Always There / George J. Dance

Always There

I never got you all the things I could've
Or gave you all the loving that I should've,
But you were with me with each breath of air.
What made me live was: You were always there.

I'd stay at work to close another deal, dear,
Then get home late to miss another meal, dear,
And you'd be sleeping; but I'd say a prayer
Of thankfulness that you were always there.

That's why I can't believe it now, believe me.
I never thought that you would ever leave me.

I cannot understand why you must go now,
But have to face it – everyone says so now.
All I can do is know that if, somewhere,
There is a heaven, you are always there.

--
George J. Dance, 2010

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

George J. Dance biography

The Modern Politician / Archibald Lampman

         
The Modern Politician

What manner of soul is his to whom high truth
Is but the plaything of a feverish hour,
A dangling ladder to the ghost of power!
Gone are the grandeurs of the world's iron youth,
When kings were mighty, being made by swords.
Now comes the transit age, the age of brass,
When clowns into the vacant empires pass,
Blinding the multitude with specious words.
To them faith, kinship, truth and verity,
Man's sacred rights and very holiest thing,
Are but the counters at a desperate play,
Flippant and reckless what the end may be,
So that they glitter, each his little day,
The little mimic of a vanished king.

--
Archibald Lampman (1861-1899)
from The Poems of Archibald Lampman, 1900

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Archibald Lampman biography

Salvation / Archibald Lampman

         
Salvation

Nature hath fixed in each man's life for dower
One root-like gift, one primal energy,
Wherefrom the soul takes growth, as grows a tree,
With sap and fibre, branch and leaf and flower;
But if this seed in its creative hour
Be crushed and stifled, only then the shell
Lifts like a phantom falsely visible,
Wherein is neither growth, nor joy, nor power.
Find thou this germ, and find thou thus thyself,
This one clear meaning of the deathless I,
This bent, this work, this duty -- for thereby
God numbers thee, and marks thee for his own:
Careless of hurt, or threat, or praise, or pelf,
Find it and follow it, this, and this alone!

--
Archibald Lampman (1861-1899)
from The Poems of Archibald Lampman, 1900

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Archibald Lampman biography

Lorelei's Song — Das Loreleylied / Heinrich Heine

 
Lorelei's Song

If there's reason, I can't recall it,
Why I feel sick and tense.
A fable demands I tell it,
An old tale without sense.

The heavens are cool and dark now
And quiet flows the Rhine;
The peak of the Rock is a spark now
Of summer eveningshine.

In glory amid the last light
There sits a maid most fair.
Her garment and jewels shine bright
As she combs her golden hair

With a golden comb; and she's singing
The most marvellous song to me.
Even piercing my drums could not bring
Escape from that melody.

In my skiff I am a captive
Of each melodious note,
Caring nothing for the rapids
That wait to sink my boat.

The waves will be devouring,
Too soon, both skiff and I;
And I will die still hearing
The song of Lorelei.

—
Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)
(translated by George J. Dance)
from Doggerel, and other doggerel, 2015


"Lorelei's Song", translation by George J. Dance,  is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 4.0 International Unported License.

-

Das Loreleylied

Ich weiß nicht was soll es bedeuten
Daß ich so traurig bin;
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.

Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
Im Abendsonnenschein.

Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar,
Ihr goldenes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar.

Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme
Und singt ein Lied dabey;
Das hat eine wundersame,
Gewaltige Melodei.

Den Schiffer, im kleinen Schiffe,
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,
Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh´.

Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn;
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen
Die Lore-Ley getan.

---
Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)
1823

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Hienrich Heine biography

I See Phantoms of Hatred ... / W.B. Yeats

from Meditations in Time of Civil War

VII.   I See Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's Fullness 
           and of the Coming Emptiness

I climb to the tower-top and lean upon broken stone,
A mist that is like blown snow is sweeping over all,
Valley, river, and elms, under the light of a moon
That seems unlike itself, that seems unchangeable,
A glittering sword out of the east. A puff of wind
And those white glimmering fragments of the mist sweep by.
Frenzies bewilder, reveries perturb the mind;
Monstrous familiar images swim to the mind's eye.

