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Oscar Wilde
(1854-1900)
Impression du Voyage
(sonnet)
The sea was sapphire colored, and the sky
Burned like a heated opal through the air,
We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair
For the blue lands that to the eastward lie.
From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye
Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek,
Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak,
And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.
The flapping of the sail against the mast,
The ripple of the water on the side,
The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern,
The only sounds:- when ‘gan the West to burn,
And a red sun upon the seas to ride,
I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!
Katakolo
Oscar Wilde
Reisimpressie
(sonnet)
In de nieuwe vertaling van Cornelis W. Schoneveld
Het zeevlak glom met een saffieren tint,
De hemel stond als hete opaal in brand,
De wind trok aan; we tuigden ‘t want,
Voor ‘t blauwe land dat oostwaarts zich bevindt.
Ik zag vanaf de hoogste stevenkant
Zakynthos’ kreek en zijn olijventrots,
Lycaon’s sneeuwtop en Ithaca’s rots,
En ‘t bloemenrijk Arcadisch heuvelland.
De fok die klapperend om de stag zich wond,
Het water kabbelend voorlangs de boeg,
De meisjes kwebbelend in de kajuit,
Meer klonk er niet – dan brandde langzaam uit
Een rode zon op zee, die ‘m westwaarts droeg,
Ik stond nu eindelijk op Griekse grond!
Katakolo
VALLEND BLOEMBLAD
Verzameling van 90 korte gedichten van OSCAR WILDE
Vertaald door Cornelis W. Schoneveld
tweetalige uitgave, 2011
ongepubliceerd
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Wilde, Wilde, Oscar
Oscar Wilde
(1854-1900)
Requiescat
Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.
All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.
Lily-like, white as snow,
She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew.
Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone
She is at rest.
Peace, Peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet,
All my life’s buried here,
Heap earth upon it.
Avignon
Oscar Wilde
Dat zij rusten mag
Stap zachtjes, zij is dichtbij,
Sneeuw ligt op haar,
Spreek teer, reeds groeit – hoort zij –
‘t Meizoentje daar.
Zij, nog zo jong, gezond
Daalde tot stof,
Lokken zo glanzend blond
Dor nu en dof.
‘n Lelie gelijk, sneeuwwit,
Ging haar voorbij
‘t Vrouw-zijn als haar bezit,
Zo zoet werd zij.
Kistdeksel, zware steen,
Drukken op haar,
Ik terg mijn hart alleen
Zij rust nu daar.
Zij hoort ode noch lier,
Stil nu, O stop,
Heel mijn leven ligt hier,
Schep aarde er op.
Vertaling Cornelis W. Schoneveld
Oscar Wilde: Requiescat
Dit gedicht herdenkt Wilde’s 3 jaar jongere zusje Isola die stierf in de winter van 1867 toen Oscar 12 jaar oud was. Wilde bezocht Avignon op zijn reis naar Italië in 1875.
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Archive W-X, Wilde, Wilde, Oscar
Oscar Wilde
(1854-1900)
Impression Du Matin
The Thames nocturne of blue and gold
Changed to a Harmony in grey:
A barge with ochre-coloured hay
Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold
The yellow fog came creeping down
The bridges, till the houses’ walls
Seemed changed to shadows, and S. Paul’s
Loomed like a bubble o’er the town.
Then suddenly arose the clang
Of waking life; the streets were stirred
With country waggons: and a bird
Flew to the glistening roofs and sang.
But one pale woman all alone,
The daylight kissing her wan hair,
Loitered beneath the gas lamps’ flare,
With lips of flame and heart of stone.
Oscar Wilde
Indruk van de ochtend
De Theems nocturne in blauw en goud
Werd tot een harmonie in grijs;
Een hooibark stak van wal op reis,
Oker van kleur: en kil en koud
Zocht van de bruggen af zijn pad
De gele mist, tot overal
Steen slechts een schim leek, en als ‘n bal
St. Paul’s hoog oprees uit de stad.
Wat dan ineens veel drukte bood
Was ‘t opstaan; ‘n koetsenrij bewoog
Zich voort door elke straat; er vloog
Een vogel ‘t glansdak op en floot.
Maar ‘n bleke vrouw geheel alleen,
Een dagglimp op haar vaal gezicht,
Liep talmend voort bij ‘t gaslamplicht,
De lip in vlam en ‘t hart van steen.
Vertaling Cornelis W. Schoneveld
Oscar Wilde: Impression Du Matin
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Archive W-X, London Poems, Wilde, Wilde, Oscar
O s c a r W i l d e
(1854-1900)
Requiescat
Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.
All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.
Lily-like, white as snow,
She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew.
Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone,
She is at rest.
Peace, Peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet,
All my life’s buried here,
Heap earth upon it.
