Poetic-Verses from ATHANASE
The Cypresses of Agay (English)
The Cypresses of Agay
To Béatrice
“I have grown old from waiting, truth to tell”
Odysseus Elytis
The cypresses bear aloft their tops,
A living road between light and leaf-mould.
A song of immemorial age, the offering of a summer's day,
A day inexhaustibly clear,
Sends a shiver through their branches,
Whence falls upon your spray-covered face
The softness of a silken evening.
O how all is visible for him who knows how to love:
The blue and pink volubilis, the angels,
The hesitant lines of thought,
The smiles of the gods, the essence of the soul!
By the way in which the nearby waves glitter
I divine that the orioles of the garden
Have gifted their frail voices to the twilight!
Then appears a house full of noise,
A welcoming dwelling, erected as a cathedral of joy!
At the far end of the bay dissolve
The harmonious slopes of the hinterland.
Impassioned, I press my heart against your hands,
That there may appear between us, whole and vast,
The peace of green mulberries;
That, having become a thousand-year-old murmuring,
Our names may never die!
Athanase Vantchev de Thracy
Poem translated from the French by Peter Hill
To Béatrice
“I have grown old from waiting, truth to tell”
Odysseus Elytis
The cypresses bear aloft their tops,
A living road between light and leaf-mould.
A song of immemorial age, the offering of a summer's day,
A day inexhaustibly clear,
Sends a shiver through their branches,
Whence falls upon your spray-covered face
The softness of a silken evening.
O how all is visible for him who knows how to love:
The blue and pink volubilis, the angels,
The hesitant lines of thought,
The smiles of the gods, the essence of the soul!
By the way in which the nearby waves glitter
I divine that the orioles of the garden
Have gifted their frail voices to the twilight!
Then appears a house full of noise,
A welcoming dwelling, erected as a cathedral of joy!
At the far end of the bay dissolve
The harmonious slopes of the hinterland.
Impassioned, I press my heart against your hands,
That there may appear between us, whole and vast,
The peace of green mulberries;
That, having become a thousand-year-old murmuring,
Our names may never die!
Athanase Vantchev de Thracy
Poem translated from the French by Peter Hill
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The Cypresses of Agay (English)
The Cypresses of Agay (English)