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De Ierse dichter Patrick Kavanagh werd geboren op 21 oktober 1904 in County Monaghan. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2006 en ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2008 en ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2009.xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
In Memory Of My Mother
I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars
On your way to the station, or happily
Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday -
You meet me and you say:
'Don't forget to see about the cattle - '
Among your earthiest words the angels stray.
And I think of you walking along a headland
Of green oats in June,
So full of repose, so rich with life -
And I see us meeting at the end of a town
On a fair day by accident, after
The bargains are all made and we can walk
Together through the shops and stalls and markets
Free in the oriental streets of thought.
O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is a harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you smile up at us - eternally.
Primrose
Upon a bank I sat, a child made seer
Of one small primrose flowering in my mind.
Better than wealth it is, I said, to find
One small page of Truth's manuscript made clear.
I looked at Christ transfigured without fear--
The light was very beautiful and kind,
And where the Holy Ghost in flame had signed
I read it through the lenses of a tear.
And then my sight grew dim, I could not see
The primrose that had lighted me to Heaven,
And there was but the shadow of a tree
Ghostly among the stars. The years that pass
Like tired soldiers nevermore have given
Moments to see wonders in the grass.
Patrick Kavanagh (21 oktober 1904 30 november 1967)
Portret door William Mulhall
De Griekse dichter en schilder Nikos Engonopoulos werd geboren op 21 oktober 1907 in Athene. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2008 en ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2009.
BOLIVÁR (Fragment)
A Greek Poem
And shall I now despair that to this very day no one has
understood, has wanted, has been able to understand
what I say?
Shall the fate then be the same for what I say now of Bolivar,
that Ill say tomorrow of Androutsos?
Besides, its no easy thing for figures of the importance of
Androutsos and Bolivar to be so quickly understood,
Symbols of a like.
But lets move on quickly: for Heavens sake, no emotion,
exaggeration or despair.
Of no concern, my voice was destined for the ages alone.
(In the future, the near, the distant, in years to come, a few,
many, perhaps from the day after tomorrow or the day
after that,
Until the time that, empty and useless and dead, the Earth
begins to drift in the firmament,
The young, with mathematical precision, will awake in their
beds on wild nights,
Moistening their pillows with tears, wondering at who I was,
reflecting
That once I existed, what words I said, what songs I sang.
And the gigantic waves that every evening break on Hydras
seven shores,
And the savage rocks, and the high mountain that brings down
the blizzards,
Will eternally and untiringly thunder my name.)
But lets get back to Simon Bolivar.
Bolivar! A name of metal and wood, you were a flower in
the gardens of South America.
You had all the gentleness of flowers in your heart, in your
hair, in your gaze.
Your hand was huge like your heart, and scattered both good
and evil.
You swept through the mountains and the stars trembled, you
came down to the plains, with your gold finery, your
epaulets, all the insignia of your rank,
With a rifle hanging on your shoulder, with chest bared, with
your body covered in wounds,
And stark naked you sat on a low rock, at the seas edge,
And they came and painted you in the ways of Indian braves,
With wash, half white, half blue, so youd appear like a lonely
chapel on one of Atticas shores,
Like a church in the districts of Tatavla, like a palace in a
deserted Macedonian town.
Vertaald door David Connolly
Nikos Engonopoulos (21 oktober 1907 31 oktober 1985)
Athene
De Franse dichter en schrijver Alphonse de Lamartine werd geboren op 21 oktober 1790 in Mâcon. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2006 en ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2008 en ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2009.
Le papillon
Naître avec le printemps, mourir avec les roses,
Sur l'aile du zéphyr nager dans un ciel pur,
Balancé sur le sein des fleurs à peine écloses,
S'enivrer de parfums, de lumière et d'azur,
Secouant, jeune encor, la poudre de ses ailes,
S'envoler comme un souffle aux voûtes éternelles,
Voilà du papillon le destin enchanté!
Il ressemble au désir, qui jamais ne se pose,
Et sans se satisfaire, effleurant toute chose,
Retourne enfin au ciel chercher la volupté!
Les voiles
Quand j'étais jeune et fier et que j'ouvrais mes ailes,
Les ailes de mon âme à tous les vents des mers,
Les voiles emportaient ma pensée avec elles,
Et mes rêves flottaient sur tous les flots amers.
