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Madonna
Hoe minzaam heeft uw kozend woord geklonken
Uw zilvren woord, maar al te goed verstaan!
‘k Zag in uw oog een glimlach en een traan,
Blauw bloempje, waarin morgenparels blonken;
Gij wijst mij naar de moedermaagd, ik waan
Mij in aanbidding voor haar weggezonken…
Daar voel ik me eindeloozen vreê geschonken:
Ik zie naar haar – Mathilde, u bid ik aan:
Gij, die de moeder mijner liefde zijt,
Zijt moeder Gods, want God is mij de liefde:
U zij mijn hart, mijn vlammend hart gewijd!
Een kerk rijst allerwegen aan uw zij –
O, deernisvolle ziel, die niemand griefde,
O, mijn Madonna! bid o bid voor mij!
Jacques Perk
(1859 – 1881)
Madonna
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive O-P, Archive O-P, Jacques Perk
Anacreontic
On the tender myrtle-branches,
In the meadow lotus-grassed,
While the wearied sunlight softly
To the Happy Islands passed,
Reddest lips the reddest vintage
Of the bright Aegean quaffing,
There I saw them lie, the evening
Hazes rippled with their laughing.
Round them boys, with hair as golden
As Queen Cytherea’s own is,
Sang to lyres wreathed with ivy
Of the beautiful Adonis
(Of Adonis the Desired,
He has perished on the mountain,)
While their voices, rising, falling,
As the murmur of a fountain,
Glittered upwards at the mention
Of his beauty unavailing ;
Scattered into rainbowed teardrops
To the at ai of the wailing.
Digby Mackworth Dolben
(1848 – 1867)
Anacreontic
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Digby Mackworth Dolben
Love
Hush, hush, O wind!
Between the leaves jou creep.
You grope like something blind.
The tree tops as they sleep,
The standing spears of grass,
You’ll touch them when you pass.
Still, still, O love!
My need awaits your dower,
My foolish heart your power;
Though sorrow dawn anew
I may not strive with you.
Cromwell, Gladys
[1885-1919]
Love
(Poem)
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Cromwell, Gladys, Gladys Cromwell
The Lion
I feel the lines of yellow sunli^t bum
My body, alternating with each bar
Of shadow. Captive in my cage, I yearn
For the large river where somnambular
I drank at twilight, listening lest some star
Betray me quenching the salt blood. But far
Is the cool river! Golden sun-streaks bum
Athwart my body, in between each bar
Of shadow. Now I range in circular
Pursuit of my own power, now taciturn,
I lie. My refluent sinews fetters are ;
And with reverberant fires, I lash, I spurn
This body which the yellow sun-streaks burn:
My passion mocks these lines of cinnabar.
Cromwell, Gladys
[1885-1919]
The Lion
(Poem)
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Cromwell, Gladys, Gladys Cromwell
Eerste aanblik
En peinzend zie ‘k uw zee-blauwe oogen pralen,
Waarin de deernis kwijnt, de liefde droomt, –
En weet niet wat mij door mijn adren stroomt:
Ik zie naar u en kan niet ademhalen:
Een gouden waterval van zonnestralen
Heeft nooit een zachter aangezicht bezoomd…
‘t Is of me een engel heeft verwellekoomd,
Die met een paradijs op aard kwam dalen.
‘k Gevoel mij machtig tot u aangedreven
En buiten mij. ‘k Was dood, ik ben herrezen,
En voel mij tusschen zijn en niet-zijn zweven:
Wat hebt gij, tooveres, mij goed belezen!
Aan u en aan uwe oogen hangt mijn leven:
Een diepe rust vervult geheel mijn wezen. –
Jacques Perk
(1859 – 1881)
Eerste aanblik
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive O-P, CLASSIC POETRY, Jacques Perk
Lire
Ne faites pas de bruit, ne parlez pas:
vont explorer une forêt les yeux, le cœur,
l’esprit, les songes…
Forêt secrète bien que palpable:
forêt.
Forêt bruissant de silence,
Forêt où s’est évadé l’oiseau à prendre au piège,
l’oiseau à prendre au piège qu’on fera chanter
ou qu’on fera pleurer.
À qui l’on fera chanter, à qui l’on fera pleurer
le lieu de son éclosion.
Forêt. Oiseau.
Forêt secrète, oiseau caché
dans vos mains.
Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo
(1901? 1903? – 1937)
Lire (poème)
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive Q-R, Archive Q-R, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo
Enough
When all my words were said,
When all my songs were sung,
I thought to pass among
The unforgotten dead,
A Queen of ruth to reign
With her, who gathereth tears
From all the lands and years,
The Lesbian maid of pain;
That lovers, when they wove
The double myrtle-wreath,
Should sigh with mingled breath
Beneath the wings of Love:
‘How piteous were her wrongs,
Her words were falling dew,
All pleasant verse she knew,
But not the Song of songs.’
Yet now, O Love, that you
Have kissed my forehead, I
Have sung indeed, can die,
And be forgotten too.
