The HyperTexts

The Best Poetry Translations of Michael R. Burch, or, "How the Hell Did I End Up Translating Other People's Poetry?"

This page includes modern English translations of poetry written in following languages:

MOST ANCIENT

• Ancient Akkadian/Sumerian poems by Enheduanna, the first poet we know by name
• Ancient Chinese poems by Sui Hui, Tzu Yeh and other Female Chinese Poets
• Ancient Egyptian poems and Ancient Egyptian Harper's Songs
• Ancient Greek epigrams, epitaphs, hymns and poems by Sappho, Homer, Erinna, Hesiod, Euripides, Meleager, Pindar, Simonides, Sophocles, Ibycus, Plato and Antipater of Sidon
• Ancient Greek and Roman female poets including Anyte, Callo, Corinna, Erinna, Moero, Nossis, Sappho and Sulpicia
• Ancient Japanese poems by Ono no Komachi, a marvelous female poet comparable to Sappho for erotic love poetry, and Otomo no Sakanoue no Iratsume
• Ancient Latin poems by Aldhelm, Thomas Campion, Capito, Catullus, Cicero, Gildas, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Martial, Ovid, Petrarch, Seneca, Sulpicia and Virgil
• Ancient Mayan love poems by Anonymous Mayan Poets
• Ancient Old Norse poems
• Ancient Anglo-Saxon/Old English poems by Bede, Caedmon and Saint Godric of Finchale
• Anonymous Anglo-Saxon poems: Wulf and Eadwacer, The Ruin, The Seafarer, Deor's Lament, The Wife's Lament, The Husband's Message, Adam Lay Ybounden, Anglo-Saxon Riddles and Kennings and the first English rhyming poem
• Ancient Celtic poems: The Song of Amergin
• Middle English poems by Geoffrey Chaucer, William Dunbar, Charles d'Orleans and Layamon
• Medieval English poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt and other medieval poets

BY LANGUAGE

• Arabic/Palestinian poems by Mahmoud Darwish, Walid Khazindar, Nakba, Kamal Nasser, Fadwa Tuqan and Tawfik Zayyad
• Bengali poems by Rabindranath Tagore
• Chinese poems by Li Bai, Po Chu-I, Guan Daosheng, Huang E, Ji Dan (Duke of Zhou), Sui Hui, Xu Hui, Lin Huiyin, Li Qingzhao aka Li Ching-chao, Tzu Yeh, Zhai Yongming, Xu Zhimo and other Chinese Poets
• Esperanto poems by Jónas Kristján Einarsson aka Kristján frá Djúpalæk
• French poems by Charles Baudelaire, Charles d'Orleans, Victor Hugo, Stephane Mallarme, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Valery, Paul Verlaine, Renee Vivien and Voltaire
• German poems by Hermann Allmers, Hannah Arendt, Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Heinrich Heine, Johann Georg Jacobi, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Rainer Maria Rilke, Friedrich Schiller, Angelus Silesius, Georg Trakl
• Haiku and tanka by Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson, Fukuda Chiyo-ni, Kobayashi Issa, Eihei Dogen Kigen, Yamaguchi Seishi, Masaoki Shiki, Takaha Shugyo and other Japanese Poets
• Hindi poems by Kabir Das
• Hiroshima poems by Kurihara Sadako
• Holocaust poems by Hanna Arendt, Chaim Nachman Bialik, Bertolt Brecht, Paul Celan, Chaya Feldman, Erich Fried, Ber Horvitz, Primo Levi, Miklós Radnóti, Wladyslaw Szlengel, Ko Un, Miryam (Miriam) Ulinover and Itzhak (Yitzkhak) Viner
• Hungarian poems by Sandor Marai and Miklós Radnóti
• Icelandic poems by Jónas Kristján Einarsson aka Kristján frá Djúpalæk
• Indonesian poems by W. S. Rendra
• Indian/Bengali poems by Rabindranath Tagore
• Indian/Urdu poems by Jaun Elia, Mirza Ghalib, Gulzar and other Urdu poets
• Italian poems by Comasia Aquaro, Giacomo da Lentini, Dante, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Veronica Franco
• Japanese poems other than haiku and tanka by Kurihara Sadako and Otomo no Sakanoue no Iratsume
• Korean poems by Ko Un
• Kurdish poems by Kajal Ahmad
• Lebanese poems by Khalil Gibran
• Native American poems and proverbs
• Pakistani/Pashto poems by Abdul Ghani Khan aka Ghani Baba
• Persian poems by Rumi and Hafez
• Polish poems by Adam Mickiewicz
• Russian poems by Anna Akhmatova, Alexander Pushkin, Marina Tsvetaeva and Vera Pavlova
• Scottish poems by Hugh MacDiaramid, William Soutar, Robert Burns and William Dunbar
• Spanish poems by Federico Garcia Lorca, Pablo Neruda and Nicanor Parra Sandoval
• Tamil poems by Subramanya Bharathi and Gopalakrishna Bharati
• Turkish poems by Mehmet Akif Ersoy, Nazim Hikmet, Attila Ilhan and Yahya Kemal Beyatli
• Ukrainian poems by Taras Shevchenko, Natalka Bilotserkivets, Lina Kostenko and Mixa Kozimirenko
• Urdu poems by Jaun Elia, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ahmad Faraz, Mirza Ghalib, Rahat Indori, Allama Iqbal, Nasir Kazmi, Amir Khusrow, Majrooh Sultanpuri and other Urdu poets
• Uyghur poems by Perhat Tursun and other Uyghur Poets
• Vietnamese poems by Ho Xuan Huong

Note to editors, publishers, archivists and scholars: These are the most current and definitive versions of my translations and are to be preferred over versions found elsewhere.

For explanations of how he translates and why he calls his results "loose translations" and "interpretations" please click here: Michael R. Burch Translation Methods and Credits to Other Translators



ANCIENT GREEK AND LATIN EPIGRAMS, PART I

Euryalus, born of the blue-eyed Graces,
scion of the bright-tressed Seasons,
son of the Cyprian,
whom dew-lidded Persuasion birthed among rose-blossoms.
—Ibykos/Ibycus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mnemosyne was stunned into astonishment when she heard honey-tongued Sappho, wondering how mortal men merited a tenth Muse. — Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Warmthless beauty attracts but does not hold us; it floats like hookless bait. — Gaius Ateius Capito, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



If there was one thing I was damn sure I'd never do, it was translate poetry. Writing original poetry in one's native tongue is hard enough; only a masochist would attempt to translate someone else's poetry into other languages. And I sure as hell never dreamed of translating Anglo-Saxon or Ye Olde Englishe poems into modern English, because I had always found high-school- and college-enforced readings of "Beowulf" annoying. But something made me change my mind: the stunning poem below. I fell in love with it, but didn't care for any of the translations I was able to find. Hence I was forced to attempt the impossible, or, at least, the highly implausible!

Wulf and Eadwacer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My clan's curs pursue him like crippled game;
they'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
It is otherwise with us.

Wulf's on one island; I'm on another.
His island's a fortress, fastened by fens.    (fastened=secured)
Here, bloodthirsty curs howl for carnage.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
It is otherwise with us.

My hopes pursued Wulf like panting hounds,
but whenever it rained—how I wept!—
the boldest cur clutched me in his paws:
good feelings to a point, but the end loathsome!

Wulf, O, my Wulf, my ache for you
has made me sick; your seldom-comings
have left me famished, deprived of real meat.

Have you heard, Eadwacer? Watchdog!
A wolf has borne our wretched whelp to the woods.
One can easily sever what never was one:
our song together.

Was the first truly great poem of the English language written by a female scop, if “Wulf” predates “Beowulf”? What an earthy, down-and-dirty, brutally honest poem written from a female perspective about what sounds like war, a family being split apart, and perhaps rape, sex slavery and child abduction and/or infanticide. Much remains in doubt: did Wulf abduct the child, perhaps thinking the child was his, or did the mother, the rapist or the rapist's wife get rid of the child? In my opinion “Wulf” is one of the very best poems of the then-fledgling English language, so my translation seems like a worthwhile endeavor, especially if other people like what I've done.

More information about this ancient masterpiece and alternate translations can be read here: Wulf and Eadwacer



There was another ancient poem that vexed me because I didn't care for the translations I had read, and it was the English language's oldest extant poem:

Cædmon's Hymn
(Anglo-Saxon/Old English lyric circa 658 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now let us honour      heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
the might of the Architect      and his mind-plans,
the work of the Glory-Father.      First he, the Eternal Lord,
established      the foundation of wonders.
Then he, the Primeval Poet,      created heaven as a roof
for the sons of men,      Holy Creator,
Maker of mankind.      Then he, the eternal Lord,
afterwards made men middle-earth:      Master almighty!

"Cædmon's Hymn" was composed circa 658-680 AD, making it the oldest extant English poem. According to the Venerable Bede (673-735), Cædmon was an illiterate herdsman who was given the gift of poetic composition by an angel. In the original poem, hardly a word is recognizable as English because Cædmon was writing in a somewhat Anglicized form of ancient German. The word "England" harkens back to Angle-land; the Angles were a Germanic tribe. Nevertheless, by Cædmon's time the foundations of English poetry were being laid, particularly in the areas of accentual meter and alliteration. Poets were considered to be "Makers" (as in William Dunbar's "Lament for the Makaris"), and poetry was considered to have a divine origin, so the poem may express a sort of affinity between the poet and his God.

More information about the oldest English poem and alternate translations can be read here: Caedmon's Hymn



Bede's "Death Song" may have been composed by Bede on his deathbed. It is the most-copied Old English poem, with 45 extant versions. The poem is also known as "Bede's Lament." It was glossed by a 13th century scribe known as the Tremulous Hand of Worchester due to the "shaky" nature of his handwriting.

Bede's Death Song
(Anglo-Saxon/Old English lyric circa 735 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Facing Death, that inescapable journey,
who can be wiser than he
who reflects, while breath yet remains,
on whether his life brought others happiness, or pains,
since his soul may yet win delight's or night's way
after his death-day.

More information about this ancient Old English poem can be read here: Bede's Death Song



How Long the Night
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song …
but now I feel the northern wind's blast—
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.

The Maiden’s Song aka The Bridal Morn
anonymous Medieval lyric
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The maidens came to my mother’s bower.
I had all I would, that hour.

  The bailey beareth the bell away;
  The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.

Now silver is white, red is the gold;
The robes they lay in fold.

  The bailey beareth the bell away;
  The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.

Still through the window shines the sun.
How should I love, yet be so young?

  The bailey beareth the bell away;
  The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.

I take this to be a naughty, suggestive poem, but one that makes us feel sympathy for a young bride, quite possibly a child bride. Once upon a time there was a custom of people witnessing a marriage's consummation, called a “bedding ceremony,” which in this case might have taken place in the mother's "bower" (bedroom). If the witnesses didn't watch the act, they might have been just outside the door, drinking and telling coarse jokes at the bride’s expense. The "bailey" may be the bailiff, spreading the marriage bans that result in the "bell" (hymen/virginity) being borne away. The bride's attire has changed color from white and gold (both symbols of purity) to silver (not as pure) and red (hymeneal blood). The pure white lily has been replaced by a rose. "The rose I lay" and "they lay in fold" seem like suggestive wordplay to me. I take the sun shining through the window to be the following morning, with the young bride a bit nonplussed about the (probably) arranged and (possibly) premature affair. In any case, it's a fetching and thought-provoking little poem.



This World's Joy
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything comes to naught.

I Have Labored Sore
(anonymous medieval lyric circa the fifteenth century)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have labored sore          and suffered death,
so now I rest           and catch my breath.
But I shall come      and call right soon
heaven and earth          and hell to doom.
Then all shall know           both devil and man
just who I was               and what I am.

Pity Mary
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now the sun passes under the wood:
I rue, Mary, thy face—fair, good.
Now the sun passes under the tree:
I rue, Mary, thy son and thee.

In the poem above, note how "wood" and "tree" invoke the cross while "sun" and "son" seem to invoke each other. Sun-day is also Son-day, to Christians. The anonymous poet who wrote the poem above may have been punning the words "sun" and "son." The poem is also known as "Now Goeth Sun Under Wood" and "Now Go'th Sun Under Wood."

Fowles in the Frith
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
The warblers in the wood,
the fishes in the flood
and I must go mad:
such sorrow I've had
for beasts of bone and blood!

2.
The fowls in the forest,
the fishes in the flood
and I must go mad:
such sorrow I've had
for beasts of bone and blood!

Sounds like an early animal rights activist! The use of "and" is intriguing … is the poet saying that his walks in the wood drive him mad because he is also a "beast of bone and blood" and facing a similar fate?

I am of Ireland
(anonymous medieval Irish lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am of Ireland,
and of the holy realm of Ireland.
Gentlefolk, I pray thee:
for the sake of saintly charity,
come dance with me
in Ireland!

The poem above still smacks of German, with "Ich" for "I." But a metamorphosis was clearly in progress: English poetry was evolving to employ meter and rhyme, as well as Anglo-Saxon alliteration. And it's interesting to note that "ballad," "ballet" and "ball" all have the same root: the Latin ballare (to dance) and the Italian ballo/balleto (a dance). Think of a farm community assembling for a hoe-down, then dancing a two-step to music with lyrics. That is apparently how many early English poems originated. And the more regular meter of the evolving poems would suit music well.

I Have a Yong Suster (circa 1430 AD)

Sumer is icumen in
a modern English humorous interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sumer is icumen in
Lhude sing achu!
Groweth sed
And bloweth hed
And buyeth med?
Cuccu!



Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I will extract the thorns from your feet.
Yet a little longer we will walk life's sunlit paths together.
I will love you like my own brother, my own blood.
When you are disconsolate, I will wipe the tears from your eyes.
And when you are too sad to live, I will put your aching heart to rest.

When my father chose to end his life by forgoing dialysis, I chose to translate Native American travelers' blessings, prayers and proverbs that I found comforting and hoped he might as well. You can find the collection here: Native American Poems, Prayers and Proverbs.



The poem below is based on my teenage misinterpretation of a Latin prayer …

Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch, who was always a little girl at heart

… qui laetificat juventutem meam …
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone.
… requiescat in pace …
May she rest in peace.
… amen …
Amen.

I was touched by this Latin prayer, which I discovered in a novel I read as a teenager. I later decided to incorporate it into a poem, which I started in high school and revised as an adult. From what I now understand, "ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam" means "to the God who gives joy to my youth," but I am sticking with my original interpretation: a lament for a little girl at her funeral. The phrase can be traced back to Saint Jerome's translation of Psalm 42 in the Latin Vulgate Bible (circa 385 AD). I can't remember exactly when I read the novel or wrote the poem, but I believe it was around my junior year of high school, age 17 or thereabouts. This was my first translation. I revised the poem slightly in 2001 after realizing I had "misremembered" one of the words in the Latin prayer.



KO UN

Speechless
by Ko Un, a Korean poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

At Auschwitz
piles of glasses,
mountains of shoes …
returning, we stared out different windows.



This is a powerful little poem written by the Icelandic poet Jónas Kristján Einarsson in 1945 that remains intensely relevant today:

Slysascot in Palestine (“Accidental Shooting in Palestine”)
by Jónas Kristján Einarsson aka Kristján frá Djúpalæk
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Little girl, little girl,
black-haired, dark-eyed, shot dead,
with black blood in your curls,
your skull shattered.

By day I soldiered on bravely,
a Brit, in Palestine.
But one evening there was a whiny mother's baby,
weeping plaintively.

It was a terrible sin, oh, my little sister!
I think I misfired!
It was as if a dagger pierced my heart,
my heart, oh, little sister!

Little sister, for my sin,
forgive me, forgive me!

I only intended your father.



LI BAI

Li Bai (701-762) was a romantic figure who has been called the Lord Byron of Chinese poetry. He and his friend Du Fu (712-770) were the leading poets of the Tang Dynasty era, which has been called the "Golden Age of Chinese poetry." Li Bai is also known as Li Po, Li Pai, Li T’ai-po, and Li T’ai-pai.

Quiet Night Thoughts
by Li Bai
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight illuminates my bed
as frost brightens the ground.
Lifting my eyes, the moon allures.
Lowering my eyes, I long for home.

My interpretation of this famous poem is a bit different from the norm. The moon symbolizes love, so I imagine the moon shining on Li Bai’s bed to be suggestive, an invitation. A man might lower his eyes to avoid seeing something his wife would not approve of.

Lines from Laolao Ting Pavilion
by Li Bai
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The spring breeze knows partings are bitter;
The willow twig knows it will never be green again.

A Toast to Uncle Yun
by Li Bai
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Water reforms, though we slice it with our swords;
Sorrow returns, though we drown it with our wine.



RIMBAUD

Ophélie (“Ophelia”), an Excerpt
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

On pitiless black waves unsinking stars abide
… while pale Ophelia, a lethargic lily, drifts by …
Here, tangled in her veils, she floats on the tide …
Far-off, in the woods, we hear the strident bugle’s cry.

For a thousand years, or more, sad Ophelia,
This albescent phantom, has rocked here, to and fro.
For a thousand years, or more, in her gentle folly,
Ophelia has rocked here when the night breezes blow.

For a thousand years, or more, sad Ophelia,
Has passed, an albescent phantom, down this long black river.
For a thousand years, or more, in her sweet madness
Ophelia has made this river shiver.

Le Bateau ivre (“The Drunken Boat”), an Excerpt
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The impassive river carried me downstream
as howling warriors slashed the bargemen's throats,
then nailed them, naked, to their former posts,
while I observed all idly, in a dream.

What did I care about the slaughtered crew,
the Flemish barley or the English freight?
The river had taught me how to navigate,
but otherwise? It seemed so much “ado.”

Drunken Morning, or, Morning of Drunkenness
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, my Beautiful! Oh, my Good!
Hideous fanfare wherein I won’t stumble!
Oh, rack of splendid enchantments!

Huzzah for the virginal!
Huzzah for the immaculate work!
For the marvelous body!

The rest of "Drunken Morning" and the poems below can be read here: Arthur Rimbaud

L'Eternité (“ Eternity”) by Arthur Rimbaud
Les Illuminations II: Enfance (“Childhood”) by Arthur Rimbaud
Illuminations VIII: Départ (“Departure”) by Arthur Rimbaud
Sensation by Arthur Rimbaud
Antico (“Ancient” or “Antique”) by Arthur Rimbaud
Song of the Highest Tower by Arthur Rimbaud
Rêvé Pour l'hiver (“Winter Dream”) by Arthur Rimbaud
Dawn by Arthur Rimbaud

The poems above can be read here: Arthur Rimbaud



RENEE VIVIEN

Renée Vivien, born Pauline Mary Tarn (1877-1909), was a British poet and high-profile lesbian of the Belle Époque who wrote French poems in the style of the Symbolistes and Parnassiens.

Undine
by Renee Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Kim Cherub (an alias of Michael R. Burch)

Your laughter startles, your caresses rake.
Your cold kisses love the evil they do.
Your eyes—blue lotuses drifting on a lake.
Lilies are less pallid than your face.

You move like water parting.
Your hair falls in rootlike tangles.
Your words like treacherous rapids rise.
Your arms, flexible as reeds, strangle,

Choking me like tubular river reeds.
I shiver in their enlacing embrace.
Drowning without an illuminating moon,
I vanish without a trace,
lost in a nightly swoon.

Song
by Renee Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the moon weeps,
illuminating flowers on the graves of the faithful,
my memories creep
back to you, wrapped in flightless wings.

It's getting late; soon we will sleep
(your eyes already half closed)
steeped
in the shimmering air.

O, the agony of burning roses:
your forehead discloses
a heavy despondency,
though your hair floats lightly …

In the night sky the stars burn whitely
as the Goddess nightly
resurrects flowers that fear the sun
and die before dawn …

The translations below and the original French poems can be read here: Renee Vivien

Amazone by Renée Vivien
Nous nous sommes assises (“We Sat Down”) by Renée Vivien



The oldest extant love lyric appears to be the ancient Sumerian poem "The Love Song of Shu-Sin," which has also been called "The Love Song for Shu-Sin" because it was apparently written to be recited to the ancient Sumerian king Shu-Sin by a woman he was about to marry (or perhaps just have sex with). The poem was written circa 2000 BC, making it ancient indeed!

The Love Song of Shu-Sin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Darling of my heart, my belovèd,
your enticements are sweet, far sweeter than honey!
Darling of my heart, my belovèd,
your enticements are sweet, far sweeter than honey!

You have captivated me; I stand trembling before you.
Darling, lead me swiftly into the bedroom!
You have captivated me; I stand trembling before you.
Darling, lead me swiftly into the bedroom!

Sweetheart, let me do the sweetest things for you!
This crevice you'll caress is far sweeter than honey!
In the bedchamber, dripping love’s honey,
let us enjoy the sweetest thing.
Sweetheart, let me do the sweetest things for you!
This crevice you'll caress is far sweeter than honey!

Bridegroom, you will have your pleasure with me!
Speak to my mother and she will reward you;
speak to my father and he will give you gifts.
I know how to give your body pleasure—
then sleep easily, my darling, until the sun dawns.

To prove that you love me,
give me your caresses,
my Lord God, my guardian Angel and protector,
my Shu-Sin, who gladdens Enlil’s heart,
give me your caresses!

My place like sticky honey, touch it with your hand!
Place your hand over it like a honey-pot lid!
Cup your hand over it like a honey cup!

This is a balbale-song of Inanna.



HAFEZ aka HAFIZ

Hafez aka Hafiz was a Persian poet and a Sufi mystic.

Infectious!
by Hafez
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I became infected with happiness tonight
as I wandered idly, singing in the starlight.
Now I'm wonderfully contagious—
so kiss me!

Dispensing Keys
by Hafez
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The imbecile
constructs cages
for everyone he knows,
while the sage
(who has to duck his head
whenever the moon glows)
keeps dispensing keys
all night long
to the beautiful, rowdy,
prison gang.

The Tally
by Hafez
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lovers
don't reveal
all
their Secrets;
under the covers
they
may
count each other's Moles
(that reside
and hide
in the shy regions
by forbidden holes),
then keep the final tally
strictly
from Aunt Sally!

This is admittedly a very loose translation of the original Hafiz poem!

Untitled

The heart is the thousand-stringed lyre
tuned to the chords of Love.
—Hafez, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



UKRAINIAN POETS

Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko (1814-1861) was also known as Kobzar Taras, or simply Kobzar ("The Bard"). The foremost Ukrainian poet of the 19th century, Shevchenko was also a playwright, writer, artist, illustrator, folklorist, ethnographer and political figure. He is considered to be the father of modern Ukrainian literature and, to some degree, of the modern Ukrainian language. Shevchenko was also an outspoken champion of Ukrainian independence and a major figure in Ukraine's national revival. In 1847 he was convicted for explicitly promoting the independence of Ukraine, for writing poems in the Ukrainian language, and for ridiculing members of the Russian Imperial House. He would spend 12 years under some form of imprisonment or military conscription.

Dear God!
by Taras Shevchenko
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dear God, disaster again!
Life was once calm … serene …
But as soon as we began to break the chains
Of bondage that enslaved us …
The whip cracked! The serfs' blood flew!
Now, like ravenous wolves fighting over a bone,
The Imperial thugs are at each other's throats again.

The poems below can be read here: Poems for Ukraine

Zapovit ("Testament") by Taras Shevchenko
Love in Kyiv by Natalka Bilotserkivets
Unsaid by Lina Kostenko
Let It Be by Lina Kostenko
The Beggars by Mixa Kozimirenko
If the Last Rom Dies by Mixa Kozimirenko

The poems above can be read here: Poems for Ukraine



Stéphane Mallarmé was a French symbolist widely considered to have been a major French poet of the second half of the 19th century, along with Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.

