giovedì, ottobre 18, 2007

To the one who knows: A Valediction: forbidding mourning
J. Donne

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls, to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
The breath goes now, and some say, no:

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
’Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th'earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love, so much refin’d,
that our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’other do.

And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to mee, who must
Like th’other foot obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.

4 commenti:

Gonza ha detto...

....
GA

Plasson ha detto...

Schifosamente e quasi orgogliosamente :-) !!

Anonimo ha detto...

Poesia studiata (assieme ad altre dello stesso autore) nel periodo universitario per l'esame di letteratura inglese. Donne non è il mio poeta preferito, ma nonostante la difficoltà interpretativa (ricordo ancora la quintalata di note a margine) mi colpì per la capacità di precorrere i tempi, sia a livello stilistico che sul fronte concettuale.
Ovviamente finii per impararle praticamente a memoria, e altrettanto ovviamente il professore non mi pose alcuna domanda su di esse.
Aldo

Gonza ha detto...

@Aldo: neanche io apprezzo particolarmente Donne, ma questa poesia.....insomma si commenta da sè non trovi?