Digby Mackworth Dolben
(1848 – 1867)
Enough
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Digby Mackworth Dolben
Survivors—Found
We thought that they were gone—
we rarely saw them on our screens—
those everyday Americans
with workaday routines,
and the heroes standing ready—
not glamorous enough—
on days without a tragedy,
we clicked—and turned them off.
We only saw the cynics—
the dropouts, show-offs, snobs—
the right- and left- wing critics:
we saw that they were us.
But with the wounds of Tuesday
when the smoke began to clear,
we rubbed away our stony gaze—
and watched them reappear:
the waitress in the tower,
the broker reading mail,
a pair of window washers,
filling up a final pail,
the husband’s last “I love you”
from the last seat of a plane,
the tourist taking in a view
no one would see again,
the fireman, his eyes ablaze
as he climbed the swaying stairs—
he knew someone might still be saved.
We wondered who it was.
We glimpsed them through the rubble:
the ones who lost their lives,
the heroes’ double burials,
the ones now “left behind,”
the ones who rolled a sleeve up,
the ones in scrubs and masks,
the ones who lifted buckets
filled with stone and grief and ash:
some spoke a different language—
still no one missed a phrase;
the soot had softened every face
of every shade and age—
“the greatest generation” ?—
we wondered where they’d gone—
they hadn’t left directions
how to find our nation-home:
for thirty years we saw few signs,
but now in swirls of dust,
they were alive—they had survived—
we saw that they were us.
Joan Murray
(1917-1942)
Survivors—Found
(poem)
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive M-N, Archive M-N, Joan Murray
After reading Homer
Happy the man, who on the mountain-side
Bending o’er fern and flowers his basket fills :
Yet he will never know the outline-power,
The awful Whole of the Eternal Hills.
So some there are, who never feel the strength
In thy blind eyes, majestic and complete,
Which conquers those, who motionlessly sit,
O dear divine old Giant, at thy feet.
Digby Mackworth Dolben
(1848 – 1867)
After reading Homer
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Digby Mackworth Dolben
First complete translation into English by Kathleen McNerney and Helena Buffery ⊕ Contains the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read in Catalan – Anna Murià, novelist and translator
In this often poetic and lyrical novel by the revered Catalan poet Maria-Mercè Marçal, we are taken on a journey through the multiple, mobile and contradictory life, letters and loves of the fin-de-siècle Anglo-French writer, Pauline Tarn-Renée Vivien, as researched and reimagined by two principal narrators – a 1980s Catalan documentary film-maker Sara T. and a 1920s French archaeology scholar and museologist Salomon Reinach – alongside the voices of the various friends, relations, lovers, companions and servants who made her acquaintance at different moments in her life.
In the process, we are presented with a compelling reconstruction of the Belle Époque and interwar years in Paris, alongside other key sites in this transformational literary geography – Nice, Bayreuth, Switzerland, Istanbul, and the island of Lesbos – that include often dazzling evocations of other cultural figures and influencers of the age, from Zola to Pierre Louÿs and Remy de Gourmont, Liane de Pougy to Mathilde de Morny and Colette, not forgetting the central figure of Natalie Clifford-Barney, the ‘Amazone’.
Maria-Mercè Marçal:
The Passion according to Renée Vivien
Translation into English by Kathleen McNerney and Helena Buffery
Francis Boutle publishers
ISBN 9781916490659
Language: English
Format: paperback
Number of pages 354
£12
»» website Francis Boutle publishers
# new books
Maria-Mercè Marçal:
The Passion according to Renée Vivien
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, - Book Stories, Archive M-N, Archive U-V, Archive U-V, Émile Zola, Renée Vivien, Vivien, Renée
Matin Malade
Matin d’été, ô matin d’été,
bel et triste comme mon cœur,
tes arbres tremblent dans la clarté
en berçant mollement leur langueur.
Quel espoir de soleil virtuel,
paysage vert sans ramiers,
te nourrit de son leurre cruel
qui colore à peine tes palmiers
et te fait un frère adultérin
d’un sentiment lourd de chagrin
et plus lourd encor de soif d’azur
que du poids de l’épuisante nuit
qui m’a tendu son fruit bien mûr
mais gonflé de vénéneux ennui ?
Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo
(1901?/1903? – 1937)
Matin Malade (poème)
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive Q-R, Archive Q-R, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo
Die lach
Zooals wanneer opeens de zonneschijn
Door ‘t zwart der breede wolken heen komt breken,
En schittert in de tranen, die er leken
Van blad en bloem, als vloeiend kristallijn,
Zóó, dat het weenen lachen schijnt te zijn:
Zoo is, wat mij ontstemt, opeens geweken,
Mathilde! ontsluit úw mond zich om te spreken,
En doolt een glimlach om uw lippen, fijn: –
Doch van den lach is glimlach dageraad,
En klinkt uw lach, hoe drinken hem mijne ooren!
De vreugde vaart door pols en vezel rond. –
En met geloken oog zie ‘k uw gelaat,
Zoo zonnig: ‘k meen uw zilvren lach te hooren,
Wanneer ik roerloos wacht op de’ uchtendstond….
Jacques Perk
(1859 – 1881)
Die lach
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive O-P, Archive O-P, CLASSIC POETRY, Jacques Perk
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