April, 2012

Acquainted with the Night

POSTED IN classic poetry April 27, 2012

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain — and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

 Robert Frost

Innocence

POSTED IN classic poetry April 27, 2012

 
 
Innocence

They laughed at one I loved-
The triangular hill that hung
Under the Big Forth. They said
That I was bounded by the whitethorn hedges
Of the little farm and did not know the world.
But I knew that love’s doorway to life
Is the same doorway everywhere.
Ashamed of what I loved
I flung her from me and called her a ditch
Although she was smiling at me with violets.

But now I am back in her briary arms
The dew of an Indian Summer lies
On bleached potato-stalks
What age am I?

I do not know what age I am,
I am no mortal age;
I know nothing of women,
Nothing of cities,
I cannot die
Unless I walk outside these whitethorn hedges.
 

 Patrick Kavanagh

 

 

Laocoön

POSTED IN classic poetry April 26, 2012

 
 
Laocoön
I was undoubtedly once upon a time an archaic statue; I remember that I smiled but not why. I walked up King’s Street and laughed, just out of college. This was without cause or perhaps only because I was early. I remember that I held a pair of reins which presently no longer existed, that I was of marble or bronze, that I was thrown flat on my back and lay there smiling at my lying there smiling, that dirt fell over my smile so that it became ever more a smile in itself, whether this came to pass through an earthquake or in a barbarstorm .I smiled and fell and fell and smiled. Thus did I go through various stages: became faun and nymph and  gauvner and crone and hellenistic sovereign and various gods and at last Laocoon writhing under the snakes’ strangle-tries and with limbs which were equally serpents themselves. As for my sons, they were only smaller versions of myself.

At first they admired this group but later were of the opinion that it was poor and eventually considered it established that at best I was created around the year 100 after Christ during a period of decline.
But what they did not think of was that I writhed and suffered nonetheless and that it made no difference whether I was made at an earlier or later period and whether I smiled or curled my mouth in pain and conflict. For everything belongs to the beginning. I am a kouros who has become a Laocoon, and smiling or suffering is real whether good or bad and whether one lives 500 years before or 1800 years after oneself. I am then Laocoon and I writhe constantly , in a questionable original as well as in a multitude of plaster casts, and that is as much fate and death as constantly to smile.
O you who walk by, burn me to quicklime if I am marble, put me in packing with a double lining if I am plaster, or scatter dirt and ruins over me that I may smile or writhe in peace.

Gunnar Ekelöf

Apegado a mí

POSTED IN classic poetry April 24, 2012

 

 

Apegado a mí

Velloncito de mi carne,
que en mi entraña yo tejí,
velloncito friolento,
¡duérmete apegado a mí!

La perdiz duerme en el trébol
escuchándole latir:
no te turben mis alientos,
¡duérmete apegado a mí!

Hierbecita temblorosa
asombrada de vivir,
no te sueltes de mi pecho:
¡duérmete apegado a mí!

Yo que todo lo he perdido
ahora tiemblo de dormir.
No resbales de mi brazo:
¡duérmete apegado a mí!

 

  Gabriela Mistral

 
 

Les mains…

POSTED IN classic poetry April 14, 2012

 

 

Les mains

Donne-moi tes mains pour l’inquiétude
Donne-moi tes mains dont j’ai tant rêvé
Dont j’ai tant rêvé dans ma solitude
Donne-moi te mains que je sois sauvé

Lorsque je les prends à mon pauvre piège
De paume et de peur de hâte et d’émoi
Lorsque je les prends comme une eau de neige
Qui fond de partout dans mes main à moi

Sauras-tu jamais ce qui me traverse
Ce qui me bouleverse et qui m’envahit
Sauras-tu jamais ce qui me transperce
Ce que j’ai trahi quand j’ai tresailli

Ce que dit ainsi le profond langage
Ce parler muet de sens animaux
Sans bouche et sans yeux miroir sans image
Ce frémir d’aimer qui n’a pas de mots

Sauras-tu jamais ce que les doigts pensent
D’une proie entre eux un instant tenue
Sauras-tu jamais ce que leur silence
Un éclair aura connu d’inconnu

Donne-moi tes mains que mon coeur s’y forme
S’y taise le monde au moins un moment
Donne-moi tes mains que mon âme y dorme
Que mon âme y dorme éternellement.

