‘A Man Once Walked Out Of His House’ by Daniil Kharms

A man once walked out of his house

with a walking stick and a sack,

and on he went,

and on he went:

he never did turn back.

 

He walked as far as he could see:

he saw what lay ahead.

He never drank,

he never slept,

nor slept nor drank nor ate.

 

Then once upon a morning

he entered a dark wood

and on that day,

and on that day

he disappeared for good.

 

If anywhere by any chance

you meet him in his travels,

then hurry please

then hurry please,

then hurry please and tell us.

 

by Даниил Иванович Хармс (Daniil Ivanovich Kharms)

a.k.a. Даниил Иванович Ювачёв (Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachov)

(1937)

translated by Matvei Yankelevich and Eugene Ostashevsky

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Hireling by R. S. Thomas

Cars pass him by; he’ll never own one.

Men won’t believe in him for this.

Let them come into the hills

And meet him wandering a road,

Fenced with rain, as I have now;

The wind feathering his hair;

The sky’s ruins, gutted with fire

Of the late sun, smouldering still.

 

Nothing is his, neither the land

Nor the land’s flocks. Hired to live

On hills too lonely, sharing his hearth

With cats and hens, he has lost all

Property but the grey ice

Of a face splintered by life’s stone.

 

by R. S. Thomas

from Tares (1961)