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RAIN
As the rain falls
so does
your love
bathe every
open
object of the world--
In houses
the priceless dry
rooms
of illicit love
where we live
hear the wash of the
rain--
There
paintings
and fine
metalware
woven stuffs--
all the whorishness
of our
delight
sees
from its window
the spring wash
of your love
the falling
rain--
The trees
are become
beasts fresh-risen
from the sea--
water
trickles
from the crevices of
their hides--
So my life is spent
to keep out love
with which
she rains upon
the world
of spring
drips
so spreads
the words
far apart to let in
her love
And running in between
the drops
the rain
is a kind physician
the rain
of her thoughts over
the ocean
every
where
walking with
invisible swift feet
over
the helpless
waves--
Unworldly love
that has no hope
of the world
and that
cannot change the world
to its delight--
The rain
falls upon the earth
and grass and flowers
come
perfectly
into form from its
liquid
clearness
But love is
unworldly
and nothing
comes of it but love
following
and falling endlessly
from
her thoughts
At ten AM the young housewife
moves about in negligee behind
the wooden walls of her husband’s house.
I pass solitary in my car.
Then again she comes to the curb
to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands
shy, uncorseted, tucking in
stray ends of hair, and I compare her
to a fallen leaf.
The noiseless wheels of my car
rush with a crackling sound over
dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.
The first is translated by C. Cavanagh, the second by J. Trzeciak. I was reading David Lehman's, State of the Art, in which he compares these two translations. He writes:
“So profound is the difference that the concurrent appearance of the two translations seemed itself to constitute a literary event—an ambiguous parable that could yield lessons ranging from the familiar (‘“poetry is what is lost in translation’”) to the paradoxical (‘“poetry is mistranslation”).”
I never was attached to that great sect,
Whose doctrine is, that each one should select
Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend,
And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend
To cold oblivion, though it is the code
Of modern morals, and the beaten road
Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread,
By the broad highway of the world, and so
With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe,
The dreariest and the longest journey go.
Note: I've been reading David Lehman's The State of the Art. This poem was discussed in the chapter titled 2013 with the subtitle, "It was his poetry that kept him going." It begins with the sentence: "Shelley's 'Defense of Poetry' (1821) culminates in an assertion of poetry as a source not only of knowledge but of power.
I've been thinking about that. Poetry, a source of power.
"One hope within two wills, one will beneath
Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death,
One Heaven, one Hell, one immortality,
And one annihilation. Woe is me!
The winged words on which my soul would pierce
Into the height of Love's rare Universe,
Are chains of lead around its flight of fire—
I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!"
from the last lines Shelley's "Epipsychidion"
Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death,
One Heaven, one Hell, one immortality,
And one annihilation. Woe is me!
The winged words on which my soul would pierce
Into the height of Love's rare Universe,
Are chains of lead around its flight of fire—
I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!"
from the last lines Shelley's "Epipsychidion"
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning;
but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning;
but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more