Something totally different: a poem

[Skybird]

Just found this again on an old piece of paper hidden between other papers I just searched. It seems to me this is quite a well-known piece of beauty in English literature, and so probably not new for many of you. I post it for the others who else would miss this wonderful poem. It also makes me remembering an old love of mine, once ago, that I really miss.

Else, I know it since long, and I really love it.



As I Walked Out One Evening

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.


WH Auden

[Skybird]

Why not post one or more of your alltime favourites yourself?

[Letum]

Nothing like High Flight:


Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by Letum

Nothing like High Flight:


Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

I like that one, but my favourite poem in this area is from WB Yeats

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

I like that one, but my favourite poem in this area is from WB Yeats

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

Wonderful! I fullheartly agree! I know that one as well, it would have been the one I would have listed next (from English language poems)! Although I know it in the German translation, and would even prefer that - the rhymes are softer, and more music in it. But maybe that is just me:

Ich weiß mein Leben wird einst enden
hoch droben zwischen Wolkenwänden.
Die ich bekämpfe, hass' ich nicht,
die ich beschütze, lieb ich nicht.
Es hieß mich kämpfen, nicht Pflicht noch Moral,
kein Staatsmann und kein General.
Entzückte Lust an einsamkeit
trieb in die wolken mich zum Streit.
Ich wog es wohl, bedacht' es klar:
vergebliche Müh' die künftigen Jahre
wie die vergangenen.
In Schwebe bot sich dieses Leben, dieser Tod.

In parts (Kilkartan)it is not a word-by-word translation, but I think that is the art of translating a poem from one language into the other: not blidnly sticking to the form and missing the content, but to focus on keeping the essence.

Sarah Teasdale's "there will come soft rains" also is beautiful, but I already have quoted that here twice, i think.

[Tango589]

A young man from Blighty

There was a young man from Blighty
Who wore a transparent nightie
The vicar said, 'Son,
It's really not done,
It's not wrong - but it's also not rightie.

Also

Manic Depression

The pain is too much
A thousand grim winters
Grow in my head
In my ears
the sound of
the coming dead
All seasons all same
All living
All pain
No opiate to lock still my senses
Only left, the body locked tenser.



Bless you Spike Milligan

[XXi]

Some of my personal favourites include:

Kuraki yori
Kuraki michi ni zo
Irinubeki
haruka ni terase
yama no ha no tsuki


by Izumi Shikibu.


Hana no iro wa
Utsurinikeri na
Itazura ni
Wa ga mi yo ni furu
Nagame seshi ma ni

by Ono no Komachi

[Jimbuna]

The boy stood on the burning deck
His pockets full of crackers
He gave a cough, his leg fell off
And paralyzed his..........oh, just forget it