Another poem with the word 'token' - this time by the Dutch poet Menno Wigman

DON’T REST

Heaven consults no bible, and no star

spells the koran. But the good reader sees

each token as a blessing from on high.

Once you have visited a skinflint’s pad.

He wasn’t bad, poured draughts of air, served stones

and gladly toasted all his charms away.

Once you have shared drinks with a millionaire.

His laugh was loud, his gaze was solid, as

the money was that paid his fancy’s bill.

Don’t rest. Don’t rest until your pocket burns

with stars of granite. Lead your bank a dance.

Squander away. Follow your fancy. See

each token as a blessing from on high.

One of mine this time, also in Danish translation

BRUSSEL SPROUTS

tailing brussels

ma sliced off just enough

for the outer leaves

darker and more bitter

to be easily removed

that done

she made a quick cut

across each base

then another

the sign of the cross

why the cuts? i asked

to make sure they cook

to perfection

said ma

whenever i tail

at the sign of the cross

ma comes alive

she does this

in remembrance of me

ROSENKÅL

ma skar lige tilpas

af roden på rosenkål

så at de ydre blade

mørkere og mere bitre

lettere kunne fjernes

når dette var gjort

lagde hun et hurtigt snit

tværs over hver flade

og så endnu et

i form af et kors

hvorfor snittene? spurgte jeg

for at sikre at de bliver

perfekt kogte

sagde ma

hver gang jeg skærer roden

i form af et kors

bliver ma levende

dette gør hun

til min ihukommelse

A poem by the Dutch poet P.C. Boutens

RAINBOW

To J. Th. Toorop
after having seen the crayon drawing of the same name

You who the coloured splendour of the East
Exalted in our paler Northern sun,
Until our joy-infatuated eyes
Gleam after gleam once more gained from your eyes;
You who pursued with keenly whetted point
The silent symbol’s tautly vaulting grace,
The blatant power: of gesture hard at work;
That caught the earthly star of childlike face,
Whose rays our quivering emotion saw,
In the sure stroke of pure artistic line, –
You came, oh happy pilgrim, to my land,
My blond-duned Zealand island, as it lies
Forever for me in the mystic gleam
Of all the many suns that this life brings,
Youth and both joy and pain, and once more joy?...
This is the inner country of my dream;
For all horizons shimmer in the gleam
Of summer evening, and the foreground lies
In fleeting shadow of a shower just past
Through which God’s radiant arc bends to the earth:
A young man whets his brightly flashing scythe,
And next him stock-still in the evening light:
A country maid aglow with red as by the dream
In which she lives and cannot comprehend.

Another poem by the Dutch poet Jacques Bloem

RAIN AND MOONLIGHT

The summer night will soon pale into morning;

As yet no trace of light invades the skies.

Only the rain’s small voice before the dawning

That at my open window sighs.

Though bed was sought to ease life’s long chastising

By one who longs for sleep when earth confines,

I seem to feel a lighter joy arising

Because the moon so brightly shines.

Oh restlessness on days when sun is hateful,

Oh roads on which one suffers dust’s fierce bite,

Who after lethargy and fear would not feel grateful

At such a perfect light?

All that I have withheld while life was calling,

A yearning without form and without name,

Has now turned into warm rain that is falling

Outside a silver pane.

A poem from 'The Landholder' by the Dutch poet Tonnus Oosterhoff

The water began to feel ashamed

of what it was and had always done.

On behalf of everyone a fish came to the land

to come to an arrangement.

The fish straightened its back:

‘Folks: three wishes.’

The shore was empty, only the shells

had the form of caps with ear-flaps under them.

The crafty creature had to stop itself from laughing.

I can promise what I like, it thought.

This won’t cost me a farthing. History hasn’t even begun yet.

I ought to be getting back through the breakers.

Or shall I stay here for a bit? After all, I’m dry now.

I mean it’s great, that sea breeze.

A poem on a familiar theme by the Dutch writer Gerrit Komrij

NOLI ME TANGERE

Verse is just ballast. Make it disappear.

You can demolish it if by some code

You cause a bomb (beneath the part that’s there)

Or landmine (in the last line) to explode.

Make sure you light the fuse. A pious hope.

There is no bomb. Yet you’re obliged, yes, come

What may, to swell the verse to its full scope.