The Tomb of Edgar Poe
by Stephane Mallarme
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Transformed into himself by Death, at last,
the Bard unsheathed his Art’s recondite blade
to duel with dullards, blind & undismayed,
who’d never heard his ardent Voice, aghast!

Like dark Medusan demons of the past
who’d failed to heed such high, angelic words,
men called him bendered, his ideas absurd,
discounting all the warlock’s spells he’d cast.

The wars of heaven and hell? Earth’s senseless grief?
Can sculptors carve from myths a bas-relief
to illuminate the sepulcher of Poe?

No, let us set in granite, here below,
a limit and a block on this disaster:
this Blasphemy, to not acknowledge a Master!

"Le Cygne" ("The Swan")
by Stéphane Mallarmé
this untitled poem is also called Mallarmé's "White Sonnet"
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The virginal, the vivid, the vivacious day:
can its brilliance be broken by a wild wing-blow
delivered to this glacial lake
whose frozen ice-falls impede flight? No.

In past reflections on its thoughts today
the Swan remembers freedom, yet can't make
a song from its surroundings, only take
on the winter's ghostly hue of snow.

In the Swan's white agony its bared neck lies
within an icy guillotine its sense denies.
Slowly being frozen to its inner being,
the body ignores the phantom spirit fleeing …

Cold contempt for its captor
does not avail the raptor.

More Mallarme translations, including the original French texts, can be read here: English Translations of French Poets by Michael R. Burch



BERTOLT BRECHT

Bertolt Brecht fled Nazi Germany along with Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and many other German intellectuals. So he was writing from bitter real-life experience.

The Burning of the Books
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires.

Then a banished writer, one of the best,
scanning the list of excommunicated texts,
became enraged — he'd been excluded!

He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath,
to write fiery letters to the incompetents in power —
Burn me! he wrote with his blazing pen —
Haven't I always reported the truth?
Now here you are, treating me like a liar!
Burn me!

Parting
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We embrace;
my fingers trace
rich cloth
while yours encounter only moth-
eaten fabric.
A quick hug:
you were invited to the gay soiree
while the minions of the "law" relentlessly pursue me.
We talk about the weather
and our eternal friendship's magic.
Anything else would be too bitter,
too tragic.

The Mask of Evil
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A Japanese carving hangs on my wall —
the mask of an ancient demon, limned with golden lacquer.
Not altogether unsympathetically, I observe
the bulging veins of its forehead, noting
the grotesque effort it takes to be evil.

Radio Poem
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You, little box, held tightly
to me,
escaping,
so that your delicate tubes do not break;
carried from house to house, from ship to train,
so that my enemies may continue communicating with me
on land and at sea
and even in my bed, to my pain;
the last thing I hear at night, the first when I awake,
recounting their many conquests and my litany of cares,
promise me not to go silent all of a sudden,
unawares.

More translations can be read here: Bertolt Brecht



Hannah Arendt was a Jewish-German philosopher and Holocaust survivor who also wrote poetry.

H.B.
for Hermann Broch
by Hannah Arendt
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Survival.
But how does one live without the dead?
Where is the sound of their lost company?
Where now, their companionable embraces?
We wish they were still with us.

We are left with the cry that ripped them away from us.
Left with the veil that shrouds their empty gazes.
What avails? That we commit ourselves to their memories,
and through this commitment, learn to survive.

I Love the Earth
by Hannah Arendt
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the earth
like a trip
to a foreign land
and not otherwise.
Even so life spins me
on its loom softly
into never-before-seen patterns.
Until suddenly
like the last farewells of a new journey,
the great silence breaks the frame.



Three Rondels by Geoffrey Chaucer

I. Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer, the first major English poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my heart's wound will remain green;
for your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain.

By all truth, I tell you faithfully
that you are of life and death my queen;
for at my death this truth shall be seen:
your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

II. Rejection
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it's useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.

I'm guiltless, yet my sentence has been cast.
I tell you truly, needless now to feign,—
Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it's useless to complain.

Alas, that Nature in your face compassed
Such beauty, that no man may hope attain
To mercy, though he perish from the pain;
Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it's useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.

III. Escape
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since I'm escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.

He may question me and counter this and that;
I care not: I will answer just as I mean.
Since I'm escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean.

Love strikes me from his roster, short and flat,
And he is struck from my books, just as clean,
Forevermore; there is no other mean.
Since I'm escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.

To read the translations with the original Middle English texts, please click here: Geoffrey Chaucer



CHARLES D'ORLEANS

Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465) was a medieval French poet who also wrote poems in Middle English. The Duke of Orleans was a master of the ballade, the chanson (song), the rondeaux/rondel, the complaint and the carol. He has been called the “father of French lyric poetry” and has also been credited with writing the first Valentine’s Day poem.

Rondel: Your Smiling Mouth
by Charles d'Orleans
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray,
Your ample breasts and slender arms' twin chains,
Your hands so smooth, each finger straight and plain,
Your little feet—please, what more can I say?

It is my fetish when you're far away
To muse on these and thus to soothe my pain—
Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray,
Your ample breasts and slender arms' twin chains.

So would I beg you, if I only may,
To see such sights as I before have seen,
Because my fetish pleases me. Obscene?
I'll be obsessed until my dying day
By your sweet smiling mouth and eyes, bright gray,
Your ample breasts and slender arms' twin chains!

Le Primtemps (“Spring” or “Springtime”)
by Charles d'Orleans
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab at whatever passes,
so we can only hazard guesses.
But they rear like prancing steeds
raked by brilliant spurs of need,
Young lovers.

The text of the original French poem can be found here.

Oft in My Thought
by Charles d'Orleans
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

So often in my busy mind I sought,
    Around the advent of the fledgling year,
For something pretty that I really ought
    To give my lady dear;
    But that sweet thought's been wrested from me, clear,
        Since death, alas, has sealed her under clay
    And robbed the world of all that's precious here―
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

For me to keep my manner and my thought
    Acceptable, as suits my age's hour?
While proving that I never once forgot
    Her worth? It tests my power!
    I serve her now with masses and with prayer;
        For it would be a shame for me to stray
    Far from my faith, when my time's drawing near—
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

Now earthly profits fail, since all is lost
    And the cost of everything became so dear;
Therefore, O Lord, who rules the higher host,
    Take my good deeds, as many as there are,
    And crown her, Lord, above in your bright sphere,
        As heaven's truest maid! And may I say:
    Most good, most fair, most likely to bring cheer—
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

When I praise her, or hear her praises raised,
I recall how recently she brought me pleasure;
    Then my heart floods like an overflowing bay
And makes me wish to dress for my own bier—
    God keep her soul, I can no better say.

The text of the original poem can be found here.

The translations below can be read here: Charles d'Orleans

In My Imagined Book by Charles d’Orleans
Winter has cast his cloak away by Charles d'Orleans
The year lays down his mantle cold by Charles d'Orleans
The First Valentine by Charles d’Orleans
My Very Gentle Valentine by Charles d’Orleans

The translations above, and more, can be read here: Charles d'Orleans



THOMAS CHATTERTON

Why did William Wordsworth call Thomas Chatterton the "marvellous Boy," capitalizing the "b"? Why did John Keats called him the "purest writer in the English language" and write "Endymion" in a "feverish attempt" to set Chatterton "among the stars / Of highest heaven"? Why did Samuel Taylor Coleridge work on his first published poem, "Monody on the Death of Chatterton," on-and-off for more than forty years, so that it was also one of his last published poems? Why did Percy Bysshe Shelley name Chatterton among his "inheritors of unfulfilled renown"? One would think great poets would recognize great poetry when they encountered it, and the great Romantics thought Thomas Chatterton was a truly great poet, even though he died at age seventeen.

CHATTERTON



ALEXANDER PUSHKIN

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a major Russian poet, playwright and novelist.

I Loved You
by Alexander Pushkin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I loved you … perhaps I love you still …
perhaps for a while such emotions may remain.
But please don't let my feelings trouble you;
I do not wish to cause you further pain.

I loved you … thus the hopelessness I knew …
The jealousy, the diffidence, the pain
resulted in two hearts so wholly true
the gods might grant us leave to love again.



FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA

Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright and theater director. He was assassinated by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War and his body was never found.

Paisaje (“Landscape”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The olive orchard
opens and closes
like a fan;
above the grove
a sunken sky dims;
a dark rain falls
on warmthless lights;
reeds tremble by the gloomy river;
the colorless air wavers;
olive trees
scream with flocks
of captive birds
waving their tailfeathers
in the dark.

Canción del jinete (“The Horseman’s Song” or “Song of the Rider”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Cordoba. Distant and lone.
Black pony, big moon,
olives in my saddlebag.
Although my pony knows the way,
I never will reach Cordoba.

High plains, high winds.
Black pony, blood moon.
Death awaits me, watching
from the towers of Cordoba.

Such a long, long way!
Oh my brave pony!
Death awaits me
before I arrive in Cordoba!

Cordoba. Distant and lone.

Arbolé, arbolé (“Tree, Tree”) by Federico Garcia Lorca
Despedida (“Farewell”) by Federico Garcia Lorca
Gacela of the Dark Death by Federico Garcia Lorca
Gacela de la huida (“Ghazal of the Flight”) by Federico Garcia Lorca
La balada del agua del mar (“The Ballad of the Sea Water”) by Federico Garcia Lorca

The translations above can be read here: Federico Garcia Lorca



Ho uan Huong (1772-1882) was a risqué Vietnamese poetess. Her verse, replete with nods, winks, sexual innuendo and a rich eroticism, was shocking to many readers of her day and will probably remain so to some of ours. Huong has been described as "the candid voice of a liberal female in a male-dominated society." Her output has been called "coy, often bawdy lyrics." More information about the poet follows these English translations of her poems.

Ốc Nhồi  ("The Snail")
Ho Xuan Huong (1772-1882)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My parents produced a snail,
Night and day it slithers through slimy grass.
If you love me, remove my shell,
But please don't jiggle my little hole!

The Breadfruit or Jackfruit
Ho Xuan Huong (1772-1882)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My body's like a breadfruit ripening on a tree:
My skin coarse, my pulp thick.
My lord, if you want me, pierce me with your stick,
But don't squeeze or the sap will sully your hands!

Bánh trôi nước ("Floating Sweet Dumpling")
Ho Xuan Huong (1772-1882)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My powdered body is white and round.
Now I bob. Now I sink.
The hand that kneads me may be rough,
But my heart at the center remains untouched.

Most of Huong's poems were written in Nôm script, a complex and difficult Vietnamese adaptation of Chinese characters that was used from the 15th to 19th centuries. Through her Nôm poems, Huong helped elevate the status of Vietnamese poetry. A century later, she was given the title "the Queen of Nôm poetry" by Xuan Dieu, one of Vietnam’s greatest poets. Huong was apparently born in the Quynh Luu district of the north-central province of Nghe An. Xuan Huong means "Spring Fragrance" or "Scent of Springtime." Her father, a scholar named Ho Phi Dien, died young, leaving her mother alone to care for her. Her mother remarried, as a concubine. Huong grew up near Thang Long (modern Ha Noi), in a male-dominated society in which polygamy was permitted and men were more privileged than women. Huong may or may not have been a concubine herself. Very little is known with any certainty about her life. In 1962, Nguyễn Đức Bính admitted, "I don't know anything about the poetess Hồ Xuân Hương and other people don't know any more than I do." And yet legends do take on lives of their own …



Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) was a major French poet and early Symbolist.

Les Bijoux (The Jewels)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My lover nude and knowing my heart's whims
Wore nothing more than a few bright-flashing gems;
Her art was saving men despite their sins—
She ruled like harem girls crowned with diadems!

She danced for me with a gay but mocking air,
My world of stone and metal sparking bright;
I discovered in her the rapture of everything fair—
Nay, an excess of joy where the spirit and flesh unite!

Naked she lay and offered herself to me,
Parting her legs and smiling receptively,
As gentle and yet profound as the rising sea—
Till her surging tide encountered my cliff, abruptly.

A tigress tamed, her eyes met mine, intent …
Intent on lust, content to purr and please!
Her breath, both languid and lascivious, lent
An odd charm to her metamorphoses.

Her limbs, her loins, her abdomen, her thighs,
Oiled alabaster, sinuous as a swan,
Writhed pale before my calm clairvoyant eyes;
Like clustered grapes her breasts and belly shone.

Skilled in more spells than evil imps can muster,
To break the peace which had possessed my heart,
She flashed her crystal rocks' hypnotic luster
Till my quietude was shattered, blown apart.

Her waist awrithe, her breasts enormously
Out-thrust, and yet … and yet, somehow, still coy …
As if stout haunches of Antiope
Had been grafted to a boy …

The room grew dark, the lamp had flickered out.
Mute firelight, alone, lit each glowing stud;
Each time the fire sighed, as if in doubt,
It steeped her pale, rouged flesh in pools of blood.

Le Balcon (The Balcony)
by Charles Baudelaire, a French poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Paramour of memory, ultimate mistress,
source of all pleasure, my only desire;
how can I forget your ecstatic caresses,
the warmth of your breasts by the roaring fire,
paramour of memory, ultimate mistress?

Each night illumined by the burning coals
we lay together where the rose-fragrance clings—
how soft your breasts, how tender your soul!
Ah, and we said imperishable things,
each night illumined by the burning coals.

How beautiful the sunsets these sultry days,
deep space so profound, beyond life's brief floods …
then, when I kissed you, my queen, in a daze,
I thought I breathed the bouquet of your blood
as beautiful as sunsets these sultry days.

Night thickens around us like a wall;
in the deepening darkness our irises meet.
I drink your breath, ah! poisonous yet sweet!,
as with fraternal hands I massage your feet
while night thickens around us like a wall.

I have mastered the sweet but difficult art
of happiness here, with my head in your lap,
finding pure joy in your body, your heart;
because you're the queen of my present and past
I have mastered love's sweet but difficult art.

O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!
Can these be reborn from a gulf we can't sound
as suns reappear, as if heaven misses
their light when they sink into seas dark, profound?
O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!

Duellem (The Duel)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Two combatants charged!
                                        Their fearsome swords
brightened the air with fiery sparks and blood.
Their clashing blades
                                clinked odd serenades,
reminding us: youth's inspired by overloud love.
But now their blades lie broken, like our hearts!
Still, our savage teeth and talon-like fingernails
can do more damage than the deadliest sword
when lovers lash about with such natural flails.
In a deep ravine haunted by lynxes and panthers,
our heroes roll around in a cozy embrace,
leaving their blood to redden the colorless branches.
This abyss is pure hell; our friends occupy the place.
Come, let us roll likewise here, cruel Amazon,
let our hatred's ardor never be over and done!

Invitation to the Voyage
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My child, my sister,
Consider the rapture
Of living together!
To love at our leisure
Till the end of all pleasure,
Then in climes so alike you, to die!

The misty sunlight
Of these hazy skies
Charms my spirit:
So mysterious
Your treacherous eyes,
Shining through tears.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.

Gleaming furniture
Burnished by the years
Would decorate our bedroom
Where the rarest flowers
Mingle their fragrances
With vague scents of amber.

The sumptuous ceilings,
The limpid mirrors,
The Oriental ornaments …
Everything would speak
To our secretive souls
In their own indigenous language.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.

See, rocking on these channels:
The sleepy vessels
Whose vagabond dream
Is to satisfy
Your merest desire.

They come from the ends of the world:
These radiant suns
Illuminating fields,
Canals, the entire city,
In hyacinth and gold.
The world falls asleep
In their warming light.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.

More Baudelaire translations can be read here: Charles Baudelaire



PAUL VERLAINE

Il pleure dans mon coeur ("It rains in my heart")
by Paul Verlaine
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It rains in my heart
As it rains on the town;
Heavy languor and dark
Drenches my heart.

Oh, the sweet-sounding rain
Cleansing pavements and roofs!
For my listless heart's pain
The pure song of the rain!

Still it rains without reason
In my overcast heart.
Can it be there's no treason?
That this grief's without reason?

As my heart floods with pain,
Lacking hatred, or love,
I've no way to explain
Such bewildering pain!

Spleen
by Paul Verlaine
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The roses were so very red;
The ivy, impossibly black.

Dear, with a mere a turn of your head,
My despair's flooded back!

The sky was too gentle, too blue;
The sea, far too windswept and green.

Yet I always imagined—or knew—
I'd again feel your spleen.

Now I'm tired of the glossy waxed holly,
Of the shimmering boxwood too,

Of the meadowland's endless folly,
When all things, alas, lead to you!

The translations with the original French text can be read here: Paul Verlaine



Les Vous et Les Tu (“You, then and now”)
by Voltaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Phyllis, whatever became of those days
We spent riding in your carriage,
Lacking both lackeys and trappings,
Accompanied only by your graceful charms
And content with a humble supper
Which you (of course) transformed into ambrosia …
Days when you abandoned yourself in your folly
To the happily deceived lover
Who so earnestly pledged you his life?

Heaven had bequeathed you, then,
In lieu of prestige and riches,
The enchanting enticements of youth:
A tender heart, an adventurous mind,
An alabaster breast and exquisite eyes.
Well, with so many luring allurements,
Ah! what girl would have not been mischievous?
And so you were, graceful creature.
And thus (and may Love forgive me!)
You know I desired you all the more.

Ah, Madame! How your life,
So filled with honors today,
Differs from those lost enchantments!
This hulking guardian with the powdered hair
Who lies incessantly at your door,
Phyllis, is the very avatar of Time:
See how he dismisses the escorts
Of tender Love and Laughter;
Those orphans no longer dare show their faces
Beneath your magnificent paneled ceilings.
Alas! in happier days I saw them
Enter your home through a glassless window
To frolic in your hovel.

No, Madame, all these carpets
Spun at the Savonnerie
And so elegantly loomed by the Persians;
And all your golden jewelry;
And all this expensive porcelain
Germain engraved with his divine hand;
And all these cabinets in which Martin
Surpassed the art of China;
And all your white vases,
Such fragile Japanese wonders!;
And the twin chandeliers of diamonds
Dangling from your ears;
And your costly chokers and necklaces;
And all this spellbinding pomp;
Are not worth a single kiss
You blessed me with when you were young.



Love Stronger than Time
by Victor Hugo
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since I first set my lips to your full cup,
Since my pallid face first nested in your hands,
Since I sensed your soul and every bloom lit up—
Till those rare perfumes were lost to deepening sands;

Since I was first allowed these pleasures deep—
To hear your heart speak mysteries, divine;
Since I have seen you smile, have watched you weep,
Your lips pressed to my lips, your eyes on mine;

Since I have sensed above my thoughts the gleam
Of a ray, a single ray, of your bright star
(If sometimes veiled), and felt light, falling, stream
Like one rose petal plucked from high, afar;

I now can say to time's swift-changing hours:
"Pass, pass upon your way, for you grow old;
Flee to the dark abyss with your drear flowers,
but one unmarred within my heart I hold.

Your flapping wings may jar but cannot spill
The cup fulfilled of love, from which I drink;
My heart has fires your frosts can never chill,
My soul more love to fly than you can sink."



Paul Valéry was buried in the seaside cemetery evoked in his best-known poem. From the vantage of the cemetery, the tombs seemed to “support” a sea-ceiling dotted with white sails. Valéry begins and ends his poem with this image …

Excerpts from “Le cimetière marin”(“The graveyard by the sea”)
from Charmes ou poèmes (1922)
by Paul Valery
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do not, O my soul, aspire to immortal life, but exhaust what is possible.
—Pindar, Pythian Ode 3

1.
This tranquil ceiling, where white doves are sailing,
stands propped between tall pines and foundational tombs,
as the noonday sun composes, with its flames,
sea-waves forever forming and reforming …
O, what a boon, when some lapsed thought expires,
to reflect on the placid face of Eternity!

5.
As a pear dissolves in the act of being eaten,
transformed, through sudden absence, to delight
relinquishing its shape within our mouths,
even so, I breathe in vapors I’ll become,
as the sea rejoices and its shores enlarge,
fed by lost souls devoured; more are rumored.

6.
Beautiful sky, my true-blue sky, ’tis I
who alters! Pride and indolence possessed me,
yet, somehow, I possessed real potency …
But now I yield to your ephemeral vapors
as my shadow steals through stations of the dead;
its delicate silhouette crook-fingering “Forward!”

8.
… My soul still awaits reports of its nothingness …

9.
… What corpse compels me forward, to no end?
What empty skull commends these strange bone-heaps?
A star broods over everything I lost …

10.
… Here where so much antique marble
shudders over so many shadows,
the faithful sea slumbers …

11.
… Watchful dog …
Keep far from these peaceful tombs
the prudent doves, all impossible dreams,
the angels’ curious eyes …

12.
… The brittle insect scratches out existence …
… Life is enlarged by its lust for absence …
… The bitterness of death is sweet and the mind clarified.

13.
… The dead do well here, secured here in this earth …
… I am what mutates secretly in you …

14.
I alone can express your apprehensions!
My penitence, my doubts, my limitations,
are fatal flaws in your exquisite diamond …
But here in their marble-encumbered infinite night
a formless people sleeping at the roots of trees
have slowly adopted your cause …

15.
… Where, now, are the kindly words of the loving dead? …
… Now grubs consume, where tears were once composed …

16.
… Everything dies, returns to earth, gets recycled …

17.
And what of you, great Soul, do you still dream
there’s something truer than deceitful colors:
each flash of golden surf on eyes of flesh?
Will you still sing, when you’re as light as air?
Everything perishes and has no presence!
I am not immune; Divine Impatience dies!

18.
Emaciate consolation, Immortality,
grotesquely clothed in your black and gold habit,
transfiguring death into some Madonna’s breast,
your pious ruse and cultivated lie:
who does not know and who does not reject
your empty skull and pandemonic laughter?

24.
The wind is rising! … We must strive to live!
The immense sky opens and closes my book!
Waves surge through shell-shocked rocks, reeking spray!
O, fly, fly away, my sun-bedazzled pages!
Break, breakers! Break joyfully as you threaten to shatter
this tranquil ceiling where white doves are sailing!

Ode secrète (“Secret Ode”)
by Paul Valéry
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fall so exquisite, the ending so soft,
the struggle’s abandonment so delightful:
depositing the glistening body
on a bed of moss, after the dance!

Who has ever seen such a glow
illuminate a triumph
as these sun-brightened beads
crowning a sweat-drenched forehead!

Here, touched by the dusk's last light,
this body that achieved so much
by dancing and outdoing Hercules
now mimics the drooping rose-clumps!

Sleep then, our all-conquering hero,
come so soon to this tragic end,
for now the many-headed Hydra
reveals its Infiniteness …

Behold what Bull, what Bear, what Hound,
what Visions of limitless Conquests
beyond the boundaries of Time
the soul imposes on formless Space!

This is the supreme end, this glittering Light
beyond the control of mere monsters and gods,
as it gloriously reveals
the matchless immensity of the heavens!



To the boy Elis
by Georg Trakl, an Austrian poet who wrote in German
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest,
it announces your downfall.
Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.

Your brow sweats blood
recalling ancient myths
and dark interpretations of birds' flight.

Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls;
the ripe purple grapes hang suspended
as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.

A thornbush crackles;
where now are your moonlike eyes?
How long, oh Elis, have you been dead?

