P A U L V A L É R Y (1871-1945)
The Rower
Bent against the river, my strokes draw me
With infinite regret through laughing glades;
This heavy-handed soul that plies the oars
Makes sky yield to the slow knell of the blades.
Hard-hearted, heedless of the beauties struck,
And leaving waning circles on the sheen,
I use each thrust to break the lustrous world
Whose leaves and fire I sing in undertone.
While I skim trees on ample, artless silk,
Water with painted branches soothing me,
Tear up the scene, my boat, and force a rift,
Abolishing the calm of memory.
Sweet pleasures of the day, your grace has never
So suffered from a rebel’s self-defense;
As sun by sun has drawn me out of childhood,
So I go back where even names lose sense.
In vain this vast and all-pervading nymph
Hampers my harried limbs with her pure arms;
Slowly I’ll break a thousand frozen bonds,
Her silver barbs, her powerful bare charms.
The secret sound of waters mystically
Spreads on my golden days a silken band;
Nothing so blindly feeds on ancient joy
As steady motion; pure, unchanging sound.
Beneath ringed bridges, water carries me
Through windy vaults, dark heights where echo lurches;
They pass above a head crushed with fatigue,
But whose proud bone is harder than their arches.
Their night goes slowly by. The mind pulls down
Its sentient suns and its quick eyelids too,
Till with a leap that clothes me all in gems,
I plunge in that disdainful, idle blue.
Translated by Jan Schreiber
The Rower
Bent against the river, my strokes draw me
With infinite regret through laughing glades;
This heavy-handed soul that plies the oars
Makes sky yield to the slow knell of the blades.
Hard-hearted, heedless of the beauties struck,
And leaving waning circles on the sheen,
I use each thrust to break the lustrous world
Whose leaves and fire I sing in undertone.
While I skim trees on ample, artless silk,
Water with painted branches soothing me,
Tear up the scene, my boat, and force a rift,
Abolishing the calm of memory.
Sweet pleasures of the day, your grace has never
So suffered from a rebel’s self-defense;
As sun by sun has drawn me out of childhood,
So I go back where even names lose sense.
In vain this vast and all-pervading nymph
Hampers my harried limbs with her pure arms;
Slowly I’ll break a thousand frozen bonds,
Her silver barbs, her powerful bare charms.
The secret sound of waters mystically
Spreads on my golden days a silken band;
Nothing so blindly feeds on ancient joy
As steady motion; pure, unchanging sound.
Beneath ringed bridges, water carries me
Through windy vaults, dark heights where echo lurches;
They pass above a head crushed with fatigue,
But whose proud bone is harder than their arches.
Their night goes slowly by. The mind pulls down
Its sentient suns and its quick eyelids too,
Till with a leap that clothes me all in gems,
I plunge in that disdainful, idle blue.
Translated by Jan Schreiber