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O the striped and vigorous
tiger can move
With style through the borough of murder; the ape
Is
really at home in the parish
Of grimacing and licking: but we have
Failed as their pupils. Our tears
well from a love
We have never outgrown; our cities predict
More
than we hope; even our armies
Have to express our need of forgiveness.
[They]
Δ
Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle. Upon what man it fall In spring, day-wishing flowers appearing, Avalanche sliding, white snow from rock-face, That he should leave his house, No cloud-soft hand can hold him, restraint by women; But ever that man goes Through place-keepers, through forest trees, A stranger to strangers over undried sea, Houses for fishes, suffocating water, Or lonely on fell as chat, By pot-holed becks A bird stone-haunting, an unquiet bird. There head falls forward, fatigued at evening, And dreams of home, Waving from window, spread of welcome, Kissing of wife under single sheet; But waking sees Bird-flocks nameless to him, through doorway voices Of new men making another love. Save him from hostile capture, From sudden tiger's leap at corner; Protect his house, His anxious house where days are counted From thunderbolt protect, From gradual ruin spreading like a stain; Converting number from vague to certain, Bring joy, bring day of his returning, Lucky with day approaching, with leaning dawn.
Δ
Spain
Yesterday all the past. The
language of size
Spreading to China along the trade-routes; the diffusion
Of the counting-frame and the cromlech;
Yesterday the shadow-reckoning in the sunny climates.
Yesterday the assessment of insurance by cards,
The divination of water; yesterday the invention
Of cartwheels and clocks, the taming of
Horses. Yesterday the bustling world of the navigators.
Yesterday the abolition of fairies and giants,
The fortress like a motionless eagle eyeing the valley.
The chapel built in the forest;
Yesterday the carving of angels and alarming gargoyles.
The trial of heretics among the columns of stone;
Yesterday the theological feuds in the taverns
And the miraculous cure at the fountain;
Yesterday the Sabbath of witches; but to-day the struggle.
Yesterday the installation of dynamos and turbines,
The construction of railways in the colonial desert;
Yesterday the classic lecture
On the origin of Mankind. But to-day the struggle.
Yesterday the belief in the absolute value of Greece,
The fall of the curtain upon the death of a hero;
Yesterday the prayer to the sunset
And the adoration of madmen. But to-day the struggle.
As the poet whispers, startled among the pines,
Or where the loose waterfall sings compact, or upright
On the crag by the leaning tower:
'Oh my vision. O send me the luck of the sailor.'
And the investigator peers through his instruments
At the inhuman provinces, the virile bacillus
Or enormous Jupiter finished:
'But the lives of my friends. I inquire. I inquire.'
And the poor in their fireless lodgings, dropping the sheets
Of the evening paper: 'Our day is our loss, O show us
History the operator, the
Organiser, Time the refreshing river.'
And the nations combine each cry, invoking the life
That shapes the individual belly and orders
The private nocturnal terror;
'Did you not found the city state of the sponge,
'Raise the vast military empires of the shark
And the tiger, establish the robin's plucky canton?
Intervene. O descend as a dove or
A furious papa or a mild engineer, but descend.'
And the life, if it answers at all , replies from the heart
And the eyes and the lungs, from the shops and squares of the city:
'O no, I am not the mover;
Not to-day; not to you. To you, I'm the
'Yes-man, the bar-companion, the easily -duped;
I am whatever you do. I am your vow to be
Good, your humorous story.
I am your business voice. I am your marriage.
'What's your proposal? To build the just city? I will.
I agree. Or is it the suicide pact, the romantic
Death? Very well, I accept, for
I am your choice, your decision. Yes, I am Spain.'
Many have heard it on remote peninsulas,
On sleepy plains, in the aberrant fisherman's islands
Or in the corrupt heart of the city,
Have heard and migrated like gulls or the seeds of a flower.
They clung like burrs to the long expresses that lurch
Through the unjust lands, through the night, through the alpine tunnel;
They floated over the oceans;
They walked the passes. They came to present their lives.
On that arid square, that fragment nipped off from hot
Africa, soldered so crudely to inventive Europe;
On that tableland scored by rivers,
Our thoughts have bodies; the menacing shapes of our fever
Are precise and alive. For the fears which made us respond
To the medicine ad. And the brochure of winter cruises
Have become invading battalions;
And our faces, the institute-face, the chain -store, the ruin
Are projecting their greed as the firing squad and the bomb.
Madrid is the heart. Our moments of tenderness blossom
As the ambulance and the sandbag;
Our hours of friendship into a people's army.
Tomorrow, perhaps the future. The research on fatigue
And the movements of packers; the gradual exploring of all the
Octaves of radiation;
Tomorrow the enlarging of consciousness by diet and breathing.
