Nocturne / E. E. Cummings

Nocturne

When the lithe moonlight silently 

Leaped like a satyr to the grass, 

Filling the night with nakedness, 

All silently I loved my love 

In gardens of white ivory. 

Three fragrant trees which guard the gates, 

Three perfume-trees which sweeten nights, 

Rise upon heaven, full of stars 

And dripping with white radiance. 

Her body is more white than trees. 

Five founts of Bacchus, honey-cold, 

Five showers making drunk the lawns, 

Spout up a dark delicious rain 

Filling the earth with sleep and tears. 

Her tresses are more sweet than wine. 

Seven flowers which breathe divinity, 

Seven wondering blossoms of embrace, 

Open their glory to the moon, 

Kissing white immortality. 

Her mouth is chaster than a flower. 

When the fleet moonlight silently 

Fled like a white nymph down the grass, 

Leaving the night to loneliness, 

All songfully I loved my love 

In gardens of white ivory. 

The strings are silver to my harp, 

And all the frame is ebony 

I think the moon is blossoming— 

My hungry fingers bite the strings— 

My harp becomes a flower, and blooms. 

The strings are golden to my harp, 

And all the frame is as a rose. 

I think the moon is quivering— 

My longing fingers search the chords— 

My harp becomes a heart, and breaks.

When the first day-beam silently 

Broke like an arrow from the east, 

Quivering unto the heights of dawn, 

All silently I left my love 

In gardens of white ivory. 

There are three trees which stand like dreams 

Before the gates of ivory; 

The moon has withered in the west— 

My harp has withered—Hail the day! 

(Wherefore this dagger at my thighs.) 

There are five founts which play like sleep 

Upon the gates of ivory; 

The moon is songless in the west— 

My harp is songless—Hail the day! 

(Wherefore this dagger at my hands.) 

There are seven flowers which smile like death 

Within the gates of ivory; 

The moon is broken in the west— 

My harp is broken—Hail the day! 

(Wherefore this dagger at my heart.)

E. E. Cummings

Photo by Faye Yerbury

my lady is an ivory garden / E. E. Cummings

my lady is an ivory garden, 

who is filled with flowers. 

under the silent and great blossom 

of subtle colour which is her hair 

her ear is a frail and mysterious flower 

her nostrils 

are timid and exquisite 

flowers skilfully moving 

with the least caress of breathing,her 

eyes and her mouth are three flowers.

My lady is an ivory garden 

her shoulders are smooth and shining 

flowers 

beneath which are the sharp and new 

flowers of her little breasts tilting upward with love 

her hand is five flowers 

upon her whitest belly there is a clever dreamshaped flower 

and her wrists are the merest most wonderful flowers

my lady is filled 

with flowers 

her feet are slenderest 

each is five flowers her ankle 

is a minute flower 

my lady's knees are two flowers 

Her thighs are huge and firm flowers of night 

and perfectly between 

them eagerly sleeping is 

the sudden flower of complete amazement 

my lady who is filled with flowers 

is an ivory garden. 

And the moon is a young man 

who i see regularly,about twilight, 

enter the garden smiling to 

himself.

if you like my poems let them 

walk in the evening,a little behind you

then people will say 

"Along this road i saw a princess pass 

on her way to meet her lover(it was 

toward nightfall)with tall and ignorant servants."

E. E. Cummings

"La mia donna è un giardino d'avorio,

colmo di fiori.

Sotto il silente sbocciare grandioso

dei suoi capelli dal tenue colore

il suo orecchio è un fragile e misterioso fiore,

le sue narici sono timidi e deliziosi fiori sapienti

solleciti alla più lieve carezza del respiro,

gli occhi e la bocca sono tre fiori.

La mia donna è un giardino d'avorio,

le sue spalle sono fiori lucenti e lisci

e sotto di loro i fiori nuovi e 

affilati dei suoi piccoli seni

che amorosi puntano in alto,

la sua mano è cinque fiori.

Sopra il suo ventre bianchissimo poggia

un fiore astuto a forma di sogno,

e i polsi sono purissimi

meravigliosissimi fiori.

La mia donna è colma di fiori,

i suoi piedi sono così snelli

ciascuno è cinque fiori

la caviglia è un fiore minuto,

le ginocchia della mia donna sono due fiori.

Le sue cosce sono solidi e immensi fiori notturni

e fra loro in perfetta mediana avidamente sopito

è il fiore improvviso dell'assoluto stupore."

E. E. Cummings

Photo by Trevor Yerbury

The Stream of Life / Clarice Lispector

“To restore you and myself, I return to my state of garden and shade, cool reality, I hardly exist and if I do exist it’s with delicate care. Surrounding the shade is a teeming, sweaty heat. I’m alive. But I feel I’ve not yet reached my limits, bordering on what? Without limits, the adventure of a dangerous freedom. But I take the risk, I live taking it. I’m full of acacias swaying yellow, and I, who have barely begun my journey, begin it with a sense of tragedy, guessed what lost ocean my life steps will take me to. And crazily I latch onto the corners of myself, my hallucinations suffocate me with their beauty. I am before, I am almost, I am never. And all this I gained when I stopped loving you.”

Clarice Lispector - (The Stream of Life)

"Para rehacerme y rehacerte vuelvo a mi estado de jardín y de sombra, fresca realidad, apenas existo y si existo es con un delicado cuidado. Alrededor de la sombra hace un calor de sudor abundante. Estoy viva. Pero siento que aún no he alcanzado mis límites, ¿fronteras con qué?, sin fronteras, la aventura de la libertad peligrosa. Pero me arriesgo, vivo arriesgándome. Estoy llena de acacias que se balancean, amarillas, y yo que apenas he comenzado mi jornada, la empiezo con un sentido de tragedia, adivinando hacia qué océano perdido van mis pasos de vida. Y locamente me apodero de los desvanes de mí, mis desvaríos me asfixian de tanta belleza. Yo soy antes, yo soy casi, yo soy nunca. Y todo eso lo he obtenido al dejar de amarte."

Clarice Lispector - (Agua viva)

Photo by Selçuk Sazak

The Stream of Life / Clarice Lispector

“I’m restless and harsh and despairing. Although I do have love inside me. I just don’t know how to use love. Sometimes it tears at my flesh, like barbs. If I can hold so much love within me, and nevertheless continue to be uneasy, it’s because I need God to come. Come, before it’s too late. I’m in danger, as is everyone who’s alive.”

Clarice Lispector - (The Stream of Life)

"Soy inquieta y áspera y desesperanzada. Aunque amor dentro de mí, eso sí lo tengo. Pero no sé usar el amor. A veces me araña como si fuese una garra. Si he recibido tanto amor dentro de mí y sin embargo continúo inquieta es porque necesito que el Dios venga. Que venga antes de que sea demasiado tarde. Corro peligro como toda persona que vive. Y la única cosa que me  espera es exactamente lo inesperado. Pero sé que tendré paz antes de la muerte y que experimentaré un día lo delicado de la vida."

Clarice Lispector - (Agua viva)

Photo by Dorota Górecka

Persuasion / Jane Austen

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

“I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house this evening or never.”

Jane Austen - (Persuasion)

Note: It’s the letter Captain Wentworth writes to Anne Elliot in Jane Austen’s "Persuasion".

Photo by David Dubnitskiy