue futures. What’s a fellow going to do? I must have a ceiling fan, I can’t postpone twirling blades. And my one stuffed chair was owned by a hunchback for a hundred years before I came along. I need some new knickknacks to suggest an air of cleanliness to this sluggish pit of extinct sweet potatoes. Ah, trickery, you sassy lark, withered black pearl, unfetter me from these latches, make me the Director at every meatball’s burial, lacerate this too, too static air I’ve been eating my way through. I lunch on eels and larks in lemonade, Lord, I’m so happy I woke up in my right mind today. And those kleptomaniacs, Smitty and Bob, stole peanuts from a hunchback, snuff from an angel. My knees click, I won’t budge, like a wind-up toy unwound, my guitar held tightly between my thighs. Last night a clam fell from the stars: a festive, if slippery occasion, a vibrating blob entered our midst--I say “ours” out of some need--I was alone when it hit me.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1982 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109256,10 +112649,10 @@ "title": "“Cryptozoa”", "body": "I wish the stone lady would come to me.\nParakeet or no parakeet\nthe night is a vial of lighterfluid.\nAnd I have been good, composing the perishable song\nof my childhood: one dollar, one frond\nmeekly but loyally exploding the oath of circles.\nI have been the best wound a diamond ever knew.\n\nBut what can I do for you? Write an encyclopedia\nto which the least gnat could gain entrance?\nI love you and I do not love you, perambulating utensils,\nstreet names. An old man is giving mirrors\nto a young girl. The meek have inherited the Aypaper.\nThe past is more present than this moment.\nI am drinking at a spring, my skin\nis red and white. A little burning sensation,\na little joy I leave forever.\n\nOh well, I keep singing: I sing the song\nof utensils, and there is one of street names,\nand one of the names of dead pets.\nThe next day I am giving mirrors to a young girl.\nI give free shoes for life to a stone lady.\nShe walks on air, she walks near the earth\nin a region called the cryptosphere.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1969 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109267,10 +112660,10 @@ "title": "“Damaged Stopper with Marigold”", "body": "The Woman I love is a forest of enormous whispers and her tongue smooths the petals after rain. Her finger dreams of a garden and it is Spring. A fast car lathers the mist like milk beneath a breast. The puppy sleeps on top of a pink dress drooling and a man said Think about cooking honey delicious sausage beautiful luscious eggs please, essential shadows drunk as diamonds in a sweet storm. I take my cry and sing delicate girl what about this thing. Can I leave the gift with you, swim through peach and fiddle, chant and shine?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1996 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109290,10 +112683,10 @@ "title": "“The Definition of Gardening”", "body": "Jim just loves to garden, yes he does. He likes nothing better than to put on his little overalls and his straw hat. He says, “Let’s go get those tools, Jim.” But then doubt begins to set in. He says, “What is a garden, anyway?” And thoughts about a “modernistic” garden begin to trouble him, eat away at his resolve. He stands in the driveway a long time. “Horticulture is a groping in the dark into the obscure and unfamiliar, kneeling before a disinterested secret, slapping it, punching it like a Chinese puzzle, birdbrained, babbling gibberish, dig and destroy, pull out and apply salt, hoe and spray, before it spreads, burn roots, where not desired, with gloved hands, poisonous, the self-sacrifice of it, the self-love, into the interior, thunderclap, excruciating, through the nose, the earsplitting necrology of it, the withering, shriveling, the handy hose holder and Persian insect powder and smut fungi, the enemies of the iris, wireworms are worse than their parents, there is no way out, flowers as big as heads, pock-marked, disfigured, blinking insolently at me, the me who so loves to garden because it prevents the heaving of the ground and the untimely death of porch furniture, and dark, murky days in a large city and the dream home under a permanent storm is also a factor to keep in mind.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1997 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -109336,12 +112729,11 @@ "title": "“Editor”", "body": "It was a foggy day anyway, and my cockatoo was scorched, and my bikini was moping in the ruins, so I started reading a journal some poky guy had written and dropped on my doorstep disguised in a baboon uniform. The rhythms were all crooked, and he seemed to live at the margins, outcast even by himself, snatching limps from the vast gaps and presuming to slip through checkpoints with official documents stuffed in his bloodshot eyeballs, when, in fact, the hatcheck girl’s own torpor beheld the preposterous sloth with pinched nostrils. He claims he was born with thirteen digits. Years later he pirated a schooner and sailed it over a waterfall. He was in London during the blitz. He lived on crayfish alone in a swamp for seven years. Then he procured white women for a famous eastern emperor. He was implicated in an assassination plot and has been working at a school crossing since. He feels the time has come to tell his story. I feel some old shrapnel crawling around in my head. I want fresh bandages. I want to shoot out his stoplight.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1988 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -109360,10 +112752,10 @@ "title": "“Father’s Day”", "body": "My daughter has lived overseas for a number of years now. She married into royalty, and they won’t let her communicate with any of her family or friends. She lives on birdseed and a few sips of water. She dreams of me constantly. Her husband, the Prince, whips her when he catches her dreaming. Fierce guard dogs won’t let her out of their sight. I hired a detective, but he was killed trying to rescue her. I have written hundreds of letters to the State Department. They have written back saying that they are aware of the situation. I never saw her dance. I was always at some convention. I never saw her sing. I was always working late. I called her My Princess, to make up for my shortcomings, and she never forgave me. Birdseed was her middle name.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2007 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "fathers_day" @@ -109374,10 +112766,10 @@ "title": "“Fuck the Astronauts”", "body": "# I.\n\nEventually we must combine nightmares\nan angel smoking a cigarette on the steps\nof the last national bank, said to me.\nI put her out with my thumb. I don’t need that\ncheap talk I’ve got my own problems.\nIt was sad, exciting, and horrible.\nIt was exciting, horrible, and sad.\nIt was horrible, sad, and exciting.\nIt was inviting, mad, and deplorable.\nIt was adorable, glad, and enticing.\nEventually we must smoke a thumb\ncheap talk I’ve got my own angel\non the steps of the problems the bank\nsaid to me I don’t need that.\nI will take this one window\nwith its sooty maps and scratches\nso that my dreams will remember\none another and so that my eyes will not\nbecome blinded by the new world.\n\n\n# II.\n\nThe flames don’t dance or slither.\nThey have painted the room green.\nBeautiful and naked, the wives\nare sleeping before the fire.\nNow it is out. The men have\nreturned to the shacks,\nslaved creatures from the forest\nfloor across their white\nstationwagons. That just about\ndoes it, says the other,\ndumping her bucket\nover her head. Well, I guess\nwe got everything, says one,\nfeeling around in the mud,\nas if for a child.\nNow they remember they want\nthat mud, who can’t remember\nwhat they got up for.\nThey parcel it out: when\nthey are drunk enough\nthey go into town with\na bucket of mud, saying\nwe can slice it up into\nwindmills like a bloated cow.\nLater, they paint the insides\nof the shack black,\nand sit sucking eggs all night,\nthey want something real, useful,\nbut there isn’t anything.\n\n\n# III.\n\nI will engineer the sunrise\nthey have disassembled our shadows\nour echoes are erased from the walls\nyour nipples are the skeletons of olives\nyour nipples are an oriental delight\nyour nipples blow away like cigarette papers\nyour nipples are the mouths of mutes\nso I am not here any longer\nskein of lightning\nmemory’s dark ink in your last smile\nwhere the stars have swallowed their train schedule\nwhere the stars have drowned in their dark petticoats\nlike a sock of hamburger\nreceiving the lightning\ninto his clitoris\nred on red the prisoner\nconfesses his waltz\nthrough the corkscrew lightning\nnevermind the lightning\nin your teeth let’s waltz\nI am the hashish pinball machine\nthat rapes a piano.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1991 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109409,10 +112801,10 @@ "title": "“Half-Eaten”", "body": "The fortune-teller told me I was going to come into a large sum of money soon. She told me my love life would continue to be happy and satisfying. She said my health would be vigorous. But then she looked worried. She said there was some kind of large cat in my near future--a cougar. And that cat would surprise me when I least expected it. And that, of course, cancelled out all the previous good news. I paid her and left her dirty, little storefront. I looked up and down the street, checked out the rooftops. Once home, I kissed Jo, and headed for my study where I looked up Cougar. Six to eight feet in length, 160 lbs., can drag five times their weight, can leap twenty feet in one bound, jump from sixty feet above the ground. I debated telling Jo. I knew she would ridicule me. Then I went back in the kitchen and told her. She stared at me in disgust, incapable of even finding words at first. Then she said, “You went to a fortune-teller? And you believe this outrageous crap about a cougar? And all these years I thought I was married to a sensible man. What happened to you, Ralph? Are you on drugs? Have you been drinking?” “Weirder things have happened,” I said. “Last week a man exploded in Chicago, spontaneous combustion, walking down the street. There were witnesses. It was in the paper. There used to be cougars in these parts, only they called them catamounts or mountain lions. There could be one left, has a thing for me.” “You’re not serious, are you, because, if you are, I’m moving out until your bloody destiny has reached its climax, she said. It’s strange how alone I felt just then. I thought, it’s just me and the cat, now.” I said, “Gee whiz, Jo, can’t you take a little joke. You know I would never go to a fortune-teller.” “Still,” she said, “I can fell it, you’re a marked man.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2002 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109428,13 +112820,15 @@ "title": "“Haunted Aquarium”", "body": "A white pigeon is digging for something in the snow.\nAs it digs further, it is disappearing.\nA young girl finds it in the Spring,\na handkerchief of thin bones,\nor a powder-puff she carries in her purse\nfor the rest of her days. Toward the end,\nshe gives it to her granddaughter,\nwho immediately recognizes it as the death\nof the grandmother herself,\nand flings it out the window.\nIt takes flight, utterly thankful\nto feel like its old self again.\nFor a few precious moments it flies\nin circles, then back in the window.\nThe grandmother pitches forward, dead.\nThe granddaughter lugs her toward the window:\n_Adieu! Godspeed!_\n\nShe and the pigeon talk long into the night.\n\nAt breakfast, the grandmother says nothing.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1989 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "head-of-a-white-woman-winking": { @@ -109460,10 +112854,10 @@ "title": "“Honey, Can You Hear Me”", "body": "Alison stared into the mirror and combed her hair. How beautiful she was! “I look awful,” she said. I bent down and tied my shoe and hit my head on the coffee table on the way up. “Ouch,” I said. “What did you say, honey?” she said. “I said we ought to buy a new couch,” I said. “I thought we just bought one,” she said. “We could buy another one so we’d have a backup in case anything happens to this one,” I said. She didn’t answer me, but continued to brush her hair. I stared down at my shoes and said, “Something is so wrong there.” “What did you say, honey?” she said. I said, “It will be wonderful to be there tonight.” “Where’s that, honey?” she said. “Wherever it is that we’re going,” I said. “We’re not going anywhere,” she said. “I meant here. It will be wonderful to be here tonight,” I said. “A little romantic night at home,” she said. What did she mean by ‘nomadic’? A little nomadic night at home. There were times when I worried about Alison. She hovered right on the borderline, about to cross over into her own private realm, where nothing she sees or hears corresponds to anything in the known world. I live with this fear daily. My shoes are on the wrong feet, or so it seems to me now.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2008 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109471,10 +112865,10 @@ "title": "“How the People Live”", "body": "Every five minutes or so, a police car drove by telling us not to go out through its bullhorn. I said to Amelia, “I’m dying to know what’s out there.” She said, “That’s why they’re doing this, don’t you think?” “It looks like it’s a beautiful day outside. I don’t see any evil lurking out there. Everything’s in bloom, blue skies, lovely, white clouds,” I said. “That’s when they attack,” she said. “Who?” I said. “How the hell should I know?” she said. “Some kind of phantoms, known only to the police, seen only by the police.” “Well, that’s ridiculous. Why should I believe them? Now, if they’d tell us that there was a mountain lion loose in the neighborhood, that would be something I could understand and respect,” I said. “I’m going to walk to town.” Amelia didn’t try to stop me. “I’ll expect you home by dinner” was all she said. Every time I heard a police car coming, I hid behind a tree or a bush. No one else was out driving or walking or working in their yards. It made me sad to think I lived in a town with a bunch of cowards. The birds were singing, though, and this got me to whistling a happy tune. The ducking and hiding got to be a game I didn’t mind. I assumed I would be punished if caught, but the police weren’t monsters. They weren’t going to cut off my little finger or anything like that. They weren’t going to blind me. They were just afraid of things I couldn’t see. I was crossing the bridge over the little creek when I heard another squad car coming. There was no place to hide, so I instinctively jumped over the rail into the water. The water’s not very deep, and I twisted my ankle on some rocks. I crouched in the cold water until the car had passed. My ankle hurt like hell. I curled up on the bank of the creek under the bridge and felt like crying. I could hear another squad car coming, blaring its fearful message. I was afraid of what I might do next. I tried to wash the mud from my face. I dragged myself from under the bridge and looked up and down the road. I pulled myself up the embankment, trying not to think about the shooting pain. Suddenly the street looked like a place where anything might happen, and I had the power to make it happen. I started to panic, but I didn’t know which way to run. I felt like an escaped prisoner with no memory of home and only a murderous instinct to survive. They were closing in on me. I could hear the dogs. I dove under a spirea bush in somebody’s front lawn. “It’s all clear now. You can come out,” the car said. A few moments later, the owner of the house opened his front door to let his dog out. The dog came straight over to me and started sniffing. The owner walked over and looked at me. “What the hell are you doing there?” he said. “The phantom bit me on the ankle,” I said. “It’s nothing. I’ll be all right.” “What’d it look like?” he said. “That’s the thing about a phantom; you can’t see it. It doesn’t look like anything. You’re walking along. It’s a beautiful day, then, bam! it’s got you,” I said. “You didn’t listen to the police, did you?” he said. “How do you know it hasn’t already got them?” I said. He stared at me. “You’re on my property, you know?” he said. “I’ll be leaving,” I said. “Beautiful day,” he said. “You couldn’t ask for a better one,” I said.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2003 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109482,13 +112876,15 @@ "title": "“How Was Your Day?”", "body": "After a morning of miniature golf, everything everything seemed smaller. The cardplayers at the club?tiny. And what I wanted most was grandeur! So I checked into the Grand Hotel. Things were beginning to turn around. On an outing, I clambered up the tomb of some monstrous dictator?feeling really excellent now. I had tea with several obese bluestockings, a beer with an encyclopedist who himself resembled a mosque. Some days nothing arrives in its proper package, and I hate that. There are the flattened bodies, the diaphanous tabloids, the speckled sauces. All I can do is clutch the phone in my Thinkery, popping seedless grapes? poor seeds? and in an almost devotional or neutral voice I ask room service for an eagle sandwich? I am suddenly suffocating?cancel that? make that a knuckle sandwich, chopped lips? oh, hell?please connect me with the horticulture consultant standing this minute beneath the pyramids. I’m checking out, I’m going home to my little bungalow? actually, it’s the perfect size. I’m going to kneel down on the veranda and toss kisses at the setting sun. On the horizon, a pregnant woman blots out the sun. It’s okay, I tell myself, since she herself is crimson. Chopped hps, nodding off in a life of perpetual learning. Tranquility weaves its dim web around my imperfect rags.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1988 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "the-humming": { @@ -109503,10 +112899,10 @@ "title": "“I Am a Finn”", "body": "I am standing in the post office, about to mail a package back to Minnesota, to my family. I am a Finn. My name is Kasteheimi (Dewdrop). Mikael Agricola (1510-1557) created the Finnish language. He knew Luther and translated the New Testament. When I stop by the ClassĂ© CafĂ© for a cheeseburger no one suspects that I am a Finn. I gaze at the dimestore reproductions of Lautrec on the greasy walls, at the punk lovers afraid to show their quivery emotions, secure in the knowledge that my grandparents really did emigrate from Finland in 1910--why is everybody leaving Finland, hundreds of thousands to Michigan and Minnesota, and now Australia? Eighty-six percent of Finnish men have blue or grey eyes. Today is Charlie Chaplin’s one hundredth birthday, though he is not Finnish or alive: ‘Thy blossom, in the bud laid low.’ The commonest fur-bearing animals are the red squirrel, musk-rat, pine-marten and fox. There are about 35,000 elk. But I should be studying for my exam. I wonder if Dean will celebrate with me tonight, assuming I pass. Finnish Literature really came alive in the 1860s. Here, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, no one cares that I am a Finn. They’ve never even heard of Frans Eemil SillanpÀÀ, winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize in Literature. As a Finn, this infuriates me.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1990 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april", @@ -109518,10 +112914,10 @@ "title": "“I don’t know about the cold 
”", "body": "I don’t know about the cold. I am sad without hands. I can’t speak for the wind which chips away at me. When pulling a potato, I see only the blue haze. When riding an escalator, I expect something orthopedic to happen Sinking in quicksand, I’m a wild Appaloosa. I fly into a rage at the sight of a double-decker bus, I want to eat my way through the Congo, I’m a double-agent who tortures himself and still will not speak. I don’t know about the cold, But I know what I like. I like a tropical madness, I like to shake the coconuts and fingerprint the pythons fevers which make the children dance. I am sad without hands, I’m very sad without sleeves or pockets. Winter is coming to this city, I can’t speak for the wind which chips away at me.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1973 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -109548,10 +112944,10 @@ "title": "“In New York”", "body": "The cosmopolis leans up against the light\nand tries to start a conversation\nwhere one is terribly serious\nand the other is a gigantic raging oscilloscope\nhearing nothing and swimming on\nlike you smartiepants.\nI’m parched, my notebooks are parched & so\nwith my eggs, everything is coming up pencils\nand I come home to a chaotic celebration\n\nreally shocked me out of my whirlpool to find\nthe mightly surging tribulet budding with ants\ncounting their blessings after the pillage\nof every living cell on the banks\nnow all is bald, O get on your evil horse, ride down\nloose spheres of blacklight across the border\nI give into my seashells\nthey’re still something to bounce off\nwho are sure they exist\nvery humble and self-assured.\n\nAn old man in the cosmopolis\nmust divorce himself, his home in the far TV\nthe false hope at the end\nit would be proritious to die though\nthe standards O gulp into the gulfing\nthe big Mexico burst upon the solitary stone\nand be glad\nand know what that old person feels like:\nbroken aquariums\nbugging everyone.\n\nAlways aware that we are dying\nat a meaningful pace for a real experience\nthat stab was meant for everyone\nthe fat sages\ndown the ages\ntheir elliptical hearts are an excuse for holidays\nmating stupor and drinking song\nby reason of the effort and its tradition\nof the utterly hopeless\ncelebrating “remote exquisite Beauties.”\n\nYou can purchase something to keep you sane\nsuch as a bigger and bigger slab of the madness\nnavigating uptown like a crumpled fish\nthrough Buddha’s nightgown\nyou sometimes know the secret, if anything,\nnot asking for anyone to take you home\nyou are, for one second,\nthe only one that’s not alone and\nlike Jesus you can’t lift your arm\nto stop a taxi, you tear yourself up\nbecause it feels so damned good.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1975 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109567,13 +112963,15 @@ "title": "“Indivisible”", "body": "Some genetic prodding in the termite’s nest, accomplished by servants with arrows, led to some dodgy sandwiches in the petshop. I was yelping with a pitchfork at some gummy weathervane. Predatory delicacies were sifting through the cradle. I assigned myself the task of pasting up itineraries for the victims. Once in a motel I put some electrodes on a chimp, I’m sorry about that. I turned newts into astronauts, that was a mistake. Maybe my cousin is a dolphin, I don’t know. There are networks of cells that form sponges on which this galaxy exists. Their urgent criteria woven into the buffeting, if feeble, sensory geometry of woebegone trains, immolating distinct convenience. It’s the maintenance of hierarchies that breaks our backs. I find peace in lava, in plums, in kernels with exact instructions. I am hushed when it comes to an arsenal of viscera, I am piqued when the soggy grasp at me in tubs. I provide, casually; incidentally, I partake. I have sampled some devotions, I have envisioned being perpetually hitched. I have set myself on fire with kerosene. And now I walk among my town’s folk, immune, beseeching.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1988 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "interruptions": { @@ -109588,10 +112986,10 @@ "title": "“It Happens Like This”", "body": "I was outside St. Cecelia’s Rectory smoking a cigarette when a goat appeared beside me. It was mostly black and white, with a little reddish brown here and there. When I started to walk away, it followed. I was amused and delighted, but wondered what the laws were on this kind of thing. There’s a leash law for dogs, but what about goats? People smiled at me and admired the goat. “It’s not my goat,” I explained. “It’s the town’s goat. I’m just taking my turn caring for it.” “I didn’t know we had a goat,” one of them said. “I wonder when my turn is.” “Soon,” I said. “Be patient. Your time is coming.” The goat stayed by my side. It stopped when I stopped. It looked up at me and I stared into its eyes. I felt he knew everything essential about me. We walked on. A policeman on his beat looked us over. “That’s a mighty fine goat you got there,” he said, stopping to admire. “It’s the town’s goat,” I said. “His family goes back three-hundred years with us,” I said, “from the beginning.” The officer leaned forward to touch him, then stopped and looked up at me. “Mind if I pat him?” he asked. “Touching this goat will change your life,” I said. “It’s your decision.” He thought real hard for a minute, and then stood up and said, “What’s his name?” “He’s called the Prince of Peace,” I said. “God! This town is like a fairy tale. Everywhere you turn there’s mystery and wonder. And I’m just a child playing cops and robbers forever. Please forgive me if I cry.” “We forgive you, Officer,” I said. “And we understand why you, more than anybody, should never touch the Prince.” The goat and I walked on. It was getting dark and we were beginning to wonder where we would spend the night.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2002 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109599,10 +112997,10 @@ "title": "“It Wasn’t Me”", "body": "I recall a miser’s\nwhite goose\nsold for naught.\nI, too, have my jewels,\nmy contingency plan\nwinding down\nto the goose-flesh of this world.\nI have my hunter’s reflex,\nmy critical versions.\nGruff parcel, that Turko.\nSoundless macabre, calculating.\nJeannetje smacks Octave across the lips.\n\nI have my digitalis and black mittens,\nmy pasty-faced actresses.\n\nOnce, in a sailor suit, I ate an Ă©clair.\n\nBackstage at the ballet\nI consulted a yellow skull,\na grapefruit really.\nI disfigured somebody’s sandwich.\n\nThe waxworks don’t open until nine.\n\nA stranger’s visiting card\nblows off the bridge.\n\nAt first light I have my stepchild,\nmy white china basin,\ntherapeutic jostling of the toddler.\n\nSuspicions are almost confirmed.\nDenials are swiftly circulating.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1981 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109610,10 +113008,10 @@ "title": "“Jim’s All-Night Diner”", "body": "Solemnity around the samovar\nwarms the old interlopers:\n\ngrief is momentarily rinsed\naway. They wait as if for\na certain invitation.\n\nThe voices outside are\na panoply of scorn.\n\nThese yellow thumbs haul up\nthe hot liquid, but when\nthe cup’s drunk it is more\n\nlike an orphanage.\nThe dead letter department,\nthe salvation army,\n\nthe animal rescue league--\nthese are the only destinations.\nOne desires to touch\n\ntheir lowly shoulders\nwith a plastic spoon\n\nand change them into green rabbits\non a white Alpine mountain,\ntheir gauzy faces exhilarated.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1968 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109621,10 +113019,10 @@ "title": "“The Kiss”", "body": "Barbara didn’t remember who I was, so I told her and said, “Maybe we can get together sometime.” And she said, “Why? I still don’t know you.” And I said, “But I told you. We went out together in high school once. I kissed you. You don’t remember that?” “No, I don’t. I have no memory of that at all,” she said. “It was quite a beautiful kiss as I remember it, but it’s gone, or at least one half of it is gone,” I said. “Good-bye, I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” she said. She picked up her purse and left. I sat there thinking things over. I didn’t really know her any longer. She was a different person. I got up to leave. Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and it was Barbara. “I remember you, you were short and had braces,” she said. “I grew quite a bit,” I said. “Yes, you did. And you’re really quite handsome,” she said. “Well, thank you. It’s not something I tried to be,” I said. “How I remembered you I’ll never know. You were just a squirt of a guy,” she said. “Well, it was still me. I was just in a different package,” I said. “That’s one way of putting it. It was quite a different package all right,” she said. “But it was me, I promise you,” I said. “That kiss was the silliest I ever had in my life,” she said. “It was sacred to me,” I said. “We should try again,” she said. “No, that was the only kiss I had for you in this lifetime,” I said. And I walked away swinging my old knapsack on my back.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2012 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109632,10 +113030,10 @@ "title": "“A Knock on the Door”", "body": "They ask me if I’ve ever thought about the end of the world, and I say, “Come in, come in, let me give you some lunch, for God’s sake.” After a few bites it’s the afterlife they want to talk about. “Ouch,” I say, “did you see that grape leaf skeletonizer?” Then they’re talking about redemption and the chosen few sitting right by His side. “Doing what?” I ask. “Just sitting?” I am surrounded by burned up zombies. “Let’s have some lemon chiffon pie I bought yesterday at the 3 Dog Bakery.” But they want to talk about my soul. I’m getting drowsy and see butterflies everywhere. “Would you gentlemen like to take a nap, I know I would.” They stand and back away from me, out the door, walking toward my neighbors, a black cloud over their heads and they see nothing without end.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1997 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109643,10 +113041,10 @@ "title": "“A Last Hayride”", "body": "I was driving home late on a winter’s night and when I pulled up to a stop light I saw coming out of a thick fog a large farm wagon being pulled by two horses. In the wagon were about twenty-five elderly persons. Some were slumped forward half- asleep, and others appeared to be singing. I had my window up so I wasn’t sure if anything was actually coming out of their mouths. The horses were straining to pull such a heavy load. They moved slowly as if seriously considering each step. It was quite cold out. No one was behind me so I sat through the next green light and watched the wagon disappear into the fog. The next day I read the local paper from cover to cover. No hayride.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2008 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -109657,10 +113055,10 @@ "title": "“Leaving Mother Waiting for Father”", "body": "The evening went on;\nI got very old.\nShe kept telling me it didn’t matter.\nThe real man would come back\nsoon. We waited. We had alarms\nfixed, vases of white and purple\nflowers ready to thrust\non him should he.\n\nWe had to sell the place\nin a hurry; walked downtown\nholding hands.\nShe had a yard of blue material in her pocket:\nI remember that so well!\nShe fell asleep and a smile\nbegan to blister her old mouth.\nI propped her against an old hotel\nand left without any noise.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1968 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109668,10 +113066,10 @@ "title": "“Like a Saint”", "body": "Should I leap from the balcony and back up again like a great big Saint! If I pulled all these daggers out of my firehead I could breathe like a jet in an exemplory way like a sergeant, like a bean. O Heroes, I’ll always need you from this time on: I’m an old bag with a potato-brain. How will this effect the children, an arm to span the ages with a sperm-bank inbetween. I will unplug the freezer when the suffering is over--grip flung loose of the popsicle--it was not a real party. No, Lord, I masturbated on the desk then crossed the Great Sandy. This is my iron, that your fuzzy. It must come as a big surprise I am appealing to Zanzibar. I will never move to Beacon Hill, dust the cameo with a crowbar. Some kind of rare fungus is taking a bite of our diamond. Does it have any extra-marital rhinoes? Only a few satin diving-units which never refer to the sky, whose lips appear willfully removed.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1975 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109687,10 +113085,10 @@ "title": "“The List of Famous Hats”", "body": "Napoleon’s hat is an obvious choice I guess to list as a famous hat, but that’s not the hat I have in mind. That was his hat for show. I am thinking of his private bathing cap, which in all honesty wasn’t much different than the one any jerk might buy at a corner drugstore now, except for two minor eccentricities. The first one isn’t even funny: Simply it was a white rubber bathing cap, but too small. Napoleon led such a hectic life ever since his childhood, even farther back than that, that he never had a chance to buy a new bathing cap and still as a grown-up--well, he didn’t really grow that much, but his head did: He was a pinhead at birth, and he used, until his death really, the same little tiny bathing cap that he was born in, and this meant that later it was very painful to him and gave him many headaches, as if he needed more. So, he had to vaseline his skull like crazy to even get the thing on. The second eccentricity was that it was a tricorn bathing cap. Scholars like to make a lot out of this, and it would be easy to do. My theory is simple-minded to be sure: that beneath his public head there was another head and it was a pyramid or something.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1985 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109698,13 +113096,15 @@ "title": "“A Little Skull”", "body": "I found a skull on the beach, it was just a little skull, maybe that of a canary. White sand trickled through the sockets. It seemed to smile at me and I tried feeding it some crumbs. Oh well, cookies are for frogs, and maybe this isn’t a skull at all, but an egg or a bulb of some sort. Maybe I will glue some sequins on it and donate it to the local monastery. It would be happy there, supervising the luncheon menu, pounding its forehead through the lilac sermons, patrolling the starched brainwaves in the library. But what if it’s my own long lost ancestor? Shouldn’t I guzzle a toast about now? Raise a kite, or faint in a spiral upward? The whole episode is lamentable, I’m simply rehearsing for another kind of scrutiny, an expedition into the heart of heresy where dowdy, abusive hobgoblins lounge yanking at one another’s hair and snapping newcomers with hot towels. I expect to be incarcerated there for some time. All nectar will taste like insecticide. Privileges, such as holding this bird’s skull in the palm of my hand, will surely be rare. And so, better to forfeit it now, savor forever its twirling arc back into the sea, and circulate among the clustered natives, sniffing for honey, whisking flies from laughing faces.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1988 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "the-loon": { @@ -109719,10 +113119,10 @@ "title": "“The Lost Pilot”", "body": "Your face did not rot like the others--the co-pilot, for example, I saw him yesterday. His face is cornmush: his wife and daughter, the poor ignorant people, stareas if he will compose soon. He was more wronged than Job. But your face did not rot like the others--it grew dark, and hard like ebony; the features progressed in theirdistinction. If I could cajole you to come back for an evening, down from your compulsiveorbiting, I would touch you, read your face as Dallas, your hoodlum gunner, now, with the blistered eyes, reads his braille editions. I would touch your face as a disinterestedscholar touches an original page. However frightening, I would discover you, and I would notturn you in; I would not make you face your wife, or Dallas, or the co-pilot, Jim. You could return to your crazy orbiting, and I would not try to fully understand what it means to you. All I know is this: when I see you, as I have seen you at least once every year of my life, spin across the wilds of the sky like a tiny, African god, I feel dead. I feel as if I were the residue of a stranger’s life, that I should pursue you. My head cocked toward the sky, I cannot get off the ground, and, you, passing over again, fast, perfect, and unwilling to tell me that you are doing well, or that it was mistake that placed you in that world, and me in this; or that misfortune placed these worlds in us.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1966 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109730,10 +113130,10 @@ "title": "“Lost River”", "body": "Jill and I had been driving for hours on these little back country roads and we hadn’t seen another car or a store of any kind in all that time. We were trying to get to a village called Lost River and were running out of gas. There was a man there that owns a pterodactyl wing and we heard that he might want to sell it. He was tired of it, we were told. Finally, I see an old pick-up truck coming up behind us and I pull over and get out of the car and wave. The man starts to pass by, but changes his mind and stops. I ask him if he knows how to get to Lost River and he says he’s never heard of it, but can give us directions to the closest town called Last Grocery Store. I thank him and we eventually find Last Grocery Store, which consists of three trailers and a little bitsy grocery store. The owner is old and nearly blind, but he’s glad to meet us and we’re glad to meet him. I ask him if he knows how to get to Lost River from here. He ponders for awhile, and then says, “I don’t see how you could get there, unless you’re walking. There’s no road in them parts. Why would anybody be wanting to go to Lost River, there’s nothing there.” “There’s a man there that’s got a pterodactyl wing he might be willing to sell,” I say. “Hell, I’ll sell you mine. I can’t see it anymore, so I might as well sell it,” he says. Jill and I look at eachother, incredulous. “Well, we’d sure like to see it,” I say. “No problem,” he says, “I keep it right here in back of the store.” He brings it out and it’s beautiful, delicate and it’s real, I’m certain of it. The foot even has its claws on it. We’re speechless and rather terrified of holding it, though he hands it to us trustingly. My whole body feels like it’s vibrating, like I’m a harp of time. I’m sort of embarassed, but finally I ask him how much he wants for it. “Oh, just take it. It always brought me luck, but I’ve had all the luck I need,” he says. Jill gives him a kiss on the cheek and I shake his hand and thank him. Tomorrow: Lost River.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2005 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109749,10 +113149,10 @@ "title": "“Lucinda”", "body": "Lucinda said she was going to take a shower. I said, “Do you mind if I watch?” She looked at me as if I were crazy, or some kind of pervert. “We’ve lived together for ten years and I’ve never seen you take a shower,” I added. She scratched her head and looked at her feet. “A shower is kind of a private thing, don’t you think?” she said. “So is making love, but we do it,” I said. She thought that over for a minute. “Well, you’ll be disappointed, a shower is just a shower,” she said. She made me wait outside while she undressed. After the curtain was pulled and the water was running, I was permitted to enter. There were hundreds of native boys chanting in a tongue I couldn’t comprehend, dancing in a circle around her. She soaped her breasts and ignored them. They worshipped her. She continued soaping her breasts. They whooped and cried for joy. More soap for the breasts. I was afraid for my life. Then the soap travelled south.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2003 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109760,10 +113160,10 @@ "title": "“Lust for Life”", "body": "Veronica has the best apartment in town. It’s on the third story and has big plate glass windows that look straight down on the town common. She has a bird’s eye view of all the protestors, the fairs, the lovers, people eating lunch on park benches; in general, the life-blood of the town. The more Veronica watched all these little dramas, the less desire she had to actually go out and be one herself. I called her from time to time, but her conversation consisted of her descriptions of what was going on in the common. “Now he’s kissing her and saying good-bye. He’s getting on the bus. The bus is pulling out. Wait a minute, she’s just joined hands with another guy. I can’t believe it! These people are behaving like trash. There’s a real tiny old lady with a walker trying to go into the bookstore, but she keeps stopping and looking over her shoulder. She thinks she’s being followed.” “Veronica,” I say, “I’m dying.” “Two of the richest and nastiest lawyers in town are arguing over by the drinking fountain. They’re actually shouting, I can almost hear them. Oh my god, one of them has shoved the other. It’s incredible, Artie. You should be here,” she says. “War has been declared with England, Veronica. Have you heard that?” I say. “That’s great, Artie,” she says. “Remember the girl who kissed the guy getting on the bus and then immediately took up with the other guy? Well, now she’s flirting with the parking officer and he’s loving it and flirting back with her. He just tore up a ticket he had written for her. I’m really beginning to like this girl after all.” “That’s great Veronica,” I say. “Why don’t you check and see if your little panties are on fire yet,” and I hang up, and I don’t think she even notices. I wonder if I’m supposed to be worried about her. But in the end I don’t. Veronica has the best apartment in town.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2001 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109771,10 +113171,10 @@ "title": "“Making the Best of the Holidays”", "body": "Justine called on Christmas day to say she was thinking of killing herself. I said, “We’re in the middle of opening presents, Justine. Could you possibly call back later, that is, if you’re still alive.” She was furious with me and called me all sorts of names which I refuse to dignify by repeating them. I hung up on her and returned to the joyful task of opening presents. Everyone seemed delighted with what they got, and that definitely includes me. I placed a few more logs on the fire, and then the phone rang again. This time it was Hugh and he had just taken all of his pills and washed them down with a quart of gin. “Sleep it off, Hugh,” I said, “I can barely understand you, you’re slurring so badly. Call me tomorrow, Hugh, and Merry Christmas.” The roast in the oven smelled delicious. The kids were playing with their new toys. Loni was giving me a big Christmas kiss when the phone rang again. It was Debbie. “I hate you,” she said. “You’re the most disgusting human being on the planet.” “You’re absolutely right,” I said, “and I’ve always been aware of this. Nonetheless, Merry Christmas, Debbie.” Halfway through dinner the phone rang again, but this time Loni answered it. When she came back to the table she looked pale. “Who was it?” I asked. “It was my mother,” she said. “And what did she say?” I asked. “She said she wasn’t my mother,” she said.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2008 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "christmas_day" @@ -109796,10 +113196,10 @@ "title": "“Marcella in the Forest”", "body": "Marcella stood naked on the forest floor. I said, “What are you doing naked out here?” She said, “I thought you might like it.” “Well, of course I’ll like it, but somebody might catch us out here,” I said. “You know there’s never anybody out here,” she said. “I know, but there might be,” I said. “You’re just afraid of nature, aren’t you?” she said. “If I am, I didn’t know it,” I said. “Then why don’t you get naked too,” she said. “I could never get naked out here. It just doesn’t feel right,” I said. “Then I’m putting my clothes back on. It doesn’t make any sense for me to be standing naked all by myself,” she said. A hunter walked onto the scene just then. “What’s going on here?” he said. “She’s my wife,” I said. “I just wanted to feel close to nature,” Marcella said. “I almost shot you. I thought you were a deer,” he said. “I don’t look like a deer,” she said. “In the brush and all you do,” he said. “Honey, put your clothes on,” I said. “I forgot where I put them,” she said. “They’re somewhere around here,” I said. The hunter said, “Here they are, right at my feet.” She walked toward the hunter, glancing back at me. The hunter said, “Panties first, then the bra.” She followed his orders. Finally she was completely dressed. She thanked him for his help. He waved his around and said, “Go on, get out of here, before I decide to shoot you.” We started running. Marcella leapt over a lake that I fell in. Then I heard a shot, and another shot.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2012 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109807,10 +113207,10 @@ "title": "“The March”", "body": "There were two or three stragglers who couldn’t keep up with the rest. I said to the captain, “What should we do about the stragglers?” He said, “Shoot them. Stragglers are often captured by the enemy and tortured until they reveal our whereabouts. It is best to not leave them behind.” I went back to the stragglers and told them that my orders were to shoot them. They started running to catch up with the rest. Then a sniper was shot out of a tree. “Good work,” said the captain. Then we climbed a mountain. Once we were on top, the captain said, “I’ll give a hundred dollars to anyone who can spot the enemy.” Nobody could. “We’ll spend the night here,” the captain said. I was appointed first lookout. I smoked a cigarette and looked into the forest below through my night-vision glasses. Something moved, but it was hard to tell what it was. There was a lot of movement, but it didn’t seem like men, more like animals. I soon fell asleep. When Juarez tapped me on the shoulder to tell me he would take over, he said, “You were asleep, weren’t you?” I stared at him with pleading eyes. “The captain would have you shot, you know?” I didn’t say anything. The next morning Juarez was missing. “Captain, do you want me to send out a search party?” I said. “No, I always suspected he was with the enemy,” he said. “Today, we will descend the mountain.” “Yes, sir, captain,” I said. The men tumbled and rolled, bounced up against trees and boulders. Some of them broke their arms and noses. I was standing next to the captain at the bottom of the mountain. “Shoot them all!” he ordered. “But, captain, they’re our men,” I said. “No they’re not. My men were well-trained and disciplined. Look at this mess here. They are not my men. Shoot them!” he again ordered. I raised my rifle, then turned and smacked him in the head with the butt of it. Then I knelt and handcuffed him. The soldiers gathered about me and we headed for home. Of course, none of us knew where that was, but we had our dreams and our memories. Or I think we did.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2008 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109818,23 +113218,25 @@ "title": "“Mimi”", "body": "After the train wreck I found her hat in the top branches of a catalpa tree. It was all feathers, green and pink and blue, and it shivered in my hands like a starveling from Fiji too happy or frightened to remember its way home. Oh, it’s true, she drank too much champagne on all the wrong occasions. She hired a limousine when she could have crawled. Her laughter made me freeze, and when she exposed her breast I was a Naval Cadet about to leave for a losing war. “Something to die for,” she said. And I did, every night, every day. I told her not to take this train, puzzle of hot steel beside the river we never swam. But there was something out there that she needed more than me. So she donned her hat of tragic feathers and vanished from this life. And I am left in the present with a history that could never matter. I know what day it is, what hour, and I see many strangers whose Christmases did not work out, who broke under the pressure. And the frozen hare over there, isn’t he some kind of freedom fighter? Tribulations over rations. A hat that wants to fly to the moon.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1989 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "more-later-less-the-same": { "title": "“More Later, Less the Same”", "body": "The common is unusually calm--they captured the storm last night, it’s sleeping in the stockade, relieved of its duty, pacified, tamed, a pussycat. But not before it tied the flagpole in knots, and not before it alarmed the firemen out of their pants. Now it’s really calm, almost too calm, as though anything could happen, and it would be a first. It could be the worst thing that ever happened. All the little rodents are sitting up and counting their nuts. What if nothing ever happened again? Would there be enough to “eke out an existence,” as they say? I wish “they” were here now, kicking up a little dust, mussing my hair, taunting me with weird syllogisms. Instead, these are the windless, halcyon days. The lull dispassion is upon us. Serenity has triumphed in its mindless, atrophied way. A school of Stoics walks by, eager, in its phlegmatic way, to observe human degradation, lust and debauchery at close quarters. They are disappointed, but it barely shows on their faces. They are late Stoa, very late. They missed the bus. They should have been here last night. The joint was jumping. But people change, they grow up, they fly around. It’s the same old story, but I don’t remember it. It’s a tale of gore and glory, but we had to leave. It could have turned out differently, and it did. I feel much the same way about the city of Pompeii. A police officer with a poodle cut squirts his gun at me for saying that, and it’s still just barely possible that I didn’t, and the clock is running out on his sort of behavior. I’m napping in a wigwam as I write this, near Amity Street, which is buried under fifteen feet of ashes and cinders and rocks. Moss and a certain herblike creature are beginning to whisper nearby. I am beside myself, peering down, senselessly, since, for us, in space, there is neither above nor below; and thus the expression “He is being nibbled to death by ducks” shines with such style, such poise, and reserve, a beautiful, puissant form and a lucid thought. To which I reply “It is time we had our teeth examined by a dentist.” So said James the Lesser to James the More.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1992 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109842,10 +113244,10 @@ "title": "“The Motorcyclists”", "body": "My cuticles are a mess. Oh honey, by the way, did you like my new negligee? It’s a replica of one Kim Novak wore in some movie or other. I wish I had a foot-long chili dog right now. Do you like fireworks, I mean not just on the 4th of July, but fireworks any time? There are people like that, you know. They’re like people who like orchestra music, listen to it any time of day. Lopsided people, that’s what my father calls them. Me, I’m easy to please. I like ping-gong and bobcats, shatterproof drinking glasses, the smell of kerosene, the crunch of carrots. I like caterpillars and whirlpools, too. What I hate most is being the first one at the scene of a bad accident. Do I smell like garlic? Are we still in Kansas? I once had a chiropractor make a pass at me, did I ever tell you that? He said that your spine is happiest when you’re snuggling. Sounds kind of sweet now when I tell you, but he was a creep. Do you know that I have never understood what they meant by “grassy knoll.” It sounds so idyllic, a place to go to dream your life away, not kill somebody. They should have called it something like “the grudging notch.” But I guess that’s life. What is it they always say? “It’s always the sweetest ones that break your heart.” You getting hungry yet, hon? I am. When I was seven I sat in our field and ate an entire eggplant right off the vine. Dad loves to tell that story, but I still can’t eat eggplant. He says I’ll be the first woman President, it’d be a waste since I talk so much. Which do you think the fixtures are in the bathroom at the White House, gold or brass? It’d be okay with me if they were just brass. Honey, can we stop soon? I really hate to say it but I need a lady’s room.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1991 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109861,10 +113263,10 @@ "title": "“My Great Great Etc. Uncle Patrick Henry”", "body": "There’s a fortune to be made in just about everything in this country, somebody’s father had to invent everything--baby food, tractors, rat poisoning. My family’s obviously done nothing since the beginning of time. They invented poverty and bad taste and getting by and taking it from the boss. O my mother goes around chewing her nails and spitting them in a jar: You shouldn’t be ashamed of yourself she says, think of your family. My family I say what have they ever done but paint by numbers the most absurd and disgusting scenes of plastic squalor and human degradation. Well then think of your great great etc. Uncle Patrick Henry.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1971 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109872,10 +113274,10 @@ "title": "“Never Again the Same”", "body": "Speaking of sunsets, last night’s was shocking. I mean, sunsets aren’t supposed to frighten you, are they? Well, this one was terrifying. Sure, it was beautiful, but far too beautiful. It wasn’t natural. One climax followed another and then another until your knees went weak and you couldn’t breathe. The colors were definitely not of this world, peaches dripping opium, pandemonium of tangerines, inferno of irises, Plutonian emeralds, all swirling and churning, swabbing, like it was playing with us, like we were nothing, as if our whole lives were a preparation for this, this for which nothing could have prepared us and for which we could not have been less prepared. The mockery of it all stung us bitterly. And when it was finally over we whimpered and cried and howled. And then the streetlights came on as always and we looked into one another’s eyes--ancient caves with still pools and those little transparent fish who have never seen even one ray of light. And the calm that returned to us was not even our own.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1996 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109883,10 +113285,10 @@ "title": "“The New Chinese Fiction”", "body": "Although the depiction of living forms was not explicitly forbidden, the only good news about famines was that the station was empty. It was about 2 A.M. The truck drove away. A tropical insect that lives in enormous cities stroked my hair awkwardly, organizing everyone’s schedule. She drove me back to my hotel in a misty and allusive style, while the old schools continued the process of devolution. Part of the roof was loose and flapped noisily in the wind, who needed work like that? Poor brethren, do you have any good prose yet? The New Chinese fiction is getting better, I suspect, people walking and thinking and fussing, with a nest to fly out of, with a less intimate footing. Are we responsible for their playtimes? Keep up your music, my dears; there were a lot of people like that, with strange eyes, green fields and orchards. The little house they sat in produced simple people, cars full of blood, all they needed was a hat, extramusical sounds, purging the emotions. Expect no mercy, I said, from the sickbay. And try to imagine Howard Hughes piloting the plane that flew Cary Grant and Barbara Hutton off toward their marriage in 1950. Well, don’t bother. The New Chinese fiction shouldn’t concern itself with anything other than a stolen turnip and a coldness in the heart, and a lit window, a young man on a horse appearing and then disappearing.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1994 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109902,10 +113304,10 @@ "title": "“The New Horses”", "body": "When the horses arrived I was so happy. I put them out in the field and they seemed to like it, except for the flies. Then, later, I made sure they got fed. The pinto bucked up and kicked the fence, which shocked me, but then everything was alright again. Later, when they settled down for the night, there was a sound like a snake hissing in one of the stalls, but I couldn’t find anything. In the morning, when I left them out, the bay was limping. I tried to examine her, but she kicked me in the head and I was out for a good fifteen minutes before I woke. She was alright by then. The sorrel had jumped the fence while I was out and I went and got the truck. I found her about three miles down the road. Someone in a truck or car had grazed her and she was lying down by the side of the road. I managed to pull her up and she made it up the plank into the back of the truck. When I let her back in the pen, I realized her leg was broken and she would have to be shot. The chestnut let out a loud whinny. The roan walked over and stomped on my foot very deliberately. My foot hurt, but, more importantly, my feelings were hurt. I really wanted to make those horses happy. The pinto took off running and crashed into the fence. The chestnut started chasing the sorrel until the sorrel collapsed. My head was buzzing, my stomach churning. The bay jumped over the tractor and was headed right for me. I ran out of the pen and shut the fence. The sorrel was suffering. I had to put her out of her misery. I got my rifle from the house. I loved these horses, I really did, but something wasn’t right with them. The chestnut wouldn’t let me in the gate. The pinto started chanting in Latin. The roan look like it had grown a horn in its forehead. I started firing every which way, blind as a bat.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2007 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109913,10 +113315,10 @@ "title": "“No Spitting Up”", "body": "“People in glass elevators shouldn’t carry snow shovels,” I said to Sheila, because we were in one with a lady who was. I faced the closed doors, rejected the view of the city without the slightest curiosity, because I already knew. What if this woman with the shovel suddenly went crazy, started flapping her wings like a chicken, like a fiend? I wonder what Sheila is thinking just now, I wonder if she has her eye on the snow shovel, how it can’t rest in this glass elevator, how it is dancing inside of itself and making me dance. No one’s paying the least attention to the tension between me and that shovel, that shovel and that window, that window and me.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1989 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109932,10 +113334,10 @@ "title": "“Nuisance”", "body": "It was more of a nuisance than an actual apparition. It wanted my microfilm, it was spraying me with an atomizer such as one I had never seen. I even carried an umbrella around inside the house for a while. I sat in my armchair with a saucer of warm milk and took my temperature several times. I calculated some errors I had made in recent days, all the while this tingling at my temples, as though I were being spied on by satellites, as though some inscrutably virulent sanitation problem were attacking my very foundation, and hecklers were arriving by the busloads. I tried yawning--it was broken. I could tidy up a bit, pad from room to room, polish the corroding molecular remnants. After all, it’s just so much propaganda, really, it’s nothing more than a massive injection of disembodied transparencies on a simple excursion, a vacation, brief, in all likelihood, millimeter by millimeter subtracting my formulas, maiming a few of my components. But, then again, I saw nothing. I could hardly be called a witness.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1987 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109943,10 +113345,10 @@ "title": "“On the Subject of Doctors”", "body": "I like to see doctors cough. What kind of human being would grab all your money just when you’re down? I’m not saying they enjoy this: “Sorry, Mr. Rodriguez, that’s it, no hope! You might as well hand over your wallet.” Hell no, they’d rather be playing golf and swapping jokes about our feet. Some of them smoke marijuana and are alcoholics, and their moral turpitude is famous: who gets to see most sex organs in the world? Not poets. With the hours they keep they need drugs more than anyone. Germ city, there’s no hope looking down those fire-engine throats. They’re bound to get sick themselves sometime; and I happen to be there myself in a high fever taking my plastic medicine seriously with the doctors, who are dying.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1991 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109954,10 +113356,10 @@ "title": "“Our Roles in Life”", "body": "“Is there nothing you can do for me? I’m stuck in this hole,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do for you. You’re stuck in that hole,” I said. “But can’t you find a shovel or something and dig me out?” he said. “I don’t think there’s a shovel around here, but I could look,” I said. I went and looked for a shovel, but all I found was a spoon. “Here’s a spoon,” I said. “But that will take forever,” he said. “I don’t want a spoon. That will take forever,” he said. “Then I’m afraid you must stay buried,” I said. “This is not something I want to hear,” he said. “Who buried you like this, anyway?” I said. “I did not catch his name. He was a tall man, quick with his hands,” he said. “Well, that is no help,” I said. “I was half-asleep at the time. I wasn’t paying attention,” he said. “And you ended up buried in that hole?” I said. “Yes, when I awoke I was buried in this hole,” he said. “Let me remove just one spoon of dirt and see if that feels better,” I said. “One spoon couldn’t possibly make me feel better,” he said. “Okay, then I’m going,” I said. “Oh, please don’t go. I need you,” he said. “I can’t do anything for you so I might as well leave,” I said. “You could put a spoon of dirt on my head. If I’m going to be buried I might as well be buried all the way,” he said. “No, you need a breathing hole,” I said. “I don’t want a breathing hole if I’m going to be buried like this,” he said. “Someone will come along and dig you out eventually,” I said. “I can’t go on like this,” he said. “You’re doing fine,” I said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m next to death here,” he said. “I’ve never seen a finer head than yours,” I said. “Please put me out of my misery,” he said. “I suppose I could start digging with my hands,” I said. “We could be here forever,” he said. “Such is cast our roles in life,” I said. “Such is cast our roles in life,” he said.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2012 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109965,10 +113367,10 @@ "title": "“The Painter of the Night”", "body": "Someone called in a report that she had seen a man painting in the dark over by the pond. A police car was dispatched to go investigate. The two officers with their big flashlights walked all around the pond, but found nothing suspicious. Hatcher was the younger of the two, and he said to Johnson, “What do you think he was painting?” Johnson looked bemused and said, “The dark, stupid. What else could he have been painting?” Hatcher, a little hurt, said, “Frogs in the Dark, Lily-pads in the Dark, Pond in the Dark. Just as many things exist in the dark as they do in the light.” Johnson paused, exasperated. Then Hatcher added, “I’d like to see them. Hell, I might even buy one. Maybe there’s more out there than we know. We are the police, after all. We need to know.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2000 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -109976,12 +113378,11 @@ "title": "“Pastoral”", "body": "With lukewarm tongs I hold this swaying cow. She’s dripping cubes into the cove below. And little Hank fills his glass and blows the bubbles in my face and I laugh: ho ho 
 O blissful, plump swimmer in Life’s disfigured crossword, don’t frown. I’ll set you down unchurned-up. Now you’re happy and dumb and Hank can dip his donut in the wind 
 A hooded figure slithers by, an oblong reptile with dahlias for eyes. I pause, curse, and bend, pick up a squeezed-out tube of something blue. The hooded figure sneezes. “Kazoontite,” I say. “Well, I guess I’ll be moseying back to the barn. If I don’t get back soon I’ll miss the Farm Report.” “Is that you in there, Ma,” little Hank detected. “You sure scared Pa, fooled him good this time.” This farm-funning is going to give me a nervous breakdown. And I suppose this squeezed-out tube of blue means something, too, like bald-faced vexation. The hooded one shakes her beak: yes.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1988 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -110000,10 +113401,10 @@ "title": "“Pity Ascending with the Fog”", "body": "He had no past and he certainly had no future. All the important events were ending shortly before they began. He says he told mama earth what he would not accept: and I keep thinking it had something to do with her world. Nights expanding into enormous parachutes of fire, his eyes were little more than mercury. Or sky-diving in the rain when there was obviously no land beneath, half-dead fish surfacing all over his body. He knew all this too well. And she who might at anytime be saying the word that would embrace all he had let go, he let go of course. I think the pain for him will end in May or January, though the weather is far too clear for me to think of anything but august comedy.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1967 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110011,10 +113412,10 @@ "title": "“Precious Little We Can Do”", "body": "The clubhouse was bedecked with blue ribbons perhaps symbolizing the simpler days of water splashing everywhere. We were just out for a drive when we saw it and thought it must mean something or the boys were having a party tonight because one of them just turned seventy and was feeling kind of blue. The older they get the friskier they get, that’s the rule around here anyway. We drove down to the pond just to see some water and then the ducks came over and we talked to them for an hour or so, mostly about things they couldn’t understand. I think that’s why they stayed and talked back so vociferously. It was cloudy and then it was sunny and then a big car drove up and some newlyweds got out and started singing. The ducks were frightened and frankly so were we, and our fear brought us closer. We waddled towards the water prestissimo and paddled for the cattails and waterlilies on the far side, our panic given way to serenity. The couple left at the end of the song. A great blue heron circled overhead. We climbed ashore and shook off what water we could, and feathers. We wrapped ourselves in some blanket from the trunk. On the way home, my wife, who can be very cruel when she wants to be, says to me, “I prefer the company of loons, their insane, crazy laughter is a comfort for which there is no substitute.” Later that night, I joined the boys at a clubhouse. They sighed in unison and repeated, “There is precious little we can do, precious little we can do.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2000 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110022,10 +113423,10 @@ "title": "“Pride’s Crossing”", "body": "Where the railroad meets the sea,\nI recognize her hand.\nWhere the railroad meets the sea,\nher hair is as intricate as a thumbprint.\nWhere the railroad meets the sea,\nher name is the threshold of sleep.\nWhere the railroad meets the sea,\nit takes all night to get there.\nWhere the railroad meets the sea,\nyou have stepped over the barrier.\nWhere the railroad meets the sea,\nyou will understand afterwards.\nWhere the railroad meets the sea,\nwhere the railroad meets the sea--\nI know only that our paths lie together,\nand you cannot endure if you remain alone.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1969 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110033,23 +113434,25 @@ "title": "“Quabbin Reservoir”", "body": "All morning, skipping stones on the creamy lake, I thought I heard a lute being played, high up, in the birch trees, or a faun speaking French with a Brooklyn accent. A snowy owl watched me with half-closed eyes. “What have you done for me philately,” I wanted to ask it, licking the air. There was a village at the bottom of the lake, and I could just make out the old pos toff ice, and, occasionally, when the light struck it just right, I glimpsed several mailmen swimming in or out of it, letters and packages escaping randomly, 1938, 1937, it didn’t matter to them any longer. Void. No such address. Soft blazes squirmed across the surface and I could see their church, now home to druid squatters, rock in the intoxicating current, as if to an ancient hymn. And a thousand elbowing reeds conducted the drowsy band pavilion: awake, awake, you germs of habit! Alas, I fling my final stone, my callingcard, my gift of porphyry to the citizens of the deep, and disappear into a copse, raving like a butterfly to a rosebud: I love you.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1988 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "red-bricks-and-camphor-trees": { "title": "“Red Bricks and Camphor Trees”", "body": "A mandolin from the madhouse was calling the lunatics to prayer. Mr. Beasely’s Portuguese was improving by the hour. Little pissing brats just freed from school threw rotten eggs and wild chrysanthemums, and the gondolier was getting edgy. Mrs. Beasely promptly ruled that the trip to the Great Cloud Hermitage must begin, and the boatman blazed on past the little tombs with their fuddy-duddies. Oratorios by Handel and Haydn bounced out of buildings with a random elegance that subtly flustered their direction. A pyromaniac lit the lamps that shown the way past pillars which ignited like the soul of the architect who built them, past villas with delicate shadows. Mr. Beasely remembered his mother’s music-room, touchy as wet paint. The current lady of his life slapped him awake, “I swear, Mr. Beasely, your past is a perilous irrelevance today. Biscuits and dried peaches, if you ask me. And soggy to boot! This decisive and dynamic driver of our vehicle shows more stamina, just look at his fangs!” He felt the early riddles of a language stir inside--a mandolin calling the lunatics to prayer. They carried sacred fires to hermaphroditic dieties at the end of Canal Street. Mr. Beasely closed his eyes and thought to himself: _I close my eyes to this civilized vista. And what she says is news, is news: ‘Even the darkest night is really dark blue.’_", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1981 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110057,10 +113460,10 @@ "title": "“Restless Leg Syndrome”", "body": "After the burial we returned to our units and assumed our poses. Our posture was the new posture and not the old sick posture. When we left our stations it was just to prove we could, not a serious departure or a search for yet another beginning. We were done with all that. We were settled in, as they say, though it might have been otherwise. What a story! After the burial we returned to our units and here is where I am experiencing that lag kicking syndrome thing. My leg, for no apparent reason, flies around the room kicking stuff, well, whatever is in its way, like a screen or a watering can. Those are just two examples and indeed I could give many more. I could construct a catalogue of the things it kicks, perhaps I will do that later. We’ll just have to see if it’s really wanted. Or I could do a little now and then return to listing later. It kicked the scrimshaw collection, yes it did. It kicked the ocelot, which was rude and uncalled for, and yes hurtful. It kicked the guacamole right out of its bowl, which made for a grubby and potentially dangerous workplace. I was out testing the new speed bump when it kicked the Viscountess, which she probably deserved, and I was happy, needless to say, to not be a witness. The kicking subsided for a while, nobody was keeping track of time at that time so it is impossible to fill out the forms accurately. Suffice it to say we remained at our units on constant alert. And then it kicked over the little cow town we had set up for punching and that sort of thing, a covered wagon filled with cover girls. But now it was kicked over and we had a moment of silence, but it was clear to me that many of our minions were getting tetchy and some of them were getting tetchier. And then it kicked a particularly treasured snuff box which, legend has it, once belonged to somebody named Bob Mackey, so we were understandably saddened and returned to our units rather weary. No one seemed to think I was in the least bit culpable. It was my leg, of course, that was doing the actual kicking, of that I am almost certain. At any rate, we decided to bury it. After the burial we returned to our units and assumed our poses. A little bit of time passed, not much, and then John’s leg started acting suspicious. It looked like it wanted to kick the replica of the White House we keep on hand just for situations such as this. And then, sure enough, it did.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1997 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110068,10 +113471,10 @@ "title": "“Right Conduct”", "body": "A boy and a girl were playing together when they spotted a woodchuck and started chasing it. The woodchuck’s burrow was at the edge of the forest and it safely disappeared into it, but the children did not see this and kept running into the forest. In no time at all they realized that they were lost and they sat down and began to cry. After a while, a man appeared and this frightened them all the more. They had been warned a thousand times never to talk to strangers. He assured them that he would not hurt them and that, in fact, he would lead them back to their home. They agreed to walk with him, but when he tried to make conversation they would not reply. “You act like you’re prisoners of war,” he said. “Not much fun for me, but I guess that’s good. When I was a kid my mother also told me never to talk to strangers. But I did anyway, because that’s how you learn stuff. I always thought the stuff my ma and pa tried to teach me was boring. But from strangers you could learn the secret stuff, like how to break into a locked door or how to tame a wild stallion, stuff you could use in life.” It made sense what he was saying, but the kids were sworn to silence, a brainwashed silence in a shrunken world from which they could already faintly hear their mother scolding them.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2000 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110079,10 +113482,10 @@ "title": "“Rising Absenteeism”", "body": "I keep stalling in the middle\nof these sprawling decades.\nThe first few minutes are all that matter.\n\nThen a big fizzle,\nI’m out of wind for centuries\nlike a dead husky,\na dejected opera house,\n\nreally just pizzling down\nthe slopes\ninto a tub of pink wine.\nDoes anybody remember _Yoko?_\n\nperson dont live here anymore\n\n“You don’t do me justice!”\n\nThat where you want to get slain?\nPort of Scorn, you want to escape\nnot from, not into, your center is off\nand you move sideways,\n\nyou allow yourself to move\nalways with fear and deep defeat.\nYou will make it--\nfor you the sea will not open.\n\nYou have this love written on you:\nstern failure to negotiate\nor giving-in to the flood.\n\n“Yes, poor Snake gave her life for you,\npushed you away from that speeding car 
”\n\nA certain head-on collision didn’t happen\nat a fortuitous time, is that what\nyou’re braying? That we’re inviolable?\nI hope you had more enthusiasm as a child\nthan to say after the rollercoaster\n\n“It was uneven,\nThe Hall of Mirrors was uneven;\nand surely my days are uneven\nas the world is uneven.”\n\nNo two days are alike.\nI guess they are glued.\nI am still digesting\nmy miles per gallon.\n\nIt’s not meant to look like anybody else.\n\nThis is definitely an aberration.\nI could get to like yours.\n\nThis is my political punching bag, my cell.\nMake me happy and I’ll be your slave\n_boogie boogie dumb dumb 
_\n\nIt moves from despair to despair\nto despair to slapstick to despair\nto slapstick despair despair and so on.\n\nMy self had died,\nsits up and yawns:\nit must be melancholy for someone.\n\nIn a world so rich no wonder\nthe insane own most of it.\nIt exists; refutes all attempts\nto destroy it,\ntwitters in the night.\n\nI have no vision, only a lasting gaze, _bam!_\nOff with your head.\n\nThere are moments--most of them\nhave committed murder--and many\nhave everlasting monuments.\nWho are the people, you may ask.\nGazing over the torn flesh you spot yourself.\n\nIt’s that kind of day,\nI guess I feel like killing you.\n\nI said spit over your shoulder,\nthis place is getting creepy.\n\nI have always disapproved of higher education.\n\nReally? Isn’t that fascinating.\nHe ought to get his head capped,\nget one of those starheads.\nAdios sixteen Japanese ricebirds\nthat couldn’t accommodate\nmore up-to-date habits.\n\nI have been given ideas\nfor which I am not always grateful.\nEarn a fortune overnight,\nblow your brains out for the enchantment\nof science and a wealth for all.\nI look like a pile of people,\nI can’t say too much about it.\nI have this raging distraction:\nthe case of rising absenteeism.\nI am alive beside you in hot type.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1975 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110090,10 +113493,10 @@ "title": "“Saint John of the Cross in Prison”", "body": "Browsing among the zero-hours, and where I went from there. diabolical? No. I went out of myself into 
 I did not go out of myself into the afternoon of parrots; I did not go out of myself into the dew; I did not go out of myself into the bat-terrors. I did not say silence, I said nothing about the love I did not go out of myself into. I said nothing fire, I said nothing water, I said nothing air. I went out of myself into no, into nowhere. I was not alone.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1970 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110101,10 +113504,10 @@ "title": "“The Salute”", "body": "I dreamed a black widow dream all night.\nHer legs were as long\nand velvet as a debutante’s.\n\nShe was my only friend,\nand the little language she spoke\nI completely misunderstood.\n\nSo full of poison she was,\nmy heart poured out to her.\nShe kissed me!\n\nI was thrilled, my stiff body swooned\nlike a dead orchid,\nand also like a rose I blushed.\n\nShe slapped her knobby knees\nand ran away. I salute\nthis lady with obedient white fingers\n\nfor she is a widow by choice\nand I her mate.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1967 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110112,23 +113515,25 @@ "title": "“Saturdays Are For Bathing Betsy”", "body": "I am thinking about Betsy almost all the time now. I am also thinking about the relationship between a man and his watch. I am amazed at how each sort of animal and plant manages to keep its kind alive. Shocking poultry. Maybe there’s a movie playing downtown about a dotty fat woman with a long knife who dismembers innocent ducks and chickens. But it is the reconstruction of the villa of the mysteries that is killing me. How each sort of animal and plant prevents itself from returning to dust just a little while longer while I transfer some assets to a region where there are no thinking creatures, just worshipping ones. They oscillate along like magicians, deranged seaweed fellows and their gals, a Nile landscape littered with Pygmies. I’m lolling on the banks. I am not just a bunch of white stuff inside my skull. No, there is this villa, and in the villa there is a bathing pool, and on Saturdays Betsy always visits. I am not the first rational man, but my tongue does resemble a transmitter. And, when wet, she is a triangle. And when she’s wet, time has a fluffiness about it, and that has me trotting about, loathing any locomotion not yoked to her own.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1988 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "the-search-for-lost-lives": { "title": "“The Search for Lost Lives”", "body": "I was chasing this blue butterfly down the road when a car came by and clipped me. It was nothing serious, but it angered me and I turned around and cursed the driver who didn’t even slow down to see if I was hurt. Then I returned my attention to the butterfly which was nowhere to be seen. One of the Doubleday girls came running up the street with her toy poodle toward me. I stopped her and asked, “Have you seen a blue butterfly around here?” “It’s down near that birch tree near Grandpa’s,” she said. “Thanks,” I said, and walked briskly toward the tree. It was fluttering from flower to flower in Mr. Doubleday’s extensive garden, a celestial blueness to soothe the weary heart. I didn’t know what I was doing there. I certainly didn’t want to capture it. It was like something I had known in another life, even if it was only in a dream, I wanted to confirm it. I was a blind beggar on the streets of Cordoba when I first saw it, and now, again it was here.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2004 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110136,10 +113541,10 @@ "title": "“The Shadowman”", "body": "In the backyard, I saw the shadow of a man, but I didn’t see the man. I walked toward it and the shadow backed away. The shadowman was taller than I was. It mocked me. When I waved my arms, he waved his. I ran and it followed. When I stopped, it stopped. And all the while it was silent. It couldn’t sing, but I could. I sang at the top of my lungs. The birds flew away in a cloud. The neighbors pounded on their windows. Finally, the shadowman turned and slithered into his hole.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2003 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110147,10 +113552,10 @@ "title": "“A Shipwrecked Person”", "body": "When I woke from my afternoon nap, I wanted to hold onto my dream, but in a matter of seconds it had drifted away like a fine mist. Nothing remained; oh, perhaps a green corner of cloth pinched between my fingers, signifying what? Everything about the house seemed alien to me. The scissors yawned. The plants glowed. The mirror was full of pain and stories that made no sense to me. I moved like a ghost through the rooms. Stacks of books with secret formulas and ancient hieroglyphic predictions. And lamps, like stern remonstrances. The silverware is surely more guilty than I. The doorknobs don’t even believe in tomorrow. The green cloth is burning-up. I toss it into the freezer with a sigh of relief.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2002 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110158,10 +113563,10 @@ "title": "“Shroud of the Gnome”", "body": "And what amazes me is that none of our modern inventions surprise or interest him, even a little. I tell him it is time he got his booster shots, but then I realize I have no power over him whatsoever. He becomes increasingly light-footed until I lose sight of him downtown between the federal building and the post office. A registered nurse is taking her coffee break. I myself needed a break, so I sat down next to her at the counter. “Don’t mind me,” I said, “I’m just a hungry little Gnostic in need of a sandwich.” (This old line of mine had met with great success on any number of previous occasions.) I thought, a deaf, dumb, and blind nurse, sounds ideal! But then I remembered that some of the earliest Paleolithic office workers also feigned blindness when approached by nonoffice workers, so I paid my bill and disappeared down an alley where I composed myself. Amidst the piles of outcast citizenry and burning barrels of waste and rot, the plump rats darting freely, the havoc of blown newspapers, lay the little shroud of my lost friend: small and gray and threadbare, windworn by the ages of scurrying hither and thither, battered by the avalanches and private tornadoes of just being a gnome, but surely there were good times, too. And now, rejuvenated by the wind, the shroud moves forward, hesitates, dances sideways, brushes my foot as if for a kiss, and flies upward, whistling a little-known ballad about the pitiful, raw etiquette of the underworld.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1997 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110177,10 +113582,10 @@ "title": "“The Sky”", "body": "What is the sky?\nA week later\nI reply: I don’t know\n\nwhy don’t you ask\nyour only friend.\nAnother week passes.\nHe doesn’t call.\n\nHe must be up to something,\nhe must know\nwhat the hell it is.\n\nI look at my bankbook,\nit’s forty-seven below.\nCan you give me a clue?\n\nI blurt at him.\nThose few shining masterpieces\nare lost, electric piercing\n\nbouquets\nlost in a fantastic fire.\nWhat is the sky?\n\nWhat is the sky.\nThe sky is a door,\na very small door\n\nthat opens for an inchworm\nan inch above his rock,\nand keeps his heart from flying off.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1975 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110188,10 +113593,10 @@ "title": "“Somali Shopping for Organic Figs”", "body": "I was walking out of the health food store and into the parking lot when something powerful and strange stopped me dead in my tracks. A woman dressed from head to toe in a black veil, a bui-bui, I believe it’s called in Arabic, stood stock-still, alone, tall, only her eyes showing, but oh what eyes, like bits of onyx set in virgin snow. A panther would have been less shocking than this woman. Everyone who saw her just stopped and stared. Normal manners didn’t seem to apply to this situation. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and yet, I saw nothing but those eyes. Perhaps she was stricken in terror. Children walked right up to her and stood staring in awe. It felt like some tremendous mistake. But maybe she was only dreaming, and we were dreaming along with her. It was a cruel dream, the kind that changes you forever, and waking from it was strictly forbidden. Her bui-bui was made in Heaven, the blackest corner of it.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2002 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110199,10 +113604,10 @@ "title": "“Song of the Nightingales”", "body": "Hilda Kupferman saw fit to invite me to her annual party for interesting people. It sounded awful but to her credit, at least, her definition of interesting did not measure wealth or power, but simply people who had caught her fancy during the past year. Of course, some people were invited back year after year on the basis of something they had done, or something that had happened to them, years ago. I, myself, had been bitten by a wolf on a camping trip a while back, and she never tired of asking me questions about the incident. There was really only so much I had to say, so I had begun to embellish it. “Under the wan moonlight, he tore at my arm’s flesh with the savagery of a god, but my free had found a stone and I pounded his skull with all my might. In no time the wolf lay whimpering at my feet, my blood dripping from its fangs,” I said. Hilda’s eyes were popping out of her head with delight. “Oh, Mr. Rowley, you are certainly a brave man. I am honored that you have agreed to grace us with your presence tonight,” she said. The others gathered around her gave me an approving round of applause. Of course, the story I had told was far from the truth. Some wild furry animal, with a tongue like a dog’s, had licked my face as I slept on a mountain years ago. That’s all I really know. But I liked being invited to the party. I was introduced to an elderly, aristocratic lady by the name of Gertrude Falk. Mrs. Falk had been captured by a tribe of headhunters in Borneo while researching a certain rare orchid. She wasn’t violated in any way. On the contrary, it soon became apparent that they believed her to be their queen, sent to them from the stars. She stayed there ten years, until she had converted them into the most peace-loving, gentlest people on earth. She finished her story with tears in her eyes, and Hilda said, grabbing Mrs. Falk’s shoulders, “She’s a saint.” I spotted the bar and a long table of canapĂ©s. As I was filling up my plate, a man standing next to me was saying to himself, “Yes, sir. No, sir. They are all dead, Captain, every last one.” He was nibbling little crab cakes nervously, glancing this way and that. He didn’t even see me standing right in front of him. He didn’t look like he was ready to tell his story, so I walked away, uncertain of what to do with myself. A pretty woman stood along by the door, staring down into her drink. I walked up to her, but didn’t say anything. She didn’t seem to mind my being there, so I just stayed. A man crawled by on his hands and knees, saying, “Water, water, all my riches for a cup of water.” Hilda Kupferman was shrieking in laughter or horror somewhere on the far side of the room. The girl beside me finally lifter her head and said, “Do you believe in miracles?” “I suppose I do,” I said, “I mean, almost everything is a miracle when you think about it.” “That’s what I figured you’d say,” she said. The man from the bar walked by saying, “The reinforcements are not on their way, Captain. They were all slaughtered on the beach. I’m afraid it’s juts you and me, and the enemy surrounds us as far as the eye can see.” “What about truth? Do you think there is such a thing, and can we ever know it?” she said. “You’re kind of fresh,” I said. “I don’t even know your name.” “That’s what I mean,” she said, “you can’t know it. There’s no way you’ll ever know it. It’s like a perfume, it’s here, and then it’s gone.” “Oh well, it’s nice to meet you, or not meet you,” I said. “My name’s Dan, and, once, on a mountain as I was sleeping under the moonlight, something licked my face, and it was a wolf or a mouse or a lamb, or maybe it was your perfume carrying your name on its nameless journey through time.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2003 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110218,10 +113623,10 @@ "title": "“Spiderwebs”", "body": "The man sitting next to me on the airplane pulled out the tray in front of him and set up his laptop computer as the stewardess gave permission to use electronic devices. He played the keyboard like a piano virtuoso, but nothing but annoying clicks came out of it. I read the airline magazine as if it were a suspense novel, although I glanced at his screen hoping to decipher something. He was too fast for the likes of me. Columns of figures appeared, mutated and disappeared. I was lonely and longed for some good old-fashioned human contact, but he wasn’t having any of that raggedy-assed stuff. I couldn’t even tell what he was trafficking in. When our snack came, he ignored it. Admittedly, it wasn’t much, but still, I devoured it and stared at his hungrily. He gave me a brief glance of irritation, stuck it in his pocket, then went back to work. “Fascinating,” I said. “What?” he said. “I find your work fascinating. Of course, you’ve made several mistakes that will come back to haunt you,” I said. He stared at me as if noticing me for the first time. “What are you talking about?” he said. “Nothing. It’s none of my business,” I said, staring into my magazine. “Who are you? Are you a spy?” he said. “My name is Jeremy Bendix, and I’m a human being,” I said. “A human being?” he said. “Well, goody for you. I played golf on Maui yesterday. What does that make me, a piece of space debris? Now, I have work to do, no doubt riddled with grave mistakes, but still I’m going to do it, if you’ll excuse me.” And, with that, he turned his attention to the screen and worked more furiously than ever. I nodded off for a while, and when I awoke I looked at him and said, “Oops.” He said, “What?” And I repeated, “Oops.” He said, “What are you talking about now?” “Nothing, nothing. It’s just that you’ve failed to take into account the effect of the recession in the Southeast Asian market, and the ripple it’s had throughout Europe, not to mention elsewhere. Of course, I’m completely out of my league here, and I ought to shut up,” I said, and closed my eyes again. “I work hard, but it’s not like I’m building a wall with stones that you can see and feel. I’m in the dark, crawling around on my hands and knees. All I can feel are the spiderwebs across my face and the dust beneath my hands. I hear nothing but the chatter of mice and rats. Can’t you understand that?” he said. “What?” I said. “Are you talking to me?” “No,” he said, and closed up his laptop as we waited for the plane to land. “Listen, I was just kidding when I said that,” I said. “Said what?” he said. “About being a human being,” I said. “Oh yes, that, of course. I took it in the spirit of jest,” he said. I followed him through the terminal and we stood in line for taxis. “Where are you going?” he asked after a while. “I’m going to see a very poor blind man, who rarely eats or drinks, and who talks in riddles, well, not riddles really, but a very special kind of nonsense. He probably knows more than you and me together about the Asian market,” I said. “Sounds like my boss on a good day,” he said. “It is,” I said. “Good, we can share a taxi.” he said.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2005 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110229,10 +113634,10 @@ "title": "“The Square at Dawn”", "body": "Unconsumable material is everywhere;\nred machinery washes out the gutter.\nAnd the grim musicians\n\nare seen stalking themselves with rare\ncacti in their saxophones.\nMosquitoes linger in the air\n\nlike snowy egrets.\nWhat has happened to the rush of night?\nIt is as white as an arctic wolf.\n\nA little buoyant coffin drifts\nacross the square; larvae configure\non the last gasp of a lamp,\n\nfrying like the ink\nof an old elaborate alphabet.\nSuch original works as feathers\n\nannounce the angel of death\nis selling kisses in the alley.\nAn early yellow bus of women\n\ntakes photographs of the man\nwho devours nails, as the heirloom\nquilt unravels behind the green\n\nunlatched door of our town idiot.\nThe rent is up and the cat\nis dead: we ought to go home.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1969 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110240,10 +113645,10 @@ "title": "“Storm”", "body": "The snow visits us, taking little bits of us with it, to become part of the earth, an early death and an early return--like the filing of tax forms. And all you can say after adding up column after column: “I’m not myself.” And all you can say after the long night of searching for one certain scrap of paper: “It never existed.” And when all the lamps are lit and the smell of the stew has followed you upstairs and slipped under the door of your study: “The lute is telling the story of the life I might have lived, had I not--” In my study, which is without heat, in mid-January, in the hills of a northern province--only the thin white-haired volumes of poetry speak, quietly, like unfed birds on a night visit to a cat farm. And an airplane is lost in a storm of fitting pins. The snow falls, far into the interior.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1982 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january", @@ -110255,10 +113660,10 @@ "title": "“Success Comes to Cow Creek”", "body": "I sit on the tracks, a hundred feet from earth, fifty from the water. Gerald is inching toward me as grim, slow, and determined as a season, because he has no trade and wants none. It’s been nine months since I last listened to his fate, but I know what he will say: he’s the fire hydrant of the underdog.\nWhen he reaches my point above the creek, he sits down without salutation, and spits profoundly out past the edge, and peeks for meaning in the ripple it brings. He scowls. He speaks: when you walk down any street you see nothing but coagulations of shit and vomit, and I’m sick of it. I suggest suicide; he prefers murder, and spits again for the sake of all the great devout losers.\nA conductor’s horn concerto breaks the air, and we, two doomed pennies on the track, shove off and somersault like anesthetized fleas, ruffling the ideal locomotive poised on the water with our light, dry bodies. Gerald shouts terrifically ashe sails downstream like a young man with a destination. I swim toward shore as fast as my boots will allow; as always, neglecting to drown.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1966 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110266,10 +113671,10 @@ "title": "“Teaching the Ape to Write Poems”", "body": "They didn’t have much trouble teaching the ape to write poems: first they strapped him into the chair, then tied the pencil around his hand (the paper had already been nailed down). Then Dr. Bluespire leaned over his shoulder and whispered into his ear: “You look like a god sitting there. Why don’t you try writing something?”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1990 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110285,10 +113690,10 @@ "title": "“To Fuzzy”", "body": "I was standing outside this cocktail bar, see, on the Nile, when along came this chick with whom I had passed the morning in the poolhall: We found we shared a deep interest in thaumaturgy as she stroked the 8-ball into the side pocket. Fuzzy Wuzzy, for that was her name. Probability was her strong suit. She was a gold mine on the skids, and I yearned to wangle a weekend with her. I bluffed, “The farther you get away from me the suddener you’ll be back.” Rotten and lazy, I carried a gun. I began shrugging toward her, closer, until she turned to ice. “Since when did you escape from mud,” she said, and I considered my predicament, I took time for reflection. “Fuzzy Wuzzy,” I said, “you learned the dark arts through a prolonged sojourn among myriads of bats nesting in abandoned mines, I know that. Still, as Nietzsche says, ‘Man has regarded his natural propensities with an _evil eye_ for too long.’ It is not that I wish you to visit depravities upon me, I would perish first! One of the big Pharaohs once told me in a dream that one day I would be very thin and sit in a soft armchair. I would be reading a letter, written in Chinese calligraphy, in pencil, scribbled hastily, and its central motif would be the mat the author was sitting on and the writing pencil with which his hand and arm, torso and brain and a lifetime of witnessing, were struggling. I know there are contradictions in all that I say. Fuzzy, whence is the unseen vindicated? Esteemed cocktail bar, the Pharaohs have edged your needs into retreat.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1981 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110304,10 +113709,10 @@ "title": "“Trying to Help”", "body": "On another planet, a silvery starlet is brooding on her salary. Some gangly ranchers are blindfolding her for her own good, or so they say. It’s all part of some lawful research, or maybe they said “awful research,” I wasn’t listening. I was roving down a chestnut lane, thinking about origins in a contrite sort of way, amid the nearly inaudible society of aphids and such, modulating my little hireling feet none too carefully, an average stroller praying for keepsakes, or at least one, when I heard this eerie squeak from afar. For reasons which I refuse to explain I knew instantly what was going on, and I tried to negotiate in my rudimentary way. I offered up some rose petals, I think they were tempted but liked playing tough because it was in their contract or something. So I offered to play the fiddle on their patio for a whole night. No deal-I don’t think they knew what a fiddle was, which was actually lucky for me since I have but one tiny tune. I sat down on my chestnut lane, tempted to sneer at my own timidity. Those squeaks from afar, all that damned distant research, provide the only keepsake for this day, my momentum crushed. Hours pass, crows pass, a pheasant crashes into an oak tree. In a dream she says to me, “Thanks for caring, mister, but it’s all part of the plot, and I’m getting paid awfully well.” And now I can hardly walk.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1989 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110315,10 +113720,10 @@ "title": "“Unlikely Friends”", "body": "There was a rib joint where I could go and get take-out. It made me extremely happy to be eating those ribs at home, they were so tender and tasty. When I’d clean up I’d feel completely happy. Then I’d go and watch a movie on television and fall asleep on my recliner. One night while I was sleeping I thought I heard some scratching on my door. I woke up and went and opened it. There was a bear standing there. I said, “What do you want?” The bear pushed me to the floor and stepped over me. I stood up and grabbed a kitchen knife. “You shouldn’t be in my house,” I said. The bear walked into my living room. He seemed careful not to break any lamps. I followed him in there. He sat down in my chair and fell asleep. I couldn’t kill a sleeping bear, so I sat down in the chair next to him and fell asleep myself. When I woke up an hour later he was sniffing me all over. I pulled my knife and aimed it at him. “Stand back,” I said. He made whining sounds and stood back. “I don’t think you should be in this house,” I said. I stood and pointed the knife at him. He roared and looked angry. He reached out and shoved me back in my chair. I waved the knife at him. He raised a paw and knocked it from my hand. I didn’t like my odds in this kind of game. The bear walked into the dining room. I picked up my knife and followed him. He sat down at the table and demanded that I bring him some food. So I went and filled a bowl with raspberries and brought it to him. He gobbled them up in a surprisingly short time. He wanted more, so I took his bowl and filled it with blueberries, which he quickly ate. I filled his bowl with strawberries, which he lingered over, eating them one at a time. By the time he was finished he wanted no more. He stood up and yawned. He lumbered toward the door and asked to be let out. I opened the door and we said good-bye. After that night he came often. Some nights we’d watch TV and fall asleep. Other nights he just wanted his berries. I no longer carried a knife. I no longer had to.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2012 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110326,10 +113731,10 @@ "title": "“A Vagabond”", "body": "A vagabond is a newcomer in a heap of trouble. He’s an eyeball at a peephole that should be electrocuted. He’s a leper in a textile mill and likely to be beheaded, I mean, given a liverwurst sandwich on the break by the brook where the loaves are sliced. But he oughtn’t meddle with the powder puffs on the golf links--they have their own goats to tame, dirigibles to situate. He can act like an imbecile if the climate is propitious, a magnate of kidnap paradising around the oily depot, or a speck from a distant nebula wishing to purchase a certain skyscraper 
 Well, if it’s permitted, then let’s regulate him, let’s testify against his thimble, and moderate his gloves before they sew an apron. The local minister is thinking of moving to Holland, exchanging his old ballads for some lingerie. “Zatso!” says the vagabond. Homeless, like wheat that tattletales on the sermon, like wages swigged. “Zatso, zatso, zatso!” cries the vagabond. The minister reels under the weight of his thumbs, the vagabond seems to have jutted into his kernel, disturbed his terminal core. Slowly, and with trifling dignity, the minister removes from his lapel his last campaign button: _Don’t Mess with Raymond, New Hampshire._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1991 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110337,10 +113742,10 @@ "title": "“Very Late, but Not too Late”", "body": "I was the last one to leave the party. I said goodnight to Stephanie and Jared. They were already in bed. In fact, they were making love, but they stopped and thanked me for coming. Walking down Kellog Street, with the full moon lighting my way, I wondered who those people really were, and why they had invited me. I had felt like a spy all evening, absorbing useless bits of information. It’s amazing what people will tell a complete stranger. At the end of Kellog I turn right on Windsor. A woman was standing under the streetlight. She looked frightened. “Do you need help?” I said She was hesitant to speak, but finally said, “I’m lost.” “Where are you trying to go?” I asked. “Richards Street,” she said, “my aunt lives there.” “That’s not far from here,” I said. “I’ll walk you there.” And so we walked. I could tell she was still a little apprehensive. Her bus had gotten in late, and she had expected her aunt to meet her, and no one answered the phone when she tried to call her. When we got to her aunt’s house there were no lights on. I waited while she knocked on the door. She knocked harder and harder, but the aunt didn’t answer, “Listen,” I said, “I live close by. Let’s go over to my place and we can call the police. They’ll figure this thing out.” She hadn’t much choice but to agree. We walked in silence, a smooth, rich flow of it. And when she reached out and held my hand, I felt as though my life had begun.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2003 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110356,10 +113761,10 @@ "title": "“A Wedding”", "body": "She was in terrible pain the whole day, as she had been for months: a slipped disc, and there is nothing more painful. She herself was a nurse’s aide, also a poet just beginning to make a name for her nom de plume. As with most things in life, it happened when she was changing channels on her television. The lucky man, on the other hand, was smiling for the first time in his life, and it was fake. He was an aspiring philosopher of dubious potential, very serious, but somehow lacking in essential depth. He could have been an adequate undertaker. It was not the first time for either of them. It was a civil service, with no music, few flowers. Still, there was a slow and erratic tide of champagne--corks shot clear into the trees. And flashcubes, instant photos, some blurred and some too revealing, cake slices that aren’t what they were meant to be. The bride slept through much of it, and never did we figure out who was on whose team. I think the groom meant it in the end when he said, “We never thought anyone would come.” We were not the first to arrive, nor the last to leave. Who knows, it may all turn out for the best. And who really cares about such special days, they are not what we live for.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1991 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110367,10 +113772,10 @@ "title": "“What Had To Be Done”", "body": "Dale told me he was communicating with his dead mother. He seemed very agitated. “What did she say?” I asked. “Well, she wants me to kill my father,” he said. “Your father is a nice old man,” I said. “He doesn’t hurt anybody.” “That’s not what she says. She says he killed her,” he said. “That’s crazy,” I said. “I know your father, and he wouldn’t kill anyone, especially her. He loved her. Anyone could see that. You must have the wrong number, I mean, you must be talking to somebody else. Did you ever consider that?” “No, it’s her all right. I couldn’t mistake her voice,” he said. “Well, what are you going to do about it? You can’t just go and kill your father,” I said. “I wish she would just go away. At first I was glad to hear from her. I missed her, you know. But then she started telling me these horrible things. Sometimes I think I’m going crazy,” he said. I told him to go have a nice dinner with his father. He’d see it was all a big mistake. He agreed, but he said he was afraid of what he might do to him, because he was under orders from his mother. I didn’t hear from Dale for a while after that. I called Carla and asked her if she had heard anything. “No, I haven’t heard from Dale, but, you know, I think the old man might have done it. He was in the war, you know, and who knows what might have gone on there. Maybe he was tortured, or he could have been the torturer. He’s very quiet, and those are the ones you have to watch. And, I must say, she was pretty irritating,” she said. “I, personally, couldn’t stand her,” I said. The whole thing seemed ridiculous to me, and I tried to put it out of my mind. Morgan came by and wanted to take me for a drive in his new car, which looked like a gangster car from the thirties. He was showing off and showing me what it could do when a police car pulled us off to the side of the road. “Is there a fire somewhere?” he said. They need a new scriptwriter, I thought to myself. “No, officer, I was just showing off my new car,” Morgan said. “I’ve heard that one before,” the officer said. “Still, I’m going to let you off with a warning this time just because it’s such a good looking car,” he said. Morgan thanked him and drove on very sheepishly. We talked in whispers as though we were being monitored. “Have you heard about Dale’s problems?” I said, assuming he had. “No, what problems?” he said. “His dead mother’s talking to him,” I said. “Oh, just stock tips and that kind of thing. Advice,” I said. “Stock tips from the dead, sounds like it could be kind of risky,” he said. “It’s just kind of troubling. I doubt that he’ll do anything about it,” I said. Just then a stag walked out of the forest and stood right in our lane staring at us. Morgan hit the brakes as hard as he could and skidded to a stop just feet away from the animal. The stag in its majesty showed no fear and refused to move. We were both trembling and trying to catch our breath. “Jesus,” Morgan said, “that was a close one. What are we supposed to do now?” “I’ll get out of the car and have a word with it,” I said. “He has a very impressive rack,” he said, “and I don’t think it’s there for picking berries.” “Good point,” I said. The stag sniffed the car and examined it, but soon lost interest and ambled across the highway. Morgan drove on, even more slowly than before. Dale called me later that week and said it was done. I said, “What’s done?” He said, “I’ve killed my mother. She was always a liar and wanted to hurt both me and my father.” I said, “But, Dale, she was already dead.” He said, “Not dead enough.” I said, “Then that’s good.” “My father doesn’t know anything. He thought she was a saint,” he said. “Mum’s the word,” I said.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2004 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110386,10 +113791,10 @@ "title": "“The Wheelchair Butterfly”", "body": "O sleepy city of reeling wheelchairs\nwhere a mouse can commit suicide if he can\n\nconcentrate long enough\non the history book of rodents\nin this underground town\n\nof electrical wheelchairs!\nThe girl who is always pregnant and bruised\nlike a pear\n\nrides her many-stickered bicycle\nbackward up the staircase\nof the abandoned trolleybarn.\n\nYesterday was warm. Today a butterfly froze\nin midair; and was plucked like a grape\nby a child who swore he could take care\n\nof it. O confident city where\nthe seeds of poppies pass for carfare,\n\nwhere the ordinary hornets in a human’s heart\nmay slumber and snore, where bifocals bulge\n\nin an orange garage of daydreams,\nwe wait in our loose attics for a new season\n\nas if for an ice-cream truck.\nAn Indian pony crosses the plains\n\nwhispering Sanskrit prayers to a crater of fleas.\nHoneysuckle says: I thought I could swim.\n\nThe Mayor is urinating on the wrong side\nof the street! A dandelion sends off sparks:\nbeware your hair is locked!\n\nBeware the trumpet wants a glass of water!\nBeware a velvet tabernacle!\n\nBeware the Warden of Light has married\nan old piece of string!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1991 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -110416,10 +113821,10 @@ "title": "“The Whole World’s Sadly Talking to Itself”", "body": "Hands full of sand, I say:\ntake this, this is what I have saved;\nI earned this with my genius,\nand because I love you 
\n\ntake this, hurry.\nI am dropping everything.\nAnd then I listened:\nI was not saying anything;\nout of all that had gone into\nthe composition of the language\nand what I knew of it\nI had chiselled these words--\ntake this, hurry--\nand you could not hear me.\nI had said nothing.\nAnd then I am leaving,\n\nmaking ready to go to another street,\nwhen you, mingled between sleep\nand delirium, turned\n\nand handed me an empty sack:\ntake this, friend;\nI am not coming back. The ghost\nof a flower poised on your lip.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1967 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110427,10 +113832,10 @@ "title": "“Why You Wanna Know What Time It Is You Got an Appointment with Your Analyst”", "body": "When I think no thing is _like_ any other thing\nI become speechless, cold, my body turns silver\nand water runs off me, as if repulsed. There I am\nten feet from myself, possessor of nothing,\nuncomprehending of even the simplest particle of dust.\nBut when I say, You are _like_\na swamp-animal during an eclipse,\nI am happy, full of wisdom, loved by children\nand old men alike. I am sorry if this confuses you.\nDuring an eclipse the swamp-animal\nacts as though day were night,\ndrinking when he should be sleeping, etc.\nThis is why men stay up all night\nwriting to you.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1970 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110438,10 +113843,10 @@ "title": "“Wild Beasts”", "body": "In the front all the weapons were loaded. We sat there in the dark with not so much as a whisper. We could hear sounds outside--skirrs, rasps, the occasional yap, ting. We were alert, perhaps, too alert. Ready to shoot a fly for just being a fly. When you don’t sleep you start to hallucinate and that’s not good. One night this crazy notion started to possess me: I said, “Who are our enemies anyhow? We don’t have any enemies. What are we doing here? We should be with our families doing what families do. I’m laying down this gun and I’m leaving right now.” I knew there was a chance that one of them might shoot me. Instead they all laid down their guns and we walked right out into the moonlit night, frightened, now, only of ourselves.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2000 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110449,10 +113854,10 @@ "title": "“Witches”", "body": "There are all kinds of druids and witches living in the hills around here. They don’t hurt anybody as far as we know. But you can always spot them at the grocery store. First off, they drive these really broken down old pick-up trucks, often with hand-made wooden shelters over beds like they could live in there. And they’re covered in layers of shawls and scarves and bedecked with long gaudy earrings and necklaces and bracelets. And always the long, long hair. They buy huge amounts of supplies, twenty pounds of cheese, giant bags of granola, etc. They move quickly as if afraid of being burned at a stake. We all know who they are and like having them amongst us on their secret missions to decorate their inner Christmas trees with bedevilled human chickenbones.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2000 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -110463,10 +113868,10 @@ "title": "“With a Child All Day”", "body": "Little ragamuffin, brat, a craving for sen-sen\nas we walked along the _Academie_;\nit is all that interests you.\nI remain quiet and my manner annoys you;\nI’m present and unaccounted for.\nThe tunnels are not crowded in this part of the city.\n\nFinally I say I like dogs, possible dogs, worn thin.\n\nWe’re in the wrong place, our favorite season.\nIll luck has surfaced again and you do as you please.\nI hang on to you around the corner.\nThere is something lacking even now.\nCome, whitewash my fasting worth.\n\nSomething living touched me; a plant?\nYou pretend to recognize old friends.\nWhy this embarrassed despair, this recoiling?\nCity of Love--I can’t breathe.\n\nOur own God gave us, gave us the bird.\n\nGoodbye.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1978 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110474,10 +113879,10 @@ "title": "“The Workforce”", "body": "Do you have adequate oxen for the job?\nNo, my oxen are inadequate.\nWell, how many oxen would it take to do an adequate job?\nI would need ten more oxen to do the job adequately.\nI’ll see if I can get them for you.\nI’d be obliged if you could do that for me.\nCertainly. And do you have sufficient fishcakes for the men?\nWe have fifty fishcakes, which is less than sufficient.\nI’ll have them delivered on the morrow.\nDo you need maps of the mountains and the underworld?\nWe have maps of the mountains but we lack maps of the underworld.\nOf course you lack maps of the underworld,\nthere are no maps of the underworld.\nAnd, besides, you don’t want to go there, it’s stuffy.\nI had no intention of going there, or anywhere for that matter.\nIt’s just that you asked me if I needed maps 
\nYes, yes, it’s my fault, I got carried away.\nWhat do you need, then, you tell me?\nWe need seeds, we need plows, we need scythes, chickens,\npigs, cows, buckets and women.\nWomen?\nWe have no women.\nYou’re a sorry lot, then.\nWe are a sorry lot, sir.\nWell, I can’t get you women.\nI assumed as much, sir.\nWhat are you going to do without women, then?\nWe will suffer, sir. And then we’ll die out one by one.\nCan any of you sing?\nYes, sir, we have many fine singers among us.\nOrder them to begin singing immediately.\nEither women will find you this way or you will die\ncomforted. Meanwhile busy yourselves\nwith the meaningful tasks you have set for yourselves.\nSir, we will not rest until the babes arrive.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 2001 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110485,10 +113890,10 @@ "title": "“The Wrong Way Home”", "body": "All night a door floated down the river. It tried to remember little incidents of pleasure from its former life, like the time the lovers leaned against it kissing for hours and whispering those famous words. Later, there were harsh words and a shoe was thrown and the door was slammed. Comings and goings by the thousands, the early mornings and late nights, years, years. O they’ve got big plans, they’ll make a bundle. The door was an island that swayed in its sleep. The moon turned the doorknob just slightly, burned its fingers and ran, and still the door said nothing and slept. At least that’s what they like to say, the little fishes and so on. Far away, a bell rang, and then a shot was fired.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1994 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110496,23 +113901,25 @@ "title": "“You Are My Destination And Desire, Fading”", "body": "Dawn animal, why don’t you come out now and have a nice cuppa? I am reading the obituaries, strenuously, which is what one does to get ready. I am counting the fissures in my egg. We could go to the islands, the netherworld full of coral, and have our portraits painted in feathers and mud?I know this betokens a kinship too rickety, or even sizzling, for you. Mammoths walked there a decade ago, lonely, tottering along the channels. They looked at their thumbs and shrugged. They took out their brains and hurled them into the reefs. Fm holding a crust of bread in my palm, I see our initials rising from the lithosphere, a couple of pinpoints of utility needed elsewhere, and I remember how to cry, and I remember you, my last kin.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { - "epoch": null, - "season": "Summer", + "season": "summer", "year": 1988 }, - "language": "English", - "tags": [] + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } } }, "zebras-anything": { "title": "“Zebras Anything”", "body": "I wish somebody would give me a couple of live panda bears. After all these years I deserve them. Yesterday I nearly went insane searching for a toucan: “No toucans!” everywhere I went. One son-of-a-bitch even went so far as to say: “Toucans are filthy, disgusting birds, terrible pets; and on the endangered list besides.” And I said, then I’ll take the last one, I’ll be responsible; my pets don’t have to bow and scrape to me. We are equals, this I believe, so give me the pandas.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1975 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -110838,10 +114245,10 @@ "title": "“The Ballad of Oriana”", "body": "My heart is wasted with my woe,\n Oriana.\nThere is no rest for me below,\n Oriana.\nWhen the long dun wolds are ribb’d with snow,\nAnd loud the Norland whirlwinds blow,\n Oriana,\nAlone I wander to and fro,\n Oriana.\n\nEre the light on dark was growing,\n Oriana,\nAt midnight the cock was crowing,\n Oriana:\nWinds were blowing, waters flowing,\nWe heard the steeds to battle going,\n Oriana,\nAloud the hollow bugle blowing,\n Oriana.\n\nIn the yew-wood black as night,\n Oriana,\nEre I rode into the fight.\n Oriana,\nWhile blissful tears blinded my sight\nBy star-shine and by moonlight,\n Oriana,\nI to thee my troth did plight,\n Oriana.\n\nShe stood upon the castle wall,\n Oriana:\nShe watch’d my crest among them all,\n Oriana:\nShe saw me fight, she heard me call,\nWhen forth there stept a foeman tall,\n Oriana,\nAtween me and the castle wall,\n Oriana.\n\nThe bitter arrow went aside,\n Oriana:\nThe false, false arrow went aside,\n Oriana;\nThe damned arrow glanced aside,\nAnd pierced thy heart, my love, my bride,\n Oriana!\nThy heart, my life, my love, my bride,\n Oriana!\n\nOh! narrow, narrow was the space,\n Oriana.\nLoud, loud rung out the bugle’s brays,\n Oriana.\nOh! deathful stabs were dealt apace,\nThe battle deepen’d in its place,\n Oriana;\nBut I was down upon my face,\n Oriana.\n\nThey should have stabb’d me where I lay,\n Oriana!\nHow could I rise and come away,\n Oriana?\nHow could I look upon the day?\nThey should have stabb’d me where I lay,\n Oriana--\nThey should have trod me into clay,\n Oriana.\n\nOh! breaking heart that will not break,\n Oriana;\nOh! pale, pale face so sweet and meek,\n Oriana.\nThou smilest, but thou dost not speak,\nAnd then the tears run down my cheek,\n Oriana:\nWhat wantest thou? whom dost thou seek,\n Oriana?\n\nI cry aloud: none hear my cries,\n Oriana.\nThou comest atween me and the skies,\n Oriana.\nI feel the tears of blood arise\nUp from my heart unto my eyes,\n Oriana.\nWithin thy heart my arrow lies,\n Oriana.\n\nOh cursed hand! Oh cursed blow!\n Oriana!\nOh happy thou that liest low,\n Oriana!\nAll night the silence seems to flow\nBeside me in my utter woe,\n Oriana.\nA weary, weary way I go,\n Oriana!\n\nWhen Norland winds pipe down the sea,\n Oriana,\nI walk, I dare not think of thee,\n Oriana.\nThou liest beneath the greenwood tree,\nI dare not die and come to thee,\n Oriana.\nI hear the roaring of the sea,\n Oriana.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110849,10 +114256,10 @@ "title": "“Break, Break, Break”", "body": "Break, break, break,\n On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!\nAnd I would that my tongue could utter\n The thoughts that arise in me.\n\nO, well for the fisherman’s boy,\n That he shouts with his sister at play!\nO, well for the sailor lad,\n That he sings in his boat on the bay!\n\nAnd the stately ships go on\n To their haven under the hill;\nBut O for the touch of a vanish’d hand,\n And the sound of a voice that is still!\n\nBreak, break, break\n At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!\nBut the tender grace of a day that is dead\n Will never come back to me.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1842 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -110863,10 +114270,10 @@ "title": "“The Charge of the Light Brigade”", "body": "Half a league, half a league,\nHalf a league onward,\nAll in the valley of Death\n Rode the six hundred.\n“Forward, the Light Brigade!\nCharge for the guns!” he said.\nInto the valley of Death\n Rode the six hundred.\n\n“Forward, the Light Brigade!”\nWas there a man dismayed?\nNot though the soldier knew\n Someone had blundered.\n Theirs not to make reply,\n Theirs not to reason why,\n Theirs but to do and die.\n Into the valley of Death\n Rode the six hundred.\n\nCannon to right of them,\nCannon to left of them,\nCannon in front of them\n Volleyed and thundered;\nStormed at with shot and shell,\nBoldly they rode and well,\nInto the jaws of Death,\nInto the mouth of hell\n Rode the six hundred.\n\nFlashed all their sabres bare,\nFlashed as they turned in air\nSabring the gunners there,\nCharging an army, while\n All the world wondered.\nPlunged in the battery-smoke\nRight through the line they broke;\nCossack and Russian\nReeled from the sabre stroke\n Shattered and sundered.\nThen they rode back, but not\n Not the six hundred.\n\nCannon to right of them,\nCannon to left of them,\nCannon behind them\n Volleyed and thundered;\nStormed at with shot and shell,\nWhile horse and hero fell.\nThey that had fought so well\nCame through the jaws of Death,\nBack from the mouth of hell,\nAll that was left of them,\n Left of six hundred.\n\nWhen can their glory fade?\nO the wild charge they made!\n All the world wondered.\nHonour the charge they made!\nHonour the Light Brigade,\n Noble six hundred!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1854 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "memorial_day" @@ -110877,10 +114284,10 @@ "title": "“Circumstance”", "body": "Two children in two neighbour villages\nPlaying mad pranks along the heathy leas;\nTwo strangers meeting at a festival;\nTwo lovers whispering by an orchard wall;\nTwo lives bound fast in one with golden ease;\nTwo graves grass-green beside a gray church-tower,\nWash’d with still rains and daisy-blossomed;\nTwo children in one hamlet born and bred;\nSo runs the round of life from hour to hour.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110888,10 +114295,10 @@ "title": "“Claribel”", "body": "Where Claribel low-lieth\nThe breezes pause and die,\nLetting the rose-leaves fall:\nBut the solemn oak-tree sigheth,\nThick-leaved, ambrosial,\nWith an ancient melody\nOf an inward agony,\nWhere Claribel low-lieth.\n\nAt eve the beetle boometh\nAthwart the thicket lone:\nAt noon the wild bee hummeth\nAbout the moss’d headstone:\nAt midnight the moon cometh,\nAnd looketh down alone.\nHer song the lintwhite swelleth,\nThe clear-voiced mavis dwelleth,\nThe callow throstle lispeth,\nThe slumbrous wave outwelleth,\nThe babbling runnel crispeth,\nThe hollow grot replieth\nWhere Claribel low-lieth.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -110902,10 +114309,10 @@ "title": "“Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height 
”", "body": "Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:\nWhat pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang)\nIn height and cold, the splendour of the hills?\nBut cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease\nTo glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,\nTo sit a star upon the sparkling spire;\nAnd come, for Love is of the valley, come,\nFor Love is of the valley, come thou down\nAnd find him; by the happy threshold, he,\nOr hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,\nOr red with spirted purple of the vats,\nOr foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk\nWith Death and Morning on the silver horns,\nNor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,\nNor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,\nThat huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls\nTo roll the torrent out of dusky doors:\nBut follow; let the torrent dance thee down\nTo find him in the valley; let the wild\nLean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave\nThe monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill\nTheir thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,\nThat like a broken purpose waste in air:\nSo waste not thou; but come; for all the vales\nAwait thee; azure pillars of the hearth\nArise to thee; the children call, and I\nThy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,\nSweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;\nMyriads of rivulets hurrying thro’ the lawn,\nThe moan of doves in immemorial elms,\nAnd murmuring of innumerable bees.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110913,10 +114320,10 @@ "title": "“Crossing the Bar”", "body": "Sunset and evening star,\n And one clear call for me!\nAnd may there be no moaning of the bar,\n When I put out to sea,\n\nBut such a tide as moving seems asleep,\n Too full for sound and foam,\nWhen that which drew from out the boundless deep\n Turns again home.\n\nTwilight and evening bell,\n And after that the dark!\nAnd may there be no sadness of farewell,\n When I embark;\n\nFor tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place\n The flood may bear me far,\nI hope to see my Pilot face to face\n When I have crost the bar.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1889 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110924,10 +114331,10 @@ "title": "“The Death of the Old Year”", "body": "Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,\nAnd the winter winds are wearily sighing:\nToll ye the church bell sad and slow,\nAnd tread softly and speak low,\nFor the old year lies a-dying.\n Old year you must not die;\n You came to us so readily,\n You lived with us so steadily,\n Old year, you shall not die.\n\nHe lieth still: he doth not move:\nHe will not see the dawn of day.\nHe hath no other life above.\nHe gave me a friend and a true truelove\nAnd the New-year will take ’em away.\n Old year you must not go;\n So long you have been with us,\n Such joy as you have seen with us,\n Old year, you shall not go.\n\nHe froth’d his bumpers to the brim;\nA jollier year we shall not see.\nBut tho’ his eyes are waxing dim,\nAnd tho’ his foes speak ill of him,\nHe was a friend to me.\n Old year, you shall not die;\n We did so laugh and cry with you,\n I’ve half a mind to die with you,\n Old year, if you must die.\n\nHe was full of joke and jest,\nBut all his merry quips are o’er.\nTo see him die across the waste\nHis son and heir doth ride post-haste,\nBut he’ll be dead before.\n Every one for his own.\n The night is starry and cold, my friend,\n And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend,\n Comes up to take his own.\n\nHow hard he breathes! over the snow\nI heard just now the crowing cock.\nThe shadows flicker to and fro:\nThe cricket chirps: the light burns low:\n’Tis nearly twelve o’clock.\n Shake hands, before you die.\n Old year, we’ll dearly rue for you:\n What is it we can do for you?\n Speak out before you die.\n\nHis face is growing sharp and thin.\nAlack! our friend is gone,\nClose up his eyes: tie up his chin:\nStep from the corpse, and let him in\nThat standeth there alone,\n And waiteth at the door.\n There’s a new foot on the floor, my friend,\n And a new face at the door, my friend,\n A new face at the door.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1833 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_eve" @@ -110938,10 +114345,10 @@ "title": "“The Eagle”", "body": "He clasps the crag with crooked hands;\nClose to the sun in lonely lands,\nRing’d with the azure world, he stands.\n\nThe wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;\nHe watches from his mountain walls,\nAnd like a thunderbolt he falls.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1851 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110949,10 +114356,10 @@ "title": "“Home they brought her warrior dead 
