The year is ending
As it always ends
Rejoice and forget your sins;
The rain is falling
As it always falls,
And the sea comes rolling in.
The sun is rising
As it always rises.
Unfold the new year plan;
The wind is blowing
As it always blows
Fresh hope from man to man.
by Alan Dickson
(1992)
It is alive. It is you,
God. Looking out I can see,
no death. The earth moves, the
sea moves, the wind goes
on its exuberant
journeys. Many creatures
reflect you, the flowers
your colour, the tides the precision
of your calculations. There
is nothing too ample
for you to overflow, nothing
so small that your workmanship
is not revealed. I listen
and it is you speaking.
I find the place where you lay
warm. At night, if I waken,
there are the sleepless conurbations
of the stars. The darkness
is the deepening shadow
of your presence; the silence a
process in the metabolism
of the being of love.
.
.
by R. S. Thomas
from Laboratories of the Spirit
(1975)
It was warm
Inside, but there was
Pain there, I came out
Into the cold wind
Of April. There were birds
In the brambles’ old,
Jagged iron, with one striking
Its small song. To the west,
Rising from the grey
Water, leaning one
On another were the town’s
Houses. Who first began
That refuse: time’s waste
Growing at the edge
Of the clean sea? Some sailor,
Fetching up on the
Shingle before wind
Or current, made it his
Harbour, hung up his clothes
In the sunlight; found women
To breed from – those sick men
His descendants. Every day
Regularly the tide
Visits them with its salt
Comfort; their wounds are shrill
In the rigging of the
Tall ships.
With clenched thoughts,
That not even the sky’s
Daffodil could persuade
To open, I turned back
To the nurses in their tugging
At him, as he drifted
Away on the current
Of his breath, further and further,
Out of hail of our love.
.
by R. S. Thomas
from Not That He Brought Flowers (1968)
Lone sail against blue sea-mist:
what is it seeking?
What forsaken?
Wind, waves, and bending mast:
not happiness...
not happiness.
In beam of gold, on azure
the rebel flees
for stormy seas.
by Михаил Юрьевич Лермонтов
(Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov)
(1832)
translated by Anthony Wood
Below is the poem in its original Russian Cyrillic form:
Парус
Белеет парус одинокой
В тумане моря голубом!..
Что ищет он в стране далекой?
Что кинул он в краю родном?...
Играют волны — ветер свищет,
И мачта гнется и скрыпит...
Увы! Он счастия не ищет
И не от счастия бежит!
Под ним струя светлей лазури,
Над ним луч солнца золотой...
А он, мятежный, просит бури,
Как будто в бурях есть покой!
Additional notes: This is another alternative translation of Lermontov’s poem Парус compared to those made by Frances Cornford and Esther Polianowsky Salaman and Robert Chandler which, respectively, closely reproduced the original’s external form and presented a version which is more condensed. This version is the most concise retaining the incredible impact of the poem without losing it’s meaning.
The Sail was written when Mikhail Lermontov was only 17 years old in 1832. This was the year when he was forced to leave Moscow and his university studies. Recorded in a letter sent by Maria Lopukhina, whom he had sent the first version of the poem, upon his arrival in Saint Petersburg Lermontov immediately produced this poem’s outline while walking along the Gulf of Finland’s shoreline.
White sail out in the bay
billowing in the wind.
Why sail so far away?
Why leave so much behind?
Winds must play on the seas
and masts creak in the wind.
Fortune is not what he seeks,
nor what he's left behind.
A golden light still pours
down onto deep blue seas;
this rebel, alas, seeks storms,
as if in storms lies peace.
by Михаил Юрьевич Лермонтов
(Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov)
(1832)
translated by Robert Chandler
Beneath is the original Russian Cyrillic version of the poem.
Парус
Белеет парус одинокой
В тумане моря голубом!..
Что ищет он в стране далекой?
Что кинул он в краю родном?...
Играют волны — ветер свищет,
И мачта гнется и скрыпит...
Увы! Он счастия не ищет
И не от счастия бежит!
Под ним струя светлей лазури,
Над ним луч солнца золотой...
А он, мятежный, просит бури,
Как будто в бурях есть покой!
Additional notes: This is an alternative translation of Lermontov’s poem Парус compared to that made by Frances Cornford and Esther Polianowsky Salaman which closely reproduced the original’s external form while this version is more condensed.
The Sail was written when Mikhail Lermontov was only 17 years old in 1832. This was the year when he was forced to leave Moscow and his university studies. Recorded in a letter sent by Maria Lopukhina, whom he had sent the first version of the poem, upon his arrival in Saint Petersburg Lermontov immediately produced this poem’s outline while walking along the Gulf of Finland’s shoreline.
