Hans Christian Andersen: 'Længsel med Potterne'

 

Længsel med Potterne.

 

“Lad Fovlen flyv’ 

Lad Taagen dryv“ –

           Sallingboe Hyrdesang

 

Hist hvor man kun seer Lyngen groe,

Der laves Jydepotter jo!

Der laves store, laves smaa,

Paa Vognen snart de pakked’ staae,

Og see, med Potter rigt begavet,

Den reiser langveis over Havet.

 

Ak see, nu kjører den afsted!

Og Pottefaderen er med;

Hans lille Dreng ved Døren staaer,

Med nødbrun Kind og gule Haar,

Han seer paa Vognen, som nu kjører,

Og sært det i hans Bryst sig rører.

 

Han føler, nei, han veed ei hvad!

Med Potterne han reise gad,

At see Soldater, Skov og By,

Med Kirketaarne høit mod Sky;

Ja Havet med de stærke Strømme,

Og Alt, hvad han kun saae i Drømme.

 

 

Longing with the pots

 

‘Let birds now fly,

Let mists drift by’ –

           Sallingbo Shepherd’s song

 

There from where heather’s everywhere,

Comes all the black pot earthenware!

Both large and small pots, finely blacked

Up on the wagon soon are stacked,

And look, the full load sets in motion,

It’s off to journey o’er the ocean.

 

Oh look, it soon will fade from view!

The potter’s seated up there too;

His young boy from the door just stares,

With nutbrown-cheeks and bright blond hair,

Sees the wagon that’s now leaving,

Feels his breast so strangely heaving.

 

Just what he feels he does not know!

He gladly with the pots would go

To gaze at soldiers, woods and towns

With soaring church towers as their crowns;

The sea too, with strong currents swirling,

And all he’s but in dreams seen whirling.

 

Marie Dauguet: 'Au village'

 

Au village

 

L’odeur tiède du pain flottait en longs sillages,

Partout le soir muet et cette odeur de four

Seulement qui planait sur les toits du village,

Tel un vol étoupé et velouté d’autour.

 

La corde déroulée au puits vert de bardane,

Le cliquetis léger, le seau qu’on détachait,

Puis rien, absolument qu’un parfum qui s’émane

De l’onde remuée où la nuit sommeillait.

 

Rien, l’odeur du fumier, l’odeur douce de l'étable,

Encens qui monte et fuit à travers le ciel bleu,

Reposante, silencieuse, délectable,

Dormant au bord des seuils, par les sentiers poudreux.

 

Rien que les clapotis assourdis de la mare,

Grise de vase et jaune et par plaques d’acier,

Que le soleil couchant bariole et chamarre,

Où les bœufs languissants viennent tremper leurs pieds.

 

Rien, la saveur au loin d’une rose qui dresse

Sa blancheur de lait pur quelque part sous les cieux

Et qui touche le cœur comme une main caresse,

Comme un triste baiser se posant sur les yeux.

 

 

In the village

 

The lukewarm smell of bread floated in drawn-out threads,

In evening’s silence nothing but this oven smell

That over village roofs hovered just overhead,

In caulked and velvet flight without a place to dwell.

 

The uncoiled rope beside the well now burdock green,

The clinking sounds, the bucket taken off its hook,

Then simply nothing but a scent that rose unseen

From stirred-up water where night slept in its quiet nook.

 

Nothing, the muck heap’s smell, the stable’s soft smell too,

A rising incense fleeing into deep-blue sky,

A resting, quiet smell, delectable as few,

Sleeping outside house doors, on paths now dusty dry.

 

Nothing but muffled lapping coming from the pond, 

Muddy grey and yellow with blotches like steel sheet,

Which the slow-setting sun adorns and daubs upon,

And where the languid cattle come to dip their feet.

 

Nothing, far off the faint trace somewhere of a rose

Raising up milk-white purity beneath the skies,

Touching the heart like a caressing hand one knows,

Like a sad kiss that’s softly planted on one’s eyes.

 

Hans Christian Andersen: 'Hvile paa Heden' (1831)

 

A Stop on the Heath

 

- - - The naked heath

Which is its own border - -

               Grundtvig

 

Sorrowful, sweeping lies there before us

The sable-brown heath;

A single juniper bush stands out light-green

Amongst all the heather.

Round are strewn hummocks and hills

Which, like a high ridge, run through the landscape.

