Louise Gluck
AUBADE

There was one summer
that returned many times over
there was one flower unfurling
taking many forms

Crimson of the monarda, pale gold of the late roses

There was one love
There was one love, there were many nights

Smell of the mockorange tree
Corridors of jasmine and lilies.
Still the wind blew

There were many winters but I closed my eyes
The cold air white with dissolved wings

There was one garden when the snow melted
Azure and white; I couldn't tell
my solitude from love

There was one love; he had many voices
There was one dawn; sometimes
we watched it together

I was here
I was here

There was one summer returning over And over
there was one dawn
I grew old watching

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2006 09:30PM by Veronika.

Nuala Ni Dhmonaill
Aubade

Is cuma leis an mhaidin cad air a ngealann sí —
ar na cáganna ag bruíon is ag achrann ins na crainn
dhuilleogacha; ar an mbardal glas ag snámh go tóstalach
i measc na ngiolcach ins na curraithe; ar thóinín bán
an chircín uisce ag gobadh aníos as an bpoll portaigh;
ar roilleoga ag siúl go cúramach ar thránna móra.

Is cuma leis an ghrian cad air a n-éiríonn sí —
ar na tithe bríce, ar fhuinneoga de ghloine snoite
is gearrtha i gcearnóga Seoirseacha: ar na saithí beach
ag ullmhú chun creach a dhéanamh ar ghairdíní bruachbhailte;
ar lánúine óga fós ag méanfach i gcomhthiúin is fonn
a gcúplála ag éirí aníos iontu; ar dhrúcht ag glioscarnach
ina dheora móra ar lilí is ar róiseanna; ar do ghuaille.

Ach ní cuma linn go bhfuil an oíche aréir
thart, is go gcaithfear glacadh le pé rud a sheolfaidh
an là inniu an tslí; go gcaithfear imeacht is cromadh síos
arís is píosaí beaga brealsúnta ár saoil a dhlúthú
le chéile ar chuma éigin, chun gur féidir
lenár leanaí uisce a ól as babhlaí briste
in ionad as a mbosa, ní cuma linne é.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2006 11:47AM by Veronika.

Giraut de Bornelh (c. 1165-1210)
REIS GLORIOS

Reis glorios, verais lums e clartatz,
Deus poderos, Senher, si a vos platz,
al meu companh sïatz fizels ajuda,
qu'eu non lo vi pos la nochs fo venguda,
e ades sera l'alba.

Bel companho, si dormetz o veillatz?
Non dormatz plus, suau vos ressidatz,
qu'en orïent vei l'estela creguda
qu'amena.l jorn, qu'eu l'ai ben coneguda,
e ades sera l'alba.

Bel companho, en chantan vos apel:
non dormatz plus, qu'eu aug chantar l'auzel
que vai queren lo jorn per lo boscatge,
et ai paor que.l gilos vos assatge,
e ades sera l'alba.

Bel companho, eissetz al fenestrel,
et esgardatz las ensenhas del cel;
conoisseretz si.us sui fizels messatge:
si non o faitz, vostres n'er lo damnatge,
e ades sera l'alba.

Bel companho, pos mi parti de vos,
eu non dormi ni.m moc de ginolhos,
ans preguei Deu, lo filh Santa Maria,
que.us mi rendes per lejal companhia,
e ades sera l'alba.

Bel companho, la foras als peiros.
me prejavatz qu'eu no fos dormilhos,
enans velhes tota noch tro al dia;
aras no.us platz mos chans ni ma paria,
e ades sera l'alba.

Bel dous companh, tan sui en ric sojorn
qu'eu no volgra mais fos alba ni jorn,
car la gensor que anc nasqués de maire
tenc et abras, per qu'eu non prezi gaire
Lo fol gilós ni l'alba.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2006 11:48AM by Veronika.

Philip Larkin
Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
--The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused--nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear--no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2006 09:32PM by Veronika.

Amy Lowell
Aubade

As I would free the white almond from the green husk
So would I strip your trappings off,
Beloved.
And fingering the smooth and polished kernel
I should see that in my hands glittered a gem beyond counting

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2006 09:30PM by Veronika.

BREAK OF DAY

STAY, O sweet, and do not rise ;
The light that shines comes from thine eyes ;
The day breaks not, it is my heart,
Because that you and I must part.
Stay, or else my joys will die,
And perish in their infancy.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2006 09:29PM by Veronika.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Aubade

Cool and beautiful as the blossom of the wild carrot
With its crimson central eye,
Round and beautiful as the globe of the onion blossom
Were her pale breasts whereon I laid me down to die.