Je voyais dans ce vague où l'horizon se noie
Surgir tout verdoyants de pampre et de jasmin
Des continents de vie et des îles de joie
Où la gloire et l'amour m'appelaient de la main.
J'enviais chaque nef qui blanchissait l'écume,
Heureuse d'aspirer au rivage inconnu,
Et maintenant, assis au bord du cap qui fume,
J'ai traversé ces flots et j'en suis revenu.
Et j'aime encor ces mers autrefois tant aimées,
Non plus comme le champ de mes rêves chéris,
Mais comme un champ de mort où mes ailes semées
De moi-même partout me montrent les débris.
Cet écueil me brisa, ce bord surgit funeste,
Ma fortune sombra dans ce calme trompeur ;
La foudre ici sur moi tomba de l'arc céleste
Et chacun de ces flots roule un peu de mon coeur.
Alphonse de Lamartine (21 oktober 1790 28 februari 1869)
Foto, vergroot door Nadar, ca 1865
De Engels dichter en criticus Samuel Taylor Coleridge werd geboren op 21 oktober 1772 in Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2006 en ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2008 en ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2009.
The Rose
As late each flower that sweetest blows
I pluck'd, the Garden's pride!
Within the petals of a Rose
A sleeping Love I 'spied.
Around his brows a beamy wreath
Of many a lucent hue;
All purple glow'd his cheek, beneath,
Inebriate with the dew.
I softly seiz'd th' unguarded Power,
Nor scar'd his balmy rest:
And plac'd him, cag'd within the flower,
On spotless Sara's breast.
But when unweeting of the guile
Awoke the pris'ner sweet,
He struggled to escape awhile
And stamp'd his faery feet.
Ah! soon the soul entrancing sight
Subdued th' impatient boy!
He gaz'd! he thrill'd with deep delight!
Then clapp'd his wings for joy.
'And O!' he cried -- 'Of magic kind
What charms this Throne endear!
Some other Love let Venus find
I'll fix my empire here.'
Child's Evening Prayer
Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
God grant me grace my prayers to say:
O God! preserve my mother dear
In strength and health for many a year;
And, O! preserve my father too,
And may I pay him reverence due;
And may I my best thoughts employ
To be my parents' hope and joy;
And, O! preserve my brothers both
From evil doings and from sloth,
And may we always love each other,
Our friends, our father, and our mother,
And still, O Lord, to me impart
An innocent and grateful heart,
That after my last steep I may
Awake to thy eternal day! Amen.
Samuel T. Coleridge (21 oktober 1772 25 juli 1834)
De Duitse schrijver en criticus Martin Roda Becher werd geboren in New York op 21 oktober 1944. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 oktober 2008.
Uit: Dauergäste )
Der Umgang mit Grosz beschränkte sich in New York zu Ulis heimlichem Ärger hauptsächlich auf den Austausch von Briefen, was ihrem zeitgeschichtlich höchst interessanten Briefwechsel sehr bekam, Ulis Hunger nach den gesellschaftlichen Kontakten von Grosz in der New Yorker Kunst- und Literaturszene aber weitgehend ungestillt ließ. Bei der Taufe, sie fand in den Privaträumen eines lutheranischen Pastors statt, ließ sich Grosz durch seine Frau vertreten; er hatte sich angeblich bei einer Party den Fuß verstaucht.
Meine Mutter hatte beschlossen, daß ich Martin Roda heißen sollte. Daß Roda aber in Wirklichkeit mehr war als nur ein zweiter Vorname, begriff ich früh. Roda war mein eigentlicher Name, das Becher bloß Anhängsel. Ich hatte die blauen Augen der Rodas, die Stupsnase - durch und durch ein Roda, übernahm ich mit der Muttermilch die latente Gegnerschaft gegen die Bechers. Dana war eine überzeugte, ja glühende Roda, während die Becher-Seite in Uli nur einen sehr lauen Vertreter hatte. Im Grunde mochte Uli seine Eltern nicht, und sie wiederum hatten ein ziemlich reserviertes Verhältnis zu ihm. In meinem zweiten Vornamen war also schon die Kampfansage an die Bechers enthalten: Mit mir setze sich keineswegs die Bechersche Linie fort, nein, ich sei vielmehr der natürliche Roda-Statthalter.
Martin Roda Becher (New York, 21 oktober 1944)
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