Selected translations by Frank Beck
Dormant Last read · last published · next check
Read 19 hours ago and current, but nothing has been published for 8 years.
You too sought greater things, but the weight of love pulls All of us down, and grief drives us even lower. Yet the arc of our lives back Where they came from is not in vain. High or low! Does a hand not rule silent Nature In holy night where all the days to come are planned, And even Hell’s fractured maze-- Ruled by degree, and judged by law? This much I have learned: unlike mortal masters, you…
Olga Ivinskaya and Boris Pasternak in 1958 It snowed and snowed throughout the land, An endless snowing. On the table, a candle burned; A flame was glowing. Like a swarm of gnats in summer That flock to a light, Snowflakes flew to the windowpane, Afloat in the night. The storm drew arrows on the glass And circles, growing. On the table, a candle burned; A flame was glowing. Up on the ceiling,…
Lord, it is time. The summer was so great. Now lay your shadow across the sundials, And let the winds of the field run free. Tell the last of the grapes to ripen: give them two more days of southern warmth, urge them to completion, and then chase one final sweetness into the heavy wine. He who has no house now will not build one. He who is alone will be that way a long time. He’ll lie awake and…
One white and lonely sail out there, amidst the fog and the ocean’s blue! What does it seek in distant lands? What was amiss in the one it knew? Waves leap up into whistling wind; the tall mast bends, and the rigging strains. This is no flight from happiness, but nor will happiness be its aim. Before him spreads an azure path, as though golden suns would never cease, but he, rebellious, seeks the…
While you live, be joyful; grief must know its measure. The span of life is brief; time will claim its treasure. Listen to the only song to come down to us from Ancient Greece, and consider its message. Known as the Seikilos Epitaph, its words and accompanying musical notation were inscribed on a tombstone discovered in 1883 near Aiden, in what is now Turkey. The song was written by someone known…
Fresco associated with Sappho (from Pompeii, first century CE) Dropping out of sight go the moon and Pleiades. Midnight slides by me, then hour on hour. I lie here awake and alone. Anne Carson says, "Sappho is a musician," and her own Sappho translations are some of the most musical English versions of Classical Greek poetry I've ever read (see the first link below). Many translators simply put…
Sergei Yesenin, 1922 Are you still alive, my starushka ? I am too, and I wanted to write. I hope evening still bathes the cottage in the same indescribable light. They tell me that you try to hide it, but I'm causing you pain and distress. You walk out on the road after dinner in your tattered and old-fashioned dress. And, as you go walking through twilight, what you brood on is always the same:…
Poissy: where Pizan may have lived during her last years I have no great fortune, my son, To make you rich. In place of one, here are the lessons I have learned-- the finest things I've ever earned. Before the world has borne you far, try to know people as they are. Knowing that will help you take the path that keeps you from mistakes. Pity anyone who is poor and stands in rags outside your door.…
View of Moscow from Sparrow Hills (A. Kuindzhi, 1882) A breast kissed wet, as though under a shower! But summer streams do not flow forever, And we cannot stay on here night after night, Raising dust to the accordion’s low drone. I’ve heard about old age—a frightening prediction! No crashing wave will lift its hands to the stars. And imagine: they say there's no face in the fields, no heart in the…
You know I'd like to slip from the loudly buzzing room when the first pale stars, high above the darkened oaks, catch fire. I want to make my way through paths that few can find in the hushed evening meadows -- and with no dream but this: you’re there, too. "Weisst du, ich will mich schleichen" Rainer Maria Rilke/translated by Frank Beck This is from Rilke's second collection, Advent , published…
