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Lucy Maud Montgomery
(1874 – 1942)
With Tears They Buried You Today
With tears they buried you to-day,
But well I knew no turf could hold
Your gladness long beneath the mould,
Or cramp your laughter in the clay;
I smiled while others wept for you
Because I knew.
And now you sit with me to-night
Here in our old, accustomed place;
Tender and mirthful is your face,
Your eyes with starry joy are bright
Oh, you are merry as a song
For love is strong!
They think of you as lying there
Down in the churchyard grim and old;
They think of you as mute and cold,
A wan, white thing that once was fair,
With dim, sealed eyes that never may
Look on the day.
But love cannot be coffined so
In clod and darkness; it must rise
And seek its own in radiant guise,
With immortality aglow,
Making of death’s triumphant sting
A little thing.
Ay, we shall laugh at those who deem
Our hearts are sundered! Listen, sweet,
The tripping of the wind’s swift feet
Along the by-ways of our dream,
And hark the whisper of the rose
Wilding that blows.
Oh, still you love those simple things,
And still you love them more with me;
The grave has won no victory;
It could not clasp your shining wings,
It could not keep you from my side,
Dear and my bride!
Lucy Maud Montgomery poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive M-N, CLASSIC POETRY
Hendrik Marsman
(1899-1940)
Slapende vrouw
De onrust en de lichtbewogen
ontvanklijkheid van hare trekken
zijn weggewist en overtogen
door maanlicht, dat in zachte plekken
gestort ligt over kruin en peluw —
en dekens die haar slaap bedekken
welven het maanlicht tot een landschap,
een keten die zijn tere bekkens
van zilverglans doet overstromen —
hoe lieflijk droomt het hoofd daarboven:
de mond, die vlinders niet zou wekken
is vaag geopend en de ogen
die overdag het leven vingen
liggen behoedzaam nu geloken
tussen de ijle zwarte veren
van wimpers en van wenkbrauwbogen.
(Uit: Porta Nigra (1934))
Hendrik Marsman poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive M-N, Marsman, Hendrik
Charles Cros
(1842 – 1888)
Le meuble – Fantaisie
A Madame Mauté de Fleurville.
Il m’a fallu avoir le regard bien rapide, l’oreille bien fine, l’attention bien aiguisée,
Pour découvrir le mystère du meuble, pour pénétrer derrière les perspectives de marqueterie, pour atteindre le monde imaginaire à travers les petites glaces.
Mais j’ai enfin entrevu la fête clandestine, j’ai entendu les menuets minuscules, j’ai surpris les intrigues compliquées qui se trament dans le meuble.
On ouvre les battants, on voit comme un salon pour des insectes, on remarque les carrelages blancs, bruns et noirs en perspective exagérée.
Une glace au milieu, une glace à droite, une glace à gauche, comme les portes dans les comédies symétriques.
En vérité ces glaces sont des portes ouvertes sur l’imaginaire.
Mais une solitude évidemment inaccoutumée, une propreté dont on cherche le but en ce salon où il n’y a personne, un luxe sans raison pour un intérieur où ne régnerait que la nuit.
On est dupe de cela, on se dit « c’est un meuble et voilà tout, » on pense qu’il n’y a rien derrière les glaces que le reflet de ce qui leur est présenté.
Insinuations qui viennent de quelque part, mensonges soufflés à notre raison par une politique voulue, ignorances où nous tiennent certains intérêts que je n’ai pas à définir.
Pourtant je n’y veux plus mettre de prudence, je me moque de ce qui peut en arriver, je n’ai pas souci des rancunes fantastiques.
Quand le meuble est fermé, quand l’oreille des importuns est bouchée par le sommeil ou remplie des bruits extérieurs, quand la pensée des hommes s’appesantit sur quelque objet positif,
Alors d’étranges scènes se passent dans le salon du meuble; quelques personnages de taille et d’aspect insolites sortent des petites glaces; certains groupes, éclairés par des lueurs vagues, s’agitent en ces perspectives exagérées.
Des profondeurs de la marqueterie, de derrière les colonnades simulées, du fond des couloirs postiches ménagés dans le revers des battants,
S’avancent, en toilettes surannées, avec une démarche frétillante et pour une fête d’almanach extraterrestre,
Des élégants d’une époque de rêve, des jeunes filles cherchant un établissement en cette société de reflets et enfin les vieux parents, diplomates ventrus et douairières couperosées.
Sur le mur de bois poli, accrochées on ne sait comment, les girandoles s’allument.
Au milieu de la salle, pendu au plafond qui n’existe pas, resplendit un lustre surchargé de bougies roses, grosses et longues comme des cornes de limaçons.
Dans des cheminées imprévues, des feux flambent comme des vers luisants.
