Venice masks

Wednesday 31 October 2012

I am sorry it is winter now - Osip Emilevich Mandelstam

I am sorry it is winter now,
And you can't hear mosquitoes in the house,
But you reminded yourself
Of the frivolous straw.

Monday 29 October 2012

The Treasury - Alfonso X El Sabio

The strange intelligence then reached my ears
That in the land of Egypt lived a man,
Who, wise of wit, subjected to his scan
The dark occurrences of uncome years;

Sunday 28 October 2012

God - Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin

O Thou, who's infinite in space,
Alive in ever-moving matter,
Eternal in the flow of time,
God faceless, with a trinity of faces!
Soul unified and omnipresent,
Who needs no place or reason,
Whom none can ever comprehend,
Whose being permeates all things,
Encompassing, creating, guarding,
Thou, called by us God.

Friday 26 October 2012

Song of the Old Boundary Rider - Vance Palmer

Fat and full of health are the valleys of the Condamine,
There the yellow maize and the green tobacco grow,
Through the little gardens runs the trailing passion-vine,
And softly to the North the white downs flow.

Thursday 25 October 2012

The Boatman - Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky

Driven by misfortune's whirlwind,
Having neither oar nor rudder,
By a storm my bark was driven
Out upon the boundless sea.
'midst black clouds a small star sparkled;
'Don't conceal yourself!' I cried;
But it disappeared, unheeding;
And my anchor was lost, too.

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Wife - Julian Tuwim

My husband is idle, is dumb and spends money.
He either stands still at the window or runs about town like a bunny.

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Rose of roses and flower of flowers - Alfonso X El Sabio

1.
Rose of beauty and fine appearance
And flower of happiness and pleasure,
lady of most merciful bearing,
And Lord for relieving all woes and cares;
Rose of roses and flower of flowers,
Lady of ladies, Lord of lords.

Monday 22 October 2012

I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed - Edna St. Vincent Millay

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,

Sunday 21 October 2012

Friend In The Desolate Time - Erik Johan Stagnelius

Friend, in the desolate time, when your soul is enshrouded in darkness
When, in a deep abyss, memory and feeling die out,

Saturday 20 October 2012

Biscuit Of The Day - Ibn Jakh

On the morning they left
we said goodbye
filled with sadness
for the absence to come.

Friday 19 October 2012

Explosion - Delmira Agustini

If life were love, how blessed it would be!
I want more life so to love! Now I feel
A thousand years of ideas are not worth
One blue minute of sentiment.

Thursday 18 October 2012

Like a brazier’s bronze cinders - Boris Pasternak

Like a brazier’s bronze cinders,
the sleepy garden’s beetles flowing.
Level with me, and my candle,
a flowering world is hanging.

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Nostalgia - Kostas Karyotakis

From the depth of good times
our loves greet us bitterly

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Ballade 1 - Eustache Deschamps

The stag was very proud of his swiftness,
Of running ten miles in one breath,
And the wild boar was proud to be fierce,
And the sheep praised her woolly fleece,
And the horse its beauty, and the buck was proud
Of crossing the plain at a bound,
And the one proud of strength was the bull,
The ermine in having a furry skin;
And to them all he said from his shell:
The snail will get to Easter just as soon.

Sunday 14 October 2012

Of Him Who Did Salvation Bring - Bernard of Clairvaux

Of Him Who did salvation bring,
I could forever think and sing:
Arise, ye needy, He’ll relieve;
Arise, ye guilty, He’ll forgive.

Saturday 13 October 2012

I Live, I Die, I Burn, I Drown - Delmira Agustini

I live, I die, I burn, I drown
I endure at once chill and cold
Life is at once too soft and too hard
I have sore troubles mingled with joys