'Vengeance upon the murderers,' the cry goes up,
'Vengeance for Jacques Molay.' In cloud-pale rags, or in lace,
The rage-driven, rage-tormented, and rage-hungry troop,
Trooper belabouring trooper, biting at arm or at face,
Plunges towards nothing, arms and fingers spreading wide
For the embrace of nothing; and I, my wits astray
Because of all that senseless tumult, all but cried
For vengeance on the murderers of Jacques Molay.

Their legs long, delicate and slender, aquamarine their eyes,
Magical unicorns bear ladies on their backs.
The ladies close their musing eyes. No prophecies,
Remembered out of Babylonian almanacs,
Have closed the ladies' eyes, their minds are but a pool
Where even longing drowns under its own excess;
Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full
Of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.

The cloud-pale unicorns, the eyes of aquamarine,
The quivering half-closed eyelids, the rags of cloud or of lace,
Or eyes that rage has brightened, arms it has made lean,
Give place to an indifferent multitude, give place
To brazen hawks. Nor self-delighting reverie,
Nor hate of what's to come, nor pity for what's gone,
Nothing but grip of claw, and the eye's complacency,
The innumerable clanging wings that have put out the moon.

I turn away and shut the door, and on the stair
Wonder how many times I could have proved my worth
In something that all others understand or share;
But O! ambitious heart, had such a proof drawn forth
A company of friends, a conscience set at ease,
It had but made us pine the more. The abstract joy,
The half-read wisdom of daemonic images,
Suffice the ageing man as once the growing boy.

--
W.B. Yeats (1865-1939), 1923
from The Cat and the Moon, and certain poems, 1924

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the European Union]

[I.  Ancestral Houses]

To view the complete poem, click here.

W.B. Yeats biography

"Blue Guitar" cancelled

"The Man With the Blue Guitar" by Wallace Stevens, which I'd planned to post on TBB during March and onto usenet during National Poetry Month in April, will not be appearing as planned. TMWtBG was slated to begin appearing on the blog March 1, immediately following Stevens's "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction," which I'd begun posting here Feb. 1, that in turn following posting of a dozen of his shorter poems in January. I'd chosen Stevens for the first major poet to showcase here, as being the most famous 20th century poet whose works are in the public domain in Canada. (As Stevens died in 1955, his poetry entered the public domain here on January 1, 2006.)

I'd previously posted "Notes" on usenet during April, 2009, without controversy. Shortly after I began blogging it, though, I began receiving posts on one of the same usenet groups claiming Stevens' poems were still under copyright. So I checked and rechecked, and found that in the U.S. his poetry is still copyrighted until 2026.

I decided to finish posting "Notes", and leave the January poems on as well, while adding "Do not copy" notices for American (and European) readers. It is the position of this blog that, being administered in Canada, it is subject to Canadian law, and therefore has a right to print Stevens's poetry. I realize that position may be wrong in law, and that eventually these poems may have to be removed from the blog; but that was no reason to concede defeat without a fight and remove them all immediately.

At the same time, I have no desire to provoke a confrontation, so I'm foregoing posting any more Stevens for the nonce. "Blue Guitar" (unlike "Notes" and the shorter poems) can already be found and read on the Web, so there's no real value in archiving it here as well:

For now I'm reserving the right to publish more of Stevens, as well as other modern poets (such as Weldon Kees) who are in the public domain in Canada. However, my priority will be on finding pieces that are inarguably public domain in the U.S. and Britain as well. That means authors who died on or before 1939; the obvious name that date suggests is Yeats, and you can expect to see some of his poetry here this month.

I'll also be posting, over March, the five public-domain poems -- by Heine, Rimbaud, and Saint-Denys Garneau -- that I've translated to date.

UPDATE, June 2012: I have  noticed a spike in traffic this month to this page (though not to TMWTBG itself), so I figured it would be a good idea to add a link here to the poem (which I eventually did post, a year later, in July 2011):

The Man With the Blue Guitar (complete and unabridged):
http://gdancesbetty.blogspot.ca/2011_07_01_archive.html 

March / George J. Dance

March

Snow becomes mud
becomes a mighty river
for the young boy.

~~
George J. Dance, 2007

from Doggerel, and other doggerel, 2015

[April]

["March" by George J. Dance is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International Unported License.]

George J. Dance biography