The saplings of the green-tipped birch
Draw my foot from bondage:
Let no boy know your secret!
Oak saplings in the grove
Draw my foot from its chain:
Tell no secret to a maid!
The leafy saplings in the oak
Draw my foot from prison:
Tell no babbler a secret!
Briar shoots with berries on –
Neither a blackbird on her nest,
Nor a liar, are ever still.
by Anonymous
12th century
Wind sharp, hillside bleak, hard to win shelter;
Ford is impassible, lake is frozen;
A man may near stand on one stalk of grass.
Wave upon wave roofs over land-edge;
Shouts loud against breast of peak and brae;
Outside, a man may barely stand.
Lake-haunts cold, with the storm winds of winter;
Withered the reeds, stalks all broken;
Wind-gusts angry, stripping of wood.
Cold bed of fish in the gloom of ice;
Stag lean, bearded reeds;
Evening brief, slant of bent wood.
Snow falls, covers with white;
Warriors go not forth on foray;
Lakes cold, their tint without sunlight.
Snow falls, hoarfrost white;
Idle shield on an old shoulder;
A monstrous wind freezes the grass.
Snow falls, high in the ice;
Sweeps the wind atop the thick trees;
A stout shield that, on a bold shoulder.
Snow falls, covers the vale;
Warriors hurry to battle;
I’ll not go, wound does not let me.
Snow falls, over the slope;
Prisoned the steed, the cattle thin;
Here’s no question of a summer’s day.
Snow falls, white border of mountains;
On the sea, ship’s timbers bare;
The coward nurses many a scheme.
by Anonymous
(10th -11th century)
translated by Tony Conran
Nature’s ever indolent spy,
forgetting cares and tasks, I’m fond
of watching darkening swallows fly
above a twilit pond.
.
I watch an arrow almost touch
the pond’s clear glass – until I fear
a hostile element may snatch
this winged lightning from the air.
.
Once more this upsurge of elation,
once more black water sliding by…
But is not this true inspiration?
The very breath of being alive?
.
Do poets not seek ways forbidden
to beings made from dust and clay?
Do I not dream of what lies hidden
and long to scoop a drop away?
.
by Афанасий Афанасьевич Фет (Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet)
a.k.a. Шеншин (Shenshin)
(1884)
translated by Anonymous, revised by Robert Chandler, Boris Dralyuk and Irina Mashinski
.
Below is the original, Russian Cyrillic, version of the poem.
Природы праздный соглядатай,
Люблю, забывши всё кругом,
Следить за ласточкой стрельчатой
Над вечереющим прудом.
Вот понеслась и зачертила —
И страшно, чтобы гладь стекла
Стихией чуждой не схватила
Молниевидного крыла.
И снова то же дерзновенье
И та же тёмная струя, —
Не таково ли вдохновенье
И человеческого я?
Не так ли я, сосуд скудельный,
Дерзаю на запретный путь,
Стихии чуждой, запредельной,
Стремясь хоть каплю зачерпнуть?
.
Extra information: Here is the Wikipedia page about swallows and here is the RSPB page which has lots of interesting information about swallows.
Also a ‘revised translation’ which is rare. I wonder what the previous translation was like and how it came to require 3 professionals in the revision?
A tree toad loved a she-toad
That lived up in a tree.
She was a three-toed tree toad
But a two-toed toad was he.
The two-toed toad tried to win
The she-toad’s friendly nod,
For the two-toed toad loved the ground
On which the three-toed toad trod.
But no matter how the two-toed tree toad tried,
He could not please her whim.
In her tree toad bower
With her three-toed power,
The she toad vetoed him.
– by Anon.
On mules we find two legs behind
And two we find before.
We stand behind before we find
What those behind be for.
We find before the two before
Just what they, too, be for.
so stand before the two behind
and behind the two before.
– by Anon
Rambling At The Bridge Head 
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