”", "body": "Home they brought her warrior dead:\n She nor swoon’d nor utter’d cry:\nAll her maidens, watching, said,\n “She must weep or she will die.”\n\nThen they praised him, soft and low,\n Call’d him worthy to be loved,\nTruest friend and noblest foe;\n Yet she neither spoke nor moved.\n\nStole a maiden from her place,\n Lightly to the warrior stepped,\nTook the face-cloth from the face;\n Yet she neither moved nor wept.\n\nRose a nurse of ninety years,\n Set his child upon her knee--\nLike summer tempest came her tears--\n “Sweet my child, I live for thee.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -110978,10 +114385,10 @@ "title": "“Isabel”", "body": "Eyes not down-dropt nor over-bright, but fed\nWith the clear-pointed flame of chastity,\nClear, without heat, undying, tended by\nPure vestal thoughts in the translucent fane\nOf her still spirit; locks not wide-dispread,\nMadonna-wise on either side her head;\nSweet lips whereon perpetually did reign\nThe summer calm of golden charity,\nWere fixed shadows of thy fixed mood,\nRevered Isabel, the crown and head,\nThe stately flower of female fortitude,\nOf perfect wifehood and pure lowlihead.\n\nThe intuitive decision of a bright\nAnd thorough-edged intellect to part\nError from crime; a prudence to withhold;\nThe laws of marriage character’d in gold\nUpon the blanched tablets of her heart;\nA love still burning upward, giving light\nTo read those laws; an accent very low\nIn blandishment, but a most silver flow\nOf subtle-paced counsel in distress,\nRight to the heart and brain, tho’ undescried,\nWinning its way with extreme gentleness\nThro’ all the outworks of suspicious pride;\nA courage to endure and to obey;\nA hate of gossip parlance, and of sway,\nCrown’d Isabel, thro’ all her placid life,\nThe queen of marriage, a most perfect wife.\n\nThe mellow’d reflex of a winter moon;\nA clear stream flowing with a muddy one,\nTill in its onward current it absorbs\nWith swifter movement and in purer light\nThe vexed eddies of its wayward brother:\nA leaning and upbearing parasite,\nClothing the stem, which else had fallen quite,\nWith cluster’d flower-bells and ambrosial orbs\nOf rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other--\nShadow forth thee:--the world hath not another\n(Though all her fairest forms are types of thee,\nAnd thou of God in thy great charity)\nOf such a finish’d chasten’d purity,\nAnd through thine eyes, e’en in thy soul, I see\nA lamp of vestal fire burning eternally.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -110992,10 +114399,10 @@ "title": "“The Kraken”", "body": "Below the thunders of the upper deep,\nFar, far beneath in the abysmal sea,\nHis ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep\nThe Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee\nAbout his shadowy sides; above him swell\nHuge sponges of millennial growth and height;\nAnd far away into the sickly light,\nFrom many a wondrous grot and secret cell\nUnnumbered and enormous polypi\nWinnow with giant arms the slumbering green.\nThere hath he lain for ages, and will lie\nBattening upon huge sea worms in his sleep,\nUntil the latter fire shall heat the deep;\nThen once by man and angels to be seen,\nIn roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1830 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -111018,10 +114425,10 @@ "title": "“Locksley Hall”", "body": "Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet ’t is early morn:\nLeave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn.\n\n’T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,\nDreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;\n\nLocksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,\nAnd the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.\n\nMany a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,\nDid I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.\n\nMany a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro’ the mellow shade,\nGlitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.\n\nHere about the beach I wander’d, nourishing a youth sublime\nWith the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;\n\nWhen the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;\nWhen I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:\n\nWhen I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;\nSaw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.--\n\nIn the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s breast;\nIn the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;\n\nIn the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish’d dove;\nIn the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.\n\nThen her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,\nAnd her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.\n\nAnd I said, “My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,\nTrust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee.”\n\nOn her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light,\nAs I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.\n\nAnd she turn’d--her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs--\nAll the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes--\n\nSaying, “I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong”;\nSaying, “Dost thou love me, cousin?” weeping, “I have loved thee long.”\n\nLove took up the glass of Time, and turn’d it in his glowing hands;\nEvery moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.\n\nLove took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;\nSmote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass’d in music out of sight.\n\nMany a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,\nAnd her whisper throng’d my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.\n\nMany an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,\nAnd our spirits rush’d together at the touching of the lips.\n\nO my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!\nO the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!\n\nFalser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,\nPuppet to a father’s threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!\n\nIs it well to wish thee happy?--having known me--to decline\nOn a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!\n\nYet it shall be; thou shalt lower to his level day by day,\nWhat is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay.\n\nAs the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown,\nAnd the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.\n\nHe will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,\nSomething better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.\n\nWhat is this? his eyes are heavy; think not they are glazed with wine.\nGo to him, it is thy duty, kiss him, take his hand in thine.\n\nIt may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought:\nSoothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.\n\nHe will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand--\nBetter thou wert dead before me, tho’ I slew thee with my hand!\n\nBetter thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart’s disgrace,\nRoll’d in one another’s arms, and silent in a last embrace.\n\nCursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!\nCursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!\n\nCursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature’s rule!\nCursed be the gold that gilds the straiten’d forehead of the fool!\n\nWell--’t is well that I should bluster!--Hadst thou less unworthy proved--\nWould to God--for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.\n\nAm I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit?\nI will pluck it from my bosom, tho’ my heart be at the root.\n\nNever, tho’ my mortal summers to such length of years should come\nAs the many-winter’d crow that leads the clanging rookery home.\n\nWhere is comfort? in division of the records of the mind?\nCan I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?\n\nI remember one that perish’d; sweetly did she speak and move;\nSuch a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love.\n\nCan I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?\nNo--she never loved me truly; love is love for evermore.\n\nComfort? comfort scorn’d of devils! this is truth the poet sings,\nThat a sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.\n\nDrug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,\nIn the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.\n\nLike a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall,\nWhere the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.\n\nThen a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,\nTo thy widow’d marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.\n\nThou shalt hear the “Never, never,” whisper’d by the phantom years,\nAnd a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;\n\nAnd an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.\nTurn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to thy rest again.\n\nNay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry.\n’T is a purer life than thine, a lip to drain thy trouble dry.\n\nBaby lips will laugh me down; my latest rival brings thee rest.\nBaby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother’s breast.\n\nO, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.\nHalf is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two.\n\nO, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,\nWith a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter’s heart.\n\n“They were dangerous guides the feelings--she herself was not exempt--\nTruly, she herself had suffer’d”--Perish in thy self-contempt!\n\nOverlive it--lower yet--be happy! wherefore should I care?\nI myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.\n\nWhat is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?\nEvery door is barr’d with gold, and opens but to golden keys.\n\nEvery gate is throng’d with suitors, all the markets overflow.\nI have but an angry fancy; what is that which I should do?\n\nI had been content to perish, falling on the foeman’s ground,\nWhen the ranks are roll’d in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound.\n\nBut the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels,\nAnd the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other’s heels.\n\nCan I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page.\nHide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!\n\nMake me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,\nWhen I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;\n\nYearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,\nEager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father’s field,\n\nAnd at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,\nSees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn;\n\nAnd his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,\nUnderneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men:\n\nMen, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:\nThat which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:\n\nFor I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,\nSaw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;\n\nSaw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,\nPilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales;\n\nHeard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew\nFrom the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue;\n\nFar along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,\nWith the standards of the peoples plunging thro’ the thunder-storm;\n\nTill the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d\nIn the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.\n\nThere the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,\nAnd the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.\n\nSo I triumph’d ere my passion sweeping thro’ me left me dry,\nLeft me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;\n\nEye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint:\nScience moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point:\n\nSlowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher,\nGlares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire.\n\nYet I doubt not thro’ the ages one increasing purpose runs,\nAnd the thoughts of men are widen’d with the process of the suns.\n\nWhat is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,\nTho’ the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy’s?\n\nKnowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,\nAnd the individual withers, and the world is more and more.\n\nKnowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,\nFull of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.\n\nHark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn,\nThey to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn:\n\nShall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder’d string?\nI am shamed thro’ all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.\n\nWeakness to be wroth with weakness! woman’s pleasure, woman’s pain--\nNature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain:\n\nWoman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match’d with mine,\nAre as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine--\n\nHere at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat\nDeep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;\n\nWhere in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr’d,--\nI was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle’s ward.\n\nOr to burst all links of habit--there to wander far away,\nOn from island unto island at the gateways of the day.\n\nLarger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,\nBreadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.\n\nNever comes the trader, never floats an European flag,\nSlides the bird o’er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag;\n\nDroops the heavy-blossom’d bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree--\nSummer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.\n\nThere methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind,\nIn the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.\n\nThere the passions cramp’d no longer shall have scope and breathing space;\nI will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.\n\nIron-jointed, supple-sinew’d, they shall dive, and they shall run,\nCatch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun;\n\nWhistle back the parrot’s call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks,\nNot with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books--\n\nFool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild,\nBut I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.\n\nI, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains,\nLike a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains!\n\nMated with a squalid savage--what to me were sun or clime?\nI the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time--\n\nI that rather held it better men should perish one by one,\nThan that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua’s moon in Ajalon!\n\nNot in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range,\nLet the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.\n\nThro’ the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day;\nBetter fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.\n\nMother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun:\nRift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun.\n\nO, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set.\nAncient founts of inspiration well thro’ all my fancy yet.\n\nHowsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall!\nNow for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.\n\nComes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt,\nCramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.\n\nLet it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow;\nFor the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1842 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -111032,10 +114439,10 @@ "title": "“The Lotos-Eaters”", "body": "“Courage!” he said, and pointed toward the land,\n“This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.”\nIn the afternoon they came unto a land\nIn which it seemed always afternoon.\nAll round the coast the languid air did swoon,\nBreathing like one that hath a weary dream.\nFull-faced above the valley stood the moon;\nAnd like a downward smoke, the slender stream\nAlong the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.\n\nA land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,\nSlow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;\nAnd some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,\nRolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.\nThey saw the gleaming river seaward flow\nFrom the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,\nThree silent pinnacles of aged snow,\nStood sunset-flush’d: and, dew’d with showery drops,\nUp-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.\n\nThe charmed sunset linger’d low adown\nIn the red West: thro’ mountain clefts the dale\nWas seen far inland, and the yellow down\nBorder’d with palm, and many a winding vale\nAnd meadow, set with slender galingale;\nA land where all things always seem’d the same!\nAnd round about the keel with faces pale,\nDark faces pale against that rosy flame,\nThe mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.\n\nBranches they bore of that enchanted stem,\nLaden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave\nTo each, but whoso did receive of them,\nAnd taste, to him the gushing of the wave\nFar far away did seem to mourn and rave\nOn alien shores; and if his fellow spake,\nHis voice was thin, as voices from the grave;\nAnd deep-asleep he seem’d, yet all awake,\nAnd music in his ears his beating heart did make.\n\nThey sat them down upon the yellow sand,\nBetween the sun and moon upon the shore;\nAnd sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,\nOf child, and wife, and slave; but evermore\nMost weary seem’d the sea, weary the oar,\nWeary the wandering fields of barren foam.\nThen some one said, “We will return no more”;\nAnd all at once they sang, “Our island home\nIs far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.”\n\n\n_Choric Song_\n\n# I.\n\nThere is sweet music here that softer falls\nThan petals from blown roses on the grass,\nOr night-dews on still waters between walls\nOf shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;\nMusic that gentlier on the spirit lies,\nThan tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes;\nMusic that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.\nHere are cool mosses deep,\nAnd thro’ the moss the ivies creep,\nAnd in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,\nAnd from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.\n\n\n# II.\n\nWhy are we weigh’d upon with heaviness,\nAnd utterly consumed with sharp distress,\nWhile all things else have rest from weariness?\nAll things have rest: why should we toil alone,\nWe only toil, who are the first of things,\nAnd make perpetual moan,\nStill from one sorrow to another thrown:\nNor ever fold our wings,\nAnd cease from wanderings,\nNor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm;\nNor harken what the inner spirit sings,\n“There is no joy but calm!”\nWhy should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?\n\n\n# III.\n\nLo! in the middle of the wood,\nThe folded leaf is woo’d from out the bud\nWith winds upon the branch, and there\nGrows green and broad, and takes no care,\nSun-steep’d at noon, and in the moon\nNightly dew-fed; and turning yellow\nFalls, and floats adown the air.\nLo! sweeten’d with the summer light,\nThe full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,\nDrops in a silent autumn night.\nAll its allotted length of days\nThe flower ripens in its place,\nRipens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,\nFast-rooted in the fruitful soil.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nHateful is the dark-blue sky,\nVaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.\nDeath is the end of life; ah, why\nShould life all labour be?\nLet us alone. Time driveth onward fast,\nAnd in a little while our lips are dumb.\nLet us alone. What is it that will last?\nAll things are taken from us, and become\nPortions and parcels of the dreadful past.\nLet us alone. What pleasure can we have\nTo war with evil? Is there any peace\nIn ever climbing up the climbing wave?\nAll things have rest, and ripen toward the grave\nIn silence; ripen, fall and cease:\nGive us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.\n\n\n# V.\n\nHow sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,\nWith half-shut eyes ever to seem\nFalling asleep in a half-dream!\nTo dream and dream, like yonder amber light,\nWhich will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;\nTo hear each other’s whisper’d speech;\nEating the Lotos day by day,\nTo watch the crisping ripples on the beach,\nAnd tender curving lines of creamy spray;\nTo lend our hearts and spirits wholly\nTo the influence of mild-minded melancholy;\nTo muse and brood and live again in memory,\nWith those old faces of our infancy\nHeap’d over with a mound of grass,\nTwo handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!\n\n\n# VI.\n\nDear is the memory of our wedded lives,\nAnd dear the last embraces of our wives\nAnd their warm tears: but all hath suffer’d change:\nFor surely now our household hearths are cold,\nOur sons inherit us: our looks are strange:\nAnd we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.\nOr else the island princes over-bold\nHave eat our substance, and the minstrel sings\nBefore them of the ten years’ war in Troy,\nAnd our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.\nIs there confusion in the little isle?\nLet what is broken so remain.\nThe Gods are hard to reconcile:\n’Tis hard to settle order once again.\nThere is confusion worse than death,\nTrouble on trouble, pain on pain,\nLong labour unto aged breath,\nSore task to hearts worn out by many wars\nAnd eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nBut, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,\nHow sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)\nWith half-dropt eyelid still,\nBeneath a heaven dark and holy,\nTo watch the long bright river drawing slowly\nHis waters from the purple hill--\nTo hear the dewy echoes calling\nFrom cave to cave thro’ the thick-twined vine--\nTo watch the emerald-colour’d water falling\nThro’ many a wov’n acanthus-wreath divine!\nOnly to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,\nOnly to hear were sweet, stretch’d out beneath the pine.\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nThe Lotos blooms below the barren peak:\nThe Lotos blows by every winding creek:\nAll day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:\nThro’ every hollow cave and alley lone\nRound and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.\nWe have had enough of action, and of motion we,\nRoll’d to starboard, roll’d to larboard, when the surge was seething free,\nWhere the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.\nLet us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,\nIn the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined\nOn the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.\nFor they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’d\nFar below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’d\nRound their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:\nWhere they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,\nBlight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,\nClanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.\nBut they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song\nSteaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,\nLike a tale of little meaning tho’ the words are strong;\nChanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,\nSow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,\nStoring yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;\nTill they perish and they suffer--some, ’tis whisper’d--down in hell\nSuffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,\nResting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.\nSurely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore\nThan labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;\nO, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1832 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -111043,10 +114450,10 @@ "title": "“Love and Death”", "body": "What time the mighty moon was gathering light\nLove paced the thymy plots of Paradise,\nAnd all about him roll’d his lustrous eyes;\nWhen, turning round a cassia, full in view\nDeath, walking all alone beneath a yew,\nAnd talking to himself, first met his sight:\n“You must begone,” said Death, “these walks are mine.”\nLove wept and spread his sheeny vans for flight;\nYet ere he parted said, “This hour is thine:\nThou art the shadow of life, and as the tree\nStands in the sun and shadows all beneath,\nSo in the light of great eternity\nLife eminent creates the shade of death;\nThe shadow passeth when the tree shall fall,\nBut I shall reign for ever over all.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -111054,10 +114461,10 @@ "title": "“Mariana”", "body": "With blackest moss the flower-plots\nWere thickly crusted, one and all:\nThe rusted nails fell from the knots\nThat held the pear to the gable-wall.\nThe broken sheds look’d sad and strange:\nUnlifted was the clinking latch;\nWeeded and worn the ancient thatch\nUpon the lonely moated grange.\nShe only said, “My life is dreary,\nHe cometh not,” she said;\nShe said, “I am aweary, aweary,\nI would that I were dead!”\n\nHer tears fell with the dews at even;\nHer tears fell ere the dews were dried;\nShe could not look on the sweet heaven,\nEither at morn or eventide.\nAfter the flitting of the bats,\nWhen thickest dark did trance the sky,\nShe drew her casement-curtain by,\nAnd glanced athwart the glooming flats.\nShe only said, “The night is dreary,\nHe cometh not,” she said;\nShe said, “I am aweary, aweary,\nI would that I were dead!”\n\nUpon the middle of the night,\nWaking she heard the night-fowl crow:\nThe cock sung out an hour ere light:\nFrom the dark fen the oxen’s low\nCame to her: without hope of change,\nIn sleep she seem’d to walk forlorn,\nTill cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn\nAbout the lonely moated grange.\nShe only said, “The day is dreary,\nHe cometh not,” she said;\nShe said, “I am aweary, aweary,\nI would that I were dead!”\n\nAbout a stone-cast from the wall\nA sluice with blacken’d waters slept,\nAnd o’er it many, round and small,\nThe cluster’d marish-mosses crept.\nHard by a poplar shook alway,\nAll silver-green with gnarled bark:\nFor leagues no other tree did mark\nThe level waste, the rounding gray.\nShe only said, “My life is dreary,\nHe cometh not,” she said;\nShe said “I am aweary, aweary\nI would that I were dead!”\n\nAnd ever when the moon was low,\nAnd the shrill winds were up and away,\nIn the white curtain, to and fro,\nShe saw the gusty shadow sway.\nBut when the moon was very low\nAnd wild winds bound within their cell,\nThe shadow of the poplar fell\nUpon her bed, across her brow.\nShe only said, “The night is dreary,\nHe cometh not,” she said;\nShe said “I am aweary, aweary,\nI would that I were dead!”\n\nAll day within the dreamy house,\nThe doors upon their hinges creak’d;\nThe blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse\nBehind the mouldering wainscot shriek’d,\nOr from the crevice peer’d about.\nOld faces glimmer’d thro’ the doors\nOld footsteps trod the upper floors,\nOld voices called her from without.\nShe only said, “My life is dreary,\nHe cometh not,” she said;\nShe said, “I am aweary, aweary,\nI would that I were dead!”\n\nThe sparrow’s chirrup on the roof,\nThe slow clock ticking, and the sound\nWhich to the wooing wind aloof\nThe poplar made, did all confound\nHer sense; but most she loathed the hour\nWhen the thick-moted sunbeam lay\nAthwart the chambers, and the day\nWas sloping toward his western bower.\nThen said she, “I am very dreary,\nHe will not come,” she said;\nShe wept, “I am aweary, aweary,\nOh God, that I were dead!”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -111065,10 +114472,10 @@ "title": "“Mariana in the South”", "body": "With one black shadow at its feet,\nThe house thro’ all the level shines,\nClose-latticed to the brooding heat,\nAnd silent in its dusty vines:\nA faint-blue ridge upon the right,\nAn empty river-bed before,\nAnd shallows on a distant shore,\nIn glaring sand and inlets bright.\nBut “Aye Mary,” made she moan,\nAnd “Aye Mary,” night and morn,\nAnd “Ah,” she sang, “to be all alone,\nTo live forgotten, and love forlorn.”\n\nShe, as her carol sadder grew,\nFrom brow and bosom slowly down\nThro’ rosy taper fingers drew\nHer streaming curls of deepest brown\nTo left and right, and made appear,\nStill-lighted in a secret shrine,\nHer melancholy eyes divine,\nThe home of woe without a tear.\nAnd “Aye Mary,” was her moan,\n“Madonna, sad is night and morn;”\nAnd “Ah,” she sang, “to be all alone,\nTo live forgotten, and love forlorn.”\n\nTill all the crimson changed, and past\nInto deep orange o’er the sea,\nLow on her knees herself she cast,\nBefore Our Lady murmur’d she:\nComplaining, “Mother, give me grace\nTo help me of my weary load.”\nAnd on the liquid mirror glow’d\nThe clear perfection of her face.\n“Is this the form,” she made her moan,\n“That won his praises night and morn?”\nAnd “Ah,” she said, “but I wake alone,\nI sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn.”\n\nNor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat,\nNor any cloud would cross the vault,\nBut day increased from heat to heat,\nOn stony drought and steaming salt;\nTill now at noon she slept again,\nAnd seem’d knee-deep in mountain grass,\nAnd heard her native breezes pass,\nAnd runlets babbling down the glen.\nShe breathed in sleep a lower moan,\nAnd murmuring, as at night and morn\nShe thought, “My spirit is here alone,\nWalks forgotten, and is forlorn.”\n\nDreaming, she knew it was a dream:\nShe felt he was and was not there.\nShe woke: the babble of the stream\nFell, and, without, the steady glare\nShrank one sick willow sere and small.\nThe river-bed was dusty-white;\nAnd all the furnace of the light\nStruck up against the blinding wall.\nShe whisper’d, with a stifled moan\nMore inward than at night or morn,\n“Sweet Mother, let me not here alone\nLive forgotten and die forlorn.”\n\nAnd, rising, from her bosom drew\nOld letters, breathing of her worth,\nFor “Love,” they said, “must needs be true,\nTo what is loveliest upon earth.”\nAn image seem’d to pass the door,\nTo look at her with slight, and say,\n“But now thy beauty flows away,\nSo be alone for evermore.”\n“O cruel heart,” she changed her tone,\n“And cruel love, whose end is scorn,\nIs this the end to be left alone,\nTo live forgotten, and die forlorn?”\n\nBut sometimes in the falling day\nAn image seem’d to pass the door,\nTo look into her eyes and say,\n“But thou shalt be alone no more.”\nAnd flaming downward over all\nFrom heat to heat the day decreased,\nAnd slowly rounded to the east\nThe one black shadow from the wall.\n“The day to night,” she made her moan,\n“The day to night, the night to morn,\nAnd day and night I am left alone\nTo live forgotten, and love forlorn.”\n\nAt eve a dry cicala sung,\nThere came a sound as of the sea;\nBackward the lattice-blind she flung,\nAnd lean’d upon the balcony.\nThere all in spaces rosy-bright\nLarge Hesper glitter’d on her tears,\nAnd deepening thro’ the silent spheres\nHeaven over Heaven rose the night.\nAnd weeping then she made her moan,\n“The night comes on that knows not morn,\nWhen I shall cease to be all alone,\nTo live forgotten, and love forlorn.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -111079,10 +114486,10 @@ "title": "“Marriage Morning”", "body": "Light, so low upon earth,\n You send a flash to the sun.\nHere is the golden close of love,\n All my wooing is done.\nOh, all the woods and the meadows,\n Woods, where we hid from the wet,\nStiles where we stayed to be kind,\n Meadows in which we met!\nLight, so low in the vale\n You flash and lighten afar,\nFor this is the golden morning of love,\n And you are his morning star.\nFlash, I am coming, I come,\n By meadow and stile and wood,\nOh, lighten into my eyes and my heart,\n Into my heart and my blood!\nHeart, are you great enough\n For a love that never tires?\nO heart, are you great enough for love?\n I have heard of thorns and briers.\nOver the thorns and briers,\n Over the meadows and stiles,\nOver the world to the end of it\n Flash of a million miles.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1833 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -111093,10 +114500,10 @@ "title": "“The Miller’s Daughter”", "body": "It is the miller’s daughter,\n And she is grown so dear, so dear,\nThat I would be the jewel\n That trembles in her ear:\nFor hid in ringlets day and night,\nI’d touch her neck so warm and white.\n\nAnd I would be the girdle\n About her dainty dainty waist,\nAnd her heart would beat against me,\n In sorrow and in rest:\nAnd I should know if it beat right,\nI’d clasp it round so close and tight.\n\nAnd I would be the necklace,\n And all day long to fall and rise\nUpon her balmy bosom,\n With her laughter or her sighs,\nAnd I would lie so light, so light,\nI scarce should be unclasp’d at night.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -111122,10 +114529,10 @@ "title": "“New Year’s Eve”", "body": "You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;\nTo-morrow ’ll be the happiest time of all the glad new-year,--\nOf all the glad new-year, mother, the maddest, merriest day;\n_For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May._\n\nI sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,\nIf you do not call me loud when the day begins to break;\nBut I must gather knots of flowers and buds, and garlands gay;\n_For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May._\n\nLittle Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green,\nAnd you’ll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen;\nFor the shepherd lads on every side ’ll come from far away;\n_And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May._\n\nThe night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass,\nAnd the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass;\nThere will not be a drop of rain the whole of the livelong day;\n_And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May._\n\nAll the valley, mother, ’ll be fresh and green and still,\nAnd the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill,\nAnd the rivulet in the flowery dale ’ll merrily glance and play,\n_For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May. _", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_eve" @@ -111166,10 +114573,10 @@ "title": "“Oenone”", "body": "There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier\nThan all the valleys of Ionian hills.\nThe swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,\nPuts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,\nAnd loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand\nThe lawns and meadow-ledges midway down\nHang rich in flowers, and far below them roars\nThe long brook falling thro’ the clov’n ravine\nIn cataract after cataract to the sea.\nBehind the valley topmost Gargarus\nStands up and takes the morning: but in front\nThe gorges, opening wide apart, reveal\nTroas and Ilion’s column’d citadel,\nThe crown of Troas.\n\n Hither came at noon\nMournful Oenone, wandering forlorn\nOf Paris, once her playmate on the hills.\nHer cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck\nFloated her hair or seem’d to float in rest.\nShe, leaning on a fragment twined with vine,\nSang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade\nSloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.\n\n“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida,\nDear mother Ida, harken ere I die.\nFor now the noonday quiet holds the hill:\nThe grasshopper is silent in the grass:\nThe lizard, with his shadow on the stone,\nRests like a shadow, and the winds are dead.\nThe purple flower droops: the golden bee\nIs lily-cradled: I alone awake.\nMy eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,\nMy heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,\nAnd I am all aweary of my life.”\n\n“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida,\nDear mother Ida, harken ere I die.\nHear me, O Earth, hear me, O Hills, O Caves\nThat house the cold crown’d snake! O mountain brooks,\nI am the daughter of a River-God,\nHear me, for I will speak, and build up all\nMy sorrow with my song, as yonder walls\nRose slowly to a music slowly breathed,\nA cloud that gather’d shape: for it may be\nThat, while I speak of it, a little while\nMy heart may wander from its deeper woe.”\n\n“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida,\nDear mother Ida, harken ere I die.\nI waited underneath the dawning hills,\nAloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark,\nAnd dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine:\nBeautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,\nLeading a jet-black goat white-horn’d, white-hooved,\nCame up from reedy Simois all alone.”\n\n“O mother Ida, harken ere I die.\nFar-off the torrent call’d me from the cleft:\nFar up the solitary morning smote\nThe streaks of virgin snow. With down-dropt eyes\nI sat alone: white-breasted like a star\nFronting the dawn he moved; a leopard skin\nDroop’d from his shoulder, but his sunny hair\nCluster’d about his temples like a God’s:\nAnd his cheek brighten’d as the foam-bow brightens\nWhen the wind blows the foam, and all my heart\nWent forth to embrace him coming ere he came.”\n\n“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.\nHe smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm\nDisclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold,\nThat smelt ambrosially, and while I look’d\nAnd listen’d, the full-flowing river of speech\nCame down upon my heart.”\n\n “My own Oenone,\nBeautiful-brow’d Oenone, my own soul,\nBehold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav’n\n‘For the most fair,’ would seem to award it thine,\nAs lovelier than whatever Oread haunt\nThe knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace\nOf movement, and the charm of married brows.”\n\n“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.\nHe prest the blossom of his lips to mine,\nAnd added ‘This was cast upon the board,\nWhen all the full-faced presence of the Gods\nRanged in the halls of Peleus; whereupon\nRose feud, with question unto whom ’twere due:\nBut light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve,\nDelivering that to me, by common voice\nElected umpire, HerĂš comes to-day,\nPallas and AphroditĂš, claiming each\nThis meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave\nBehind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,\nMayst well behold them unbeheld, unheard\nHear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.’”\n\n“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.\nIt was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud\nHad lost his way between the piney sides\nOf this long glen. Then to the bower they came,\nNaked they came to that smooth-swarded bower,\nAnd at their feet the crocus brake like fire,\nViolet, amaracus, and asphodel,\nLotos and lilies: and a wind arose,\nAnd overhead the wandering ivy and vine,\nThis way and that, in many a wild festoon\nRan riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs\nWith bunch and berry and flower thro’ and thro’.”\n\n“O mother Ida, harken ere I die.\nOn the tree-tops a crested peacock lit,\nAnd o’er him flow’d a golden cloud, and lean’d\nUpon him, slowly dropping fragrant dew.\nThen first I heard the voice of her, to whom\nComing thro’ Heaven, like a light that grows\nLarger and clearer, with one mind the Gods\nRise up for reverence. She to Paris made\nProffer of royal power, ample rule\nUnquestion’d, overflowing revenue\nWherewith to embellish state, ‘from many a vale\nAnd river-sunder’d champaign clothed with corn,\nOr labour’d mine undrainable of ore.\nHonour,’ she said, ‘and homage, tax and toll,\nFrom many an inland town and haven large,\nMast-throng’d beneath her shadowing citadel\nIn glassy bays among her tallest towers.’”\n\n“O mother Ida, harken ere I die.\nStill she spake on and still she spake of power,\n‘Which in all action is the end of all;\nPower fitted to the season; wisdom-bred\nAnd throned of wisdom--from all neighbour crowns\nAlliance and allegiance, till thy hand\nFail from the sceptre-staff. Such boon from me,\nFrom me, Heaven’s Queen, Paris, to thee king-born,\nA shepherd all thy life but yet king-born,\nShould come most welcome, seeing men, in power\nOnly, are likest Gods, who have attain’d\nRest in a happy place and quiet seats\nAbove the thunder, with undying bliss\nIn knowledge of their own supremacy.’”\n\n“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.\nShe ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit\nOut at arm’s-length, so much the thought of power\nFlatter’d his spirit; but Pallas where she stood\nSomewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs\nO’erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear\nUpon her pearly shoulder leaning cold,\nThe while, above, her full and earnest eye\nOver her snow-cold breast and angry cheek\nKept watch, waiting decision, made reply.”\n\n“Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,\nThese three alone lead life to sovereign power.\nYet not for power (power of herself\nWould come uncall’d for) but to live by law,\nActing the law we live by without fear;\nAnd, because right is right, to follow right\nWere wisdom in the scorn of consequence.’”\n\n“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.\nAgain she said: ‘I woo thee not with gifts.\nSequel of guerdon could not alter me\nTo fairer. Judge thou me by what I am,\nSo shalt thou find me fairest.’”\n\n “‘Yet, indeed,\nIf gazing on divinity disrobed\nThy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair,\nUnbias’d by self-profit, oh! rest thee sure\nThat I shall love thee well and cleave to thee,\nSo that my vigour, wedded to thy blood,\nShall strike within thy pulses, like a God’s,\nTo push thee forward thro’ a life of shocks,\nDangers, and deeds, until endurance grow\nSinew’d with action, and the full-grown will,\nCircled thro’ all experiences, pure law,\nCommeasure perfect freedom.’”\n\n “Here she ceas’d\nAnd Paris ponder’d, and I cried, ‘O Paris,\nGive it to Pallas!’ but he heard me not,\nOr hearing would not hear me, woe is me!”\n\n“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida,\nDear mother Ida, harken ere I die.\nIdalian AphroditĂš beautiful,\nFresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian wells,\nWith rosy slender fingers backward drew\nFrom her warm brows and bosom her deep hair\nAmbrosial, golden round her lucid throat\nAnd shoulder: from the violets her light foot\nShone rosy-white, and o’er her rounded form\nBetween the shadows of the vine-bunches\nFloated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.”\n\n“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.\nShe with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,\nThe herald of her triumph, drawing nigh\nHalf-whisper’d in his ear, ‘I promise thee\nThe fairest and most loving wife in Greece.’\nShe spoke and laugh’d: I shut my sight for fear:\nBut when I look’d, Paris had raised his arm,\nAnd I beheld great Herù’s angry eyes,\nAs she withdrew into the golden cloud,\nAnd I was left alone within the bower;\nAnd from that time to this I am alone,\nAnd I shall be alone until I die.”\n\n“Yet, mother Ida, harken ere I die.\nFairest--why fairest wife? am I not fair?\nMy love hath told me so a thousand times.\nMethinks I must be fair, for yesterday,\nWhen I past by, a wild and wanton pard,\nEyed like the evening star, with playful tail\nCrouch’d fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?\nAh me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms\nWere wound about thee, and my hot lips prest\nClose, close to thine in that quick-falling dew\nOf fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains\nFlash in the pools of whirling Simois!”\n\n“O mother, hear me yet before I die.\nThey came, they cut away my tallest pines,\nMy tall dark pines, that plumed the craggy ledge\nHigh over the blue gorge, and all between\nThe snowy peak and snow-white cataract\nFoster’d the callow eaglet--from beneath\nWhose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn\nThe panther’s roar came muffled, while I sat\nLow in the valley. Never, never more\nShall lone OEnone see the morning mist\nSweep thro’ them; never see them overlaid\nWith narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud,\nBetween the loud stream and the trembling stars.”\n\n“O mother, hear me yet before I die.\nI wish that somewhere in the ruin’d folds,\nAmong the fragments tumbled from the glens,\nOr the dry thickets, I could meet with her\nThe Abominable, that uninvited came\nInto the fair PeleĂŻan banquet-hall,\nAnd cast the golden fruit upon the board,\nAnd bred this change; that I might speak my mind,\nAnd tell her to her face how much I hate\nHer presence, hated both of Gods and men.”\n\n“O mother, hear me yet before I die.\nHath he not sworn his love a thousand times,\nIn this green valley, under this green hill,\nEv’n on this hand, and sitting on this stone?\nSeal’d it with kisses? water’d it with tears?\nO happy tears, and how unlike to these!\nO happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face?\nO happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight?\nO death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,\nThere are enough unhappy on this earth,\nPass by the happy souls, that love to live:\nI pray thee, pass before my light of life,\nAnd shadow all my soul, that I may die.\nThou weighest heavy on the heart within,\nWeigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die.”\n\n“O mother, hear me yet before I die.\nI will not die alone, for fiery thoughts\nDo shape themselves within me, more and more,\nWhereof I catch the issue, as I hear\nDead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,\nLike footsteps upon wool. I dimly see\nMy far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother\nConjectures of the features of her child\nEre it is born: her child!--a shudder comes\nAcross me: never child be born of me,\nUnblest, to vex me with his father’s eyes!”\n\n“O mother, hear me yet before I die.\nHear me, O earth. I will not die alone,\nLest their shrill happy laughter come to me\nWalking the cold and starless road of death\nUncomforted, leaving my ancient love\nWith the Greek woman. I will rise and go\nDown into Troy, and ere the stars come forth\nTalk with the wild Cassandra, for she says\nA fire dances before her, and a sound\nRings ever in her ears of armed men.\nWhat this may be I know not, but I know\nThat, wheresoe’er I am by night and day,\nAll earth and air seem only burning fire.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -111177,10 +114584,10 @@ "title": "“Of old sat Freedom on the heights 
”", "body": "Of old sat Freedom on the heights,\nThe thunders breaking at her feet:\nAbove her shook the starry lights:\nShe heard the torrents meet.\n\nThere in her place she did rejoice,\nSelf-gather’d in her prophet-mind,\nBut fragments of her mighty voice\nCame rolling on the wind.\n\nThen stept she down thro’ town and field\nTo mingle with the human race,\nAnd part by part to men reveal’d\nThe fulness of her face--\n\nGrave mother of majestic works,\nFrom her isle-altar gazing down,\nWho, God-like, grasps the triple forks,\nAnd, King-like, wears the crown:\n\nHer open eyes desire the truth.\nThe wisdom of a thousand years\nIs in them. May perpetual youth\nKeep dry their light from tears;\n\nThat her fair form may stand and shine,\nMake bright our days and light our dreams,\nTurning to scorn with lips divine\nThe falsehood of extremes!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -111188,10 +114595,10 @@ "title": "“Our enemies have fall’n 
”", "body": "Our enemies have fall’n, have fall’n: the seed,\nThe little seed they laugh’d at in the dark,\nHas risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk\nOf spanless girth, that lays on every side\nA thousand arms and rushes to the Sun.\n\nOur enemies have fall’n, have fall’n: they came;\nThe leaves were wet with women’s tears: they heard\nA noise of songs they would not understand:\nThey mark’d it with the red cross to the fall,\nAnd would have strown it, and are fall’n themselves.\n\nOur enemies have fall’n, have fall’n: they came,\nThe woodmen with their axes: lo the tree!\nBut we will make it faggots for the hearth,\nAnd shape it plank and beam for roof and floor,\nAnd boats and bridges for the use of men.\n\nOur enemies have fall’n, have fall’n: they struck;\nWith their own blows they hurt themselves, nor knew\nThere dwelt an iron nature in the grain:\nThe glittering axe was broken in their arms,\nTheir arms were shatter’d to the shoulder blade.\n\nOur enemies have fall’n, but this shall grow\nA night of Summer from the heat, a breadth\nOf Autumn, dropping fruits of power; and roll’d\nWith music in the growing breeze of Time,\nThe tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs\nShall move the stony bases of the world.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1869 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -111202,10 +114609,10 @@ "title": "“The Passing of Arthur”", "body": "That story which the bold Sir Bedivere,\nFirst made and latest left of all the knights,\nTold, when the man was no more than a voice\nIn the white winter of his age, to those\nWith whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds.\n\nFor on their march to westward, Bedivere,\nWho slowly paced among the slumbering host,\nHeard in his tent the moanings of the King:\n\n“I found Him in the shining of the stars,\nI mark’d Him in the flowering of His fields,\nBut in His ways with men I find Him not.\nI waged His wars, and now I pass and die.\nO me! for why is all around us here\nAs if some lesser god had made the world,\nBut had not force to shape it as he would,\nTill the High God behold it from beyond,\nAnd enter it, and make it beautiful?\nOr else as if the world were wholly fair,\nBut that these eyes of men are dense and dim,\nAnd have not power to see it as it is:\nPerchance, because we see not to the close;--\nFor I, being simple, thought to work His will,\nAnd have but stricken with the sword in vain;\nAnd all whereon I lean’d in wife and friend\nIs traitor to my peace, and all my realm\nReels back into the beast, and is no more.\nMy God, thou hast forgotten me in my death:\nNay--God my Christ--I pass but shall not die.”\n\nThen, ere that last weird battle in the west,\nThere came on Arthur sleeping, Gawain kill’d\nIn Lancelot’s war, the ghost of Gawain blown\nAlong a wandering wind, and past his ear\nWent shrilling, “Hollow, hollow all delight!\nHail, King! to-morrow thou shalt pass away.\nFarewell! there is an isle of rest for thee.\nAnd I am blown along a wandering wind,\nAnd hollow, hollow, hollow all delight.”\nAnd fainter onward, like wild birds that change\nTheir season in the night and wail their way\nFrom cloud to cloud, down the long wind the dream\nShrill’d; but in going mingled with dim cries\nFar in the moonlit haze among the hills,\nAs of some lonely city sack’d by night,\nWhen all is lost, and wife and child with wail\nPass to new lords; and Arthur woke and call’d,\n“Who spake? A dream. O light upon the wind,\nThine, Gawain, was the voice--are these dim cries\nThine? or doth all that haunts the waste and wild\nMourn, knowing it will go along with me?”\n\nThis heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake:\n“O me, my King, let pass whatever will,\nElves, and the harmless glamour of the field;\nBut in their stead thy name and glory cling\nTo all high places like a golden cloud\nFor ever: but as yet thou shalt not pass.\nLight was Gawain in life, and light in death\nIs Gawain, for the ghost is as the man;\nAnd care not thou for dreams from him, but rise--\nI hear the steps of Modred in the west,\nAnd with him many of thy people, and knights\nOnce thine, whom thou hast loved, but grosser grown\nThan heathen, spitting at their vows and thee.\nRight well in heart they know thee for the King.\nArise, go forth and conquer as of old.”\n\nThen spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:\n“Far other is this battle in the west\nWhereto we move, than when we strove in youth,\nAnd brake the petty kings, and fought with Rome,\nOr thrust the heathen from the Roman wall,\nAnd shook him thro’ the north. Ill doom is mine\nTo war against my people and my knights.\nThe king who fights his people fights himself.\nAnd they my knights, who loved me once, the stroke\nThat strikes them dead is as my death to me.\nYet let us hence, and find or feel a way\nThro’ this blind haze, which ever since I saw\nOne lying in the dust at Almesbury,\nHath folded in the passes of the world.”\n\nThen rose the King and moved his host by night,\nAnd ever push’d Sir Modred, league by league,\nBack to the sunset bound of Lyonnesse--\nA land of old upheaven from the abyss\nBy fire, to sink into the abyss again;\nWhere fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,\nAnd the long mountains ended in a coast\nOf ever-shifting sand, and far away\nThe phantom circle of a moaning sea.\nThere the pursuer could pursue no more,\nAnd he that fled no further fly the King;\nAnd there, that day when the great light of heaven\nBurn’d at his lowest in the rolling year,\nOn the waste sand by the waste sea they closed.\nNor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight\nLike this last, dim, weird battle of the west.\nA deathwhite mist slept over sand and sea:\nWhereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew\nDown with his blood, till all his heart was cold\nWith formless fear; and ev’n on Arthur fell\nConfusion, since he saw not whom he fought.\n\nFor friend and foe were shadows in the mist,\nAnd friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew;\nAnd some had visions out of golden youth,\nAnd some beheld the faces of old ghosts\nLook in upon the battle; and in the mist\nWas many a noble deed, many a base,\nAnd chance and craft and strength in single fights,\nAnd ever and anon with host to host\nShocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn,\nShield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash\nOf battleaxes on shatter’d helms, and shrieks\nAfter the Christ, of those who falling down\nLook’d up for heaven, and only saw the mist;\nAnd shouts of heathen and the traitor knights,\nOaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies,\nSweat, writhings, anguish, labouring of the lungs\nIn that close mist, and cryings for the light,\nMoans of the dying, and voices of the dead.\n\nLast, as by some one deathbed after wail\nOf suffering, silence follows, or thro’ death\nOr deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore,\nSave for some whisper of the seething seas,\nA dead hush fell; but when the dolorous day\nGrew drearier toward twilight falling, came\nA bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew\nThe mist aside, and with that wind the tide\nRose, and the pale King glanced across the field\nOf battle: but no man was moving there;\nNor any cry of Christian heard thereon,\nNor yet of heathen; only the wan wave\nBrake in among dead faces, to and fro\nSwaying the helpless hands, and up and down\nTumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen,\nAnd shiver’d brands that once had fought with Rome,\nAnd rolling far along the gloomy shores\nThe voice of days of old and days to be.\n\nThen spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere,\nAnd whiter than the mist that all day long\nHad held the field of battle was the King:\n\n“Hearest thou this great voice that shakes the world,\nAnd wastes the narrow realm whereon we move,\nAnd beats upon the faces of the dead,\nMy dead, as tho’ they had not died for me?--\nO Bedivere, for on my heart hath fall’n\nConfusion, till I know not what I am,\nNor whence I am, nor whether I be King.\nBehold, I seem but King among the dead.”\n\nThen spake the bold Sir Bedivere: “My King,\nKing everywhere! and so the dead have kings,\nThere also will I worship thee as King.\nYet still thy life is whole, and still I live\nWho love thee; but who hates thee, he that brought\nThe heathen back among us, yonder stands,\nModred, unharm’d, the traitor of thine house.”\n\nThen spake the King: “My house hath been my doom.\nBut call not thou this traitor of my house\nWho hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me.\nMy house are rather they who sware my vows,\nYea, even while they brake them, own’d me King.\nAnd well for thee, saying in my dark hour,\nWhen all the purport of my throne hath fail’d,\nThat quick or dead thou hottest me for King.\nKing am I, whatsoever be their cry;\nAnd one last act of kinghood shalt thou see\nYet, ere I pass.” And uttering this the King\nMade at the man: then Modred smote his liege\nHard on that helm which many a heathen sword\nHad beaten thin; while Arthur at one blow,\nStriking the last stroke with Excalibur,\nSlew him, and all but slain himself, he fell.\n\nSo all day long the noise of battle roll’d\nAmong the mountains by the winter sea;\nUntil King Arthur’s Table, man by man,\nHad fall’n in Lyonnesse about their lord,\nKing Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep,\nThe bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,\nAnd bore him to a chapel nigh the field,\nA broken chancel with a broken cross,\nThat stood on a dark strait of barren land:\nOn one side lay the Ocean, and on one\nLay a great water, and the moon was full.\n\nThen spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:\n“The sequel of to-day unsolders all\nThe goodliest fellowship of famous knights\nWhereof this world holds record. Such a sleep\nThey sleep--the men I loved. I think that we\nShall never more, at any future time,\nDelight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,\nWalking about the gardens and the halls\nOf Camelot, as in the days that were.\nI perish by this people which I made,--\nTho’ Merlin sware that I should come again\nTo rule once more; but, let what will be, be,\nI am so deeply smitten thro’ the helm\nThat without help I cannot last till morn.\nThou therefore take my brand Excalibur,\nWhich was my pride: for thou rememberest how\nIn those old days, one summer noon, an arm\nRose up from out the bosom of the lake,\nClothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,\nHolding the sword--and how I row’d across\nAnd took it, and have worn it, like a king;\nAnd, wheresoever I am sung or told\nIn aftertime, this also shall be known:\nBut now delay not: take Excalibur,\nAnd fling him far into the middle mere:\nWatch what thou seĂ«st, and lightly bring me word.”\n\nTo him replied the bold Sir Bedivere:\n“It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus,\nAidless, alone, and smitten thro’ the helm--\nA little thing may harm a wounded man;\nYet I thy hest will all perform at full,\nWatch what I see, and lightly bring thee word.”\n\nSo saying, from the ruin’d shrine he stept,\nAnd in the moon athwart the place of tombs,\nWhere lay the mighty bones of ancient men,\nOld knights, and over them the sea-wind sang\nShrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down\nBy zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock,\nCame on the shining levels of the lake.\n\nThere drew he forth the brand Excalibur,\nAnd o’er him, drawing it, the winter moon,\nBrightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth\nAnd sparkled keen with frost against the hilt:\nFor all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,\nMyriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work\nOf subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long\nThat both his eyes were dazzled as he stood,\nThis way and that dividing the swift mind,\nIn act to throw: but at the last it seem’d\nBetter to leave Excalibur conceal’d\nThere in the many-knotted waterflags,\nThat whistled stiff and dry about the marge.\nSo strode he back slow to the wounded King.\n\nThen spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:\n“Hast thou perform’d my mission which I gave?\nWhat is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?”\n\nAnd answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:\n“I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,\nAnd the wild water lapping on the crag.”\n\nTo whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale:\n“Thou hast betray’d thy nature and thy name,\nNot rendering true answer, as beseem’d\nThy fealty, nor like a noble knight:\nFor surer sign had follow’d, either hand\nOr voice, or else a motion of the mere.\nThis is a shameful thing for men to lie.\nYet now, I charge thee, quickly go again,\nAs thou art lief and dear, and do the thing\nI bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word.”\n\nThen went Sir Bedivere the second time\nAcross the ridge, and paced beside the mere,\nCounting the dewy pebbles, fix’d in thought;\nBut when he saw the wonder of the hilt,\nHow curiously and strangely chased, he smote\nHis palms together, and he cried aloud:\n\n“And if indeed I cast the brand away,\nSurely a precious thing, one worthy note,\nShould thus be lost for ever from the earth,\nWhich might have pleased the eyes of many men.\nWhat good should follow this, if this were done?\nWhat harm, undone? Deep harm to disobey,\nSeeing obedience is the bond of rule.\nWere it well to obey then, if a king demand\nAn act unprofitable, against himself?\nThe King is sick, and knows not what he does.\nWhat record, or what relic of my lord\nShould be to aftertime, but empty breath\nAnd rumours of a doubt? But were this kept,\nStored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,\nSome one might show it at a joust of arms,\nSaying, ‘King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur,\nWrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake.\nNine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps\nUpon the hidden bases of the hills.’\nSo might some old man speak in the aftertime\nTo all the people, winning reverence.\nBut now much honour and much fame were lost.”\n\nSo spake he, clouded with his own conceit,\nAnd hid Excalibur the second time,\nAnd so strode back slow to the wounded King.\n\nThen spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:\n“What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?”\n\nAnd answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:\n“I heard the water lapping on the crag,\nAnd the long ripple washing in the reeds.”\n\nTo whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:\n“Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,\nUnknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!\nAuthority forgets a dying king,\nLaid widow’d of the power in his eye\nThat bow’d the will. I see thee what thou art,\nFor thou, the latest-left of all my knights,\nIn whom should meet the offices of all,\nThou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt;\nEither from lust of gold, or like a girl\nValuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes.\nYet, for a man may fail in duty twice,\nAnd the third time may prosper, get thee hence:\nBut, if thou spare to fling Excalibur,\nI will arise and slay thee with my hands.”\n\nThen quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,\nAnd, leaping down the ridges, lightly, plunged\nAmong the bulrush beds, and clutch’d the sword,\nAnd strongly wheel’d and threw it. The great brand\nMade lightnings in the splendour of the moon,\nAnd flashing round and round, and whirl’d in an arch,\nShot like a streamer of the northern morn,\nSeen where the moving isles of winter shock\nBy night, with noises of the Northern Sea.\nSo flash’d and fell the brand Excalibur:\nBut ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm\nClothed in white samite, mystic wonderful,\nAnd caught him by the hilt, and brandish’d him\nThree times, and drew him under in the mere.\nAnd lightly went the other to the King.\n\nThen spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath:\n“Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.\nSpeak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?”\n\nAnd answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:\n“Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems\nShould blind my purpose, for I never saw,\nNor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,\nNot tho’ I live three lives of mortal men,\nSo great a miracle as yonder hilt.\nThen with both hands I flung him, wheeling him;\nBut when I look’d again, behold an arm,\nClothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,\nThat caught him by the hilt, and brandish’d him\nThree times, and drew him under in the mere.”\n\nAnd answer made King Arthur, breathing hard:\n“My end draws nigh; ’tis time that I were gone.\nMake broad thy shoulders to receive my weight,\nAnd bear me to the margin; yet I fear\nMy wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.”\n\nSo saying, from the pavement he half rose,\nSlowly, with pain, reclining on his arm,\nAnd looking wistfully with wide blue eyes\nAs in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere\nRemorsefully regarded thro’ his tears,\nAnd would have spoken, but he found not words;\nThen took with care, and kneeling on one knee,\nO’er both his shoulders drew the languid hands,\nAnd rising bore him thro’ the place of tombs.\n\nBut, as he walk’d, King Arthur panted hard,\nLike one that feels a nightmare on his bed\nWhen all the house is mute. So sigh’d the King,\nMuttering and murmuring at his ear, “Quick, quick!\nI fear it is too late, and I shall die.”\nBut the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,\nClothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk’d,\nLarger than human on the frozen hills.\nHe heard the deep behind him, and a cry\nBefore. His own thought drove him like a goad.\nDry clash’d his harness in the icy caves\nAnd barren chasms, and all to left and right\nThe bare black cliff clang’d round him, as he based\nHis feet on juts of slippery crag that rang\nSharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels--\nAnd on a sudden, lo! the level lake,\nAnd the long glories of the winter moon.\n\nThen saw they how there hove a dusky barge,\nDark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,\nBeneath them; and descending they were ware\nThat all the decks were dense with stately forms,\nBlack-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream--by these\nThree Queens with crowns of gold: and from them rose\nA cry that shiver’d to the tingling stars,\nAnd, as it were one voice, an agony\nOf lamentation, like a wind that shrills\nAll night in a waste land, where no one comes,\nOr hath come, since the making of the world.\n\nThen murmur’d Arthur, “Place me in the barge.”\nSo to the barge they came. There those three Queens\nPut forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.\nBut she, that rose the tallest of them all\nAnd fairest, laid his head upon her lap,\nAnd loosed the shatter’d casque, and chafed his hands,\nAnd call’d him by his name, complaining loud,\nAnd dropping bitter tears against a brow\nStriped with dark blood: for all his face was white\nAnd colourless, and like the wither’d moon\nSmote by the fresh beam of the springing east;\nAnd all his greaves and cuisses dash’d with drops\nOf onset; and the light and lustrous curls--\nThat made his forehead like a rising sun\nHigh from the daĂŻs-throne--were parch’d with dust\nOr, clotted into points and hanging loose,\nMix’d with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.\nSo like a shatter’d column lay the King;\nNot like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,\nFrom spur to plume a star of tournament,\nShot thro’ the lists at Camelot, and charged\nBefore the eyes of ladies and of kings.\n\nThen loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere:\n“Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?\nWhere shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?\nFor now I see the true old times are dead,\nWhen every morning brought a noble chance,\nAnd every chance brought out a noble knight.\nSuch times have been not since the light that led\nThe holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.\nBut now the whole Round Table is dissolved\nWhich was an image of the mighty world,\nAnd I, the last, go forth companionless,\nAnd the days darken round me, and the years,\nAmong new men, strange faces, other minds.”\n\nAnd slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge:\n“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,\nAnd God fulfils himself in many ways,\nLest one good custom should corrupt the world.\nComfort thyself: what comfort is in me?\nI have lived my life, and that which I have done\nMay He within himself make pure! but thou,\nIf thou shouldst never see my face again,\nPray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer\nThan this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice\nRise like a fountain for me night and day.\nFor what are men better than sheep or goats\nThat nourish a blind life within the brain,\nIf, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer\nBoth for themselves and those who call them friend?\nFor so the whole round earth is every way\nBound by gold chains about the feet of God.\nBut now farewell. I am going a long way\nWith these thou seĂ«st--if indeed I go\n(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)--\nTo the island-valley of Avilion;\nWhere falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,\nNor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies\nDeep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard lawns\nAnd bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea,\nWhere I will heal me of my grievous wound.”\n\nSo said he, and the barge with oar and sail\nMoved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan\nThat, fluting a wild carol ere her death,\nRuffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood\nWith swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere\nRevolving many memories, till the hull\nLook’d one black dot against the verge of dawn,\nAnd on the mere the wailing died away.\n\nBut when that moan had past for evermore,\nThe stillness of the dead world’s winter dawn\nAmazed him, and he groan’d, The King is gone.\nAnd therewithal came on him the weird rhyme,\n“From the great deep to the great deep he goes.”\n\nWhereat he slowly turn’d and slowly clomb\nThe last hard footstep of that iron crag;\nThence mark’d the black hull moving yet, and cried,\n“He passes to be King among the dead,\nAnd after healing of his grievous wound\nHe comes again; but--if he come no more--\nO me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat,\nWho shriek’d and wail’d, the three whereat we gazed\nOn that high day, when, clothed with living light,\nThey stood before his throne in silence, friends\nOf Arthur, who should help him at his need?”\n\nThen from the dawn it seem’d there came, but faint\nAs from beyond the limit of the world,\nLike the last echo born of a great cry,\nSounds, as if some fair city were one voice\nAround a king returning from his wars.\n\nThereat once more he moved about, and clomb\nEv’n to the highest he could climb, and saw,\nStraining his eyes beneath an arch of hand,\nOr thought he saw, the speck that bare the King,\nDown that long water opening on the deep\nSomewhere far off, pass on and on, and go\nFrom less to less and vanish into light.\nAnd the new sun rose bringing the new year.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1884 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_day" @@ -111216,10 +114623,10 @@ "title": "“Ring Out, Wild Bells”", "body": "Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,\nThe flying cloud, the frosty light:\nThe year is dying in the night;\nRing out, wild bells, and let him die 
\n\nRing out false pride in place and blood,\nThe civic slander and the spite;\nRing in the love of truth and right,\nRing in the common love of good.\n\nRing out old shapes of foul disease;\nRing out the narrowing lust of gold;\nRing out the thousand wars of old,\nRing in the thousand years of peace.\n\nRing in the valiant man and free,\nThe larger heart, the kindlier hand;\nRing out the darkness of the land,\nRing in the Christ that is to be.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1850 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -111245,10 +114652,10 @@ "title": "“The Splendor Falls”", "body": "The splendor falls on castle walls\n And snowy summits old in story;\nThe long light shakes across the lakes,\n And the wild cataract leaps in glory.\nBlow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,\nBlow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.\n\nO, hark, O, hear! how thin and clear,\n And thinner, clearer, farther going!\nO, sweet and far from cliff and scar\n The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!\nBlow, let us hear the purple glens replying,\nBlow, bugles; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.\n\nO love, they die in yon rich sky,\n They faint on hill or field or river;\nOur echoes roll from soul to soul,\n And grow forever and forever.\nBlow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,\nAnd answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1850 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -111256,10 +114663,10 @@ "title": "“St. Agnes’ Eve”", "body": "Deep on the convent-roof the snows\nAre sparkling to the moon:\nMy breath to heaven like vapour goes;\nMay my soul follow soon!\nThe shadows of the convent-towers\nSlant down the snowy sward,\nStill creeping with the creeping hours\nThat lead me to my Lord:\nMake Thou my spirit pure and clear\nAs are the frosty skies,\nOr this first snowdrop of the year\nThat in my bosom lies.\n\nAs these white robes are soil’d and dark,\nTo yonder shining ground;\nAs this pale taper’s earthly spark,\nTo yonder argent round;\nSo shows my soul before the Lamb,\nMy spirit before Thee;\nSo in mine earthly house I am,\nTo that I hope to be.\nBreak up the heavens, O Lord! and far,\nThro’ all yon starlight keen,\nDraw me, thy bride, a glittering star,\nIn raiment white and clean.\n\nHe lifts me to the golden doors;\nThe flashes come and go;\nAll heaven bursts her starry floors,\nAnd strows her lights below,\nAnd deepens on and up! the gates\nRoll back, and far within\nFor me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits,\nTo make me pure of sin.\nThe sabbaths of Eternity,\nOne sabbath deep and wide--\nA light upon the shining sea--\nThe Bridegroom with his bride!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1857 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_agnes_eve" @@ -111270,10 +114677,10 @@ "title": "“Tears, Idle Tears”", "body": "Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,\nTears from the depth of some divine despair\nRise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,\nIn looking on the happy Autumn-fields,\nAnd thinking of the days that are no more.\n\nFresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,\nThat brings our friends up from the underworld,\nSad as the last which reddens over one\nThat sinks with all we love below the verge;\nSo sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.\n\nAh, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns\nThe earliest pipe of half-awaken’d birds\nTo dying ears, when unto dying eyes\nThe casement slowly grows a glimmering square;\nSo sad, so strange, the days that are no more.\n\nDear as remember’d kisses after death,\nAnd sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d\nOn lips that are for others; deep as love,\nDeep as first love, and wild with all regret;\nO Death in Life, the days that are no more!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1847 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -111284,10 +114691,10 @@ "title": "“Tithonius”", "body": "The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,\nThe vapours weep their burthen to the ground,\nMan comes and tills the field and lies beneath,\nAnd after many a summer dies the swan.\nMe only cruel immortality\nConsumes: I wither slowly in thine arms,\nHere at the quiet limit of the world,\nA white-hair’d shadow roaming like a dream\nThe ever-silent spaces of the East,\nFar-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.\n\nAlas! for this gray shadow, once a man--\nSo glorious in his beauty and thy choice,\nWho madest him thy chosen, that he seem’d\nTo his great heart none other than a God!\nI ask’d thee, “Give me immortality.”\nThen didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,\nLike wealthy men, who care not how they give.\nBut thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills,\nAnd beat me down and marr’d and wasted me,\nAnd tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d\nTo dwell in presence of immortal youth,\nImmortal age beside immortal youth,\nAnd all I was, in ashes. Can thy love,\nThy beauty, make amends, tho’ even now,\nClose over us, the silver star, thy guide,\nShines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears\nTo hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift:\nWhy should a man desire in any way\nTo vary from the kindly race of men\nOr pass beyond the goal of ordinance\nWhere all should pause, as is most meet for all?\n\nA soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes\nA glimpse of that dark world where I was born.\nOnce more the old mysterious glimmer steals\nFrom thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,\nAnd bosom beating with a heart renew’d.\nThy cheek begins to redden thro’ the gloom,\nThy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,\nEre yet they blind the stars, and the wild team\nWhich love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,\nAnd shake the darkness from their loosen’d manes,\nAnd beat the twilight into flakes of fire.\n\nLo! ever thus thou growest beautiful\nIn silence, then before thine answer given\nDepartest, and thy tears are on my cheek.\n\nWhy wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,\nAnd make me tremble lest a saying learnt,\nIn days far-off, on that dark earth, be true?\n“The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.”\n\nAy me! ay me! with what another heart\nIn days far-off, and with what other eyes\nI used to watch--if I be he that watch’d--\nThe lucid outline forming round thee; saw\nThe dim curls kindle into sunny rings;\nChanged with thy mystic change, and felt my blood\nGlow with the glow that slowly crimson’d all\nThy presence and thy portals, while I lay,\nMouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm\nWith kisses balmier than half-opening buds\nOf April, and could hear the lips that kiss’d\nWhispering I knew not what of wild and sweet,\nLike that strange song I heard Apollo sing,\nWhile Ilion like a mist rose into towers.\n\nYet hold me not for ever in thine East:\nHow can my nature longer mix with thine?\nColdly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold\nAre all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet\nUpon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam\nFloats up from those dim fields about the homes\nOf happy men that have the power to die,\nAnd grassy barrows of the happier dead.\nRelease me, and restore me to the ground;\nThou seĂ«st all things, thou wilt see my grave:\nThou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn;\nI earth in earth forget these empty courts,\nAnd thee returning on thy silver wheels.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1860 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -111298,10 +114705,10 @@ "title": "“Ulysses”", "body": "It little profits that an idle king,\nBy this still hearth, among these barren crags,\nMatch’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole\nUnequal laws unto a savage race,\nThat hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.\nI cannot rest from travel: I will drink\nLife to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d\nGreatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those\nThat loved me, and alone, on shore, and when\nThro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades\nVext the dim sea: I am become a name;\nFor always roaming with a hungry heart\nMuch have I seen and known; cities of men\nAnd manners, climates, councils, governments,\nMyself not least, but honour’d of them all;\nAnd drunk delight of battle with my peers,\nFar on the ringing plains of windy Troy.\nI am a part of all that I have met;\nYet all experience is an arch wherethro’\nGleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades\nFor ever and forever when I move.\nHow dull it is to pause, to make an end,\nTo rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!\nAs tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life\nWere all too little, and of one to me\nLittle remains: but every hour is saved\nFrom that eternal silence, something more,\nA bringer of new things; and vile it were\nFor some three suns to store and hoard myself,\nAnd this gray spirit yearning in desire\nTo follow knowledge like a sinking star,\nBeyond the utmost bound of human thought.\n\n This is my son, mine own Telemachus,\nTo whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--\nWell-loved of me, discerning to fulfil\nThis labour, by slow prudence to make mild\nA rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees\nSubdue them to the useful and the good.\nMost blameless is he, centred in the sphere\nOf common duties, decent not to fail\nIn offices of tenderness, and pay\nMeet adoration to my household gods,\nWhen I am gone. He works his work, I mine.\n\n There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:\nThere gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,\nSouls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me--\nThat ever with a frolic welcome took\nThe thunder and the sunshine, and opposed\nFree hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;\nOld age hath yet his honour and his toil;\nDeath closes all: but something ere the end,\nSome work of noble note, may yet be done,\nNot unbecoming men that strove with Gods.\nThe lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:\nThe long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep\nMoans round with many voices. Come, my friends,\n’T is not too late to seek a newer world.\nPush off, and sitting well in order smite\nThe sounding furrows; for my purpose holds\nTo sail beyond the sunset, and the baths\nOf all the western stars, until I die.\nIt may be that the gulfs will wash us down:\nIt may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,\nAnd see the great Achilles, whom we knew.\nTho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’\nWe are not now that strength which in old days\nMoved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;\nOne equal temper of heroic hearts,\nMade weak by time and fate, but strong in will\nTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1842 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -111324,10 +114731,10 @@ "title": "“You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease 
”", "body": "You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease,\nWithin this region I subsist,\nWhose spirits falter in the mist,\nAnd languish for the purple seas.\n\nIt is the land that freemen till,\nThat sober-suited Freedom chose,\nThe land, where girt with friends or foes\nA man may speak the thing he will;\n\nA land of settled government,\nA land of just and old renown,\nWhere Freedom slowly broadens down\nFrom precedent to precedent:\n\nWhere faction seldom gathers head,\nBut by degrees to fullness wrought,\nThe strength of some diffusive thought\nHath time and space to work and spread.\n\nShould banded unions persecute\nOpinion, and induce a time\nWhen single thought is civil crime,\nAnd individual freedom mute;\n\nTho’ Power should make from land to land\nThe name of Britain trebly great--\nTho’ every channel of the State\nShould fill and choke with golden sand--\n\nYet waft me from the harbour-mouth,\nWild wind! I seek a warmer sky,\nAnd I will see before I die\nThe palms and temples of the South.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -111459,8 +114866,10 @@ "title": "“Canticle To The Holy Face”", "body": "Dear Jesus! ’tis Thy Holy Face\nIs here the start that guides my way;\nThey countenance, so full of grace,\nIs heaven on earth, for me, today.\nAnd love finds holy charms for me\nIn Thy sweet eyes with tear-drops wet;\nThrough mine own tears I smile at Thee,\nAnd in Thy griefs my pains forget.\nHow gladly would I live unknown,\nThus to console Thy aching heart.\nThy veiled beauty, it is shown\nTo those who live from earth apart.\nI long to fly to Thee alone!\n\nThy Face is now my fatherland,\nThe radiant sunshine of my days,\nMy realm of love, my sunlit land,\nWhere, all life long, I sing Thy praise;\nIt is the lily of the vale,\nWhose mystic perfume, freely given,\nBrings comfort, when I faint and fail,\nAnd makes me taste the peace of heaven.\nThy face, in its unearthly grace,\nIs like the divinest myrrh to me,\nThat on my heart I gladly place;\nIt is my lyre of melody;\nMy rest--my comfort--is Thy Face.\n\nMy only wealth, Lord! is thy Face;\nI ask naught else than this from Thee;\nHid in the secret of that Face,\nThe more I shall resemble Thee!\nOh, leave on me some impress faint\nOf Thy sweet, humble, patient Face,\nAnd soon I shall become a saint,\nAnd draw men to Thy saving grace.\nSo, in the secret of Thy Face,\nOh! hide me, hide me, Jesus blest!\nThere let me find its hidden grace,\nIts holy fires, and, in heaven’s rest,\nIts rapturous kiss, in Thy embrace!", "metadata": { - "translator": "S. L. Emery", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "S. L. Emery" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_therese_of_lisieux" @@ -111471,8 +114880,10 @@ "title": "“Do you realize 
”", "body": "Do you realize that Jesus is there in the tabernacle expressly for you--for you alone? He burns with the desire to come into your heart 
don’t listen to the demon, laugh at him, and go without fear to receive the Jesus of peace and love 
\n\nReceive Communion often, very often 
there you have the sole remedy, if you want to be cured. Jesus has not put this attraction in your heart for nothing 
\n\nThe guest of our soul knows our misery; He comes to find an empty tent within us--that is all He asks.", "metadata": { - "translator": "S. L. Emery", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "S. L. Emery" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_therese_of_lisieux" @@ -111483,8 +114894,10 @@ "title": "“The Eternal Canticle”", "body": "Exiled afar from heaven, I still, dear Lord, can sing,--\nI, Thy betrothed, can sing the eternal hymn of love;\nFor, spite of exile comes to me, on dove-like wing,\nThy Holy Spirit’s fire of rapture from above.\n\nBeauty supreme! my Love Thou art;\nThyself Thou givest all to me.\nOh, take my heart, my yearning heart,--\nMake of my life one act of love to Thee!\n\nCanst Thou my worthlessness efface?\nIn heart like mine canst make Thy home?\nYes, love wins love, -O wondrous grace!\nI love Thee, love Thee! Jesu, come I\n\nLove that enkindleth me,\nPierce and inflame me;\nCome, for I cry to Thee!\nCome and be mine!\n\nThy love it urgeth me;\nFain would I ever be\nSunken and lost in Thee,\nFurnace divine!\n\nAll pain borne for Thee\nChanges to joy for me,\nWhen my love flies to Thee,\nWinged like the dove.\n\nHeavenly Completeness,\nInfinite Sweetness,\nMy soul possesseth Thee\nHere, as above.\n\nHeavenly Completeness,\nInfinite sweetness,\nNaught else art Thou but Love!", "metadata": { - "translator": "S. L. Emery", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "S. L. Emery" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_therese_of_lisieux" @@ -111495,8 +114908,10 @@ "title": "“Jesus, My Beloved Remember Thou”", "body": "Recall, O Christ! the Father’s glories bright,\nRecall the splendors of Thy heavenly home,\nWhich Thou didst leave, to come to earth’s dark night,\nAnd save poor sinners who in exile roam!\nDear Jesus! bending down at Mary’s humble word,\nIn her Thou didst conceal Thy majesty adored.\n\nNow that maternal breast,\nThy second heaven, Thy rest,\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember, now, the day of Thy blest birth,\nHow angels, quitting heaven, sang joyously:\n“To God be power, glory, lasting worth;\nAnd peace to men of good-will ever be!”\nFor nineteen hundred years Thy promise Thou hast kept;\nThy children in that peace have waked, and worked, and slept.\n\nTo taste forever here\nThy peace, divinely dear,\nI seek Thee now.\n\nRemember O Thou Babe in swaddling bands!\nBeside Thy crib I would forever stay.\nThere, with Thine angels, Lord of all the lands!\nI would remind thee of that happy day.\nO Jesus! call to mind the shepherds and wise men,\nWho offered Thee their hearts, as I mine own again;\n\nThe Babes of Bethlehem see,\nWho gave their blood for Thee.\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember Thou that Mary’s holy arms\nThou didst prefer to any royal throne.\nDear little One! she shielded Thee from harm,\nShe fed Thee with her virginal milk alone.\nOh, at that feast of love Thy mother gave to Thee,\nMy little Brother, grant that I a guest may be,\n\nThy little sister I.\nOh, hear my ardent cry:\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember that Thy childish voice, dear Lord!\nCalled Joseph father, who, at heaven’s decree,\nPrevailed to snatch Thee from the tyrant’s sword,\nAnd sought old Egypt’s far-off coast with Thee.\nO Word of God! recall what mysteries round Thee woke;\nThou didst keep silent, Lord! the while an angel spoke.\n\nThy distant, long exile\nOn banks of ancient Nile,\nRemember now.\n\nRemember Thou that on my native shore,\nThe stars of gold, the moon of silver bright,\nWhich I contemplate, wondering more and more,\nCharmed in the East Thine infant eyes at night.\nThat tiny hand of Thine, that stroked Thy Mother’s face,\nSustained the world, held all things in their place.\n\nAnd Thou didst think of me!\nAh! how I think of Thee,\nRemember now.\n\nRemember Thou, in solitude most blest,\nThou laboredst with Thy hands for daily bread.\nTo live forgotten,--this Thy earnest quest,\nAll human wisdom trampled ‘neath Thy tread,\nOne single word of Thine could charm a listening world;\nYet Thou Thy wisdom kept in closest silence furled.\n\nThou, Who didst all things know,\nNo sign of power wouldst show.\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember how,--Stranger and Pilgrim here,--\nThou hadst no’home, O Thou Eternal Word!\nNot e’en a pillow for Thy head most dear;\nNot e’en a shelter, like the flitting bird.\nO Jesu, come to me! Rest Thou upon my breast.\nCome, Come! My spirit longs to have Thee for its Guest.\n\nThou well-beloved, adored!\nRest in my heart, dear Lord,\nEver as now!\n\nRemember Thou, the loving tenderness\nThat Thou didst show to children seeking Thee.\nLike them I would receive Thy kind caress;\nLike them, Thy blessings, Lord, be granted me.\nThat I in heaven may gain Thy welcome and Thy rest,\nHere will I practise well all childhood’s virtues best.\n\n“The childlike soul wins heaven.”\nThis promise Thou hast given,\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember Thou that on the fountain’s brink,\nA traveller, weary with the journey’s length,\nThou of the sinful tenderly didst think,\nAnd for contrition gave her lasting strength.\nI know Thee well Who asked, of her, the draught, that day.\n\nThou art “the Gift of God,” the Life, the Truth the Way.\nThou wilt not pass me by.\nI hear Thy tender cry:\n\n“Come to Me now!”\n“Come unto Me, poor souls with sorrow tost!\nYour heavy load My hands shall take away;\nYour griefs and pains shall be forever lost,\nWithin the depths of love I feel for aye.”\nI thirst, I thirst, 0 Christ! Nought else I seek, save Thee.\nBorne down beneath my cross, I cry: “O comfort me!”\n\nBe Thy dear love my home!\nI come! Yes, Lord, I come!\nReceive me now!\n\nRemember Thou that, though a child of light,\nToo oft, alas! I have neglected Thee.\nTake pity on me in life’s dreary night;\nOh, pardon all my sin and misery!\nMake my sad heart rejoice Thy holy will to do;\nMy soul to those delights, hid in Thy gospels, woo!\n\nThat I that book of gold\nEver most dear did hold,\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember Thou Thy holy Mother’s power\nThat she possesses o’er Thy Heart divine.\nRemember, at her prayer, one joyful hour,\nThou didst change water to delicious wine.\nDeign also to transform my works, though poor they be;\nOh, make them glorious works, when Mary pleads with Thee.\n\nThat I am Mary’s child,\nDear Jesus, meek and mild,\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember that the summits of the hills\nThou often didst ascend at set of sun.\nAh! how Thy prayer the long, long night-hours fills,\nThy chants of praise when weary day is done.\nThy prayer I offer now, with ever new delight,\nJoined to my own poor prayers, my office, day and night.\n\nThat I, too, near Thy heart,\nTake in Thy prayer my part,\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember that Thine eyes beheld the fields\nWhite to the harvest,--harvest of the blest!\nThy Heart o’er them Its mystic influence wields;\nWithin that Heart is room for all, and rest.\nThat soon may come for Thee Thy glorious harvest day,\nI immolate myself, I offer prayers alway.\n\nI give my joys, my tears,\nFor thy good harvesters.\nRemember Thou!\n\nRecall that feast of angels in delight,\nThat harmony of heaven’s kingly host,\nThe joy of all those choirs of spirits bright,\nWhen one is saved, once counted ‘mongst the lost.\nOh, how I would augment that joy and glory there!\nFor sinners I will pray with ceaseless, ardent prayer.\n\nTo win dear souls to heaven,\nMy life and prayers are given.\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember that most holy flame of love\nThou wouldst enkindle in all hearts alway.\nTo me it came from Thy fair heaven above;\nWould I could spread its fires by night and day!\nOne feeble spark, dear Lord!--0 glorious mystery!--\nA fire immense can light, if fanned to flame by Thee.\n\nI long, Divinest Star!\nTo bear Thy flames afar.\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember how the festal board was graced,\nTo feast the penitent returning son!\nRemember, too, the innocent soul is placed\nEver near Thee, O Thou Beloved One!\nUnto the prodigal no welcome is denied;\nBut, ah! the elder son is always at Thy side.\n\nFather, and Love Divine,\nAll that Thou hast is mine.\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember how Thou didst disdain earth’s pride,\nWhen working miracles with God’s own ease.\n“Ye who seek human praise! can ye decide\nTo give your faith to mysteries like these?\nThe great works that I do, (so Thou hast said, dear Lord!)\nMy friends shall yet surpass, according to My word.”\n\nHow humble Thou wast then,\nAmong the sons of men.\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember in what rapture of delight\nThe loved apostle rested on Thy Heart.\nIn that deep peace he knew Thy love and might;\nThy mysteries thence he drew,--how strong Thou art!\nOf Thy beloved John I feel no jealousy.\nI am Thy choice; I, too, behold the mystery.\n\nI, too, upon Thy breast\nMay have ecstatic rest.\nRemember Thou!\n\nRecall Thine awful hour of agony\nWhen blood and tears bore witness to Thy woe.\nO pearls of love! O rubies fair to see!\nThence virginal blooms of beauty ever grow.\nAn angel, showing Thee what harvest Thou shouldst reap,\nGave gladness to Thee, then, even while Thou didst weep.\n\nThen truly didst Thou see,\nAmongst those lilies, me!\nRemember now!\n\nThy blood, Thy tears,--a fruitful living source,\nThose mystic flowers, makes virginal evermore;\nAnd to them grants a wondrous, holy force,\nFor winning souls to serve Thee and adore.\nA virginal heart is mine; yet, Christ, what mystery!\nMother of souls am I, through my chaste bond with Thee.\n\nThese virginal flowers that bloom\nTo bring poor sinners home,\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember Thou, that, steeped in direst woe,\nCondemned by men, to heaven Thine eyes were raised;\nAnd Thou didst cry: “Soon ye My power shall know.\nSoon shall ye hear My name by angels praised!”\nYet who believed Thee, then, the Son of God to be,\nThy glory veiled and hid in our humanity?\n\nFairest of sons of men!\nMy God! I knew Thee then!\nRemember now!\n\nRemember that Thy dear, divinest Face,\nEven among Thy friends, was oft unknown.\nBut Thou hast drawn me by its matchless grace;\nThou knowest well I claimed it for mine own.\nI have divined its charms, tho’ wet with human tears.\nFace of Eternal God! I love Thee all these years.\n\nPart of my name Thou art!\nThou dost console mv heart.\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember Thou that amorous complaint,\nEscaping from Thy lips on Calvary’s tree:\n“I thirst!” Oh, how my heart like Thine doth faint.\nYes, yes! I share Thy burning thirst with Thee.\nThe more my heart burns bright with Thy great Heart’s chaste fires,\nThe more I thirst for souls, to quench Thy Heart’s desires.\n\nThat with such love always\nI burn, by night, by day,\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember, O my Jesu! Word of life!\nThat Thou hast loved me, dying e’en for me.\nOh, let me be with holy folly rife!\nSo would I, also, live and die for Thee!\nThou knowest, Lord! my wish, my loving heart’s desire,--\nTo make Thee loved, and then, in martyrdom expire.\n\nI long of love to die.\nO hear my ardent cry.\nRemember Thou!\n\nRecall that glorious, that victorious hour,\nWhen Thou didst say: “Happy indeed is he,\nWho has not seen My triumph and My power,\nBut, seeing not, has still believed in Me.”\nIn faith’s dim, shadowy night, I love Thee, I adore.\nJesu, I wait in peace, till faith’s long night is o’er.\n\nThat not one wish had I\nTo see Thee ‘neath this sky,\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember that ascending unto God,\nThou wouldst not leave us orphans sad and lone,\nBut didst, a Prisoner still, where we abode,\nVeil on our altars all Thy pomp, my Own!\nThe shadow of Thy veil is, oh! how pure and bright,\nThou Living Bread of faith, heaven’s Food, my heart’s Delight.\n\nO mystery of love!\nMy Bread from heaven above,\nJesus, ’tis Thou!\n\nRemember Thou, in spite of insults hurled\nAgainst this sacrament of love divine,\nThou dost remain in this dull, weary world,\nAnd fix Thy dwelling in a heart like mine.\nO Bread of exiled souls! holy and heavenly Host!\nNo more I live--not I! in Thee my life is lost.\n\nThy chosen ciborium\nAm I. Come, Jesu, come!\nMy Love art Thou.\n\nThy sanctuary here, dear Lord, am I,\nThat evil men shall never dare molest.\nRest in my, heart! Oh, do not pass me by!\nThy garden I, each flower an offering blest.\nBut if from me Thou turn, white Lily of the vale!\nI know too well those flowers would wither and would fail.\n\nEver, Thou Lily rare!\nBloom in my garden fair.\nMy life art Thou!\n\nRemember that I longed upon this earth,\nTo comfort Thee for sinners’ scorn of Thee.\nGive me a thousand hearts to praise Thy worth.\nMy Well-Beloved! abide, abide with me!\nA thousand hearts too few would be for my desire;\nGive me Thy Heart to set my longing heart on fire.\n\nMy ardent love for Thee,\nWhile swift the moments flee,\nRemember Thou!\n\nRemember, Lord! that Thy dear will alone\nIs my sole wish, my only happiness.\nI give mvself to Thee, to rest, mine Own!\nWith Thee in peace, and know Thy power to bless.\nAnd if Thou seems’t to sleep while raging waves beat high,\nIn peace I still remain, without one anguished cry.\n\nIn peace, on Thee, I wait;\nBut, for th’ Awakening great,\nPrepare me Thou!\n\nRemember how I often long and sigh\nFor that last day when angels shall proclaim:\n“Time is no more! The judgment draweth nigh.\nRise thou, to face thy judge! He calls thy name.”\nThen swiftly shall I fly, past bounds of earth in space,\nTo live at last within the Vision of Thy Face.\n\nThat it alone can be\nMy joy eternally,\nRemember Thou!\n\nThe life immortal must\nBe this life of ours.\nLimitless progress, Joy\nMust feed our hours.\nThe selfless Will that knows\nNo feeble fears\nIs our only guide and Eye\nTo end our tears.", "metadata": { - "translator": "S. L. Emery", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "S. L. Emery" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_therese_of_lisieux" @@ -111507,8 +114922,10 @@ "title": "“Jesus Only”", "body": "Oh, how my heart would spend itself, to bless;\nIt hath such need to prove its tenderness!\nAnd yet what heart can my heart comprehend?\nWhat heart shall always love me without end?\nAll--all in vain for such return seek I;\nJesus alone my soul can satisfy.\nNaught else contents or charms me here below;\nCreated things no lasting joy bestow\n\nMy peace, my joy, my love, O Christ!\n’Tis Thou alone! Thou hast sufficed.\n\nThou didst know how to make a mother’s heart;\nTenderest of fathers, Lord! to me Thou art.\nMy only Love, Jesus, Divinest Word!\nMore than maternal is Thy heart, dear Lord!\nEach moment Thou my way dost guard and guide;\nI call--at once I find Thee at my side--\nAnd if, sometimes Thou hid’st Thy face from me,\nThou com’st Thyself to help me seek for Thee.\n\nThee, Thee, alone I choose: I am Thy bride.\nUnto Thy arms I hasten, there to hide.\nThee would I love, as little children love;\nFor Thee, like warrior bold, my love I’d prove.\nNow, like to children, full of joy and glee,\nSo come I, Lord! to show my love to Thee;\nYet, like a warrior bold with high elation,\nRush I to combats in my blest vocation.\n\nThy Heart is Guardian of our innocence;\nNot once shall it deceive my confidence.\nWholly my hopes are placed in Thee, dear Lord!\nAfter long exile, I Thy Face adored\nIn heaven shall see. When clouds the skies o’erspread.\nTo Thee, my Jesus! I lift up my head;\nFor, in Thy tender glance, these words I see:\n‘O child! I made My radiant heaven for thee.\n\nI know it well--my burning tears and sighs\nAre full of charm for Thy benignant eyes.\nStrong seraphs form in heaven Thy court divine,\nYet Thou dost seek this poor weak heart of mine.\nAh! take my heart! Jesus, ’tis Thine alone;\nAll my desires I yield to Thee, my Own!\nAnd all my friends, that are so loved by me,\nNo longer will I love them, save in Thee!", "metadata": { - "translator": "S. L. Emery", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "S. L. Emery" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_therese_of_lisieux" @@ -111519,8 +114936,10 @@ "title": "“My Hope”", "body": "Though in a foreign land I dwell afar,\nI taste in dreams the endless joys of heaven.\nFain would I fly beyond the farthest star,\nAnd see the wonders to the ransomed given!\nNo more the sense of exile weighs on me,\nWhen once I dream of that immortal day.\nTo my true fatherland, dear God! I see,\nFor the first time I soon shall fly away.\n\nAh! give me, Jesus! wings as white as snow,\nThat unto Thee I soon may take my flight.\nI long to be where flowers unfading blow;\nI long to see Thee, O my heart’s Delight!\nI long to fly to Mary’s mother-arms,--\nTo rest upon that spotless throne of bliss;\nAnd, sheltered there from troubles and alarms,\nFor the first time to feel her gentle kiss.\n\nThy first sweet smile of welcoming delight\nSoon show, O Jesus! to Thy lowly bride;\nO’ercome with rapture at that wondrous sight,\nWithin Thy Sacred Heart, ah! let me hide.\nO happy moment! and O heavenly grace!\nWhen I shall hear Thee, Jesus, speak to me;\nAnd the full vision of Thy glorious Face\nFor the first time my longing eyes shall see.\n\nThou knowest well, my only martyrdom\nIs love, O Heart of Jesus Christ! for Thee;\nAnd if my soul craves for its heavenly home,\n’Tis but to love Thee more, eternally.\nAbove, when Thy sweet Face unveiled I view,\nMeasure nor bounds shall to my love be given;\nForever my delight shall seem as new\nAs the first time my spirit entered heaven.", "metadata": { - "translator": "S. L. Emery", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "S. L. Emery" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_therese_of_lisieux" @@ -111531,12 +114950,14 @@ "title": "“My Song Of Today”", "body": "Oh! how I love Thee, Jesus! my soul aspires to Thee--\nAnd yet for one day only my simple prayer I pray!\nCome reign within my heart, smile tenderly on me,\nTo-day, dear Lord, to-day.\n\nBut if I dare take thought of what the morrow brings--\nThat fills my fickle heart with dreary, dull dismay;\nI crave, indeed, my God, trials and sufferings,\nBut only for to-day!\n\nO sweetest Star of heaven! O Virgin, spotless, blest,\nShining with Jesus’ light, guiding to Him my way!\nO Mother! ‘neath thy veil let my tired spirit rest,\nFor this brief passing day!\n\nSoon shall I fly afar among the holy choirs,\nThen shall be mine the joy that never knows decay;\nAnd then my lips shall sing, to heaven’s angelic lyres,\nThe eternal, glad To-day!", "metadata": { - "translator": "S. L. Emery", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1894, "month": "june" }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "S. L. Emery" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_therese_of_lisieux" @@ -111547,13 +114968,15 @@ "title": "“To Live Of Love”", "body": "1.\n\nThe eve His life of love drew near its end,\nThus Jesus spoke: “Whoever loveth Me,\nAnd keeps My word as Mine own faithful friend,\nMy Father, then and I his guests will be;\nWithin his heart will make Our dwelling above.\nOur palace home, true type of heaven above.\nThere, filled with peace, We will that he shall rest,\nWith us, in love.”\n\n\n2.\n\nIncarnate Word! Thou Word of God alone!\nTo live of love, ’tis to abide with Thee.\nThou knowest I love Thee, Jesus Christ, my Own!\nThy Spirit’s fire of love enkindleth me.\nBy loving Thee, I draw the Father here\nDown to my heart, to stay with me always.\nBlest Trinity! Thou art my prisoner dear,\nOf love, to-day.\n\n\n3.\n\nTo live of love, ’tis by Thy life to live,\nO glorious King, my chosen, sole Delight!\nHid in the Host, how often Thou dost give\nThyself to those who seek Thy radiant light.\nThen hid shall be my life, unmarked, unknown,\nThat I may have Thee heart to heart with me;\nFor loving souls desire to be alone,\nWith love, and Thee!\n\n\n4.\n\nTo live of love, ’tis not to fix one’s tent\nOn Tabor’s height and there with Thee remain.\n’Tis to climb Calvary with strength nigh spent,\nAnd count Thy heavy cross our truest gain.\nIn heaven, my life a life of joy shall be,\nThe heavy cross shall then be gone for aye.\nHere upon earth, in suffering with Thee,\nLove! let me stay.\n\n\n5.\n\nTo live of love, ’tis without stint to give,\nAn never count the cost, nor ask reward;\nSo, counting not the cost, I long to live\nAnd show my dauntless love for Thee, dear Lord!\nO Heart Divine, o’erflowing with tenderness,\nHow swift I run, who all to Thee has given!\nNaught but Thy love I need, my life to bless.\nThat love is heaven!\n\n\n6.\n\nTo live of love, it is to know no fear;\nNo memory of past faults can I recall;\nNo imprint of my sins remaineth here;\nThe fire of Love divine effaces all.\nO sacred flames! O furnace of delight!\nI sing my safe sweet happiness to prove.\nIn these mild fires I dwell by day, by night.\nI live of love!\n\n\n7.\n\nTo live of love, ’tis in my heart to guard\nA mighty treasure in a fragile vase.\nWeak, weak, am I, O well?beloved Lord!\nNor have I yet an angel’s perfect grace.\nBut, if I fall each hour that hurries by,\nThou com’st to me from Thy bright home above,\nAnd, raising me, dost give me strength to cry:\nI live of love!\n\n\n8.\n\nTo live of love it is to sail afar\nAnd bring both peace and joy where’er I be.\n0 Pilot blest! love is my guiding star;\nIn every soul I meet, Thyself I see.\nSafe sail I on, through wind or rain or ice;\nLove urges me, love conquers every gale.\nHigh on my mast behold is my device:\n“By love I sail!”\n\n\n9.\n\nTo live of love, it is when Jesus sleeps\nTo sleep near Him, though stormy waves beat nigh.\nDeem not I shall awake Him! On these deeps\nPeace reigns, like that the Blessed know.on high.\nTo Hope, the vovage seems one little day;\nFaith’s hand shall soon the veil between remove;\n’Tis Charity that swells my sail alway.\nI live of love!\n\n\n10.\n\nTo live of love, 0 Master dearest, best!\nIt is to beg Thee light Thy holiest fires\nWithin the soul of each anointed priest,\nTill he shall feel the Seraphim’s desires;\nIt is to beg Thee guard Thy Church, 0 Christ!\nFor this I plead with Thee by night, by day;\nAnd give myself, in sacrifice unpriced,\nWith love alway!\n\n\n11.\n\nTo live of love, it is to dry Thy tears,\nTo seek for pardon for each sinful soul,\nTo strive to save all men from doubts and fears,\nAnd bring them home to Thy benign control.\nComes to my ear sin’s wild and blasphemous roar;\nSo, to efface each day, that burning shame,\nI cry: “O Jesus Christ! I Thee adore.\nI love Thy Name!”\n\n\n12.\n\nTo live of love, ’tis Mary’s part to share,\nTo bathe with tears and odorous perfume\nThy holy feet, to wipe them with my hair,\nTo kiss them; then still loftier lot assume,?\nTo rise, and by Thy side to take my place,\nAnd pour my ointments on Thy holy head.\nBut with no balsams I embalm Thy Face!\n’Tis love, instead!\n\n\n13.\n\n“To live of love, what foolishness she sings!”\nSo cries the world. “Renounce such idle jov!\nWaste not thy perfumes on such trivial things.\nIn useful arts thy talents now employ!”\nTo love Thee, Jesus! Ah, this loss is gain;\nFor all my perfumes no reward seek I.\nQuitting the world, I sing in death’s sweet pain:\nOf love I die!\n\n\n14.\n\nTo die of love, O martyrdom most blest!\nFor this I long, this is my heart’s desire;\nMy exile ends; I soon will be at rest.\nYe Cherubim, lend, lend to me your lyre!\nO dart of Seraphim, O flame of love,\nConsume me wholly; hear my ardent cry!\nJesu, make reall my dream! Come Holy Dove!\nOf love I die!\n\n\n15.\n\nTo die of love, behold my life’s long hope!\nGod is my one exceeding great reward.\nHe of my wishes forms the end and scope;\nHim only do I seek; my dearest Lord.\nWith passionate love for Him my heart is riven.\nO may He quickly come! He draweth nigh!\nBehold my destiny, behold my heaven,--\nOf love to die.", "metadata": { - "translator": "S. L. Emery", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1895, "month": "february", "day": 25 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "S. L. Emery" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "holy_thursday" @@ -111564,8 +114987,10 @@ "title": "“To The Sacred Heart”", "body": "Beside the tomb wept Magdalen at dawn,--\nShe sought to find the dead and buried Christ;\nNothing could fill the void now He was gone,\nNo one to soothe her burning grief sufficed.\n\nNot even you, Archangels heaven-assigned!\nTo her could bring content that dreary day.\nYour buried King, alone, she longed to find,\nAnd bear His lifeless body far away.\n\nBeside His tomb she there the last remained,\nAnd there again was she before the sun;\nThere, too, to come to her the Saviour deigned,--\nHe would not be, by her, in love outdone.\n\nGently He showed her then His blessed Face,\nAnd one word sprang from His deep Heart’s recess:\nMary! His voice she knew, she knew its grace;\nIt came with perfect peace her heart to bless.\n\nOne day, my God! I, too, like Magdalen,\nDesired to find Thee, to draw near to Thee;\nSo, over earth’s immense, wide-stretching plain,\nI sought its Master and its King to see.\n\nThen cried I, though I saw the flowers bloom\nIn beauty ‘neath green trees and azure skies:\nO brilliant Naturel thou art one vast tomb,\nUnless God’s Face shall greet my longing eyes.\n\nA heart I need, to soothe me and to bless,--\nA strong support that can not pass away,--\nTo love me wholly, e’en my feebleness,\nAnd never leave me through the night or day.\n\nThere is not one created thing below,\nCan love me truly, and can never die.\nGod become man--none else’ my needs can know;\nHe, He alone, can understand my cry.\n\nThou comprehendest all I need, dear Lord!\nTo win my heart, from heaven Thou didst come;\nFor me Thy blood didst shed, O King adored!\nAnd on our altars makest Thy home.\n\nSo, if I may not here behold Thy Face,\nOr catch the heaenly music of Thy Voice,\nI still can live, each moment, by Thy grace,\nAnd in Thy Sacred Heart I can rejoice.\n\nO Heart of Jesus, wealth of tenderness!\nMy joy Thou art, in Thee I safely hide.\nThou, Who my earliest youth didst charm and bless,\nTill my last evening, oh! with me abide,\n\nAll that I had, to Thee I wholly gave,\nTo Thee each deep desire of mine is known.\nWhoso his life shall lose, that life shall save;--\nLet mine be ever lost in Thine alone!\n\nI know it well, no righteousness of mine\nHath any value in Thy searching eyes;\nIts every breath my heart must draw from Thine,\nTo make of worth my life’s long sacrifice.\n\nThou hast not found Thine angels without taint;\nThy Law amid the thunderbolts was given;\nAnd yet, my Jesus! I nor fear nor faint.\nFor me, on Calvary, Thy Heart was riven.\n\nTo see Thee in Thy glory face to face,--\nI know it well,--the soul must pass through fires.\nChoose I on earth my purgatorial place,--\nThe flaming love of Thy great Heart’s desires!\n\nSo shall my exiled soul, to death’s command,\nMake answer with one cry of perfect love;\nThen flying straight to heaven its Fatherland,\nShall reach with no delay that home above.", "metadata": { - "translator": "S. L. Emery", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "S. L. Emery" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "sacred_heart_of_jesus" @@ -112654,10 +116079,10 @@ "tags": [ "favorite" ], + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1890 - }, - "language": "English" + } } }, "in-no-strange-land": { @@ -112749,20 +116174,38 @@ "name": "Henry David Thoreau", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1817 + "year": 1817, + "month": "july", + "day": 12 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Concord", + "state": "Massachusetts", + "country": "USA" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1862 + "year": 1862, + "month": "may", + "day": 6 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Concord", + "state": "Massachusetts", + "country": "USA" } }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ "poet" ], - "education": null, - "movement": [], + "education": { + "bachelors": "Harvard University" + }, + "movement": [ + "Transcendentalism" + ], "religion": null, "nationality": [ "united-states" @@ -112774,7 +116217,8 @@ "favorite": false, "tags": [ "American", - "English" + "English", + "Transcendentalism" ] }, "poems": { @@ -112870,8 +116314,10 @@ "title": "“The Arts of Conquest”", "body": "“Safe in the shelter of thy garden-bower,\n Priapus, from the harm of suns or snows,\n With beard all shag, and hair that wildly flows,--\n O say! o’er beauteous youth whence comes thy power?\n Naked thou frontest wintry nights and days,\n Naked, no less, to Sirius’ burning rays.”\n\nSo did my song implore the rustic son\nOf Bacchus, by his moon-shaped sickle known.\n\n “Comply with beauty’s lightest wish,” said he,\n “Complying love leads best to victory.\n Nor let a furious ’No’ thy bosom pain;\n Beauty but slowly can endure a chain.\n Slow Time the rage of lions will o’er-sway,\n And bid them fawn on man. Rough rocks and rude\n In gentle streams Time smoothly wears away;\n And on the vine-clad hills by sunshine wooed,\n The purpling grapes feel Time’s secure control;\n In Time, the skies themselves new stars unroll.\n Fear not great oaths! Love’s broken oaths are borne\n Unharmed of heaven o’er every wind and wave.\n Jove is most mild; and he himself hath sworn\n There is no force in vows which lovers rave.\n Falsely by Dian’s arrows boldly swear!\n And perjure thee by chaste Minerva’s hair!”\n\n “Be a prompt wooer, if thou wouldst be wise:\n Time is in flight, and never backward flies.\n How swiftly fades the bloom, the vernal green!\n How swift yon poplar dims its silver sheen!\n Spurning the goal th’ Olympian courser flies,\n Then yields to Time his strength, his victories;\n And oft I see sad, fading youth deplore\n Each hour it lost, each pleasure it forbore.\n Serpents each spring look young once more; harsh Heaven\n To beauteous youth has one brief season given.\n With never-fading youth stern Fate endows\n Phoebus and Bacchus only, and allows\n Full-clustering ringlets on their lovely brows.”\n\n “Keep at thy loved one’s side, though hour by hour\n The path runs on; though Summer’s parching star\n Burn all the fields, or blackest tempests lower,\n Or monitory rainbows threaten far.\n If he would hasten o’er the purple sea,\n Thyself the helmsman or the oarsman be.\n Endure, unmurmuring, each unwelcome toil,\n Nor fear thy unaccustomed hands to spoil.\n If to the hills he goes with huntsman’s snare,\n Let thine own back the nets and burden bear.\n Swords would he have? Fence lightly when you meet;\n Expose thy body and compel defeat.\n He will be gracious then, and will not spurn\n Caresses to receive, resist, return.\n He will protest, relent, and half-conspire,\n And later, all unasked, thy love desire.”\n\n “But nay! In these vile times thy skill is vain.\n Beauty and youth are sold for golden gain.\n May he who first taught love to sell and buy,\n In grave accurst, with all his riches lie!”\n\n “O beauteous youth, how will ye dare to slight\n The Muse, to whom Pierian streams belong?\n Will ye not smile on poets, and delight,\n More than all golden gifts, in gift of song?\n Did not some song empurple Nisus’ hair,\n And bid young Pelops’ ivory shoulder glow?\n That youth the Muses praise, is he not fair,\n Long as the stars shall shine or waters flow?”\n\n “But he who scorns the Muse, and will for gain\n Surrender his base heart,--let his foul cries\n Pursue the Corybants’ infuriate train,\n Through all the cities of the Phrygian plain,--\n Unmanned forever, in foul Phrygian guise!\n But Venus blesses lovers who endear\n Love’s quest alone by flattery, by fear,\n By supplication, plaint, and piteous tear.”\n\nSuch song the god of gardens bade me sing\nFor Titius; but his fond wife would fling\nSuch counsel to the winds: “Beware,” she cried,\n\n “Trust not fair youth too far. For each one’s pride\n Offers alluring charms: one loves to ride\n A gallant horse, and rein him firmly in;\n One cleaves the calm wave with white shoulder bare;\n One is all courage, and for this looks fair;\n And one’s pure, blushing cheeks thy praises win.”\n\nLet him obey her! But my precepts wise\nAre meant for all whom youthful beauty’s eyes\nTurn from in scorn. Let each his glory boast!\nMine is, that lovers, when despairing most,\nMy clients should be called. For them my door\nStands hospitably open evermore.\nPhilosopher to Venus I shall be,\nAnd throngs of studious youth will learn of me.\n\nAlas! alas! How love has been my bane!\nMy cunning fails, and all my arts are vain.\nHave mercy, fair one, lest my pupils all\nMock me, who point a path in which I fall!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -112879,8 +116325,10 @@ "title": "“Country-Life with Delia”", "body": "With haughty frown I swore I could employ\n Thine absence well. But all my pride is o’er!\nNow am I lashed, as when a madcap boy\n Whirls a swift top along the level floor.\n\nAye! Twist me! Plague me! Never shall I say\n Such boast again. Thy scorn and anger spare!\nSpare me!--by all our stolen loves I pray,\n By Venus,--by thy wealth of plaited hair!\n\nWas it not I, when fever laid thee low,\n Whose holy rites and offerings set thee free?\nThrice round thy bed with brimstone did I go,\n While the wise witch sang healing charms for thee.\n\nLest evil dreams should vex thee, I did bring\n That worshipped wafer by the Vestal given;\nThen, with loose robes and linen stole, did sing\n Nine prayers to Hecate ’neath the midnight heaven.\n\nAll rites were done! Yet doth a rival hold\n My darling, and my futile prayers deride:\nFor I dreamed madly of a life all gold,\n If she were healed,--but Heaven the dream denied.\n\nA pleasant country-seat, whose orchards yield\n Sweet fruit to be my Delia’s willing care,\nWhile our full corn-crop in the sultry field\n Stands ripe and dry! O, but my dreams were fair!\n\nShe in the vine-vat will our clusters press,\n And tread the rich must with her dancing feet;\nShe oft my sheep will number, oft caress\n Some pretty, prattling slave with kisses sweet.\n\nShe offers Pan due tributes of our wealth,\n Grapes for the vine, and for a field of corn\nWheat in the ear, or for the sheep-fold’s health\n Some frugal feast is to his altar borne.\n\nOf all my house let her the mistress be!\n I am displaced and give not one command!\nThen let Messala come! From each choice tree\n Let Delia pluck him fruit with her soft hand!\n\nTo serve and please so worshipful a guest,\n She spends her utmost art and anxious care;\nAsks his least wish, and spreads her dainty best,\n Herself the hostess and hand-maiden fair.\n\nMad hope! The storm-winds bore away that dream\n Far as Armenia’s perfume-breathing bids.\nGreat Venus! Did I at thy shrine blaspheme?\n Am I accursed for rash and impious words?\n\nHad I, polluted, touched some altar pure,\n Or stolen garlands from a temple door--\nWhat prayers and vigils would I not endure,\n And weeping kiss the consecrated floor?\n\nHad I deserved this stroke,--with pious pain\n From shrine to shrine my suppliant knees should crawl;\nI would to all absolving gods complain,\n And smite my forehead on the marble wall.\n\nThou who thy gibes at love canst scarce repress,\n Beware! The angry god may strike again!\nI knew a youth who laughed at love’s distress,\n And bore, when old, the worst that lovers ken.\n\nHis poor, thin voice he did compel to woo,\n And curled, for mockery, his scanty hair;\nSpied on her door, as slighted lovers do,\n And stopped her maid in any public square.\n\nThe forum-loungers thrust him roughly by,\n And spat upon their breasts, such luck to turn:\nHave mercy, Venus! Thy true follower I!\n Why wouldst thou, goddess, thine own harvest burn!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -112888,8 +116336,10 @@ "title": "“A Desperate Expedient”", "body": "Thou beckonest ever with a face all smiles,\n Then, God of Love, thou lookest fierce and pale.\nUnfeeling boy! why waste on me such wiles?\n What glory if a god o’er man prevails?\n\nOnce more thy snares are set. My Delia flies\n To steal a night--with whom I cannot tell.\nCan I believe when she denies, denies--\n I, for whose sake she tricked her lord so well?\n\nBy me, alas! those cunning ways were shown\n To fool her slaves. My skill I now deplore!\nFor me she made excuse to sleep alone,\n Or silenced the shrill hinges of her door.\n\n’Twas I prescribed what remedies to use\n If mutual passion somewhat fiercely play;\nIf there were tell-tale bite or rosy bruise,\n I showed what simples take the scars away.\n\nHear me! fond husband of the false and fair,\n Make me thy guest, and she shall chastely go!\nWhen she makes talk with men I shall take care,\n Nor shall she at the wine her bosom show.\n\nI shall take care she does not nod or smile\n To any other, nor her hand imbue\nWith his fast-flowing wine, that her swift guile\n May scribble on the board their rendez-vous.\n\nWhen she goes out, beware! And if she hie\n To Bona Dea, where no males may be,\nStraight to the sacred altars follow I,\n Who only trust her if my eyes can see.\n\nOh! oft I pressed that soft hand I adore,\n Feigning with some rare ring or seal to play,\nAnd plied thee with strong wine till thou didst snore,\n While I, with wine and water, won the day.\n\nI wronged thee, aye! But ’twas not what I meant.\n Forgive, for I confess. ’Twas Cupid’s spell\nO’er-swayed me. Who can foil a god’s intent?\n Now have I courage all my deeds to tell.\n\nYes, it was I, unblushing I declare.\n At whom thy watch-dog all night long did bay:--\nBut some-one else now stands insistent there,\n Or peers about him and then walks away.\n\nHe seems to pass. But soon will backward fare\n Alone, and, coughing, at the threshold hide.\nWhat skill hath stolen love! Beware, beware!\n Thy boat is drifting on a treacherous tide.\n\nWhat worth a lovely wife, if others buy\n Thy treasure, if thy stoutest bolt betrays,\nIf in thy very arms she breathes a sigh\n For absent joy, and feigns a slight malaise?\n\nGive her in charge to me! I will not spare\n A master’s whip. Her chain shall constant be.\nWhile thou mayst go abroad and have no care\n Who trims his curls, or flaunts his toga free.\n\nWhatever beaux accost her, all is well!\n Not the least hint of scandal shall be made.\nFor I will send them far away, to tell\n In some quite distant street their amorous trade.\n\nAll this a god decrees; a sibyl wise\n In prophet-song did this to me proclaim;\nWho when Bellona kindles in her eyes,\n Fears neither twisted scourge nor scorching flame.\n\nThen with a battle-axe herself will scar\n Her own wild arms, and sprinkle on the ground\nBlood, for Bellona’s emblems of wild war,\n Swift-flowing from the bosom’s gaping wound.\n\nA barb of iron rankles in her breast,\n As thus she chants the god’s command to all:\n“Oh, spare a beauty by true love possessed,\n Lest some vast after-woe upon thee fall!”\n\n“For shouldst thou win her, all thy power will fail,\n As from this wound flows forth the fatal gore,\nOr as these ashes cast upon the gale,\n Are scattered far and kindled never more.”\n\nAnd, O my Delia, the fierce prophetess\n Told dreadful things that on thy head should fall:--\nI know not what they were--but none the less\n I pray my darling may escape them all.\n\nNot for thyself do I forgive thee, no!\n ’Tis thy sweet mother all my wrath disarms,--\nThat precious creature, who would come and go,\n And lead thee through the darkness to my arms.\n\nThough great the peril, oft the silent dame\n Would join our hands together, and all night\nWait watching on the threshold till I came,\n Nor ever failed to know my steps aright.\n\nLong be thy life! dear, kind and faithful heart!\n Would it were possible my life’s whole year\nWere at the friendly hearth-stone where thou art!\n ’Tis for thy sake I hold thy daughter dear.\n\nBe what she will, she is not less thy child.\n Oh, teach her to be chaste! Though well she knows\nNo free-born fillet binds her tresses wild\n Nor Roman stole around her ankles flows!\n\nMy lot is servile too. Whate’er I see\n Of beauty brings her to my fevered eye.\nIf I should be accused of crime, or be\n Dragged up the steep street, by the hair, to die:--\n\nEven then there were no fear that I should lay\n Rude hands on thee my sweet! for if o’erswayed\nBy such blind frenzy in an evil day,\n I should bewail the hour my hands were made.\n\nYet would I have thee chaste and constant be,\n Not with a fearful but a faithful heart;\nAnd that in thy fond breast the love of me\n Burn but more fondly when we live apart.\n\nShe who was never faithful to a friend\n Will come to age and misery, and wind\nWith tremulous ringer from her distaff’s end\n The ever-twisting wool; and she will bind\n\nUpon her moving looms the finished thread,\n Or clean and pick the long skeins white as snow.\nAnd all her fickle gallants when they wed,\n Will say, “That old one well deserves her woe.”\n\nVenus from heaven will note her flowing tear:\n “I smile not on the faithless,” she will say.\nHer curse on others fall! O, Delia dear!\n Let us teach true love to grow old and gray!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -112897,8 +116347,10 @@ "title": "“A Fare-well Toast”", "body": "Come radiant Bacchus! With the hallowed leaf\n Of grape and ivy be thy forehead crowned!\nFor thou canst chase away or cure my grief--\n Let love in wine be drowned!\n\nDear bearer of my cup, come, brim it o’er!\n Pour forth unstinted our Falernian wine!\nCare’s cruel brood is gone; I toil no more,\n If Phoebus o’er me shine.\n\nDear, jovial friends, let not a lip be dry!\n Drink as I drink, and every toast obey!\nAnd him who will not with my wine-cup vie,\n May some false lass betray!\n\nThis god makes all men rich. He tames proud souls,\n And bids them by a woman’s hand be chained;\nArmenian tigresses his power controls,\n And lions tawny-maned.\n\nThat love-god is as strong; but I delight\n In Bacchus rather. Fill our cups once more!\nJust and benign is he, if mortal wight\n Him and his vines adore!\n\nBut, O! he rages, if his gift ye spurn.\n Drink, if ye dare not a god’s anger brave!\nHow fierce his stroke, let temperate fellows learn\n Of Pentheus’ gory grave.\n\nAway such fear! Rather may some fierce stroke\n On that false beauty fall!--O frightful prayer!\nO, I am mad! O may my curse be broke,\n And melt in misty air!\n\nFor, O Neaera, though I am forgot,\n I ask all gods to bless thee, every one.\nBack to my cups I go. This wine has brought\n After long storms, the sun.\n\nAlas! How hard to masque dull grief in joy!\n A sad heart’s jest--what bitter mockery!\nWith vain deceit my laughing lips employ\n Loud mirth that is a lie.\n\nBut why complain and moan? O wretched me!\n When will my lagging sorrows haste and go?\nDelightful Bacchus at his mystery\n Forbids these words of woe.\n\nOnce, by the wave, lone Ariadne pale,\n Abandoned of false Theseus, weeping stood:--\nOur wise Catullus tells the doleful tale\n Of love’s ingratitude.\n\nTake warning friends! How fortunate is he,\n Who learns of others’ loss his own to shun!\nTrust not caressing arms and sighs, nor be\n By flatteries undone!\n\nThough by her own sweet eyes her oath she swear,\n By solemn Juno, or by Venus gay,\nAt oaths of love Jove laughs, and bids the air\n Waft the light things away.\n\nIt is but folly, then, to fume and fret,\n If one light lass that old deception wrought;\nO that I too might evermore forget\n To speak my heart’s true thought!\n\nO that my long, long nights brought peace and thee!\n That nought but thee my waking eyes did fill!\nThou wert most false and cruel, woe is me!\n False! But I love thee still.\n\n# _L’envoi_\n\nHow well fresh water mixes with old wine!\n Bacchus loves water-nymphs. Bring water, boy!\nWhat care I where she sleeps? This night of mine\n Shall I in sighs employ?\n\nMake the cup strong, I tell you! Stronger there!\n Wine only! While the Syrian balm o’er-flows!\nLong would I revel with anointed hair,\n And wear this wreath of rose.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -112906,8 +116358,10 @@ "title": "“He Died for Love”", "body": "Whoe’er from darling bride her husband dear\n First forced to part, had but a heart of stone;\nAnd not less hard the man who could appear\n To bear such loss and live unloved, alone.\n\nI am but weak in this; such fortitude\n My soul has not; grief breaks my spirit quite.\nI shame not to declare it is my mood\n To sicken of a life such sorrows smite.\n\nWhen I shall journey to the shadowy land,\n And over my white bones black ashes be,\nBeside my pyre let fair Neaera stand,\n With long, loose locks unbound, lamenting me.\n\nLet her dear mother’s grief with hers have share,\n One mourn a husband, one a son bewail!\nThen call upon my ghost with holy prayer,\n And pour ablution o’er their fingers pale.\n\nThe white bones, which my body’s wreck outlast,\n Girdled in flowing black they will upbear,\nSprinkle with rare, old wine, and gently cast\n In bath of snowy milk, with pious care.\n\nThese will they swathe with linen mantles o’er,\n And lay unmouldering in their marble bed;\nThen gift of Arab or Panchaian shore,\n Assyrian balm and Orient incense shed.\n\nAnd may they o’er my tomb the gift disburse\n Of faithful tears, remembering him below;\nFor those cold ashes I have made this verse,\n That all my doleful way of death may know.\n\nMy oft-frequented grave the words shall bear,\n And all who pass will read with pitying eyes:--\n_“Here Lygdamus, consumed with grief and care\nFor his lost bride Neaera, hapless lies.”_", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -112915,8 +116369,10 @@ "title": "“Let Lovers all Enlist”", "body": "Now for a soldier Macer goes. Will Cupid take the field?\nWill Love himself enlist, and bear on his soft breast a shield?\n\nThrough weary marches over land, through wandering waves at sea,\nArmed cap-a-pie, will that small god the hero’s comrade be?\n\nO burn him, boy, I pray, that could thy blessed favors slight!\nBack to the ranks the straggler bring beneath thy standard bright!\n\nYet, if to soldiers thou art kind, I too will volunteer,\nI too will from a helmet drink, nor thirst in desert’s fear.\n\nVenus, good-bye! Now, off I go! Good-bye, sweet ladies all!\nI am all valor, and delight to hear the trumpets call.\n\nLarge is my brag! But while with pride my project I recite,\nI see her bolted door,--and then my boasting fails me quite.\n\nNever to visit her again, with many an oath I swore;\nBut while I vowed, my feet had run unguided to her door.\n\nCome now, ye lovers all! who serve in Cupid’s hard campaign,\nLet us together to the wars, and thus our peace regain!\n\nThis age of iron frowns on love and smiles on golden gain,--\nOn spoils of war which must be won by agony and pain.\n\nFor spoils alone our swords are keen, and deadly spears are hurled\nWhile carnage, wrath, and swifter death fly broadcast through the world.\n\nFor spoils, with double risk of death the threatening seas we sail,\nAnd climb the steel-beaked ship-of-war, so mighty and so frail!\n\nThe spoilers proud to boundless lands their bloody titles read,\nAnd see innumerable flocks o’er endless acres feed\n\nFine foreign marbles they will bring; and all the city stare,\nWhile one tall column for a house a thousand oxen bear.\n\nThey bind with bars the tameless sea; behind a rampart proud\nTheir little fishes swim in calm, when wintry storms are loud.\n\nAh! Love! Will not a Samian bowl hold all our mirth and wine?\nAnd pottery of poor Cuman clay, with love, seem fair and fine?\n\nNay! Woe is me! Naught now but gold can please our ladies gay;\nAnd so, since Venus asks for wealth, the spoils of war must pay.\n\nMy Nemesis shall roll in wealth; and promenade the town,\nAll glittering, with my golden gifts upon her gorgeous gown.\n\nHer filmy web of Coan weave with golden broidery gleams;\nHer swarthy slaves the Indian sun touched with its burning beams.\n\nIn rival hues to make her fair all conquered regions vie,\nAfric its azure must bestow, and Tyre its purple dye.\n\nO look--I tell what all men know--on that most favored lover!\nOnce in the market-place he sat, with both his soles chalked over.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -112924,8 +116380,10 @@ "title": "“Love and Witchcraft”", "body": "Bring larger bowls and give my sorrows wine,\n By heaviest slumbers be my brain possessed!\nSoothe my sad brows with Bacchus’ gift divine,\n Nor wake me while my hapless passions rest!\n\nFor Delia’s jealous master at her door\n Has set a watch, and bolts it with stern steel.\nMay wintry tempests strike it o’er and o’er,\n And amorous Jove crash through with thunder-peal!\n\nMy sighs alone, O Door, should pierce thee through,\n Or backward upon soundless hinges turn.\nThe curses my mad rhymes upon thee threw,--\n Forgive them!--Ah! in my own breast they burn!\n\nMay I not move thee to remember now\n How oft, dear Door, thou wert love’s place of prayer?\nWhile with fond kiss and supplicating vow,\n I hung thee o’er with many a garland fair?\n\nIn vain the prayer! Thine own resolve must break\n Thy prison, Delia, and its guards evade.\nBid them defiance for thy lover’s sake!\n Be bold! The brave bring Venus to their aid.\n\n’Tis Venus guides a youth through doors unknown;\n ’Tis taught of her, a maid with firm-set lips\nSteals from her soft couch, silent and alone,\n And noiseless to her tryst securely trips.\n\nHer art it is, if with a husband near,\n A lady darts a love-lorn look and smile\nTo one more blest; but languid sloth and fear\n Receive not Venus’ perfect gift of guile.\n\nTrust Venus, too, t’ avert the wretched wrath\n Of footpad, hungry for thy robe and ring!\nSo safe and sacred is a lover’s path,\n That common caution to the winds we fling.\n\nOft-times I fail the wintry frost to feel,\n And drenching rains unheeded round me pour,\nIf Delia comes at last with mute appeal,\n And, finger on her lip, throws wide the door.\n\nAway those lamps! Thou, man or maid, away!\n Great Venus wills not that her gifts be scanned.\nAsk me no names! Walk lightly there, I pray!\n Hold back thy tell-tale torch and curious hand!\n\nYet fear not! Should some slave our loves behold,\n Let him look on, and at his liking stare!\nHereafter not a whisper shall be told;\n By all the gods our innocence he’ll swear.\n\nOr should one such from prudent silence swerve\n The chatterer who prates of me and thee\nShall learn, too late, why Venus, whom I serve,\n Was born of blood upon a storm-swept sea.\n\nNay, even thy husband will believe no ill.\n All this a wondrous witch did tell me true:\nOne who can guide the stars to work her will,\n Or turn a torrent’s course her task to do.\n\nHer spells call forth pale spectres from their graves,\n And charm bare bones from smoking pyres away:\n ’Mid trooping ghosts with fearful shriek she raves,\n Then sprinkles with new milk, and holds at bay.\n\nShe has the power to scatter tempests rude,\n And snows in summer at her whisper fall;\nThe horrid simples by Medea brewed\n Are hers; she holds the hounds of Hell in thrall.\n\nFor me a charm this potent witch did weave;\n Thrice if thou sing, then speak with spittings three,\nThy husband not one witness will believe,\n Nor his own eyes, if our embrace they see!\n\nBut tempt not others! He will surely spy\n All else--to me, me only, magic-blind!\nAnd, hark! the hag with drugs, she said, would try\n To heal love’s madness and my heart unbind.\n\nOne cloudless night, with smoky torch, she burned\n Black victims to her gods of sorcery;\nYet asked I not love’s loss, but love returned,\n And would not wish for life, if robbed of thee.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -112933,8 +116391,10 @@ "title": "“A Lover’s Curses”", "body": "I strove with wine my sorrows to efface.\n But wine turned tears was all the drink I knew;\nI tried a new, strange lass. Each cold embrace\n Brought my true love to mind, and colder grew.\n\n“I was bewitched” she cried “by shameful charms;”\n And things most vile she vowed she could declare.\nBewitched! ’tis true! but by thy soft white arms,\n Thy lovely brows and lavish golden hair!\n\nSuch charms had Thetis, born in Nereid cave,\n Who drives her dolphin-chariot fast and free\nTo Peleus o’er the smooth HĂŠmonian wave,\n Love-guided o’er long leagues of azure sea.\n\nAh me! the magic that dissolves my health\n Is a rich suitor in my mistress’ eye,\nWhom that vile bawd led to her door by stealth\n And opened it, and bade me pine and die.\n\nThat hag should feed on blood. Her festive bowls\n Should be rank gall: and round her haunted room\nWild, wailing ghosts and monitory owls\n Should flit forever shrieking death and doom.\n\nMade hunger-mad, may she devour the grass\n That grows on graves, and gnaw the bare bones down\nWhich wolves have left! Stark-naked may she pass,\n Chased by the street-dogs through the taunting town!\n\nMy curse comes fast. Unerring signs are seen\n In stars above us. There are gods who still\nProtect unhappy lovers: and our Queen\n Venus rains fire on all who slight her will.\n\nO cruel girl! unlearn the wicked art\n Of that rapacious hag! For everywhere\nWealth murders love. But thy poor lover’s heart\n Is ever thine, and thou his dearest care.\n\nA poor man clings close to thy lovely side,\n And keeps the crowd off, and thy pathway free;\nHe hides thee with kind friends, and as his bride\n From thy dull, golden thraldom ransoms thee.\n\nVain is my song. Her door will not unclose\n For words, but for a hand that knocks with gold.\nO fear me, my proud rival, fear thy foes!\n Oft have the wheels of fortune backward rolled!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -112942,8 +116402,10 @@ "title": "“A Lover’s Oath”", "body": "No! ne’er shall rival lure me from thine arms!\n (In such sweet bond did our first sighs agree!)\nSave for thine own I see no woman’s charms;\n No maid in all the world is fair but thee.\n\nWould that no eyes but mine could find thee fair!\n Displease those others! Save me this annoy!\nI ask not envy nor the people’s stare:--\n Wisest is he who loves with silent joy.\n\nWith thee in gloomy woods my life were gay,\n Where pathway ne’er was found for human feet,\nThou art my balm of care, in dark my day,\n In wildest waste, society complete.\n\nIf Heaven should send a goddess to my bed,\n All were in vain. My pulse would never rise.\nI swear thee this by Juno’s holy head--\n Greatest to us of all who hold the skies.\n\nWhat madness this? I give away my case!\n Swear a fool’s oath! Thy tears my safety won.\nNow wilt thou flirt, and tease me to my face--\n Such mischief has my babbling fully done.\n\nNow am I but thy slave: yet thine remain,\n My mistress’ yoke I never shall undo.\nTo Venus’ altar let me drag my chain!\n She brands the proud, and smiles on lovers true.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -112951,8 +116413,10 @@ "title": "“Messala”", "body": "The Fatal Sisters did this day ordain,\nReeling threads no god can rend,\nForetelling to this man should bend\nThe tribes of Acquitaine;\nAnd ’neath his legions’ yoke\nTh’ impetuous torrent Atur glide subdued.\nAll was accomplished as the Fates bespoke;\nHis triumph then ensued:\nThe Roman youth, exulting from afar,\nAcclaimed his mighty deeds,\nAnd watched the fettered chieftains filing by,\nWhile, drawn by snow-white steeds,\nMessala followed on his ivory car,\nLaurelled and lifted high!\n\nNot without me this glory and renown!\nLet Pyrenees my boast attest!\nTarbella, little mountain-town,\nCold Ocean rolling in the utmost West,\nArar, Garonne, and rushing Rhone,\nWill bear me witness due;\nAnd valleys broad the blond Carnutes own,\nBy Liger darkly blue.\nI saw the Cydnus flow,\nWinding on in ever-tranquil mood,\nAnd from his awful peak, in cloud and snow,\nCold Taurus o’er his wild Cilicians’ brood.\nI saw through thronged streets unmolested flying\nTh’ inviolate white dove of Palestine;\nI looked on Tyrian towers, by soundless waters lying,\nWhence Tyrians first were masters of the brine.\nThe flooding Nile I knew;\nWhat time hot Sirius glows,\nAnd Egypt’s thirsty field the covering deluge knows;\nBut whence the wonder flows,\nO Father Nile! no mortal e’er did view.\nAlong thy bank not any prayer is made\nTo Jove for fruitful showers.\nOn thee they call! Or in sepulchral shade,\nThe life-reviving, sky-descended powers\nOf bright Osiris hail,--\nWhile, wildly chanting, the barbaric choir,\nWith timbrels and strange fire,\nTheir Memphian bull bewail.\n\nOsiris did the plough bestow,\nAnd first with iron urged the yielding ground.\nHe taught mankind good seed to throw\nIn furrows all untried;\nHe plucked fair fruits the nameless trees did hide:\nHe first the young vine to its trellis bound,\nAnd with his sounding sickle keen\nShore off the tendrils green.\n\nFor him the bursting clusters sweet\nWere in the wine-press trod;\nSong followed soon, a prompting of the god,\nAnd rhythmic dance of lightly leaping feet.