The Collected Poems
Zbigniew Herbert
- 624 pages
- English
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The Collected Poems
Zbigniew Herbert
Ă propos de ce livre
This outstanding new translation brings a uniformity of voice to Zbigniew Herbert's entire poetic output, from his first book of poems, String of Light, in 1956, to his final volume, previously unpublished in English, Epilogue Of the Storm. Collected Poems: 1956-1998, as Joseph Brodsky said of Herbert's SSelected Poems, is "bound for a much longer haul than any of us can anticipate." He continues, "For Zbigniew Herbert's poetry adds to the biography of civilization the sensibility of a man not defeated by the century that has been most thorough, most effective in dehumanization of the species. Herbert's irony, his austere reserve and his compassion, the lucidity of his lyricism, the intensity of his sentiment toward classical antiquity, are not just trappings of a modern poet, but the necessary armorâin his case well-tempered and shining indeedâfor man not to be crushed by the onslaught of reality. By offering to his readers neither aesthetic nor ethical discount, this poet, in fact, saves them frorn that poverty which every form of human evil finds so congenial. As long as the species exists, this book will be timely."
Foire aux questions
Informations
HERMES, DOG AND STAR
1957
BAPTISM
tried by the sundering of the heavens
they who saw mountains die
and mice find salvation
now sit out on the pier
and watch the waving grain
beautiful as a waterfall
âit was a fortunate notion
to entrust hope to the birds
this made their faith strong
as a pigeon house
where men burn like feathers
peer into the insides of skulls
into mindless scrolls of pink anatomy
they who know a bodyâs weight
say
the criminal cat and astronomer
well deserved to lie motionless
a shallow plain levels
the evil and the good
who discern upward motion and downward motion
sacrifices sent up
eyelids cast down
we say
they are both right
those baptized by water
those baptized by fire
will be reconciled by nothingness
or mercy
and only we against whom
the Church fathers would have written pamphlets
contra académicos
only we will meet with a terrible fate
flames and lamentation
for having received a baptism of earth
we were too valiant in our uncertainty
AT THE GATE OF THE VALLEY
on the meadow of ashes
they all have gathered under the guard of angels
the eye embraces
the whole lowing two-legged herd
counting even those who will come
from chronicles fables and the lives of the saints
let us lift our eyes
to the throat of the valley
from which comes a shout
after a loud whisper of silence
this voice resounds like a spring of living water
it is we are told
a cry of mothers from whom children are taken
since as it turns out
we shall be saved each one alone
and let us grant they have a hard job
âhide me in your eye
in the palm of your hand in your arms
we have always been together
you canât abandon me
now when I am dead and need tenderness
a higher ranking angel
with a smile explains the misunderstanding
the corpse of a canary
(all the animals died a little earlier)
he was so niceâshe says weeping
he understood everything
and when I said to himâ
her voice is lost in the general noise
whom one would never suspect of such things
an old bowed fellow
catches to his breast an axe
âall my life she was mine
she will be mine here too
she nourished me there
she will nourish me here
nobody has the right
âhe saysâ
I wonât give her up
have obeyed the orders without pain
go lowering their heads as a sign of consent
but in their clenched fists they hide
fragments of letters ribbons clippings of hair
and photographs
which they naively think
wonât be taken from them
a moment before
the final division
of those gnashing their teeth
from those singing psalms
TOUCH
they are like a vision under water
and between the black and white
filters the uncertainty of colors
it wavers slightly in the pure air
our seeing is a mirror or a sieveâ
a wavering wisdom of moist eyes
seeps through it drop by drop
so the deranged tongue cries out
is like a ball of yarn where a white
shadowâs silence attracts a stone
just a muddle of stars and leaves
a world between smell and surprise
to return to things their stillness
over the earâs lie the eyeâs chaos
there grows a dam of ten fingers
a hard and faithless mistrust lays
its fingers in the worldâs wound
to divide thing from appearance
can give utterance to love
you alone offer consolation
we are both blind and deaf
I WOULD LIKE TO DESCRIBE
joy or sadness
but not as others do
reaching for shafts of rain or sun
which is being born in me
but I know it does not resemble
any star
for it is not so bright
not so pure
and is uncertain
without dragging behind me a dusty lion
and also anxiety
without shaking a glass full of water
I would give all metaphors
in return for one word
drawn out of my breast like a rib
for one word
contained within the boundaries
of my skin
I run around like mad
picking up handfuls of birds
and my tenderness
which after all is not made of water
asks the water for a face
and anger
different from fire
borrows from it
a loquacious tongue
so is blurred
in me
what white-haired gentlemen
separated once and for all
and said
this is the subject
and this is the object
with one hand under our head
and with the other in a mound of planets
and taste the earth
with their tiny roots
which next morning
we tear out painfully
VOICE
to catch that voice
between the breaking of one wave
and another
only the senile garrulity of water
salty nothing
a white birdâs wing
stuck dry to a stone
where persists the continuous
hum of an immense hour-glass
sifting leaves into humus
humus into leaves
powerful jaws of insects
consume the silence of the earth
green and yellow sheets
fastened with pins of insect beings
sing at every touch of the wind
it should speak up
when for a moment there is a pause
in the unrelenting monologue of the earth
clappings explosions
and my experience takes on
the shape of an alternative
either the world is dumb
or I am deaf
we are both
doomed to our afflictions
arm in arm
go blindly on
toward new horizons
toward contracted throats
from which rises
an unintelligible gurgle
AKHENATON
INSCRIPTION
ATTEMPT AT A RECONSTRUCTION
âthe soul thoughtâ
through tangled questions
toward barking divinities
across rough-skinned palms
toward scales snakes beetles
I will learn the secret of ears
folded back against the head
flat as dogs
of the sweet eyelids
lest they float away
to sunken temples