Qui a mis là ces fauteuils, profonds comme des coques de noisettes et disposés en cercle, ces tables surchargées de rafraîchissements immatériels ou d’enjeux microscopiques, ces rideaux somptueux — et lourds comme des toiles d’araignée?
Mais le bal commence.
L’orchestre, qu’on croirait composé de hannetons, jette ses notes, pétillements et sifflements imperceptibles.
Les jeunes gens se donnent la main et se font des révérences.
Peut-être même quelques baisers d’amour fictif s’échangent à la dérobée, des sourires sans idée se dissimulent sous les éventails en ailes de mouche, des fleurs fanées dans les corsages sont demandées et données en signe d’indifférence réciproque.
Combien cela dure-t-il?
Quelles causeries s’élèvent dans ces fêtes?
Où va ce monde sans substance, après la soirée?
On ne sait pas.
Puisque, si l’on ouvre le meuble, les lumières et les feux s’éteignent: les invités, élégants, coquettes et vieux parents disparaissent pêle-mêle, sans souci de leur dignité, dans les glaces, couloirs et colonnades; les fauteuils, les tables et les rideaux s’évaporent.
Et le salon reste vide, silencieux et propre;
Aussi tout le monde le dit « c’est un meuble de marqueterie et voilà tout, » sans se douter qu’aussitôt le regard détourné.
De petits visages narquois se hasardent à sortir des glaces symétriques, de derrière les colonnes incrustées, du fond des couloirs postiches.
Et il faut un œil particulièrement exercé, minutieux et rapide, pour les surprendre quand ils s’éloignent en ces perspectives exagérées, lorsqu’ils se réfugient dans les profondeurs imaginaires des petites glaces, à l’instant où ils rentrent dans les cachettes irréelles du bois poli.
Charles Cros poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive M-N, Cros, Charles
Katherine Mansfield
(1888 – 1923)
Sleeping Together
Sleeping together… how tired you were…
How warm our room… how the firelight spread
On walls and ceiling and great white bed!
We spoke in whispers as children do,
And now it was I—and then it was you
Slept a moment, to wake—”My dear,
I’m not at all sleepy,” one of us said….
Was it a thousand years ago?
I woke in your arms—you were sound asleep—
And heard the pattering sound of sheep.
Softly I slipped to the floor and crept
To the curtained window, then, while you slept,
I watched the sheep pass by in the snow.
O flock of thoughts with their shepherd Fear
Shivering, desolate, out in the cold,
That entered into my heart to fold!
A thousand years… was it yesterday
When we two children of far away,
Clinging close in the darkness, lay
Sleeping together?… How tired you were….
Katherine Mansfield poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive M-N, Katherine Mansfield, Mansfield, Katherine
Vladimir Vladimirovitsj Majakovsky
Владимир Владимирович Маяковский
(1893-1930)
А вы могли бы?
Я сразу смазал карту будня,
плеснувши краску из стакана;
я показал на блюде студня
косые скулы океана.
На чешуе жестяной рыбы
прочел я зовы новых губ.
А вы
ноктюрн сыграть
могли бы
на флейте водосточных труб?
(1913)
Vladimir Majakovsky poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive M-N, Constructivism, Majakovsky, Vladimir
Don Marquis
(1878 – 1937)
Dickens
“The only book that the party had was a volume of Dickens.
During the six months that they lay in the cave which they
had hacked in the ice, waiting for spring to come, they read
this volume through again and again.”—From a
newspaper report of an antarctic expedition.
Huddled within their savage lair
They hearkened to the prowling wind;
They heard the loud wings of despair . . .
And madness beat against the mind. . . .
A sunless world stretched stark outside
As if it had cursed God and died;
Dumb plains lay prone beneath the weight
Of cold unutterably great;
Iron ice bound all the bitter seas,
The brutal hills were bleak as hate. . . .
Here none but Death might walk at ease!
Then Dickens spoke, and, lo! the vast
Unpeopled void stirred into life;
The dead world quickened, the mad blast
Hushed for an hour its idiot strife
With nothingness. . . .
And from the gloom,
Parting the flaps of frozen skin,
Old friends and dear came trooping in,
And light and laughter filled the room. . . .
Voices and faces, shapes beloved,
Babbling lips and kindly eyes,
Not ghosts, but friends that lived and moved . . .
They brought the sun from other skies,
They wrought the magic that dispels
The bitterer part of loneliness . . .
And when they vanished each man dreamed
His dream there in the wilderness. . . .
One heard the chime of Christmas bells,
And, staring down a country lane,
Saw bright against the window-pane
The firelight beckon warm and red. . . .
And one turned from the waterside
Where Thames rolls down his slothful tide
To breast the human sea that beats
Through roaring London’s battered streets
And revel in the moods of men. . . .