\nOf Bacchus the o’er-wearied swain receives\nDeliverance from all his pains;\nBacchus gives comfort when a mortal grieves,\nAnd mirth to men in chains.\nNot to Osiris toils and tears belong,\nBut revels and delightful song;\nLightly beckoning loves are thine!\nGarlands deck thee, god of wine!\nWe hear thee coming, with the flute’s refrain,\nWith fruit of ivy on thy forehead bound,\nThy saffron vesture streaming to the ground.\nAnd thou hast garments, too, of Tyrian stain,\nWhen thine ecstatic train\nBear forth thy magic ark to mysteries divine.\n\nImmortal guest, our games and pageant share!\nSmile on the flowing cup, and hail\nWith us the Genius of this natal day!\nFrom whose anointed, rose-entwisted hair,\nArabian odors waft away.\nIf thou the festal bless, I will not fail\nTo burn sweet incense unto him and thee,\nAnd offerings of Arcadian honey bear.\n\nSo grant Messala fortunes ever fair!\nOf such a sire the children worthy be!\nTill generations two and three\nSurround his venerated chair!\nSee, winding upward through the Latin land,\nYon highway past, the Alban citadel,\nAt great Messala’s mandate made,\nIn fitted stones and firm-set gravel laid,\nThy monument forever more to stand!\nThe mountain-villager thy fame will tell,\nWhen through the darkness wending late from Rome,\nHe foots it smoothly home.\n\nO Genius of this natal day,\nMay many a year thy gift declare!\nNow bright and fair thy pinions soar away,--\nReturn, thou bright and fair!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -112960,8 +116424,10 @@ "title": "“My lady rusticates”", "body": "To pleasures of the country-side\n My lady-love is lightly flown;\nAnd now in cities to abide\n Betrays a heart of stone.\n\nVenus herself henceforth will choose\n Only in field and farm to walk,\nAnd Cupid but the language use\n Which plough-boy lovers talk.\n\nO what a ploughman I could be!\n How deep the furrows I would trace,\nIf while I toiled, I might but see\n My mistress’ smiling face!\n\nA farmer true, I’d guide my team\n Of barren steers o’er fruitful lands,\nNor murmur at the noon-day beam,\n Or my soft, blistered hands.\n\nOnce fair Apollo fed the flocks\n Of King Admetus, like a swain;\nLittle availed his flowing locks,\n His lyre was little gain.\n\nNo virtuous herb to reach that ill\n His heavenly arts of healing knew;\nFor love made vain his famous skill,\n And all his art o’er-threw.\n\nHimself his herds afield he drove,\n Or where the cooling waters stray;\nHimself the willow baskets wove,\n And strained out curds and whey.\n\nOft would his heavenly shoulders bear\n A calf adown some pathless place;\nAnd oft Diana met him there,\n And blushed at his disgrace.\n\nO often, if his voice divine\n Echoed the mountain glens along,\nOut-burst the loud, audacious kine,\n And bellowing drowned his song.\n\nHis tripods prince and people found\n All silent to their troubled cry,\nHis locks dishevelled and unbound\n Woke fond Latona’s sigh.\n\nTo see his pale, neglected brow,\n And unkempt tresses, once so fair,--\nThey cried, “O where is Phoebus now?\n His glorious tresses, where?”\n\n“In place of Delos’ golden fane,\n Love gives thee but a lowly shed!\nO, where are Delphi and its train?\n The Sibyl, whither fled?”\n\nHappy the days, forever flown,\n When even immortal gods could dare\nProudly to serve at Venus’ throne,\n Nor blushed her chain to wear!\n\n“Irreverent fables!” I am told.\n But lovers true these tales receive:\nRather a thousand such they hold,\n Than loveless gods believe.\n\nO Ceres, who didst charm away\n My Nemesis from life in Rome,\nMay barren glebe thy pains repay\n And scanty harvest come!\n\nA curse upon thy merry trade!\n Young Bacchus, giver of the vine!\nThy vine-yards have ensnared a maid\n Far sweeter than thy wine.\n\nLet herbs and acorns be our meat!\n Drink good old water! Better so\nThan that my fickle beauty’s feet\n To those far hills should go!\n\nDid not our sires on acorns feed,\n And love-sick rove o’er hill and dale?\nOur furrowed fields they did not need,\n Nor did love’s harvest fail.\n\nWhen passion did their hearts employ,\n And o’er them breathed the blissful hour,\nMild Venus freely found them joy\n In every leafy bower.\n\nNo chaperone was there, no door\n Against a lover’s sighs to stand.\nDelicious age! May Heaven restore\n Its customs to our land!\n\nNay, take me! In my lady’s train\n Some stubborn field I fain would plough\nLay on the lash and clamp the chain!\n I bear them meekly now.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -112969,8 +116435,10 @@ "title": "“The New-Year’s Gift”", "body": "Now the month of Mars beginning brings the merry season near,\nBy our fathers named and numbered as the threshold of the year.\nFaithfully their custom keeping, through the wide streets to and fro,\nOffered at each friendly dwelling, seasonable gifts must go.\nO what gifts, Pierian Muses, may acceptably be poured\nOn my own adored Neaera?--or, if not my own, adored!\n\nSong is love’s best gift to beauty; gold but tempts the venal soul;\nTherefore, ’tis a song I send her on this amateurish scroll.\nWind a page of saffron parchment round the white papyrus there,\nPolish well with careful pumice every silvery margin fair:\n\nOn the dainty little cover, for a title to the same\nLet her bright eyes read the blazon of a love-sick poet’s name.\nLet the pair of horn-tipped handles be embossed with colors gay,\nFor my book must make a toilet, must put on its best array.\n\nBy Castalia’s whispering shadow, by Pieria’s vocal spring,\nBy yourselves, O listening Muses, who did prompt the song I sing,--\nFly, I pray you, to her chamber, and my pretty booklet bear,\nAll unmarred and perfect give it, every color fresh and fair:\nLet her send you back, confessing, if our hearts together burn;\nOr, if she but loves me little, or will nevermore return.\nUtter first, for she deserves it, many a golden wish and vow;\nThen deliver this true message, humbly, as I speak it now.\n\n’Tis a gift, O chaste Neaera, from thy husband yet to be.\nTake the trifle, though a ‘brother’ now is all he seems to thee.\n\nHe will swear he loves thee dearer than the blood in all his veins;\nWhether husband, or if only that cold ‘sister’ name remains.\nAh! but ‘wife’ he calls it: nothing takes this sweet hope from his soul!\nTill a hapless ghost he wanders where the Stygian waters roll.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_day" @@ -112981,8 +116449,10 @@ "title": "“On His Lady’s Avarice”", "body": "A woman’s slave am I, and know it well.\n Farewell, my birthright! farewell, liberty!\nIn wretched slavery and chains I dwell,\n For love’s sad captives never are set free.\n\nWhether I smile or curse, love just the same\n Brands me and burns. O, cruel woman, spare!\nO would I were a rock, to ’scape this flame\n Far off upon the frosty mountains there!\n\nWould I were flint, to front the tempest’s power,\n Wave-buffeted on some wild, wreckful shore!\nMy sad days bring worse nights, and every hour\n Fills me some cup of gall and brims it o’er.\n\nWhat use are songs? Her greedy hands disdain\n Apollo’s gift. She says some gold is due.\nFarewell, ye Muses, I have sung in vain!\n Only in quest of her I followed you.\n\nI sing no wars; nor how the moon and sun\n In heavenly paths their circling chariots steer.\nTo win my lady’s smiles my numbers run;\n Farewell, ye Muses, if ye fail me here!\n\nLet deeds of bloody crime now make me bold!\n No longer at her bolted door I whine;\nBut I will find that necessary gold,\n Though I steal treasure from some holy shrine.\n\nVenus I first will violate; for she\n Compelled my crime, and did my heart enthrall\nTo beauty that requires a golden fee.\n Yes, Venus’ shrine shall suffer worst of all.\n\nCurse on that man who finds the emerald green,\n And Tyrian purples for our flattered girls!\nHe makes them greedy. Now they must be seen\n In Coan robe and gleaming Red Sea pearls.\n\nIt spoils them all. Now bolts and barriers hold\n Their doors, and watch-dogs threaten through the dark;\nBut let the lover overflow with gold,--\n All bolts fly back and not a dog will bark.\n\nWhat God did beauty unto gold degrade,\n And mix one bliss with many a woe and shame?\nTears, quarrels, curses were the gifts he made;\n And Love bears now a very evil name.\n\nFalse girl, who dost for riches thrust aside\n Love’s honest vow, may winds and flames conspire\nTo wreck thy wealth, while all thy beaux deride\n The loss, nor throw one bowl-full on the fire!\n\nO when dark Death shall be thy final guest,\n No lover true will shed the faithful tear,\nNor bring an offering where thy ashes rest,\n Nor lay one garland on thy lonely bier I\n\nBut some warm-hearted lass who loved not gain\n Shall live a hundred years, yet be much mourned;\nHer tomb shall be some lover’s holiest fane,\n With annual gift of all sad flowers adorned.\n\n“Farewell, true heart!” his trembling lips will say,\n “Let peace untroubled bless thy relics dear!\nOft will he visit, and departing pray,\n Light lie this earth on her whose rest is here!”\n\nNay, it is vain such serious songs to breathe:\n I must be modern, if I would prevail.\nHow much? Just all my ancestors bequeath?\n Come, Lares! You are advertised for sale.\n\nLet Circe and Medea bring the lees\n Of some foul cup! Let Thessaly prepare\nIts direst poison! Bring hippomanes,\n Fierce philtre from the frantic, brooding mare!\nFor if my mistress mix it with a smile,\nI drain a draught a thousand times as vile.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -112990,8 +116460,10 @@ "title": "“Riches are useless”", "body": "’Tis vain to plague the skies with eager prayer,\n And offer incense with thy votive song,\nIf only thou dost ask for marbles fair,\n To deck thy palace for the gazing throng.\n\nNot wider fields my oxen to employ,\n Nor flowing harvests and abundant land,\nI ask of heaven; but for a long life’s joy\n With thee, and in old age to clasp thy hand.\n\nIf when my season of sweet light is o’er,\n I, carrying nothing, unto Charon yield,\nWhat profits me a ponderous golden store,\n Or that a thousand yoke must plough my field?\n\nWhat if proud Phrygian columns fill my halls,\n Taenarian, Carystian, and the rest,\nOr branching groves adorn my spacious walls,\n Or golden roof, or floor with marbles dressed?\n\nWhat pleasure in rare Erythraean dyes,\n Or purple pride of Sidon and of Tyre,\nOr all that can solicit envious eyes,\n And which the mob of fools so well admire?\n\nWealth has no power to lift life’s load of care,\n Or free man’s lot from Fortune’s fatal chain;\nWith thee, Neaera, poverty looks fair,\n And lacking thee, a kingdom were in vain.\n\nO golden day that shall at last restore\n My lost love to my arms! O blest indeed,\nAnd worthy to be hallowed evermore!\n May some kind god my long petition heed!\n\nNo! not dominion, nor Pactolian stream,\n Nor all the riches the wide world can give!\nThese other men may ask. My fondest dream\n Is, poor but free, with my true wife to live.\n\nSaturnian Juno, to all nuptials kind,\n Receive with grace my ever-anxious vow!\nCome, Venus, wafted by the Cyprian wind,\n And from thy car of shell smile on me now!\n\nBut if the mournful sisters, by whose hands\n Our threads of life are spun, refuse me all--\nMay Pluto bid me to his dreary lands,\n Where those wide rivers through the darkness fall!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -112999,8 +116471,10 @@ "title": "“A Rustic Holiday”", "body": "Give us good omen, friends! To-day we bless\nWith hallowed rites this dear, ancestral seat.\nLet Bacchus his twin horns with clusters dress,\nAnd Ceres clasp her brows with bursting wheat!\n\nTo-day no furrows! Both for field and man\nBe sacred rest from delving toil and care!\nWith necks yoke-free, at mangers full of bran,\nThe tranquil steers shall nought but garlands bear.\n\nOur tasks to-day are heaven’s. No maid shall dare\nUpon a distaff her deft hands employ.\nLet none, too rash, our simple worship share,\nWho wrought last eve at Venus’ fleeting joy!\n\nThe gods claim chastity. Come clad in white,\nAnd lave your palms at some clear fountain’s brim!\nThen watch the mild lamb at the altar bright,\nYon olive-cinctured choir close-following him!\n\n“Ye Guardian Powers, who bless our native soil,\nFar from these acres keep ill luck away!\nNo withered ears the reaper’s task to spoil!\nNor swift wolf on our laggard lambs to prey!”\n\nSo shall the master of this happy house\nPile the huge logs upon his blazing floor;\nWhile with kind mirth and neighborly carouse,\nHis bondsmen build their huts beside his door.\n\nThe bliss I pray for has been granted me!\nWith reverent art observing things divine,\nI have explored the omens,--and I see\nThe Guardian Powers are good to me and mine.\n\nBring old Falernian from the shadows gray,\nAnd burst my Chian seal! He is disgraced,\nWho gets home sober from this festive day,\nOr finds his door without a step retraced.\n\nHealth to Messala now from all our band!\nDrink to each letter of his noble name!\nMessala! laurelled from the Gallic land,\nOf his grim-bearded sires the last, best fame!\n\nBe with me, thou! inspire a song for me\nTo sing those gods of woodland, hill and glade,\nWithout whose arts man’s hunger still would be\nOnly on mast and gathered acorns stayed.\n\nThey taught us rough-hewn rafters to prepare,\nAnd clothe low cabins with a roof of green;\nThey bade fierce bulls the servile yoke to bear;\nAnd wheels to move a wain were theirs, I ween.\n\nOur wild fruit was forgot, when apple-boughs\nBore grafts, and thirsty orchards (art divine!)\nWere freshed by ditching; while with sweet carouse\nThe wine-press flowed, and water wed with wine.\n\nOur fields bore harvests, when the dog-star flame\nBade Summer of her tawny tress be shorn;\nFrom fields of Spring the bees, with busy game,\nStored well their frugal combs the live-long morn.\n\n ’Twas some field-tiller from his plough at rest,\nFirst hummed his homely words to numbers true,\nOr trilled his pipe of straw in songs addressed\nTo his blithe woodland gods, with worship due.\n\nSome rustic ruddied with vermilion clay\nFirst led, O Bacchus, thy swift choric throng,\nAnd won for record of thy festal day\nSome fold’s chief goat, fit meed of frolic song!\n\nIt was our rustic boys whose virgin band\nNew coronals of Spring’s sweet flowrets made\nFor offering to the gods who bless our land,\nWhich on the Lares’ hallowed heads were laid.\n\nOur country-lasses find a pleasing care\nIn soft, warm wool their snowy flocks have bred;\nThe distaff, skein and spindle they prepare,\nAnd reel, with firm-set thumb, the faultless thread.\n\nThen following Minerva’s heavenly art,\nThey weave with patient toil some fabric proud;\nWhile at her loom the lass with cheerful heart\nSings songs the sounding shuttle answers loud.\n\nCupid himself with flocks and herds did pass\nHis boyhood, and on sheep and horses drew\nHis erring infant bow; but now, alas!\nHe is an archer far too swift and true.\n\nNot now dull beasts, but luckless maids engage\nHis enmity; brave men are brave no more;\nYouth’s strength he wastes, and drives fond, foolish age\nTo blush and sigh at scornful beauty’s door.\n\nLove-lured, the virgin, guarded and discreet,\nSlips by the night-watch at her lover’s call,\nFeels the dark path-way with her trembling feet,\nAnd gropes with out-spread hands along the wall.\n\nOh! wretched are the wights this god would harm!\nBut blest as gods whom Love with smiles will sway!\nCome, boy divine! and these dear revels charm--\nBut fling thy burning brands, far, far away!\n\nSing to this god, sweet shepherds! Ask aloud\nYour flocks’ good health; then each, discreetly mute,\nHis love’s!--Nay, scream her name! Yon madcap crowd\nScreams louder, to its wry-necked Phrygian flute.\n\nOn with the sport! Night’s chariot appears:\nThe stars, her children, follow through the sky:\nDark Sleep comes soon, on wings no mortal hears,\nWith strange, dim dreams that know not where they fly.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -113008,8 +116482,10 @@ "title": "“Sickness and Absence”", "body": "Am I abandoned? Does Messala sweep\n Yon wide Aegean wave, not any more\nHe, nor my mates, remembering where I weep,\n Struck down by fever on this alien shore?\n\nSpare me, dark death! I have no mother here,\n To clasp my relics to her widowed breast;\nNo sister, to pour forth with hallowing tear\n Assyrian incense where my ashes rest.\n\nNor Delia, who, before she said adieu,\n Asked omens fair at every potent shrine.\nThrice did the ministrants give blessings true,\n The thrice-cast lot returned the lucky sign.\n\nAll promised safe return; but she had fears\n And doubting sorrows, which implored my stay;\nWhile I, though all was ready, dried her tears,\n And found fresh pretext for one more delay.\n\nAn evil bird, I cried, did near me flit,\n Or luckless portent thrust my plans aside;\nOr Saturn’s day, unhallowed and unfit,\n Forbade a journey from my Delia’s side.\n\nFull oft, when starting on the fatal track,\n My stumbling feet foretold unhappy hours:\nAh! he who journeys when love calls him back,\n Should know he disobeys celestial powers!\n\nHelp me, great Goddess! For thy healing power\n The votive tablets on thy shrine display.\nSee Delia there outwatch the midnight hour,\n Sitting, white-stoled, until the dawn of day!\n\nEach day her tresses twice she doth unbind,\n And sings, the loveliest of the Pharian band.\nO that my fathers’ gods this prayer could find!\n Gods of my hearth and of my native land!\n\nHow happily men lived when Saturn reigned!\n Ere weary highways crossed the fair young world,\nEre lofty ships the purple seas disdained,\n Their swelling canvas to the winds unfurled!\n\nNo roving seaman, from a distant course,\n Filled full of far-fetched wares his frail ship’s hold:\nAt home, the strong bull stood unyoked; the horse\n Endured no bridle in the age of gold.\n\nMen’s houses had no doors? No firm-set rock\n Marked field from field by niggard masters held.\nThe very oaks ran honey; the mild flock\n Brought home its swelling udders, uncompelled.\n\nNor wrath nor war did that blest kingdom know;\n No craft was taught in old Saturnian time,\nBy which the frowning smith, with blow on blow,\n Could forge the furious sword and so much crime.\n\nNow Jove is king! Now have we carnage foul,\n And wreckful seas, and countless ways to die.\nNay! spare me, Father Jove, for on my soul\n Nor perjury, nor words blaspheming lie.\n\nIf longer life I ask of Fate in vain,\n O’er my frail dust this superscription be:--\n“Here Death’s dark hand TIBULLUS doth detain,\n Messala’s follower over land and sea”\n\nThen, since my soul to love did always yield,\n Let Venus guide it the immortal way,\nWhere dance and song fill all th’ Elysian field,\n And music that will never die away.\n\nThere many a song-bird with his fellow sails,\n And cheerly carols on the cloudless air;\nEach grove breathes incense; all the happy vales\n O’er-run with roses, numberless and fair.\n\nBright bands of youth with tender maidens stray,\n Led by the love-god all delights to share;\nAnd each fond lover death once snatched away\n Winds an immortal myrtle in his hair.\n\nFar, far from such, the dreadful realms of gloom\n By those black streams of Hades circled round,\nWhere viper-tressed, fierce ministers of doom,--\n The Furies drive lost souls from bound to bound.\n\nThe doors of brass, and dragon-gate of Hell,\n Grim Cerberus guards, and frights the phantoms back:\nIxion, who by Juno’s beauty fell,\n Gives his frail body to the whirling rack.\n\nStretched o’er nine roods, lies Tityos accursed,\n The vulture at his vitals feeding slow;\nThere Tantalus, whose bitter, burning thirst\n The fleeting waters madden as they flow.\n\nThere Danaus’ daughters Venus’ anger feel,\n Filling their urns at Lethe all in vain;--\n“And there’s the wretch who would my delia steal,”\n “And wish me absent on a long campaign!”\n\nO chaste and true! In thy still house shall sit\n The careful crone who guards thy virtuous bed;\nShe tells thee tales, and when the lamps are lit,\n Reels from her distaff the unending thread.\n\nSome evening, after tasks too closely plied,\n My Delia, drowsing near the harmless dame,\nAll sweet surprise, will find me at her side,\n Unheralded, as if from heaven I came.\n\nThen to my arms, in lovely disarray,\n With welcome kiss, thy darling feet will fly!\nO happy dream and prayer! O blissful day!\n What golden dawn, at last, shall bring thee nigh?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -113017,8 +116493,10 @@ "title": "“The Simple Life”", "body": "Give, if thou wilt, for gold a life of toil!\n Let endless acres claim thy care!\nWhile sounds of war thy fearful slumbers spoil,\n And far-off trumpets scare!\n\nTo me my poverty brings tranquil hours;\n My lowly hearth-stone cheerly shines;\nMy modest garden bears me fruit and flowers,\n And plenteous native wines.\n\nI set my tender vines with timely skill,\n Or pluck large apples from the bough;\nOr goad my lazy steers to work my will,\n Or guide my own rude plough.\n\nFull tenderly upon my breast I bear\n A lamb or small kid gone astray;\nAnd yearly worship with my swains prepare,\n The shepherd’s ancient way.\n\nI love those rude shrines in a lonely field\n Where rustic faith the god reveres,\nOr flower-crowned cross-road mile-stones, half concealed\n By gifts of travellers.\n\nWhatever fruit the kindly seasons show,\n Due tribute to our gods I pour;\nO’er Ceres’ brows the tasseled wheat I throw,\n Or wreathe her temple door.\n\nMy plenteous orchards fear no pelf or harm,\n By red Priapus sentinelled;\nBy his huge sickle’s formidable charm\n The bird thieves are dispelled.\n\nWith offerings at my hearth, and faithful fires,\n My Lares I revere: not now\nAs when with greater gifts my wealthier sires\n Performed the hallowing vow.\n\nNo herds have I like theirs: I only bring\n One white lamb from my little fold,\nWhile my few bondmen at the altar sing\n Our harvest anthems old.\n\nGods of my hearth! ye never learned to slight\n A poor man’s gift. My bowls of clay\nTo ye are hallowed by the cleansing rite,\n The best, most ancient way.\n\nIf from my sheep the thief, the wolf, be driven,\n If fatter flocks allure them more,\nTo me the riches to my fathers given\n Kind Heaven need not restore.\n\nMy small, sure crop contents me; and the storm\n That pelts my thatch breaks not my rest,\nWhile to my heart I clasp the beauteous form\n Of her it loves the best.\n\nMy simple cot brings such secure repose,\n When so companioned I can lie,\nThat winds of winter and the whirling snows\n Sing me soft lullaby.\n\nThis lot be mine! I envy not their gold\n Who rove the furious ocean foam:\nA frugal life will all my pleasures hold,\n If love be mine, and home.\n\nEnough I travel, if I steal away\n To sleep at noon-tide by the flow\nOf some cool stream. Could India’s jewels pay\n For longer absence? No!\n\nLet great Messala vanquish land and sea,\n And deck with spoils his golden hall!\nI am myself a conquest, and must be\n My Delia’s captive thrall.\n\nBe Delia mine, and Fame may flout and scorn,\n Or brand me with the sluggard’s name!\nWith cheerful hands I’ll plant my upland corn,\n And live to laugh at Fame.\n\nIf I might hold my Delia to my side,\n The bare ground were a happier bed\nThan theirs who, on a couch of silken pride,\n Must mourn for love long dead.\n\nGilt couch, soft down, slow fountains murmuring song--\n These bring no peace. Befooled by words\nWas he who, when in love a victor strong,\n Left it for spoils and swords.\n\nFor such let sad Cilicia’s captives bleed,\n Her citadels his legions hold!\nAnd let him stride his swift, triumphal steed,\n In silvered robes or gold!\n\nThese eyes of mine would look on only thee\n In that last hour when light shall fail.\nEmbrace me, dear, in death! Let thy hand be\n In my cold fingers pale!\n\nWith thine own arms my lifeless body lay\n On that cold couch so soon on fire!\nGive thy last kisses to my grateful clay,\n And weep beside my pyre!\n\nAnd weep! Ah, me! Thy heart will wear no steel\n Nor be stone-cold that rueful day:\nThy faithful grief may all true lovers feel\n Nor tearless turn away!\n\nYet ask I not that thou shouldst vex my shade\n With cheek all wan and blighted brow:\nBut, O, to-day be love’s full tribute paid,\n While the swift Fates allow.\n\nSoon Death, with shadow-mantled head, will come,\n Soon palsied age will creep our way,\nBidding love’s flatteries at last be dumb,\n Unfit for old and gray.\n\nBut light-winged Venus still is smiling fair:\n By night or noon we heed her call;\nTo pound on midnight doors I still may dare,\n Or brave for love a brawl.\n\nI am a soldier and a captain good\n In love’s campaign, and calmly yield\nTo all who hunger after wounds and blood,\n War’s trumpet-echoing field.\n\nYe toils and triumphs unto glory dear!\n Ye riches home from conquest borne!\nIf my small fields their wonted harvest bear,\n Both wealth and want I scorn!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -113026,8 +116504,10 @@ "title": "“To Phloe and Marathus”", "body": "The language of a lover’s eyes I cannot choose but see;\nThe oracles in tender sighs were never dark to me.\n\nNo art of augury I need, nor heart of victims slain,\nNor birds of omen singing forth the future’s bliss or bane.\n\nVenus herself did round my arm th’ enchanted wimple throw,\nAnd taught me--Ah! not unchastised!--what wizardry I know.\n\nDeceive me then no more! The god more furiously burns\nWhatever wight rebelliously his first commandment spurns.\n\n# _To PholoĂ«_\n\nFair PholoĂ«! what profits it to plait thy flowing hair?\nWhy rearrange each lustrous tress with fond, superfluous care?\n\nWhy tint that blooming cheek anew? Or give thy fingers, Girl!\nTo slaves who keep the dainty tips a perfect pink and pearl?\n\nWhy strain thy sandal-string so hard? or why the daily change\nOf mantles, robes, and broideries, of fashions new and strange?\n\nHowe’er thou hurry from thy glass in careless disarray,\nThou canst not miss the touch that steals thy lover’s heart away!\n\nThou needst not ask some wicked witch her potion to provide,\nBrewed of the livid, midnight herbs, to draw him to thy side.\n\nHer magic from a neighbor’s field the coming crop can charm,\nOr stop the viper’s lifted sting before it work thee harm.\n\nSuch magic would the riding moon from her white chariot spill,\nDid not the brazen cymbals’ sound undo the impious ill!\n\nBut fear not thou thy smitten swain of lures and sorcery tell,\nThy beauty his enchantment was, without inferior spell.\n\nTo touch thy flesh, to taste thy kiss, his freedom did destroy;\nThy beauteous body in his arms enslaved the hapless boy.\n\nProud PholoĂ«! why so unkind, when thy young lover pleads?\nRemember Venus can avenge a fair one’s heartless deeds!\n\nNay, nay! no gifts! Go gather them of bald-heads rich and old!\nAy! let them buy thy mocking smiles and languid kisses cold!\n\nBetter than gold that youthful bloom of his round, ruddy face,\nAnd beardless lips that mar not thine, however close th’ embrace.\n\nIf thou above his shoulders broad thy lily arms entwine,\nThe luxury of monarchs proud is mean compared with thine.\n\nMay Venus teach thee how to yield to all thy lover’s will,\nWhen blushing passion bursts its bounds and bids thy bosom thrill.\n\nGo, meet his dewy, lingering lips in many a breathless kiss!\nAnd let his white neck bear away rose-tokens of his bliss!\n\nWhat comfort, girl, can jewels bring, or gems in priceless store,\nTo her who sleeps and weeps alone, of young love wooed no more?\n\nToo late, alas! for love’s return, or fleeting youth’s recall,\nWhen on thy head relentless age has cast the silvery pall.\n\nThen beauty will be anxious art,--to tinge the changing hair,\nAnd hide the record of the years with colors falsely fair.\n\nTo pluck the silver forth, and with strange surgery and pain,\nHalf-flay the fading cheek and brow, and bid them bloom again.\n\nO listen, PholoĂ«! with thee are youth and jocund May:\nEnjoy to-day! The golden hours are gliding fast away!\n\nWhy plague our comely Marathus? Thy chaste severity\nLet wrinkled wooers feel,--but not, not such a youth as he!\n\nSpare the poor lad! ’tis not some crime his soul is brooding on;\n’Tis love of thee that makes his eyes so wild and woe-begone!\n\nHe suffers! hark! he moans thy loss in many a doleful sigh,\nAnd from his eyes the glittering tears flow down and will not dry.\n\n“Why say me nay?” he cries, “Why talk of chaperones severe?\nI am in love and know the art to trick a listening ear.”\n\n“At stolen tryst and rendez-vous my breath is light and low,\nAnd I can give a kiss so soft not even the winds may know.”\n\n“I creep unheard at dead of night along a marble floor,\nNor foot-fall make, nor tell-tale creak, when I unbar the door.”\n\n“What use are all my arts, if still my lady answers nay!\nIf even to her couch I came, she’d frown and fly away!”\n\n“Or when she says she will, ’tis then she doth most treacherous prove,\nAnd keeps me tortured all night long with unrewarded love.”\n\n“And while I say ’She comes, she comes!’ whatever breathes or stirs,\nI think I hear a footstep light of tripping feet like hers!”\n\n“Away vain arts of love! false aids to win the fair!\nHenceforth a cloak of filthy shag shall be my only wear!”\n\n“Her door is shut! She doth deny one moment’s interview!\nI’ll wear my toga loose no more, as happier lovers do.”\n\n# _To Marathus_\n\nHave done, dear lad! In vain thy tears! She will not heed thy plea!\nRedden no more thy bright young eyes to please her cruelty!\n\n# _To PholoĂ«_\n\nI warn thee, PholoĂ«, when the gods chastise thy naughty pride,\nNo incense burned at holy shrines will turn their wrath aside.\n\nThis Marathus himself, erewhile, made mock of lovers’ moan,\nNor knew how soon the vengeful god would mark him for his own.\n\nHe also laughed at sighs and tears, and oft would make delay,\nAnd oft a lover’s fondest wish would baffle and betray.\n\nBut now on beauty’s haughty ways he looks in fierce disdain;\nHe scarce may pass a bolted door without a secret pain.\n\nBeware, proud girl, some plague will fall, unless thy pride give way;\nThou wilt in vain the gods implore to send thee back this day!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -113035,8 +116515,10 @@ "title": "“To Venal Beauty”", "body": "Why, if my sighs thou wert so soon to scorn,\n Didst dare on Heaven with perjured promise call?\nAh! not unpunished can men be forsworn;\n Silent and slow the perjurer’s doom shall fall.\n\nYe gods, be merciful! Oh! let it be\n That beauteous creatures who for once offend\nYour powers divine, for once may go scot-free,\n Escape your scourge, and make some happy end!\n\n ’Tis love of gold binds oxen to the plough,\n And bids their goading driver sweat and chide;\nThe quest of gold allures the ship’s frail prow\n O’er wind-swept seas, where stars the wanderers guide.\n\nBy golden gifts my love was made a slave.\n Oh, that some god a lover’s prayer might hear,\nAnd sink such gifts in ashes of a grave,\n Or bid them in swift waters disappear!\n\nBut I shall be avenged. Thy lovely grace\n The dust of weary exile will impair;\nFierce, parching suns will mar thy tender face,\n And rude winds rough thy curls and clustering hair.\n\nDid I not warn thee never to defile\n Beauty with gold? For every wise man knows\nThat riches only mantle with a smile\n A thousand sorrows and a host of woes.\n\nIf snared by wealth, thou dost at love blaspheme,\n Venus will frown so on thy guilty deed,\n ’Twere better to be burned or stabbed, I deem,\n Or lashed with twisted scourge till one should bleed.\n\nHope not to cover it! That god will come\n Who lets not mortal secrets safely hide;\nThat god who bids our slaves be deaf and dumb,\n Then, in their cups, the scandal publish wide.\n\nThis god from men asleep compels the cry\n That shouts aloud the thing they last would tell.\nHow oft with tears I told thee this, when I\n At thy white feet a shameful suppliant fell!\n\nThen wouldst thou vow that never glittering gold\n Nor jewels rare could turn thine eyes from me,\nNor all the wealth Campania’s acres hold,\n Nor full Falernian vintage flowing free.\n\nFor oaths like thine I would have sworn the skies\n Hold not a star, nor crystal streams look clear:\nWhile thou wouldst weep, and I, unskilled in lies,\n Wiped from thy lovely blush the trickling tear.\n\nWhy didst thou so? save that thy fancy strayed\n To beauty fickle as thine own and light?\nI let thee go. Myself the torches made,\n And kept thy secret for a live-long night.\n\nSometimes I led to sudden rendezvous\n The flattered object of thy roving joys.\nMad that I was! Till now I never knew\n How love like thine ensnares and then destroyes.\n\nWith wondering mind I versified thy praise;\n But now that Muse with blushes I requite.\nMay some swift fire consume my moon-struck lays,\n Or flooding rivers drown them out of sight!\n\nAnd thou, O thou whose beauty is a trade,\n Begone, begone! Thy gains bring cursed ill.\nAnd thou, whose gifts my frail and fair betrayed,\n May thy wife rival thine adulterous skill!\n\nLanguid with stolen kisses, may she frown,\n And chastely to thy lips drop down her veil!\nMay thy proud house be common to the town,\n And many a gallant at thy bed prevail!\n\nNor let thy gamesome sister e’er be said\n To drain more wine-cups than her lovers be,\nThough oft with wine and rose her feast is red\n Till the bright wheels of morn her revels see!\n\nNo one like her to pass a furious night\n In varied vices and voluptuous art!\nWell did she train thy wife, who fools thee quite,\n And clasps, with practised passion, to her heart!\n\nIs it for thee she binds her beauteous hair,\n Or in long toilets combs each dainty tress?\nFor thee, that golden armlet rich and rare,\n Or Tyrian robes that her soft bosom press?\n\nNay, not for thee! some lover young and trim\n Compels her passion to allure his flame\nBy all the arts of beauty. ’Tis for him\n She wastes thy wealth and brings thy house to shame.\n\nI praise her for it. What nice girl could bear\n Thy gouty body and old dotard smile?\nYet unto thee did my lost love repair--\n O Venus! a wild beast were not so vile!\n\nDidst thou make traffic of my fond caress,\n And with another mock my kiss for gain?\nGo, weep! Another shall my heart possess,\n And sway the kingdom where thou once didst reign.\n\nGo, weep! But I shall laugh. At Venus’ door\n I hang a wreath of palm enwrought with gold;\nAnd graven on that garland evermore,\n Her votaries shall read this story told:\n\n“Tibullus, from a lying love set free,\nO goddess, brings his gift, and asks new grace of thee.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -113044,8 +116526,10 @@ "title": "“War is a crime”", "body": "Whoe’er first forged the terror-striking sword,\nHis own fierce heart had tempered like its blade.\nWhat slaughter followed! Ah! what conflict wild!\nWhat swifter journeys unto darksome death!\nBut blame not him! Ourselves have madly turned\nOn one another’s breasts that cunning edge\nWherewith he meant mere blood of beast to spill.\n\nGold makes our crime. No need for plundering war,\nWhen bowls of beech-wood held the frugal feast.\nNo citadel was seen nor moated wall;\nThe shepherd chief led home his motley flock,\nAnd slumbered free from care. Would I had lived\nIn that good, golden time; nor e’er had known\nA mob in arms arrayed; nor felt my heart\nThrob to the trumpet’s call! Now to the wars\nI must away, where haply some chance foe\nBears now the blade my naked side shall feel.\nSave me, dear Lares of my hearth and home!\nYe oft my childish steps did guard and bless,\nAs timidly beneath your seat they strayed.\n\nDeem it no shame that hewn of ancient oak\nYour simple emblems in my dwelling stand!\nFor so the pious generations gone\nRevered your powers, and with offerings rude\nTo rough-hewn gods in narrow-built abodes,\nLived beautiful and honorable lives.\nDid they not bring to crown your hallowed brows\nGarlands of ripest corn, or pour new wine\nIn pure libation on the thirsty ground?\nOft on some votive day the father brought\nThe consecrated loaf, and close behind\nHis little daughter in her virgin palm\nBore honey bright as gold. O powers benign!\nTo ye once more a faithful servant prays\nFor safety! Let the deadly brazen spear\nPass harmless o’er my head! and I will slay\nFor sacrifice, with many a thankful song,\nA swine and all her brood, while I, the priest,\nBearing the votive basket myrtle-bound,\nWalk clothed in white, with myrtle in my hair.\n\nGrant me but this! and he who can may prove\nMighty in arms and by the grace of Mars\nLay chieftains low; and let him tell the tale\nTo me who drink his health, while on the board\nHis wine-dipped finger draws, line after line,\nJust how his trenches ranged! What madness dire\nBids men go foraging for death in war?\nOur death is always near, and hour by hour,\nWith soundless step a little nearer draws.\n\nWhat harvest down below, or vineyard green?\nThere Cerberus howls, and o’er the Stygian flood\nThe dark ship goes; while on the clouded shore\nWith hollow cheek and tresses lustreless,\nWanders the ghostly throng. O happier far\nSome white-haired sire, among his children dear,\nBeneath a lowly thatch! His sturdy son\nShepherds the young rams; he, his gentle ewes;\nAnd oft at eve, his willing labor done,\nHis careful wife his weary limbs will bathe\nFrom a full, steaming bowl. Such lot be mine!\nSo let this head grow gray, while I shall tell,\nRepeating oft, the deeds of long ago!\nThen may long Peace my country’s harvests bless!\nTill then, let Peace on all our fields abide!\nBright-vestured Peace, who first beneath their yoke\nLed oxen in the plough, who first the vine\nDid nourish tenderly, and chose good grapes,\nThat rare old wine may pass from sire to son!\nPeace! who doth keep the plow and harrow bright,\nWhile rust on some forgotten shelf devours\nThe cruel soldier’s useless sword and shield.\nFrom peaceful holiday with mirth and wine\nThe rustic, not half sober, driveth home\nWith wife and weans upon the lumbering wain.\n\nBut wars by Venus kindled ne’er have done;\nThe vanquished lass, with tresses rudely torn,\nOf doors broke down, and smitten cheek complains;\nAnd he, her victor-lover, weeps to see\nHow strong were his wild hands. But mocking Love\nTeaches more angry words, and while they rave,\nSits with a smile between! O heart of stone!\nO iron heart! that could thy sweetheart strike!\nYe gods avenge her! Is it not enough\nTo tear her soft robe from her limbs away,\nAnd loose her knotted hair?--Enough, indeed,\nTo move her tears! Thrice happy is the wight\nWhose frown some lovely mistress weeps to see!\nBut he who gives her blows!--Go, let him bear\nA sword and spear! In exile let him be\nFrom Venus’ mild domain! Come blessed Peace!\nCome, holding forth thy blade of ripened corn!\nFill thy large lap with mellow fruits and fair!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Theodore Chickering Williams", "language": "Latin", + "translators": [ + "Theodore Chickering Williams" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -113062,7 +116546,9 @@ }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1586 + "year": 1586, + "month": "september", + "day": 20 } }, "gender": "male", @@ -113071,7 +116557,7 @@ ], "education": null, "movement": [], - "religion": null, + "religion": "Catholic", "nationality": [ "england" ], @@ -113103,12 +116589,25 @@ "name": "Nikolai Tikhonov", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1896 + "year": 1896, + "month": "december", + "day": 4 + }, + "place": { + "city": "St. Petersburg", + "country": "Russian Empire" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1979 + "year": 1979, + "month": "february", + "day": 8 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Moscow", + "state": "Russia", + "country": "Soviet Union" } }, "gender": "male", @@ -113135,11 +116634,13 @@ "title": "“As the fire loves the birch-tree she loved me 
”", "body": "As the fire loves the birch-tree she loved me\nAnd as gay flared the flames of our love.\nAs the dawn on the nomad camp breaking\nHer young shoulders were shining and smooth.\n\nNeither poetry, nor quarrels, nor concord\nCould keep us together for long.\nShe ran off with a sullen-faced nomad\nTo the sharp sleigh-runners’ song.\n\nAt night, as we shared our rough supper,\nA Yakut, in exchange for my knife,\nTold me how you drink with your lover\nAnd what gifts you have taken from him.\n\n“That must mean, I suppose, mine were less good?”\n“I should think so,” the Yakut agreed,\nAnd stretched out a hand purple with cold\nWith a wad of tobacco for me.\n\nWith my rifle the cold ground I struck,\nTook the wad, and said, “I don’t blame\nHer now, brother. Though burnt to the ground,\nThe birch-tree should still thank the flame.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Avril Pyman", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Avril Pyman" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -113150,11 +116651,13 @@ "title": "“Flame, rope, the bullet and the axe 
”", "body": "Flame, rope, the bullet and the axe\nLike servants bowed to us and followed in our wake;\nIn every drop a torrent slept;\nGreat mountains thrust their peaks through every pebble;\nIn every twig snapped by a careless boot\nHuge, black-armed forests rustled.\n\nInjustice ate and drank with us,\nThe bells of churches pealed from force of habit,\nCoins lost their weight and ringing sound,\nThe sight of corpses woke no fear in children.\nThen was it that we learned new words,\nWords bitter, beautiful and cruel.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Irina Zheleznova", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Irina Zheleznova" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -113162,11 +116665,13 @@ "title": "“Long was the road 
”", "body": "Long was the road. Much blood we drank\nand ardently our love we scattered\nwhere gallows swung with clink and clank\nand walls were breached and brickwork shattered.\n\nOur children must not hear this tale.\nWhen grown, they’ll guess and brood awhile\nand ask 
 but the closed lips will fail,\nthe eyes will send no answering smile.\n\nLet others speak for us and spread\nthe earth before them rich and good.\n“Children of Peace, taste unafraid.\nThe price was fully paid in blood.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jack Lindsay", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Jack Lindsay" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -113174,12 +116679,14 @@ "title": "“We have unlearned how to give alms 
”", "body": "We have unlearned how to give alms, forgotten\nHow to breathe the salt air above the sea,\nAnd how to meet the dawn, and in the market\nBuy golden lemons for two coins or three.\nShips call on us only by chance, and freight trains\nBring cargoes out of habit, that is all;\nJust count the men belonging to my country--\nHow many dead will answer to the call!\nBut we have no occasion to be solemn--\nA broken knife’s no good to work with, but\nWith the same knife that is all black and broken\nKnow that immortal pages have been cut.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Babette Deutsch", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1921, "month": "november" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Babette Deutsch" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -113463,8 +116970,11 @@ "title": "“Birth”", "body": "These mountains: blackness, silence, and snow.\nThe red hunter climbs down from the forest;\nOh the mossy gaze of the wild thing.\n\nThe peace of the mother: under black firs\nThe sleeping hands open by themselves\nWhen the cold moon seems ready to fall.\n\nThe birth of man. Each night\nBlue water washes over the rockbase of the cliff;\nThe fallen angel stares at his reflection with sighs,\n\nSomething pale wakes up in a suffocating room.\nThe eyes\nOf the stony old woman shine, two moons.\n\nThe cry of the woman in labor. The night troubles\nThe boy’s sleep with black wings,\nWith snow, which falls with ease out of the purple clouds.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright & Robert Bly", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright", + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -113486,8 +116996,10 @@ "title": "“The blueness dies out in my eyes tonight 
”", "body": "The blueness dies out in my eyes tonight,\nthe red gold of my heart. O how still the light burns!\nYour cloak of sadness encircles the long descent.\nYour red lips seal your friend’s unhinging.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Eric Plattner", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Eric Plattner" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -113525,8 +117037,11 @@ "title": "“De Profundis”", "body": "There is a stubble field on which a black rain falls.\nThere is a tree which, brown, stands lonely here.\nThere is a hissing wind which haunts deserted huts--\nHow sad this evening.\n\nPast the village pond\nThe gentle orphan still gathers scanty ears of corn.\nGolden and round her eyes are gazing in the dusk\nAnd her lap awaits the heavenly bridegroom.\n\nReturning home\nShepherds found the sweet body\nDecayed in the bramble bush.\n\nA shade I am remote from sombre hamlets.\nThe silence of God\nI drank from the woodland well.\n\nOn my forehead cold metal forms.\nSpiders look for my heart.\nThere is a light that fails in my mouth.\n\nAt night I found myself upon a heath,\nThick with garbage and the dust of stars.\nIn the hazel copse\nCrystal angels have sounded once more.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright & Robert Bly", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright", + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -113548,8 +117063,11 @@ "title": "“Descent and Defeat”", "body": "Over the white fishpond\nThe wild birds have blown away.\nAn icy wind drifts from our stars at evening.\n\nOver our graves\nThe broken forehead of the night is bending.\nUnder the oaks we veer in a silver skiff.\n\nThe white walls of the city are always giving off sound.\nUnder arching thorns\nO my brother blind minute-hands we are climbing toward midnight.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright & Robert Bly", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright", + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -113560,8 +117078,11 @@ "title": "“Downfall”", "body": "Over the white fishpond\nThe wild birds have been driven away.\nIn the evening an icy wind blows from the stars.\n\nOver our graves\nThe broken brows of the night bend across us.\nUnder oaks we swing on a silver boat.\n\nWe always hear the noise from the white walls of the town.\nUnder the bow of thorns\nO my brother we climb with blind hands towards midnight.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Eric Plattner & Joseph Suglia", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Eric Plattner", + "Joseph Suglia" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -113580,8 +117101,10 @@ "title": "“Elis”", "body": "# 1.\n\nThe absolute stillness of this golden day.\nUnder ancient oak trees\nyou appear, Elis, a dormant seed with round eyes.\n\nTheir blueness reflects the slumber of lovers,\nwhose rosy sighs\ndie on your lips.\n\nAt evening the fishermen drew in their heavy nets.\nA good shepherd\nleads his herd to the edge of the woods.\nO, Elis, how just are your days!\n\nWordlessly, by barren walls,\nthe blue secrecy of olive trees descends.\nAn old man’s dark song dies away.\n\nOne golden boat\nrocks back and forth, Elis--your heart to the deserted sky.\n\n\n# 2.\n\nA sweet chiming ripples in Elis’s breast\nat evening\nwhen his head sinks into the black pillow.\n\nThe shadow of the hunted\nbleeds in peace in the barbed thicket.\n\nA brown tree stands cloistered there,\nits blue fruit falling away.\n\nSigns and stars\ngo under, breathless, in the night-pond.\n\nBehind the hill winter has come.\n\nBy night\nblue doves drink the glacial sweat\nfrom Elis’s crystal brow.\n\nForever whines by the blackened walls\nGod’s forsaken wind.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Eric Plattner", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Eric Plattner" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -113611,8 +117134,10 @@ "title": "“Evening Song”", "body": "At evening, when we walk on dark trails,\nour bleached selves appear before us.\n\nThirsty\nwe drink from the pond’s white water,\nthe sweetness of our mournful childhood.\n\nWeary, we rest beneath the elderberry\nto behold the dawning gulls.\n\nSpring clouds rise above the town’s dark thoughts--\nmute, the monks’ nobler days.\n\nAs I took your tiny hands\nyour round eyes gently broke upon me.\nThis was long ago.\n\nAnd yet, when darker songs descend upon the soul,\nyou appear--a whiteness--in your friend’s autumn landscape.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Eric Plattner", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Eric Plattner" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -113658,8 +117183,11 @@ "title": "“The Heart”", "body": "The wild heart grew white in the forest;\nDark anxiety\nOf death, as when the gold\nDied in the grey cloud.\nAn evening in November.\nA crowd of needy women stood at the bare gate\nOf the slaughterhouse;\nRotten meat and guts fell\nInto every basket;\nHorrible food.\n\nThe blue dove of the evening\nBrought no forgiveness.\nThe dark cry of trumpets\nTravelled in the golden branches\nOf the soaked elms,\nA frayed flag\nSmoking with blood,\nTo which a man listens\nIn wild despair.\nAll your days of nobility, buried\nIn that red evening!\n\nOut of the dark entrance hall\nThe golden shape\nOf the young girl steps\nSurrounded by the pale moon,\nThe prince’s court of autumn,\nBlack fir trees broken\nIn the night’s storm,\nThe steep fortress.\nO heart\nGlittering above in the snowy cold.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright & Robert Bly", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright", + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -113711,8 +117239,11 @@ "title": "“Mood of Depression”", "body": "You dark mouth inside me,\nYou are strong, shape\nComposed of autumn cloud,\nAnd golden evening stillness;\nIn the shadows thrown\nBy the broken pine trees\nA mountain stream turns dark in the green light;\nA little town\nThat piously dies away into brown pictures.\n\nNow the black horses rear\nIn the foggy pasture.\nI think of soldiers!\nDown the hill, where the dying sun lumbers,\nThe laughing blood plunges,\nSpeechless\nUnder the oak trees! Oh the hopeless depression\nOf an army; a blazing steel helmet\nFell with a clatter from purpled foreheads.\n\nThe autumn night comes down so coolly.\nWith her white habit glittering like the stars\nOver the broken human bodies\nThe convent nurse is silent.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright & Robert Bly", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright", + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -113723,8 +117254,11 @@ "title": "“My Heart at Evening”", "body": "Toward evening you hear the cry of the bats.\nTwo black horses bound in the pasture,\nThe red maple rustles,\nThe walker along the road sees ahead the small tavern.\nNuts and young wine taste delicious,\nDelicious: to stagger drunk into the darkening woods.\nVillage bells, painful to hear, echo through the black fir branches,\nDew forms on the face.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright & Robert Bly", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright", + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -113735,8 +117269,11 @@ "title": "“On the Moor”", "body": "Wanderer in the blackened wind. Dry reeds whisper\nin the stillness of the moor. A column of savage birds\nensues in the dawning sky.\nOver murky waters they cross.\n\nUproar. From the crumbling shack\nthe black wings of rot flutter up.\nCrippled birches sigh in the wind.\n\nEvening in the forsaken tavern. The way home is shrouded\nby the tender sadness of the grazing herd.\nNight becomes manifest: toads emerge from the silver water.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Eric Plattner & Joseph Suglia", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Eric Plattner", + "Joseph Suglia" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -113747,8 +117284,11 @@ "title": "“The Rats”", "body": "In the farmyard the white moon of autumn shines.\nFantastic shadows fall from the eaves of the roof.\nA silence is living in the empty windows;\nNow from it the rats emerge softly\n\nAnd skitter here and there, squeaking,\nAnd a grey malodorous mist from the latrine\nFollows behind them, sniffling:\nThrough the mist the ghostly moonlight quivers.\n\nAnd the rats squeak eagerly as if insane\nAnd go out to fill houses and barns\nWhich are filled full of fruit and grain.\nIcy winds quarrel in the darkness", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright & Robert Bly", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright", + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -113759,8 +117299,11 @@ "title": "“Sleep”", "body": "Not your dark poisons again,\nWhite sleep!\nThis fantastically strange garden\nOf trees in deepening twilight\nFills up with serpents, nightmoths,\nSpiders, bats.\nApproaching stranger!\nYour abandoned shadow\nIn the red of evening\nIs a dark pirate ship\nOf the salty oceans of confusion.\nWhite birds from the outskirts of the night\nFlutter out over the shuddering cities\nOf steel.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright & Robert Bly", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright", + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -113787,8 +117330,11 @@ "title": "“Summer”", "body": "At evening the complaint of the cuckoo\nGrows still in the wood.\nThe grain bends its head deeper,\nThe red poppy.\nDarkening thunder drives\nOver the hill.\nThe old song of the cricket\nDies in the field.\nThe leaves of the chestnut tree\nStir no more.\nYour clothes rustle\nOn the winding stair.\nThe candle gleams silently\nIn the dark room;\nA silver hand\nPuts the light out;\nWindless, starless night.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright & Robert Bly", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright", + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -113799,8 +117345,11 @@ "title": "“The Sun”", "body": "Each day the gold sun comes over the hill.\nThe woods are beautiful, also the dark animals,\nAlso man; hunter or farmer.\n\nThe fish rises with a red body in the green pond.\nUnder the arch of heaven\nThe fisherman travels smoothly in his blue skiff.\n\nThe grain, the cluster of grapes, ripens slowly.\nWhen the still day comes to an end,\nBoth evil and good have been prepared.\n\nWhen the; night has come,\nEasily the pilgrim lifts his heavy eyelids;\nThe sun breaks from gloomy ravines.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright & Robert Bly", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright", + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -113811,8 +117360,10 @@ "title": "“To the Boy, Elis”", "body": "Elis, when the blackbird calls in the dark forest,\nthis is your downfall.\nYour lips drink the cool of the blue\nrock spring.\n\nInvoke, when your brow lightly bleeds,\nancient legends\nand dark interpretations of bird flight.\n\nYou, though, go with soft paces in the night\nthat hangs full of purple grapes\nand you wave arms more beautifully in blue.\n\nA thornbush chimes\nwhere your mooning eyes are.\nO, how long Elis, are you dead?\n\nYour body is a hyacinth\na monk dips his wax finger into.\nA black cave is our silence.\n\nSometimes a soft beast treads out of it\nand slowly sinks its heavy lids.\nBlack dew beads on your temples.\n\nThe last gold of fallen stars.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher Newton", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "Christopher Newton" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -113842,8 +117393,11 @@ "title": "“A Winter Night”", "body": "It has been snowing. Past midnight, drunk on purple wine, you leave the gloomy shelters of men, and the red fire of their fireplaces. Oh the darkness of night.\nBlack frost. The ground is hard, the air has a bitter taste. Your stars make unlucky figures.\nWith a stiff walk, you tramp along the railroad embankment with huge eyes, like a soldier charging a dark machinegun nest. Onward!\nBitter snow and moon.\nA red wolf, that an angel is strangling. Your trouser legs rustle, as you walk, like blue ice, and a smile full of suffering and pride petrifies your face, and your forehead is white before the ripe desire of the frost;\nor else it bends down silently over the doze of the night watchman, slumped down in his wooden shack.\nFrost and smoke. A white shirt of stars burns on your clothed shoulders, and the hawk of God strips flesh out of your hard heart.\nOh the stony hill. The cool body, forgotten and silent, is melting away in the silver snow.\nSleep is black. For a long time the ear follows the motion of the stars deep down in the ice.\nWhen you woke, the churchbells were ringing in the town. Out of the door in the east the rose-colored day walked with silver light.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright & Robert Bly", "language": "German", + "translators": [ + "James Wright", + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -113904,7 +117458,6 @@ "title": "“Breathing Space, July”", "body": "The one who’s lying on his back under the tall trees\nis also up there within them. He’s flowing out into thousands of twigs,\nswaying to and fro,\nsitting in an ejector seat that lets go in slow motion.\n\nThe one who’s standing down by the docks squints at the water.\nThe docks age faster than people.\nThey have silver-gray lumber and stones in their gut.\nThe glaring light pounds all the way in.\n\nThe one who’s traveling all day in an open boat\nover the glittering bays\nwill fall asleep at last inside a blue lamp\nwhile the islands crawl like huge moths over the glass.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Patty Crane", "language": "Swedish", "source": { "title": "The Blue House", @@ -113913,6 +117466,9 @@ "year": 1983 } }, + "translators": [ + "Patty Crane" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -113923,7 +117479,6 @@ "title": "“The Indoors is Endless”", "body": "It’s spring in 1827, Beethoven\nhoists his death-mask and sails off.\n\nThe grindstones are turning in Europe’s windmills.\nThe wild geese are flying northwards.\n\nHere is the north, here is Stockholm\nswimming palaces and hovels.\n\nThe logs in the royal fireplace\ncollapse from Attention to At Ease.\n\nPeace prevails, vaccine and potatoes,\nbut the city wells breathe heavily.\n\nPrivy barrels in sedan chairs like paschas\nare carried by night over the North Bridge.\n\nThe cobblestones make them stagger\nmamselles loafers gentlemen.\n\nImplacably still, the sign-board\nwith the smoking blackamoor.\n\nSo many islands, so much rowing\nwith invisible oars against the current!\n\nThe channels open up, April May\nand sweet honey dribbling June.\n\nThe heat reaches islands far out.\nThe village doors are open, except one.\n\nThe snake-clock’s pointer licks the silence.\nThe rock slopes glow with geology’s patience.\n\nIt happened like this, or almost.\nIt is an obscure family tale\n\nabout Erik, done down by a curse\ndisabled by a bullet through the soul.\n\nHe went to town, met an enemy\nand sailed home sick and grey.\n\nKeeps to his bed all that summer.\nThe tools on the wall are in mourning.\n\nHe lies awake, hears the woolly flutter\nof night moths, his moonlight comrades.\n\nHis strength ebbs out, he pushes in vain\nagainst the iron-bound tomorrow.\n\nAnd the God of the depths cries out of the depths\n“Deliver me! Deliver yourself!”\n\nAll the surface action turns inwards.\nHe’s taken apart, put together.\n\nThe wind rises and the wild rose bushes\ncatch on the fleeing light.\n\nThe future opens, he looks into\nthe self-rotating kaleidoscope\n\nsees indistinct fluttering faces\nfamily faces not yet born.\n\nBy mistake his gaze strikes me\nas I walk around here in Washington\n\namong grandiose houses where only\nevery second column bears weight.\n\nWhite buildings in crematorium style\nwhere the dream of the poor turns to ash.\n\nThe gentle downward slope gets steeper\nand imperceptibly becomes an abyss.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robin Fulton", "language": "Swedish", "source": { "title": "The Blue House", @@ -113932,6 +117487,9 @@ "year": 1983 } }, + "translators": [ + "Robin Fulton" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -113942,7 +117500,6 @@ "title": "“Midday Thaw”", "body": "The morning air delivered its letters with stamps that glowed.\nThe snow glistened and all burdens were lifted--a kilo weighed 700 grams, no more.\n\nHigh over the ice the sun was flying in place, both warm and cold.\nThe wind advanced gently, as if pushing a baby stroller.\n\nFamilies went outside, seeing open sky for the first time in a long while.\nWe found ourselves in the first chapter of a captivating story.\n\nThe sunshine stuck to all the fur hats like pollen to the bees\nand the sunshine stuck to the name winter and stayed there until winter’s end.\n\nA still life of harvested logs on the snow made me thoughtful. I asked them:\n“Are You coming along to my childhood?” They answered, “Yes.”\n\nDeep in the thicket, there was a mumbling of words in a new language:\nthe vowels were blue sky, the consonants black twigs, and spoken so softly over the snow.\n\nBut the jet curtsying in its thundering skirts\nintensified the strength of silence on Earth.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Patty Crane", "language": "Swedish", "source": { "title": "The Blue House", @@ -113951,6 +117508,9 @@ "year": 1983 } }, + "translators": [ + "Patty Crane" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -113961,7 +117521,6 @@ "title": "“November in the Former DDR”", "body": "The almighty cyclop’s-eye clouded over\nand the grass shook itself in the coal dust.\n\nBeaten black and blue by the night’s dreams\nwe board the train\nthat stops at every station\nand lays eggs.\n\nAlmost silent.\nThe clang of the church bells’ buckets\nfetching water.\nAnd someone’s inexorable cough\nscolding everything and everyone.\n\nA stone idol moves its lips:\nit’s the city.\nRuled by iron-hard misunderstandings\namong kiosk attendants butchers\nmetal-workers naval officers\niron-hard misunderstandings, academics!\n\nHow sore my eyes are!\nThey’ve been reading by the faint glimmer of the glow-worm lamps.\n\nNovember offers caramels of granite.\nUnpredictable!\nLike world history\nlaughing at the wrong place.\n\nBut we hear the clang\nof the church bells’ buckets fetching water\nevery Wednesday\n--is it Wednesday?--\nso much for our Sundays!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robin Fulton", "language": "Swedish", "source": { "title": "The Blue House", @@ -113970,6 +117529,9 @@ "year": 1983 } }, + "translators": [ + "Robin Fulton" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november", @@ -113981,7 +117543,6 @@ "title": "“Open and Closed Spaces”", "body": "A man feels the world with his work like a glove.\nHe rests for a while at midday and has laid his gloves on the shelf.\nWhere they suddenly grow, spreading out\nand darkening the whole house from within.\n\nThe darkened house is in the midst of the spring winds.\n“Amnesty,” goes whispering through the grass: “amnesty.”\nA boy runs with an invisible line angling up into the sky\nwhere his wild dreams about the future fly like a kite bigger than the suburbs.\n\nFrom a peak farther north, you can see the infinite blue carpet of the pine forest\nwhere the cloud-shadows\nare standing still.\nNo, flying along.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Patty Crane", "language": "Swedish", "source": { "title": "The Blue House", @@ -113990,6 +117551,9 @@ "year": 1983 } }, + "translators": [ + "Patty Crane" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -114000,7 +117564,6 @@ "title": "“The Open Window”", "body": "I stood shaving one morning\nin front of the open window\non the second floor.\nSwitched on the razor.\nIt started to purr.\nIt whirred louder and louder.\nGrew into a roar.\nGrew into a helicopter\nand a voice--the pilot’s--pierced\nthrough the noise, shouting:\n“Keep your eyes open!\nYou’re seeing this for the last time.”\nWe lifted off.\nFlew low over the summer.\nSo much that I loved, does it have any weight?\nSo many dialects of green.\nAnd above all, the red walls of the wooden houses.\nThe beetles glistened in the dung, in the sun.\nCellars being pulled up by the roots\nwafted through the air.\nActivity.\nThe printing presses crawled along.\nAt that instant, the people\nwere the only ones who kept still.\nThey held a minute of silence.\nAnd above all, the dead in the country graveyard\nwere still\nlike those who posed for a photo in the camera’s youth.\nFly low!\nI didn’t know which way\nto turn my head--\nwith my visual field divided\nlike a horse.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Patty Crane", "language": "Swedish", "source": { "title": "The Blue House", @@ -114009,6 +117572,9 @@ "year": 1983 } }, + "translators": [ + "Patty Crane" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -114040,20 +117606,37 @@ "name": "Marina Tsvetaeva", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1892 + "year": 1892, + "month": "october", + "day": 8 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Moscow", + "country": "Russian Empire" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1941 + "year": 1941, + "month": "august", + "day": 31 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Yelabuga", + "state": "Russia", + "country": "Soviet Union" } }, "gender": "female", "occupation": [ "poet" ], - "education": null, - "movement": [], + "education": { + "bachelors": "University of Paris" + }, + "movement": [ + "Russian symbolism" + ], "religion": null, "nationality": [ "russia" @@ -114062,243 +117645,1882 @@ "Russian" ], "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Tsvetaeva", - "favorite": false, + "favorite": true, "tags": [ - "Russian" + "Russian", + "Russian symbolism" ] }, "poems": { - "from-an-attempt-at-jealousy": { - "title": "From “An Attempt at Jealousy”", - "body": "How is your life with that other one?\nSimpler, is it? A stroke of the oars\nand a long coastline--\nand the memory of me\n\nis soon a drifting island\n(not in the ocean--in the sky!)\nSouls--you will be sisters--\nsisters, not lovers.\n\nHow is your life with an ordinary\nwoman? without the god inside her?\nThe queen supplanted--\n\nHow do you breathe now?\nFlinch, waking up?\nWhat do you do, poor man?\n\n“Hysterics and interruptions--\nenough! I’ll rent my own house!”\nHow is your life with that other,\nyou, my own.\n\nIs the breakfast delicious?\n(If you get sick, don’t blame me!)\nHow is it, living with a postcard?\nYou who stood on Sinai.\n\nHow’s your life with a tourist\non Earth? Her rib (do you love her?)\nis it to your liking?\n\nHow’s life? Do you cough?\nDo you hum to drown out the mice in your mind?\n\nHow do you live with cheap goods: is the market rising?\nHow’s kissing plaster-dust?\n\nAre you bored with her new body?\nHow’s it going, with an earthly woman,\nwith no sixth sense?\n\nAre you happy?\nNo? In a shallow pit--how is your life,\nmy beloved? Hard as mine\nwith another man?", + "the-adolescent": { + "title": "“The Adolescent”", + "body": "The grapes in the royal garden have rusted;\nthe concubine, waiting, sleeps by the wall.\nVeins of Palestine, heavy with sap,\nin you flows the ancient sadness of Saul.\n\nLike a five-day-old wound his mouth crusts over:\nthick is the blood with its term at hand.\nHow long it has been since King Saul felt like drinking!\nHow long his eye has been probing the land.\n\nThe roses of Jericho burn on his temples,\nlike bellows his chest heaves, working its load,\nand they drag, and they drag, their souls all sighing,\nthe young men of Palestine with their black blood.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "time": { + "year": 1921, + "month": "august", + "day": 30 + }, + "translators": [ + "Rose Styron" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "august", + "day": 30 + } } }, - "from-the-desk": { - "title": "From “The Desk”", - "body": "Fair enough: you people have eaten me,\nI--wrote you down.\nThey’ll lay you out on a dinner table,\nme--on this desk.\n\nI’ve been happy with little.\nThere are dishes I’ve never tried.\nBut you, you people eat slowly, and often;\nYou eat and eat.\n\nEverything was decided for us\nback in the ocean:\nOur places of action,\nour places of gratitude.\n\nYou--with belches, I--with books,\nwith truffles, you. With pencil, I,\nyou and your olives, me and my rhyme,\nwith pickles, you. I, with poems.\n\nAt your head--funeral candles\nlike thick-legged asparagus:\nyour road out of this world\na dessert table’s striped cloth.\n\nThey will smoke Havana cigars\non your left side and your right;\nyour body will be dressed\nin the best Dutch linen.\n\nAnd--not to waste such expensive cloth,\nthey will shake you out,\nalong with the crumbs and bits of food,\ninto the hole, the grave.\n\nYou--stuffed capon, I--pigeon.\nGunpowder, your soul, at the autopsy.\nAnd I will be laid out bare\nwith only two wings to cover me.", + "and-now-loading-the-camels-hump": { + "title": "“And now, loading the camel’s hump 
”", + "body": "And now, loading the camel’s hump\nWith worldly troubles, heavy as a rock,\nWe leave--the camel’s humble and plump--\nTo finish the ’unfinishable’ work:\n\nIn herds of camels--to enjoy a pool,\nIn Hell of sands--to see Blue Nile in thoughts,\nAs camel’s lord and Lord installed a rule--\nTo bear his cross in Camel’s way and God’s.\n\nAnd when the desert shifts to red from black\nThe humps will ache, and salesmen try to list\nThe kinds of ailments able to attack\nThis very kind and manageable beast.\n\nBut never looking for a helping hand,\nAhead, ahead with burning lips to lump\nTo Holy day in which the Holy Land--\nA giant hump--will rise above the humps.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "time": { + "year": 1917, + "month": "september", + "day": 14 + }, + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "september", + "day": 14 + } } }, - "dialogue-of-hamlet-with-his-conscience": { - "title": "“Dialogue of Hamlet with His Conscience”", - "body": "--She is at the bottom,\nwhere mud and weed 
\nShe went to sleep there,--\nBut even there she can’t find sleep!\n--But I loved her,\nas forty thousand brothers cannot love!\n --Hamlet!\n\nShe is at the bottom, where mud: mud! 
\nAnd the last wreath\nhas washed up upon the riverside decking 
\n--But I loved her,\nas forty thousand 
\n --Still less\nthan one lover.\n\nShe is at the bottom, where mud.\n--But I\n loved her 
?", + "appointment": { + "title": "“Appointment”", + "body": "I’ll be late for the meeting\nwe arranged. When I arrive, my hair\nwill be grey. Yes, I suppose I grabbed\nat Spring. And you set your hopes much too high.\n\nI shall walk with this bitterness for years\nacross mountains or town squares equally,\n(Ophelia didn’t flinch at rue!) I’ll walk\non souls and on hands without shuddering.\n\nLiving on. As the earth continues,\nwith blood in every thicket, every creek.\nEven though Ophelia’s face is waiting\nbetween the grasses bordering every stream.\n\nShe gulped at love, and filled her mouth\nwith silt. A shaft of light on metal!\nI set my love upon you much too high.\nAnd in the sky arranged my burial.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Sergey Rybin", "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "time": { + "year": 1923, + "month": "june", + "day": 8 + }, + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "june", + "day": 8 + } } }, - "i-bless-a-night-i-sleep": { - "title": "“I Bless a Night I Sleep”", - "body": "I bless a night I sleep in my abode,\nI bless a day when to my work I go,\nJudgment and mercy of omniscient God,\nThe good law--and the stony law,\n\nMy dusty purple, patched in every piece 
\nMy dusty staff, in the eternal glow!\nAnd else, O God, I bless forever--peace\nAnd bread in stove of another home.", + "as-people-listen-intently": { + "title": "“As people listen intently 
”", + "body": "As people listen intently\n(a river’s mouth to its source)\nthat’s how they smell a flower\nto the depths, till they lose all sense.\n\nThat’s how they feel their deepest\ncraving in dark air,\nas children lying in blue sheets\npeer into memory.\n\nAnd that’s how a young boy feels\nwhen his blood begins to change.\nWhen people fall in love with love\nthey fling themselves in the abyss.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], "tags": [] } }, - "i-know-the-only-truth": { - "title": "“I Know the only Truth”", - "body": "I know the only truth! The others--cast aside!\nThere’s no need for the men of Earth to fight with others!\nLook, there’s the evening soon and soon it’ll be the night.\nWhat you about, colonels, poets, lovers?\n\nNow wind is near the soil and dew lay on the grass,\nThe starry blizzard soon will freeze into the heaven,\nAnd soon under the earth will sleep each one of us--\nBy whom a sleep on it to others hadn’t been given.", + "at-first-you-loved": { + "title": "“At first You loved 
”", + "body": "At first You loved\nBeauty best,\nCurls touched with henna,\nPlaintive call of the zurna,\nRinging--of hooves--on flint,\nA shapely dismount,\nIn two Turkish slippers\nEmbroidered with semi-precious 
\n\nThen You loved--someone else--\nSharp arched eyebrow,\nSilk carpets--\nPink Bokharnans,\nRings on every finger,\nBirthmark on a cheek,\nLingering sunburn under white silk lace,\nLondon at dusk.\n\nAnd then--\nSomeone, who remains dear 
\n\n--What of me will remain\nIn Your heart, wanderer?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1915, + "month": "july", + "day": 14 + }, + "translators": [ + "Mary Jane White" + ], "tags": [], "context": { - "season": "winter" + "month": "july", + "day": 14 } } }, - "i-like-that-you-are-crazy-not-with-me": { - "title": "“I Like that You Are Crazy Not with Me”", - "body": "I like that you are crazy not with me,\nI like that I’m not with you crazy, either,\nThat ne’er the heavy planet’s globe will be\nDrifting away under our feet, quite easy.\nI like that one might funny be and brave,\nAnd free-behaved--and not to play words, rather,\nAnd not to blush with choking a wave,\nAt easy touching just a sleeve another’s.\n\nI thank you with my hand and all my heart\nFor loving me (that you don’t even know!),\nFor the sweet peace, I own in the night,\nFor the scarce meeting in the eve’s fast flow,\nFor our not-walking under the moonlight,\nFor our not-standing under the sun’s glow--\nThat not with me--alas--you lose your mind,\nThat not with you--alas--I lose my own.", + "at-night-all-rooms-are-black": { + "title": "“At night all rooms are black 
”", + "body": "At night all rooms are black\nEvery voice is dark. At night\nAll beauty of the earth’s countries\nAre the same--the innocent--the guilty.\n\nAnd each one talks to the other\nAt night, the beautiful and the thieves.\nPast his house I steal--\nNot that it really looks like yours at night!\n\nAnd your neighbor - strangely unlike,\nAnd on each passing--a knife\nAnd I hang around in impotent rage\nUnder the huge black trees.\n\nOh, narrow underground bed\nAt night, in the dark, at night!\nOh, I’m afraid that I will get up\nAnd whisper, and kiss your lips
\n\n--Pray, dear children,--\nFor me at the first hour and the third hour.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "time": { + "year": 1916, + "month": "december", + "day": 17 + }, + "translators": [ + "Rolf W. F. Gross" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "december", + "day": 17 + } } }, - "if-you-soul-was-born-with-wings": { - "title": "“If You Soul Was Born with Wings”", - "body": "If your soul was born with wings\nWhat does a hut mean or a palace of kings!\nWhat--Genghis Khan, and what--a horde!\nI have two foes in the whole world,\nThey are two twins in one image united:\nHunger of hungry and glut of glutted.", + "autumn-in-tarusa": { + "title": "“Autumn in Tarusa”", + "body": "A clear morning, the air is\ncool. Lightly you cross\nthe meadow. And there\non the Oka, a barge\nslowly draws by.\nUnwilled, a word is\nspeaking itself, over and over, and\nothers follow. A bell can be heard\nsomewhere, faintly\nrung in a field.\nA wheat field? A field of hay?\nAre they going to be threshing?\nMy eyes looked away\nfor an instant, straight into\nsomeone’s fate,\nbetween pine trees the deep\nrifts of blue, the voices\nacross the noise and the heaps of\nchaff and grain 
 And autumn\nsmiles at our springtime.\nLife has thrown open its coat\nand yet--\noh golden days, how remote,\nhow remote they are. Lord,\noh God, how far-off.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1911 + }, + "translators": [ + "Denise Levertov" + ], "tags": [] } }, - "oh-tears-that-in-eyes-freeze": { - "title": "“Oh Tears that in Eyes Freeze”", - "body": "O, tears that in eyes freeze!\nThe cry of love and pain!\nMy Chekhia’s in tears!\nIn blood is all my Spain!\n\nO, mountain of black,\nYou shaded all the world!\nIt’s time to return back\nMy ticket to the God.\n\nYes, I refuse to be\nIn Bedlam of non-men.\nYes, I refuse to see\nHow wolves of squares do slain.\n\nYes, I refuse to wail\nWith field sharks of all ranks.\nYes, I refuse to sail\nDown the stream of backs.\n\nMy ears I need more not,\nMy eyes I needn’t to use,\nTo all your crazy world\nOne answer--“I refuse.”", + "awakening": { + "title": "“Awakening”", + "body": "It’s cold in the world! A bed\nSeems like heaven in autumn.\nThe hop is wavered by wind,\nThe hop prattles above the barn;\nThe rain repeats: pit-a-pat,\nOnto the courtyard, pours and pours 
\nThe light from the window--so weak!\nTo a child’s heart--so bitter!\nThe brother rubs in thought\nBoth eyes with a little hand:\nThe poor is awakened! It’s now\nThe turn of the tomboy sister.\nA sponge and a washbasin\nIn a dark corner--at hand.\nIt’s cold! A doll without eyes\nIs sombrely scowling:\nIt pities the little sunshine!\nIn the hall--trembling sounds 
\nThe pianoforte, slightly\nTouched by mother’s hands.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "translators": [ + "Erika Kleijmans" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "autumn" + } } }, - "our-sweet-companions": { - "title": "“Our Sweet Companions”", - "body": "Our sweet companions--sharing your bunk and your bed\nThe versts and the versts and the versts and a hunk of your bread\nThe wheels’ endless round\nThe rivers, streaming to ground\nThe road 
\n\nOh the heavenly the Gypsy the early dawn light\nRemember the breeze in the morning, the steppe silver-bright\nWisps of blue smoke from the rise\nAnd the song of the wise\nGypsy czar 
\n\nIn the dark midnight, under the ancient trees’ shroud\nWe gave you sons as perfect as night, sons\nAs poor as the night\nAnd the nightingale chirred\nYour might 
\n\nWe never stopped you, companions for marvelous hours\nPoverty’s passions, the impoverished meals we shared\nThe fierce bonfire’s glow\nAnd there, on the carpet below,\nFell stars 
", + "bethlehem": { + "title": "“Bethlehem”", + "body": "# 1.\n\nNot with silver I came,\nNot with amber I came,\nNot as a king I came,\nAs a shepherd I came.\n\nHere’s air of hills of mine,\nHere’s of two eyes of mine\nSharp gaze--and of fires\nRed glare and of dawns of mine.\n\nWhere’s wax--that is the fur?\nThrough hole I won’t turn!\nPoorer than all--\nBut ahead of all!\n\nBehind a camel a camel\nSee: on that round hill,\nSee: walking are the kings,\nSee: they are bearing bins.\n\nO--after--far!\n\n\n# 2.\n\nThree kings,\nThree bins\nWith precious gifts.\n\nThe first bin--\nAll the earth\nWith indigo seas.\n\nSecond bin:\nNoah within\nWith an ark with beasts.\n\nAnd within?\nThat third bin?\nWhat is there, my king?\n\nGives the king,\n“Holy’s my light”\nDon’t know what it means\n\nAhead--king,\nMom--behind,\nAnd the infant weeps.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "time": { + "year": 1921, + "month": "december", + "day": 6 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "december", + "day": 6 + } } }, - "from-poems-to-czechoslovakia": { - "title": "From “Poems to Czechoslovakia”", - "body": "Black mountain\n\nblack mountain\nblocks the earth’s light.\nTime--time--time\nto give back to God his ticket.\n\nI refuse to--be. In\nthe madhouse of the inhumans\nI refuse to--live. To swim\n\non the current of human spines.\nI don’t need holes in my ears,\nno need for seeing eyes.\nI refuse to swim on the current of human spines.\n\nTo your mad world--one answer: I refuse.\n\nThey took--suddenly--and took--openly--\ntook mountains--and took their entrails,\nthey took coal, and steel they took,\nthey took lead, and crystal.\n\nAnd sugar they took, and took the clover,\nthey took the West, and they took the North,\nthey took the beehive, and took the haystack,\nthey took the South from us, and the East.\n\nVari--they took, and the Tatras--they took,\nthey took our fingers--took our friends--\n\nBut we stand up--\nas long as there’s spit in our mouths!", + "bus": { + "title": "“Bus”", + "body": "The bus jumped, like a brazen\nevil spirit, a demon\ncutting across the traffic\nin streets as cramped as footnotes,\nit rushed on its way shaking\nlike a concert-hall vibrating\nwith applause. And we shook in it!\nDemons too. Have you seen\nseeds under a tap? We were\nlike peas in boiling soup,\nor Easter toys dancing in\nalcohol. Mortared grain!\nTeeth in a chilled mouth.\n\nWhat has been shaken out someone\ncould use for a chandelier:\nall the beads and the bones\nof an old woman. A necklace\non that girl’s breast. Bouncing.\nThe child at his mother’s nipple.\nShaken without reference\nlike pears all of us shaken\nin vibrato, like violins.\nThe violence shook our souls\ninto laughter, and back into childhood.\n\nYoung again. Yes. The joy of that\nbeing thrown into girlhood! Or\nperhaps further back, to become\na tomboy with toothy grin.\n It was as if the piper\n had lead us, not out of town, but\n right out of the calendar.\nLaughter exhausted us all.\nI was too weak to stand.\nEnfeebled, I kept on my feet only\nby holding your belt in my hand.\n\nAskew, head on, the bus was\ncrazed like a bull, it leapt\nas if at a red cloth,\nto rush round a sharp bend\nand then, quite suddenly\nstopped.\n\n 
 So, between hills, the creature\n lay obedient and still.\n Lord, what blue surrounded us,\n how everywhere was green!\n\nThe hurt of living gone,\nlike January’s tin.\nGreen was everywhere,\na strange and tender green.\n\nA moist, uneasy noise of green\nflowed through our veins’ gutters.\nGreen struck my head open,\nand freed me from all thinking!\n\nA moist, wood-twig smoke of green\nflowed through our veins’ gutters.\nGreen struck my head open.\nIt overflowed me completely!\n\nInside me, warmth and birdsong.\nYou could drink both of them from\nthe two halves of my skull--\n(Slavs did that with enemies).\n\nGreen rose, green shoots, green\nfused to a single emerald.\nThe green smell of the earth had\nstruck deeply. (No buffalo feels that.)\n\nMalachite. Sapphire. Unneeded.\nThe eye and ear restored--\nFalcons don’t see tillage,\nprisoners don’t hear birds.\n\nMy eye is ripe with green.\nNow I see no misfortune\n(or madness--it was true reason!)\nto leave a throne and fall\n\non all fours like a beast\nand dig his nose in the grass
\nHe wasn’t mad, that sovereign\nNebuchadnezzar, munching\n\nstalks of grass--but a Tsar,\nan herbivorous, cereal-loving\nbrother of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
\nThis green of the earth has given\nmy legs the power to run\n\ninto heaven.\nI’ve taken in so much\ngreen juice and energy I am\nas powerful as a hero.\nThe green of the earth has struck\nmy cheeks. And there it glows.\n\nFor an hour, under cherry trees,\nGod allowed me to think\nthat my own, my old, face\ncould be the same colour as these.\n\nYoung people may laugh. Perhaps\nI’d be better off standing under\nsome old tower, than mistaking\nthat cherry-tree colour\nfor the colour of my\n\nface
\n\nWith grey hair like mine? But then,\napple blossom is grey. And God has brought me close\nto everyone of his creatures\nI am closer as well as lower
\n\na sister to all creation\nfrom the buttercup to the mare--\nSo I blew in my hands, like a trumpet.\nI even dared to leap!\n\nAs old people rejoice\nwithout shame on a roundabout,\nI believed my hair was brown\nagain, no grey streak in it.\n\nSo, with my branch of green\nI could drive my friend like a goose,\nand watch his sail-cloth suit\nturn into true sails--\n\nSurely my soul was prepared\nto sail beyond the ocean.\n(The earth had been a seabed--\nit laughed now with vegetation.)\n\nMy companion was only slender\n in the waist. His heart was thick.\n(How his white canvas puckered,\n and came to rest in the green.)\n\nFaith. Aurora. Soul’s blue.\n Never dilute or measured.\nIdiot soul! And yet Peru\n will yield to the madness of it!\n\nMy friend became heavy to lead,\n as a child does for no reason,\n(I found my own bold web\n as lovely as any spider’s)\n\nSuddenly like a vast frame\nfor a living miracle: Gates!\nBetween their marble, I could\nstand, like an ancient sign,\n\nuniting myself and the landscape;\na frame in which I remain,\nbetween gates that lead to no castle,\ngates that lead to no farmhouse,\n\ngates like a lion’s jaws\nwhich let in light. Gates\nleading to where? Into\nhappiness came the answer,\n\ntwofold
\n\nHappiness? Far away. North of here.\nSomewhere else. Some other time.\nHappiness? Even the scent is cold.\nI looked for it once, on all fours.\n\nWhen I was four years old, looking\nfor a clover with four leaves.\nWhat do these numbers matter?\nHappiness? Cows feed on it.\n\nThe young are in ruminant company\nof two jaws and four hooves.\nHappiness stamps its feet.\nIt doesn’t stand looking at gates.\n\n The wood block and the well.\n Remember that old tale?\n Of cold water streaming past\n an open, longing mouth,\n\n and the water missing the mouth\n as if in a strange dream.\n There’s never enough water,\n (the sea’s not enough for me).\n\nFrom opened veins, water\nflows on to moist earth--\nWater keeps passing by\nas life does, in a dream.\n\nAnd now I’ve wiped my cheeks\nI know the exact force\nof the streams that miss my hands\nand pass my thirsting\n\nmouth\n\n The tree, in its cloud of blossom,\n was a dream avalanche over us.\n With a smile, my companion compared it\n to a ‘cauliflower in white sauce’.\n\n That phrase struck into my heart, loud\n as thunder. Now grant me encounters\n with thieves and pillagers. Lord, rather\n than bed in the hay with a gourmand!\n\nA thief can rob--and not touch your face.\nYou’ll be fleeced, but your soul will escape.\nBut a gourmand must finger and pinch, before\nhe puts you aside, to eat later.\n\nI can throw off my rings. Or my fingers.\nYou can strip my hide, and wear it.\nBut a gourmand demands the brain and heart\nto the last groan of their torment.\n\nThe thief will go off. In his pockets\nmy jewels, the cross from my breast.\nA toothbrush ends all romance\nwith gourmands.\n Don’t fall in their hands!\n\nAnd you, who could be loved royally\nas an evergreen, shall be\nas nameless as cauliflower in my mouth:\nI take this revenge--for the tree!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "time": { + "year": 1936, + "month": "july" + }, + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "july" + } } }, - "the-seafarer": { - "title": "“The Seafarer”", - "body": "Rock me down, o starry skiff!\nMy head tired from waves, so stiff!\n\nVery long I look for abode,--\nMy head tired from passions, hot:\n\nLaurels--hymns--hydras--heroes, brazed,--\nMy head tired from senseless plays!\n\nLay me down mid leaves and grass,--\nMy head tired from ceaseless wars.", + "carmen": { + "title": "“Carmen”", + "body": "# 1.\n\nDivine, childish-plain\nThe dress is, and short to the plait.\nHow the sides of a pyramid\nRush sides from the belt.\n\nWhat big rings there are\nOn the fingers little and dark!\nWhat big buckles there are\nOn the tiny shoes!\n\nAnd people eat and argue,\nAnd people are playing cards.\nYou do not know, players,\nWhat you have bet on the card!\n\nAnd she--she needs nothing!\nAnd she--she needs nothing!\nHere’s my chest. Tear my heart out--\nCarmen--and drink my blood!\n\n\n# 2.\n\nShe stands, throwing back the throat,\nAnd bit the mouth in blood.\nAnd set the hand against bosom--\nThe left one - where there is love.\n\n“On your knees!”--“What to you\nAre my knees that I should bend,\nAbbot?” With these words\nHer last night Carmen did end.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "time": { + "year": 1917, + "month": "june", + "day": 13 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "june", + "day": 13 + } } }, - "there-is-some-hour": { - "title": "“There is Some Hour”", - "body": "There is some hour--like a cast off load--\nWhen our proud had been fully tamed.\nThe learning hour--on each life-long road--\nIs predestined and great.\n\nThe time, in which--our arms just had been thrown\nDown to the feet of shown by His hand--\nThe solder’s purple to the gray-fur gown\nWe’re changing on the seashore sand.\n\nO, this great hour--like some loud trumpet,\nRising us up from free-will of a date!\nO, this great hour, when like some ear, ripened,\nWe’re low-bending to our weight.\n\nThe ear has risen, and the hour--been crowned,\nAnd now the ear is thirsty for the mill.\nO, Law! O, Law! Yet in a womb of ground\nMy yoke by my own will.\n\nThe learning hour! But we see and know\nAnother light,--another bright sunrise.\nBe ever blessed, now rising him below,\nHigh time when lone will be each of us!", + "the-clock--what-time-it-is": { + "title": "“The clock--what time it is? 
”", + "body": "The clock--what time it is?\nRang out.\nHollows of giant eyes,\nWatered satin of the dress 
\nI just about see you, I guess,\nJust about.\n\nThe neighboring porch\nHas turned off the light.\nSomewhere they love too much 
\nYour face’s sketch\nIs a scary sight.\n\nIt’s semi-dark in the room,\nNight is one under skies.\nPierced by the light of the moon\nWindow deepened--\nLike sheet of ice.\n\n“You give up”--the voice burst.\n“I didn’t fight, it was my choice.”\nVoice from the moon catches frost.\nVoice--like from hundred verst*\nThis same voice!\n\nBetween us stood ray of moon,\nMoving the world everywhere.\nIntolerably shone\nMetal red-brown\nOf crazy hair.\n\nRun of the moon forgot\nHistory’s run.\nMirror breaks moon apart.\nKnocking of hooves far apart,\nScreeching of a cart.\n\nLight on the street burned down,\nRunning fades.\nA cock will crow soon\nParting for two young\nLadies.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "time": { + "year": 1914, + "month": "november", + "day": 1 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "november", + "day": 1 + } } }, - "two-suns-are-cooling": { - "title": "“Two Suns Are Cooling”", - "body": "Two suns are cooling--O save me, God!\nThe first--in heavens, the second--in heart.\nWill I have an excuse for that?--\nBoth suns made me fully mad!\nNo pain from the beams--they’re lost!\nHotter sun will be frozen first.", + "the-demon-in-mes-not-dead": { + "title": "“The demon in me’s not dead 
”", + "body": "The demon in me’s not dead,\nHe’s living, and well.\nIn the body as in a hold,\nIn the self as in a cell.\n\nThe world is but walls.\nThe exit’s the axe.\n(“All the world’s a stage”,\nThe actor prates.)\n\nAnd that hobbling buffoon\nIs no joker;\nIn the body as in glory,\nIn the body as in a toga.\n\nMay you live forever!\nCherish your life,\nOnly poets in bone\nAre as in a lie.\n\nNo, my eloquent brothers,\nWe’ll not have much fun,\nIn the body as with Father’s\nDressing-gown on.\n\nWe deserve something better.\nWe wilt in the warm.\nIn the body as in a byre.\nIn the self as in a cauldron.\n\nMarvels that perish\nWe don’t collect.\nIn the body as in a marsh,\nIn the body as in a crypt.\n\nIn the body as in furthest\nExile. It blights.\nIn the body as in a secret,\nIn the body as in the vice\n\nOf an iron mask.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", "language": "Russian", - "tags": [] + "time": { + "year": 1925, + "month": "january", + "day": 5 + }, + "translators": [ + "David McDuff" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "january", + "day": 5 + } } }, - "where-does-such-tenderness-come-from": { - "title": "“Where Does Such Tenderness Come From?”", - "body": "Where does such tenderness come from?\nThese aren’t the first curls\nI’ve wound around my finger--\nI’ve kissed lips darker than yours.\n\nThe sky is washed and dark\n(Where does such tenderness come from?)\nOther eyes have known\nand shifted away from my eyes.\n\nBut I’ve never heard words like this\nin the night\n(Where does such tenderness come from?)\nwith my head on your chest, rest.\n\nWhere does this tenderness come from?\nAnd what will I do with it? Young\nstranger, poet, wandering through town,\nyou and your eyelashes--longer than anyone’s.", + "from-the-desk": { + "title": "From “The Desk”", + "body": "Fair enough: you people have eaten me,\nI--wrote you down.\nThey’ll lay you out on a dinner table,\nme--on this desk.\n\nI’ve been happy with little.\nThere are dishes I’ve never tried.\nBut you, you people eat slowly, and often;\nYou eat and eat.\n\nEverything was decided for us\nback in the ocean:\nOur places of action,\nour places of gratitude.\n\nYou--with belches, I--with books,\nwith truffles, you. With pencil, I,\nyou and your olives, me and my rhyme,\nwith pickles, you. I, with poems.\n\nAt your head--funeral candles\nlike thick-legged asparagus:\nyour road out of this world\na dessert table’s striped cloth.\n\nThey will smoke Havana cigars\non your left side and your right;\nyour body will be dressed\nin the best Dutch linen.\n\nAnd--not to waste such expensive cloth,\nthey will shake you out,\nalong with the crumbs and bits of food,\ninto the hole, the grave.\n\nYou--stuffed capon, I--pigeon.\nGunpowder, your soul, at the autopsy.\nAnd I will be laid out bare\nwith only two wings to cover me.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Yevgeny Bonver", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], "tags": [] } - } - } - }, - "tu-fu": { - "metadata": { - "name": "Tu Fu", - "birth": { - "date": { - "year": 712, - "month": "february", - "day": 12 - }, - "place": { - "city": "Gongyi", - "state": "Zhengzhou", - "country": "China" - } - }, - "death": { - "date": { - "year": 770 - }, - "place": { - "state": "Jiangxi", - "country": "China" - } }, - "gender": "male", - "occupation": [ - "poet" - ], - "education": null, - "movement": [], - "religion": null, - "nationality": [ - "china" - ], - "language": [ - "Chinese" - ], - "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Fu", - "favorite": false, - "tags": [ - "Chinese" - ] - }, - "poems": { - "brimming-water": { - "title": "“Brimming Water”", - "body": "Under my feet the moon\nGlides along the river.\nNear midnight, a gusty lantern\nShines in the heart of night.\nAlong the sandbars flocks\nOf white egrets roost,\nEach one clenched like a fist.\nIn the wake of my barge\nThe fish leap, cut the water,\nAnd dive and splash.", + "dialogue-of-hamlet-with-his-conscience": { + "title": "“Dialogue of Hamlet with His Conscience”", + "body": "--She is at the bottom,\nwhere mud and weed 
\nShe went to sleep there,--\nBut even there she can’t find sleep!\n--But I loved her,\nas forty thousand brothers cannot love!\n --Hamlet!\n\nShe is at the bottom, where mud: mud! 
\nAnd the last wreath\nhas washed up upon the riverside decking 
\n--But I loved her,\nas forty thousand 
\n --Still less\nthan one lover.\n\nShe is at the bottom, where mud.\n--But I\n loved her 
?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Kenneth Rexroth", - "language": "Chinese", - "tags": [] + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1923, + "month": "june", + "day": 5 + }, + "translators": [ + "Sergey Rybin" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "june", + "day": 5 + } } }, - "the-excursion": { - "title": "“The Excursion”", - "body": "_A number of young gentlemen of rank, accompanied by singing-girls, go out to enjoy the cool of evening. They encounter a shower of rain._\n\n# I.\n\nHow delightful, at sunset, to loosen the boat!\nA light wind is slow to raise waves.\nDeep in the bamboo grove, the guests linger;\nThe lotus-flowers are pure and bright in the cool evening air.\nThe young nobles stir the ice-water;\nThe Beautiful Ones wash the lotus-roots, whose fibres are like silk threads.\nA layer of clouds above our heads is black.\nIt will certainly rain, which impels me to write this poem.\n\n\n# II.\n\nThe rain comes, soaking the mats upon which we are sitting.\nA hurrying wind strikes the bow of the boat.\nThe rose-red rouge of the ladies from YĂŒeh is wet;\nThe Yen beauties are anxious about their kingfisher-eyebrows.\nWe throw out a rope and draw in to the sloping bank. We tie the boat to the willow-trees.\nWe roll up the curtains and watch the floating wave-flowers.\nOur return is different from our setting out. The wind whistles and blows in great gusts.\nBy the time we reach the shore, it seems as though the Fifth Month were Autumn.", + "don-juan": { + "title": "“Don Juan”", + "body": "# 1.\n\nUnder the sixth birch\nAt the corner church\nOn the frosty dawn\nWait, Don Juan!\n\nBut with groom, alas,\nAnd my life I swear,\nThere is nowhere\nIn my land to kiss!\n\nWe don’t have a fountain,\nAnd the well did freeze,\nStrict, severe eyes\nDoes Madonna have.\n\nAnd so that the beauties\nTrifles would not hear\nWe have loud and clear\nRinging of the bell.\n\nHere I would have lived,\nBut--I will grow old,\nYou don’t like my world\nO the handsome one.\n\nAh, in a bear coat\nIt’s hard to recognize you,\nIf not for your lips too,\nO Don Juan!\n\n\n# 2.\n\nLong upon the foggy dawn\nThe snowstorm did weep.\nIn a bed of snow they lay\nDon Juan to sleep.\n\nNo hot stars above his head,\nNot a roaring fountain 
\nOthodox cross is on the chest\nOf our Don Juan.\n\nI have brought a Sevillian\nFan, black, so that night\nThat’s eternal, for yourself\nWould become more light.\n\nThat you’d see a woman’s beauty\nWith your own sight,\nI will bring without a doubt\nA heart to you tonight.\n\nAnd for now--from distant lands--\nSleep now, sleep in peace!--\nYou have come to me. Complete,\nDon Juan, is your list.\n\n\n# 3.\n\nAren’t you tired, after so many roses,\nCities and toasts\nTo love me? You’re almost a skeleton,\nI’m almost a ghost.\n\nAnd why should I know, that you had to call\nOn a higher power?\nAnd why should I know, that there was smell of Nile\nIn my hair?\n\nNo, I better tell you a tale:\nJanuary it was.\nA monk with a mask carried a flashlight.\nSomeone threw a rose.\n\nSomeone’s drunken voice at cathedral walls\nPrayed and swore.\nDon Juan of Castille met Carmen\nAt this hour.\n\n\n# 4.\n\nExactly--midnight.\nMoon--like a hawk.\n“Why--do you peer?”\n“Thus--I peer!”\n\n“Do you like me?” “No.”\n“Do you recognize me?” “Maybe.”\n“I am Don Juan.”\n“And I am Carmen.”\n\n\n# 5.\n\nAnd this Don Juan had Donna Anna,\nAnd this Don Juan possessed a sword.\nOf the beautiful, unhappy Don Juan\nThis from people is the only word.\n\nBut I was a clever one today:\nI at midnight stepped on roadside,\nSomeone went along with me in stride\nCalling names.\n\nAnd in fog the staff paled, a strange one 
\nThere was no Donna Anna for Don Juan!\n\n\n# 6.\n\nAnd the silk sash is falling\nTo his feet--a snake heavenly 
\nAnd “someday, when she’s underground,\nYou will calm down” they tell me.\n\nI see my profile, old\nAnd arrogant in brocade white.\nAnd somewhere--guitars--guitars--\nAnd youths in a cloak like the night.\n\nAnd somebody under mask hiding:\n“Recognize!”--“I don’t know”--“Recognize!”\nAnd the silk sash is falling\nOn a square round like paradise.\n\n\n# 7.\n\nAnd fanning in eyes of the coming\nSadness and sin,\nYou pass the city--brutally-black,\nHeavenly-thin.\n\nCovered with torment, like with fog,\nIs your eye.\nIn loop--a rose, in all the pockets--\nWords of love. Aye!\n\nI hear your call over the restaurant\nViolin.\nI send a smile to you from the distance,\nRobber king!\n\nAnd then I recognize that same look,\nSpreading my wings,\nWith which in Castille at me stared\nYour older sibling.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Florence Ayscough", - "language": "Chinese", + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1917, + "month": "june", + "day": 8 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], "tags": [], "context": { - "season": "summer" + "month": "june", + "day": 8 } } }, - "pounding-the-clothes": { - "title": "“Pounding the Clothes”", - "body": "You won’t return from the front.\nI clean the laundry stone in autumn.\nThe bitter cold months are near;\nMy heart aches with long separation.\nCan I shirk the toil of pounding your clothes?\nNo, they must go to the Great Wall.\nLet me use all my woman’s strength.\nMay you, my lord, hear the sound o’er the vast.", + "earthly-name": { + "title": "“Earthly Name”", + "body": "When parched with thirst, give me water,\nOne glass, or else I’ll die.\nPersistently--languidly--melodically--\nI pledge my feverish cry\n\nRepeated at length--yet still more fiercely,\nOnce more--again\nTossing all night long for sleep,\nAware all sleep is spent.\n\nAs if the fields were not abounding\nIn herbs that grant relief.\nPersistently--senselessly--redundantly\nAn infant’s babbled repeats
\n\nThus, each utterance more final:\nNoose--at the neck joint
\nAnd if it’s but an earthly name I’m moaning--\nThat’s not the point.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Chao Tze-Chiang", - "language": "Chinese", + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1920, + "month": "june", + "day": 25 + }, + "translators": [ + "Nina Kossman" + ], "tags": [], "context": { - "season": "autumn" + "month": "june", + "day": 25 } } }, - "the-river-village": { - "title": "“The River Village”", - "body": "The river makes a bend and encircles the village with its current.\nAll the long Summer, the affairs and occupations of the river village are quiet and simple.\nThe swallows who nest in the beams go and come as they please.\nThe gulls in the middle of the river enjoy one another, they crowd together and touch one another.\nMy old wife paints a chess-board on paper.\nMy little sons hammer needles to make fish-hooks.\nI have many illnesses, therefore my only necessities are medicines.\nBesides these, what more can so humble a man as I ask?", + "either-soldiers-drove-into-the-ground-a-stake": { + "title": "“Either soldiers drove into the ground a stake 
”", + "body": "Either soldiers drove into the ground a stake,\nEither they covered a face with a red rag,\nEither deaf and dumb from punches is the Divine,\nEither on Easter they were banned from Kremlin--\n\nOld revelers should sit at the linen,\nBirds should crawl, fish should sing, women--reason,\nHorse on a horseman should ride out wild,\nWine should be given a newborn child,\n\nCorpses carried out the window, rivers--burn,\nIn the midnight must arise the red sun,\nThe groom should forget the betrothed’s name 
\n\nLadies should love peasant men.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Florence Ayscough & Amy Lowell", - "language": "Chinese", + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1918, + "month": "may", + "day": 7 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], "tags": [], "context": { - "season": "summer" + "month": "may", + "day": 7 } } }, - "a-toast": { - "title": "“A Toast”", - "body": "Illimitable happiness,\nBut grief for our white heads.\nWe love the long watches of the night, the red candle.\nIt would be difficult to have too much of meeting,\nLet us not be in hurry to talk of separation.\nBut because the Heaven River will sink,\nWe had better empty the wine-cups.\nTo-morrow, at bright dawn, the world’s business will entangle us.\nWe brush away our tears,\nWe go--East and West.", + "epitaph": { + "title": "“Epitaph”", + "body": "# 1.\n\nJust going out for a minute--\nleft your work (which the idle\ncall chaos) behind on the table.\nAnd left the chair behind when you went where?\n\nI ask around all Paris, for it’s\nonly in stories or pictures\nthat people rise to the skies:\nwhere is your soul gone, where?\n\nIn the cupboard, two-doored like a shrine,\nlook all your books are in place.\nIn each line the letters are there.\nWhere has it gone to, your face?\n\nYour face\nyour warmth\nyour shoulder\nwhere did they go?\n\n_January 3, 1935_\n\n\n# 2.\n\nUseless with eyes like nails to\npenetrate the black soil.\nAs true as a nail in the mind\nyou are not here, not here.\n\nIt’s useless turning my eyes\nand fumbling round the whole sky.\nRain. Pails of rain-water. But\nyou are not there, not there.\n\nNeither one of the two. Bone is\ntoo much bone. And spirit is too much spirit.\nWhere is the real you? All of you?\nToo much here. Too much there.\n\nAnd I won’t exchange you for sand\nand steam. You took me for kin,\nand I won’t give you up for a corpse\nand a ghost: a here, and a there.\n\nIt’s not you, not you, not you,\nhowever much priests intone\nthat death and life are one:\nGod’s too much God, worm--too much worm!\n\nYou are one thing, corpse and spirit.\nWe won’t give you up for the smoke of\ncensers\nor flowers\non graves\n\nIf you are anywhere, it’s here in\nus: and we honour best all those who\nhave gone by despising division.\nIt is all of you that has gone.\n\n_January 5, 1935_\n\n\n# 3.\n\nBecause once when you were young and bold\nyou did not leave me to rot alive among\nbodies without souls or fall dead among walls\nI will not let you die altogether.\n\nBecause, fresh and clean, you took me\nout by the hand, to freedom and brought spring leaves\nin bundles into my house I shall not\nlet you be grown over with weeds and forgotten.\n\nAnd because you met the status of my\nfirst grey hairs like a son with pride\ngreeting their terror with a child’s joy:\nI shall not let you go grey into men’s hearts.\n\n\n_January 8, 1935_\n\n\n# 4.\n\nThe blow muffled through years of\nforgetting, of not knowing:\nThat blow reaches me now like the song of a\nwoman, or like horses neighing.\n\nThrough an inert building, a song of passion and\nthe blow comes:\ndulled by forgetfulness, by not knowing which is\na soundless thicket.\n\nIt is the sin of memory, which has no eyes or\nlips or flesh or nose,\nthe silt of all the days and nights\nwe have been without each other\n\nthe blow is muffled with moss and waterweed:\nso ivy devours the\ncore of the living thing it is ruining\n--a knife through a feather bed.\n\nWindow wadding, our ears are plugged with it\nand with that other wool\noutside windows of snow and the weight of spiritless\nyears: and the blow is muffled.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Florence Ayscough", - "language": "Chinese", - "tags": [] - } - } - } - }, + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1935, + "month": "january", + "day": 31 + }, + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "january", + "day": 31 + } + } + }, + "fierce-valley-valley-of-love": { + "title": "“Fierce valley, valley of love 
”", + "body": "Fierce valley,\nValley of love.\nHands: white with salt.\nMouth: black with blood.\n\nA left-breasted Amazon’s\nShaft just missed my temple.\nYes--my head on a stone--\nLife, who could love you?\n\nTo hell with my plans! To hell with my lies!\nHere: as a lark, there: as honeysuckle,\nHere: by the handfuls: all pitched-out along\nWith my savageries--and silences,\nWith my rainbows glimpsed through tears,\nWith my pilfering, my prevarications
\n\nLife, yes, you are a darling!\nAnd greedy too!\nYou leave your bite-mark\nOn my right shoulder.\n\nChirping in darkness
\nWith the birds I rouse myself!\nTo leave my own cheerful mark\nOn your chronicle.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1922, + "month": "june", + "day": 12 + }, + "translators": [ + "Mary Jane White" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "june", + "day": 12 + } + } + }, + "the-four-ueag-old": { + "title": "“The four-уДаг old 
”", + "body": "The four-уДаг old,\nEyes icy cold,\nEyebrows, fated already
\nToday for the first time\nYou see the ice-floe\nFrom the Kremlin heights;\nLook below.\n\nThe ice-floe, ice-floe\nAnd cupolas.\nRinging of gold, gold\nAnd silvery tone.\nWith your arms crossed so,\nMouth still.\nEyebrows knitted
--Napoleon,\nYou study Kremlin hill.\n\n‘Mama--where does the ice go?’\n‘Forward--little swan,\nPast churches, and palaces, gates below,\nForward, little swan.’\nLovely\nBlue eyes now worry:\n‘O Marina, you love me?’\n‘Surely.’\n‘For always?’\n‘Yes.’\n\nSunset--and then\nSoon home--again.\nAnd you to the nursery, me--\nMe, I shall read--rude letters.\nAnd bite lips--so
\n\nAnd the ice-floe\nStill\nMoves below.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1916, + "month": "march", + "day": 24 + }, + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Markov", + "Merrill Sparks" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "march", + "day": 24 + } + } + }, + "a-full-moon-and-a-bearish-fur": { + "title": "“A full moon, and a bearish fur 
”", + "body": "A full moon, and a bearish fur,\nAnd dancing bells in the distance 
\nFrivolous hour!--For me too\nAn innermost hour.\n\nI managed a headwind for me,\nSnow appeased my view,\nOn the hillside a monastery bright\nIn the snow--holy.\n\nSnowflakes on our sable covered breasts\nHold me close, friend,\nI look at the tree,--in the field\nAnd at the lunar cycle.\n\nBecause of our padded shoulders\nOur two heads do not meet.\nThis starts me, Oh God--dreaming,\nI envision--us.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1915, + "month": "november", + "day": 27 + }, + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "november", + "day": 27 + } + } + }, + "garden": { + "title": "“Garden”", + "body": "To cope with this underworld\nyou’ve sent me, and madness,\nmake it a garden\nfor the years that age.\n\nFor the years that age,\nfor the griefs I’ve to live through,\nthe years of work coming\nand the groanings in my back.\n\nFor the years that age.\nBone for that dog.\nFor the hell-burnt years.\nA garden in the breeze\n\nfor their refugee.\nBless me with a garden\nand nobody there,\na soulless place.\n\nGarden no one steps in.\nGarden no one looks in.\nA laughterless garden,\na no whistling there\ngarden\n\nEarless,\nbless me with a garden.\nNothing has a scent there,\nnot a soul.\n\nSpeak: you’ve tortured enough.\nA garden on its own.\nBut don’t come near me here or there.\nYes, he says, it’s as alone as me.\n\nThat’s your garden for me and the years\nI age. That. Or your paradise?\nBless me in the years that age.\nDeliver me from here.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1935 + }, + "translators": [ + "Paul Magee" + ], + "tags": [] + } + }, + "go-find-yourself-naive-lovers": { + "title": "“Go, find yourself naĂŻve lovers 
”", + "body": "Go, find yourself naĂŻve lovers: they\nWon’t correct marvels by number.\nI know that Venus was--hand made,\nI’m a craftsman, with craft encumbered.\n\nFrom the highest solemnity, dumb,\nTo the soul almost trampled to death,\nHere’s the whole celestial stair--from\nMy breathing--to: not one breath!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1922, + "month": "june", + "day": 18 + }, + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "june", + "day": 18 + } + } + }, + "god": { + "title": "“God”", + "body": "# 1.\n\nFace without aspect.\nSerenity.--Charm.\nAll who share flesh\nIn you are rehearsed.\n\nLike fallen leaves,\nLike loose gravel.\nAll who make outcry\nIn you are silenced.\n\nRime grown over rust--\nOver blood--over steel.\nAll who lie facedown\nIn you are risen.\n\n\n# 2.\n\nBeggars’ and doves’\nLonely run of scales.\nThese would be your\nClothes laid out over\nA run of trees?\n\nGroves’, copses’.\nBooks and temples\nReturned to us--you rise up.\nLike a secret escort\nPine forests rush by:\n--We hurry!--And won’t let you!\n\nUsing a goose foot\nHe christened the earth to dream.\nEven as an aspen\nHe rushed by--and pardoned her:\nEven for having a son!\n\nBeggars sang:\n--Dark, O, dark are the forests!\nBeggars sang:\n--The last cross is cast off!\nGod is risen from the churches!\n\n\n# 3.\n\nO, there’s no fastening him\nTo your symbols and cares!\nHe slips through the least chink,\nLike the sveltest gymnast 
\n\nBy drawbridges and\nMigratory flocks,\nBy telegraph poles\nGod--escapes us.\n\nO, there’s no schooling him\nTo stay and accept fate!\nIn the settled muck of feeling\nHe--is a grey ice floe.\n\nO, there’s no catching him!\nSet out on a homely saucer,\nGod--is no tame begonia\nLeft to bloom at a window!\n\nUnder a vaulted roof all\nWaited the judgment of their Master.\nWhether poets or pilots--\nThey all despaired.\n\nSince he’s one on the run--who moves.\nSince the great starry book\nOf All: from Alpha to Omega--\nIs a trace of his cloak, at best.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1922, + "month": "october", + "day": 5 + }, + "translators": [ + "Mary Jane White" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "october", + "day": 5 + } + } + }, + "gypsy-wedding": { + "title": "“Gypsy Wedding”", + "body": "Dirt flies\nFrom under the hooves.\nShawl like a shield\nOver the face.\nNewlyweds, have fun\nWithout the young!\nEh, carry them out,\nDisheveled stallion!\n\nWe didn’t have freedom\nUnder mother and dad,\nThe whole field for us\nIs marital bed!\n\nFull without bread and without wine drunk--\nThus the gypsy wedding does run!\n\nFull is the glass.\nEmpty is the glass.\nGuitar sound, dirt and moon.\nTo right and to left swings the den.\nGypsy--to knight!\nTo gypsy--knight!\n\nHey mister, careful--it burns!\nThus drinks gypsy wedding!\n\nThere, on the shawls’\nAnd fur-coats’ heap\nThere’s ringing and rustling\nOf steel and lips.\nRinging of spurs,\nNecklaces--in return.\nSilk has whistled\nUnder someone’s hand.\nSomeone has howled like a wolf,\nSomeone like a bull is snoring.\nThus sleeps the gypsy wedding.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1917, + "month": "june", + "day": 25 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "june", + "day": 25 + } + } + }, + "he-is-gone": { + "title": "“He is gone 
”", + "body": "He is gone--I cannot eat:\nThe taste--of stale bread.\nAll--chalk.\nAnything I am drawn to.\n\n
 I am the bread that was\nAnd the snow that was.\nAnd the snow was not white\nAnd the bread was unloved.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1940, + "month": "january", + "day": 23 + }, + "translators": [ + "Rolf W. F. Gross" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "january", + "day": 23 + } + } + }, + "his-sister": { + "title": "“His Sister”", + "body": "Hell’s too small, heaven too small to contain you:\nEveryone’s already at the point of dying for you.\n\nBut to follow your brother, sadly, into the fire--\nReally, is that customary? It’s not a sister’s\nPlace, to radiate passion!\nReally, is it customary to lie in his barrow
\nWith your brother? 
\n\n--“He was and is mine! Even if he’s rotten!”\n\n--nd that’s the order of precedence with graves!!!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1923, + "month": "may", + "day": 11 + }, + "translators": [ + "Mary Jane White" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "may", + "day": 11 + } + } + }, + "the-hour-of-the-soul": { + "title": "“The Hour of the Soul”", + "body": "# 1.\n\nIn the dark night of the soul,\nUn-reckoned by any clock,\nI gazed into the eyes of a boy,\nUn-reckoned in the nights\n\nOf anyone yet, like two ponds\n--Unclouded by memory and brimming--\n\nIn repose 
\n At this point\nYour life begins.\n\nMy greying Roman she-wolf’s\nGaze, upon my fosterling sees--Rome!\nMy dreaming motherhood’s\nRock face 
 With no name for my\n\nSense of loss 
 Every pall is\nLifted--growing out of my losses!--\nJust as once above a bull-rush\nBasket there bent a daughter\n\nOf Egypt 
\n\n\n# 2.\n\nIn the dark hour of the soul,\nIn the dark--of night 
\n(The gigantic footstep of the soul,\nOf the soul at night)\n\nAt that hour, soul, take control\nOf those worlds, where you want\nTo rule--mansion of the soul,\nSoul, of that, take control.\n\nRedden your lips, powder\nYour lashes--with snow.\n(Atlantean sigh of the soul,\nOf the soul--into the night 
)\n\nAt that hour, soul, darken\nYour eyes, where like Vega\nYou will rise 
 and let sour,\nSoul, the sweetest fruit.\n\nSour and darken:\nGrow up: take control.\n\n\n# 3.\n\nThere’s an hour of the Soul, like the hour of the Moon,\nOf an owl--the hour, of mist--the hour, of darkness--\nThe hour 
 Hour of the Soul--like the hour of the harp-string\nOf David through the dreams\n\nOf Saul 
 At that hour, tremble,\nVanity, and wipe off your rouge!\nThere’s an hour of the Soul, like the hour of the storm,\nChild, and this hour--is mine.\n\nThis hour of the innermost depths\nOf my breast.--The breaking of a dam!\nOf all things breaking loose from their hinges.\nOf secrets--breaking from their lips!\n\nFrom my eyes--all the veils lift! All tracks--\nLead back! On the ruled staves--not--\nA note! Hour of the Soul, like the hour of Troubles,\nChild, and this hour--strikes.\n\nAs my Trouble!--as you call it.\nAs when, as if lacerated by\nA scalpel, children--reproach\nTheir mother: “Why do we live?”\n\nAnd she, with her palm, cools\nTheir fever: “We need--To lie down.”\nYes, the hour of the Soul, like the hour of the knife,\nChild, and this knife--is a blessing.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1923, + "month": "august", + "day": 14 + }, + "translators": [ + "Mary Jane White" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "august", + "day": 14 + } + } + }, + "how-is-your-life-with-the-other-one": { + "title": "“How is your life with the other one 
”", + "body": "How is your life with the other one,\nsimpler, isn’t it? One stroke of the oar\nthen a long coastline, and soon\neven the memory of me\n\nwill be a floating island\n(in the sky, not on the waters):\nspirits, spirits, you will be\nsisters, and never lovers.\n\nHow is your life with an ordinary\nwoman? without godhead?\nNow that your sovereign has\nbeen deposed (and you have stepped down).\n\nHow is your life? Are you fussing?\nflinching? How do you get up?\nThe tax of deathless vulgarity\ncan you cope with it, poor man?\n\n‘Scenes and hysterics I’ve had\nenough! I’ll rent my own house.’\nHow is your life with the other one\nnow, you that I chose for my own?\n\nMore to your taste, more delicious\nis it, your food? Don’t moan if you sicken.\nHow is your life with an image\nyou, who walked on Sinai?\n\nHow is your life with a stranger\nfrom this world? Can you (be frank)\nlove her? Or do you feel shame\nlike Zeus’ reins on your forehead?\n\nHow is your life? Are you\nhealthy? How do you sing?\nHow do you deal with the pain\nof an undying conscience, poor man?\n\nHow is your life with a piece of market\nstuff, at a steep price?\nAfter Carrara marble,\nhow is your life with the dust of\n\nplaster now? (God was hewn from\nstone, but he is smashed to bits.)\nHow do you live with one of a\nthousand women after Lilith?\n\nSated with newness, are you?\nNow you are grown cold to magic,\nhow is your life with an\nearthly woman, without a sixth\n\nsense? Tell me: are you happy?\nNot? In a shallow pit how is\nyour life, my love? Is it as\nhard as mine with another man?", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1924, + "month": "november", + "day": 19 + }, + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "november", + "day": 19 + } + } + }, + "i-bless-a-night-i-sleep": { + "title": "“I Bless a Night I Sleep”", + "body": "I bless a night I sleep in my abode,\nI bless a day when to my work I go,\nJudgment and mercy of omniscient God,\nThe good law--and the stony law,\n\nMy dusty purple, patched in every piece 
\nMy dusty staff, in the eternal glow!\nAnd else, O God, I bless forever--peace\nAnd bread in stove of another home.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], + "tags": [] + } + }, + "i-bless-the-daily-labour-of-my-hands": { + "title": "“I bless the daily labour of my hands 
”", + "body": "I bless the daily labour of my hands,\nI bless the sleep that nightly is my own.\nThe mercy of the Lord, the Lord’s commands,\nThe law of blessings and the law of stone.\n\nMy dusty purple, with its ragged seams
\nMy dusty staff, where all light’s rays are shed.\nAnd also, Lord, I bless the peace\nIn others’ houses--others’ ovens’ bread.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1918, + "month": "may", + "day": 21 + }, + "translators": [ + "David McDuff" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "may", + "day": 21 + } + } + }, + "i-do-not-think-im-not-complaining": { + "title": "“I do not think, I’m not complaining 
”", + "body": "I do not think, I’m not complaining, do not argue.\nI do not sleep.\nI long not for the sun, nor the moon, nor for the sea,\nNor for a ship.\n\nI do not feel the heat in these walls,\nHow green the garden is.\nI do not long for the desired present\nDo not wait.\n\nNot the delights in the morning, nor the tram’s\nRinging and running.\nI live without seeing the day, forgetting\nThe date and the century.\n\nI seem to walk on a frayed tight-rope\nI--a little dancer.\nI--a shadow of someone else’s shadow.\nI--a sleepwalker under\nTwo dark moons", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1914, + "month": "july", + "day": 13 + }, + "translators": [ + "Rolf W. F. Gross" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "july", + "day": 13 + } + } + }, + "i-know-the-truth": { + "title": "“I know the truth! 
”", + "body": "I know the truth! All old truths--vanish!\nWhy do people fight with people on this earth.\nSee: this evening, look: it’s almost night.\nWhy--poets, lovers, generals?\n\nOh, the wind is calming, the earth is covered with dew,\nOh, soon the stars will be frozen in a snowstorm,\nAnd below on earth all will fall asleep, even those,\nWho on earth are not allowed to sleep with a friend.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1915, + "month": "october", + "day": 3 + }, + "translators": [ + "Rolf W. F. Gross" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "october", + "day": 3 + } + } + }, + "i-like-that-youre-not-mad-about-me": { + "title": "“I like that you’re not mad about me 
”", + "body": "I like that you’re not mad about me,\nI like that I’m not mad about you\nThat the heavy globe of the Earth will\nNot drift away beneath our feet.\nI like that I can laugh--\nWith relief--and not play with words,\nAnd not blush in a suffocating wave\nWhen our sleeves touch.\n\nI like that still you’re with me\nThat we can calmly hug one another;\nI like that I will not end in the infernal fire\nBurning, because I did not kiss you.\nThat you never used my tender name, not\nMentioned it, neither day nor night--in vain 
\nThat we’ll never hear in the silence of a church\nThem sing for us: Hallelujah!\n\nThank you with my heart and hand\nFor what you gave me--unknowingly!--\nHow you loved me: for my peaceful nights,\nFor the lack of looking at sunsets,\nFor our non-strolls in the moonlight,\nFor the sun, not being above our heads,--\nTherefore you never were sad--alas!--Not for me,\nTherefore, I never was sad--alas!--Not for you!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1915, + "month": "may", + "day": 3 + }, + "translators": [ + "Rolf W. F. Gross" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "may", + "day": 3 + } + } + }, + "i-saw-you-three-times": { + "title": "“I saw you three times 
”", + "body": "I saw you three times,\nBut we cannot stay apart.\n--After your first sentence\nMy heart burned through!\n\nI feel you in this darkness,\nLike the trembling of young leaves.\nYou - just a portrait in an album--\nAnd I do not know who you are.\n\nIf everything--as they say--happened by chance,\nYou can close the album 
\nOh, this marble brow! Oh, the mystery\nBehind your huge forehead!\n\nLook, I was true\nBefore the call to longing:\nMy golden mane\nDid not know anyone’s hands.\n\nMy spirit - has not humbled anyone.\nWe--souls of various castes.\nMy incorruptible demon\nWill not let me love you.\n\n--“So what was it?”--This\nJudgement is passed to another judge,\nThere are many yet no answers,\nAnd you do not know--who I am.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1914, + "month": "june", + "day": 13 + }, + "translators": [ + "Rolf W. F. Gross" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "june", + "day": 13 + } + } + }, + "i-will-fight-you-away-from-every-sky": { + "title": "“I will fight you away from every sky 
”", + "body": "I will fight you away from every sky, from every land,\nFor the forest is my cradle, the forest is where I’ll end,\nFor I stand upon the ground with only one foot of two,\nFor I’ll sing a song that nobody else could sing for you.\n\nI will fight you away from every night, from every time,\nFrom every sword, every banner of golden shine,\nChase the dogs away, throw the keys as far as I can--\nFor in the earthly night I’m truer than dog to man.\n\nI will fight you away from all of them, from her--the one,\nSo you be nobody’s groom, I--wife to none,\nIn the last contest I will take you--don’t say a word!--\nFrom Him with Whom Jacob wrestled beside the ford.\n\nBut until I cross your arms o’er your breathless breast--\nDamn it!--still yourself will remain by you possessed,\nYour two wings that aim at the ether beyond the sky--\nFor the whole world is your cradle, the whole world is where you’ll die!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1916, + "month": "august", + "day": 5 + }, + "translators": [ + "Evgenia Sarkisyants" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "august", + "day": 5 + } + } + }, + "id-like-to-live-with-you": { + "title": "“I’d like to live with You 
”", + "body": "I’d like to live with You\nIn a small town,\nWhere there are eternal twilights\nAnd eternal bells.\nAnd in a small village inn--\nThe faint chime\nOf ancient clocks--like droplets of time.\nAnd sometimes, in the evenings, from some garret--\nA flute,\nAnd the flautist himself in the window.\nAnd big tulips in the window-sills.\nAnd maybe, You would not even love me
\n\nIn the middle of the room--a huge tiled oven,\nOn each tile--a small picture:\nA rose--a heart--a ship.--\nAnd in the one window--\nSnow, snow, snow.\n\nYou would lie--thus I love You: idle,\nIndifferent, carefree.\nNow and then the sharp strike\nOf a match.\n\nThe cigarette glows and burns down,\nAnd trembles for a long, long time on its edge\nIn a gray brief pillar--of ash.\nYou’re too lazy even to flick it--\nAnd the whole cigarette flies into the fire.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1916, + "month": "december", + "day": 10 + }, + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "december", + "day": 10 + } + } + }, + "if-not-a-bayonet": { + "title": "“If not a bayonet 
”", + "body": "If not a bayonet--then a tusk, a snowbank, a squall,--\nOn the hour, another train--to Immortality!\nI came and knew one thing: it’s just another stop.\nAnd not worth unpacking.\n\nUpon everyone, everything--my indifferent eyes,\nCome to rest--on the immemorial.\nO how natural to enter third class\nThrough the closeness of the ladies’ rooms!\n\nWhere after warmed-over cutlets, cheeks\nAre grown cold
--Can’t we go further,\nMy soul? I’d sooner go down a streetlamp’s drain\nTo escape this deadening discord:\n\nOf end papers, diapers,\nRed-hot curling irons,\nScorched hair,\nWomen’s hats, oil cloths,\nAll the eau-de-Col--ognes\nOf families, the joys\nOf sewing (Mere trifles!)\nIs there a coffeepot?\nCrackers, pillows, matrons, nannies,\nThe closeness of nurseries, and baths.\n\nI don’t want to be in this box of women’s bodies\nWaiting on the hour of my death!\nI want this train to be drinking and singing:\nDeath--too, belongs in another class!\n\nIn a daze, a stupor, on a concertina, in distress, in vanity!\n--These unbelievers do cling so to life!--\nPrompting some pilgrim or other to say: “In the next world”
\nSo I interrupt to say: it must be better!\n\nA platform.--And sleepers.--And a last shrub\nIn my hand.--I let loose.--It’s too late\nTo hang on.--Sleepers.--I’m tired\nOf so many mouths.--I look to the stars.\n\nSo through a rainbow of all the vanishing\nPlanets--did someone at least number them?--\nI look and see one thing: another end.\nAnd not worth regretting.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1923, + "month": "october", + "day": 6 + }, + "translators": [ + "Mary Jane White" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "october", + "day": 6 + } + } + }, + "if-you-soul-was-born-with-wings": { + "title": "“If You Soul Was Born with Wings”", + "body": "If your soul was born with wings\nWhat does a hut mean or a palace of kings!\nWhat--Genghis Khan, and what--a horde!\nI have two foes in the whole world,\nThey are two twins in one image united:\nHunger of hungry and glut of glutted.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], + "tags": [] + } + }, + "ill-repeat-in-hour-of-parting": { + "title": "“I’ll repeat in hour of parting 
”", + "body": "I’ll repeat in hour of parting\nWhen love comes to end\nThat I loved, yes that I loved truly\nYour masterful hands\n\nAnd the eyes--somebody isn’t\nGifted with a glance!--\nThose that answer are demanding\nFor a look every chance.\n\nYou with your thrice-cursed passion--\nGod sees all, say I!\nAnd demanding a payment for\nAn accidental sigh.\n\nAnd I tiredly say, to listen\nHurry not at all!\nWhy is it that your own soul\nStands across my soul.\n\nAnd again I’ll also tell you:\nAll the same--hear this!--\nFar too young was this my mouth\nFor your gentle kiss.\n\nGlance is luminous and daring,\nHeart--like five year old 
\nHappy’s he who did not meet you\nOn your road.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1915, + "month": "april", + "day": 28 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "april", + "day": 28 + } + } + }, + "in-the-kremlin": { + "title": "“In the Kremlin”", + "body": "There, where a million lampade-stars\nBurn in the face of ancient time,\nWhere evening ringing’s sweet to heart,\nWhere towers are in love with sky;\nThere, where in shade of airy folds\nTransparent-white wander the dreams,\nI fathomed meaning of old riddles,\nA moon-believer I became.\n\nIn madness, with a fitful breathing,\nTo know all to the root sought I:\nTo what mysterious suffering\nThe queen is given in the sky\nAnd why to homes from ancient years\nShe tenderly leans, all alone 
\nWhat on the earth they call betrayal--\nAll has been stated by the moon.\n\nAmid the blankets with silk sowed\nBy windows of grim palaces,\nThe tired queens I did behold,\nA quiet call within their eyes.\nI saw how in the ancient stories\nThe swords, the crown, the coat of arms,\nThe light from ancient sickle pouring\nIn someone’s childish, childish eyes.\n\nOh how many eyes had stared\nFrom these windows after him with angst,\nAnd how many did he lure\nThere, where is peace and happiness!\nI saw the nuns that were in pallor,\nChildren that had rejected earth,\nAnd in the holy, holy prayers\nThe fire of passion I have caught.\n“I want to live! Wherefore is God?”--\nI asked in wandering of eyes;\nAnd in the mourning clothes’ folds\nBound for the moon long, heavy sigh.\n\nTell me, O moon, why they had woe\nThe prison of their rooms within?\nFor whose sake perished without glory\nThe slave girls with the souls of queens,\nThat from their deaf sleeping chambers\nWould tear into the fields of green?\nAnd sorrowful was the moon’s answer\nBeside the wall of sad Kremlin.", + "metadata": { + "place": "Moscow", + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "season": "autumn", + "year": 1908 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "autumn" + } + } + }, + "insomnia": { + "title": "“Insomnia”", + "body": "1\n\nIn a shady ring my eyes\nShe surrounded--insomnia.\nWith a shady wreath insomnia\nDid my eyes bind.\n\nAt night--the same!\nTo idols don’t pray.\nIdol-worshipper--I’ll give\nYour secret away.\n\nTo you--day’s not enough,\nFire of sun above!\n\nYou pale-faced one, wear\nMy rings’ pair!\nYou screamed--and proclaimed\nThe wreath of shade.\n\nEnough--did you--call me?\nEnough--did you--sleep with me?\n\nPeople bow to you.\nLight in face you’ll lie.\nI’ll be reader to you,\nI, insomnia:\n\nSleep, soothed,\nSleep, rewarded one,\nSleep, wreathed,\nWoman.\n\nThat - you would sleep--easy,\nI will sing--to thee:\n\n“Never-silent one,\nGo to sleep, my girl,\nYou the sleepless one,\nSleep, my little pearl.”\n\nAnd to whom we didn’t write letters so,\nAnd to whom we did not vow 
\nSleep.\n\nHere now parted are\nThe inseparable.\nHere released from arms\nAre your little arms.\nHere you’re tormented,\nMy dear tormentess.\n\nSleep’s--holy.\nAll--sleep.\nWreath’s--gone.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n2\n\nAs I love to\nkiss hands, and\nto name everything, I\nlove to open\ndoors!\nWide--into the night!\n\nPressing my head\nas I listen to some\nheavy step grow softer\nor the wind shaking\nthe sleepy and sleepless\nwoods.\n\nAh, night\nsmall rivers of water rise\nand bend towards--sleep.\n(I am nearly sleeping.)\nSomewhere in the night a\nhuman being is drowning.\n\n\n\n3\n\nIn my enormous city it is--night,\nas from my sleeping house I go--out,\nand people think perhaps Tm a daughter or wife\nbut in my mind is one thought only: night.\n\nThe July wind now sweeps a way for--me.\nFrom somewhere, some window, music though--faint.\nThe wind can blow until the dawn--today,\nin through the fine walls of the breast rib-cage.\n\nBlack poplars, windows, filled with--light.\nMusic from high buildings, in my hand a flower.\nLook at my steps--following--nobody.\nLook at my shadow, nothing’s here of me.\n\nThe lights--are like threads of golden beads\nin my mouth is the taste of the night--leaf.\nLiberate me from the bonds of--day,\nmy friends, understand: I’m nothing but your dream.\n\n\n\n5\n\nNow as a guest from heaven, I\nvisit your country:\nI have seen the vigil of the forests\nand sleep in the fields.\n\nSomewhere in the night horseshoes\nhave tom up the grass, and\nthere are cows breathing heavily in\na sleepy cowshed.\n\nNow let me tell you sadly and\nwith tenderness of the\ngoose-watch man awake, and\nthe sleeping geese,\n\nof hands immersed in dog’s wool,\ngrey hair--a grey dog--\nand how towards six\nthe dawn is beginning.\n\n\n\n\n6\n\nTonight--I am alone in the night,\na homeless and sleepless nun!\nTonight I hold all the keys to this\nthe only capital city\n\nand lack of sleep guides me on my path.\nYou are so lovely, my dusky Kremlin!\nTonight I put my lips to the breast\nof the whole round and warring earth.\n\nNow I feel hair--like fur--standing on end:\nthe stifling wind blows straight into my soul.\nTonight I feel compassion for everyone,\nthose who are pitied, along with those who are kissed.\n\n\n\n\n\n7\n\nIn the pine-tree, tenderly tenderly,\nfinely finely: something hissed.\nIt is a child with black\neyes that I see in my sleep.\n\nFrom the fair pine-trees hot\nresin drips, and in this\nsplendid night there are\nsaw-teeth going over my heart.\n\n\n8\n\nBlack as--the centre of an eye, the centre, a blackness\nthat sucks at light. I love your vigilance\n\nNight, first mother of songs, give me the voice to sing of you\nin those fingers lies the bridle of the four winds.\n\nCrying out, offering words of homage to you, I am\nonly a shell where the ocean is still sounding.\n\nBut I have looked too long into human eyes.\nReduce me now to ashes--Night, like a black sun.\n\n\n\n\n\n9\n\nWho sleeps at night? No one is sleeping.\nIn the cradle a child is screaming.\nAn old man sits over his death, and anyone\nyoung enough talks to his love, breathes\ninto her lips, looks into her eyes.\n\nOnce asleep--who knows if we’ll wake again?\nWe have time, we have time, we have time to sleep!\n\nFrom house to house the sharp-eyed\nwatchman goes with his pink lantern\nand over the pillow scatters the rattle\nof his loud clapper, rumbling.\n\nDon’t sleep! Be firm! Listen, the alternative\nis--everlasting sleep. Your--everlasting house!\n\n\n10\n\nHere’s another window\nwith more sleepless people!\nPerhaps--drinking wine or\nperhaps only sitting,\nor maybe two lovers are\nunable to part hands.\nEvery house has\na window like this.\n\nA window at night: cries\nof meeting or leaving.\nPerhaps--there are many lights,\nperhaps--only three candles.\nBut there is no peace in\nmy mind anywhere, for\nin my house also, these\nthings are beginning:\n\nPray for the wakeful house,\nfriend, and the lit window.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1916, + "month": "december", + "day": 23 + }, + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "december", + "day": 23 + } + } + }, + "its-not-like-waiting-for-post": { + "title": "“It’s not like waiting for post 
”", + "body": "It’s not like waiting for post.\nThis is how you wait for\nthe one letter you need:\nsoft stuff bound with\ntape and paste.\nInside a little word.\nThat’s all. Happiness.\n\nWaiting for happiness?\nIt’s more like waiting for death.\nThe soldiers will salute\nand three chunks of lead\nwill slam into your chest.\nYour eyes will then flash red.\n\nNo question of joy.\nToo old now, all bloom gone.\nWaiting for what else now but\nblack muzzles in a square yard.\n\nA square letter. I think\nthere may be spells in the ink.\nNo hope. And no one is\ntoo old to face death\n\nor such a square envelope.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1923, + "month": "august", + "day": 11 + }, + "translators": [ + "Mary Jane White" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "august", + "day": 11 + } + } + }, + "the-last-sailor": { + "title": "“The Last Sailor”", + "body": "O you--of all below-line notes\nThe lowest!--Let’s put an end to our quarrel!\nLike that consumptive woman, who moaned\nAll night: ravish me again!\n\nWho wrung her hands, as fights\nAnd close blows and ropes of oaths intruded.\n(Her sailor--no longer handsome--slept\nAs blood dropped on his rum-\npled pillowcase
)\n And then, bottoms up\nWith the glass, of crystal and blood\nLaughing
--and she mistook blood for wine,\nAnd she mistook death for love.\n\n“You sleep. I’m--need to go! No preliminaries, no rehearsals--\nJust the curtain! Tomorrow, flat on my back!”\nLike that consumptive woman, who begged\nEveryone: ravish me\n\nA bit more! 