Only beyond a slalom lurks the bomb.

At such a point, why do you not resist,

Stop fiddling with it, let it go, desist?

The cord is cut. Yet still you would persist.

A poem must be round to not exist.

Today's translation is of a poem by the Danish writer Pia Tafdrup

MY MOTHER’S HAND

Immerse myself in a drop’s still light

and recollect how I came into being:

A pencil put into my hand,

my mother’s cool hand round mine, which was hot.

- And then we wrote

in and out of coral reefs,

an underwater alphabet of curves and points,

of snail spirals, of starfish arms,

of flailing octopus tentacles,

of cave vaults and cliff formations.

Letters that quivered and found their way

dizzily across the whiteness.

Words like flatfish that flapped

and burrowed into the sand

or sea anemones with hundreds of strands

gently swaying in unison.

Sentences like streams of fish

that gained fins and began to rise,

gained wings and moved with a steady rhythm,

throbbing like my blood, which blindly

threw stars against the heart’s night sky,

when I saw that her hand had let go of mine,

that I long since had written myself free of her grasp.

Two poems by the Dutch poet Peter van Lier

HORSE JOY (I)

Still

standing it persists as a

staying in clusters, munching at grass as

a happy whinnying that causes tails to swish: nothing

exceptional, it could be said,

until –

the farmer with the forage bin on his back (‘giddy-up’)

turns up, recognised already by every horse at a distance

as a

forerunner of what every horse’s heart is longing

for: end of period working at a trot; away with the concentrates,

        ‘luscious farting on sorrel and clover’?

HORSE JOY (II)

Lying,

back to back, in clusters,

‘something a horse rarely indulges in!’,

is seen by farmers as a high point of agrarian existence,

even to such an extent

that –

in many a country marriage

the decision’s

taken that ‘the small hoofs (‘gee-up’)

must kick the air just one more time’,

especially after that long period of darkness: full of deep silence and

        labour of sweating horses.

Some thoughts on translating sonnets into English from Germanic languages

I have tried to put down some general thoughts about this, using Natur und Kunst by Goethe as an example. For the .pdf file, go to here

To see how 16th sonneteers translated/mutated Petrarch, there are examples of sonnets by Wyatt, Surrey and Sir Philip Sydney here

A translation of Goethe's sonnet about nature and art

Natur und Kunst, sie scheinen sich zu fliehen

Natur und Kunst, sie scheinen sich zu fliehen

Und haben sich, eh man es denkt, gefunden;

Der Widerwille ist auch mir verschwunden,

Und beide scheinen gleich mich anzuziehen.

Es gilt wohl nur ein redliches Bemühen!

Und wenn wir erst in abgemeßnen Stunden

Mit Geist und Fleiß uns an die Kunst gebunden,

Mag frei Natur im Herzen wieder glühen.

So ists mit aller Bildung auch beschaffen:

Vergebens werden ungebundne Geister

Nach der Vollendung reiner Höhe streben.

Wer Großes will, muß sich zusammenraffen;

In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister,

Und das Gesetz nur kann uns Freiheit geben.

Nature and art, they seem to shun each other

Nature and art, they seem to shun each other

Yet in a trice can draw back close once more;

The aversion’s gone too that I felt before,

Both equally attract me, I discover.

An honest effort’s all that we require!

Only when we’ve assigned art clear-cut hours,

With full exertion of our mental powers,

Is nature free our hearts once more to inspire.

Such is the case with all forms of refinement:

In vain will spirits lacking due constraint

Seek the perfection of pure elevation.

He who’d do great things must display restraint;

The master shows himself first in confinement,

And law alone can grant us liberation.

Goethe sees nature and art as apparently opposing forces, like magnets that repel each other, only to be attracted to each other again. In the poet, apparent aversion is a stage that is now past – he sees no real opposition between the two.

The basic human path of personal development (Bildung) is seen as being from the freedom of nature (the innocence of childhood) through willing subjection to the rigours of art to a higher form of (adult) freedom. This is a highly common theme in Romantic poetry, for example. Opposed to this is the idea of the human spirit being unwilling to subject itself to the law of art, of choosing licence instead of working for freedom. But this inability to bind oneself cannot lead to any real form of emancipation or liberation. For the true aim of personal development is to attain ‘the perfection of pure elevation’. Belief in the supreme power of individual genius, of unbridled imagination - the fundamentalist side of Romanticism - is rejected in the poem.

