/lit/ - Literature

>>16808896
Aussitôt que l'idée du Déluge se fut rassise,
Un lièvre s'arrêta dans les sainfoins et les clochettes mouvantes et dit sa prière à l'arc-en-ciel à travers la toile de l'araignée.
Oh ! les pierres précieuses qui se cachaient, − les fleurs qui regardaient déjà.
Dans la grande rue sale les étals se dressèrent, et l'on tira les barques vers la mer étagée là-haut comme sur les gravures.
Le sang coula, chez Barbe-Bleue, − aux abattoirs, − dans les cirques, où le sceau de Dieu blêmit les fenêtres. Le sang et le lait coulèrent.
Les castors bâtirent. Les "mazagrans" fumèrent dans les estaminets.
Dans la grande maison de vitres encore ruisselante les enfants en deuil regardèrent les merveilleuses images.
Une porte claqua, et sur la place du hameau, l'enfant tourna ses bras, compris des girouettes et des coqs des clochers de partout, sous l'éclatante giboulée.
Madame*** établit un piano dans les Alpes. La messe et les premières communions se célébrèrent aux cent mille autels de la cathédrale.
Les caravanes partirent. Et le Splendide-Hôtel fut bâti dans le chaos de glaces et de nuit du pôle.
Depuis lors, la Lune entendit les chacals piaulant par les déserts de thym, − et les églogues en sabots grognant dans le verger. Puis, dans la futaie violette, bourgeonnante, Eucharis me dit que c'était le printemps.
− Sourds, étang, − Écume, roule sur le pont, et par dessus les bois; − draps noirs et orgues, − éclairs et tonnerres − montez et roulez; − Eaux et tristesses, montez et relevez les Déluges.
Car depuis qu'ils se sont dissipés, − oh les pierres précieuses s'enfouissant, et les fleurs ouvertes ! − c'est un ennui ! et la Reine, la Sorcière qui allume sa braise dans le pot de terre, ne voudra jamais nous raconter ce qu'elle sait, et que nous ignorons.

>>16808915
The storm is done--the lightning with its lust
To rend the unhallowed dome in ruin dire;
The purple heaps, from the rank chaos thrust
On sheets of fell and inauspicious fire;
The thunder bellowing loud on every bound;
The hissing bolt, so tossed as to complete
All permutations of Satanic sound;
The flood that opened heaven and ransomed it.
Benign now is that beatific blue.
The flame that fires the hill is now remote
From aught in evil. Clemency anew
--Crowns every leaf, and sings in every throat.
Shall, then, the rage of earth and heaven depart,
And not the rancour of the unsensing heart?

not letting me post Baylebridge's photograph for some reason.

>>16808921
The Thunderstorm Evening

O the red evening hours!
Glimmering by the open window
Vine leaves sway woozily curled in the blue,
Inside specters of fear nestle.

Dust dances in the stench of the gutters.
Rattling the wind knocks at the panes.
A herd of wild horses
Thunderbolts drive garish clouds.
Loudly the pond-mirror bursts.
Gulls cry near the window frames.
A fiery horseman gallops from the hill
And smashes to flames in the firs.

The sick screech in the hospital.
Bluish the night's plumage whirs.
Glistening all at once rain
Roars down upon the roofs.

>>16808941
The Tempest

Who saw the maiden on the rock --
Closed in white -- and waves around,
When, in the stormy darkness locked,
The sea was playing with the ground?

When she was every minute lit
By scarlet lights in thunder’s rattle,
And wind was ravishing and swift
In crazy flight with her white mantle?

The sea is beautiful, when rocks,
And skies -- with flashes, void of azure;
But, Lord! The maiden on the rock
Was more beautiful than nature!

>>16808961
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

II
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine aëry surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!

III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!

IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

cont.

>>16808984
cont.

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

>>16808993
A lonely sail is flashing white
Amdist the blue mist of the sea!…
What does it seek in foreign lands?
What did it leave behind at home?..

Waves heave, wind whistles,
The mast, it bends and creaks…
Alas, it seeks not happiness
Nor happiness does it escape!

Below, a current azure bright,
Above, a golden ray of sun…
Rebellious, it seeks out a storm
As if in storms it could find peace!

>>16809025
Que la pluie à déluge au long des toits ruisselle !
Que l’orme du chemin penche, craque et chancelle
Au gré du tourbillon dont il reçoit le choc !
Que du haut des glaciers l’avalanche s’écroule !
Que le torrent aboie au fond du gouffre, et roule
Avec ses flots fangeux de lourds quartiers de roc !

