Anna Akhmatova: Solitude

So many stones are thrown at me
that I no longer cower,
the turret’s cage is shapely,
high among high towers.
My thanks, to its builders,
may they escape pain and woe,
here, I see suns rise earlier,
here, their last splendours glow.
And often winds from northern seas
fill the windows of my sanctuary,
and a dove eats corn from my palm…
and divinely light and calm,
the Muse’s sunburnt hand’s at play,
finishing my unfinished page.

Translated by A. S. Kline © 2005

Vasily Zhukovsky (1783-1852) – The Bard

My friends, can you descry that mound of earth
Above clear waters in the shade of trees?
You can just hear the babbling spring against the bank;
You can just feel a breeze that’s wafting in the leaves;
A wreath and lyre hang upon the boughs…
Alas, my friends! This mound’ss a grave;
Here earth conceals the ashes of a bard;
Poor bard!

A gentle soul, a simple heart
He was a sojourner in the world;
He’d barely bloomed, yet lost his taste for life
He craved his end with yearning and excitement;
And early on he met his end,
He found the grave’s desired sleep.
Your time was but a moment – a moment sad
Poor bard!

He sang with tenderness of friendship to his friend, -
His loyal friend cut down in his life’s bloom;
He sang of love – but in a doleful voice;
Alas! Of love he knew naught but its woe;
Now all has met with its demise,
Your soul partakes of peace eternal;
You slumber in your silent grave,
Poor bard!

Here, by this stream one eventide
He sang his doleful farewell song:
“O lovely world, where blossomed I in vain;
Farewell forever; with a soul deceived
For happiness I waited – but my dreams have died;
All’s perished; lyre, be still;
To your serene abode, o haste,
Poor bard!

What’s life, when charm is lacking?
To know of bliss, with all the spirit’s striving,
Only to see oneself cut off by an abyss;
Each moment to desire and yet fear desiring…
O refuge of vexatious hearts,
O grave, sure path to peace,
When will you call to your embrace
The poor bard?”

The bard’s no more … his lyre’s silent…
All trace of him has disappeared from here;
The hills and valleys mourn;
And all is still … save zephyrs soft,
That stir the faded wreath,
And waft betimes above the grave,
A woeful lyre responds:
Poor bard!

© A. Wachtel, I. Kutik and M. Denner
www.russianpoetry.net

Lewis Carroll: Phantasmagoria

One winter night, at half-past nine,

Cold, tired, and cross, and muddy,

I had come home, too late to dine,

And supper, with cigars and wine,

Was waiting in the study.

There was a strangeness in the room,

And Something white and wavy

Was standing near me in the gloom —

I took it for the carpet-broom

Left by that careless slavey.

But presently the Thing began

To shiver and to sneeze:

On which I said “Come, come, my man!

That’s a most inconsiderate plan.

Less noise there, if you please!”

“I’ve caught a cold,” the Thing replies,

“Out there upon the landing.”

I turned to look in some surprise,

And there, before my very eyes,

A little Ghost was standing!

He trembled when he caught my eye,

And got behind a chair.

“How came you here,” I said, “and why?

I never saw a thing so shy.

Come out! Don’t shiver there!”

He said “I’d gladly tell you how,

And also tell you why;

But” (here he gave a little bow)

“You’re in so bad a temper now,

You’d think it all a lie.

“And as to being in a fright,

Allow me to remark

That Ghosts have just as good a right

In every way, to fear the light,

As Men to fear the dark.”

“No plea,” said I, “can well excuse

Such cowardice in you:

For Ghosts can visit when they choose,

Whereas we Humans ca’n’t refuse

To grant the interview.”

He said “A flutter of alarm

Is not unnatural, is it?

I really feared you meant some harm:

But, now I see that you are calm,

Let me explain my visit.

“Houses are classed, I beg to state,

According to the number

Of Ghosts that they accommodate:

(The Tenant merely counts as WEIGHT,

With Coals and other lumber).

“This is a ‘one-ghost’ house, and you

When you arrived last summer,

May have remarked a Spectre who

Was doing all that Ghosts can do

To welcome the new-comer.

“In Villas this is always done —

However cheaply rented:

For, though of course there’s less of fun

When there is only room for one,

Ghosts have to be contented.

“That Spectre left you on the Third —

Since then you’ve not been haunted:

For, as he never sent us word,

’Twas quite by accident we heard

That any one was wanted.

“A Spectre has first choice, by right,

In filling up a vacancy;

Then Phantom, Goblin, Elf, and Sprite —

If all these fail them, they invite

The nicest Ghoul that they can see.

