To be a Duck's a Knack, plus Luck

C'EST TOUT UN ART D'ETRE UN CANARD

Claude Roy (1915-97)

C'EST TOUT UN ART D'ETRE UN CANARD
C'est tout un art D'être un canard Canard marchant Canard nageant Canards au vol vont dandinant Canards sur l'eau vont naviguant Etre canard C'est absorbant Terre ou étang C'est différent Canards au sol s'en vont en rang Canards sur l'eau s'en vont ramant Etre canard Ca prend du temps C'est tout un art C'est amusant Canards au sol cancanants Canards sur l'eau sont étonnants Il faut savoir Marcher, nager Courir, plonger Dans l'abreuvoir. Canards le jour sont claironnants Canards le soir vont clopinant Canards aux champs Ou sur l'étang C'est tout un art D'être canard.
To be a Duck's a Knack, plus Luck
To be a Duck's a Knack, plus Luck a strolling duck a swimming duck a soaring duck's a flip-flap duck a floating duck’s a shipshape duck To be a drake on land or lake it’s charms and spells, it’s something else On dry land ducks parade, a row on duckponds, ducks proceed to row To be a drake can only take time, it’s an art that cheers the heart A dry-land duck’s a quackle-box a duckpond duck’s miraculous A drake can take a walk run swim in drinking-tank the dunk of him The ducks of dawn go trumpeting the ducks of dusk go tottering To be a drake on lea or lake to be a duck's a knack plus luck.

Translation: Copyright © Timothy Adès

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A Bird is Singing

Un oiseau chante

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)

Un oiseau chante
Un oiseau chante ne sais où C’est je crois ton âme qui veille Parmi tous les soldats d’un sou Et l’oiseau charme mon oreille Écoute il chante tendrement Je ne sais pas sur quelle branche Et partout il va me charmant Nuit et jour semaine et Dimanche Mais que dire de cet oiseau Que dire des métamorphoses De l’âme en chant dans l’arbrisseau Du cœur en ciel du ciel en roses L’oiseau des soldats c’est l’amour Et mon amour c’est une fille La rose est moins parfaite et pour Moi seul l’oiseau bleu s’égosille Oiseau bleu comme le cœur bleu De mon amour au cœur céleste Ton chant si doux répète-le À la mitrailleuse funeste Qui claque à l’horizon et puis Sont-ce les astres que l’on sème Ainsi vont les jours et les nuits Amour bleu comme est le cœur même
A Bird is Singing
A bird is singing don’t know where must be your soul that’s watchful there among so many really mere soldiers, his song delights my ear Listen he sings so tenderly where on what branch I cannot say goes everywhere delighting me weekdays and Sundays night and day About this bird what can I say about these metamorphoses a soul on song in shrubby tree a heart in heaven a heaven in roses Love is the bird of soldiers. I’ve a darling girl who is my love more perfect than a rose of course blue bird sings just for me he’s hoarse Blue bird as blue as my love’s blue heart loving heart of heaven’s own your song is sweet recite it to the deadly automatic gun That clatters on the skyline do we see the stardust being sown the days and nights are going gone blue love blue as the heart is blue

Translation: Copyright © Timothy Adès

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Kind und Pfau

Girl And Peacock

Erich Mühsam (1878-1934)

Girl And Peacock
Im Mäntelchen mit viel Besatz und seidener Kapotte, im Spitzenkragen und Seidenlatz, so steht hier die Charlotte. Da kommt daher ein stolzer Pfau, mit Federn, vielen hundert, der sieht die kleine Menschenfrau, - und beide steh'n verwundert. Die Lotte beugt sich staunend vor, der Pfau beugt sich zurücke und spreizt den blauen Federflor; - so kreuzen sich die Blicke. "Was ist das für ein schönes Tier!" so denken alle beide. Er deucht ihr ganz von Golde schier, sie deucht ihm ganz von Seide. - Sie seh'n sich fast die Augen blind am Kleid und an den Daunen - und wenn sie nicht gegangen sind, steh'n sie wohl noch und staunen.
Kind und Pfau
In pretty coat with silken hood and braids and trimmings fancy and pointed collar, there she stood, the small, silk-swaddled Nancy. A splendid peacock chanced to pass with feathers, several hundred, and saw the little human lass. Both stood and gaped, and wondered: Nancy leant forward in surprise, the lovely bird leant backward: the two could not believe their eyes! Their postures were quite awkward. He spread his azure feather-fan. Reciprocally gazing, each marvelled: What’s this creature, then! How lovely, how amazing! He thought: She’s silk! She thought: He’s gold! The garb, the plumes perceiving, it’s possible they’re still on hold, immobile, disbelieving!
Picture by Edmond-Jean Aman, 1895, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris

