German update

Heartfelt Sigh - another 4x4 one

Heartfelt Sigh

on how

properly to try one’s heart

Heart of Jesus, to what trial

Am I to subject my heart?

What stern test or firm denial

Can make thee seek me apart?

Fire and water are too ghastly,

Trial by them let me forgo!

They torment the soul, and lastly

Shorten life’s path here below!

While, O Jesus, thou hast embers

Fanned by spirit’s mighty fire,

Plunge them in my heart’s both chambers

And burn out my sweet desire!

Ladle tears from my heart’s ewer

Into my eye’s penance-pail,

Try my heart, mouth, tongue, so truer

Fire and water then avail.

Time for a quick heart-felt sigh - from Kingo as usual

Heartfelt sigh

When I, O God, am out at sea

And foam-topped waves heave violently,

     ’Tis good to be recalling,

There is a sea within me too,

Deep in my heart’s core, dark of hue,

     Where mighty storms appalling

Do flash and crash both day and night,

All this though has been blocked from sight,

     So no one shall be learning

How all lies smould’ring in my breast,

How lava-like it’s upward pressed

     When I with rage am burning,

How I by worry’s storms am shook

In every vein’s most secret nook,

     How fear my mind keeps pelting,

How with my spirit blood makes free,

My pulse pecks at my hand with glee

     Till my heart’s all but melting!

Then salty tears I see can flow

From both my eyes, and they can show

     The spring whence they are jolting,

Their source lies hidden in my breast,

How salt it is, how sour, unblessed,

     And how its taste’s revolting!

O Jesu, I then sigh, I pray

This sea my life may not betray

     To force and cruel scheming:

If in a sea my life shall end,

Dear Jesu, let me death transcend

     In eyes from penance streaming.

                      AMEN

Heaney's 'A rowan like a lipsticked girl' in Danish

                      Sang

En rønn som en læbestiftsminket pige.

Mellem sidevejen og hovedvejen

Elletræer i våd, dryppende afstand

Står ud fra sivene.

Der er dialektens dyndblomster

Og immortellernes absolutte gehør

Og det øjeblik hvor fuglen synger helt tæt

På musikken af det der sker.

Anyone for a Rembrandt?

For a translation of an Eva Gerlach poem about a Rembrandt painting, go to here.

Poem by Ida Gerhardt (1905-97)

georgica

Labor improbus

Ik ben een tuinman, niets dan dat,

met aarde en met mest bespat;

ik buig mij neer, ik richt mij op,

ik klem de schoffel en de schop.

Ik wied, ik volg mijn diepste wet

als ik de naakte zaailing zet;

ik richt mij op, ik buig mij neer.

En tuinman ben ik en niets meer.

Ga ik met donker stram naar huis,

de pijn spaart schouderblad noch kruis.

Ik waak nog als ik rusten mag.

Mijn land, mijn land: het is kort dag.

Delft straks uw spa voor mij de wig,

vergeet waar ik geborgen lig.

Voorbij mijn moeite, nood en pijn

moet er een tuin van sterren zijn.

georgica

Labor improbus

I am a gardener, nothing more,

with earth and muck bespattered sore;

I stretch up tall, I bend down low

I tightly clasp my spade and hoe.

I weed, observe my deepest law

when planting seedlings frail and raw:

I bend down low, I stretch up tall.

A gardener am I, that is all.

I go home stiffly in the shade,

pain racks both groin and shoulder blade.

I still keep watch when rest I may.

My land, my land: brief is the day.

Prepare for me a wedge of ground,

forget where I lie safe and sound.

Past trouble, need and pain must be

a garden strewn with stars for me.