Author: Timothy Ades

The Willow Catkin

Das Weidenkätzchen

Kätzchen ihr der Weide, wie aus grauer Seide, wie aus grauem Samt! O ihr Silberkätzchen, sagt mir doch, ihr Schätzchen, sagt, woher ihr stammt. Wollen's gern dir sagen: Wir sind ausgeschlagen aus dem Weidenbaum, haben winterüber drin geschlafen, Lieber, in tieftiefem Traum. In dem dürren Baume in tieftiefem Traume habt geschlafen ihr? In dem Holz, dem harten war, ihr weichen, zarten, euer Nachtquartier? Mußt dich recht besinnen: Was da träumte drinnen, waren wir noch nicht, wie wir jetzt im Kleide blühn von Samt und Seide hell im Sonnenlicht. Nur als wie Gedanken lagen wir im schlanken grauen Baumgeäst; unsichtbare Geister, die der Weltbaumeister dort verweilen lässt. Kätzchen ihr der Weide, wie aus grauer Seide, wie aus grauem Samt! O ihr Silberkätzchen, ja, nun weiß, ihr Schätzchen, ich, woher ihr stammt.

The Willow Catkin

You catkins of willow, silk-grey, velvet-grey, silver catkins, o say: my sweetings, o tell me, how came you this way? We’ll happily say: the willow’s our home, and from it we come; we slept winter away, deep, deep was our dream. In bare trees to sleep, and dreaming so deep? You are tender! How could that be? Was it good, hard night in the wood? Consider aright: we dreamed in the glade, not yet so arrayed as now we’re displayed, silk, velvet, grey shade, by sun shining bright. Like pure meditation in bare boughs we lay, boughs narrow and grey, unseen inspiration: the Lord of creation allowed us to stay. You catkins of willow, silk-grey, velvet-grey, silver catkins, I pay respects to you, sweetings: you’ve told me the way you came here, today.

Tags Nature

The Cabbie’s Nag

Der Droschkengaul

Ich bin zwar nur ein Droschkengaul, – doch philosophisch regsam; der Freß-Sack hängt mir kaum ums Maul, so werd ich überlegsam. Ich schwenk ihn her, ich schwenk ihn hin, und bei dem trauten Schwenken geht mir so manches durch den Sinn, woran nur Weise denken. Ich bin zwar nur ein Droschkengaul, – doch sann ich oft voll Sorgen, wie ich den Hafer brächt ins Maul, der tief im Grund verborgen. Ich schwenkte hoch, ich schwenkte tief, bis mir die Ohren klangen. Was dort in Nacht verschleiert schlief, ich konnt es nicht erlangen. Ich bin zwar nur ein Droschkengaul, – doch mag ich Trost nicht missen und sage mir: So steht es faul mit allem Erdenwissen; es frisst im Weisheitsfuttersack wohl jeglich Maul ein Weilchen, doch nie erreicht's – o Schabernack – die letzten Bodenteilchen.

The Cabbie’s Nag

I may be just a cabbie’s nag: I’m busy with a puzzle. Philosophy! My dinner-bag hangs almost off my muzzle. I swing it here, I swing it there, swing back and forth for ages: I think my thoughts, and they compare with thoughts of saints and sages. I may be just a cabbie’s nag. I think about the bottom, the last oats in my dinner-bag: it’s ages since I got ’em. I’ve swung it high, I’ve swung it low, I’ve set my eardrums humming: what’s veiled in darkness down below is never, ever, coming. I may be just a cabbie’s nag, and yet I seek for solace. I tell myself: here is the snag about all earthly knowledge. In wisdom’s nosebag, eager lips go seeking wholesome fare, but never, as the muzzle dips, get to the lowest layer.

Tags Animals

Seventy-Six Trombones

Seventy-six trombones led the big parade, With a hundred & ten cornets close at hand. They were followed by rows and rows, Of the finest virtuosos, The cream of every famous band. Seventy-six trombones caught the morning sun, With a hundred & ten cornets right behind. There were over a thousand reeds, Srpinging up like weeds, There were horns of every shape & kind. There were copper bottom timpani in horse platoons, Thundering, thundering, all along the way. Double bell euphoniums and big bassoons, Each bassoon having its big, fat say. There were fifty mounted cannon in the battery, Thundering, thundering, louder than before. Clarinets of every size, And trumpets who'd improvise A full octave higher than the score! Seventy-six trombones hit the counterpoint, While a hundred and ten cornets blazed away. To the rhythm of Harch! Harch! Harch! All the kids began to march, And they're marching still right today!