 (My hands are clean now,\nMy gaze troubled, fingers stiff
)\nLike that woman with her sailor--with you, o life,\nI haggle: for another minute\n\nRavish me! 
", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1923, + "month": "september", + "day": 15 + }, + "translators": [ + "Mary Jane White" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "september", + "day": 15 + } + } + }, + "make-merry-my-soul-drink-and-eat": { + "title": "“Make merry, my soul, drink and eat! 
”", + "body": "Make merry, my soul, drink and eat!\nWhen my last hour goes\nStretch me so that my two feet\nCover four high roads.\n\nWhere, the empty fields across,\nWolves and ravens roam,\nOver me make the shape of a cross,\nSignpost looming alone.\n\nIn the night I have never shunned\nPlaces accursed and blamed.\nHigh above me you shall stand,\nCross without a name.\n\nMore than one of you was drunk, full-fed\nOn me, companions, friends.\nCover me over to my head\nTall weeds of the fens.\n\nDo not light a candle for me\nIn the church’s depth.\nI don’t want eternal memory\nOn my native earth.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1916, + "month": "april", + "day": 4 + }, + "translators": [ + "David McDuff" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "april", + "day": 4 + } + } + }, + "much-like-me": { + "title": "“Much like me 
”", + "body": "Much like me, you make your way forward,\nWalking with downturned eyes.\nWell, I too kept mine lowered.\nPasser-by, stop here, please.\n\nRead, when you’ve picked your nosegay\nOf henbane and poppy flowers,\nThat I was once called Marina,\nAnd discover how old I was.\n\nDon’t think that there’s any grave here,\nOr that I’ll come and throw you out 
\nI myself was too much given\nTo laughing when one ought not.\n\nThe blood hurtled to my complexion,\nMy curls wound in flourishes 
\nI was, passer-by, I existed!\nPasser-by, stop here, please.\n\nAnd take, pluck a stem of wildness,\nThe fruit that comes with its fall--\nIt’s true that graveyard strawberries\nAre the biggest and sweetest of all.\n\nAll I care is that you don’t stand there,\nDolefully hanging your head.\nEasily about me remember,\nEasily about me forget.\n\nHow rays of pure light suffuse you!\nA golden dust wraps you round 
\nAnd don’t let it confuse you,\nMy voice from under the ground.", + "metadata": { + "place": "Koktebel", + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1913, + "month": "may", + "day": 13 + }, + "translators": [ + "David McDuff" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "may", + "day": 13 + } + } + }, + "my-bearing-is-simple": { + "title": "“My bearing is simple 
”", + "body": "My bearing is simple,\nPoor is my homely roof.\nY’see, I’m an islander\nFrom isles very far-off.\n\nI live--don’t need anyone!\nYou entered--don’t sleep nights.\nTo heat a stranger’s dinner--\nWill set my house alight.\n\nYou glanced--now we are friendly,\nYou entered--now live here!\nOur laws are written in blood,\nSo they are plainly clear.\n\nWe’ll lure the Moon from skies\nInto the palm--sweet choice.\nAnd if you go--you were not.\nAnd I--as if never was.\n\nI stare at the knife’s trail:\nWill it heal over quick?\nUntil another stranger,\nWho will instruct me: “Drink”.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1920, + "month": "august" + }, + "translators": [ + "Vera Graziadei" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "august" + } + } + }, + "my-dear-friend-thats-farther-now-than-overseas": { + "title": "“My dear friend that’s farther now than overseas 
”", + "body": "My dear friend that’s farther now than overseas,\nHere are roses: take and stretch on them alone.\nMy dear friend that took a treasure, swiftly seized\nTop expensive of the earthly things I owned.\n\nSad, I sense deceipt. I’m robbed and out of place:\nAs a keepsake, not a note, nor a ring.\nI recall the smallest dimple on your face.\nYou’re amazed eternally. Memories cling.\n\nI recall these gazing and requesting eyes,\nSo inviting, urging me to sit nearby\nAnd a smile, from a Distance of huge size,\nWorldly flattery of one about to die.\n\nMy sweet friend that left to sail forever now,\nThere’s a hill that’s new among old mounds, one more.\nPray for me in Heaven’s haven, don’t allow\nNewer sailors to set sail and flee my shore.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1915, + "month": "june", + "day": 5 + }, + "translators": [ + "Dmitriy Belyanin" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "june", + "day": 5 + } + } + }, + "no-need-for-talk": { + "title": "“No need for talk 
”", + "body": "No need for talk:\nmy lips are for you to\ndrink from,\nthe thick of my hair\nhangs heavy for you to\nstroke. Please.\nAnd my hands.\nFor you to kiss.\nOr let me\ngo down into\nblack sleep.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1918, + "month": "august", + "day": 28 + }, + "translators": [ + "Denise Levertov" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "august", + "day": 28 + } + } + }, + "oh-how-many-of-them-fell-into-this-abyss": { + "title": "“Oh, how many of them fell into this abyss 
”", + "body": "Oh, how many of them fell into this abyss,\nOpeness far in the distance!\nThe day will come when I am gone\nFrom the surface of the earth.\n\nStiffen all that singing and struggle,\nShine and burst.\nAnd the green of my eyes, and gentle voice,\nAnd the gold hair.\n\nAnd there is life with its daily bread,\nWith forgetfulness of the day.\nAnd it was all--as would be under heaven\nAnd there was no me!\n\nChangeable, like children are, each mine,\nAnd as long as there is evil,\nWe love the hour when the wood in the fireplace\nTurns to ashes.\n\nA cello, and often a procession,\nAnd the bell in the village 
\n--I, so lively and present\nOn this gentle earth!\n\nTo all of you--I, who knows no measure,\nStrangers and all?!--\nI appeal for faith\nAnd ask for love.\n\nAnd day and night, in writing and talking:\nIn truth, yes and no,\nBecause I do that so often--very sadly\nAnd I am only twenty\n\nTherefore I ask straight for--\nForgiveness of all injuries,\nCaused by my unrestrained affection\nAnd a too proud appearance,\n\nFor a speedy improvement,\nIn truth, in a game 
\n--Listen!--Would someone love me--\nFor that would I die.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1913, + "month": "december", + "day": 8 + }, + "translators": [ + "Rolf W. F. Gross" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "december", + "day": 8 + } + } + }, + "oh-tears-that-in-eyes-freeze": { + "title": "“Oh Tears that in Eyes Freeze”", + "body": "O, tears that in eyes freeze!\nThe cry of love and pain!\nMy Chekhia’s in tears!\nIn blood is all my Spain!\n\nO, mountain of black,\nYou shaded all the world!\nIt’s time to return back\nMy ticket to the God.\n\nYes, I refuse to be\nIn Bedlam of non-men.\nYes, I refuse to see\nHow wolves of squares do slain.\n\nYes, I refuse to wail\nWith field sharks of all ranks.\nYes, I refuse to sail\nDown the stream of backs.\n\nMy ears I need more not,\nMy eyes I needn’t to use,\nTo all your crazy world\nOne answer--“I refuse.”", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], + "tags": [] + } + }, + "on-a-new-year": { + "title": "“On a New Year”", + "body": "Let’s meet the stranger with a lamp,\nWith a quiet, loyal flame.\nOnly no hidden whisper,\nNo whisper about him!\n\nWe do not need the bright light now,\nDim the lamp till it’s barely lit.\nOnly no sight of the better,\nNo sight of it!\n\nMay in a careless worry\nYear like a day only seem!\nOnly no thought of eternal,\nNo thought about him!\n\nWe will again become “sisters”,\nNearer to each other sit.\nOnly no words of the past,\nNo words about it!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1910 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "holiday": "new_years_eve" + } + } + }, + "our-sweet-companions": { + "title": "“Our Sweet Companions”", + "body": "Our sweet companions--sharing your bunk and your bed\nThe versts and the versts and the versts and a hunk of your bread\nThe wheels’ endless round\nThe rivers, streaming to ground\nThe road 
\n\nOh the heavenly the Gypsy the early dawn light\nRemember the breeze in the morning, the steppe silver-bright\nWisps of blue smoke from the rise\nAnd the song of the wise\nGypsy czar 
\n\nIn the dark midnight, under the ancient trees’ shroud\nWe gave you sons as perfect as night, sons\nAs poor as the night\nAnd the nightingale chirred\nYour might 
\n\nWe never stopped you, companions for marvelous hours\nPoverty’s passions, the impoverished meals we shared\nThe fierce bonfire’s glow\nAnd there, on the carpet below,\nFell stars 
", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], + "tags": [] + } + }, + "over-the-city-the-high-moon-lay": { + "title": "“Over the city the high moon lay 
”", + "body": "Over the city the high moon lay,\nAncient buildings stood tall 
\nYou voice was impartial and far away:\n“I want to sleep. Farewell.”\nWere we enemies or were we friends?\nBriefly we shook our hands,\nDrily resounded upon the stones\nSteps in the long dress.\nSomething had shimmered--familiar pain,\nAncient angst’s overflow 
\nYou want to sleep? So to sleep, and may\nYour dreams be beautiful, so.\nMay the doctor’s analysis not\nBother your dreaming and comfort.\nMaybe in life you will also prefer\nPeace to the travails of road.\nMaybe the wave will not lift you at all,\nThe earth’s temptations kill you--\nIn this fog how dimly the goal\nIs seen, and the roads so much differ!\nIt is a joy with sleep to chase woe,\nSleepy ones have no ambition,\nOnly the light hopes they will not know,\nThey will not glimpse resurrection,\nThey cannot fold their dreams in their souls,\nStorms are deserving heroes!\nI will fight and I will cry, and you might\nSleep peacefully here.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1920 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [] + } + }, + "parting": { + "title": "“Parting”", + "body": "1\n\nTower-bell striking\nThere in the Kremlin.\nWhere on the earth is,\nWhere --\n\nFortress of mine,\nMeekness of mine,\nValor of mine,\nHoly of mine.\n\nTower-bell striking,\nLeft-behind striking.\nWhere on the earth is --\nMy\nHome,\nMy--dream,\nMy--laugh,\nMy--light,\nOf narrow soles--a print.\n\nAs if a hand\nCast down the striking --\nInto the night.\n\n- My downcast one!\n\n_May 1921_\n\n\n2\n\nI lift the hands that I let fall\nSo long ago.\nInto a black and empty window\nEmpty hands\nI fling into mid-nocturnal striking\nClocks--I want\nTo go home!--Like this: head first\n-- From the tower!--Homeward!\n\nNot onto the cobbled square:\nInto rustle and whisper
\nSome youthful Warrior will spread\nHis wing beneath me.\n\n_May 1921_\n\n\n3\n\nHarder and harder\nStart wringing my hands!\nBetween us not earthly\nVersts--but divisive\nCelestial rivers, azure nations,\nWhere my friend is forever already --\nInalienable.\n\nThe high road races\nIn silvery harness.\nI don’t wring my hands!\nI only extend them\n-- In silence! --\nLike a tree-(waving)-rowan\nTo parting,\nThe wake of a crane-wedge flying.\n\nThe crane train is racing,\nRacing, no backward glances.\nI’ll not desert haughtiness!\nIn death--I’ll abide\nElegant--to your gold-fledged quickness\nThe very last buttress\nTo the losses of space!\n\n_June_\n\n\n4\n\nCover the bedstead\nIn swarthy olive.\nThe gods are jealous\nToward mortal love.\n\nEach rustle to them\nIs distinct, each swish.\nKnow, this young man is dear\nNot to you alone.\n\nSome one is incensed\nWith his luscious May-day.\nMind you, be wary\nOf sharp-eyed heaven.\n\n--\n\nYou think--it’s the cliffs\nThat attract, the crags,\nYou think, it’s the many-voiced\nSummons of glory\n\nCalling him--to the crush,\nChest-first at the spears?\nAs a rising billow\n-- You think--it buries?\n\nA nether sting\n-- You think--penetrated?\nHarsher than exile\nIs this tsar’s favor!\n\nYou weep that it’s too late\nTo wander the valleys.\nDon’t fear the earthborn\n-- Fear the invisible!\n\nTo them, each hair\nIs known on the comb.\nThousand-eyed are\nThe gods, as of old\n\nFear not the mire --\nBut the heavenly firmament!\nThe heart of Zeus is\nInsatiable.\n\n_June 12_\n\n\n5\n\nEver so softly\nWith a hand slim and careful\nI loosen the trammels:\nLittle hands--and obedient\nTo the neighing, the Amazon rustles\nOff on the ringing, empty steps of parting.\n\nIn the radiant flyway\nThe winged one tramples\nAnd neighs.--Dawn’s flare in the eyes.\nLittle hands, little hands!\nYou call to no purpose:\nBetween us there flows Lethe’s streaming staircase.\n\n_June 14_\n\n\n6\n\nYou won’t see me--grey.\nI won’t see you--grown.\nFrom immobilized eyes\nYou can’t squeeze a tear.\n\nTo all of your torment,\nDawn’s explosion--lament:\n-- Lower your arm!\nShed your raincoat!\n\nIn the dispassion\nOf a stone-eyed cameo,\nI won’t linger in the door,\nAs mothers linger:\n\n(All the gravity of blood,\nOf knees, of eyes --\nFor the very last earthly\nTime!)\n\nNot as a sneaking broken beast --\nNo, as a stone massif\nI’ll go out of the door --\nFrom life. For what then\nShould tears flow,\nAs long as--I’m a stone off your\nShoulders!\n\nNot a stone!--Already\nIn aquiline wideness --\nA cloak!--and already on the azure rapids\nInto that radiant city,\nWhither--no mother\nDares to bring\nHer child.\n\n_June 15_\n\n\n7\n\nLike a silvery sapling\nHe darted upward.\nThat Zeus not\nEspy him --\nPray!\n\nAt the first rustle\nTake fear and alarm.\nThey are jealous of\nMasculine charm.\n\nMore dreadful than the jaws\nOf a beast--is their call.\nThe nest of the gods\nIs jealous of charm.\n\nWith blossoms, with laurels\nThey’ll lure him aloft.\nThat Zeus not\nElect him --\nPray!\n\nThe whole sky in a thunder\nOf eagles’ wings.\nCrash down with your whole breast --\nThat they not conceal him.\n\nIn the aquiline thunder\n-- Oh beak! Oh blood! --\nA miniscule lamb\nIs dangling--Love
\n\nWith your hair unbound,\nWith your whole breast--prone!\nThat Zeus not\nExalt him --\nPray!\n\n_June 16_\n\n\n8\n\nI know, I know\nThat earthly charm,\nThat this incised\nAnd charming cup --\nIs no more ours\nThan the air,\nThan the stars,\nThan the nests\nThat hang in dawn’s glow.\n\nI know, I know\nWho is the cup’s--owner!\nBut set a light foot forward--tower-like\nTo aquiline heights!\nAnd with a wing--strike\nThat cup from the terrible\nPink\nLips of God!\n\n_June 17_", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1921, + "month": "june", + "day": 17 + }, + "translators": [ + "Sibelan Forrester" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "june", + "day": 17 + } + } + }, + "a-parting-in-gypsy-passion": { + "title": "“A parting in Gypsy passion! 
”", + "body": "A parting in Gypsy passion!\nWe just met--and you take flight!\nI dropped my head into my hands\nAnd think, staring into the night:\n\nNo one, leafing through our letters,\nWill understand their depth,\nHow treacherous we were, that is--\nHow true to ourselves.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1915, + "month": "october" + }, + "translators": [ + "Rolf W. F. Gross" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "october" + } + } + }, + "passing-me-by-as-you-walk": { + "title": "“Passing me by, as you walk 
”", + "body": "Passing me by, as you walk\nTo charms doubtful and not mine--\nIf you but knew how much fire,\nHow much life is wasted in vain,\n\nOn the rustling, occasional shade\nWhat a heroic flame--\nAnd how enflamed my heart\nThis gunpowder wasted in vain!\n\nO the trains flying into the night,\nCarrying sleep on the station away 
\nIf you recognized--if you but knew--\nThen and there, I know, anyway.\n\nWhy are my words so sharp\nIn eternal smoke of my cigarette--\nHow much dark and menacing angst\nIs there in my light-haired head.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1913, + "month": "may", + "day": 17 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "may", + "day": 17 + } + } + }, + "poem-of-the-end": { + "title": "“Poem of the end”", + "body": "# 1.\n\nA single post, a point of rusting\n tin in the sky\nmarks the fated place we\n move to, he and I\n\non time as death is\n prompt strangely\ntoo smooth the gesture of\n his hat to me\n\nmenace at the edges of his\n eyes his mouth tight\nshut strangely too low is the\n bow he makes tonight\n\non time? that false note in\n his voice, what\nis it the brain alerts to and the\n heart drops at?\n\nunder that evil sky, that sign of\n tin and rust.\nSix o’clock. There he is waiting\n by the post.\n\nNow we kiss soundlessly, his\n lips stiff as\nhands are given to queens, or\n dead people thus\n\nround us the shoving elbows of\n ordinary bustle\nand strangely irksome rises the\n screech of a whistle\n\nhowls like a dog screaming\n angrier, longer: what\na nightmare strangeness life is\n at death point\n\nand that nightmare reached my waist\n only last night\nand now reaches the stars, it has\n grown to its true height\n\ncrying silently love love until\n --Has it gone\nsix, shall we go to the cinema?\n I shout it: home!\n\n\n# 2.\n\nAnd what have we come to?\n tents of nomads\nthunder and drawn swords over\n our heads, some\n\nterror we expect\n listen houses\ncollapsing in the one\n word: home.\n\nIt is the whine of a cossetted\n child lost, it is the\nnoise a baby makes for\n give and mine.\n\nBrother in dissipation, cause\n of this cold fever, you\nhurry now to get home just\n as men rush in leaving\n\nlike a horse jerking the\n line rope down in the dust.\nIs there even a building there?\n Ten steps before us.\n\nA house on the hill no higher a\n house on the top of the hill and\na window under the roof is it\n from the red sun alone\n\nit is burning? or is it my life\n which must begin again? how\nsimple poems are: it means I\n must go out into the night\n and talk to\n\nwho shall I tell my sorrow\n my horror greener than ice?\n--You’ve been thinking too much.\n A solemn answer: yes.\n\n\n# 3.\n\nAnd the embankment I hold\n to water thick and solid as\nif we had come to the hanging\n gardens of Semiramis\n\nto water a strip as colourless\n as a slab for corpses\nI am like a female singer holding\n to her music. To this wall.\n\nBlindly for you won’t return\n or listen, even if I bend to\nthe quencher of all thirst, I am\n hanging at the gutter of a roof.\n\nLunatic. It is not the river\n (I was born naiad) that makes me\nshiver now, she was a hand I held\n to, when you walked beside me, a lover\n\nand faithful.\n The dead are faithful\nthough not to all in their cells; if\n death lies on my left now,\nit is at your side I feel it.\n\nNow a shaft of astonishing light, and\n laughter that cheap tambourine.\n--You and I must have a talk. And\n I shiver: let’s be brave, shall we?\n\n\n# 4.\n\nA blonde mist, a wave of\ngauze ruffles, of human\nbreathing, smoky exhalations\nendless talk the smell of\nwhat? of haste and filth\nconnivance shabby acts all\nthe secrets of business men\n and ballroom powder.\n\nFamily men like bachelors\nmove in their rings like middle-aged boys\nalways joking always laughing, and\ncalculating, always calculating\nlarge deals and little ones, they are\nsnout-deep in the feathers of some\nbusiness arrangement\n and ballroom powder.\n\n(I am half-turned away is this\nour house? I am not mistress here)\nSomeone over his cheque book\nanother bends to a kid glove hand\na third works at a delicate foot\nin patent leather furtively the smell\nrises of marriage-broking\n and ballroom powder.\n\nIn the window is the silver\nbite of a tooth: it is the Star of Malta,\nwhich is the sign of stroking of the love\nthat leads to pawing and to pinching.\n(Yesterday’s food perhaps but\nnobody worries if it smells slightly)\nof dirt, commercial tricks\n and ballroom powder.\n\nThe chain is too short perhaps even\nif it is not steel but platinum?\nLook how their three chins shake\nlike cows munching their own veal\nabove their sugared necks\nthe devils swing on a gas lamp\nsmelling of business slumps\nand another powder\nmade by Berthold Schwartz\n genius\nintercessor for people:\n--You and I must have a talk\n--Let’s be brave, shall we?\n\n\n# 5.\n\nI catch a movement of his\n lips, but he won’t\nspeak--You don’t love me?\n --Yes, but in torment\n\ndrained and driven to death\n (He looks round like an eagle)\n--You call this home? It’s\n in the heart.--What literature!\n\nFor love is flesh, it is a\n flower flooded with blood.\nDid you think it was just a\n little chat across a table\n\na snatched hour and back home again\n the way gentlemen and ladies\nplay at it? Either love is\n--A shrine?\n or else a scar.\n\nA scar every servant and guest\n can see (and I think silently:\nlove is a bow-string pulled\n back to the point of breaking).\n\nLove is a bond. That has snapped for\n us our mouths and lives part\n(I begged you not to put a\n spell on me that holy hour\n\nclose on mountain heights of\n passion memory is mist).\nYes, love is a matter of gifts\n thrown in the fire, for nothing\n\nThe shell-fish crack of his mouth\n is pale, no chance of a smile:\n--Love is a large bed.\n --Or else an empty gulf.\n\nNow his fingers begin to\n beat, no mountains\nmove. Love is--\n --Mine: yes.\nI understand. And so?\n\nThe drum beat of his fingers\n grows (scaffold and square)\n--Let’s go, he says. For me, let’s\n die, would be easier.\n\nEnough cheap stuff rhymes\n like railway hotel rooms, so:\n--love means life although\n the ancients had a different\nname.\n --Well?\n A scrap\n of handkerchief in a fist\nlike a fish. Shall we go? How,\n bullet rail poison\n\ndeath anyway, choose: I make no\n plans. A Roman, you\nsurvey the men still alive\n like an eagle:\n say goodbye.\n\n\n# 6.\n\nI didn’t want this, not\n this (but listen, quietly,\nto want is what bodies do\n and now we are ghosts only).\n\nAnd yet I didn’t say it\n though the time of the train is set\nand the sorrowful honour of leaving\n is a cup given to women\n\nor perhaps in madness I\n misheard you polite liar:\nis this the bouquet that you give your\n love, this blood-stained honour?\n\nIs it? Sound follows\n sound clearly: was it goodbye\nyou said? (as sweetly casual\n as a handkerchief dropped without\n\nthought) in this battle\n you are Caesar (What an\ninsolent thrust, to put the\n weapon of defeat, into my hand\n\nlike a trophy). It continues. To\n sound in my ears. As I bow.\n--Do you always pretend\n to be forestalled in breaking?\n\nDon’t deny this, it\n is a vengeance of Lovelace\na gesture that does you credit\n while it lifts the flesh\n\nfrom my bones. Laughter the laugh of\n death. Moving. Without desire.\nThat is for others now\n we are shadows to one another.\n\nHammer the last nail in\n screw up the lead coffin.\n--And now a last request.\n --Of course. Then say nothing\n\nabout us to those who will\n come after me. (The sick\non their stretchers talk of spring.)\n--May I ask the same thing?\n\n--Perhaps I should give you a ring?\n --No. Your look is no longer open.\nThe stamp left on your heart\n would be the ring on your hand.\n\nSo now without any scenes\n I must swallow, silently, furtively.\n--A book then? No, you give those\n to everyone, don’t even write them\n\n books
\n\nSo now must be no\nso now must be no\nmust be no crying\n\nIn wandering tribes of\nfishermen brothers\ndrink without crying\n\ndance without crying\ntheir blood is hot, they\npay without crying\n\npearls in a glass\nmelt, as they run their\nworld without crying\n\nNow I am going and this\nHarlequin gives his\nPierrette a bone like\na piece of contempt\n\nHe throws her the honour\nof ending the curtain, the last\nword when one inch of lead in\nthe breast would be hotter and better\n\nCleaner. My teeth\npress my lips. I can\nstop myself crying\n\npressing the sharpness\ninto the softest\nso without crying\n\nso tribes of nomads\ndie without crying\nburn without crying.\n\nSo tribes of fishermen\nin ash and song can\nhide their dead man.\n\n\n# 7.\n\nAnd the embankment. The last one.\n Finished. Separate, and hands apart\nlike neighbours avoiding one another. We\n walk away from the river, from my\n\ncries. Falling salts of mercury\n I lick off without attention.\nNo great moon of Solomon\n has been set for my tears in the skies.\n\nA post. Why not beat my forehead to\n blood on it? To smithereens! We are\nlike fellow criminals, fearing one\n another. (The murdered thing is love.)\n\nDon’t say these are lovers? Going into\n the night? Separately? To sleep with others?\nYou understand the future is up there?\n he says. And I throw back my head.\n\nTo sleep! Like newly-weds over their mat!\n To sleep! We can’t fall into\nstep. And I plead miserably: take my\n arm, we aren’t convicts to walk like this.\n\nShock! It’s as though his soul has touched\n me as his arm leans on mine. The electric\ncurrent beats along feverish wiring,\n and rips. He’s leaned on my soul with his arm.\n\nHe holds me. Rainbows everywhere. What is more like a\n rainbow than tears? Rain, a curtain, denser\nthan beads. I don’t know if such embankments can\n end. But here is a bridge and\n --Well then?\n\nHere? (The hearse is ready.)\n Peaceful his eyes move\nupward: couldn’t you see me home?\n for the very last time.\n\n\n# 8.\n\nLast bridge I won’t\ngive up or take out my hand\nthis is the last bridge\nthe last bridging between\n\nwater and firm land:\nand I am saving these\ncoins for death\nfor Charon, the price of Lethe\n\nthis shadow money\nfrom my dark hand I press\nsoundlessly into\nthe shadowy darkness of his\n\nshadow money it is\nno gleam and tinkle in it\ncoins for shadows:\nthe dead have enough poppies\n\nThis bridge\n\nLovers for the most\npart are without hope: passion\nalso is just\na bridge, a means of connection\n\nIt’s warm: to nestle\nclose at your ribs, to move in\na visionary pause\ntowards nothing, beside nothing\n\nno arms no legs\nnow, only the bone of my\nside is alive where\nit presses directly against you\n\nlife in that side\nonly, ear and echo is it: there\nI stick like white to\negg yolk, or an eskimo to his fur\n\nadhesive, pressing\njoined to you: Siamese\ntwins are no nearer.\nThe woman you call mother\n\nwhen she forgot\nall things in motionless triumph\nonly to carry you:\nshe did not hold you closer.\n\nUnderstand: we have\ngrown into one as we slept and\nnow I can’t jump\nbecause I can’t let go your hand\n\nand I won’t be torn off\nas I press close to you: this\nbridge is no husband\nbut a lover: a just slipping past\n\nour support: for the\nriver is fed with bodies!\nI bite in like a tick\nyou must tear out my roots to be rid of me\n\nlike ivy like a tick\ninhuman godless\nto throw me away like a thing,\nwhen there is\n\nno thing I ever prized\nin this empty world of things.\nSay this is only dream,\nnight still and afterwards morning\n\nan express to Rome?\nGranada? I won’t know myself\nas I push off\nthe Himalayas of bedclothes.\n\nBut this dark is deep:\nnow I warm you with my blood, listen\nto this flesh.\nIt is far truer than poems.\n\nIf you are warm, who\nwill you go to tomorrow for that?\nThis is delirium,\nplease say this bridge cannot\n\nend\n as it ends.\n\n--Here then? His gesture could\nbe made by a child, or a god.\n--And so?--I am biting in!\nFor a little more time. The last of it.\n\n\n# 9.\n\nBlatant as factory buildings,\n as alert to a call\nhere is the sacred and sublingual\n secret wives keep from husbands and\n\nwidows from friends, here is the full\n story that Eve took from the tree:\nI am no more than an animal that\n someone has stabbed in the stomach.\n\nBurning. As if the soul had been\n torn away with the skin. Vanished like steam\nthrough a hole is that well-known foolish\n heresy called a soul.\n\nThat Christian leprosy:\n steam: save that with your poultices.\nThere never was such a thing.\n There was a body once, wanted to\n\nlive no longer wants to live.\n\nForgive me! I didn’t mean it!\n The shriek of torn entrails.\nSo prisoners sentenced to death wait\n for the 4 a.m. firing squad.\n\nAt chess perhaps with a grin\n they mock the corridor’s eye.\nPawns in the game of chess:\n someone is playing with us.\n\nWho? Kind gods or? Thieves?\n The peephole is filled with an\neye and the red corridor\n clanks. Listen the latch lifts.\n\nOne drag on tobacco, then\n spit, it’s all over, spit,\nalong this paving of chess squares\n is a direct path to the ditch\n\nto blood. And the secret eye\n the dormer eye of the moon.\n\nAnd now, squinting sideways, how\n far away you are already.\n\n\n# 10.\n\nClosely, like one creature, we\nstart: there is our cafe!\n\nThere is our island, our shrine, where\nin the morning, we people of the\n\nrabble, a couple for a minute only,\nconducted a morning service:\n\nwith things from country markets, sour\nthings seen through sleep or spring.\nThe coffee was nasty there\nentirely made from oats (and\n\nwith oats you can extinguish\ncaprice in fine race-horses).\nThere was no smell of Araby.\nArcadia was in\n\nthat coffee.\n\nBut how she smiled at us\nand sat us down by her,\nsad and worldly in her wisdom\na grey-haired paramour.\n\nHer smile was solicitous\n(saying: you’ll wither! live!),\nit was a smile at madness and being\npenniless, at yawns and love\n\nand--this was the chief thing--\nat laughter without reason\nsmiles with no deliberation\nand our faces without wrinkles.\n\nMost of all at youth\nat passions out of this climate\nblown in from some other place\nflowing from some other source\n\ninto that dim cafĂ©\n(burnous and Tunis) where\nshe smiled at hope and flesh\nunder old-fashioned clothes.\n\n\n(My dear friend I don’t complain.\nIt’s just another scar.)\nTo think how she saw us off,\nthat proprietress in her cap\n\nstiff as a Dutch hat
\n\nNot quite remembering, not quite\nunderstanding, we are led away from the festival--\nalong our street! no longer ours that\nwe walked many times, and no more shall.\n\nTomorrow the sun will rise in the West.\nAnd then David will break with Jehovah.\n--What are we doing?--We are separating.\n--That’s a word that means nothing to me.\n\nIt’s the most inhumanly senseless\nof words: sep arating. (Am I one of a hundred?)\nIt is simply a word of four syllables and\nehind their sound lies: emptiness.\n\nWait! Is it even correct in Serbian or\nCroatian? Is it a Czech whim, this word.\nSep aration! To sep arate!\nIt is insane unnatural\n\na sound to burst the eardrums, and spread out\nfar beyond the limits of longing itself.\nSeparation--the word is not in the Russian\nlanguage. Or the language of women. Or men.\n\nNor in the language of God. What are we--sheep?\nTo stare about us as we eat.\nSeparation--in what language is it,\nwhen the meaning itself doesn’t exist?\n\nor even the sound! Well--an empty one, like\nthe noise of a saw in your sleep perhaps.\nSeparation. That belongs to the school of\nKhlebnikov’s nightingale-groaning\n\nswan-like
\n so how does it happen?\nLike a lake of water running dry.\nInto air. I can feel our hands touching.\nTo separate. Is a shock of thunder\n\nupon my head--oceans rushing into\na wooden house. This is Oceania’s\nfurthest promontory. And the streets are steep.\nTo separate. That means to go downward\n\ndownhill the sighing sound of two\nheavy soles and at last a hand receives\nthe nail in it. A logic that turns\neverything over. To separate\n\nmeans we have to become\nsingle creatures again\n\nwe who had grown into one.\n\n\n# 12.\n\nDense as a horse mane is:\n rain in our eyes. And hills.\nWe have passed the suburb.\n Now we are out of town,\n\nwhich is there but not for us.\n Stepmother not mother.\nNowhere is lying ahead.\n And here is where we fall.\n\nA field with. A fence and.\n Brother and sister. Standing.\nLife is only a suburb:\n so you must build elsewhere.\n\nUgh, what a lost cause\n it is, ladies and gentlemen,\nfor the whole world is suburb:\n Where are the real towns?\n\nRain rips at us madly.\n We stand and break with each other.\nIn three months, these must be\n the first moments of sharing.\n\nIs it true, God, that you even\n tried to borrow from Job?\nWell, it didn’t come off.\n Still. We are. Outside town.\n\nBeyond it! Understand? Outside!\n That means we’ve passed the walls.\nLife is a place where it’s forbidden\n to live. Like the Hebrew quarter.\n\nAnd isn’t it more worthy to\n become an eternal Jew?\nAnyone not a reptile\n suffers the same pogrom.\n\nLife is for converts only\n Judases of all faiths.\nLet’s go to leprous islands\n or hell anywhere only not\n\nlife which puts up with traitors, with\n those who are sheep to butchers!\nThis paper which gives me the\n right to live--I stamp. With my feet.\n\nStamp! for the shield of David.\n Vengeance! for heaps of bodies\nand they say after all (delicious) the\n Jews didn’t want to live!\n\nGhetto of the chosen. Beyond this\n ditch. No mercy\nIn this most Christian of worlds\n all poets are Jews.\n\n\n# 13.\n\nThis is how they sharpen knives on a\n stone, and sweep sawdust up with\nbrooms. Under my hands there is\n something wet and furry.\n\nNow where are those twin male\n virtues: strength, dryness?\nHere beneath my hand I can\n feel tears. Not rain!\n\nWhat temptations can still be\n spoken of? Property is water.\nSince I felt your diamond eyes under\n my hands, flowing.\n\nThere is no more I can lose. We have\n reached the end of ending.\nAnd so I simply stroke, and\n stroke. And stroke your face.\n\nThis is the kind of pride we have:\n Marinkas are Polish girls.\nSince now the eyes of an eagle weep\n underneath these hands
\n\nCan you be crying? My friend, my\n --everything! Please forgive me!\nHow large and salty now is the\n taste of that in my fist.\n\nMale tears are--cruel! They\n rise over my head! Weep,\nthere will soon be others to\n heal any guilt towards me.\n\nFish of identic-\n al sea. A sweep upward! like\n
any dead shells and any\n lips upon lips.\n\nIn tears.\nWormwood\nto taste.\n--And tomorrow when\nI am awake?\n\n\n# 14.\n\nA slope like a path for\nsheep. With town noises.\nThree trollops approaching.\nThey are laughing. At tears.\n\nThey are laughing the full noon of\ntheir bellies shake, like waves!\nThey laugh at the\n inappropriate\ndisgraceful, male\n\ntears of yours, visible\nthrough the rain like scars!\nLike a shameful pearl on\nthe bronze of a warrior.\n\nThese first and last tears\npour them now--for me--\nfor your tears are pearls\nthat I wear in my crown.\n\nAnd my eyes are not lowered.\nI stare through the shower.\nYes, dolls of Venus\nstare at me! because\n\nThis is a closer bond\nthan the transport of lying down.\nThe Song of Songs itself\ngives place to our speech,\n\ninfamous birds as we are\nSolomon bows to us, for\nour simultaneous cries\nare something more than a dream!\n\nAnd into the hollow waves of\ndarkness--hunched and level--\nwithout trace--in silence--\nsomething sinks like a ship.", + "metadata": { + "place": "Prague", + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1924, + "month": "february", + "day": 1 + }, + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "february", + "day": 1 + } + } + }, + "poem-of-the-mountain": { + "title": "“Poem of the mountain”", + "body": "_Liebster, Dich wundert\ndie Rede? Alle Scbeidenden\nreden wie Trunkene und\nnehmen sich festlich 
_\n --Hölderlin\n\nA shudder: off my shoulders\n with this mountain! My soul rises.\nNow let me sing of sorrow which\n is my own mountain\n\na blackness which I will\n never block out again:\nLet me sing of sorrow\n from the top of the mountain!\n\n\n# 1.\n\nA mountain, like the body of\na recruit mown down by shells,\nwanting lips that were\nunkissed, and a wedding ceremony\n\nthe mountain demanded those.\nInstead, an ocean broke into its ears\nwith sudden shouts of hooray! Though\nthe mountain fought and struggled.\n\nThe mountain was like thunder!\nA chest drummed on by Titans.\n(Do you remember that last house\nof the mountain--the end of the suburb?)\n\nThe mountain was many worlds!\nAnd God took a high price for one.\nSorrow began with a mountain.\nThis mountain looked on the town.\n\n\n# 2.\n\nNot Parnassus not Sinai\nsimply a bare and military\nhill. Form up! Fire!\nWhy is it then in my eyes\n(since it was October and not May)\nthat mountain was Paradise?\n\n\n# 3.\n\nOn an open hand Paradise was offered,\n(if it’s too hot, don’t even touch it!)\nthrew itself under our feet with all\nits gullies and steep crags,\n\nwith paws of Titans, with all\nits shrubbery and pines\nthe mountain seized the skirts of our\ncoats, and commanded: stop.\n\nHow far from schoolbook Paradise\nit was: so windy, when\nthe mountain pulled us down on our\nbacks. To itself. Saying: lie here!\n\nThe violence of that pull bewildered us.\nHow? Even now I don’t know.\nMountain. Pimp. For holiness.\nIt pointed, to say: here.\n\n\n# 4.\n\nHow to forget Persephone’s pomegranate\ngrain in the coldness of winter?\nI remember lips half-opening to\nmine, like the valves of a shell-creature\n\nlost because of that grain, Persephone!\nContinuous as the redness of lips,\nand your eyelashes were like jagged points\nupon the golden angles of a star.\n\n\n# 5.\n\nNot that passion is deceitful or imaginary!\nIt doesn’t lie. Simply, it doesn’t last!\nIf only we could come into this world as though\nwe were common people in love\n\nbe sensible, see things as they are: this\nis just a hill, just a bump in the ground.\n(And yet they say it is by the pull of\nabysses, that you measure height.)\n\nIn the heaps of gorse, coloured dim\namong islands of tortured pines
\n(In delirium above the level of\nlife)\n --Take me then. I’m yours.\n\nInstead only the gentle mercies of\ndomesticity--chicks twittering--\nbecause we came down into this world who\nonce lived at the height of heaven: in love.\n\n\n# 6.\n\nThe mountain was mourning (and mountains do mourn,\ntheir clay is bitter, in the hours of parting).\nThe mountain mourned: for the tenderness\n(like doves) of our undiscovered mornings.\n\nThe mountain mourned: for our friendliness, for\nthat unbreakable kinship of the lips.\nThe mountain declared that everyone will\nreceive in proportion to his tears.\n\nThe mountain grieved because life is a gypsy-camp,\nand we go marketing all our life from heart to heart.\nAnd this was Hagar’s grief. To be\nsent far away. Even with her child.\n\nAlso the mountain said that all things were a trick\nof some demon, no sense to the game.\nThe mountain sorrowed. And we were silent,\nleaving the mountain to judge the case.\n\n\n# 7.\n\nThe mountain mourned for what is now blood\nand heat will turn only to sadness.\nThe mountain mourned. It will not let us go.\nIt will not let you lie with someone else!\n\nThe mountain mourned, for what is now\nworld and Rome will turn only to smoke.\nThe mountain mourned, because we shall be with\nothers. (And I do not envy them!)\n\nThe mountain mourned: for the terrible load\nof promises, too late for us to renounce.\nThe mountain mourned the ancient nature of\nthe Gordian knot of law and passion.\n\nThe mountain mourned for our mourning also.\nFor tomorrow! Not yet! Above our foreheads\nwill break--death’s sea of--memories!\nFor tomorrow, when we shall realize!\n\nThat sound what? as if someone were\ncrying just nearby? Can that be it?\nThe mountain is mourning. Because we must go down\nseparately, over such mud,\n\ninto life which we all know is nothing but\nmob market barracks:\nThat sound said: all poems of\nmountains are written thus\n\n\n# 8.\n\nHump of Atlas, groaning\n Titan, this town where we\nlive, day in, day out, will come\n to take a pride in the mountain\n\nwhere we defeated life--at cards, and\n insisted with passion not to\nexist. Like a bear-pit.\n And the twelve apostles.\n\nPay homage to my dark cave,\n (I was a cave that the waves entered).\nThe last hand of the card game was\n played, you remember, at the edge of the suburb?\n\nMountain many worlds the\n gods take revenge on their own likeness!\n\nAnd my grief began with this mountain\nwhich sits above me now like my headstone.\n\n\n# 9.\n\nYears will pass. And then the inscribed\nslab will be changed for tombstone and removed.\nThere will be summerhouses on our mountain.\nSoon it will be hemmed in with gardens,\n\nbecause in outskirts like this they say\nthe air is better, and it’s easier to live:\nso it will be cut into plots of land,\nand many lines of scaffolding will cross it.\n\nThey will straighten my mountain passes.\nAll my ravines will be upended.\nThere must be people who want to bring happiness\ninto their home, to have happiness.\n\nHappiness at home! Love without fiction.\nImagine: without any stretching of sinews.\nI have to be a woman and endure this!\n(There was happiness--when you used to come,\n\nhappiness--in my home.) Love without any extra\nsweetness given by parting. Or a knife.\nNow on the ruins of our happiness\na town will grow: of husbands and wives.\n\nAnd in that same blessed air, while\nyou can, everyone should sin--\nsoon shopkeepers on holidays\nwill be chewing the cud of their profits,\n\nthinking out new levels and corridors, as\neverything leads them back to their house!\nFor there has to be someone who needs\na roof with a stork’s nest!\n\n\n# 10.\n\nYet under the weight of these foundations\nthe mountain will not forget the game.\nThough people go astray they must remember.\nAnd the mountain has mountains of time.\n\nObstinate crevices and cracks remain;\nin summer homes, they’ll realize, too late,\nthis is no hill, overgrown with families, but\na volcano! Make money out of that!\n\nCan vineyards ever hold the danger\nof Vesuvius? A giant without fear cannot\nbe bound with flax. And the delirium\nof lips alone has the same power:\n\nto make the vineyards stir and turn heavily,\nto belch out their lava of hate.\nYour daughters shall all become prostitutes\nand all your sons turn into poets!\n\nYou shall rear a bastard child, my daughter!\nWaste your flesh upon the gypsies, son!\nMay you never own a piece of fertile land\nyou who take your substance from my blood.\n\nHarder than any cornerstone, as\nbinding as the words of a dying man,\nI curse you: do not look for happiness\nupon my mountain where you move like ants!\n\nAt some hour unforeseen, some time unknowable,\nyou will realize, the whole lot of you, how\nenormous and without measure is\nthe mountain of God’s seventh law.\n\nEpilogue\n\nThere are blanks in memory cataracts\non our eyes; the seven veils.\nI no longer remember you separately\nas a face but a white emptiness\n\nwithout true features. All--is a\nwhiteness. (My spirit is one\nuninterrupted wound.) The chalk of\ndetails must belong to tailors!\n\nThe dome of heaven was built in a single frame\nand oceans are featureless a mass of\ndrops that cannot be distinguished. You\nare unique. And love is no detective.\n\nLet now some neighbour say whether your\nhair is black or fair, for he can tell.\nI leave that to physicians or watchmakers.\nWhat passion has a use for such details?\n\nYou are a full, unbroken circle, a\nwhirlwind or wholly turned to stone.\nI cannot think of you apart from\nlove. There is an equals sign.\n\n(In heaps of sleepy down, and falls of\nwater, hills of foam, there is\na new sound, strange to my hearing,\ninstead of I a regal we)\n\nand though life’s beggared now and\nnarrowed into how things are\nstill I cannot see you joined to\nanyone: a\n revenge of memory.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1939, + "month": "december" + }, + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "december" + } + } + }, + "from-poems-to-czechoslovakia": { + "title": "From “Poems to Czechoslovakia”", + "body": "Black mountain\n\nblack mountain\nblocks the earth’s light.\nTime--time--time\nto give back to God his ticket.\n\nI refuse to--be. In\nthe madhouse of the inhumans\nI refuse to--live. To swim\n\non the current of human spines.\nI don’t need holes in my ears,\nno need for seeing eyes.\nI refuse to swim on the current of human spines.\n\nTo your mad world--one answer: I refuse.\n\nThey took--suddenly--and took--openly--\ntook mountains--and took their entrails,\nthey took coal, and steel they took,\nthey took lead, and crystal.\n\nAnd sugar they took, and took the clover,\nthey took the West, and they took the North,\nthey took the beehive, and took the haystack,\nthey took the South from us, and the East.\n\nVari--they took, and the Tatras--they took,\nthey took our fingers--took our friends--\n\nBut we stand up--\nas long as there’s spit in our mouths!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], + "tags": [] + } + }, + "the-polar-deer": { + "title": "“The Polar Deer”", + "body": "I love you all my life and every day.\nI feel you as the huge dark shade,\nAs hovel’s smoke in the polar land.\n\nI love you all my life and every hour.\nBut that’s of no need--your lips, eye’s power.\nAll’s just begun and ended--yourself out.\n\nI just remember: soniferous bow,\nThe collar large and fair clear snow,\nThe stars, that stuck the horns all over 
\n\nAnd from the horns half-heaven--shade,\nAnd hovel’s smoke in the polar land.\nYou’re - polar deer!--I’ve catched the shape.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1918, + "month": "december", + "day": 7 + }, + "translators": [ + "Lyudmila Purgina" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "december", + "day": 7 + } + } + }, + "praise-to-the-rich": { + "title": "“Praise to the Rich”", + "body": "And so, making clear in advance\nI know there are miles between us;\nand I reckon myself with the tramps, which\nis a place of honour in this world:\n\nunder the wheels of luxury, at\ntable with cripples and hunchbacks
\nFrom the top of the bell-tower roof,\nI proclaim it: I love the rich.\n\nFor their rotten, unsteady root\nfor the damage done in their cradle\nfor the absent-minded way their hands\ngo in and out of their pockets;\n\nfor the way their softest word is\nobeyed like a shouted order; because\nthey will not be let into heaven; and\nbecause they don’t look in your eyes;\n\nand because they send secrets by courier!\nand their passions by errand boy.\nIn the nights that are thrust upon them they\nkiss and drink under compulsion,\n\nand because in all their accountings\nin boredom, in gilding, in wadding,\nthey can’t buy me I’m too brazen:\nI confirm it, I love the rich!\n\nand in spite of their shaven fatness,\ntheir fine drink (wink, and spend):\nsome sudden defeatedness\nand a look that is like a dog’s\n\ndoubting
\n the core of their balance\nnought, but are the weights true?\nI say that among all outcasts\nthere are no such orphans on earth.\n\nThere is also a nasty fable\nabout camels getting through needles\nfor that look, surprised to death\napologizing for sickness, as\n\nif they were suddenly bankrupt: ‘I would have been\nglad to lend, but’ and their silence.\n‘I counted in carats once and then I was one of them.’\nFor all these things, I swear it: I love the rich.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1922, + "month": "september", + "day": 30 + }, + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "september", + "day": 30 + } + } + }, + "prayer": { + "title": "“Prayer”", + "body": "O Christ and God, I thirst for a miracle\nAt this day’s dawn. Now, let such be!\nO let me die while all existence\nIs opening like a book for me.\n\nYou’re wise. You will not say severely:\n‘Be calm. Your time is not yet up!’\nYou Yourself gave to me, O, too much!\nI thirst for all roads--in one cup.\n\nI want all things: the soul of gypsies--\nTo walk with songs and rob someone.\nTo hurt for all midst organ-playing.\nTo rush to war--an Amazon.\n\nTo read the stars from some black tower.\nTo lead small children through the lane 
\nSo yesterday would be a legend,\nSo every day would be insane!\n\nI like a cross and silks and helmets.\nMy soul’s a trace of moments seen 
\nYou gave me youth--fairer than fable,\nSo give me death--at seventeen!", + "metadata": { + "place": "Tarusa", + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1909, + "month": "september", + "day": 26 + }, + "translators": [ + "Vladimir Markov", + "Merrill Sparks" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "september", + "day": 26 + } + } + }, + "the-prophecy": { + "title": "“The Prophecy”", + "body": "--“In your soul there is ebb and flow!”\nYou said yourself, you understood it on your own!\nOh, how you, disbelieving the hours,\nCould judge me for a moment’s happiness?\n\nWhat shall the impending minute bring?\nWhose distant image shall surface out of sleep?\nA happy day, and a dreary night tomorrow
\nHow one can judge for something, and why so?\n\nOh, how could you! O, wise, how could\nYou say “enemies” about two white sails?\nSurely you knew
 You understood it on your own!\nThat ebb and flow is in my soul!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1910 + }, + "translators": [ + "Erika Kleijmans" + ], + "tags": [] + } + }, + "rolands-horn": { + "title": "“Roland’s Horn”", + "body": "Like a jester complaining of the cruel weight\nof his hump--let me tell about my orphaned state.\n\nBehind the devil there’s his horde, behind the thief there’s his band,\nbehind everyone there’s someone to understand\n\nand support him--the assurance of a living wall\nof thousands just like him should he stumble and fall;\n\nthe soldier has his comrades, the emperor has his throne,\nbut the jester has nothing but his hump to call his own.\n\nAnd so: tired of holding to the knowledge that I’m quite\nalone and that my destiny is always to fight\n\nbeneath the jeers of the fool and the philistine’s derision,\nabandoned--by the world--with the world--in collision,\n\nI blow with all my strength on my horn and send\nits cry into the distance in search of a friend.\n\nAnd this fire in my breast assures me I’m not all\nalone, but that some Charlemagne will answer my call!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1921, + "month": "march" + }, + "translators": [ + "Stephen Capus" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "march" + } + } + }, + "sahara": { + "title": "“Sahara”", + "body": "Young men, don’t ride away! Sand\nstifled the soul of the\nlast one to disappear and now\nhe’s altogether dumb.\n\nTo look for him is useless.\n(Young men, I never lie.)\nThat lost one now reposes\nin a reliable grave.\n\nHe once rode into me as if\nthrough lands of\nmiracles and fire, with all\nthe power of poetry, and\n\nI was: dry, sandy, without day.\nHe used poetry\nto invade my depths, like those of\nany other country!\n\nListen to this story of two\nsouls, without jealousy:\nwe entered one another’s eyes\nas if they were oases--\n\nI took him into me as if he were\na god, in passion,\nsimply because of a charming tremor\nin his young throat.\n\nWithout a name he sank into me. But now\nhe’s gone. Don’t search for him.\nAll deserts forget the thousands of\nthose who sleep in them.\n\nAnd afterwards the Sahara in one\nseething collapse will\ncover you also with sand like sprinkled\nfoam. And be your hill!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1923, + "month": "july", + "day": 3 + }, + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "july", + "day": 3 + } + } + }, + "the-seafarer": { + "title": "“The Seafarer”", + "body": "Rock and rock me, starry boat!\nMy head is weary of breaking waves!\n\nFor too long I’ve lost my moorings,--\nMy head is weary of thinking:\n\nOf hymns--of laurels--of heroes--of hydras,--\nMy head is weary of pretensions!\n\nLay me out among grasses and pine-needles,--\nMy head is weary of wars 
", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1923, + "month": "june", + "day": 12 + }, + "translators": [ + "Mary Jane White" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "june", + "day": 12 + } + } + }, + "soul-scorning-all-measure": { + "title": "“Soul, scorning all measure 
”", + "body": "Soul, scorning all measure\nSinger of heresy, martyr\nlonging for the whip’s lashing.\nSoul, you greet your assassin\nlike a butterfly fresh from its chrysalis,\nnor can you brook this offense:\nthat wizards are not still burnt.\nSmoking under your hair shirt\nlike a resinate high wick\nscreeching heretic\nsister of Savonarola.\nSoul,\nYou deserve the stake!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1921, + "month": "may", + "day": 10 + }, + "translators": [ + "Rose Styron" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "may", + "day": 10 + } + } + }, + "stepan-razin": { + "title": "“Stepan Razin”", + "body": "# 1.\n\nWinds have gone to sleep--with golden dawn,\nNight comes--with a mountain of stone,\nAnd with his princess from hot land\nRests the rabid chieftain.\n\nHaving gathered his youthful shoulders in a sack\nHe listened, his forehead leaning back,\nHow over his hot tent it thunders--\nNightingale’s thunder.\n\n\n# 2.\n\nOver Volga--night,\nOver Volga--sleep 
\nOrnate rugs they have laid down,\nAnd on them the chieftain has laid\nWith a Persian princess--black brows.\n\nOne can’t see the stars, one can’t hear the waves,\nOars and darkness extreme, this is all!\nAnd the shuttle bears away into the chieftain’s\nNight sinful Persian soul.\n\nAnd such a speech\nDid the night hear:\nDon’t you want, at last,\nTo lie nearer?\nOut of all our women\nYou’re the pearl!\nAm I this scary\nI’m your all-time slave,\nPersian girl!\nMy prisoner!\n\n* * *\n\nAnd she knitted the brows,\nThe long brows.\nAnd she eyes cast down\nEyes Persian.\nAnd from her lips\nOnly one sigh rings:\nDjal-Eddin.\n\n* * *\n\nAnd over Volga--a ruddy dawn,\nAnd over Volga--heaven.\nAnd the drunk crowd roars:\nGet up, chieftain!\n\nWith a Muslim dog you did lie!\nSee the tears in the beauty’s eyes!\n\nAnd she--like death,\nBit her mouth in blood.\nThus goes a chieftain’s brow so hard.\n\nThis our bed, you dog, you did not want,\nSo make do with our baptismal font!\n\nIt’s dark in the day,\nIn the sky it is clear.\nRed is the shoe\nIn the ship’s rear.\n\nAnd like menacing oak stands Stepan,\nAnd to very lips pales Stepan.\nAh, so tiring--it shakes, rocks!\nHold up, heathens--in the eyes it’s dark!\n\nHere to you is the Persian girl,\nThe prisoner girl.\n\n\n#3. _Dream of Razin_\n\nAnd Razin dreams a dream:\nLike a cry of a heron of the swamp.\nAnd Razin dreams a ringing:\nLike silver droplets drop.\n\nAnd Razin dreams of the bottom:\nWith flowers, like a kerchief, covered.\nAnd he dreams of one face--\nForgotten, with black brows.\n\nHe sits, like God’s mother,\nStringing pearls on a thread.\nAnd he wants to tell her,\nBut only moves lips instead 
\n\nThe breath has been stifled - ah\nIn the chest there is a glass chip.\nAnd the glass slope walks past them\nLike a guard who wants to sleep.\n\n* * *\n\nDown the Volga-river with\nThe steering dawn drove he.\nOver just a single shoe\nWhy did you leave me?\n\nWho will want a beauty\nIn just one shoe?\nFor the other shoe, friend,\nI will come to you!\n\nAnd rings, rings the bracelet: Drowned\nThe happiness of Stepan!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1917, + "month": "may", + "day": 8 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "may", + "day": 8 + } + } + }, + "still-yesterday-he-met-my-gaze": { + "title": "“Still yesterday he met my gaze 
”", + "body": "Still yesterday he met my gaze,\nBut now his eyes are darting shiftly!\nTill birdsong at first light he stayed,--\nNow larks are crows, met with hostility!\n\nSo I am stupid, you are wise,\nYou live, I lie dumbstricken, numb to you.\nO how the woman in me cries:\n“O my dear love, what have I done to you?”\n\nThe ships of lovers-lost set sail,\nA white road takes the lover shunning you 
\nAcross the world a long-drawn wail:\n“O my dear love, what have I done to you?”\n\nThere only yesterday he kneeled.\nHe called me his “Cathay” admiringly.\nThen spread his palm out -- to reveal\nA rusty kopek, a life derisory.\n\nLike an infanticide in court\nI stand detested, shy, confronting you.\nYet still I ask, when I am brought\nTo Hell: “O my dear love, what have I done to you?”\n\nI asked the chair, I asked the bed:\n“Why should I bear the pain, the misery?”\n“He wants to torture you” they said,\n“To kiss another. Where’s the mistery?”\n\nHe taught me living--at furnace heat,\nIn icy steppe he left me suddenly.\n“That is what you, dear, did to me!\nO my dear love, what have I done to you?”\n\nNow all is plain--don’t contradict!\nI see again--I’m not your partner.\nA heart that love leaves derelict\nIs fair terrain for Death-the-Gardener.\n\nWhy shake the tree? Ripe apples fall\nTo earth themself and never trouble you 
\nForgive me now, forgive me all\nThat I, dear love, have ever done to you!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1920, + "month": "june", + "day": 14 + }, + "translators": [ + "Peter Tempest" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "june", + "day": 14 + } + } + }, + "summer-kingdom": { + "title": "“Summer Kingdom”", + "body": "You are princess from other kingdoms\nHe’s your knight, ready for all 
\nHow much in you is childish, dear,\nHow I fathom the joy in your soul!\n\nIn the light grove of birches, where\nShines blue water among the leaves,\nIt is good to exchange the answers,\nIt is good to be a princess, yes.\n\nOn quiet evening, melting slowly,\nWhere there’s pines, swamps and moss\nIt is good over dying bonfire\nTo talk about the sunset verse\n\nTo return on the road perilous\nWith eternal companion--moon,\nTo be a strict and sly princess\nMoonlit night, road through the woods.\n\nGo take pleasure in autumn ringing,\nDear knight, like a page in love,\nAnd then the princess, green-eyed,\nThis world is yours even if brief!\n\nDon’t be ashamed of the soft words!\nKnow: Youth and the wind are one!\nYou assembled and parted proud,\nEven if we see the cup’s bottom.\n\nIt is good to be beautiful, fast\nAnd, with bonfires teasing the dark,\nTo admire the mindless sparks,\nAnd like sparks to burn up in flight!", + "metadata": { + "place": "Tarusa", + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "season": "summer", + "year": 1908 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } + } + }, + "that-same-youth-and-these-same-holes": { + "title": "“That same youth, and these same holes 
”", + "body": "That same youth, and these same holes,\nAnd the same nights at the fire 
\nSister of your own guitar\nIs my divine, holy lyre.\n\nTo circle souls just like a snowstorm--\nOne is the gift that us befalls.\nInto my sleeping crib is lowered\nThis title: Stealer of souls!\n\nBreaking the arms in angst, you know:\nNot one alone in the day’s fog\nWith poison gypsy broth of parting\nThe young noblemen you do drug.\n\nKnow: not alone on the sharp knife\nYou look with anguish in your blood\nKnow, I’m alone still 
 we are sisters\nIn the great lowliness of love.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1920, + "month": "march" + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "march" + } + } + }, + "there-is-some-hour": { + "title": "“There is Some Hour”", + "body": "There is some hour--like a cast off load--\nWhen our proud had been fully tamed.\nThe learning hour--on each life-long road--\nIs predestined and great.\n\nThe time, in which--our arms just had been thrown\nDown to the feet of shown by His hand--\nThe solder’s purple to the gray-fur gown\nWe’re changing on the seashore sand.\n\nO, this great hour--like some loud trumpet,\nRising us up from free-will of a date!\nO, this great hour, when like some ear, ripened,\nWe’re low-bending to our weight.\n\nThe ear has risen, and the hour--been crowned,\nAnd now the ear is thirsty for the mill.\nO, Law! O, Law! Yet in a womb of ground\nMy yoke by my own will.\n\nThe learning hour! But we see and know\nAnother light,--another bright sunrise.\nBe ever blessed, now rising him below,\nHigh time when lone will be each of us!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], + "tags": [] + } + }, + "thinking-of-something-carelessly": { + "title": "“Thinking of something, carelessly 
”", + "body": "Thinking of something, carelessly,\nSomething invisible, buried treasure,\nStep by step, poppy by poppy,\nI beheaded the flowers, at leisure.\n\nSo someday, in the dry breath\nOf summer, at the edge of the sown,\nAbsent-mindedly, Death\nWill gather a flower--my own!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1936, + "month": "september", + "day": 5 + }, + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "september", + "day": 5 + } + } + }, + "thus-to-thirst-life": { + "title": "“Thus to thirst life 
”", + "body": "Thus to thirst life: And to be tender\nAnd rabid and noisy,\nTo be intelligent and charming--\nGorgeous to be!\n\nMore tender than what are or have been,\nGuilt not to know 
\nThis, that in graveyard all are equal,\nAngers me so.\n\nTo be what nobody holds dear--\nLike ice become!\nNot knowing what has come before now\nNor what will come,\n\nTo forget how the heart broke and\nGrew back together,\nTo forget both the words and voice\nAnd shine of hair.\n\nBracelet of ancient turquoise\nOn the stem, on\nThis my white arm\nNarrow and long 
\n\nLike painting over a cloud\nFrom afar,\nOne took the mother-of-pearl pen\nIn one’s arm,\n\nJust like the legs jumped\nOver the fence,\nTo forget, how along the road\nShade advanced.\n\nTo forget, like flame of azure, how\nDays are subdued 
\nAll my mischief, all my tempest,\nAnd poems too!\n\nLaughter will be chased away by\nMy miracle.\nI, always-pink, will be\nThe most pale.\n\nAnd they won’t open--thus is needed--\nPity this one!\nNot for the sight, not for the fields,\nNot for the sun--\n\nThese my lowered eyelids.--\nFlower not for!--\nMy earth, forgive for centuries\nForevermore.\n\nThus both the moon and the snow\nWill melt away,\nWhen this young, beautiful century\nWill rush on by.", + "metadata": { + "place": "Feodosia", + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1913, + "month": "january", + "day": 6 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "january", + "day": 6 + } + } + }, + "to-a-growing-up-one": { + "title": "“To a Growing-Up One”", + "body": "Outside the window once again\nA fir is lit by snow 
\nThis cradle of yours, my dear friend,\nWhy did you outgrow?\n\nThe snowflakes fly, to all adhere,\nAnd melt too fast to know 
\nWhat therefore for, you stupid one,\nDid you it outgrow?\n\nDays’ weight upon it didn’t press\nT’was easy sleeping there,\nAnd now your eyes have darker grown\nAnd gold of your hair 
\n\nIt burned your sight, but will it give\nHappiness, this wide world?\nWhy, why did you outgrow\nYour cradle, my dear girl?", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1913 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "winter" + } + } + }, + "to-sergei": { + "title": "“To Sergei”", + "body": "You could not make peace with your dismay, and\nConquered laughter that wounds pitying.\nLike a candle at a piano, burning\nLighter than all others in the heaven.\n\nAnd thus stated Christ, father of love:\n“Mom is mourning for you downstairs,\nHer soul is sadder than empty temple,\nWorld is woeful. Call her to yourself.”\n\nSince that time, when yellow is the wood,\nShe alone through gold of leaves is looking\nAs if though something she is seeking\nIn the darkness of the heaven blue.\n\nAnd when lean to soil autumn flowers\nLike, without laughter, a childish look\nFrom bright lips, like an echo, is tearing\nA quiet moan: “Oh, my boy, it is you!”\n\nCall, oh call, with greater might her call!\nOf the earth, where all is trouble,\nAnd of how lovely to be with God is,\nTell me everything, for kids know all!\n\nLife is joy or madness, you have known,\nYou have gone, not bothering the doubts
\nYou have gone
 Sergei, you’ve been a wise one!\nWorld is woeful. God does not have woe!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1906 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [] + } + }, + "to-the-sorcerer": { + "title": "“To the Sorcerer”", + "body": "A mouth like blood, green eyes,\nAnd a smile, haggardly evil 
\nOh, there’s no hiding it, I see:\nYou’re the pale moon’s beloved.\n\nEven in daytime, over you did not weaken\nThe night legends of distant childhood,\nThat is why you are no one’s from birth,\nThat is why you have loved since the crib.\n\nO, how many you’ve loved, a poet:\nThose dark-eyed and lightly fair,\nThe arrogant, the tender, morose,\nInspiring your own delirium in them.\n\nBut oblivion, is it in the bosom?\nAre there spells in earthly voices?\nDisappearing as smoke in the heavens,\nThey were leaving, and leaving again.\n\nAn eternal guest on a foreign shore,\nYou’re tormented by the silver horn 
\nOh, there is much I know about,\nBut from whence I cannot tell.\n\nThat’s why for you the spark in the glass\nAnd the drunkenness of pleasure are pale:\nYou’re the Maiden Moon’s beloved,\nOne of those whom she has adopted.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1910 + }, + "translators": [ + "Erika Kleijmans" + ], + "tags": [] + } + }, + "to-you-my-rival-i-will-come-sometime": { + "title": "“To you, my rival, I will come sometime 
”", + "body": "To you, my rival, I will come sometime\nAt night when moon is standing overhead\nWhen frogs are wailing loudly on the pond\nAnd women are from pity going mad.\n\nAnd, marveling at beating of the eyelids\nAnd on your jealous eyelashes, it seems,\nI’ll tell you that I’m not a human being\nBut just a vision which you only dream.\n\nAnd I will say: “Console me, console,\nSomeone is beating nails into my heart!”\nAnd I will say to you that wind is fresh\nAnd that the stars over our heads are hot.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1914, + "month": "july", + "day": 13 + }, + "translators": [ + "Rolf W. F. Gross" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "july", + "day": 13 + } + } + }, + "today-or-tomorrow-the-snow-will-melt": { + "title": "“Today or tomorrow the snow will melt 
”", + "body": "Today or tomorrow the snow will melt.\nYou lie alone beneath an enormous fur.\nShall I pity you? Your lips\nhave gone dry for ever.\n\nYour drinking is difficult, your step heavy.\nEvery passer-by hurries away from you.\nWas it with fingers like yours that Rogozhin\nclutched the garden knife?\n\nAnd the eyes, the eyes in your face!\nTwo circles of charcoal, year-old circles!\nSurely when you were still young your girl\nlured you into a joyless house.\n\nFar away--in the night--over asphalt--a cane.\nDoors--swing open into--night--under beating wind.\nCome in! Appear! Undesired guest! Into\nmy chamber which is--most bright!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1916, + "month": "march", + "day": 4 + }, + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "march", + "day": 4 + } + } + }, + "today-was-melting": { + "title": "“Today was melting 
”", + "body": "Today was melting, and today\nBefore the window I did stand.\nA sober look, a freer chest,\nI’m satisfied just once again.\n\nI don’t know why. Perhaps the soul\nHas simply grown tired of it all,\nAnd somehow the rebellious pencil\nI do not wish to touch at all.\n\nDistant to good and evil both,\nInside the fog I stood, and thus,\nWas lightly drumming with my finger\nUpon the barely sounding glass.\n\nIt is indifferent to the soul\nThan this one you first met--say I--\nThan mother-of-the-pearl mud puddles\nWhere in full pleasure splashed the sky,\n\nThan bird that overhead is flying\nAnd dog that’s simply running by\nAnd even the impoverished singer\nDid not begin to make me cry.\n\nThe dear art of oblivion\nThe soul has mastered all the way.\nSome overwhelmingly big feeling\nMelted within my soul today.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1914, + "month": "october", + "day": 24 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "october", + "day": 24 + } + } + }, + "truth": { + "title": "“Truth”", + "body": "The exhausted world sighs of confusion,\nThe pink even streams oblivion 
\nWe were parted by shadows, not people,\nOh my dearest boy, heart of mine!\n\nWalls are towering, in a fog dressing,\nSpear was dropped without strength by the sun 
\nIn the evening world I’m cold. Where are you,\nOh my dearest boy, heart of mine?\n\nYou will not hear. The walls are encroaching,\nAll things blend into one, all dies down 
\nNothing did, does, will substitute for you,\nOh my dearest boy, heart of mine!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1910, + "month": "august", + "day": 27 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "august", + "day": 27 + } + } + }, + "two-suns-are-cooling": { + "title": "“Two Suns Are Cooling”", + "body": "Two suns are cooling--O save me, God!\nThe first--in heavens, the second--in heart.\nWill I have an excuse for that?--\nBoth suns made me fully mad!\nNo pain from the beams--they’re lost!\nHotter sun will be frozen first.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], + "tags": [] + } + }, + "under-sun-the-eyes-are-burning": { + "title": "“Under sun the eyes are burning”", + "body": "Under sun the eyes are burning,\nDay’s not equal day.\nI tell you for that occasion\nIf I would betray:\n\nWhose lips I had not been kissing\nIn the hour of love,\nTo whom I upon black midnight\nDid not dreadfully vow--\n\nTo live, like a flower blooms, like\nMother tells a child,\nNever with an eye to go\nTo any side 
\n\nSee that cross made of cypress?\nIt’s familiar to you.\nAll will wake--you only whistle\nUnderneath my window.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1915, + "month": "february", + "day": 22 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "february", + "day": 22 + } + } + }, + "veins-filled-with-sun": { + "title": "“Veins filled with sun 
”", + "body": "Veins filled with sun--not blood--\nOn my hand, brown so soon.\nI am at one with my great love\nTo own my soul.\n\nI am waiting for a grasshopper, I count to a hundred,\nChewing a stalk’s spine 
\n--Strange to feel so strongly and so simply\nThe fleetingness of life--and mine.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1913, + "month": "may", + "day": 15 + }, + "translators": [ + "Rolf W. F. Gross" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "may", + "day": 15 + } + } + }, + "we-are-keeping-an-eye-on-the-girls": { + "title": "“We are keeping an eye on the girls 
”", + "body": "We are keeping an eye on the girls, so that the kvass\ndoesn’t go sour in the jug, or the pancakes cold,\ncounting over the rings, and pouring Anis\ninto the long bottles with their narrow throats\n\nstraightening tow thread for the peasant woman:\nceremoniously, the house is filled with the smoke of\nincense--and we are sailing over Cathedral square\narm in arm with our godfather, silks thundering.\n\nThe wet nurse has a screeching cockerel\nin her apron--her clothes are like the night.\nShe announces in an ancient whisper that\nthe young man--in the chapel--is dead.\n\nAnd an incense cloud wraps our coals about\nunder its own saddened chasuble.\nThe apple trees are white, like angels--and\nthe pigeons on them--grey--like incense itself.\n\nAnd the pilgrim woman sipping kvass from the ladle\nat the edge of the couch, is telling\nto the very end a tale about Razin\nand his most beautiful Persian girl.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1916, + "month": "march", + "day": 26 + }, + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "march", + "day": 26 + } + } + }, + "we-shall-not-escape-hell": { + "title": "“We shall not escape Hell 
”", + "body": "We shall not escape Hell, my passionate\nsisters, we shall drink black resins--\nwe who sang our praises to the Lord\nwith every one of our sinews, even the finest,\n\nwe did not lean over cradles or\nspinning wheels at night, and now we are\ncarried off by an unsteady boat\nunder the skirts of a sleeveless cloak,\n\nwe dressed every morning in\nfine Chinese silk, and we would\nsing our paradisal songs at\nthe fire of the robbers’ camp,\n\nslovenly needlewomen, (all\nour sewing came apart), dancers,\nplayers upon pipes: we have been\nthe queens of the whole world!\n\nfirst scarcely covered by rags,\nthen with constellations in our hair, in\ngaol and at feasts we have\nbartered away heaven,\n\nin starry nights, in the apple\norchards of Paradise.\n--Gentle girls, my beloved sisters,\nwe shall certainly find ourselves in Hell!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1915, + "month": "november" + }, + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "november" + } + } + }, + "where-does-such-tenderness-come-from": { + "title": "“Where does such tenderness come from? 
”", + "body": "Where does such tenderness come from?\nThese aren’t the first curls\nI’ve wound around my finger--\nI’ve kissed lips darker than yours.\n\nThe sky is washed and dark\n(Where does such tenderness come from?)\nOther eyes have known\nand shifted away from my eyes.\n\nBut I’ve never heard words like this\nin the night\n(Where does such tenderness come from?)\nwith my head on your chest, rest.\n\nWhere does this tenderness come from?\nAnd what will I do with it? Young\nstranger, poet, wandering through town,\nyou and your eyelashes--longer than anyone’s.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1916, + "month": "february", + "day": 8 + }, + "translators": [ + "Yevgeny Bonver" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "february", + "day": 8 + } + } + }, + "wherever-you-are-i-can-reach-you": { + "title": "“Wherever you are I can reach you 
”", + "body": "Wherever you are I can reach you\nto summon up--or send you back again!\nYet I’m no sorceress. My eyes grew sharp\nin the white book--of that far-off river Don.\n\nFrom the height of my cedar I see a world\nwhere court decisions float, and all lights wander.\nYet from here I can turn the whole sea upside down\nto bring you from its depths--or send you under!\n\nYou can’t resist me, since I’m everywhere:\nat daylight, underground, in breath and bread.\nI’m always present. That is how I shall procure\nyour lips--as God will surely claim your soul--\n\nin your last breath--and even in that choking hour\nI’ll be there, at the great Archangel’s fence,\nto put these bloodied lips up against the thorns\nof Judgement--and to snatch you from your bier!\n\nGive in! You must. This is no fairytale.\nGive in! Any arrow will fall back on you.\nGive in! Don’t you know no one escapes\nthe power of creatures reaching out with\n\nbreath alone? (That’s how I soar up\nwith my eyes shut and mica round my mouth 
)\nCareful, the prophetess tricked Samuel.\nPerhaps I’ll hoodwink you. Return alone,\n\nbecause another girl is with you. Now on Judgement Day\nthere’ll be no litigation. So till then\nI’ll go on wandering.\n And yet I’ll have your soul\nas an alchemist knows how to win your\n\nLips 
", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1923, + "month": "march", + "day": 25 + }, + "translators": [ + "Elaine Feinstein" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "march", + "day": 25 + } + } + }, + "who-hasnt-built-a-house": { + "title": "“Who hasn’t built a house 
”", + "body": "Who hasn’t built a house--\nIs unworthy of earth.\n\nWho hasn’t built a house--\nWill not become earth:\nThatch--ashes
\n\n--I haven’t built a house.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1918, + "month": "august", + "day": 26 + }, + "translators": [ + "Dmitri Smirnov-Sadovsky" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "august", + "day": 26 + } + } + }, + "without-self-control": { + "title": "“Without self-control 
”", + "body": "Without self-control\nWith complete meekness.\nLight and soft is\nAir over abyss.\n\nGrowing at once,\nLike lightning--in time,\nAs if by order\nThere will be a blossom.\n\nAnswering stars,\nWith a snake hair
\nHimself defenseless--\nNot a flame-bearer!\n\nHe to me? I to him?\nI’ll try, I know.\nWithout intent\nInto death I will go.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1921, + "month": "november", + "day": 20 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "november", + "day": 20 + } + } + }, + "you-measuring-me-by-the-days": { + "title": "“You, measuring me by the days 
”", + "body": "You, measuring me by the days--\nWith me, the hot and homeless one,\nDid you walk on the flaming squares\nUnder the giant, burning moon?\n\nAnd in the tavern filled with plague,\nWhen solemn waltz a screech did make,\nDid you not in a drunken fist\nMy long and piercing fingers break?\n\nWith which voice in my sleep do I\nWhisper--you heard?--O smoke and ash!--\nWhat can you know of me, since you\nWith me did not sleep or get trashed?", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1916, + "month": "december", + "day": 7 + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "december", + "day": 7 + } + } + }, + "you-who-loved-me-with-the-deceptions": { + "title": "“You, who loved me with the deceptions 
”", + "body": "You, who loved me with the deceptions\nOf truth--and the truth of lies,\nYou, who loved me--beyond all distance!\n--Beyond boundaries!\n\nYou, who loved me longer\nThan time--your right hand soars!--\nYou don’t love me any more:\nThat’s the truth in six words.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1923, + "month": "december", + "day": 12 + }, + "translators": [ + "David McDuff" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "december", + "day": 12 + } + } + }, + "you-wont-chase-me-away-anytime": { + "title": "“You won’t chase me away anytime 
”", + "body": "You won’t chase me away anytime:\nThey don’t push away the spring!\nWith a finger you won’t push me away:\nI too tenderly sing before sleep!\n\nNever will you make me glorious:\nWater for lips is my name!\nYou will never leave me either:\nDoor is open, empty is your home!", + "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", + "time": { + "year": 1919, + "month": "july" + }, + "translators": [ + "Ilya Shambat" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "month": "july" + } + } + } + } + }, + "tu-fu": { + "metadata": { + "name": "Tu Fu", + "birth": { + "date": { + "year": 712, + "month": "february", + "day": 12 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Gongyi", + "state": "Zhengzhou", + "country": "China" + } + }, + "death": { + "date": { + "year": 770 + }, + "place": { + "state": "Jiangxi", + "country": "China" + } + }, + "gender": "male", + "occupation": [ + "poet" + ], + "education": null, + "movement": [], + "religion": null, + "nationality": [ + "china" + ], + "language": [ + "Chinese" + ], + "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Fu", + "favorite": false, + "tags": [ + "Chinese" + ] + }, + "poems": { + "brimming-water": { + "title": "“Brimming Water”", + "body": "Under my feet the moon\nGlides along the river.\nNear midnight, a gusty lantern\nShines in the heart of night.\nAlong the sandbars flocks\nOf white egrets roost,\nEach one clenched like a fist.\nIn the wake of my barge\nThe fish leap, cut the water,\nAnd dive and splash.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Kenneth Rexroth" + ], + "tags": [] + } + }, + "the-excursion": { + "title": "“The Excursion”", + "body": "_A number of young gentlemen of rank, accompanied by singing-girls, go out to enjoy the cool of evening. They encounter a shower of rain._\n\n# I.\n\nHow delightful, at sunset, to loosen the boat!\nA light wind is slow to raise waves.\nDeep in the bamboo grove, the guests linger;\nThe lotus-flowers are pure and bright in the cool evening air.\nThe young nobles stir the ice-water;\nThe Beautiful Ones wash the lotus-roots, whose fibres are like silk threads.\nA layer of clouds above our heads is black.\nIt will certainly rain, which impels me to write this poem.\n\n\n# II.\n\nThe rain comes, soaking the mats upon which we are sitting.\nA hurrying wind strikes the bow of the boat.\nThe rose-red rouge of the ladies from YĂŒeh is wet;\nThe Yen beauties are anxious about their kingfisher-eyebrows.\nWe throw out a rope and draw in to the sloping bank. We tie the boat to the willow-trees.\nWe roll up the curtains and watch the floating wave-flowers.\nOur return is different from our setting out. The wind whistles and blows in great gusts.\nBy the time we reach the shore, it seems as though the Fifth Month were Autumn.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Florence Ayscough" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } + } + }, + "pounding-the-clothes": { + "title": "“Pounding the Clothes”", + "body": "You won’t return from the front.\nI clean the laundry stone in autumn.\nThe bitter cold months are near;\nMy heart aches with long separation.\nCan I shirk the toil of pounding your clothes?\nNo, they must go to the Great Wall.\nLet me use all my woman’s strength.\nMay you, my lord, hear the sound o’er the vast.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Chao Tze-Chiang" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "autumn" + } + } + }, + "the-river-village": { + "title": "“The River Village”", + "body": "The river makes a bend and encircles the village with its current.\nAll the long Summer, the affairs and occupations of the river village are quiet and simple.\nThe swallows who nest in the beams go and come as they please.\nThe gulls in the middle of the river enjoy one another, they crowd together and touch one another.\nMy old wife paints a chess-board on paper.\nMy little sons hammer needles to make fish-hooks.\nI have many illnesses, therefore my only necessities are medicines.\nBesides these, what more can so humble a man as I ask?", + "metadata": { + "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Florence Ayscough", + "Amy Lowell" + ], + "tags": [], + "context": { + "season": "summer" + } + } + }, + "a-toast": { + "title": "“A Toast”", + "body": "Illimitable happiness,\nBut grief for our white heads.\nWe love the long watches of the night, the red candle.\nIt would be difficult to have too much of meeting,\nLet us not be in hurry to talk of separation.\nBut because the Heaven River will sink,\nWe had better empty the wine-cups.\nTo-morrow, at bright dawn, the world’s business will entangle us.\nWe brush away our tears,\nWe go--East and West.", + "metadata": { + "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Florence Ayscough" + ], + "tags": [] + } + } + } + }, "ivan-turgenev": { "metadata": { "name": "Ivan Turgenev", @@ -114310,7 +119532,6 @@ }, "place": { "city": "Oryol", - "state": "Oryol Governorate", "country": "Russian Empire" } }, @@ -114350,12 +119571,14 @@ "title": "“Alms”", "body": "Near a large town, along the broad highroad walked an old sick man.\n\nHe tottered as he went; his old wasted legs, halting, dragging, stumbling, moved painfully and feebly, as though they did not belong to him; his clothes hung in rags about him; his uncovered head drooped on his breast 
 He was utterly worn-out.\n\nHe sat down on a stone by the wayside, bent forward, leant his elbows on his knees, hid his face in his hands; and through the knotted fingers the tears dropped down on to the grey, dry dust.\n\nHe remembered 
\n\nRemembered how he too had been strong and rich, and how he had wasted his health, and had lavished his riches upon others, friends and enemies 
 And here, he had not now a crust of bread; and all had forsaken him, friends even before foes 
 Must he sink to begging alms? There was bitterness in his heart, and shame.\n\nThe tears still dropped and dropped, spotting the grey dust.\n\nSuddenly he heard some one call him by his name; he lifted his weary head, and saw standing before him a stranger.\n\nA face calm and grave, but not stern; eyes not beaming, but clear; a look penetrating, but not unkind.\n\n‘Thou hast given away all thy riches,’ said a tranquil voice 
 ‘But thou dost not regret having done good, surely?’\n\n‘I regret it not,’ answered the old man with a sigh; ‘but here I am dying now.’\n\n‘And had there been no beggars who held out their hands to thee,’ the stranger went on, ‘thou wouldst have had none on whom to prove thy goodness; thou couldst not have done thy good works.’\n\nThe old man answered nothing, and pondered.\n\n‘So be thou also now not proud, poor man,’ the stranger began again. ‘Go thou, hold out thy hand; do thou too give to other good men a chance to prove in deeds that they are good.’\n\nThe old man started, raised his eyes 
 but already the stranger had vanished, and in the distance a man came into sight walking along the road.\n\nThe old man went up to him, and held out his hand. This man turned away with a surly face, and gave him nothing.\n\nBut after him another passed, and he gave the old man some trifling alms.\n\nAnd the old man bought himself bread with the coppers given him, and sweet to him seemed the morsel gained by begging, and there was no shame in his heart, but the contrary: peace and joy came as a blessing upon him.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "may" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -114366,11 +119589,13 @@ "title": "“At Dawn”", "body": "Sleep has not touched my eyes\nWhen the first gleam of daylight\nSteals through the window-pane 
\n\nFighting with dismal night-time thoughts\nMy troubled mind tosses and turns,\nMy heart is tormented.\n\nMy heart is tormented 
\n\nPeace be with you,\nMy heart, full of anguish!\nPeace be with you,\n\nMy heart, full of anguish!\nPeace be with you,\nMy heart, full of anguish!\n\nDo you hear 
 do you hear the call?\nThe call from heaven above 
\n\nThe bells ring out the Resurrection,\nThe bells, the bells,\nThe bells ringing the Resurrection!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anthony Phillips", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1868 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Anthony Phillips" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "holy_saturday" @@ -114381,11 +119606,13 @@ "title": "“Autumn”", "body": "As a sad look I fancy autumn.\nOn a serene and misty day\nTo woods I often choose my way\nAnd gratified there stay\nAlone in pleasant mood begotten.\nBeneath a pine in a land of needles,\nWhile tasting lazily a berry,\nI muse on matters sad and merry\nAnd listen to woodpeckers’ whistles.\nThe grass is withered, a cool brightness\nOver the leaves is calmly spread,\nAnd in a forest pleasant quietness\nI watch the pine tops overhead.\nWhat memories will I recover?\nWhat dreams will be inspired with?\nThe giant pines are bending over\nTo tell their tales in thoughtfulness.\nBut gusts of wind as hordes of birds\nThe trees will suddenly arouse\nAnd with increasing gale will burst\nImpatiently high flied up crowns.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vyacheslav Chistyakov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1842 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vyacheslav Chistyakov" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -114396,12 +119623,14 @@ "title": "“The Beggar”", "body": "I was walking along the street 
 I was stopped by a decrepit old beggar.\n\nBloodshot, tearful eyes, blue lips, coarse rags, festering wounds 
 Oh, how hideously poverty had eaten into this miserable creature!\n\nHe held out to me a red, swollen, filthy hand. He groaned, he mumbled of help.\n\nI began feeling in all my pockets 
 No purse, no watch, not even a handkerchief 
 I had taken nothing with me. And the beggar was still waiting 
 and his outstretched hand feebly shook and trembled.\n\nConfused, abashed, I warmly clasped the filthy, shaking hand 
 ‘Don’t be angry, brother; I have nothing, brother.’\n\nThe beggar stared at me with his bloodshot eyes; his blue lips smiled; and he in his turn gripped my chilly fingers.\n\n‘What of it, brother?’ he mumbled; ‘thanks for this, too. That is a gift too, brother.’\n\nI knew that I too had received a gift from my brother.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "february" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -114412,12 +119641,14 @@ "title": "“Cabbage Soup”", "body": "A peasant woman, a widow, had an only son, a young man of twenty, the best workman in the village, and he died.\n\nThe lady who was the owner of the village, hearing of the woman’s trouble, went to visit her on the very day of the burial.\n\nShe found her at home.\n\nStanding in the middle of her hut, before the table, she was, without haste, with a regular movement of the right arm (the left hung listless at her side), scooping up weak cabbage soup from the bottom of a blackened pot, and swallowing it spoonful by spoonful.\n\nThe woman’s face was sunken and dark; her eyes were red and swollen 
 but she held herself as rigid and upright as in church.\n\n‘Heavens!’ thought the lady, ‘she can eat at such a moment 
 what coarse feelings they have really, all of them!’\n\nAnd at that point the lady recollected that when, a few years before, she had lost her little daughter, nine months old, she had refused, in her grief, a lovely country villa near Petersburg, and had spent the whole summer in town! Meanwhile the woman went on swallowing cabbage soup.\n\nThe lady could not contain herself, at last. ‘Tatiana!’ she said 
 ‘Really! I’m surprised! Is it possible you didn’t care for your son? How is it you’ve not lost your appetite? How can you eat that soup!’\n\n‘My Vasia’s dead,’ said the woman quietly, and tears of anguish ran once more down her hollow cheeks. ‘It’s the end of me too, of course; it’s tearing the heart out of me alive. But the soup’s not to be wasted; there’s salt in it.’\n\nThe lady only shrugged her shoulders and went away. Salt did not cost her much.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "may" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -114428,12 +119659,14 @@ "title": "“Christ”", "body": "I saw myself, in dream, a youth, almost a boy, in a low-pitched wooden church. The slim wax candles gleamed, spots of red, before the old pictures of the saints.\n\nA ring of coloured light encircled each tiny flame. Dark and dim it was in the church 
 But there stood before me many people. All fair-haired, peasant heads. From time to time they began swaying, falling, rising again, like the ripe ears of wheat, when the wind of summer passes in slow undulation over them.\n\nAll at once some man came up from behind and stood beside me.\n\nI did not turn towards him; but at once I felt that this man was Christ.\n\nEmotion, curiosity, awe overmastered me suddenly. I made an effort 
 and looked at my neighbour.\n\nA face like every one’s, a face like all men’s faces. The eyes looked a little upwards, quietly and intently. The lips closed, but not compressed; the upper lip, as it were, resting on the lower; a small beard parted in two. The hands folded and still. And the clothes on him like every one’s.\n\n‘What sort of Christ is this?’ I thought. ‘Such an ordinary, ordinary man! It can’t be!’\n\nI turned away. But I had hardly turned my eyes away from this ordinary man when I felt again that it really was none other than Christ standing beside me.\n\nAgain I made an effort over myself 
 And again the same face, like all men’s faces, the same everyday though unknown features.\n\nAnd suddenly my heart sank, and I came to myself. Only then I realised that just such a face--a face like all men’s faces--is the face of Christ.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "december" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -114444,12 +119677,14 @@ "title": "“A Conversation”", "body": "‘Neither the Jungfrau nor the Finsteraarhorn has yet been trodden by the foot of man!’\n\nThe topmost peaks of the Alps 
 A whole chain of rugged precipices 
 The very heart of the mountains.\n\nOver the mountain, a pale green, clear, dumb sky. Bitter, cruel frost; hard, sparkling snow; sticking out of the snow, the sullen peaks of the ice-covered, wind-swept mountains.\n\nTwo massive forms, two giants on the sides of the horizon, the Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn.\n\nAnd the Jungfrau speaks to its neighbour: ‘What canst thou tell that is new? thou canst see more. What is there down below?’\n\nA few thousand years go by: one minute. And the Finsteraarhorn roars back in answer: ‘Thick clouds cover the earth 
 Wait a little!’\n\nThousands more years go by: one minute.\n\n‘Well, and now?’ asks the Jungfrau.\n\n‘Now I see, there below all is the same. There are blue waters, black forests, grey heaps of piled-up stones. Among them are still fussing to and fro the insects, thou knowest, the bipeds that have never yet once defiled thee nor me.’\n\n‘Men?’\n\n‘Yes, men.’\n\nThousands of years go by: one minute.\n\n‘Well, and now?’ asks the Jungfrau.\n\n‘There seem fewer insects to be seen,’ thunders the Finsteraarhorn, ‘it is clearer down below; the waters have shrunk, the forests are thinner.’ Again thousands of years go by: one minute.\n\n‘What seeest thou?’ says the Jungfrau.\n\n‘Close about us it seems purer,’ answers the Finsteraarhorn, ‘but there in the distance in the valleys are still spots, and something is moving.’ ‘And now?’ asks the Jungfrau, after more thousands of years: one minute.\n\n‘Now it is well,’ answers the Finsteraarhorn, ‘it is clean everywhere, quite white, wherever you look 
 Everywhere is our snow, unbroken snow and ice. Everything is frozen. It is well now, it is quiet.’\n\n‘Good,’ said the Jungfrau. ‘But we have gossipped enough, old fellow. It’s time to slumber.’\n\n‘It is time, indeed.’\n\nThe huge mountains sleep; the green, clear sky sleeps over the region of eternal silence.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "february" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -114460,11 +119695,13 @@ "title": "“The Country”", "body": "The last day of July; for a thousand versts around, Russia, our native land.\n\nAn unbroken blue flooding the whole sky; a single cloudlet upon it, half floating, half fading away. Windlessness, warmth 
 air like new milk!\n\nLarks are trilling; pouter-pigeons cooing; noiselessly the swallows dart to and fro; horses are neighing and munching; the dogs do not bark and stand peaceably wagging their tails.\n\nA smell of smoke and of hay, and a little of tar, too, and a little of hides. The hemp, now in full bloom, sheds its heavy, pleasant fragrance.\n\nA deep but sloping ravine. Along its sides willows in rows, with big heads above, trunks cleft below. Through the ravine runs a brook; the tiny pebbles at its bottom are all aquiver through its clear eddies. In the distance, on the border-line between earth and heaven, the bluish streak of a great river.\n\nAlong the ravine, on one side, tidy barns, little storehouses with close-shut doors; on the other side, five or six pinewood huts with boarded roofs. Above each roof, the high pole of a pigeon-house; over each entry a little short-maned horse of wrought iron. The window-panes of faulty glass shine with all the colours of the rainbow. Jugs of flowers are painted on the shutters. Before each door, a little bench stands prim and neat; on the mounds of earth, cats are basking, their transparent ears pricked up alert; beyond the high door-sills, is the cool dark of the outer rooms.\n\nI lie on the very edge of the ravine, on an outspread horse-cloth; all about are whole stacks of fresh-cut hay, oppressively fragrant. The sagacious husbandmen have flung the hay about before the huts; let it get a bit drier in the baking sunshine; and then into the barn with it. It will be first-rate sleeping on it.\n\nCurly, childish heads are sticking out of every haycock; crested hens are looking in the hay for flies and little beetles, and a white-lipped pup is rolling among the tangled stalks.\n\nFlaxen-headed lads in clean smocks, belted low, in heavy boots, leaning over an unharnessed waggon, fling each other smart volleys of banter, with broad grins showing their white teeth.\n\nA round-faced young woman peeps out of window; laughs at their words or at the romps of the children in the mounds of hay.\n\nAnother young woman with powerful arms draws a great wet bucket out of the well 
 The bucket quivers and shakes, spilling long, glistening drops.\n\nBefore me stands an old woman in a new striped petticoat and new shoes.\n\nFat hollow beads are wound in three rows about her dark thin neck, her grey head is tied up in a yellow kerchief with red spots; it hangs low over her failing eyes.\n\nBut there is a smile of welcome in the aged eyes; a smile all over the wrinkled face. The old woman has reached, I dare say, her seventieth year 
 and even now one can see she has been a beauty in her day.\n\nWith a twirl of her sunburnt finger, she holds in her right hand a bowl of cold milk, with the cream on it, fresh from the cellar; the sides of the bowl are covered with drops, like strings of pearls. In the palm of her left hand the old woman brings me a huge hunch of warm bread, as though to say, ‘Eat, and welcome, passing guest!’\n\nA cock suddenly crows and fussily flaps his wings; he is slowly answered by the low of a calf, shut up in the stall.\n\n‘My word, what oats!’ I hear my coachman saying 
 Oh, the content, the quiet, the plenty of the Russian open country! Oh, the deep peace and well-being!\n\nAnd the thought comes to me: what is it all to us here, the cross on the cupola of St. Sophia in Constantinople and all the rest that we are struggling for, we men of the town?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -114476,12 +119713,14 @@ "title": "“An Eastern Legend”", "body": "Who in Bagdad knows not Jaffar, the Sun of the Universe?\n\nOne day, many years ago (he was yet a youth), Jaffar was walking in the environs of Bagdad.\n\nSuddenly a hoarse cry reached his ear; some one was calling desperately for help.\n\nJaffar was distinguished among the young men of his age by prudence and sagacity; but his heart was compassionate, and he relied on his strength.\n\nHe ran at the cry, and saw an infirm old man, pinned to the city wall by two brigands, who were robbing him.\n\nJaffar drew his sabre and fell upon the miscreants: one he killed, the other he drove away.\n\nThe old man thus liberated fell at his deliverer’s feet, and, kissing the hem of his garment, cried: ‘Valiant youth, your magnanimity shall not remain unrewarded. In appearance I am a poor beggar; but only in appearance. I am not a common man. Come to-morrow in the early morning to the chief bazaar; I will await you at the fountain, and you shall be convinced of the truth of my words.’\n\nJaffar thought: ‘In appearance this man is a beggar, certainly; but all sorts of things happen. Why not put it to the test?’ and he answered: ‘Very well, good father; I will come.’\n\nThe old man looked into his face, and went away.\n\nThe next morning, the sun had hardly risen, Jaffar went to the bazaar. The old man was already awaiting him, leaning with his elbow on the marble basin of the fountain.\n\nIn silence he took Jaffar by the hand and led him into a small garden, enclosed on all sides by high walls.\n\nIn the very middle of this garden, on a green lawn, grew an extraordinary-looking tree.\n\nIt was like a cypress; only its leaves were of an azure hue.\n\nThree fruits--three apples--hung on the slender upward-bent twigs; one was of middle size, long-shaped, and milk-white; the second, large, round, bright-red; the third, small, wrinkled, yellowish.\n\nThe whole tree faintly rustled, though there was no wind. It emitted a shrill plaintive ringing sound, as of a glass bell; it seemed it was conscious of Jaffar’s approach.\n\n‘Youth!’ said the old man, ‘pick any one of these apples and know, if you pick and eat the white one, you will be the wisest of all men; if you pick and eat the red, you will be rich as the Jew Rothschild; if you pick and eat the yellow one, you will be liked by old women. Make up your mind! and do not delay. Within an hour the apples will wither, and the tree itself will sink into the dumb depths of the earth!’\n\nJaffar looked down, and pondered. ‘How am I to act?’ he said in an undertone, as though arguing with himself. ‘If you become too wise, maybe you will not care to live; if you become richer than any one, every one will envy you; I had better pick and eat the third, the withered apple!’\n\nAnd so he did; and the old man laughed a toothless laugh, and said: ‘O wise young man! You have chosen the better part! What need have you of the white apple? You are wiser than Solomon as it is. And you’ve no need of the red apple either 
 You will be rich without it. Only your wealth no one will envy.’\n\n‘Tell me, old man,’ said Jaffar, rousing himself, ‘where lives the honoured mother of our Caliph, protected of heaven?’\n\nThe old man bowed down to the earth, and pointed out to the young man the way.\n\nWho in Bagdad knows not the Sun of the Universe, the great, the renowned Jaffar?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "april" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -114492,12 +119731,14 @@ "title": "“The Egoist”", "body": "He had every qualification for becoming the scourge of his family.\n\nHe was born healthy, was born wealthy, and throughout the whole of his long life, continuing to be wealthy and healthy, he never committed a single sin, never fell into a single error, never once made a slip or a blunder.\n\nHe was irreproachably conscientious! 
 And complacent in the sense of his own conscientiousness, he crushed every one with it, his family, his friends and his acquaintances.\n\nHis conscientiousness was his capital 
 and he exacted an exorbitant interest for it.\n\nHis conscientiousness gave him the right to be merciless, and to do no good deeds beyond what it dictated to him; and he was merciless, and did no good 
 for good that is dictated is no good at all.\n\nHe took no interest in any one except his own exemplary self, and was genuinely indignant if others did not take as studious an interest in it!\n\nAt the same time he did not consider himself an egoist, and was particularly severe in censuring, and keen in detecting egoists and egoism. To be sure he was. The egoism of another was a check on his own.\n\nNot recognising the smallest weakness in himself he did not understand, did not tolerate any weakness in any one. He did not, in fact, understand any one or any thing, since he was all, on all sides, above and below, before and behind, encircled by himself.\n\nHe did not even understand the meaning of forgiveness. He had never had to forgive himself 
 What inducement could he have to forgive others?\n\nBefore the tribunal of his own conscience, before the face of his own God, he, this marvel, this monster of virtue, raised his eyes heavenwards, and with clear unfaltering voice declared, ‘Yes, I am an exemplary, a truly moral man!’\n\nHe will repeat these words on his deathbed, and there will be no throb even then in his heart of stone--in that heart without stain or blemish!\n\nOh, hideousness of self-complacent, unbending, cheaply bought virtue; thou art almost more revolting than the frank hideousness of vice!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "december" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -114508,12 +119749,14 @@ "title": "“The End of the World”", "body": "I fancied I was somewhere in Russia, in the wilds, in a simple country house.\n\nThe room big and low pitched with three windows; the walls whitewashed; no furniture. Before the house a barren plain; gradually sloping downwards, it stretches into the distance; a grey monotonous sky hangs over it, like the canopy of a bed.\n\nI am not alone; there are some ten persons in the room with me. All quite plain people, simply dressed. They walk up and down in silence, as it were stealthily. They avoid one another, and yet are continually looking anxiously at one another.\n\nNot one knows why he has come into this house and what people there are with him. On all the faces uneasiness and despondency 
 all in turn approach the windows and look about intently as though expecting something from without.\n\nThen again they fall to wandering up and down. Among us is a small-sized boy; from time to time he whimpers in the same thin voice, ‘Father, I’m frightened!’ My heart turns sick at his whimper, and I too begin to be afraid 
 of what? I don’t know myself. Only I feel, there is coming nearer and nearer a great, great calamity.\n\nThe boy keeps on and on with his wail. Oh, to escape from here! How stifling! How weary! how heavy 
 But escape is impossible.\n\nThat sky is like a shroud. And no wind 
 Is the air dead or what?\n\nAll at once the boy runs up to the window and shrieks in the same piteous voice, ‘Look! look! the earth has fallen away!’\n\n‘How? fallen away?’ Yes; just now there was a plain before the house, and now it stands on a fearful height! The horizon has sunk, has gone down, and from the very house drops an almost overhanging, as it were scooped-out, black precipice.\n\nWe all crowded to the window 
 Horror froze our hearts. ‘Here it is 
 here it is!’ whispers one next me.\n\nAnd behold, along the whole far boundary of the earth, something began to stir, some sort of small, roundish hillocks began heaving and falling.\n\n‘It is the sea!’ the thought flashed on us all at the same instant. ‘It will swallow us all up directly 
 Only how can it grow and rise upwards? To this precipice?’\n\nAnd yet, it grows, grows enormously 
 Already there are not separate hillocks heaving in the distance 
 One continuous, monstrous wave embraces the whole circle of the horizon.\n\nIt is swooping, swooping, down upon us! In an icy hurricane it flies, swirling in the darkness of hell. Everything shuddered--and there, in this flying mass--was the crash of thunder, the iron wail of thousands of throats 
\n\nAh! what a roaring and moaning! It was the earth howling for terror 
\n\nThe end of it! the end of all!\n\nThe child whimpered once more 
 I tried to clutch at my companions, but already we were all crushed, buried, drowned, swept away by that pitch-black, icy, thundering wave! Darkness 
 darkness everlasting!\n\nScarcely breathing, I awoke.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "march" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -114524,11 +119767,13 @@ "title": "“The First Snow”", "body": "I’m glad to see you, light stars of the fluffy first snow!\nOn the dark ground you instantly melt one by one.\nOther snowflakes quick and easy instead of you fly up:\nBees in the motionless air are whirling this way.\nWinter will be before long; pressed ice will be screaming\nUnder a sonorous iron of earnest fast sleighs,\nHard will be frost, beauties’ cheeks will be profusely blushing,\nTheir long lashes with rime will be tenderly touched.\nWell then! Steppe village, the time’s come to leave you however,\nI will not look at your cabins all covered with snow,\nI will not see smokes floated in skies blue and clear,\nWhite fields and hills,--and the looming mysterious wood.\nLet you fall down, fine snow! Yet a far away city\nCalls me again for a meeting with foes and friends.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vyacheslav Chistyakov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1847 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vyacheslav Chistyakov" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december", @@ -114540,12 +119785,14 @@ "title": "“Fog Filled the Morning Sky”", "body": "Fog filled the morning sky, gray-haired this morning,\nSnowy the saddened fields, many times trodden.\nThough you resent, feel your past, unreturning:\nFaces you shall recall, long since forgotten.\n\nYou shall recall the talks, long, full of passion,\nGlances, so eager, so shy and so subtile.\nFirst date and last date, and lovely confessions,\nSounds of a quiet voice, sweetheart’s, for some time.\n\nYou shall recall breaking up, smiling oddly,\nYou shall recall lots of things, dear and distant,\nThoughtfully stare at the sky that hangs broadly,\nHearing the buzz of wheels, soft, yet persistent.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dmitriy Belyanin", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1843, "month": "november" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dmitriy Belyanin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -114556,12 +119803,14 @@ "title": "“The Fool”", "body": "There lived a fool.\n\nFor a long time he lived in peace and contentment; but by degrees rumours began to reach him that he was regarded on all sides as a vulgar idiot.\n\nThe fool was abashed and began to ponder gloomily how he might put an end to these unpleasant rumours.\n\nA sudden idea, at last, illuminated his dull little brain 
 And, without the slightest delay, he put it into practice.\n\nA friend met him in the street, and fell to praising a well-known painter 
\n\n‘Upon my word!’ cried the fool,’ that painter was out of date long ago 
 you didn’t know it? I should never have expected it of you 
 you are quite behind the times.’\n\nThe friend was alarmed, and promptly agreed with the fool.\n\n‘Such a splendid book I read yesterday!’ said another friend to him.\n\n‘Upon my word!’ cried the fool, ‘I wonder you’re not ashamed. That book’s good for nothing; every one’s seen through it long ago. Didn’t you know it? You’re quite behind the times.’\n\nThis friend too was alarmed, and he agreed with the fool.\n\n‘What a wonderful fellow my friend N. N. is!’ said a third friend to the fool. ‘Now there’s a really generous creature!’\n\n‘Upon my word!’ cried the fool. ‘N. N., the notorious scoundrel! He swindled all his relations. Every one knows that. You’re quite behind the times.’\n\nThe third friend too was alarmed, and he agreed with the fool and deserted his friend. And whoever and whatever was praised in the fool’s presence, he had the same retort for everything.\n\nSometimes he would add reproachfully: ‘And do you still believe in authorities?’\n\n‘Spiteful! malignant!’ his friends began to say of the fool. ‘But what a brain!’\n\n‘And what a tongue!’ others would add, ‘Oh, yes, he has talent!’\n\nIt ended in the editor of a journal proposing to the fool that he should undertake their reviewing column.\n\nAnd the fool fell to criticising everything and every one, without in the least changing his manner, or his exclamations.\n\nNow he, who once declaimed against authorities, is himself an authority, and the young men venerate him, and fear him.\n\nAnd what else can they do, poor young men? Though one ought not, as a general rule, to venerate any one 
 but in this case, if one didn’t venerate him, one would find oneself quite behind the times!\n\nFools have a good time among cowards.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "april" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -114572,12 +119821,14 @@ "title": "“Friend and Enemy”", "body": "A prisoner, condemned to confinement for life, broke out of his prison and took to head-long flight 
 After him, just on his heels flew his gaolers in pursuit.\n\nHe ran with all his might 
 His pursuers began to be left behind.\n\nBut behold, before him was a river with precipitous banks, a narrow, but deep river 
 And he could not swim!\n\nA thin rotten plank had been thrown across from one bank to the other. The fugitive already had his foot upon it 
 But it so happened that just there beside the river stood his best friend and his bitterest enemy.\n\nHis enemy said nothing, he merely folded his arms; but the friend shrieked at the top of his voice: ‘Heavens! What are you doing? Madman, think what you’re about! Don’t you see the plank’s utterly rotten? It will break under your weight, and you will inevitably perish!’\n\n‘But there is no other way to cross 
 and don’t you hear them in pursuit?’ groaned the poor wretch in despair, and he stepped on to the plank.\n\n‘I won’t allow it! 
 No, I won’t allow you to rush to destruction!’ cried the zealous friend, and he snatched the plank from under the fugitive. The latter instantly fell into the boiling torrent, and was drowned.\n\nThe enemy smiled complacently, and walked away; but the friend sat down on the bank, and fell to weeping bitterly over his poor 
 poor friend!\n\nTo blame himself for his destruction did not however occur to him 
 not for an instant.\n\n‘He would not listen to me! He would not listen!’ he murmured dejectedly.\n\n‘Though indeed,’ he added at last. ‘He would have had, to be sure, to languish his whole life long in an awful prison! At any rate, he is out of suffering now! He is better off now! Such was bound to be his fate, I suppose!\n\n‘And yet I am sorry, from humane feeling!’\n\nAnd the kind soul continued to sob inconsolably over the fate of his misguided friend.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "december" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -114588,12 +119839,14 @@ "title": "“Hang Him!”", "body": "‘It happened in 1803,’ began my old acquaintance, ‘not long before Austerlitz. The regiment in which I was an officer was quartered in Moravia.\n\n‘We had strict orders not to molest or annoy the inhabitants; as it was, they regarded us very dubiously, though we were supposed to be allies.\n\n‘I had a servant, formerly a serf of my mother’s, Yegor, by name. He was a quiet, honest fellow; I had known him from a child, and treated him as a friend.\n\n‘Well, one day, in the house where I was living, I heard screams of abuse, cries, and lamentations; the woman of the house had had two hens stolen, and she laid the theft at my servant’s door. He defended himself, called me to witness 
 “Likely he’d turn thief, he, Yegor Avtamonov!” I assured the woman of Yegor’s honesty, but she would not listen to me.\n\n‘All at once the thud of horses’ hoofs was heard along the street; the commander-in-chief was riding by with his staff. He was riding at a walking pace, a stout, corpulent man, with drooping head, and epaulettes hanging on his breast.\n\n‘The woman saw him, and rushing before his horse, flung herself on her knees, and, bare-headed and all in disorder, she began loudly complaining of my servant, pointing at him.\n\n‘“General!” she screamed; “your Excellency! make an inquiry! help me! save me! this soldier has robbed me!”\n\n‘Yegor stood at the door of the house, bolt upright, his cap in his hand, he even arched his chest and brought his heels together like a sentry, and not a word! Whether he was abashed at all the general’s suite halting there in the middle of the street, or stupefied by the calamity facing him, I can’t say, but there stood my poor Yegor, blinking and white as chalk!\n\n‘The commander-in-chief cast an abstracted and sullen glance at him, growled angrily, “Well?” 
 Yegor stood like a statue, showing his teeth as if he were grinning! Looking at him from the side, you’d say the fellow was laughing!\n\n‘Then the commander-in-chief jerked out: “Hang him!” spurred his horse, and moved on, first at a walking-pace, then at a quick trot. The whole staff hurried after him; only one adjutant turned round on his saddle and took a passing glance at Yegor.\n\n‘To disobey was impossible 
 Yegor was seized at once and led off to execution.\n\n‘Then he broke down altogether, and simply gasped out twice, “Gracious heavens! gracious heavens!” and then in a whisper, “God knows, it wasn’t me!”\n\n‘Bitterly, bitterly he cried, saying good-bye to me. I was in despair. “Yegor! Yegor!” I cried, “how came it you said nothing to the general?”\n\n‘“God knows, it wasn’t me!” the poor fellow repeated, sobbing. The woman herself was horrified. She had never expected such a dreadful termination, and she started howling on her own account! She fell to imploring all and each for mercy, swore the hens had been found, that she was ready to clear it all up 
\n\n‘Of course, all that was no sort of use. Those were war-times, sir! Discipline! The woman sobbed louder and louder.\n\n‘Yegor, who had received absolution from the priest, turned to me.\n\n‘“Tell her, your honour, not to upset herself 
 I’ve forgiven her.”’\n\nMy acquaintance, as he repeated this, his servant’s last words, murmured, ‘My poor Yegor, dear fellow, a real saint!’ and the tears trickled down his old cheeks.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1879, "month": "august" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -114604,12 +119857,14 @@ "title": "“How fair, how fresh were the roses 
”", "body": "Somewhere, sometime, long, long ago, I read a poem. It was soon forgotten 
 but the first line has stuck in my memory--\n\n ‘How fair, how fresh were the roses 
’\n\nNow is winter; the frost has iced over the window-panes; in the dark room burns a solitary candle. I sit huddled up in a corner; and in my head the line keeps echoing and echoing--\n\n ‘How fair, how fresh were the roses 
’\n\nAnd I see myself before the low window of a Russian country house. The summer evening is slowly melting into night, the warm air is fragrant of mignonette and lime-blossom; and at the window, leaning on her arm, her head bent on her shoulder, sits a young girl, and silently, intently gazes into the sky, as though looking for new stars to come out. What candour, what inspiration in the dreamy eyes, what moving innocence in the parted questioning lips, how calmly breathes that still-growing, still-untroubled bosom, how pure and tender the profile of the young face! I dare not speak to her; but how dear she is to me, how my heart beats!\n\n ‘How fair, how fresh were the roses 
’\n\nBut here in the room it gets darker and darker 
 The candle burns dim and gutters, dancing shadows quiver on the low ceiling, the cruel crunch of the frost is heard outside, and within the dreary murmur of old age 
\n\n ‘How fair, how fresh were the roses 
’\n\nThere rise up before me other images. I hear the merry hubbub of home life in the country. Two flaxen heads, bending close together, look saucily at me with their bright eyes, rosy cheeks shake with suppressed laughter, hands are clasped in warm affection, young kind voices ring one above the other; while a little farther, at the end of the snug room, other hands, young too, fly with unskilled fingers over the keys of the old piano, and the Lanner waltz cannot drown the hissing of the patriarchal samovar 
\n\n ‘How fair, how fresh were the roses 
’\n\nThe candle flickers and goes out 
 Whose is that hoarse and hollow cough? Curled up, my old dog lies, shuddering at my feet, my only companion 
 I’m cold 
 I’m frozen 
 and all of them are dead 
 dead 
\n\n ‘How fair, how fresh were the roses 
’", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1879, "month": "september" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -114620,11 +119875,13 @@ "title": "“I Like To Drive up to a Village in the Eve 
”", "body": "I like to drive up to a village in the eve,\nTo look at crows above the church and to believe--\n At height they are somehow playing.\nAmong the endless fields and flowery precious meads,\nOn quiet banks, amid the gardens went to weeds\n I like to listen to the baying\n\nOf watchful dogs, to mooing of the weighty herds;\nI like deserted parks all overgrown with herbs,\n And lime-trees’ shadows unshakable.\nYou stand stock-still when glassy air is as if\nWith you it listened to the sounds of the eve--\n Of feeling bliss you grow capable;\n\nYou have a thoughtful look at eyes of local men--\nYou understand them, their hard poor life,--and then\n You crave for artless and simple living;\nAn aged woman comes for water from the well,\nThe tall pole’s screaming, neighing horses at the pale:\n To them the water she’ll be giving.\n\nA driving passer-by strikes up a mournful song\nBut utters daring cries,--his sadness is not long,--\n Away the horse hurtles at a canter;\nA girl comes out on the low porch of the hut,\nShe watches sunset, her blue eyes feign funny shut,\n She’s reddened by the sun-a-painter.\n\nEnormous carts are rocking slowly awhile\nDescending from the hill in a single file\n With a strong-smelling corn-fields’ bounty;\nBeyond the patches of compacted verdant hemp\nFlows the open, dressed in a haze, both vast and ample\n Impressive steppe--eye-catching country.\n\nThis steppe is boundless indeed, it does not end,\nA lively breeze streams over it a ceaseless strand,\n The earth is breathing, skies are blazing;\nThe forest’s brims are being touched with purple gold,\nIt’s telling something in the wind to rural world;\n Ample is the evening of amazing.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vyacheslav Chistyakov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1847 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vyacheslav Chistyakov" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -114635,12 +119892,14 @@ "title": "“The Insect”", "body": "I dreamed that we were sitting, a party of twenty, in a big room with open windows.\n\nAmong us were women, children, old men 
 We were all talking of some very well-known subject, talking noisily and indistinctly.\n\nSuddenly, with a sharp, whirring sound, there flew into the room a big insect, two inches long 
 it flew in, circled round, and settled on the wall.\n\nIt was like a fly or a wasp. Its body dirt-coloured; of the same colour too its flat, stiff wings; outspread feathered claws, and a head thick and angular, like a dragon-fly’s; both head and claws were bright red, as though steeped in blood.\n\nThis strange insect incessantly turned its head up and down, to right and to left, moved its claws 
 then suddenly darted from the wall, flew with a whirring sound about the room, and again settled, again hatefully and loathsomely wriggling all over, without stirring from the spot.\n\nIn all of us it excited a sensation of loathing, dread, even terror 
 No one of us had ever seen anything like it. We all cried: ‘Drive that monstrous thing away!’ and waved our handkerchiefs at it from a distance 
 but no one ventured to go up to it 
 and when the insect began flying, every one instinctively moved away.\n\nOnly one of our party, a pale-faced young man, stared at us all in amazement He shrugged his shoulders; he smiled, and positively could not conceive what had happened to us, and why we were in such a state of excitement. He himself did not see an insect at all, did not hear the ill-omened whirr of its wings.\n\nAll at once the insect seemed to stare at him, darted off, and dropping on his head, stung him on the forehead, above the eyes 
 The young man feebly groaned, and fell dead.\n\nThe fearful fly flew out at once 
 Only then we guessed what it was had visited us.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "may" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -114651,12 +119910,14 @@ "title": "“Masha”", "body": "When I lived, many years ago, in Petersburg, every time I chanced to hire a sledge, I used to get into conversation with the driver.\n\nI was particularly fond of talking to the night drivers, poor peasants from the country round, who come to the capital with their little ochre-painted sledges and wretched nags, in the hope of earning food for themselves and rent for their masters.\n\nSo one day I engaged such a sledge-driver 
 He was a lad of twenty, tall and well-made, a splendid fellow with blue eyes and ruddy cheeks; his fair hair curled in little ringlets under the shabby little patched cap that was pulled over his eyes. And how had that little torn smock ever been drawn over those gigantic shoulders!\n\nBut the handsome, beardless face of the sledge-driver looked mournful and downcast.\n\nI began to talk to him. There was a sorrowful note in his voice too.\n\n‘What is it, brother?’ I asked him; ‘why aren’t you cheerful? Have you some trouble?’\n\nThe lad did not answer me for a minute. ‘Yes, sir, I have,’ he said at last. ‘And such a trouble, there could not be a worse. My wife is dead.’\n\n‘You loved her 
 your wife?’\n\nThe lad did not turn to me; he only bent his head a little.\n\n‘I loved her, sir. It’s eight months since then 
 but I can’t forget it. My heart is gnawing at me 
 so it is! And why had she to die? A young thing! strong! 
