Although people seem to be unaware of it today, the development of the faculty of attention forms the real object and almost the sole interest of studies. Most school tasks have a certain intrinsic interest as well, but such an interest is secondary. All tasks that really call upon the power of attention are interesting for the same reason and to an almost equal degree. ( On the right use of School Studies with a view to the Love of God)
My place is on the left and I must go to my seat
I don’t get why they never turn on the heat
Don’t know my neighbor, though it’s now been a year
And we’re sinking, although shallow water is near
And we stare at the ceiling, with a hopeful unease,
On the old trolley-bus that is traveling east
On the old trolley-bus that is traveling east
On the old trolley-bus…
All people are brothers, we’re all six degrees…
And nobody knows why we’re traveling east
My neighbor can’t take it, he wants to break free
But he cannot escape, he doesn’t know where to flee
So we sit and we wonder if we’ll find our peace
On the old trolley-bus that is traveling east
The bus keeps on driving through the driver has fled
And the engine is rusty but we’re moving ahead
And we’re holding our breath, as we stare at the night
Where, for a moment, a star was lit bright
We stay silent, we know that the reason for this
Is the old trolley-bus that is traveling east…
By Victor Tsoi
Translation by Andrey Kneller
In the original Russian:-
Мое место слева, и я должен там сесть,
Не пойму, почему мне так холодно здесь,
Я не знаком с соседом, хоть мы вместе уж год.
И мы тонем, хотя каждый знает, где брод.
И каждый с надеждой глядит в потолок
Троллейбуса, который идет на восток.
Троллейбуса, который идет на восток.
Троллейбуса, который…
Все люди – братья, мы – седьмая вода,
И мы едем, не знаю, зачем и куда.
Мой сосед не может, он хочет уйти,
Но он не может уйти, он не знает пути,
И вот мы гадаем, какой может быть прок
В троллейбусе, который идет на восток.
В кабине нет шофера, но троллейбус идет,
И мотор заржавел, но мы едем вперед,
Мы сидим не дыша, смотрим туда,
Где на долю секунды показалась звезда,
Мы молчим, но мы знаем, нам в этом помог,
Троллейбус, который идет на восток.
Viktor Robertovich Tsoi was a Soviet-Korean singer and songwriter who co-founded Kino, one of the most popular and musically influential bands in the history of Russian music. Born and raised in Leningrad, Tsoi started writing songs as a teenager.
Und sagte gähnend: »Steigen Sie ein, wenn es Ihnen beliebt.«
Die Schnecke wehrte: »Danke, mir pressiert es.«
Da gab die Bahn ein Abfahrtssignal und noch eins und
ein drittes und viertes.
Und wirklich begann sie allmählich weiter zu fahren,
Um noch vor Sonntag die nächste Station zu erreichen.
Dort lagen an dreihundert Leichen,
Lauter Leute, die über dem Warten verhungert waren.
Joachim Ringelnatz wurde als jüngstes von drei Geschwistern in einem Wohn- und Geschäftshaus am Crostigall 14 in Wurzen bei Leipzig um „11 ¾ Uhr“ in einem Zimmer über dem Flur geboren, wie der Geburtsschein der Hebamme belegt. Seine Eltern waren beide künstlerisch tätig. Sein Vater Georg Bötticher, der einer thüringischen Gelehrtenfamilie entstammte, war ein Musterzeichner und später hauptberuflicher Verfasser von humoristischen Versen und Kinderbüchern. Er veröffentlichte vierzig Bücher, unter anderem in Reclams Universal-Bibliothek. Die Mutter Rosa Marie, Tochter eines Sägewerksbesitzers, zeichnete ebenfalls, entwarf Muster für Perlstickereien und stellte Puppenbekleidung her. Ringelnatz wuchs in bescheidenem Wohlstand auf: Die Familie beschäftigte zwei Dienstmädchen.
In the parched path
I have seen the good lizard
(one drop of crocodile)
meditating.
With his green frock-coat
of an abbot of the devil,
his correct bearing
and his stiff collar,
he has the sad air
of an old professor.
Those faded eyes
of a broken artist,
how they watch the afternoon
in dismay!
Is this, my friend,
your twilight constitutional?
Please use your cane,
you are very old, Mr. Lizard,
and the children of the village
may startle you.
What are you seeking in the path,
my near-sighted philosopher,
if the wavering phantasm
of the parched afternoon
has broken the horizon?
Are you seeking the blue alms
of the moribund heaven?
A penny of a star?
Or perhaps
you’ve been reading a volume
of Lamartine, and you relish
the plateresque trills
of the birds?
(You watch the setting sun,
and your eyes shine,
oh, dragon of the frogs,
with a human radiance.
Ideas, gondolas without oars,
cross the shadowy
waters of your
burnt-out eyes.)
Have you come looking
for that lovely lady lizard,
green as the wheatfields
of May,
as the long locks
of sleeping pools,
who scorned you, and then
left you in your field?
Oh, sweet idyll, broken
among the sweet sedges!
But, live! What the devil!
I like you.
The motto “I oppose
the serpent” triumphs
in that grand double chin
of a Christian archbishop.