Seventy-Six Trombones

sex sonat et decies septem quae turba tubarum! ~~pompa decem et centum cornua iuncta tenet. agminibus densis gnarissima turma secuta est, ~~Amphion, Orpheus, plurimus ipse Linus. sex iubar et decies septem rubefecit Eoum; ~~ecce decem et centum cornua pone tubis! mille instant calami, loliis simulata caterva, ~~buccina cum lituis, cornua, concha, tubae. tympana tunc equitum resonabant aere profundo, ~~quo tonitru resonans omne tonabat iter. fistula – iam duplicata rudent euphonia! - opimo ~ sermones duplicat gutture quaeque suos. quina decem tormenta, tonantia fulmina belli, ~~raucius augebant, raucius usque sonos; maxima vel maior, minor atque minuta cicuta; ~~classica conatu bis quater Icario; sex dant et decies septem contraria chordae; ~~vi flant undecies cornua dena melos. vadere cum pueris cunctae coepere puellae, ~vadere praesenti queis placet usque die!

My translation into Latin

Tags Music

At Christmastide

In Weihnachtszeiten

In Weihnachtszeiten reis' ich gern Und bin dem Kinderjubel fern Und geh' in Wald und Schnee allein. Und manchmal, doch nicht jedes Jahr, Trifft meine gute Stunde ein, Daß ich von allem, was da war, Auf einen Augenblick gesunde Und irgendwo im Wald für eine Stunde Der Kindheit Duft erfühle tief im Sinn Und wieder Knabe bin…

At Christmastide

At Christmastide I like to go Far from all childish merriment And seek alone the woods and snow. And sometimes, though not every year, I meet my hour of sweet content, And suddenly I'm healed and well, Freed of whatever things there were, And in the woodland for a spell Childhood comes wafting to my brain And I’m a little boy again.

Tags Christmas

Binsey Poplars

Gerard Manley Hopkins

The poplars were felled in 1879. My Latin..

Binsey Poplars

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled, Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun, All felled, felled, are all felled; Of a fresh and following folded rank Not spared, not one That dandled a sandalled Shadow that swam or sank On meadow & river & wind-wandering weed-winding bank. O if we but knew what we do When we delve or hew — Hack and rack the growing green! Since country is so tender To touch, her being só slender, That, like this sleek and seeing ball But a prick will make no eye at all, Where we, even where we mean To mend her we end her, When we hew or delve: After-comers cannot guess the beauty been. Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve Strokes of havoc unselve The sweet especial scene, Rural scene, a rural scene, Sweet especial rural scene. [Campaigning against a housing estate that would have scarred the view of Highgate from Hampstead Heath, I wrote: 'Witan, the ancient council. Hurst, a wooded hill. Not since the Binsey Poplars, those Hopkins-harrowing topplers, Fell or were felled by the fiend of eld that wishes old England ill, And the trains stopped stopping at Adlestrop, and at Grantchester time stood still, Has anything worse been heard in verse, including, if you will, The nefarious, unhilarious, Dissolution of Halnaker Mill.' ...]

Binsey Poplars

o quantum amatae vos mihi populi! Titana textis frondibus obrui ~~vidi refrenarique in auris; ~~~~praecipites cecidistis omnes, haud una sospes caede trucissima. intactus ordo duplicis agminis ~~occisus, umbrosis puellas ~~~~vel pueros recreare alutis gnarus, per agros, flumina, flamina, ventos vagantes, litora, harundines ~~per prata procurvas, per undas ~~~~nantibus his, aliis caducis. o stirps molesti nescia criminis, prompta ad fodendum, scindere promptior! ~~~torquemus increscens, virescens ~~~~ dilaniamus, in omne damnum. rus tenue tactu, rus tenerum ambitu! levis videndi fixus acu globus: ~~ instanter, heu! non est ocellus. ~~~~sic etiam reparare nisi pala et securi, deruimus modo saltus amoenos : nesciet advena ~~quantum venustatis fuisset: ~~~~undecimus decimusve tantum stragi sat ictus: conficit eripit prospectum agrestem, gaudia rustica ~~dejecta: prospectum placentem ~~~~destruit egregium, placentem.

Classical Verse Challenge for April 2024.

More poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins...

Tags Nature, Places, Sorrow

Hibernia nostra

Let Erin Remember

My Latin

Let Erin Remember

Let Erin remember the days of old, Ere her faithless sons betray'd her; When Malachi wore the collar of gold, Which he won from her proud invader, When her kings, with standard of green unfurl'd, Led the Red-Branch Knights to danger! Ere the emerald gem of the western world Was set in the crown of a stranger. On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays, When the clear cold eve's declining, He sees the round towers of other days In the wave beneath him shining: Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime, Catch a glimpse of the days that are over; Thus, sighing, look through the waves of time, For the long-faded glories they cover.

