Rabindranath Tagore: “El Último Trato” / “The Last Bargain”
Posted: September 29, 2014 Filed under: English, Rabindranath Tagore, Spanish | Tags: Poemas del Alma Comments Off on Rabindranath Tagore: “El Último Trato” / “The Last Bargain”
Rabindranath Tagore (poeta bengalí, 1861-1941)
El Último Trato (1918)
.
¡Estoy por alquilar, contrátenme!
gritaba yo una mañana andando por la carretera.
El rey pasó en su carroza, la espada en la mano.
Me cogió de la mano y me dijo:
Te tomo a mi servicio; a cambio, tendrás parte de mi poder.
Pero yo no sabía que hacer de su poder y le dejé partir en su carroza.
.
En el ardiente mediodía todas las casas estaban cerradas.
Yo vagaba por tortuosos caminos.
Un anciano se me acercó, llevando un saco lleno de oro.
Se detuvo pensativo, y me dijo:
Ven, te tomo a mi servicio. Te pagaré con este oro.
Empezó a contar sus monedas, una a una, pero le volví la espalda.
.
Caía la tarde. El seto del jardín había florecido.
Una hermosa muchacha se me acercó y me dijo:
Te tomo a mi servicio y te pagaré con una sonrisa.
Pero su sonrisa se desvaneció, le saltaron las lágrimas
y, sola, se perdió de nuevo en la sombra.
.
El sol reverberaba en la arena y las olas rompían caprichosamente.
Un niño jugaba con las conchas, sentado en la playa.
Levantó la cabeza, me miró como si reconociera, y me dijo:
Te tomo por nada.
Desde que hice este trato, jugando, con un niño,
me he convertido en un hombre libre.
.
Traducción: Luis López Nieves
. . .
Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali poet, 1861-1941)
The Last Bargain (1918)
.
“Come and hire me,” I cried,
while in the morning I was walking on the stone-paved road.
Sword in hand, the King came in his chariot.
He held my hand and said, “I will hire you with my power.”
But his power counted for nought, and he went away in his chariot.
In the heat of the midday the houses stood with shut doors.
I wandered along the crooked lane.
An old man came out with his bag of gold.
He pondered and said, “I will hire you with my money.”
He weighed his coins one by one, but I turned away.
It was evening. The garden hedge was all aflower.
The fair maid came out and said, “I will hire you with a smile.”
Her smile paled and melted into tears, and she went back alone into the dark.
The sun glistened on the sand, and the sea waves broke waywardly.
A child sat playing with shells.
He raised his head and seemed to know me,
and said, “I hire you with nothing.”
From thenceforward that bargain struck in child’s play
made me become a free man.
. . . . .
Rabindranath Tagore: “Ella” y “El camino cerrado”
Posted: September 28, 2014 Filed under: English, Rabindranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore: "Ella" + "El Camino Cerrado", Spanish, ZP Translator: Alexander Best | Tags: Poemas del Alma Comments Off on Rabindranath Tagore: “Ella” y “El camino cerrado”
Rabindranath Tagore (poeta bengalí, 1861-1941)
Ella
.
Ella, quedando en lo más hondo de mí,
en el crepúsculo de resplendores y ojeadas;
ella, que nunca abrió sus velos en la luz del alba,
será mi regalo definitivo para Tí, mi Dios, plegado en mi canto final.
Las palabras han cortejado a ella y fracasaron alcanzarle;
la persuasión se ha estirazo sus brazos ardientes en vano.
He vagabundeado país por país guardándole en la médula de mi corazón,
y el desarrollo y declive de mi vida han subido y caído alrededor de ella.
Reinó sobre mis pensamientos y acciones, mis reposos y sueños,
pero moró solitaria, alejada.
Muchos hombres tocaron a mi puerta, preguntando por ella,
y dieron la espalda en desesperanza.
No hubo nadie en este mundo que le vieron cara a cara,
y ella permaneció en su soledad, esperando para tu reconocimiento.
. . .
She
.
She who ever had remained in the depth of my being,
in the twilight of gleams and of glimpses;
she who never opened her veils in the morning light,
will be my last gift to Thee, my God, folded in my final song.
Words have wooed yet failed to win her;
persuasion has stretched to her its eager arms in vain.
I have roamed from country to country keeping her in the core of my heart,
and around her have risen and fallen the growth and decay of my life.
Over my thoughts and actions, my slumbers and dreams,
she reigned yet dwelled alone and apart.
Many a man knocked at my door and asked for her
and turned away in despair.
There was none in the world who ever saw her face to face,
and she remained in her loneliness waiting for Thy recognition.
. . .
El Camino Cerrado
.
Yo había creído que mi periplo llegaba a su fin,
al último límite de mi fuerza;
que el camino delante de mí fue cerrado,
que se agotaron las provisiones,
y llegaba la hora de buscar un refugio en una silenciosa oscuridad.
.
Pero estoy descubriendo que, adentro de mí, no hay fin de Tu voluntad.
Y cuando se pierden palabras sobre la lengua
hay nuevas melodías que brotan del corazón;
y donde se pierden los viejos rostros
hay un nuevo país que se develará con sus maravillas.
. . .
Closed Path
.
I thought that my voyage had come to its end
at the last limit of my power – that the path before me was closed,
that provisions were exhausted,
and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.
But I find that Thy will knows no end in me.
And when old words die out on the tongue,
new melodies break forth from the heart;
and where the old tracks are lost,
new country is revealed with its wonders.
. . . . .
