Modernist Poems

From “The Afternoon of a Faun” (1876)
Stéphane Mallarmé
THE FAUN
These nymphs I would perpetuate.
So clear
Their light carnation, that it floats in the air
Heavy with tufted slumbers.
Was it a dream I loved?
My doubt, a heap of ancient night, is finishing
In many a subtle branch, which, left the true
Wood itself, proves, alas! that all alone I gave
Myself for triumph the ideal sin of roses.
Let me reflect . . .
if the girls of which you tell
Figure a wish of your fabulous senses!
Faun, the illusion escapes from the blue eyes
And cold, like a spring in tears, of the chaster one: But,
the other, all sighs, do you say she contrasts
Like a breeze of hot day in your fleece!
But no! through the still, weary faintness
Choking with heat the fresh morn if it strives,
No water murmurs but what my flute pours
On the chord sprinkled thicket; and the sole wind
Prompt to exhale from my two pipes, before
It scatters the sound in a waterless shower,
Is, on the horizon's unwrinkled space,
The visible serene artificial breath
Of inspiration, which regains the sky. . . .
Sensation (1870)
Arthur Rimbaud
In the blue summer evenings, I will go along the paths,
And walk over the short grass, as I am pricked by the
wheat:
Daydreaming I will feel the coolness on my feet.
I will let the wind bathe my bare head.
I will not speak, I will have no thoughts:
But infinite love will mount in my soul;
And I will go far, far off, like a gypsy,
Through the country side—joyous as if I were with a
woman.
“The Panther” (1902)
Rainer Maria Rilke
His weary glance, from passing by the bars,
Has grown into a dazed and vacant stare;
It seems to him there are a thousand bars
And out beyond those bars the empty air.
The pad of his strong feet, that ceaseless sound
Of supple tread behind the iron bands,
Is like a dance of strength circling around,
While in the circle, stunned, a great will stands.
But there are times the pupils of his eyes
Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart,
Tense with the flood of visions that arise
Only to sink and die within his heart.
A Decade (1919)
Amy Lowell
When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.
In a Station of the Metro (1916)
Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
The Red Wheelbarrow (1923)
William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
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Weltschmerz (1920)
Else Lasker-Schüler
From Gitanjali (1910)
Rabindranath Tagore
#57
I, the burning desert wind,
Cooled off and took on form.
Where is that sun, which could dissolve me,
Or the lightning, that could shatter me!
Now raise your eyes, Sphinxhead of stone,
To all the heavens—in anger.
My Sweet Old Etcetera (1926)
E. E. Cummings
my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent
war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting
for,
my sister
isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds)of socks not to
mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers
etcetera writers etcetera, my
mother hoped that
I would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my
self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et
cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera)
Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light,
heart-sweetening light!
Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the centre of my life; the
light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; the sky
opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the
earth.
The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. Lilies
and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.
The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling,
and it scatters gems in profusion.
Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling, and gladness
without measure. The heaven's river has drowned its
banks and the flood of joy is abroad.
“The Road Not Taken” (1916)
Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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De “Veinte poemas de amor y una
canción desesperada”
Pablo Neruda
XX
From Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924)
Pablo Neruda
XX
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo: "La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos".
El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write for example, 'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.
Oir la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.
Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.
Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.
La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos
árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.
De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to a pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the
distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.
Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
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