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De Engelse dichter William Wordsworth werd geboren op 7 april 1770 in Cumberland. Zie ook mijn blog van 7 april 2007 en ook mijn blog van 7 april 2008.xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING
I HEARD a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:--
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
The budding twigs spread out their fan
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?
TO SLEEP
A FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by,
One after one; the sound of rain, and bees
Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,
Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky;
I have thought of all by turns, and yet do lie
Sleepless! and soon the small birds' melodies
Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees;
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.
Even thus last night, and two nights more, I lay,
And could not win thee, Sleep! by any stealth:
So do not let me wear to-night away:
Without Thee what is all the morning's wealth?
Come, blessed barrier between day and day,
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!
William Wordsworth (7 april 1770 23 april 1850)
De Argentijnse schrijjfster Victoria Ocampo werd geboren op 7 april 1890 in Buenos Aires. Zij stamde uit een oude Spaanse familie die zich eerst in Cuzco in Peru gevestigd had en in de 17e eeuw in Buenos Aires terecht kwam. Haar eerste boek "De Francesca a Beatrice" publiceerde zij in 1924. Zij maakte naam als schrijfster en als oprichtster van het literaire tijdschrift Sur.
Uit: Palabras francesas
If I hadn't been American, after all, I probably wouldn't have felt this thirst to explain, to explain us and to explain myself. In Europe when something is produced, you could say it is explained beforehand; each event gives the impression of carrying an identity tag from the time it occurs and is appropriately shelved. Here, on the other hand, each thing, each event is suspicious and suspected of being something without precedent. We have to examine it from top to bottom to try to identify it, and sometimes when we try to apply the explanations that analogous cases would receive in Europe, we find that they don't fit.
Then, here we are, obliged to close our eyes and to advance, gropingly and hazardously, toward ourselves; to try to find out to what extent the old explanations can be applied to new problems. We hesitate, stumble, deceive ourselves, tremble, but continue obstinately along. Even though, for now, the results may be mediocre, who cares? Our suffering isn't. And that's what counts. This suffering must be so strong that someday someone feels the urgency to overcome it by explaining it.
Victoria Ocampo (7 april 1890 27 januari 1979)
De Chileense dichteres en diplomate Gabriela Mistral werd geboren in Vicuña, Chili op 7 april 1889. Zie ook mijn blog van 7 april 2007 en ook mijn blog van 7 april 2008.
The Stranger (La Extranjera)
She speaks in her way of her savage seas
With unknown algae and unknown sands;
She prays to a formless, weightless God,
Aged, as if dying.
In our garden now so strange,
She has planted cactus and alien grass.
The desert zephyr fills her with its breath
And she has loved with a fierce, white passion
She never speaks of, for if she were to tell
It would be like the face of unknown stars.
Among us she may live for eighty years,
Yet always as if newly come,
Speaking a tongue that plants and whines
Only by tiny creatures understood.
And she will die here in our midst
One night of utmost suffering,
With only her fate as a pillow,
And death, silent and strange.
Vertaald door Helene Masslo Anderson
Gabriela Mistral (7 april 1889 10 januari 1957)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Donald Barthelme werd geboren op 7 april 1931 in Philadelphia. Zie ook mijn blog van 7 april 2007 en ook mijn blog van 7 april 2008.
Uit: Me and Miss Mandible
The sixth grade at Horace Greeley Elementary is a furnace of love, love, love. Today it is raining, but inside the air is heavy and tense, with passion. Sue Ann is absent; I suspect that yesterdays exchange has driven her to bed. Guilt hangs about me. She is not responsible, I know, for what she reads, for the models proposed to her by a venal publishing industry; I should not have been so harsh. Perhaps it is only the flu.
Nowhere have I encountered an atmosphere as charged with aborted sexuality as this. Miss Mandible is helpless; nothing goes right today. Amos Darin has been found drawing a dirty picture in the cloakroom. Sad and inaccurate, it was offered not as a sign of something else but as an act of love in itself. It has excited even those who have not seen it, even those who saw but understood only that it was dirty. The room buzzes with imperfectly comprehended titillation. Amos stands by the door, waiting to be taken to the principals office. He wavers between fear and enjoyment of his temporary celebrity. From time to time Miss Mandible looks at me reproachfully, as if blaming me for the uproar. But I did not create this atmosphere, I am caught in it like all the others.
Donald Barthelme (7 april 1931 23 juli 1989)
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