Winternag
Eugène N. Marais

O koud is die windjie

            en skraal.

En blink in die dof-lig

            en kaal,

so wyd as die Heer se genade,

lê die velde in sterlig en skade.

            En hoog in die rande,

            versprei in die brande,

is die grassaad aan roere

            soos winkende hande.

O treurig die wysie

            op die ooswind se maat,

soos die lied van ’n meisie

in haar liefde verlaat.

In elk grashalm se vou

blink ’n druppel van dou,

en vinnig verbleik dit

            tot ryp in die kou!

___________________________

Winter Night

Eugène N. Marais

So cold now the wind is

            and spare.

And bleak in the dim light

            and bare,

as wide as God’s mercy is boundless,

the scorched veldt lies starlit and soundless.

            And on the high lands

            through burnt soil lone strands

of seed-grass are stirring

            like beckoning hands.

So sad now the song is

            on the east wind full-borne,

like a girl’s song of longing

when love is forlorn.

In the fold of each blade

a clear dewdrop is made

that swiftly the cold turns

            to rime as it fades!

Translated by John Irons

___________________________

Winter Night

Eugène N. Marais

O Cold is the slight wind
        and sere.
And gleaming in dim light
        and bare,
as vast as the mercy of God,
lie the plains in starlight and shade.
        And high on the ridges,
        among the burnt patches,
the seed grass is stirring
        like beckoning fingers.

O tune grief-laden
        on the east wind's pulse,
like the song of a maiden
whose lover proves false.
In each grass blade's fold
a dew drop gleams bold,
but quickly it bleaches
        to frost in the cold!

Translated by Guy Butler

____________________

A Music Sentence
Mahmoud Darwish


A poet now, instead of me,
writes a poem
on the willow of distant wind.
So why does a rose in the wall
wear new petals?

A boy now, instead of us,
sets a dove flying
high toward the cloud ceiling.
So why does the forest shed all
this snow around a smile?

A bird now, instead of us,
carries a letter
from the land of the gazelle to the blue.
So why does the hunter enter the scene
and fling his arrow?

A man now, instead of us,
washes the moon
and walks over the river's crystal.
So why does color fall on the earth
and we are naked like trees?

A lover now, instead of me,
sweeps his love
into the mire of bottomless springs.
So why does the cypress stand here
like a watchman at the garden gate?

A horseman now, instead of me,
stops his horse
and dozes under the shadow of a holm oak.
So why do the dead flock
to us out of wall and closet?

Translated by Fady Joudah

Waiting for the Barbarians
C. F. Cavafy


What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

   The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?

   Because the barbarians are coming today.
   What's the point of senators making laws now?
   Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting enthroned at the city's main gate,
in state, wearing the crown?

   Because the barbarians are coming today
   and the emperor's waiting to receive their leader.
   He's even got a scroll to give him,
   loaded with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

   Because the barbarians are coming today
   and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators turn up as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

   Because the barbarians are coming today
   and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?

   Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
   And some of our men just in from the border say
   there are no barbarians any longer.

Now what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard

54
Осип Мандельштам 

Отравлен хлеб, и воздух выпит:
Как трудно раны врачевать!
Иосиф, проданный в Египет,
Не мог сильнее тосковать.
Под звездным небом бедуины,
Закрыв глаза и на коне,
Слагают вольные былины
О смутно пережитом дне.
Немного нужно для наитий:
Кто потерял в песке колчан,
Кто выменял коня,- событий
Рассеивается туман.
И, если подлинно поется
И полной грудью, наконец,
Всё исчезает - остается
Пространство, звезды и певец!

_________________________________________

54
Osip Mandelstam


Poisoned bread, not a drop in the air,
wounds that no one can treat:
Joseph, sold to the land of Pharaoh,
at the farthest boundary of grief.

In the starlight the Bedouin compose
wild epics on how they survived
the day's dangers, eyes now closed
up there on the horses they ride.

Out on the sand, a quiver was lost,
a horse-deal done — little
is needed to set the muse off,
so the mist of events will lift.