English has no one term that can satisfactorily translate ‘Bildung’. It has many meanings, but one of the crucial ones is personal ‘forming’ or ‘shaping’. It can also refer to the result of this process. 

Note that Goethe does not use the word 'Kultur' - this operates at a higher level than the individual.

The basic message of the poem is that you have to observe the laws, gain mastery of them, before you are allowed to go beyond them. Goethe is well over his 'Sturm und Drang' phase. The poem was written in 1800.

For a very different translation of the same poem, I would refer you to that of David Luke.

Two Danish 'rosebud' poems - by Ambrosius Stub (1705-58) and Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75)

You rosebud sweet and fair

        You rosebud sweet and fair!

Close to, let me inspect you!

Each man must needs respect you,

        In you all nature’s art

        And splendour dwell apart;

Each petal’s coloured feather

Leaves us uncertain whether

        Apparel neat and trim

        Says more than splendour’s whim:

A maze where coloured petals –

In paths where each unsettles –

        Add fragrance to the air;

        You rosebud sweet and fair!

        Today, alas, you’re gone,

But yesterday with pleasure

I viewed your thorn-borne treasure;

        I plucked you, whereupon

        Today, alas, you’re gone.

Your bright shades fade and pall

Your dull red tells me all

        Your glory is but brief

        Your beauty held in fief;

You jewel of nature’s crown,

Where now is your fine gown?

        Your blossoming is done,

        Today, alas, you’re gone.

        Come, Phyllis, come and see

My rose does now invite you;

Your beauty won’t requite you;

        Come, Phyllis, come and see!

        Your image view quite freely!

All that’s a source of pleasure

Cheeks crimson beyond measure,

        That mouth, its honeyed ploy

        Those eyes, their sparkling joy

That neat body, those neat hands

That every favour do command

        Do fade; come, Phyllis, see

        Your image view quite freely!

        One beauty outlasts others –

When all else only withers –

And years and age outweathers,

        And gains eternal vales

        One beauty never fails.

Virtue, Phyllis, its name,

Seek it ere time’s no claim!

        And that a spirit true

        May dwell as is its due,

Live but to praise your maker

In virtue be its taker!

        So when all else does wither,

        Your beauty lasts forever.

THE ROSEBUD

Rosebud, ever firm and round,

Like a young girl’s lips so sound!

When I kiss you, as my bride,

lovelier still you open wide.

One more kiss your lips inspire -

        feel my heart’s fire!

I must straightway have confessed:

No lips have I ever kissed!

No girl waits with heart so true,

rose, my kiss must be for you!

Ah, my yearning ne’er will tire -

        feel my heart’s fire!

With each kiss you gain a song,

when as dust you lie ere long,

may the song recall to view

no one kissed me, none but you.

Your kiss only is love’s lyre -

        feel my heart’s fire!

Denmark’s daughters, at my grave,

say for every song I gave:

‘Him indeed should kisses sate!’

Well said, truly, but too late -

While I live reward me higher.

        Kiss me on fire!

A poem by the Dutch poet K. Schippers

Shavings

On a classroom cupboard

stood a globe

under it I placed

a pencil sharpener

in the form of

a globe

and so I recall

my worlds when I

see the star-shavings

in the sky.

Another poem by the Swedish poet Lars Gustafsson

The eel and the well

In old Scania there was a custom:

Young eels from the sea were let down

into the black depths of the wells.

These eels then spent their entire lives

imprisoned in the darkness of the deep wells.

They keep the water crystal-clear and clean.

When on occasions the well-eel comes up,

white, frighteningly large, caught in the pail,

blind and coiling in and out

of its body’s enigmas, unaware,

everyone hurries to submerge it again.

I often feel myself as being

not only in the well-eel’s stead

but well and eel at the same time.

Imprisoned in myself, but this self

already something else. I exist there.

And wash it clean with my twisting,

miry, white-bellied presence in the darkness.