“The Spectres said the place was low,

And that you kept bad wine:

So, as a Phantom had to go,

And I was first, of course, you know,

I couldn’t well decline.”

“No doubt,” said I, “they settled who

Was fittest to be sent

Yet still to choose a brat like you,

To haunt a man of forty-two,

Was no great compliment!”

“I’m not so young, Sir,” he replied,

“As you might think. The fact is,

In caverns by the water-side,

And other places that I’ve tried,

I’ve had a lot of practice:

“But I have never taken yet

A strict domestic part,

And in my flurry I forget

The Five Good Rules of Etiquette

We have to know by heart.”

My sympathies were warming fast

Towards the little fellow:

He was so utterly aghast

At having found a Man at last,

And looked so scared and yellow.

“At least,” I said, “I’m glad to find

A Ghost is not a DUMB thing!

But pray sit down: you’ll feel inclined

(If, like myself, you have not dined)

To take a snack of something:

“Though, certainly, you don’t appear

A thing to offer FOOD to!

And then I shall be glad to hear —

If you will say them loud and clear —

The Rules that you allude to.”

“Thanks! You shall hear them by and by.

This IS a piece of luck!”

“What may I offer you?” said I.

“Well, since you ARE so kind, I’ll try

A little bit of duck.

“ONE slice! And may I ask you for

Another drop of gravy?”

I sat and looked at him in awe,

For certainly I never saw

A thing so white and wavy.

And still he seemed to grow more white,

More vapoury, and wavier —

Seen in the dim and flickering light,

As he proceeded to recite

His “Maxims of Behaviour.” …

 

Alexander Pushkin: Bronze Horseman, A Petersburg Tale, 1833

Translation of the Bronze Horseman is by Waclaw Lednicki and published in: Waclaw Lednicki, Pushkin’s Bronze Horseman (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1955).

FOREWORD
The occurrence related in this tale is based on fact. The details of the flood (1) are taken from the journals of the day. The curious may consult the account composed by V. N. Berch (2).

INTRODUCTION

There, by the billows desolate,
He (3) stood, with mighty thoughts elate,
And gazed; but in the distance only
A sorry skiff on the broad spate
Of Neva drifted seaward, lonely.
The moss-grown miry banks with rare
Hovels were dotted here and there
Where wretched Finns for shelter crowded;
The murmuring woodlands had no share
Of sunshine, all in mist beshrouded.

And thus He mused: “From here, indeed
Shall we strike terror in the Swede;
And here a city (4) by our labor
Founded, shall gall our haughty neightor;
‘Here cut’–so Nature gives command–
‘Your window through on Europe (5); stand
Firm-footed by the sea, unchanging!’
Ay, ships of every flag shall come
By waters they had never swum,
And we shall revel, freely ranging.”

A century–and that city young,
Gem of the Northern world, amazing,
From gloomy wood and swamp upsprung,
Had risen, in pride and splendor blazing.
Where once, by that low-lying shore,
In waters never known before
The Finnish fisherman, sole creature,
And left forlorn by stepdame Nature,

Cast ragged nets–today, along
Those shores, astir with life and motion,
Vast shapely palaces in throng
And towers are seen: from every ocean,
From the world’s end, the ships come fast,
To reach the loaded quays at last.
The Neva now is clad in granite
With many a bridge to overspan it;
The islands lie beneath a screen
Of gardens deep in dusky green.
To that young capital is drooping
The crest of Moscow on the ground,
A dowager in purple, stooping
Before an empress newly crowned.

I love thee, city of Peter’s making (6);
I love thy harmonies austere,
And Neva’s sovran waters breaking
Along her banks of granite sheer;
Thy traceried iron gates; thy sparkling,
Yet moouless, meditative gloom
And thy transparent twilight darkling;
And when I write within my room
Or lampless, read–then, sunk in slumber,
The empty thoroughfares, past number,
Are piled, stand clear upon the night;
The Admiralty spire (7) is bright;
Nor may the darkness mount, to smother
The golden cloudland of the light,
For soon one dawn succeeds another
With barely half-an-hour of night.
I love thy ruthless winter, lowering
With bitter frost and windless air;
The sledges along Neva scouring;
Girls’ cheeks–no rose so bright and fair!
The flash and noise of balls, the chatter;
The bachelor’s hour of feasting, too;
The cups that foam and hiss and spatter,
The punch that in the bowl burns blue.
I love the warlike animation
On playing-fields of Mars (8); to see
The troops of foot and horse in station,
And their superb monotony;
Their ordered, undulating muster; …

The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire

By BENJAMIN IVRY
Fifty years ago, at the 100th anniversary of Charles Baudelaire’s 1857 poetry collection “Les Fleurs du Mal” (Flowers of Evil), the French writer Pierre Jean Jouve stated, “‘Les Fleurs du Mal’ is no centenarian!” In 2007, on its 150th birthday, the book retains its freshness. A new prose translation by avant-garde American author Keith Waldrop (Wesleyan University Press, 228 pages, $24.95) and “The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire” by Walter Benjamin (Harvard University Press, 320 pages, $15.95) are among the tributes suggesting that Baudelaire’s book is still path-breakingly modern.