And one saw all the April hills
Made glad with golden daffodils,
And found and kissed his love again. . . .
. . . . . .
By all the troubled hearts he cheers
In homely ways or by lost trails,
By all light shed through all dark years
When hope grows sick and courage quails,
We hail him first among his peers;
Whether we sorrow, sing, or feast,
He, too, hath known and understood—
Master of many moods, high priest
Of mirth and lord of cleansing tears!
Don Marquis poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive M-N, Charles Dickens, CLASSIC POETRY
Katherine Mansfield
(1888 – 1923)
When I was a Bird
I climbed up the karaka tree
Into a nest all made of leaves
But soft as feathers.
I made up a song that went on singing all by itself
And hadn’t any words, but got sad at the end.
There were daisies in the grass under the tree.
I said just to try them:
“I’ll bite off your heads and give them to my little
children to eat.”
But they didn’t believe I was a bird;
They stayed quite open.
The sky was like a blue nest with white feathers
And the sun was the mother bird keeping it warm.
That’s what my song said: though it hadn’t any words.
Little Brother came up the patch, wheeling his barrow.
I made my dress into wings and kept very quiet.
Then when he was quite near I said: “Sweet, sweet!”
For a moment he looked quite startled;
Then he said: “Pooh, you’re not a bird; I can see
your legs.”
But the daisies didn’t really matter,
And Little Brother didn’t really matter;
I felt just like a bird.
Katherine Mansfield poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive M-N, Katherine Mansfield, Mansfield, Katherine
Hendrik Marsman
(1899-1940)
De vreemdeling
Laat mij alleen.
Dit is de tweesprong onzer wegen.
Gij hebt mij tot den versten rand geleid.
Maar keer hier om, ween niet.
Gij kunt den laatsten tocht naast mij niet schrijden,
noch ik met u, gij gaat hem eens alleen.
Gij zijt mij nochtans onverdeeld verpand:
Ik heb uw bloed den donkren kus gegeven
van hen, die boven dood en leven
ontstegen zijn. Ik ben hun afgezant.
Ik beid uw komst.
Wij zullen eens den zwarten wijn
van dood en donker uit één beker drinken,
wij zullen stromend in elkaar verzinken
en eeuwig zijn.
Vaarwel.
Ik keer niet weer.
Maar gij komt zelve, later.
Vaarwel, het water
roept voor de derde keer.
Hendrik Marsman poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive M-N, Marsman, Hendrik
Katherine Mansfield
(1888 – 1923)
A Day in Bed
I wish I had not got a cold,
The wind is big and wild,
I wish that I was very old,
Not just a little child.
Somehow the day is very long
Just keeping here, alone;
I do not like the big wind’s song,
He’s growling for a bone
He’s like an awful dog we had
Who used to creep around
And snatch at things—he was so bad,
With just that horrid sound.
I’m sitting up and nurse has made
Me wear a woolly shawl;
I wish I was not so afraid;
It’s horrid to be small.
It really feels quite like a day
Since I have had my tea;
P’raps everybody’s gone away
And just forgotten me.
And oh! I cannot go to sleep
Although I am in bed.
The wind keeps going creepy-creep
And waiting to be fed.
Katherine Mansfield poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive M-N, Katherine Mansfield, Mansfield, Katherine
Don Marquis
(1878 – 1937)
In Mars, What Avatar?
“In Vishnu-land, what avatar?”
—BROWNING.
Perchance the dying gods of Earth
Are destined to another birth,
And worn-out creeds regain their worth
In the kindly air of other stars—
What lords of life and light hold sway
In the myriad worlds of the Milky Way?
What avatars in Mars?
What Aphrodites from the seas
That lap the plunging Pleiades
Arise to spread afar
The dream that was the soul of Greece?
In Mars, what avatar?
Which hundred moons are wan with love
For dull Endymions?
Which hundred moons hang tranced above
Audacious Ajalons?
What Holy Grail lures errants pale
Through the wastes of yonder star?
What fables sway the Milky Way?
In Mars, what avatar?
When morning skims with crimson wings
Across the meres of Mercury,
What dreaming Memnon wakes and sings
Of miracles on Mercury?
What Christs, what avatars,
Claim Mars?
Don Marquis poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive M-N, CLASSIC POETRY
VLADIMIR MAJAKOVSKY (1893-1930)
А вы могли бы?
Я сразу смазал карту будня,
плеснувши краску из стакана;
я показал на блюде студня
косые скулы океана.
На чешуе жестяной рыбы
прочел я зовы новых губ.
А вы
ноктюрн сыграть
могли бы
на флейте водосточных труб?
1913
More in: Archive M-N, Majakovsky, Vladimir
John Milton
(1608-1674)
Sonnet On his blindness
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best, his state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.
John Milton poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive M-N, Milton, John
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