The Infinite
(trans. Alan Marshfield)
Dear
always to me this deserted hill
And
this hedgerow, which from so large a part
Of the
extreme horizon bars the view.
Seated
and gazing, interminable spaces
Beyond
that place, and silences which are
Deeper
than human, and quiet most profound
In
thought I fashion me, where for a while
The
heart is not alarmed. And as the wind
I hear
commingle with these leaves, I that
Infinite
silence to this voice go on
Comparing:
thus reclaim I the eternal,
And seasons
which are dead, and that one which
Is
here and living, and the sound she makes.
In
this immensity my thoughts are drowned:
And
sweet to me is shipwreck in this sea.
(trans. Alan Marshfield)
The night is mild
and clear without a breeze.
Silently over
rooftops and through orchards
The moonlight
pauses and far off reveals
Serenely every
mountain. Oh my love,
Now every way is
hushed, and here and there
A night lamp
glimmers from the balconies.
You sleep, for
slumber in your quiet rooms
Peacefully
welcomes you; and not a care
Consumes; and
little do you know or guess
How great a wound
you opened in my heart.
You sleep: this
sky above which so benign
Appears to view,
I face around to greet,
And ancient
Nature the omnipotent
Which fashioned
me for pain. From you I sever
Hope, she said.
Yes, even hope. May nothing
Illuminate your
eyes but helpless tears.
This was fiesta
day; now from its play
You take repose;
and maybe you remember
In dreams how many
pleased you, and how many
Today you
pleased: but I, not that I hoped to,
Come not into
your mind. Meanwhile I ask
How long I have
to live, and here to earth
I fling myself,
cry, quake. Oh horrible
In such green
season! Yet upon the road
I hear not far
away the lonely song
An artisan makes
coming late at night
After his
pleasures to his poor abode;
And frenziedly
the heart in me contracts
To think how all
things worldly pass away
And leave but
little mark. See, it has gone,
Fiesta day, and
after the flesta
A vulgar day
succeeds, and time bears off
All human
circumstance. Where now the sound
Of antique
nations? Now where ìs the fame
Of ancestors
renowned, the mighty empire
Of Rome that was,
its armour and alarms
Which ventured
over land and over ocean?
Now all is calm
and still, and all that world
Has ceased, and
no word more is said of it.
In my young days,
an age when fervently
We waited for
fiesta day, when - once
It passed - I,
sick of heart, would lie awake,
Pressed to my
pillow: in the deep of night
A song that one
could hear along the paths
Fading away,
little by little dying,
In just such vein
would once contract my heart.
(tr. J.G.Nichols)
Now you must rest
for ever,
My weary heart.
The last deceit has died,
I had thought
everlasting. Died. I feel
Not hope alone,
desire
For dear deceits
in us has come to fail.
Now rest for
ever. You
Have throbbed
sufficiently. Nothing is worth
One beat of
yours; nor is it worthy sighs,
This earth.
Bitterness, boredom
Are all life is;
and all the world is mud.
Lie quietly.
Despair
This final time.
Fate granted to our kind
Nothing but
dying. Now despise yourself,
Nature (the
brutal force
That furtively
ordains the general harm),
And this infinity
of nothingness.
From: BrinDin Press Online