Dietsche Warande en Belfort. Jaargang 94

[p. 30]

Kristien D'Haen
Three poems by Guido Gezelle translated into English⁽¹⁾

The last

To the unknown Reader.

How sweet to me to ponder that,
maybe while rocked in sleep,
another, far from here, by me
unknown and never seen,
may read you, verses, well-
beloved, though dreaming naught
of all the doleful failings of
your father when he wrought!
How blithesome is the thought then,
when I am seated and I brood,
following where you float on your
quick-footed pilgrimhood,
that, miserably sinful though
I be, dear progeny,
your voice, wherein no sin is sought
comforts a man maybe;
your voice, wherein no sin is sought
he weep who made your store,
Your voice may heal, although he be,
your Poet, sick and sore;
Your voice may prayers rouse, while I
sit sighing, prayer-worn,
stay stony and my heart nor eye

(1) Vertaling van ‘'t Laatste’ (Gedichten, Gezangen, Gebeden), ‘De Avondtrompe’ en ‘Ichthus eis aiei’ (Rijmsnoer), uit een bundel vertalingen van Gezelle-poëzie in het Engels, die eerlang zal verschijnen.

[p. 31]

 

will open anymore!

 

O Poems, that I bore and

 

forth brought in repine

 

of poets, and have fostered near

 

by that poor heart of mine;

 

my verses, which so oft I re-

 

chastised and reclad

 

bedewing with my tears and all

 

besprinkling with my sweat;

 

oh speak for me, my verses, when

 

God reason will require,

 

if true 't is that you, cripple-born,

 

bear forth the life so dire

 

till farther than my gravestead and

 

not die before I die:

 

oh be it not through you that there

 

deprived of Life I lie!

The evening-trumpet

The cow her trumpet blew, 't will do
for nurture gnawing on;
too long in youthful mass of grass
the weighing udder worn;
the weighing udder, mild with milk,
trailed down now near the earth,
that sways, that her the tread impedes,
the body burdens her.

She blew the trumpet, toots and woos,
to be from meadow moved
to milkstead: to unload the fraught
of suck into a flood
of boon that oh so smooth, so good,
so pure is, and for all,
for all men, food and force proves
and the draught withal.

[p. 32]

 

The cow her trumpet blew, thereto

 

disposed alike the folk

 

who near the evening, stale and lame

 

wrought all in rest do soak.

 

Weary is woman, the cow is down,

 

the living soon abide,

 

after the troubling summer-work,

 

the hallowed home of night.

Ichthus eis aiei

Mayday-weather 't is, wherever,

brightly, and no leaflets run.

On the naked fishpit-water
whether rush not rimpling start and

still does dart

there the splendid face of sun.

Dipping in his warren, walking,

lies the fish who foot nor hand

hide nor hair has and no feather,
candidly, to up and nether,

hither, thither,

vaguely with his fins will wend.

Eyes he has, and shining, and that

stand athwart I know not how;

be he sleepy, eats or drinks he,
wants he to be up or sinks he,

never blinks he,

never drops his eyelids down.

Masticate the meal his mouth does,

neither end has nor begin,

but he munches, not refraining,
musing, what the cheeks contain in

their flat planing,

water out and water in.

[p. 33]

 

Wondrous creature, which of talk and

 

word and tongue and tale is free,

 

meaning what was undepraved

 

ne'er was spoken- of nor spake,

 

mothernaked,

 

shameless in innocency.

 

 

 

Once the water did the beasts and

 

men all swallow, all -

 

but those eight who in the Ark,

 

kin and kine, through patient dark,

 

safely guarded

 

from disaster and from harm.

 

 

 

He swam off, undoomed, undamned

 

saved by God's dispensing hand.

 

Might we, after all that here is

 

freed as well and to Thy wishes,

 

be Thy fishes,

 

where Thy strong-stemmed nets will stand.

 

 

 

God of whom in old days spoke they,

 

masking sacramental lore

 

(mouthwise or in image written):

 

‘Eat the Fish, He will be giving

 

Lasting Living.’

 

Help us, Ichthus, evermore!