Tomorrow the rediscovery of romantic love,
The photographing of ravens; all the fun under
Liberty's masterful shadow;
To-morrow the hours of the pageant-master and the musician,
The beautiful roar of the chorus under the dome;
Tomorrow the exchanging of tips on the breeding of terriers,
The eager election of chairmen
By the sudden forest of hands. But to-day the struggle.
To-morrow for the young the poets exploding like bombs,
The walks by the lake, the weeks of perfect communion;
To-morrow the bicycle races
Through the suburbs on summer evenings. But to-day the struggle.
To-day the deliberate increase in the chances of death,
The conscious acceptance of guilt in the necessary murder;
To-day the expending of powers
On the flat ephemeral pamphlet and the boring meeting.
To-day the makeshift consolations: the shared cigarette,
The cards in the candlelit barn, and the scarping concert,
The masculine jokes; to-day the
Fumbled and unsatisfactory embrace before hurting.
The stars are dead. The animals will not look.
We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and
History to the defeated
May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.
Δ
España 1937
Ayer el pasado. El lenguaje que tasa
Propagado hasta China a lo largo de rutas comerciales; la difusión
Del estadillo contable y del crómlech;
Ayer el recuento de sombras en soleados climas.
Ayer la cuantía del seguro jugada a las cartas,
La adivinación del agua escondida; ayer la invención
De las carretas y los relojes, la doma de
Caballos. Ayer el bullicioso mundo de los navegantes.
Ayer la abolición de hadas y gigantes,
La fortaleza como un águila inmóvil oteando el valle.
La capilla erigida en pleno bosque;
Ayer la escultura de ángeles y disuasorias gárgolas.
El juicio de herejes entre columnas de piedra;
Ayer los feudos teológicos en las tabernas
Y la milagrosa sanación de la fuente;
Ayer el Sabbat de las brujas; pero hoy la lucha.
Ayer la convicción en el valor absoluto de Grecia,
El telón que cae tras la muerte del héroe;
Ayer la oración al crepúsculo
Y la adoración de los locos. Pero hoy la lucha.
Mientras susurra el poeta, enajenado entre pinos
O allí donde se precipitan las aguas cantando al unísono, o arriba
En el peñasco junto a la torre inclinada:
‘Oh visión mía. ¡Envíame la fortuna del marino!’
E indaga el investigador a través de sus instrumentos,
En las provincias inhumanas, el bacilo viril
O enorme Júpiter acabado:
‘… Las vidas de mis amigos. Yo busco. Busco.’
Y el pobre en sus cuartos sin lumbre, arrojando las hojas
Del periódico vespertino: ‘Nuestro día es nuestra pérdida, muéstranos,
Historia, tú el operador y
Organizador, el refrescante río del Tiempo.’
Y las naciones conciertan los gritos, invocando a la vida
Que da forma a cada barriga en particular y ordena
El nocturno terror privado;
‘¿No fundaste la ciudad estado de la esponja,
Y alzaste los vastos imperios militares del tigre
Y el tiburón, estableciste el cantón del atrevido petirrojo?
Interviene. Oh desciende como paloma o
Papá furioso o templado ingeniero, pero desciende.’
Y la vida, si acaso responde, desde el corazón replica
y desde ojos y pulmones, desde las tiendas y plazas de la ciudad:
‘Oh, no, no soy yo el propulsor;
No hoy; no para ti. Para ti, soy el que
Siempre asiente, el colega del bar, al que fácil se
engaña;
Soy lo que sea que quieras. Soy tu promesa de ser
Bueno, tu divertida anécdota.
Soy la voz de tus asuntos. Soy tu matrimonio.
¿Qué te propones? ¿Construir la ciudad de los justos? Lo
haré.
De acuerdo. ¿O es el pacto suicida, la Muerte
Romántica? Muy bien, acepto, pues
Soy tu elección, tu decisión. Sí, soy España.’
Muchos la oyeron en remotas penínsulas,
En soñolientas planicies, en las aberrantes islas de Pescadores
O en el corazón corrupto de la ciudad,
La oyeron y emigraron como las gaviotas o las semillas de una flor.
Se aferraron ardientes a los interminables expresos que
dan tumbos
A través de tierras sin justicia, a través de la noche, del túnel alpino;
Flotaron sobre los océanos;
Recorrieron los desfiladeros. Vinieron a exponer sus vidas.
