Chase poems of the night away,
No need for preemies of the spirit:
Since night assists you at their birth,
And night is an atrocious midwife.
You madman! If you really do
Aspire to exalted singing,
Outstubborn, try to overcome
Your momentary excitation.
Know this: the chatter of the night
Will never ever sound like music
Until the lines can feel the coolness
Of day which brings all things to light.
Гони стихи ночные прочь,
Не надо недоносков духа:
Ведь их воспринимает ночь,
А ночь — плохая повитуха.
Безумец! Если ты и впрямь
Высокого возжаждал пенья,
Превозмоги, переупрямь
Свое минутное кипенье.
Пойми: ночная трескотня
Не станет музыкой, покуда
По строкам не пройдет остуда
Всеобнажающего дня.
«I think I can call on words / that will last: you are there. / But if I can’t, no matter — / I’ll persist, I won’t care. I hear the muttering of wet roofs, / pale eclogues from stones and kerb. / From the opening lines, that city, / is alive in each sound, each word. You can’...»
«The noise dies. I walk on stage. / Leaning on the door’s frame, / from the far echo I try to gauge / what they’ll put against my name. Night’s shadow is focused on me, / through a thousand opera-glasses. / Abba, Father, if it may be, / see that this cup passes. I love your stubbo...»
«I am finished, but you live on. / And the wind, crying and moaning, / rocks the house and the clearing, / not each pine alone, / but all the trees together, / with the vast distance, whole, / like the hulls of vessels, / moored in a bay, storm-blown. / And it shakes them not from mis...»
«Under the willow, wound with ivy, / we shelter from the storm. / A greatcoat covers our shoulders, / my arms, to keep you warm. / I’m wrong. The trees in this wood / are circled with hops not ivy. / Better to spread the coat / on the ground, here, beneath me. »