Even though all that will vanish, 
if the song is true in the lungs,
there are things that remain: the expanse,
the stars and the voice that has sung.

1913

Translated by Alistair Noon

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54
Osip Mandelstam


Air sucked dry, bread turning to mould.
Hard even to doctor a sore!
Joseph to Egypt, after he had been sold,
Could hardly have grieved more.

On horseback under the starry sky
The bedouin closes his eyes and sings
A loose rambling balladry
Of the day's vague happenings.

His themes are ready to hand:
Somebody bartered a steed
Or lost a quiver in the sand—
The hazy events recede;

And if the song is sung truly
With a whole heart, all else disappears
And nothing remains, but only
The singer, space and stars. 

1913

Translated by Robert Tracy

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54
Osip Mandelstam


The bread's poisoned, the air's drained.
How hard to bind up wounds!
Sold into Egypt, Joseph
was never more miserable!

Bedouins under starry skies
close their eyes and ride,
composing loose ballads
about days vaguely experienced

Inspiration is easy:
one dropped a quiver in the sand,
another traded his horse—a mist
of events fades away,

And when it's honestly sung,
lungs and heart full, in the end
everything disappears—all there is
is space, the stars, and the singer! 

1913

Translated by Burton Raffel and Alla Burago

_________________________________________

54
Osip Mandelstam


gif in die brood, uitgedrink die leë lug
swaar om die wonde te heel
josef uitverkoop in egipte
het nie met groter bitterheid verlang nie

bedoeïene onder die sterre
sit toe-oog op perde
en maak liedere
uit die sleepsels van die dag

geen gebrek aan stof nie:
iemand het 'n pyl in die sand verloor
nog een het 'n perd verkwansel
die aandmis dryf met stories weg

en as die lied ook uit die middel
van die hele hart gesing is, verdwyn alles;
niks bly oor nie, net die stukkie ruimte,
die sterre, die singer

1913

Vertaling deur Petra Müller

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54

Osip Mandelstam

The bread is poisoned and the air's drunk dry,

How difficult to doctor wounds!

Joseph sold into Egypt

Could not have grieved so much for home!

Bedouin tribesman with closed eyes

Compose wild legends as they ride

Beneath a star-studded sky,

About the troubled day gone by.

So little is needed for inspiration:

An arrow-quiver lost in the sands

Or a horse that someone has traded—

The fog of events is dispersing.

And if a song's properly sung

With a full heart, then at last

All disappears; there remain

Just the singer, space and the stars!

1913

Translated by Bernard Meares

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 Night Song

Osip Mandelstam

The bread is blight and the air's acetylene,

Wounds impossible to doctor.

Joseph, by his own blood bartered

Off to Egypt, grieved for home no harder.

Unslaked sky. Sleetlight of stars.

And the stallioned Bedouins, avatars

Of the day's vagueness, and the pain

Of vagueness, close their eyes and improvise

Out of nothing more than the mist

Of events through which they've passed:

Coarse wind, a horse traded for grain, small wars

With sand in which an arrow was lost.

And if the song's in search of earth, and if the song's

Ensouled, then everything vanishes

To void, and the stars by which it's known,

And the voice that lets it all be and be gone.

1913

Translated by Christian Wiman

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Lot's Wife
Anna Akhmatova


The just man followed then his angel guide
Where he strode on the black highway, hulking and bright;
But a wild grief in his wife's bosom cried,
Look back, it is not too late far a last sight

Of the red towers of your native Sodom, the square
Where once you sang, the gardens you shall mourn,
And the tall house with empty windows where
You loved your husband and your babes were born.

She turned, and looking on the bitter view
Her eyes were welded shut by mortal pain;
Into transparent salt her body grew,
And her quick feet were rooted in the plain.

Who would waster tears upon her? Is she not
The least of our losses, this unhappy wife?
Yet in my heart she will not be forgot
Who, for a single glance, gave up her life.

Translated by Richard Wilbur