Translation: Copyright © Timothy Adès

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Crows

LES CORBEAUX

Arthur Rimbaud (1854-91)

LES CORBEAUX
Seigneur, quand froide est la prairie, Quand dans les hameaux abattus Les longs angelus se sont tus… Sur la nature défleurie Faites s’abattre des grands cieux Les chers corbeaux délicieux! Armée étrange aux cris sévères, Les vents froids attaquent vos nids! Vous, le long des fleuves jaunis, Sur les routes des vieux calvaires, Sur les fossés et sur les trous Dispersez-vous, ralliez-vous! Par milliers, sur les champs de France, Où dorment les morts d’avant-hier, Tournoyez, n’est-ce pas, l’hiver, Pour que chaque passant repense? Sois donc le crieur du devoir, Ô notre funèbre oiseau noir! Mais, saints du ciel, en haut du chêne, Mât perdu dans le soir charmé, Laissez les fauvettes de mai Pour ceux qu’au fond du bois enchaîne, Dans l’herbe d’où l’on ne peut fuir, La défaite sans avenir.
Crows
Lord, when the countryside is cold, And nature naked and unflowered, When in the hamlets overpowered The last long angelus has tolled, Bring down from your wide heavens those Adorable, delicious crows! Strange armies of the cheerless cries, The icy winds assault your homes! Along the banks of yellowed streams, On roads of ancient calvaries, Over the ditches and the delves Scatter yourselves, unite yourselves! In thousands, on the fields of France, Where sleep the dead of yesteryear, Will you not whirl with winter here, Bring second thoughts to transients? Give voice, our black sepulchral bird, Cry duty as your battle-word! Come, saints above, on oaken steep, Where twilight charms great masts away: Turn from the warbling birds of May To those enchained in forest deep, In thickets where no wings are fleet, By ineluctable defeat.

Translation: Copyright © Timothy Adès

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Goldfinch in Jail

The Caged Goldfinch

Lipograms – Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

The Caged Goldfinch
Within a churchyard, on a recent grave, I saw a little cage That jailed a goldfinch. All was silence save Its hops from stage to stage. There was inquiry in its wistful eye, And once it tried to sing; Of him or her who placed it there, and why, No one knew anything.
Goldfinch in Jail
Within a churchyard, on a just-laid plot, I saw a tiny jail: A goldfinch was within. No sound: but, what? Hop, hop, a dismal trail. Inquiry in its wistful look saw I; I saw it fail to sing; Of who had put it in that spot, and why, Nobody knows a thing.

Translation: Copyright © Timothy Adès

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Au Rossignol

Ode to a Nightingale

John Keats (1795-1821)