A monk dips waxed fingers
into your body's hyacinth;
Our silence is a black abyss

from which sometimes a docile animal emerges
slowly lowering its heavy lids.
A black dew drips from your temples:

the lost gold of vanished stars.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive bloody sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death, but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may represent a progression toward death in the poem.



To a Daughter More Precious than Gems
by Otomo no Sakanoue no Iratsume (c. 700-750), a Japanese poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Heaven's cold dew has fallen
and thus another season arrives.
Oh, my child living so far away,
do you pine for me as I do for you?

I have trusted my jewel to the gem-guard;
so now there's nothing to do, my pillow,
but for the two of us to sleep together!

I cherished you, my darling,
as the Sea God guards his treasury's pearls.
But you are pledged to your husband
(such is the way of the world)
and have been torn from me like a blossom.

I left you for faraway Koshi;
since then your lovely eyebrows
curving like distant waves
ever linger in my eyes.

My heart is as unsteady as a rocking boat;
besieged by such longing I weaken with age
and come close to breaking.

If I could have prophesied such longing,
I would have stayed with you,
gazing on you constantly
as into a shining mirror.

I gaze out over the fields of Tadaka
seeing the cranes that cry there incessantly:
such is my longing for you.

Oh my child,
who loved me so helplessly
like bird hovering over shallow river rapids!

Dear child, my daughter, who stood
sadly pensive by the gate,
even though I was leaving for a friendly estate,
I think of you day and night
and my body has become thin,
my sleeves tear-stained with weeping.

If I must long for you so wretchedly,
how can I remain these many months
here at this dismal old farm?

Because you ache for me so intently,
your sad thoughts all confused
like the disheveled tangles of your morning hair,
I see you, dear child, in my dreams.

Otomo no Sakanoue no Iratsume (c. 700-750) was an important ancient Japanese poet. She had 79 poems in Manyoshu ("Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves"), the first major anthology of classical Japanese poetry, mostly waka. The compiler of the anthology was Otomo no Yakamochi (c. 718-785). Otomo no Sakanoue no Iratsume was his aunt, tutor and poetic mentor. In the first stanza, Lady Otomo has left her children in Nara, possibly to visit her brother. In the second stanza, it is believed that the jewel is Lady Otomo's daughter and that she has been trusted to the care of her husband. As for the closing stanza, according to the notes of the Manyoshu, it was popularly believed that a person would appear in the dreams of the one for whom he/she yearned.



He Lived: Excerpts from “Gilgamesh”
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I.
He who visited hell, his country’s foundation,
Was well-versed in mysteries’ unseemly dark places.
He deeply explored many underworld realms
Where he learned of the Deluge and why Death erases.

II.
He built the great ramparts of Uruk-the-Sheepfold
And of holy Eanna. Then weary, alone,
He recorded his thoughts in frail scratchings called “words”:
Frail words made immortal, once chiseled in stone.

III.
These walls he erected are ever-enduring:
Vast walls where the widows of dead warriors weep.
Stand by them. O, feel their immovable presence!
For no other walls are as strong as this keep’s.

IV.
Come, climb Uruk’s tower on a starless night—
Ascend its steep stairway to escape modern error.
Cross its ancient threshold. You are close to Ishtar,
the Goddess of Ecstasy and of Terror!

V.
Find the cedar box with its hinges of bronze;
lift the lid of its secrets; remove its dark slate;
read of the travails of our friend Gilgamesh—
of his descent into hell and man’s terrible fate!

VI.
Surpassing all kings, heroic in stature,
Wild bull of the mountains, the Goddess his Dam
—She bedded no man; he was her sole rapture—
Who else can claim fame, as he thundered, “I AM!”



Enkidu Enters the House of Dust
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

I entered the house of dust and grief.
Where the pale dead weep there is no relief,
for there night descends like a final leaf
to shiver forever, unstirred.

There is no hope left when the tree’s stripped bare,
for the leaf lies forever dormant there
and each man cloaks himself in strange darkness, where
all company’s unheard.

No light’s ever pierced that oppressive night
so men close their eyes on their neighbors’ plight
or stare into darkness, lacking sight …
each a crippled, blind bat-bird.

Were these not once eagles, gallant men?
Who sits here—pale, wretched and cowering—then?
O, surely they shall, they must rise again,
gaining new wings? “Absurd!

For this is the House of Dust and Grief
where men made of clay, eat clay. Relief
to them’s to become a mere windless leaf,
lying forever unstirred.”

“Anu and Enlil, hear my plea!
Ereshkigal, they all must go free!
Beletseri, dread scribe of this Hell, hear me!”
But all my shrill cries, obscured

by vast eons of dust, at last fell mute
as I took my place in the ash and soot.



PABLO NERUDA

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was a Chilean poet, politician and diplomat  who wrote poems in Spanish. He won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature.

You can crop all the flowers but you cannot detain spring.—Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If nothing can save us from death,
still love can redeem each breath.
—Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Every Day You Play (Excerpt)
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Every day you play with Infinity's rays.
Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water!
You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp lovingly
like a cornucopia, every day, with ecstatic hands …

Love Sonnet XI
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
I stalk the streets, silent and starving.
Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me
from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor.

I long for your liquid laughter,
for your sunburned hands like savage harvests.
I lust for your fingernails' pale marbles.
I want to devour your breasts like almonds, whole.

I want to ingest the sunbeams singed by your beauty,
to eat the aquiline nose from your aloof face,
to lick your eyelashes' flickering shade.

I pursue you, snuffing the shadows,
seeking your heart's scorching heat
like a puma prowling the heights of Quitratue.

The translations below, and more, can be read here: Pablo Neruda

The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda
In El Salvador, Death by Pablo Neruda
Love Sonnet LXVI: I love you only because I love you by Pablo Neruda
Love Sonnet XVII: I do not love you like coral or topaz by Pablo Neruda
If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda
Sonnet XLV: Don't wander far away by Pablo Neruda
My Dog Died by Pablo Neruda
Tonight I will write the saddest lines by Pablo Neruda

The translations above, and more, can be read here: Pablo Neruda



Advice to Young Poets
by Nicanor Parra Sandoval, a Chilean poet who wrote poems in Spanish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Youngsters,
write however you will
in your preferred style.
Too much blood flowed under the bridge
for me to believe
there's just one acceptable path.
In poetry everything's permitted.



Ben Sana Mecburum: "You are indispensable"
by Attila Ilhan
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch

You are indispensable; how can you not know
that you're like nails riveting my brain?
I see your eyes as ever-expanding dimensions.
You are indispensable; how can you not know
that I burn within, at the thought of you?

Trees prepare themselves for autumn;
can this city be our lost Istanbul?
Now clouds disintegrate in the darkness
as the street lights flicker
and the streets reek with rain.
You are indispensable, and yet you are absent …

Love sometimes seems akin to terror:
a man tires suddenly at nightfall,
of living enslaved to the razor at his neck.
Sometimes he wrings his hands,
expunging other lives from his existence.
Sometimes whichever door he knocks
echoes back only heartache.

A screechy phonograph is playing in Fatih …
a song about some Friday long ago.
I stop to listen from a vacant corner,
longing to bring you an untouched sky,
but time disintegrates in my hands.
Whatever I do, wherever I go,
you are indispensable, and yet you are absent …

Are you the blue child of June?
Ah, no one knows you—no one knows!
Your deserted eyes are like distant freighters …
perhaps you are boarding in Yesilköy?
Are you drenched there, shivering with the rain
that leaves you blind, beset, broken,
with wind-disheveled hair?

Whenever I think of life
seated at the wolves' table,
shameless, yet without soiling our hands …
Yes, whenever I think of life,
I begin with your name, defying the silence,
and your secret tides surge within me
making this voyage inevitable.
You are indispensable; how can you not know?



Yahya Kemal Beyatli (1884-1958) was a Turkish poet, editor, columnist and historian, as well as a politician and diplomat. Born born Ahmet Âgâh, he wrote under the pen names Agâh Kemal, Esrar, Mehmet Agâh, and Süleyman Sadi. He served as Turkey’s ambassador to Poland, Portugal and Pakistan.

Sessiz Gemi (“Silent Ship”)
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch

for the refugees

The time to weigh anchor has come;
a ship departing harbor slips quietly out into the unknown,
cruising noiselessly, its occupants already ghosts.
No flourished handkerchiefs acknowledge their departure;
the landlocked mourners stand nurturing their grief,
scanning the bleak horizon, their eyes blurring …
Poor souls! Desperate hearts! But this is hardly the last ship departing!
There is always more pain to unload in this sorrowful life!
The hesitations of lovers and their belovèds are futile,
for they cannot know where the vanished are bound.
Many hopes must be quenched by the distant waves,
since years must pass, and no one returns from this journey.

Full Moon
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch

You are so lovely
the full moon just might
delight
in your rising,
as curious
and bright,
to vanquish night.

But what can a mortal man do,
dear,
but hope?
I’ll ponder your mysteries
and (hmmmm) try to
cope.

We both know
you have every right to say no.

The Music of the Snow
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This melody of a night lasting longer than a thousand years!
This music of the snow supposed to last for a thousand years!

Sorrowful as the prayers of a secluded monastery,
It rises from a choir of a hundred voices!

As the organ’s harmonies resound profoundly,
I share the sufferings of Slavic grief.

My mind drifts far from this city, this era,
To the old records of Tanburi Cemil Bey.

Now I’m suddenly overjoyed as once again I hear,
With the ears of my heart, the purest sounds of Istanbul!

Thoughts of the snow and darkness depart me;
I keep them at bay all night with my dreams!

Translator’s notes: “Slavic grief” because Beyatli wrote this poem while in Warsaw, serving as Turkey’s ambassador to Poland, in 1927. Tanburi Cemil Bey was a Turkish composer.



Thinking of you
by Nazim Hikmet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Thinking of you is beautiful, hopeful —
like listening to the most beautiful songs
sung by the earth's most beautiful voices.
But hope is insufficient for me now;
I don't want to listen to songs.
I want to sing love into birth.

I love you
by Nazim Hikmet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love you —
like dipping bread into salt and eating;
like waking at night with a raging fever
and thirstily lapping up water, my mouth to the silver tap;
like unwrapping the unwieldy box the postman delivers,
unable to guess what's inside,
feeling fluttery, happy, doubtful.
I love you —
like flying over the sea the first time
as something stirs within me
while the sky softly darkens over Istanbul.
I love you —
as men thank God gratefully for life.

Sparrow
by Nazim Hikmet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Little sparrow,
perched on the clothesline,
do you regard me with pity?
Even so, I will watch you
soar away through the white spring leaves.



Mehmet Akif Ersoy (1873-1936) was a Turkish poet, author, writer, academic, member of parliament, and the composer of the Turkish National Anthem.

Snapshot
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Earth’s least trace of life cannot be erased;
even when you lie underground, it encompasses you.
So, those of you who anticipate the shadows,
how long will the darkness remember you?

Zulmü Alkislayamam
"I Can’t Applaud Tyranny"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I can't condone cruelty; I will never applaud the oppressor;
Yet I can't renounce the past for the sake of deluded newcomers.
When someone curses my ancestors, I want to strangle them,
Even if you don’t.
But while I harbor my elders,
I refuse to praise their injustices.
Above all, I will never glorify evil, by calling injustice “justice.”
From the day of my birth, I've loved freedom;
The golden tulip never deceived me.
If I am nonviolent, does that make me a docile sheep?
The blade may slice, but my neck resists!
When I see someone else's wound, I suffer a great hardship;
To end it, I'll be whipped, I'll be beaten.
I can't say, “Never mind, just forget it!” I'll mind,
I'll crush, I'll be crushed, I'll uphold justice.
I'm the foe of the oppressor, the friend of the oppressed.
What the hell do you mean, with your backwardness?

Çanakkale Sehitlerine
"For the Çanakkale Martyrs"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war?—
The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara,
Forcing entry between her mountain passes
To a triangle of land besieged by countless vessels.
Oh, what dishonorable assemblages!
Who are these Europeans, come as rapists?
Who, these braying hyenas, released from their reeking cages?
Why do the Old World, the New World, and all the nations of men
now storm her beaches? Is it Armageddon? Truly, the whole world rages!
Seven nations marching in unison!
Australia goose-stepping with Canada!
Different faces, languages, skin tones!
Everything so different, but the mindless bludgeons!
Some warriors Hindu, some African, some nameless, unknown!
This disgraceful invasion, baser than the Black Death!
Ah, the 20th century, so noble in its own estimation,
But all its favored ones nothing but a parade of worthless wretches!
For months now Turkish soldiers have been vomited up
Like stomachs’ retched contents regarded with shame.
If the masks had not been torn away, the faces would still be admired,
But the whore called civilization is far from blameless.
Now the damned demand the destruction of the doomed
And thus bring destruction down on their own heads.
Lightning severs horizons!
Earthquakes regurgitate the bodies of the dead!
Bombs’ thunderbolts explode brains,
rupture the breasts of brave soldiers.
Underground tunnels writhe like hell
Full of the bodies of burn victims.
The sky rains down death, the earth swallows the living.
A terrible blizzard heaves men violently into the air.
Heads, eyes, torsos, legs, arms, chins, fingers, hands, feet …
Body parts rain down everywhere.
Coward hands encased in armor callously scatter
Floods of thunderbolts, torrents of fire.
Men’s chests gape open,
Beneath the high, circling vulture-like packs of the air.
Cannonballs fly as frequently as bullets
Yet the heroic army laughs at the hail.
Who needs steel fortresses? Who fears the enemy?
How can the shield of faith not prevail?
What power can make religious men bow down to their oppressors
When their stronghold is established by God?
The mountains and the rocks are the bodies of martyrs! …
For the sake of a crescent, oh God, many suns set, undone!
Dear soldier, who fell for the sake of this land,
How great you are, your blood saves the Muslims!
Only the lions of Bedr rival your glory!
Who then can dig the grave wide enough to hold you. and your story?
If we try to consign you to history, you will not fit!
No book can contain the eras you shook!
Only eternities can encompass you! …
Oh martyr, son of the martyr, do not ask me about the grave:
The prophet awaits you now, his arms flung wide open, to save!



The Divan of the Lover
the oldest extant Turkish poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All the universe as one great sign is shown:
God revealed in his creative acts unknown.
Who sees or understands them, jinn or men?
Such works lie far beyond mere mortals’ ken.
Nor can man’s mind or reason reach that strand,
Nor mortal tongue name Him who rules that land.
Since He chose nothingness with life to vest,
who dares to trouble God with worms’ behests?
For eighteen thousand worlds, lain end to end,
Do not with Him one atom's worth transcend!



Fragment
by Prince Jem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Behold! The torrent, dashing against the rocks, flails wildly.
The entire vast realm of Space and Being oppresses my soul idly.
Through bitterness of grief and woe the sky has rent its morning robe.
Look! See how in its eastern palace, the sun is a bloody globe!
The clouds of heaven rain bright tears on the distant mountain peaks.
Oh, hear how the deeply wounded thunder slowly, mournfully speaks!



FADWA TUQAN

Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003), the Grande Dame of Palestinian letters, is also known as "the Poet of Palestine." She is generally considered to be one of the very best contemporary Arab poets. The sister of the poet Ibrahim Tuqan, she was born in Nablus in 1917. She began writing in traditional forms, but became one of the leaders of the use of the free verse in Arabic poetry. Her work often deals with feminine explorations of love and social protest, particularly of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories.

Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan, a Palestinian poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to be buried in her,
to sink meltingly into her fecund soil, to vanish …
only to spring forth like a flower
brightening the play of my countrymen's children.

Enough for me to remain
in my native soil's embrace,
to be as close as a handful of dirt,
a sprig of grass,
a wildflower.

More translations can be read here: Fadwa Tuqan



Here We Shall Remain
by Tawfiq Zayyad, a Palestinian poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like twenty impossibilities
in Lydda, Ramla and Galilee …
here we shall remain.

Like brick walls braced against your chests;
lodged in your throats
like shards of glass
or prickly cactus thorns;
clouding your eyes
like sandstorms.

Here we shall remain,
like brick walls obstructing your chests,
washing dishes in your boisterous bars,
serving drinks to our overlords,
scouring your kitchens' filthy floors
in order to snatch morsels for our children
from between your poisonous fangs.

Here we shall remain,
like brick walls deflating your chests
as we face our deprivation clad in rags,
singing our defiant songs,
chanting our rebellious poems,
then swarming out into your unjust streets
to fill dungeons with our dignity.

Like twenty impossibilities
in Lydda, Ramla and Galilee,
here we shall remain,
guarding the shade of the fig and olive trees,
fermenting rebellion in our children
like yeast in dough.

Here we wring the rocks to relieve our thirst;
here we stave off starvation with dust;
but here we remain and shall not depart;
here we spill our expensive blood
and do not hoard it.

For here we have both a past and a future;
here we remain, the Unconquerable;
so strike fast, penetrate deep,
O, my roots!



KHALIL GIBRAN

Thought is a bird of unbounded space, which in a cage of words may unfold its wings but cannot fly. — Khalil Gibran, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Whan the turuf is thy tour
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
When the turf is your tower
and the pit is your bower,
your pale white skin and throat
shall be sullen worms' to grope.
What help unto you, then,
was all your worldly hope?

2.
When the turf is your tower
and the grave is your bower,
your pale white throat and skin
consumed by worms within …
what hope of my help then?

Ech day me comëth tydinges thre
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th to 14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each day I'm plagued by three doles,
These gargantuan weights on my soul:
First, that I must somehow exit this fen.
Second, because I cannot know when.
And yet it's the third that torments me so,
Having no way to know where the hell I will go!

Ich have y-don al myn youth
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th to 14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have done it all my youth:
Often, often, and often!
I have loved long and yearned zealously …
And oh what grief it has brought me!



This is my translation of a wonderful poem by an early Scottish master, William Dunbar (1460-1525), who wrote in an English-Scots dialect similar to Middle English. "Sweet Rose of Virtue" has been one of my favorite poems since I first read it. I decided to translate it myself, to make it more accessible to modern readers:

Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that is held most dear―
except only that you are merciless.

Into your garden, today, I followed you;
there I saw flowers of freshest hue,
both white and red, delightful to see,
and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently―
yet nowhere one leaf nor petal of rue.

I fear that March with his last arctic blast
has slain my fair rose and left her downcast,
whose piteous death does my heart such pain
that I long to plant love's root again―
so comforting her bowering leaves have been.

If the tenth line seems confusing, it helps to know that rue symbolizes pity and also has medicinal uses; thus I believe the unrequiting lover is being accused of a lack of compassion and perhaps of withholding her healing attentions. The penultimate line can be taken as a rather naughty double entendre, but I will leave that interpretation up to the reader!

Robert Burns: Original Poems and Translations



"Now skruketh rose and lylie flour" is an early Middle English poem that gives a hint of things to come, in terms of meter and rhyme …

Now skruketh rose and lylie flour
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 11th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now the rose and the lily skyward flower,
That will bear for awhile that sweet savor:
In summer, that sweet tide;
There is no queen so stark in her power
Nor any lady so bright in her bower
That Death shall not summon and guide;
But whoever forgoes lust, in heavenly bliss will abide
With his thoughts on Jesus anon, thralled at his side.

skruketh = break forth, burst open; stour = strong, stern, hardy; tharled = thralled?, made a serf?, bound?

A similar poem to the one above, in time and language, is "Blow Northerne Wynd," which has been called the "most ancient love poem in the English language," perhaps composed during the reign of King John. But I prefer the lovely poem above, although I see nothing wrong with a little healthy lust!

Adam Lay Ybounden
(anonymous medieval English lyric, circa early 15th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Adam lay bound, bound in a bond;
Four thousand winters, he thought, were not too long.
And all was for an apple, an apple that he took,
As clerics now find written in their book.
But had the apple not been taken, or had it never been,
We'd never have had our Lady, heaven's queen and matron.
So blesséd be the time the apple was taken thus;
Therefore we sing, "God is gracious!"

The poem has also been rendered as "Adam lay i-bounden" and "Adam lay i-bowndyn."

I Sing of a Maiden
(anonymous medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of a maiden
That is matchless.
The King of all Kings
For her son she chose.
He came also as still
To his mother's breast
As April dew
Falling on the grass.
He came also as still
To his mother's bower
As April dew
Falling on the flower.
He came also as still
To where his mother lay
As April dew
Falling on the spray.
Mother and maiden?
Never one, but she!
Well may such a lady
God's mother be!

Brut (circa 1100 AD, written by Layamon, an excerpt)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now he stands on a hill overlooking the Avon,
seeing steel fishes girded with swords in the stream,
their swimming days done,
their scales a-gleam like gold-plated shields,
their fish-spines floating like shattered spears.

Layamon's Brut is a 32,000-line poem composed in Middle English that shows a strong Anglo-Saxon influence and contains the first known reference to King Arthur in English. The passage above is a good example of Layamon's gift for imagery. It's interesting, I think, that a thousand years ago a poet was dabbling in surrealism, with dead warriors being described as if they were both men and fish.

Whoso List to Hunt by Sir Thomas Wyatt: a Modern English Translation



Around the same time that I was finding myself frustrated with other people's translations of the poems above, I also discovered certain Greek epigrams that seemed to deserve more attention. So I created a collection of English epigrams modeled after epitaphs gleaned from ancient Greek gravestones and called the collection:

Athenian Epitaphs

Mariner, do not question whose tomb this may be,
But go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
Michael R. Burch, after Plato

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell.
Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus

Passerby,
Tell the Spartans we lie
Lifeless at Thermopylae:
Dead at their word,
Obedient to their command.
Have they heard?
Do they understand?
Michael R. Burch, after Simonides

Here he lies in state tonight: great is his Monument!
Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent.
Michael R. Burch, after Anacreon

Blame not the gale, nor the inhospitable sea-gulf, nor friends' tardiness,
Mariner! Just man's foolhardiness.
Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum

Now that I am dead sea-enclosed Cyzicus shrouds my bones.
Faretheewell, O my adoptive land that nurtured me, that suckled me;
I take rest at your breast.
Michael R. Burch, after Erycius

Stripped of her stripling, if asked, she'd confess:
"I am now less than nothingness."
Michael R. Burch, after Diotimus

Euryalus, born of the blue-eyed Graces,
scion of the bright-tressed Seasons,
son of the Cyprian,
whom dew-lidded Persuasion birthed among rose-blossoms.
—Ibykos/Ibycus (circa 540 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

More Ancient Greek Epigrams and Epitaphs

If you liked these modernizations of ancient Greek epigrams, there are more later on this page. Next are some of my translations of the epigrams of Sappho, one of the first great lyric poets, and arguably the first great female poet whose name we know today…



SAPPHO OF LESBOS

Sappho, fragment 42
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros harrows my heart:
wild winds whipping desolate mountains
uprooting oaks.

Sappho, fragment 155
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A short transparent frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!

Sappho, fragment 156
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

She keeps her scents
in a dressing-case.
And her sense?
In some undiscoverable place.

Sappho, fragment 130
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May the gods prolong the night
  —yes, let it last forever!—
as long as you sleep in my sight.

I sought the Goddess in your body's curves and crevasses.—attributed to Sappho, translation by Michael R. Burch

Sappho, fragment 137
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Gold does not rust,
yet my son becomes dust?

Sappho, fragment 52
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon has long since set;
the Pleiades are gone;
now half the night is spent
yet here I lie, alone.

