POEME ROMÂNESTI ÎN LIMBI STRĂINE

 

 

Mihai EMINESCU

Along the Mateless Poplar Line

 

Along the mateless poplar line

Most often have I walked ;

Though all your neighbours knew my rhyme –

You knew not how I sobbed.

 

Many a time your glaring window

My profound pain relieved ;

The whole wide world would foreshadow –

You knew not how I grieved.

 

So many times I vainly waited

Your love whisper of reply !

I’d have cherished the day unabaited,

A day with you, then I may die ;

 

I wished one hour of tenderness,

Devoured by love’s delights,

Your small mouth soughing sweet caress

One hour, then come what might !

 

Had I wittingly been bestowed

A ray from your pure eyes,

It would have lit a star and glowed

To stand the coming times ;

 

You’d have lived sempiternally

Numberless strands of lives,

Your cold arms majestically

Rising from marble strives,

 

A peerless beauty I adored

As no more springs to the fore,

Like pagan fairies that softly loomed

In distant days of yore.

 

My love possessed desirous eyes,

Brimming with sweet torment,

Dawning from my forefathers’ skies

And their heartfelt lament.

No wonder now I give no thought

To your mateless poplar lane.

Your saddened searching eyes I care not,

Your treasured fairness is vain,

 

For now you match the fairish kind

In bearing and in guise,

While my impervious idle mind

Gives you but glacial eyes.

 

You should have hailed th’ enthralling charm,

Love’s sweet and sacred fire,

Lighting candles from the night’s psalm

To heavenly love empire.

 

 

When Branches...

 

When restless branches tap my pane

And rustling poplars tremble nightly,

It is to stop ruthless oblivion’s pain

And keep your gentle memory tightly.

 

When stars dreamily twinkle over the lake

Luminating its dark and abstruse shoals,

It is to soothe my heart’s burning ache

And pour serenity into my anguished soul.

 

When thick and vengeful clouds drift away

In the majestic brilliance of the full moon,

It is to make your cherished memory stay

For long ages that will never swoon.

 

 

 

Why Don’t You Come

 

Look, the barn swallows fly away,

The walnut tree sheds its leaves today,

The hoarfrost laces on grapevines dumb –

Why don’t you come, why don’t you come ?

 

Oh, return to my arm’s embrace,

Let my eyes delight in your face,

Let my head find sweet, grateful rest,

On your soft breast, on your soft breast !

 

Do you recall times when we strolled

Glens and glades and every hide we rolled,

How I would lift you in the air

Many a time, many a time, my flare ?

 

Our world brims with the graceful kind,

Dainty women – sparkling eyes and mind...

Charming though they might be,

They’re not like thee, they’re not like thee !

 

Since my soul of souls, now and forever,

Wraps in serenity’s feather,

More brilliant than the stars above,

You are my love, you are my love !

 

Late autumn days surrender soon,

The withered leaves scatter to their doom,

And bare roads and fields abandon hum...

Why don’t you come, why don’t you come ?

 

(English version: Gabriela PACHIA)