Let’s see whether he needed the letter E. First verse by HARRY GUEST; TIMOTHY ADÈS wrote the rest.
Ode to a Nightingale
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains          My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains          One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,          But being too happy in thine happiness, —                 That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees                         In some melodious plot          Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,                 Singest of summer in full-throated ease. O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been          Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green,          Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South,          Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,                 With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,                         And purple-stained mouth;          That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,                 And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget          What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret          Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,          Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;                 Where but to think is to be full of sorrow                         And leaden-eyed despairs,          Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,                 Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. Away! away! for I will fly to thee,          Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy,          Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night,          And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,                 Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;                         But here there is no light,          Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown                 Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,          Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet          Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;          White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;                 Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;                         And mid-May's eldest child,          The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,                 The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Darkling I listen; and, for many a time          I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,          To take into the air my quiet breath;                 Now more than ever seems it rich to die,          To cease upon the midnight with no pain,                 While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad                         In such an ecstasy!          Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain —                    To thy high requiem become a sod. Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!          No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard          In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path          Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,                 She stood in tears amid the alien corn;                         The same that oft-times hath          Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam                 Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. Forlorn! the very word is like a bell          To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well          As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades          Past the near meadows, over the still stream,                 Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep                         In the next valley-glades:          Was it a vision, or a waking dream?                 Fled is that music :— Do I wake or sleep?
Au Rossignol
My mind hurts and a drowsy poison pains My soul as though of opium I had drunk Or, quaffing a dull drug down to its drains An hour ago, to Pluto’s lands had sunk. ‘Tis not through craving for thy happy lot But finding too much joy in all thy bliss – O thou, light-flying dryad of this wood, In a harmonious plot Of mossy boughs which shift as shadows kiss. Thy full throat sings: May harbours all that’s good. O, for a draught of vino! that has lain Cooling for months a long way down in ground, Tasting of Flora’s country, lush with rain, Occitan song, and sunlit dancing round! O for a glassful of that sunny South, Full of Parnassian blushful vrai grand cru, With strings of air-drops bubbling at its brim, Staining maroon my mouth; That I might drink, and slip away with you, All lost to all, in wildwoods dark and dim. I’d slip away, dissolving. Soon forgot, What you among your arbours had not known, Our worry and our quinsy and our hot Flush of folk sitting for a mutual groan, Our palsy, shaking sad gray hairs, not many, Our youth grown pallid, dying, phantom–slight: For but to think is to drink draughts of sorrow, Look black as antimony; Girls can’t maintain two lustrous orbs of sight; If Cupid sighs, it’s only till tomorrow. Away! away! for I will fly to you, Not riding out with Bacchus’ jaguars, But (blind-man’s buff!) on lyric wings, although My brain is numb, and jolts and jams and jars. Look, now I’m with you! It’s a kind, soft night; With luck, Milady Moon is holding court, And, round about, a throng of starry Fays; No, it’s too dark: no light But what from skyward airily is brought Through branchy gloom and winding mossy ways. I cannot scan what’s budding at my foot, Nor what soft balsam hangs upon your boughs, But in this fragrant dark, I try to moot Such aromatics as this month allows To grass, to shrub, to fruiting blossom wild; Sunk in its fronds, fast fading violot; Hawthorn, triantaphyll dawn–drunk with musk, May’s coming first-born child, And pastoral non-hybrid, which is not A murmurous haunt of gnats at dog–star’s dusk. Dark auscultation! and again! for oft I am half amorous of R.I.P., In many musing stanzas call him, soft, To lift in air my faint vitality: This opportunity I shouldn’t miss, To pass away at midnight without pain, Whilst thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such high flights of bliss! Still wouldst thou sing, and I’d auscult in vain To thy contakion, at last a clod. Thou wast not born to croak, immortal Bird! No hungry propagations grind you down; That song I track this passing night occurr’d In days long past to tyrant, king and clown: On top of that — who knows? — it found a path To Ruth, athirst for Moab’s distant turf, Who stood distraught amid th’ un-British corn; And on occasion hath Charm'd magic miradors that look on rough Hazardous floods, in goblin lands forlorn. Forlorn! That actual word purports to toll, To toil yours truly back to John from you! Addio! This fancy tricks us nicht so wohl As what — fallacious fay! — it’s thought to do. Addio! Addio! Thy soulful singing faints Away, past paddocks and a placid brook, Climbing a hill; and now it sinks down, boring Into low-lying haunts: A vision? Or a waking think–and–look? All’s tacit: — Am I vigilant, or snoring?
Said at Poet in the City Drop–In, Daunts Piccadilly Bookshop, March 2015

Translation: Copyright © Timothy Adès

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