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Entries Tagged as 'Poetry'

Poetry in Translation (CI): Lord BYRON (1788-1824) – “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” – “Pelerinajul Tânărului Harold”

January 13th, 2012 · No Comments · PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

LORD BYRON:
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
Canto the Fourth
CXLI

He heard it, but he heeded not — his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck’d not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,

There where his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother — he, their sire,
Butcher’d to make a Roman holiday –

All this rush’d with his blood — Shall he expire
And unavenged? Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

Lordul Byron (1788-1824)
Pelerinajul Tânărului Harold
Al patrulea Canto CXLI

El auzise, fără să- şi dea seama. – căci gândul lui
Cu inima era, dar ea era acuma prea departe;
Şi nu mai cugeta la viaţa scursă, nici ls răsplata dată orişicui,
Ci doar la vatră visul să-l mai poarte,

Pe valea Dunarii, unde-s la joacă toţi fraţii săi barbari,
Cu gândul e la muma-i, la Dacia străbună,
Adânc măcelărită de braţ de legionari…

Tot visu-i i-e in sânge – Cum, moartea să-l răpună
Nerăsplătit? La arme, Goţi, mânia vă răzbună!

Versiune in limba Romănă
Constantin ROMAN
Londra, Ianuarie 2012
© Constantin ROMAN

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Poetry in Translation (C I): William Stafford (1914 – 1993) – “A Story That Could Be True”, “O poveste aproape adevărată”

December 28th, 2011 · No Comments · International Media, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Poetry in Translation (C I): William Stafford (1914 – 1993) – “A Story That Could Be True”, “O poveste aproape adevărată”
They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
“Who are you really, wanderer?”–
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I’m a king.”

Ei nu-ţi vor auzi şoapta
ce-ţi trece mereu prin minte.
“Oare cine eşti tu, străine?”
Iar tu, ori cât de intunecată şi rece
ţi-ar părea lumea din jurul tău, vei răspunde:
“Eu, poate sunt Împăratul!”

Versiune in Limba Româna
Constantin ROMAN
© Constantin ROMAN, 2011

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Poetry in Translation (C): W.B. Yeates (1865 – 1939) – “When you are Old”, “

December 25th, 2011 · 1 Comment · PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

When You are Old
by W. B. Yeates

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Când esti bătrân

Când eşti cărunt, letargic şi bătrân,
Pe lângă sobă-o carte ai deschis…
Iar ochilor, târcoale dau, în vis,
Sclipirile ce-au fost, dar nu mai sânt.

Câţi oameni n-ar fi vrut să fi primit
Atâtea haruri dela Dumezeu,
Dar dintre toţi, eu singură, mereu
Am înţeles tot ce ai pătimit.

Pe culmi de munţi, zburând spre zări pustii,
O clipă, chipu-ţi trist a adăstat.
Dar ai purces, cu dorul necurmat,
Si faţ-ascunsă printre galaxii.

In Romaneste de Constantin ROMAN
Rendered in Romanian by Constantin ROMAN
© Constantin Roman, London, December 2011

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Poetry in Translation (XCIX): Richard Lovelace (1618 – 1658): “Tell Me Not, Sweet, I Am Unkind?” – “Lucastei – Adio, înainte de Luptă”

December 14th, 2011 · No Comments · Poetry, quotations, Translations

“Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind
For, from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast, and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith- embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore;
For, I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.”

Richard LOVELACE (1618 – 1658)

Lucastei – Adio, Inainte de Lupta

Iubito, sa nu-mi tii de rau
Ca din ispita fragedului piept
Ma-ndepartez de chipul tau
La lupta, aprig sa ma-ndrept.

Mireasa noua voi fi luat
In batalie, tantos,
Caci Sfantul Duh, m-a inarmat
C-un cal, c-un scut si-un palos.

Dar pururea eu voi pastra
In sufletu-mi aprinsa
Ca-n vecii vecilor va sta
Iubirea mea nestinsa.

Rendered in Romanian by Constantin ROMAN
London, December 2011
© All rights reserved, Constantin ROMAN, 2011

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Poetry in Translation (XCVIII): Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), “The Old French Poet” – “Cântec de demult”

October 30th, 2011 · No Comments · Poetry, Translations

An Old FRENCH POET
Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

When in your sober mood my body have ye laid
In sight and sound of things beloved, woodland and stream,
And the green turf has hidden the poor bones ye deem
No more a close companion with those rhymes we made;

Then, if some bird should pipe, or breezes stir the glade,
Thinking them for the while my voice, so let them seem
A fading message from the misty shores of dream,
Or wheresoever, following Death, my feet have strayed.

CÂNTEC DE DEMULT
[Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)]

Când ma veţi îngropa, cu gând cernit
In freamăt de pădure si izvoare
Şi iarba va ascunde-un oarecare
Tovarăş din trecutul mult jelit,

Atunci pădurea şi pârâul vor cânta,
Să v-amintească glasu-mi de-altă dată
Ecou din viaţa noastră fermecată,
Sau poate pasul meu ce-ar adăsta.