 In one day cholera snatched her away.’\n\n‘And was she good to you?’\n\n‘Ah, sir!’ the poor fellow sighed heavily, ‘and how happy we were together! She died without me! The first I heard here, they’d buried her already, you know; I hurried off at once to the village, home--I got there--it was past midnight. I went into my hut, stood still in the middle of the room, and softly I whispered, “Masha! eh, Masha!” Nothing but the cricket chirping. I fell a-crying then, sat on the hut floor, and beat on the earth with my fists! “Greedy earth!” says I 
 “You have swallowed her up 
 swallow me too!--Ah, Masha!”\n\n‘Masha!’ he added suddenly in a sinking voice. And without letting go of the cord reins, he wiped the tears out of his eyes with his sleeve, shook it, shrugged his shoulders, and uttered not another word.\n\nAs I got out of the sledge, I gave him a few coppers over his fare. He bowed low to me, grasping his cap in both hands, and drove off at a walking pace over the level snow of the deserted street, full of the grey fog of a January frost.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "april" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -114667,12 +119928,14 @@ "title": "“The Monk”", "body": "I used to know a monk, a hermit, a saint. He lived only for the sweetness of prayer; and steeping himself in it, he would stand so long on the cold floor of the church that his legs below the knees grew numb and senseless as blocks of wood. He did not feel them; he stood on and prayed.\n\nI understood him, and perhaps envied him; but let him too understand me and not condemn me; me, for whom his joys are inaccessible.\n\nHe has attained to annihilating himself, his hateful _ego_; but I too; it’s not from egoism, I pray not.\n\nMy _ego_, may be, is even more burdensome and more odious to me, than his to him.\n\nHe has found wherein to forget himself 
 but I, too, find the same, though not so continuously.\n\nHe does not lie 
 but neither do I lie.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1879, "month": "november" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -114683,12 +119946,14 @@ "title": "“My Adversary”", "body": "I had a comrade who was my adversary; not in pursuits, nor in service, nor in love, but our views were never alike on any subject, and whenever we met, endless argument arose between us.\n\nWe argued about everything: about art, and religion, and science, about life on earth and beyond the grave, especially about life beyond the grave.\n\nHe was a person of faith and enthusiasm. One day he said to me, ‘You laugh at everything; but if I die before you, I will come to you from the other world 
 We shall see whether you will laugh then.’\n\nAnd he did, in fact, die before me, while he was still young; but the years went by, and I had forgotten his promise, his threat.\n\nOne night I was lying in bed, and could not, and, indeed, would not sleep.\n\nIn the room it was neither dark nor light. I fell to staring into the grey twilight.\n\nAnd all at once, I fancied that between the two windows my adversary was standing, and was slowly and mournfully nodding his head up and down.\n\nI was not frightened; I was not even surprised 
 but raising myself a little, and propping myself on my elbow, I stared still more intently at the unexpected apparition.\n\nThe latter continued to nod his head.\n\n‘Well?’ I said at last; ‘are you triumphant or regretful? What is this--warning or reproach? 
 Or do you mean to give me to understand that you were wrong, that we were both wrong? What are you experiencing? The torments of hell? Or the bliss of paradise? Utter one word at least!’\n\nBut my opponent did not utter a single sound, and only, as before, mournfully and submissively nodded his head up and down.\n\nI laughed 
 he vanished.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "february" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -114699,12 +119964,14 @@ "title": "“Nature”", "body": "I dreamed I had come into an immense underground temple with lofty arched roof. It was filled with a sort of underground uniform light.\n\nIn the very middle of the temple sat a majestic woman in a flowing robe of green colour. Her head propped on her hand, she seemed buried in deep thought.\n\nAt once I was aware that this woman was Nature herself; and a thrill of reverent awe sent an instantaneous shiver through my inmost soul.\n\nI approached the sitting figure, and making a respectful bow, ‘O common Mother of us all!’ I cried, ‘of what is thy meditation? Is it of the future destinies of man thou ponderest? or how he may attain the highest possible perfection and happiness?’\n\nThe woman slowly turned upon me her dark menacing eyes. Her lips moved, and I heard a ringing voice like the clang of iron.\n\n‘I am thinking how to give greater power to the leg-muscles of the flea, that he may more easily escape from his enemies. The balance of attack and defence is broken 
 It must be restored.’\n\n‘What,’ I faltered in reply, ‘what is it thou art thinking upon? But are not we, men, thy favourite children?’\n\nThe woman frowned slightly. ‘All creatures are my children,’ she pronounced, ‘and I care for them alike, and all alike I destroy.’\n\n‘But right 
 reason 
 justice 
’ I faltered again.\n\n‘Those are men’s words,’ I heard the iron voice saying. ‘I know not right nor wrong 
 Reason is no law for me--and what is justice?--I have given thee life, I shall take it away and give to others, worms or men 
 I care not 
 Do thou meanwhile look out for thyself, and hinder me not!’\n\nI would have retorted 
 but the earth uttered a hollow groan and shuddered, and I awoke.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1879, "month": "august" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -114715,12 +119982,14 @@ "title": "“The Nymphs”", "body": "I stood before a chain of beautiful mountains forming a semicircle. A young, green forest covered them from summit to base.\n\nLimpidly blue above them was the southern sky; on the heights the sunbeams rioted; below, half-hidden in the grass, swift brooks were babbling.\n\nAnd the old fable came to my mind, how in the first century after Christ’s birth, a Greek ship was sailing on the Aegean Sea.\n\nThe hour was mid-day 
 It was still weather. And suddenly up aloft, above the pilot’s head, some one called distinctly, ‘When thou sailest by the island, shout in a loud voice, “Great Pan is dead!”’\n\nThe pilot was amazed 
 afraid. But when the ship passed the island, he obeyed, he called, ‘Great Pan is dead!’\n\nAnd, at once, in response to his shout, all along the coast (though the island was uninhabited), sounded loud sobs, moans, long-drawn-out, plaintive wailings. ‘Dead! dead is great Pan!’ I recalled this story 
 and a strange thought came to. ‘What if I call an invocation?’\n\nBut in the sight of the exultant beauty around me, I could not think of death, and with all my might I shouted, ‘Great Pan is arisen! arisen!’ And at once, wonder of wonders, in answer to my call, from all the wide half-circle of green mountains came peals of joyous laughter, rose the murmur of glad voices and the clapping of hands. ‘He is arisen! Pan is arisen!’ clamoured fresh young voices. Everything before me burst into sudden laughter, brighter than the sun on high, merrier than the brooks that babbled among the grass. I heard the hurried thud of light steps, among the green undergrowth there were gleams of the marble white of flowing tunics, the living flush of bare limbs 
 It was the nymphs, nymphs, dryads, Bacchantes, hastening from the heights down to the plain 
\n\nAll at once they appear at every opening in the woods. Their curls float about their god-like heads, their slender hands hold aloft wreaths and cymbals, and laughter, sparkling, Olympian laughter, comes leaping, dancing with them 
\n\nBefore them moves a goddess. She is taller and fairer than the rest; a quiver on her shoulder, a bow in her hands, a silvery crescent moon on her floating tresses 
\n\n‘Diana, is it thou?’\n\nBut suddenly the goddess stopped 
 and at once all the nymphs following her stopped. The ringing laughter died away.\n\nI see the face of the hushed goddess overspread with a deadly pallor; I saw her feet grew rooted to the ground, her lips parted in unutterable horror; her eyes grew wide, fixed on the distance 
 What had she seen? What was she gazing upon?\n\nI turned where she was gazing 
\n\nAnd on the distant sky-line, above the low strip of fields, gleamed, like a point of fire the golden cross on the white bell-tower of a Christian church 
 That cross the goddess had caught sight of.\n\nI heard behind me a long, broken sigh, like the quiver of a broken string, and when I turned again, no trace was left of the nymphs 
 The broad forest was green as before, and only here and there among the thick network of branches, were fading gleams of something white; whether the nymphs’ white robes, or a mist rising from the valley, I know not.\n\nBut how I mourned for those vanished goddesses!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "december" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -114731,12 +120000,14 @@ "title": "“The Old Man”", "body": "Days of darkness, of dreariness, have come 
 Thy own infirmities, the sufferings of those dear to thee, the chill and gloom of old age. All that thou hast loved, to which thou hast given thyself irrevocably, is falling, going to pieces. The way is all down-hill.\n\nWhat canst thou do? Grieve? Complain? Thou wilt aid not thyself nor others that way 
\n\nOn the bowed and withering tree the leaves are smaller and fewer, but its green is yet the same.\n\nDo thou too shrink within, withdraw into thyself, into thy memories, and there, deep down, in the very depths of the soul turned inwards on itself, thy old life, to which thou alone hast the key, will be bright again for thee, in all the fragrance, all the fresh green, and the grace and power of its spring!\n\nBut beware 
 look not forward, poor old man!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "july" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -114747,11 +120018,13 @@ "title": "“The Old Woman”", "body": "I was walking over a wide plain alone.\n\nAnd suddenly I fancied light, cautious footsteps behind my back 
 Some one was walking after me.\n\nI looked round, and saw a little, bent old woman, all muffled up in grey rags. The face of the old woman alone peeped out from them; a yellow, wrinkled, sharp-nosed, toothless face.\n\nI went up to her 
 She stopped.\n\n‘Who are you? What do you want? Are you a beggar? Do you seek alms?’\n\nThe old woman did not answer. I bent down to her, and noticed that both her eyes were covered with a half-transparent membrane or skin, such as is seen in some birds; they protect their eyes with it from dazzling light.\n\nBut in the old woman, the membrane did not move nor uncover the eyes 
 from which I concluded she was blind.\n\n‘Do you want alms?’ I repeated my question. ‘Why are you following me?’ But the old woman as before made no answer, but only shrank into herself a little.\n\nI turned from her and went on my way.\n\nAnd again I hear behind me the same light, measured, as it were, stealthy steps.\n\n‘Again that woman!’ I thought, ‘why does she stick to me?’ But then, I added inwardly, ‘Most likely she has lost her way, being blind, and now is following the sound of my steps so as to get with me to some inhabited place. Yes, yes, that’s it.’\n\nBut a strange uneasiness gradually gained possession of my mind. I began to fancy that the old woman was not only following me, but that she was directing me, that she was driving me to right and to left, and that I was unwittingly obeying her.\n\nI still go on, however 
 but, behold, before me, on my very road, something black and wide 
 a kind of hole 
 ‘A grave!’ flashed through my head. ‘That is where she is driving me!’\n\nI turned sharply back. The old woman faced me again 
 but she sees! She is looking at me with big, cruel, malignant eyes 
 the eyes of a bird of prey 
 I stoop down to her face, to her eyes 
 Again the same opaque membrane, the same blind, dull countenance 
\n\n‘Ah!’ I think, ‘this old woman is my fate. The fate from which there is no escape for man!’\n\n‘No escape! no escape! What madness 
 One must try.’ And I rush away in another direction.\n\nI go swiftly 
 But light footsteps as before patter behind me, close, close 
 And before me again the dark hole.\n\nAgain I turn another way 
 And again the same patter behind, and the same menacing blur of darkness before.\n\nAnd whichever way I run, doubling like a hunted hare 
 it’s always the same, the same!\n\n‘Wait!’ I think, ‘I will cheat her! I will go nowhere!’ and I instantly sat down on the ground.\n\nThe old woman stands behind, two paces from me. I do not hear her, but I feel she is there.\n\nAnd suddenly I see the blur of darkness in the distance is floating, creeping of itself towards me!\n\nGod! I look round again 
 the old woman looks straight at me, and her toothless mouth is twisted in a grin.\n\nNo escape!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -114759,12 +120032,14 @@ "title": "“Prayer”", "body": "Whatever a man pray for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces to this: ‘Great God, grant that twice two be not four.’\n\nOnly such a prayer is a real prayer from person to person. To pray to the Cosmic Spirit, to the Higher Being, to the Kantian, Hegelian, quintessential, formless God is impossible and unthinkable.\n\nBut can even a personal, living, imaged God make twice two not be four?\n\nEvery believer is bound to answer, he can, and is bound to persuade himself of it.\n\nBut if reason sets him revolting against this senselessness?\n\nThen Shakespeare comes to his aid: ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,’ etc.\n\nAnd if they set about confuting him in the name of truth, he has but to repeat the famous question, ‘What is truth?’ And so, let us drink and be merry, and say our prayers.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1881, "month": "july" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -114775,12 +120050,14 @@ "title": "“Realm of Azure”", "body": "O realm of azure! O realm of light and colour, of youth and happiness! I have beheld thee in dream. We were together, a few, in a beautiful little boat, gaily decked out. Like a swan’s breast the white sail swelled below the streamers frolicking in the wind.\n\nI knew not who were with me; but in all my soul I felt that they were young, light-hearted, happy as I!\n\nBut I looked not indeed on them. I beheld all round the boundless blue of the sea, dimpled with scales of gold, and overhead the same boundless sea of blue, and in it, triumphant and mirthful, it seemed, moved the sun.\n\nAnd among us, ever and anon, rose laughter, ringing and gleeful as the laughter of the gods!\n\nAnd on a sudden, from one man’s lips or another’s, would flow words, songs of divine beauty and inspiration, and power 
 it seemed the sky itself echoed back a greeting to them, and the sea quivered in unison 
 Then followed again the blissful stillness.\n\nRiding lightly over the soft waves, swiftly our little boat sped on. No wind drove it along; our own lightly beating hearts guided it. At our will it floated, obedient as a living thing.\n\nWe came on islands, enchanted islands, half-transparent with the prismatic lights of precious stones, of amethysts and emeralds. Odours of bewildering fragrance rose from the rounded shores; some of these islands showered on us a rain of roses and valley lilies; from others birds darted up, with long wings of rainbow hues.\n\nThe birds flew circling above us; the lilies and roses melted away in the pearly foam that glided by the smooth sides of our boat.\n\nAnd, with the flowers and the birds, sounds floated to us, sounds sweet as honey 
 women’s voices, one fancied, in them 
 And all about us, sky, sea, the heaving sail aloft, the gurgling water at the rudder--all spoke of love, of happy love!\n\nAnd she, the beloved of each of us--she was there 
 unseen and close. One moment more, and behold, her eyes will shine upon thee, her smile will blossom on thee 
 Her hand will take thy hand and guide thee to the land of joy that fades not!\n\nO realm of azure! In dream have I beheld thee.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "june" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -114791,12 +120068,14 @@ "title": "“The Rose”", "body": "The last days of August 
 Autumn was already at hand.\n\nThe sun was setting. A sudden downpour of rain, without thunder or lightning, had just passed rapidly over our wide plain.\n\nThe garden in front of the house glowed and steamed, all filled with the fire of the sunset and the deluge of rain.\n\nShe was sitting at a table in the drawing-room, and, with persistent dreaminess, gazing through the half-open door into the garden.\n\nI knew what was passing at that moment in her soul; I knew that, after a brief but agonising struggle, she was at that instant giving herself up to a feeling she could no longer master.\n\nAll at once she got up, went quickly out into the garden, and disappeared.\n\nAn hour passed 
 a second; she had not returned.\n\nThen I got up, and, getting out of the house, I turned along the walk by which--of that I had no doubt--she had gone.\n\nAll was darkness about me; the night had already fallen. But on the damp sand of the path a roundish object could be discerned--bright red even through the mist.\n\nI stooped down. It was a fresh, new-blown rose. Two hours before I had seen this very rose on her bosom.\n\nI carefully picked up the flower that had fallen in the mud, and, going back to the drawing-room, laid it on the table before her chair.\n\nAnd now at last she came back, and with light footsteps, crossing the whole room, sat down at the table.\n\nHer face was both paler and more vivid; her downcast eyes, that looked somehow smaller, strayed rapidly in happy confusion from side to side.\n\nShe saw the rose, snatched it up, glanced at its crushed, muddy petals, glanced at me, and her eyes, brought suddenly to a standstill, were bright with tears.\n\n‘What are you crying for?’ I asked.\n\n‘Why, see this rose. Look what has happened to it.’\n\nThen I thought fit to utter a profound remark.\n\n‘Your tears will wash away the mud,’ I pronounced with a significant expression.\n\n‘Tears do not wash, they burn,’ she answered. And turning to the hearth she flung the rose into the dying flame.\n\n‘Fire burns even better than tears,’ she cried with spirit; and her lovely eyes, still bright with tears, laughed boldly and happily.\n\nI saw that she too had been in the fire.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "april" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -114808,12 +120087,14 @@ "title": "“The Skulls”", "body": "A sumptuous, brilliantly lighted hall; a number of ladies and gentlemen.\n\nAll the faces are animated, the talk is lively 
 A noisy conversation is being carried on about a famous singer. They call her divine, immortal 
 O, how finely yesterday she rendered her last trill!\n\nAnd suddenly--as by the wave of an enchanter’s wand--from every head and from every face, slipped off the delicate covering of skin, and instantaneously exposed the deadly whiteness of skulls, with here and there the leaden shimmer of bare jaws and gums.\n\nWith horror I beheld the movements of those jaws and gums; the turning, the glistening in the light of the lamps and candles, of those lumpy bony balls, and the rolling in them of other smaller balls, the balls of the meaningless eyes.\n\nI dared not touch my own face, dared not glance at myself in the glass.\n\nAnd the skulls turned from side to side as before 
 And with their former noise, peeping like little red rags out of the grinning teeth, rapid tongues lisped how marvellously, how inimitably the immortal 
 yes, immortal 
 singer had rendered that last trill!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "april" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -114824,10 +120105,10 @@ "title": "“The Solution”", "body": "How all the blood in my breast\nFlooded into my heart,\nWhen the gaze from your eyes\nFastened itself upon me!\n\nFor long I could not understand\nIts silent language 
\nI sought its meaning\nWith fear and anguish 
\n\nSuddenly all doubts vanished\nAnd my fear forever stilled 
\nMy angel, I understood all\nIn one moment of bliss.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1867 }, - "language": "Russian", "tags": [] } }, @@ -114835,12 +120116,14 @@ "title": "“The Sparrow”", "body": "I was returning from hunting, and walking along an avenue of the garden, my dog running in front of me.\nSuddenly he took shorter steps, and began to steal along as though tracking game.\nI looked along the avenue, and saw a young sparrow, with yellow about its beak and down on its head. It had fallen out of the nest (the wind was violently shaking the birch-trees in the avenue) and sat unable to move, helplessly flapping its half-grown wings.\nMy dog was slowly approaching it, when, suddenly darting down from a tree close by, an old dark-throated sparrow fell like a stone right before his nose, and all ruffled up, terrified, with despairing and pitiful cheeps, it flung itself twice towards the open jaws of shining teeth.\nIt sprang to save; it cast itself before its nestling 
 but all its tiny body was shaking with terror; its note was harsh and strange. Swooning with fear, it offered itself up!\nWhat a huge monster must the dog have seemed to it! And yet it could not stay on its high branch out of danger 
 A force stronger than its will flung it down.\nMy TrĂ©sor stood still, drew back 
 Clearly he too recognised this force.\nI hastened to call off the disconcerted dog, and went away, full of reverence.\nYes; do not laugh. I felt reverence for that tiny heroic bird, for its impulse of love.\nLove, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "april" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -114851,12 +120134,14 @@ "title": "“Stay! as I see thee now 
”", "body": "Stay! as I see thee now, abide for ever in my memory!\n\nFrom thy lips the last inspired note has broken. No light, no flash is in thy eyes; they are dim, weighed down by the load of happiness, of the blissful sense of the beauty, it has been thy glad lot to express--the beauty, groping for which thou hast stretched out thy yearning hands, thy triumphant, exhausted hands!\n\nWhat is the radiance--purer and higher than the sun’s radiance--all about thy limbs, the least fold of thy raiment?\n\nWhat god’s caressing breath has set thy scattered tresses floating?\n\nHis kiss burns on thy brow, white now as marble.\n\nThis is it, the mystery revealed, the mystery of poesy, of life, of love! This, this is immortality! Other immortality there is none, nor need be. For this instant thou art immortal.\n\nIt passes, and once more thou art a grain of dust, a woman, a child 
 But why need’st thou care! For this instant, thou art above, thou art outside all that is passing, temporary. This thy instant will never end. Stay! and let me share in thy immortality; shed into my soul the light of thy eternity!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1879, "month": "november" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -114867,12 +120152,14 @@ "title": "“The Stone”", "body": "Have you seen an old grey stone on the seashore, when at high tide, on a sunny day of spring, the living waves break upon it on all sides--break and frolic and caress it--and sprinkle over its sea-mossed head the scattered pearls of sparkling foam?\n\nThe stone is still the same stone; but its sullen surface blossoms out into bright colours.\n\nThey tell of those far-off days when the molten granite had but begun to harden, and was all aglow with the hues of fire.\n\nEven so of late was my old heart surrounded, broken in upon by a rush of fresh girls’ souls 
 and under their caressing touch it flushed with long-faded colours, the traces of burnt-out fires!\n\nThe waves have ebbed back 
 but the colours are not yet dull, though a cutting wind is drying them.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1879, "month": "may" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -114883,12 +120170,14 @@ "title": "“Thou shalt hear the fool’s judgment 
”", "body": "_Thou shalt hear the fool’s judgment 
_\n --Pushkin\n\n‘Thou shalt hear the fool’s judgment 
’ You always told the truth, O great singer of ours. You spoke it this time, too.\n\n‘The fool’s judgment and the laughter of the crowd’ 
 who has not known the one and the other?\n\nAll that one can, and one ought to bear; and who has the strength, let him despise it!\n\nBut there are blows which pierce more cruelly to the very heart 
 A man has done all that he could; has worked strenuously, lovingly, honestly 
 And honest hearts turn from him in disgust; honest faces burn with indignation at his name. ‘Be gone! Away with you!’ honest young voices scream at him. ‘We have no need of you, nor of your work. You pollute our dwelling-places. You know us not and understand us not 
 You are our enemy!’\n\nWhat is that man to do? Go on working; not try to justify himself, and not even look forward to a fairer judgment.\n\nAt one time the tillers of the soil cursed the traveller who brought the potato, the substitute for bread, the poor man’s daily food 
 They shook the precious gift out of his outstretched hands, flung it in the mud, trampled it underfoot.\n\nNow they are fed with it, and do not even know their benefactor’s name.\n\nSo be it! What is his name to them? He, nameless though he be, saves them from hunger.\n\nLet us try only that what we bring should be really good food.\n\nBitter, unjust reproach on the lips of those you love 
 But that, too, can be borne 
\n\n‘Beat me! but listen!’ said the Athenian leader to the Spartan.\n\n‘Beat me! but be healthy and fed!’ we ought to say.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "february" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -114899,11 +120188,13 @@ "title": "“To Her”", "body": "To shadowy hills a heavy shower\nHas rolled through meadows--at once\nThe sky has cleared up, all over\nThere is fine brilliance on grass.\nThe storm has gone. The air now\nEnhances sounds, is a balm;\nHow every leaf on every bough\nIs turning soothed being calm!\nAn evening toll of bells in earnest\nIs calling us to have a stroll--\nOh, let us roam in the forest,\nCome on, a sister of my soul!\nLet’s have a walk in silent meadows,\nMy love, my one and only friend,\nLet’s take an ease in forest shadows,\nA lovely grove let us attend.\nAnd where crops lie golden-colored\nAcross a field in widening rings\nWhen evening glow light all around\nWith placid and contented beams--\nAllow me to sit in silence\nBeside your dearly loved feet,\nTo thy shy hand in the reticence\nAllow my timid lips to meet.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vyacheslav Chistyakov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1844 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vyacheslav Chistyakov" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -114914,12 +120205,14 @@ "title": "“To-morrow! To-morrow!”", "body": "How empty, dull, and useless is almost every day when it is spent! How few the traces it leaves behind it! How meaningless, how foolish those hours as they coursed by one after another!\n\nAnd yet it is man’s wish to exist; he prizes life, he rests hopes on it, on himself, on the future 
 Oh, what blessings he looks for from the future!\n\nBut why does he imagine that other coming days will not be like this day he has just lived through?\n\nNay, he does not even imagine it. He likes not to think at all, and he does well.\n\n‘Ah, to-morrow, to-morrow!’ he comforts himself, till ‘to-morrow’ pitches him into the grave.\n\nWell, and once in the grave, thou hast no choice, thou doest no more thinking.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1879, "month": "may" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -114930,12 +120223,14 @@ "title": "“The Two Brothers”", "body": "It was a vision 
\n\nTwo angels appeared to me 
 two genii.\n\nI say angels, genii, because both had no clothes on their naked bodies, and behind their shoulders rose long powerful wings.\n\nBoth were youths. One was rather plump, with soft smooth skin and dark curls. His eyes were brown and full, with thick eyelashes; his look was sly, merry, and eager. His face was charming, bewitching, a little insolent, a little wicked. His full soft crimson lips were faintly quivering. The youth smiled as one possessing power--self-confidently and languidly; a magnificent wreath of flowers rested lightly on his shining tresses, almost touching his velvety eyebrows. A spotted leopard’s skin, pinned up with a golden arrow, hung lightly from his curved shoulder to his rounded thigh. The feathers of his wings were tinged with rose colour; the ends of them were bright red, as though dipped in fresh-spilt scarlet blood. From time to time they quivered rapidly with a sweet silvery sound, the sound of rain in spring.\n\nThe other was thin, and his skin yellowish. At every breath his ribs could be seen faintly heaving. His hair was fair, thin, and straight; his eyes big, round, pale grey 
 his glance uneasy and strangely bright. All his features were sharp; the little half-open mouth, with pointed fish-like teeth; the pinched eagle nose, the projecting chin, covered with whitish down. The parched lips never once smiled.\n\nIt was a well-cut face, but terrible and pitiless! (Though the face of the first, the beautiful youth, sweet and lovely as it was, showed no trace of pity either.) About the head of the second youth were twisted a few broken and empty ears of corn, entwined with faded grass-stalks. A coarse grey cloth girt his loins; the wings behind, a dull dark grey colour, moved slowly and menacingly.\n\nThe two youths seemed inseparable companions. Each of them leaned upon the other’s shoulder. The soft hand of the first lay like a cluster of grapes upon the bony neck of the second; the slender wrist of the second, with its long delicate fingers, coiled like a snake about the girlish bosom of the first.\n\nAnd I heard a voice. This is what it said: ‘Love and Hunger stand before thee--twin brothers, the two foundation-stones of all things living.\n\n‘All that lives moves to get food, and feeds to bring forth young.\n\n‘Love and Hunger--their aim is one; that life should cease not, the life of the individual and the life of others--the same universal life.’", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "july" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -114946,12 +120241,14 @@ "title": "“Two Rich Men”", "body": "When I hear the praises of the rich man Rothschild, who out of his immense revenues devotes whole thousands to the education of children, the care of the sick, the support of the aged, I admire and am touched.\n\nBut even while I admire it and am touched by it, I cannot help recalling a poor peasant family who took an orphan niece into their little tumble-down hut.\n\n‘If we take Katka,’ said the woman, ‘our last farthing will go on her, there won’t be enough to get us salt to salt us a bit of bread.’\n\n‘Well, 
 we’ll do without salt,’ answered the peasant, her husband.\n\nRothschild is a long way behind that peasant!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "june" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -114962,12 +120259,14 @@ "title": "“A Visit”", "body": "I was sitting at the open window 
 in the morning, the early morning of the first of May.\n\nThe dawn had not yet begun; but already the dark, warm night grew pale and chill at its approach.\n\nNo mist had risen, no breeze was astir, all was colourless and still 
 but the nearness of the awakening could be felt, and the rarer air smelt keen and moist with dew.\n\nSuddenly, at the open window, with a light whirr and rustle, a great bird flew into my room.\n\nI started, looked closely at it 
 It was not a bird; it was a tiny winged woman, dressed in a narrow long robe flowing to her feet.\n\nShe was grey all over, the colour of mother-of-pearl; only the inner side of her wings glowed with the tender flush of an opening rose; a wreath of valley lilies entwined the scattered curls upon her little round head; and, like a butterfly’s feelers, two peacock feathers waved drolly above her lovely rounded brow.\n\nShe fluttered twice about the ceiling; her tiny face was laughing; laughing, too, were her great, clear, black eyes.\n\nThe gay frolic of her sportive flight set them flashing like diamonds.\n\nShe held in her hand the long stalk of a flower of the steppes--‘the Tsar’s sceptre,’ the Russians call it--it is really like a sceptre.\n\nFlying rapidly above me, she touched my head with the flower.\n\nI rushed towards her 
 But already she had fluttered out of window, and darted away 
\n\nIn the garden, in a thicket of lilac bushes, a wood-dove greeted her with its first morning warble 
 and where she vanished, the milk-white sky flushed a soft pink.\n\nI know thee, Goddess of Fantasy! Thou didst pay me a random visit by the way; thou hast flown on to the young poets.\n\nO Poesy! Youth! Virginal beauty of woman! Thou couldst shine for me but for a moment, in the early dawn of early spring!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1878, "month": "may" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -114978,12 +120277,14 @@ "title": "“We Will Still Fight On”", "body": "What an insignificant trifle may sometimes transform the whole man!\n\nFull of melancholy thought, I walked one day along the highroad.\n\nMy heart was oppressed by a weight of gloomy apprehension; I was overwhelmed by dejection. I raised my head 
 Before me, between two rows of tall poplars, the road darted like an arrow into the distance.\n\nAnd across it, across this road, ten paces from me, in the golden light of the dazzling summer sunshine, a whole family of sparrows hopped one after another, hopped saucily, drolly, self-reliantly!\n\nOne of them, in particular, skipped along sideways with desperate energy, puffing out his little bosom and chirping impudently, as though to say he was not afraid of any one! A gallant little warrior, really!\n\nAnd, meanwhile, high overhead in the heavens hovered a hawk, destined, perhaps, to devour that little warrior.\n\nI looked, laughed, shook myself, and the mournful thoughts flew right away: pluck, daring, zeal for life I felt anew. Let him, too, hover over me, my hawk 
 We will fight on, and damn it all!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1879, "month": "november" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -114994,12 +120295,14 @@ "title": "“What shall I think 
”", "body": "What shall I think when I come to die, if only I am in a condition to think anything then?\n\nShall I think how little use I have made of my life, how I have slumbered, dozed through it, how little I have known how to enjoy its gifts?\n\n‘What? is this death? So soon? Impossible! Why, I have had no time to do anything yet 
 I have only been making ready to begin!’\n\nShall I recall the past, and dwell in thought on the few bright moments I have lived through--on precious images and faces?\n\nWill my ill deeds come back to my mind, and will my soul be stung by the burning pain of remorse too late?\n\nShall I think of what awaits me beyond the grave 
 and in truth does anything await me there?\n\nNo 
 I fancy I shall try not to think, and shall force myself to take interest in some trifle simply to distract my own attention from the menacing darkness, which is black before me.\n\nI once saw a dying man who kept complaining they would not let him have hazel-nuts to munch! 
 and only in the depths of his fast-dimming eyes, something quivered and struggled like the torn wing of a bird wounded to death 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Constance Garnett", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1879, "month": "august" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Constance Garnett" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -115059,11 +120362,13 @@ "title": "“I was killed outside Rzhev 
”", "body": "I was killed near Rzhev\nIn a nameless bog,\nIn fifth company,\nOn the Left flank,\nIn a cruel air raid\n\nI didn’t hear explosions\nAnd did not see the flash\nDown to an abyss from a cliff\nNo start, no end\n\nAnd in this whole world\nTo the end of its days--\nNeither patches, nor badges\nFrom my tunic you’ll find\n\nI am where the blind roots\nSeek for food in the dark\nI am where the rye waves\nOn a hill in the dust\n\nI am where the cockerel cries\nIn the dew of the dawn\nI am where your cars\nTear the air on highways\n\nWhere--small stalk to small stalk--\nRiver’s weaving its grass\nWhere for the remembrance\nEven my mother won’t come\n\nIn a bitter year’s summer\nI was killed. And for me\nNeither news nor bulletins\nWill come after this day\n\nWould you, the living, count\nHow long before that\nFor the first time in front news\nThey named Stalingrad\n\nThe front burned without stopping\nLike a scab on the flesh\nI was killed and I don’t know\nIs Rzhev ours at last?\n\nHave ours held their ground\nThere, on the Middle Don?\nThis was the month of horror\nEverything was at stake\n\nCould it be that by autumn\nHe already took Don?\nAnd he broke through to Volga\nRiding onto its bank?\n\nNo, it’s not true! That mission\nHe could never complete.\nNo way I say, no! Even for the dead\nIt would be too terrible to hear\n\nEven the dead and voiceless\nHave one last single joy\nWe have fallen for the Motherland\nBut it’s finally saved.\n\nOur eyes have faded\nOut is the flame of our hearts\nAnd up there, at roll calls\nThey are not calling us.\n\nWe’re like bumps or stones\nEven darker and dumber.\nOur memory eternal--\nWho is jealous to it?\n\nOur ashes are rightfully\nOwned by black earth\nOur eternal glory\nIs of little delight.\n\nWe shall not wear our\nBattle awards\nThis is all for you, the living,\nWe have just one last joy\n\nThat we didn’t fight in vain\nFor our Motherland\nLet our voice be inaudible\nYou’ve got to know it now.\n\nAnd you had to, my brothers,\nStand fast like a wall\nFor the curse of the dead\nIs a terrible wrath\n\nWe are forever given\nThis bitter right\nAnd it is forever ours\nThis bitter right\n\nIn the summer of forty-two\nI was buried without a grave\nEverything what came later\nWas taken by the death\n\nAll, what has been for many\nSo clear and common\nBut then may it all be\nIn accord with our belief\n\nBrothers, maybe you didn’t\nLose the Don battlefield only\nAnd were dying in battles\nFighting behind Moscow\n\nAnd in steppes behind Volga\nDug your trenches in haste\nAnd in battles you marched\nTo the limits of Europe\n\nFor us it would suffice\nTo know for sure\nThere was that last inch\nOn the road of war--\n\nThat very last inch:\nIf it is abandoned,\nThere’s nowhere to put\nThe foot that had stepped behind\n\nAnd you drove the enemy\nBack to the West\nMay it be so, my brethren\nAnd Smolensk’s now ours\n\nAnd you’re crushing the enemy\nOn the other front,\nAnd maybe it’s the border\nYour are nearing now?\n\nMay it be
 Let the holy oath’s\nWords be fulfilled:\nFor Berlin, if you remember\nWas named near Moscow\n\nBrothers, who now trample\nThe stronghold of enemy land\nIf the dead and the fallen\nCould only cry!\n\nIf only victory salvoes could\nResurrect us for an instant,\nUs, deaf and numb,\nUs, who rest in eternity\n\nO, my faithful comrades,\nOnly then at this war\nYour limitless happiness\nYou would realise!\n\nIn this happiness there is\nOur inalienable part,\nOur, severed by the death,\nFaith and hatred and passion.\n\nAll is ours! We did not cheat,\nIn this cruel fight,\nWe have given all ours\nAnd left nothing to ourselves\n\nEverything is bequeathed to you\nFor all time, not for a term\nAnd this mental voice of ours\nIs no reproach to the living.\n\nFor we had no distinction\nIn this war at all:\nThose living and those fallen--\nWe were all equal.\n\nAnd no one of the living\nIs indebted to us\nThose, who took up the colours\nFrom us on the run\n\nOnly to fall one step later\nFor the holy cause,\nFor the Soviet power,\nLike all of us.\n\nI was killed at Rzhev,\nAnd he--somewhere near Moscow
\nWhere are you, warriors, where,\nIs there anyone alive?!\n\nIn the million-large cities\nIn the villages, at family homes?\nAt the military garrisons,\nOn a foreign land?\n\nAh, does it really matter\nIf it’s foreign or ours\nIf it’s snow-covered or blossoming
\n\nI bequeath you to live--\nWhat more can I do?\n\nI bequeath you to be happy\nIn your life over there\nAnd to serve your Motherland\nWith honour for long.\n\nWhen in sorrow--be proud,\nDo not bend down your head\nWhen rejoicing--don’t boast\nIn the victory hour.\n\nAnd to safeguard, brothers, this victory,\nThe happiness of yours,--\nIn the memory of your warrior-brother\nWho has fallen for it.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Anonymous", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1946 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Anonymous" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -115074,12 +120379,26 @@ "name": "Mark Twain", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1835 + "year": 1835, + "month": "november", + "day": 30 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Florida", + "state": "Missouri", + "country": "USA" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1910 + "year": 1910, + "month": "april", + "day": 21 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Redding", + "state": "Connecticut", + "country": "USA" } }, "gender": "male", @@ -115349,11 +120668,13 @@ "title": "“He’s taken all from me, executioner God 
”", "body": "He’s taken all from me, executioner God.\nHealth, strength of will, the air, and sleep.\nOnly one thing did he leave me, and that\nIs you, that I may continue to praise him.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alex Cigale", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1873 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alex Cigale" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -115361,11 +120682,13 @@ "title": "“I knew two eyes 
”", "body": "I knew two eyes--those eyes, oh\nhow I loved them--God knows.\nI couldn’t tear my soul\nfrom their intense, bewitching darkness.\n\nSuch sorrow, such passion showed\nin that deep gaze\nthat laid life bare,\nsuch depth, such sorrow!\n\nSad and self-absorbed it trembled,\nin the deep shadow of her lashes,\nwearied like sensual pleasure,\nand deadly like pain.\n\nAnd in those magic moments\nthere was never a time\nI met it without emotion,\nor admired it without tears.", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1851 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -115376,12 +120699,14 @@ "title": "“Lord, send your comfort 
”", "body": "Lord, send your comfort\nto him who, during summer’s scorching heat,\nlike some poor beggar past a garden,\nalong a hot road drags his weary feet,\n\nwho gazes in passing across a fence\nat the shades of trees, at valleys’ golden grain\nand at the inaccessible coolness\nof softly bright, luxuriant plains.\n\nNot for him have forests woven\na welcome with their boughts and fronds;\nnot for him have fountains scattered\na misty haze above their ponds.\n\nA being made of mist, an azure grotto\ntries vain enticement at his gaze;\nhis head cannot be cooled and freshened\nby the fountain’s dewy haze.\n\nLord, send your blessing\nto him who, trailing through life’s heat,\nlike some poor beggar past a garden,\nalong a dry road drags his blistered feet.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Frank Jude", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1850, "month": "july" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Frank Jude" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -115392,12 +120717,14 @@ "title": "“Nature is a sphinx 
”", "body": "Nature is a sphinx.\nThe truer she kills you\nwith her eternal riddle,\nit’s more than likely,\nfor centuries,\nthe truer she has fooled you.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Frank Jude", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1869, "month": "august" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Frank Jude" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -115408,11 +120735,13 @@ "title": "“Our Age”", "body": "Today it’s not the flesh--the spirit is laid bare.\nMan longs in desperation.\nHe strives to leave the darkness for the light,\nprotesting and rebelling once he’s there.\n\nThrough non-belief he’s dry and burned,\nhe tolerates what man should never bear,\naware at every step that he is ruined, not trying\nto attain that faith for which he’s always yearned.\n\nThe door stays closed though he may grieve.\nHe’ll never offer prayers nor tears.\nHe’ll never call, “My God, admit me, for I do have faith!\nCome to my aid, for I cannot believe!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Frank Jude", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1851 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Frank Jude" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -115423,13 +120752,15 @@ "title": "“Sad night creeps 
”", "body": "Sad night creeps\nacross an earth beset\nneither by thought nor threat\nbut by joyless, sluggish sleep.\nLightning brightens the scowls,\nwinking intermittently\nlike deaf-mute ghouls\ndebating heatedly.\n\nA sign has been agreed:\nthe sky’s alight. A sudden surge\nsnaps from the murk with sudden speed\nand fields and distant woods emerge.\nThen again they’re under shrouds.\nYou sense it all go darkly still up there,\nand if in camera some high affair\nthey’d ratified above the clouds.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Frank Jude", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1865, "month": "august", "day": 18 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Frank Jude" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -115441,13 +120772,15 @@ "title": "“Separation has this lofty meaning 
”", "body": "Separation has this lofty meaning:\nif love lasts years,\nif but a day it takes,\nloveĐąs just a dream\nand weĐąre a moment dreaming,\nand whether early, whether late the waking,\nthe time must finally arrive when we awake.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Frank Jude", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1851, "month": "august", "day": 6 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Frank Jude" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august", @@ -115459,11 +120792,13 @@ "title": "“The Twins”", "body": "There are twins. For the earthborn\nthey are gods, Death and Sleep,\nlike brother and sister wondrously akin,\nDeath’s the gloomier, Sleep is gentler.\n\nBut there are two more twins:\nthere are no finer twins in the world,\nand there’s no fascination more fearsome\nthan he who’s surrendered his heart to them.\n\nThey’re no in-laws. Their union is one of blood,\nand only on days ordained by fate,\nwith their unsolvable mystery\ndo they charm us, enchant, fascinate,\n\nand who, in an excess of sensation,\nwhen blood boils and freezes in his veins,\ncan claim he’s never tasted your temptations,\nSuicide and Love?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Frank Jude", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1851 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Frank Jude" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -115471,13 +120806,15 @@ "title": "“We meet again 
”", "body": "We meet again, and all the bygone\nIs brightening up my aging soul;\nI summon up the golden time, and\nMy heart is ever so consoled
\n\nLike by the end of autumn, sometimes,\nThere happen days, there is an hour\nWhen, with a sudden breath of springtime,\nA feeling gets the spirit roused,--\n\nSo, fanned all over by the whiff of\nSpiritual fullness of those years,\nDo I look at the dear features,\nAroused by long forgotten bliss
\n\nAnd after age-long separation,\nI look at you, like in a dream,\nAnd ever present intonations\nAre getting more and more distinct
\n\nThis is not only reminiscence,\nIt’s lifeblood, speaking like of old,--\nThere’s former charm in your appearance,\nThere’s former passion in my soul! 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vyacheslav Chetin", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1870, "month": "july", "day": 26 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vyacheslav Chetin" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -115489,11 +120826,13 @@ "title": "“When nature’s final hour strikes 
”", "body": "When nature’s final hour strikes\nand earthly matter has disintegrated,\nthe visible universe will be flooded.\nIn the waters God’s face will be reflected.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Frank Jude", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1829 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Frank Jude" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -115974,8 +121313,10 @@ "title": "“And if after so many words 
”", "body": "And if after so many words,\nthe word doesn’t survive!\nIf after the wings of birds,\nthe standing bird doesn’t survive!\nIt would be better, honestly,\nto consume everything and be done with it!\n\nTo have been born in order to live off our death!\nTo lift ourselves up by our own disasters\nfrom the sky to the earth,\nwatching for the right moment to blot out\nour darkness with our shadow!\nIt would be better, frankly,\nto consume everything and to hell with it!\n\nAnd if after so much history, we succumb\nnot to eternity\nbut to these simple things,\nlike sitting at home or settling in to think!\nAnd if we then discovered\nall of a sudden that we’re living--to judge\nby the height of the stars--off a comb\nand the stains on a handkerchief!\nIt would be better, honestly,\nto consume everything, of course!\n\nThey’ll say that we have\nin one eye a lot of grief\nand in the other eye, too, a lot of grief\nand in both, wherever they look, a lot of grief 
\nSo 
 _It’s clear!_ So 
 _Not a word!_", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dave Bonta", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Dave Bonta" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -115983,8 +121324,10 @@ "title": "“The Big People”", "body": "What time are the big people\ngoing to come back?\nBlind Santiago is striking six\nand already it’s very dark.\n\nMother said that she wouldn’t be delayed\n\nAguedita, Nativa, Miguel,\nbe careful of going over there, where\ndoubled-up griefs whimpering their memories\nhave just gone\ntoward the quiet poultry-yard, where\nthe hens are still getting settled,\nwho have been startled so much.\n\nWe’d better just stay here.\nMother said that she wouldn’t be delayed.\n\nAnd we shouldn’t be sad. Let’s go see\nthe boats--mine is prettier than anybody’s!--\nwe were playing with them the whole blessed day,\nwithout fighting among ourselves, as it should be:\nthey stayed behind in the puddle, all ready,\nloaded with pleasant things for tomorrow.\n\nLet’s wait like this, obedient\nand helpless, for the homecoming, the apologies\nof the big people, who are always the first\nto abandon the rest of us in the house--\nas if we couldn’t get away too!\n\nAguedita, Nativa, Miguel?\nI am calling, I am feeling around for you in the darkness.\nDon’t leave me behind by myself,\nto be locked in all alone.", "metadata": { - "translator": "James Wright", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "James Wright" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -115992,8 +121335,10 @@ "title": "“The Black Cup”", "body": "The night is a cup of evil. A sharp whistle\nOf the watchman cuts through it, as a vibrant blade.\nListen, you little woman, if you’ve gone,\nWhy is the wave still black and still sets me afire?\n\nThe Earth has edges of a coffin in the darkness.\nListen, you little woman, don’t come back.\n\nMy flesh swims, swims\nIn the cup of darkness that still hurts me;\nMy flesh swims in it,\nAs in the marshy heart of a woman.\n\nStarry coal 
 I have felt\nDry rocks of clay\nFall over my diaphanous lotus.\nAh, woman! Through you the flesh\nMade of instinct exists. Ah, woman!\n\nFor this oh, black cup! even when you’ve gone\nI choke in the dust;\nAnd my thirst paws in my flesh.", "metadata": { - "translator": "H. R. Hays", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "H. R. Hays" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -116001,8 +121346,10 @@ "title": "“The Black Messengers”", "body": "In life there are blows so heavy. “I don’t know.”\nBlows like God’s hatred; as if before them\nThe undertow of all that is suffered\nShould be dammed up in the soul. “I don’t know.”\n\nThere are few; but they exist. Dark chasms\nOpen in the boldest face and in the strongest back.\nPerhaps they shall be the steeds of barbaric Attilas\nOr the black messengers that death sends us.\n\nThey are the profound backslidings of Christs of the soul\nFrom an adored faith, blasphemed by destiny.\nThese bloody blows are the cracklings\nOf some bread that we have burned in the door of the oven.\n\nAnd man. Wretch! Wretch! He turns his eyes,\nAs if behind our backs a clap of hands summons us;\nHe turns mad eyes and all that has been lived\nIs dammed up like a puddle of blame in his look.\n\nIn life there are blows so heavy. “I don’t know.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "H. R. Hays", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "H. R. Hays" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -116010,8 +121357,10 @@ "title": "“Black Stone on Top of a White Stone”", "body": "I shall die in Paris, in a rainstorm,\nOn a day I already remember.\nI shall die in Paris--it does not bother me--\nDoubtless on a Thursday, like today, in autumn.\n\nIt shall be a Thursday, because today, Thursday\nAs I put down these lines, I have set my shoulders\nTo the evil. Never like today have I turned,\nAnd headed my whole journey to the ways where I am alone.\n\nCĂ©sar Vallejo is dead. They struck him,\nAll of them, though he did nothing to them,\nThey hit him hard with a stick and hard also\nWith the end of a rope. Witnesses are: the Thursdays,\nThe shoulder bones, the loneliness, the rain, and the roads 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rebecca Seiferle", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Rebecca Seiferle" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "thursday", @@ -116023,8 +121372,10 @@ "title": "“It was Sunday in the clear ears of my ass 
”", "body": "It was Sunday in the clear ears of my ass,\nOf my Peruvian ass in Peru (pardon the sadness)\nMore than ever today is it eleven in my personal experience\nExperience of a single eye, nailed in the middle of the breast.\nOf a single asininity, nailed in the middle of my breast,\nOf a single hecatomb nailed in the middle of my breast.\n\nSo I see the portraits of the summits of my country\n(Rich in asses, sons of asses, a bowing acquaintance with their parents),\nWhile they turned now already painted with belief.\nHorizontal summits of my griefs.\n\nIn his statue, like a sword,\nVoltaire folds his cape and looks at the pediment,\nBut the sun enters me and frightens a growing number\nOf inorganic bodies from my incisors.\n\nAnd then I dream seventeen\nIn a greenish stone.\nCraggy numeral I have forgotten,\nSound of years in the needle noise of my arm,\nRain and sun in Europe and the way I cough! 1 live!\nHow my hair hurts me perceiving the weekly centuries!\nAnd how my microbe cycle,\nI mean my tremulous, patriotic haircomb.", "metadata": { - "translator": "H. R. Hays", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "H. R. Hays" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "weekday": "sunday" @@ -116035,8 +121386,10 @@ "title": "“Masses”", "body": "When the battle was over,\nAnd the fighter was dead, a man came toward him\nAnd said to him: “Do not die; I love you so!”\nBut the corpse, how sad! went on dying.\n\nAnd two came near, and repeated it.\n“Do not leave us! Courage! Return to life!”\nBut the corpse, how sad! went on dying.\n\nTwenty arrived, a hundred, a thousand, five hundred thousand,\nShouting: “So much love, and it can do nothing against death!”\nBut the corpse, how sad! went on dying.\n\nMillions of persons stood around him,\nAll with the same request: “Stay here, brother!”\nBut the corpse, how sad! went on dying.\n\nThen all the men on the earth\nStood around him; the corpse looked at them sadly, deeply moved;\nHe sat up slowly,\nPut his arms around the furst man; started to walk 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -116044,8 +121397,10 @@ "title": "“Miguel”", "body": "I’m sitting here on the old patio\nbeside your absence. It is a black well.\nWe’d be playing, now 
 I can hear Mama yell\n“Boys! Calm down!” We’d laugh, and off I’d go\nto hide where you’d never look 
 under the stairs,\nin the hall, the attic 
 Then you’d do the same.\nMiguel, we were too good at that game.\nEverything would always end in tears.\n\nNo one was laughing on that August night\nyou went to hide away again, so late\nit was almost dawn. But now your brother’s through\nwith this hunting and hunting and never finding you.\nThe shadows crowd him. Miguel, will you hurry\nand show yourself? Mama will only worry.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Don Paterson", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Don Paterson" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -116056,8 +121411,10 @@ "title": "“The miners went forth from the mine 
”", "body": "The miners went forth from the mine,\nMounting its future ruins.\nAttacking its health with gunshots.\nAnd fashioning its function of the mind,\nWith their voices they closed\nThe cavern shaped like a profound symptom.\n\nTheir corrosive powder was something to see!\nTheir oxides of height were something to hear!\nWedges of mouths, anvils of mouths, instruments of mouths.\n(It is tremendous!)\n\nThe order of their tombs.\nTheir plastic persuasions, their choral responses,\nBeat at the foot of igneous misfortunes\nAnd the sad and saddened knew an airy yellowness\nInfused\nWith finished metal, with metalloid small and pale.\n\nSkulled with labour,\nAnd shod with rodent leather,\nShod with infinite paths\nAnd eyes of physical weeping,\nCreators of profundity,\nThey know, in the intermittent sky of the mine lift,\nHow to descend looking upward.\nHow to rise looking downward.\n\nPraise the ancient play of their nature,\nTheir sleepless organs, their rustic saliva!\nLet grass grow, the lichen and the frog, in their adverbs!\nIron plush in their nuptial blankets!\nWomen, through and through, their women!\nMuch joy is theirs!\nThey are something portentous, the miners,\nMounting its future ruins,\nFashioning its function of the mind\nAnd with their voices opening\nThe cavern shaped like a profound symptom!\nPraise their yellow nature,\nTheir magic lantern,\nIts cubes and its rhomboids, its plastic misfortunes.\nAnd their large eyes with six optic nerves\nAnd their children who play in the church\nAnd their silent, childlike fathers!\nSalud, O creators of profundity!", "metadata": { - "translator": "H. R. Hays", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "H. R. Hays" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -116065,8 +121422,10 @@ "title": "“Our Daily Bread”", "body": "_(for Alejandro Gamboa)_\n\nBreakfast is drunk 
 Moist earth\nOf the cemetery smells of the beloved blood.\nWinter city 
 The biting crossing\nOf a cart that appears to drag down\nAn emotion of fasting in chains!\n\nI want to knock on all doors.\nAnd ask for I don’t know whom; and then\nTo see the poor, and, weeping silences,\nTo give fragments of fresh bread to everyone.\nTo sack the vineyards of the rich\nWith two sacred hands\nThat a blaze of light\nSet flying loose from the nails of the Cross!\n\nMorning eyelids, don’t open!\nGive us our daily bread,\nLord 
!\n\nAll my bones are strangers;\nPerhaps I stole them!\nI come to give myself what was perhaps\nAssigned to someone else;\nAnd I think that, if I had not been born,\nSome other poor fellow would be drinking this coffee!\nI am an evil thief 
 Where shall I go?\n\nIn this cold time in which the earth\nTranscends human dust and is so sad,\nI want to knock on every door.\nAnd beg pardon of I don’t know whom.\nAnd make them slices of fresh bread\nHere, in the oven of my heart 
!", "metadata": { - "translator": "H. R. Hays", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "H. R. Hays" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -116085,8 +121444,10 @@ "title": "“Poem To Be Read And Sung”", "body": "I know there is a person\nWho looks for me day and night inside her hand,\nand coming upon me, every minute, in her shoes.\nDoesn’t she know that the night is buried\nwith spurs behind the kitchen?\n\nI know there is someone composed of my pieces,\nwhom I complete when my waist goes\ngalloping in her precise little stone.\nDoesn’t she know that money once out for her likeness\nnever returns to her trunk?\n\nI know the day,\nbut the sun has escaped from me;\nI know the universal act she performed in her bed\nwith some other woman’s bravery and warm water,\nwhose shallow recurrence is a mine.\nIs it possible this being is so small\neven her own feet walk on her that way?\n\nA cat is the border between us two,\nright there beside her bowl of water.\nI see her on the corners, her dress--once\nan inquiring palm tree--opens and closes 
\nWhat can she do but change her style weeping?\n\nBut she does look and look for me. This is a real story!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robert Bly", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Robert Bly" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -116094,8 +121455,10 @@ "title": "“Today I like life much less 
”", "body": "Today I like life much less,\nBut I always enjoy living: I used to say so.\nI almost touched the part of my everything and restrained myself\nWith a pull at my tongue behind every word.\n\nToday I feel my chin as I hold it in\nAnd in these momentary trousers I say to myself:\nSo much life and never!\nSo many years and always my weeks!\nMy ancestors buried with their stone\nAnd their sad last breath that still isn’t over;\nBrothers upright in body, my brothers,\nAnd, finally, my stationary being and in a waistcoat.\n\nI enjoy life enormously\nBut immediately\nWith my beloved death and my coffee\nAnd seeing the leafy chestnuts of Paris\nAnd saying:\nThat is an eye, this is a forehead 
 and repeating\nSo much life and the tune never fails me!\nSo many years and always, always, always!\n\nI said waistcoat, I said\nEverything, part, anxiety, I said almost to keep from weeping.\nFor it is true that I suffered in the hospital over there\nAnd it is good and bad to have looked\nMy organism up and down.\n\nI always used to enjoy living, even though it were of the belly\nBecause as I have been saying and I repeat it,\nSo much life and never! And so many years,\nAnd always, much always, always, always!", "metadata": { - "translator": "H. R. Hays", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "H. R. Hays" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -116103,11 +121466,13 @@ "title": "From “Trilce”", "body": "# XVIII.\n\nOh, the four walls of the cell!\nAh, the four whitening walls\nWhich never fail to add up to the same number!\n\nSeedbeds of nerves, evil aperture.\nHow it snatches from its four corners\nAt the daily chained extremities!\n\nKind turnkey of innumerable keys,\nIf you were here, if you could see\nTill what hour these walls remain four,\nWe should both be against them, we two,\nMore two than ever. And neither should you weep.\nSpeak, O liberator!\n\nAh, the walls of the cell!\nMeanwhile I am hurt all the more\nBy the two long ones which, this night, possess\nSomething of mothers already dead,\nEach leading a child by the hand\nDown bromine steps.\n\nAnd I am left alone,\nThe right hand upraised, which serves for both,\nSeeking the third arm\nWhich, between my where and my when.\nMust look for man’s powerless superiority.\n\n\nLVI.\n\nEvery day I blindly get up at dawn\nTo work for my living; and I eat breakfast\nWithout tasting a morsel of it every morning.\nWithout knowing if I have achieved, or never,\nSomething that leaps out of the flavour,\nOr is simply the heart, which having turned back, shall lament\nUntil the time when this is least of all.\n\nA child would grow up surfeited with happiness\nOh dawns,\nFaced with his parents’ regret at not being able to leave us,\nTo uproot themselves from their dreams of love for this world;\nFaced with those who, like God, from so much love,\nUnderstand each other even until they become creators\nAnd love us even to doing us harm.\n\nFringes on an invisible pattern,\nTeeth which ferret out from neuter emotion, pillars\nWithout base or capital,\nIn the great mouth which has lost the power of speech.\n\nMatch after match in the darkness,\nTear after tear in a cloud of dust.", "metadata": { - "translator": "H. R. Hays", + "language": "Spanish", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "H. R. Hays" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -116115,8 +121480,10 @@ "title": "“Under the Poplars”", "body": "Like priestly imprisoned poets,\nthe poplars of blood have fallen asleep.\nOn the hills, the flocks of Bethlehem\nchew arias of grass at sunset.\n\nThe ancient shepherd, who shivers\nat the last martyrdoms of light,\nin his Easter eyes has caught\na purebred flock of stars.\n\nFormed in orphanhood, he goes down\nwith rumors of burial to the praying field,\nand the sheep bells are seasoned with shadow.\n\nIt survives, the blue warped\nin iron, and on it, pupils shrouded,\na dog etches its pastoral howl.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rebecca Seiferle", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "Rebecca Seiferle" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -116124,8 +121491,10 @@ "title": "“The Wheel of the Hungry”", "body": "I emerge from between my teeth, sniffing,\nCrying out, pushing,\nDropping my trousers 
\nMy stomach empty, my guts empty,\nPoverty pulls me out from between my own teeth,\nCaught on a sliver by the cuff of my shirt.\n\nA stone to sit on,\nCan’t I even have that now?\nEven that stone, the woman who gives birth stumbles on,\nMother of the lamb, the cause, the root,\nCan’t I even have that now?\nAt least the other one\nThat passed through my soul stooping.\nAt least\nThe limestone, the bad one (humble ocean)\nOr the one not even useful to throw at a man,\nLet me have that one now!\n\nAt least the one you find by chance and only in an insult,\nLet me have that one now!\nAt least the twisted and crowned one in which\nBut once, the tread of clear conscience resounds.\nOr at least that other which is hurled in a suitable curve\nWill fall by itself\nIn declaration of inmost truth.\nLet me have that one now!\n\nA crumb of bread, can’t I even have that now?\nNo more do I have to be what I always have to be.\nBut give me\nA stone on which to sit,\nBut give me\nPlease, a crust of bread on which to sit,\nBut give me,\nIn Spanish,\nSomething, at least to drink, to eat, to live, to rest me,\nAnd afterwards I will go on 
\nI discover a strange shape, my shirt is very ragged\nAnd dirty\nAnd still I have nothing,\nThis is horrible.", "metadata": { - "translator": "H. R. Hays", "language": "Spanish", + "translators": [ + "H. R. Hays" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -116136,21 +121505,41 @@ "name": "Mark Van Doren", "birth": { "date": { - "year": 1894 + "year": 1894, + "month": "june", + "day": 13 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Hope", + "state": "Illinois", + "country": "USA" } }, "death": { "date": { - "year": 1972 + "year": 1972, + "month": "december", + "day": 10 + }, + "place": { + "city": "Torrington", + "state": "Connecticut", + "country": "USA" } }, "gender": "male", "occupation": [ - "poet" + "poet", + "critic", + "professor" ], - "education": null, + "education": { + "bachelors": "University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign", + "masters": "Columbia University", + "doctorate": "Columbia University" + }, "movement": [], - "religion": null, + "religion": "Catholic", "nationality": [ "united-states" ], @@ -116161,7 +121550,9 @@ "favorite": false, "tags": [ "American", - "English" + "English", + "critic", + "professor" ] }, "poems": { @@ -116708,11 +122099,13 @@ "title": "“The Cathedral of Rheims”", "body": "He who walks through the meadows of Champagne\n At noon in Fall, when leaves like gold appear,\n Sees it draw near\nLike some great mountain set upon the plain,\nFrom radiant dawn until the close of day,\n Nearer it grows\n To him who goes\nAcross the country. When tall towers lay\n Their shadowy pall\n Upon his way,\n He enters, where\nThe solid stone is hollowed deep by all\nIts centuries of beauty and of prayer.\n\nAncient French temple! thou whose hundred kings\nWatch over thee, emblazoned on thy walls,\nTell me, within thy memory-hallowed halls\nWhat chant of triumph, or what war-song rings?\nThou hast known Clovis and his Frankish train,\nWhose mighty hand Saint Remy’s hand did keep\nAnd in thy spacious vault perhaps may sleep\nAn echo of the voice of Charlemagne.\nFor God thou has known fear, when from His side\nMen wandered, seeking alien shrines and new,\nBut still the sky was bountiful and blue\nAnd thou wast crowned with France’s love and pride.\nSacred thou art, from pinnacle to base;\nAnd in thy panes of gold and scarlet glass\nThe setting sun sees thousandfold his face;\nSorrow and joy, in stately silence pass\nAcross thy walls, the shadow and the light;\nAround thy lofty pillars, tapers white\nIlluminate, with delicate sharp flames,\nThe brows of saints with venerable names,\nAnd in the night erect a fiery wall.\nA great but silent fervour burns in all\nThose simple folk who kneel, pathetic, dumb,\nAnd know that down below, beside the Rhine --\nCannon, horses, soldiers, flags in line --\nWith blare of trumpets, mighty armies come.\n\nSuddenly, each knows fear;\nSwift rumours pass, that every one must hear,\nThe hostile banners blaze against the sky\nAnd by the embassies mobs rage and cry.\nNow war has come, and peace is at an end.\nOn Paris town the German troops descend.\nThey are turned back, and driven to Champagne.\nAnd now, as to so many weary men,\nThe glorious temple gives them welcome, when\nIt meets them at the bottom of the plain.\n\nAt once, they set their cannon in its way.\n There is no gable now, nor wall\nThat does not suffer, night and day,\n As shot and shell in crushing torrents fall.\nThe stricken tocsin quivers through the tower;\n The triple nave, the apse, the lonely choir\nAre circled, hour by hour,\n With thundering bands of fire\nAnd Death is scattered broadcast among men.\n\nAnd then\nThat which was splendid with baptismal grace;\nThe stately arches soaring into space,\nThe transepts, columns, windows gray and gold,\nThe organ, in whose tones the ocean rolled,\nThe crypts, of mighty shades the dwelling places,\nThe Virgin’s gentle hands, the Saints’ pure faces,\nAll, even the pardoning hands of Christ the Lord\nWere struck and broken by the wanton sword\nOf sacrilegious lust.\n\nO beauty slain, O glory in the dust!\nStrong walls of faith, most basely overthrown!\nThe crawling flames, like adders glistening\nAte the white fabric of this lovely thing.\nNow from its soul arose a piteous moan,\nThe soul that always loved the just and fair.\nGranite and marble loud their woe confessed,\nThe silver monstrances that Popes had blessed,\nThe chalices and lamps and crosiers rare\nWere seared and twisted by a flaming breath;\nThe horror everywhere did range and swell,\nThe guardian Saints into this furnace fell,\nTheir bitter tears and screams were stilled in death.\n\nAround the flames armed hosts are skirmishing,\nThe burning sun reflects the lurid scene;\nThe German army, fighting for its life,\nRallies its torn and terrified left wing;\n And, as they near this place\n The imperial eagles see\n Before them in their flight,\nHere, in the solemn night,\nThe old cathedral, to the years to be\n Showing, with wounded arms, their own disgrace.", "metadata": { + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "translator": "Joyce Kilmer", - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Joyce Kilmer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october" @@ -116723,8 +122116,10 @@ "title": "“Infinitely”", "body": "The hounds of despair, the hounds of the autumnal wind,\nGnaw with their howling the black echoes of evenings.\nThe darkness, immensely, gropes in the emptiness\nFor the moon, seen by the light of water.\n\nFrom point to point, over there, the distant lights,\nAnd in the sky, above, dreadful voices\nComing and going from the infinity of the marshes and planes\nTo the infinity of the valleys and the woods.\n\nAnd roadways that stretch out like sails\nAnd pass each other, coming unfolded in the distance, soundlessly,\nWhile lengthening beneath the stars,\nThrough the shadows and the terror of the night.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Joyce Kilmer", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Joyce Kilmer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -116735,8 +122130,10 @@ "title": "“Tenebrae”", "body": "A moon, with vacant, chilling eye, stares\nAt the winter, enthroned vast and white upon the hard ground;\nThe night is an entire and translucent azure;\nThe wind, a blade of sudden presence, stabs.\n\nFar away, on the skylines, the long pathways of frost,\nSeen, in the distance, to pierce the expanses,\nAnd stars of gold, suspended to the zenith,\nAlways higher, amid the ether, to rend the blue of the sky.\n\nThe villages crouched in the plains of Flanders,\nNear the rivers, the heather, and the great forests,\nBetween two pale infinities, shiver with cold,\nHuddled near old hearthsides, where they stir the ashes.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Joyce Kilmer", "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Joyce Kilmer" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january" @@ -117109,11 +122506,13 @@ "title": "“Ballade of the Ladies of Time Past”", "body": "Oh tell me where, in lands or seas,\nFlora, that Roman belle, has strayed,\nThais, or Archipiades,\nWho put each other in the shade,\nOr Echo, who by bank and glade\nGave back the crying of the hound,\nAnd whose sheer beauty could not fade.\n_But where shall last year’s snow be found?_\n\nWhere too is learned Heloise,\nFor whom shorn Abelard was made\nA tonsured monk upon his knees?\nSuch tribute his devotion paid.\nAnd where’s that queen who, having played\nWith Buridan, had him bagged and bound\nTo swim the Seine thus ill-arrayed?\n_But where shall last year’s snow be found?_\n\nQueen Blanche the fair, whose voice could please\nAs does the siren’s serenade, Big Bertha, Beatrice, Alice--these,\nAnd Arembourg whom Maine obeyed,\nAnd Joan whom Burgundy betrayed,\nAnd England burned, and Heaven crowned:\nWhere are they, Mary, Sovereign Maid?\n_But where shall last year’s snow be found?_\n\nNot next week, Prince, nor next decade,\nAsk me these questions I propound.\nI shall but say again, dismayed,\n_Ah, where shall last year’s snow be found?_", "metadata": { - "translator": "Richard Wilbur", + "language": "French", "time": { "year": 1461 }, - "language": "French", + "translators": [ + "Richard Wilbur" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -117156,11 +122555,13 @@ "title": "“Autumn in Sigulda”", "body": "Hanging out of the train, I\nBid you all good-bye.\n\nGood-bye, Summer:\nMy time is up.\nAxes knock at the dacha\nAs they board it up:\nGood-bye.\n\nThe woods have shed their leaves,\nEmpty and sad today\nAs an accordion case that grieves\nWhen its music is taken away.\n\nPeople (meaning us)\nAre also empty,\nAs we leave behind\n(We have no choice)\nWalls, mothers, womankind:\nSo it has always been and will be.\n\nGood-bye, Mother,\nStanding at the window\nTransparent as a cocoon: soon\nYou will know how tired you are.\nLet us sit here a bit.\nFriends and foes, adieu,\nGood-bye.\nThe whistle has blown: it is time\nFor you to run out of me and I\nOut of you.\n\nMotherland, good-bye now.\nI shall not whimper nor make a scene,\nBut be a star, a willow:\nThank you, Life, for having been.\n\nIn the shooting gallery,\nWhere the top score is ten,\nI tried to reach a century:\nThank you for letting me make the mistake,\nBut a triple thank-you that into\n\nMy transparent shoulders\nGenius drove\nLike a red male fist that enters\nA rubber glove.\n\nVoznesensky may one day be graven\nIn cold stone but, meanwhile, may\nI find haven\nOn your warm cheek as Andrei.\n\nIn the woods the leaves were already falling\nWhen you ran into me, asked me something.\nYour dog was with you: you tugged at his leash and called him,\nHe tugged the other way:\nThank you for that day.\nI came alive: thank you for that September,\nFor explaining me to myself. The housekeeper, I remember,\nWoke us at eight, and on weekends her phonograph sang\nSome old underworld song\nIn a hoarse bass:\nI give thanks for the time, the place.\n\nBut you are leaving, going,\nAs the train is going, leaving,\nGoing in another direction: we are ceasing to belong\nto each other or this house. What is wrong?\n\nNear to me, I say:\nYet Siberias away!\n\nI know we shall live again as\nFriends or girlfriends or blades of grass,\nInstead of us this one or that one will come:\nNature abhors a vacuum.\n\nThe leaves are swept away without trace\nBut millions more will grow in their place:\nThank you, Nature, for the laws you gave me.\n\nBut a woman runs down the track\nlike a red autumn leaf at the train’s back.\n\nSave me!", "metadata": { - "translator": "W. H. Auden", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1961 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "W. H. Auden" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -117171,11 +122572,13 @@ "title": "“Blue snow will soon be turning grey 
”", "body": "Blue snow will soon be turning grey\nOn roadways out beyond the town\nThe low-lying patches churned away\nBy waking waters seeping down.\n\nIn clear, clean sand and seeming quiet\nThe waiting waters still lie low;\nThen, one wild night, in steaming riot\nThey’ll rise, the streams will overflow.\n\nAnd as the earth, still all a-mush\nA-thaw and sleepy, is drying out\nSprinkling the leaf mould, with a rush\nThe new green grass will start to sprout.\n\nThen alder pollen, drifting green,\nWill blow by on the breeze,\nBlown up from childhood’s distant scene,\nShadow-soft to the cheeks.\n\nAnd again the heart shall respond enthralled\nTo the season’s freshness, as before.\nNot gone, as it seemed, beyond recall.\nBut with us now-and evermore.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Avril Pyman", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1965 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Avril Pyman" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -117186,11 +122589,13 @@ "title": "“Dead still”", "body": "Now, with your palms on the blades of my shoulders,\nLet us embrace:\nLet there be only your lips’ breath on my face,\nOnly, behind our backs, the plunge of the rollers.\n\nOur backs, which like two shells in moonlight shine,\nAre shut behind us now;\nWe lie here huddled, listening brow to brow,\nLike life’s twin formula or double sign.\n\nIn folly’s world-wide wind\nOur shoulders shield from the weather\nThe calm we now beget together,\nLike a flame held between hand and hand.\n\nDoes each cell have a soul within it?\nIf so, fling open all your little doors,\nAnd all your souls shall flutter like the linnet\nIn the cages of my pores.\n\nNothing is hidden that shall not be known.\nYet by no storm of scorn shall we\nBe pried from this embrace, and left alone\nLike muted shells forgetful of the sea.\n\nMeanwhile, O load of stress and bother,\nLie on the shells of our backs in a great heap:\nIt will but press us closer, one to the other.\n\nWe are asleep.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Richard Wilbur", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1965 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Richard Wilbur" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -117198,11 +122603,13 @@ "title": "“First Frost”", "body": "A girl is freezing in a telephone booth,\nhuddled in her flimsy coat,\nher face stained by tears\nand smeared with lipstick.\n\nShe breathes on her thin little fingers.\nFingers like ice. Glass beads in her ears.\n\nShe has to beat her way back alone\ndown the icy street.\n\nFirst frost. A beginning of losses.\nThe first frost of telephone phrases.\n\nIt is the start of winter glittering on her cheek,\nthe first frost of having been hurt.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Stanley Kunitz", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1959 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Stanley Kunitz" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -117213,11 +122620,13 @@ "title": "“Million roses”", "body": "There was painter once,\nOwned a small home and his art.\nBut there’s an actress he loved,\nFlowers were dear to her heart.\n\nSo he sold his house on a whim--\nHis art and his roof, undeterred--\nAnd spent all the money to buy\nA whole sea of flowers for her.\n\nA million, million, million red roses here,\nFrom you room, from your room, from your room, you can view.\nOne in love, one in love, one in love--that’s sincere!--\nWill transform life into flowers for you.\n\nOutside the window, you gaze--\nMaybe your mind’s in a daze?\nYour dream is continuing there,\nFlowers have covered the square.\n\nYour soul turns cold, overwhelmed--\nWhat affluent man went offbeat?\nBut there, not a penny in hand,\nThe painter stands in the street.\n\nTheir meeting was fleeting, of course.\nShe left on the train in the night.\nBut in her life there once was\nThe mad song of roses outside.\n\nThe painter lived all alone.\nThrough much misfortune and gloom.\nBut in his life there once was\nA square full of roses in bloom.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1981 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "saint_mary_magdalene" @@ -117228,11 +122637,13 @@ "title": "“The monologue of the beatnik”", "body": "_Rebellion of machines_\n\nEscape--to yourself, to republic of Haiti, to churches, to toilets,\n to Egypt--\nEscape!\n\nThe heaps of machines roar and mew, smoke and fume, they are angry:\n“We are hungry”\n\nDark machines, like Batus, have enslaved us:\n“Mercedes!”\n\nTheir arrogant myrmidons,\nDrinking from glass gasoline,\nFigure out: whoever in England\nHas started rebellion against the machine?\nLet’s flee! I’ll join in!
\n\nAt night, overcoming its fear,\nRobot says to inventor:\n“My dear,\n\nGive me your wife, if you can,\nYou know, I am fond of brunettes\nI love her for all I am worth\nSo you had better give in!”\n\nOh, things most predacious of all!\nThe veto is put on the soul.\nWe flee to the hills and speak in our beards,\n\nWe jump into the water, naked,\nBut rivers get shallow, or\nFish die in the sea ever more.\n\nOur women give birth to Rolls-Royces\nRadiation rejoices!\n\n
 My souls is a little wild animal\nWalking around back streets\nLike a puppy with a piece of rope\nYou whine, run around and hop.\n\nThe time is now whistles nicely\nOver fiery Tennessee\nSophisticated like Sirin\nWith the light-alloy chassis.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1973 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -117240,11 +122651,13 @@ "title": "“The Nose”", "body": "_The nose grows during the whole of one’s life_\n --from scientific sources\n\nYesterday my doctor told me:\n“Clever you may be, however\nYour snout is frozen.”\nSo don’t go out in the cold,\nNose!\n\nOn me, on you, on Capuchin monks,\nAccording to well-known medical laws\nRelentless as clocks, without pause\nNose-trunks triumphantly grow.\n\nDuring the night they grow\nOn every citizen, high or low,\non janitors, ministers, rich and poor,\nHooting endlessly like owls,\nChilly and out of kilter,\nBrutally bashed by a boxer\nOr foully crushed by a door,\nAnd those of our feminine neighbors\nAre foxily screwed like drills\nInto many a keyhole.\n\nGogol, that mystical uneasy soul,\nIntuitively sensed their role.\n\nMy good friend Buggins got drunk: in his dream\nIt seemed that, like a church spire\nBreaking through washbowls and chandeliers,\nPiercing and waking startled ceilings,\nImpaling each floor like,\nReceipts on a spike,\n\nHigher and higher\nrose\nhis nose.\n\n“What could that mean?” he wondered next morning.\n“A warning,” I said, “of doomsday: it looks\nAs if they were going to check your books.”\nOn the 30th poor Buggins was haled off to jail.\n\nWhy, O Prime Mover of Noses, why\nDo our noses grow longer, our lives shorter,\nwhy during the night should these fleshly lumps,\nlike vampires or suction pumps,\nDrain us dry?\n\nThey report that Eskimos,\nKiss with their nose.\n\nAmong us this has not caught on.", "metadata": { - "translator": "W. H. Auden", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1963 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "W. H. Auden" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -117255,11 +122668,13 @@ "title": "“Roman Holiday”", "body": "_In Rome at the New Year it is the custom to throw old things into the street._\n\nRome rattles and shakes\nlike a runaway breakdown truck.\nAll over Rome and round about\nthe New Year’s coming in!\n\nLike Mills bombs, bottles\ndropped from windowsills.\ncrash all over the place,\nand what price that tough\nshoving a bathtub onto a balcony?\n\nUp on the Piazza di Spagna,\nspinning like a flying saucer,\na husband is flung from his nuptial bed:\nhe’s obsolete and all but dead!\n\nThey’ve cornered a naked man in a bar,\n‘Damn you squares!’, he bawls,\n‘I need a change of suit:\nlast year’s is out of date’.\n\nDear town, we shall flounder and drown\nIn your cast-offs and metamorphoses;\nyour ancient asphalted roadways\ngleam like the sloughed skins of pythons.\nAll the times you have shuffled them off,\nbut the speedometers show they’re still too slow\nfor Roman girls on Vespas!\nSo what next do you have in store for us?\n\nThe human race with roars and guffaws\nis ridding itself of its rubbish,\ndo we all need overhauls?\nLike Time itself we approach our hour\n\nand stand, forgetting petty chores,\nfully absorbed now by the future.\nDo we regret what we’re discarding?\nA reindeer’s dam, just after fawning,\nlooks loving and a little overcome.\n\nMaybe the New Year will be rough,\nwith a few good days for flying in it?\nDon’t worry: it won’t be the end of the world\n--and the more fun we’ll have saying goodbye to it.\n\nWe fly through the air like apples off branches.\nThis fuss is already rather a bore,\nthough later, at least, I have something to live for:\n--towards the middle of the windy day,\nin her lopsided winter villa she’ll say\n(once she’s gallopped through that thriller)\nthat she’s cold when I’m not with her,\nshe’s cold without me is what she’ll say 
\n\nAnd past other worlds\ninto darkness, deadpan as a croupier,\nour pale planet whirls--\ncooped in its shell like an embryo bird.\nIt’s hatching out now, look!\nWhat to become? A warbler?\nOr a black thing, a baby rook\nblasted off the wing by atomic warheads?\n\nI only hope the weather keeps fine\nfor all these darling creatures 
\nOver Rome--and all the world what’s more--\nthe New Year’s coming in 
\n
 with tangerines and amorous passes,\nand right till dawn the women’s bodies\n--like electric bulbs in lampshades--\nglowing through their dresses.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Max Hayward", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1996 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Max Hayward" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "new_years_eve" @@ -117305,11 +122720,13 @@ "title": "“I regret that I’m not a beast 
”", "body": "I regret that I’m not a beast,\nrunning along a blue path,\ntelling myself to believe,\nand my other self to wait a little,\nI’ll go out with myself to the forest\nto examine the insignificant leaves.\nI regret that I’m not a star,\nrunning along the vaults of the sky,\nin search of the perfect nest\nit finds itself and earth’s empty water,\nno one has ever heard of a star giving out a squeak,\nits purpose is to encourage the fish with its silence.\nAnd then there’s this grudge that I bear,\nthat I’m not a rug, nor a hydrangea.\nI regret I’m not a roof,\nfalling apart little by little,\nwhich the rain soaks and softens,\nwhose death is not sudden.\nI don’t like the fact that I’m mortal,\nI regret that I am not perfect.\nMuch much better, believe me,\nis a particle of day a unit of night.\nI regret that I’m not an eagle,\nflying over peak after peak,\nto whom comes to mind\na man observing the acres.\nI regret I am not an eagle,\nflying over lengthy peaks,\nto whom comes to mind\na man observing the acres.\nYou and I, wind, will sit down together\non this pebble of death.\nIt’s a pity I’m not a grail,\nI don’t like that I am not pity.\nI regret not being a grove,\nwhich arms itself with leaves.\nI find it hard to be with minutes,\nthey have completely confused me.\nIt really upsets me terribly\nthat I can be seen in reality.\nAnd then there’s this grudge that I bear,\nthat I’m not a rug, nor a hydrangea.\nWhat scares me is that I move\nnot the way that do bugs that are beetles,\nor butterflies and baby strollers\nand not the way that do bugs that are spiders.\nWhat scares me is that I move\nvery unlike a worm,\na worm burrows holes in the earth\nmaking small talk with her.\nEarth, where are things with you,\nsays the cold worm to the earth,\nand the earth, governing those that have passed,\nperhaps keeps silent in reply,\nit knows that it’s all wrong.\nI find it hard to be with minutes,\nthey have completely confused me.\nI’m frightened that I’m not the grass\nthat is grass, I’m frightened that I’m not a candle.\nI’m frightened that I’m not the candle that is grass,\nto this I have answered,\nand the trees sway back and forth in an instant.\nI’m frightened by the fact that when my glance\nfalls upon two of the same thing\nI don’t notice that they are different,\nthat each lives only once.\nI’m frightened by the fact that when my glance\nfalls upon two of the same thing\nI don’t see how hard they are trying\nto resemble each other.\nI see the world askew\nand hear the whispers of muffled lyres,\nand having by their tips the letters grasped\nI lift up the word wardrobe,\nand now I put it in its place,\nit is the thick dough of substance.\nI don’t like the fact that I’m mortal,\nI regret that I am not perfect,\nmuch much better, believe me,\nis a particle of day a unit of night.\nAnd then there’s this grudge that I bear\nthat I’m not a rug, nor a hydrangea.\nI’ll go out with myself to the woods\nfor the examination of insignificant leaves,\nI regret that upon these leaves\nI will not see the imperceptible words,\nwhich are called accident, which are called immortality,\nwhich are called a kind of roots.\nI regret that I’m not an eagle\nflying over peak after peak,\nto whom came to mind\na man observing the acres.\nI’m frightened by the fact that everything becomes dilapidated,\nand in comparison I’m not a rarity.\nYou and I, wind, will sit down together\non this pebble of death.\nLike a candle the grass grows up all around,\nand the trees sway back and forth in an instant.\nI regret that I am not a seed,\nI am frightened I’m not fertility.\nThe worm crawls along behind us all,\nhe carries monotony with him.\nI’m scared to be an uncertainty,\nI regret that I am not fire.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Matvei Yankelevich", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Matvei Yankelevich" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -117317,11 +122734,13 @@ "title": "“The Joyful Man Franz”", "body": "the joyful man Franz\nmaintained protuberance\nfrom start to finish\nhe never came down the porch\nmeasured stars named flowers\nbelieved I am you\naffixing number to time\nhumming in rhyme\nhe died and was deceased\nlike the shotgun and the cyst\nfrightened, he would see a skirt\nas he fantasized asleep\nand would sail at the helm\nto a melancholy elm\nwhere squads of beetles\nperformed about-faces\nshowed their mustaches to gods\npronounced themselves to be clocks\ngods howled out of tune\nand tumbled down from the moon\nthere in luxurious grass\nan ant was being stamped\nand the glowworm, unkind king\nlit up a large lamp\nsilently the lightnings flashed\nlanguid animals snorted\nunhurriedly growled\nthe waves that lay on the sand\nwhere? where did all this happen\nwhere did this location roam\nI forgot, the sun will say\nsinking into the unknown\nall we see is the exit\nfrom the schoolbag of Franz\nof the contemporary of man\nthe psychologist of the divine\nthis wizard announces\nthe party begins\nidle stars crowd in\nboring people smoke\nlonely thoughts run around\neverything is sad and pointless\nGod what kind of party is this\nit’s the christmas of death or something\nhens step around gulfs\nthe hall hops with cupids\nand the iron steam-engine\nmeditates on cow-patties\nFranz awoke from his nightmare\nwhy are all these things here?\nthe valet stood here like a palm\nbefore the meadows of eternity\nshort as a reed\nthe collar sleeps upon a chair\na branch of kerosene\noverlooks the twilight\nanswer me wizard\nis this a dream? I’m a fool\nbut where is that wizard\nwhere is the psychologist of the divine\nhe counts songs in his sleep\ngrowing bald as a tree\nhe can’t come here\nwhere the real world stands\nhe calmly multiplies the shades\nhe does not shimmer in the sky\nTurks give me my carriage\nthe joyful Franz called\ngive me the rocket of Ober\ngive me horsepower\nI will ride around the world\nin this fascinating cab\nI will orchestrate a race\nof the star with the prisoner earth\ntouch the ceiling with my head\nI’m a bluebird\nmeanwhile out of the acute night\nout of the abyss of the bad dream\nappears a crown\nand the ramified scythe\nyou’re an irate serpent\nmy childless death\nhello Franz will sadly say\neach of your hairs holds\nmore thoughts than a pot\nmore sleep than a powder\ntake out your saber\nand open my shirt\nand then open my skin\nglue me to the bed\nall the same shall learning triumph\nI’ll announce as I gurgle\nand create a grandson\nmy substitute in the form of a lamp\nhe will stand and glow\nwrite essays for school\ndeath said you are a flower\nand fled to the east\nFranz remained alone\nto contemplate protuberance\nmeasure stars name flowers\ncompose I and you\nlying in absolute silence\nin the empty heights", "metadata": { - "translator": "Eugene Ostashevsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1930 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Eugene Ostashevsky" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -117329,8 +122748,10 @@ "title": "“The Meaning of the Sea”", "body": "to understand it once and for all\none must live life as in reverse\nand to take walks in the forest\nwhile tearing out your hair whole\n\nand when you get to know the fire\nof the light bulb or of the oven\nsay to it why are you shining\nyou the fire are candle’s master\n\nwhat’s your meaning is it nothing\nwhere’s the kettle where the cabinet\nthe demons whirl around like flies\ncircling above a piece of pie\n\nand these spirits flash their eyes\nhands and legs and horns and smiles\n\naround the trees juicy beasts howl\nthe light bulbs twisting in their sleep\nthe silent children blow their horns\nold women cry atop the evergreens\n\nand the universal deity\nstands in the celestial cemetery\nand the ideal horse saunters\nuntil finally the forest enters\n\nand so we stare terrified by it\nthinking that it is a mist only\nthe forest roars its hands raised\nworries mostly about boredom\n\nit whispers weakly i’m a phantom\nperhaps I’ll exist later sometime\n\nall around stand peaks and meadows\nbearing phobias on a platter\npeople animals mountain women\ndance and celebrate the feast day\n\nthe music is ringing out brightly\nand the tribal folk are playing\nshepherds and shepherdesses barking\non the tables the shuttles spinning\n\nand in the shuttles now and then\nvisible are the wreaths of minutes\n\nhere there is a general mirth\nthis I told you from the start\nit is the precipice’s birth\nor the marriage of these cliffs\n\nit is we who have seen the feast\nwe will sit down on the piping bench\nby the pathway spinning like the earth\nhands thundering with tambourines\n\nthere will be sky and will be battle\nor we will become ourselves\n\nthe cups are tramping on mustaches\nflowers are sprouting on the clocks\nand our thoughts are taking flight\namong the plants grown entwined\n\nour thoughts and our rowboats\nour sacred gods and our aunties\nour souls and our solid earth\nour cups and in the cups death\n\nyet however we still insisted\nthere is no meaning in such rain\nsalt of the earth we ask for a sign\nthe sign plays upon the waters\n\nthe wise old hills are tossing\nall those feasting into rivers\nin the rivers shot glasses blooming\nin rivers is the birthplace of night\n\nour thoughts like those of corpses\nwe have shown the sky the grain\nsea and time and dream are one\nso we say dropping to the bottom\n\nhaving grabbed with us the instruments\nour souls our feet and healing powders\nand having set up the monuments\nshedding light on the chamber pots\n\nwe’re on the floor of the deep sea\nwe are the town hall of the drowned\narguing with the number fifteen\nwe will race and we will burn up\n\nbut however the years were passing\npassing were the fog and nonsense\nwho had fallen to the sea’s bottom\nlike a board from the ship’s timbers\nbecame sad and full of longing\nknocking together wisdom teeth\nsit on top of the colorless seaweed\nhang to dry out laundered muscles\n\nwe are blinking like the moonlight\nwhen the waves tremble aglimmer\nwho was it that said the sea’s bottom\nand my foot are one and the same\n\ngenerally all here are dissatisfied\nin silence they walk out of the waters\nwhile behind them hum the waves\nputting their shoulders to the wheel\n\nthe ships were galloping up and down\nthe horses racing in the fields\nthere was firing and there was keening\nsleep and death are in the clouds\n\nall the drowned have left the water\nand are trudging toward the sunset\nsaddling up the yolk and harness\nwho was poor and who was wealthy\n\nas I said I saw this right off\nanyway the end is nearing\nthey are bringing us a large vase\na flower and a little sleigh bell\n\nit’s a vase and it is graceful\nit’s the candle and it’s the snow\nit is salt and it’s the mousetrap\nfor rejoicing and for basking\n\ngreetings to god the universal\nhere I stand a little sleazy\nfree-will memory and oar\ncarried off glory be to the sky", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alex Cigale", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alex Cigale" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -117338,12 +122759,14 @@ "title": "“Snow Lies”", "body": "snow lies\nearth flies\nlights flip\nin pigments night has come\non a rug of stars it lies\nis it night or a demon?\nlike an inane lever\nsleeps the insane river\nit is now aware\nof the moon everywhere\nanimals gnash their canines\nin black gold cages\nanimals bang their heads\nanimals are the ospreys of saints\nthe world flies around the universe\nin the vicinity of stars\ndashes deathless like a swallow\nseeks a home a nest\nthere’s no nest a hole\nthe universe is alone\nmaybe rarely in flight\ntime will pass as poor as night\nor a daughter in a bed\nwill grow sleeping and then dead\nthen a crowd of relations\nwill rush in and cry alas\nin steel houses\nwill howl loudly\nshe’s gone and buried\nhopped to paradise big-bellied\nGod God have pity\ngood God on the precipice\nbut God said Go play\nand she entered paradise\nthere spun any which way\nnumbers houses and seas\nthe inessential exists\nin vain, they perceived\nthere God languished behind bars\nwith no eyes no legs no arms\nso that maiden in tears\nsees all this in the heavens\nsees various eagles\nappear out of night\nand fly inane\nand flash insane\nthis is so depressing\nthe dead maiden will say\nserenely surprised\nGod will say\nwhat’s depressing what’s\ndepressing, God, life\nwhat are you talking about\nwhat O noon do you know\nyou press pleasure and Paris\nto your breast like two pears\nyou swell like music\nyou’re swell like a statue\nthen the wood howled\nin final despair\nit spies through the tares\na meandering ribbon\nlittle ribbon a crate\ncurvy Lena of fate\nMercury was in the air\nspinning like a top\nand the bear\nsunned his coat\npeople also walked around\nbearing fish on a platter\nbearing on their hands\nten fingers on a ladder\nwhile all this went on\nthat maiden rested\nrose from the dead and forgot\nyawned and said\nyou guys, I had a dream\nwhat can it mean\ndreams are worse than macaroni\nthey make crows double over\nI was not at all dying\nI was gaping and lying\nundulating and crying\nI was so terrifying\na fit of lethargy\nwas had by me among the effigies\nlet’s enjoy ourselves really\nlet’s gallop to the cinema\nand sped off like an ass\nto satisfy her innermost\nlights glint in the heaven\nis it night or a demon", "metadata": { - "translator": "Eugene Ostashevsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1930, "month": "january" }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Eugene Ostashevsky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january" @@ -117354,11 +122777,13 @@ "title": "“Where. When.”", "body": "> _Where_\n\nWhere he was standing leaning against a statue. With a face charged with thoughts. He himself was turning into a statue. He had no blood. Lo this is what he said:\n\nfarewell dark trees\nfarewell black forests\nrevolution of heavenly stars\nand voices of carefree birds.\n\nHe probably had the idea of somewhere, sometime going away.\n\nfarewell field-cliffs\nhours on end have I looked at you\nfarewell, lively butterflies\nI have hungered with you\nfarewell stones farewell clouds\nI have loved you and tormented you.\n\nWith yearning and belated repentance he began to scrutinize the tips of the grassblades.\n\nfarewell splendid tips\nfarewell flowers. Farewell water.\nthe postal couriers rush on\nfate rushes past, misfortune rushes past.\nI walked a prisoner in the meadow\nI embraced the forest path\nI woke the fishes in the mornings\nscared the crowd of oaks\nsaw the sepulchral house of oaks\nhorses and singing led laboriously around.\n\nHe depicts how he habitually or unhabitually used to arrive at the river.\n\nRiver I used to come to you.\nRiver farewell. Trembles my hand.\nYou used to sparkle, used to flow,\nI used to stand in front of you\nclad in a caftan made of glass\nand listen to your fluvial waves.\nhow sweet it was for me to enter\nyou, and once again emerge.\nhow sweet it was for me to enter\nmyself and once again emerge\nwhere like finches oaktrees rustled.\nthe oaks were crazily able\nthe oaks to rustle scarely audibly.\n\nBut hereupon he calculated in his mind what would happen if he also saw the sea.\n\nSea farewell farewell sand\no mountain land how you are high\nmay the waves beat. May the spray scatter,\nupon a rock I sit, still with my pipes.\nand the sea plashes gradually\nand everything from the sea is far.\nand everything from the sea is for\ncare like a tedious duck runs off\nparting with the sea is hard.\nsea farewell. farewell paradise\no mountain land how you are high.\n\nAbout the last thing that there is in nature he also remembered. He remembered about the wilderness.\n\nfarewell to you too\nwildernesses and lions.\n\nAnd thus having bidden farewell to all he neatly laid down his weapons and extracting from his pocket a temple shot himself in the head. And hereupon took place the second part--the farewell of all with one.\n\nThe trees as if they had wings waved their arms. They thought that they could, and answered:\n\nYou used to visit us. Behold,\nhe died, and you all will die.\nfor instants he accepted us--\nshabby, crumpled, bent.\nwandering mindlessly\nlike an icebound winter.\n\nWhat then is he communicating now to the trees. Nothing he is growing numb.\n\nThe cliffs or stones had not moved from their place. Through silence and voicelessness and the absence of sound they were encouraging us and you and him.\n\nsleep. farewell. the end has come\nthe courier has come for you.\nit has come--the ultimate hour.\nLord have mercy upon us.\nLord have mercy upon us.\nLord have mercy upon us.\n\nWhat then does he retort to the stones.--Nothing he is becoming frozen. Fishes and oaks gave him a bunch of grapes and a small quantity of final joy.\n\nThe oaks said: we grow.\nThe fishes said: we swim.\nThe oaks said: what is the time.\nThe fishes said: have mercy upon us.\n\nWhat then will he say to fishes and oaks: He will not be able to say thank you. The river powerfully racing over the earth. The river powerfully flowing. The river powerfully carrying its waves. River as tsar. It said farewell in such a way, that. that’s how. And he lay like a notebook on its very bank.\n\nFarewell notebook\nUnpleasant and easy to die.\nFarewell world. Farewell paradise\nyou are very remote, land of humans.\n\nWhat had he done to the river?--Nothing--he is turning into stone. And the sea weakening from its lengthy storms with sympathy looked upon death. Did the sea faintly possess the aspect of an eagle. No it did not possess it.\n\nWill he glance at the seat--No he cannot. In the night there was a sudden trumpeting somewhere not quite savages, not quite not. He looked upon people.\n\n\n> _When_\n\nWhen he parted his swollen eyelids, he half-opened his eyes. He recalled by heart into his memory all that is. I have forgotten to say farewell to much else. Then he recalled, he remembered the whole instant of his death. All these sixes and fives. All that--fuss. All the rhyme. Which was a loyal friend to him, as before him Pushkin had said. Oh Pushkin, Pushkin, that very Pushkin who had lived before him. Thereupon the shadow of universal disgust lay upon everything. Thereupon the shadow of the universal lay upon everything. Thereupon the shadow lay upon everything. He understood nothing, but he restrained himself. And savages, and maybe not savages with lamentation like the rustle of oaks, the buzzing of bees, the plash of waves, the silence of stones, and the aspect of the wilderness, carrying dishes over their heads, emerged and unhurriedly descended from the heights onto the far-from-numerous earth. Oh Pushkin. Pushkin.\n\nAll.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Robin Milner-Gulland", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1941 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Robin Milner-Gulland" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -117670,8 +123095,10 @@ "title": "“An Autumn Evening in the Mountains”", "body": "After rain the empty mountain\nStands autumnal in the evening,\nMoonlight in its groves of pine,\nStones of crystal in its brooks.\nBamboos whisper of washer-girls bound home,\nLotus-leaves yield before a fisher-boat--\nAnd what does it matter that springtime has gone,\nWhile you are here, O Prince of Friends?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Witter Bynner", "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Witter Bynner" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -117682,8 +123109,10 @@ "title": "“Fields and Gardens by the River Qi”", "body": "I dwell apart by the River Qi,\nWhere the Eastern wilds stretch far without hills.\n\nThe sun darkens beyond the mulberry trees;\nThe river glistens through the villages.\n\nShepherd boys depart, gazing back to their hamlets;\nHunting dogs return following their men.\n\nWhen a man’s at peace, what business does he have?\nI shut fast my rustic door throughout the day.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Paul Rouzer", "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Paul Rouzer" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -117691,8 +123120,10 @@ "title": "“A Song of a Girl from Loyang”", "body": "There’s a girl from Loyang in the door across the street,\nShe looks fifteen, she may be a little older.\n
 While her master rides his rapid horse with jade bit an bridle,\nHer handmaid brings her cod-fish in a golden plate.\nOn her painted pavilions, facing red towers,\nCornices are pink and green with peach-bloom and with willow,\nCanopies of silk awn her seven-scented chair,\nAnd rare fans shade her, home to her nine-flowered curtains.\nHer lord, with rank and wealth and in the bud of life,\nExceeds in munificence the richest men of old.\nHe favours this girl of lowly birth, he has her taught to dance;\nAnd he gives away his coral-trees to almost anyone.\nThe wind of dawn just stirs when his nine soft lights go out,\nThose nine soft lights like petals in a flying chain of flowers.\nBetween dances she has barely time for singing over the songs;\nNo sooner is she dressed again than incense burns before her.\nThose she knows in town are only the rich and the lavish,\nAnd day and night she is visiting the hosts of the gayest mansions.\n
 Who notices the girl from Yue with a face of white jade,\nHumble, poor, alone, by the river, washing silk?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Witter Bynner", "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Witter Bynner" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -117703,8 +123134,10 @@ "title": "“A Song of an Autumn Night”", "body": "Under the crescent moon a light autumn dew\nHas chilled the robe she will not change--\nAnd she touches a silver lute all night,\nAfraid to go back to her empty room.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Witter Bynner", "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Witter Bynner" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -117715,8 +123148,10 @@ "title": "“A Song of Peach-Blossom River”", "body": "A fisherman is drifting, enjoying the spring mountains,\nAnd the peach-trees on both banks lead him to an ancient source.\nWatching the fresh-coloured trees, he never thinks of distance\nTill he comes to the end of the blue stream and suddenly--strange men!\nIt’s a cave-with a mouth so narrow that he has to crawl through;\nBut then it opens wide again on a broad and level path--\nAnd far beyond he faces clouds crowning a reach of trees,\nAnd thousands of houses shadowed round with flowers and bamboos 
\nWoodsmen tell him their names in the ancient speech of Han;\nAnd clothes of the Qin Dynasty are worn by all these people\nLiving on the uplands, above the Wuling River,\nOn farms and in gardens that are like a world apart,\nTheir dwellings at peace under pines in the clear moon,\nUntil sunrise fills the low sky with crowing and barking.\n
 At news of a stranger the people all assemble,\nAnd each of them invites him home and asks him where he was born.\nAlleys and paths are cleared for him of petals in the morning,\nAnd fishermen and farmers bring him their loads at dusk 
\nThey had left the world long ago, they had come here seeking refuge;\nThey have lived like angels ever since, blessedly far away,\nNo one in the cave knowing anything outside,\nOutsiders viewing only empty mountains and thick clouds.\n
 The fisherman, unaware of his great good fortune,\nBegins to think of country, of home, of worldly ties,\nFinds his way out of the cave again, past mountains and past rivers,\nIntending some time to return, when he has told his kin.\nHe studies every step he takes, fixes it well in mind,\nAnd forgets that cliffs and peaks may vary their appearance.\n
 It is certain that to enter through the deepness of the mountain,\nA green river leads you, into a misty wood.\nBut now, with spring-floods everywhere and floating peachpetals--\nWhich is the way to go, to find that hidden source?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Witter Bynner", "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Witter Bynner" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -118749,10 +124184,10 @@ "title": "“The Call of the Christian”", "body": "Not always as the whirlwind’s rush\nOn Horeb’s mount of fear,\nNot always as the burning bush\nTo Midian’s shepherd seer,\nNor as the awful voice which came\nTo Israel’s prophet bards,\nNor as the tongues of cloven flame,\nNor gift of fearful words,--\n\nNot always thus, with outward sign\nOf fire or voice from Heaven,\nThe message of a truth divine,\nThe call of God is given!\nAwaking in the human heart\nLove for the true and right,--\nZeal for the Christian’s better part,\nStrength for the Christian’s fight.\n\nNor unto manhood’s heart alone\nThe holy influence steals\nWarm with a rapture not its own,\nThe heart of woman feels!\nAs she who by Samaria’s wall\nThe Saviour’s errand sought,--\nAs those who with the fervent Paul\nAnd meek Aquila wrought:\n\nOr those meek ones whose martyrdom\nRome’s gathered grandeur saw\nOr those who in their Alpine home\nBraved the Crusader’s war,\nWhen the green Vaudois, trembling, heard,\nThrough all its vales of death,\nThe martyr’s song of triumph poured\nFrom woman’s failing breath.\n\nAnd gently, by a thousand things\nWhich o’er our spirits pass,\nLike breezes o’er the harp’s fine strings,\nOr vapors o’er a glass,\nLeaving their token strange and new\nOf music or of shade,\nThe summons to the right and true\nAnd merciful is made.\n\nOh, then, if gleams of truth and light\nFlash o’er thy waiting mind,\nUnfolding to thy mental sight\nThe wants of human-kind;\nIf, brooding over human grief,\nThe earnest wish is known\nTo soothe and gladden with relief\nAn anguish not thine own;\n\nThough heralded with naught of fear,\nOr outward sign or show;\nThough only to the inward ear\nIt whispers soft and low;\nThough dropping, as the manna fell,\nUnseen, yet from above,\nNoiseless as dew-fall, heed it well,--\nThy Father’s call of love!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1880 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -118771,10 +124206,10 @@ "title": "“The Cities of the Plain”", "body": "“Get ye up from the wrath of God’s terrible day!\nUngirded, unsandalled, arise and away!\n’T is the vintage of blood, ’t is the fulness of time,\nAnd vengeance shall gather the harvest of crime!”\n\nThe warning was spoken--the righteous had gone,\nAnd the proud ones of Sodom were feasting alone;\nAll gay was the banquet--the revel was long,\nWith the pouring of wine and the breathing of song.\n\n’T was an evening of beauty; the air was perfume,\nThe earth was all greenness, the trees were all bloom;\nAnd softly the delicate viol was heard,\nLike the murmur of love or the notes of a bird.\n\nAnd beautiful maidens moved down in the dance,\nWith the magic of motion and sunshine of glance\nAnd white arms wreathed lightly, and tresses fell free\nAs the plumage of birds in some tropical tree.\n\nWhere the shrines of foul idols were lighted on high,\nAnd wantonness tempted the lust of the eye;\nMidst rites of obsceneness, strange, loathsome, abhorred,\nThe blasphemer scoffed at the name of the Lord.\n\nHark! the growl of the thunder,--the quaking of earth!\nWoe, woe to the worship, and woe to the mirth!\nThe black sky has opened; there’s flame in the air;\nThe red arm of vengeance is lifted and bare!\n\nThen the shriek of the dying rose wild where the song\nAnd the low tone of love had been whispered along;\nFor the fierce flames went lightly o’er palace and bower,\nLike the red tongues of demons, to blast and devour!\n\nDown, down on the fallen the red ruin rained,\nAnd the reveller sank with his wine-cup undrained;\nThe foot of the dancer, the music’s loved thrill,\nAnd the shout and the laughter grew suddenly still.\n\nThe last throb of anguish was fearfully given;\nThe last eye glared forth in its madness on Heaven!\nThe last groan of horror rose wildly and vain,\nAnd death brooded over the pride of the Plain!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1831 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -118782,11 +124217,11 @@ "title": "“The Clear Vision”", "body": "I did but dream. I never knew\nWhat charms our sternest season wore.\nWas never yet the sky so blue,\nWas never earth so white before.\nTill now I never saw the glow\nOf sunset on yon hills of snow,\nAnd never learned the bough’s designs\nOf beauty in its leafless lines.\n\nDid ever such a morning break\nAs that my eastern windows see?\nDid ever such a moonlight take\nWeird photographs of shrub and tree?\nRang ever bells so wild and fleet\nThe music of the winter street?\nWas ever yet a sound by half\nSo merry as you school-boy’s laugh?\n\nO Earth! with gladness overfraught,\nNo added charm thy face hath found;\nWithin my heart the change is wrought,\nMy footsteps make enchanted ground.\nFrom couch of pain and curtained room\nForth to thy light and air I come,\nTo find in all that meets my eyes\nThe freshness of a glad surprise.\n\nFair seem these winter days, and soon\nShall blow the warm west-winds of spring,\nTo set the unbound rills in tune\nAnd hither urge the bluebird’s wing.\nThe vales shall laugh in flowers, the woods\nGrow misty green with leafing buds,\nAnd violets and wind-flowers sway\nAgainst the throbbing heart of May.\n\nBreak forth, my lips, in praise, and own\nThe wiser love severely kind;\nSince, richer for its chastening grown,\nI see, whereas I once was blind.\nThe world, O Father! hath not wronged\nWith loss the life by Thee prolonged;\nBut still, with every added year,\nMore beautiful Thy works appear!\n\nAs Thou hast made thy world without,\nMake Thou more fair my world within;\nShine through its lingering clouds of doubt;\nRebuke its haunting shapes of sin;\nFill, brief or long, my granted span\nOf life with love to thee and man;\nStrike when thou wilt the hour of rest,\nBut let my last days be my best!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1868, "month": "february" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "february" @@ -118805,10 +124240,10 @@ "title": "“Divine Compassion”", "body": "Long since, a dream of heaven I had,\nAnd still the vision haunts me oft;\nI see the saints in white robes clad,\nThe martyrs with their palms aloft;\nBut hearing still, in middle song,\nThe ceaseless dissonance of wrong;\nAnd shrinking, with hid faces, from the strain\nOf sad, beseeching eyes, full of remorse and pain.\n\nThe glad song falters to a wail,\nThe harping sinks to low lament;\nBefore the still unlifted veil\nI see the crowned foreheads bent,\nMaking more sweet the heavenly air,\nWith breathings of unselfish prayer;\nAnd a Voice saith: “O Pity which is pain,\nO Love that weeps, fill up my sufferings which remain!”\n\n“Shall souls redeemed by me refuse\nTo share my sorrow in their turn?\nOr, sin-forgiven, my gift abuse\nOf peace with selfish unconcern?\nHas saintly ease no pitying care?\nHas faith no work, and love no prayer?\nWhile sin remains, and souls in darkness dwell,\nCan heaven itself be heaven, and look unmoved on hell?”\n\nThen through the Gates of Pain, I dream,\nA wind of heaven blows coolly in;\nFainter the awful discords seem,\nThe smoke of torment grows more thin,\nTears quench the burning soil, and thence\nSpring sweet, pale flowers of penitence\nAnd through the dreary realm of man’s despair,\nStar-crowned an angel walks, and to! God’s hope is there!\n\nIs it a dream? Is heaven so high\nThat pity cannot breathe its air?\nIts happy eyes forever dry,\nIts holy lips without a prayer!\nMy God! my God! if thither led\nBy Thy free grace unmerited,\nNo crown nor palm be mine, but let me keep\nA heart that still can feel, and eyes that still can weep.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1868 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "palm_sunday" @@ -118830,10 +124265,10 @@ "title": "“An Easter Flower Gift”", "body": "O dearest bloom the seasons know,\nFlowers of the Resurrection blow,\nOur hope and faith restore;\nAnd through the bitterness of death\nAnd loss and sorrow, breathe a breath\nOf life forevermore!\n\nThe thought of Love Immortal blends\nWith fond remembrances of friends;\nIn you, O sacred flowers,\nBy human love made doubly sweet,\nThe heavenly and the earthly meet,\nThe heart of Christ and ours!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1882 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "easter_sunday" @@ -118844,10 +124279,10 @@ "title": "“The Eternal Goodness”", "body": "O Friends! with whom my feet have trod\nThe quiet aisles of prayer,\nGlad witness to your zeal for God\nAnd love of man I bear.\n\nI trace your lines of argument;\nYour logic linked and strong\nI weigh as one who dreads dissent,\nAnd fears a doubt as wrong.\n\nBut still my human hands are weak\nTo hold your iron creeds:\nAgainst the words ye bid me speak\nMy heart within me pleads.\n\nWho fathoms the Eternal Thought?\nWho talks of scheme and plan?\nThe Lord is God! He needeth not\nThe poor device of man.\n\nI walk with bare, hushed feet the ground\nYe tread with boldness shod;\nI dare not fix with mete and bound\nThe love and power of God.\n\nYe praise His justice; even such\nHis pitying love I deem:\nYe seek a king; I fain would touch\nThe robe that hath no seam.\n\nYe see the curse which overbroods\nA world of pain and loss;\nI hear our Lord’s beatitudes\nAnd prayer upon the cross.\n\nMore than your schoolmen teach, within\nMyself, alas! I know:\nToo dark ye cannot paint the sin,\nToo small the merit show.\n\nI bow my forehead to the dust,\nI veil mine eyes for shame,\nAnd urge, in trembling self-distrust,\nA prayer without a claim.\n\nI see the wrong that round me lies,\nI feel the guilt within;\nI hear, with groan and travail-cries,\nThe world confess its sin.\nYet, in the maddening maze of things,\nAnd tossed by storm and flood,\nTo one fixed trust my spirit clings;\nI know that God is good!\n\nNot mine to look where cherubim\nAnd seraphs may not see,\nBut nothing can be good in Him\nWhich evil is in me.\n\nThe wrong that pains my soul below\nI dare not throne above,\nI know not of His hate,--I know\nHis goodness and His love.\n\nI dimly guess from blessings known\nOf greater out of sight,\nAnd, with the chastened Psalmist, own\nHis judgments too are right.\n\nI long for household voices gone.\nFor vanished smiles I long,\nBut God hath led my dear ones on,\nAnd He can do no wrong.\n\nI know not what the future hath\nOf marvel or surprise,\nAssured alone that life and death\nHis mercy underlies.\n\nAnd if my heart and flesh are weak\nTo bear an untried pain,\nThe bruised reed He will not break,\nBut strengthen and sustain.\n\nNo offering of my own I have,\nNor works my faith to prove;\nI can but give the gifts He gave,\nAnd plead His love for love.\n\nAnd so beside the Silent Sea\nI wait the muffled oar;\nNo harm from Him can come to me\nOn ocean or on shore.\n\nI know not where His islands lift\nTheir fronded palms in air;\nI only know I cannot drift\nBeyond His love and care.\n\nO brothers! if my faith is vain,\nIf hopes like these betray,\nPray for me that my feet may gain\nThe sure and safer way.\n\nAnd Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen\nThy creatures as they be,\nForgive me if too close I lean\nMy human heart on Thee!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1865 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -118863,10 +124298,10 @@ "title": "“Flowers in Winter”", "body": "How strange to greet, this frosty morn,\nIn graceful counterfeit of flower,\nThese children of the meadows, born\nOf sunshine and of showers!\n\nHow well the conscious wood retains\nThe pictures of its flower-sown home,\nThe lights and shades, the purple stains,\nAnd golden hues of bloom!\n\nIt was a happy thought to bring\nTo the dark season’s frost and rime\nThis painted memory of spring,\nThis dream of summertime.\n\nOur hearts are lighter for its sake,\nOur fancy’s age renews its youth,\nAnd dim-remembered fictions take\nThe guise of present truth.\n\nA wizard of the Merrimac,--\nSo old ancestral legends say,--\nCould call green leaf and blossom back\nTo frosted stem and spray.\n\nThe dry logs of the cottage wall,\nBeneath his touch, put out their leaves;\nThe clay-bound swallow, at his call,\nPlayed round the icy eaves.\n\nThe settler saw his oaken flail\nTake bud, and bloom before his eyes;\nFrom frozen pools he saw the pale\nSweet summer lilies rise.\n\nTo their old homes, by man profaned\nCame the sad dryads, exiled long,\nAnd through their leafy tongues complained\nOf household use and wrong.\n\nThe beechen platter sprouted wild,\nThe pipkin wore its old-time green,\nThe cradle o’er the sleeping child\nBecame a leafy screen.\n\nHaply our gentle friend hath met,\nWhile wandering in her sylvan quest,\nHaunting his native woodlands yet,\nThat Druid of the West;\n\nAnd while the dew on leaf and flower\nGlistened in the moonlight clear and still,\nLearned the dusk wizard’s spell of power,\nAnd caught his trick of skill.\n\nBut welcome, be it new or old,\nThe gift which makes the day more bright,\nAnd paints, upon the ground of cold\nAnd darkness, warmth and light!\n\nWithout is neither gold nor green;\nWithin, for birds, the birch-logs sing;\nYet, summer-like, we sit between\nThe autumn and the spring.\n\nThe one, with bridal blush of rose,\nAnd sweetest breath of woodland balm,\nAnd one whose matron lips unclose\nIn smiles of saintly calm.\n\nFill soft and deep, O winter snow!\nThe sweet azalea’s oaken dells,\nAnd hide the banks where roses blow\nAnd swing the azure bells!\n\nO’erlay the amber violet’s leaves,\nThe purple aster’s brookside home,\nGuard all the flowers her pencil gives\nA live beyond their bloom.\n\nAnd she, when spring comes round again,\nBy greening slope and singing flood\nShall wander, seeking, not in vain\nHer darlings of the wood.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1855 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -118877,10 +124312,10 @@ "title": "“Forgiveness”", "body": "My heart was heavy, for its trust had been\nAbused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;\nSo, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,\nOne summer Sabbath day I strolled among\nThe green mounds of the village burial-place;\nWhere, pondering how all human love and hate\nFind one sad level; and how, soon or late,\nWronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,\nAnd cold hands folded over a still heart,\nPass the green threshold of our common grave,\nWhither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,\nAwed for myself, and pitying my race,\nOur common sorrow, like a nighty wave,\nSwept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1846 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer", @@ -118892,10 +124327,10 @@ "title": "“The Frost Spirit”", "body": "He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!\nYou may trace his footsteps now\nOn the naked woods and the blasted fields\nAnd the brown hill’s withered brow.\nHe has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees\nWhere their pleasant green came forth,\nAnd the winds, which follow wherever he goes,\nHave shaken them down to earth.\n\nHe comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!\nFrom the frozen Labrador,\nFrom the icy bridge of the northern seas,\nWhich the white bear wanders o’er,\nWhere the fisherman’s sail is stiff with ice,\nAnd the luckless forms below\nIn the sunless cold of the lingering night\nInto marble statues grow!\n\nHe comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!\nOn the rushing Northern blast,\nAnd the dark Norwegian pines have bowed\nAs his fearful breath went past.\nWith an unscorched wing he has hurried on,\nWhere the fires of Hecla glow\nOn the darkly beautiful sky above\nAnd the ancient ice below.\n\nHe comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!\nAnd the quiet lake shall feel\nThe torpid touch of his glazing breath,\nAnd ring to the skater’s heel;\nAnd the streams which danced on the broken rocks,\nOr sang to the leaning grass,\nShall bow again to their winter chain,\nAnd in mournful silence pass.\n\nHe comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!\nLet us meet him as we may,\nAnd turn with the light of the parlor-fire\nHis evil power away;\nAnd gather closer the circle ’round,\nWhen the firelight dances high,\nAnd laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend\nAs his sounding wing goes by!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1830 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "december" @@ -118917,10 +124352,10 @@ "title": "“Hampton Beach”", "body": "The sunlight glitters keen and bright,\nWhere, miles away,\nLies stretching to my dazzled sight\nA luminous belt, a misty light,\nBeyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy gray.\n\nThe tremulous shadow of the Sea!\nAgainst its ground\nOf silvery light, rock, hill, and tree,\nStill as a picture, clear and free,\nWith varying outline mark the coast for miles around.\n\nOn--on--we tread with loose-flung rein\nOur seaward way,\nThrough dark-green fields and blossoming grain,\nWhere the wild brier-rose skirts the lane,\nAnd bends above our heads the flowering locust spray.\n\nHa! like a kind hand on my brow\nComes this fresh breeze,\nCooling its dull and feverish glow,\nWhile through my being seems to flow\nThe breath of a new life, the healing of the seas!\n\nNow rest we, where this grassy mound\nHis feet hath set\nIn the great waters, which have bound\nHis granite ankles greenly round\nWith long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray wet.\n\nGood-by to Pain and Care! I take\nMine ease to-day\nHere where these sunny waters break,\nAnd ripples this keen breeze, I shake\nAll burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away.\n\nI draw a freer breath, I seem\nLike all I see--\nWaves in the sun, the white-winged gleam\nOf sea-birds in the slanting beam,\nAnd far-off sails which flit before the south-wind free.\n\nSo when Time’s veil shall fall asunder,\nThe soul may know\nNo fearful change, nor sudden wonder,\nNor sink the weight of mystery under,\nBut with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow.\n\nAnd all we shrink from now may seem\nNo new revealing;\nFamiliar as our childhood’s stream,\nOr pleasant memory of a dream\nThe loved and cherished Past upon the new life stealing.\n\nSerene and mild the untried light\nMay have its dawning;\nAnd, as in summer’s northern night\nThe evening and the dawn unite,\nThe sunset hues of Time blend with the soul’s new morning.\n\nI sit alone; in foam and spray\nWave after wave\nBreaks on the rocks which, stern and gray,\nShoulder the broken tide away,\nOr murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and cave.\n\nWhat heed I of the dusty land\nAnd noisy town?\nI see the mighty deep expand\nFrom its white line of glimmering sand\nTo where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts down!\n\nIn listless quietude of mind,\nI yield to all\nThe change of cloud and wave and wind\nAnd passive on the flood reclined,\nI wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall.\n\nBut look, thou dreamer! wave and shore\nIn shadow lie;\nThe night-wind warns me back once more\nTo where, my native hill-tops o’er,\nBends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky.\n\nSo then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell!\nI bear with me\nNo token stone nor glittering shell,\nBut long and oft shall Memory tell\nOf this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the Sea.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1843 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -118988,10 +124423,10 @@ "title": "“A Memory”", "body": "Here, while the loom of Winter weaves\nThe shroud of flowers and fountains,\nI think of thee and summer eves\nAmong the Northern mountains.\n\nWhen thunder tolled the twilight’s close,\nAnd winds the lake were rude on,\nAnd thou wert singing, _Ca’ the Yowes_,\nThe bonny yowes of Cluden!\n\nWhen, close and closer, hushing breath,\nOur circle narrowed round thee,\nAnd smiles and tears made up the wreath\nWherewith our silence crowned thee;\n\nAnd, strangers all, we felt the ties\nOf sisters and of brothers;\nAh! whose of all those kindly eyes\nNow smile upon another’s?\n\nThe sport of Time, who still apart\nThe waifs of life is flinging;\nOh, nevermore shall heart to heart\nDraw nearer for that singing!\n\nYet when the panes are frosty-starred,\nAnd twilight’s fire is gleaming,\nI hear the songs of Scotland’s bard\nSound softly through my dreaming!\n\nA song that lends to winter snows\nThe glow of summer weather,--\nAgain I hear thee ca’ the yowes\nTo Cluden’s hills of heather.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1854 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -119040,10 +124475,10 @@ "title": "“The Prayer-Seeker”", "body": "Along the aisle where prayer was made,\nA woman, all in black arrayed,\nClose-veiled, between the kneeling host,\nWith gliding motion of a ghost,\nPassed to the desk, and laid thereon\nA scroll which bore these words alone,\n_Pray for me_!\n\nBack from the place of worshipping\nShe glided like a guilty thing\nThe rustle of her draperies, stirred\nBy hurrying feet, alone was heard;\nWhile, full of awe, the preacher read,\nAs out into the dark she sped:\n“_Pray for me_!”\n\nBack to the night from whence she came,\nTo unimagined grief or shame!\nAcross the threshold of that door\nNone knew the burden that she bore;\nAlone she left the written scroll,\nThe legend of a troubled soul,--\n_Pray for me_!\n\nGlide on, poor ghost of woe or sin!\nThou leav’st a common need within;\nEach bears, like thee, some nameless weight,\nSome misery inarticulate,\nSome secret sin, some shrouded dread,\nSome household sorrow all unsaid.\n_Pray for us_!\n\nPass on! The type of all thou art,\nSad witness to the common heart!\nWith face in veil and seal on lip,\nIn mute and strange companionship,\nLike thee we wander to and fro,\nDumbly imploring as we go\n_Pray for us_!\n\nAh, who shall pray, since he who pleads\nOur want perchance hath greater needs?\nYet they who make their loss the gain\nOf others shall not ask in vain,\nAnd Heaven bends low to hear the prayer\nOf love from lips of self-despair\n_Pray for us_!\n\nIn vain remorse and fear and hate\nBeat with bruised bands against a fate\nWhose walls of iron only move\nAnd open to the touch of love.\nHe only feels his burdens fall\nWho, taught by suffering, pities all.\n_Pray for us_!\n\nHe prayeth best who leaves unguessed\nThe mystery of another’s breast.\nWhy cheeks grow pale, why eyes o’erflow,\nOr heads are white, thou need’st not know.\nEnough to note by many a sign\nThat every heart hath needs like thine.\n_Pray for us_!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1870 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -119051,10 +124486,10 @@ "title": "“The Pumpkin”", "body": "Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,\nThe vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,\nAnd the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,\nWith broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,\nLike that which o’er Nineveh’s prophet once grew,\nWhile he waited to know that his warning was true,\nAnd longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain\nFor the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain.\n\nOn the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden\nComes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden;\nAnd the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold\nThrough orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold;\nYet with dearer delight from his home in the North,\nOn the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth,\nWhere crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines,\nAnd the sun of September melts down on his vines.\n\nAh! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,\nFrom North and from South comes the pilgrim and guest;\nWhen the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board\nThe old broken links of affection restored;\nWhen the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,\nAnd the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before;\nWhat moistens the lip and what brightens the eye,\nWhat calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?\n\nOh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,\nWhen wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!\nWhen wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,\nGlaring out through the dark with a candle within!\nWhen we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,\nOur chair a broad pumpkin,--our lantern the moon,\nTelling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam\nIn a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!\n\nThen thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better\nE’er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!\nFairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,\nBrighter eyes never watched o’er its baking, than thine!\nAnd the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,\nSwells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,\nThat the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,\nAnd the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,\nAnd thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky\nGolden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1844 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "thanksgiving" @@ -119065,10 +124500,10 @@ "title": "“The Reward”", "body": "Who, looking backward from his manhood’s prime,\nSees not the spectre of his misspent time?\nAnd, through the shade\nOf funeral cypress planted thick behind,\nHears no reproachful whisper on the wind\nFrom his loved dead?\n\nWho bears no trace of passion’s evil force?\nWho shuns thy sting, O terrible Remorse?\nWho does not cast\nOn the thronged pages of his memory’s book,\nAt times, a sad and half-reluctant look,\nRegretful of the past?\n\nAlas! the evil which we fain would shun\nWe do, and leave the wished-for good undone\nOur strength to-day\nIs but to-morrow’s weakness, prone to fall;\nPoor, blind, unprofitable servants all\nAre we alway.\n\nYet who, thus looking backward o’er his years,\nFeels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears,\nIf he hath been\nPermitted, weak and sinful as he was,\nTo cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause,\nHis fellow-men?\n\nIf he hath hidden the outcast, or let in\nA ray of sunshine to the cell of sin;\nIf he hath lent\nStrength to the weak, and, in an hour of need,\nOver the suffering, mindless of his creed\nOr home, hath bent;\n\nHe has not lived in vain, and while he gives\nThe praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives,\nWith thankful heart;\nHe gazes backward, and with hope before,\nKnowing that from his works he nevermore\nCan henceforth part.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1848 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -119087,10 +124522,10 @@ "title": "“Stanzas for the Times”", "body": "Is this the land our fathers loved,\nThe freedom which they toiled to win?\nIs this the soil whereon they moved?\nAre these the graves they slumber in?\nAre we the sons by whom are borne\nThe mantles which the dead have worn?\n\nAnd shall we crouch above these graves,\nWith craven soul and fettered lip?\nYoke in with marked and branded slaves,\nAnd tremble at the driver’s whip?\nBend to the earth our pliant knees,\nAnd speak but as our masters please?\n\nShall outraged Nature cease to feel?\nShall Mercy’s tears no longer flow?\nShall ruffian threats of cord and steel,\nThe dungeon’s gloom, the assassin’s blow,\nTurn back the spirit roused to save\nThe Truth, our Country, and the slave?\n\nOf human skulls that shrine was made,\nRound which the priests of Mexico\nBefore their loathsome idol prayed;\nIs Freedom’s altar fashioned so?\nAnd must we yield to Freedom’s God,\nAs offering meet, the negro’s blood?\n\nShall tongue be mute, when deeds are wrought\nWhich well might shame extremest hell?\nShall freemem lock the indignant thought?\nShall Pity’s bosom cease to swell?\nShall Honor bleed?--shall Truth succumb?\nShall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?\n\nNo; by each spot of haunted ground,\nWhere Freedom weeps her children’s fall;\nBy Plymouth’s rock, and Bunker’s mound;\nBy Griswold’s stained and shattered wall;\nBy Warren’s ghost, by Langdon’s shade;\nBy all the memories of our dead!\n\nBy their enlarging souls, which burst\nThe bands and fetters round them set;\nBy the free Pilgrim spirit nursed\nWithin our inmost bosoms, yet,\nBy all above, around, below,\nBe ours the indignant answer,--No!\n\nNo; guided by our country’s laws,\nFor truth, and right, and suffering man,\nBe ours to strive in Freedom’s cause,\nAs Christians may, as freemen can!\nStill pouring on unwilling ears\nThat truth oppression only fears.\n\nWhat! shall we guard our neighbor still,\nWhile woman shrieks beneath his rod,\nAnd while he trampels down at will\nThe image of a common God?\nShall watch and ward be round him set,\nOf Northern nerve and bayonet?\n\nAnd shall we know and share with him\nThe danger and the growing shame?\nAnd see our Freedom’s light grow dim,\nWhich should have filled the world with flame?\nAnd, writhing, feel, where’er we turn,\nA world’s reproach around us burn?\n\nIs’t not enough that this is borne?\nAnd asks our haughty neighbor more?\nMust fetters which his slaves have worn\nClank round the Yankee farmer’s door?\nMust he be told, beside his plough,\nWhat he must speak, and when, and how?\n\nMust he be told his freedom stands\nOn Slavery’s dark foundations strong;\nOn breaking hearts and fettered hands,\nOn robbery, and crime, and wrong?\nThat all his fathers taught is vain,--\nThat Freedom’s emblem is the chain?\n\nIts life, its soul, from slavery drawn!\nFalse, foul, profane! Go, teach as well\nOf holy Truth from Falsehood born!\nOf Heaven refreshed by airs from Hell!\nOf Virtue in the arms of Vice!\nOf Demons planting Paradise!\n\nRail on, then, brethren of the South,\nYe shall not hear the truth the less;\nNo seal is on the Yankee’s mouth,\nNo fetter on the Yankee’s press!\nFrom our Green Mountains to the sea,\nOne voice shall thunder, We are free!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1844 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -119098,10 +124533,10 @@ "title": "“The Star of Bethlehem”", "body": "Where Time the measure of his hours\nBy changeful bud and blossom keeps,\nAnd, like a young bride crowned with flowers,\nFair Shiraz in her garden sleeps;\n\nWhere, to her poet’s turban stone,\nThe Spring her gift of flowers imparts,\nLess sweet than those his thoughts have sown\nIn the warm soil of Persian hearts:\n\nThere sat the stranger, where the shade\nOf scattered date-trees thinly lay,\nWhile in the hot clear heaven delayed\nThe long and still and weary day.\n\nStrange trees and fruits above him hung,\nStrange odors filled the sultry air,\nStrange birds upon the branches swung,\nStrange insect voices murmured there.\n\nAnd strange bright blossoms shone around,\nTurned sunward from the shadowy bowers,\nAs if the Gheber’s soul had found\nA fitting home in Iran’s flowers.\n\nWhate’er he saw, whate’er he heard,\nAwakened feelings new and sad,--\nNo Christian garb, nor Christian word,\nNor church with Sabbath-bell chimes glad,\n\nBut Moslem graves, with turban stones,\nAnd mosque-spires gleaming white, in view,\nAnd graybeard Mollahs in low tones\nChanting their Koran service through.\n\nThe flowers which smiled on either hand,\nLike tempting fiends, were such as they\nWhich once, o’er all that Eastern land,\nAs gifts on demon altars lay.\n\nAs if the burning eye of Baal\nThe servant of his Conqueror knew,\nFrom skies which knew no cloudy veil,\nThe Sun’s hot glances smote him through.\n\n“Ah me!” the lonely stranger said,\n“The hope which led my footsteps on,\nAnd light from heaven around them shed,\nO’er weary wave and waste, is gone!”\n\n“Where are the harvest fields all white,\nFor Truth to thrust her sickle in?\nWhere flock the souls, like doves in flight,\nFrom the dark hiding-place of sin?”\n\n“A silent-horror broods o’er all,--\nThe burden of a hateful spell,--\nThe very flowers around recall\nThe hoary magi’s rites of hell!”\n\n“And what am I, o’er such a land\nThe banner of the Cross to bear?\nDear Lord, uphold me with Thy hand,\nThy strength with human weakness share!”\n\nHe ceased; for at his very feet\nIn mild rebuke a floweret smiled;\nHow thrilled his sinking heart to greet\nThe Star-flower of the Virgin’s child!\n\nSown by some wandering Frank, it drew\nIts life from alien air and earth,\nAnd told to Paynim sun and dew\nThe story of the Saviour’s birth.\n\nFrom scorching beams, in kindly mood,\nThe Persian plants its beauty screened,\nAnd on its pagan sisterhood,\nIn love, the Christian floweret leaned.\n\nWith tears of joy the wanderer felt\nThe darkness of his long despair\nBefore that hallowed symbol melt,\nWhich God’s dear love had nurtured there.\n\nFrom Nature’s face, that simple flower\nThe lines of sin and sadness swept;\nAnd Magian pile and Paynim bower\nIn peace like that of Eden slept.\n\nEach Moslem tomb, and cypress old,\nLooked holy through the sunset air;\nAnd, angel-like, the Muezzin told\nFrom tower and mosque the hour of prayer.\n\nWith cheerful steps, the morrow’s dawn\nFrom Shiraz saw the stranger part;\nThe Star-flower of the Virgin-Born\nStill blooming in his hopeful heart!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1830 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -120808,11 +126243,11 @@ "title": "“History”", "body": "# I.\n\nThis sarcophagus contained the body Of Uresh-Nai, priestess to the goddess Mut, Mother of All-- 
