The Vesper

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Once upon the fairy
Once as neverly,
From great ones regal,
There was a too beautiful girl.
And only was of hers
And worthy in all those,
Like is the Virgin among saints
Like the Moon among stars.
From that shadow of high canopies
Her step she’s straight seeking
For that window near, in that nook where’s
The vesper, waiting.
Lookin’ she was into the far, how on seas
He’s rising and shining,
How on the quickly-roads
Black sails he’s carrying.
She sees him today, tomorro’too,
So, the desire is ready;
And he anew, looking at for weeks’too,
With the girl his heart is heavy.
As she her temples nestled
On her elbows, dreaming,
Of miss for him her heart and
Her soul got full, yet filling.And how lively inflamed he is,
In each and every evening,
Toward those castle’s black shadows
When she’ll be looming.
*
An’ step by step behind her steps
He into the room is gliding,
Weaving with his cold sparks
A web so firing.And when on her bed she lies,
His girllet, sleeping,
Her hands on chest he touches,
Her sweet eyelesh closing;

And out of a gladelike-mirror is
He, himself pouring to her body on,
On her large, closed, beating eyes,
On her face, turned on.

She was looking with a smile at him,
He was there’n the mirror trembling,
For he was following her deeply ’nto her dream,
By her soul to get grasping.

And she, asleep, talking to him a dreaming word,
Sighing hardly, whispere’:
«-Oh, you sweet one of my night, you Lord,
Why ain’t you coming yet? Come!

Be coming down, you gentle daystar,
On a ray, sliping,
Be coming here, into my house and feelmare* [into my dreamful feeling-soul]
And in my life be lighting

He was listening her and trembling,
Flaming fired faster,
And then flashingly plunging,
Submerging into water;

And the water where plunged he ‘were*, [he was]
In circles is rotating,
And out of unknown deepness there
A lofty young’s rising.

Like on a doorway slowly walking,
On the edge of that window he is,
And in his hands a staff he’s holdin’
Wreathed with reeds.

He looked like a young voievode*[prince]
With a mild hair of gold,
And a buttoned-node at a bluish shroud
On his shoulders bared.

And that shade of his pellucid face is
White pretty like the wax
A nice corse with live eyes
Which to outside coruscates.

«-From my sphere I’ve scarcely come
Following your call,
My father is the Heaven
My mother, the Sea all.

As into your chamber to come,
Seeing you from up-close,
With my serenity here down I’ve come
And born of waters I was.

O, I’m coming! my unspeakeable dear,
And let your world aside;
I’m from above, the vesper,
So, be my bride!

There, in those palaces of corals
For a lot of ages I’ll take you,
And all the realm of oceans
Shall obey you…»

«-Oh, you’re as beautiful as only in a dream
Displays an angel so,
But on the open way from where you’ve come
I will never go;

Stranger in your speech and wear
You’re, quite a dead glistening,
I’m alive, a corpse you’re,
By your eye I get freezing.”
*
One day passed, three days,
And again the night comes;
The vesper above her is
With his serene rays.

She had, of him, in her own dream,
To recall his lure of mind,
And by a miss for that lord of the wavies*’ stream [water waves]
Her heart is caught so straight:

«-Be coming down, you gentle daystar
On a ray, sliping,
Be coming here, into my house and feelmare
And in my life be lighting!»

When from heaven he her heard,
Was quenched by all his pain,
The sky became rotated
In that place where he went off to vain;

In air, rosy blazes
Are lying on the world all around,
And out of the Chaos’ valleys
A lofty face gets curdled;

On his black hairy tresses
His wreath looks like in burnin’,
Was coming he, floating in the truth,
Drowned in the sun’s firing.

Out of a black shroud there’re up
His marblelike braces,
He comes thoughtful and upset
And pallid looks his face;

But those eyes big and wonderful
Are chimerically-deeply shining,
Like two passions of their hunger full
And full of darkening.

«-From my sphere I’ve scarcely come
To listen you now as well,
My father is the Heaven
My mother, the night all;

O, I’m comin’, my unspeakeable dear,
And let your world aside;
I’m from above, the vesper,
So, be my bride!

