Transliteration into English Quatrain Verse © by Richard Vallance 2003. All Rights Reserved, not to be copied in any form whatsoever. To be published in the Winter 2003-2004 issue of SONNETTO POESIA, Vol. 3, no. 1 [ISSN 1705-4524] & in the December, 2003 issue of Poetry Life & Times (UK), and in other online and print journals.
Illustration: Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869)
Alphonse de Lamartine's Response to Jules de Rességuier
No, your suave harmony
over all my senses pours,
wafting incense over me,
Poet, only yours.
Am I the flautist's breeze
a blade of grass breaks,
echoed by plains to trees,
least voice lost to lakes?
Whose voice in the temple pings
off each and every column
and who is the harpist sings
psalms as divine as solemn?
Am I the merest sighs
The harpist's chords invent?
Or is Harmony his prize
I play, instrument?
Indexed to anthologies,
My heart sings off your pages,
where music plays on mysteries
my soul to yours engages.
The poet's lucent soul
resembles urns of yore
where I've found your alms
my treasure, our rapport.
Is this crown of roses ours
your hands drew round the lyre?
What claims lay I on flowers
My Friend's Love inspires?
Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869)
Transliteration into English Quatrain Verse
© by Richard Vallance 2003
Réponse de M. A. de Lamartine à M. Jules de Rességuier
Non, cette suave harmonie
Qui dompte et caresse tes sens,
Poète, n'est pas mon génie;
Tu 'embaumes de ton encens!
Je ne suis que la folle brise
qui court sur la plaine et les bois,
Souffle d'air que chaque herbe brise,
Et qui, par lui-même, est sans voix.
Mais s'il rencontre dans l'enceinte
Des vieux temples aux vents ouverts,
Près de l'autel la harpe sainte,
On entend de divins concerts.
Je suis cette haleine qui joue
Sur la harpe à l'accord dormant.
Est-ce donc la brise qu'on loue,
ou l'harmonieux instrument?
Je suis le doigt et toi le livre,
Mon coeur te révèle le tien,
Mais chaque note qui t'enivre,
C'est ton encens et non le mien.
Ton coeur sonore de poète
est semblable à ces urnes d'or,
Où la moindre aumône qu'on jette
Résonne comme un grand trésor!
Des fleurs qu'à nos lyres tu donnes
Nous ne prenons que la moitié,
Mais les roses de nos couronnes,
Tu les parfumes d'amitié!
Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869)
This is as fine and fair bouquet as I
Could gather from my garden, May's delight:
If these roses were not cut as soon, sigh,
For down they would have fallen in the night.
May this Love's fairest lesson be that you,
Lovely as you be, fade as fast as day,
As fairness fades to dusk's sallowest blue
When we with fairest roses flit away.
Times flies by, flies on, oh my fondest Love,
Alas, time flies! We must as soon depart
As the scythe sweeps our cherished lives apart.
And ah! -- this newfound Love of ours we share
In lively conversations, comes of age:
And so, I pray you, love me while you're fair.
Translation into English Sonnet
© by Richard Vallance, 2003
César, calme César, le pied sur toute chose,
Les poings durs dans la barbe, et l'oeil sombre peuplé
D'aigles et des combats du couchant contemplé,
Ton coeur s'enfle, et se sent toute-puissante cause.
Le lac en vain palpite et lèche sa rose;
En vain d'or précieux brille sur le jeune blé;
Tu durcis dans les noeuds de ton corps rassemblé
L'ordre, qui doit enfin fendre ta bouche close.
L'ample monde, au delà de l'immense horizon,
L'Empire attend l'éclair, le décret, le tison
Qui changeront le soir en furieuse aurore.
Heureux là-bas sur l'onde, et bercé du hasard,
Un pêcheur indolent qui flotte et chante, ignore
Quelle foudre s'amasse au coeur de César.
par Paul Valéry,
(1871-1945)
How calmly, Caesar, does your Eagle eye
Survey your entire Empire, how calmly
You meditate over long Victory
Over your gold heart, brighter than the sky!
Have you no use for sunsets over lakes
Glancing on golden ears of precious wheat?
No, yours is one Order a sealed heart stakes
Rome’s Fate on, one command you shan’t repeat!
The whole wide World, beyond your horizon,
Not Rome, awaits one Decree! — for lightning
To smash your dusk into fire-branded dawn.
Somewheres, on some lake, some fisherman sings
In his skiff lulling in such quiet waves:
How can he know how Caesar’s lightning stings?
© by Richard Vallance, 2002
Previously published in Canadian Spirit Voices. Please click banner below to purchase.
