Italian Poetry - Petrarch's Sonnets

Dante Gabriel Rosetti: The Day Dream, 1880.

Back in the 1300's, before card stores and chocolate manufacturers all conspired to commercialize the true spirit of love, passion, and romance, Francesco Petrarca literally wrote the book on infatuation. The collection of Italian verses, Rime in vita e morta di Madonna Laura (after 1327), translated into English as Petrarch's Sonnets, were inspired by Petrarch's unrequited passion for Laura (probably Laure de Noves), a young woman Petrarca first saw in church. 

Head-over-heels in love with Laura, Petrarca wrote 365 sonnets, one passionate poem a day dedicated to his true love. Considered the first modern poet because of his interest in individuality, the Italian poet perfected the sonnet during the 14th century. The sonnet, a lyric poem of 14 lines with a formal rhyme scheme, expresses different aspects of a thought, mood, or feeling.
 

When Love within her lovely face appears now and again among the other ladies, as much as each is less lovely than she the more my wish I love within me grows. I bless the place, the time and hour of the day that my eyes aimed their sights at such a height, and say: 'My soul, you must be very grateful that you were found worthy of such great honour From her to you comes loving thought that leads, as long as you pursue, to highest good, esteeming little what all men desire; there comes from her all joyous honesty that leads you by the straight path up to Heaven- already I fly high upon my hope.'    Quando fra l'altre donne ad ora ad ora Amor vien nel bel viso di costei, quanto ciascuna è men bella di lei tanto cresce 'l desio che m'innamora.   I' benedico il loco e 'l tempo et l'ora che sí alto miraron gli occhi mei, et dico: Anima, assai ringratiar dêi che fosti a tanto honor degnata allora. Da lei ti vèn l'amoroso pensero, che mentre 'l segui al sommo ben t'invia, pocho prezando quel ch'ogni huom desia; da lei vien l'animosa leggiadria ch'al ciel ti scorge per destro sentero, sí ch'i' vo già de la speranza altero. Francesco Petrarca, 1304-1374.

Rainer Maria Rilke

 The Panther

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly—. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.



Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)




image: Black Panther Prints

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, The Calamus Poems (4)

4. 
These I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world -- but soon I pass the gates,
Now along the pond-side -- now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, picked from the fields, have accumulated,
Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partly cover them -- Beyond these I pass,
Far, far in the forest, before I think where I get,
Solitary, smelling the earthly smell, stopping now and then in silence,
Alone I had thought -- yet soon a silent troop gathers around me,
Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,
They, the spirits of friends, dead or alive -- thicker they come, a great crowd, and I in the middle,
Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,
Plucking something for tokens -- something for these, till I hit upon a theme -- tossing toward whoever is near me.


Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,
Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pulled off a live-oak in Florida, as it hung trailing down,
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,
And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pond-side,
(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me -- and returns again, never to separate from me,
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades -- this calamus-root shall,
Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)
And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut,
And stems of currents, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar;
These I, compassed around by a thick cloud of spirits,
Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,
Indicating to each one what he shall have -- giving something to each,
But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,
I will give of it -- but only them that love, as I myself am capable of loving. 



Walt Whitman (1819-1892)







photo Fulden May 2006: grethe bachmann

Giacomo Leopardi

The Infinite (XII)

 
 

It was always dear to me, this solitary hill,

and this hedgerow here, that closes off my view,

from so much of the ultimate horizon.

But sitting here, and watching here,

in thought, I create interminable spaces,

greater than human silences, and deepest

quiet, where the heart barely fails to terrify.

When I hear the wind, blowing among these leaves,

I go on to compare that infinite silence

with this voice, and I remember the eternal

and the dead seasons, and the living present,

and its sound, so that in this immensity

my thoughts are drowned, and shipwreck

seems sweet to me in this sea.

Giacomo Leopardi  (1798-1837)


photo: gb

Tove Ditlevsen/Hugo Alfvén/Anne Sofie von Otter

Tove Ditlevsen

 Så Tag Mit Hjerte ..




















Så tag mit hjerte i dine hænder
men tag det varsomt og tag det blidt
det røde hjerte - nu er det dit.

Det slår så roligt, det slår så dæmpet
for det har elsket og det har lidt
nu er det stille - nu er det dit.

Og det kan såres og det kan segne
og det kan glemme og glemme tit,
men glemmer aldrig, at det er dit.

Det var så stærkt og så stolt, mit hjerte
det sov og drømte i lyst og leg
nu kan det knuses - men kun af dig.

 Tove Ditlevsen (1917-1976)


Musik: Hugo Alfvén/Sang: Anne Sofie von Otter.

Hugo Alfvén er omtalt i artiklen om P.S. Krøyer på min Thyra-blog.

Dylan Thomas - Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

foto cranes: gb

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)






"Do not go gentle into that good night", is considered to be among the finest works by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas(1914–1953). Originally published in the journal Botteche Obscure in 1951, it also appeared as part of the collection "In Country Sleep." Written for his dying father, it is one of Thomas's most popular and accessible poems^. The poem has no title other than its first line, “Do not go gentle into that good night”, a line which appears as a refrain throughout the poem. The poem's other equally famous refrain is “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.

Native American Poem - Dream Catchers

DREAM CATCHERS

An ancient Chippewa tradition
The dream net has been made
For many generations
Where spirit dreams have played.

Hung above the cradle board,
Or in the lodge up high,
The dream net catches bad dreams,
While good dreams slip on by.

Bad dreams become entangled
Among the sinew thread.
Good dreams slip through the center hole,
While you dream upon your bed.

This is an ancient legend,
Since dreams will never cease,
Hang this dream net above your bed,
Dream on, and be at peace.


First people: American Indian Poems and Prayers. 


photo: gb