The following Sappho translations can be found at this link:  Sappho Translations by Michael R. Burch

Sappho, fragment 1: Hymn to Aphrodite
Sappho, fragment 2: Come, Cypris, from Crete
Sappho, fragment 16: “Helen’s Eidolon” or “Some People Say”
Sappho, fragment 31: To the brightness of Love
Sappho, fragment 55: Lady without the roses of Pieria
Sappho, fragment 57: That hayseed tart bewitches your heart?
Sappho, fragment 94: Shepherds trample the hyacinth
Sappho, fragment 100: Most delicate linen
Sappho, fragment 100: The softest pallors grace her lovely face
Sappho, fragment 122: A tender maiden plucking flowers
Sappho, fragment 125: Love, bittersweet Dispenser of pain
Sappho, fragment 129: They say Sappho's sweetest utterance
Sappho, fragment 132: Love, the child of Aphrodite and heaven
Sappho, fragment 133: Of all the stars the fairest, Hesperus
Sappho, fragment 134: Selene came to Endymion
Sappho, fragment 138: The beautiful courtesan Rhodopis
Sappho, fragment 140: Phaon ferried the Goddess across
Sappho, fragment 145: If you're squeamish
Sappho, fragment 145: Prometheus the Fire-Bearer
Sappho, fragment 146: No buzzing bee, nor honey
Sappho, fragment 148: A vagabond friendship, repent Rhodopis!
Sappho, fragment 153: Queen Dawn
Sappho, fragment 156: Your voice: a sweeter liar than the lyre
Sappho, fragment 169: Foolish man!
Sappho, fragment 201: Death is evil; the Gods agree

The Sappho translations above can be found at this link:  Sappho Translations by Michael R. Burch



HOMER

Surrender to sleep at last! What an ordeal, keeping watch all night, wide awake. Soon you’ll succumb to sleep and escape all your troubles. Sleep. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Passage home? Impossible! Surely you have something else in mind, Goddess, urging me to cross the ocean’s endless expanse in a raft. So vast, so full of danger! Hell, sometimes not even the sea-worthiest ships can prevail, aided as they are by Zeus’s mighty breath! I’ll never set foot on a raft, Goddess, until you swear by all that’s holy you’re not plotting some new intrigue! — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let’s hope the gods are willing. They rule the vaulting skies. They’re stronger than men to plan, execute and realize their ambitions. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Few sons surpass their fathers; most fall short, all too few overachieve. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death is the Great Leveler, not even the immortal gods can defend the man they love most when the dread day dawns for him to take his place in the dust. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Any moment might be our last. Earth’s magnificence? Magnified because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than at this moment. We will never pass this way again. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Beauty! Ah, Terrible Beauty! A deathless Goddess, she startles our eyes! — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Many dread seas and many dark mountain ranges lie between us. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The lives of mortal men? Like the leaves’ generations. Now the old leaves fall, blown and scattered by the wind. Soon the living timber bursts forth green buds as spring returns. Even so with men: as one generation is born, another expires. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since I’m attempting to temper my anger, it does not behoove me to rage unrelentingly on. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Overpowering memories subsided to grief. Priam wept freely for Hector, who had died crouching at Achilles’ feet, while Achilles wept himself, first for his father, then for Patroclus, as their mutual sobbing filled the house. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“Genius is discovered in adversity, not prosperity.” — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ruin, the eldest daughter of Zeus, blinds us all with her fatal madness. With those delicate feet of hers, never touching the earth, she glides over our heads, trapping us all. First she entangles you, then me, in her lethal net. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death and Fate await us all. Soon comes a dawn or noon or sunset when someone takes my life in battle, with a well-flung spear or by whipping a deadly arrow from his bow. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death is the Great Leveler, not even the immortal gods can defend the man they love most when the dread day dawns for him to take his place in the dust.—Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Ares
by Hesiod
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ares, exceeding all men in manliness, bronze-harnessed charioteer, golden-helmed gladiator, strong-armed spear-hurler, dauntless shield-bearer, courageous of heart, father of warlike Victory, able ally of Themis and Divine Law, dauntless defender of Olympus, savior of men’s cities, scourge of the rebellious, sceptered king of the righteous, whirling your fiery sphere among the planets in their sevenfold courses through heavens wherein your blazing steeds bear you above the third firmament; hear me, O mighty helper of men, gracious giver of unflagging youth! Beam down a kindly ray from above to brighten my life; give me the strength of Ares, that I may banish bitter cowardice from my heart and defeat my soul’s deceitful impulses; help me restrain those dark furies urging me to seek the paths of strident strife. But rather, O Blessed One, lend me your boldness to abide within the benevolent laws of peace, avoiding conflict, hatred and the destructive demons of death. Amen.



Erinna

Erinna is widely considered second only to Sappho among the ancient Greek female poets. Little is known about her life; Erinna has been called a contemporary of Sappho and her most gifted student, but she may have lived up to a few hundred years later. This poem, about a portrait of a girl or young woman named Agatharkhis, has been called the earliest Greek ekphrastic epigram (an epigram describing a work of art):

This portrait is the work of sensitive, artistic hands.
See, noble Prometheus, you have human equals!
For if whoever painted this girl had only added a voice,
she would have been Agatharkhis entirely.
—Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Passing by, passing by my oft-bewailed pillar,
shudder, my new friend to hear my tragic story:
of how my pyre was lit by the same fiery torch
meant to lead the procession to my nuptials in glory!
O Hymenaeus, why did you did change
my bridal song to a dirge? Strange!
—Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You, my tall Columns, and you, my small Urn,
receptacle of Hades’ tiny pittance of ash—
remember me to those who pass by
my grave, as they dash.
Tell them my story, sad as it is:
that this grave sealed a young bride’s womb;
that my name was Baucis and Telos my land;
and that Erinna, my friend, etched this poem on my Tomb.
—Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stele, inscription and lamentable urn
containing my meager remains, now property of Hades,
tell passersby my story, sad as it is:
how this mausoleum sealed a young bride’s womb;
that my name was Baucis,
                                          Telos my land;
and that my friend Erinna etched this epigram on my Tomb.
—Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Erinna engraved this epigram on my tombstone.
—Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Translator’s note: Erinna has been attributed to different locations, including Lesbos, Rhodes, Teos, Telos and Tenos. Telos seems the most likely due to her Dorian dialect. Erinna wrote in a mixture of Aeolic and Doric Greek. In 1928, Italian archaeologists excavating at Oxyrhynchus discovered a tattered piece of papyrus containing 54 lines of Erinna’s lost epic “Distaff.” This work, like the epigrams above, was also about her friend Baucis or Baukis.

Here only a voice’s useless echo reaches Hades
where there is not an ear among the unseeing dead.
—Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Excerpts from “Distaff”
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

… the moon rising …
… leaves falling …
… waves lapping a windswept shore …

… and our childish games, Baucis, do you remember? …

… Leaping from white horses into the deeper waves,
running on reckless feet through the great courtyard.
“You’re it!’ I cried, ‘You’re the Tortoise now!”
But when your turn came to pursue your pursuers,
you darted beyond the courtyard,
dashed out deep into the waves,
splashing far beyond us …

… My poor Baucis, these tears I now weep are your warm memorial,
these traces of embers still smoldering in my heart
for our silly amusements, now that you lie ash …

… Do you remember how, as girls,
we played at weddings with our dolls,
pretending to be brides in our innocent beds? …

… How sometimes I was your mother,
allotting wool to the weaver-women,
calling for you to unreel the thread? …

… Do you remember our terror of the monster Mormo
with her huge ears, her forever-flapping tongue,
her four slithering feet, her shape-shifting face? …

… Until you mother called for us to help with the salted meat …

… But when you mounted your husband’s bed,
dearest Baucis, you forgot your mothers’ warnings!
Aphrodite made your heart forgetful …

… Desire becomes oblivion …

… Now I lament your loss, my dearest friend.
I can’t bear to think of that dark crypt.
I can’t bring myself to leave the house.
I refuse to profane your corpse with my tearless eyes.
I refuse to cut my hair, but how can I mourn with my hair unbound?
I blush with shame at the thought of you! …

… But in this dark house, O my dearest Baucis,
My deep grief is ripping me apart.
Wretched Erinna! Only nineteen,
I moan like an ancient crone, eying this strange distaff …

O Hymen! … O Hymenaeus! …
Alas, my poor Baucis!

On a Betrothed Girl
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of Baucis the bride.
Observing her tear-stained crypt
tell Death who dwells underground:
"Thou art envious, O Death!"

Her monument reminds passersby
of the bitter misfortune of Baucis —
how her father-in-law burned the poor girl on a pyre
lit by bright torches meant to light her marriage train home.
While thou, O Hymenaeus, transformed her harmonious bridal song into the mournful wail of the threnos.

Hymen! O Hymenaeus!

threnos: threnody, a wailing ode, song, hymn or poem of mourning composed and/or performed as a memorial to a dead person.



Anyte of Tegea (fl. 300 BC) was a Hellenistic poet from Tegea in Arcadia. Little is known about her life, but 24 epigrams attributed to her appeared in the Greek Anthology, with 19 generally considered authentic. Anyte was one of nine outstanding ancient female poets listed by Antipater of Thessalonica in the Palatine Anthology. Anyte has been credited with inventing the pastoral epigram and her invention may have influenced Theocritus. It was adapted by later poets, including Ovid.

Stranger, rest your weary legs beneath the elms;
hear how coolly the breeze murmurs through their branches;
then take a bracing draught from the mountain-fed fountain;
for this is welcome shade from the burning sun.
—Anyte, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here I stand, Hermes, in the crossroads
by the windswept elms near the breezy beach,
providing rest to sunburned travelers,
and cold and brisk is my fountain’s abundance.
—Anyte, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sit here, quietly shaded by the luxuriant foliage,
and drink cool water from the sprightly spring,
so that your weary breast, panting with summer’s labors,
may take rest from the blazing sun.
—Anyte, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is the grove of Cypris,
for it is fair for her to look out over the land to the bright deep,
that she may make the sailors’ voyages happy,
as the sea trembles, observing her brilliant image.
—Anyte, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

For her grasshopper, the night-fiddler,
and her tiny oak-dwelling cicada,
little Myro built a funeral mound
then shed a maidenly tear,
for unpersuadable Hades had made off with her playmates!
—Anyte, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Often lamenting at the tomb of her daughter,
Cleina, the mother, cried out for her dear dead child,
departed too soon.
Entreating the soul of understanding Philaenis,
who had crossed the pale Acheron unmarried.
—Anyte, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

According to Nicole Loraux, no public comment on a woman’s death was considered acceptable in classical Athens. The standard of public silence for an unmarried woman who died would have been even more severe.

I mourn the maiden Antiba, for whom many men
came courting to her father’s house,
attracted by her beauty and wisdom,
but alas annihilating Fate hurled her beyond their reach.
—Anyte, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Forgoing a bedchamber and marriage’s warm rites,
your mother placed upon this cold albescent tomb
a maiden statue, having your form and likeness,
so that you, Thersis, can yet be remembered and saluted.
—Anyte, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You perished beside a deeply-rooted bush,
Locris, swiftest of the ebullient noisesome puppies,
as a speckle-necked snake injected its cruel poison
into your nimble limb.
—Anyte, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The young men buried you, their captain, Pheidias.
Dying, you doomed them to dark grief,
                                  like children for their mother.
And yet your headstone sings this beautiful song …
That you died fighting for your beloved country.
—Anyte, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here “noisesome” is a bit of a coinage as I mean both noisy and bothersome, although I’m sure Anyte would have been glad to get that bit of frisky trouble back.



Nossis (fl. 300 BC) was a Hellenistic poet from Epizephyrian Locris in Magna Graecia. Probably well-educated and from a noble family, she had twelve epigrams in the Greek Anthology, with one possibly written by another poet in imitation of her style, which would have made her a poet of note at that time.

There is nothing sweeter than love.
All other delights are secondary.
Thus, I spit out even honey.
This is what Gnossis says:
Whomever Aphrodite does not love,
Is bereft of her roses.
—Nossis, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Most reverend Hera, the oft-descending from heaven,
attend your Lacinian shrine fragrant with incense
and there receive the linen mantle your noble child Nossis,
daughter of Theophilis and Cleocha, has woven for you.
—Nossis, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Apparently Theophilis was Nossis's mother and Cleocha her grandmother.

Stranger, if you sail to Mitylene, her homeland of beautiful dances,
to indulge in the most exquisite graces of Sappho,
remember I also was loved by the Muses, who bore me and reared me in Locris.
My name, never forget it!, is Nossis. Now go!
—Nossis, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pass me by with ringing laughter, then award me
an appreciative word: I am Rhinthon, scion of Syracuse,
the Muses’s smallest nightingale; yet with my tragic burlesques
I was able to pluck an ivy, uniquely my own.
—Nossis, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rhinthon was a parodist in an age when the laurels went to dramatists like Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles.

Let’s visit Aphrodite’s shrine to see her statue,
finely wrought and embellished with gold,
which Polyarchis the courtesan dedicated to her,
having made a fortune from her body’s splendor!
—Nossis, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Aphrodite will receive this gift, joyfully, I think,
it being Samthya’s own headdress,
for it’s elaborate and fragrantly perfumed.
With it she also anoints the beautiful Adonis.
—Nossis, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sabaethis’s image is known from afar
due to its stature and beauty.
Even here we recognize her prudence, her kindness.
Godspeed, blessed lady!
—Nossis, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This tablet portrays Thaumareta, aptly conveying
the ripeness and pride of the tender-eyed girl.
Even your watchdog would wag its tail,
thinking her its mansion’s mistress!
—Nossis, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Melinna is finely wrought. Her tender face!
See how she seems to gaze at us benignly!
How splendidly the daughter resembles her mother!
Isn’t it nice when children duplicate their parents?
—Nossis, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Bruttians flung these shields aside
as they fled from the fleet-footed Locrians.
Now hung from temple ceilings, the shields
praise the Locrians’ valor. Nor do they desire
the arms of the cowards they deserted.
—Nossis, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



In the next poem Callo, a female poet, dedicates her picture to Aphrodite:

Callo placed this tablet in blonde Aphrodite’s temple,
a portrait she painted, faithful in every regard.
See how tenderly she stands! See how her charm blossoms!
May she flourish, for her conduct is blameless.
—Callo, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Corinna or Korinna was an ancient Greek poet who lived in Tanagra, Boeotia, where she wrote in the Boeotian dialect of Greek and achieved wide fame sometime between the fifth and third centuries BC. Her work survives only in fragments and in several shorter pieces quoted by ancient grammarians. She wrote primarily about Boeotian mythology. According to one source, she defeated Pindar in five poetry competitions!

I come to sing of heroes' and heroines' courageous deeds.—Corinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mount Helicon, father of fair offspring, friend of the wayfarer, beloved of the Muses!—Corinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Terpsichora calls me to sing beautifully of heroes
for Tanagra's white-clad daughters and my city rejoices,
hearing my clear, evocative voice.
—Corinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Terpsichora was the Muse associated with the choral dance.

I indeed censure even sweet-voiced Myrtis,
for, having been born a woman,
she chose to compete against Pindar!
—Corinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

THE SINGING CONTEST OF HELICON AND CITHAERON
by Corinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The text in brackets was missing and has been filled in imaginatively.

[The chorus gathered] well-garlanded atop Olympus [as the musicians tuned their] lyre-strings [to the] mountains’ [great height and] rarefied air, while tribes of asses [brayed and jockeyed for position,] as always [a discordant] family. Then Cithaeron sang of how the Curetes had sheltered the goddess’s sacred offspring in a cave without the knowledge of crooked-minded Cronus, since blessed Rhea had stolen him away, winning great honor from the Immortals. Such was Cithaeron’s song that, when it was done, the Muses immediately instructed the Blessed Ones to cast their secret ballot-stones into gleaming gold urns. Then they all rose together, declaring Cithaeron the winner, whereupon Hermes heartily proclaimed Cithaeron victorious with a loud cry, and the Blessed Ones, rejoicing, decorated him with garlands as he danced with joy. But Helicon hurled down ten thousand boulders in disgust!

According to Greek mythology, the Curetes (aka Korybantes, Corybantes, Corybants and Kurbantes) were armed and crested dancers who worshipped the Phrygian goddess Cybele with drumming and dancing. The holy babe stolen by Rhea was Zeus.



Moero or Myro (fl. 300 BC) was a Byzantine poet who was highly regarded in antiquity. Meleager mentioned her with Sappho and Anyte in the opening catalogue of his Garland, while Antipater of Thessalonica ranked her among the top nine ancient female poets.

You lie here, grapes, beneath Aphrodite’s golden portico,
full to the brim with Dionysus’s nectar,
but your mother-vine can no longer lovingly wrap her branches around you,
nor protect you beneath her tender leaves.
—Moero, Greek Anthology 6.119, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hamadryad Nymphs, river-daughters, ambrosial beings
treading the depths with rose-petaled feet,
hail!, and may you always remember and safeguard Kleonymos,
who placed these lovely votive images beneath the pines for you, O goddesses!
—Moero, Greek Anthology 6.189, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mnemosyne
by Moero
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Zeus was nursed to manhood on Crete where none of the Blessed Ones knew him, yet he continued to grow in strength and vigor. Secure inside a sacred cave, he was nurtured by timid doves bearing ambrosia from the Ocean streams. Meanwhile a great eagle drawing nectar from a rock brought it continually in its beak for prudent Zeus to drink. Thus after he had conquered his father Cronus, victorious Zeus made the eagle immortal, bequeathing him heaven. He likewise bestowed honour on the timid doves, making them heralds of summer and winter.

Moero seems to be alluding to an observation by Circe in the Odyssey:

No winged creatures passed through the way of the Clashing Rocks, not even timid doves bearing ambrosia to father Zeus! —Homer, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Ballad
by William Soutar
translation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

O, surely you have seen my love
Down where the waters wind:
He walks like one who fears no man
And yet his eyes are kind!

O, surely you have seen my love
At the turning of the tide:
For then he gathers in his nets
Down by the waterside!

Yes, lassie we have seen your love
At the turning of the tide:
For he was with the fisher folk
Down by the waterside.

The fisher folk worked at their trade
No far from Walnut Grove:
They gathered in their dripping nets
And found your one true love!



Haiku and Tanka

Haiku and Tanka can be similar to the best Greek epigrams: short and sweet, or (more often) short and bittersweet. Here's my translation of one of my favorite haiku, by the master Basho:

The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow low
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here's another haiku I particularly love:

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
―Takaha Shugyo, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is one of my favorite tanka:

Our life here on earth:
to what shall we compare it?
It is not like a rowboat
departing at daybreak,
leaving no trace of man in its wake?
―Takaha Shugyo, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here are more of my haiku and tanka translations; every other poem is by the Master Basho; I consider him one of the greatest poets of all time, in any language:

Winter in the air:
my neighbor,
how does he fare? …
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A kite floats
at the same place in the sky
where yesterday it floated …
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, investigate loneliness!
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
―Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let us arrange
these lovely flowers in the bowl
since there's no rice
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wild geese pass
leaving the emptiness of heaven
revealed
―Takaha Shugyo, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An ancient pond,
the frog leaps:
the silver plop and gurgle of water
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Leaves
like crows’ shadows
flirt with a lonely moon.
—Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fukuda Chiyo-ni (1703-1775), also known as Kaga no Chiyo, was a Japanese poet, painter and calligrapher of the Edo period. She began writing haiku at age seven and by age seventeen was popular throughout Japan. At age 52 she became a Buddhist nun, shaved her head, adopted the name Soen (“Escape”), and took up residence in a temple.

Ah butterfly,
what dreams do you ply
with your beautiful wings?
—Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Because morning glories
held my well-bucket hostage
I went begging for water!
—Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Chiyo-ni wrote this next poem in calligraphy on a portrait of Matsuo Basho. I take it to mean that she liked Basho's poetry but wanted to develop her own unique voice.

To listen, fine …
fine also not to echo,
nightingale.
—Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Composed like the Thinker, he sits
contemplating the mountains:
the sagacious frog!
―Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This world?
Moonlit dew
flicked from a crane’s bill.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Seventy-one?
How long
can a dewdrop last?
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation of his jisei (death poem) by Michael R. Burch

I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.
―by Vera Pavlova (1963-), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The last poem above is by a contemporary Russian poet, but I think it rivals the work of the Oriental masters. There are more haiku translations later on this page.

More English Translations of Japanese Poets by Michael R. Burch



PINDAR

Athens, celestial city, crowned with violets, beloved of poets, bulwark of Greece!
—Pindar, fragment 64, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do not, O my soul, aspire to immortality, but exhaust life.
—Pindar, Pythian Ode III, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fairest of all preludes is mine to incomparable Athens
as I lay the foundation of songs for the mighty race of Alcmaeonidae and their majestic steeds.
Among all the nations, which heroic house compares with glorious Hellas?
—Pindar, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Olympian Ode I: No Games Greater than the Olympics by Pindar
Epigrams by Pindar

These translations and more can be read here: Pindar



Through the fields of solitude
by Hermann Allmers
set to music by Johannes Brahms
translation by David B. Gosselin with Michael R. Burch

Peacefully, I rest in the tall green grass
For a long time only gazing as I lie,
Caught in the endless hymn of crickets,
And encircled by a wonderful blue sky.

And the lovely white clouds floating across
The depths of the heavens are like silky lace;
I feel as though my soul has long since fled,
Softly drifting with them through eternal space.

This poem was set to music by the German composer Johannes Brahms in what has been called its “the most sublime incarnation.” A celebrated recording of the song was made in 1958 by the baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Jörg Demus accompanying him on the piano.



Walid Khazindar was born in 1950 in Gaza City. He is considered to be one of the very best Palestinian poets; his poetry has been said to be "characterized by metaphoric originality and a novel thematic approach unprecedented in Arabic poetry." He was awarded the first Palestine Prize for Poetry in 1997.

This Distant Light
by Walid Khazindar, a Palestinian poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bitterly cold,
winter clings to the naked trees.

If only you would free
the bright sparrows
from your fingertips
and unleash a smile—that shy, tentative smile—
from the imprisoned anguish I see.

Sing! Can we not sing
as if we were warm, hand-in-hand,
sheltered by shade from a sweltering sun?

Can you not always remain like this:
stoking the fire, more beautiful than expected, in reverie?

Darkness increases and we must remain vigilant
now that this distant light is our sole consolation …
this imperiled flame, which from the beginning
has constantly flickered,
in danger of going out.

Come to me, closer and closer.
I don't want to be able to tell my hand from yours.
And let's stay awake, lest the snow smother us.



RAINER MARIA RILKE

These are my translations of poems by the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke:

Archaischer Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will
emanates dynamism. Otherwise
the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us,
nor the centering loins make us smile
at the thought of their generative animus.
Otherwise the stone might seem deficient,
unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin
projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards,
unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within
like an inchoate star—demanding our belief.
You must change your life.

Der Panther ("The Panther")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond.
Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride,
he circles, his small orbit tightening,
an electron losing power. Paralyzed,
soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing.
Only at times the pupils' curtains rise
silently, and then an image enters,
descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers
somewhere within his empty heart, and dies.

Herbsttag ("Autumn Day")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go.
Lay your long shadows over the sundials
and over the meadows, let the free winds blow.
Command the late fruits to fatten and shine;
O, grant them another Mediterranean hour!
Urge them to completion, and with power
convey final sweetness to the heavy wine.
Who has no house now, never will build one.
Who's alone now, shall continue alone;
he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends,
and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down,
restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend.