Though at each slope,

And even each wheel rut

Hard ochre subsoil protrudes.

We seem to be gliding over a planet that lies

Extinct beneath us; a grieving grave;

The full moon though gleams bright in the deep-blue sky

Where the strangely shaped cloud

Glides away as if swimming mountains.

All is so silent!

All that one hears is the carriage wheels scraping

Deep in the sand of the road,

The passengers though sit silent, wrapped in cloaks,

For the wind from the west is keen

Over desolate, sable-brown heath.

 

Here a house lies –

Alone, in desolate countryside,

Ramshackle, stunted;

Just like a wreck in a motionless sea,

It stands there before us.

 

In loose night attire

The housewife emerges;

An ugly woman, old and brown;

Her tattered skirt hangs shabbily

Round her pointed, bony thighs.

She quickly lights a fire of dried heather;

See her puffing, the smoke

Swirling jet-black into the air,

And the flame casting its reddish gleam

Onto her thin, wrinkled face.

 

We set up camp outside the house,

Make our arrak punch and sit there like gods,

Proudly, on the sable-brown, slumbering earth

That sails with the moon in the sky.

After a while the old woman grins and sips

The punch she is given, and talks

Of The Spanish, who were here

During the years of the war;

How the foreign visitors no one understood

Set up camp out here on the heath;

How often they wept like children

And spoke of their homes:

Then danced and pranced on moonlit evenings

And sang their strange native songs,

Far from home, alone,

On the desolate, sable-brown heath. –

 

Our meal over,

We sit on the carriage once more

And nod a farewell to the crone,

Who ghostlike gapes and nods in return.

 

But behind the door

A teenage girl peeps curiously out;

Looks at us in amazement, yawns and stretches

Her languorous, lovely limbs,

And the dress she has loosely slung round her

Slips from a well-formed shoulder

Revealing white marble out on the heath.

 

To see the original poem, go to here 

 

Friedrich Emil Rittershaus (1834-97): 'Sterben'

 

Sterben

 

Es darf im süßen Traum der Wonne,

Wenn Dir den Kranz die Freude flicht,

Nicht sinken Deine Lebenssonne,

Nicht löschen aus Dein Lebenslicht.

 

Sollst Du Dir ew’ge Ruh‘ erwerben,

So stirb zuvor Dein schönster Traum. –

Erst muss des Baumes Blüte sterben

Und dann erst stirbt der Blütenbaum.

 

 

Dying

 

In the sweet dream bliss is begetting

When joy its garland weaves for you,

You must your life’s sun keep from setting,

Your life’s light not let fade from view.

 

If you eternal rest would cherish,

Die ere you dream most wondrously. –

The tree’s flowers must be first to perish,

First later on the flowering tree.

 

Marie Dauguet: 'Le parfum des tilleuls'

 

Le parfum des tilleuls

 

Aux portes de la ferme où se taisent les dogues,

Sur le jardin, l’étable et le vieux puits dormant,

Le parfum des tilleuls s’étale obscurément;

De l’été survenant, c’est le divin prologue.

 

Le parfum des tilleuls en la nuit blonde vogue

Et pénètre les cœurs d’un tendre enchantement.

Dans le soir tiède et doux comme des bras d’amant,

Les chalumeaux du vent ont des langueurs d’églogue.

 

Tout s’émeut. On entend l'horizon haleter,

La terre sensuelle et lourde palpiter,

Que l'émoi des pollens féconds enthousiasme. 

 

Ma lèvre est appuyée à la lèvre des dieux,

Tant s’épanche, invincible, envahissant les cieux,

Une odeur de baisers, d’étreintes et de spasme.

 

 

The scent of lindens

 

At doorways of the farm, where mastiffs silent lie,

Over the garden, stable, old well fast asleep,

The scent of lindens vaguely spreads and seeks to creep;

Prologue divine of summer that will soon be nigh.

 

The scent of lindens and pale night now gently drift

And penetrate all hearts with mild enchanting charms.

In the warm gentle evening, as in a lover’s arms,

The wind-caught torches yearn with longing young and swift.

 

All is astir. One hears the skyline’s heaving girth,

The palpitating, sensual and heavy earth

Which potent pollens goad to mounting ecstacy.

 

My lips to lips of gods I firmly now apply,

So much pours out, invincible, invades the sky,

A reek of kisses, clasps and spasms smothers me.