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I have asked the roving, restless Wind,
In whose drifting saddle clouds are pinned
Way beyond the realm of any star:
Where are they, those who no longer are?
Where are they, those who no longer are?
Saith the Wind: Their wings and mine collide
Over the horizon, far and wide.
I have asked the lighted Nightingale,
Candle oozing over mount and vale
Holy hymns of glory from afar:
Where are they, those who no longer are?
Where are they, those who no longer are?
Saith the Nightingale: They may be found
Where the Light of Truth is still around.
I have asked the Owl, who in the dark
Blindly sights the most entangled mark,
Mysteries no thought could break ajar:
Where are they, those who no longer are?
Where are they, those who no longer are?
Saith the Owl: When darkness fills the land,
Thou shalt see, and thou shalt understand.
My Soul, my Soul, all disturbed by sorrows inconsolable,
Bear up, hold out, meet front-on the many foes that rush on you
Now from this side and now that, enduring all such strife up close,
Never wavering; and should you win, don't openly exult,
Nor, defeated, throw yourself lamenting in a heap at home,
But delight in things that are delightful and, in hard times, grieve
Not too much - appreciate the rhythm that controls men's lives.
Good morning! – a cry
lingering at midnight
"Good morning"! whispers
the morning-glory scented air.
How are you?
A rainbow has risen again
warming my dream-exhaling
feet
My eyes learn
how to sleep
and white drops
– like a belated tear –
clarify me
and shatter against my eyelids.
Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.
She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.
Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
Upon her hand.
Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
Her perfect peace.
poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1893)
Added by Paul Abucean
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Added by Paul Abucean
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Waving whispering trees,
What do you say to the breeze
And what says the breeze to you?
'Mid passing souls ill at ease,
Moving murmuring trees,
Would ye ever wave an Adieu?
Tossing turbulent seas,
Winds that wrestle with these,
Echo heard in the shell,—
'Mid fleeting life ill at ease,
Restless ravening seas,—
Would the echo sigh Farewell?
Surging sumptuous skies,
For ever a new surprise,
Clouds eternally new,—
Is every flake that flies,
Widening wandering skies,
For a sign—Farewell, Adieu?
Sinking suffering heart
That know'st how weary thou art,—
Soul so fain for a flight,—
Aye, spread your wings to depart,
Sad soul and sorrowing heart,—
Adieu, Farewell, Good-night.
Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
Laid on it for a covering,
And how sleep seems a goodly thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
And how the swift beat of the brain
Falters because it is in vain,
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf
Knowest thou not? and how the chief
Of joys seems—not to suffer pain?
Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the soul feels like a dried sheaf
Bound up at length for harvesting,
And how death seems a comely thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
Tell me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere--
She whose beauty was more than human?--
But where are the snows of yester-year?
Where's Heloise, the learned nun,
For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
(From Love he won such dule and teen!)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
Who willed that Buridan should steer
Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine?--
But where are the snows of yester-year?
White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
With a voice like any mermaiden--
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
And Ermengarde the lady of Maine--
And that good Joan whom Englishmen
At Rouen doomed and burned her there--
Mother of God, where are they then?--
But where are the snows of yester-year?
Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Except with this for an overword--
But where are the snows of yester-year?
poem by François Villon, translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1459)
Added by Paul Abucean
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Added by Paul Abucean
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We may, long time from now, remember
this very simple episode,
this very bench where we are seated,
our burning temples jointly bowed.
From hazel stamens all around us,
from aspens, dazzling pollen pours.
Spring's blooming frenzy speaks abundance.
Each dawning opens hopeful doors.
The golden powder keeps on falling
and piling up in precious stacks.
It floats and falls onto our lashes,
and on our shoulders and our backs.
It falls into our mouths when speaking,
and in our eyes, when words lie deep.
And lurking, unsuspected sorrows
up on our bliss begin to creep.
We may, long time from now, remember
this very simple episode,
this very bench where we are seated,
our burning temples jointly bowed.
We dream, and in our dreams we fancy
- through all the pollen that we spill -
those woods we seem so close to grasping,
yet never do - and never will.
poem by Lucian Blaga from Poems of Light (Poemele Luminii), translated by Paul Abucean (1951)
Added by Paul Abucean
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Added by Paul Abucean
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For countless nights I've heard the rain,
Heard matter weep and wail with pain,
And solitary, yet again,
My mind recalls lacustrine dwellings.
I seem to slumber on some wet planks,
A wave would smash me from the rear -
I startle in my sleep and worry
If I've pulled back the drawbridge here.
How History has come full circle
To where its void began to spin!
I feel that with this endless flooding
The rotting pillars will give in.
For countless nights I've heard the rain,
I've startled up and prayed in vain,
And solitary, yet again,
My mind recalls lacustrine dwellings.
poem by George Bacovia from Plumb, translated by Paul Abucean (1916)
Added by Paul Abucean
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Added by Paul Abucean
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Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
O dream, how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.
Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low
As long ago, my love, how long ago.
poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1893)
Added by Paul Abucean
Comment! | Vote! | Copy! | In Romanian
Added by Paul Abucean
Comment! | Vote! | Copy! | In Romanian