Thanksgiving Poems: a Cornucopia
Posted: November 28, 2013 Filed under: Emily Dickinson, English, Guido Guinizelli, Gwendolyn Brooks, Henri Nouwen, Luci Shaw, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Rabindranath Tagore, Walt Whitman, William Matthews | Tags: Thanksgiving poems, Thanksgiving: USA Comments Off on Thanksgiving Poems: a Cornucopia
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
“I had no time to Hate”
.
I had no time to Hate –
Because
The Grave would hinder Me –
And Life was not so
Ample I
Could finish – Enmity –
.
Nor had I time to Love –
But since
Some Industry must be –
The little Toil of Love –
I thought
Be large enough for Me –
. . .
Emily Dickinson
“They might not need me – yet they might”
.
They might not need me – yet they might –
I’ll let my Heart be just in sight –
A smile so small as mine might be
Precisely their necessity.
Emily Dickinson
“Who has not found the Heaven – below”
.
Who has not found the Heaven – below –
Will fail of it above –
For Angels rent the House next ours,
Wherever we remove –
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)
“A Prayer”
.
O Lord, the hard-won miles
Have worn my stumbling feet:
Oh, soothe me with thy smiles,
And make my life complete.
.
The thorns were thick and keen
Where’er I trembling trod;
The way was long between
My wounded feet and God.
.
Where healing waters flow
Do thou my footsteps lead.
My heart is aching so;
Thy gracious balm I need.
. . .
Paul Laurence Dunbar
“The Sum”
.
A little dreaming by the way,
A little toiling day by day;
A little pain, a little strife,
A little joy,–and that is life.
.
A little short-lived summer’s morn,
When joy seems all so newly born,
When one day’s sky is blue above,
And one bird sings,–and that is love.
.
A little sickening of the years,
The tribute of a few hot tears,
Two folded hands, the failing breath,
And peace at last,–and that is death.
.
Just dreaming, loving, dying so,
The actors in the drama go–
A flitting picture on a wall,
Love, Death, the themes; but is that all?
. . .
Guido Guinizelli (1230-1276)
“Of Moderation and Tolerance”
.
He that has grown to wisdom hurries not,
But thinks and weighs what Reason bids him do;
And after thinking he retains his thought
Until as he conceived the fact ensue.
Let no man to o’erweening pride be wrought,
But count his state as Fortune’s gift and due.
He is a fool who deems that none has sought
The truth, save he alone, or knows it true.
Many strange birds are on the air abroad,
Nor all are of one flight or of one force,
But each after his kind dissimilar:
To each was portion’d of the breath of God,
Who gave them divers instincts from one source.
Then judge not thou thy fellows what they are.
.
Translation from the Italian: Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1861)
. . .
Luci Shaw (born 1928)
“But not forgotten”
.
Whether or not I find the missing thing
it will always be
more than my thought of it.
Silver-heavy, somewhere it winks
in its own small privacy
playing
the waiting game for me.
.
And the real treasures do not vanish.
The precious loses no value
in the spending.
A piece of hope spins out
bright, along the dark, and is not
lost in space;
verity is a burning boomerang;
love is out orbiting and will
come home.
. . .
Henri Nouwen (1932-1996)
“Hope”
.
Hope means to keep living
amid desperation,
and to keep humming in darkness.
Hoping is knowing that there is love,
it is trust in tomorrow
it is falling asleep
and waking again
when the sun rises.
In the midst of a gale at sea,
it is to discover land.
In the eye of another
it is to see that he understands you.
As long as there is still hope
there will also be prayer.
And God will be holding you
in His hands.
. . .
Walt Whitman(1819-1892)
“When I heard the learn’d astronomer”
.
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured
with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)
“Speech to the Young, Speech to the Progress-Toward
(Among them Nora and Henry III)”
.
Say to them
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers:
“Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night.”
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for the battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
“Closed Path”
.
I thought that my voyage had come to its end
at the last limit of my power,
that the path before me was closed,
that provisions were exhausted,
and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.
.
But I find that Thy Will knows no end in me.
And when old words die out on the tongue,
new melodies break forth from the heart;
and where the old tracks are lost,
new country is revealed with its wonders.
. . .
William Matthews (1942-1997)
“Onions”
.
How easily happiness begins by
dicing onions. A lump of sweet butter
slithers and swirls across the floor
of the sauté pan, especially if its
errant path crosses a tiny slick
of olive oil. Then a tumble of onions.
.
This could mean soup or risotto
or chutney (from the Sanskrit
chatni, to lick). Slowly the onions
go limp and then nacreous
and then what cookbooks call clear,
though if they were eyes you could see
.
clearly the cataracts in them.
It’s true it can make you weep
to peel them, to unfurl and to tease
from the taut ball first the brittle,
caramel-coloured and decrepit
papery outside layer, the least
.
recent the reticent onion
wrapped around its growing body,
for there’s nothing to an onion
but skin, and it’s true you can go on
weeping as you go on in, through
the moist middle skins, the sweetest
.
and thickest, and you can go on
in to the core, to the bud-like,
acrid, fibrous skins densely
clustered there, stalky and in-
complete, and these are the most
pungent, like the nuggets of nightmare
.
and rage and murmury animal
comfort that infant humans secrete.
This is the best domestic perfume.
You sit down to eat with a rumour
of onions still on your twice-washed
hands and lift to your mouth a hint
.
of a story about loam and usual
endurance. It’s there when you clean up
and rinse the wine glasses and make
a joke, and you leave the minutest
whiff of it on the light switch,
later, when you climb the stairs.
. . . . .
Zócalo Poets 