The translations below can be read here: Rainer Maria Rilke

Komm, Du ("Come, You") by Rainer Maria Rilke
Liebes-Lied ("Love Song") by Rainer Maria Rilke
Das Lied des Bettlers ("The Beggar's Song") by Rainer Maria Rilke
Du im Voraus (“You who never arrived”) by Rainer Maria Rilke
First Duino Elegy by Ranier Maria Rilke
Second Duino Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke

The translations above can be read here: Rainer Maria Rilke



MIKLOS RADNOTI

Here are my translations of four poems by the great Holocaust poet Miklós Radnóti. They were written on what became his death march as Nazi soldiers herded Jewish concentration camp prisoners away from the advancing Russian armies.

Postcard 1
by Miklós Radnóti
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Out of Bulgaria, the great wild roar of the artillery thunders,
resounds on the mountain ridges, rebounds, then ebbs into silence
while here men, beasts, wagons and imagination all steadily increase;
the road whinnies and bucks, neighing; the maned sky gallops;
and you are eternally with me, love, constant amid all the chaos,
glowing within my conscience — incandescent, intense.
Somewhere within me, dear, you abide forever —
still, motionless, mute, like an angel stunned to silence by death
or a beetle hiding in the heart of a rotting tree.

Postcard 2
by Miklós Radnóti
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A few miles away they're incinerating
the haystacks and the houses,
while squatting here on the fringe of this pleasant meadow,
the shell-shocked peasants quietly smoke their pipes.
Now, here, stepping into this still pond, the little shepherd girl
sets the silver water a-ripple
while, leaning over to drink, her flocculent sheep
seem to swim like drifting clouds.

Postcard 3
by Miklós Radnóti
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The oxen dribble bloody spittle;
the men pass blood in their piss.
Our stinking regiment halts, a horde of perspiring savages,
adding our aroma to death's repulsive stench.

Postcard 4
by Miklós Radnóti
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I toppled beside him — his body already taut,
tight as a string just before it snaps,
shot in the back of the head.
"This is how you'll end too; just lie quietly here,"
I whispered to myself, patience blossoming from dread.
"Der springt noch auf," the voice above me jeered;
I could only dimly hear
through the congealing blood slowly sealing my ear.

This was his final poem, written October 31, 1944 near Szentkirályszabadja, Hungary. "Der springt noch auf" means something like "That one is still twitching."

There are more translations here, including very touching poems he wrote for his wife: Miklós Radnóti



Here's my translation of a moving poem by Hiroshima survivor Kurihara Sadako:

Let Us Be Midwives!
by Kurihara Sadako, a Japanese poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Midnight …
the basement of a shattered building …
atomic bomb survivors sniveling in the darkness …
not a single candle between them …
the odor of blood …
the stench of death …
the sickly-sweet smell of decaying humanity …
the groans …
the moans …
Out of all that, suddenly, miraculously, a voice:
"The baby's coming!"
In the hellish basement, unexpectedly,
a young mother had gone into labor.
In the dark, lacking a single match, what to do?
Scrambling to her side,
forgetting their own …



These are my translations of poems by the ussian poet Marina Tsvetaeva:

I Know The Truth
by Marina Tsvetaeva
loose translation/interpretation by  Michael R. Burch

I know the truth—abandon lesser truths!
There's no need for anyone living to struggle!
See? Evening falls, night quickly descends!
So why the useless disputes, generals, poets, lovers?

The wind is calming now; the earth is bathed in dew;
the stars' infernos will soon freeze in the heavens.
And soon we'll sleep together, under the earth,
we who never gave each other a moment's rest above it.

I Know The Truth (Alternate Ending)
by Marina Tsvetaeva
loose translation/interpretation by  Michael R. Burch

I know the truth—abandon lesser truths!
There's no need for anyone living to struggle!
See? Evening falls, night quickly descends!
So why the useless disputes, generals, poets, lovers?

The wind caresses the grasses; the earth gleams, damp with dew;
the stars' infernos will soon freeze in the heavens.
And soon we'll lie together under the earth,
we who were never united above it.

Poems about Moscow
by Marina Tsvetaeva
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

5
Above the city Saint Peter once remanded to hell
now rolls the delirious thunder of the bells.

As the thundering high tide eventually reverses,
so, too, the woman who once bore your curses.

To you, O Great Peter, and you, O Great Tsar, I kneel!
And yet the bells above me continually peal.

And while they keep ringing out of the pure blue sky,
Moscow's eminence is something I can't deny …

though sixteen hundred churches, nearby and afar,
all gaily laugh at the hubris of the Tsars.

The Guest
by Anna Akhmatova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Everything’s the same: a driving snow
Hammers the dining room windows.
Meanwhile, I remain my usual self.
But a man came to me.

I asked him, “What do you want?”
“To be with you in hell.”
I laughed: “It’s plain you intend
To see us both damned!”

But he lifted his elegant hand
to lightly caress the flowers.
“Tell me how they kiss you,
Tell me how you kiss.”

His eyes, observing me blankly,
Never moved from my ring,
Nor did a muscle move
In his implacable face.

We both know his delight
is my unnerving knowledge
that he is indifferent to me,
that I can refuse him nothing.

THE MUSE
by Anna Akhmatova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My being hangs by a thread tonight
as I await a Muse no human pen can command.
The desires of my heart — youth, liberty, glory —
now depend on the Maid with the flute in her hand.

Look! Now she arrives; she flings back her veil;
I meet her grave eyes — calm, implacable, pitiless.
“Temptress, confess!
Are you the one who gave Dante hell?”

She answers, “Yes.”

The evening light is broad and yellow
by Anna Akhmatova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The evening light is broad and yellow;
it glides in on an April rain.
You arrived years late,
yet I’m glad you came.

Please sit down here, beside me,
receive me with welcoming eyes.
Here is my blue notebook
with my childhood poems inside.

Forgive me if I lived in sorrow,
spent too little time rejoicing in the sun.
Forgive, forgive, me, if I mistook
others for you, when you were the One.

I have also translated this tribute poem written by Marina Tsvetaeva for Anna Akhmatova:

Excerpt from “Poems for Akhmatova”
by Marina Tsvetaeva
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You outshine everything, even the sun
   at its zenith. The stars are yours!
If only I could sweep like the wind
   through some unbarred door,
gratefully, to where you are …
   to hesitantly stammer, suddenly shy,
lowering my eyes before you, my lovely mistress,
   petulant, chastened, overcome by tears,
as a child sobs to receive forgiveness …



RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Rabindranath Tagore was a major Indian poet who wrote poems in Bengali.

The Seashore Gathering
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

On the seashores of endless worlds, earth's children converge.
The infinite sky is motionless, the restless waters boisterous.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children gather to dance with joyous cries and pirouettes.
They build sand castles and play with hollow shells.
They weave boats out of withered leaves and laughingly float them out over the vast deep.
Earth's children play gaily on the seashores of endless worlds.
They do not know, yet, how to cast nets or swim.
Divers fish for pearls and merchants sail their ships, while earth's children skip, gather pebbles and scatter them again.
They are unaware of hidden treasures, nor do they know how to cast nets, yet.
The sea surges with laughter, smiling palely on the seashore.
Death-dealing waves sing the children meaningless songs, like a mother lullabying her baby's cradle.
The sea plays with the children, smiling palely on the seashore.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children meet.
Tempests roam pathless skies, ships lie wrecked in uncharted waters, death wanders abroad, and still the children play.
On the seashores of endless worlds there is a great gathering of earth's children.

Come As You Are
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come as you are, forget appearances!
Is your hair untamable, your part uneven, your bodice unfastened? Never mind.
Come as you are, forget appearances!

Skip with quicksilver steps across the grass.
If your feet glisten with dew, if your anklets slip, if your beaded necklace slides off? Never mind.
Skip with quicksilver steps across the grass.

Do you see the clouds enveloping the sky?
Flocks of cranes erupt from the riverbank, fitful gusts ruffle the fields, anxious cattle tremble in their stalls.
Do you see the clouds enveloping the sky?

You loiter in vain over your toilet lamp; it flickers and dies in the wind.
Who will care that your eyelids have not been painted with lamp-black, when your pupils are darker than thunderstorms?
You loiter in vain over your toilet lamp; it flickers and dies in the wind.

Come as you are, forget appearances!
If the wreath lies unwoven, who cares? If the bracelet is unfastened, let it fall. The sky grows dark; it is late.
Come as you are, forget appearances!

Only Let Me Love You
by Michael R. Burch

after Rabindranath Tagore

Only let me love you, and the pain
of living will be easier to bear.
Only let me love you. Nay, refrain
from pinning up your hair!

Only let me love you. Stay, remain.
A face so lovely never needs repair!
Only let me love you to the strains
of Rabindranath on a soft sitar.

Only let me love you, while the rain
makes music: gentle, eloquent, sincere.
Only let me love you. Don’t complain
you need more time to make yourself more fair!

Only let me love you. Stay, remain.
No need for rouge or lipstick! Only share
your tender body swiftly …

The following translations can be read here: Rabindranath Tagore

Unfit Gifts by Rabindranath Tagore
This Dog by Rabindranath Tagore
I Cannot Remember My Mother by Rabindranath Tagore
Patience by Rabindranath Tagore
Gitanjali 35: "Where the mind is without fear" by Rabindranath Tagore
Gitanjali 11: "God is not here, in this lonely dark temple" by Rabindranath Tagore
Last Curtain by Rabindranath Tagore
Death by Rabindranath Tagore

The translations above can be read here: Rabindranath Tagore



TRANSLATIONS OF TAMIL POEMS AND EPIGRAMS

Among all earth’s languages we find none, anywhere, as sweet as Tamil. — Subramanya Bharathi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Golden Bharath is our glorious homeland:
Hail India, members of a matchless band!
— Subramanya Bharathi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You shattered my heart,
now all I see are your reflections in the shards.
—Subramanya Bharathi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am the footprint erased by the rain. — Subramanya Bharathi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

More Tamil poems can be read here: Subramanya Bharathi and Gopalakrishna Bharati



TRANSLATIONS OF LATIN AND ITALIAN POEMS AND EPIGRAMS

My objective is not to side with the majority, but to avoid the ranks of the insane.—Marcus Aurelius, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wall, I'm astonished that you haven't collapsed,
since you're holding up verses so prolapsed!
—Ancient Roman graffiti, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Just as I select a ship when it's time to travel,
or a house when it's time to change residences,
even so I will choose when it's time to depart from life.
―Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD), speaking about the right to euthanasia in the first century AD, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There is nothing so pointless, so perfidious as human life! … The ultimate bliss is not to be born; otherwise we should speedily slip back into the original Nothingness.―Seneca, On Consolation to Marcia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Religion is regarded by fools as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. — Seneca, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Cunt, while you weep and seep neediness all night,
ass has claimed what would bring you delight.
—Musa Lapidaria, #100A, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

VIRGIL

The following translation is the speech of the Sibyl to Aeneas, after he has implored her to help him find his beloved father in the Afterlife, found in the sixth book of the Aeneid…

"The Descent into the Underworld"
by Virgil
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Sibyl began to speak:

“God-blooded Trojan, son of Anchises,
descending into the Underworld’s easy
since Death’s dark door stands eternally unbarred.
But to retrace one’s steps and return to the surface:
that’s the conundrum, that’s the catch!
Godsons have done it, the chosen few
whom welcoming Jupiter favored
and whose virtue merited heaven.
However, even the Blessed find headway’s hard:
immense woods barricade boggy bottomland
where the Cocytus glides with its dark coils.
But if you insist on ferrying the Styx twice
and twice traversing Tartarus,
if Love demands you indulge in such madness,
listen closely to how you must proceed…”

PETRARCH

Sonnet XIV
by Petrarch
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lust, gluttony and idleness conspire
to banish every virtue from mankind,
replaced by evil in his treacherous mind,
thus robbing man of his Promethean fire,
till his nature, overcome by dark desire,
extinguishes the light pure heaven refined.
Thus the very light of heaven has lost its power
while man gropes through strange darkness, unable to find
relief for his troubled mind, always inclined
to lesser dreams than Helicon’s bright shower!
Who seeks the laurel? Who the myrtle? Bind
poor Philosophy in chains, to learn contrition
then join the servile crowd, so base conditioned?
Not so, true gentle soul! Keep your ambition!

Sonnet VI
by Petrarch
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I once beheld such high, celestial graces
as otherwise on earth remain unknown,
whose presences might earthly grief atone,
but from their blinding light we turn our faces.
I saw how tears had left disconsolate traces
within bright eyes no noonday sun outshone.
I heard soft lips, with ululating moans,
mouth words to jar great mountains from their traces.
Love, wisdom, honor, courage, tenderness, truth
made every verse they voiced more high, more dear,
than ever fell before on mortal ear.
Even heaven seemed astonished, not aloof,
as the budding leaves on every bough approved,
so sweetly swelled the radiant atmosphere!



OVID

“The Amores” Book I, Elegy II: Darted!
by Ovid
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Why can I say except that my mattress feels hard to me
and that my sheets and clothes keep tumbling to the floor
through these long, sleepless, endlessly tossing nights?
Why do my weary bones ache?
Why is my restless body wracked with pain?
But if I was being assailed by desire, surely I’d know it!
Certainly, Cupid’s crept in and wounded me with some secret art.
That’s it: a sliverous dart has found and lodged fast in my heart,
where cruel Love now commands my conquered breast.

“The Amores” Book I, Elegy I: Cupid tunes his Meter to the Theme of Love by Ovid
Epigrams by Ovid

The Ovid translations above can be read here: Ovid



MICHELANGELO

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) is considered by many experts to be the greatest artist and sculptor of all time.

Michelangelo Epigram Translations
loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

I saw the angel in the marble and freed him.
I hewed away the coarse walls imprisoning the lovely apparition.
Each stone contains a statue; it is the sculptor’s task to release it.
The danger is not aiming too high and missing, but aiming too low and hitting the mark.
Our greatness is only bounded by our horizons.
Be at peace, for God did not create us to abandon us.
God grant that I always desire more than my capabilities.
My soul’s staircase to heaven is earth’s loveliness.
I live and love by God’s peculiar light.
Trifles create perfection, yet perfection is no trifle.
Genius is infinitely patient, and infinitely painstaking.
I have never found salvation in nature; rather I love cities.
He who follows will never surpass.
Beauty is what lies beneath superfluities.
I criticize via creation, not by fault-finding.
If you knew how hard I worked, you wouldn’t call it “genius.”

SONNET: RAVISHED
by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ravished, by all our eyes find fine and fair,
yet starved for virtues pure hearts might confess,
my soul can find no Jacobean stair
that leads to heaven, save earth's loveliness.
The stars above emit such rapturous light
our longing hearts ascend on beams of Love
and seek, indeed, Love at its utmost height.
But where on earth does Love suffice to move
a gentle heart, or ever leave it wise,
save for beauty itself and the starlight in her eyes?

The following Michelangelo translations can be read here: Michelangelo

BEAUTY AND THE ARTIST by Michelangelo
SONNET XVI: LOVE AND ART by Michelangelo
SONNET XXXI: LOVE'S LORDSHIP, TO TOMMASO DE' CAVALIERI by Michelangelo
SONNET: TO LUIGI DEL RICCIO, AFTER THE DEATH OF CECCHINO BRACCI by Michelangelo

The Michelangelo translations above can be read here: Michelangelo



TRANSLATIONS OF POEMS AND EPIGRAMS BY LEONARDO DA VINCI

Blinding ignorance misleads us. Myopic mortals, open your eyes!—Leonardo da Vinci, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Nothing enables authority like silence.—Leonardo da Vinci, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The greatest deceptions spring from men’s own opinions.—Leonardo da Vinci, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There are three classes of people: Those who see by themselves. Those who see only when they are shown. Those who refuse to see.—Leonardo da Vinci, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is easier to oppose evil from the beginning than at the end.—Leonardo da Vinci, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where the spirit does not aid and abet the hand there is no art.—Leonardo da Vinci, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Necessity is the mistress of mother nature's inventions.—Leonardo da Vinci, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Nature has no effect without cause, no invention without necessity.—Leonardo da Vinci, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

And what can I do when a woman plucks my heart?
Alas, how she plays me, and yet I must persist!
—Leonardo da Vinci, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here forms, colors, the character of the entire universe, contract to a point,
and that point is miraculous, marvelous …
O marvelous, O miraculous, O stupendous Necessity!
By your elegant laws you compel every effect to be the direct result of its cause,
by the shortest path possible.
Such are your miracles!
—Leonardo da Vinci, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

More da Vinci translations can be read here: Leonardo da Vinci



PARTIAL TO MARTIAL

I must admit I’m partial
to Martial.
—Michael R. Burch

These are my translations of Latin epigrams by the Roman poet Martial:

You ask me why I've sent you no new verses?
There might be reverses.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You ask me to recite my poems to you?
I know how you'll "recite" them, if I do.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You ask me why I choose to live elsewhere?
You're not there.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You ask me why I love fresh country air?
You're not befouling it, mon frère.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You never wrote a poem,
yet criticize mine?
Stop abusing me or write something fine
of your own!
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He starts everything but finishes nothing;
thus I suspect there's no end to his fucking.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

More translations of Martial can be read here: Martial



CATULLUS

Catullus (c. 87–54 BC) was a Latin poet of the late Roman republic who influenced Ovid and Virgil, among others. Many of his love poems were written for a woman with the pseudonym “Lesbia.” It is believed that Lesbia was Clodia Metellus, the wife of the proconsul Metellus.

Catullus LXXXV aka Carmina 85: “Odi et Amo”
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I hate. I love.
You ask, “Why not refrain?”
I wish I could explain.
I can’t, but feel the pain.

Catullus CVI aka Carmina 106: “That Boy”
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

See that young boy, by the auctioneer?
He’s so pretty he sells himself, I fear!

Catullus XLIX aka Carmina 49: “A Toast to Cicero”
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Cicero, please confess:
You’re drunk on your success!
All men of good taste attest
That you’re the very best—
At making speeches, first class!
While I’m the dregs of the glass.

Catullus CI aka Carmina 101: “His Brother’s Burial”
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Through many lands and over many seas
I have journeyed, brother, to these wretched rites,
to this final acclamation of the dead …
and to speak — however ineffectually — to your voiceless ashes
now that Fate has wrested you away from me.
Alas, my dear brother, wrenched from my arms so cruelly,
accept these last offerings, these small tributes
blessed by our fathers’ traditions, these small gifts for the dead.
Please accept, by custom, these tokens drenched with a brother’s tears,
and, for all eternity, brother, “Hail and Farewell.”

The translations below can be read here: Catullus

Catullus I aka Carmina 1 : "To whom do I dedicate this novel book?"
Catullus II aka Carmina 2: "Lesbia’s Sparrow"
Catullus V aka Carmina 5: "Let us live, Lesbia, let us love"
Catullus VII aka Carmina 7: "How Many Kisses"
Catullus VIII aka Carmina 8: "Advice to Himself"
Catullus LI aka Carmina 51: "That Man" — Catullus’s translation of a famous Sappho poem
Catullus LX aka Carmina 60: "Lioness"
Catullus LXV aka Carmina 65: "Hortalus, I’m exhausted by relentless grief"
Catullus LXX aka Carmina 70: “Marriage Vows”

The translations above can be read here: Catullus



SULPICIA

Sulpicia is one of the few female poets of ancient Rome whose work survives, and is arguably the most notable. Sulpicia was the author of six short poems (some 40 lines in all) written in Latin during the first century BC. Her poems were published as part of the corpus of Albius Tibullus. Sulpicia's family were well-off Roman citizens with connections to Emperor Augustus, since her uncle Valerius Messalla Corvinus served as a commander for Augustus and was consul in 31 BC.

These translations were suggested by Carolyn Clark, to whom I have dedicated them. Her dissertation "Tibullus Illustrated: Lares, Genius and Sacred Landscapes" includes a discussion of Sulpicia on pages 364-369 and is highly recommended.

The translations below can be read here: Sulpicia

I. At Last, Love! by Sulpicia
II. Dismal Journeys, Unwanted Arrivals by Sulpicia
III. The Thankfully Abandoned Journey by Sulpicia
IV. Thanks for Everything, and Nothing by Sulpicia
V. Reproach for Indifference by Sulpicia
VI. Her Apology for Errant Desire by Sulpicia
Sulpicia on the First of March by Sulpicia

The translations above can be read here: Sulpicia



CICERO

The famous Roman orator Cicero employed “tail rhyme” in this pun:

O Fortunatam natam me consule Romam.

O fortunate natal Rome, to be hatched by me!
—Cicero, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Latin hymn Dies Irae also employs end rhyme:

Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sybilla

The day of wrath, that day
which will leave the world ash-gray,
was foretold by David and the Sybil fey.
—attributed to Thomas of Celano, St. Gregory the Great, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and St. Bonaventure; loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

End rhymes occur in classical Greek poetry in Euripides’ Alcestis 782-786 and Ovid’s Amores 1.2.1-4, 39-42.



Excerpts from THE BACCHAE
by Euripides
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am Dionysus, son of Zeus,
returned to Thebes, my birthland.
My mother, Cadmus’s daughter, Semele,
midwived by fire, delivered by the lightning’s bellowing thunder.
Here I take my stand, a pale god, incognito, come disguised as a man.
Here beside Dirce’s stream and the headwaters of Ismenus.
Here before her shrine I see my lightning-conceived mother's grave.
While amid the ruins of her shattered palace Zeus’s eternal flame still smolders,
lit long ago in undying witness of Hera's lethal fury against my mother.
But Cadmus, founder of Thebes, has earned my praise,
for he made this tomb a shrine, one sacred to my mother.
And was it not I who shaded her grave with these encircling vines’ greenery?
Far behind me now lie the golden-rivered lands of Lydia and Phrygia, where my journey began.
Overland I trekked, across the Persian steppes where the sun beats so fiercely down,
through fastness of Bactria and Media’s grim wastes.
At last to rich Arabia I came…

***

The labors of a god are hard—
hard, yes, and yet his service is sweet.
Sweet to serve, sweet to rejoice:
Bacchus! Evohi!

***

Thus his mother bore him once,
in lightning-struck, bitter labor,
consumed by flames flying forth from Zeus;
thus she died, untimely torn,
on her birth-bed, dead, enlightninged!
Yet of light her son was born!
Dionysus!

EURIPIDES EPIGRAMS

Love distills the eyes’ desires, love bewitches the heart with its grace.—Euripides, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fools call wisdom foolishness.—Euripides, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

One true friend is worth ten thousand kin.—Euripides, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Not to speak one’s mind is slavery.—Euripides, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I would rather die standing than kneel, a slave.—Euripides, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fresh tears are wasted on old griefs.—Euripides, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Euripides was pretty good, wasn't he? I try to translate him in as few words as possible, hoping to stay out of his way.—Michael R. Burch



VERONICA FRANCO

Veronica Franco (1546-1591) was a Venetian courtesan who wrote literary-quality poetry and prose in Latin. Hollywood produced a movie based on her life: Dangerous Beauty.

I confess I became a courtesan, traded yearning for power, welcomed many rather than be owned by one. I confess I embraced a whore's freedom over a wife's obedience.— Dangerous Beauty, 1998

Renaissance Venetian society recognized two very different classes of courtesans: the cortigiana onesta (intellectual courtesans) and the cortigiana di lume (lower-class prostitutes, often streetwalkers). Franco was perhaps the most celebrated cortigiana onesta, or "honest courtesan." Thanks to her fine education and literary talents, she was able to mingle with Venice's elites, befriending and sometimes bedding aristocrats and noblemen, even King Henry III of France, to whom she addressed two sonnets in her second book. She also became close friends with Domenico Venier, a patron of female poets, and was able to take advantage of the Venier palace library. Her poems display both passion and intelligence, and she sometimes engaged in witty poetic "duels" with the male poets she knew. For instance, Franco wrote the poem below in response to a poem by Marco Venier:

A Courtesan's Love Lyric (I)
by Veronica Franco
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My rewards will be commensurate with your gifts
if only you give me the one that lifts
me laughing …

And though it costs you nothing,
still it is of immense value to me.