\n\n\n# II.\n\nThe priestess has passed into her tomb.\nThe stone has taken up her spirit!\nGranite over flesh: who will deny\nIts advantages?\n\nYour death?-water\nSpilled upon the ground--\nThough water will mount again into rose-leaves--\nBut you?--would hold life still,\nEven as a memory, when it is over.\nBenevolence is rare.\n\nClimb about this sarcophagus, read\nWhat is writ for you in these figures,\nHard as the granite that has held them\nWith so soft a hand the while\nYour own flesh has been fifty times\nThrough the guts of oxen--read!\n\n“The rose-tree will have its donor\nEven though he give stingily.\nThe gift of some endures\nTen years, the gift of some twenty,\nAnd the gift of some for the time a\nGreat house rots and is torn down.\nSome give for a thousand years to men of\nOne country, some for a thousand\nTo all men, and some few to all men\nWhile granite holds an edge against\nThe weather.”\n“Judge then of love!”\n\n\n# III.\n\n“My flesh is turned to stone. I\nHave endured my summer. The flurry\nOf falling petals is ended. I was\nWell desired and fully caressed\nBy many lovers, but my flesh\nWithered swiftly and my heart was\nNever satisfied. Lay your hands\nUpon the granite as a lover lays his\nHand upon the thigh and upon the\nRound breasts of her who is\nBeside him; for now I will not wither,\nNow I have thrown off secrecy, now\nI have walked naked into the street,\nNow I have scattered my heavy beauty\nIn the open market.”\n\n“Here I am with head high and a\nBurning heart eagerly awaiting\nYour caresses, whoever it may be,\nFor granite is not harder than\nMy love is open, runs loose among you!”\n\n“I arrogant against death! I\nWho have endured! I worn against\nThe years!”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917, "month": "july" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july" @@ -120823,11 +126258,11 @@ "title": "“Lear”", "body": "When the world takes over for us\nand the storm in the trees\nreplaces our brittle consciences\n(like ships, female to all seas)\nwhen the few last yellow leaves\nstand out like flags on tossed ships\nat anchor--our minds are rested\n\nYesterday we sweated and dreamed\nor sweated in our dreams walking\nat a loss through the bulk of figures\nthat appeared solid, men or women,\nbut as we approached down the paved\ncorridor melted-Was it I?--like\nsmoke from bonfires blowing away\n\nToday the storm, inescapable, has\ntaken the scene and we return\nour hearts to it, however made, made\nwives by it and though we secure\nourselves for a dry skin from the drench\nof its passionate approaches we\nyield and are made quiet by its fury\n\nPitiful Lear, not even you could\nout-shout the storm--to make a fool\ncry! Wife to its power might you not\nbetter have yielded earlier? as on ships\nfacing the seas were carried once\nthe figures of women at repose to\nsignify the strength of the waves’ lash.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1948, "month": "may" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -120887,10 +126322,10 @@ "title": "“Of death 
”", "body": "Of death\nthe barber\nthe barber\ntalked to me\n\ncutting my\nlife with\nsleep to trim\nmy hair--\n\nIt’s just\na moment\nhe said, we die\nevery night--\n\nAnd of\nthe newest\nways to grow\nhair on\n\nbald death--\nI told him\nof the quartz\nlamp\n\nand of old men\nwith third\nsets of teeth\nto the cue\n\nof an old man\nwho said\nat the door--\nSunshine today!\n\nfor which\ndeath shaves\nhim twice\na week", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -120939,11 +126374,11 @@ "title": "“Sicilian Emigrant’s Song”", "body": "_In New York Harbor_\n\nO--eh--lee! La--la!\n Donna! Donna!\nBlue is the sky of Palermo;\nBlue is the little bay; And dost thou remember the orange and fig,\nThe lively sun and the sea breeze at evening?\n Hey--la!\nDonna! Donna! Maria!\n\nO--eh--li! La--la!\n Donna! Donna!\nGrey is the sky of this land.\nGrey and green is the water.\nI see no trees, dost thou? The wind\nIs cold for the big woman there with the candle.\n Hey-la!\nDonna! Donna! Maria!\n\nO--eh--li! O--la!\n Donna! Donna!\nI sang thee by the blue waters;\nI sing thee here in the grey dawning.\nKiss, for I put down my guitar;\nI’ll sing thee more songs after the landing.\n O Jesu, I love thee!\nDonna! Donna! Maria!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913, "month": "june" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -120954,10 +126389,10 @@ "title": "“Somebody dies every four minutes 
”", "body": "Somebody dies every four minutes\nin New York State--\n\nTo hell with you and your poetry--\nYou will rot and be blown\nthrough the next solar system\nwith the rest of the gases--\n\nWhat the hell do you know about it?\n\nAXIOMS\n\nDo not get killed\n\nCareful Crossing Campaign\nCross Crossings Cautiously\n\nTHE HORSES black\n &\nPRANCED white\n\nWhat’s the use of sweating over\nthis sort of thing, Carl; here\nit is all set up--\n\nOutings in New York City\n\nHo for the open country\n\nDont’t stay shut up in hot rooms\nGo to one of the Great Parks\nPelham Bay for example\n\nIt’s on Long Island sound\nwith bathing, boating\ntennis, baseball, golf, etc.\n\nAcres and acres of green grass\nwonderful shade trees, rippling brooks\n\n Take the Pelham Bay Park Branch\n of the Lexington Ave. (East Side)\n Line and you are there in a few\n minutes\n\nInterborough Rapid Transit Co.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -120987,10 +126422,10 @@ "title": "“Thus, weary of life 
”", "body": "Thus, weary of life, in view of the great consummation which awaits us--tomorrow, we rush among our friends congratulating ourselves upon the joy soon to be. Thoughtless of evil we crush out the marrow of those about us with our heavy cars as we go happily from place to place. It seems that there is not time enough in which to speak the full of our exaltation. Only a day is left, one miserable day, before the world comes into its own. Let us hurry! Why bother for this man or that? In the offices of the great newspapers a mad joy reigns as they prepare the final extras. Rushing about, men bump each other into the whirring presses. How funny it seems. All thought of misery has left us. Why should we care? Children laughingly fling themselves under the wheels of the street cars, airplanes crash gaily to the earth. Someone has written a poem.\n\nOh life, bizarre fowl, what color are your wings? Green, blue, red, yellow, purple, white, brown, orange, black, grey? In the imagination, flying above the wreck of ten thousand million souls, I see you departing sadly for the land of plants and insects, already far out to sea. (Thank you, I know well what I am plagiarising) Your great wings flap as you disappear in the distance over the pre-Columbian acres of floating weed.\n\nThe new cathedral overlooking the park, looked down from its towers today, with great eyes, and saw by the decorative lake a group of people staring curiously at the corpse of a suicide: Peaceful, dead young man, the money they have put into the stones has been spent to teach men of life’s austerity. You died and teach us the same lesson. You seem a cathedral, celebrant of the spring which shivers for me among the long black trees.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -121101,10 +126536,10 @@ "title": "“The Magpie’s Shadow”", "body": "# I. _In Winter_\n\n_Myself_\nPale mornings, and\n I rise.\n\n_Still Morning_\nSnow air--my fingers curl.\n\n_Awakening_\nNew snow, O pine of dawn!\n\n_Winter Echo_\nThin air! My mind is gone.\n\n_The Hunter_\nRun! In the magpie’s shadow.\n\n_No Being_\nI, bent. Thin nights receding.\n\n\n# II. _In Spring_\n\n_Spring_\nI walk out the world’s door.\n\n_May_\nOh, evening in my hair!\n\n_Spring Rain_\nMy doorframe smells of leaves.\n\n_Song_\nWhy should I stop\n for spring?\n\n\nIII. _In Summer and Autumn_\n\n_Sunrise_\nPale bees! O whither now?\n\n_Fields_\nI did not pick\n a flower.\n\n_At Evening_\nLike leaves my feet passed by.\n\n_Cool Nights_\nAt night bare feet on flowers!\n\n_Sleep_\nLike winds my eyelids close.\n\n_The Aspen’s Song_\nThe summer holds me here.\n\n_The Walker_\nIn dream my feet are still.\n\n_Blue Mountains_\nA deer walks that mountain.\n\n_God of Roads_\nI, peregrine of noon.\n\n_September_\nFaint gold! O think not here.\n\n_A Lady_\nShe’s sun on autumn leaves.\n\n_Alone_\nI saw day’s shadow strike.\n\n_A Deer_\nThe trees rose in the dawn.\n\n_Man in Desert_\nHis feet run as eyes blink.\n\n_Desert_\nThe tented autumn, gone!\n\n_The End_\nDawn rose, and desert shrunk.\n\n_High Valleys_\nIn sleep I filled these lands.\n\n_Awaiting Snow_\nThe well of autumn--dry.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "autumn_equinox" @@ -121115,10 +126550,10 @@ "title": "“Moonlight”", "body": "I waited on\nIn the late autumn moonlight,\nA train droning out of thought--\n\nThe mind on moonlight\nAnd on trains.\n\nBlind as a thread of water\nStirring through a cold like dust,\nLonely beyond all silence\n\nAnd humming this to children,\nThe nostalgic listeners in sleep,\n\nBecause no guardian\nStrides through distance upon distance,\nHis eyes a web of sleep.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1924 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -121504,12 +126939,12 @@ "title": "“Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey”", "body": "Five years have past; five summers, with the length\nOf five long winters! and again I hear\nThese waters, rolling from their mountain-springs\nWith a soft inland murmur.--Once again\nDo I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,\nThat on a wild secluded scene impress\nThoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect\nThe landscape with the quiet of the sky.\nThe day is come when I again repose\nHere, under this dark sycamore, and view\nThese plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,\nWhich at this season, with their unripe fruits,\nAre clad in one green hue, and lose themselves\n’Mid groves and copses. Once again I see\nThese hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines\nOf sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,\nGreen to the very door; and wreaths of smoke\nSent up, in silence, from among the trees!\nWith some uncertain notice, as might seem\nOf vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,\nOr of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire\nThe Hermit sits alone.\n\nThese beauteous forms,\nThrough a long absence, have not been to me\nAs is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:\nBut oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din\nOf towns and cities, I have owed to them,\nIn hours of weariness, sensations sweet,\nFelt in the blood, and felt along the heart;\nAnd passing even into my purer mind\nWith tranquil restoration:--feelings too\nOf unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,\nAs have no slight or trivial influence\nOn that best portion of a good man’s life,\nHis little, nameless, unremembered, acts\nOf kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,\nTo them I may have owed another gift,\nOf aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,\nIn which the burthen of the mystery,\nIn which the heavy and the weary weight\nOf all this unintelligible world,\nIs lightened:--that serene and blessed mood,\nIn which the affections gently lead us on,--\nUntil, the breath of this corporeal frame\nAnd even the motion of our human blood\nAlmost suspended, we are laid asleep\nIn body, and become a living soul:\nWhile with an eye made quiet by the power\nOf harmony, and the deep power of joy,\nWe see into the life of things.\n\nIf this\nBe but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft--\nIn darkness and amid the many shapes\nOf joyless daylight; when the fretful stir\nUnprofitable, and the fever of the world,\nHave hung upon the beatings of my heart--\nHow oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,\nO sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro’ the woods,\nHow often has my spirit turned to thee!\n\nAnd now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,\nWith many recognitions dim and faint,\nAnd somewhat of a sad perplexity,\nThe picture of the mind revives again:\nWhile here I stand, not only with the sense\nOf present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts\nThat in this moment there is life and food\nFor future years. And so I dare to hope,\nThough changed, no doubt, from what I was when first\nI came among these hills; when like a roe\nI bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides\nOf the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,\nWherever nature led: more like a man\nFlying from something that he dreads, than one\nWho sought the thing he loved. For nature then\n(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days\nAnd their glad animal movements all gone by)\nTo me was all in all.--I cannot paint\nWhat then I was. The sounding cataract\nHaunted me like a passion: the tall rock,\nThe mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,\nTheir colours and their forms, were then to me\nAn appetite; a feeling and a love,\nThat had no need of a remoter charm,\nBy thought supplied, nor any interest\nUnborrowed from the eye.--That time is past,\nAnd all its aching joys are now no more,\nAnd all its dizzy raptures. Not for this\nFaint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts\nHave followed; for such loss, I would believe,\nAbundant recompense. For I have learned\nTo look on nature, not as in the hour\nOf thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes\nThe still sad music of humanity,\nNor harsh nor grating, though of ample power\nTo chasten and subdue.--And I have felt\nA presence that disturbs me with the joy\nOf elevated thoughts; a sense sublime\nOf something far more deeply interfused,\nWhose dwelling is the light of setting suns,\nAnd the round ocean and the living air,\nAnd the blue sky, and in the mind of man:\nA motion and a spirit, that impels\nAll thinking things, all objects of all thought,\nAnd rolls through all things. Therefore am I still\nA lover of the meadows and the woods\nAnd mountains; and of all that we behold\nFrom this green earth; of all the mighty world\nOf eye, and ear,--both what they half create,\nAnd what perceive; well pleased to recognise\nIn nature and the language of the sense\nThe anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,\nThe guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul\nOf all my moral being.\n\nNor perchance,\nIf I were not thus taught, should I the more\nSuffer my genial spirits to decay:\nFor thou art with me here upon the banks\nOf this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,\nMy dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch\nThe language of my former heart, and read\nMy former pleasures in the shooting lights\nOf thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while\nMay I behold in thee what I was once,\nMy dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,\nKnowing that Nature never did betray\nThe heart that loved her; ’tis her privilege,\nThrough all the years of this our life, to lead\nFrom joy to joy: for she can so inform\nThe mind that is within us, so impress\nWith quietness and beauty, and so feed\nWith lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,\nRash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,\nNor greetings where no kindness is, nor all\nThe dreary intercourse of daily life,\nShall e’er prevail against us, or disturb\nOur cheerful faith, that all which we behold\nIs full of blessings. Therefore let the moon\nShine on thee in thy solitary walk;\nAnd let the misty mountain-winds be free\nTo blow against thee: and, in after years,\nWhen these wild ecstasies shall be matured\nInto a sober pleasure; when thy mind\nShall be a mansion for all lovely forms,\nThy memory be as a dwelling-place\nFor all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,\nIf solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,\nShould be thy portion, with what healing thoughts\nOf tender joy wilt thou remember me,\nAnd these my exhortations! Nor, perchance--\nIf I should be where I no more can hear\nThy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams\nOf past existence--wilt thou then forget\nThat on the banks of this delightful stream\nWe stood together; and that I, so long\nA worshipper of Nature, hither came\nUnwearied in that service: rather say\nWith warmer love--oh! with far deeper zeal\nOf holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,\nThat after many wanderings, many years\nOf absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,\nAnd this green pastoral landscape, were to me\nMore dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1798, "month": "july", "day": 13 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "july", @@ -121594,14 +127029,14 @@ "title": "“Ode to Duty”", "body": "_“Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eo perductus, ut non tantum recte facere possim, sed nisi recte facere non possim”_\n_“I am no longer good through deliberate intent, but by long habit have reached a point where I am not only able to do right, but am unable to do anything but what is right.”_\n --_Seneca, Letters 120.10_\n\nStern Daughter of the Voice of God!\nO Duty! if that name thou love\nWho art a light to guide, a rod\nTo check the erring, and reprove;\nThou, who art victory and law\nWhen empty terrors overawe;\nFrom vain temptations dost set free;\nAnd calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity!\n\nThere are who ask not if thine eye\nBe on them; who, in love and truth,\nWhere no misgiving is, rely\nUpon the genial sense of youth:\nGlad Hearts! without reproach or blot;\nWho do thy work, and know it not:\nOh! if through confidence misplaced\nThey fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.\n\nSerene will be our days and bright,\nAnd happy will our nature be,\nWhen love is an unerring light,\nAnd joy its own security.\nAnd they a blissful course may hold\nEven now, who, not unwisely bold,\nLive in the spirit of this creed;\nYet seek thy firm support, according to their need.\n\nI, loving freedom, and untried;\nNo sport of every random gust,\nYet being to myself a guide,\nToo blindly have reposed my trust:\nAnd oft, when in my heart was heard\nThy timely mandate, I deferred\nThe task, in smoother walks to stray;\nBut thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.\n\nThrough no disturbance of my soul,\nOr strong compunction in me wrought,\nI supplicate for thy control;\nBut in the quietness of thought:\nMe this unchartered freedom tires;\nI feel the weight of chance-desires:\nMy hopes no more must change their name,\nI long for a repose that ever is the same.\n\nStern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear\nThe Godhead’s most benignant grace;\nNor know we anything so fair\nAs is the smile upon thy face:\nFlowers laugh before thee on their beds\nAnd fragrance in thy footing treads;\nThou dost preserve the stars from wrong;\nAnd the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.\n\nTo humbler functions, awful Power!\nI call thee: I myself commend\nUnto thy guidance from this hour;\nOh, let my weakness have an end!\nGive unto me, made lowly wise,\nThe spirit of self-sacrifice;\nThe confidence of reason give;\nAnd in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live!", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1815 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Poems", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1815 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -121620,15 +127055,15 @@ "title": "“The Reverie of Poor Susan”", "body": "At the corner of Wood-Street, when day-light appears,\nThere’s a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years.\nPoor Susan has pass’d by the spot and has heard\nIn the silence of morning the song of the bird.\n\n’Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees\nA mountain ascending, a vision of trees;\nBright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,\nAnd a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.\n\nGreen pastures she views in the midst of the dale,\nDown which she so often has tripp’d with her pail,\nAnd a single small cottage, a nest like a dove’s,\nThe only one dwelling on earth that she loves.\n\nShe looks, and her heart is in Heaven, but they fade,\nThe mist and the river, the hill and the shade;\nThe stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,\nAnd the colours have all pass’d away from her eyes.\n\nPoor Outcast! return--to receive thee once more\nThe house of thy Father will open its door,\nAnd thou once again, in thy plain russet gown,\nMayst hear the thrush sing from a tree of its own.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1797 - }, "place": "Alfoxden", "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Lyrical Ballads", "type": "book" }, + "time": { + "year": 1797 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -121767,10 +127202,10 @@ "body": "Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower\nOf beauty is thy earthly dower!\nTwice seven consenting years have shed\nTheir utmost bounty on thy head:\nAnd these grey rocks; that household lawn;\nThose trees, a veil just half withdrawn;\nThis fall of water that doth make\nA murmur near the silent lake;\nThis little bay; a quiet road\nThat holds in shelter thy Abode--\nIn truth together do ye seem\nLike something fashioned in a dream;\nSuch Forms as from their covert peep\nWhen earthly cares are laid asleep!\nBut, O fair Creature! in the light\nOf common day, so heavenly bright,\nI bless Thee, Vision as thou art,\nI bless thee with a human heart;\nGod shield thee to thy latest years!\nThee, neither know I, nor thy peers;\nAnd yet my eyes are filled with tears.\n\nWith earnest feeling I shall pray\nFor thee when I am far away:\nFor never saw I mien, or face,\nIn which more plainly I could trace\nBenignity and home-bred sense\nRipening in perfect innocence.\nHere scattered, like a random seed,\nRemote from men, Thou dost not need\nThe embarrassed look of shy distress,\nAnd maidenly shamefacedness:\nThou wear’st upon thy forehead clear\nThe freedom of a Mountaineer:\nA face with gladness overspread!\nSoft smiles, by human kindness bred!\nAnd seemliness complete, that sways\nThy courtesies, about thee plays;\nWith no restraint, but such as springs\nFrom quick and eager visitings\nOf thoughts that lie beyond the reach\nOf thy few words of English speech:\nA bondage sweetly brooked, a strife\nThat gives thy gestures grace and life!\nSo have I, not unmoved in mind,\nSeen birds of tempest-loving kind--\nThus beating up against the wind.\n\nWhat hand but would a garland cull\nFor thee who art so beautiful?\nO happy pleasure! here to dwell\nBeside thee in some heathy dell;\nAdopt your homely ways, and dress,\nA Shepherd, thou a Shepherdess!\nBut I could frame a wish for thee\nMore like a grave reality:\nThou art to me but as a wave\nOf the wild sea; and I would have\nSome claim upon thee, if I could,\nThough but of common neighbourhood.\nWhat joy to hear thee, and to see!\nThy elder Brother I would be,\nThy Father--anything to thee!\n\nNow thanks to Heaven! that of its grace\nHath led me to this lonely place.\nJoy have I had; and going hence\nI bear away my recompense.\nIn spots like these it is we prize\nOur Memory, feel that she hath eyes:\nThen, why should I be loth to stir?\nI feel this place was made for her;\nTo give new pleasure like the past,\nContinued long as life shall last.\nNor am I loth, though pleased at heart,\nSweet Highland Girl! from thee to part;\nFor I, methinks, till I grow old,\nAs fair before me shall behold,\nAs I do now, the cabin small,\nThe lake, the bay, the waterfall;\nAnd thee, the spirit of them all!", "metadata": { "place": "At Inversneyde, upon Loch Lomond", + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1820 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -121789,10 +127224,10 @@ "title": "“To the Skylark”", "body": "Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!\nDost thou despise the earth where cares abound?\nOr, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye\nBoth with thy nest upon the dewy ground?\nThy nest which thou canst drop into at will,\nThose quivering wings composed, that music still!\n\nLeave to the nightingale her shady wood;\nA privacy of glorious light is thine;\nWhence thou dost pour upon the world a flood\nOf harmony, with instinct more divine;\nType of the wise who soar, but never roam;\nTrue to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1825 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122534,8 +127969,10 @@ "title": "“Boat Trip on the River Underneath a Buddist Temple”", "body": "Before the firmament was ever formed\n or any foundation laid,\nhigh there hovered the Judge of the World,\n prepared for the last days!\n\nThis single man from His five wounds\n poured every drop of blood;\nA myriad nations gave their hearts\n to the wonder of the Cross!\n\nThe heavenly gates now have a ladder\n leading to their peace:\ndemonic spirits lack any art\n to insinuate deception.\n\nTake up the burden, joyfully\n fall in behind Jesus,\nlook up with reverence towards the top of that mountain\n follow His every step.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jonathan Chaves", "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Jonathan Chaves" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -122543,8 +127980,10 @@ "title": "“The gate of eternal blessings 
”", "body": "The gate of eternal blessings\n this day has opened for you;\nthe light of grace and felicitation\n have come to you from Heaven.\n\nExtirpated are your former taints,\n repulsed the Devil’s troops;\nnow you will enjoy the real bread;\n formed in the Holy Womb.\n\nHow dignified! Your name has entered\n the register of the righteous.\nHow glorious! Your heart\n becomes an altar for the Lord.\n\nI know you will prove worthy\n to console the people’s yearning;\nthe great hall now is in need of pillars\n raised on rock.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jonathan Chaves", "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Jonathan Chaves" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -122552,8 +127991,10 @@ "title": "“Pine Wind from Myriad Villages”", "body": "Within the twelvefold walled enclosure,\n at the highest spot\nis the palace of the Lord\n with springs and autumns of its own.\n\nThe misty fragrance is breath of flowers\n where roses bloom;\nthe glittering brilliance is glow of pearls\n where gemmed crowns reverently bow.\n\nThere in Heaven should we seek\n true blessings and true joy;\nin the human realm we must cut off\n false strivings and false plans.\n\nLook there where girls, so many of them,\n their hair in tufts,\nday after day follow behind\n the Holy Mother in their play.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jonathan Chaves", "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Jonathan Chaves" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -122561,8 +128002,10 @@ "title": "“Singing of the Source and Course of Holy Church”", "body": "“The Supreme Ultimate contains three--”\nmuddled words indeed!\n\nIn fact, they start with primal energy\nto speak of original chaos.\n\nFrom books of the past, we learned of old\nof sincerity, wisdom and goodness;\n\nthe Mysterious meaning now we understand\nof Father, Son and Holy Spirit.\n\nThe Persons distinct: close at hand, consider\nthe flame within the mirror;\n\nthe Essence is whole: far off, please note\nthe wheel that graces the sky.\n\nThe Holy Name has been revealed,\nHis authority conferred;\n\nthroughout the world in this human realm\nthe sound of the teaching supreme!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jonathan Chaves", "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Jonathan Chaves" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "trinity_sunday" @@ -122573,8 +128016,10 @@ "title": "“Song of the Fisherman”", "body": "From patching rips in tattered nets\n his eyes have gotten blurred;\nhe scours the river, does not disdain\n the tiniest fish and shrimp.\n\nSelecting the freshest, he has supplied\n the feasts of sovereigns;\nAll four limbs exhausted now,\n dare he refuse the work?\n\nSpreading nets he gets confused\n by water just like the sky;\nsong lingering, still drunk, approaches\n dragons as they sleep.\n\nNow hair and whiskers are all white,\n his face has aged with time;\nhe’s startled by the wind and waves\n and fears an early autumn.\n\nSome friends of his have changed their jobs:\n they are now fishers of men;\nhe hears compared to fishing fish,\n this task is tougher still.\n\nOf late he finds the Heavenly Learning\n has come into the city.\nTo customers now happily add families that fast.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jonathan Chaves", "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Jonathan Chaves" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -122585,8 +128030,10 @@ "title": "“Spring Comes to the Lake”", "body": "By nature I have always felt quite close to the Way;\nWhen done with chanting my new poems, I always concentrate my spirit.\nPrior to death, who believes in the joy of the land of Heaven?\nAfter the end, then comes amazement at the truth of the fires of hell!\n\nThe achievements and fame of this ephemeral world; footprints of geese on snow;\nThis body, this shell of a lifetime of toil: dust beneath horses’ hoofs.\nAnd what is more, the flowing of time presses man so fast:\nLet us plan carefully about the ford that leads to the true source.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Jonathan Chaves", "language": "Chinese", + "translators": [ + "Jonathan Chaves" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march" @@ -122649,11 +128096,11 @@ "title": "“And Wilt Thou Leave Me Thus?”", "body": "And wilt thou leave me thus?\nSay nay, say nay, for shame,\nTo save thee from the blame\nOf all my grief and grame;\nAnd wilt thou leave me thus?\nSay nay, say nay!\n\nAnd wilt thou leave me thus,\nThat hath loved thee so long\nIn wealth and woe among?\nAnd is thy heart so strong\nAs for to leave me thus?\nSay nay, say nay!\n\nAnd wilt thou leave me thus,\nThat hath given thee my heart\nNever for to depart,\nNother for pain nor smart;\nAnd wilt thou leave me thus?\nSay nay, say nay!\n\nAnd wilt thou leave me thus\nAnd have no more pity\nOf him that loveth thee?\nHĂ©las, thy cruelty!\nAnd wilt thou leave me thus?\nSay nay, say nay!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1537, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122661,11 +128108,11 @@ "title": "“Forget Not Yet”", "body": "Forget not yet the tried intent\nOf such a truth as I have meant;\nMy great travail so gladly spent,\n Forget not yet.\n\nForget not yet when first began\nThe weary life ye know, since whan\nThe suit, the service, none tell can;\n Forget not yet.\n\nForget not yet the great assays,\nThe cruel wrong, the scornful ways;\nThe painful patience in denays,\n Forget not yet.\n\nForget not yet, forget not this,\nHow long ago hath been and is\nThe mind that never meant amiss;\n Forget not yet.\n\nForget not then thine own approved,\nThe which so long hath thee so loved,\nWhose steadfast faith yet never moved;\n Forget not this.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1537, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122673,11 +128120,11 @@ "title": "“I Find No Peace”", "body": "I find no peace, and all my war is done.\nI fear and hope. I burn and freeze like ice.\nI fly above the wind, yet can I not arise;\nAnd nought I have, and all the world I seize on.\nThat loseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison\nAnd holdeth me not--yet can I scape no wise--\nNor letteth me live nor die at my device,\nAnd yet of death it giveth me occasion.\nWithout eyen I see, and without tongue I plain.\nI desire to perish, and yet I ask health.\nI love another, and thus I hate myself.\nI feed me in sorrow and laugh in all my pain;\nLikewise displeaseth me both life and death,\nAnd my delight is causer of this strife.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1537, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122685,11 +128132,11 @@ "title": "“The Long Love”", "body": "The longĂ« love that in my thought doth harbour\nAnd in mine hert doth keep his residence,\nInto my face presseth with bold pretence\nAnd therein campeth, spreading his banner.\nShe that me learneth to love and suffer\nAnd will that my trust and lustĂ«s negligence\nBe rayned by reason, shame, and reverence,\nWith his hardiness taketh displeasure.\nWherewithall unto the hert’s forest he fleeth,\nLeaving his enterprise with pain and cry,\nAnd there him hideth and not appeareth.\nWhat may I do when my master feareth\nBut in the field with him to live and die?\nFor good is the life ending faithfully.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1537, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122697,11 +128144,11 @@ "title": "“They Flee from Me”", "body": "They flee from me that sometime did me seek\nWith naked foot, stalking in my chamber.\nI have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,\nThat now are wild and do not remember\nThat sometime they put themself in danger\nTo take bread at my hand; and now they range,\nBusily seeking with a continual change.\n\nThanked be fortune it hath been otherwise\nTwenty times better; but once in special,\nIn thin array after a pleasant guise,\nWhen her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,\nAnd she me caught in her arms long and small;\nTherewithall sweetly did me kiss\nAnd softly said, ‘Dear heart, how like you this?’\n\nIt was no dream: I lay broad waking.\nBut all is turned thorough my gentleness\nInto a strange fashion of forsaking;\nAnd I have leave to go of her goodness,\nAnd she also, to use newfangleness.\nBut since that I so kindly am served\nI would fain know what she hath deserved.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1537, "circa": true }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } } @@ -122764,10 +128211,10 @@ "title": "“Adam’s Curse”", "body": "We sat together at one summer’s end,\nThat beautiful mild woman, your close friend,\nAnd you and I, and talked of poetry.\nI said, “A line will take us hours maybe;\nYet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,\nOur stitching and unstitching has been naught.\nBetter go down upon your marrow-bones\nAnd scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones\nLike an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;\nFor to articulate sweet sounds together\nIs to work harder than all these, and yet\nBe thought an idler by the noisy set\nOf bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen\nThe martyrs call the world.”\n\n And thereupon\nThat beautiful mild woman for whose sake\nThere’s many a one shall find out all heartache\nOn finding that her voice is sweet and low\nReplied, “To be born woman is to know--\nAlthough they do not talk of it at school--\nThat we must labour to be beautiful.”\nI said, “It’s certain there is no fine thing\nSince Adam’s fall but needs much labouring.\nThere have been lovers who thought love should be\nSo much compounded of high courtesy\nThat they would sigh and quote with learned looks\nPrecedents out of beautiful old books;\nYet now it seems an idle trade enough.”\n\nWe sat grown quiet at the name of love;\nWe saw the last embers of daylight die,\nAnd in the trembling blue-green of the sky\nA moon, worn as if it had been a shell\nWashed by time’s waters as they rose and fell\nAbout the stars and broke in days and years.\n\nI had a thought for no one’s but your ears:\nThat you were beautiful, and that I strove\nTo love you in the old high way of love;\nThat it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown\nAs weary-hearted as that hollow moon.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1902 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -122778,9 +128225,6 @@ "title": "“After Long Silence”", "body": "Speech after long silence; it is right,\nAll other lovers being estranged or dead,\nUnfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,\nThe curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,\nThat we descant and yet again descant\nUpon the supreme theme of Art and Song:\nBodily decrepitude is wisdom; young\nWe loved each other and were ignorant.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1932 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -122789,6 +128233,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1932 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -122796,10 +128243,10 @@ "title": "“Against Unworthy Praise”", "body": "O heart, be at peace, because\nNor knave nor dolt can break\nWhat’s not for their applause,\nBeing for a woman’s sake.\nEnough if the work has seemed,\nSo did she your strength renew,\nA dream that a lion had dreamed\nTill the wilderness cried aloud,\nA secret between you two,\nBetween the proud and the proud.\n\nWhat, still you would have their praise!\nBut here’s a haughtier text,\nThe labyrinth of her days\nThat her own strangeness perplexed;\nAnd how what her dreaming gave\nEarned slander, ingratitude,\nFrom self-same dolt and knave;\nAye, and worse wrong than these.\nYet she, singing upon her road,\nHalf lion, half child, is at peace.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122807,10 +128254,10 @@ "title": "“All Souls’ Night”", "body": "Midnight has come, and the great Christ Church Bell\nAnd may a lesser bell sound through the room;\nAnd it is All Souls’ Night,\nAnd two long glasses brimmed with muscatel\nBubble upon the table. A ghost may come;\nFor it is a ghost’s right,\nHis element is so fine\nBeing sharpened by his death,\nTo drink from the wine-breath\nWhile our gross palates drink from the whole wine.\n\nI need some mind that, if the cannon sound\nFrom every quarter of the world, can stay\nWound in mind’s pondering\nAs mummies in the mummy-cloth are wound;\nBecause I have a marvellous thing to say,\nA certain marvellous thing\nNone but the living mock,\nThough not for sober ear;\nIt may be all that hear\nShould laugh and weep an hour upon the clock.\n\nHorton’s the first I call. He loved strange thought\nAnd knew that sweet extremity of pride\nThat’s called platonic love,\nAnd that to such a pitch of passion wrought\nNothing could bring him, when his lady died,\nAnodyne for his love.\nWords were but wasted breath;\nOne dear hope had he:\nThe inclemency\nOf that or the next winter would be death.\n\nTwo thoughts were so mixed up I could not tell\nWhether of her or God he thought the most,\nBut think that his mind’s eye,\nWhen upward turned, on one sole image fell;\nAnd that a slight companionable ghost,\nWild with divinity,\nHad so lit up the whole\nImmense miraculous house\nThe Bible promised us,\nIt seemed a gold-fish swimming in a bowl.\n\nOn Florence Emery I call the next,\nWho finding the first wrinkles on a face\nAdmired and beautiful,\nAnd knowing that the future would be vexed\nWith ’minished beauty, multiplied commonplace,\npreferred to teach a school\nAway from neighbour or friend,\nAmong dark skins, and there\npermit foul years to wear\nHidden from eyesight to the unnoticed end.\n\nBefore that end much had she ravelled out\nFrom a discourse in figurative speech\nBy some learned Indian\nOn the soul’s journey. How it is whirled about,\nWherever the orbit of the moon can reach,\nUntil it plunge into the sun;\nAnd there, free and yet fast,\nBeing both Chance and Choice,\nForget its broken toys\nAnd sink into its own delight at last.\n\nAnd I call up MacGregor from the grave,\nFor in my first hard springtime we were friends.\nAlthough of late estranged.\nI thought him half a lunatic, half knave,\nAnd told him so, but friendship never ends;\nAnd what if mind seem changed,\nAnd it seem changed with the mind,\nWhen thoughts rise up unbid\nOn generous things that he did\nAnd I grow half contented to be blind!\n\nHe had much industry at setting out,\nMuch boisterous courage, before loneliness\nHad driven him crazed;\nFor meditations upon unknown thought\nMake human intercourse grow less and less;\nThey are neither paid nor praised.\nbut he d object to the host,\nThe glass because my glass;\nA ghost-lover he was\nAnd may have grown more arrogant being a ghost.\n\nBut names are nothing. What matter who it be,\nSo that his elements have grown so fine\nThe fume of muscatel\nCan give his sharpened palate ecstasy\nNo living man can drink from the whole wine.\nI have mummy truths to tell\nWhereat the living mock,\nThough not for sober ear,\nFor maybe all that hear\nShould laugh and weep an hour upon the clock.\n\nSuch thought--such thought have I that hold it tight\nTill meditation master all its parts,\nNothing can stay my glance\nUntil that glance run in the world’s despite\nTo where the damned have howled away their hearts,\nAnd where the blessed dance;\nSuch thought, that in it bound\nI need no other thing,\nWound in mind’s wandering\nAs mummies in the mummy-cloth are wound.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1909 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "all_souls" @@ -122821,10 +128268,10 @@ "title": "“All Things Can Tempt Me”", "body": "All things can tempt me from this craft of verse:\nOne time it was a woman’s face, or worse--\nThe seeming needs of my fool-driven land;\nNow nothing but comes readier to the hand\nThan this accustomed toil. When I was young,\nI had not given a penny for a song\nDid not the poet Sing it with such airs\nThat one believed he had a sword upstairs;\nYet would be now, could I but have my wish,\nColder and dumber and deafer than a fish.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1909 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122832,10 +128279,10 @@ "title": "“Among School Children”", "body": "# I.\n\nI walk through the long schoolroom questioning;\nA kind old nun in a white hood replies;\nThe children learn to cipher and to sing,\nTo study reading-books and histories,\nTo cut and sew, be neat in everything\nIn the best modern way--the children’s eyes\nIn momentary wonder stare upon\nA sixty-year-old smiling public man.\n\n\n# II.\n\nI dream of a Ledaean body, bent\nAbove a sinking fire. a tale that she\nTold of a harsh reproof, or trivial event\nThat changed some childish day to tragedy--\nTold, and it seemed that our two natures blent\nInto a sphere from youthful sympathy,\nOr else, to alter Plato’s parable,\nInto the yolk and white of the one shell.\n\n\n# III.\n\nAnd thinking of that fit of grief or rage\nI look upon one child or t’other there\nAnd wonder if she stood so at that age--\nFor even daughters of the swan can share\nSomething of every paddler’s heritage--\nAnd had that colour upon cheek or hair,\nAnd thereupon my heart is driven wild:\nShe stands before me as a living child.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nHer present image floats into the mind--\nDid Quattrocento finger fashion it\nHollow of cheek as though it drank the wind\nAnd took a mess of shadows for its meat?\nAnd I though never of Ledaean kind\nHad pretty plumage once--enough of that,\nBetter to smile on all that smile, and show\nThere is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.\n\n\n# V.\n\nWhat youthful mother, a shape upon her lap\nHoney of generation had betrayed,\nAnd that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape\nAs recollection or the drug decide,\nWould think her Son, did she but see that shape\nWith sixty or more winters on its head,\nA compensation for the pang of his birth,\nOr the uncertainty of his setting forth?\n\n\n# VI.\n\nPlato thought nature but a spume that plays\nUpon a ghostly paradigm of things;\nSolider Aristotle played the taws\nUpon the bottom of a king of kings;\nWorld-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras\nFingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings\nWhat a star sang and careless Muses heard:\nOld clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.\n\n\n# VII.\n\nBoth nuns and mothers worship images,\nBut thos the candles light are not as those\nThat animate a mother’s reveries,\nBut keep a marble or a bronze repose.\nAnd yet they too break hearts--O presences\nThat passion, piety or affection knows,\nAnd that all heavenly glory symbolise--\nO self-born mockers of man’s enterprise;\n\n\n# VIII.\n\nLabour is blossoming or dancing where\nThe body is not bruised to pleasure soul.\nNor beauty born out of its own despair,\nNor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.\nO chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,\nAre you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?\nO body swayed to music, O brightening glance,\nHow can we know the dancer from the dance?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1927 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122843,10 +128290,10 @@ "title": "“Another Song of a Fool”", "body": "This great purple butterfly,\nIn the prison of my hands,\nHas a learning in his eye\nNot a poor fool understands.\n\nOnce he lived a schoolmaster\nWith a stark, denying look;\nA string of scholars went in fear\nOf his great birch and his great book.\n\nLike the clangour of a bell,\nSweet and harsh, harsh and sweet.\nThat is how he learnt so well\nTo take the roses for his meat.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122854,10 +128301,10 @@ "title": "“The Apparitions”", "body": "Because there is safety in derision\nI talked about an apparition,\nI took no trouble to convince,\nOr seem plausible to a man of sense.\nDistrustful of thar popular eye\nWhether it be bold or sly.\n_Fifteen apparitions have I seen;\nThe worst a coat upon a coat-hanger._\n\nI have found nothing half so good\nAs my long-planned half solitude,\nWhere I can sit up half the night\nWith some friend that has the wit\nNot to allow his looks to tell\nWhen I am unintelligible.\n_Fifteen apparitions have I seen;\nThe worst a coat upon a coat-hanger._\n\nWhen a man grows old his joy\nGrows more deep day after day,\nHis empty heart is full at length,\nBut he has need of all that strength\nBecause of the increasing Night\nThat opens her mystery and fright.\n_Fifteen apparitions have I seen;\nThe worst a coat upon a coat-hanger._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122865,10 +128312,10 @@ "title": "“An Appointment”", "body": "Being out of heart with government\nI took a broken root to fling\nWhere the proud, wayward squirrel went,\nTaking delight that he could spring;\nAnd he, with that low whinnying sound\nThat is like laughter, sprang again\nAnd so to the other tree at a bound.\nNor the tame will, nor timid brain,\nNor heavy knitting of the brow\nBred that fierce tooth and cleanly limb\nAnd threw him up to laugh on the bough;\nNo government appointed him.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1909 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122876,10 +128323,10 @@ "title": "“Are You Content?”", "body": "I call on those that call me son,\nGrandson, or great-grandson,\nOn uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts,\nTo judge what I have done.\nHave I, that put it into words,\nSpoilt what old loins have sent?\nEyes spiritualised by death can judge,\nI cannot, but I am not content.\n\nHe that in Sligo at Drumcliff\nSet up the old stone Cross,\nThat red-headed rector in County Down,\nA good man on a horse,\nSandymount Corbets, that notable man\nOld William Pollexfen,\nThe smuggler Middleton, Butlers far back,\nHalf legendary men.\n\nInfirm and aged I might stay\nIn some good company,\nI who have always hated work,\nSmiling at the sea,\nOr demonstrate in my own life\nWhat Browning meant\nBy an old hunter talking with Gods;\nBut I am not content.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122887,10 +128334,10 @@ "title": "“The Arrow”", "body": "I thought of your beauty, and this arrow,\nMade out of a wild thought, is in my marrow.\nThere’s no man may look upon her, no man,\nAs when newly grown to be a woman,\nTall and noble but with face and bosom\nDelicate in colour as apple blossom.\nThis beauty’s kinder, yet for a reason\nI could weep that the old is out of season.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122898,10 +128345,10 @@ "title": "“At Algeciras”", "body": "_A Meditation upon Death_\n\nThe heron-billed pale cattle-birds\nThat feed on some foul parasite\nOf the Moroccan flocks and herds\nCross the narrow Straits to light\nIn the rich midnight of the garden trees\nTill the dawn break upon those mingled seas.\n\nOften at evening when a boy\nWould I carry to a friend--\nHoping more substantial joy\nDid an older mind commend--\nNot such as are in Newton’s metaphor,\nBut actual shells of Rosses’ level shore.\n\nGreater glory in the Sun,\nAn evening chill upon the air,\nBid imagination run\nMuch on the Great Questioner;\nWhat He can question, what if questioned I\nCan with a fitting confidence reply.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1929 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122909,10 +128356,10 @@ "title": "“Baile and Aillinn”", "body": "> _Argument:_\nBaile and Aillinn were lovers, but Aengus, the Master of Love, wishing them to he happy in his own land among the dead, told to each a story of the other’s death, so that their hearts were broken and they died.\n\nI hardly hear the curlew cry,\nNor thegrey rush when the wind is high,\nBefore my thoughts begin to run\nOn the heir of Uladh, Buan’s son,\nBaile, who had the honey mouth;\nAnd that mild woman of the south,\nAillinn, who was King Lugaidh’s heir.\nTheir love was never drowned in care\nOf this or that thing, nor grew cold\nBecause their hodies had grown old.\nBeing forbid to marry on earth,\nThey blossomed to immortal mirth.\n\nAbout the time when Christ was born,\nWhen the long wars for the White Horn\nAnd the Brown Bull had not yet come,\nYoung Baile Honey Mouth, whom some\nCalled rather Baile Little-Land,\nRode out of Emain with a band\nOf harpers and young men; and they\nImagined, as they struck the way\nTo many-pastured Muirthemne,\nThat all things fell out happily,\nAnd there, for all that fools had said,\nBaile and Aillinn would be wed.\n\nThey found an old man running there:\nHe had ragged long grass-coloured hair;\nHe had knees that stuck out of his hose;\nHe had puddle-water in his shoes;\nHe had half a cloak to keep him dry,\nAlthough he had a squirrel’s eye.\n\nO wandering hirds and rushy beds,\nYou put such folly in our heads\nWith all this crying in the wind,\nNo common love is to our mind,\nAnd our poor kate or Nan is less\nThan any whose unhappiness\nAwoke the harp-strings long ago.\nYet they that know all things hut know\nThat all this life can give us is\nA child’s laughter, a woman’s kiss.\nWho was it put so great a scorn\nIn thegrey reeds that night and morn\nAre trodden and broken hy the herds,\nAnd in the light bodies of birds\nThe north wind tumbles to and fro\nAnd pinches among hail and snow?\n\nThat runner said: “I am from the south;\nI run to Baile Honey-Mouth,\nTo tell him how the girl Aillinn\nRode from the country of her kin,\nAnd old and young men rode with her:\nFor all that country had been astir\nIf anybody half as fair\nHad chosen a husband anywhere\nBut where it could see her every day.\nWhen they had ridden a little way\nAn old man caught the horse’s head\nWith: ‘You must home again, and wed\nWith somebody in your own land.’\nA young man cried and kissed her hand,\n‘O lady, wed with one of us”;\nAnd when no face grew piteous\nFor any gentle thing she spake,\nShe fell and died of the heart-break.’\nBecause a lover’s heart s worn out,\nBeing tumbled and blown about\nBy its own blind imagining,\nAnd will believe that anything\nThat is bad enough to be true, is true,\nBaile’s heart was broken in two;\nAnd he, being laid upon green boughs,\nWas carried to the goodly house\nWhere the Hound of Uladh sat before\nThe brazen pillars of his door,\nHis face bowed low to weep the end\nOf the harper’s daughter and her friend\nFor athough years had passed away\nHe always wept them on that day,\nFor on that day they had been betrayed;\nAnd now that Honey-Mouth is laid\nUnder a cairn of sleepy stone\nBefore his eyes, he has tears for none,\nAlthough he is carrying stone, but two\nFor whom the cairn’s but heaped anew.\n\nWe hold, because our memory is\nSofull of that thing and of this,\nThat out of sight is out of mind.\nBut the grey rush under the wind\nAnd the grey bird with crooked bill\nrave such long memories that they still\nRemember Deirdre and her man;\nAnd when we walk with Kate or Nan\nAbout the windy water-side,\nOur hearts can Fear the voices chide.\nHow could we be so soon content,\nWho know the way that Naoise went?\nAnd they have news of Deirdre’s eyes,\nWho being lovely was so wise--\nAh! wise, my heart knows well how wise.\n\nNow had that old gaunt crafty one,\nGathering his cloak about him, mn\nWhere Aillinn rode with waiting-maids,\nWho amid leafy lights and shades\nDreamed of the hands that would unlace\nTheir bodices in some dim place\nWhen they had come to the matriage-bed,\nAnd harpers, pacing with high head\nAs though their music were enough\nTo make the savage heart of love\nGrow gentle without sorrowing,\nImagining and pondering\nHeaven knows what calamity;\n\n“Another’s hurried off,” cried he,\n“From heat and cold and wind and wave;\nThey have heaped the stones above his grave\nIn Muirthemne, and over it\nIn changeless Ogham letters writ--\nBaile, that was of Rury’s seed.\nBut the gods long ago decreed\nNo waiting-maid should ever spread\nBaile and Aillinn’s marriage-bed,\nFor they should clip and clip again\nWhere wild bees hive on the Great Plain.\nTherefore it is but little news\nThat put this hurry in my shoes.”\n\nThen seeing that he scarce had spoke\nBefore her love-worn heart had broke.\nHe ran and laughed until he came\nTo that high hill the herdsmen name\nThe Hill Seat of Laighen, because\nSome god or king had made the laws\nThat held the land together there,\nIn old times among the clouds of the air.\n\nThat old man climbed; the day grew dim;\nTwo swans came flying up to him,\nLinked by a gold chain each to each,\nAnd with low murmuring laughing speech\nAlighted on the windy grass.\nThey knew him: his changed body was\nTall, proud and ruddy, and light wings\nWere hovering over the harp-strings\nThat Edain, Midhir’s wife, had wove\nIn the hid place, being crazed by love.\n\nWhat shall I call them? fish that swim,\nScale rubbing scale where light is dim\nBy a broad water-lily leaf;\nOr mice in the one wheaten sheaf\nForgotten at the threshing-place;\nOr birds lost in the one clear space\nOf morning light in a dim sky;\nOr, it may be, the eyelids of one eye,\nOr the door-pillars of one house,\nOr two sweet blossoming apple-boughs\nThat have one shadow on the ground;\nOr the two strings that made one sound\nWhere that wise harper’s finger ran.\nFor this young girl and this young man\nHave happiness without an end,\nBecause they have made so good a friend.\n\nThey know all wonders, for they pass\nThe towery gates of Gorias,\nAnd Findrias and Falias,\nAnd long-forgotten Murias,\nAmong the giant kings whose hoard,\nCauldron and spear and stone and sword,\nWas robbed before earth gave the wheat;\nWandering from broken street to street\nThey come where some huge watcher is,\nAnd tremble with their love and kiss.\n\nThey know undying things, for they\nWander where earth withers away,\nThough nothing troubles the great streams\nBut light from the pale stars, and gleams\nFrom the holy orchards, where there is none\nBut fruit that is of precious stone,\nOr apples of the sun and moon.\n\nWhat were our praise to them? They eat\nQuiet’s wild heart, like daily meat;\nWho when night thickens are afloat\nOn dappled skins in a glass boat,\nFar out under a windless sky;\nWhile over them birds of Aengus fly,\nAnd over the tiller and the prow,\nAnd waving white wings to and fro\nAwaken wanderings of light air\nTo stir their coverlet and their hair.\n\nAnd poets found, old writers say,\nA yew tree where his body lay;\nBut a wild apple hid the grass\nWith its sweet blossom where hers was,\nAnd being in good heart, because\nA better time had come again\nAfter the deaths of many men,\nAnd that long fighting at the ford,\nThey wrote on tablets of thin board,\nMade of the apple and the yew,\nAll the love stories that they knew.\n\n_Let rush and hird cry out their fill\nOf the harper’s daughter if they will,\nBeloved, I am not afraid of her.\nShe is not wiser nor lovelier,\nAnd you are more high of heart than she,\nFor all her wanderings over-sea;\nBut I’d have bird and rush forget\nThose other two; for never yet\nHas lover lived, but longed to wive\nLike them that are no more alive._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1902 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122920,10 +128367,10 @@ "title": "“The Ballad of Father Gilligan”", "body": "The old priest Peter Gilligan\nWas weary night and day;\nFor half his flock were in their beds,\nOr under green sods lay.\n\nOnce, while he nodded on a chair,\nAt the moth-hour of eve,\nAnother poor man sent for him,\nAnd he began to grieve.\n\n“I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace,\nFor people die and die”;\nAnd after cried he, “God forgive!\nMy body spake, not I!”\n\nHe knelt, and leaning on the chair\nHe prayed and fell asleep;\nAnd the moth-hour went from the fields,\nAnd stars began to peep.\n\nThey slowly into millions grew,\nAnd leaves shook in the wind;\nAnd God covered the world with shade,\nAnd whispered to mankind.\n\nUpon the time of sparrow-chirp\nWhen the moths came once more.\nThe old priest Peter Gilligan\nStood upright on the floor.\n\n“Mavrone, mavrone! the man has died\nWhile I slept on the chair”;\nHe roused his horse out of its sleep,\nAnd rode with little care.\n\nHe rode now as he never rode,\nBy rocky lane and fen;\nThe sick man’s wife opened the door:\n“Father! you come again!”\n\n“And is the poor man dead?” he cried.\n“He died an hour ago.”\nThe old priest Peter Gilligan\nIn grief swayed to and fro.\n\n“When you were gone, he turned and died\nAs merry as a bird.”\nThe old priest Peter Gilligan\nHe knelt him at that word.\n\n“He Who hath made the night of stars\nFor souls who tire and bleed,\nSent one of His great angels down\nTo help me in my need.”\n\n“He Who is wrapped in purple robes,\nWith planets in His care,\nHad pity on the least of things\nAsleep upon a chair.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1890 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122931,10 +128378,10 @@ "title": "“The Ballad of Father O’Hart”", "body": "Good Father John O’Hart\nIn penal days rode out\nTo a shoneen who had free lands\nAnd his own snipe and trout.\n\nIn trust took he John’s lands;\nSleiveens were all his race;\nAnd he gave them as dowers to his daughters\nAnd they married beyond their place.\n\nBut Father John went up\nAnd Father John went down;\nAnd he wore small holes in his shoes\nAnd he wore large holes in his gown.\n\nAll loved him only the shoneen\nWhom the devils have by the hair\nFrom the wives and the cats and the children\nTo the birds in the white of the air.\n\nThe birds for he opened their cages\nAs he went up and down;\nAnd he said with a smile “Have peace now”;\nAnd he went his way with a frown.\n\nBut if when any one died\nCame keeners hoarser than rooks\nHe bade them give over their keening;\nFor he was a man of books.\n\nAnd these were the works of John\nWhen weeping score by score\nPeople came into Coloony;\nFor he’d died at ninety-four.\n\nThere was no human keening;\nThe birds from Knocknarea\nAnd the world round Knocknashee\nCame keening in that day.\n\nThe young birds and old birds\nCame flying heavy and sad;\nKeening in from Tiraragh\nKeening from Ballinafad;\n\nKeening from Inishmurray\nNor stayed for bite or sup;\nThis way were all reproved\nWho dig old customs up.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1888 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122942,10 +128389,10 @@ "title": "“The Ballad of Moll Magee”", "body": "Come round me, little childer;\nThere, don’t fling stones at me\nBecause I mutter as I go;\nBut pity Moll Magee.\n\nMy man was a poor fisher\nWith shore lines in the say;\nMy work was saltin’ herrings\nThe whole of the long day.\n\nAnd sometimes from the Saltin’ shed\nI scarce could drag my feet,\nUnder the blessed moonlight,\nAlong thc pebbly street.\n\nI’d always been but weakly,\nAnd my baby was just born;\nA neighbour minded her by day,\nI minded her till morn.\n\nI lay upon my baby;\nYe little childer dear,\nI looked on my cold baby\nWhen the morn grew frosty and clear.\n\nA weary woman sleeps so hard!\nMy man grew red and pale,\nAnd gave me money, and bade me go\nTo my own place, Kinsale.\n\nHe drove me out and shut the door.\nAnd gave his curse to me;\nI went away in silence,\nNo neighbour could I see.\n\nThe windows and the doors were shut,\nOne star shone faint and green,\nThe little straws were turnin round\nAcross the bare boreen.\n\nI went away in silence:\nBeyond old Martin’s byre\nI saw a kindly neighbour\nBlowin’ her mornin’ fire.\n\nShe drew from me my story--\nMy money’s all used up,\nAnd still, with pityin’, scornin’ eye,\nShe gives me bite and sup.\n\nShe says my man will surely come\nAnd fetch me home agin;\nBut always, as I’m movin’ round,\nWithout doors or within,\n\nPilin’ the wood or pilin’ the turf,\nOr goin’ to the well,\nI’m thinkin’ of my baby\nAnd keenin’ to mysel’.\n\nAnd Sometimes I am sure she knows\nWhen, openin’ wide His door,\nGod lights the stats, His candles,\nAnd looks upon the poor.\n\nSo now, ye little childer,\nYe won’t fling stones at me;\nBut gather with your shinin’ looks\nAnd pity Moll Magee.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1889 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -122980,10 +128427,10 @@ "title": "“The Black Tower”", "body": "Say that the men of the old black tower,\nThough they but feed as the goatherd feeds,\nTheir money spent, their wine gone sour,\nLack nothing that a soldier needs,\nThat all are oath-bound men:\nThose banners come not in.\n\n_There in the tomb stand the dead upright,\nBut winds come up from the shore:\nThey shake when the winds roar,\nOld bones upon the mountain shake._\n\nThose banners come to bribe or threaten,\nOr whisper that a man’s a fool\nWho, when his own right king’s forgotten,\nCares what king sets up his rule.\nIf he died long ago\nWhy do you dread us so?\n\n_There in the tomb drops the faint moonlight,\nBut wind comes up from the shore:\nThey shake when the winds roar,\nOld bones upon the mountain shake._\n\nThe tower’s old cook that must climb and clamber\nCatching small birds in the dew of the morn\nWhen we hale men lie stretched in slumber\nSwears that he hears the king’s great horn.\nBut he’s a lying hound:\nStand we on guard oath-bound!\n\n_There in the tomb the dark grows blacker,\nBut wind comes up from the shore:\nThey shake when the winds roar,\nOld bones upon the mountain shake._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1939 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -122991,10 +128438,10 @@ "title": "“The Blessed”", "body": "Cumhal called out, bending his head,\nTill Dathi came and stood,\nWith a blink in his eyes, at the cave-mouth,\nBetween the wind and the wood.\n\nAnd Cumhal said, bending his knees,\n“I have come by the windy way\nTo gather the half of your blessedness\nAnd learn to pray when you pray.\n\nI can bring you salmon out of the streams\nAnd heron out of the skies.”\nBut Dathi folded his hands and smiled\nWith the secrets of God in his eyes.\n\nAnd Cumhal saw like a drifting smoke\nAll manner of blessed souls,\nWomen and children, young men with books,\nAnd old men with croziers and stoles.\n\n“Praise God and God’s Mother,” Dathi said,\n“For God and God’s Mother have sent\nThe blessedest souls that walk in the world\nTo fill your heart with content.”\n\n“And which is the blessedest,” Cumhal said,\n“Where all are comely and good?\nIs it these that with golden thuribles\nAre singing about the wood?”\n\n“My eyes are blinking,” Dathi said,\n“With the secrets of God half blind,\nBut I can see where the wind goes\nAnd follow the way of the wind;\n\nAnd blessedness goes where the wind goes,\nAnd when it is gone we are dead;\nI see the blessedest soul in the world\nAnd he nods a drunken head.\n\nO blessedness comes in the night and the day\nAnd whither the wise heart knows;\nAnd one has seen in the redness of wine\nThe Incorruptible Rose,\n\nThat drowsily drops faint leaves on him\nAnd the sweetness of desire,\nWhile time and the world are ebbing away\nIn twilights of dew and of fire.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1897 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123002,10 +128449,10 @@ "title": "“Blood and the Moon”", "body": "# I.\n\nBlessed be this place,\nMore blessed still this tower;\nA bloody, arrogant power\nRose out of the race\nUttering, mastering it,\nRose like these walls from these\nStorm-beaten cottages--\nIn mockery I have set\nA powerful emblem up,\nAnd sing it rhyme upon rhyme\nIn mockery of a time\nHalf dead at the top.\n\n\n# II.\n\nAlexandria’s was a beacon tower, and Babylon’s\nAn image of the moving heavens, a log-book of the sun’s journey and the moon’s;\nAnd Shelley had his towers, thought’s crowned powers he called them once.\n\nI declare this tower is my symbol; I declare\nThis winding, gyring, spiring treadmill of a stair is my ancestral stair;\nThat Goldsmith and the Dean, Berkeley and Burke have travelled there.\n\nSwift beating on his breast in sibylline frenzy blind\nBecause the heart in his blood-sodden breast had dragged him down into mankind,\nGoldsmith deliberately sipping at the honey-pot of his mind,\n\nAnd haughtier-headed Burke that proved the State a tree,\nThat this unconquerable labyrinth of the birds, century after century,\nCast but dead leaves to mathematical equality;\n\nAnd God-appointed Berkeley that proved all things a dream,\nThat this pragmatical, preposterous pig of a world, its farrow that so solid seem,\nMust vanish on the instant if the mind but change its theme;\n\nSaeva Indignatio and the labourer’s hire,\nThe strength that gives our blood and state magnanimity of its own desire;\nEverything that is not God consumed with intellectual fire.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThe purity of the unclouded moon\nHas flung its atrowy shaft upon the floor.\nSeven centuries have passed and it is pure,\nThe blood of innocence has left no stain.\nThere, on blood-saturated ground, have stood\nSoldier, assassin, executioner.\nWhether for daily pittance or in blind fear\nOr out of abstract hatred, and shed blood,\nBut could not cast a single jet thereon.\nOdour of blood on the ancestral stair!\nAnd we that have shed none must gather there\nAnd clamour in drunken frenzy for the moon.\n\n\n# IV.\n\nUpon the dusty, glittering windows cling,\nAnd seem to cling upon the moonlit skies,\nTortoiseshell butterflies, peacock butterflies,\nA couple of night-moths are on the wing.\nIs every modern nation like the tower,\nHalf dead at the top? No matter what I said,\nFor wisdom is the property of the dead,\nA something incompatible with life; and power,\nLike everything that has the stain of blood,\nA property of the living; but no stain\nCan come upon the visage of the moon\nWhen it has looked in glory from a cloud.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123013,10 +128460,10 @@ "title": "“Broken Dreams”", "body": "There is grey in your hair.\nYoung men no longer suddenly catch their breath\nWhen you are passing;\nBut maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing\nBecause it was your prayer\nRecovered him upon the bed of death.\nFor your sole sake--that all heart’s ache have known,\nAnd given to others all heart’s ache,\nFrom meagre girlhood’s putting on\nBurdensome beauty--for your sole sake\nHeaven has put away the stroke of her doom,\nSo great her portion in that peace you make\nBy merely walking in a room.\n\nYour beauty can but leave among us\nVague memories, nothing but memories.\nA young man when the old men are done talking\nWill say to an old man, “Tell me of that lady\nThe poet stubborn with his passion sang us\nWhen age might well have chilled his blood.”\n\nVague memories, nothing but memories,\nBut in the grave all, all, shall be renewed.\nThe certainty that I shall see that lady\nLeaning or standing or walking\nIn the first loveliness of womanhood,\nAnd with the fervour of my youthful eyes,\nHas set me muttering like a fool.\n\nYou are more beautiful than any one,\nAnd yet your body had a flaw:\nYour small hands were not beautiful,\nAnd I am afraid that you will run\nAnd paddle to the wrist\nIn that mysterious, always brimming lake\nWhere those What have obeyed the holy law\npaddle and are perfect. Leave unchanged\nThe hands that I have kissed,\nFor old sake’s sake.\n\nThe last stroke of midnight dies.\nAll day in the one chair\nFrom dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged\nIn rambling talk with an image of air:\nVague memories, nothing but memories.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123024,10 +128471,10 @@ "title": "“Brown Penny”", "body": "I whispered, “I am too young,”\nAnd then, “I am old enough”;\nWherefore I threw a penny\nTo find out if I might love.\n“Go and love, go and love, young man,\nIf the lady be young and fair.”\nAh, penny, brown penny, brown penny,\nI am looped in the loops of her hair.\n\nO love is the crooked thing,\nThere is nobody wise enough\nTo find out all that is in it,\nFor he would be thinking of love\nTill the stars had run away\nAnd the shadows eaten the moon.\nAh, penny, brown penny, brown penny,\nOne cannot begin it too soon.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123035,10 +128482,10 @@ "title": "“Byzantium”", "body": "The unpurged images of day recede;\nThe Emperor’s drunken soldiery are abed;\nNight resonance recedes, night walkers’ song\nAfter great cathedral gong;\nA starlit or a moonlit dome disdains\nAll that man is,\nAll mere complexities,\nThe fury and the mire of human veins.\n\nBefore me floats an image, man or shade,\nShade more than man, more image than a shade;\nFor Hades’ bobbin bound in mummy-cloth\nMay unwind the winding path;\nA mouth that has no moisture and no breath\nBreathless mouths may summon;\nI hail the superhuman;\nI call it death-in-life and life-in-death.\n\nMiracle, bird or golden handiwork,\nMore miraclc than bird or handiwork,\nPlanted on the star-lit golden bough,\nCan like the cocks of Hades crow,\nOr, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud\nIn glory of changeless metal\nCommon bird or petal\nAnd all complexities of mire or blood.\n\nAt midnight on the Emperor’s pavement flit\nFlames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,\nNor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,\nWhere blood-begotten spirits come\nAnd all complexities of fury leave,\nDying into a dance,\nAn agony of trance,\nAn agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.\n\nAstraddle on the dolphin’s mire and blood,\nSpirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood.\nThe golden smithies of the Emperor!\nMarbles of the dancing floor\nBreak bitter furies of complexity,\nThose images that yet\nFresh images beget,\nThat dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1932 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123046,10 +128493,10 @@ "title": "“The Cap and Bells”", "body": "The jester walked in the garden:\nThe garden had fallen still;\nHe bade his soul rise upward\nAnd stand on her window-sill.\n\nIt rose in a straight blue garment,\nWhen owls began to call:\nIt had grown wise-tongued by thinking\nOf a quiet and light footfall;\n\nBut the young queen would not listen;\nShe rose in her pale night-gown;\nShe drew in the heavy casement\nAnd pushed the latches down.\n\nHe bade his heart go to her,\nWhen the owls called out no more;\nIn a red and quivering garment\nIt sang to her through the door.\n\nIt had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming\nOf a flutter of flower-like hair;\nBut she took up her fan from the table\nAnd waved it off on the air.\n\n“I have cap and bells,” he pondered,\n“I will send them to her and die”;\nAnd when the morning whitened\nHe left them where she went by.\n\nShe laid them upon her bosom,\nUnder a cloud of her hair,\nAnd her red lips sang them a love-song\nTill stars grew out of the air.\n\nShe opened her door and her window,\nAnd the heart and the soul came through,\nTo her right hand came the red one,\nTo her left hand came the blue.\n\nThey set up a noise like crickets,\nA chattering wise and sweet,\nAnd her hair was a folded flower\nAnd the quiet of love in her feet.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1894 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -123060,10 +128507,10 @@ "title": "“The Cat and the Moon”", "body": "The cat went here and there\nAnd the moon spun round like a top,\nAnd the nearest kin of the moon,\nThe creeping cat, looked up.\nBlack Minnaloushe stared at the moon,\nFor, wander and wail as he would,\nThe pure cold light in the sky\nTroubled his animal blood.\nMinnaloushe runs in the grass\nLifting his delicate feet.\nDo you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?\nWhen two close kindred meet.\nWhat better than call a dance?\nMaybe the moon may learn,\nTired of that courtly fashion,\nA new dance turn.\nMinnaloushe creeps through the grass\nFrom moonlit place to place,\nThe sacred moon overhead\nHas taken a new phase.\nDoes Minnaloushe know that his pupils\nWill pass from change to change,\nAnd that from round to crescent,\nFrom crescent to round they range?\nMinnaloushe creeps through the grass\nAlone, important and wise,\nAnd lifts to the changing moon\nHis changing eyes.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123071,10 +128518,10 @@ "title": "“The Chambermaid’s First Song”", "body": "How came this ranger\nNow sunk in rest,\nStranger with stranger.\nOn my cold breast?\nWhat’s left to sigh for?\nStrange night has come;\n\nGod’s love has hidden him\nOut of all harm,\nPleasure has made him\nWeak as a worm.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123082,10 +128529,10 @@ "title": "“The Choice”", "body": "The intellect of man is forced to choose\nperfection of the life, or of the work,\nAnd if it take the second must refuse\nA heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.\nWhen all that story’s finished, what’s the news?\nIn luck or out the toil has left its mark:\nThat old perplexity an empty purse,\nOr the day’s vanity, the night’s remorse.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1932 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123093,10 +128540,10 @@ "title": "“The Circus Animal’s Desertion”", "body": "# I.\n\nI sought a theme and sought for it in vain,\nI sought it daily for six weeks or so.\nMaybe at last being but a broken man\nI must be satisfied with my heart, although\nWinter and summer till old age began\nMy circus animals were all on show,\nThose stilted boys, that burnished chariot,\nLion and woman and the Lord knows what.\n\n\n# II.\n\nWhat can I but enumerate old themes,\nFirst that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose\nThrough three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams,\nVain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose,\nThemes of the embittered heart, or so it seems,\nThat might adorn old songs or courtly shows;\nBut what cared I that set him on to ride,\nI, starved for the bosom of his fairy bride.\n\nAnd then a counter-truth filled out its play,\n_The Countess Cathleen_ was the name I gave it,\nShe, pity-crazed, had given her soul away\nBut masterful Heaven had intervened to save it.\nI thought my dear must her own soul destroy\nSo did fanaticism and hate enslave it,\nAnd this brought forth a dream and soon enough\nThis dream itself had all my thought and love.\n\nAnd when the Fool and Blind Man stole the bread\nCuchulain fought the ungovernable sea;\nHeart mysteries there, and yet when all is said\nIt was the dream itself enchanted me:\nCharacter isolated by a deed\nTo engross the present and dominate memory.\nPlayers and painted stage took all my love\nAnd not those things that they were emblems of.\n\n\n# III.\n\nThose masterful images because complete\nGrew in pure mind but out of what began?\nA mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,\nOld kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,\nOld iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut\nWho keeps the till. Now that my ladder’s gone\nI must lie down where all the ladders start\nIn the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1939 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123104,10 +128551,10 @@ "title": "“The Cloak, the Boat and the Shoes”", "body": "“What do you make so fair and bright?”\n\n“I make the cloak of Sorrow:\nO lovely to see in all men’s sight\nShall be the cloak of Sorrow,\nIn all men’s sight.”\n\n“What do you build with sails for flight?”\n\n“I build a boat for Sorrow:\nO swift on the seas all day and night\nSaileth the rover Sorrow,\nAll day and night.”\n\n“What do you weave with wool so white?”\n\n“I weave the shoes of Sorrow:\nSoundless shall be the footfall light\nIn all men’s ears of Sorrow,\nSudden and light.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1885 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123115,10 +128562,10 @@ "title": "“The Cold Heaven”", "body": "Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven\nThat seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice,\nAnd thereupon imagination and heart were driven\nSo wild that every casual thought of that and this\nVanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season\nWith the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago;\nAnd I took all the blame out of all sense and reason,\nUntil I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro,\nRiddled with light. Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken,\nConfusion of the death-bed over, is it sent\nOut naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken\nBy the injustice of the skies for punishment?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123126,10 +128573,10 @@ "title": "“The Collar-bone of a Hare”", "body": "Would I could cast a sad on the water\nWhere many a king has gone\nAnd many a king’s daughter,\nAnd alight at the comely trees and the lawn,\nThe playing upon pipes and the dancing,\nAnd learn that the best thing is\nTo change my loves while dancing\nAnd pay but a kiss for a kiss.\nI would find by the edge of that water\nThe collar-bone of a hare\nWorn thin by the lapping of water,\nAnd pierce it through with a gimlet, and stare\nAt the old bitter world where they marry in churches,\nAnd laugh over the untroubled water\nAt all who marry in churches,\nThrough the white thin bone of a hare.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123137,10 +128584,10 @@ "title": "“Colonel Martin”", "body": "# I.\n\nThe Colonel went out sailing.\nHe spoke with Turk and Jew,\nWith Christian and with Infidel,\nFor all tongues he knew.\n“O what’s a wifeless man?” said he,\nAnd he came sailing home.\nHe rose the latch and went upstairs\nAnd found an empty room.\n_The Colonel went out sailing._\n\n\n# II.\n\n“I kept her much in the country\nAnd she was much alone,\nAnd though she may be there,” he said,\n“She may be in the town.\nShe may be all alone there,\nFor who can say?” he said.\n“I think that I shall find her\nIn a young man’s bed.”\n_The Colonel went out sailing._\n\n\n# III.\n\nThe Colonel met a pedlar,\nAgreed their clothes to swop,\nAnd bought the grandest jewelry\nIn a Galway shop,\nInstead of thread and needle\nput jewelry in the pack,\nBound a thong about his hand,\nHitched it on his back.\n_The Colonel went out sailing._\n\n\n# IV.\n\nThe Colonel knocked on the rich man’s door,\n“I am sorry,” said the maid,\n“My mistress cannot see these things,\nBut she is still abed,\nAnd never have I looked upon\nJewelry so grand.”\n“Take all to your mistress,”\nAnd he laid them on her hand.\n_The Colonel went out sailing._\n\n\n# V.\n\nAnd he went in and she went on\nAnd both climbed up the stair,\nAnd O he was a clever man,\nFor he his slippers wore.\nAnd when they came to the top stair\nHe ran on ahead,\nHis wife he found and the rich man\nIn the comfort of a bed.\n_The Colonel went out sailing._\n\n\n# VI.\n\nThe Judge at the Assize Court,\nWhen he heard that story told,\nAwarded him for damages\nThree kegs of gold.\nThe Colonel said to Tom his man,\n“Harness an ass and cart,\nCarry the gold about the town,\nThrow it in every part.”\n_The Colonel went out sailing._\n\n\n# VII.\n\nAnd there at all street-corners\nA man with a pistol stood,\nAnd the rich man had paid them well\nTo shoot the Colonel dead;\nBut they threw down their pistols\nAnd all men heard them swear\nThat they could never shoot a man\nDid all that for the poor.\n_The Colonel went out sailing._\n\n\n# IX.\n\n“And did you keep no gold, Tom?\nYou had three kegs,” said he.\n“I never thought of that, Sir.”\n“Then want before you die.”\nAnd want he did; for my own grand-dad\nSaw the story’s end,\nAnd Tom make out a living\nFrom the seaweed on the strand.\n_The Colonel went out sailing._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1937 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123148,10 +128595,10 @@ "title": "“Coming of Wisdom with Time”", "body": "Though leaves are many, the root is one;\nThrough all the lying days of my youth\nI swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;\nNow I may wither into the truth.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123159,10 +128606,10 @@ "title": "“A Crazed Girl”", "body": "That crazed girl improvising her music.\nHer poetry, dancing upon the shore,\nHer soul in division from itself\nClimbing, falling She knew not where,\nHiding amid the cargo of a steamship,\nHer knee-cap broken, that girl I declare\nA beautiful lofty thing, or a thing\nHeroically lost, heroically found.\n\nNo matter what disaster occurred\nShe stood in desperate music wound,\nWound, wound, and she made in her triumph\nWhere the bales and the baskets lay\nNo common intelligible sound\nBut sang, “O sea-starved, hungry sea.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1937 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123170,10 +128617,10 @@ "title": "“The Crazed Moon”", "body": "Crazed through much child-bearing\nThe moon is staggering in the sky;\nMoon-struck by the despairing\nGlances of her wandering eye\nWe grope, and grope in vain,\nFor children born of her pain.\n\nChildren dazed or dead!\nWhen she in all her virginal pride\nFirst trod on the mountain’s head\nWhat stir ran through the countryside\nWhere every foot obeyed her glance!\nWhat manhood led the dance!\n\nFly-catchers of the moon,\nOur hands are blenched, our fingers seem\nBut slender needles of bone;\nBlenched by that malicious dream\nThey are spread wide that each\nMay rend what comes in reach.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1932 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123181,9 +128628,6 @@ "title": "“Crazy Jane and Jack the Journeyman”", "body": "I know, although when looks meet\nI tremble to the bone,\nThe more I leave the door unlatched\nThe sooner love is gone,\nFor love is but a skein unwound\nBetween the dark and dawn.\n\nA lonely ghost the ghost is\nThat to God shall come;\nI--love’s skein upon the ground,\nMy body in the tomb--\nShall leap into the light lost\nIn my mother’s womb.\n\nBut were I left to lie alone\nIn an empty bed,\nThe skein so bound us ghost to ghost\nWhen he turned his head\npassing on the road that night,\nMine must walk when dead.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1932 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -123192,6 +128636,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1932 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -123199,9 +128646,6 @@ "title": "“Crazy Jane and the Bishop”", "body": "Bring me to the blasted oak\nThat I, midnight upon the stroke,\n_(All find safety in the tomb.)_\nMay call down curses on his head\nBecause of my dear Jack that’s dead.\nCoxcomb was the least he said:\n_The solid man and the coxcomb._\n\nNor was he Bishop when his ban\nBanished Jack the Journeyman,\n_(All find safety in the tomb.)_\nNor so much as parish priest,\nYet he, an old book in his fist,\nCried that we lived like beast and beast:\n_The solid man and the coxcomb._\n\nThe Bishop has a skin, God knows,\nWrinkled like the foot of a goose,\n_(All find safety in the tomb.)_\nNor can he hide in holy black\nThe heron’s hunch upon his back,\nBut a birch tree stood my Jack:\n_The solid man and the coxcomb._\n\nJack had my virginity,\nAnd bids me to the oak, for he\n_(All find safety in the tomb.)_\nWanders out into the night\nAnd there is shelter under it,\nBut should that other come, I spit:\n_The solid man and the coxcomb._", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1930 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -123210,6 +128654,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1930 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -123217,9 +128664,6 @@ "title": "“Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks at the Dancers”", "body": "I found that ivory image there\nDancing with her chosen youth,\nBut when he wound her coal-black hair\nAs though to strangle her, no scream\nOr bodily movement did I dare,\nEyes under eyelids did so gleam;\n_Love is like the lion’s tooth._\n\nWhen She, and though some said she played\nI said that she had danced heart’s truth,\nDrew a knife to strike him dead,\nI could but leave him to his fate;\nFor no matter what is said\nThey had all that had their hate;\n_Love is like the lion’s tooth._\n\nDid he die or did she die?\nSeemed to die or died they both?\nGod be with the times when I\nCared not a thraneen for what chanced\nSo that I had the limbs to try\nSuch a dance as there was danced--\n_Love is like the lion’s tooth._", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1930 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -123228,6 +128672,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1930 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -123235,9 +128682,6 @@ "title": "“Crazy Jane on God”", "body": "That lover of a night\nCame when he would,\nWent in the dawning light\nWhether I would or no;\nMen come, men go;\n_All things remain in God._\n\nBanners choke the sky;\nMen-at-arms tread;\nArmoured horses neigh\nIn the narrow pass:\n_All things remain in God._\n\nBefore their eyes a house\nThat from childhood stood\nUninhabited, ruinous,\nSuddenly lit up\nFrom door to top:\n_All things remain in God._\n\nI had wild Jack for a lover;\nThough like a road\nThat men pass over\nMy body makes no moan\nBut sings on:\n_All things remain in God._", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1932 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -123246,6 +128690,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1932 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -123253,9 +128700,6 @@ "title": "“Crazy Jane on the Day of Judgment”", "body": "“Love is all\nUnsatisfied\nThat cannot take the whole\nBody and soul”;\n_And that is what Jane said._\n\n“Take the sour\nIf you take me\nI can scoff and lour\nAnd scold for an hour.”\n_“That’s certainly the case,” said he._\n\n“Naked I lay,\nThe grass my bed;\nNaked and hidden away,\nThat black day”;\n_And that is what Jane said._\n\n“What can be shown?\nWhat true love be?\nAll could be known or shown\nIf Time were but gone.”\n_“That’s certainly the case,” said he._", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1932 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -123264,6 +128708,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1932 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -123271,10 +128718,10 @@ "title": "“Crazy Jane on the Mountain”", "body": "I am tired of cursing the Bishop,\n(Said Crazy Jane)\nNine books or nine hats\nWould not make him a man.\nI have found something worse\nTo meditate on.\nA King had some beautiful cousins.\nBut where are they gone?\nBattered to death in a cellar,\nAnd he stuck to his throne.\nLast night I lay on the mountain.\n(Said Crazy Jane)\nThere in a two-horsed carriage\nThat on two wheels ran\nGreat-bladdered Emer sat.\nHer violent man\nCuchulain sat at her side;\nThereupon\nPropped upon my two knees,\nI kissed a stone\nI lay stretched out in the dirt\nAnd I cried tears down.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1939 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123282,9 +128729,6 @@ "title": "“Crazy Jane Reproved”", "body": "I care not what the sailors say:\nAll those dreadful thunder-stones,\nAll that storm that blots the day\nCan but show that Heaven yawns;\nGreat Europa played the fool\nThat changed a lover for a bull.\n_Fol de rol, fol de rol._\n\nTo round that shell’s elaborate whorl,\nAdorning every secret track\nWith the delicate mother-of-pearl,\nMade the joints of Heaven crack:\nSo never hang your heart upon\nA roaring, ranting journeyman.\n_Fol de rol, fol de rol._", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1930 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -123293,6 +128737,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1930 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -123300,9 +128747,6 @@ "title": "“Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop”", "body": "I met the Bishop on the road\nAnd much said he and I.\n“Those breasts are flat and fallen now,\nThose veins must soon be dry;\nLive in a heavenly mansion,\nNot in some foul sty.”\n\n“Fair and foul are near of kin,\nAnd fair needs foul,” I cried.\n“My friends are gone, but that’s a truth\nNor grave nor bed denied,\nLearned in bodily lowliness\nAnd in the heart’s pride.”\n\n“A woman can be proud and stiff\nWhen on love intent;\nBut Love has pitched his mansion in\nThe place of excrement;\nFor nothing can be sole or whole\nThat has not been rent.”", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1933 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -123311,6 +128755,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1933 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -123318,10 +128765,10 @@ "title": "“Cuchulain Comforted”", "body": "A man that had six mortal wounds, a man\nViolent and famous, strode among the dead;\nEyes stared out of the branches and were gone.\n\nThen certain Shrouds that muttered head to head\nCame and were gone. He leant upon a tree\nAs though to meditate on wounds and blood.\n\nA Shroud that seemed to have authority\nAmong those bird-like things came, and let fall\nA bundle of linen. Shrouds by two and thrce\n\nCame creeping up because the man was still.\nAnd thereupon that linen-carrier said:\n“Your life can grow much sweeter if you will\n\nObey our ancient rule and make a shroud;\nMainly because of what we only know\nThe rattle of those arms makes us afraid.\n\nWe thread the needles’ eyes, and all we do\nAll must together do.” That done, the man\nTook up the nearest and began to sew.\n\n“Now must we sing and sing the best we can,\nBut first you must be told our character:\nConvicted cowards all, by kindred slain\n\nOr driven from home and left to dic in fear.”\nThey sang, but had nor human tunes nor words,\nThough all was done in common as before;\n\nThey had changed their thtoats and had the throats of birds.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1939 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123329,10 +128776,10 @@ "title": "“The Curse of Cromwell”", "body": "You ask what--I have found, and far and wide I go:\nNothing but Cromwell’s house and Cromwell’s murderous crew,\nThe lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay,\nAnd the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen,\nwhere are they?\nAnd there is an old beggar wandering in his pride--\nHis fathers served their fathers before Christ was\ncrucified.\n_O what of that, O what of that,\nWhat is there left to say?_\n\nAll neighbourly content and easy talk are gone,\nBut there’s no good complaining, for money’s rant is\non.\nHe that’s mounting up must on his neighbour mount,\nAnd we and all the Muses are things of no account.\nThey have schooling of their own, but I pass their\nschooling by,\nWhat can they know that we know that know the\ntime to die?\n_O what of that, O what of that,\nWhat is there left to say?_\n\nBut there’s another knowledge that my heart destroys,\nAs the fox in the old fable destroyed the Spartan boy’s\nBecause it proves that things both can and cannot be;\nThat the swordsmen and the ladies can still keep company,\nCan pay the poet for a verse and hear the fiddle sound,\nThat I am still their servant though all are underground.\n_O what of that, O what of that,\nWhat is there left to say?_\n\nI came on a great house in the middle of the night,\nIts open lighted doorway and its windows all alight,\nAnd all my friends were there and made me welcome\ntoo;\nBut I woke in an old ruin that the winds howled through;\nAnd when I pay attention I must out and walk\nAmong the dogs and horses that understand my talk.\n_O what of that, O what of that,\nWhat is there left to say?_", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1937 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123340,10 +128787,10 @@ "title": "“The Dawn”", "body": "I would be as ignorant as the dawn,\nThat has looked down\nOn that old queen measuring a town\nWith the pin of a brooch,\nOr on the withered men that saw\nFrom their pedantic Babylon\nThe careless planets in their courses,\nThe stars fade out where the moon comes,\nAnd took their tablets and made sums--\nYet did but look, rocking the glittering coach\nAbove the cloudy shoulders of the horses.\nI would be--for no knowledge is worth a straw--\nIgnorant and wanton as the dawn.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1916 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123351,10 +128798,10 @@ "title": "“Death”", "body": "Nor dread nor hope attend\nA dying animal;\nA man awaits his end\nDreading and hoping all;\nMany times he died,\nMany times rose again.\nA great man in his pride\nConfronting murderous men\nCasts derision upon\nSupersession of breath;\nHe knows death to the bone--\nMan has created death.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1929 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123362,10 +128809,10 @@ "title": "“The Death of Cuchulain”", "body": "A man came slowly from the setting sun\nTo Forgail’s daughter Emer in her dun\nAnd found her dyeing cloth with subtle care\nAnd said casting aside his draggled hair:\n“I am Aleel the swineherd whom you bid\nGo dwell upon the sea cliffs vapour hid;\nBut now my years of watching are no more.”\n\nThen Emer cast the web upon the floor\nAnd stretching out her arms red with the dye\nParted her lips with a loud sudden cry.\n\nLooking on her Aleel the swineherd said:\n“Not any god alive nor mortal dead\nHas slain so mighty armies so great kings\nNor won the gold that now Cuchulain brings.”\n\n“Why do you tremble thus from feet to crown?”\n\nAleel the swineherd wept and cast him down\nUpon the web-heaped floor and thus his word:\n“With him is one sweet-throated like a bird.”\n\n“Who bade you tell these things?” and then she cried\nTo those about “Beat him with thongs of hide\nAnd drive him from the door.”\n\nAnd thus it was:\nAnd where her son Finmole on the smooth grass\nWas driving cattle came she with swift feet\nAnd called out to him “Son it is not meet\nThat you stay idling here with flocks and herds.”\n\n“I have long waited mother for those words:\nBut wherefore now?”\n\n“There is a man to die;\nYou have the heaviest arm under the sky.”\n\n“My father dwells among the sea-worn bands\nAnd breaks the ridge of battle with his hands.”\n\n“Nay you are taller than Cuchulain son.”\n\n“He is the mightiest man in ship or dun.”\n\n“Nay he is old and sad with many wars\nAnd weary of the crash of battle cars.”\n\n“I only ask what way my journey lies\nFor God who made you bitter made you wise.”\n\n“The Red Branch kings a tireless banquet keep\nWhere the sun falls into the Western deep.\nGo there and dwell on the green forest rim;\nBut tell alone your name and house to him\nWhose blade compels and bid them send you one\nWho has a like vow from their triple dun.”\n\nBetween the lavish shelter of a wood\nAnd the gray tide the Red Branch multitude\nFeasted and with them old Cuchulain dwelt\nAnd his young dear one close beside him knelt\nAnd gazed upon the wisdom of his eyes\nMore mournful than the depth of starry skies\nAnd pondered on the wonder of his days;\nAnd all around the harp-string told his praise\nAnd Concobar the Red Branch king of kings\nWith his own fingers touched the brazen strings.\nAt last Cuchulain spake “A young man strays\nDriving the deer along the woody ways.\nI often hear him singing to and fro\nI often hear the sweet sound of his bow\nSeek out what man he is.”\n\nOne went and came.\n“He bade me let all know he gives his name\nAt the sword point and bade me bring him one\nWho had a like vow from our triple dun.”\n\n“I only of the Red Branch hosted now,”\nCuchulain cried, “have made and keep that vow.”\n\nAfter short fighting in the leafy shade\nHe spake to the young man “Is there no maid\nWho loves you no white arms to wrap you round\nOr do you long for the dim sleepy ground\nThat you come here to meet this ancient sword?”\n\n“The dooms of men are in God’s hidden hoard.”\n\n“Your head a while seemed like a woman’s head\nThat I loved once.”\n\nAgain the fighting sped\nBut now the war rage in Cuchulain woke\nAnd through the other’s shield his long blade broke\nAnd pierced him.\n\n“Speak before your breath is done.\nI am Finmole, mighty Cuchulain’s son.”\n\n“I put you from your pain. I can no more.”\n\nWhile day its burden on to evening bore\nWith head bowed on his knees Cuchulain stayed;\nThen Concobar sent that sweet-throated maid\nAnd she to win him his gray hair caressed;\nIn vain her arms in vain her soft white breast.\nThen Concobar the subtlest of all men\nRanking his Druids round him ten by ten\nSpake thus “Cuchulain will dwell there and brood\nFor three days more in dreadful quietude\nAnd then arise and raving slay us all.\nGo cast on him delusions magical\nThat he might fight the waves of the loud sea.”\nAnd ten by ten under a quicken tree\nThe Druids chaunted swaying in their hands\nTall wands of alder and white quicken wands.\n\nIn three days’ time Cuchulain with a moan\nStood up and came to the long sands alone:\nFor four days warred he with the bitter tide;\nAnd the waves flowed above him and he died.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1892 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123373,10 +128820,10 @@ "title": "“A Deep-Sworn Vow”", "body": "Others because you did not keep\nThat deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;\nYet always when I look death in the face,\nWhen I clamber to the heights of sleep,\nOr when I grow excited with wine,\nSuddenly I meet your face.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123384,10 +128831,10 @@ "title": "“A Dialogue of Self and Soul”", "body": "# I.\n\n> _My Soul:_\n\nI summon to the winding ancient stair;\nSet all your mind upon the steep ascent,\nUpon the broken, crumbling battlement,\nUpon the breathless starlit air,\nUpon the star that marks the hidden pole;\nFix every wandering thought upon\nThat quarter where all thought is done:\nWho can distinguish darkness from the soul?\n\n\n> _My Self:_\n\nThe consecrated blade upon my knees\nIs Sato’s ancient blade, still as it was,\nStill razor-keen, still like a looking-glass\nUnspotted by the centuries;\nThat flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn\nFrom some court-lady’s dress and round\nThe wooden scabbard bound and wound,\nCan, tattered, still protect, faded adorn.\n\n\n> _My Soul:_\n\nWhy should the imagination of a man\nLong past his prime remember things that are\nEmblematical of love and war?\nThink of ancestral night that can,\nIf but imagination scorn the earth\nAnd intellect its wandering\nTo this and that and t’other thing,\nDeliver from the crime of death and birth.\n\n\n> _My Self:_\n\nMontashigi, third of his family, fashioned it\nFive hundred years ago, about it lie\nFlowers from I know not what embroidery--\nHeart’s purple--and all these I set\nFor emblems of the day against the tower\nEmblematical of the night,\nAnd claim as by a soldier’s right\nA charter to commit the crime once more.\n\n\n> _My Soul:_\n\nSuch fullness in that quarter overflows\nAnd falls into the basin of the mind\nThat man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,\nFor intellect no longer knows\nIs from the Ought, or Knower from the Known--\nThat is to say, ascends to Heaven;\nOnly the dead can be forgiven;\nBut when I think of that my tongue’s a stone.\n\n\n# II.\n\n> _My Self:_\n\nA living man is blind and drinks his drop.\nWhat matter if the ditches are impure?\nWhat matter if I live it all once more?\nEndure that toil of growing up;\nThe ignominy of boyhood; the distress\nOf boyhood changing into man;\nThe unfinished man and his pain\nBrought face to face with his own clumsiness;\n\nThe finished man among his enemies?--\nHow in the name of Heaven can he escape\nThat defiling and disfigured shape\nThe mirror of malicious eyes\nCasts upon his eyes until at last\nHe thinks that shape must be his shape?\nAnd what’s the good of an escape\nIf honour find him in the wintry blast?\n\nI am content to live it all again\nAnd yet again, if it be life to pitch\nInto the frog-spawn of a blind man’s ditch,\nA blind man battering blind men;\nOr into that most fecund ditch of all,\nThe folly that man does\nOr must suffer, if he woos\nA proud woman not kindred of his soul.\n\nI am content to follow to its source\nEvery event in action or in thought;\nMeasure the lot; forgive myself the lot!\nWhen such as I cast out remorse\nSo great a sweetness flows into the breast\nWe must laugh and we must sing,\nWe are blest by everything,\nEverything we look upon is blest.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1929 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123395,10 +128842,10 @@ "title": "“The Dolls”", "body": "A doll in the doll-maker’s house\nLooks at the cradle and bawls:\n“That is an insult to us.”\nBut the oldest of all the dolls,\nWho had seen, being kept for show,\nGenerations of his sort,\nOut-screams the whole shelf: “Although\nThere’s not a man can report\nEvil of this place,\nThe man and the woman bring\nHither, to our disgrace,\nA noisy and filthy thing.”\nHearing him groan and stretch\nThe doll-maker’s wife is aware\nHer husband has heard the wretch,\nAnd crouched by the arm of his chair,\nShe murmurs into his ear,\nHead upon shoulder leant:\n“My dear, my dear, O dear,\nIt was an accident.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123406,10 +128853,10 @@ "title": "“Down by the Salley Gardens”", "body": "Down by the salley gardens\nmy love and I did meet;\nShe passed the salley gardens\nwith little snow-white feet.\nShe bid me take love easy,\nas the leaves grow on the tree;\nBut I, being young and foolish,\nwith her would not agree.\n\nIn a field by the river\nmy love and I did stand,\nAnd on my leaning shoulder\nshe laid her snow-white hand.\nShe bid me take life easy,\nas the grass grows on the weirs;\nBut I was young and foolish,\nand now am full of tears.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1886 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -123420,10 +128867,10 @@ "title": "“A Dream of Death”", "body": "I dreamed that one had died in a strange place\nNear no accustomed hand;\nAnd they had nailed the boards above her face\nThe peasants of that land\nWondering to lay her in that solitude\nAnd raised above her mound\nA cross they had made out of two bits of wood\nAnd planted cypress round;\nAnd left her to the indifferent stars above\nUntil I carved these words:\n_She was more beautiful than thy first love\nBut now lies under boards_.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1892 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123431,10 +128878,10 @@ "title": "“A Drinking Song”", "body": "Wine comes in at the mouth\nAnd love comes in at the eye;\nThat’s all we shall know for truth\nBefore we grow old and die.\nI lift the glass to my mouth,\nI look at you, and I sigh.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123442,10 +128889,10 @@ "title": "“A Drunken Man’s Praise of Sobriety”", "body": "Come swish around, my pretty punk,\nAnd keep me dancing still\nThat I may stay a sober man\nAlthough I drink my fill.\nSobriety is a jewel\nThat I do much adore;\nAnd therefore keep me dancing\nThough drunkards lie and snore.\nO mind your feet, O mind your feet,\nKeep dancing like a wave,\nAnd under every dancer\nA dead man in his grave.\nNo ups and downs, my pretty,\nA mermaid, not a punk;\nA drunkard is a dead man,\nAnd all dead men are drunk.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123453,10 +128900,10 @@ "title": "“Easter”", "body": "I have met them at close of day\nComing with vivid faces\nFrom counter or desk among grey\nEighteenth-century houses.\nI have passed with a nod of the head\nOr polite meaningless words,\nOr have lingered awhile and said\nPolite meaningless words,\nAnd thought before I had done\nOf a mocking tale or a gibe\nTo please a companion\nAround the fire at the club,\nBeing certain that they and I\nBut lived where motley is worn:\nAll changed, changed utterly:\nA terrible beauty is born.\n\nThat woman’s days were spent\nIn ignorant good-will,\nHer nights in argument\nUntil her voice grew shrill.\nWhat voice more sweet than hers\nWhen, young and beautiful,\nShe rode to harriers?\nThis man had kept a school\nAnd rode our winged horse;\nThis other his helper and friend\nWas coming into his force;\nHe might have won fame in the end,\nSo sensitive his nature seemed,\nSo daring and sweet his thought.\nThis other man I had dreamed\nA drunken, vainglorious lout.\nHe had done most bitter wrong\nTo some who are near my heart,\nYet I number him in the song;\nHe, too, has resigned his part\nIn the casual comedy;\nHe, too, has been changed in his turn,\nTransformed utterly:\nA terrible beauty is born.\n\nHearts with one purpose alone\nThrough summer and winter seem\nEnchanted to a stone\nTo trouble the living stream.\nThe horse that comes from the road.\nThe rider, the birds that range\nFrom cloud to tumbling cloud,\nMinute by minute they change;\nA shadow of cloud on the stream\nChanges minute by minute;\nA horse-hoof slides on the brim,\nAnd a horse plashes within it;\nThe long-legged moor-hens dive,\nAnd hens to moor-cocks call;\nMinute by minute they live:\nThe stone’s in the midst of all.\n\nToo long a sacrifice\nCan make a stone of the heart.\nO when may it suffice?\nThat is Heaven’s part, our part\nTo murmur name upon name,\nAs a mother names her child\nWhen sleep at last has come\nOn limbs that had run wild.\nWhat is it but nightfall?\nNo, no, not night but death;\nWas it needless death after all?\nFor England may keep faith\nFor all that is done and said.\nWe know their dream; enough\nTo know they dreamed and are dead;\nAnd what if excess of love\nBewildered them till they died?\nI write it out in a verse--\nMacDonagh and MacBride\nAnd Connolly and Pearse\nNow and in time to be,\nWherever green is worn,\nAre changed, changed utterly:\nA terrible beauty is born.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "easter_sunday" @@ -123467,10 +128914,10 @@ "title": "“Ego Dominus Tuus”", "body": "> _Hic_\n\nOn the grey sand beside the shallow stream,\nUnder your old wind-beaten tower, where still\nA lamp burns on beside the open book\nThat Michael Robartes left, you walk in the moon;\nAnd though you have passed the best of life still trace,\nEnthralled by the unconquerable delusion,\nMagical shapes.\n\n\n> _Ille_\n\nBy the help of an image\nI call to my own opposite, summon all\nThat I have handled least, least looked upon.\n\n\n> _Hic_\n\nAnd I would find myself and not an image.\n\n\n> _Ille_\n\nThat is our modern hope, and by its light\nWe have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind\nAnd lost the old nonchalance of the hand.\nWhether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush\nWe are but critics, or but half create,\nTimid, entangled, empty and abashed,\nLacking the countenance of our friends.\n\n\n> _Hic_\n\nAnd yet\nThe chief imagination of christendom\nDante Alighieri so utterly found himself\nThat he has made that hollow face of his\nMore plain to the mind’s eye than any face\nBut that of Christ.\n\n\n> _Ille_\n\nAnd did he find himself,\nOr was the hunger that had made it hollow\nA hunger for the apple on the bough\nMost out of reach? and is that spectral image\nThe man that Lapo and that Guido knew?\nI think he fashioned from his opposite\nAn image that might have been a stony face,\nStaring upon a bedouin’s horse-hair roof\nFrom doored and windowed cliff, or half upturned\nAmong the coarse grass and the camel dung.\nHe set his chisel to the hardest stone.\nBeing mocked by Guido for his lecherous life,\nDerided and deriding, driven out\nTo climb that stair and eat that bitter bread,\nHe found the unpersuadable justice, he found\nThe most exalted lady loved by a man.\n\n\n> _Hic_\n\nYet surely there are men who have made their art\nOut of no tragic war--lovers of life,\nImpulsive men that look for happiness\nAnd sing when they have found it.\n\n\n> _Ille_\n\nNo, not sing;\nFor those that love the world serve it in action,\nGrow rich, popular and full of influence,\nAnd should they paint or write still it is action:\nThe struggle of the fly in marmalade.\nThe rhetorician would deceive his neighbors,\nThe sentimentalist himself; while art\nIs but a vision of reality.\nWhat portion in the world can the artist have\nWho has awakened from the common dream,\nBut dissipation and despair?\n\n\n> _Hic_\n\nAnd yet\nNo one denies to Keats love of the world.\nRemember his deliberate happiness.\n\n\n> _Ille_\n\nHis art is happy, but who knows his mind?\nI see a school-boy when I think of him\nWith face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window.\nFor certainly he sank into his grave\nHis senses and his heart unsatisfied,\nAnd made--being poor, ailing and ignorant,\nShut out from all the luxury of the world,\nThe ill-bred son of a livery-stable keeper--\nLuxuriant song.\n\n\n> _Hic_\n\nWhy should you leave the lamp\nBurning alone beside an open book,\nAnd trace these characters upon the sands?\nA style is found by sedentary toil\nAnd by the imitation of great masters.\n\n\n> _Ille_\n\nBecause I seek an image not a book,\nThose men that in their writings are most wise\nOwn nothing but their blind, stupified hearts.\nI call to the mysterious one who yet\nShall walk the wet sands by the edge of the stream\nAnd look most like me, being indeed my double,\nAnd prove if all imaginable things\nThe most unlike, being my anti-self,\nAnd standing by these characters disclose\nAll that I seek: and whisper it as though\nHe were afraid the birds, who cry aloud\nTheir momentary cries before it is dawn,\nWould carry it away to blasphemous men.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123478,10 +128925,10 @@ "title": "“Ephemera”", "body": "“Your eyes that once were never weary of mine\nAre bowed in sotrow under pendulous lids,\nBecause our love is waning.” And then She:\n“Although our love is waning, let us stand\nBy the lone border of the lake once more,\nTogether in that hour of gentleness\nWhen the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep.\nHow far away the stars seem, and how far\nIs our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!”\n\nPensive they paced along the faded leaves,\nWhile slowly he whose hand held hers replied:\n“Passion has often worn our wandering hearts.”\n\nThe woods were round them, and the yellow leaves\nFell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once\nA rabbit old and lame limped down the path;\nAutumn was over him: and now they stood\nOn the lone border of the lake once more:\nTurning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves\nGathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,\nIn bosom and hair. “Ah, do not mourn,” he said,\n“That we are tired, for other loves await us;\nHate on and love through unrepining hours.\nBefore us lies eternity; our souls\nAre love, and a continual farewell.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1889 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -123492,10 +128939,10 @@ "title": "“Fallen Majesty”", "body": "Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,\nAnd even old men’s eyes grew dim, this hand alone,\nLike some last courtier at a gypsy camping-place\nBabbling of fallen majesty, records what’s gone.\n\nThese lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet,\nThese, these remain, but I record what’s gone. A crowd\nWill gather, and not know it walks the very street\nWhereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123503,10 +128950,10 @@ "title": "“The Falling of the Leaves”", "body": "Autumn is over the long leaves that love us\nAnd over the mice in the barley sheaves;\nYellow the leaves of the rowan above us\nAnd yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.\n\nThe hour of the waning of love has beset us\nAnd weary and worn are our sad souls now;\nLet us part ere the season of passion forget us\nWith a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1889 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -123540,10 +128987,10 @@ "title": "“The Fisherman”", "body": "Although I can see him still--\nThe freckled man who goes\nTo a gray place on a hill\nIn gray Connemara clothes\nAt dawn to cast his flies--\nIt’s long since I began\nTo call up to the eyes\nThis wise and simple man.\nAll day I’d looked in the face\nWhat I had hoped it would be\nTo write for my own race\nAnd the reality:\nThe living men that I hate,\nThe dead man that I loved,\nThe craven man in his seat,\nThe insolent unreproved--\nAnd no knave brought to book\nWho has won a drunken cheer--\nThe witty man and his joke\nAimed at the commonest ear,\nThe clever man who cries\nThe catch cries of the clown,\nThe beating down of the wise\nAnd great Art beaten down.\n\nMaybe a twelve-month since\nSuddenly I began,\nIn scorn of this audience,\nImagining a man,\nAnd his sun-freckled face\nAnd gray Connemara cloth,\nClimbing up to a place\nWhere stone is dark with froth,\nAnd the down turn of his wrist\nWhen the flies drop in the stream--\nA man who does not exist,\nA man who is but a dream;\nAnd cried, “Before I am old\nI shall have written him one\nPoem maybe as cold\nAnd passionate as the dawn.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1916 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123566,10 +129013,10 @@ "title": "“The Folly of Being Comforted”", "body": "One that is ever kind said yesterday:\n“Your well-beloved’s hair has threads of grey,\nAnd little shadows come about her eyes;\nTime can but make it easier to be wise\nThough now it seems impossible, and so\nAll that you need is patience.” Heart cries, “No,\nI have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.\nTime can but make her beauty over again:\nBecause of that great nobleness of hers\nThe fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,\nBurns but more clearly. O she had not these ways\nWhen all the wild Summer was in her gaze.”\n\nHeart! O heart! if she’d but turn her head,\nYou’d know the folly of being comforted.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1902 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -123588,10 +129035,10 @@ "title": "“For Anne Gregory”", "body": "“Never shall a young man,\nThrown into despair\nBy those great honey-coloured\nRamparts at your ear,\nLove you for yourself alone\nAnd not your yellow hair.”\n\n“But I can get a hair-dye\nAnd set such colour there,\nBrown, or black, or carrot,\nThat young men in despair\nMay love me for myself alone\nAnd not my yellow hair.”\n\n“I heard an old religious man\nBut yesternight declare\nThat he had found a text to prove\nThat only God, my dear,\nCould love you for yourself alone\nAnd not your yellow hair.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1932 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123599,10 +129046,10 @@ "title": "“The Four Ages of Man”", "body": "He with body waged a fight,\nBut body won; it walks upright.\n\nThen he struggled with the heart,\nInnocence and peace depart.\n\nThen he struggled with the mind;\nHis proud heart he left behind.\n\nNow his wars on God begin,\nAt stroke of midnight God shall win.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -123613,10 +129060,10 @@ "title": "“Fragments”", "body": "# I.\n\nLocke sank into a swoon;\nThe Garden died;\nGod took the spinning-jenny\nOut of his side.\n\n\n# II.\n\nWhere got I that truth?\nOut of a medium’s mouth.\nOut of nothing it came,\nOut of the forest loam,\nOut of dark night where lay\nThe crowns of Nineveh.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1931 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123624,9 +129071,6 @@ "title": "“Girl’s Song”", "body": "I went out alone\nTo sing a song or two,\nMy fancy on a man,\nAnd you know who.\n\nAnother came in sight\nThat on a stick relied\nTo hold himself upright;\nI sat and cried.\n\nAnd that was all my song--\nWhen everything is told,\nSaw I an old man young\nOr young man old?", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1930 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -123635,6 +129079,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1930 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -123642,10 +129089,10 @@ "title": "“The Grey Rock”", "body": "_Poets with whom I learned my trade.