Verses by Mihai Eminescu, translated by Julia Kalman
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Venus and Madonna
Lost ideal in the night of a world no more,
A world that thought in fairy tales, spoke in poems galore.
Oh, I see you, hear you, contemplate, a young and sweet news,
From a sky with different stars, different heavens, different gods.
Venus, warm marble, eyes of sparkling stone,
An arm as graceful as the thoughts of a poetic throne.
You were the deification of beauty in a woman’s form,
Of a woman whose beauty I still witness in the norm.
Raphael, lost in dreams like a starry night,
A soul intoxicated by rays and eternal springs in flight.
He saw you and dreamt of paradise with scented gardens,
Saw you floating, a queen among angels in heavenly pardons.
And on a blank canvas, he created the Madonna divine,
With a tiara of stars, a gentle smile, pure and fine.
A pale face in blonde rays, an angelic face, yet woman,
For woman is the prototype of angels in the realms of human.
So, lost in the night of a poetic life’s spree,
Saw you, a barren woman, soulless, without fire, decree.
And I made of you an angel, gentle as a day of magic,
When in a desolate life, a ray of luck can be so tragic.
I saw your face pale from a sickly intoxication,
Your lip bruised from the corruption’s infliction.
And upon you, cruelly, I hurled the white wave of poetry,
To your pallor, I gave the innocence’s ray with sincerity.
I gave you the pale rays that surround with magic,
The forehead of the genius-angel, the ideal’s epic.
From a demon, I made a lyre, from a chuckle, a symphony,
From your dirty eyes, the eye of morning’s golden harmony.
But today the wave falls, cruelly! Dismantled from dreams, it dries,
My forehead awakens from the frozen touch of your lips’ demise.
And I look at you, demon, and my love extinguished and cold,
Teaches me how to scornfully seek over you, bold!
You appear to me like a Bacchante, who deceitfully took,
From a virgin’s forehead, the green myrtle of a martyr’s look.
A virgin whose soul was as pure as prayer’s devotion,
While the Bacchante’s heart is spasmodic, in a long delirium motion.
Oh, how Raphael created the Madonna divine,
With a tiara of stars, with a gentle smile, virgin fine.
I made a deity from a pale woman’s plight,
With a barren heart, cold, and a soul of venomous bite!
Do you weep, child? — With a moist and pleading gaze,
Can you once again crush and break my apostate heart’s maze?
I fall at your feet, searching in your eyes, deep as the sea,
And I kiss your hand, asking if you can forgive me.
Wipe your eyes, No more tears! The accusation was cruel,
Cruel and unjust, without reason, without fuel. Oh, soul!
Even if you were a demon, you are a lyre through love,
And I adore this demon with big eyes and blond hair above.
Why Don’t You Come?
See, swallows fly away,
Walnut leaves fall, in disarray.
Frost settles on the vines so sly —
Why don’t you come, why don’t you comply?
Oh, come back into my embrace,
Let me gaze at you, with endless grace.
Let my head gently rest,
On your chest, on your chest.
Do you remember back then,
When we roamed through valley and glen?
I lifted you from beneath,
So many times, oh, from beneath.
In this world, there are women rare,
Eyes sparkling, beyond compare.
But no matter how lofty they rise,
Like you, they’re not, like you, they’re not.
For you brighten always,
The life of my soul in all its ways.
More majestic than any star,
My beloved, my beloved, you are.
Late autumn is upon us now,
Leaves fall along the path somehow.
And the fields lie barren and dry…
Why don’t you come, why don’t you comply?
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Julia Kalman 