From the wound of my enemy that thrust me through in the dark wood
I arose; with sweat on my lip and the wild woodgrasses in my spur
I arose and stood.
But never did I arise from loving her.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2006 09:29PM by Veronika.

Aubade: Some Peaches, After Storm
by Carl Phillips

So that each
is its own, now--each has fallen, blond stillness.
Closer, above them,
the damselflies pass as they would over water,
if the fruit were water,
or as bees would, if they weren't
somewhere else, had the fruit found
already a point more steep
in rot, as soon it must, if
none shall lift it from the grass whose damp only
softens further those parts where flesh
goes soft.

There are those
whom no amount of patience looks likely
to improve ever, I always said, meaning
gift is random,
assigned here,
here withheld--almost always
correctly
as it's turned out: how your hands clear
easily the wreckage;
how you stand--like a building for a time condemned,
then deemed historic. Yes. You
will be saved.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2006 09:29PM by Veronika.

Gary Snyder
North Beach Alba

walking half-drunk in a strange pad
making it out to the cool gray
san francisco dawn --
white gulls over white houses,
fog down the bay,
tamalpais a fresh green hill in the new sun,
driving across the bridge in a beat old car
to work.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2006 09:28PM by Veronika.

F. G. LORCA
La Aurora

La aurora de Nueva York tiene
cuatro columnas de cieno
y un huracan de negras palomas
que chapotean las aguas podridas.

La aurora de Nueva York gime
por las inmensas escaleras
buscando entre las aristas
nardos de angustia dibujada.

La aurora llega y nadie la recibe en su boca
porque alli no hay manana ni esperanza posible.
A veces las monedas en enjambres furiosos
taladran y devoran abandonados ninos.

Los primeros que salen comprenden con sus huesos
que no habra paraiso ni amores deshojados;
saben que van al cieno de numeros y leyes,
a los juegos sin arte, a sudores sin fruto.

La luz es sepultada por cadenas y ruidos
en impudico reto de ciencia sin raices.
Por los barrios hay gentes que vacilan insomnes
como recien salidas de un naufragio de sangre.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2006 11:48AM by Veronika.

ALBA
by Ezra Pound

As cool as the pale wet leaves
                   of lily-of-the-valley
She lay beside me in the dawn.

Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2006 09:40PM by Veronika.

Louise Gluck
Aubade


Today above the gull's call
I hear you waking me again
to see that bird, flying
so strangely over the city,
not wanting
to stop, wanting
the blue waste of the sea--

Now it skirts the suburb,
the noon light violent against it:

I feel its hunger
as your hand inside me,

a cry
so common, unmusical--

Ours were not
different. They rose
from the unexhausted
need of the body

fixing a wish to return:
the ashen drawn, our clothes
not sorted for departure.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2006 09:32PM by Veronika.

Conrad Aiken - The Window

She looks out in the blue morning
and sees a whole wonderful world
she looks out in the morning
and sees a whole world

she leans out of the window
and this is what she sees
a wet rose singing to the sun
with a chorus of red bees

she leans out of the window
and laughs for the window is high
she is in it like a bird on a perch
and they scoop the blue sky

she and the window scooping
the morning as if it were air
scooping a green wave of leaves
above a stone stair

and an urn hung with leaden garlands
and girls holding hands in a ring
and raindrops on an iron railing
shining like a harp string

an old man draws with his ferrule
in wet sand a map of Spain
the marble soldier on his pedestal
draws a stiff diagram of pain

but the walls around her tremble
with the speed of the earth the floor
curves to the terrestrial center
and behind her the door

opens darkly down to the beginning
far down to the first simple cry
and the animal waking in water
and the opening of the eye

she looks out in the blue morning
and sees a whole wonderful world
she looks out in the morning
and sees a whole world.

Les

Paul Laurence Dunbar - The Barrier

The Midnight wooed the Morning Star,
And prayed her: "Love come nearer;
Your swinging coldly there afar
To me but makes you dearer."

The Morning Star was pale with dole
As said she, low replying:
"Oh, lover mine, soul of my soul,
For you I too am sighing."

"But One ordained when we were born,
In spite of love's insistence,
That night might only view the Morn
Adoring at a distance."

But as she spoke, the jealous Sun
Across the heavens panted;
"Oh, whining fools," he cried, "have done,
Your wishes shall be granted."

He hurled his flaming lances far;
The twain stood unaffrighted,
And Midnight and the Morning Star
Lay down in death united.

Les

Mary Oliver - Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

Les