Hibernia nostra

tempora lapsa diu memorentur, Hibernia nostra, queis te tradiderat nondum tua perfida proles. supremum regem signaverat aurea torques, invasore truci victorem in lite superbo: tempore quo viridi regum vexilla colore audendis equites rutilos duxere periclis, Hesperiae necdum Smaragditia gemma iacebat capta per externos, aliena inserta corona. est lacus insignis: ripa piscator in alta, solis ad occasum deerrans per frigus et umbram, viderit antiquas torres praestare rotundas, surgere fulgentes et aqua lucere profunda. sic etiam referent sublimia somnia menti grandia tempora, lapsorum simulacra dierum: vanescunt refugis aevis moribunda per undas, in queis iamdudum se pristina gloria condit.

Sung by Michael O’Duffy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtPsezf6qn0

Tags Dreams, History, Patriotic

DO RE MI

English by Oscar Hammerstein II from 'The Sound of Music'. Latin by me.

DO RE MI

Let's start at the very beginning A very good place to start When you read, you begin with A-B-C When you sing, you begin with Do-Re-Mi Do, a deer, a female deer Re, a drop of golden sun Mi, a name, I call myself Fa, a long, long way to run So, a needle pulling thread La, a note to follow So Ti, a drink with jam and bread That will bring us back to Do. When you know the notes to sing You can sing most anything.

DO RE MI

incipiamus in incepto: valet optima origo. ~~alpha et beta legis, mox quoque gamma notas. imus cerva gradus, muliebris bestia, chordis; ~~aureolo sequitur guttula sole, iubar. tum mihi me nomen, quo me revocante vocabor; ~~currere fas longe, cui via longa, procul. dein sutoris acus, trahitur cum sutile filum; ~~excipiens caecus proximus instat acum. dein thea adest, pani coctis cum fructibus apta; ~~cerva iterum inventa conficiemus iter. tempore quo disces septem discrimina vocum, ~~omnia quam sollers carmina paene canes!

in pratis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drnBMAEA3AM in stratis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLm07s8fnzM

Tags Music, Skill

Bethany W Pope at the gym: double acrostic

Timothy Adès

Bethany W. Pope, poet who worked in a Swindon cinema, now teaching in China, keeps very fit, and is good at fencing. This is one of several poems about poets at the gym. The others are by George Szirtes, each written in the poet's own style.

Bethany W Pope at the gym: double acrostic

At last I’ve done my cinematic job, Doled out the popcorn, smiled at rudery, Obliged the arrogant, survived the snob, Unplugged the hot projector. I am free. Boots hide my kneecaps, and my black beret Looks cute to louts, to whom I’ll say ‘Unh-unh’, Easing my strength and love between the A And Z of Swindon life, till home is won. Come, haul my heavy sled, abusive guy! Ratchet my stepper up, the speed’s too slow, Or raise my press-up bar insanely high. P- Sychology and muscles: way to go! Touché! Lunge, slash! This is the life for me. P- Irate in space – that’s what I’d love to be. (Can’t count! The parodist’s catastrophe!!!!!)

More poems by Timothy Adès...

Tags Humour, Skill

Climate Crisis Eleven-Line Poem

Timothy Adès

Climate Crisis Eleven-Line Poem

***Climate crisis correct course climate crisis correct course *** Climate crisis convulse customs crops continents Cancel cars cancel commuting convert conurbations Control corporations crack carbon consolidate coasts Cut coal cut cattle cut consumption cut commerce Free food focus farms forge friendships forget fashion Fortify forests finish felling forestall financiers Peace priority preach persistently persuade politicians Abandon airports axe airlines adapt activities Save sacred seas stop spoliation sustain sustain ***Go green get good growth give give give give give***

More poems by Timothy Adès...

Tags Climate

Another Lullaby for Insomniacs

A.E. Stallings (1968)

Another Lullaby for Insomniacs

Sleep, she will not linger: She turns her moon-cold shoulder. With no ring on her finger, You cannot hope to hold her. She turns her moon-cold shoulder And tosses off the cover. You cannot hope to hold her: She has another lover. She tosses off the cover And lays the darkness bare. She has another lover. Her heart is otherwhere. She lays the darkness bare. You slowly realize Her heart is otherwhere. There's distance in her eyes. You slowly realize That she will never linger, With distance in her eyes And no ring on her finger.

Another Lullaby for Insomniacs

nulla quies, tibi nequaquam tua cara manebit: ~~annulus in digito, spes retinere, vacat. stragula iacta iacent, umerus quasi luna rigescit: ~~alter amator obest: spes retinere vacat. stragula iacta iacent, stat nuda cubilibus umbra: ~~flebile paulatim percipis exitium. cor procul hinc refugit, patet en! absentia ocellis : ~~annulus in digito deest: retinere nequis.

My translation into Latin.

More poems by A.E. Stallings...

Tags Night