Your reward will be
not just to fly
but to soar, so high
that your joys vastly exceed your desires.

And my beauty, to which your heart aspires
and which you never tire of praising,
I will employ for the raising
of your spirits. Then, lying sweetly at your side,
I will shower you with all the delights of a bride,
which I have more expertly learned.

Then you who so fervently burned
will at last rest, fully content,
fallen even more deeply in love, spent
at my comfortable bosom.

When I am in bed with a man I blossom,
becoming completely free
with the man who loves and enjoys me.

The following translations can be read here: Veronica Franco

Capitolo 24 by Veronica Franco
"I Resolved to Make a Virtue of My Desire" by Veronica Franco
"When I bed a man" by Veronica Franco
"We danced a youthful jig through that fair city" by Veronica Franco
"Advice against prostitution" by Veronica Franco
"I wish it were not a sin to have liked it so" by Veronica Franco

The translations above can be read here: Veronica Franco



NOVELTIES
by Thomas Campion, an English poet who composed poems in Latin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their whores for exotic positions.

IN LIBRARIOS
by Thomas Campion

Impressionum plurium librum laudat
Librarius; scortum nec non minus leno.

THE PLAGIARIST or THE PLAGIARTIST
by Thomas Campion, an English poet who composed poems in Latin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dogs raise a ruckus at the stench of a thief,
so what would they say about you, given speech?

Suspecto quid fure canes cum,
Pontice, latrent Dixissent melius, si potuere loqui?



Hadrian's Elegy
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Little soul,
little tramp,
little vagabond …
where are we fluttering off to,
so bedraggled, pale and woebegone,
who used to be so full of mirth?
Where are we going—from bad to worse?
Who’ll laugh last? Was the joke on us?

2.
My delicate soul,
now aimlessly fluttering … drifting … unwhole,
former consort of my failing corpse …
Where are we going—from bad to worse?
From jail to a hearse?
Where do we wander now—fraught, pale and frail?
To hell?
To some place devoid of jests, mirth, happiness?
Is the joke on us?



This is a poem of mine that has been translated into Italian by Comasia Aquaro.

Her Grace Flows Freely
by Michael R. Burch

July 7, 2007

Her love is always chaste, and pure.
This I vow. This I aver.
If she shows me her grace, I will honor her.
This I vow. This I aver.
Her grace flows freely, like her hair.
This I vow. This I aver.
For her generousness, I would worship her.
This I vow. This I aver.
I will not damn her for what I bear
This I vow. This I aver.
like a most precious incense–desire for her,
This I vow. This I aver.
nor call her “whore” where I seek to repair.
This I vow. This I aver.

I will not wink, nor smirk, nor stare
This I vow. This I aver.
like a foolish child at the foot of a stair
This I vow. This I aver.
where I long to go, should another be there.
This I vow. This I aver.

I’ll rejoice in her freedom, and always dare
This I vow. This I aver.
the chance that she’ll flee me–my starling rare.
This I vow. This I aver.
And then, if she stays, without stays, I swear
This I vow. This I aver.
that I will joy in her grace beyond compare.
This I vow. This I aver.

Her Grace Flows Freely
by Michael R. Burch
Italian translation by Comasia Aquaro

La sua grazia vola libera

7 luglio 2007

Il suo amore è sempre casto, e puro.
Lo giuro. Lo prometto.
Se mi mostra la sua grazia, le farò onore.
Lo giuro. Lo prometto.
La sua grazia vola libera, come i suoi capelli.
Lo giuro. Lo prometto.
Per la sua generosità, la venererò.
Lo giuro. Lo prometto.
Non la maledirò per ciò che soffro
Lo giuro. Lo prometto.
come il più prezioso desiderio d’incenso per lei,
Lo giuro. Lo prometto.
non chiamarla “sgualdrina” laddove io cerco di aggiustare.
Lo giuro. Lo prometto.

Io non strizzerò l’occhio, non riderò soddisfatto, non fisserò lo sguardo
Lo giuro. Lo prometto.
Come un bambino sciocco ai piedi di una scala
Lo giuro. Lo prometto.
Laddove io desidero andare, ci sarebbe forse un altro.
Lo giuro. Lo prometto.

Mi rallegrerò nella sua libertà, e sempre sfiderò
Lo giuro. Lo prometto.
la sorte che lei mi sfuggirà—il mio raro storno
Lo giuro. Lo prometto.
E dopo, se lei resta, senza stare, io lo garantisco
Lo giuro. Lo prometto.
Gioirò nella sua grazia al di là del confrontare.
Lo giuro. Lo prometto.



Sonnet 26
by Giacomo da Lentini
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I've seen it rain on sunny days;
I’ve seen the darkness split by light;
I’ve seen white lightning fade to haze;
Seen frozen snow turn water-bright.

Some sweets have bitter aftertastes
While bitter things can taste quite sweet:
So enemies become best mates
While former friends no longer meet.

Yet the strangest thing I've seen is Love,
Who healed my wounds by wounding me.
Love quenched the fire he lit before;
The life he gave was death, therefore.
How to warm my heart? It eluded me.
Yet extinguished, Love sears all the more.

Giacomo da Lentini, also known as Jacopo da Lentini or by the appellative Il Notaro (“The Notary”), was an Italian poet of the 13th century who has been credited with creating the sonnet.



Dante Translations by Michael R. Burch

Little sparks may ignite great Infernos.—Dante, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
In Beatrice I beheld the outer boundaries of blessedness.—Dante, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
She made my veins and even the pulses within them tremble.—Dante, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Her sweetness left me intoxicated.—Dante, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Love commands me by determining my desires.—Dante, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Follow your own path and let the bystanders gossip.—Dante, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The devil is not as dark as depicted.—Dante, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
There is no greater sorrow than to recall how we delighted in our own wretchedness.—Dante, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Midway through my life’s journey
I awoke to find myself lost in a trackless wood,
for I had strayed far from the straight path.
—Dante, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

INSCRIPTION ON THE GATE OF HELL
Before me nothing created existed, to fear.
Eternal I am, and eternal I endure.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
—Dante, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The following Dante translations can be read here: Dante

Paradiso, Canto III:1-33, The Revelation of Love and Truth by Dante Alighieri
Paradiso "O Virgin Mother" by Dante Alighieri
Sonnet: "Love's Faithful Ones" from LA VITA NUOVA by Dante Alighieri
Sonnet: “Love’s Thoroughfare” from LA VITA NUOVA by Dante Alighieri
Sonnet: “Cry for Pity” from LA VITA NUOVA by Dante Alighieri
Sonnet: “Ladies of Modest Countenance” from LA VITA NUOVA by Dante Alighieri

The Dante translations above, and more, can be read here: Dante



While the following poem is not a translation, per se, it is my interpretation of another poet's idea, as explained after the poem …

The Pain of Love
by Michael R. Burch

for T. M.

The pain of love is this:
the parting after the kiss;

the train steaming from the station
whistling abnegation;

each interstate's bleak white bar
that vanishes under your car;

every hour and flower and friend
that cannot be saved in the end;

dear things of immeasurable cost …
now all irretrievably lost.

The title "The Pain of Love" was suggested by Little Richard, then eighty years old, in an interview with Rolling Stone. Little Richard said someone should create a song called "The Pain of Love." How could I not obey a living legend? I have always found the departure platforms of railway stations and the vanishing broken white bars of highway dividing lines to be depressing, so they were natural images for my poem. Perhaps someone can set the lyrics to music and fulfill the Great Commission!



CHINESE POETS

Tzŭ-Yeh or Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC) was a courtesan of the Jin dynasty era (c. 400 BC) also known as Lady Night or Lady Midnight. Her poems were pinyin ("midnight songs"). Tzŭ-Yeh was apparently a "sing-song" girl, perhaps similar to a geisha trained to entertain men with music and poetry. She has also been called a "wine shop girl" and even a professional concubine!

I heard my love was going to Yang-chou
So I accompanied him as far as Ch'u-shan.
For just a moment as he held me in his arms
I thought the swirling river ceased flowing and time stood still.
—Tzu Yeh, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Will I ever hike up my dress for you again?
Will my pillow ever caress your arresting face?
—Tzu Yeh, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Night descends …
I let my silken hair spill down my shoulders as I part my thighs over my lover.
Tell me, is there any part of me not worthy of being loved?
—Tzu Yeh, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I will wear my robe loose, not bothering with a belt;
I will stand with my unpainted face at the reckless window;
If my petticoat insists on fluttering about, shamelessly,
I'll blame it on the unruly wind!
—Tzu Yeh, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When he returns to my embrace,
I’ll make him feel what no one has ever felt before:
Me absorbing him like water
Poured into a wet clay jar.
—Tzu Yeh, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I could not sleep with the full moon haunting my bed!
I thought I heard―here, there, everywhere―
disembodied voices calling my name!
Helplessly I cried "Yes!" to the phantom air!
—Tzu Yeh, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have brought my pillow to the windowsill
so come play with me, tease me, as in the past …
Or, with so much resentment and so few kisses,
how much longer can love last?
—Tzu Yeh, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

More Tzu Yeh translations can be read here: Chinese Poets

Po Chu-I (772-846) is best known today for his ballads and satirical poems. Po Chu-I believed poetry should be accessible to commoners and is noted for his simple diction and natural style. His name has been rendered various ways in English: Po Chu-I, Po Chü-i, Bo Juyi and Bai Juyi.

The Red Cockatoo
by Po Chu-I (772-846), a Chinese poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A marvelous gift from Annam—
a red cockatoo,
bright as peach blossom,
fluent in men's language.

So they did what they always do
to the erudite and eloquent:
they created a thick-barred cage
and shut it up.

Li Qingzhao  (c. 1084-1155) was a poet and essayist during the Song dynasty. She is generally considered to be one of the greatest Chinese poets. In English she is known as Li Qingzhao, Li Ching-chao and The Householder of Yi’an.

The Migrant Songbird
Li Qingzhao
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The migrant songbird on the nearby yew
brings tears to my eyes with her melodious trills;
this fresh downpour reminds me of similar spills:
another spring gone, and still no word from you …

The Plum Blossoms
Li Qingzhao
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This year with the end of autumn
I find my reflection graying at the edges.
Now evening gales hammer these ledges …
what shall become of the plum blossoms?

Reflection
by Xu Hui (627–650)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Confronting the morning she faces her mirror;
Her makeup done at last, she paces back and forth awhile.
It would take vast mountains of gold to earn one contemptuous smile,
So why would she answer a man's summons?

Zhai Yongming (1955-) is a contemporary Chinese poet, born in Chengdu in 1955. She was one of the instigators and prime movers of the “Black Tornado” of women’s poetry that swept China in 1986-1989. Since then Zhai has been regarded as one of China’s most prominent poets.

Waves
Zhai Yongming
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The waves manhandle me like a midwife pounding my back relentlessly,
and so the world abuses my body—
accosting me, bewildering me, according me a certain ecstasy …

Monologue
Zhai Yongming
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am a wild thought, born of the abyss
and—only incidentally—of you. The earth and sky
combine in me—their concubine—they consolidate in my body.

I am an ordinary embryo, encased in pale, watery flesh,
and yet in the sunlight I dazzle and amaze you.

I am the gentlest, the most understanding of women.
Yet I long for winter, the interminable black night, drawn out to my heart's bleakest limit.

When you leave, my pain makes me want to vomit my heart up through my mouth—
to destroy you through love—where's the taboo in that?

The sun rises for the rest of the world, but only for you do I focus the hostile tenderness of my body.
I have my ways.

A chorus of cries rises. The sea screams in my blood but who remembers me?
What is life?

Guan Daosheng (1262-1319) is also known as Kuan Tao-Sheng, Guan Zhongji and Lady Zhongji. A famous poet of the early Yuan dynasty, she has also been called "the most famous female painter and calligrapher in the Chinese history."

Pyre
Guan Daosheng
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You and I share so much desire:
this love―like a fire—
that ends in a pyre's
charred coffin.

The Shijing or Shi Jing ("Book of Songs" or "Book of Odes") is the oldest Chinese poetry collection, with the poems included believed to date from around 1200 BC to 600 BC. According to tradition the poems were selected and edited by Confucius himself. Since most ancient poetry did not rhyme, these may be the world’s oldest extant rhyming poems. While the identities and sexes of the poets are not known, the title of this ancient poem may mean "Aunt" and thus suggest that it was possibly written by an aunt for a relative.

Shijing Ode #4: “JIU MU” ancient Chinese rhyming poem (c. 1200-600 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches
thick with vines that make them shady,
we find a lovely princely lady:
May she repose in happiness!

In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches
whose clinging vines make hot days shady,
we wish warm embraces for a lovely lady:
May she repose in happiness!

In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches
whose vines entwining make them shady,
we wish true love for a lovely lady:
May she repose in happiness!

Sent to My Husband
by Huang E
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The wild geese never fly beyond Hengyang …
how then can my brocaded words reach Yongchang?
Like wilted willow flowers I am ill-fated indeed;
in that far-off foreign land you feel similar despair.
“Oh, to go home, to go home!” you implore the calendar.
“Oh, if only it would rain, if only it would rain!” I complain to the heavens.
One hears hopeful rumors that you might soon be freed …
but when will the Golden Cock rise in Yelang?

A star called the Golden Cock was a symbol of amnesty to the ancient Chinese. Yongchang was a hot, humid region of Yunnan to the south of Hengyang, and was presumably too hot and too far to the south for geese to fly there.

The translations below can be read here: Chinese Poets

Luo Jiang's Second Complaint by Huang E
Bitter Rain, an Aria of the Yellow Oriole by Huang E
Broken-Hearted Poem by Huang E
"Married Love" or "You and I" or "The Song of You and Me" by Guan Daosheng

Lin Huiyin (1904-1955), also known as Phyllis Lin and Lin Whei-yin, was a Chinese architect, historian, novelist and poet. Xu Zhimo died in a plane crash in 1931, allegedly flying to meet Lin Huiyin.

The Day after the Rain by Lin Huiyin
Music Heard Late at Night by Lin Huiyin for Xu Zhimo
Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again by Xu Zhimo

The Duke of Zhou (circa 1100-1000 BC), a member of the Zhou Dynasty also known as Ji Dan, played a major role in Chinese history and culture. He has been called “probably the first real person to step over the threshold of myth into Chinese history” and he may be the first Chinese poet we know by name today, and the spiritual ancestor of Confucius as well. He has also been credited with writing the I Ching and the Book of Songs, also called the Book of Odes, and with creating yayue (“elegant music”) which became Chinese classical music.

Chixiao (“The Owl”) by Duke Zhou

Sui Hui (c. 351-394 BC), also known as Su Hui and Lady Su, was one of the first female Chinese poet of note. And her "Star Gauge" or "Sphere Map" may be the most impressive poem written in any language to this day, in terms of complexity. It has been claimed there are up to 7,940 ways to read the poem.

Star Gauge by Sui Hui

The translations above can be read here: Chinese Poets



PERHAT TURSUN

Perhat Tursun (1969-) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Born and raised in Atush, a city in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Tursun began writing poetry in middle school, then branched into prose in college. Tursun has been described as a "self-professed Kafka character" and that comes through splendidly in poems of his like "Elegy." Unfortunately, Tursun was "disappeared" into a Chinese "reeducation" concentration camp where extreme psychological torture is the norm. According to a disturbing report he was later "hospitalized." Apparently no one knows his present whereabouts or condition, if he has one. According to John Bolton, when Donald Trump learned of these "reeducation" concentration camps, he told Chinese President Xi Jinping it was "exactly the right thing to do." Trump’s excuse? "Well, we were in the middle of a major trade deal."

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun, A Uyghur poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"Your soul is the entire world."
— Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Asylum seekers, will you recognize me among the mountain passes' frozen corpses?
Can you identify me here among our Exodus's exiled brothers?
We begged for shelter but they lashed us bare; consider our naked corpses.
When they compel us to accept their massacres, do you know that I am with you?

Three centuries later they resurrect, not recognizing each other,
Their former greatness forgotten.
I happily ingested poison, like a fine wine.
When they search the streets and cannot locate our corpses, do you know that I am with you?

In that tower constructed of skulls you will find my dome as well:
They removed my head to more accurately test their swords' temper.
When before their swords our relationship flees like a flighty lover,
Do you know that I am with you?

When men in fur hats are used for target practice in the marketplace
Where a dying man's face expresses his agony as a bullet cleaves his brain
While the executioner's eyes fail to comprehend why his victim vanishes, …
Seeing my form reflected in that bullet-pierced brain's erratic thoughts,
Do you know that I am with you?

In those days when drinking wine was considered worse than drinking blood,
did you taste the flour ground out in that blood-turned churning mill?
Now, when you sip the wine Ali-Shir Nava'i imagined to be my blood
In that mystical tavern's dark abyssal chambers,
Do you know that I am with you?

More translations of Uyghur poems can be read here: Uyghur Poets



Ancient Egyptian Harper’s Songs

The first carpe diem or "seize the day" poems may be the various versions of the ancient Egyptian "Harper's Song" (or "Song of the Harper"). These may also be the oldest ubi sunt or "where are they now" poems. Such poems were inscribed in Egyptian tombs along with the image of a blind man playing a harp. Thus it is believed these were songs performed during funeral services for the deceased. Versions of the "Harper's Song" found in tombs of the Old Kingdom (c. 2686-2181 BC) tend to be short and traditional in regard to the afterlife (i.e., affirmative). Middle Kingdom (c. 2055-1786 BC) and New Kingdom (1539-1075 BC) versions tend to be longer and sometimes encourage listeners to "seize the day" while rejecting the more traditional Egyptian view of eternity (for instance, satirizing large funerary monuments and saying possessions cannot be taken into the afterlife). Such more skeptical versions of the "Harper's Song" include "Harper's Song: Tomb of Neferhotep" and " Harper's Song: Tomb of Inherkhawy." These are my personal favorites of both genres …

This song comes from a tomb which contains an image of Djehutiemheb and Hedjmetmut seated at an offering table while their son, dressed as a priest, pours libations and burning incense before them. It seems the song may be a blessing being voiced by the son, as the text appears before his representation.

Harper's Song: Tomb of Djehutiemheb
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

… The sky is opened for you,
the earth opened for you,
for you the good path leads into the Necropolis.
You enter and exit like Re.
You stride unhindered like the Lords of Eternity …

More translations can be read here: Ancient Egyptian Harper's Songs



An Ancient Egyptian Love Lyric (circa 1085-570 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Is there anything sweeter than these hours of love,
when we're together, and my heart races?
For what is better than embracing and fondling
when you visit me and we surrender to delights?

If you reach to caress my thigh,
I will offer you my breast also —
it's soft; it won't jab you or thrust you away!

Will you leave me because you're hungry?
Are you ruled by your belly?
Will you leave me because you need something to wear?
I have chests full of fine linen!
Will you leave me because you're thirsty?
Here, suck my breasts! They're full to overflowing, and all for you!

I glory in the hours of our embracings;
my joy is incalculable!

The thrill of your love spreads through my body
like honey in water,
like a drug mixed with spices,
like wine mingled with water.

Oh, that you would speed to see your sister
like a stallion in heat, like a bull to his heifer!
For the heavens have granted us love like flames igniting straw,
desire like the falcon's free-falling frenzy!

An Ancient Egyptian Love Song (circa 1300-1200 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lover, let’s slip down to the pond;
I’ll bathe while you watch me from the nearest bank.
I’ll wear my sexiest swimsuit, just for you,
made of sheer linen, fit for a princess!
Come, see how it looks when it’s wet!
Can I coax you to wade in with me?
To let the cool water surround us?
Then I’ll dive way down deep, just for you,
and come up dripping,
letting you feast your eyes
on the little pink fish I’ve found.
Then I’ll say, standing there in the shallows:
Look at my little pink fish, love,
as I hold it in my hand.
See how my fingers caress it,
slipping down its sides, then inside!
See how it wiggles?
But then I’ll giggle softly and sigh,
my eyes bright with your seeing:
It’s a gift, my love, no more words!
Come closer and see,
it’s all me!



URDU POETS

These are my translations of Urdu poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Mirza Ghalib and other Urdu poets:

Last Night
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Last night, your memory stole into my heart
as spring sweeps uninvited into barren gardens,
as morning breezes reinvigorate dormant deserts,
as a patient suddenly feels well, for no apparent reason …

Tonight
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do not strike the melancholy chord tonight!
Days smoldering with pain end up in ashes
and who the hell knows what the future may bring?
Last night's long lost, tomorrow's horizon's a wavering mirage,
and how can we know if we'll see another dawn?
Life is nothing, unless together we make it ring!
Tonight we are gods! Sing!

Do not strike the melancholy chord tonight!
Don't harp constantly on human suffering!
Stop complaining; let Fate conduct her song!
Give no thought to the future, seize now, this precious thing!
Shed no more tears for temperate seasons long vanished!
All sighs and cries soon weakly dissipate … stop dithering!
Oh, do not strike the same flat chord again!

More translations can be read here: Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Life becomes even more complicated
when a man can't think like a man …

What irrationality makes me so dependent on her
that I rush off an hour early, then get annoyed when she's "late"?

My lover is so striking! She demands to be seen.
The mirror reflects only her image, yet still dazzles and confounds my eyes.

Love's stings have left me the deep scar of happiness
while she hovers above me, illuminated.

She promised not to torment me, but only after I was mortally wounded.
How easily she "repents," my lovely slayer!

Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It's time for the world to hear Ghalib again!
May these words and their shadows like doors remain open.

Tonight the watery mirror of stars appears
while night-blooming flowers gather where beauty rests.

She who knows my desire is speaking,
or at least her lips have recently moved me.

Why is grief the fundamental element of night
when everything falls as the distant stars rise?

Tell me, how can I be happy vast oceans from home
when mail from my beloved lies here, so recently opened?

Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Not the blossomings of song nor the adornments of music:
I am the voice of my own heart breaking.

You toy with your long, dark curls
while I remain captive to my dark, pensive thoughts.

We congratulate ourselves that we two are different:
this weakness has burdened us both with inchoate grief.

Now you are here, and I find myself bowing:
as if sadness is a blessing, and longing a sacrament.

I am a fragment of sound rebounding;
you are the walls impounding my echoes.

More translations can be read here: Mirza Ghalib

KABIR DAS

Certainly, saints, the world’s insane:
If I tell the truth they attack me,
If I lie they believe me.
—Kabir Das, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keep the slanderer near you, build him a hut near your house.
For, when you lack soap and water, he will scour you clean.
—Kabir Das, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Without looking into our hearts,
how can we find Paradise?
—Kabir Das, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When you were born, you wept while the world rejoiced.
Live your life so that when you die, the world weeps while you rejoice.
—Kabir Das, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

MAJROOH SULTANPURI

I'm like a commodity being priced in the market-place:
every eye ogles me like a buyer's.
—Majrooh Sultanpuri, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If you insist, I'll continue playing my songs,
forever piping the flute of my heart.
—Majrooh Sultanpuri, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon has risen once again, yet you are not here.
My heart is a blazing pyre; what do I do?
—Majrooh Sultanpuri, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Intoxicants
by Amrut Ghayal (a Gujarati poet)
translation by Kanu V. Prajapati and Michael R. Burch

O, my mind! You're such a fool, afraid to drink the wine!
But show me anything in the universe that is not intoxicating.