O, I’m comin’, as on your fair hair
Whreats-of-stars to hang,
As you to raise up in my skies’ air
More lofty than all of them…»

«- O, you’re as beautiful as only in a dream
Displays a demon so,
But on the open way from where you’ve come
I will never go!

By love for you are painin’
The strings of this chest of mine,
An’ my big and heavy eyes are painin’ –
Your glance is burning me

«-But, how would I get down to come?
Or, maybe, don’t you realize
That I’m an immortal one
And you, a mortaliess?»

«-I don’t search for the selected talks,
Even to start I won’t be able –
Albeit you’re spelling words,
I cannot catch them;

But if by the belief-to-swear you want
Me to say I’ll love you,
Come climbin’ down, to ground,
Be mortal like me too.»

«-But, my very immortality you’re asking for,
Exchanged for just a kiss;
Though eke, I want you to know
How much I love you, miss!

Yes, I’m leaving, to get born out of sin,
Getting another law;
By alwaysness I’m tied within,
But I wish to be unbound now.»

And he’s left going… And gone he is.
For the dear-sake of a childess,
Rived, he, from his upper place,
And vanished was, for several days.
*

Meanwhile, Catalin,
A housekid-boy sly-able,
One who fills the cups of wine
Companions at table,

A page, who step by step follows
The empresses’ dresses,
A stray-boy out of flowers’ wedlocks,
But daring with his eyes,

With cheeks like two peonies
Rosy, goddamn’, yea,
Comes sneakingly like spies,
Eyeing Catalina.

What a beautiful she looks
And lofty, fire damn’, yes;
Well, you Catalin, now’s your now or nevers
You have to try your chance…

And like in passing he enfolded her in
A secluded nook, quickly.
«-Bu’ what do you want, Catalin?
Leave me and lo for your business, bussy!»

«- What do I want? As you to be no more
Always so thoughtful, thinking,
To be just laughing better and
Just one mouth* to me you to be giving.» [a kiss]

«-But I don’t even know what’s what you ask for,
Leave me alone, and go far away –
O, with the vesper, the heavenly star,
I’m caught in longing in a deadly way!»

«-If you don’t know, I’d better to you show,
Bead by bead, what’s the love’s way,
And stop being a piquow,
But gently still just stay.

As any hunter lays in forest
His pitfall for the birds,
When I’ll hold to you my arm left,
Clasp me in your arms;

And your unmoving eyes
Let them remain beneath my eyes…
When I’ll lift you up from underarms,
Get up yourself from heels;

When my face bends down to you,
Keep upward your dear face,
At each other we’ll look unsatiatedly
And, sweetly, for all days;

And as you be richly
A love knowner, dear,
When I’ll kiss you bowly
You should keep kissing me.»

She listened to the little kid
Abashed and unaware,
She either shameful or quite sweet,
She either didn’t wish it, or she let it fare.

She lowly told him then: «-A baby you were
When I knew you,
A wee next-to-nothing and so talkative,
Would I suit to one like you?»

But there up a vesper, risen, is,
Out of the oblivion’s silence,
Who gives a horizon with no bounds
To the sea’s loneliness.

«And secretly I close my eyelashes,
’Cos my weeping fills them
When of the water’s wavies I cross,
Voyaging to him;

Is shining, he, with an unspeakable love,
Just as my pain away to banish,
But he’s raising still higher,
So I can’t catch him.

Sad, he penetrates here with cool rays
From that world which separates him…
I shall forever love him, but always
Shall stay too faraway, he…

That’s why my days are
Like some steppes so vacant,
But my nights are like of a holy charm
Which now I cannot understand.»

«-You are a childess, that’s it…
Let’s then run into the wide world,
For, our tracks will be lost and faded
And our names they wouldn’t know…

For both of us it shall be nice,
We shall be jollily two sanes,
You’ll forget about your need for parents
And for your daydreaming daystars.»
*
The vesper started off. Were growing
In the sky those wings of his,
And ways of thousands years were passing
In as many trices.

A sky of stars below,
Above, a sky of stars too –
He was like a continuous lightning show
Wandering these through.

