Venice masks

Thursday 31 January 2019

It is the season - Antipater of Sidon

It is the season for the ship to travel tearing through the waves;
    no longer does the sea toss, furrowed by dreadful fret.

Wednesday 30 January 2019

Erinna - Antipater of Sidon

Few are Erinna's verses nor is she wordy in her songs,
    but this her little work is inspired.

Tuesday 29 January 2019

The day when you will love me - Alfredo Le Pera

I hear you softly breathing;
That quiet murmur caresses my dream.
How my life is laughing
If your big dark eyes look at me with their gleam.
And if I have the comfort
Of your singing laughter, whose bursts always seem
To make my wound feel better,
I become a forgetter!

Monday 28 January 2019

Spring - Mugurditch Beshiktashlian

How cool and sweet, O breeze of morn,
Thou stirrest in the air,
Caressing soft the dewy flowers,
The young girl’s clustering hair!
But not my country’s breeze thou art.
Blow past! thou canst not touch my heart.

Sunday 27 January 2019

Although a wretched sinner - Pope Innocent III

Although a wretched sinner,
Dear Son of God Most High,
I call to thee for mercy,
Oh, hear my mournful cry.

Saturday 26 January 2019

To All and Everything - Vladimir Mayakovsky

No.
It can’t be.
No!
You too, beloved?
Why? What for?
Darling, look -
I came,
I brought flowers,
but, but... I never took
silver spoons from your drawer!

Friday 25 January 2019

I am Kerry - Sigerson Clifford

I am Kerry like my mother before me
And my mother’s mother and her man
Now I sit on an office stool remembering
And the memory of them like a fan
Soothes the embers into flame.
I am Kerry and proud of my name.

Thursday 24 January 2019

Wednesday 23 January 2019

Remembering Lechchami - Monica Ruwanpathirana

I reach the plantation gently stepping amidst the cold mist
I drift up along the trails in the hilltop plucking the leaves
I see the estate border while treading the wavy hills
I feel my limbs trembling as I get close to the bush near the edge

Tuesday 22 January 2019

To My Lamp - Edmond Rostand

Dear lamp, my old friend, by your light
My books I’d read and verses write.
You’d watch behind your humble shade
While sleep on my ruddy eyelids played.
Then ashamed I’d startle aright!

Monday 21 January 2019

Ghazal - Alisher Navoi

Spring is like absolute hell for me without you,
The red bloom is fire in it, the white has icy view.

Sunday 20 January 2019

A Flower - Ardakh Nurgaz

I planted a flower, to offer to the sun
The burning sun

Saturday 19 January 2019

Friday 18 January 2019

A Hymn to Love - Amado Nervo

The day you shall love me will bear more light than June,
The night you shall love me– full-mooned,
a tale left untold within each ray,
The day you shall love me will bear more roses than May

Thursday 17 January 2019

The Largest Life - Archibald Lampman

I
I lie upon my bed and hear and see.
The moon is rising through the glistening trees;

Wednesday 16 January 2019

Tuesday 15 January 2019

Aubade - Dafydd ap Gwilym

It seemed as if we did not sleep
One wink that night; I was sighing deep.
The cruellest judge in the costliest court
Could not condemn a night so short.
We had the light out, but I know,
Each time I turned, a radiant glow
Suffused the room, and shining snow
Alit from Heaven’s candle-fires
Illuminated our desires.

Monday 14 January 2019

To Emma - José Martí

Do not feel sad, dear child, because you lack
The gift of speech which heaven has denied you:

Sunday 13 January 2019

The Fruits of Patience - Thomas à Kempis

Patience under suffering
Will to man these graces bring, —

Saturday 12 January 2019

On yearning for Mt Fuji - Yamabe no Akahito

Heaven and earth:
Since the time they parted,
Of manifest divinity,
Reaching the heights of awe,
In Suruga stands
The high peak of Fuji;

Friday 11 January 2019

Silvae Book IV: 3 – The Via Domitiana - Publius Papinius Statius

What vast cacophony, of tough flints
And solid steel, filled stony Appia,
On the side that borders on the sea?

Thursday 10 January 2019

Going to Sleep - Hermann Hesse

And now the long long day has left me tired,
May my wish be granted by the starlit night,
Like the hopeful prayers of every exhausted child.

Wednesday 9 January 2019

Parabolic ballad - Andrei Voznesensky

Among a parabola life like a rocket flies,
Mainly in darkness, now and then on a rainbow,
Red-headed bohemian Gauguin the painter
Started out life as a prosperous stockbroker.
In order to get to the Louvre from Montmartre
He made a detour all through Java, Sumatra,
Tahiti, the Isles of Marquesas.

Monday 7 January 2019

Kannada ‘Vachana' - Basava

Do not steal, Do not kill,
Do not utter the untruth,

Sunday 6 January 2019

The Wayfarer - Robin Hyde

The wounds of the world are good wounds, got in a hardy fight —
Therefore ’tis best to welcome or pilgrim or knight
Who limping comes on his quest, forspent or betrayed,
Whose breast is an aching thrust; and who will not be stayed.

Saturday 5 January 2019

Burial - Kingsley Fairbridge

Among the Manyika, a dead infant is buried by its Mother without a ceremony.

Friday 4 January 2019

The Centipede - Edith L. M. King

I've often watched you, centipede,
And I can't think however
You manage those long rows of feet —
You must be very clever.

Thursday 3 January 2019

The Harp of India - Henry Louis Vivian Derozio

Why hang'st thou lonely on yon withered bough?
Unstrung for ever, must thou there remain;
Thy music once was sweet — who hears it now?

Wednesday 2 January 2019

The Pretty Redhead - Guillaume Apollinaire

Here I am before you all an utterly sensible man
Knowing life and about death as much as a living person can know

Tuesday 1 January 2019

The Year - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times?