PAUL CELAN

These are three English translations of Holocaust poems written in German by the Jewish poet Paul Celan. The first poem, "Todesfuge" in the original German, is one of the most famous Holocaust poems, with its haunting refrain of a German "master of death" killing Jews by day and writing "Your golden hair Margarete" by starlight. The poem demonstrates how terrible things can become when one human being is granted absolute power over other human beings. Paul Celan was the pseudonym of Paul Antschel. (Celan is an anagram of Ancel, the Romanian form of his surname.) Celan was born in Czernovitz, Romania in 1920. The son of German-speaking Jews, Celan spoke German, Romanian, Russian, French and understood Yiddish. During the Holocaust, his parents were deported and eventually died in Nazi labor camps; Celan spent eighteen months in a Nazi concentration camp before escaping.

Todesfuge ("Death Fugue")
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Black milk of daybreak, we drink it come morning;
we drink it come midday; we drink it, come night;
we drink it and drink it.
We are digging a grave like a hole in the sky; there's sufficient room to lie there.
The man of the house plays with vipers; he writes
in the Teutonic darkness, "Your golden hair Margarete …"
He writes poems by the stars, whistles hounds to stand by,
whistles Jews to dig graves, where together they'll lie.
He commands us to strike up bright tunes for the dance!

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you each morning;
we drink you at midday; we drink you at night;
we drink you and drink you.
The man of the house plays with serpents, he writes …
he writes when the night falls, "Your golden hair Margarete …
Your ashen hair Shulamith …"
We are digging dark graves where there's more room, on high.
His screams, "You dig there!" and "Hey you, dance and sing!"
He grabs his black nightstick, his eyes pallid blue,
cries, "Hey you, dig more deeply! You others, keep dancing!"

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you each morning;
we drink you at midday, we drink you at night;
we drink you and drink you.
The man of the house writes, "Your golden hair Margarete …
Your ashen hair Shulamith." He toys with our lives.
He screams, "Play for me! Death's a master of Germany!"
His screams, "Stroke dark strings, soon like black smoke you'll rise
to a grave in the clouds; there's sufficient room for Jews there!"

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you at midnight;
we drink you at noon; Death's the master of Germany!
We drink you come evening; we drink you and drink you …
a master of Deutschland, with eyes deathly blue.
With bullets of lead our pale master will murder you!
He writes when the night falls, "Your golden hair Margarete …"
He unleashes his hounds, grants us graves in the skies.
He plays with his serpents; he's a master of Germany …

your golden hair Margarete …
your ashen hair Shulamith.

O, Little Root of a Dream
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O, little root of a dream
you enmire me here;
I'm undermined by blood —
no longer seen,
enslaved by death.

Touch the curve of my face,
that there may yet be an earthly language of ardor,
that someone else's eyes
may see yet see me,
though I'm blind,
here where you
deny me voice.

You Were My Death
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You were my death;
I could hold you
when everything abandoned me —
even breath.



Here are two translations of poems by the Italian Jewish Holocaust survivor Primo Levi:

Shema
by Primo Levi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You who live secure
in your comfortable houses,
who return each evening to find
warm food,
welcoming faces …

consider whether this is a man:
who toils in the mud,
who knows no peace,
who fights for crusts of bread,
who dies at another man's whim,
at his "yes" or his "no."

Consider whether this is a woman:
bereft of hair,
of a recognizable name
because she lacks the strength to remember,
her eyes as void
and her womb as frigid
as a frog's in winter.

Consider that such horrors have been:
I commend these words to you.
Engrave them in your hearts
when you lounge in your house,
when you walk outside,
when you go to bed,
when you rise.
Repeat them to your children,
or may your house crumble
and disease render you helpless
so that even your offspring avert their faces from you.

Buna
by Primo Levi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wasted feet, cursed earth,
the interminable gray morning
as Buna smokes corpses through industrious chimneys.

A day like every other day awaits us.
The terrible whistle shrilly announces dawn:
"You, O pale multitudes with your sad, lifeless faces,
welcome the monotonous horror of the mud …
another day of suffering has begun."

Weary companion, I see you by heart.
I empathize with your dead eyes, my disconsolate friend.
In your breast you carry cold, hunger, nothingness.
Life has broken what's left of the courage within you.

Colorless one, you once were a strong man,
A courageous woman once walked at your side.
But now you, my empty companion, are bereft of a name,
my forsaken friend who can no longer weep,
so poor you can no longer grieve,
so tired you no longer can shiver with fear.

O, spent once-strong man,
if we were to meet again
in some other world, sweet beneath the sun,
with what kind faces would we recognize each other?

Note: Buna was the largest Auschwitz sub-camp.



Here's a translation of a poem by Wladyslaw Szlengel about his friend Janusz Korczak. Both were victims of the Nazis during the Holocaust …

Excerpts from "A Page from the Deportation Diary"
by Wladyslaw Szlengel
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I saw Janusz Korczak walking today,
leading the children, at the head of the line.
They were dressed in their best clothes—immaculate, if gray.
Some say the weather wasn't dismal, but fine.

They were in their best jumpers and laughing (not loud),
but if they'd been soiled, tell me—who could complain?
They walked like calm heroes through the haunted crowd,
five by five, in a whipping rain.

The pallid, the trembling, watched high overhead,
through barely cracked windows—pale, transfixed with dread.

And now and then, from the high, tolling bell
a strange moan escaped, like a sea gull's torn cry.
Their "superiors" looked on, their eyes hard as stone.
So let us not flinch, as they march on, to die.

Footfall … then silence … the cadence of feet …
O, who can console them, their last mile so drear?
The church bells peal on, over shocked Leszno Street.
Will Jesus Christ save them? The high bells career.

No, God will not save them. Nor you, friend, nor I.
But let us not flinch, as they march on, to die.

No one will offer the price of their freedom.
No one will proffer a single word.
His eyes hard as gavels, the silent policeman
agrees with the priest and his terrible Lord:
                                  "Give them the Sword!"

At the town square there is no intervention.
No one tugs Schmerling's sleeve. No one cries
"Rescue the children!" The air, thick with tension,
reeks with the odor of vodka, and lies.

How calmly he walks, with a child in each arm:
Gut Doktor Korczak, please keep them from harm!

A fool rushes up with a reprieve in hand:
"Look Janusz Korczak—please look, you've been spared!"
No use for that. One resolute man,
uncomprehending that no one else cared
enough to defend them,
his choice is to end with them.



This is one of the first Old English/Anglo-Saxon poems to employ a refrain:

Deor's Lament
(Anglo Saxon poem, circa 10th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland knew the agony of exile.
That indomitable smith was wracked by grief.
He endured countless troubles:
sorrows were his only companions
in his frozen island dungeon
after Nithad had fettered him,
many strong-but-supple sinew-bonds
binding the better man.
   That passed away; this also may.

The rest of this ancient masterpiece can be read here: Deor's Lament



"The Wife's Lament" or "The Wife's Complaint" is an Old English (Anglo-Saxon) poem found in the Exeter Book which is generally considered to be an elegy in the manner of the German frauenlied, or "woman's song," although there are other interpretations of the poem's genre and purpose. The Exeter Book has been dated to 960-990 AD, but of course the poem may have been written earlier.

The Wife's Lament
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I draw these words from deep wells of my grief,
care-worn, unutterably sad.
I can recount woes I've borne since birth,
present and past, never more than now.
I have won, from my exile-paths, only pain.

First, my lord forsook his folk, left,
crossed the seas' tumult, far from our people.
Since then, I've known
wrenching dawn-griefs, dark mournings … oh where,
where can he be?

Then I, too, left—a lonely, lordless refugee,
full of unaccountable desires!
But the man's kinsmen schemed secretly
to estrange us, divide us, keep us apart,
across earth's wide kingdom, and my heart broke.

The rest of this ancient masterpiece can be read here: The Wife's Lament

Another poem from the Exeter Book may or may not be a response to the poem above: The Husband's Message

This ancient Celtic poem may be as old, or even older, than the Old English poems above: The Song of Amergin



ALLAMA IQBAL

These are my translations of poems by Sir Muhammad Iqbal (علامہمحمداقبال), also known as Allama Iqbāl (علامہاقبال, Allāma meaning "The Learned One"), a Lahori Muslim poet, philosopher and politician.

Withered Roses
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What shall I call you,
but the nightingale's desire?

The morning breeze was your nativity,
an afternoon garden, your sepulchre.

My tears welled up like dew,
till in my abandoned heart your rune grew:

this memento of love,
this spray of withered roses.

The translations below can be read here: Allama Iqbal

Ehad-e-Tifli (“The Age of Infancy”) by Allama Iqbal
Rumuz-e bikhudi (“The Mysteries of Selflessness”) by Allama Iqbal
Longing by Allama Iqbal
Life Advice by Allama Iqbal
Destiny by Allama Iqbal



HAIKU & TANKA

Here are more of my translations of haiku and other Oriental poetry:

The butterfly
perfuming its wings
fans the orchid
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Silently observing
the bottomless mountain lake:
water lilies
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This snowy morning:
cries of the crow I despise
(ah, but so beautiful!)
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot see the moon
and yet the waves still rise
― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like a heavy fragrance
snow-flakes settle:
lilies on rocks
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The first morning of autumn:
the mirror I investigate
reflects my father's face
― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill,
solemn evangelist
of loneliness
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Cranes
flapping ceaselessly
test the sky's distant limits
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An empty road
lonelier than abandonment:
this autumn evening
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The new calendar:
as if tomorrow
is assured …
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Spring has come:
the nameless hill
lies shrouded in mist
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Because morning glories
hold my well-bucket hostage
I go begging for water
― Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The first chill rain:
poor monkey, you too could use
a woven cape of straw
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ah butterfly,
what dreams do you ply
with your beautiful wings?
― Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray autumn's gay,
contemptuous of frost
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight I saw
how the peony crumples
in the fire's embers
― Katoh Shuhson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pausing between clouds
the moon rests
in the eyes of its beholders
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

War
stood at the end of the hall
in the long shadows
― Watanabe Hakusen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No sky,
no land:
just snow eternally falling …
― Kajiwara Hashin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

See: whose surviving sons
visit the ancestral graves
white-bearded, with trembling canes?
― Matsuo Basho, translated by Michael R. Burch

Along with spring leaves
my child's teeth
take root, blossom
― Nakamura Kusatao, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Graven images of long-departed gods,
dry spiritless leaves:
companions of the temple porch
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stillness:
a single chestnut leaf glides
on brilliant water
― Ryuin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The sea darkening,
the voices of the wild ducks:
my mysterious companions!
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The snake slipped away
but his eyes, having held mine,
still stare in the grass
― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Will we meet again?
Here at your flowering grave:
two white butterflies
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The bitter winter wind
ends here
with the frozen sea
― Ikenishi Gonsui, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These brown summer grasses?
The only remains
of "invincible" warriors …
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I remove my beautiful kimono:
its varied braids
surround and entwine my body
― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fever-felled mid-path
my dreams resurrect, to trek
into a hollow land
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Right at my feet!
When did you arrive here,
snail?
― Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This day of chrysanthemums
I shake and comb my wet hair,
as their petals shed rain
― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch


Oh, brilliant moon
is it true that even you
must fly as if you're tardy?
― Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Falling snowflakes'
glitter
tinsels the sea
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Blizzards here on earth,
blizzards of stars
in the sky
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Completely encircled
in emerald:
the glittering swamp!
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Spring
stirs the clouds
in the sky's teabowl
― Kikusha-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It fills me with anger,
this moon; it fills me
and makes me whole
― Takeshita Shizunojo, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Because he is slow to wrath,
I tackle him, then wring his neck
in the long grass
― Shimazu Ryoh, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pale mountain sky:
cherry petals play
as they tumble earthward
― Kusama Tokihiko, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The frozen moon,
the frozen lake:
two oval mirrors reflecting each other.
― Hashimoto Takako, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, bitter winter wind,
why bellow so
with no leaves to fell?
― Natsume Sôseki, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter waves
roil
their own shadows
― Tominaga Fûsei, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As thunder recedes
a lone tree stands illuminated in sunlight:
cicadas shrill
― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Girls gather sprouts of rice:
reflections of the water flicker
on the backs of their hats
― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Murmurs follow the hay cart
this blossoming summer day
― Ippekiro Nakatsuka, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The wet nurse
paused to consider a bucket of sea urchins
then walked away
― Ippekiro Nakatsuka, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May I be with my mother
wearing her summer kimono
by the morning window
― Ippekiro Nakatsuka, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The hands of a woman exist
to remove the insides of the spring cuttlefish
― Sekitei Hara, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon
hovering above the snow-capped mountains
rained down hailstones
― Sekitei Hara, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly:
a puff of white snow
cresting mountains
― Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Spring snow
cascades over fences
in white waves
― Suju Takano, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Petals fill the fountain;
the ochre of the orange-coloured rose leaves
clings to the stone.
― by Ts'ai Chi'h (also Ts'ao Chih, Cao Zhi), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



This is my translation of another poem by an early Scottish master, William Dunbar. My translation of Dunbar's "Sweet Rose of Virtue" appears toward the top of this page.

Lament for the Makaris (Makers, or Poets)
by William Dunbar (1460-1525)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

i who enjoyed good health and gladness
am overwhelmed now by life's terrible sickness
and enfeebled with infirmity …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

our presence here is mere vainglory;
the false world is but transitory;
the flesh is frail; the Fiend runs free …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

the state of man is changeable:
now sound, now sick, now blithe, now dull,
now manic, now devoid of glee …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

The rest of the poem can be read here: William Dunbar



More Athenian Epitaphs

Be ashamed, O mountains and seas: these were men of valorous breath.
Assume, like pale chattels, an ashen silence at death.
Michael R. Burch, after Parmenio

These men earned a crown of imperishable glory,
Nor did the maelstrom of death obscure their story.
Michael R. Burch, after Simonides

They observed our fearful fetters, marched against encroaching darkness.
Now we gravely extol their excellence: Bravely, they died for us.
Michael R. Burch, after Mnasalcas

Stranger, flee!
But may Fortune grant you all the prosperity
She denied me.
Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum

I am loyal to you, master, even in the grave:
Just as you now are death's slave.
Michael R. Burch, after Dioscorides

Dead as you are, though you lie still as stone,
huntress Lycas, my great Thessalonian hound,
the wild beasts still fear your white bones;
craggy Pelion remembers your valor,
splendid Ossa, the way you would bound
and bay at the moon for its whiteness,
bellowing as below we heard valleys resound.
And how brightly with joy you would canter and run
the strange lonely peaks of high Cithaeron!
Michael R. Burch, after Simonides

I lie by stark Icarian rocks
and only speak when the sea talks.
Please tell my dear father that I gave up the ghost
on the Aegean coast.
Michael R. Burch, after Theatetus

Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead.
What difference to me—where I rest my head?
The sea knows I'm buried.
Michael R. Burch, after Antipater of Sidon

Little I knew—a child of five—
of what it means to be alive
and all life's little thrills;
but little also—(I was glad not to know)—
of life's great ills.
Michael R. Burch, after after Lucian

Not to have been born is best,
and blessed
beyond the ability of words to express.
―Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Seikilos Epitaph
by Michael R. Burch, after Seikilos of Euterpes

Shine, while you live;
blaze beyond grief,
for life is brief
and Time, a thief.

The Seikilos Epitaph is the oldest known surviving complete musical composition which includes musical notation. It is believed to date to the first or second century AD. The epitaph appears to be signed “Seikilos of Euterpes” or dedicated “Seikilos to Euterpe.” Euterpe was the ancient Greek Muse of music.

More Ancient Greek Epigrams and Epitaphs



ANGELUS SILESIUS

The following poems can be found and read here: German Poetry Translations by Michael R. Burch

Unholy Trinity by Angelus Silesius
True Wealth by Angelus Silesius
The Rose by Angelus Silesius
Eternal Time by Angelus Silesius
Visions by Angelus Silesius
Godless by Angelus Silesius
The Source by Angelus Silesius
Ceaseless Peace by Angelus Silesius
Well Written by Angelus Silesius
Worm Food by Angelus Silesius
Mature Love by Angelus Silesius
God's Predicament by Angelus Silesius
Clods by Angelus Silesius

The poems above can be found and read here: German Poetry Translations by Michael R. Burch



Mirror
by Kajal Ahmad, a Kurdish poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My era's obscuring mirror
shattered
because it magnified the small
and made the great seem insignificant.
Dictators and monsters filled its contours.
Now when I breathe
its jagged shards pierce my heart
and instead of sweat
I exude glass.

The Lonely Earth
by Kajal Ahmad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The pale celestial bodies
never bid her "Good morning!"
nor do the creative stars
kiss her.
Earth, where so many tender persuasions and roses lie interred,
might expire for the lack of a glance, or an odor.
She's a lonely dusty orb,
so very lonely!, as she observes the moon's patchwork attire
knowing the sun's an imposter
who sears with rays he has stolen for himself
and who looks down on the moon and earth like lodgers.

Kurds are Birds
by Kajal Ahmad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Per the latest scientific classification, Kurds
now belong to a species of bird!
This is why,
traveling across the torn, fraying pages of history,
they are nomads recognized by their caravans.
Yes, Kurds are birds! And,
even worse, when
there's nowhere left to nest, no refuge from their pain,
they turn to the illusion of traveling again
between the warm and arctic sectors of their homeland.
So I don't think it strange Kurds can fly but not land.
They wander from region to region
never realizing their dreams
of settling,
of forming a colony, of nesting.
No, they never settle down long enough
to visit Rumi and inquire about his health,
or to bow down deeply in the gust-
stirred dust,
like Nali.

Bi Havre (“Together”)
possibly the oldest Kurdish poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I want us to be together:
we would eat together,

climb the mountain together,
sing songs together, songs of love,

songs from the heart, from above.
I want us to have one heart, together.

Many words in this ancient poem are in doubt, so I have excerpted what I grok to be the central meaning.



RUMI

Rumi was a Persian poet who wrote poems in Farsi, in Turkish, Arabic and Greek.

I choose to love you in silence
by Rumi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I choose to love you in silence
where there is no rejection;

to possess you in loneliness
where you are mine alone;

to adore you from a distance
which diminishes pain;

to kiss you in the wind
stealthier than my lips;

to embrace you in my dreams
where you are limitless …

Songbird/Birdsong
by Rumi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Birdsong relieves
my deepest griefs:
now I'm just as ecstatic as they,
but with nothing to say!
Please universe,
rehearse
your poetry
through me!

The Field
by Rumi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Far beyond sermons of right and wrong there's a sunlit field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lazes in such lush grass
the world is too full for discussion.

Beyond
by Rumi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Don’t demand union:
there’s a closer closeness, beyond.
The instant love descends to rest in me,
many beings become One.
In a single grain of wheat ten thousand sheaves germinate.
Within the needle’s eye innumerable stars radiate.

Two Insomnias
by Rumi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When I’m with you, we’re up all night.
When we part, I’m unable to sleep.
I’m grateful for both insomnias
and their inspiration.

Untitled

Raise your words, not their volume.
Rain grows flowers, not thunder.
—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your heart’s candle is ready to be kindled.
Your soul’s void is ready to be filled.
You can feel it, can’t you?
—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is love: to fly toward a mysterious sky,
to cause ten thousand veils to fall.
First, to stop clinging to life,
then to step out without feet …
—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am not this hair,
nor this thin shell of skin;
I am the Soul that abides within.
—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Forget security!
Live by the perilous sea.
Destroy your reputation, however glorious.
Become notorious.
—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I was so drunk my lips got lost requesting a kiss.—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

More Rumi translations can be read here: Rumi



W. S. RENDRA

Willibrordus Surendra Broto Rendra (1935-2009), better known as W. S. Rendra or simply Rendra, was an Indonesian dramatist and poet. He said, “I learned meditation and the disciplines of the traditional Javanese poet from my mother, who was a palace dancer. The idea of the Javanese poet is to be a guardian of the spirit of the nation.” The press gave him the nickname Burung Merak (“The Peacock”) for his flamboyant poetry readings and stage performances.

THE WORLD'S FIRST FACE
by W. S. Rendra
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Illuminated by the pale moonlight
the groom carries his bride
up the hill—
both of them naked,
both consisting of nothing but themselves.

As in all beginnings
the world is naked,
empty, free of deception,
dark with unspoken explanations—
a silence that extends
to the limits of time.

Then comes light,
life, the animals and man.

As in all beginnings
everything is naked,
empty, open.

They're both young,
yet both have already come a long way,
passing through the illusions of brilliant dawns,
of skies illuminated by hope,
of rivers intimating contentment.

They have experienced the sun's warmth,
drenched in each other's sweat.

Here, standing by barren reefs,
they watch evening fall
bringing strange dreams
to a bed arrayed with resplendent coral necklaces.

They lift their heads to view
trillions of stars arrayed in the sky.
The universe is their inheritance:
stars upon stars upon stars,
more than could ever be extinguished.

Illuminated by the pale moonlight
the groom carries his bride
up the hill—
both of them naked,
to recreate the world's first face.

SONNET
by W. S. Rendra
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Best wishes for an impending deflowering

Yes, I understand: you will never be mine.
I am resigned to my undeserved fate.
I contemplate
irrational numbers—complex & undefined.

And yet I wish love might … ameliorate …
such negative numbers, dark and unsigned.

But at least I can’t be held responsible
for disappointing you. No cause to elate.
Still, I am resigned to my undeserved fate.
The gods have spoken. I can relate.

How can this be, when all it makes no sense?
I was born too soon—such was my fate.
You must choose another, not half of who I AM.
Be happy with him when you consummate.



The Ruins of Balaclava
by Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855), a Polish poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, barren Crimean land, these dreary shades
of castles—once your indisputable pride—
are now where ghostly owls and lizards hide
as blackguards arm themselves for nightly raids.

Carved into marble, regal boasts were made!
Brave words on burnished armor, gilt-applied!
Now shattered splendors long since cast aside
beside the dead here also brokenly laid.

The Greeks erected shimmering marble here.
The Romans drove wild Mongol hordes to flight.
The Mussulman prayed eastward, day and night.

Now owls and dark-winged vultures watch and leer
as strange black banners, flapping overhead,
mark where the past piles high its nameless dead.

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (1798-1855) is widely regarded as Poland's greatest poet and as the national poet of Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. He was also a dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, professor and political activist. As a principal figure in Polish Romanticism, Mickiewicz has been compared to Byron and Goethe. And speaking of Goethe …



GOETHE

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is widely considered to be one of the world's greatest poets and writers.

Excerpt from “To the Moon”
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Scattered, pole to starry pole,
glide Cynthia's mild beams,
whispering to the receptive soul
whatever moonbeams mean.

Bathing valley, hill and dale
with her softening light,
loosening from earth’s frigid chains
my restless heart tonight!

Over the landscape, near and far,
broods darkly glowering night;
yet welcoming as Friendship’s eye,
she, soft!, bequeaths her light.

Touched in turn by joy and pain,
my startled heart responds,
then floats, as Whimsy paints each scene,
to soar with her, beyond…

I mean Whimsy in the sense of both the Romantic Imagination and caprice. Here, I have the idea of Peter Pan flying off with Tinker Bell to Neverland. My translation was informed by a translation by John S. Dwight.

Der Erlkönig (“The Elf King”)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Who rides tonight with the wind so wild?
A loving father, holding his child.
Please say the boy’s safe from all evil and harm!
He rests secure in his dear father’s arms.

