Poetic-Verses from ATHANASE
Haibun For A Sleeping Prince (English)
See, my beloved Prince, how the air curls in upon itself then bounds forward again towards these hills covered with fresh violets. The air, my magnificent Prince, can't resist the gently flowing landscape of this region! Just as the lyre, my adored Prince, has its own range, timbre and its own harmonies, just as its high keening momentarily shakes our being to its depths and its solemn music presses itself upon our ears with the force of exaltation and stays a long time in the depths of our souls, thus too, our hearts, with their massive tremors, have their own manifold spiritual qualities.
My beloved Prince, are you listening to me? Dear distracted Prince, you're still trying to seize the inner colour of everything you see! O, my Prince, walking in the summer light, do you recall, Master, the poem called The Lady Of The Red Carnations, that, when you were still small, you couldn't hear without weeping warm tears on my breast?
'I have made, from an armful of daffodils, a crown for my Knight
and sewn, from this broad silk more delicate than the petals of a spring pansy,
a generous robe, a floating robe to dress him for his final voyage!
O gods in heaven, now I am entrusting to you
the radiant body of my Prince fallen for ever asleep!'
translated from the French of Athanase Vantchev de Thracy by Norton Hodges
06.10.05.
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Haibun For A Sleeping Prince (English)
Haibun For A Sleeping Prince (English)