.jpg)
Oscar Wilde poetry
k e m p i s . n l p o e t r y m a g a z i n e
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O s c a r W i l d e
(1854-1900)
The Grave Of Shelley
Like burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bed
Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;
Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,
And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.
And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,
In the still chamber of yon pyramid
Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,
Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.
Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb
Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep,
But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb
In the blue cavern of an echoing deep,
Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom
Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.
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O s c a r W i l d e p o e t r y
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Oscar Wilde
(1854-1900)
The Grave Of Keats
Rid of the world’s injustice, and his pain,
He rests at last beneath God’s veil of blue:
Taken from life when life and love were new
The youngest of the martyrs here is lain,
Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain.
No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew,
But gentle violets weeping with the dew
Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain.
O proudest heart that broke for misery!
O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene!
O poet-painter of our English Land!
Thy name was writ in water–it shall stand:
And tears like mine will keep thy memory green,
As Isabella did her Basil-tree.
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O s c a r W i l d e p o e t r y
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O s c a r W i l d e
(1854-1900)
Madonna Mia
A lily-girl, not made for this world’s pain,
With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears,
And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears
Like bluest water seen through mists of rain:
Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain,
Red underlip drawn in for fear of love,
And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove,
Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein.
Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease,
Even to kiss her feet I am not bold,
Being o’ershadowed by the wings of awe,
Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice
Beneath the flaming Lion’s breast, and saw
The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold.
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Oscar Wilde poetry
k e m p i s p o e t r y m a g a z i n e
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O s c a r W i l d e
(1854-1900)
Roses And Rue
(To L. L.)
Could we dig up this long-buried treasure,
Were it worth the pleasure,
We never could learn love’s song,
We are parted too long.
Could the passionate past that is fled
Call back its dead,
Could we live it all over again,
Were it worth the pain!
I remember we used to meet
By an ivied seat,
And you warbled each pretty word
With the air of a bird;
And your voice had a quaver in it,
Just like a linnet,
And shook, as the blackbird’s throat
With its last big note;
And your eyes, they were green and grey
Like an April day,
But lit into amethyst
When I stooped and kissed;
And your mouth, it would never smile
For a long, long while,
Then it rippled all over with laughter
Five minutes after.
You were always afraid of a shower,
Just like a flower:
I remember you started and ran
When the rain began.
I remember I never could catch you,
For no one could match you,
You had wonderful, luminous, fleet,
Little wings to your feet.
I remember your hair – did I tie it?
For it always ran riot –
Like a tangled sunbeam of gold:
These things are old.
I remember so well the room,
And the lilac bloom
That beat at the dripping pane
In the warm June rain;
And the colour of your gown,
It was amber-brown,
And two yellow satin bows
From your shoulders rose.
And the handkerchief of French lace
Which you held to your face –
Had a small tear left a stain?
Or was it the rain?
On your hand as it waved adieu
There were veins of blue;
In your voice as it said good-bye
Was a petulant cry,
‘You have only wasted your life.’
(Ah, that was the knife!)
When I rushed through the garden gate
It was all too late.
Could we live it over again,
Were it worth the pain,
Could the passionate past that is fled
Call back its dead!
Well, if my heart must break,
Dear love, for your sake,
It will break in music, I know,
Poets’ hearts break so.
But strange that I was not told
That the brain can hold
In a tiny ivory cell
God’s heaven and hell.
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Oscar Wilde poetry
k e m p i s p o e t r y m a g a z i n e
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O s c a r W i l d e
(1854-1900)
Flower of Love
Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault
was, had I not been made of common clay
I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed
yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.
From the wildness of my wasted passion I had
struck a better, clearer song,
Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled
with some Hydra-headed wrong.
Had my lips been smitten into music by the
kisses that but made them bleed,
You had walked with Bice and the angels on
that verdant and enamelled mead.
I had trod the road which Dante treading saw
the suns of seven circles shine,
Ay! perchance had seen the heavens opening,
as they opened to the Florentine.
And the mighty nations would have crowned
me, who am crownless now and without name,
And some orient dawn had found me kneeling
on the threshold of the House of Fame.
I had sat within that marble circle where the
oldest bard is as the young,
And the pipe is ever dropping honey, and the
lyre’s strings are ever strung.
Keats had lifted up his hymeneal curls from out
the poppy-seeded wine,
With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead,
clasped the hand of noble love in mine.
And at springtide, when the apple-blossoms
brush the burnished bosom of the dove,
Two young lovers lying in an orchard would
have read the story of our love;
Would have read the legend of my passion,
known the bitter secret of my heart,
Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted as
we two are fated now to part.
For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by
the cankerworm of truth,
And no hand can gather up the fallen withered
petals of the rose of youth.
Yet I am not sorry that I loved you – ah!
what else had I a boy to do, –
For the hungry teeth of time devour, and the
silent-footed years pursue.
Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and
when once the storm of youth is past,
Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death
the silent pilot comes at last.