My son, my son, what’s that look on your face?
Father, he’s there, in that dark, scary place!
The elfin king! With his dagger and crown!
Son, it’s only the mist, there’s no need to frown.

My dear little boy, you must come play with me!
Such marvelous games! We’ll play and be free!
Many bright flowers we'll gather together!
Son, why are you wincing? It’s only the weather.

Father, O father, how could you not hear
What the elfin king said to me, drawing so near?
Be quiet, my son, and pay “him” no heed:
It was only the wind gusts stirring the trees.

Come with me now, you're a fine little lad!
My daughters will kiss you, then you’ll be glad!
My daughters will teach you to dance and to sing!
They’ll call you a prince and give you a ring!

Father, please look, in the gloom, don’t you see
The dark elfin daughters keep beckoning me?
My son, all I can see and all I can say
Is the wind makes the grey willows sway.

Why stay with your father? He’s deaf, blind and dumb!
If you’re unwilling I’ll force you to come!
Father, he’s got me and won’t let me go!
The cruel elfin king is hurting me so!

At last struck with horror his father looks down:
His gasping son’s holding a strange golden crown!
Then homeward through darkness, all the faster he sped,
But cold in his arms, his dear child lay dead.

The Fisher
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The river swirled and rippled;
nearby an angler lay,
and watched his lure with a careless eye,
like any other day.
But as he watched in a strange half-dream,
he saw the waters part,
and from the river’s depths emerged
a maiden, or a tart.

A Lorelei, she sang to him
her strange, bewitching song:
“Which of my sisters would you snare,
with your human hands, so strong?
To make us die in scorching air,
ripped from our land, so clear!
Why not leave your arid land
And rest forever here?”

“The sun and lady-moon, they lave
their tresses in the main,
and find such cleansing in each wave,
they return twice bright again.
These deep-blue waters, fresh and clear,
O, feel their strong allure!
Wouldn’t you rather sink and drown
into our land, so pure?”

The water swirled and bubbled up;
it lapped his naked feet;
he imagined that he felt the touch
of the siren’s kisses sweet.
She sang to him of mysteries
in her soft, resistless strain,
till he sank into the water
and never was seen again.

My translation was informed by a translation by William Edmondstoune Aytoun and Theodore Martin.

The Goethe translations below can be read here: German Poets

Prometheus by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nähe des Geliebten (“Near His Beloved”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Gefunden (“Found”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Wandrers Nachtlied (“Wanderer’s Night Song”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Wandrers Nachtlied (“Wanderer’s Night Song”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Kennst du das Land (“Do You Know the Land”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Excerpt from “Hassan Aga” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Excerpt from “The Song of the Spirits over the Waters” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Excerpt from “One and All” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Goethe translations above can be read here: German Poets



ON LOOKING AT SCHILLER’S SKULL
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here in this charnel-house full of bleaching bones,
like yesteryear’s
fading souvenirs,
I see the skulls arranged in strange ordered rows.

Who knows whose owners might have beheaded peers,
packed tightly here
despite once repellent hate?
Here weaponless, they stand, in this gentled state.

These arms and hands, they once were so delicate!
How articulately
they moved! Ah me!
What athletes once paced about on these padded feet?

Still there’s no hope of rest for you, lost souls!
Deprived of graves,
forced here like slaves
to occupy this overworld, unlamented ghouls!

Now who’s to know who loved one orb here detained?
Except for me;
reader, hear my plea:
I know the grandeur of the mind it contained!

Yes, and I know the impulse true love would stir
here, where I stand
in this alien land
surrounded by these husks, like a treasurer!

Even in this cold,
in this dust and mould
I am startled by a strange, ancient reverie, …
as if this shrine to death could quicken me!

One shape out of the past keeps calling me
with its mystery!
Still retaining its former angelic grace!
And at that ecstatic sight, I am back at sea …

Swept by that current to where immortals race.
O secret vessel, you
gave Life its truth.
It falls on me now to recall your expressive face.

I turn away, abashed here by what I see:
this mould was worth
more than all the earth.
Let me breathe fresh air and let my wild thoughts run free!

What is there better in this dark Life than he
who gives us a sense of man’s divinity,
of his place in the universe?
A man who’s both flesh and spirit—living verse!



To The Muse
by Friedrich Schiller
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I do not know what I would be,
without you, gentle Muse!,
but I’m sick at heart to see
those who disabuse.



GOETHE & SCHILLER XENIA EPIGRAMS

She says an epigram’s too terse
to reveal her tender heart in verse …
but really, darling, ain’t the thrill
of a kiss much shorter still?
―#2 from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

More translations of the Xenia epigrams of Goethe and Schiller can be read here: German Poets




HEINRICH HEINE

The Seas Have Their Pearls
by Heinrich Heine
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The seas have their pearls,
The heavens their stars;
But my heart, my heart,
My heart has its love!

The seas and the sky are immense;
Yet far greater still is my heart,
And fairer than pearls and stars
Are the radiant beams of my love.

As for you, tender maiden,
Come steal into my great heart;
My heart, and the sea, and the heavens
Are all melting away with love!

Atlas
by Heinrich Heine
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I, wretched Atlas, must carry this burden:
this wide world of sorrows.
I bear the unbearable and my heart
breaks within, to the marrow.

O my proud heart, you received what you wanted!
Did you long for rapture, for eternal bliss,
or was it misery you sought, proud heart,
since you now wallow in wretchedness?



MORE GERMAN POETS

The translations below can be read here: German Poets

“To Young” for Edward Young by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803)
Excerpts from “The Choirs” by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803)
A Lonely Cot by Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim (1719-1803)
Excerpts from “Song” by Johann Georg Jacobi
Dunkles zu sagen (“Expressing the Dark”) by Ingeborg Bachmann



EARLY ENGLISH RHYMING POEMS

Are these the oldest rhyming poems in the English language? Reginald of Durham recorded four Anglo-Saxon/Old English verses of Saint Godric's: they are the oldest songs in English for which the original musical settings survive.

The first song is said in the Life of Saint Godric to have come to Godric when he had a vision of his sister Burhcwen, like him a solitary at Finchale, being received into heaven. She was singing a song of thanksgiving, in Latin, and Godric renders her song in English bracketed by a Kyrie eleison:

Led By Christ and Mary
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

By Christ and Saint Mary I was so graciously led
that the earth never felt my bare foot’s tread!

In the second poem, Godric puns on his name: godes riche means “God’s kingdom” and sounds like “God is rich” …

A Cry to Mary
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I.
Saintë Marië Virginë,
Mother of Jesus Christ the Nazarenë,
Welcome, shield and help thin Godric,
Fly him off to God’s kingdom rich!

II.
Saintë Marië, Christ’s bower,
Virgin among Maidens, Motherhood’s flower,
Blot out my sin, fix where I’m flawed,
Elevate me to Bliss with God!

Godric also wrote a prayer to St. Nicholas:

Prayer to St. Nicholas
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Saint Nicholas, beloved of God,
Build us a house that’s bright and fair;
Watch over us from birth to bier,
Then, Saint Nicholas, bring us safely there!

The translations above with the original Old English texts can be read here: The Rhyming Poems of Saint Godric of Finchale

"The Rhyming Poem" also known as "The Riming Poem" and "The Rhymed Poem" is perhaps the oldest English rhyming poem. It was included in the Exeter Book, which has been dated to circa 960-990 AD. However the poem may be older than the collection in which it was discovered.

The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem and The Riming Poem
anonymous Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem from the Exeter Book, circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He who granted me life created this sun
and graciously provided its radiant engine.
I was gladdened with glees, bathed in bright hues,
deluged with joy’s blossoms, sunshine-infused.

The rest of this ancient rhyming poem can be read here: Medieval Poems

Westron Wynde
(anonymous Middle English lyric, found in a partbook circa 1530 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Western wind, when will you blow,
bringing the drizzling rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
and I in my bed again!

The original poem has "the smalle rayne down can rayne" which suggests a drizzle or mist, either of which would suggest a dismal day.

Excerpt from “Ubi Sunt Qui Ante Nos Fuerunt?”
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1275)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where are the men who came before us,
who led hounds and hawks to the hunt,
who commanded fields and woods?
Where are the elegant ladies in their boudoirs
who braided gold through their hair
and had such fair complexions?

Once eating and drinking gladdened their hearts;
they enjoyed their games;
men bowed before them;
they bore themselves loftily …
But then, in an eye’s twinkling,
they were gone.

Where now are their laughter and their songs,
the trains of their dresses,
the arrogance of their entrances and exits,
their hawks and their hounds?
All their joy has vanished;
their “well” has come to “oh, well”
and to many dark days …

A Lyke-Wake Dirge
(anonymous medieval lyric circa the 16th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Lie-Awake Dirge is “the night watch kept over a corpse.”

This one night, this one night,
every night and all;
fire and sleet and candlelight,
and Christ receive thy soul.

When from this earthly life you pass
every night and all,
to confront your past you must come at last,
and Christ receive thy soul.

If you ever donated socks and shoes,
every night and all,
sit right down and slip yours on,
and Christ receive thy soul.

But if you never helped your brother,
every night and all,
walk barefoot through the flames of hell,
and Christ receive thy soul.

If ever you shared your food and drink,
every night and all,
the fire will never make you shrink,
and Christ receive thy soul.

But if you never helped your brother,
every night and all,
walk starving through the black abyss,
and Christ receive thy soul.

This one night, this one night,
every night and all;
fire and sleet and candlelight,
and Christ receive thy soul.

A Proverb from Winfred's Time
anonymous Old English poem, circa 757-786
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
The procrastinator puts off purpose,
never initiates anything marvelous,
never succeeds, expires alone.

2.
The late-deed-doer delays glory-striving,
never indulges daring dreams,
never succeeds, dies dead alone.

3.
Often the deed-dodger avoids ventures,
never succeeds, dies dead alone.

Winfrid or Wynfrith is better known as Saint Boniface (c. 675–754). The poem might better be titled "A Proverb Against Procrastination from Winfred's Time." This may be the second-oldest English poem, after "Caedmon's Hymn."

Franks Casket Runes
anonymous Old English poems, circa 700
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fish flooded the shore-cliffs;
the sea-king wept when he swam onto the shingle:
whale's bone.

Romulus and Remus, twin brothers weaned in Rome
by a she-wolf, far from their native land.

"The Leiden Riddle" is an Old English translation of Aldhelm's Latin riddle Lorica ("Corselet").

The Leiden Riddle
anonymous Old English riddle poem, circa 700
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The dank earth birthed me from her icy womb.
I know I was not fashioned from woolen fleeces;
nor was I skillfully spun from skeins;
I have neither warp nor weft;
no thread thrums through me in the thrashing loom;
nor do whirring shuttles rattle me;
nor does the weaver's rod assail me;
nor did silkworms spin me like skillfull fates
into curious golden embroidery.
And yet heroes still call me an excellent coat.
Nor do I fear the dread arrows' flights,
however eagerly they leap from their quivers.

Solution: a coat of mail.

If you see a busker singing for tips, you're seeing someone carrying on an Anglo-Saxon tradition that goes back to the days of Beowulf …

He sits with his harp at his thane's feet,
Earning his hire, his rewards of rings,
Sweeping the strings with his skillful nail;
Hall-thanes smile at the sweet song he sings.
—"Fortunes of Men" loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fairest Between Lincoln and Lindsey
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa late 13th century)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the nightingale sings, the woods turn green;
Leaf and grass again blossom in April, I know,
Yet love pierces my heart with its spear so keen!
Night and day it drinks my blood. The painful rivulets flow.

I’ve loved all this year. Now I can love no more;
I’ve sighed many a sigh, sweetheart, and yet all seems wrong.
For love is no nearer and that leaves me poor.
Sweet lover, think of me — I’ve loved you so long!

A cleric courts his lady
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa late 13th century)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My death I love, my life I hate, because of a lovely lady;
She's as bright as the broad daylight, and shines on me so purely.
I fade before her like a leaf in summer when it's green.
If thinking of her does no good, to whom shall I complain?



"The Ruin" is one of the great poems of English antiquity. This ancient elegy/lament may have been written by an Anglo-Saxon scop (poet) who admired the long-lasting construction-work of the ancient Romans. The references to bath-houses and a stream gushing forth hot water suggest that the ruins in question are those of Bath, England. "The Ruin" appeared in the Exeter Book, which has been dated to around 960 to 990 AD. In Anglo-Saxon poetry the Wyrdes were like the Fates of Greek mythology and controlled human destinies.

THE RUIN
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

well-hewn was this wall-stone, till Wyrdes wrecked it
and the Colossus sagged inward …

broad battlements broken;
the Builders' work battered;

the high ramparts ransacked;
tall towers collapsed;

the great roof-beams shattered;
gates groaning, agape …

mortar mottled and marred by scarring hoar-frosts …

the Giants’ dauntless strongholds decaying with age …

shattered, the shieldwalls,
the turrets in tatters …

where now are those mighty Masons, those Wielders and Wrights,
those Samson-like Stonesmiths?

The rest of this ancient masterpiece can be read here: The Ruin

Other notable Old English poems include The Seafarer, Caedmon's Hymn, Bede's Death Song, Wulf and Eadwacer, Deor's Lament, The Wife's Lament, The Husband's Message, Adam Lay Ybounden, Anglo-Saxon Riddles and Kennings and the first English rhyming poem



New Haiku Translations, added 6/27/2022

As the monks sip their morning tea,
chrysanthemums quietly blossom.
— Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fragrance of plum blossoms
on a foggy path:
the sun rising.
— Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The sea darkens …
yet still faintly white
the wild duck protests.
— Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pear tree blossoms
whitened by moonlight:
a young woman reading a letter.
— Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Outlined in the moonlight …
who is that standing
among the pear trees?
— Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your coolness:
the sound of the bell
departing the bell.
— Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

By such pale moonlight
even the wisteria's fragrance
seems distant.
— Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let me die
covered with flowers
and never again wake to this earthly dream!
—Ochi Etsujin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To reveal how your heart flowers,
sway like the summer grove.
—Tagami Kikusha-Ni (1753-1826), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In the thicket's shade
a solitary woman sings the rice-planting song.
Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unaware of these degenerate times,
cherry blossoms abound!
Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These silent summer nights
even the stars
seem to whisper.
Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The enormous firefly
weaves its way, this way and that,
as it passes by.
Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A fallen blossom
returning to its bough?
No, a butterfly!
Arakida Moritake (1473-1549), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Illuminated by the harvest moon
smoke is caught creeping
across the water …
Hattori Ransetsu (1654-1707), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fanning its tail flamboyantly
with every excuse of a breeze,
the peacock!
Masaoki Shiki (1867-1902), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Waves row through the mists
of the endless sea.
Masaoki Shiki (1867-1902), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I hurl a firefly into the darkness
and sense the enormity of night.
—Kyoshi Takahama (1874-1959), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As girls gather rice sprouts
reflections of the rain ripple
on the backs of their hats.
—Kyoshi Takahama (1874-1959), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



The Temple Hymns of Enheduanna
with modern English translations by Michael R. Burch

Enheduanna, the daughter of the famous King Sargon the Great of Akkad, is the first ancient writer whose name remains known today. She appears to be the first named poet in human history and the first known author of prayers and hymns. Enheduanna, who lived circa 2285-2250 BCE, is also one of the first women we know by name. She was the entu (high priestess) of the goddess Inanna (Ishtar/Astarte/Aphrodite) and the moon god Nanna (Sin) in the Sumerian city-state of Ur. Enheduanna's composition Nin-me-šara ("The Exaltation of Inanna") details her expulsion from Ur, located in southern Iraq, along with her prayerful request to the goddess for reinstatement. Enheduanna also composed 42 liturgical hymns addressed to temples across Sumer and Akkad. She was also the first editor of a poetry anthology, hymnal or songbook, and the first poet to write in the first person. Her Sumerian Temple Hymns was the first collection of its kind; indeed, Enheduanna so claimed in closing: "My king, something has been created that no one had created before." Today poems and songs are still being assembled today via the model she established over 4,000 years ago! Enheduanna may also have been the first feminist, as I explain in the notes that follow my translations of her poems.—MRB


Lament to the Spirit of War
by Enheduanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You hack down everything you see, War God!

Rising on fearsome wings
you rush to destroy our land:
raging like thunderstorms,
howling like hurricanes,
screaming like tempests,
thundering, raging, ranting, drumming,
whiplashing whirlwinds!

Men falter at your approaching footsteps.

Tortured dirges scream on your lyre of despair.

Like a fiery Salamander you poison the land:
growling over the earth like thunder,
vegetation collapsing before you,
blood gushing down mountainsides.

Spirit of hatred, greed and vengeance!

Dominatrix of heaven and earth!

Your ferocious fire consumes our land.

Whipping your stallion
with furious commands,
you impose our fates.

You triumph over all human rites and prayers.

Who can explain your tirade,
why you carry on so?

The translations below can be read here: Enheduanna

The Exaltation of Inanna by Enheduanna
Temple Hymn 7 to the Kesh Temple of Ninhursag by Enheduanna
Temple Hymn 15 to the Gishbanda Temple of Ningishzida by Enheduanna
Temple Hymn 17 to the Badtibira Temple of Dumuzi by Enheduanna
Temple Hymn 22 to the Sirara Temple of Nanshe by Enheduanna
Temple Hymn 26 to the Zabalam Temple of Inanna by Enheduanna
Temple Hymn 42 to the Eresh Temple of Nisaba by Enheduanna



The translations below can be read here: Translations, Part II

The Watergaw by Hugh MacDiarmid, a Scottish poet
Tegner's Drapa
“Was gesagt werden muss” (“What must be said”) by Günter Grass
“The Lorica of Loding” from the Book of Cerne by Gildas
The Leiden Riddle, anonymous Old English riddle poem, circa 700 AD
More Ancient Greek Epigrams by Kyniska, Lucilius, Philodemos andThermion
Excerpts from “Zama Mahal” (“My Palace”) by Ghani Baba
The Chalice by Ghani Baba
Entreaty by Ghani Baba
To God by Ghani Baba
Look Up by Ghani Baba
The Brain and the Heart by Ghani Baba
Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal No. 6, an ancient Akkadian hymn
Ammiditāna's Hymn to Ištar, an Ancient Akkadian hymn
Yasna 28, Verse 6 by Zarathustra/Zoroaster, an ancient Iranian poet
The Knight in the Panther's Skin by Shota Rustaveli
Under Water by Stefan Ovidiu
S.O.S. by Michel Berger
"Late Autumn" aka "Autumn Strong" as sung by Dimash Kudaibergen

The translations above can be read here: Translations, Part II



Whew … that's quite a bit of work for someone who was damn sure he'd never translate a line of poetry in his life! I certainly hope you found something worth the time you spent here, especially if you read this far.

Michael R. Burch Main Translation Page & Index:

The Best Poetry Translations of Michael R. Burch
The Best Poetry Translations of Michael R. Burch (sans links)

Translation Pages by Language:

Modern English Translations of Anglo-Saxon Poems by Michael R. Burch
Modern English Translations of Middle English and Medieval Poems
English Translations of Chinese Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Female Chinese Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of French Poets by Michael R. Burch
Germane Germans: English Translations by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of German Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Japanese Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Japanese Zen Death Poems
English Translations of Ancient Mayan Love Poems
English Translations of Native American Poems, Proverbs and Blessings
English Translations of Roman, Latin and Italian Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Tamil Poets
English Translations of Urdu Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Uyghur Poets by Michael R. Burch

Translation Pages in Roughly Chronological Order:

Enheduanna (circa 2285 BC) the first poet we know by name
The Love Song of Shu-Sin: The Earth's Oldest Love Poem?
Ancient Egyptian Harper's Songs
Ancient Japanese Waka and Haiku
Ancient Greek Epigrams and Epitaphs
Sappho of Lesbos (circa 600 BC) Longer Poems
Sappho of Lesbos Shorter Poems and Fragments
Pindar (500 BC)
Antipater of Sidon (circa 150 BC)
Catullus (circa 50 BC)
Ovid (circa 10 AD)
Sulpicia Translations (circa 100 AD)
Martial Translations (circa 100 AD)
Song of Amergin (?) possibly the oldest poem from the English isles
Anglo-Saxon Poems
Anglo-Saxon Riddles and Kennings
Medieval Poetry Translations (658-1486)
Caedmon's Hymn (circa 658 AD) the oldest extant English poem
Bede's Death Song (circa 735 AD)
Ono no Komachi (circa 850 AD)
Deor's Lament (circa 890 AD)
Wulf and Eadwacer (circa 950 AD)
The Wife's Lament (circa 950 AD)
The Husband's Message (circa 950 AD)
The Ruin (circa 950 AD)
The Seafarer (circa 950 AD)
The Rhyming Poem (circa 950 AD)
Now skruketh rose and lylie flour (circa 1000 AD) is an early English rhyming poem
Middle English Poems
How Long the Night (circa 1200 AD)
Ballads
Sumer is Icumen in (circa 1250 AD)
Fowles in the Frith (circa 1250 AD)
Ich am of Irlaunde (circa 1250 AD)
Now Goeth Sun Under Wood (circa 1250 AD)
Pity Mary (circa 1250 AD)
Urdu Poetry (1253-present)
Amir Khusrow (1253-1325)
Dante (circa 1300 AD)
This World's Joy (circa 1300 AD)
Adam Lay Ybounden (circa 1400 AD)
Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1400 AD)
I Have a Yong Suster (circa 1430 AD)
Charles d'Orleans (circa 1450 AD)
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
MICHELANGELO (1475-1564)
Sweet Rose of Virtue (circa 1500 AD)
Lament for the Makaris (circa 1500 AD)
Whoso List to Hunt (1503-1542)
Tom O'Bedlam's Song (circa 1600 AD)
Angelus Silesius (1624-1677)
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
Fukuda Chiyo-ni (1703-1775)
Yosa Buson (1716-1764)
Thomas Chatterton (1752-1769) the first English Romantic poet
Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828)
Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869)
Tegner's Drapa (1820)
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)
Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
Renée Vivien (1877-1909)
AAllama Iqbal (1877-1938)
Miryam (Miriam) Ulinover (1888-1944)
Ber Horvitz (1895-1942)
Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936)
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)
Miklós Radnót (1909-1944)
Wladyslaw Szlengel (1914-1943)
Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003)
Primo Levi (1919-1987)
Paul Celan (1920-1970)
Kamal Nasser (1924-1973)
Chaya Feldman (1926-1943)
Jaun Elia (1931-2002)
Ahmad Faraz (1931-2008)
Gulzar (1934-)
Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)
Nakba (1958-)
Vera Pavlova (1963-)

The following are links to other translations by Michael R. Burch:

Fukuda Chiyo-ni
Veronica Franco
Hafez
Rahat Indori
Nasir Kazmi
Eihei Dogen Kigen
Meleager
Masters of Haiku
Rainer Maria Rilke
Alexander Pushkin's tender, touching poem "I Love You"
The Roses of Pieria
Rumi
Sandor Marai
Takaha Shugyo
Saul Tchernichovsky
Marina Tsvetaeva
Robert Burns: Original Poems and Translations
The Seventh Romantic: Robert Burns

The following are links to other Michael R. Burch poetry pages:

Poetry by Michael R. Burch
Free Love Poems by Michael R. Burch
My Influences by Michael R. Burch
Michael R. Burch Early Poems Timeline
Bemused by Muses
Poems for Poets
Timeline of Rhyme
Michael R. Burch Free Verse
The Best Poetry Translations of Michael R. Burch
Best Poetry Translations sans links

The HyperTexts