Rendered in Romanian by
Constantin Roman
London, October 2011
Copyright 2011 © Constantin ROMAN, Londra

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Poetry in Translation (XCVII): Gabriela Melinescu, “Birth of Constellations” (Ivirea Stelelor)

October 23rd, 2011 · No Comments · Diaspora, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

[caption id="attachment_3546" align="aligncenter" width="132" caption="Gabriela Melinescu (b. 1942, Romania) Swedish Romanian Poet, Exile"][/caption]

Poetry in Translation (XCVII): Gabriela Melinescu, “Birth of Constellations” (Ivirea Stelelor)

Other people are born here, on Earth,
In a fresh scent of salt and milk.
The buds burst out biting the twigs,
With the silky movement of a serpent.

O, would I ever
Be reborn?
With dilated pupils, o, breeze of pain
With white clouds, will you pass over my face?

Would you, one evening, leave me again
Like a translucent bone on the hot sands
And fretting on the sky’s pavement, oh, Mater,
Would you ever remember our love?

In Româneşte de Constantin ROMAN
(Londra, Octombrie, 2011)
Copyright 2011 © Constantin ROMAN, Londra

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Romanian Literature in Exile (I): Rodica Iulian (France), b. Romania 1931

October 19th, 2011 · No Comments · Diaspora, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Uncategorized

Rodica Iulian’s novels, written in French, reflect the dilemma of the exile torn between her perceived ‘duty’ towards her native culture and the desire to establish new roots in its adoptive country. In the process of establishing herself as a writer in the West, she would reposition Romanian literature as part of the canon of European literature. In this context, Rodica Iulian’s novels reveal the misunderstandings between the Romanian perceptions and expectations of the newly experienced contacts with the French culture. (One of the above quotations is such an example, when, as late as 2001, one detects a whiff of the nightmares experienced some two decades earlier, by Iulian witnessing Ceausescu’s bulldozers, flattening the historical centre of Bucharest.)

Blouse Roumaine – An Anthology of Romanian Women

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Poetry in Translation (XCVI): Rodica Iuian, “Sculpted Head”

October 19th, 2011 · No Comments · Diaspora, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Sculpted Head:
Rodica IULIAN *b Romania,1931)


“He was handsome, the child-Caligula
He was serene the child-Caligula
He had a child-like smile
The child-Caligula.
I ought to have bought him a fair yearling
One hundred yearlings
For him to have a whole Senate of yearlings
To play with
And to let them be
Yearlings, true yearlings
Each and every one of them ridden
By the child-Caligula
The child-Caligula
Never Caligula – the adult.”

(Iulian, Rodica, Stained glass- Poems, page 28,
Translated by Constantin Roman)

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Poetry in Translation (XCV): Dylan Thomas: “The Hand that signed the Paper” – “Mâna ce-a pus pecetea”

October 17th, 2011 · No Comments · PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Mana ce-a pus pecetea

Mâna ce-a pus pecetea, a-nvins cetatea;
Cinci degete au drămuit suflarea,
Si decimând o fire, au sfârtecat o ţară;
Cinci prinţi, tăind un cap incoronat.

Un braţ de fier e prins de-o fiinţă suptă,
Crispate mâini se strâng pe frânte scuturi;
O pană pe raboj a stins o luptă
Ce-a stins in gât un murmur.

Dar mâna pe răboj are lingoare,
Lăcuste fac prăpăd si-i foame mare;
Dar mare-i mâna ce apasă ţara
Pecetea unui singur Domn.

Cinci prinţi sfidează orice-nduplecare
Cu aprigi ochi privind o viaţă frântă;
In cer sau pe pământ fără iertare;
Căci mâna n-are lacrimi ca să plângă.

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Poetry in English (XCIV): Constantin ROMAN – “Ode to a British Chicken”

October 13th, 2011 · No Comments · Diaspora, OPINION, Poetry

Poetry in English (XCIV): Constantin ROMAN – “Ode to a British Chicken”

Ode to a British Chicken

My British Chicken,
I’m truly smitten
‘cause, if you vanished
I ‘d be really lost.

I‘d rather have you roasted,
As without you
My Menu, on the spot,
Will soon be tossed.

My ever-present chick,
You’re inexpendable
My gas ring will be pining
Without you

And British Gas,
For sure, will be insolvent,
As its best client,
Now will go to pass.

My dearest fowl
You got a life in prison
With all your sisters, without rhyme or reason,
All jam packed cheek by jowl.

In batteries you are now a statistic,
Industrial gulag, which puts to shame
A number rather more characteristic
Of Soviet era, at its grimmest game.

My dearest Supermarket, I’m addicted
To buy for ever all your tasteless junk,
As my dependency is now to be predicted
A boring number of a faceless skunk.

Your sheer manipulation, so disgusting,
Is flying in the face of common sense.
Blindfolded crowds are being hold to ransom,
Automatons with limbs, but without brains..

In my despair I’ll try to be more vocal
But am afraid, as being middle-class,
I will be deemed to fart above my station
And turn my reputation to an ass.

Copyright © Constantin ROMAN
London, October 2011

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