And there out of the Chaos’ valleys,
To him they being all around,
He saw, like in that Day the first,
How lighters were sprung out;

How issuing they’re, surroundin’ him
Like some seas in themselves swimming…
He’s flying: a thought carried by that longin’
Till they all’ll disappear, everything;

For where he’s arrivin’ there’s no boundary,
Nor any eye willing to know,
And the time is tryin’ vainly
Out of vacuums to get born.

There’s nothing, but yet there’s quite
A thirsty for, one absorbing him,
There’s such a depth just like
The blind oblivion.

«-From my black burden of my eternity,
You, father, set me free;
And forever praised you’ll be
In all of the world high laddery;

O, ask from me, my Lord, whatever price,
But give me another fate!
For the spring you’re, of lives,
And the giver of death.

The immortality’s halo, take it back from me,
And the fire of my glance too,
And in exchange for all these just give me
One hour of love, you!..

Out of the Chaos, Lord, loomed I’ve been
And I’d return into that Chaos…
Out of restness I were born,
I’m thirsty for such a restness where I was.»

«-Hyperion, the one who out of abysses
Springs out with a whole world along,
Don’t ask for signs and wonderings
That have no face or word!

Could you a human yourself to call,
Resembling them, like these?
When all those human people die, all,
They get reborn in their same likeness!

Vainly in the wind they last
Some desert ideals –
When they, these wavies, find finally any tomb,
They’ll spring again, as wavies;

They have just lucky stars
And of dooms’ victimizations,
We have no time, nor places,
Not knowing the death’s action!

Out of the core of that eternal yesterday
Is today living what-is-dying,
When there a sun in sky shall die
Again it’ll be as sun to be rising;

They seem forever rising,
But in their rears their death is threatenin’,
’Cos, all of them are born for dying
And they’re dying to get reborn cryin’.

But you, Hyperion, remain,
No matter where you’ll set down…
Just ask for that my former Word, the sane –
May I give you wisdom?

Will you from me to give a voice to such a mouth,
As after its own melody
The mountains with their forests to follow,
As well as the isles of the sea?

Or, maybe you do want in feats to show
Justice and power there on?
I’d give the whole earth in flinders to you,
To make of it your kingdom!

I’d give you mast after mast,
Armies, as to cross all
The earth in length and the sea in width,
But about death, forget it, son, c’mon…

And, whom would you wish to die for?
Turn your sight back now
Toward that vagrant earth, of lure,
To check what’s happenin’ there down…»
*

Back to his destined place in sky
Hyperion was going straight
So, as in the day of that yesterday
He poured out his light.

For, it’s the eventide at sunset,
The night’s gonna start right now;
Quietly the Moon is raisin’ up so quiet [Moon-she]
And also tremblin’ on the water.

And she’s filling with her sparks
Those paths from the forests all.
Under the long row of lofty linden trees
Were lying two youths alone:

«-O, let my head on your breast down,
My honey, girl, so I can be like sleeping
Beneath the ray of that serene eye,
The one unspeakably of sweety;

With the charm of this cold light
C’mon, cross through all my thoughts,
And pour an eternal silence now
On this night of mine, with lures.

And remain above me just like this,
As you can stop my pain,
For you’re my love the first
And my last dream, the fain.»

From above, Hyperion saw then
The surprise on their faces;
Only one of his arms bent on her neck,
And she clasped her love at chest…

He smelled those silvery flowers,
Those falling like a sweety rain,
On the brows of two childish youths
With long tresses, fair.

She, pie-eyed with the love,
Lifted up her eyes. Seeing
The vesper. And she lowly was then
All her desires confessing:

«-Be coming down, you gentle daystar,
On a ray, sliping,
Be coming here, into the forest and feelmare
And bless my luck by lighting

He’s there trembling like in the other times
In all the woods and hills,
When guiding those lonelinesses
Made of moving wavies:

But he falls not now as then before
Into the seas from that high ether:
«-What do you care, you face of clay, for,
Whether it’s me or another?

All of you, living in your circle tight,
Just live on that luck you’ve thought,
For, I, within my world, I feel quite
Immortal and cold!»

by Mihai Eminescu
translated by Miqhael-M. Khesapeake
Translation source: http://khesapeake.blogspot.com

The Vesper
The Vesper