\nCompanions of the Cheshire Cheese,\nHere’s an old story I’ve remade,\nImagining ’twould better please\nYour ears than stories now in fashion.\nThough you may think I waste my breath\nPretending that there can be passion\nThat has more life in it than death,\nThough at the bottling of your wine\nThe bow-legged Goban had no say;\nThe moral’s yours because it’s mine._\n\nWhen cups went round at close of day\nIs not that how good stories run?\nSomewhere within some hollow hill,\nIf books speak truth, in Slievenamon\nBut let that be--the gods were still\nAnd sleepy having had their meal:\nAnd smoky torches made a glare\nOn painted pillars, on a deal\nOf old stringed instruments, hung there\nBy the ancient holy hands that brought them\nFrom murmuring Murias; on cups\nOld Goban hammered them and wrought them,\nAnd put his pattern round their tops\nTo hold the wine they buy of him.\nBut from the juice that made them wise\nAll those had lifted up the dim\nImaginations of their eyes;\nFor one that was like woman made\nBefore their sleepy eyelids ran,\nAnd trembling with her passion said:\n“Come out and dig for a dead man,\nWho’s burrowing somewhere in the ground;\nAnd mock him to his face, and then\nHollo him on with horse and hound,\nFor he is the worst of all dead men.”\n\n_We should be dared and terror struck\nIf we but saw in dreams that room\nAnd those fierce eyes, and curse our luck\nThat emptied all our days to come.\nI knew a woman none could please\nBecause she dreamed when but a child\nOf men and women made like these;\nAnd after, when her blood ran wild,\nHad ravelled her own story out,\nAnd said, “In two or in three years\nI need must marry some poor lout,”\nAnd having said it burst in tears.\nSince, tavern comrades, you have died\nMaybe your images have stood,\nMere bone and muscle thrown aside,\nBefore that roomful or as good.\n“’Twas wine or women or some curse\nBut never made a boorer song\nThat you might have a heavier purse;\nNor gave loud service to a cause\nThat you might have a troop of friends.\nYou kept the Muses’ sterner laws\nAnd unrepenting faced your ends;\nAnd therefore earned the right\nand yet\nDowson and Tohnson most I praise\nTo troop with those the world’s forgot,\nAnd copy their proud steady gaze._”\n\n“The Danish troop was driven put\nBetween the dawn and dusk,” she said;\n“Although the event was long in doubt,\nAlthough the King of Ireland’s dead\nAnd half his kings, before sundown\nAll was accomplished.”\n\nWhen this day\nMurrough the King of Ireland’s son\nFoot after foot was giving way,\nHe and his best troops back to back\nHad perished there, but the Danes ran\nStricken with panic from the attack,\nThe shouting of an unseen man;\nAnd, being thankful, Murrough found,\nLed by a foot-sole dipped in blood\nThat had made prints upon the ground,\nWhere by old thorn trees that man stood;\nAnd though when he gazed here and there\nHe had but gazed on thorn trees, spoke:\n“Who is the friend that seems but air\nAnd yet could give so fine a stroke?”\nThereon a young man met his eye\nWho said, “Because she held me in\nHer love and would not have me die,\nRock-nurtured Aoife took a pin\nAnd pushing it into my shirt\nPromised that for a pin’s sake\nNo man should see to do me hurt;\nBut there it’s gone; I will not take\nThe fortune that had been my shame,\nSeeing, King’s son, what wounds you have.\n’Twas roundly spoke, but when night came\nHe had betrayed me to his grave,\nFor he and the King’s son were dead.\nI’d promised him two hundred years,\nAnd when, for all I’d done or said\nAnd these immortal eyes shed tears\nHe claimed his country’s need was most.\nI’d saved his life, yet for the sake\nOf a new friend he has turned a ghost.\nWhat does he care if my heart break?\nI call for spade and horse and hound\nThat we may harry him.” Thereon\nShe cast herself upon the ground\nAnd rent her clothes and made her moan:\n“Why are they faithless when their might\nIs from the holy shades that rove\nThe grey rock and the windy light?\nWhy should the faithfulest heart most love\nThe bitter sweetness of false faces?\nWhy must the lasting love what passes?\nWhy are the gods by men betrayed!”\nBut thereon every god stood up\nWith a slow smile and without sound,\nAnd, stretching forth his arm and cup\nTo where she moaned upon the ground,\nSuddenly drenched her to the skin;\nAnd she with Goban’s wine adrip,\nNo more remembering what had been,\nStared at the gods with laughing lip.\n\n_I have kept my faith, though faith was tried,\nTo that rock-born, rock-wandering foot;\nAnd the world’s altered since you died,\nAnd I am in no good repute\nWith the loud host before the sea,\nThat think sword strokes were better meant\nThan lover’s music:--let that be,\nSo that the wandering foot’s content._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123653,10 +129100,10 @@ "title": "“The Gyres”", "body": "The gyres! the gyres! Old Rocky Face, look forth;\nThings thought too long can be no longer thought,\nFor beauty dies of beauty, worth of worth,\nAnd ancient lineaments are blotted out.\nIrrational streams of blood are staining earth;\nEmpedocles has thrown all things about;\nHector is dead and there’s a light in Troy;\nWe that look on but laugh in tragic joy.\n\nWhat matter though numb nightmare ride on top,\nAnd blood and mire the sensitive body stain?\nWhat matter? Heave no sigh, let no tear drop,\nA-greater, a more gracious time has gone;\nFor painted forms or boxes of make-up\nIn ancient tombs I sighed, but not again;\nWhat matter? Out of cavern comes a voice,\nAnd all it knows is that one word “Rejoice!”\n\nConduct and work grow coarse, and coarse the soul,\nWhat matter? Those that Rocky Face holds dear,\nLovers of horses and of women, shall,\nFrom marble of a broken sepulchre,\nOr dark betwixt the polecat and the owl,\nOr any rich, dark nothing disinter\nThe workman, noble and saint, and all things run\nOn that unfashionable gyre again.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123664,10 +129111,10 @@ "title": "“The Happy Townland”", "body": "There’s many a strong farmer\nWhose heart would break in two,\nIf he could see the townland\nThat we are riding to;\nBoughs have their fruit and blossom\nAt all times of the year;\nRivers are running over\nWith red beer and brown beer.\nAn old man plays the bagpipes\nIn a golden and silver wood;\nQueens, their eyes blue like the ice,\nAre dancing in a crowd.\n\n_The little fox he murmured,\n“O what of the world’s bane?”\nThe sun was laughing sweetly,\nThe moon plucked at my rein;\nBut the little red fox murmured,\n“O do not pluck at his rein,\nHe is riding to the townland\nThat is the world’s bane.”_\n\nWhen their hearts are so high\nThat they would come to blows,\nThey unhook rheir heavy swords\nFrom golden and silver boughs;\nBut all that are killed in battle\nAwaken to life again.\nIt is lucky that their story\nIs not known among men,\nFor O, the strong farmers\nThat would let the spade lie,\nTheir hearts would be like a cup\nThat somebody had drunk dry.\n\n_The little fox he murmured,\n“O what of the world’s bane?”\nThe sun was laughing sweetly,\nThe moon plucked at my rein;\nBut the little red fox murmured,\n“O do not pluck at his rein,\nHe is riding to the townland\nThat is the world’s bane.”_\n\nMichael will unhook his trumpet\nFrom a bough overhead,\nAnd blow a little noise\nWhen the supper has been spread.\nGabriel will come from the water\nWith a fish-tail, and talk\nOf wonders that have happened\nOn wet roads where men walk.\nAnd lift up an old horn\nOf hammered silver, and drink\nTill he has fallen asleep\nUpon the starry brink.\n\n_The little fox he murmured,\n“O what of the world’s bane?”\nThe sun was laughing sweetly,\nThe moon plucked at my rein;\nBut the little red fox murmured.\n“O do not pluck at his rein,\nHe is riding to the townland\nThat is the world’s bane.”_", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123675,10 +129122,10 @@ "title": "“The Harp of Aengus”", "body": "Edain came out of Midhir’s hill, and lay\nBeside young Aengus in his tower of glass,\nWhere time is drowned in odour-laden winds\nAnd Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs,\nAnd sleepy boughs, and boughs where apples made\nOf opal and ruby and pale chrysolite\nAwake unsleeping fires; and wove seven strings,\nSweet with all music, out of his long hair,\nBecause her hands had been made wild by love.\nWhen Midhir’s wife had changed her to a fly,\nHe made a harp with Druid apple-wood\nThat she among her winds might know he wept;\nAnd from that hour he has watched over none\nBut faithful lovers.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1900 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123686,10 +129133,10 @@ "title": "“He and She”", "body": "As the moon sidles up\nMust she sidle up,\nAs trips the scared moon\nAway must she trip,\n“His light had struck me blind\nDared I stop.”\nShe sings as the moon sings\n“I am I, am I;\nThe greater grows my light\nThe further that I Aly.”\nAll creation shivers\nWith that sweet cry.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123697,10 +129144,10 @@ "title": "“He Bids His Beloved Be at Peace”", "body": "I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,\nTheir hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;\nThe North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,\nThe East her hidden joy before the morning break,\nThe West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,\nThe South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:\nO vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,\nThe Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:\nBeloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat\nOver my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,\nDrowning love’s lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,\nAnd hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1896 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123708,10 +129155,10 @@ "title": "“He Hears the Cry of the Sedge”", "body": "I wander by the edge\nOf this desolate lake\nWhere wind cries in the sedge:\n\n_Until the axle break\nThat keeps the stars in their round,\nAnd hands hurl in the deep\nThe banners of East and West,\nAnd the girdle of light is unbound,\nYour breast will not lie by the breast\nOf your beloved in sleep._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1898 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123719,10 +129166,10 @@ "title": "“He Mourns for the Change That Has Come Upon Him and His Beloved, and Longs for the End of the World”", "body": "Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns?\nI have been changed to a hound with one red ear;\nI have been in the Path of Stones and the Wood of Thorns,\nFor somebody hid hatred and hope and desire and fear\nUnder my feet that they follow you night and day.\nA man with a hazel wand came without sound;\nHe changed me suddenly; I was looking another way;\nAnd now my calling is but the calling of a hound;\nAnd Time and Birth and Change are hurrying by.\nI would that the Boar without bristles had come from the West\nAnd had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the sky\nAnd lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1897 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123730,10 +129177,10 @@ "title": "“He Remembers Forgotten Beauty”", "body": "When my arms wrap you round I press\nMy heart upon the loveliness\nThat has long faded from the world;\nThe jewelled crowns that kings have hurled\nIn shadowy pools, when armies fled;\nThe love-tales wrought with silken thread\nBy dreaming ladies upon cloth\nThat has made fat the murderous moth;\nThe roses that of old time were\nWoven by ladies in their hair,\nThe dew-cold lilies ladies bore\nThrough many a sacred corridor\nWhere such grey clouds of incense rose\nThat only God’s eyes did not close:\nFor that pale breast and lingering hand\nCome from a more dream-heavy land,\nA more dream-heavy hour than this;\nAnd when you sigh from kiss to kiss\nI hear white Beauty sighing, too,\nFor hours when all must fade like dew.\nBut flame on flame, and deep on deep,\nThrone over throne where in half sleep,\nTheir swords upon their iron knees,\nBrood her high lonely mysteries.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1896 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123741,10 +129188,10 @@ "title": "“He Tells of a Valley Full of Lovers”", "body": "I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs,\nFor happy lovers passed two by two where I stood;\nAnd I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood\nWith her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes:\nI cried in my dream, _O women, bid the young men lay\nTheir heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your fair,\nOr remembering hers they will find no other face fair\nTill all the valleys of the world have been withered away._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1897 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123752,10 +129199,10 @@ "title": "“He Tells of the Perfect Beauty”", "body": "O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes,\nThe poets labouring all their days\nTo build a perfect beauty in rhyme\nAre overthrown by a woman’s gaze\nAnd by the unlabouring brood of the skies:\nAnd therefore my heart will bow, when dew\nIs dropping sleep, until God burn time,\nBefore the unlabouring stars and you.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1898 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123763,10 +129210,10 @@ "title": "“The Heart of the Woman”", "body": "O what to me the little room\nThat was brimmed up with prayer and rest;\nHe bade me out into the gloom,\nAnd my breast lies upon his breast.\n\nO what to me my mother’s care,\nThe house where I was safe and warm;\nThe shadowy blossom of my hair\nWill hide us from the bitter storm.\n\nO hiding hair and dewy eyes,\nI am no more with life and death,\nMy heart upon his warm heart lies,\nMy breath is mixed into his breath.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1894 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123774,9 +129221,6 @@ "title": "“Her Anxiety”", "body": "Earth in beauty dressed\nAwaits returning spring.\nAll true love must die,\nAlter at the best\nInto some lesser thing.\n_Prove that I lie._\n\nSuch body lovers have,\nSuch exacting breath,\nThat they touch or sigh.\nEvery touch they give,\nLove is nearer death.\n_Prove that I lie._", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1930 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -123785,6 +129229,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1930 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -123795,9 +129242,6 @@ "title": "“Her Dream”", "body": "I dreamed as in my bed I lay,\nAll night’s fathomless wisdom come,\nThat I had shorn my locks away\nAnd laid them on Love’s lettered tomb:\nBut something bore them out of sight\nIn a great tumult of the air,\n\nAnd after nailed upon the night\nBerenice’s burning hair.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1930 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -123806,6 +129250,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1930 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -123813,10 +129260,10 @@ "title": "“Her Praise”", "body": "She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.\nI have gone about the house, gone up and down\nAs a man does who has published a new book,\nOr a young girl dressed out in her new gown,\nAnd though I have turned the talk by hook or crook\nUntil her praise should be the uppermost theme,\nA woman spoke of some new tale she had read,\nA man confusedly in a half dream\nAs though some other name ran in his head.\nShe is foremost of those that I would hear praised.\nI will talk no more of books or the long war\nBut walk by the dry thorn until I have found\nSome beggar sheltering from the wind, and there\nManage the talk until her name come round.\nIf there be rags enough he will know her name\nAnd be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days,\nThough she had young men’s praise and old men’s blame,\nAmong the poor both old and young gave her praise.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1916 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123824,10 +129271,10 @@ "title": "“Her Reproves the Curlew”", "body": "O curlew, cry no more in the air,\nOr only to the water in the West;\nBecause your crying brings to my mind\npassion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair\nThat was shaken out over my breast:\nThere is enough evil in the crying of wind.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1896 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123835,10 +129282,10 @@ "title": "“High Talk”", "body": "Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that catches the eye.\nWhat if my great-granddad had a pair that were twenty foot high,\nAnd mine were but fifteen foot, no modern Stalks upon higher,\nSome rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence or a fire.\n\nBecause piebald ponies, led bears, caged lions, make but poor shows,\nBecause children demand Daddy-long-legs upon his timber toes,\nBecause women in the upper storeys demand a face at the pane,\nThat patching old heels they may shriek, I take to chisel and plane.\n\nMalachi Stilt-Jack am I, whatever I learned has run wild,\nFrom collar to collar, from stilt to stilt, from father to child.\n\nAll metaphor, Malachi, stilts and all. A barnacle goose\nFar up in the stretches of night; night splits and the dawn breaks loose;\nI, through the terrible novelty of light, stalk on, stalk on;\nThose great sea-horses bare their teeth and laugh at the dawn.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123846,9 +129293,6 @@ "title": "“His Bargain”", "body": "Who talks of Plato’s spindle;\nWhat set it whirling round?\nEternity may dwindle,\nTime is unwound,\nDan and Jerry Lout\nChange their loves about.\n\nHowever they may take it,\nBefore the thread began\nI made, and may not break it\nWhen the last thread has run,\nA bargain with that hair\nAnd all the windings there.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1930 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -123857,6 +129301,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1930 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -123864,9 +129311,6 @@ "title": "“His Confidence”", "body": "Undying love to buy\nI wrote upon\nThe corners of this eye\nAll wrongs done.\nWhat payment were enough\nFor undying love?\n\nI broke my heart in two\nSo hard I struck.\nWhat matter? for I know\nThat out of rock,\nOut of a desolate source,\nLove leaps upon its course.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1930 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -123875,6 +129319,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1930 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -123882,10 +129329,10 @@ "title": "“His Dream”", "body": "I swayed upon the gaudy stem\nThe butt-end of a steering-oar,\nAnd saw wherever I could turn\nA crowd upon a shore.\n\nAnd though I would have hushed the crowd,\nThere was no mother’s son but said,\n“What is the figure in a shroud\nUpon a gaudy bed?”\n\nAnd after running at the brim\nCried out upon that thing beneath\n--It had such dignity of limb--\nBy the sweet name of Death.\n\nThough I’d my finger on my lip,\nWhat could I but take up the song?\nAnd running crowd and gaudy ship\nCried out the whole night long,\n\nCrying amid the glittering sea,\nNaming it with ecstatic breath,\nBecause it had such dignity,\nBy the sweet name of Death.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1908 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123893,10 +129340,10 @@ "title": "“His Phoenix”", "body": "There is a queen in China, or maybe it’s in Spain,\nAnd birthdays and holidays such praises can be heard\nOf her unblemished lineaments, a whiteness with no stain,\nThat she might be that sprightly girl trodden by a bird;\nAnd there’s a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind,\nOr who have found a painter to make them so for pay\nAnd smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance of his mind:\nI knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.\n\nThe young men every night applaud their Gaby’s laughing eye,\nAnd Ruth St. Denis had more charm although she had poor luck;\nFrom nineteen hundred nine or ten, Pavlova’s had the cry\nAnd there’s a player in the States who gathers up her cloak\nAnd flings herself out of the room when Juliet would be bride\nWith all a woman’s passion, a child’s imperious way,\nAnd there are--but no matter if there are scores beside:\nI knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.\n\nThere’s Margaret and Marjorie and Dorothy and Nan,\nA Daphne and a Mary who live in privacy;\nOne’s had her fill of lovers, another’s had but one,\nAnother boasts, “I pick and choose and have but two or three.”\nIf head and limb have beauty and the instep’s high and light\nThey can spread out what sail they please for all I have to say,\nBe but the breakers of men’s hearts or engines of delight:\nI knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.\n\nThere’ll be that crowd, that barbarous crowd, through all the centuries,\nAnd who can say but some young belle may walk and talk men wild\nWho is my beauty’s equal, though that my heart denies,\nBut not the exact likeness, the simplicity of a child,\nAnd that proud look as though she had gazed into the burning sun,\nAnd all the shapely body no tittle gone astray.\nI mourn for that most lonely thing; and yet God’s will be done:\nI knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1916 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123904,10 +129351,10 @@ "title": "“The Host of the Air”", "body": "O’Driscoll drove with a song\nThe wild duck and the drake\nFrom the tall and the tufted reeds\nOf the drear Hart Lake.\n\nAnd he saw how the reeds grew dark\nAt the coming of night-tide,\nAnd dreamed of the long dim hair\nOf Bridget his bride.\n\nHe heard while he sang and dreamed\nA piper piping away,\nAnd never was piping so sad,\nAnd never was piping so gay.\n\nAnd he saw young men and young girls\nWho danced on a level place,\nAnd Bridget his bride among them,\nWith a sad and a gay face.\n\nThe dancers crowded about him\nAnd many a sweet thing said,\nAnd a young man brought him red wine\nAnd a young girl white bread.\n\nBut Bridget drew him by the sleeve\nAway from the merry bands,\nTo old men playing at cards\nWith a twinkling of ancient hands.\n\nThe bread and the wine had a doom,\nFor these were the host of the air;\nHe sat and played in a dream\nOf her long dim hair.\n\nHe played with the merry old men\nAnd thought not of evil chance,\nUntil one bore Bridget his bride\nAway from the merry dance.\n\nHe bore her away in his atms,\nThe handsomest young man there,\nAnd his neck and his breast and his arms\nWere drowned in her long dim hair.\n\nO’Driscoll scattered the cards\nAnd out of his dream awoke:\nOld men and young men and young girls\nWere gone like a drifting smoke;\n\nBut he heard high up in the air\nA piper piping away,\nAnd never was piping so sad,\nAnd never was piping so gay.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1893 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123915,10 +129362,10 @@ "title": "“Hound Voice”", "body": "Because we love bare hills and stunted trees\nAnd were the last to choose the settled ground,\nIts boredom of the desk or of the spade, because\nSo many years companioned by a hound,\nOur voices carry; and though slumber-bound,\nSome few half wake and half renew their choice,\nGive tongue, proclaim their hidden name--‘hound voice.’\n\nThe women that I picked spoke sweet and low\nAnd yet gave tongue. ‘Hound voices’ were they all.\nWe picked each other from afar and knew\nWhat hour of terror comes to test the soul,\nAnd in that terror’s name obeyed the call,\nAnd understood, what none have understood,\nThose images that waken in the blood.\n\nSome day we shall get up before the dawn\nAnd find our ancient hounds before the door,\nAnd wide awake know that the hunt is on;\nStumbling upon the blood-dark track once more,\nThen stumbling to the kill beside the shore;\nThen cleaning out and bandaging of wounds,\nAnd chants of victory amid the encircling hounds.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123926,10 +129373,10 @@ "title": "“The Hour before Dawn”", "body": "A cursing rogue with a merry face,\nA bundle of rags upon a crutch,\nStumbled upon that windy place\nCalled Cruachan, and it was as much\nAs the one sturdy leg could do\nTo keep him upright while he cursed.\nHe had counted, where long years ago\nQueen Maeve’s nine Maines had been nursed,\nA pair of lapwings, one old sheep,\nAnd not a house to the plain’s edge,\nWhen close to his right hand a heap\nOf grey stones and a rocky ledge\nReminded him that he could make.\nIf he but shifted a few stones,\nA shelter till the daylight broke.\n\nBut while he fumbled with the stones\nThey toppled over; “Were it not\nI have a lucky wooden shin\nI had been hurt’; and toppling brought\nBefore his eyes, where stones had been,\nA dark deep hollow in the rock.\nHe gave a gasp and thought to have fled,\nBeing certain it was no right rock\nBecause an ancient history said\nHell Mouth lay open near that place,\nAnd yet stood still, because inside\nA great lad with a beery face\nHad tucked himself away beside\nA ladle and a tub of beer,\nAnd snored, no phantom by his look.\nSo with a laugh at his own fear\nHe crawled into that pleasant nook.”\n\n“Night grows uneasy near the dawn\nTill even I sleep light; but who\nHas tired of his own company?\nWhat one of Maeve’s nine brawling sons\nSick of his grave has wakened me?\nBut let him keep his grave for once\nThat I may find the sleep I have lost.”\n\n“What care I if you sleep or wake?\nBut I’Il have no man call me ghost.”\n\n“Say what you please, but from daybreak\nI’ll sleep another century.”\n\n“And I will talk before I sleep\nAnd drink before I talk.”\n And he\nHad dipped the wooden ladle deep\nInto the sleeper’s tub of beer\nHad not the sleeper started up.\n\n“Before you have dipped it in the beer\nI dragged from Goban’s mountain-top\nI’ll have assurance that you are able\nTo value beer; no half-legged fool\nShall dip his nose into my ladle\nMerely for stumbling on this hole\nIn the bad hour before the dawn.”\n\n“Why beer is only beer.” “But say\nI’ll sleep until the winter’s gone,\nOr maybe to Midsummer Day,\nAnd drink and you will sleep that length.”\n\n“I’d like to sleep till winter’s gone\nOr till the sun is in his srrength.\nThis blast has chilled me to the bone.”\n\n“I had no better plan at first.\nI thought to wait for that or this;\nMaybe the weather was accursed\nOr I had no woman there to kiss;\nSo slept for half a year or so;\nBut year by year I found that less\nGave me such pleasure I’d forgo\nEven a half-hour’s nothingness,\nAnd when at one year’s end I found\nI had not waked a single minute,\nI chosc this burrow under ground.\nI’ll sleep away all time within it:\nMy sleep were now nine centuries\nBut for those mornings when I find\nThe lapwing at their foolish dies\nAnd the sheep bleating at the wind\nAs when I also played the fool.”\n\nThe beggar in a rage began\nUpon his hunkers in the hole,\n“It’s plain that you are no right man\nTo mock at everything I love\nAs if it were not worth, the doing.\nI’d have a merry life enough\nIf a good Easter wind were blowing,\nAnd though the winter wind is bad\nI should not be too down in the mouth\nFor anything you did or said\nIf but this wind were in the south.”\n\n“You cry aloud, O would ’twere spring\nOr that the wind would shift a point,\nAnd do not know that you would bring,\nIf time were suppler in the joint,\nNeither the spring nor the south wind\nBut the hour when you shall pass away\nAnd leave no smoking wick behind,\nFor all life longs for the Last Day\nAnd there’s no man but cocks his ear\nTo know when Michael’s trumpet cries\nThat flesh and bone may disappear,\nAnd souls as if they were but sighs,\nAnd there be nothing but God left;\nBut, I aone being blessed keep\nLike some old rabbit to my cleft\nAnd wait Him in a drunken sleep.”\nHe dipped his ladle in the tub\nAnd drank and yawned and stretched him out,\nThe other shouted, “You would rob\nMy life of every pleasant thought\nAnd every comfortable thing,\nAnd so take that and that.” Thereon\nHe gave him a great pummelling,\nBut might have pummelled at a stone\nFor all the sleeper knew or cared;\nAnd after heaped up stone on stone,\nAnd then, grown weary, prayed and cursed\nAnd heaped up stone on stone again,\nAnd prayed and cursed and cursed and bed\nFrom Maeve and all that juggling plain,\nNor gave God thanks till overhead\nThe clouds were brightening with the dawn.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -123940,10 +129387,10 @@ "title": "“I thought no more was needed 
”", "body": "I thought no more was needed\nYouth to prolong\nThan dumb-bell and foil\nTo keep the body young.\n_O who could have foretold\nThat the heart grows old?_\n\nThough I have many words,\nWhat woman’s satisfied,\nI am no longer faint\nBecause at her side?\n_O who could have foretold\nThat the heart grows old?_\n\nI have not lost desire\nBut the heart that I had;\nI thought ’twould burn my body\nLaid on the death-bed,\n_For who could have foretold\nThat the heart grows old?_", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123951,10 +129398,10 @@ "title": "“An Image from a Past Life”", "body": "> _He:_\nNever until this night have I been stirred.\nThe elaborate starlight throws a reflection\nOn the dark stream,\nTill all the eddies gleam;\nAnd thereupon there comes that scream\nFrom terrified, invisible beast or bird:\nImage of poignant recollection.\n\n> _She:_\nAn image of my heart that is smitten through\nOut of all likelihood, or reason,\nAnd when at last,\nYouth’s bitterness being past,\nI had thought that all my days were cast\nAmid most lovely places; smitten as though\nIt had not learned its lesson.\n\n> _He:_\nWhy have you laid your hands upon my eyes?\nWhat can have suddenly alarmed you\nWhereon ’twere best\nMy eyes should never rest?\nWhat is there but the slowly fading west,\nThe river imaging the flashing skies,\nAll that to this moment charmed you?\n\n> _She:_\nA Sweetheart from another life floats there\nAs though she had been forced to linger\nFrom vague distress\nOr arrogant loveliness,\nMerely to loosen out a tress\nAmong the starry eddies of her hair\nUpon the paleness of a finger.\n\n> _He:_\nBut why should you grow suddenly afraid\nAnd start--I at your shoulder--\nImagining\nThat any night could bring\nAn image up, or anything\nEven to eyes that beauty had driven mad,\nBut images to make me fonder?\n\n> _She:_\nNow She has thrown her arms above her head;\nWhether she threw them up to flout me,\nOr but to find,\nNow that no fingers bind,\nThat her hair streams upon the wind,\nI do not know, that know I am afraid\nOf the hovering thing night brought me.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123962,10 +129409,10 @@ "title": "“Imitated from the Japanese”", "body": "A most astonishing thing--\nSeventy years have I lived;\n\n(Hurrah for the flowers of Spring,\nFor Spring is here again.)\n\nSeventy years have I lived\nNo ragged beggar-man,\nSeventy years have I lived,\nSeventy years man and boy,\nAnd never have I danced for joy.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -123976,10 +129423,10 @@ "title": "“In Tara’s Halls”", "body": "A man I praise that once in Tara’s Halls\nSaid to the woman on his knees, “Lie still.\nMy hundredth year is at an end. I think\nThat something is about to happen, I think\nThat the adventure of old age begins.\nTo many women I have said, ‘Lie still,’\nAnd given everything a woman needs,\nA roof, good clothes, passion, love perhaps,\nBut never asked for love; should I ask that,\nI shall be old indeed.”\n\n Thereon the man\nWent to the Sacred House and stood between\nThe golden plough and harrow and spoke aloud\nThat all attendants and the casual crowd might hear.\n“God I have loved, but should I ask return\nOf God or woman, the time were come to die.”\nHe bade, his hundred and first year at end,\nDiggers and carpenters make grave and coffin;\nSaw that the grave was deep, the coffin sound,\nSummoned the generations of his house,\nLay in the coffin, stopped his breath and died.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1939 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -123987,10 +129434,10 @@ "title": "“In the Seven Woods”", "body": "I have heard the pigeons of the Seven Woods\nMake their faint thunder, and the garden bees\nHum in the lime-tree flowers; and put away\nThe unavailing outcries and the old bitterness\nThat empty the heart. I have forgot awhile\nTara uprooted, and new commonness\nUpon the throne and crying about the streets\nAnd hanging its paper flowers from post to post,\nBecause it is alone of all things happy.\nI am contented, for I know that Quiet\nWanders laughing and eating her wild heart\nAmong pigeons and bees, while that Great Archer,\nWho but awaits His hour to shoot, still hangs\nA cloudy quiver over Pairc-na-lee.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "august" @@ -124001,10 +129448,10 @@ "title": "“The Indian to His Love”", "body": "The island dreams under the dawn\nAnd great boughs drop tranquillity;\nThe peahens dance on a smooth lawn,\nA parrot sways upon a tree,\nRaging at his own image in the enamelled sea.\n\nHere we will moor our lonely ship\nAnd wander ever with woven hands,\nMurmuring softly lip to lip,\nAlong the grass, along the sands,\nMurmuring how far away are the unquiet lands:\n\nHow we alone of mortals are\nHid under quiet boughs apart,\nWhile our love grows an Indian star,\nA meteor of the burning heart,\nOne with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam and dart,\n\nThe heavy boughs, the burnished dove\nThat moans and sighs a hundred days:\nHow when we die our shades will rove,\nWhen eve has hushed the feathered ways,\nWith vapoury footsole by the water’s drowsy blaze.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1886 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124012,10 +129459,10 @@ "title": "“The Indian upon God”", "body": "I passed along the water’s edge below the humid trees\nMy spirit rocked in evening light the rushes round my knees\nMy spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl pace\nAll dripping on a grassy slope and saw them cease to chase\nEach other round in circles and heard the eldest speak:\n_Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak\nIs an undying moorfowl and He lives beyond the sky.\nThe rains are from His dripping wing the moonbeams from His eye._\nI passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:\n_Who made the world and ruleth it He hangeth on a stalk_\n_For I am in His image made and all this tinkling tide\nIs but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide._\nA little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes\nBrimful of starlight and he said: _The Stamper of the Skies\nHe is a gentle roebuck; for how else I pray could He\nConceive a thing so sad and soft a gentle thing like me?_\nI passed a little further on and heard a peacock say:\n_Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay\nHe is a monstrous peacock and He waveth all the night\nHis languid tail above us lit with myriad spots of light._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1886 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124023,10 +129470,10 @@ "title": "“Into the Twilight”", "body": "Out-Worn heart, in a time out-worn,\nCome clear of the nets of wrong and right;\nLaugh, heart, again in the grey twilight,\nSigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.\n\nYour mother Eire is aways young,\nDew ever shining and twilight grey;\nThough hope fall from you and love decay,\nBurning in fires of a slanderous tongue.\n\nCome, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill:\nFor there the mystical brotherhood\nOf sun and moon and hollow and wood\nAnd river and stream work out their will;\n\nAnd God stands winding His lonely horn,\nAnd time and the world are ever in flight;\nAnd love is less kind than the grey twilight,\nAnd hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1893 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124034,10 +129481,10 @@ "title": "“An Irish Airman Foresees His Death”", "body": "I know that I shall meet my fate\nSomewhere among the clouds above;\nThose that I fight I do not hate,\nThose that I guard I do not love;\nMy country is Kiltartan Cross,\nMy countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,\nNo likely end could bring them loss\nOr leave them happier than before.\nNor law, nor duty bade me fight,\nNor public men, nor cheering crowds,\nA lonely impulse of delight\nDrove to this tumult in the clouds;\nI balanced all, brought all to mind,\nThe years to come seemed waste of breath,\nA waste of breath the years behind\nIn balance with this life, this death.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124053,10 +129500,10 @@ "title": "“The Lady’s Song”", "body": "# I.\n\nI turn round\nLike a dumb beast in a show.\nNeither know what I am\nNor where I go,\nMy language beaten\nInto one name;\nI am in love\nAnd that is my shame.\nWhat hurts the soul\nMy soul adores,\nNo better than a beast\nUpon all fours.\n\n\n# II.\n\nWhat sort of man is coming\nTo lie between your feet?\nWhat matter, we are but women.\nWash; make your body sweet;\nI have cupboards of dried fragrance.\nI can strew the sheet.\nThe Lord have mercy upon us.\n\nHe shall love my soul as though\nBody were not at all,\nHe shall love your body\nUntroubled by the soul,\nLove cram love’s two divisions\nYet keep his substance whole.\nThe Lord have mercy upon us.\n\nSoul must learn a love that is\nproper to my breast,\nLimbs a Love in common\nWith every noble beast.\nIf soul may look and body touch,\nWhich is the more blest?\nThe Lord have mercy upon us.\n\n\n# III.\n\nWhen you and my true lover meet\nAnd he plays tunes between your feet.\nSpeak no evil of the soul,\nNor think that body is the whole,\nFor I that am his daylight lady\nKnow worse evil of the body;\nBut in honour split his love\nTill either neither have enough,\nThat I may hear if we should kiss\nA contrapuntal serpent hiss,\nYou, should hand explore a thigh,\nAll the labouring heavens sigh.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124064,10 +129511,10 @@ "title": "“The Lake Isle of Innisfree”", "body": "I will arise and go now and go to Innisfree\nAnd a small cabin build there of clay and wattles made:\nNine bean rows will I have there a hive for the honey bee\nAnd live alone in the bee-loud glade.\n\nAnd I shall have some peace there for peace comes dropping slow\nDropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;\nThere midnight’s all a glimmer and noon a purple glow\nAnd evening full of the linnet’s wings.\n\nI will arise and go now for always night and day\nI hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;\nWhile I stand on the roadway or on the pavements gray\nI hear it in the deep heart’s core.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1890 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -124078,10 +129525,10 @@ "title": "“The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner”", "body": "Although I shelter from the rain\nUnder a broken tree,\nMy chair was nearest to the fire\nIn every company\nThat talked of love or politics,\nEre Time transfigured me.\n\nThough lads are making pikes again\nFor some conspiracy,\nAnd crazy rascals rage their fill\nAt human tyranny,\nMy contemplations are of Time\nThat has transfigured me.\n\nThere’s not a woman turns her face\nUpon a broken tree,\nAnd yet the beauties that I loved\nAre in my memory;\nI spit into the face of Time\nThat has transfigured me.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1892 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124089,10 +129536,10 @@ "title": "“Lapis Lazuli”", "body": "I have heard that hysterical women say\nThey are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow,\nOf poets that are always gay,\nFor everybody knows or else should know\nThat if nothing drastic is done\nAeroplane and Zeppelin will come out,\nPitch like King Billy bomb-balls in\nUntil the town lie beaten flat.\n\nAll perform their tragic play,\nThere struts Hamlet, there is Lear,\nThat’s Ophelia, that Cordelia;\nYet they, should the last scene be there,\nThe great stage curtain about to drop,\nIf worthy their prominent part in the play,\nDo not break up their lines to weep.\nThey know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;\nGaiety transfiguring all that dread.\nAll men have aimed at, found and lost;\nBlack out; Heaven blazing into the head:\nTragedy wrought to its uttermost.\nThough Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,\nAnd all the drop scenes drop at once\nUpon a hundred thousand stages,\nIt cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.\n\nOn their own feet they came, or on shipboard,\nCamel-back, horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,\nOld civilisations put to the sword.\nThen they and their wisdom went to rack:\nNo handiwork of Callimachus\nWho handled marble as if it were bronze,\nMade draperies that seemed to rise\nWhen sea-wind swept the corner, stands;\nHis long lamp chimney shaped like the stem\nOf a slender palm, stood but a day;\nAll things fall and are built again\nAnd those that build them again are gay.\n\nTwo Chinamen, behind them a third,\nAre carved in Lapis Lazuli,\nOver them flies a long-legged bird\nA symbol of longevity;\nThe third, doubtless a serving-man,\nCarries a musical instrument.\n\nEvery discolouration of the stone,\nEvery accidental crack or dent\nSeems a water-course or an avalanche,\nOr lofty slope where it still snows\nThough doubtless plum or cherry-branch\nSweetens the little half-way house\nThose Chinamen climb towards, and I\nDelight to imagine them seated there;\nThere, on the mountain and the sky,\nOn all the tragic scene they stare.\nOne asks for mournful melodies;\nAccomplished fingers begin to play.\nTheir eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,\nTheir ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124100,10 +129547,10 @@ "title": "“The Leaders of the Crowd”", "body": "They must to keep their certainty accuse\nAll that are different of a base intent;\nPull down established honour; hawk for news\nWhatever their loose fantasy invent\nAnd murmur it with bated breath, as though\nThe abounding gutter had been Helicon\nOr calumny a song. How can they know\nTruth flourishes where the student’s lamp has shone,\nAnd there alone, that have no Solitude?\nSo the crowd come they care not what may come.\nThey have loud music, hope every day renewed\nAnd heartier loves; that lamp is from the tomb.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124111,10 +129558,10 @@ "title": "“Leda and the Swan”", "body": "A sudden blow: the great wings beating still\nAbove the staggering girl, her thighs caressed\nBy the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,\nHe holds her helpless breast upon his breast.\n\nHow can those terrified vague fingers push\nThe feathered glory from her loosening thighs?\nAnd how can body, laid in that white rush,\nBut feel the strange heart beating where it lies?\n\nA shudder in the loins engenders there\nThe broken wall, the burning roof and tower\nAnd Agamemnon dead.\n\n Being so caught up,\nSo mastered by the brute blood of the air,\nDid she put on his knowledge with his power\nBefore the indifferent beak could let her drop?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1924 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124122,10 +129569,10 @@ "title": "“Lines Written in Dejection”", "body": "When have I last looked on\nThe round green eyes and the long wavering bodies\nOf the dark leopards of the moon?\nAll the wild witches, those most noble ladies,\nFor all their broom-sticks and their tears,\nTheir angry tears, are gone.\n\nThe holy centaurs of the hills are vanished;\nI have nothing but the embittered sun;\nBanished heroic mother moon and vanished,\nAnd now that I have come to fifty years\nI must endure the timid sun.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124133,10 +129580,10 @@ "title": "“The Living Beauty”", "body": "I bade, because the wick and oil are spent\nAnd frozen are the channels of the blood,\nMy discontented heart to draw content\nFrom beauty that is cast out of a mould\nIn bronze, or that in dazzling marble appears,\nAppears, but when wc have gone is gone again,\nBeing more indifferent to our solitude\nThan ’twere an apparition. O heart, we are old;\nThe living beauty is for younger men:\nWe cannot pay its tribute of wild tears.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124144,10 +129591,10 @@ "title": "“Long-Legged Fly”", "body": "That civilisation may not sink,\nIts great battle lost,\nQuiet the dog, tether the pony\nTo a distant post;\nOur master Caesar is in the tent\nWhere the maps ate spread,\nHis eyes fixed upon nothing,\nA hand under his head.\n\n_Like a long-legged fly upon the stream\nHis mind moves upon silence._\n\nThat the topless towers be burnt\nAnd men recall that face,\nMove most gently if move you must\nIn this lonely place.\nShe thinks, part woman, three parts a child,\nThat nobody looks; her feet\nPractise a tinker shuffle\nPicked up on a street.\n\n_Like a long-legged fly upon the stream\nHer mind moves upon silence._\n\nThat girls at puberty may find\nThe first Adam in their thought,\nShut the door of the Pope’s chapel,\nKeep those children out.\nThere on that scaffolding reclines\nMichael Angelo.\nWith no more sound than the mice make\nHis hand moves to and fro.\n\n_Like a long-leggedfly upon the stream\nHis mind moves upon silence._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1939 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124155,10 +129602,10 @@ "title": "“The Lover Asks Forgiveness Because of His Many Moods”", "body": "If this importunate heart trouble your peace\nWith words lighter than air,\nOr hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease;\nCrumple the rose in your hair;\nAnd cover your lips with odorous twilight and say,\n“O Hearts of wind-blown flame!\nO Winds, older than changing of night and day,\nThat murmuring and longing came\nFrom marble cities loud with tabors of old\nIn dove-grey faery lands;\nFrom battle-banners, fold upon purple fold,\nQueens wrought with glimmering hands;\nThat saw young Niamh hover with love-lorn face\nAbove the wandering tide;\nAnd lingered in the hidden desolate place\nWhere the last Phoenix died,\nAnd wrapped the flames above his holy head;\nAnd still murmur and long:\nO piteous Hearts, changing till change be dead\nIn a tumultuous song’:\nAnd cover the pale blossoms of your breast\nWith your dim heavy hair,\nAnd trouble with a sigh for all things longing for rest\nThe odorous twilight there.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1895 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124166,10 +129613,10 @@ "title": "“The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart”", "body": "All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,\nThe cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,\nThe heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,\nAre wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.\n\nThe wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;\nI hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,\nWith the earth and the sky and the water, re-made, like a casket of gold\nFor my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1892 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -124180,9 +129627,6 @@ "title": "“Love’s Loneliness”", "body": "Old fathers, great-grandfathers,\nRise as kindred should.\nIf ever lover’s loneliness\nCame where you stood,\nPray that Heaven protect us\nThat protect your blood.\n\nThe mountain throws a shadow,\nThin is the moon’s horn;\nWhat did we remember\nUnder the ragged thorn?\nDread has followed longing,\nAnd our hearts are torn.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1930 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -124191,6 +129635,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1930 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -124198,9 +129645,6 @@ "title": "“Mad as the Mist and Snow”", "body": "Bolt and bar the shutter,\nFor the foul winds blow:\nOur minds are at their best this night,\nAnd I seem to know\nThat everything outside us is\n_Mad as the mist and snow._\n\nHorace there by Homer stands,\nPlato stands below,\nAnd here is Tully’s open page.\nHow many years ago\nWere you and I unlettered lads\n_Mad as the mist and snow?_\n\nYou ask what makes me sigh, old friend,\nWhat makes me shudder so?\nI shudder and I sigh to think\nThat even Cicero\nAnd many-minded Homer were\n_Mad as the mist and snow._", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1932 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -124209,6 +129653,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1932 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -124216,10 +129663,10 @@ "title": "“The Madness of King Goll”", "body": "I sat on cushioned otter skin:\nMy word was law from Ith to Emen\nAnd shook at Invar Amargin\nThe hearts of the world-troubling seamen.\nAnd drove tumult and war away\nFrom girl and boy and man and beast;\nThe fields grew fatter day by day\nThe wild fowl of the air increased;\nAnd every ancient Ollave said\nWhile he bent down his fading head\n“He drives away the Northern cold.”\n_They will not hush the leaves a-flutter round me the beech leaves old._\n\nI sat and mused and drank sweet wine;\nA herdsman came from inland valleys\nCrying the pirates drove his swine\nTo fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.\nI called my battle-breaking men\nAnd my loud brazen battle-cars\nFrom rolling vale and rivery glen\nAnd under the blinking of the stars\nFell on the pirates by the deep\nAnd hurled them in the gulph of sleep:\nThese hands won many a torque of gold.\n_They will not hush the leaves a-flutter round me the beech leaves old._\n\nBut slowly as I shouting slew\nAnd trampled in the bubbling mire\nIn my most secret spirit grew\nA whirling and a wandering fire:\nI stood: keen stars above me shone\nAround me shone keen eyes of men:\nI laughed aloud and hurried on\nBy rocky shore and rushy fen;\nI laughed because birds fluttered by\nAnd starlight gleamed and clouds flew high\nAnd rushes waved and waters rolled.\n_They will not hush the leaves a-flutter round me the beech leaves old._\n\nAnd now I wander in the woods\nWhen summer gluts the golden bees\nOr in autumnal solitudes\nArise the leopard-coloured trees;\nOr when along the wintry strands\nThe cormorants shiver on their rocks;\nI wander on and wave my hands\nAnd sing and shake my heavy locks.\nThe gray wolf knows me; by one ear\nI lead along the woodland deer;\nThe hares run by me growing bold.\n_They will not hush the leaves a-flutter round me the beech leaves old._\n\nI came upon a little town\nThat slumbered in the harvest moon\nAnd passed a-tiptoe up and down\nMurmuring to a fitful tune\nHow I have followed night and day\nA tramping of tremendous feet\nAnd saw where this old tympan lay\nDeserted on a doorway seat\nAnd bore it to the woods with me;\nOf some unhuman misery\nOur married voiced wildly trolled.\n_They will not hush the leaves a-flutter round me the beech leaves old._\n\nI sang how when day’s toil is done\nOrchil shakes out her long dark hair\nThat hides away the dying sun\nAnd sheds faint odours through the air:\nWhen my hand passed from wire to wire\nIt quenched with sound like falling dew\nThe whirling and the wandering fire;\nBut lift a mournful ulalu\nFor the kind wires are torn and still\nAnd I must wander wood and hill\nThrough summer’s heat and winter’s cold.\n_They will not hush the leaves a-flutter round me the beech leaves old._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1887 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -124230,10 +129677,10 @@ "title": "“The Magi”", "body": "Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,\nIn their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones\nAppear and disappear in the blue depths of the sky\nWith all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,\nAnd all their helms of silver hovering side by side,\nAnd all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,\nBeing by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied,\nThe uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "epiphany" @@ -124244,10 +129691,10 @@ "title": "“The Man and the Echo”", "body": "> _Man:_\nIn a cleft that’s christened Alt\nUnder broken stone I halt\nAt the bottom of a pit\nThat broad noon has never lit,\nAnd shout a secret to the stone.\nAll that I have said and done,\nNow that I am old and ill,\nTurns into a question till\nI lie awake night after night\nAnd never get the answers right.\nDid that play of mine send out\nCertain men the English shot?\nDid words of mine put too great strain\nOn that woman’s reeling brain?\nCould my spoken words have checked\nThat whereby a house lay wrecked?\nAnd all seems evil until I\nSleepless would lie down and die.\n\n> _Echo:_\nLie down and die.\n\n> _Man:_\nThat were to shirk\nThe spiritual intellect’s great work,\nAnd shirk it in vain. There is no release\nIn a bodkin or disease,\nNor can there be work so great\nAs that which cleans man’s dirty slate.\nWhile man can still his body keep\nWine or love drug him to sleep,\nWaking he thanks the Lord that he\nHas body and its stupidity,\nBut body gone he sleeps no more,\nAnd till his intellect grows sure\nThat all’s arranged in one clear view,\npursues the thoughts that I pursue,\nThen stands in judgment on his soul,\nAnd, all work done, dismisses all\nOut of intellect and sight\nAnd sinks at last into the night.\n\n> _Echo:_\nInto the night.\n\n> _Man:_\nO Rocky Voice,\nShall we in that great night rejoice?\nWhat do we know but that we face\nOne another in this place?\nBut hush, for I have lost the theme,\nIts joy or night-seem but a dream;\nUp there some hawk or owl has struck,\nDropping out of sky or rock,\nA stricken rabbit is crying out,\nAnd its cry distracts my thought.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1939 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124255,10 +129702,10 @@ "title": "“The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland”", "body": "He stood among a crowd at Dromahair;\nHis heart hung all upon a silken dress,\nAnd he had known at last some tenderness,\nBefore earth took him to her stony care;\nBut when a man poured fish into a pile,\nIt Seemed they raised their little silver heads,\nAnd sang what gold morning or evening sheds\nUpon a woven world-forgotten isle\nWhere people love beside the ravelled seas;\nThat Time can never mar a lover’s vows\nUnder that woven changeless roof of boughs:\nThe singing shook him out of his new ease.\n\nHe wandered by the sands of Lissadell;\nHis mind ran all on money cares and fears,\nAnd he had known at last some prudent years\nBefore they heaped his grave under the hill;\nBut while he passed before a plashy place,\nA lug-worm with its grey and muddy mouth\nSang that somewhere to north or west or south\nThere dwelt a gay, exulting, gentle race\nUnder the golden or the silver skies;\nThat if a dancer stayed his hungry foot\nIt seemed the sun and moon were in the fruit:\nAnd at that singing he was no more wise.\n\nHe mused beside the well of Scanavin,\nHe mused upon his mockers: without fail\nHis sudden vengeance were a country tale,\nWhen earthy night had drunk his body in;\nBut one small knot-grass growing by the pool\nSang where--unnecessary cruel voice--\nOld silence bids its chosen race rejoice,\nWhatever ravelled waters rise and fall\nOr stormy silver fret the gold of day,\nAnd midnight there enfold them like a fleece\nAnd lover there by lover be at peace.\nThe tale drove his fine angry mood away.\n\nHe slept under the hill of Lugnagall;\nAnd might have known at last unhaunted sleep\nUnder that cold and vapour-turbaned steep,\nNow that the earth had taken man and all:\nDid not the worms that spired about his bones\nproclaim with that unwearied, reedy cry\nThat God has laid His fingers on the sky,\nThat from those fingers glittering summer runs\nUpon the dancer by the dreamless wave.\nWhy should those lovers that no lovers miss\nDream, until God burn Nature with a kiss?\nThe man has found no comfort in the grave.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1891 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124266,10 +129713,10 @@ "title": "“A Man Young and Old”", "body": "# I. _First Love_\n\nThough nurtured like the sailing moon\nIn beauty’s murderous brood,\nShe walked awhile and blushed awhile\nAnd on my pathway stood\nUntil I thought her body bore\nA heart of flesh and blood.\n\nBut since I laid a hand thereon\nAnd found a heart of stone\nI have attempted many things\nAnd not a thing is done,\nFor every hand is lunatic\nThat travels on the moon.\n\nShe smiled and that transfigured me\nAnd left me but a lout,\nMaundering here, and maundering there,\nEmptier of thought\nThan the heavenly circuit of its stars\nWhen the moon sails out.\n\n\n# II. _Human Dignity_\n\nLike the moon her kindness is,\nIf kindness I may call\nWhat has no comprehension in’t,\nBut is the same for all\nAs though my sorrow were a scene\nUpon a painted wall.\n\nSo like a bit of stone I lie\nUnder a broken tree.\nI could recover if I shrieked\nMy heart’s agony\nTo passing bird, but I am dumb\nFrom human dignity.\n\n\n# III. _The Mermaid_\n\nA mermaid found a swimming lad,\nPicked him for her own,\nPressed her body to his body,\nLaughed; and plunging down\nForgot in cruel happiness\nThat even lovers drown.\n\n\n# IV. _The Death of the Hare_\n\nI have pointed out the yelling pack,\nThe hare leap to the wood,\nAnd when I pass a compliment\nRejoice as lover should\nAt the drooping of an eye,\nAt the mantling of the blood.\nThen suddenly my heart is wrung\nBy her distracted air\nAnd I remember wildness lost\nAnd after, swept from there,\nAm set down standing in the wood\nAt the death of the hare.\n\n\n# V. _The Empty Cup_\n\nA crazy man that found a cup,\nWhen all but dead of thirst,\nHardly dared to wet his mouth\nImagining, moon-accursed,\nThat another mouthful\nAnd his beating heart would burst.\nOctober last I found it too\nBut found it dry as bone,\nAnd for that reason am I crazed\nAnd my sleep is gone.\n\n\n# VI. _His Memories_\n\nWe should be hidden from their eyes,\nBeing but holy shows\nAnd bodies broken like a thorn\nWhereon the bleak north blows,\nTo think of buried Hector\nAnd that none living knows.\n\nThe women take so little stock\nIn what I do or say\nThey’d sooner leave their cosseting\nTo hear a jackass bray;\nMy arms are like the twisted thorn\nAnd yet there beauty lay;\n\nThe first of all the tribe lay there\nAnd did such pleasure take--\nShe who had brought great Hector down\nAnd put all Troy to wreck--\nThat she cried into this ear,\n“Strike me if I shriek.”\n\n\n# VII. _The Friends of his Youth_\n\nLaughter not time destroyed my voice\nAnd put that crack in it,\nAnd when the moon’s pot-bellied\nI get a laughing fit,\nFor that old Madge comes down the lane,\nA stone upon her breast,\nAnd a cloak wrapped about the stone,\nAnd she can get no rest\nWith singing hush and hush-a-bye;\nShe that has been wild\nAnd barren as a breaking wave\nThinks that the stone’s a child.\nAnd Peter that had great affairs\nAnd was a pushing man\nShrieks, “I am King of the Peacocks,”\nAnd perches on a stone;\nAnd then I laugh till tears run down\nAnd the heart thumps at my side,\nRemembering that her shriek was love\nAnd that he shrieks from pride.\n\n\n# VIII. _Summer and Spring_\n\nWe sat under an old thorn-tree\nAnd talked away the night,\nTold all that had been said or done\nSince first we saw the light,\nAnd when we talked of growing up\nKnew that we’d halved a soul\nAnd fell the one in t’other’s arms\nThat we might make it whole;\nThen peter had a murdering look,\nFor it seemed that he and she\nHad spoken of their childish days\nUnder that very tree.\nO what a bursting out there was,\nAnd what a blossoming,\nWhen we had all the summer-time\nAnd she had all the spring!\n\n\n# IX. _The Secrets of the Old_\n\nI have old women’s secrets now\nThat had those of the young;\nMadge tells me what I dared not think\nWhen my blood was strong,\nAnd what had drowned a lover once\nSounds like an old song.\nThough Margery is stricken dumb\nIf thrown in Madge’s way,\nWe three make up a solitude;\nFor none alive to-day\nCan know the stories that we know\nOr say the things we say:\nHow such a man pleased women most\nOf all that are gone,\nHow such a pair loved many years\nAnd such a pair but one,\nStories of the bed of straw\nOr the bed of down.\n\n\n# X. _His Wildness_\n\nO bid me mount and sail up there\nAmid the cloudy wrack,\nFor Peg and Meg and Paris’ love\nThat had so straight a back,\nAre gone away, and some that stay\nHave changed their silk for sack.\nWere I but there and none to hear\nI’d have a peacock cry,\nFor that is natural to a man\nThat lives in memory,\nBeing all alone I’d nurse a stone\nAnd sing it lullaby.\n\n\n# XI. _From Oedipus at Colonus_\n\nEndure what life God gives and ask no longer span;\nCease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man;\nDelight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.\n\nEven from that delight memory treasures so,\nDeath, despair, division of families, all entanglements of mankind grow,\nAs that old wandering beggar and these God-hated children know.\n\nIn the long echoing street the laughing dancers throng,\nThe bride is carried to the bridegroom’s chamber through torchlight and tumultuous song;\nI celebrate the silent kiss that ends short life or long.\n\nNever to have lived is best, ancient writers say;\nNever to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;\nThe second best’s a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1927 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124277,10 +129724,10 @@ "title": "“The Mask”", "body": "“Put off that mask of burning gold\nWith emerald eyes.”\n“O no, my dear, you make so bold\nTo find if hearts be wild and wise,\nAnd yet not cold.”\n\n“I would but find what’s there to find,\nLove or deceit.”\n“It was the mask engaged your mind,\nAnd after set your heart to beat,\nNot what’s behind.”\n\n“But lest you are my enemy,\nI must enquire.”\n“O no, my dear, let all that be;\nWhat matter, so there is but fire\nIn you, in me?”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124288,10 +129735,10 @@ "title": "“The Meditation of the Old Fisherman”", "body": "You waves though you dance by my feet like children at play\nThough you glow and you glance though you purr and you dart;\nIn the Junes that were warmer than these are the waves were more gay\n_When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart_.\n\nThe herring are not in the tides as they were of old;\nMy sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the cart\nThat carried the take to Sligo town to be sold\n_When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart_.\n\nAnd ah you proud maiden you are not so fair when his oar\nIs heard on the water as they were the proud and apart\nWho paced in the eve by the nets on the pebbly shore\n_When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart_.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1886 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "june" @@ -124302,10 +129749,10 @@ "title": "“Meditations in Time of Civil War”", "body": "# I. _Ancestral Houses_\n\nSurely among a rich man’s flowering lawns,\nAmid the rustle of his planted hills,\nLife overflows without ambitious pains;\nAnd rains down life until the basin spills,\nAnd mounts more dizzy high the more it rains\nAs though to choose whatever shape it wills\nAnd never stoop to a mechanical\nOr servile shape, at others’ beck and call.\n\nMere dreams, mere dreams! Yet Homer had not Sung\nHad he not found it certain beyond dreams\nThat out of life’s own self-delight had sprung\nThe abounding glittering jet; though now it seems\nAs if some marvellous empty sea-shell flung\nOut of the obscure dark of the rich streams,\nAnd not a fountain, were the symbol which\nShadows the inherited glory of the rich.\n\nSome violent bitter man, some powerful man\nCalled architect and artist in, that they,\nBitter and violent men, might rear in stone\nThe sweetness that all longed for night and day,\nThe gentleness none there had ever known;\nBut when the master’s buried mice can play.\nAnd maybe the great-grandson of that house,\nFor all its bronze and marble, ’s but a mouse.\n\nO what if gardens where the peacock strays\nWith delicate feet upon old terraces,\nOr else all Juno from an urn displays\nBefore the indifferent garden deities;\nO what if levelled lawns and gravelled ways\nWhere slippered Contemplation finds his ease\nAnd Childhood a delight for every sense,\nBut take our greatness with our violence?\n\nWhat if the glory of escutcheoned doors,\nAnd buildings that a haughtier age designed,\nThe pacing to and fro on polished floors\nAmid great chambers and long galleries, lined\nWith famous portraits of our ancestors;\nWhat if those things the greatest of mankind\nConsider most to magnify, or to bless,\nBut take our greatness with our bitterness?\n\n\n# II. _My House_\n\nAn ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,\nA farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,\nAn acre of stony ground,\nWhere the symbolic rose can break in flower,\nOld ragged elms, old thorns innumerable,\nThe sound of the rain or sound\nOf every wind that blows;\nThe stilted water-hen\nCrossing Stream again\nScared by the splashing of a dozen cows;\n\nA winding stair, a chamber arched with stone,\nA grey stone fireplace with an open hearth,\nA candle and written page.\nIl Penseroso’s Platonist toiled on\nIn some like chamber, shadowing forth\nHow the daemonic rage\nImagined everything.\nBenighted travellers\nFrom markets and from fairs\nHave seen his midnight candle glimmering.\n\nTwo men have founded here. A man-at-arms\nGathered a score of horse and spent his days\nIn this tumultuous spot,\nWhere through long wars and sudden night alarms\nHis dwinding score and he seemed castaways\nForgetting and forgot;\nAnd I, that after me\nMy bodily heirs may find,\nTo exalt a lonely mind,\nBefitting emblems of adversity.\n\n\n# III. _My Table_\n\nTwo heavy trestles, and a board\nWhere Sato’s gift, a changeless sword,\nBy pen and paper lies,\nThat it may moralise\nMy days out of their aimlessness.\nA bit of an embroidered dress\nCovers its wooden sheath.\nChaucer had not drawn breath\nWhen it was forged. In Sato’s house,\nCurved like new moon, moon-luminous\nIt lay five hundred years.\nYet if no change appears\nNo moon; only an aching heart\nConceives a changeless work of art.\nOur learned men have urged\nThat when and where ’twas forged\nA marvellous accomplishment,\nIn painting or in pottery, went\nFrom father unto son\nAnd through the centuries ran\nAnd seemed unchanging like the sword.\nSoul’s beauty being most adored,\nMen and their business took\nMe soul’s unchanging look;\nFor the most rich inheritor,\nKnowing that none could pass Heaven’s door,\nThat loved inferior art,\nHad such an aching heart\nThat he, although a country’s talk\nFor silken clothes and stately walk.\nHad waking wits; it seemed\nJuno’s peacock screamed.\n\n\n# IV. _My Descendants_\n\nHaving inherited a vigorous mind\nFrom my old fathers, I must nourish dreams\nAnd leave a woman and a man behind\nAs vigorous of mind, and yet it seems\nLife scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind,\nScarce spread a glory to the morning beams,\nBut the torn petals strew the garden plot;\nAnd there’s but common greenness after that.\n\nAnd what if my descendants lose the flower\nThrough natural declension of the soul,\nThrough too much business with the passing hour,\nThrough too much play, or marriage with a fool?\nMay this laborious stair and this stark tower\nBecome a roofless min that the owl\nMay build in the cracked masonry and cry\nHer desolation to the desolate sky.\n\nThe primum Mobile that fashioned us\nHas made the very owls in circles move;\nAnd I, that count myself most prosperous,\nSeeing that love and friendship are enough,\nFor an old neighbour’s friendship chose the house\nAnd decked and altered it for a girl’s love,\nAnd know whatever flourish and decline\nThese stones remain their monument and mine.\n\n\n# V. _The Road at My Door_\n\nAn affable Irregular,\nA heavily-built Falstaffian man,\nComes cracking jokes of civil war\nAs though to die by gunshot were\nThe finest play under the sun.\n\nA brown Lieutenant and his men,\nHalf dressed in national uniform,\nStand at my door, and I complain\nOf the foul weather, hail and rain,\nA pear-tree broken by the storm.\n\nI count those feathered balls of soot\nThe moor-hen guides upon the stream.\nTo silence the envy in my thought;\nAnd turn towards my chamber, caught\nIn the cold snows of a dream.\n\n\n# VI. _The Stare’s Nest by My Window_\n\nThe bees build in the crevices\nOf loosening masonry, and there\nThe mother birds bring grubs and flies.\nMy wall is loosening; honey-bees,\nCome build in the empty house of the state.\n\nWe are closed in, and the key is turned\nOn our uncertainty; somewhere\nA man is killed, or a house burned,\nYet no clear fact to be discerned:\nCome build in he empty house of the stare.\n\nA barricade of stone or of wood;\nSome fourteen days of civil war;\nLast night they trundled down the road\nThat dead young soldier in his blood:\nCome build in the empty house of the stare.\n\nWe had fed the heart on fantasies,\nThe heart’s grown brutal from the fare;\nMore Substance in our enmities\nThan in our love; O honey-bees,\nCome build in the empty house of the stare.\n\n\n# VII. _I see Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart’s Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness_\n\nI climb to the tower-top and lean upon broken stone,\nA mist that is like blown snow is sweeping over all,\nValley, river, and elms, under the light of a moon\nThat seems unlike itself, that seems unchangeable,\nA glittering sword out of the east. A puff of wind\nAnd those white glimmering fragments of the mist sweep by.\nFrenzies bewilder, reveries perturb the mind;\nMonstrous familiar images swim to the mind’s eye.\n\n“Vengeance upon the murderers,” the cry goes up,\n“Vengeance for Jacques Molay.” In cloud-pale rags, or in lace,\nThe rage-driven, rage-tormented, and rage-hungry troop,\nTrooper belabouring trooper, biting at arm or at face,\nPlunges towards nothing, arms and fingers spreading wide\nFor the embrace of nothing; and I, my wits astray\nBecause of all that senseless tumult, all but cried\nFor vengeance on the murderers of Jacques Molay.\n\nTheir legs long, delicate and slender, aquamarine their eyes,\nMagical unicorns bear ladies on their backs.\nThe ladies close their musing eyes. No prophecies,\nRemembered out of Babylonian almanacs,\nHave closed the ladies’ eyes, their minds are but a pool\nWhere even longing drowns under its own excess;\nNothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full\nOf their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.\n\nThe cloud-pale unicorns, the eyes of aquamarine,\nThe quivering half-closed eyelids, the rags of cloud or of lace,\nOr eyes that rage has brightened, arms it has made lean,\nGive place to an indifferent multitude, give place\nTo brazen hawks. Nor self-delighting reverie,\nNor hate of what’s to come, nor pity for what’s gone,\nNothing but grip of claw, and the eye’s complacency,\nThe innumerable clanging wings that have put out the moon.\n\nI turn away and shut the door, and on the stair\nWonder how many times I could have proved my worth\nIn something that all others understand or share;\nBut O! ambitious heart, had such a proof drawn forth\nA company of friends, a conscience set at ease,\nIt had but made us pine the more. The abstract joy,\nThe half-read wisdom of daemonic images,\nSuffice the ageing man as once the growing boy.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1923 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124313,10 +129760,10 @@ "title": "“Memory”", "body": "One had a lovely face,\nAnd two or three had charm,\nBut charm and face were in vain\nBecause the mountain grass\nCannot but keep the form\nWhere the mountain hare has lain.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1916 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124324,10 +129771,10 @@ "title": "“A Memory of Youth”", "body": "The moments passed as at a play;\nI had the wisdom love brings forth;\nI had my share of mother-wit,\nAnd yet for all that I could say,\nAnd though I had her praise for it,\nA cloud blown from the cut-throat North\nSuddenly hid Love’s moon away.\n\nBelieving every word I said,\nI praised her body and her mind\nTill pride had made her eyes grow bright,\nAnd pleasure made her cheeks grow red,\nAnd vanity her footfall light,\nYet we, for all that praise, could find\nNothing but darkness overhead.\n\nWe sat as silent as a stone,\nWe knew, though she’d not said a word,\nThat even the best of love must die,\nAnd had been savagely undone\nWere it not that Love upon the cry\nOf a most ridiculous little bird\nTore from the clouds his marvellous moon.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124335,10 +129782,10 @@ "title": "“Meru”", "body": "Civilization is hooped together, brought\nUnder a rule, under the semblance of peace\nBy manifold illusion; but man’s life is thought\nAnd he, despite his terror, cannot cease\nRavening through century after century,\nRavening, raging and uprooting that he may come\nInto the desolation of reality:\nEgypt and Greece, good-bye, and good-bye, Rome.\n\nHermits upon Mount Meru or Everest\nCaverned in night under the drifted snow,\nOr where that snow and winter’s dreadful blast\nBeat down upon their naked bodies, know\nThat day brings round the night, that before dawn\nHis glory and his monuments are gone.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -124349,10 +129796,10 @@ "title": "“The Mother of God”", "body": "The threefold terror of love; a fallen flare\nThrough the hollow of an ear;\nWings beating about the room;\nThe terror of all terrors that I bore\nThe Heavens in my womb.\n\nHad I not found content among the shows\nEvery common woman knows,\nChimney corner, garden walk,\nOr rocky cistern where we tread the clothes\nAnd gather all the talk?\n\nWhat is this flesh I purchased with my pains,\nThis fallen star my milk sustains,\nThis love that makes my heart’s blood stop\nOr strikes a Sudden chill into my bones\nAnd bids my hair stand up?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "immaculate_conception" @@ -124363,10 +129810,10 @@ "title": "“The Mountain Tomb”", "body": "Pour wine and dance if manhood still have pride,\nBring roses if the rose be yet in bloom;\nThe cataract smokes upon the mountain side,\nOur Father Rosicross is in his tomb.\n\nPull down the blinds, bring fiddle and clarionet\nThat there be no foot silent in the room\nNor mouth from kissing, nor from wine unwet;\nOur Father Rosicross is in his tomb.\n\nIn vain, in pain; the cataract still cries;\nThe everlasting taper lights the gloom;\nAll wisdom shut into his onyx eyes,\nOur Father Rosicross sleeps in his tomb.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124374,10 +129821,10 @@ "title": "“Never Give All the Heart”", "body": "Never give all the heart, for love\nWill hardly seem worth thinking of\nTo passionate women if it seem\nCertain, and they never dream\nThat it fades out from kiss to kiss;\nFor everything that’s lovely is\nBut a brief, dreamy, kind delight.\nO never give the heart outright,\nFor they, for all smooth lips can say,\nHave given their hearts up to the play.\nAnd who could play it well enough\nIf deaf and dumb and blind with love?\nHe that made this knows all the cost,\nFor he gave all his heart and lost.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1905 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124385,10 +129832,10 @@ "title": "“The New Faces”", "body": "If you, that have grown old, were the first dead,\nNeither catalpa tree nor scented lime\nShould hear my living feet, nor would I tread\nWhere we wrought that shall break the teeth of Time.\nLet the new faces play what tricks they will\nIn the old rooms; night can outbalance day,\nOur shadows rove the garden gravel still,\nThe living seem more shadowy than they.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124396,10 +129843,10 @@ "title": "“News for the Delphic Oracle”", "body": "# I.\n\nThere all the golden codgers lay,\nThere the silver dew,\nAnd the great water sighed for love,\nAnd the wind sighed too.\nMan-picker Niamh leant and sighed\nBy Oisin on the grass;\nThere sighed amid his choir of love\nTall pythagoras.\nplotinus came and looked about,\nThe salt-flakes on his breast,\nAnd having stretched and yawned awhile\nLay sighing like the rest.\n\n\n# II.\n\nStraddling each a dolphin’s back\nAnd steadied by a fin,\nThose Innocents re-live their death,\nTheir wounds open again.\nThe ecstatic waters laugh because\nTheir cries are sweet and strange,\nThrough their ancestral patterns dance,\nAnd the brute dolphins plunge\nUntil, in some cliff-sheltered bay\nWhere wades the choir of love\nProffering its sacred laurel crowns,\nThey pitch their burdens off.\n\n\n# III.\n\nSlim adolescence that a nymph has stripped,\nPeleus on Thetis stares.\nHer limbs are delicate as an eyelid,\nLove has blinded him with tears;\nBut Thetis’ belly listens.\nDown the mountain walls\nFrom where pan’s cavern is\nIntolerable music falls.\nFoul goat-head, brutal arm appear,\nBelly, shoulder, bum,\nFlash fishlike; nymphs and satyrs\nCopulate in the foam.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1939 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124407,10 +129854,10 @@ "title": "“No Second Troy”", "body": "Why should I blame her that she filled my days\nWith misery, or that she would of late\nHave taught to ignorant men most violent ways,\nOr hurled the little streets upon the great,\nHad they but courage equal to desire?\nWhat could have made her peaceful with a mind\nThat nobleness made simple as a fire,\nWith beauty like a tightened bow, a kind\nThat is not natural in an age like this,\nBeing high and solitary and most stern?\nWhy, what could she have done, being what she is?\nWas there another Troy for her to burn?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124418,10 +129865,10 @@ "title": "“O Do Not Love too Long”", "body": "Sweetheart, do not love too long:\nI loved long and long,\nAnd grew to be out of fashion\nLike an old song.\n\nAll through the years of our youth\nNeither could have known\nTheir own thought from the other’s,\nWe were so much at one.\n\nBut O, in a minute she changed--\nO do not love too long,\nOr you will grow out of fashion\nLike an old song.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1905 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124429,10 +129876,10 @@ "title": "“The Old Age of Queen Maeve”", "body": "_A certain poet in outlandish clothes\nGathered a crowd in some Byzantine lane,\nTalked of his country and its people, sang\nTo some stringed instrument none there had seen,\nA wall behind his back, over his head\nA latticed window. His glance went up at time\nAs though one listened there, and his voice sank\nOr let its meaning mix into the strings._\n\nMaeve the great queen was pacing to and fro,\nBetween the walls covered with beaten bronze,\nIn her high house at Cruachan; the long hearth,\nFlickering with ash and hazel, but half showed\nWhere the tired horse-boys lay upon the rushes,\nOr on the benches underneath the walls,\nIn comfortable sleep; all living slept\nBut that great queen, who more than half the night\nHad paced from door to fire and fire to door.\nThough now in her old age, in her young age\nShe had been beautiful in that old way\nThat’s all but gone; for the proud heart is gone,\nAnd the fool heart of the counting-house fears all\nBut Soft beauty and indolent desire.\nShe could have called over the rim of the world\nWhatever woman’s lover had hit her fancy,\nAnd yet had been great-bodied and great-limbed,\nFashioned to be the mother of strong children;\nAnd she’d had lucky eyes and high heart,\nAnd wisdom that caught fire like the dried flax,\nAt need, and made her beautiful and fierce,\nSudden and laughing.\n O unquiet heart,\nWhy do you praise another, praising her,\nAs if there were no tale but your own tale\nWorth knitting to a measure of sweet sound?\nHave I not bid you tell of that great queen\nWho has been buried some two thousand years?\n\nWhen night was at its deepest, a wild goose\nCried from the porter’s lodge, and with long clamour’\nShook the ale-horns and shields upon their hooks;\nBut the horse-boys slept on, as though some power\nHad filled the house with Druid heaviness;\nAnd wondering who of the many-changing Sidhe\nHad come as in the old times to counsel her,\nMaeve walked, yet with slow footfall, being old,\nTo that small chamber by the outer gate.\nThe porter slept, although he sat upright\nWith still and stony limbs and open eyes.\nMaeve waited, and when that ear-piercing noise\nBroke from his parted lips and broke again,\nShe laid a hand on either of his shoulders,\nAnd shook him wide awake, and bid him say\nWho of the wandering many-changing ones\nHad troubled his sleep. But all he had to say\nWas that, the air being heavy and the dogs\nMore still than they had been for a good month,\nHe had fallen asleep, and, though he had dreamed nothing,\nHe could remember when he had had fine dreams.\nIt was before the time of the great war\nOver the White-Horned Bull and the Brown Bull.\n\nShe turned away; he turned again to sleep\nThat no god troubled now, and, wondering\nWhat matters were afoot among the Sidhe,\nMaeve walked through that great hall, and with a sigh\nLifted the curtain of her sleeping-room,\nRemembering that she too had seemed divine\nTo many thousand eyes, and to her own\nOne that the generations had long waited\nThat work too difficult for mortal hands\nMight be accomplished, Bunching the curtain up\nShe saw her husband Ailell sleeping there,\nAnd thought of days when he’d had a straight body,\nAnd of that famous Fergus, Nessa’s husband,\nWho had been the lover of her middle life.\n\nSuddenly Ailell spoke out of his sleep,\nAnd not with his own voice or a man’s voice,\nBut with the burning, live, unshaken voice\nOf those that, it may be, can never age.\nHe said, “High Queen of Cruachan and Magh Ai,\nA king of the Great Plain would speak with you.”\nAnd with glad voice Maeve answered him, “What king\nOf the far-wandering shadows has come to me,\nAs in the old days when they would come and go\nAbout my threshold to counsel and to help?”\nThe parted lips replied, “I seek your help,\nFor I am Aengus, and I am crossed in love.”\n“How may a mortal whose life gutters out\nHelp them that wander with hand clasping hand,\nTheir haughty images that cannot wither,\nFor all their beauty’s like a hollow dream,\nMirrored in streams that neither hail nor rain\nNor the cold North has troubled?”\n He replied,\n“I am from those rivers and I bid you call\nThe children of the Maines out of sleep,\nAnd set them digging under Bual’s hill.\nWe shadows, while they uproot his earthy housc,\nWill overthrow his shadows and carry off\nCaer, his blue-eyed daughter that I love.\nI helped your fathers when they built these walls,\nAnd I would have your help in my great need,\nQueen of high Cruachan.”\n “I obey your will\nWith speedy feet and a most thankful heart:\nFor you have been, O Aengus of the birds,\nOur giver of good counsel and good luck.”\nAnd with a groan, as if the mortal breath\nCould but awaken sadly upon lips\nThat happier breath had moved, her husband turned\nFace downward, tossing in a troubled sleep;\nBut Maeve, and not with a slow feeble foot,\nCame to the threshold of the painted house\nWhere her grandchildren slept, and cried aloud,\nUntil the pillared dark began to stir\nWith shouting and the clang of unhooked arms.\nShe told them of the many-changing ones;\nAnd all that night, and all through the next day\nTo middle night, they dug into the hill.\nAt middle night great cats with silver claws,\nBodies of shadow and blind eyes like pearls,\nCame up out of the hole, and red-eared hounds\nWith long white bodies came out of the air\nSuddenly, and ran at them and harried them.\n\nThe Maines’ children dropped their spades, and stood\nWith quaking joints and terror-stricken faces,\nTill Maeve called out, “These are but common men.\nThe Maines’ children have not dropped their spades\nBecause Earth, crazy for its broken power,\nCasts up a Show and the winds answer it\nWith holy shadows.” Her high heart was glad,\nAnd when the uproar ran along the grass\nShe followed with light footfall in the midst,\nTill it died out where an old thorn-tree stood.\n\nFriend of these many years, you too had stood\nWith equal courage in that whirling rout;\nFor you, although you’ve not her wandering heart,\nHave all that greatness, and not hers alone,\nFor there is no high story about queens\nIn any ancient book but tells of you;\nAnd when I’ve heard how they grew old and died,\nOr fell into unhappiness, I’ve said,\n“She will grow old and die, and she has wept!”\nAnd when I’d write it out anew, the words,\nHalf crazy with the thought, She too has wept!\nOutrun the measure.\n I’d tell of that great queen\nWho stood amid a silence by the thorn\nUntil two lovers came out of the air\nWith bodies made out of soft fire. The one,\nAbout whose face birds wagged their fiery wings,\nSaid, “Aengus and his sweetheart give their thanks\nTo Maeve and to Maeve’s household, owing all\nIn owing them the bride-bed that gives peace.”\nThen Maeve: “O Aengus, Master of all lovers,\nA thousand years ago you held high ralk\nWith the first kings of many-pillared Cruachan.\nO when will you grow weary?”\n They had vanished,\nBut our of the dark air over her head there came\nA murmur of soft words and meeting lips.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124440,10 +129887,10 @@ "title": "“Old Memory”", "body": "O thought, fly to her when the end of day\nAwakens an old memory, and say,\n“Your strength, that is so lofty and fierce and kind,\nIt might call up a new age, calling to mind\nThe queens that were imagined long ago,\nIs but half yours: he kneaded in the dough\nThrough the long years of youth, and who would have thought\nIt all, and more than it all, would come to naught,\nAnd that dear words meant nothing?” But enough,\nFor when we have blamed the wind we can blame love;\nOr, if there needs be more, be nothing said\nThat would be harsh for children that have strayed.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1904 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124451,10 +129898,10 @@ "title": "“The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water”", "body": "I heard the old, old men say,\n“Everything alters,\nAnd one by one we drop away.”\nThey had hands like claws, and their knees\nWere twisted like the old thorn-trees\nBy the waters.\nI heard the old, old men say,\n“All that’s beautiful drifts away\nLike the waters.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1903 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124462,10 +129909,10 @@ "title": "“The Old Stone Cross”", "body": "A statesman is an easy man,\nHe tells his lies by rote;\nA journalist makes up his lies\nAnd takes you by the throat;\nSo stay at home’ and drink your beer\nAnd let the neighbours’ vote,\n _Said the man in the golden breastplate\n Under the old stone Cross._\n\nBecause this age and the next age\nEngender in the ditch,\nNo man can know a happy man\nFrom any passing wretch;\nIf Folly link with Elegance\nNo man knows which is which,\n _Said the man in the golden breastplate\n Under the old stone Cross._\n\nBut actors lacking music\nDo most excite my spleen,\nThey say it is more human\nTo shuffle, grunt and groan,\nNot knowing what unearthly stuff\nRounds a mighty scene,\n _Said the man in the golden breastplate\n Under the old stone Cross._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124473,10 +129920,10 @@ "title": "“On a Political Prisoner”", "body": "She that but little patience knew,\nFrom childhood on, had now so much\nA grey gull lost its fear and flew\nDown to her cell and there alit,\nAnd there endured her fingers’ touch\nAnd from her fingers ate its bit.\n\nDid she in touching that lone wing\nRecall the years before her mind\nBecame a bitter, an abstract thing,\nHer thought some popular enmity:\nBlind and leader of the blind\nDrinking the foul ditch where they lie?\n\nWhen long ago I saw her ride\nUnder Ben Bulben to the meet,\nThe beauty of her country-side\nWith all youth’s lonely wildness stirred,\nShe seemed to have grown clean and sweet\nLike any rock-bred, sea-borne bird:\n\nSea-borne, or balanced on the air\nWhen first it sprang out of the nest\nUpon some lofty rock to stare\nUpon the cloudy canopy,\nWhile under its storm-beaten breast\nCried out the hollows of the sea.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124492,10 +129939,10 @@ "title": "“Peace”", "body": "Ah, that Time could touch a form\nThat could show what Homer’s age\nBred to be a hero’s wage.\n“Were not all her life but storm\nWould not painters paint a form\nOf such noble lines,” I said,\n“Such a delicate high head,\nAll that sternness amid charm,\nAll that sweetness amid strength?”\nAh, but peace that comes at length,\nCame when Time had touched her form.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124503,10 +129950,10 @@ "title": "“The People”", "body": "“What have I earned for all that work,” I said,\n“For all that I have done at my own charge?\nThe daily spite of this unmannerly town\nWhere who has served the most is most defamed,\nThe reputation of his lifetime lost\nBetween the night and morning. I might have lived--\nAnd you know well how great the longing has been--\nWhere every day my footfall should have lit\nIn the green shadow on Ferrara wall;\nOr climbed among the images of the past,\nThe unperturbed and courtly images,\nEvening and morn, the steep street of Urbino\nTo where the duchess and her people talked\nThe stately midnight through until they stood\nIn their great window looking at the dawn.\nI might have had no friend that could not mix\nCourtesy and passion into one, like those\nThat saw the wicks grow yellow in the dawn.\nI might have used the one substantial right\nMy trade allows--chosen my company,\nAnd chosen what scenery had pleased me best.”\n\nTheron my phoenix answered in reproof:\n“The drunkards, pilferers of public funds--\nAll the dishonest crowd I had driven away.\nWhen my luck changed and they dared to meet my face,\nCrawled from obscurity and set upon me\nThose I had served and some that I had fed;\nYet never have I, now nor any time,\nComplained of the people.”\n\nAll I could reply\nWas: “You that have not lived in thought but deed\nCan have the purity of a natural force;\nBut I, whose virtues are the definitions\nOf the analytic mind, can neither close\nThe eye of the mind nor keep my tongue from speech.”\n\nAnd yet, because my heart leaped at her words,\nI was abashed, and now they come to mind\nAfter nine years, I sink my head abashed.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1916 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124514,10 +129961,10 @@ "title": "“The Phases of the Moon”", "body": "_An old man cocked his car upon a bridge;\nHe and his friend, their faces to the South,\nHad trod the uneven road. Their hoots were soiled,\nTheir Connemara cloth worn out of shape;\nThey had kept a steady pace as though their beds,\nDespite a dwindling and late-risen moon,\nWere distant still. An old man cocked his ear._\n\n> _Aherne:_\nWhat made that Sound?\n\n> _Robartes:_\nA rat or water-hen\nSplashed, or an otter slid into the stream.\nWe are on the bridge; that shadow is the tower,\nAnd the light proves that he is reading still.\nHe has found, after the manner of his kind,\nMere images; chosen this place to live in\nBecause, it may be, of the candle-light\nFrom the far tower where Milton’s Platonist\nSat late, or Shelley’s visionary prince:\nThe lonely light that Samuel Palmer engraved,\nAn image of mysterious wisdom won by toil;\nAnd now he seeks in book or manuscript\nWhat he shall never find.\n\n> _Aherne:_\nWhy should not you\nWho know it all ring at his door, and speak\nJust truth enough to show that his whole life\nWill scarcely find for him a broken crust\nOf all those truths that are your daily bread;\nAnd when you have spoken take the roads again?\n\n> _Robartes:_\nHe wrote of me in that extravagant style\nHe had learnt from pater, and to round his tale\nSaid I was dead; and dead I choose to be.\n\n> _Aherne:_\nSing me the changes of the moon once more;\nTrue song, though speech: “mine author sung it me.”\n\n> _Robartes:_\nTwenty-and-eight the phases of the moon,\nThe full and the moon’s dark and all the crescents,\nTwenty-and-eight, and yet but six-and-twenty\nThe cradles that a man must needs be rocked in:\nFor there’s no human life at the full or the dark.\nFrom the first crescent to the half, the dream\nBut summons to adventure and the man\nIs always happy like a bird or a beast;\nBut while the moon is rounding towards the full\nHe follows whatever whim’s most difficult\nAmong whims not impossible, and though scarred.\nAs with the cat-o’-nine-tails of the mind,\nHis body moulded from within his body\nGrows comelier. Eleven pass, and then\nAthene takes Achilles by the hair,\nHector is in the dust, Nietzsche is born,\nBecause the hero’s crescent is the twelfth.\nAnd yet, twice born, twice buried, grow he must,\nBefore the full moon, helpless as a worm.\nThe thirteenth moon but sets the soul at war\nIn its own being, and when that war’s begun\nThere is no muscle in the arm; and after,\nUnder the frenzy of the fourteenth moon,\nThe soul begins to tremble into stillness,\nTo die into the labyrinth of itself!\n\n> _Aherne:_\nSing out the song; sing to the end, and sing\nThe strange reward of all that discipline.\n\n> _Robartes:_\nAll thought becomes an image and the soul\nBecomes a body: that body and that soul\nToo perfect at the full to lie in a cradle,\nToo lonely for the traffic of the world:\nBody and soul cast out and cast away\nBeyond the visible world.\n\n> _Aherne:_\nAll dreams of the soul\nEnd in a beautiful man’s or woman’s body.\nRobartes, Have you not always known it?\n\n> _Aherne:_\nThe song will have it\nThat those that we have loved got their long fingers\nFrom death, and wounds, or on Sinai’s top,\nOr from some bloody whip in their own hands.\nThey ran from cradle to cradle till at last\nTheir beauty dropped out of the loneliness\nOf body and soul.\n\n> _Robartes:_\nThe lover’s heart knows that.\n\n> _Aherne:_\nIt must be that the terror in their eyes\nIs memory or foreknowledge of the hour\nWhen all is fed with light and heaven is bare.\n\n> _Robartes:_\nWhen the moon’s full those creatures of the full\nAre met on the waste hills by countrymen\nWho shudder and hurry by: body and soul\nEstranged amid the strangeness of themselves,\nCaught up in contemplation, the mind’s eye\nFixed upon images that once were thought;\nFor separate, perfect, and immovable\nImages can break the solitude\nOf lovely, satisfied, indifferent eyes.\n\n_And thereupon with aged, high-pitched voice\nAherne laughed, thinking of the man within,\nHis sleepless candle and lahorious pen._\n\n> _Robartes:_\nAnd after that the crumbling of the moon.\nThe soul remembering its loneliness\nShudders in many cradles; all is changed,\nIt would be the world’s servant, and as it serves,\nChoosing whatever task’s most difficult\nAmong tasks not impossible, it takes\nUpon the body and upon the soul\nThe coarseness of the drudge.\n\n> _Aherne:_\nBefore the full\nIt sought itself and afterwards the world.\n\n> _Robartes:_\nBecause you are forgotten, half out of life,\nAnd never wrote a book, your thought is clear.\nReformer, merchant, statesman, learned man,\nDutiful husband, honest wife by turn,\nCradle upon cradle, and all in flight and all\nDeformed because there is no deformity\nBut saves us from a dream.\n\n> _Aherne:_\nAnd what of those\nThat the last servile crescent has set free?\n\n> _Robartes:_\nBecause all dark, like those that are all light,\nThey are cast beyond the verge, and in a cloud,\nCrying to one another like the bats;\nAnd having no desire they cannot tell\nWhat’s good or bad, or what it is to triumph\nAt the perfection of one’s own obedience;\nAnd yet they speak what’s blown into the mind;\nDeformed beyond deformity, unformed,\nInsipid as the dough before it is baked,\nThey change their bodies at a word.\n\n> _Aherne:_\nAnd then?\n\nRohartes. When all the dough has been so kneaded up\nThat it can take what form cook Nature fancies,\nThe first thin crescent is wheeled round once more.\n\n> _Aherne:_\nBut the escape; the song’s not finished yet.\n\n> _Robartes:_\nHunchback and Saint and Fool are the last crescents.\nThe burning bow that once could shoot an arrow\nOut of the up and down, the wagon-wheel\nOf beauty’s cruelty and wisdom’s chatter--\nOut of that raving tide--is drawn betwixt\nDeformity of body and of mind.\n\n> _Aherne:_\nWere not our beds far off I’d ring the bell,\nStand under the rough roof-timbers of the hall\nBeside the castle door, where all is stark\nAusterity, a place set out for wisdom\nThat he will never find; I’d play a part;\nHe would never know me after all these years\nBut take me for some drunken countryman:\nI’d stand and mutter there until he caught\n“Hunchback and Sant and Fool,” and that they came\nUnder the three last crescents of the moon.\nAnd then I’d stagger out. He’d crack his wits\nDay after day, yet never find the meaning.\n\n_And then he laughed to think that what seemed hard\nShould be so simple--a bat rose from the hazels\nAnd circled round him with its squeaky cry,\nThe light in the tower window was put out._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124525,10 +129972,10 @@ "title": "“The Pilgrim”", "body": "I fasted for some forty days on bread and buttermilk,\nFor passing round the bottle with girls in rags or silk,\nIn country shawl or Paris cloak, had put my wits astray,\nAnd what’s the good of women, for all that they can say\nIs fol de rol de rolly O.\n\nRound Lough Derg’s holy island I went upon the stones,\nI prayed at all the Stations upon my matrow-bones,\nAnd there I found an old man, and though, I prayed all day\nAnd that old man beside me, nothing would he say\nBut fol de rol de rolly O.\n\nAll know that all the dead in the world about that place are stuck,\nAnd that should mother seek her son she’d have but little luck\nBecause the fires of purgatory have ate their shapes away;\nI swear to God I questioned them, and all they had to say\nWas fol de rol de rolly O.\n\nA great black ragged bird appeared when I was in the boat;\nSome twenty feet from tip to tip had it stretched rightly out,\nWith flopping and with flapping it made a great display,\nBut I never stopped to question, what could the boatman say\nBut fol de rol de rolly O.\n\nNow I am in the public-house and lean upon the wall,\nSo come in rags or come in silk, in cloak or country shawl,\nAnd come with learned lovers or with what men you may,\nFor I can put the whole lot down, and all I have to say\nIs fol de rol de rolly O.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1937 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -124539,10 +129986,10 @@ "title": "“The Pity of Love”", "body": "A pity beyond all telling\nIs hid in the heart of love:\nThe folk who are buying and selling,\nThe clouds on their journey above,\nThe cold wet winds ever blowing,\nAnd the shadowy hazel grove\nWhere mouse-grey waters are flowing,\nThreaten the head that I love.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1892 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124550,10 +129997,10 @@ "title": "From “The Player Queen”", "body": "My mother dandled me and sang,\n“How young it is, how young!”\nAnd made a golden cradle\nThat on a willow swung.\n\n“He went away,” my mother sang,\n“When I was brought to bed,”\nAnd all the while her needle pulled\nThe gold and silver thread.\n\nShe pulled the thread and bit the thread\nAnd made a golden gown,\nAnd wept because she had dreamt that I\nWas born to wear a crown.\n\n“When she was got,” my mother sang,\n“I heard a sea-mew cry,\nAnd saw a flake of the yellow foam\nThat dropped upon my thigh.”\n\nHow therefore could she help but braid\nThe gold into my hair,\nAnd dream that I should carry\nThe golden top of care?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124561,10 +130008,10 @@ "title": "“A Prayer for My Daughter”", "body": "Once more the storm is howling, and half hid\nUnder this cradle-hood and coverlid\nMy child sleeps on. There is no obstacle\nBut Gregory’s wood and one bare hill\nWhereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind.\nBred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;\nAnd for an hour I have walked and prayed\nBecause of the great gloom that is in my mind.\n\nI have walked and prayed for this young child an hour\nAnd heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,\nAnd-under the arches of the bridge, and scream\nIn the elms above the flooded stream;\nImagining in excited reverie\nThat the future years had come,\nDancing to a frenzied drum,\nOut of the murderous innocence of the sea.\n\nMay she be granted beauty and yet not\nBeauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught,\nOr hers before a looking-glass, for such,\nBeing made beautiful overmuch,\nConsider beauty a sufficient end,\nLose natural kindness and maybe\nThe heart-revealing intimacy\nThat chooses right, and never find a friend.\n\nHelen being chosen found life flat and dull\nAnd later had much trouble from a fool,\nWhile that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,\nBeing fatherless could have her way\nYet chose a bandy-leggĂšd smith for man.\nIt’s certain that fine women eat\nA crazy salad with their meat\nWhereby the Horn of plenty is undone.\n\nIn courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;\nHearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned\nBy those that are not entirely beautiful;\nYet many, that have played the fool\nFor beauty’s very self, has charm made wisc.\nAnd many a poor man that has roved,\nLoved and thought himself beloved,\nFrom a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.\n\nMay she become a flourishing hidden tree\nThat all her thoughts may like the linnet be,\nAnd have no business but dispensing round\nTheir magnanimities of sound,\nNor but in merriment begin a chase,\nNor but in merriment a quarrel.\nO may she live like some green laurel\nRooted in one dear perpetual place.\n\nMy mind, because the minds that I have loved,\nThe sort of beauty that I have approved,\nProsper but little, has dried up of late,\nYet knows that to be choked with hate\nMay well be of all evil chances chief.\nIf there’s no hatred in a mind\nAssault and battery of the wind\nCan never tear the linnet from the leaf.\n\nAn intellectual hatred is the worst,\nSo let her think opinions are accursed.\nHave I not seen the loveliest woman born\nOut of the mouth of plenty’s horn,\nBecause of her opinionated mind\nBarter that horn and every good\nBy quiet natures understood\nFor an old bellows full of angry wind?\n\nConsidering that, all hatred driven hence,\nThe soul recovers radical innocence\nAnd learns at last that it is self-delighting,\nSelf-appeasing, self-affrighting,\nAnd that its own sweet will is Heaven’s will;\nShe can, though every face should scowl\nAnd every windy quarter howl\nOr every bellows burst, be happy Still.\n\nAnd may her bridegroom bring her to a house\nWhere all’s accustomed, ceremonious;\nFor arrogance and hatred are the wares\nPeddled in the thoroughfares.\nHow but in custom and in ceremony\nAre innocence and beauty born?\nCeremony’s a name for the rich horn,\nAnd custom for the spreading laurel tree.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124572,10 +130019,10 @@ "title": "“A Prayer for My Son”", "body": "Bid a strong ghost stand at the head\nThat my Michael may sleep sound,\nNor cry, nor turn in the bed\nTill his morning meal come round;\nAnd may departing twilight keep\nAll dread afar till morning’s back.\nThat his mother may not lack\nHer fill of sleep.\n\nBid the ghost have sword in fist:\nSome there are, for I avow\nSuch devilish things exist,\nWho have planned his murder, for they know\nOf some most haughty deed or thought\nThat waits upon his future days,\nAnd would through hatred of the bays\nBring that to nought.\n\nThough You can fashion everything\nFrom nothing every day, and teach\nThe morning stars to sing,\nYou have lacked articulate speech\nTo tell Your simplest want, and known,\nWailing upon a woman’s knee,\nAll of that worst ignominy\nOf flesh and bone;\n\nAnd when through all the town there ran\nThe servants of Your enemy,\nA woman and a man,\nUnless the Holy Writings lie,\nHurried through the smooth and rough\nAnd through the fertile and waste,\nprotecting, till the danger past,\nWith human love.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124583,10 +130030,10 @@ "title": "“A Prayer for Old Age”", "body": "God guard me from those thoughts men think\nIn the mind alone;\nHe that sings a lasting song\nThinks in a marrow-bone;\n\nFrom all that makes a wise old man\nThat can be praised of all;\nO what am I that I should not seem\nFor the song’s sake a fool?\n\nI pray--for word is out\nAnd prayer comes round again--\nThat I may seem, though I die old,\nA foolish, passionate man.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124594,10 +130041,10 @@ "title": "“Presences”", "body": "This night has been so strange that it seemed\nAs if the hair stood up on my head.\nFrom going-down of the sun I have dreamed\nThat women laughing, or timid or wild,\nIn rustle of lace or silken stuff,\nClimbed up my creaking stair. They had read\nAll I had rhymed of that monstrous thing\nReturned and yet unrequited love.\nThey stood in the door and stood between\nMy great wood lectern and the fire\nTill I could hear their hearts beating:\nOne is a harlot, and one a child\nThat never looked upon man with desire.\nAnd one, it may be, a queen.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124605,10 +130052,10 @@ "title": "“Quarrel in Old Age”", "body": "Where had her sweetness gone?\nWhat fanatics invent\nIn this blind bitter town,\nFantasy or incident\nNot worth thinking of,\nPut her in a rage.\nI had forgiven enough\nThat had forgiven old age.\n\nAll lives that has lived;\nSo much is certain;\nOld sages were not deceived:\nSomewhere beyond the curtain\nOf distorting days\nLives that lonely thing\nThat shone before these eyes\nTargeted, trod like Spring.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1932 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124616,10 +130063,10 @@ "title": "“The Ragged Wood”", "body": "O hurry where by water among the trees\nThe delicate-stepping stag and his lady sigh,\nWhen they have but looked upon their images--\nWould none had ever loved but you and I!\n\nOr have you heard that sliding silver-shoed\nPale silver-proud queen-woman of the sky,\nWhen the sun looked out of his golden hood?--\nO that none ever loved but you and I!\n\nO hurry to the ragged wood, for there\nI will drive all those lovers out and cry--\nO my share of the world, O yellow hair!\nNo one has ever loved but you and I.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1904 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124627,10 +130074,10 @@ "title": "“Reconciliation”", "body": "Some may have blamed you that you took away\nThe verses that could move them on the day\nWhen, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind\nWith lightning, you went from me, and I could find\nNothing to make a song about but kings,\nHelmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things\nThat were like memories of you--but now\nWe’ll out, for the world lives as long ago;\nAnd while we’re in our laughing, weeping fit,\nHurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit.\nBut, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone,\nMy barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124638,11 +130085,11 @@ "title": "From “Responsibilities”", "body": "Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain\nSomewhere in ear-shot for the story’s end,\nOld Dublin merchant “free of the ten and four”\nOr trading out of Galway into Spain;\nOld country scholar, Robert Emmet’s friend,\nA hundred-year-old memory to the poor;\nMerchant and scholar who have left me blood\nThat has not passed through any huckster’s loin,\nSoldiers that gave, whatever die was cast:\nA Butler or an Armstrong that withstood\nBeside the brackish waters of the Boyne\nJames and his Irish when the Dutchman crossed;\nOld merchant skipper that leaped overboard\nAfter a ragged hat in Biscay Bay;\nYou most of all, silent and fierce old man,\nBecause the daily spectacle that stirred\nMy fancy, and set my boyish lips to say,\n“Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun”;\nPardon that for a barren passion’s sake,\nAlthough I have come close on forty-nine,\nI have no child, I have nothing but a book,\nNothing but that to prove your blood and mine.\n\n
\n\nWhile I, from that reed-throated whisperer\nWho comes at need, although not now as once\nA clear articulation in the air,\nBut inwardly, surmise companions\nBeyond the fling of the dull ass’s hoof\n- Ben Jonson’s phrase--and find when June is come\nAt Kyle-na-no under that ancient roof\nA sterner conscience and a friendlier home,\nI can forgive even that wrong of wrongs,\nThose undreamt accidents that have made me\n- Seeing that Fame has perished this long while.\nBeing but a part of ancient ceremony--\nNotorious, till all my priceless things\nAre but a post the passing dogs defile.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1914, "month": "january" }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "january" @@ -124653,10 +130100,10 @@ "title": "“Ribh at the Tomb of Baile and Aillinn”", "body": "Because you have found me in the pitch-dark night\nWith open book you ask me what I do.\nMark and digest my tale, carry it afar\nTo those that never saw this tonsured head\nNor heard this voice that ninety years have cracked.\nOf Baile and Aillinn you need not speak,\nAll know their tale, all know what leaf and twig,\nWhat juncture of the apple and the yew,\nSurmount their bones; but speak what none have heard.\n\nThe miracle that gave them such a death\nTransfigured to pure substance what had once\nBeen bone and sinew; when such bodies join\nThere is no touching here, nor touching there,\nNor straining joy, but whole is joined to whole;\nFor the intercourse of angels is a light\nWhere for its moment both seem lost, consumed.\n\nHere in the pitch-dark atmosphere above\nThe trembling of the apple and the yew,\nHere on the anniversary of their death,\nThe anniversary of their first embrace,\nThose lovers, purified by tragedy,\nHurry into each other’s arms; these eyes,\nBy water, herb and solitary prayer\nMade aquiline, are open to that light.\nThough somewhat broken by the leaves, that light\nLies in a circle on the grass; therein\nI turn the pages of my holy book.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124664,10 +130111,10 @@ "title": "“Ribh Considers Christian Love Insufficient”", "body": "Why should I seek for love or study it?\nIt is of God and passes human wit.\nI study hatred with great diligence,\nFor that’s a passion in my own control,\nA sort of besom that can clear the soul\nOf everything that is not mind or sense.\n\nWhy do I hate man, woman or event?\nThat is a light my jealous soul has sent.\nFrom terror and deception freed it can\nDiscover impurities, can show at last\nHow soul may walk when all such things are past,\nHow soul could walk before such things began.\n\nThen my delivered soul herself shall learn\nA darker knowledge and in hatred turn\nFrom every thought of God mankind has had.\nThought is a garment and the soul’s a bride\nThat cannot in that trash and tinsel hide:\nHatred of God may bring the soul to God.\n\nAt stroke of midnight soul cannot endure\nA bodily or mental furniture.\nWhat can she take until her Master give!\nWhere can she look until He make the show!\nWhat can she know until He bid her know!\nHow can she live till in her blood He live!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124675,10 +130122,10 @@ "title": "“Ribh Denounces Patrick”", "body": "An abstract Greek absurdity has crazed the man--\nRecall that masculine Trinity. Man, woman, child (daughter or son),\nThat’s how all natural or supernatural stories run.\n\nNatural and supernatural with the self-same ring are wed.\nAs man, as beast, as an ephemeral fly begets, Godhead begets Godhead,\nFor things below are copies, the Great Smaragdine Tablet said.\n\nYet all must copy copies, all increase their kind;\nWhen the conflagration of their passion sinks, damped by the body or the mind,\nThat juggling nature mounts, her coil in their embraces twined.\n\nThe mirror-scaled serpent is multiplicity,\nBut all that run in couples, on earth, in flood or air, share God that is but three,\nAnd could beget or bear themselves could they but love as He.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124686,10 +130133,10 @@ "title": "“Ribh in Ecstasy”", "body": "What matter that you understood no word!\nDoubtless I spoke or sang what I had heard\nIn broken sentences. My soul had found\nAll happiness in its own cause or ground.\nGodhead on Godhead in sexual spasm begot\nGodhead. Some shadow fell. My soul forgot\nThose amorous cries that out of quiet come\nAnd must the common round of day resume.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1935 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124697,10 +130144,10 @@ "title": "“The Rose of Battle”", "body": "Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!\nThe tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled\nAbove the tide of hours, trouble the air,\nAnd God’s bell buoyed to be the water’s care;\nWhile hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band\nWith blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand,\n_Turn if you may from battles never done,\nI call, as they go by me one by one,\nDanger no refuge holds, and war no peace,\nFor him who hears love sing and never cease,\nBeside her clean-swept hearth, her quiet shade:\nBut gather all for whom no love hath made\nA woven silence, or but came to cast\nA song into the air, and singing passed\nTo smile on the pale dawn; and gather you\nWho have sougft more than is in rain or dew,\nOr in the sun and moon, or on the earth,\nOr sighs amid the wandering, starry mirth,\nOr comes in laughter from the sea’s sad lips,\nAnd wage God’s battles in the long grey ships.\nThe sad, the lonely, the insatiable,\nTo these Old Night shall all her mystery tell;\nGod’s bell has claimed them by the little cry\nOf their sad hearts, that may not live nor die._\n\nRose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!\nYou, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled\nUpon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring\nThe bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.\nBeauty grown sad with its eternity\nMade you of us, and of the dim grey sea.\nOur long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait,\nFor God has bid them share an equal fate;\nAnd when at last, defeated in His wars,\nThey have gone down under the same white stars,\nWe shall no longer hear the little cry\nOf our sad hearts, that may not live nor die.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1892 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124708,10 +130155,10 @@ "title": "“The Rose of the World”", "body": "Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?\nFor these red lips with all their mournful pride\nMournful that no new wonder may betide\nTroy passed away in one high funeral gleam\nAnd Usna’s children died.\n\nWe and the labouring world are passing by:\nAmid men’s souls that waver and give place\nLike the pale waters in their wintry race\nUnder the passing stars foam of the sky\nLives on this lonely face.\n\nBow down archangels in your dim abode:\nBefore you were or any hearts to beat\nWeary and kind one lingered by His seat;\nHe made the world to be a grassy road\nBefore her wandering feet.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1892 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124719,10 +130166,10 @@ "title": "“The Rose Tree”", "body": "“O words are lightly spoken,”\nSaid Pearse to Connolly,\n“Maybe a breath of politic words\nHas withered our Rose Tree;\nOr maybe but a wind that blows\nAcross the bitter sea.”\n\n“It needs to be but watered,”\nJames Connolly replied,\n“To make the green come out again\nAnd spread on every side,\nAnd shake the blossom from the bud\nTo be the garden’s pride.”\n\n“But where can we draw water,”\nSaid Pearse to Connolly,\n“When all the wells are parched away?\nO plain as plain can be\nThere’s nothing but our own red blood\nCan make a right Rose Tree.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -124733,10 +130180,10 @@ "title": "“Running to Paradise”", "body": "As I came over Windy Gap\nThey threw a halfpenny into my cap,\nFor I am running to Paradise.\nAnd all that I need do is to wish,\nAnd somebody puts his hand in the dish\nTo throw me a bit of salted fish,\n_And there the king is but as the beggar._\n\nMy brother Mourteen is worn out\nWith skelping his big brawling lout,\nWhile I am running to Paradise.\nA poor life, do what he can,\nAnd though he keep a dog and a gun,\nA serving maid and a serving man,\n_And there the king is but as the beggar._\n\nPoor men have grown to be rich men,\nAnd rich men grown to be poor again,\nWhile I am running to Paradise.\nAnd many a darling wit’s grown dull\nThat tossed a bare heel when at school;\nNow it has filled an old sock full,\n_And there the king is but as the beggar._\n\nThe wind is old and still at play\nWhile I must hurry upon my way\nFor I am running to Paradise.\nYet never have I lit on a friend\nTo take my fancy like the wind\nThat nobody can buy or bind--\n_And there the king is but as the beggar._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124744,10 +130191,10 @@ "title": "“The Sad Shepherd”", "body": "There was a man whom Sorrow named his Friend,\nAnd he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming,\nWent walking with slow steps along the gleaming\nAnd humming Sands, where windy surges wend:\nAnd he called loudly to the stars to bend\nFrom their pale thrones and comfort him, but they\nAmong themselves laugh on and sing alway:\nAnd then the man whom Sorrow named his friend\nCried out, _Dim sea, hear my most piteous story!_\nThe sea Swept on and cried her old cry still,\nRolling along in dreams from hill to hill.\nHe fled the persecution of her glory\nAnd, in a far-off, gentle valley stopping,\nCried all his story to the dewdrops glistening.\nBut naught they heard, for they are always listening,\nThe dewdrops, for the sound of their own dropping.\nAnd then the man whom Sorrow named his friend\nSought once again the shore, and found a shell,\nAnd thought, _I will my heavy story tell\nTill my own words, re-echoing, shall send\nTheir sadness through a hollow, pearly heart;\nAnd my own talc again for me shall sing,\nAnd my own whispering words be comforting,\nAnd lo! my ancient burden may depart._\nThen he sang softly nigh the pearly rim;\nBut the sad dweller by the sea-ways lone\nChanged all he sang to inarticulate moan\nAmong her wildering whirls, forgetting him.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1886 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124773,10 +130220,10 @@ "title": "“The Scholars”", "body": "Bald heads forgetful of their sins,\nOld, learned, respectable bald heads\nEdit and annotate the lines\nThat young men, tossing on their beds,\n\nRhymed out in love’s despair\nTo flatter beauty’s ignorant ear.\n\nAll shuffle there; all cough in ink;\nAll wear the carpet with their shoes;\nAll think what other people think;\nAll know the man their neighbour knows.\nLord, what would they say\nDid their Catullus walk that way?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1915 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124784,10 +130231,10 @@ "title": "“The Second Coming”", "body": "Turning and turning in the widening gyre\nThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;\nThings fall apart; the centre cannot hold;\nMere anarchy is loosed upon the world,\nThe blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere\nThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;\nThe best lack all conviction, while the worst\nAre full of passionate intensity.\n\nSurely some revelation is at hand;\nSurely the Second Coming is at hand.\nThe Second Coming! Hardly are those words out\nWhen a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi\nTroubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert\nA shape with lion body and the head of a man,\nA gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,\nIs moving its slow thighs, while all about it\nReel shadows of the indignant desert birds.\nThe darkness drops again; but now I know\nThat twenty centuries of stony sleep\nWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,\nAnd what rough beast, its hour come round at last,\nSlouches towards Bethlehem to be born?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -124798,10 +130245,10 @@ "title": "“September”", "body": "What need you, being come to sense,\nBut fumble in a greasy till\nAnd add the halfpence to the pence\nAnd prayer to shivering prayer, until\nYou have dried the marrow from the bone;\nFor men were born to pray and save:\nRomantic Ireland’s dead and gone,\nIt’s with O’Leary in the grave.\n\nYet they were of a different kind,\nThe names that stilled your childish play,\nThey have gone about the world like wind,\nBut little time had they to pray\nFor whom the hangman’s rope was spun,\nAnd what, God help us, could they save?\nRomantic Ireland’s dead and gone,\nIt’s with O’Leary in the grave.\n\nWas it for this the wild geese spread\nThe grey wing upon every tide;\nFor this that all that blood was shed,\nFor this Edward Fitzgerald died,\nAnd Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,\nAll that delirium of the brave?\nRomantic Ireland’s dead and gone,\nIt’s with O’Leary in the grave.\n\nYet could we turn the years again,\nAnd call those exiles as they were\nIn all their loneliness and pain,\nYou’d cry, “Some woman’s yellow hair\nHas maddened every mother’s son”:\nThey weighed so lightly what they gave.\nBut let them be, they’re dead and gone,\nThey’re with O’Leary in the grave.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "september" @@ -124812,10 +130259,10 @@ "title": "“The Seven Sages”", "body": "> _The First._\nMy great-grandfather spoke to Edmund Burke\nIn Grattan’s house.\n\n> _The Second._\nMy great-grandfather shared\nA pot-house bench with Oliver Goldsmith once.\n\n> _The Third._\nMy great-grandfather’s father talked of music,\nDrank tar-water with the Bishop of Cloyne.\n\n> _The Fourth._\nBut mine saw Stella once.\n\n> _The Fifth._\nWhence came our thought?\n\n> _The Sixth._\nFrom four great minds that hated Whiggery.\n\n> _The Fifth._\nBurke was a Whig.\n\n> _The Sixth._\nWhether they knew or not,\nGoldsmith and Burke, Swift and the Bishop of Cloyne\nAll hated Whiggery; but what is Whiggery?\nA levelling, rancorous, rational sort of mind\nThat never looked out of the eye of a saint\nOr out of drunkard’s eye.\n\n> _The Seventh._\nAll’s Whiggery now,\nBut we old men are massed against the world.\n\n> _The First._\nAmerican colonies, Ireland, France and India\nHarried, and Burke’s great melody against it.\n\n> _The Second._\nOliver Goldsmith sang what he had seen,\nRoads full of beggars, cattle in the fields,\nBut never saw the trefoil stained with blood,\nThe avenging leaf those fields raised up against it.\n\n> _The Fourth._\nThe tomb of Swift wears it away.\n\n> _The Third._\nA voice\nSoft as the rustle of a reed from Cloyne\nThat gathers volume; now a thunder-clap.\n\n> _The Sixth._\nWhat schooling had these four?\n\n> _The Seventh._\nThey walked the roads\nMimicking what they heard, as children mimic;\nThey understood that wisdom comes of beggary.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1932 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124831,10 +130278,10 @@ "title": "“Shepherd and Goatherd”", "body": "> _Shepherd:_\nThat cry’s from the first cuckoo of the year.\nI wished before it ceased.\n\n> _Goatherd:_\nNor bird nor beast\nCould make me wish for anything this day,\nBeing old, but that the old alone might die,\nAnd that would be against God’s providence.\nLet the young wish. But what has brought you here?\nNever until this moment have we met\nWhere my goats browse on the scarce grass or leap\nFrom stone to Stone.\n\n> _Shepherd:_\nI am looking for strayed sheep;\nSomething has troubled me and in my rrouble\nI let them stray. I thought of rhyme alone,\nFor rhyme can beat a measure out of trouble\nAnd make the daylight sweet once more; but when\nI had driven every rhyme into its Place\nThe sheep had gone from theirs.\n\n> _Goatherd:_\nI know right well\nWhat turned so good a shepherd from his charge.\n\n> _Shepherd:_\nHe that was best in every country sport\nAnd every country craft, and of us all\nMost courteous to slow age and hasty youth,\nIs dead.\n\n> _Goatherd:_\nThe boy that brings my griddle-cake\nBrought the bare news.\n\n> _Shepherd:_\nHe had thrown the crook away\nAnd died in the great war beyond the sea.\n\n> _Goatherd:_\nHe had often played his pipes among my hills,\nAnd when he played it was their loneliness,\nThe exultation of their stone, that died\nUnder his fingers.\n\n> _Shepherd:_\nI had it from his mother,\nAnd his own flock was browsing at the door.\n\n> _Goatherd:_\nHow does she bear her grief? There is not a shepherd\nBut grows more gentle when he speaks her name,\nRemembering kindness done, and how can I,\nThat found when I had neither goat nor grazing\nNew welcome and old wisdom at her fire\nTill winter blasts were gone, but speak of her\nEven before his children and his wife?\n\n> _Shepherd:_\nShe goes about her house erect and calm\nBetween the pantry and the linen-chest,\nOr else at meadow or at grazing overlooks\nHer labouring men, as though her darling lived,\nBut for her grandson now; there is no change\nBut such as I have Seen upon her face\nWatching our shepherd sports at harvest-time\nWhen her son’s turn was over.\n\n> _Goatherd:_\nSing your song.\nI too have rhymed my reveries, but youth\nIs hot to show whatever it has found,\nAnd till that’s done can neither work nor wait.\nOld goatherds and old goats, if in all else\nYouth can excel them in accomplishment,\nAre learned in waiting.\n\n> _Shepherd:_\nYou cannot but have seen\nThat he alone had gathered up no gear,\nSet carpenters to work on no wide table,\nOn no long bench nor lofty milking-shed\nAs others will, when first they take possession,\nBut left the house as in his father’s time\nAs though he knew himself, as it were, a cuckoo,\nNo settled man. And now that he is gone\nThere’s nothing of him left but half a score\nOf sorrowful, austere, sweet, lofty pipe tunes.\n\n> _Goatherd:_\nYou have put the thought in rhyme.\n\n> _Shepherd:_\nI worked all day,\nAnd when ’twas done so little had I done\nThat maybe “I am sorry” in plain prose\nHad Sounded better to your mountain fancy.\n\n[He sings.]\n\n“Like the speckled bird that steers\nThousands of leagues oversea,\nAnd runs or a while half-flies\nOn his yellow legs through our meadows.\nHe stayed for a while; and we\nHad scarcely accustomed our ears\nTo his speech at the break of day,\nHad scarcely accustomed our eyes\nTo his shape at the rinsing-pool\nAmong the evening shadows,\nWhen he vanished from ears and eyes.\nI might have wished on the day\nHe came, but man is a fool.”\n\n> _Goatherd:_\nYou sing as always of the natural life,\nAnd I that made like music in my youth\nHearing it now have sighed for that young man\nAnd certain lost companions of my own.\n\n> _Shepherd:_\nThey say that on your barren mountain ridge\nYou have measured out the road that the soul treads\nWhen it has vanished from our natural eyes;\nThat you have talked with apparitions.\n\n> _Goatherd:_\nIndeed\nMy daily thoughts since the first stupor of youth\nHave found the path my goats’ feet cannot find.\n\n> _Shepherd:_\nSing, for it may be that your thoughts have plucked\nSome medicable herb to make our grief\nLess bitter.\n\n> _Goatherd:_\nThey have brought me from that ridge\nSeed-pods and flowers that are not all wild poppy.\n\n[Sings.]\n\n“He grows younger every second\nThat were all his birthdays reckoned\nMuch too solemn seemed;\nBecause of what he had dreamed,\nOr the ambitions that he served,\nMuch too solemn and reserved.\nJaunting, journeying\nTo his own dayspring,\nHe unpacks the loaded pern\nOf all ’twas pain or joy to learn,\nOf all that he had made.\nThe outrageous war shall fade;\nAt some old winding whitethorn root\nHe’ll practise on the shepherd’s flute,\nOr on the close-cropped grass\nCourt his shepherd lass,\nOr put his heart into some game\nTill daytime, playtime seem the same;\nKnowledge he shall unwind\nThrough victories of the mind,\nTill, clambering at the cradle-side,\nHe dreams himself hsi mother’s pride,\nAll knowledge lost in trance\nOf sweeter ignorance.”\n\n> _Shepherd:_\nWhen I have shut these ewes and this old ram\nInto the fold, we’ll to the woods and there\nCut out our rhymes on strips of new-torn bark\nBut put no name and leave them at her door.\nTo know the mountain and the valley have grieved\nMay be a quiet thought to wife and mother,\nAnd children when they spring up shoulder-high.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -124845,10 +130292,10 @@ "title": "“Sixteen Dead Men”", "body": "O but we talked at large before\nThe sixteen men were shot,\nBut who can talk of give and take,\nWhat should be and what not\nWhile those dead men are loitering there\nTo stir the boiling pot?\n\nYou say that we should still the land\nTill Germany’s overcome;\nBut who is there to argue that\nNow Pearse is deaf and dumb?\nAnd is their logic to outweigh\nMacDonagh’s bony thumb?\n\nHow could you dream they’d listen\nThat have an ear alone\nFor those new comrades they have found,\nLord Edward and Wolfe Tone,\nOr meddle with our give and take\nThat converse bone to bone?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124856,10 +130303,10 @@ "title": "“Solomon and the Witch”", "body": "And thus declared that Arab lady:\n“Last night, where under the wild moon\nOn grassy mattress I had laid me,\nWithin my arms great Solomon,\nI suddenly cried out in a strange tongue\nNot his, not mine.”\n\nWho understood\nWhatever has been said, sighed, sung,\nHowled, miau-d, barked, brayed, belled, yelled, cried, crowed,\nThereon replied: “A cockerel\nCrew from a blossoming apple bough\nThree hundred years before the Fall,\nAnd never crew again till now,\nAnd would not now but that he thought,\nChance being at one with Choice at last,\nAll that the brigand apple brought\nAnd this foul world were dead at last.\nHe that crowed out eternity\nThought to have crowed it in again.