Verses by Mihai Eminescu, translated by Julia Kalman
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Imagine
When, with weary eyes, I breathe on the candle’s light,
The clock alone traces time’s path, a silent night.
Draw back the curtains, let the moon’s glow unfurl,
A fiery passion summoned by her melancholy swirl.
From the night of remembrance, an eon she’ll unfold,
Distresses resurrected, in dreamlike paean told.
Oh Moon, mistress of seas, across the world you glide,
Breathing life to thoughts, in sorrows you confide.
Countless deserts sparkle beneath your virgin light,
Forests hide in shadows, gleaming with pure delight.
Across a thousand waves, your reign knows no end,
Through the moving expanse, solitude you defend.
Floral shores and castles, under your gaze they unfold,
In a thousand homes, your brilliance is told.
Through windows into houses, silently you peer,
Observing foreheads pondering, thoughtful minds clear.
Witness a king plotting, a century’s grand plan,
While a pauper dreams tomorrow, an unknowing man.
Though fate’s urn yields diverse lots to humankind,
Your radiance and death’s genius equally bind.
Same passions enslave them, weak or strong,
Geniuses or fools, in your light they throng.
One gazes in the mirror, curls adorning his hair,
Another seeks truth in the world, a quest rare.
From yellowed pages, he gathers fleeting names,
Their transient existence, he etches in his claims.
Yet another divides the world on his wooden stand,
Estimating the gold, the sea holds in its dark band.
Meanwhile
Meanwhile, an aged teacher, his coat worn and thin,
Calculates endlessly, the boundless universe within.
Dressed in tattered coats, shivering with cold,
He cradles the cosmos, tales of the future and old.
As Atlas once bore the heavens on his shoulder’s might,
So, he supports the world and eternity, infinite in sight.
When the moon is gleaming on the tomes so old and sage,
In an instant, thoughts are carried back through countless hoary age.
To the very first, when being and non-being were but a void,
When life’s pulse and will were utterly devoid.
When nothing was hidden though there was nothing to see,
When the Allforbidden, permeated by His self, lay at rest, wild and free.
Was it an abyss? A chaos vast as the ocean deep?
No understanding in that primal darkness, a secret to keep,
For it was a darkness like a sea without a ray,
Yet unseen, no eyes to witness, no light to display.
The shadow of the undone had not yet begun to unfold,
In a self-contained tranquility, eternal peace it hold.
But suddenly a point stirs, the first and only one,
Emerging from chaos, creating, becoming the Father, the Son.
That point of motion, weaker than a foam’s tiny speck,
Master of boundless realms, on the edges of worlds, it would trek.
Since then, the eternal darkness unravels in stripes,
Worlds emerge, the moon, the sun, elements, life’s ripe.
From then till now, colonies of lost worlds,
Come from the dark valleys of chaos, paths unknown, unfurled.
In luminous swarms, emerging from the infinite,
Drawn into life by an unbounded, irresistible wit.
In this vast world, we, children of the small,
Make on our tiny Earth, ant-like bustling crawl.
A Suspended Moment
Microscopic nations, kings, warriors, and the wise,
Generations succeed, each thinking themselves wise.
A day’s existence in a world small as a span,
In that boundlessness, we spin, forgetting the plan.
That this whole world is but a suspended moment,
Before and after, darkness is shown, a testament.
As dust plays in the realm of a single beam,
Thousands of vibrant threads, ceasing with the gleam.
So, in the eternal night so deep and profound,
We have a moment, a beam that still holds its ground.
As it fades, all perish, like a shadow in the dark,
For the universe is a dream, an unreal, whimsical spark.
Now, the thinker doesn’t halt his mind’s course,
In an instant, his thoughts travel through ages with force.
The sun, today proud, he sees sad and red,
Closing like a wound amidst clouds so dread.
Planets freeze, rebellious, cast into the void,
Escape the reins of light, and the sun’s grip destroyed.
The tapestry of the world turns deep black,
Like autumn leaves, all the stars lack.
