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

Translation: Copyright © Timothy Adès

Fantasy

Fantaisie

Gérard de Nerval (1808-55)

Fantaisie
Il est un air pour qui je donnerais Tout Rossini, tout Mozart et tout Wèbre : Un air très vieux, languissant et funèbre, Qui pour moi seul a des charmes secrets! Or, chaque fois que je viens à l’entendre, De deux cents ans mon âme rajeunit... C’est sous Louis treize; et je crois voir s’étendre Un coteau vert, que le couchant jaunit. Puis un château de brique à coins de pierre, Aux vitraux teints de rougeâtres couleurs, Ceint de grands parcs, avec une rivière Baignant ses pieds, qui coule entre des fleurs; Puis une dame, à sa haute fenêtre, Blonde aux yeux noirs, en ses habits anciens, Que, dans une autre existence peut-être, J’ai déjà vue... et dont je me souviens!
Fantasy
Rossini, Mozart, yes, and Weber, I’d give them all for just one tune: It’s ancient, languid and sepulchral, It keeps its charms for me alone. I hear it, and my soul is younger: Each time, two centuries are gone. Louis the Thirteenth; a green hillside Turns golden in the setting sun. Stately brick house with fine stone corners: Red colours tint its window-glass. A river laves its feet, goes flowing Through parks in flower, swathes of grass; Fair lady at her lofty window, Black eyes, her dress historical, Whom in some earlier existence I may have seen ... and can recall!

Translation: Copyright © Timothy Adès

More poems by Gérard de Nerval...

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

More poems by John Keats...

I dreamed...

Mir träumt’...

Joseph von Eichendorff (1788-1857)

Mir träumt’...
Mir träumt’, ich ruhte wieder Vor meines Vaters Haus Und schaute fröhlich nieder Ins alte Tal hinaus, Die Luft mit lindem Spielen Ging durch das Frühlingslaub, Und Blütenflocken fielen Mir über Brust und Haupt. Als ich erwacht, da schimmert Der Mond vom Waldesrand, Im falben Scheine flimmert Um mich ein fremdes Land, Und wie ich ringsher sehe: Die Flocken waren Eis, Die Gegend war vom Schnee, Mein Haar vom Alter weiß.
I dreamed...
I dreamed again I rested Outside my father’s home And, joyful, down the valley Allowed my eyes to roam. The breeze in vernal bowers Sported with gentle jest And blossoms shed their petals About my head and breast. I saw the moon that shimmered From where the tall trees stand: In the pale light there glimmered, All round, a foreign land: And as I looked about me, The petals were ice-cold, All snowy was the country, And I was grey and old.

Translation: Copyright © Timothy Adès

More poems by Joseph von Eichendorff...