Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321) : "The Divine Comedy"

     

      My will on will to climb above was such

that at each step I took I felt the force

within my wings was growing for the flight.

      When all the staircase lay beneath us and 

we'd reached the highest step, then Virgil set

his eyes insistently on me and said:

      "My son, you've seen the temporary fire

and the eternal fire; you have reached

the place past which my powers cannot see.

      I've brought you here through intellect and art;

from now on, let your pleasure be your guide;

you're past the steep and past the narrow paths.   

      Look at the sun that shines upon your brow;

look at the grasses, flowers, and the shrubs

born here, spontaneously, of the earth.

      Among them, you can rest or walk until

the coming of the glad and lovely eyes -

those eyes that, weeping, sent me to your side.

      Await no further word or sign from me:

your will is free, erect, and whole - to act

against that will would be to err: therefore

      I crown and miter you over yourself."

From "The Divine Comedy"

Purgatory, Canto XXVII
Everyman's Library
The Divine Comedy

Translation Allen Mandelbaum (1926 - 2011)

Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321) : "The Divine Comedy"

                                                        
                                                         
                                                         all these

     would seem nothing if set beside the godly

beauty that shone upon me when I turned

to see the smiling face of Beatrice.

     The powers that her gaze now granted me

drew me out of the lovely nest of Leda

and thrust me into heaven's swiftest sphere.

     Its parts were so equally alive

and excellent, that I cannot say which

place Beatrice selected for my entry.

     But she , who saw what my desire was -

her smile had so much gladness that within

her face there seemed to be God's joy - began:

    "The nature of the universe, which holds

the center still and moves all else around it,

begins here as if from its turning-post.

     This heaven has no other where than this:

the mind of God, in which are kindled both

the love that turns it and the force it rains.

     As in a circle, light and love enclose it,

as it surrounds the rest - and that enclosing,

only He who encloses understands. 

     No other heaven measures this sphere's motion,

but it serves as the measure of the rest,

even as half and fifth determine ten;

     and now it can be evident to you

how time has roots within this vessel and,  

within the other vessels, has its leaves.

                   white skin turns black when it is struck 

by direct light - the lovely daughter of

the one who brings us dawn and leaves us evening.

     That you not be amazed at what I say,

consider this: on earth no king holds sway;

therefore, the family of humans strays.

     But well before nine thousand years have passed

(and January is unwintered by

day's hundredth part, which they neglect below),

     this high sphere shall shine so, that Providence,

long waited for, will turn the sterns to where

the prows now are, so that the fleet runs straight;

     and then fine fruit shall follow on the flower."

From "The Divine Comedy"

Paradiso, Canto XXVII

Everyman's Library
The Divine Comedy

Translation Allen Mandelbaum (1926 - 2011)

Blade of Light

The sun has drawn a fine-tempered blade

  of  light. We may as well surrender.

Verse from "RUMI - Bridge to The Soul"

Edited and Translated Coleman Barks 2007

Harper Collins Publishers 

RUMI - Bridge to The Soul

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Anna de Noailles (1876-1933) : "L' offrande à la nature"

Nature au coeur profond sur qui les cieux reposent,
Nul n’aura comme moi si chaudement aimé
La lumière des jours et la douceur des choses,
L’eau luisante et la terre où la vie a germé.

La forêt, les étangs et les plaines fécondes
Ont plus touché mes yeux que les regards humains.
Je me suis appuyée à la beauté du monde
Et j’ai tenu l’odeur des saisons dans mes mains.

J’ai porté vos soleils ainsi qu’une couronne
Sur mon front plein d’orgueil et de simplicité,
Mes jeux ont égalé les travaux de l’automne
Et j’ai pleuré d’amour aux bras de vos étés.

Je suis venue à vous sans peur et sans prudence
Vous donnant ma raison pour le bien et le mal,
Ayant pour toute joie et toute connaissance
Votre âme impétueuse aux ruses d’animal.

Comme une fleur ouverte où logent des abeilles
Ma vie a répandu des parfums et des chants,
Et mon coeur matineux est comme une corbeille
Qui vous offre du lierre et des rameaux penchants.

Soumise ainsi que l’onde où l’arbre se reflète,
J’ai connu les désirs qui brûlent dans vos soirs
Et qui font naître au coeur des hommes et des bêtes
La belle impatience et le divin vouloir.

Je vous tiens toute vive entre mes bras, Nature!
Ah! faut-il que mes yeux s’emplissent d’ombre un jour,
Et que j’aille au pays sans vent et sans verdure
Que ne visitent pas la lumière et l’amour…




From "Le Coeur Innombrable" (1901)
Les Grands Classiques

Alfred Noyes (1880-1958) : "The Strong City"

...

And, when it was darkest, I came to a strong city, 
           No earthly tongue can tell how I journeyed there,
Deaf to this world's compassion, 
          Blind to its pity,
With a heart wrung empty, even to its dumb prayer.

I had left the clattering throngs in the night behind me, 
         And stumbled into a desert that had no name.
Torn, bleeding of foot,
        Through cactus and thorn I stumbled,
And, when it was darkest, to that strongly city I came.

Gate there was none, nor window. It towered above me
        Like a vest fortress into the midnight sky.
And I beat on the granite walls,
        But I found no entry,
And the blood ran over my wrists, but I heard no reply.

I groped around them; I groped around them;
       Stared up at their cold eyes and found them stone;
And crowled on, on,
      Till  I overtook strange footprints
going my way, and knew them for my own,

Strange footprints, clotted with blood, in the sand before me,
     Trailing the hopeless way I had trailed before;
For in that night,
     I girdled the whole dark city,
Feeling each adamant inch, and found no door.

I fell on my face in the rank salt of the desert
     Slow, hot like blood, out of my hopeless eyes,
The salt tears bled.
     The salt of the desert drank them, 
And I cried, once, to God, as a child cries.

Then, then, I cannot tell
      What strange thing happened,
Only, as at a breath of the midnight air,
      These eyes, like two staunched wounds, had ceased their bleeding
And my despair had ended my despair.
  



From "The Last Voyage" - Alfred Noyes

Lauro de Bosis (1901-1931)

Lauro de Bosis, "Icaro"

Silver Olympic Medal

Arts, Dramatics Works

Amsterdam 1928

Translation Ruth Draper

Oxford University Press

London: Humphrey Milford 1933

Icaro

Art Competitions at the Olympic Games

Rumi (1207-1273) : "Outdoors and The Passion of The Grass"

From now on the nightingales
will sing of us sitting here outdoors,
where wind lifts the hair of the willow
and starts her dancing.
God knows what they say 
to each other then.


The plane tree holds out
its broad hands in praise of the meadow,
understanding just a little 
of the passion of the grass.


I ask a rose, Where did you get such skin?
She laughs. How could she answer?


She is drunk, but not enough 
to say secrets, not so dissolute as I am.


Wander with drunks if you want to know
what they have been hiding.


They will open the purse-mouth
and spill the lavishness.


There is a wine fermenting 
in the breast of a mystic,
and a voice there inviting
you to a banquet.


A human breast can give milk,
but also wine, and also
there is a flowing there
that tells stories.


Listen as you take in the milk,
then the wine, and then the stories.


Lay down your cap and your cloak.
Start talking from the majesty itself.


And now be quiet.
Very few will hear.


Most copper does not change to gold
for any philosopher's stone.


Bring your words to Shams.
Let sunlight mix with language
and be the world.

From "RUMI - Bridge to The Soul"

Edited and Translated Coleman Barks 2007

Harper Collins Publishers 

RUMI - Bridge to The Soul