Louis Aragon

La Lluvia

POSTED IN classic poetry April 14, 2012

 
 

La Lluvia

No, que la reina no reconozca
tu rostro, es más dulce
así, amor mío, lejos de las efigies, el peso
de tu cabellera en mis manos, recuerdas
el árbol de Mangareva cuyas flores caían  
sobre tu pelo? Estos dedos no se parecen
a los pétalos blancos: míralos, son como raíces,
son como tallos de piedra sobre los que resbala
el lagarto. No temas, esperemos que caiga la
lluvia, desnudos,
la lluvia, la misma que cae sobre Manu Tara.
 
 
Pero así como el agua endurece sus rasgos en la
piedra,
sobre nosotros cae llevándonos suavemente
hacia la oscuridad, más abajo del agujero
de Ranu Raraku. Por eso
que no te divise el pescador ni el cántaro.
Sepulta
tus pechos de quemadura gemela en mi boca,
y que tu cabellera sea una pequeña noche mía,
una oscuridad cuyo perfume mojado me cubre.
 
 
De noche sueño que tú y yo somos dos plantas
que se elevaron juntas, con raíces enredadas,
y que tú conoces la tierra y la lluvia como mi
boca,
porque de tierra y de lluvia estamos hechos.
A veces
pienso que con la muerte dormiremos abajo,
en la profundidad de los pies de la efigie,
mirando
el Océano que nos trajo a construir y a amar.
 
 
Mis manos no eran férreas cuando te conocieron, las
aguas
de otro mar las pasaban como a una red; ahora
agua y piedras sostienen semillas y secretos.
Ámame dormida y desnuda, que en la orilla
eres como la isla: tu amor confuso, tu amor
asombrado, escondido en la cavidad de los sueños,
es como el movimiento del mar que nos rodea.
 
 

Y cuando yo también vaya durmiéndome
en tu amor, desnudo,
deja mi mano entre tus pechos para que palpite
al mismo tiempo que tus pezones mojados en
la lluvia
 
 
 
 
 
 
Pablo Neruda

My Star

POSTED IN classic poetry April 13, 2012

 

My Star        

All, that I know
Of a certain star
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

 

 

 

 

 Robert Browning

Love Sonnet

POSTED IN classic poetry April 13, 2012

sonnet
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Si no fuera

Si no fuera porque tus ojos tienen color de luna,
de día con arcilla, con trabajo, con fuego,
y aprisionada tienes la agilidad del aire,
si no fuera porque eres una semana de ámbar,
si no fuera porque eres el momento amarillo
en que el otoño sube por las enredaderas
y eres aún el pan que la luna fragante
elabora paseando su harina por el cielo,
oh, bienamada, yo no te amaría!
En tu abrazo yo abrazo lo que existe,
la arena, el tiempo, el árbol de la lluvia,
y todo vive para que yo viva:
sin ir tan lejos puedo verlo todo:
veo en tu vida todo lo viviente.
 
 
 
 
 
Pablo Neruda


 

A Silent Love

POSTED IN classic poetry April 9, 2012

 
 
A Silent Love

The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall,
The fly her spleen, the little spark his heat;
The slender hairs cast shadows, though but small,
And bees have stings, although they be not great;
Seas have their source, and so have shallow springs;
And love is love, in beggars and in kings.

Where waters smoothest run, there deepest are the fords,
The dial stirs, yet none perceives it move;
The firmest faith is found in fewest words,
The turtles do not sing, and yet they love;
True hearts have ears and eyes, no tongues to speak;
They hear and see, and sigh, and then they break.

 

 

 

 

 Sir Edward Dyer

A valediction

POSTED IN classic poetry April 9, 2012

 
 
If We Must Part

If we must part,
Then let it be like this;
Not heart on heart,
Nor with the useless anguish of a kiss;
But touch mine hand andsay;
‘Until tomorrow or some other day,
If we must part.’

Words are so weak
When love hath been sostrong:
Let silence speak:

‘Life is a little while, and love is long;
A time to sow and reap,
After harvest a long time to sleep,
But words are weak.

 

 

 

Ernest Dawson

Loading