This website is using cookies

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on this website. 

Wilbur, Richard: In the Elegy Season

Portre of Wilbur, Richard

In the Elegy Season (English)

Haze, char, and the weather of All Souls':
A giant absence mopes upon the trees:
Leaves cast in casual potpourris
Whisper their scents from pits and cellar-holes.

Or brewed in gulleys, steeped in wells, they spend
In chilly steam their last aromas, yield
From shallow hells a revenance of field
And orchard air. And now the envious mind

Which could not hold the summer in my head
While bounded by that blazing circumstance
Parades thses barrens in a golden trance,
Remembering the wealthy season dead,

And by an autumn inspiration makes
A summer all its own. Green boughs arise
Through all the boundless backward of the eyes,
And the soul bathes in warm conceptual lakes.

Less proud than this, my body leans an ear
Past cold and colder weather after wings’
Soft commotion, the sudden race of springs,
The goddess’ tread heard on the dayward stair,

Longs for the brush of the freighted air, for smells
Of grass and cordial lilac, for the sight
Of green leaves building into the light
And azure water hoisting out of wells.

 
potpourris: pot = potiche (a vase with round body tapering at the neck and having a removable cover) pourris = to rot or putrid
revenant: one who returns after a lengthy absence, one who returns after death; French revenir = to return (my dictionary didn’t revenance, but I’m assuming that it is “a state of returning”).
cordial: warm and sincere; strongly felt; a liquor. Medieval Latin: cord = heart
azure: light purplish blue. A mixing of the Arabic word (al)-lazaward or lapis lazuli, a place name in Turkestan, Lajward where Marco Polo collected the lapis lazuli stones.



Uploaded byP. T.
Source of the quotationhttps://poettreeyr.wordpress.com

Elégiák évszaka (Hungarian)

Füst, pára, köd, Mindenszentek hete;
Óriás hiány gubbaszt az ágakon;
Vermekből, pincelyukból dől a lomb
Nyers, potpourri-szeszélyű illata,

Patakban ázva, kútban erjedve száll,
Mint pajkos gőz, a végső íz, sekély
Poklokból gyümölcsös-szag s réti szél
Kísértete. S irigy elmém, habár

A nyarat meg nem tarthatta, amíg
Körötte forrt égő igézete,
E pusztát arany transzban járja be
S a holt dús évszakra emlékezik;

Egy őszi illatból nyarat teremt
Magának. És a zöld lomb újra ring
A szem roppant mögöttes tájain,
S a lélek fürdik képzelt langy tavon.

A test szerényebb. Mohón füleli
Hó s jég mögött a szárny lágy rebbenését,
Forrásokat moccanni és a szépség
Istennőjét szelíden lejteni;

Sóvárog szellőt, illatterheset,
Az újra nyíló lombok fényre tárt
Színeit, fű s szíves akác szagát
S kutakból húzott friss azúr vizet.



Uploaded byP. T.
Source of the quotationT. I.

minimap