\nFor though love has a spider’s eye\nTo find out some appropriate pain--\nAye, though all passion’s in the glance--\nFor every nerve, and tests a lover\nWith cruelties of Choice and Chance;\nAnd when at last that murder’s over\nMaybe the bride-bed brings despair,\nFor each an imagined image brings\nAnd finds a real image there;\nYet the world ends when these two things,\nThough several, are a single light,\nWhen oil and wick are burned in one;\nTherefore a blessed moon last night\nGave Sheba to her Solomon.”\n“Yet the world stays.”\n\n“If that be so,\nYour cockerel found us in the wrong\nAlthough he thought it worth a crow.\nMaybe an image is too strong\nOr maybe is not strong enough.”\n\n“The night has fallen; not a sound\nIn the forbidden sacred grove\nUnless a petal hit the ground,\nNor any human sight within it\nBut the crushed grass where we have lain!\nAnd the moon is wilder every minute.\nO! Solomon! let us try again.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1921 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124867,10 +130314,10 @@ "title": "“Solomon to Sheba”", "body": "Sang Solomon to Sheba,\nAnd kissed her dusky face,\n“All day long from mid-day\nWe have talked in the one place,\nAll day long from shadowless noon\nWe have gone round and round\nIn the narrow theme of love\nLike a old horse in a pound.”\n\nTo Solomon sang Sheba,\nPlated on his knees,\n“If you had broached a matter\nThat might the learned please,\nYou had before the sun had thrown\nOur shadows on the ground\nDiscovered that my thoughts, not it,\nAre but a narrow pound.”\n\nSaid Solomon to Sheba,\nAnd kissed her Arab eyes,\n“There’s not a man or woman\nBorn under the skies\nDare match in learning with us two,\nAnd all day long we have found\nThere’s not a thing but love can make\nThe world a narrow pound.”", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124878,10 +130325,10 @@ "title": "“The Song of the Happy Shepherd”", "body": "The woods of Arcady are dead,\nAnd over is their antique joy;\nOf old the world on dreaming fed;\nGrey Truth is now her painted toy;\nYet still she turns her restless head:\nBut O, sick children of the world,\nOf all the many changing things\nIn dreary dancing past us whirled,\nTo the cracked tune that Chronos sings,\nWords alone are certain good.\nWhere are now the warring kings,\nWord be-mockers?--By the Rood,\nWhere are now the watring kings?\nAn idle word is now their glory,\nBy the stammering schoolboy said,\nReading some entangled story:\nThe kings of the old time are dead;\nThe wandering earth herself may be\nOnly a sudden flaming word,\nIn clanging space a moment heard,\nTroubling the endless reverie.\nThen nowise worship dusty deeds,\nNor seek, for this is also sooth,\nTo hunger fiercely after truth,\nLest all thy toiling only breeds\nNew dreams, new dreams; there is no truth\nSaving in thine own heart. Seek, then,\nNo learning from the starry men,\nWho follow with the optic glass\nThe whirling ways of stars that pass--\nSeek, then, for this is also sooth,\nNo word of theirs--the cold star-bane\nHas cloven and rent their hearts in twain,\nAnd dead is all their human truth.\nGo gather by the humming sea\nSome twisted, echo-harbouring shell.\nAnd to its lips thy story tell,\nAnd they thy comforters will be.\nRewording in melodious guile\nThy fretful words a little while,\nTill they shall singing fade in ruth\nAnd die a pearly brotherhood;\nFor words alone are certain good:\nSing, then, for this is also sooth.\nI must be gone: there is a grave\nWhere daffodil and lily wave,\nAnd I would please the hapless faun,\nBuried under the sleepy ground,\nWith mirthful songs before the dawn.\nHis shouting days with mirth were crowned;\nAnd still I dream he treads the lawn,\nWalking ghostly in the dew,\nPierced by my glad singing through,\nMy songs of old earth’s dreamy youth:\nBut ah! she dreams not now; dream thou!\nFor fair are poppies on the brow:\nDream, dream, for this is also sooth.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1885 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -124892,10 +130339,10 @@ "title": "“The Song of the Old Mother”", "body": "I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow\nTill the seed of the fire flicker and glow;\nAnd then I must scrub and bake and sweep\nTill stars are beginning to blink and peep;\nAnd the young lie long and dream in their bed\nOf the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,\nAnd their day goes over in idleness,\nAnd they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:\nWhile I must work because I am old,\nAnd the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1894 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "mothers_day" @@ -124906,13 +130353,13 @@ "title": "“The Song of Wandering Aengus”", "body": "I went out to the hazel wood,\nBecause a fire was in my head,\nAnd cut and peeled a hazel wand,\nAnd hooked a berry to a thread;\nAnd when white moths were on the wing,\nAnd moth-like stars were flickering out,\nI dropped the berry in a stream\nAnd caught a little silver trout.\n\nWhen I had laid it on the floor\nI went to blow the fire a-flame,\nBut something rustled on the floor,\nAnd someone called me by my name:\nIt had become a glimmering girl\nWith apple blossoms in her hair\nWho called me by my name and ran\nAnd faded through the brightening air.\n\nThough I am old with wandering\nThrough hollow lands and hilly lands,\nI will find out where she has gone,\nAnd kiss her lips and take her hands;\nAnd walk among long dappled grass,\nAnd pluck till time and times are done,\nThe silver apples of the moon,\nThe golden apples of the sun.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1897 - }, "tags": [ "favorite" ], "language": "English", + "time": { + "year": 1897 + }, "context": { "season": "summer" } @@ -124922,10 +130369,10 @@ "title": "“The Sorrow of Love”", "body": "The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,\nThe brilliant moon and all the milky sky,\nAnd all that famous harmony of leaves,\nHad blotted out man’s image and his cry.\n\nA girl arose that had red mournful lips\nAnd seemed the greatness of the world in tears,\nDoomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships\nAnd proud as Priam murdered with his peers;\n\nArose, and on the instant clamorous eaves,\nA climbing moon upon an empty sky,\nAnd all that lamentation of the leaves,\nCould but compose man’s image and his cry.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1892 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124933,10 +130380,10 @@ "title": "“The Stolen Child”", "body": "Where dips the rocky highland\nOf Sleuth Wood in the lake\nThere lies a leafy island\nWhere flapping herons wake\nThe drowsy water rats;\nThere we’ve hid our faery vats\nFull of berries\nAnd of reddest stolen cherries.\n_Come away O human child!\nTo the waters and the wild\nWith a faery hand in hand\nFor the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand._\n\nWhere the wave of moonlight glosses\nThe dim gray sands with light\nFar off by furthest Rosses\nWe foot it all the night\nWeaving olden dances\nMingling hands and mingling glances\nTill the moon has taken flight;\nTo and fro we leap\nAnd chase the frothy bubbles\nWhile the world is full of troubles\nAnd is anxious in its sleep.\n_Come away O human child!\nTo the waters and the wild\nWith a faery hand in hand\nFor the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand._\n\nWhere the wandering water gushes\nFrom the hills above Glen-Car\nIn pools among the rushes\nThat scarce could bathe a star\nWe seek for slumbering trout\nAnd whispering in their ears\nGive them unquiet dreams;\nLeaning softly out\nFrom ferns that drop their tears\nOver the young streams\n_Come away O human child!\nTo the waters and the wild\nWith a faery hand in hand\nFor the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand._\n\nAway with us he’s going\nThe solemn-eyed:\nHe’ll hear no more the lowing\nOf the calves on the warm hillside\nOr the kettle on the hob\nSing peace into his breast\nOr see the brown mice bob\nRound and round the oatmeal-chest.\n_For he comes the human child\nTo the waters and the wild\nWith a faery hand in hand\nFrom a world more full of weeping than he can understand._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1886 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124944,10 +130391,10 @@ "title": "“Sweet Dancer”", "body": "The girl goes dancing there\nOn the leaf-sown, new-mown, smooth\nGrass plot of the garden;\nEscaped from bitter youth,\nEscaped out of her crowd,\nOr out of her black cloud.\n_Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer!_\n\nIf strange men come from the house\nTo lead her away, do not say\nThat she is happy being crazy;\nLead them gently astray;\nLet her finish her dance,\nLet her finish her dance.\n_Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer!_", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124955,10 +130402,10 @@ "title": "“That the Night Come”", "body": "She lived in storm and strife,\nHer soul had such desire\nFor what proud death may bring\nThat it could not endure\nThe common good of life,\nBut lived as ’twere a king\nThat packed his marriage day\nWith banneret and pennon,\nTrumpet and kettledrum,\nAnd the outrageous cannon,\nTo bundle time away\nThat the night come.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1912 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124966,10 +130413,10 @@ "title": "“These Are the Clouds”", "body": "These are the clouds about the fallen sun,\nThe majesty that shuts his burning eye:\nThe weak lay hand on what the strong has done,\nTill that be tumbled that was lifted high\nAnd discord follow upon unison,\nAnd all things at one common level lie.\nAnd therefore, friend, if your great race were run\nAnd these things came, So much the more thereby\nHave you made greatness your companion,\nAlthough it be for children that you sigh:\nThese are the clouds about the fallen sun,\nThe majesty that shuts his burning eye.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -124977,9 +130424,6 @@ "title": "“Those Dancing Days are Gone”", "body": "Come, let me sing into your ear;\nThose dancing days are gone,\nAll that silk and satin gear;\nCrouch upon a stone,\nWrapping that foul body up\nIn as foul a rag:\n_I carry the sun in a golden cup.\nThe moon in a silver bag._\n\nCurse as you may I sing it through;\nWhat matter if the knave\nThat the most could pleasure you,\nThe children that he gave,\nAre somewhere sleeping like a top\nUnder a marble flag?\n_I carry the sun in a golden cup.\nThe moon in a silver bag._\n\nI thought it out this very day.\nNoon upon the clock,\nA man may put pretence away\nWho leans upon a stick,\nMay sing, and sing until he drop,\nWhether to maid or hag:\n_I carry the sun in a golden cup,\nThe moon in a silver bag._", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1930 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -124988,6 +130432,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1930 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -124998,10 +130445,10 @@ "title": "“The Three Beggars”", "body": "_“Though to my feathers in the wet,\nI have stood here from break of day.\nI have not found a thing to eat,\nFor only rubbish comes my way.\nAm I to live on lebeen-lone?”\nMuttered the old crane of Gort.\n“For all my pains on lebeen-lone?”_\n\nKing Guaire walked amid his court\nThe palace-yard and river-side\nAnd there to three old beggars said,\n“You that have wandered far and wide\nCan ravel out what’s in my head.\nDo men who least desire get most,\nOr get the most who most desire?”\nA beggar said, “They get the most\nWhom man or devil cannot tire,\nAnd what could make their muscles taut\nUnless desire had made them so?”\nBut Guaire laughed with secret thought,\n“If that be true as it seems true,\nOne of you three is a rich man,\nFor he shall have a thousand pounds\nWho is first asleep, if but he can\nSleep before the third noon sounds.”\nAnd thereon, merry as a bird\nWith his old thoughts, King Guaire went\nFrom river-side and palace-yard\nAnd left them to their argument.\n“And if I win,” one beggar said,\n“Though I am old I shall persuade\nA pretty girl to share my bed”;\nThe second: “I shall learn a trade”;\nThe third: “I’ll hurry to the course\nAmong the other gentlemen,\nAnd lay it all upon a horse”;\nThe second: “I have thought again:\nA farmer has more dignity.”\nOne to another sighed and cried:\nThe exorbitant dreams of beggary.\nThat idleness had borne to pride,\nSang through their teeth from noon to noon;\nAnd when the sccond twilight brought\nThe frenzy of the beggars’ moon\nNone closed his blood-shot eyes but sought\nTo keep his fellows from their sleep;\nAll shouted till their anger grew\nAnd they were whirling in a heap.\n\nThey mauled and bit the whole night through;\nThey mauled and bit till the day shone;\nThey mauled and bit through all that day\nAnd till another night had gone,\nOr if they made a moment’s stay\nThey sat upon their heels to rail,,\nAnd when old Guaire came and stood\nBefore the three to end this tale,\nThey were commingling lice and blood\n“Time’s up,” he cried, and all the three\nWith blood-shot eyes upon him stared.\n“Time’s up,” he eried, and all the three\nFell down upon the dust and snored.\n\n_“Maybe I shall be lucky yet,\nNow they are silent,” said the crane.\n“Though to my feathers in the wet\nI’ve stood as I were made of stone\nAnd seen the rubbish run about,\nIt’s certain there are trout somewhere\nAnd maybe I shall take a trout\nbut I do not seem to care.”_", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125009,10 +130456,10 @@ "title": "“The Three Bushes”", "body": "Said lady once to lover,\n“None can rely upon\nA love that lacks its proper food;\nAnd if your love were gone\nHow could you sing those songs of love?\nI should be blamed, young man.\n_O my dear, O my dear._\n\nHave no lit candles in your room,”\nThat lovely lady said,\n“That I at midnight by the clock\nMay creep into your bed,\nFor if I saw myself creep in\nI think I should drop dead.”\n_O my dear, O my dear._\n\n“I love a man in secret,\nDear chambermaid,” said she.\n“I know that I must drop down dead\nIf he stop loving me,\nYet what could I but drop down dead\nIf I lost my chastity?”\n_O my dear, O my dear._\n\n“So you must lie beside him\nAnd let him think me there.\nAnd maybe we are all the same\nWhere no candles are,\nAnd maybe we are all the same\nThat strip the body bare.”\n_O my dear, O my dear._\n\nBut no dogs barked, and midnights chimed,\nAnd through the chime she’d say,\n“That was a lucky thought of mine,\nMy lover looked so gay”;\nBut heaved a sigh if the chambermaid\nLooked half asleep all day.\n_O my dear, O my dear._\n\n“No, not another song,” said he,\n“Because my lady came\nA year ago for the first time\nAt midnight to my room,\nAnd I must lie between the sheets\nWhen the clock begins to chime.”\n_O my dear, O my dear._\n\n“A laughing, crying, sacred song,\nA leching song,” they said.\nDid ever men hear such a song?\nNo, but that day they did.\nDid ever man ride such a race?\nNo, not until he rode.\n_O my dear, O my dear._\n\nBut when his horse had put its hoof\nInto a rabbit-hole\nHe dropped upon his head and died.\nHis lady saw it all\nAnd dropped and died thereon, for she\nLoved him with her soul.\n_O my dear, O my dear._\n\nThe chambermaid lived long, and took\nTheir graves into her charge,\nAnd there two bushes planted\nThat when they had grown large\nSeemed sprung from but a single root\nSo did their roses merge.\n_O my dear, O my dear._\n\nWhen she was old and dying,\nThe priest came where she was;\nShe made a full confession.\nLong looked he in her face,\nAnd O he was a good man\nAnd understood her case.\n_O my dear, O my dear._\n\nHe bade them take and bury her\nBeside her lady’s man,\nAnd set a rose-tree on her grave,\nAnd now none living can,\nWhen they have plucked a rose there,\nKnow where its roots began.\n_O my dear, O my dear._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1937 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125020,10 +130467,10 @@ "title": "“The Three Hermits”", "body": "Three old hermits took the air\nBy a cold and desolate sea,\nFirst was muttering a prayer,\nSecond rummaged for a flea;\nOn a windy stone, the third,\nGiddy with his hundredth year,\nSang unnoticed like a bird:\n“Though the Door of Death is near\nAnd what waits behind the door,\nThree times in a single day\nI, though upright on the shore,\nFall asleep when I should pray.”\nSo the first, but now the second:\n“We’re but given what we have eamed\nWhen all thoughts and deeds are reckoned,\nSo it’s plain to be discerned\nThat the shades of holy men\nWho have failed, being weak of will,\nPass the Door of Birth again,\nAnd are plagued by crowds, until\nThey’ve the passion to escape.”\nMoaned the other, “They are thrown\nInto some most fearful shape.”\nBut the second mocked his moan:\n“They are not changed to anything,\nHaving loved God once, but maybe\nTo a poet or a king\nOr a witty lovely lady.”\nWhile he’d rummaged rags and hair,\nCaught and cracked his flea, the third,\nGiddy with his hundredth year,\nSang unnoticed like a bird.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -125034,10 +130481,10 @@ "title": "“Three Marching Songs”", "body": "# I.\n\nRemember all those renowned generations,\nThey left their bodies to fatten the wolves,\nThey left their homesteads to fatten the foxes,\nFled to far countries, or sheltered themselves\nIn cavern, crevice, or hole,\nDefending Ireland’s soul.\n\n_Be still, be still, what can be said?\nMy father sang that song,\nBut time amends old wrong,\nAll that is finished, let it fade._\n\nRemember all those renowned generations,\nRemember all that have sunk in their blood,\nRemember all that have died on the scaffold,\nRemember all that have fled, that have stood,\nStood, took death like a tune\nOn an old, tambourine.\n\n_Be still, be still, what can be said?\nMy father sang that song,\nBut time amends old wrong,\nAnd all that’s finished, let it fade._\n\nFail, and that history turns into rubbish,\nAll that great past to a trouble of fools;\nThose that come after shall mock at O’Donnell,\nMock at the memory of both O’Neills,\nMock Emmet, mock Parnell,\nAll the renown that fell.\n\n_Be still, be still, what can be said?\nMy father sang that song,\nbut time amends old wrong,\nAnd all that’s finished, let it fade._\n\n\n# II.\n\nThe soldier takes pride in saluting his Captain,\nThe devotee proffers a knee to his Lord,\nSome back a mare thrown from a thoroughbred,,\nTroy backed its Helen; Troy died and adored;\nGreat nations blossom above;\nA slave bows down to a slave.\n\n_What marches through the mountain pass?\nNo, no, my son, not yet;\nThat is an airy spot,\nAnd no man knows what treads the grass._\n\nWe know what rascal might has defiled,\nThe lofty innocence that it has slain,\nWere we not born in the peasant’s cot\nWhere men forgive if the belly gain?\nMore dread the life that we live,\nHow can the mind forgive?\n\n_What marches down the mountain pass?\nNo, no, my son, not yet;\nThat is an airy spot,\nAnd no man knows what treads the grass._\n\nWhat if there’s nothing up there at the top?\nWhere are the captains that govern mankind?\nWhat tears down a tree that has nothing within it?\nA blast of the wind, O a marching wind,\nMarch wind, and any old tune.\nMarch, march, and how does it run?\n\n_What marches down the mountain pass?\nNo, no, my son, not yet;\nThat is an airy spot,\nAnd no man knows what treads the grass._\n\n\n# III.\n\nGrandfather sang it under the gallows:\n“Hear, gentlemen, ladies, and all mankind:\nMoney is good and a girl might be better,\nBut good strong blows are delights to the mind.”\nThere, standing on the cart,\nHe sang it from his heart.\n\n_Robbers had taken his old tambourine,\nBut he took down the moon\nAnd rattled out a tunc;\nRobbers had taken his old tambourine._\n\n“A girl I had, but she followed another,\nMoney I had, and it went in the night,\nStrong drink I had, and it brought me to sorrow,\nBut a good strong cause and blows are delight.”\nAll there caught up the tune:\n“Oh, on, my darling man.”\n\n_Robbers had taken his old tambourine,\nBut he took down the moon\nAnd rattled out a tune;\nRobbers had taken his old tambourine._\n\n“Money is good and a girl might be better,\nNo matter what happens and who takes the fall,\nBut a good strong cause”--the rope gave a jerk there,\nNo more sang he, for his throat was too small;\nBut he kicked before he died,\nHe did it out of pride.\n\n_Robbers had taken his old tambourine,\nBut he took down the moon\nAnd rattled out a tune;\nRobbers had taken his old tambourine._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1934 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "memorial_day" @@ -125048,9 +130495,6 @@ "title": "“Three Things”", "body": "“O cruel Death, give three things back,”\n_Sang a bone upon the shore;_\n“A child found all a child can lack,\nWhether of pleasure or of rest,\nUpon the abundance of my breast”:\n_A bone wave-whitened and dried in the wind._\n\n“Three dear things that women know,”\n_Sang a bone upon the shore;_\n“A man if I but held him so\nWhen my body was alive\nFound all the pleasure that life gave”:\n_A bone wave-whitened and dried in the wind._\n\n“The third thing that I think of yet,”\n_Sang a bone upon the shore,_\n“Is that morning when I met\nFace to face my rightful man\nAnd did after stretch and yawn”:\n_A bone wave-whitened and dried in the wind._", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1929 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -125059,6 +130503,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1929 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -125066,10 +130513,10 @@ "title": "“To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing”", "body": "Now all the truth is out,\nBe secret and take defeat\nFrom any brazen throat,\nFor how can you compete,\nBeing honour bred, with one\nWho, were it proved he lies,\nWere neither shamed in his own\nNor in his neighbours’ eyes?\nBred to a harder thing\nThan Triumph, turn away\nAnd like a laughing string\nWhereon mad fingers play\nAmid a place of stone,\nBe secret and exult,\nBecause of all things known\nThat is most difficult.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125077,10 +130524,10 @@ "title": "“To a Young Girl”", "body": "My dear, my dear, I know\nMore than another\nWhat makes your heart beat so;\nNot even your own mother\nCan know it as I know,\nWho broke my heart for her\nWhen the wild thought,\nThat she denies\nAnd has forgot,\nSet all her blood astir\nAnd glittered in her eyes.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1918 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125088,10 +130535,10 @@ "title": "“To His Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear”", "body": "Be you still, be you still, trembling heart;\nRemember the wisdom out of the old days:\n_Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,\nAnd the winds that blow through the starry ways,\nLet the starry winds and the flame and the flood\nCover over and hide, for he has no part\nWith the lonely, majestical multitude._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1896 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125107,10 +130554,10 @@ "title": "“To the Rose upon the Rood of Time”", "body": "Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!\nCome near me, while I sing the ancient ways:\nCuchulain battling with the bitter tide;\nThe Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,\nWho cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;\nAnd thine own sadness, where of stars, grown old\nIn dancing silver-sandalled on the sea,\nSing in their high and lonely melody.\nCome near, that no more blinded hy man’s fate,\nI find under the boughs of love and hate,\nIn all poor foolish things that live a day,\nEternal beauty wandering on her way.\n\nCome near, come near, come near--Ah, leave me still\nA little space for the rose-breath to fill!\nLest I no more bear common things that crave;\nThe weak worm hiding down in its small cave,\nThe field-mouse running by me in the grass,\nAnd heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;\nBut seek alone to hear the strange things said\nBy God to the bright hearts of those long dead,\nAnd learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know.\nCome near; I would, before my time to go,\nSing of old Eire and the ancient ways:\nRed Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1892 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125118,9 +130565,6 @@ "title": "“Tom the Lunatic”", "body": "Sang old Tom the lunatic\nThat sleeps under the canopy:\n“What change has put my thoughts astray\nAnd eyes that had so keen a sight?\nWhat has turned to smoking wick\nNature’s pure unchanging light?”\n\n“Huddon and Duddon and Daniel O’Leary.\nHoly Joe, the beggar-man,\nWenching, drinking, still remain\nOr sing a penance on the road;\nSomething made these eyeballs weary\nThat blinked and saw them in a shroud.”\n\n“Whatever stands in field or flood,\nBird, beast, fish or man,\nMare or stallion, cock or hen,\nStands in God’s unchanging eye\nIn all the vigour of its blood;\nIn that faith I live or die.”", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1932 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "Words for Music Perhaps", @@ -125129,6 +130573,9 @@ "year": 1932 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1932 + }, "tags": [] } }, @@ -125136,11 +130583,6 @@ "title": "“The Tower”", "body": "# I.\n\nWhat shall I do with this absurdity--\nO heart, O troubled heart--this caricature,\nDecrepit age that has been tied to me\nAs to a dog’s tail?\n Never had I more\nExcited, passionate, fantastical\nImagination, nor an ear and eye\nThat more expected the impossible--\nNo, not in boyhood when with rod and fly,\nOr the humbler worm, I climbed Ben Bulben’s back\nAnd had the livelong summer day to spend.\nIt seems that I must bid the Muse go pack,\nChoose Plato and Plotinus for a friend\nUntil imagination, ear and eye,\nCan be content with argument and deal\nIn abstract things; or be derided by\nA sort of battered kettle at the heel.\n\n\n# II.\n\nI pace upon the battlements and stare\nOn the foundations of a house, or where\nTree, like a sooty finger, starts from the earth;\nAnd send imagination forth\nUnder the day’s declining beam, and call\nImages and memories\nFrom ruin or from ancient trees,\nFor I would ask a question of them all.\n\nBeyond that ridge lived Mrs. French, and once\nWhen every silver candlestick or sconce\nLit up the dark mahogany and the wine.\nA serving-man, that could divine\nThat most respected lady’s every wish,\nRan and with the garden shears\nClipped an insolent farmer’s ears\nAnd brought them in a little covered dish.\n\nSome few remembered still when I was young\nA peasant girl commended by a Song,\nWho’d lived somewhere upon that rocky place,\nAnd praised the colour of her face,\nAnd had the greater joy in praising her,\nRemembering that, if walked she there,\nFarmers jostled at the fair\nSo great a glory did the song confer.\n\nAnd certain men, being maddened by those rhymes,\nOr else by toasting her a score of times,\nRose from the table and declared it right\nTo test their fancy by their sight;\nBut they mistook the brightness of the moon\nFor the prosaic light of day--\nMusic had driven their wits astray--\nAnd one was drowned in the great bog of Cloone.\n\nStrange, but the man who made the song was blind;\nYet, now I have considered it, I find\nThat nothing strange; the tragedy began\nWith Homer that was a blind man,\nAnd Helen has all living hearts betrayed.\nO may the moon and sunlight seem\nOne inextricable beam,\nFor if I triumph I must make men mad.\n\nAnd I myself created Hanrahan\nAnd drove him drunk or sober through the dawn\nFrom somewhere in the neighbouring cottages.\nCaught by an old man’s juggleries\nHe stumbled, tumbled, fumbled to and fro\nAnd had but broken knees for hire\nAnd horrible splendour of desire;\nI thought it all out twenty years ago:\n\nGood fellows shuffled cards in an old bawn;\nAnd when that ancient ruffian’s turn was on\nHe so bewitched the cards under his thumb\nThat all but the one card became\nA pack of hounds and not a pack of cards,\nAnd that he changed into a hare.\nHanrahan rose in frenzy there\nAnd followed up those baying creatures towards--\n\nO towards I have forgotten what--enough!\nI must recall a man that neither love\nNor music nor an enemy’s clipped ear\nCould, he was so harried, cheer;\nA figure that has grown so fabulous\nThere’s not a neighbour left to say\nWhen he finished his dog’s day:\nAn ancient bankrupt master of this house.\n\nBefore that ruin came, for centuries,\nRough men-at-arms, cross-gartered to the knees\nOr shod in iron, climbed the narrow stairs,\nAnd certain men-at-arms there were\nWhose images, in the Great Memory stored,\nCome with loud cry and panting breast\nTo break upon a sleeper’s rest\nWhile their great wooden dice beat on the board.\n\nAs I would question all, come all who can;\nCome old, necessitous, half-mounted man;\nAnd bring beauty’s blind rambling celebrant;\nThe red man the juggler sent\nThrough God-forsaken meadows; Mrs. French,\nGifted with so fine an ear;\nThe man drowned in a bog’s mire,\nWhen mocking Muses chose the country wench.\n\nDid all old men and women, rich and poor,\nWho trod upon these rocks or passed this door,\nWhether in public or in secret rage\nAs I do now against old age?\nBut I have found an answer in those eyes\nThat are impatient to be gone;\nGo therefore; but leave Hanrahan,\nFor I need all his mighty memories.\n\nOld lecher with a love on every wind,\nBring up out of that deep considering mind\nAll that you have discovered in the grave,\nFor it is certain that you have\nReckoned up every unforeknown, unseeing\nplunge, lured by a softening eye,\nOr by a touch or a sigh,\nInto the labyrinth of another’s being;\n\nDoes the imagination dwell the most\nUpon a woman won or woman lost?\nIf on the lost, admit you turned aside\nFrom a great labyrinth out of pride,\nCowardice, some silly over-subtle thought\nOr anything called conscience once;\nAnd that if memory recur, the sun’s\nUnder eclipse and the day blotted out.\n\n\n# III.\n\nIt is time that I wrote my will;\nI choose upstanding men\nThat climb the streams until\nThe fountain leap, and at dawn\nDrop their cast at the side\nOf dripping stone; I declare\nThey shall inherit my pride,\nThe pride of people that were\nBound neither to Cause nor to State.\nNeither to slaves that were spat on,\nNor to the tyrants that spat,\nThe people of Burke and of Grattan\nThat gave, though free to refuse--\npride, like that of the morn,\nWhen the headlong light is loose,\nOr that of the fabulous horn,\nOr that of the sudden shower\nWhen all streams are dry,\nOr that of the hour\nWhen the swan must fix his eye\nUpon a fading gleam,\nFloat out upon a long\nLast reach of glittering stream\nAnd there sing his last song.\nAnd I declare my faith:\nI mock plotinus’ thought\nAnd cry in plato’s teeth,\nDeath and life were not\nTill man made up the whole,\nMade lock, stock and barrel\nOut of his bitter soul,\nAye, sun and moon and star, all,\nAnd further add to that\nThat, being dead, we rise,\nDream and so create\nTranslunar paradise.\nI have prepared my peace\nWith learned Italian things\nAnd the proud stones of Greece,\nPoet’s imaginings\nAnd memories of love,\nMemories of the words of women,\nAll those things whereof\nMan makes a superhuman,\nMirror-resembling dream.\n\nAs at the loophole there\nThe daws chatter and scream,\nAnd drop twigs layer upon layer.\nWhen they have mounted up,\nThe mother bird will rest\nOn their hollow top,\nAnd so warm her wild nest.\n\nI leave both faith and pride\nTo young upstanding men\nClimbing the mountain-side,\nThat under bursting dawn\nThey may drop a fly;\nBeing of that metal made\nTill it was broken by\nThis sedentary trade.\n\nNow shall I make my soul,\nCompelling it to study\nIn a learned school\nTill the wreck of body,\nSlow decay of blood,\nTesty delirium\nOr dull decrepitude,\nOr what worse evil come--\nThe death of friends, or death\nOf every brilliant eye\nThat made a catch in the breath--\nSeem but the clouds of the sky\nWhen the horizon fades;\nOr a bird’s sleepy cry\nAmong the deepening shades.", "metadata": { - "time": { - "year": 1925, - "month": "october", - "day": 7 - }, "language": "English", "source": { "title": "The Tower", @@ -125149,6 +130591,11 @@ "year": 1928 } }, + "time": { + "year": 1925, + "month": "october", + "day": 7 + }, "tags": [], "context": { "month": "october", @@ -125160,10 +130607,10 @@ "title": "“The Travail of Passion”", "body": "When the flaming lute-thronged angelic door is wide;\nWhen an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay;\nOur hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way\nCrowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side,\nThe vinegar-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kedron stream;\nWe will bend down and loosen our hair over you,\nThat it may drop faint perfume, and be heavy with dew,\nLilies of death-pale hope, roses of passionate dream.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1896 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125171,10 +130618,10 @@ "title": "“The Two Kings”", "body": "King Eochaid came at sundown to a wood\nWestward of Tara. Hurrying to his queen\nHe had outridden his war-wasted men\nThat with empounded cattle trod the mire,\nAnd where beech-trees had mixed a pale green light\nWith the ground-ivy’s blue, he saw a stag\nWhiter than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea.\nBecause it stood upon his path and seemed\nMore hands in height than any stag in the world\nHe sat with tightened rein and loosened mouth\nUpon his trembling horse, then drove the spur;\nBut the stag stooped and ran at him, and passed,\nRending the horse’s flank. King Eochaid reeled,\nThen drew his sword to hold its levelled point\nAgainst the stag. When horn and steel were met\nThe horn resounded as though it had been silver,\nA sweet, miraculous, terrifying sound.\nHorn locked in sword, they tugged and struggled there\nAs though a stag and unicorn were met\nAmong the African Mountains of the Moon,\nUntil at last the double horns, drawn backward,\nButted below the single and so pierced\nThe entrails of the horse. Dropping his sword\nKing Eochaid seized the horns in his strong hands\nAnd stared into the sea-green eye, and so\nHither and thither to and fro they trod\nTill all the place was beaten into mire.\nThe strong thigh and the agile thigh were met,\nThe hands that gathered up the might of the world,\nAnd hoof and horn that had sucked in their speed\nAmid the elaborate wilderness of the air.\nThrough bush they plunged and over ivied root,\nAnd where the stone struck fire, while in the leaves\nA squirrel whinnied and a bird screamed out;\nBut when at last he forced those sinewy flanks\nAgainst a beech-bole, he threw down the beast\nAnd knelt above it with drawn knife. On the instant\nIt vanished like a shadow, and a cry\nSo mournful that it seemed the cry of one\nWho had lost some unimaginable treasure\nWandered between the blue and the green leaf\nAnd climbed into the air, crumbling away,\nTill all had seemed a shadow or a vision\nBut for the trodden mire, the pool of blood,\nThe disembowelled horse.\n King Eochaid ran\nToward peopled Tara, nor stood to draw his breath\nUntil he came before the painted wall,\nThe posts of polished yew, circled with bronze,\nOf the great door; but though the hanging lamps\nShowed their faint light through the unshuttered windows,\nNor door, nor mouth, nor slipper made a noise,\nNor on the ancient beaten paths, that wound\nFrom well-side or from plough-land, was there noisc;\nNor had there been the noise of living thing\nBefore him or behind, but that far off\nOn the horizon edge bellowed the herds.\nKnowing that silence brings no good to kings,\nAnd mocks returning victory, he passed\nBetween the pillars with a beating heart\nAnd saw where in the midst of the great hall\npale-faced, alone upon a bench, Edain\nSat upright with a sword before her feet.\nHer hands on either side had gripped the bench.\nHer eyes were cold and steady, her lips tight.\nSome passion had made her stone. Hearing a foot\nShe started and then knew whose foot it was;\nBut when he thought to take her in his arms\nShe motioned him afar, and rose and spoke:\n“I have sent among the fields or to the woods\nThe fighting-men and servants of this house,\nFor I would have your judgment upon one\nWho is self-accused. If she be innocent\nShe would not look in any known man’s face\nTill judgment has been given, and if guilty,\nWould never look again on known man’s face.”\nAnd at these words hc paled, as she had paled,\nKnowing that he should find upon her lips\nThe meaning of that monstrous day.\n Then she:\n“You brought me where your brother Ardan sat\nAlways in his one seat, and bid me care him\nThrough that strange illness that had fixed him there.\nAnd should he die to heap his burial-mound\nAnd catve his name in Ogham.” Eochaid said,\n“He lives?” “He lives and is a healthy man.”\n“While I have him and you it matters little\nWhat man you have lost, what evil you have found.”\n“I bid them make his bed under this roof\nAnd carried him his food with my own hands,\nAnd so the weeks passed by.” But when I said,\n“What is this trouble?” he would answer nothing,\nThough always at my words his trouble grew;\nAnd I but asked the more, till he cried out,\nWeary of many questions: “There are things\nThat make the heart akin to the dumb stone.”\nThen I replied, “Although you hide a secret,\nHopeless and dear, or terrible to think on,\nSpeak it, that I may send through the wide world\nFor Medicine.” Thereon he cried aloud\n“Day after day you question me, and I,\nBecause there is such a storm amid my thoughts\nI shall be carried in the gust, command,\nForbid, beseech and waste my breath.” Then I:\n“Although the thing that you have hid were evil,\nThe speaking of it could be no great wrong,\nAnd evil must it be, if done ’twere worse\nThan mound and stone that keep all virtue in,\nAnd loosen on us dreams that waste our life,\nShadows and shows that can but turn the brain.”\nbut finding him still silent I stooped down\nAnd whispering that none but he should hear,\nSaid, “If a woman has put this on you,\nMy men, whether it please her or displease,\nAnd though they have to cross the Loughlan waters\nAnd take her in the middle of armed men,\nShall make her look upon her handiwork,\nThat she may quench the rick she has fired; and though\nShe may have worn silk clothes, or worn a crown,\nShe’ll not be proud, knowing within her heart\nThat our sufficient portion of the world\nIs that we give, although it be brief giving,\nHappiness to children and to men.”\nThen he, driven by his thought beyond his thought,\nAnd speaking what he would not though he would,\nSighed, “You, even you yourself, could work the cure!”\nAnd at those words I rose and I went out\nAnd for nine days he had food from other hands,\nAnd for nine days my mind went whirling round\nThe one disastrous zodiac, muttering\nThat the immedicable mound’s beyond\nOur questioning, beyond our pity even.\nBut when nine days had gone I stood again\nBefore his chair and bending down my head\nI bade him go when all his household slept\nTo an old empty woodman’s house that’s hidden\nWestward of Tara, among the hazel-trees--\nFor hope would give his limbs the power--and await\nA friend that could, he had told her, work his cure\nAnd would be no harsh friend.\n When night had deepened,\nI groped my way from beech to hazel wood,\nFound that old house, a sputtering torch within,\nAnd stretched out sleeping on a pile of skins\nArdan, and though I called to him and tried\nTo Shake him out of sleep, I could not rouse him.\nI waited till the night was on the turn,\nThen fearing that some labourer, on his way\nTo plough or pasture-land, might see me there,\nWent out.\n Among the ivy-covered rocks,\nAs on the blue light of a sword, a man\nWho had unnatural majesty, and eyes\nLike the eyes of some great kite scouring the woods,\nStood on my path. Trembling from head to foot\nI gazed at him like grouse upon a kite;\nBut with a voice that had unnatural music,\n“A weary wooing and a long,” he said,\n“Speaking of love through other lips and looking\nUnder the eyelids of another, for it was my craft\nThat put a passion in the sleeper there,\nAnd when I had got my will and drawn you here,\nWhere I may speak to you alone, my craft\nSucked up the passion out of him again\nAnd left mere sleep. He’ll wake when the sun wakes,\npush out his vigorous limbs and rub his eyes,\nAnd wonder what has ailed him these twelve months.”\nI cowered back upon the wall in terror,\nBut that sweet-sounding voice ran on: “Woman,\nI was your husband when you rode the air,\nDanced in the whirling foam and in the dust,\nIn days you have not kept in memory,\nBeing betrayed into a cradle, and I come\nThat I may claim you as my wife again.”\nI was no longer terrified--his voice\nHad half awakened some old memory--\nYet answered him, “I am King Eochaid’s wife\nAnd with him have found every happiness\nWomen can find.” With a most masterful voice,\nThat made the body seem as it were a string\nUnder a bow, he cried, “What happiness\nCan lovers have that know their happiness\nMust end at the dumb stone? But where we build\nOur sudden palaces in the still air\npleasure itself can bring no weariness.\nNor can time waste the cheek, nor is there foot\nThat has grown weary of the wandering dance,\nNor an unlaughing mouth, but mine that mourns,\nAmong those mouths that sing their sweethearts’ praise,\nYour empty bed.” “How should I love,” I answered,\n“Were it not that when the dawn has lit my bed\nAnd shown my husband sleeping there,” I have sighed,\n“Your strength and nobleness will pass away?’\nOr how should love be worth its pains were it not\nThat when he has fallen asleep within my atms,\nBeing wearied out, I love in man the child?\nWhat can they know of love that do not know\nShe builds her nest upon a narrow ledge\nAbove a windy precipice?” Then he:\n“Seeing that when you come to the deathbed\nYou must return, whether you would or no,\nThis human life blotted from memory,\nWhy must I live some thirty, forty years,\nAlone with all this useless happiness?”\nThereon he seized me in his arms, but I\nThrust him away with both my hands and cried,\n“Never will I believe there is any change\nCan blot out of my memory this life\nSweetened by death, but if I could believe,\nThat were a double hunger in my lips\nFor what is doubly brief.”\n “And now the shape\nMy hands were pressed to vanished suddenly.\nI staggered, but a beech-tree stayed my fall,\nAnd clinging to it I could hear the cocks\nCrow upon Tara.”\n King Eochaid bowed his head\nAnd thanked her for her kindness to his brother,\nFor that she promised, and for that refused.\nThereon the bellowing of the empounded herds\nRose round the walls, and through the bronze-ringed door\nJostled and shouted those war-wasted men,\nAnd in the midst King Eochaid’s brother stood,\nAnd bade all welcome, being ignorant.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1913 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125182,10 +130629,10 @@ "title": "“Two Songs of a Fool”", "body": "# I.\n\nA speckled cat and a tame hare\nEat at my hearthstone\nAnd sleep there;\nAnd both look up to me alone\nFor learning and defence\nAs I look up to Providence.\n\nI start out of my sleep to think\nSome day I may forget\nTheir food and drink;\nOr, the house door left unshut,\nThe hare may run till it’s found\nThe horn’s sweet note and the tooth of the hound.\n\nI bear a burden that might well try\nMen that do all by rule,\nAnd what can I\nThat am a wandering-witted fool\nBut pray to God that He ease\nMy great responsibilities?\n\n\n# II.\n\nI slept on my three-legged stool by thc fire.\nThe speckled cat slept on my knee;\nWe never thought to enquire\nWhere the brown hare might be,\nAnd whether the door were shut.\nWho knows how she drank the wind\nStretched up on two legs from the mat,\nBefore she had settled her mind\nTo drum with her heel and to leap?\nHad I but awakened from sleep\nAnd called her name, she had heard.\nIt may be, and had not stirred,\nThat now, it may be, has found\nThe horn’s sweet note and the tooth of the hound.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1919 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125193,10 +130640,10 @@ "title": "“The Two Trees”", "body": "Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,\nThe holy tree is growing there;\nFrom joy the holy branches start,\nAnd all the trembling flowers they bear.\nThe changing colours of its fruit\nHave dowered the stars with metry light;\nThe surety of its hidden root\nHas planted quiet in the night;\nThe shaking of its leafy head\nHas given the waves their melody,\nAnd made my lips and music wed,\nMurmuring a wizard song for thee.\nThere the Joves a circle go,\nThe flaming circle of our days,\nGyring, spiring to and fro\nIn those great ignorant leafy ways;\nRemembering all that shaken hair\nAnd how the winged sandals dart,\nThine eyes grow full of tender care:\n\nBeloved, gaze in thine own heart.\nGaze no more in the bitter glass\nThe demons, with their subtle guile.\nLift up before us when they pass,\nOr only gaze a little while;\nFor there a fatal image grows\nThat the stormy night receives,\nRoots half hidden under snows,\nBroken boughs and blackened leaves.\nFor ill things turn to barrenness\nIn the dim glass the demons hold,\nThe glass of outer weariness,\nMade when God slept in times of old.\nThere, through the broken branches, go\nThe ravens of unresting thought;\nFlying, crying, to and fro,\nCruel claw and hungry throat,\nOr else they stand and sniff the wind,\nAnd shake their ragged wings; alas!\nThy tender eyes grow all unkind:\nGaze no more in the bitter glass.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1892 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "month": "may" @@ -125207,10 +130654,10 @@ "title": "“Two Years Later”", "body": "Has no one said those daring\nKind eyes should be more learn’d?\nOr warned you how despairing\nThe moths are when they are burned?\nI could have warned you; but you are young,\nSo we speak a different tongue.\n\nO you will take whatever’s offered\nAnd dream that all the world’s a friend,\nSuffer as your mother suffered,\nBe as broken in the end.\nBut I am old and you are young,\nAnd I speak a barbarous tongue.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125218,10 +130665,10 @@ "title": "“The Unappeasable Host”", "body": "The Danaan children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold,\nAnd clap their hands together, and half close their eyes,\nFor they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies,\nWith heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold:\nI kiss my wailing child and press it to my breast,\nAnd hear the narrow graves calling my child and me.\nDesolate winds that cry over the wandering sea;\nDesolate winds that hover in the flaming West;\nDesolate winds that beat the doors of Heaven, and beat\nThe doors of Hell and blow there many a whimpering ghost;\nO heart the winds have shaken, the unappeasable host\nIs comelier than candles at Mother Mary’s feet.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1896 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -125232,10 +130679,10 @@ "title": "“Upon a Dying Lady”", "body": "# I. _Her Courtesy_\n\nWith the old kindness, the old distinguished grace,\nShe lies, her lovely piteous head amid dull red hair\npropped upon pillows, rouge on the pallor of her face.\nShe would not have us sad because she is lying there,\nAnd when she meets our gaze her eyes are laughter-lit,\nHer speech a wicked tale that we may vie with her,\nMatching our broken-hearted wit against her wit,\nThinking of saints and of petronius Arbiter.\n\n\n# II. _Curtain Artist bring her Dolls and Drawings_\n\nBring where our Beauty lies\nA new modelled doll, or drawing,\nWith a friend’s or an enemy’s\nFeatures, or maybe showing\nHer features when a tress\nOf dull red hair was flowing\nOver some silken dress\nCut in the Turkish fashion,\nOr, it may be, like a boy’s.\nWe have given the world our passion,\nWe have naught for death but toys.\n\n\n# III. _She turns the Dolls’ Faces to the Wall_\n\nBecause to-day is some religious festival\nThey had a priest say Mass, and even the Japanese,\nHeel up and weight on toe, must face the wall\n--Pedant in passion, learned in old courtesies,\nVehement and witty she had seemed--; the Venetian lady\nWho had seemed to glide to some intrigue in her red shoes,\nHer domino, her panniered skirt copied from Longhi;\nThe meditative critic; all are on their toes,\nEven our Beauty with her Turkish trousers on.\nBecause the priest must have like every dog his day\nOr keep us all awake with baying at the moon,\nWe and our dolls being but the world were best away.\n\n\n# IV. _The End of Day_\n\nShe is playing like a child\nAnd penance is the play,\nFantastical and wild\nBecause the end of day\nShows her that some one soon\nWill come from the house, and say--\nThough play is but half done--\n“Come in and leave the play.”\n\n\n# V. _Her Race_\n\nShe has not grown uncivil\nAs narrow natures would\nAnd called the pleasures evil\nHappier days thought good;\nShe knows herself a woman,\nNo red and white of a face,\nOr rank, raised from a common\nVnreckonable race;\nAnd how should her heart fail her\nOr sickness break her will\nWith her dead brother’s valour\nFor an example still?\n\n\n# VI. _Her Courage_\n\nWhen her soul flies to the predestined dancing-place\n(I have no speech but symbol, the pagan speech I made\nAmid the dreams of youth) let her come face to face,\nAmid that first astonishment, with Grania’s shade,\nAll but the terrors of the woodland flight forgot\nThat made her Diatmuid dear, and some old cardinal\nPacing with half-closed eyelids in a sunny spot\nWho had murmured of Giorgione at his latest breath--\nAye, and Achilles, Timor, Babar, Barhaim, all\nWho have lived in joy and laughed into the face of Death.\n\n\n# VII. _Her Friends bring her a Christmas Tree_\n\nPardon, great enemy,\nWithout an angry thought\nWe’ve carried in our tree,\nAnd here and there have bought\nTill all the boughs are gay,\nAnd she may look from the bed\nOn pretty things that may\nplease a fantastic head.\nGive her a little grace,\nWhat if a laughing eye\nHave looked into your face?\nIt is about to die.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1917 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -125269,10 +130716,10 @@ "title": "“What Magic Drum?”", "body": "He holds him from desire, all but stops his breathing lest\nPrimordial Motherhood forsake his limbs, the child no longer rest,\nDrinking joy as it were milk upon his breast.\n\nThrough light-obliterating garden foliage what magic drum?\nDown limb and breast or down that glimmering belly move his mouth and sinewy tongue.\nWhat from the forest came? What beast has licked its young?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1935 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125280,10 +130727,10 @@ "title": "“What Then?”", "body": "His chosen comrades thought at school\nHe must grow a famous man;\nHe thought the same and lived by rule,\nAll his twenties crammed with toil;\n_“What then?” sang Plato’s ghost. “What then?”_\n\nEverything he wrote was read,\nAfter certain years he won\nSufficient money for his need,\nFriends that have been friends indeed;\n_“What then?” sang Plato’s ghost. “What then?”_\n\nAll his happier dreams came true--\nA small old house, wife, daughter, son,\nGrounds where plum and cabbage grew,\npoets and Wits about him drew;\n_“What then.?” sang Plato’s ghost. “What then?”_\n\n“The work is done,” grown old he thought,\n“According to my boyish plan;\nLet the fools rage, I swerved in naught,\nSomething to perfection brought”;\n_But louder sang that ghost, “What then?”_", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1937 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125291,10 +130738,10 @@ "title": "“What Was Lost”", "body": "I sing what was lost and dread what was won,\nI walk in a battle fought over again,\nMy king a lost king, and lost soldiers my men;\nFeet to the Rising and Setting may run,\nThey always beat on the same small stone.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125302,10 +130749,10 @@ "title": "“The Wheel”", "body": "Through winter-time we call on spring,\nAnd through the spring on summer call,\nAnd when abounding hedges ring\nDeclare that winter’s best of all;\nAnd after that there’s nothing good\nBecause the spring-time has not come--\nNor know that what disturbs our blood\nIs but its longing for the tomb.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1922 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -125316,10 +130763,10 @@ "title": "“When You Are Old”", "body": "When you are old and grey and full of sleep,\nAnd nodding by the fire, take down this book,\nAnd slowly read, and dream of the soft look\nYour eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;\n\nHow many loved your moments of glad grace,\nAnd loved your beauty with love false or true,\nBut one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,\nAnd loved the sorrows of your changing face;\n\nAnd bending down beside the glowing bars,\nMurmur, a little sadly, how Love fled\nAnd paced upon the mountains overhead\nAnd hid his face amid a crowd of stars.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1892 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125327,10 +130774,10 @@ "title": "“The White Birds”", "body": "I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!\nWe tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;\nAnd the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,\nHas awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.\n\nA weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose;\nAh, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,\nOr the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew:\nFor I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: I and you!\n\nI am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,\nWhere Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;\nSoon far from the rose and the lily and fret of the flames would we be,\nWere we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1892 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125338,10 +130785,10 @@ "title": "“Who Goes with Fergus?”", "body": "Who will go drive with Fergus now,\nAnd pierce the deep wood’s woven shade,\nAnd dance upon the level shore?\nYoung man, lift up your russet brow,\nAnd lift your tender eyelids, maid,\nAnd brood on hopes and fear no more.\n\nAnd no more turn aside and brood\nUpon love’s bitter mystery;\nFor Fergus rules the brazen cars,\nAnd rules the shadows of the wood,\nAnd the white breast of the dim sea\nAnd all dishevelled wandering stars.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1892 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125349,10 +130796,10 @@ "title": "“Why should not old men be mad? 
”", "body": "Why should not old men be mad?\nSome have known a likely lad\nThat had a sound fly-fisher’s wrist\nTurn to a drunken journalist;\nA girl that knew all Dante once\nLive to bear children to a dunce;\nA Helen of social welfare dream,\nClimb on a wagonette to scream.\nSome think it a matter of course that chance\nShould starve good men and bad advance,\nThat if their neighbours figured plain,\nAs though upon a lighted screen,\nNo single story would they find\nOf an unbroken happy mind,\nA finish worthy of the start.\nYoung men know nothing of this sort,\nObservant old men know it well;\nAnd when they know what old books tell\nAnd that no better can be had,\nKnow why an old man should be mad.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1939 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125360,10 +130807,10 @@ "title": "“The Wild Old Wicked Man”", "body": "“Because I am mad about women\nI am mad about the hills,”\nSaid that wild old wicked man\nWho travels where God wills.\n“Not to die on the straw at home.\nThose hands to close these eyes,\nThat is all I ask, my dear,\nFrom the old man in the skies.”\n_Daybreak and a candle-end._\n\n“Kind are all your words, my dear,\nDo not the rest withhold.\nWho can know the year, my dear,\nwhen an old man’s blood grows cold? ’\nI have what no young man can have\nBecause he loves too much.\nWords I have that can pierce the heart,\nBut what can he do but touch?”\n_Daybreak and a candle-end._\n\nThen Said she to that wild old man,\nHis stout stick under his hand,\n“Love to give or to withhold\nIs not at my command.\nI gave it all to an older man:\nThat old man in the skies.\nHands that are busy with His beads\nCan never close those eyes.”\n_Daybreak and a candle-end._\n\n“Go your ways, O go your ways,\nI choose another mark,\nGirls down on the seashore\nWho understand the dark;\nBawdy talk for the fishermen;\nA dance for the fisher-lads;\nWhen dark hangs upon the water\nThey turn down their beds.”\n_Daybreak and a candle-end._\n\n“A young man in the dark am I,\nBut a wild old man in the light,\nThat can make a cat laugh, or\nCan touch by mother wit\nThings hid in their marrow-bones\nFrom time long passed away,\nHid from all those warty lads\nThat by their bodies lay.”\nDayhreak and a candle-end.\n\n“All men live in suffering,\nI know as few can know,\nWhether they take the upper road\nOr stay content on the low,\nRower bent in his row-boat\nOr weaver bent at his loom,\nHorseman erect upon horseback\nOr child hid in the womb.”\n_Daybreak and a candle-end._\n\n“That some stream of lightning\nFrom the old man in the skies\nCan burn out that suffering\nNo right-taught man denies.\nBut a coarse old man am I,\nI choose the second-best,\nI forget it all awhile\nUpon a woman’s breast.”\n_Daybreak and a candle-end._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125371,10 +130818,10 @@ "title": "“The Witch”", "body": "Toil and grow rich,\nWhat’s that but to lie\nWith a foul witch\nAnd after, drained dry,\nTo be brought\nTo the chamber where\nLies one long sought\nWith despair?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1914 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125382,10 +130829,10 @@ "title": "“The Withering of the Boughs”", "body": "I cried when the moon was mutmuring to the birds:\n“Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will,\nI long for your merry and tender and pitiful words,\nFor the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind.”\nThe honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill,\nAnd I fell asleep upon lonely Echtge of streams.\n_No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;\nThe boughs have withered because I have told them my, dreams._\n\nI know of the leafy paths that the witches take\nWho come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool,\nAnd their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake;\nI know where a dim moon drifts, where the Danaan kind\nWind and unwind their dances when the light grows cool\nOn the island lawns, their feet where the pale foam gleams.\n_No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;\nThe boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams._\n\nI know of the sleepy country, where swans fly round\nCoupled with golden chains, and sing as they fly.\nA king and a queen are wandering there, and the sound\nHas made them so happy and hopeless, so deaf and so blind\nWith wisdom, they wander till all the years have gone by;\nI know, and the curlew and peewit on Echtge of streams.\n_No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;\nThe boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams._", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1900 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -125396,10 +130843,10 @@ "title": "“A Woman Young and Old”", "body": "# I. _Father and child_\n\nShe hears me strike the board and say\nThat she is under ban\nOf all good men and women,\nBeing mentioned with a man\nThat has the worst of all bad names;\nAnd thereupon replies\nThat his hair is beautiful,\nCold as the March wind his eyes.\n\n\n# II. _Before the world was made_\n\nIf I make the lashes dark\nAnd the eyes more bright\nAnd the lips more scarlet,\nOr ask if all be right\nFrom mirror after mirror,\nNo vanity’s displayed:\nI’m looking for the face I had\nBefore the world was made.\n\nWhat if I look upon a man\nAs though on my beloved,\nAnd my blood be cold the while\nAnd my heart unmoved?\nWhy should he think me cruel\nOr that he is betrayed?\nI’d have him love the thing that was\nBefore the world was made.\n\n\n# III. _A first confession_\n\nI admit the briar\nEntangled in my hair\nDid not injure me;\nMy blenching and trembling,\nNothing but dissembling,\nNothing but coquetry.\n\nI long for truth, and yet\nI cannot stay from that\nMy better self disowns,\nFor a man’s attention\nBrings such satisfaction\nTo the craving in my bones.\n\nBrightness that I pull back\nFrom the Zodiac,\nWhy those questioning eyes\nThat are fixed upon me?\nWhat can they do but shun me\nIf empty night replies?\n\n\n# IV. _Her triumph_\n\nI did the dragon’s will until you came\nBecause I had fancied love a casual\nImprovisation, or a settled game\nThat followed if I let the kerchief fall:\nThose deeds were best that gave the minute wings\nAnd heavenly music if they gave it wit;\nAnd then you stood among the dragon-rings.\nI mocked, being crazy, but you mastered it\nAnd broke the chain and set my ankles free,\nSaint George or else a pagan Perseus;\nAnd now we stare astonished at the sea,\nAnd a miraculous strange bird shrieks at us.\n\n\n# V. _Consolation_\n\nO but there is wisdom\nIn what the sages said;\nBut stretch that body for a while\nAnd lay down that head\nTill I have told the sages\nWhere man is comforted.\n\nHow could passion run so deep\nHad I never thought\nThat the crime of being born\nBlackens all our lot?\nBut where the crime’s committed\nThe crime can be forgot.\n\n\n# VI. _Chosen_\n\nThe lot of love is chosen. I learnt that much\nStruggling for an image on the track\nOf the whirling Zodiac.\nScarce did he my body touch,\nScarce sank he from the west\nOr found a subtetranean rest\nOn the maternal midnight of my breast\nBefore I had marked him on his northern way,\nAnd seemed to stand although in bed I lay.\n\nI struggled with the horror of daybreak,\nI chose it for my lot! If questioned on\nMy utmost pleasure with a man\nBy some new-married bride, I take\nThat stillness for a theme\nWhere his heart my heart did seem\nAnd both adrift on the miraculous stream\nWhere - wrote a learned astrologer--\nThe Zodiac is changed into a sphere.\n\n\n# VII. _Parting_\n\nHe. Dear, I must be gone\nWhile night Shuts the eyes\nOf the household spies;\nThat song announces dawn.\nShe. No, night’s bird and love’s\nBids all true lovers rest,\nWhile his loud song reproves\nThe murderous stealth of day.\nHe. Daylight already flies\nFrom mountain crest to crest\nShe. That light is from the moom.\nHe. That bird 
\nShe. Let him sing on,\nI offer to love’s play\nMy dark declivities.\n\n\n# VIII. _Her vision in the wood_\n\nDry timber under that rich foliage,\nAt wine-dark midnight in the sacred wood,\nToo old for a man’s love I stood in rage\nImagining men. Imagining that I could\nA greater with a lesser pang assuage\nOr but to find if withered vein ran blood,\nI tore my body that its wine might cover\nWhatever could rccall the lip of lover.\n\nAnd after that I held my fingers up,\nStared at the wine-dark nail, or dark that ran\nDown every withered finger from the top;\nBut the dark changed to red, and torches shone,\nAnd deafening music shook the leaves; a troop\nShouldered a litter with a wounded man,\nOr smote upon the string and to the sound\nSang of the beast that gave the fatal wound.\n\nAll stately women moving to a song\nWith loosened hair or foreheads grief-distraught,\nIt seemed a Quattrocento painter’s throng,\nA thoughtless image of Mantegna’s thought--\nWhy should they think that are for ever young?\nTill suddenly in grief’s contagion caught,\nI stared upon his blood-bedabbled breast\nAnd sang my malediction with the rest.\n\nThat thing all blood and mire, that beast-torn wreck,\nHalf turned and fixed a glazing eye on mine,\nAnd, though love’s bitter-sweet had all come back,\nThose bodies from a picture or a coin\nNor saw my body fall nor heard it shriek,\nNor knew, drunken with singing as with wine,\nThat they had brought no fabulous symbol there\nBut my heart’s victim and its torturer.\n\n\n# IX. _A last confession_\n\nWhat lively lad most pleasured me\nOf all that with me lay?\nI answer that I gave my soul\nAnd loved in misery,\nBut had great pleasure with a lad\nThat I loved bodily.\n\nFlinging from his arms I laughed\nTo think his passion such\nHe fancied that I gave a soul\nDid but our bodies touch,\nAnd laughed upon his breast to think\nBeast gave beast as much.\n\nI gave what other women gave\nThat stepped out of their clothes.\nBut when this soul, its body off,\nNaked to naked goes,\nHe it has found shall find therein\nWhat none other knows,\n\nAnd give his own and take his own\nAnd rule in his own right;\nAnd though it loved in misery\nClose and cling so tight,\nThere’s not a bird of day that dare\nExtinguish that delight.\n\n\n# X. _Meeting_\n\nHidden by old age awhile\nIn masker’s cloak and hood,\nEach hating what the other loved,\nFace to face we stood:\n“That I have met with such,” said he,\n“Bodes me little good.”\n\n“Let others boast their fill,” said I,\n“But never dare to boast\nThat such as I had such a man\nFor lover in the past;\nSay that of living men I hate\nSuch a man the most.”\n\n“A loony’d boast of such a love,”\nHe in his rage declared:\nBut such as he for such as me--\nCould we both discard\nThis beggarly habiliment--\nHad found a sweeter word.\n\n\n# XI. _From the ’Antigone’_\novercome--O bitter sweetness,\nInhabitant of the soft cheek of a girl--\nThe rich man and his affairs,\nThe fat flocks and the fields’ fatness,\nMariners, rough harvesters;\nOvercome Gods upon Parnassus;\n\nOvercome the Empyrean; hurl\nHeaven and Earth out of their places,\nThat in the Same calamity\nBrother and brother, friend and friend,\nFamily and family,\nCity and city may contend,\nBy that great glory driven wild.\n\nPray I will and sing I must,\nAnd yet I weep--Oedipus’ child\nDescends into the loveless dust.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1929 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125407,10 +130854,10 @@ "title": "“Words”", "body": "I had this thought a while ago,\n“My darling cannot understand\nWhat I have done, or what would do\nIn this blind bitter land.”\n\nAnd I grew weary of the sun\nUntil my thoughts cleared up again,\nRemembering that the best I have done\nWas done to make it plain;\n\nThat every year I have cried, “At length\nMy darling understands it all,\nBecause I have come into my strength,\nAnd words obey my call”;\n\nThat had she done so who can say\nWhat would have shaken from the sieve?\nI might have thrown poor words away\nAnd been content to live.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -125480,11 +130927,13 @@ "title": "“The crimson light of dawn is woven in the lake 
”", "body": "The crimson light of dawn is woven in the lake.\nIn the woods, the grouses are crying out, awake.\n\nAn oriole weeps loud, hidden in the tree.\nOnly, I’m not crying--filled with ecstasy.\n\nYou will surely meet me, later on today,\nWe will sit together on fresh stacks of hay.\n\nLike a bloom, I’ll rumple you, kiss you all night long,\nFor a man so fuddled, there’s no right or wrong.\n\nYou’ll throw off your veil, drunk in my embrace,\nHidden in the bushes till the morning rays.\n\nLet the grouses cry, in the woods, alone,\nThere is joyful sadness in the crimson dawn.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1911 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125492,11 +130941,13 @@ "title": "“Far Away Happy Song”", "body": "Somebody sings a happy song\nSomewhere far, far away; I‘d go\nThere, or I’d happily sing along\nAlas, my broken heart says no.\n\nMy soul strives to reach this song\nAnd seeks like notes in my heart\nAlas, I wasted my strength long\nAgo, before this song did start.\n\nQuite early, I began to seek, to follow\nA fleeting dream of an earth’s ideal\nI would grumble that it was hollow\nAnd that happiness seemed unreal,\n\nEarlier my soul searched at length,\nFor my happy self, lost on a dark day;\nUntil I will regain my lost strength\nI cannot join in the song, or the play.", "metadata": { - "translator": "K. M. W. Klara", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1911 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "K. M. W. Klara" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125504,11 +130955,13 @@ "title": "“Farewell”", "body": "Farewell, my good friend, farewell.\nIn my heart, forever, you’ll stay.\nMay the fated parting foretell\nThat again we’ll meet up someday.\n\nLet no words, no handshakes ensue,\nNo saddened brows in remorse,--\nTo die, in this life, is not new,\nAnd living’s no newer, of course.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1925 }, - "translator": "Andrey Kneller", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Andrey Kneller" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125516,11 +130969,13 @@ "title": "“No more searching footsteps in the groves 
”", "body": "No more searching footsteps in the groves,\nNo more strolling in the leaves 
\nWith your flaxen hair like a sheaf of oats\nYou have disappeared from my dreams.\n\nSkin in crimson berry juices splashes;\nYou were sweet, and beautiful, and kind!\nLike the dusk, last sunrays in your lashes,\nAnd like snow, radiant and bright.\n\nAs a subtle tune, your name has faded;\nAnd your eyes, like berries, withered and grew cold.\nYet the scent of honey from your chaste hands\nStill remains inside your rumpled shawl.\n\nOn the roof, when a quiet sleepy morning\nLike a kitten cleanses lips by hand,\nHoneycombs about you are chanting,\nAnd their chants are echoed by the wind.\n\nLet the blue eve whisper to me, sometimes,\nHow you were a fantasy, a dream,\nYet the dreamer of your slender waist and shoulders,\nHas affixed his lips to the secret realm 
\n\nNo more searching footsteps in the groves,\nNo more strolling in the leaves 
\nWith your flaxen hair like a sheaf of oats\nYou have disappeared from my dreams.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Maya Jouravel", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1916 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Maya Jouravel" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125528,11 +130983,13 @@ "title": "“Sun’s golden arc 
”", "body": "Sun’s golden arc\nHot like a red coal,\nSent down its spark\nAnd it warmed my soul;\n\nAlthough, I am not sure\nNow, I hope that I could\nExpect from my future\nTo bring something good;\n\nThe warmth brought me back\nTo life, the light illuminated me\nI forgot the past, all that I lack\nAnd all that is lacking in me.\n\nWarmed by the Light\nMy blood caught fire,\nMy soul shined, alight\nMy spirit was inspired.\n\nI feel restored by the ray,\nMy heart still beats stronger,\nThese good feelings are here to stay\nEven when the sun shines no longer;\n\nOn the trip I am forced to make\nLove goes with me from the start.\nIt banishes anguish, fear and ache\nAnd it gives freedom to my heart.", "metadata": { - "translator": "K. M. W. Klara", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1911 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "K. M. W. Klara" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "pentecost" @@ -125543,11 +131000,13 @@ "title": "“The Winter Sings”", "body": "The winter sings--aloud it yells,\nThe pine tree with its hundred bells\nlulls shaggy forest and\naround it all the rain-drenched clouds\nAre sadly mounting in their crowds\nTo float to distant land.\n\nAnd in the yard a blizzard spreads\nIts lovely silken carpet’s threads,\nBut brings its painful cold.\nThe energetic sparrows flit\nLike little orphans there and sit\nclose up to window’s hold.\n\nFor frozen stiff they huddle tight\nTo warming house with all their might\nAnd hunger makes them tired.\nBut, madly roaring, storm’s gusts knock\nThe flapping shutters as they rock--\nIts anger now is fired.\n\nAnd gently there the birds now sleep\nSurrounded by the icy heap\nAgainst the frozen pane.\nAnd there they dream of lovely thing--\nHow beauteous spring to all will bring\nBright sunny smiles again.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Rupert Moreton", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1910 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Rupert Moreton" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -125607,11 +131066,13 @@ "title": "“The Catkin from an Alder-Tree”", "body": "The instant a catkin\nfalls down on my palm from an alder\nor when a cuckoo\ngives a call, through the thunder of train,\nattempting to give explanation to living\nI ponder\nand find it impossible\nto understand and explain.\n\nReducing oneself\nto a speck of a star-dust is trivial,\nbut certainly wiser\nthan being affectedly great,\nand knowing one’s smallness\nis neither disgrace nor an evil,\nit only implies our knowledge\nof greatness of fate.\n\nThe alder-tree catkin is light\nand so airy and fluffy;\nyou blow it away,--\nand the world will go wrong overnight.\nOur life doesn’t seem\nto be petty and trifling\nfor nothing in it is a trifle\nand nothing is slight.\n\nThe alder-tree catkin\nis greater than any prediction,\nand he who has quietly broken it\nwon’t be the same.\nWe cannot change everything now\nby our volition,\nthe world tends to change anyway\nwith the change of ourselves.\n\nAnd so we transform\nto assume quite a different essence\nand go on a voyage\nto a desolate land, far from home,\nwe don’t even notice\nand don’t realize our presence\non board an entirely different ship,\nin a storm.\n\nAnd when you are seized\nwith a feeling of hopeless remoteness,\naway from the shores\nwhere the sunrise amazed you at dawn,\nmy dear good friend, don’t despair\nand please don’t be hopeless,--\nbelieve in the black frightening harbors,\nso strange and unknown.\n\nA place, when remote, may be frightening\nbut not when it’s near.\nThere’s everything there:\neyes, voices, the lights and the sun 
\nAs you get accustomed\nthe creak of the shadowy pier\nwill tell you that there’re can be more\npiers and harbors than one.\n\nYour soul clears up,\nwith no malice against the conversion.\nForgive all your friends\nthat betrayed you, or misunderstood.\nForgive your beloved one\nif you don’t enjoy her affection,\nallow her to fly off your palm\nlike a catkin, for good.\n\nAnd don’t put your trust in a harbor\nthat gets too officious.\nAn endless and harbourless vast\nis what you must have on the brain.\nIf something should keep you pinned down\njust get off the hinges\nAnd go\non a lasting disconsolate voyage once again.\n\n“Whenever will he come to reason?”--\nsome people may grumble.\nYou don’t have to worry,\nyou know that one cannot please all.\nThe saying that “all things must pass”\nis a treacherous babble\nif all things must pass,\nthen it isn’t worth living at all.\n\nWhat can’t be explained\nisn’t really absolute nonsense.\nSo don’t be embarrassed\nby revaluation of things,--\nThere won’t be a fall nor a rise\nin the prices of our life since\nthe price of a thing of no value\nremains as it is\n\n
 Now why do I say it?\nBecause a cuckoo, silly liar,\npredicts\nthat I’m going to live a long life\nNow why do I say it?\nWell, there is an alder-tree flower,\na catkin, which, quivering,\nrests on my palm as if live 
", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1975 }, - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125619,11 +131080,13 @@ "title": "“Don’t disappear 
”", "body": "Don’t disappear 
 for if you go away,\ntransfigured, you will leave your own essence.\nOnce and for all your own self you will betray\nand that will be dishonest, downright treacherous.\n\nDon’t go 
 You can depart quite easily, of course.\nBut you and I will not revive. We wouldn’t.\nDeath has a an extraordinary drawing force,\nand dying, even for a moment, is imprudent.\n\nDon’t go 
 Forget the shade in our way.\nLove is for two. A third one doesn’t count.\nWe shall be flawless on the Judgement Day\nwhen trumpeters call us for account.\n\nWe have atoned for our sin 
 Don’t say good-bye.\nNo one can censure us or make an accusation,\nand we deserve to be forgiven by\nall those whom we have hurt, with no intention.\n\nDon’t vanish 
 You can do it in no time.\nHow can we subsequently see each other?\nAnd can there be the double, yours and mine?\nExclusively in our kids, I gather.\n\nGive me your hand 
 Don’t disappear, please.\nYou’ve got me on your palm engraved distinctly.\nThe frightening truth about final, last love is\nthat it’s the fear of loss, not love, to put it strictly.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1977 }, - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125631,11 +131094,13 @@ "title": "“God Grant”", "body": "God grant to the blind their sight to return,\nTo the hunchbacks straight spines, sans afflictions.\nGod grant some small godliness humans may learn,\nBut spare us the whips, crucifixions.\n\nGod grant that we lord over none, nobody,\nAnd not play the hero, or flaunt fakery,\nMake lots of money--but honest still be,\nOr does money come only with dishonesty?\n\nGod grant us a nice slice of freshly baked bread,\nNot chomped on by vile creeps and goonies,\nAnd spare us beheading, but let’s not behead,\nBe neither a grandee, a beggar or loonie.\n\nGod grant when involved in a nasty melee\nWe come out with only a few lacerations.\nAs long as we have our own dam and spillway,\nMay rivers and spillways flow on in all nations.\n\nGod grant us not to be kicked in the butt\nBy the boot of our homeland (a great big clodhopper).\nGod grant that your wife learn to keep her mouth shut,\nAnd love you and cherish, even if you’re a pauper.\n\nGod grant that the liars don’t set the zeitgeist,\nLet’s hear God’s sweet voice in a child’s galimatias.\nGod grant that we mortals can somehow see Christ,\nIf not in men’s faces, then womanly faces.\n\nThough we bear not a cross we bear crosslessness,\nWhich bends us and weighs us most wretchedly down.\nSo as not to lose heart and feel lostlessness,\nGod grant us a wee bit of God in the round.\n\nGod grant us our wishes, our all, everything,\nAnd so’s to be fair, may He grant grace to all 
\nBut please God, don’t grant us some vile anything\nFor which later on we’ll lament, moan and bawl.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1990 }, - "translator": "U. R. Bowie", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "U. R. Bowie" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125643,8 +131108,10 @@ "title": "“The house swayed and creaked 
”", "body": "The house swayed and creaked a choral hymn composing;\nit was a burial service chorale for you and me.\nThe creaking house felt that we were not just dozing\nwe were dying slowly, unobtrusively.\n\n“Wait, do not die!”--a neigh resounded in the meadow\nand echoed in the howl of dogs and fairy wood;\nyet we were dying to each other and for ever\nwhich was the same as dying to the whole wide world.\n\nWe didn’t want to die! A bird pecked in the pine wood,\na hedgehog ran around in the grass beneath,\nand like a shaggy dog, the black, wet night flowed onward\nholding a water-lily, a star, between its teeth.\n\nThe darkness breathed the smell of raspberries through shutters;\nbehind my back I saw--without turning round--\nmy worn-out sweetheart sleep quietly with Plato’s\nspiritual girl-friend, a sister she had found.\n\nI thought about marriages being made in heaven,\nabout how mean we all liars and traitors were:\nI used to love you, dear, like thousands of brethren,\nand like as many foes I drove you to despair.\n\nYes, you have changed a lot. Your angry look is arduous;\nyou sneer bitterly, as you put out a claw.\nIsn’t it we ourselves who turn our beloved ones\nto kinds of hateful creatures we can’t love anymore ?\n\nThe fount of eloquence is obviously worthless\nwhen wasted on a row, a stupid petty scene,\nI wanted to bring happiness to all the earthlings\nbut couldn’t make it with a single human being.\n\nYes, we were dying but I couldn’t just believe in\nthe end of you and me, the end of both of us.\nOur love had not yet died, it was alive and breathing\nthe trace of it imprinted upon her looking glass.\n\nThe house swayed and creaked amidst the nettle, stinging,\nas if it were offering restraint and will of life.\nWe were dying there but we were still living.\nWe loved each other still which meant we were alive.\n\nSome day (oh, God forbid, I still hope for salvation)\nwhen I fall out of love and when I really die\nmy flesh will make a point, with hidden exultation,\nof whispering at nights: “so you are alive!”\n\nBelated man of wisdom in our world of passions,\nI’ll come to realize: my flesh does tell a lie;\nI’ll tell myself: “I’m dead. My love is turned to ashes.\nI used to be in love. I used to be alive.”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125652,8 +131119,10 @@ "title": "“Human life in this century has a 
”", "body": "Human life in this century has a\nvery small value, as it were 
\nBeneath the wings of the dove of Picasso\nthere’s a war going on everywhere.\n\nWe give a hug to our kids in a hurry,\nand we hastily kiss our wives,\nand we leave them to fight in the war of\nhuman passions, emotions and vibes.\n\nWe fight with the earth and the heaven,\nwith sands, heavy snowfalls and hails,\nwe fight with dishonest behaviour,\nwith our creditors, fools and ourselves.\n\nWhen we die you should not be ingenuous\nin believing it’s a natural death,\nheart attack or some serious illness,\nno, we die in this big war of nerves.\n\nEvery day, standing close by the windows,\nour sweethearts, like soldiers’ wives,\nwatch their husbands, guilty though guiltless,\ngo to join in these rigorous fights.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125661,8 +131130,10 @@ "title": "“I’m burying my friend, I suppose, 
”", "body": "I’m burying my friend, I suppose,\nIt’s a secret I never disclose.\nOthers think that he’s still alive,\nOthers know that he has a wife,\nthat we still have got friendly ties,\nfor we dine out together sometimes.\n\nAnd I don’t want to tell anyone\nthat my friend is a living dead man.\nIt’s not cleanness I’m talking with,\nI’m talking to a void and filth\nIt’s not friendship that’s raised a glass\nnot openness,--emptiness has.\n\nI do not condemn what you do,\nI’m silent, I’m just burying you.\nWell, what’s that? Do I get it right? 
\nAfter all, no one has died,\nand I haven’t lived long as yet\nBut so many friends are dead.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125670,8 +131141,10 @@ "title": "“I’m out of love with you 
”", "body": "I’m out of love with you 
 It’s such a trivial story,\nas trivial as life, as trivial as death.\nI’ll break off the romance without feeling sorry,\nand smashed be my guitar! Why make pretence at length?\n\nOur shaggy ugly dog does not appear to catch us,\nhe doesn’t understand what we have got in mind\nfor when I let him in at your front door he scratches,\nand when you let him in he’ll come to scratch at mine.\n\nThe way he runs about, he can go quite mental 
\nYou sentimental dog, you’re too young, my friend.\nMe, I shall not let myself be sentimental,\nI’d just prolong the torture by putting off the end.\n\nSentimentality’s a crime and not just human weakness.\nWhen you give in again, you promise once again\nand try to stage a show, albeit without willingness,\nchoosing a silly name, something like “Love Regained”.\n\nTrue love should be protected, kept safe from the beginning\nagainst the ardent “never!” and childish “once for all!”.\nDon’t promise!--the train whistle’s in our ears ringing,\nDon’t promise!--comes the mumbling from the wire call.\n\nThe heavy smoky clouds as well as damaged foliage\nhave many times admonished and warned us ignor’nt snobs:\nexcessive optimism is caused by lack of knowledge,\nand we should draw the line at cherishing big hopes.\n\nThe vergers had good sense, they checked the chains for heaviness\nbefore putting them on, they were wise enough\nto give the earth instead of promising the heavens,\ngive instant love instead of eternal love above.\n\nWhen we’re in love it’s not humane to say “I love you”.\nIt’s hard to hear, escaping the same lips, afterward\nabusive empty sounds, lies, rudeness, sneering, laughing,\nthe world’s deceitful fullness will be an empty world.\n\nWe shouldn’t make a promise for love is not compliance.\nWhy do we clothe our lies into a wedding dress?\nA vision is all right until it melts like ice.\nIt’s better not to love if love eventually ends.\n\nOur poor little dog whines, getting puzzled, maddened,\ndashing from door to door, you should have seen him prance! 
\nFor having ceased to love you I do not ask your pardon,\nI ask to pardon me for having loved you once.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125679,11 +131152,13 @@ "title": "“Let time decide now 
”", "body": "Let time decide now whether\nyou’ve been for good or ill.\nImprisoned by your tether,\nI’ve really had my fill.\nYour calls are unrelenting,\nbut at receiver’s bray\nmy neighbour, tale inventing,\ninsists that I’m away.\nAnd you disturb me daily\nwith all your wretched screeds.\nYou write that life without me\ndoes not fulfil your needs,\nthat I am quite peculiar,\nthat you are feeble and\nthat last night drunken Vitka\npetitioned for your hand.\nI’m welling up with anguish,\nthe conflict and the bliss
\nwhen with you I shall languish,\nalone, I face abyss.\nDispassionate, I’m trying\nto fathom all your dreams--\nattempt at clarifying\nwhat ended my love’s streams.\nHis brand new blue suit wearing,\nmade specially for this day,\nold Vitka’s now preparing\nto rush to have his way.\nHe’s eager and persistent,\nconsumed by ardour’s search,\npost-doctoral assistant--\noutstanding his research.\nAnd through the April puddles\nthe rain he’ll navigate,\nbut you won’t take his cuddles,\nfor him you will not wait--\nat Hermitage you’re treading,\nand out to me you call:\nyou hear the news you’re dreading--\nI’m not at home at all.", "metadata": { + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1953 }, - "translator": "Rupert Moreton", - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Rupert Moreton" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -125694,8 +131169,10 @@ "title": "“My Dog”", "body": "Clinging to the window pane\nhe’s waiting for someone, in vain.\n\nI dip my hand into his hair,\nI’m also waiting, as it were.\n\nYou do remember, doggie, dear,\na woman used to live in here.\n\nBut who on earth was she to me?\nMy sister, or my wife, maybe?\n\nSometimes I think that it could be\nmy daughter who needs help from me.\n\nShe’s away. You’re quiet, my dear.\nThere won’t be other women here.\n\nMy dear dog, you’re nice, I think,\nbut it’s a pity you don’t drink.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125703,8 +131180,10 @@ "title": "“The Prayer”", "body": "They intimidate and slash us,\nThey reduce our souls to ashes,\nPut out in us the light of God.\n\nShould we our pride abandon,\nLike grey mire we’ll be found then\nUnder coach wheels on the road.\n\nOur body we can cage in\nSo that it cannot engage in\nFlying off above the sky.\n\nBut our soul will break away,\nSomehow it will find a way\nTo God Almighty it will fly.\n\nLife from death I don’t distinguish,\nSomeone dares death diminish.\nDeath is often more fragile.\n\nTeach me, oh, my Lord Almighty,\nShould death come before me quietly,\nHow to give a placid smile.\n\nHelp me, pray, my Lord,\nTo bravely face the world,\nHide not stars from visions.\n\nThou canst grant, I bet,\nA little piece of bread,\nCrumbs to feed the pigeons.\n\nOur body may get cold, or\nBe unhealthy, burn and moulder\nAnd then perish in the shades,\n\nWhile our soul does not surrender,\nAfter death there is remainder:\nSomething more than just ourselves.\n\nWe remain as bits and pieces:\nSome as books or sighing whispers,\nSome as children, or a song.\n\nEven in those bits, however,\nSomewhere we live for ever,\nThough we die, we get along.\n\nWhat will you, my soul, tell God,\nWhat will bring you to His threshold?\nWill you be from Hell released?\n\nWe all have a sinful moment,\nBut mostly he fears atonement\nWhose transgression is the least.\n\nHelp me, pray, my Lord,\nTo bravely face the world,\nHide not stars from visions.\n\nThou canst grant, I bet,\nA little piece of bread,\nCrumbs to feed the pigeons.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125712,8 +131191,10 @@ "title": "“Should the clover rustle in the meadow 
”", "body": "Should the clover rustle in the meadow\nor a pine-tree in the wind should sway\nI will stop and listen and remember\nthat I, too, will pass away some day.\n\nWhen I see a boy, a pigeon-fancier,\nstanding on the roof, right on the brink,\nI believe that death is not the answer,\ndying is a ruthless thing, I think.\n\nDeath is what we ought to be aware of.\nWe shall perish but our world survives;\nthose who will replace the dead, however,\ncannot substitute for their lives.\n\nIt was not in vain that I was trodden,\nI have learnt my lesson, as I find.\nWhat I bore mind I have forgotten,\nwhat I did forget I bear in mind.\n\nNow I know that snow is very special,\nand the hills are greener, when you’re young,\nand I know that life implies affection,\nfor we live because we love someone.\n\nNow I know that secretly I happened\nto be bound to so many lives,\nand I know that man is so unhappy\njust because for happiness he strives.\n\nHappiness, at times, is rather silly,\ntakes of things a vacant, flippant view,\nwhereas trouble stares, frowning grimly,\nhence, its power of seeing trough and through.\n\nHappiness is distant and unreal.\nTrouble sees the earth in its true light.\nHappiness has somewhat of betrayal,\ntrouble will be always by man’s side.\n\nIt was thoughtless of me to be happy,\nbut, thank God, it failed me anyway.\nI desired the impossible to happen,\nand I’m glad it didn’t come my way.\n\nPeople, humankind, I love you dearly,\nfor a happy life as ever you may strive.\nAs for me, now I ’m happy, really,\nbecause happiness I do not seek in life.\n\nWhat I want now is the taste sweetness\nof the clover on my lips to stay,\nand I want to have my little weakness:\nmy unwillingness to perish right away.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125721,8 +131202,10 @@ "title": "“Snow flakes are falling 
”", "body": "Snow flakes are falling\nsliding round and round 
\nI would keep living 
 always 
\nbut I probably can’t.\n\nHuman souls fade dissolving\nand leaving no trace,\nlike snowflakes they’re going\nfrom earth into space.\n\nSnow flakes are falling 
\nSome day I shall go 
\nAbout death I’m not worrying\nI’m mortal, I know.\n\nI do not believe in\nany miracles, no,\nand I’ll never be living,\nunlike snow, anymore.\n\nA sinner, I’m thinking\nwho on earth I have been,\nwhat is most I’ve been keen on,\nin this world I live in.\n\nIt’s Russia that I love so\nwith my backbone, my blood,\nits rivers when iced, or\nwhen lively they flood.\n\nits spirit of houses,\nits spirit of pines,\nits Pushkin and Razin,\nits old men, so kind.\n\nAnd in my hours of worry\nI didn’t take it too bad.\nI may’ve lived in a flurry,\nI’ve lived for my land.\n\nDeep in heart, feeling anxious,\nI hope against hope\nthat I did help my Russia\nto the extent I could cope.\n\nIt may once and for ever\nforget me, with ease,\nbut I wish it would never\never cease to exist.\n\nSnowflakes are falling,\nas they do at all times,\ntimes of Pushkin and Razin\nand the time that yet comes.\n\nSliding like crystal beads,\nlight and bright as can be,\nflakes wipe out the footprints\nleft by others and me.\n\nI do not believe in\nimmortality 
 well 
\nIf Russia keeps living\nI’ll keep living as well.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -125733,8 +131216,10 @@ "title": "“We’re stiff and numb when seized with feeling, 
”", "body": "We’re stiff and numb when seized with feeling,\nwe just restrain it, more or less;\nwe are incapable of living,\nincapable of facing death.\n\nWishing to save this world of ours\nmake friends with rascals we must not,\nit’s just like ent’ring a hostile house\nwhere we have to fire a shot.\n\nWhat shall we do--just hit the target\nor let them bring us tea on a tray,\nleave the revolver undischarged,\nsay our good-byes and go away?\n\nAnd, breathing freely, think it over\nand find an instance, as ‘n excuse,\nand, turning round, throw the revolver\ninto the water, still unused.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125742,8 +131227,10 @@ "title": "“You are big and courageous at loving 
”", "body": "You are big\nand courageous at loving.\nAs for me, at each step I get shy.\nI shall not do you harm, oh, my darling,\nand I can’t do you good, though I try.\n\n\nI imagine,\nyou’re leading me down\nthrough a wood with no path and no way.\nIn waist-high wildflowers we are drowned,\nI’m wondering:\n“What flowers are they?”\n\nAll my skills are quite useless and shaky.\nI don’t know what to do\nand how.\nYou are tired.\nYou want me to take you\nin your arms. There! I’ve taken you now.\n\n\n“There are birds in the wood,\ncan’t you hear?\nCan’t you see,\nthe sky is so blue?\nNow, come on,\ncarry me somewhere, dear!”\nYes,\nbut where shall I carry you? 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125751,8 +131238,10 @@ "title": "“You haven’t given all my letters yet 
”", "body": "You haven’t given\nall my letters yet\nand haven’t thrown out the trash,\nbut you’re receding\nlike a floe\nthat breaks in two and crashes, in a flash.\nA sinless woman, you’re asleep,\nand seem to be so close,\nwithin my reach,\nthe grinding sound\nof the deadly white starched bed-sheet fills the breach.\nYou are receding,\nand I am frightened that you’re doing it\nas slowly as you can.\nAnd like my soul\nyou’re separating\nfrom my body,\nfrom a living man.\nYou’re taking all away:\nso many common years\nand both of our sons.\nAnd like the living skin\nyou’re getting stripped,\nripped off my living bones.\nThe pain of separation\ncuts to pieces,\nrages,\nbreaks my heart and all,\nwith blood\nalong the crack of souls\nwhich almost have been turned into a single whole.\nThis almost insurmountable “almost”\n--may it be cursed and plagued!\nHow can\nwhat has\nor almost has been crucified\nbe saved?\nLike a piranha,\nleaving the skeleton behind,\nwith ease and skill,\nhave trivialities devoured\none more love, against our will.\nDevouring\nis contagious,\nit is like plague, unsafe,\nand love that was betrayed\ncommits a treachery\nitself.\nSome kind of howling thing,\nputs out a claw\nto catch at kids.\nLove\nis a monster\nthat hungrily its own children eats.\n\nFor banqueting\nand eating up the best of years of yours\nI bring apologies\nand beg you, please,\ndon’t eat me in response.\nThere is a trivial saying\nthat a woman has a present but no past.\nI am your past,\nso I do not exist\nI am my own dust.\nI’m filled with horror\ncarrying, my remains to the unfriendly bed.\nIt isn’t easy for a non-existent man in our world\nnot to be dead.\nMy love,\nI am your child,\nrevive me, if you please.\nDo mold me,\nfrom yourself,\nfrom all remains\nand\nfrom nonentities.\nYou are\nmy future\nmy instantaneous and eternal star,\nperchance, a loving one,\nhaving forgotten how to love 
\nfor good, by far?", "metadata": { - "translator": "Alec Vagapov", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Alec Vagapov" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -125810,8 +131299,11 @@ "title": "“All that my soul possessed 
”", "body": "All that my soul possessed, it seemed that again I had lost it all,\nAs I lay emptily in the grass, wretchedly sad and bored.\nAnd a flower rose up over me, a body, living, beautiful,\nWith a grasshopper standing in front, a sort of miniature guard.\n\nAnd then I opened my book, which was thick and heavily bound,\nOn the first page was an illustration of a plant.\nAnd dark and dead, stretching from the flower to the book\nWas either the flower’s truth or else the lie shielded within.\n\nAnd the flower seemed amazed at the sight of its reflexion,\nAs if it tried to comprehend a quite outlandish wisdom;\nIts leaves were trembling, stirred by thought to an unaccustomed motion,\nTrembling with that effort of will, which cannot be expressed.\n\nThe grasshopper raised his horn and nature suddenly awoke,\nAnd the sorrowing creature started to sing a praise of thought.\nAnd then the image of the flower engraved in my old book\nBegan to move, and to compel my heart to move toward it.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Bob Perelman & Kathy Lewis", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Bob Perelman", + "Kathy Lewis" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -125822,11 +131314,13 @@ "title": "“The Autumn Maple”", "body": "The autumn world is sensibly ordered\nAnd inhabited.\nEnter, be quiet in the heart of things,\nLike this maple.\n\nAnd if dust covers you momentarily,\nDon’t be alarmed.\nLet the dew from dawn fields\nWash your leaves.\n\nWhen thunder breaks out over the world\nAnd a windstorm rages,\nYour slender trunk is forced to bend\nTowards the ground.\n\nAnd even falling into a fatal weariness\nFrom such torments,\nBe silent, my friend, like this\nAutumn tree.\n\nDon’t forget, it will straighten again,\nIt isn’t bowed,\nFor the autumn maple is made wiser\nBy the earth’s wisdom.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher R. Fortune", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1955 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher R. Fortune" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "autumn" @@ -125837,11 +131331,13 @@ "title": "“The Blind Man”", "body": "With face upturned to the sky,\nHead uncovered,\nHe lingers by the gates,\nThis God-accursed old guy.\nAll day he sings,\nAnd his sad, angry refrain,\nStriking at the heart,\nStartles pedestrians again.\n\nAround the old man\nYounger generations stir.\nBlossoming in the gardens,\nA mad siren’s moan is heard.\nIn a white grotto of bird-cherries\nAlong silvery leaves of plants,\nA dazzling day\nRises skyward 
\n\nWhy do you weep, blind man?\nWhy torment yourself in spring for naught?\nThe past long ago ceased to leave\nTraces of hopeful thought.\nYour black abyss you cannot hide\nWith spring leaves,\nYour half-dead eyes,\nAlas, will never open wide.\n\nIndeed, your whole life is\nLike a large familiar wound,\nYou’re no favorite of the sun,\nNo kin of nature’s womb.\nYou learned to live\nIn the depths of eternal mist,\nYou learned to look\nInto the eternal face of darkness 
\n\nAnd I am afraid to ponder,\nThat somewhere on nature’s fringe\nI’m that same blind man,\nWith face turned skyward in a cringe.\nI watch the spring floods,\nOnly in my soul’s depths dark,\nConversing with them\nOnly in my sorrowful heart.\n\nO, how difficult\nTo observe earth’s elements\nWrapped in the mist of habit,\nCareless, vain, and evil!\nThese songs of mine lament--\nHow many times are they sung in the world!\nWhere can I find the words,\nSo my lofty songs of life can be heard?\n\nWhere are you leading my hand,\nO dark, dreadful Muse,\nAlong the great roadways\nOf my unbounded land?\nNever, at any hour\nDid I seek union with you,\nNever, did I wish\nSubmission to your power.\n\nYou chose me yourself,\nAnd pierced my soul at birth,\nYou showed me\nThe great wonder of the earth 
\nSing out, old blind man!\nNight approaches. And the stars,\nEchoing your song,\nShine indifferently from afar.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher R. Fortune", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1946 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher R. Fortune" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -125852,11 +131348,13 @@ "title": "“Death of a Medic”", "body": "In a land far remote,\nNear the end of the earth,\nForeman lay by a road,\nFor he couldn’t move forth.\nHis heart must have been strained\nOr forgotten, his flask,\nBut no strength there remained\nTo deliver the task.\nWhat the peasants there deemed,\nDrove them into dismay,\nFor their medic, it seemed,\nShort of consciousness lay.\nStill a rider was quick\nTo fly settlement-bound,\nAnd in languor the sick\nTook a slight look around.\nAnd from under the sweat,\nThrough a twilight of mind,\nAn intelligent thread\nWith a shiver replied.\nAnd, uncertain, he rose,\nAnd in darkness he rode,\nGave the rescuing doze\nTo the man by the road.\nIn the crowd, in the light,\nIn the steppe at dawn,\nAn old hero in white,\nHe collapsed and was gone.\nTo the power of one\nThere can not be an end.\nTo his deathbed he’d gone,\nAnd still did what he meant.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dmitry Yampolsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dmitry Yampolsky" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125864,11 +131362,13 @@ "title": "“Farewell to friends”", "body": "In broad-brimmed hats, wearing long coats,\nWith notebooks full of your poems,\nYou have scattered long since into dust\nLike branches of dry lilac.\n\nYou are in the country without ready-made shapes,\nWhere all is disjointed, mixed up, broken,\nWhere instead of the sky there is only a grave-mound,\nAnd the moon does not orbit.\n\nThere, in a different, inaudible language\nSings the council of soundless insects.\nThere, with a small lantern in hand,\nThe beetle-man greets his acquaintance.\n\nIs it peaceful, my comrades?\nIs it easy for you? Have you forgotten?\nThe ants and the roots, the herbs and the sighs\nAnd little columns of dust are brothers to you now.\n\nSisters to you now are wild carnations,\nNipples of lilac, slivers, chicks 
\nYou are powerless to remember\nThe tongue of your brother you left above.\n\nFor him there is not yet a place in those regions\nWhere you disappeared weightless as the shadows,\nIn broad-brimmed hats, wearing long coats,\nWith notebooks full of your poems.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Vera Sandomirsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1952 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Vera Sandomirsky" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -125876,11 +131376,13 @@ "title": "“Fireflies”", "body": "Words are like lamplit fireflies.\nWhile scattered and unseen in the dark,\nTheir pure flame is dim and insignificant,\nAnd their living dust invisible.\n\nBut look at them in a Black Sea spring,\nWhere oleanders sleep in solemn bloom,\nWhere a sea of fireflies glows in the nocturnal abyss,\nAnd waves beat the shore, longing for summer.\n\nThe whole world merges in a single breath,\nThere, the earth spins beneath your feet,\nAnd their flames no longer confirm creation,\nJust a flickering fire of distant storms.\n\nThere, an unknown fanfare of sounds\nDrones slowly and hovers up above,\nWhat are pitiable words? Like insects!\nAnd yet these creatures obey me.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher R. Fortune", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1949 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher R. Fortune" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "april" @@ -125891,8 +131393,10 @@ "title": "“Flight to Egypt”", "body": "Guardian angel was watching,\nIn my room where fire glowed.\nHe kept eye over the lodging,\nWhere, in ailment, I abode.\n\nDriven frail by the sickness,\nFrom my fellows far away,\nI would dream, and in sequence\nBefore me the visions lay.\n\nI could see myself headed\nFrom my birthplace as a tot,\nIn a cradle, thinly padded,\nTo a distant country brought.\n\nBeing settlers of Judea,\nTrembling before Herod’s horde,\nIn a little house here\nWe found shelter and accord.\n\nDonkey grazed by the olea.\nI found frolic in the sand.\nHappy Joseph and Maria\nCared about what’s at hand.\n\nOften I would doze idly\nIn the shadow of the sphinx,\nAnd the Nile’s lens, brightly,\nMirrored the celestial blinks.\n\nAnd inside I could hear it,\nIn the rainbow ablaze,\nPlaying panpipes to me were spirit--\nAngel-children in the haze.\n\nBut when came the idea\nTo return from our retreat,\nAnd before us lay Judea\nSpreading sights under our feet--\n\nIts intolerance and hatred,\nPoverty and slaves’ fright,\nWhere, above the slums, waited\nShadow of the crucified--\n\nSuddenly I woke up, screaming 
\nBy the bed light I could see,\nYour angelic gaze was beaming,\nFlowing gently towards me.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dmitry Yampolsky", "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dmitry Yampolsky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "guardian_angels" @@ -125903,11 +131407,13 @@ "title": "“Last love”", "body": "The car shuddered and stopped,\nThey stepped into the evening spaces,\nAnd work-worn the driver sank\nExhausted over his wheel.\nFar off, through the windows,\nTrembled fiery constellations.\nThe old man, with his lady friend,\nStopped by the flowerbed.\nAnd heavy-eyed, the driver\nWas startled by their two faces\nLost forever in each other,\nOblivious of themselves.\nA faint glow emanated\nFrom each of them, and the summer’s\nDeparting beauty wrapped them\nIn its multifold embrace.\nLike glasses of blood-red wine,\nThere were flame-headed cannae there,\nAnd plumes of gray columbine\nAnd gold-disked ox-eye daisies.\nThis brief spell of happiness\nEnfolded the lovers like a sea,\nThough grief could be felt in the offing\nAnd autumnal days were near.\nAnd drawing closer to each other,\nThese homeless children of night\nSilently walked in a floral circle,\nIn the electric glare of the lights.\nAnd the car stood there in the dark,\nIts motor shuddering,\nAnd the driver smiled wearily,\nWinding down his window.\nFor he knew that summer was ending,\nThat rainy days were to follow,\nThat their song was long ago over,\nWhich, mercifully, they did not know.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Daniel Weissbort", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Daniel Weissbort" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "holiday": "autumn_equinox" @@ -125918,11 +131424,13 @@ "title": "“Memory”", "body": "Months of languor have settled in\nCan it be that life is over,\nOr, its work done, has come\nLike a late guest to the table 
\n\nIt wants to drink, but won’t touch wine,\nAnd wants to eat, but has no appetite.\nIt listens to the whisper of an ash\nAnd to a goldfinch singing outside.\n\nIt sings of that distant land,\nWhere just visible through a storm,\nThe mound of a lonely grave\nLies beneath white crystal snow.\n\nThere, a birch tree whispers no reply,\nIts frozen veins rooted in ice,\nAnd high above in a ring of frost\nThe blood-stained moon drifts by.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher R. Fortune", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1952 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher R. Fortune" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -125933,11 +131441,13 @@ "title": "“Metamorphoses”", "body": "How the world changes! And how I change as well!\nI am known by one name only, yet\nThat which is named by me\nIs not I alone. We are many. I am a living being.\nSo that the blood should not freeze in my veins,\nI died many times. Oh, how many dead bodies\nHave I raised from my own body!\nAnd if my reason should begin to see,\nTo penetrate the earth’s crust, it would find\nMe there, deep, lying\nAmong the graves. It would show me\nMyself rocked on the waves of the sea,\nMyself riding the wind to unseen regions,\nMy once so cherished, pitiful remains.\n\nBut I am still alive! More openly, more fully\nDoes the spirit embrace the wonderful tribe of creatures.\nNature is alive. Alive among the rocks\nIs the living grain and my dead herbarium.\nLink into link, form into form. The world\nIn all its living architecture is\nA singing organ, a sea of trumpets, a piano\nThat does not fade, in joy or when it storms.\n\nHow everything changes! What was a bird before\nNow lies, a sheet of paper scribbled over;\nA thought was once a simple flower;\nA poem moved in the shape of a plodding bull;\nAnd that which was I, perhaps may\nGrow again and multiply the world of plants.\n\nSo, labouring to unravel\nThis tangled ball of wool,\nSuddenly you perceive what we must call\nImmortality. Oh, our superstitions!", "metadata": { - "translator": "Daniel Weissbort", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1937 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Daniel Weissbort" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -125948,11 +131458,13 @@ "title": "“Nightingale”", "body": "The forest choir had just fallen silent,\nA finch was about to release its voice.\nIn a crown of leaves a nightingale’s silhouette\nAlone, unceasing above, began to rejoice.\n\nO insidious passion, the more I pursue you,\nThe less am I able to ridicule.\nHave you the power, insignificant bird,\nTo be silent in this radiant cathedral?\n\nSlant rays of light, glancing the surface\nOf cool leaves, vanish in the distance.\nThe more fidelity from you I suffer,\nThe less trust I put in your allegiance.\n\nBut you, nightingale, fastened to art,\nLike Antony in love with Cleopatra’s fire,\nFrenzied, how can you keep emotion apart,\nAnd be captivated by love’s desire?\n\nForsaking these evening groves, why\nAre you breaking my heart?\nI’m smitten by you, yet, how easy to try\nTo separate, to let misfortune depart.\n\nAlas, it’s obvious, this world’s a creation\nFor beasts, parents of the desert’s first symphony,\nWho, hearing in a cave your exclamation,\nBellow and howl: “Antony! Antony!”", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher R. Fortune", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1939 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher R. Fortune" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -125963,11 +131475,13 @@ "title": "“An Old Tale”", "body": "In this world where our\nRole is obscure and frail,\nYou and I will both grow old\nLike the king in a fairy tale.\n\nOur life, shining patiently,\nBurns out in a forbidden land,\nAnd silently we meet there\nFate’s inevitable hand.\n\nAnd when those silver streaks\nBegin to glitter in your hair,\nI’ll tear up my notebooks\nAnd leave my last poems there.\n\nLet the soul splash like a lake\nAt the sill of underground gates,\nAnd the crimson leafage clearing\nThe water’s surface shakes.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher R. Fortune", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1952 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher R. Fortune" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "advent" @@ -125978,11 +131492,13 @@ "title": "“Peasant Spokesmen”", "body": "In sheepskin coats of homely peasant cut\nFrom villages far south of the Oka\nThey came, three strangers. Each had left his hut\nTo put his case about the way things are.\n\nAll Russia tossed, distraught by war and famine\nWith everything confused, disturbed, displaced.\nShe roared and argued, trains and stations cramming\nWith human misery, unhidden, open-faced.\n\nOnly those three strangers waited mildly\nIn a crowd that craved for bread and news,\nNeither shouting frenziedly and wildly,\nNor upsetting order in the queues.\n\nOn the havoc born of need and hunger\nLooked three pairs of travel-tired old eyes;\nSorrowful they stood there, lost in wonder,\nSaying almost nothing, peasantwise.\n\nThere’s a trait I treasure in my people:\nThey never reason with the mind alone,\nBut their hearts, too, are involved so deeply\nThat thought and feeling mingle into one.\n\nThat is why our folktales are so splendid,\nSo sincere and sensitive our songs\nIn that all-expressive language rendered\nThat to heart and mind alike belongs.\n\nThough little spoke the three, their hearts were burning.\nWhat are words? Real truth is past their power.\nAll that they had felt upon their journey\nWas hidden in their breasts until its hour.\n\nMaybe that was why an anxious flicker\nCame into the eyes on faces white\nWhen they stopped, their heartbeats getting quicker,\nAt the gates of Smolny late at night.\n\nBut when their host, a man of over fifty\nIn a well-worn suit of darkish grey,\nTired to death himself with work and worry,\nAddressed them in his simple, kindly way,\n\nTalked about their famine-ridden village\nAnd about the none-too-distant time\nWhen an iron horse would do the tillage\nAnd of how the yields would start to climb.\n\nHow life would flourish, filled with man-made wonders\nAnd the people, happy in their hearts,\nWould reap the golden harvest of abundance,\nGladness lighting up their native parts--\n\nOnly then the heavy, anxious feeling\nVanished from the bosoms of the three\nAnd suddenly they too began discerning\nMuch that he alone till then could see.\n\nAnd their knapsacks got undone as if by magic\nPowdering the floor around with dust\nAnd out of them too tasty to imagine--\nCome home-baked krendels, little else but crust.\n\nAnd they treated Lenin with those dainties\nOffered with a humble, open hand.\nEverybody ate. ’Twas sweet and bitter,\nThe meagre fruit of the tormented land.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dorian Rottenberg", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1954 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dorian Rottenberg" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -125993,11 +131509,13 @@ "title": "“People’s house”", "body": "Funfair, henhouse of pleasure,\nBarn of beguiling life,\nHoliday trough of passion,\nFiery furnace of existence!\nHere, spiked Red Army helmets\nDrift by in a pensive stream,\nWith them ladies of the world,\nUntroubled by the city’s din!\nHere pleasure crooks its finger,\nOffering a good time to all,\nHere every lad has fun:\nOne feeds his girlfriend nuts,\nAnother passes out over his beer.\nHere are the roller-coaster mountain peaks,\nAnd girls, ravishing goddesses,\nHide themselves in the speeding cars,\nThe cars roll on. These lovely, tender\ncreatures collapse, in floods of tears,\nUpon their boyfriends’ shoulders 
\nAnd there is much else besides.\n\nA sauntering girl is trailing\nHer immaculate doggy on a lasso.\nShe herself is bathed in sweat\nAnd her breasts are riding high.\nAnd as for that most upright doggy,\nFilled with the sap of spring,\nHe rustles awkwardly along\nThe path on mushroom legs.\n\nA splendid muzhik orange vendor\nApproaches this distinguished wench.\nHe holds a many-colored vessel,\nIn which neat oranges are laid,\nLike circles, compass-drawn,\nRubbery and corrugated;\nLike little suns, they roll\nFreely about the tin container\nAnd burble “Grab me, grab me!” to the fingers.\nAnd the wench, munching fruit,\nBestows a ruble on the man,\nAddresses him familiarly, but\nIt’s another that she wants, a handsome fellow\nThat her eyes seek here and there,\nThen a swing whistles in front of her.\n\nOn it a sweet little girl is sitting--\nHer dainty legs are whispering.\nShe is flying through the air,\nTwirling a warm little foot and\nBeckoning with a warm little hand.\n\nAnother, seeing his face reflected\nIn a distorting mirror,\nStands there mortified,\nTries unsuccessfully to laugh it off.\nWanting to find out how the thing deforms,\nHe turns himself into an infant,\nBacking away on all fours,\nA close-on-forty quadruped.\n\nBut this holiday excitement seems\nToo much for others.\nThey get no satisfaction from\nThe barn of pleasure! They’ve seen it all before.\nAnd now, tete-a-tete with a bottle,\nBidding impassioned youth farewell,\nThey gnaw at the glass,\nSuck it dry with their lips,\nTell their friends all about\nThe wild times they have had.\nThe bottle is like a mother to them,\nHoney-tongued gossip of the soul,\nWith kisses sweeter than any wench’s\nAnd more refreshing than the Nevka.\n\nThey look through the window:\nThe morning is rising in it.\nA lamp, bloodless as a worm,\nDangles like an arrow in the bushes.\nParadise sways along in the tramcars--\nHere every lad wears a smile,\nWhile his girl, contrarywise,\nOpens her mouth and shuts her eyes\nAnd lets a warm arm flop\nOver her belly, slightly raised.\n\nSwaying the tram creeps on its way.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Daniel Weissbort", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1928 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Daniel Weissbort" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -126008,11 +131526,13 @@ "title": "“Poem about rain”", "body": "> _Wolf:_\n\nHonorable woodland snake,\nWhy do you creep, when you know not\nWhere to go--why do you make haste?\nCan one live life in such a hurry?\n\n\n> _Snake:_\n\nMost wise wolf, a world that does not move\nIs not comprehensible to us.\nAnd so we run, that’s all,\nLike smoke escaping from a peasant’s house.\n\n\n> _Wolf:_\n\nYour answer is not hard to grasp.\nHow feeble is the snake’s intellect!\nMy light, you are running from yourself,\nUnderstanding truth to lie in movement.\n\n\n> _Snake:_\n\nYou are an idealist, I see.\n\n\n> _Wolf:_\n\nLook: a leaf falls from a tree.\nThe cuckoo, shaping his song\nFrom two notes (the naive fellow!),\nSings in the noble grove.\nThe sun shines, bright rain descends,\nThe water falls for a minute or two,\nPeasants scatter barefoot,\nThen it is bright again,\nThe rain has stopped,\nTell me the meaning of this scene.\n\n\n> _Snake:_\n\nGo discuss it with the wolves.\nThey will explain\nWhy water flows from heaven.\n\n\n> _Wolf:_\n\nYes, I shall go to the wolves.\nThe water pours over their flanks.\nThe water sings like a mother\nWhen it falls gently upon us.\nNature, in a smart sarafan,\nLeaning her head upon the sun,\nPlays all day on an organ.\nWe call this--life.\nWe call this--rain.\nThe splashing of little ones through puddles.\nThe rustle and dance of trees,\nThe laughter of forget-me-nots.\nOr, when the organ’s note is sullen,\nThe sky trembling to the sound of drums,\nAnd an army of ponderous clouds\nCovering all from edge to edge,\nWhen a great gush of water\nKnocks the woodland beast off its legs,\nNot believing our own eyes,\nWe call this--God.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Daniel Weissbort", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1931 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Daniel Weissbort" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -126023,11 +131543,13 @@ "title": "“Signs of Winter”", "body": "As the first signs of winter\nHover above the Neva’s expanse,\nWe compare the scattered leaves\nAlong its banks to summer’s radiance.\n\nBut I admire these old poplars\nWhose branches refuse to shed\nTheir dry and rusty armor\nTill winter’s first storms ahead.\n\nHow to describe our similarity?\nLike the poplar I’m growing old,\nAnd I too should meet, in my armor,\nWinter’s coming, its mortal cold.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher R. Fortune", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1955 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher R. Fortune" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "november" @@ -126038,11 +131560,14 @@ "title": "“Snakes”", "body": "The cool, damp forest shakes,\nHere are the varying blossoms\nAnd the shining bodies of snakes\nEntwined among the stones.\nThe warm, simplistic sun\nPours down on them its rays.\nArranged among the stones,\nThe snakes are sheer as glass.\nAlthough a bird makes noise\nOr a beetle bravely wails\nThe snakes sleep, hiding their faces\nWithin their bodies’ warm folds.\nAnd mysterious and poor\nThey sleep, their mouths unclosed,\nWhile time floats in the air\nAbove them, scarcely noticed.\nA year goes by, two years,\nThree years. And finally\nA man comes on the bodies--\nSevere models of sleep.\nWhat are they for? From where?\nCan they be justified?\nA pile of lovely creatures\nSleeps, in disarray.\nThe wise man leaves to ponder,\nAnd lives as a hermit, alone,\nAnd instantly bored nature\nStands over him like a prison.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Denis Johnson & Kathy Lewis", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1929 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Denis Johnson", + "Kathy Lewis" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "spring" @@ -126053,11 +131578,13 @@ "title": "“Somewhere in a field near Magadan 
”", "body": "Somewhere in a field near Magadan,\nDespairing and fearing for their life,\nThrough the swirling, freezing mists\nThey trudge behind the sledges.\nFrom the soldiers’ iron roar,\nFrom the preying gang of thieves,\nOnly the first aid post can save them here,\nOr being sent for flour into town.\nTwo sad old Russian men, they walked\nHuddling in their pea jackets,\nRemembering their village huts\nFar away, and longing for them.\nThey’d no heart left,\nFar from friends and family,\nAnd weariness that had bent their backs,\nTonight bit deep into their souls.\nLife unwound above them,\nClothed in the forms of nature.\nBut the stars, those symbols of freedom,\nNo longer gazed on men.\nThe wonderful mystery of the universe\nFilled the theater of the northern stars,\nBut its penetrating flame was powerless\nAny more to reach into men’s hearts.\nThe blizzard howled, burying\nThe frozen stumps of trees\nAnd, seated on them, the two old men,\nNot looking at each other, froze.\nThe horses stood, the work was over,\nThey were done with mortal affairs.\nA sweet drowsiness lulled them\nAnd led them sobbing, into distant parts.\nThey were beyond the call of guards,\nThe convoy would never reach them now.\nOnly the stars of Magadan\nSparkled, rising overhead.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Daniel Weissbort", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1956 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Daniel Weissbort" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "winter" @@ -126068,11 +131595,13 @@ "title": "“Swallow”", "body": "Swallow tweets fair and confiding,\nCuts the air with wings agile,\nEvery current she is fighting\nSaving strengths all the while.\nSoars the pits and soars the heaven,\nIn perusal of the pest,\nAt the cornice of the cabin\nUntil daybreak taking rest.\n\nOvercome by her behaviors,\nI set course towards the height,\nAnd my soul far lands endeavors\nLike an avian in flight.\nLike a bird it’s crying, flapping\nIn the magical terrain,\nWith its frail beak tapping\nAt your poor soul in vain.\n\nFor your soul became faded,\nA lock is hanging on the door.\nOil has burned in the lampade,\nAnd the wick sheds light no more.\nSwallow weeps, distressed and dreary,\nDesperate to set it right,\nAnd departs the cemetery\nFor the magic-ridden night.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Dmitry Yampolsky", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1958 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Dmitry Yampolsky" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "liturgy": "lent" @@ -126083,11 +131612,13 @@ "title": "“Who answered me in the forest grove?”", "body": "Who answered me in the forest grove?\nDid an old oak whisper to a pine,\nOr a mountain ash creak far away,\nOr the okarina of a goldfinch sing,\nOr a robin, my little pet,\nCall suddenly at sunset?\n\nWho answered me in the forest grove?\nDid you remember\nOne spring, our past,\nOur cares and troubles,\nOur wanderings apart,\nYou, who singed my heart?\n\nWho answered me in the forest grove?\nMorning and evening, in cold and heat,\nI still hear the faint echo,\nThe sigh of an unbounded love,\nAnd my trembling poems\nStraining towards you from my palms.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Christopher R. Fortune", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1957 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Christopher R. Fortune" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -126095,11 +131626,13 @@ "title": "“A woodland lake”", "body": "Again the crystal dreamstruck vessel\nFlashed in the darkness of the wood.\n\nPast battling trees and quarrelling wolves,\nWhere insects drink the sap of plants,\nWhere stems writhe and flowers moan,\nWhere predatory nature disposes,\nI pressed on towards you, halting upon\nYour threshold--and parted the dry shrubbery.\n\nThere, wreathed in lilies, dressed in sedge,\nWith a brittle necklace of vegetable flutes,\nLay the chaste patch of limpid water,\nA sanctuary for fish, a refuge for ducks.\nBut how strangely solemn and quiet it was!\nSuch nobility--where did it come from?\nWhy are birds not clamouring as usual?--\nInstead they sleep, lulled by sweet dreams.\nOne solitary sandpiper complains of its lot,\nPlays foolishly on a vegetable flute.\n\nAnd the lake, in the tranquil glow of evening,\nLies in its depth, fixedly shining;\nAnd pine trees, like candles, stand in their height,\nClosing their ranks from edge to edge.\nThe fathomless vessel of limpid water\nShone, and thought its separate thought,\nAs, at the first glimmer of the evening star,\nIn infinite sadness, the sick man’s eye,\nNo longer concerning itself with the ailing\nBody, burns, gazing into the night sky.\nAnd hordes of animals and wild beasts,\nThrusting their antlered heads between\nThe firs, lean over this source of truth, their font,\nTo drink of its life-giving waters.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Daniel Weissbort", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1938 }, - "language": "Russian", + "translators": [ + "Daniel Weissbort" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "season": "summer" @@ -126159,8 +131692,10 @@ "title": "“Cello”", "body": "Those who don’t like it say it’s\njust a mutant violin\nthat’s been kicked out of the chorus.\nNot so.\nThe cello has many secrets,\nbut it never sobs,\njust sings in its low voice.\nNot everything turns into song\nthough. Sometimes you catch\na murmur or a whisper:\nI’m lonely,\nI can’t sleep.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } }, @@ -126168,8 +131703,10 @@ "title": "“Transformation”", "body": "I haven’t written a single poem\nin months.\nI’ve lived humbly, reading the paper,\npondering the riddle of power\nand the reasons for obedience.\nI’ve watched sunsets\n(crimson, anxious),\nI’ve heard the birds grow quiet\nand night’s muteness.\nI’ve seen sunflowers dangling\ntheir heads at dusk, as if a careless hangman\nhad gone strolling through the gardens.\nSeptember’s sweet dust gathered\non the windowsill and lizards\nhid in the bends of walls.\nI’ve taken long walks,\ncraving one thing only:\nlightning,\ntransformation,\nyou.", "metadata": { - "translator": "Clare Cavanagh", "language": "Polish", + "translators": [ + "Clare Cavanagh" + ], "tags": [] } } @@ -126233,10 +131770,10 @@ "title": "“The Castaways”", "body": "No matter where they lived the same dream came\nOf the invisible landlady whose voice\nQuickened the air with a dark flame\nThe words they have always known, will always know\n“You are unwanted! Go!”\n\nAnd when they built a mansion and furnished it with art,\nWith love, with music, with the native flowers\nIt always happened, it was always the same,\nThe salon narrowed to a tomb,\nSometimes a servant’s voice, or a voice from the chandelier,\n“You have no business here.”\n\nAnd when they left for the remote island and became the idol\nOf the indigenous tribe,\nAnd were caressed, admired, and sheltered--then\nWhose was the voice of blame?\nThat came when they assumed the garlands, the voice they knew\nSaying “This is not for you, this is all untrue.”\n\nAnd in the parks on Sundays with nursemaids, lovers, flowers,\nAnd the bands playing and the fountains rising\nIn silver liquid hours,\nWhose was th enemy? who was to blame?\nIf suddenly the observant shadows start\nAnd cry “Depart! Depart!”\n\nNow they have chosen exile, they have found a secluded house\nIn the smallest city, in the stillest shelter,\nAnd they speak only to the wounded, the hunted, the lame,\nThe long evenings, the longer mornings, the longest noons,\nAnd they wait for the bell to ring, for the landlady to appear.\nAnd are they wanted here?", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1944 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -126263,10 +131800,10 @@ "title": "“Invocation”", "body": "Make of my voice a blue-edged Sword, Oh, Lord!\nStrengthen my soul to deliver your war-cry,\nMake of my voice a blue-edged sword, Oh, Lord!\n\nOut of my frailness fashion a piercing reed,\nOut of my pity a great battle ax,\nOut of my frailness fashion a piercing reed!\n\nI have had a vision and I cannot sleep,\nA vision consumes me and tears me apart,\nI have had a vision and I cannot sleep.\n\nOh body of mine, make of yourself a stronghold,\nGird yourself in the steel of your vision,\nOh body of mine, make of yourself a stronghold!\n\nMake of my breath an infinite prophecy, Oh, Lord!\nMake of my song a summons to prayer,\nMake of my breath an infinite prophecy, Oh, Lord!\n\nA vision consumes me and I am its slave and its lover,\nMake of my spirit a song so that I may announce it!\nA vision consumes me and I am its slave and its lover.", "metadata": { + "language": "English", "time": { "year": 1920 }, - "language": "English", "tags": [] } }, @@ -126342,16 +131879,15 @@ "movement": [], "religion": null, "nationality": [ - "united-states" + "russia" ], "language": [ - "English" + "Russian" ], "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Zukofsky", "favorite": false, "tags": [ - "American", - "English" + "Russian" ] }, "poems": { @@ -126359,13 +131895,15 @@ "title": "“You stood there in silence”", "body": "You stood there\nin silence,\nyour sad gaze\nfull of feeling.\nIt brought to mind\nthe past I loved 
\nyour last gaze\non earth for me.\n\nYou vanished,\nsilent angel:\nyour grave,\ncelestial peace!\nAll earth’s memories\nare there,\nall the thoughts\nof heaven, sacred.\n\nHeavenly stars,\nsilent night! 
", "metadata": { - "translator": "A. S. Kline", + "language": "Russian", "time": { "year": 1823, "month": "march", "day": 19 }, - "language": "English", + "translators": [ + "A. S. Kline" + ], "tags": [], "context": { "month": "march", diff --git a/poems/poem.py b/poems/poem.py index dfc502b..1f10c31 100644 --- a/poems/poem.py +++ b/poems/poem.py @@ -88,8 +88,8 @@ def language(self) -> str: return self.metadata.get("language") @property - def translator(self) -> str: - return self.metadata.get("translator") + def translators(self) -> str: + return self.metadata.get("translators") @property def translation(self) -> str: @@ -99,8 +99,9 @@ def translation(self) -> str: return None else: translation = f"Translated from the {self.language.capitalize()}" - if self.translator is not None: - translation += f" by {self.translator}" + if self.translators is not None: + translator_string = " & ".join([", ".join(self.translators[:-1]), self.translators[-1]]) + translation += f" by {translator_string}" return translation def email_subject(self, mode="daily"): diff --git a/poems/tests/test_context.py b/poems/tests/test_context.py index 4c00f09..960184c 100644 --- a/poems/tests/test_context.py +++ b/poems/tests/test_context.py @@ -1,9 +1,10 @@ from poems import Context, Curator from datetime import datetime +import pytz def test_holiday_context(): - t = datetime(2024, 3, 31).timestamp() + t = datetime(2024, 3, 31, tzinfo=pytz.utc).timestamp() curator = Curator() context = Context(timestamp=t) @@ -15,7 +16,7 @@ def test_holiday_context(): def test_month_context(): - t = datetime(2024, 10, 15).timestamp() + t = datetime(2024, 10, 15, tzinfo=pytz.utc).timestamp() curator = Curator() context = Context(timestamp=t) @@ -26,7 +27,7 @@ def test_month_context(): def test_liturgy_context(): - t = datetime(2024, 2, 15).timestamp() + t = datetime(2024, 2, 15, tzinfo=pytz.utc).timestamp() curator = Curator() context = Context(timestamp=t)