Qu’il gèle ! et qu’à grand bruit, sans relâche, la grêle
De grains rebondissants fouette la vitre frêle !
Que la bise d’hiver se fatigue à gémir !
Qu’importé ? n’ai-je pas un feu clair dans mon âtre,
Sur mes genoux un chat qui se joue et folâtre,
Un livre pour veiller, un fauteuil pour dormir ?

>>16808896
bump and post storm related poems if you know any

>>16808896
nobody have any opinions on the poems?

this >>16809025 and also "The Sea" by Zhukovsky

>>16809811
that is a great poem, this bit is especially beautiful

Чeм дышит твoя нaпpяжeннaя гpyдь?
Иль тянeт тeбя из зeмныя нeвoли
Дaлeкoe cвeтлoe нeбo к ceбe?..
Taинcтвeннoй, cлaдocтнoй пoлнoe жизни,
Tы чиcтo в пpиcyтcтвии чиcтoм eгo:
Tы льeшьcя eгo cвeтoзapнoй лaзypью,
Beчepним и yтpeнним cвeтoм гopишь,
Лacкaeшь eгo oблaкa зoлoтыe
И paдocтнo блeщeшь звeздaми eгo.

the last line is particularly impressive

>>16809953
yeah, this fragment always gets me too. I'd even say the whole poem is sort of musical in a way: this part in particular reads like a crescendo, because Zhukovsky avoids getting overly emotional via pointless exclamations and gradual introduction of more sophisticated imagery (which he sustains as extremely profound and beautiful from the first verse to the very last) and just makes it sing louder instead. It's a shame he still remains relatively obscured by his contemporaries, especially in foreign countries, because this poem alone is a real masterpiece and so are the rest of his selected works, with Svetlana and the poem on Pushkin's death being my personal favourites

>>16810085
In the English speaking world we tend to ignore anything before Pushkin, even though Zhukovsky outlived him he is still seen as a 'pre-Pushkin' poet.

What do you think of his translation of the Odyssey?

>>16810345
>What do you think of his translation of the Odyssey
It's kind of obsolete, and Zhukovsky also localised it way too hard imo, but I think it still remains the best. There's also Gnedich's and Versaev's translations, but the former is too pompous and the latter is too easy-going, although I guess say it's somewhat more accurate. So I'd say that among these three Zhukovsky's is still the most poetic one.

O' great-souled one—Lay your ambrosium on me.
Let the shimmers of the great white pour down from beyond.
That pure viscosity, never intrusive but always in motion.
Those virile waters, salty—Oh, how I crave them so.
Refreshing embrace.
Sweep me away, O' great-souled one.

>>16810572
what is this lol

here is a bit from a longer Rossetti poem:

We oped our curtains, to resume
Sun-sickness after long sick gloom,
The withering sea-wind walked the room. 700
Through the gaunt windows the great gales
Bore in the tattered clumps
Of waif-weed and the tamarisk-boughs;
And sea-mews, ’mid the storm’s carouse,
Were flung, wild-clamouring, in the house. 705
“My hounds I had not; and my hawk,
Which they had saved for me,
Wanting the sun and rain to beat
His wings, soon lay with gathered feet;
And my flowers faded, lacking heat.

>>16810345
EFLs are disgusting
Diediediedie

>>16811395
ok but do you know any poems related to the thread theme, you can post them in whatever language you like

His brother Neptune with his waves was faine to doe him ease:
Who straight assembling all the streames that fall into the seas,
And to the Sea with flowing streames yswolne above their bankes,
One rolling in anothers necke, they rushed forth by rankes.
Himselfe with his threetyned Mace, did lend the earth a blow,
That made it shake and open wayes for waters forth to flow.
The flouds at randon where they list, through all the fields did stray,
Men, beastes, trees, come, and with their gods were Churches washt away.
If any house were built so strong, against their force to stonde
Yet did the water hide the top: and turrets in that ponde
Were overwhelmde: no difference was betweene the sea and ground,
For all was sea: there was no shore nor landing to be found.
Some climbed up to tops of hils, and some rowde to and fro
In Botes, where they not long before, to plough and Cart did go,
One over come and tops of townes, whome waves did overwhelme,
Doth saile in ship, an other sittes a fishing in an Elme.
In meddowes greene were Anchors cast (so fortune did provide)
And crooked ships did shadow vynes, the which the floud did hide.
And where but tother day before did feede the hungry Gote,
The ugly Seales and Porkepisces now to and fro did flote.
The Sea nymphes wondred under waves the townes and groves to see,
And Dolphines playd among the tops and boughes of every tree.

>>16811513
very nice, that's Ovid?

>>16811380
>what is this lol
Ode to the Coomer

bumping my failed thread

does not a single person on this board care about these poems, they are some of the best