Four poems by the Dutch poet Anna Enquist

January

I Between fires

II Between banks

III Between languages

IV Between times

January

I Between fires

Of the two faces the night-edge;

I drove off with her past blazing Easter bonfire,

twilight deepened, we bathed in my impatience,

her rotten temper, making for tasks, lists,

for longings and the wall against which they

smash to pieces. For home. Her elbow

bolted the door. No word from her. We blew

blue smoke into the car. She looked aside, saw

two swans flatten down the grass

before settling to sleep together.

We stood still at express train speed, I heard

her slowly sigh, air left her

and we floated past the fires in the evening,

smoking, there was no escaping.

II Between banks

January says forward, at night, and the car lisps

over asphalt past bends as of a young river.

Next to you the empty seat with the child with no driving licence

older than she ever was, serious profile, this out of the corner of your eye.

Look ahead, a view of black, on the motorway

a meander round an armpit of mystery; rain

quiveringly catches the headlights. Tree trunks glisten

on both sides, between them the glittering teeth of the wolf

that greedily gobbles up the wormwood and honey

of her middle years, without tasting. You will never see

her wrinkles, you have to make do without her sniffing and singing,

revulsion and bliss. Without. You steer through the night,

stretch your hand out to the right and grope in familiar,

in bitter emptiness. Forward, it is January.

III Between languages

How can you translate that life full of pace and tumult,

those cries and sighs into a standstill?

Irrefutable, a work of art, a flaming

goldfish caught in glass. It begins with the photos,

hardened in their frames. Then: what she no longer

takes up, crockery, the dresses

small debris in her bag. After six years even the

language of loss must be transposed, you reach

for the dictionary, search

for the stationary image. A table,

anywhere in the world, three places laid

and one empty chair. That pitiful emblem

of longing is, after translation, merely

present, the dream of occupation over.

IV Between times

In the present she cannot breathe, not stay among

the faces. We write what is called future.

In the car the daughter’s DNA crumbles

in hairs and flakes of skin. The mother steers

with stiff hands from pillar to post. Violence

goes without saying. Coat dry-cleaned and straight back.

She cannot long, not even for a jaw-line,

a strand of hair. She lives in the speed of the vehicle,

an orchestra whimpers. Then silence. A four-part

choir clears a path to her ear, destroys

her face, wrenches her hand from the wheel

to the radio knob, but it lasts and lasts;

she is a sculpture, she does not reach or touch but

can finally yearn and dream of fire.

Poem by the Dutch writer Rogi Wieg

DAMMIT

During the day I often sleep,

like Proust, although at night I am not

working on a temps perdu, but keep on sleeping.

‘No closer to the gods can any mortal rise.’*

Do you by sleeping get closer

to the gods than by creating?

Dammit, it would seem to look like it!

And after all gods too occasionally sleep. They have

devised the laws of the curved universe

and then have started snoring: that’s the background noise

of the Big Bang.

The gods are lying on their backs, sides or stomachs

with their eyes closed letting the universe do the work.

I do not want to work but be there with the gods.

* The physicist Edmund Halley dedicated these words to his friend
Isaac Newton

A poem by the Danish poet Michael Strunge (1958-86)

The Machinery of Night

Slowly the night is charged by the city’s lights.

The star buttons blink

and on the moon-screen the first images can be seen.

Oh, I am lulled as on a steamer,

a heavy express train through the dark,

fly high in the Machinery of Night.

The clouds of dream-steam

whisper whitely to the earth.

The Machinery of Night works away, absorbing human souls.

The dark is packed tight with a buzz of energy...

I am at a concert in the Machinery of Rock.

The week’s survivors crowd around the small stage

the air is hot with music.

We are in trance and urge

transcending

the boundaries beween the sexes,

between dimensions of reality,

dancing in trance-formations

somewhere in the sleeping city.

We are exhausted little angels

with wings of future-song,

with the child in our blood and a fag in our mug.

Our skin is of the frailest dream

and our hearts gleam brighter than neon.

We’ve been blighted by the harsh lights of day,

bleeding pink snow,

speared by newspaper headlines.

We are a part of the Machinery of Night

transform fear into friendship.

We wear our brains with pride

exchange dreams and cigarettes,

fill ourselves with ecstasy and music

change sex and masks...

Later we go home our separate ways

pass through the Machinery of Night with new identities

along publicly determined routes.

Large black lumps of sleep fall

from the oil-sky into our eyes.

We fall asleep as single-cell organisms

from the time when the earth was sea.