Baudelaire (1821–1867) was obsessed with modernity and found inspiration in what he called the “ephemeral, the fleeting, the contingent.” He also embraced forbidden knowledge considered satanic by some stodgy 19th-century readers. If experience — of drugs, sexual immorality, or other debauchery — was morbidly evil, then the poet was determined to weave highly structured artificial flowers of immense power from such degradation. Typically uncompromising, the poet addresses us at the start of the book: “Hypocrite lecteur! Mon semblable, mon frère!” (Hypocritical reader, my ally, my brother).

Baudelaire’s life was grim, highlighted by unrequited love, penury, lack of critical acceptance, prosecution on charges of obscenity, and illness leading to his early death at 46 from syphilis. Some American fans have tried to add humor to alleviate the gloom, like the San Francisco writer Daniel Handler who in his mock-ghastly Lemony Snicket series of books for young readers dubbed his protagonists the “Baudelaire Orphans.” “Say it with Flowers” Baudelaire T-Shirts and tote-bags are sold online (cafepress.com) by Leaping Dog Press, a small literary publisher in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Baudelaire Soaps, a Swanzey, New Hampshire-based company (baudelairesoaps.com) explains that its bath and beauty products are named in honor of the poet, “or ‘Chuck’ as we call him around here.”

Ludicrous salutes distort our view of “Chuck,” as do the weighty Marxist musings of the suicidal German-Jewish essayist and toy collector Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), a talented writer whose reading of “Fleurs du Mal” as sociological evidence of 19th century Paris is narrow and eccentric, however fascinating. Marcel Proust and Théophile Gautier, to name only two, are more cogent guides to the writer. Proust’s critical text “Against Saint-Beuve” relishes Baudelaire’s “solemn diction” and “biblical idiom.” Gautier’s 1868 short book about Baudelaire calls his late friend the “morbid lover of the Hottentot Venus,” and evokes their mutual taste for “dawamesk,” a Middle Eastern jam made of opium, hashish, honey, almonds, and spices, and served — according to Baudelaire’s “Artificial Paradises” — on sacramental bread for ideal blasphemy. …

My Hero, the Outlaw of Amherst

KNOCK, knock, knock. That’s me, rapping on the front door of a large brick house set high above Main Street in Amherst, Mass. September 1963. I’m 16.
A woman in a white uniform — a nurse? a maid? — appears. “Someone important to me once lived here,” I say. “I wonder if I could look inside.”
She’s puzzled. Speaking softly, as if not to wake a sleeper, she explains that the owner is upstairs and can’t come down. “Oh, no need to bother anyone. I just want a peek.” She hesitates, sees I’m earnest and harmless, and stands back. I go in.
A Victorian interior. Polished wood floors; soft, dim light. A curving staircase. To the right a library; to the left a parlor. I step into one room, cross to the other, then stand by the staircase trying to soak the place in. But this is awkward. The woman is waiting. I glance up the stairs and then say thank you. She lets me out.
Emily Dickinson was born in this house, known as the Homestead, in December 1830 and died there on May 15, 1886. She spent much of her adult life inside it, in an upstairs corner bedroom, writing poems and letters all night at a table the size of a child’s school desk, sewing the poems into packets, locking the packets away for discovery after she’d gone. …

TS Eliot named the nation’s favourite poet

The rousing strains of Rudyard Kipling’s “If” might have catapulted him to a landslide victory in the vote for the nation’s favourite poem back in 1995, but the reading tastes of the UK appear to have taken a more modernist turn over the following 14 years with TS Eliot today named the nation’s favourite poet in a BBC poll.

The results of the online poll, released to mark National Poetry Day, saw Eliot win in a “tight final”, according to the BBC, narrowly pipping John Donne to the post. In an eclectic top 10, Rastafarian dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah came in third (the only living poet to make the top 10), while no female poets – not even poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy or Sylvia Plath – made the final line-up, which was rounded out by Wilfred Owen, Philip Larkin, William Blake, William Butler Yeats, John Betjeman, John Keats and Dylan Thomas. …