Now the sun has dissolved
in the cup of the mountains,
and the flocks
cloud the roadway.
It is the hour to depart:
leave the dry path
and your meditations.
You will have time
to look at the stars
when the worms are eating you
at their leisure.
Go home to your house
by the village, of the crickets!
Good night, my friend
Mr. Lizard!
Now the field is empty,
the mountains dim,
the roadway deserted.
Only, now and again,
a cuckoo sings in the darkness
of the poplar trees.
From the website www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/old-lizard
Die Blätter fallen, fallen wie von weit,
als welkten in den Himmeln ferne Gärten;
sie fallen mit verneinender Gebärde.
Und in den Nächten fällt die schwere Erde
aus allen Sternen in die Einsamkeit.
Wir alle fallen. Diese Hand da fällt.
Und sieh dir andre an: es ist in allen.
Und doch ist Einer, welcher dieses Fallen
unendlich sanft in seinen Händen hält.
There are several translations of this interesting poem which appear to be copyrighted. In particular mit verneinender Gebärde seems not easy to render into English. Something like with a gesture of decline doesn’t quite measure up. Anyway the poem seems to make a parallel between the seasonal fall and the religious sense of falling into the arms of divine Grace. It put me in mind of the lines from a familiar hymn:-
To all life thou givest — to both great and small;
In all life thou livest, the true life of all;
We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,
And wither and perish—but nought changeth thee.
This is from a famous hymn by Walter Chalmers Smith, “Immortal, Invisible, God only Wise”.
Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessèd, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, thy great Name we praise.
Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,
Nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might;
Thy justice like mountains high soaring above
Thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love.
To all life thou givest — to both great and small;
In all life thou livest, the true life of all;
We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,
And wither and perish—but nought changeth thee.
Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,
Thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight;
All laud we would render: O help us to see
’Tis only the splendour of light hideth thee.
or
Und doch ist Einer, welcher dieses Fallen
unendlich sanft in seinen Händen hält.
Its less noisy than the underground and gives you some idea of the layout of North London. Especially from South Tottenham to Hampstead. It also seems quite quick and one could easily imagine Betjeman getting lyrical and informative about it. Only the bookshops might prove expensive -I found a nice anthology by Grigson -“The Cherry Tree” and a biography of Byron by Frederick Raphael-quite a combination. Excellent Oxfam bookshop and Louis coffeehouse-now Polish instead of Hungarian.
I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
I wish I was a youth again
But a youth again I can never be
Till apples grow on an ivy tree
I left me father, I left me mother
I left all my sisters and brothers too
I left all my friends and me own religion
I left them all for to follow you
But the sweetest apple is the soonest rotten
And the hottest love is the soonest cold
And what can’t be cured love has to be endured love
And now I am bound for America
Oh love is pleasin’ and love is teasin’
And love is a pleasure when first it’s new
But as it grows older sure the love grows colder
And it fades away like the morning dew
And love and porter makes a young man older
And love and whiskey makes him old and grey
And what can’t be cured love has to be endured love
And now I am bound for America
I found this poem which in a collection from a local charity shop in a battered old hardback for just £6. I rather like Browning for his lyrical accessibility. I know that he was greatly loved by the blind Cornish poet, Jack Clemo, for his love of Italy. I remember from school days being very moved by “How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix”. Indeed it is now said that it his dramatic monologues which are his greatest contribution. Oscar Wilde writes;”Yes, Browning was great. And as what will he be remembered? As a poet? Ah, not as a poet! He will be remembered as a writer of fiction, as the most supreme writer of fiction, it may be, that we have ever had. His sense of dramatic situation was unrivalled, and, if he could not answer his own problems, he could at least put problems forth, and what more should an artist do? Considered from the point of view of a creator of character he ranks next to him who made Hamlet.”
Returning to the poem above there are certain lines that are both moving and puzzling. “The leaf buds on the vine are wooly” to me suggests that they are both ready to open but some how covered with a kind of moss which is suggestive of some plant that is about to flower and at the same time about to decline. Thus suggestive of the situation the poet finds himself in relation to his would-be mistress. The vine is, of course biblical (John 15.1 and also John 15.4) and brings in another note about time and decay. The colour red turning to gray might I suppose refer to the colour of the grape and the bloom or mould upon it-but clearly signifies passion, like Paradise lost. The seasonal confusions within the poem I find suggestive of the inner turmoil related to the loss of the beloved.
Buried in woods we lay, you recollect;
Swift ran the searching tempest overhead;
And ever and anon some bright white shaft
Burnt through the pine-tree roof,—here burnt and there,
As if God’s messenger through the close wood screen
Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture,
Feeling for guilty thee and me.
I find that reading verses in German somehow memorable:-
Although people seem to be unaware of it today, the development of the faculty of attention forms the real object and almost the sole interest of studies. Most school tasks have a certain intrinsic interest as well, but such an interest is secondary. All tasks that really call upon the power of attention are interesting for the same reason and to an almost equal degree. ( On the right use of School Studies with a view to the Love of God)
From the website www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/old-lizard
penwithlit