Приморский сонет (Seaside Sonnet) by Anna Akhmatova

Everything here will outlive me,

Even the houses of the stare

And this air I breathe, the spring air,

Ending its flight across the sea.

 

Unearthly invincibility…

The voice of eternity is calling,

And the light moon’s light is falling

Over the blossoming cherry-tree.

 

It doesn’t seem a difficult road,

White, in the chalice of emerald,

Where it’s leading I won’t say…

There between the trunks, a streak

Of light reminds one of the walk

By the pond at Tsarkoye.

 

by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova)

(1958, Komarovo)

from Седьмая книга (The Seventh Book)

translation by D. M. Thomas

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Fun Facts: Here is a blog account, with photos, of the walk along the shores of the great pond in Tsarskoye.

Akhmatova reciting her poem:

Original Russian cyrillic version of the poem:

Приморский сонет

Здесь все меня переживет,
Все, даже ветхие скворешни
И этот воздух, воздух вешний,
Морской свершивший перелет.

И голос вечности зовет
С неодолимостью нездешней,
И над цветущею черешней
Сиянье легкий месяц льет.

И кажется такой нетрудной,
Белея в чаще изумрудной,
Дорога не скажу куда…

Там средь стволов еще светлее,
И все похоже на аллею
У царскосельского пруда.

1958
Комарово

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Foghorns by Gillian Clarke

When Catrin was a small child

She thought the foghorn moaning

Far out at sea was the sad

Solitary voice of the moon

Journeying to England.

She heard it warn “Moon, Moon”,

As it worked the Channel, trading

Weather like rags and bones.

 

Tonight, after the still sun

And the silent heat, as haze

Became rain and weighed glistening

In brimful leaves, and the last bus

Splashes and fades with a soft

Wave-sound, the foghorns moan, moon –

Lonely and the dry lawns drink.

This dimmed moon, calling still,

Hauls sea-rags through the streets.

 

by Gillian Clarke

from The Sundial (Gwasg Gomer, 1978)

Storm Awst by Gillian Clarke

The cat walks. It listens, as I do,

To the wind which leans its iron

Shoulders on our door. Neither

The purr of a cat nor my blood

Runs smoothly for elemental fear

Of the storm. This then is the big weather

They said was coming. All the signs

Were bad, the gulls coming in white,

Lapwings gathering, the sheep too

Calling all night. The gypsies

Were making their fires in the woods

Down there in the east…always

A warning. The rain stings, the whips

Of the laburnum hedge lash the roof

Of the cringing cottage. A curious

Calm, coming from the storm, unites

Us, as we wonder if the work

We have done will stand. Will the tyddyn,

In its group of strong trees on the high

Hill, hold against the storm Awst

Running across the hills where everything

Alive listens, pacing its house, heart still?

 

by Gillian Clarke

from The Sundial, (Gwasg Gomer, 1978)

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Fun facts:  Glossary: Welsh = English

Awst = August

Storm Awst = August storm

tyddyn = [farm] smallholding

The Garden by R. S. Thomas

It is a gesture against the wild,

The ungovernable sea of grass;

A place to remember love in,

To be lonely for a while;

To forget the voices of children

Calling from a locked room;

To substitute for the care

Of one querulous human

Hundreds of dumb needs.

 

It is the old kingdom of man.

Answering to their names,

Out of the soil the buds come,

The silent detonations

Of power weilded without sin.

 

by R. S. Thomas

from The Bread of Truth (1963)

Birth by Gillian Clarke

On the hottest, stillest day of the summer

A calf was born in a field

At Pant-y-Cetris; two buzzards

Measured the volume of the sky;

The hills brimmed with incoming

Night. In the long grass we could see

The cow, her sides heaving, a focus

Of restlessness in the complete calm,

Her calling at odds with silence.

 

The light flowed out leaving stars

And clarity. Hot and slippery, the scalding

Baby came, and the cow stood up, her cool

Flanks like white flowers in the dark.

We waited while the calf struggled

To stand, moved as though this

Were the first time. I could feel the soft sucking

Of the new-born, the tugging pleasure

Of bruised reordering, the signal

Of milk’s incoming tide, and satisfaction

Fall like a clean sheet around us.

 

by Gillian Clarke

from The Sundial (Gwasg Gomer, 1978)