Time lies dead, stretching its body, becoming eternity,
For nothing happens in the vastness of nothingness, in perpetuity.
In the night of non-existence, everything falls, everything hushes,
In self-contained tranquility, eternal peace resumes its hushes.
From the very sole of the human multitude,
Climbing up the stairs to the royal foreheads, so astute.
The enigma of their lives, toil seen in each,
Unable to discern who’s more wretched, which.
One is in all, just as one is in everything,
Above all rises whoever can, as if on wings.
Lost In Mystery
While others stand in shadows, hearts humbly bowed,
Lost in the mystery, like unnoticed, unappreciated foam on the shroud.
What do they care for blind fate, what they want or think?
Like wind over waves, over human life, it does blink.
May writers rejoice, let the whole world acclaim,
What shall this bring to him, the aged sage, his name?
Immortality, they say, rightly so for a lifetime’s blend,
Like ivy to a tree, to an idea, his essence suspend.
“If I die,” he muses within, “my name will find its way,
Echoing through centuries, carried further day by day.
For eternity, everywhere, in the corners where they dwell,
They’ll find, with my name, shelter for my tales to tell.”
Oh, poor soul! Do you recall what the world did share,
What passed before you, how many times you dared?
Too little. From here and there, a mere slice,
A shadow of thought or a piece of parchment’s device.
And when your own life, you alone don’t know by heart,
Will others puzzle through it, reassemble each part?
Perhaps a pedant, with green eyes, a century hence,
Among dusty tomes, a participant in inheritance.
The attic of your language, he’ll weigh with care,
Dust lifted from your book, blown away in the air.
Folding you in two lines, placing you in a queue,
Under a note forgotten, beneath an unwritten view.
You can build an entire world, or shatter it with words,
Yet, over all, a spade of dust subtly girds.
The hand that desired the universe’s scepter and dreams,
Fits neatly on four planks, as destiny deems.
In a funeral procession, they’ll come after your trail,
Splendid as irony with indifferent eyes, pale.
Above All
Above all, a humble voice will speak,
Not praising you but shining on himself, ever so sleek.
In the shadow of your name, behold what awaits,
Yet, let me tell you, posterity is still straight.
Unable to reach you, do you think they’ll admire?
They’ll applaud the thin biography that aspires.
To show you weren’t a thing of grandiose measure,
Just a human, like them, each with their own treasure.
Magpied, they all will be, in their own way,
Admiring the facade while the essence may sway.
Let writers sing his praises, let the world proclaim, “All hail!”
To the aged teacher, does all this truly prevail?
Perhaps he’ll be immortal, his life, we must agree,
Clung to one grand idea, like ivy to a tree.
“If I die,” he whispers, “centuries may pass me by,
For my name shall echo on, to time’s endless sky.
In every age, my name on titles finely lined,
My writings find a shelter in the corners of some mind.”
That you were not much more than a dance, it’s known,
And every erudite gathering inflates its own,
When speaking of you. It’s understood quite well,
With ironic grins, in words, your praise will swell.
Thus, placed in anyone’s hands, they’ll try to mend,
Evils they’ll say you had, things they won’t comprehend.
But beyond all these, they’ll scrutinize your life,
Finding many spots, minor scandals, and strife.
These draw them closer, not the light you cast,
But sins and guilt, a fatal bond unsurpassed.
A Tortured Soul
Fatigue, weakness, all the evils that exist,
Inextricably tied to a handful of earth, persist.
All the petty miseries of a tortured soul,
Will attract them more than all that you’ve extolled.
Between walls, among trees shaking off their bloom,
Like the full moon calmly spills its gentle gloom.
From the night of memories, she extracts a thousand desires,
Numb is their pain, felt like dreams, all that transpires.
For in our own world, she opens the gate,
Raises countless shadows after the candle’s fate.
A thousand deserts sparkle under your virgin light,
And how many forests in the shadows gleam so bright!
Over countless waves, your dominion extends,
As you drift on the fluidity of solitude, it blends.
Over all in this world subject to fate’s might,
Equally, your ray and the genius of death unite!
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Julia Kalman 