And within the grave there is no pleasure,
for the blindworm battens on the root,
And Desire shudders into ashes, and the tree
of Passion bears no fruit.
Ah! what else had I to do but love you?
God’s own mother was less dear to me,
And less dear the Cytheraean rising like an
argent lily from the sea.
I have made my choice, have lived my
poems, and, though youth is gone in wasted days,
I have found the lover’s crown of myrtle better
than the poet’s crown of bays.
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O s c a r W i l d e p o e t r y
k e m p i s p o e t r y m a g a z i n e
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O s c a r W i l d e
(1854-1900)
From ‘The Garden Of Eros’
Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left
One silver voice to sing his threnody,
But ah! too soon of it we were bereft
When on that riven night and stormy sea
Panthea claimed her singer as her own,
And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk
alone,
Save for that fiery heart, that morning star
Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye
Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war
The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy
Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring
The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing,
And he hath been with thee at Thessaly,
And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot
In passionless and fierce virginity
Hunting the tusked boar, his honied lute
Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill,
And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still.
And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine,
And sung the Galilaean’s requiem,
That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine
He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him
Have found their last, most ardent worshipper,
And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror.
Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still,
It is not quenched the torch of poesy,
The star that shook above the Eastern hill
Holds unassailed its argent armoury
From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight –
O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,
Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child,
Dear heritor of Spenser’s tuneful reed,
With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled
The weary soul of man in troublous need,
And from the far and flowerless fields of ice
Has brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise.
We know them all, Gudrun the strong men’s bride,
Aslaug and Olafson we know them all,
How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died,
And what enchantment held the king in thrall
When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers
That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours,
Long listless summer hours when the noon
Being enamoured of a damask rose
Forgets to journey westward, till the moon
The pale usurper of its tribute grows
From a thin sickle to a silver shield
And chides its loitering car – how oft, in some cool grassy field
Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight,
At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come
Almost before the blackbird finds a mate
And overstay the swallow, and the hum
Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves,
Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,
And through their unreal woes and mimic pain
Wept for myself, and so was purified,
And in their simple mirth grew glad again;
For as I sailed upon that pictured tide
The strength and splendour of the storm was mine
Without the storm’s red ruin, for the singer is divine;
The little laugh of water falling down
Is not so musical, the clammy gold
Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town
Has less of sweetness in it, and the old
Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady
Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.
Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile!
Although the cheating merchants of the mart
With iron roads profane our lovely isle,
And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art,
Ay! though the crowded factories beget
The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!
For One at least there is, – He bears his name
From Dante and the seraph Gabriel,
Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame
To light thine altar; He {4} too loves thee well,
Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare,
And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair,
Loves thee so well, that all the World for him
A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear,
And Sorrow take a purple diadem,
Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair
Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be
Even in anguish beautiful; – such is the empery
Which Painters hold, and such the heritage
This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess,
Being a better mirror of his age
In all his pity, love, and weariness,
Than those who can but copy common things,
And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.
But they are few, and all romance has flown,
And men can prophesy about the sun,
And lecture on his arrows – how, alone,
Through a waste void the soulless atoms run,
How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled,
And that no more ‘mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head.
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(In his poem the author laments the growth of materialism in the nineteenth century. He hails Keats and Shelley and some of the poets and artists who were his contemporaries, although his seniors, as the torch-bearers of the intellectual life. Among these are Swinburne, William Morris, Rossetti, and Burne-Jones)
O s c a r W i l d e p o e t r y
k e m p i s p o e t r y m a g a z i n e
More in: Archive W-X, Wilde, Oscar
O s c a r W i l d e
(1854-1900)
Impression Du Matin
The Thames nocturne of blue and gold
Changed to a Harmony in grey:
A barge with ochre-coloured hay
Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold
The yellow fog came creeping down
The bridges, till the houses’ walls
Seemed changed to shadows and St. Paul’s
Loomed like a bubble o’er the town.
Then suddenly arose the clang
Of waking life; the streets were stirred
With country waggons: and a bird
Flew to the glistening roofs and sang.
But one pale woman all alone,
The daylight kissing her wan hair,
Loitered beneath the gas lamps’ flare,
With lips of flame and heart of stone.
.jpg)
O s c a r W i l d e p o e t r y
k e m p i s p o e t r y m a g a z i n e
More in: Wilde, Oscar
.jpg)
O s c a r W i l d e
(1854-1900)
My Voice
Within this restless, hurried, modern world
We took our hearts’ full pleasure–You and I,
And now the white sails of our ship are furled,
And spent the lading of our argosy.
Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,
For very weeping is my gladness fled,
Sorrow has paled my young mouth’s vermilion,
And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.
But all this crowded life has been to thee
No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell
Of viols, or the music of the sea
That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.
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O s c a r W i l d e p o e t r y
k e m p i s p o e t r y m a g a z i n e
More in: Wilde, Oscar
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