Dietsche Warande en Belfort. Jaargang 94

[p. 614]

Kristien D'haen
Two poems by Guido Gezelle translated into English⁽¹⁾

Oh Splendour Wild and Undisturbed

Oh splendour wild and undisturbed,
You blooms amid the waterworld!

How glad I see you, draped and clad,
Stand in the wet as 't pleased God!

Born harm- and guileless up you rose
where God you willed and where He chose,

there stand you, and in the sunny glee,
all that you do, a bloom to be!

'T is being which my eyes beheld
'T is truth, and never double dealt;

And Who through you delights my soul,
alike to you is one and whole!

How silent! There is windward none,
no leaflets which disturbing run.

No rimpling lips the loved face
of water, full of flowery grace.

No wind, no word: and round outspread
All shadowy, all silenced!

Then deeply in the mirror, deep,
green blazed, the dome of heaven steep;

and piercing here and there is spun
a long swift filament of sun.

What honour, frailty, chastity
may in one single blossom be,

(1) Vertaling van ‘O Wilde en Onvervalschte pracht’. (Ged. Gez. Geb.) en ‘'k En hoore u nog niet...’ (Tijdkrans I). - With many thanks to Mrs Barbara Wild-Bayly for her subtle suggestions and help.

[p. 615]

 

which suddenly and free of doubts

 

from its creator's finger sprouts!

 

 

 

By Him and by no human hand,

 

lay here the seed of humble plant;

 

 

 

Through Him, and on this moment, see

 

it opened and it gives me glee,

 

 

 

and teaches prayers unto me

 

and being, so as I should be:

 

 

 

beholding and believing in

 

all final end the origin,

 

 

 

the ground of all; and more I see

 

and yet not all: God's primalty.

I hear you not now

I hear you not now,

O nightingale, and

the Easter-sun sits

in the East-hole;

where stay you so long or

have you perhaps

forgotten us to

console?

Not summering is 't

not sprouting; there springs

no leaflet yet from

the hedgerows;

Sits ice in the wind,

sits snow in the sky

Stormy it is and the

gust blows.

Yet it starlings and finches

loud all about,

the blackbird it laughs

and babbles;

it sparrows and tits,

it cuckoos in woods,

it swifts and it sways

and it swaggers.

[p. 616]

 

Where stays he so long,

 

the nightingale; and

 

forgets he us to

 

console?

 

Not summering is 't

 

but summer it will;

 

the Easter-sun sits

 

in the East-hole.