En esa árida plaza, ese desmochado fragmento de la
calurosa
África, tan reciamente soldado a la inventiva Europa;
En esa meseta señalada por ríos,
Nuestros pensamientos tienen cuerpo; las formas amenazadoras de nuestra
fiebre
Son precisas y están vivas. Pues los miedos que nos
hicieron acudir
Al anuncio de medicinas. Y el folleto de cruceros invernales
Ha resultado en batallones invasores;
Y nuestros rostros, el rostro instituto, la tienda de la cadena comercial, la
ruina
Proyectan ahora su codicia como pelotones de ejecución y
bombas.
Madrid es el corazón. Florecen nuestros momentos de ternura
Como la ambulancia y el saco terrero.
Nuestras horas de amistad en las milicias populares.
Mañana, tal vez el futuro. La investigación sobre la
fatiga
Y los movimientos de los empacadores; la exploración gradual
De cada octava de radiación;
Mañana la ampliación de conciencia mediante dieta y ejercicios respiratorios.
Mañana volver descubrir el amor romántico,
Fotografiar cuervos; todas las formas de esparcimiento bajo
La sombra omnipresente de la libertad;
Mañana las horas del que rige el desfile y del músico,
El hermoso estruendo del coro bajo la bóveda;
Mañana el intercambio de consejos sobre la cría de terriers,
La entusiasta elección de presidente
Por una repentina foresta de manos. Pero hoy la lucha.
Mañana para los jóvenes, los poetas que explosionan como
bombas,
Los paseos junto al lago, las semanas en perfecta comunión;
Mañana las carreras de ciclistas
A las afueras en las tardes de verano. Pero hoy la lucha.
Hoy el incremento deliberado de las ocasiones de muerte,
La aceptación consciente de la culpa en el asesinato necesario;
Hoy el dispendio de energías
En el panfleto simple y efímero y la aburrida reunión.
Hoy el consuelo momentáneo; el cigarrillo compartido,
Las cartas en el establo a la luz de las velas, y el concierto estridente,
Las bromas masculinas; hoy el
Embarazoso y lánguido abrazo antes de ir a hacer daño.
Han muerto las estrellas. Los animales no harán por mirar.
Nos han dejado con nuestro día a solas, y el tiempo es breve, y
La Historia a los vencidos
Podrá decir lo siento pero no puede ayudar ni perdonar.
[Versión de Antonio Mengs]
A SUMMER NIGHT
(for
Geoffrey Hoyland)
Out on the lawn I lie
in bed,
Vega conspicuous overhead
In the windless nights of June,
As congregated leaves complete
Their day’s activity; my feet
Point to the rising moon.
Lucky, this point in time and space
Is chosen as my working-place,
Where the sexy airs of summer.
The bathing hours and the bare arms,
The leisured drives through a land of farms
Are good to a newcomer.
Equal with colleagues in a ring
I sit on each calm evening
Enchanted as the flowers
The opening light draws out of hiding
W ith all its gradual dove-like pleading,
Its logic and its powers:
That later we, though parted then,
May still recall these evenings when
Fear gave his watch no look;
The lion griefs loped from the shade
And on our knees their muzzles laid,
And Death put down his book.
Now north and south and east and west
Those I love lie down to rest;
The moon looks on them all,
The healers and the brilliant talkers,
The eccentrics and the silent walkers,
The dumpy and the tall.
She climbs the European sky,
Churches and power-stations lie
Alike among earth’s fixtures:
Into the galleries she peers
And blankly as a butcher stares
Upon the marvellous pictures.
To gravity attentive, she
Can notice nothing here, though we
Whom hunger does not move,
From gardens where we feel secure
Look up and with a sigh endure
The tyrannies of love:
And, gentle, do not care to know,
Where Poland draws her eastern bow,
What violence is done,
Nor ask what doubtful act allows
Our freedom in this English house,
Our picnics in the sun.
Soon, soon, through dykes of our content
The crumpling flood will force a rent
And, taller than a tree,
Hold sudden death before our eyes
Whose river dreams long hid the size
And vigours of the sea.
But when the waters make retreat
And through the black mud first the wheat
In shy green stalks appears,
When stranded monsters gasping lie,
And sounds of riveting terrify
Their whorled unsubtle ears,
May these delights we dread to lose,
This privacy, need no excuse
But to that strength belong,
As through a child’s rash happy cries
The drowned parental voices rise
In unlamenting song.
After discharges of alarm
All unpredicted let them calm
The pulse of nervous nations,
Forgive the murderer in his glass,
Tough in their patience to surpass
The tigress her swift motions.
Δ
UNA NOCHE DE VERANO
(...)
Tras las
descargas de alarma,
todas
imprevistas, deja que calmen
el pulso de las
naciones nerviosas,
perdona al
asesino en su vitrina,
difícil en su
paciencia superar
de la tigresa
los veloces movimientos.
[Traducción:
Eduardo Iriarte]
Δ
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