A Ballad of Dreamland

I hid my heart in a nest of roses,
Out of the sun's way, hidden apart;
In a softer bed than the soft white snow's is,
Under the roses I hid my heart.
Why would it sleep not? why should it start,
When never a leaf of the rose-tree stirred?
What made sleep flutter his wings and part?
Only the song of a secret bird.


Lie still, I said, for the wind's wing closes,
And mild leaves muffle the keen sun's dart;
Lie still, for the wind on the warm seas dozes,
And the wind is unquieter yet than thou art.
Does a thought in thee still as a thorn's wound smart?
Does the fang still fret thee of hope deferred?
What bids the lips of thy sleep dispart?
Only the song of a secret bird.


The green land's name that a charm encloses,
It never was writ in the traveller's chart,
And sweet on its trees as the fruit that grows is,
It never was sold in the merchant's mart.
The swallows of dreams through its dim fields dart,
And sleep's are the tunes in its tree-tops heard;
No hound's note wakens the wildwood hart,
Only the song of a secret bird.




ENVOI


In the world of dreams I have chosen my part,
To sleep for a season and hear no word
Of true love's truth or of light love's art,
Only the song of a secret bird.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Poems and Ballads, Second Series

1878

vídeo com pinturas de Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Anima Anceps

Till death have broken
Sweet life's love-token,
Till all be spoken
That shall be said,
What dost thou praying,
O soul, and playing
With song and saying,
Things flown and fled?
For this we know not--
That fresh springs flow not
And fresh griefs grow not
When men are dead;
When strange years cover
Lover and lover,
And joys are over
And tears are shed.

If one day's sorrow
Mar the day's morrow--
If man's life borrow
And man's death pay--
If souls once taken,
If lives once shaken,
Arise, awaken,
By night, by day--
Why with strong crying
And years of sighing,
Living and dying,
Fast ye and pray?
For all your weeping,
Waking and sleeping,
Death comes to reaping
And takes away.

Though time rend after
Roof-tree from rafter,
A little laughter
Is much more worth
Than thus to measure
The hour, the treasure,
The pain, the pleasure,
The death, the birth;
Grief, when days alter,
Like joy shall falter;
Song-book and psalter,
Mourning and mirth.
Live like the swallow;
Seek not to follow
Where earth is hollow
Under the earth.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Poems and Ballads

1866,  ed. Edward Moxon, London

pintura de Felix Labisse

Had I Wist/ Tivesse eu Sabido

Had I wist, when life was like a warm wind playing 
Light and loud through sundawn and the dew's bright trust, 
How the time should come for hearts to sigh in saying 
'Had I wist' 


- Surely not the roses, laughing as they kissed, 
Not the lovelier laugh of seas in sunshine swaying, 
Should have lured my soul to look thereon and list. 


 Now the wind is like a soul cast out and praying 
Vainly, prayers that pierce not ears when hearts resist: 
Now mine own soul sighs, adrift as wind and straying, 
'Had I wist.' 

Algernon Charles Swinburne

A Century of Roundels

Chatto and Windus ed, 1883

**********

 Tivesse eu sabido, quando a vida era como um vento tépido e feliz, 
Brando e ruidoso na aurora e na névoa brilhante do orvalho, 
Que havia de chegar o tempo em que, suspirando, os corações diriam: 


 " Tivesse eu sabido... " 


Nem sequer as rosas rindo ao beijarem-se, 
Nem, ao sol, o mais encantador riso ondulante do mar, 
Teriam vindo fascinar a minha alma para que neles reparasse. 


 Agora o vento é como uma alma desterrada a rezar inutilmente 
As preces que não conseguimos ouvir se o coração lhes resiste, 
Agora que a minha própria alma, à deriva e perdida como o vento, suspira: 


 " Tivesse eu sabido. "

Algernon Charles Swinburne

trad. Maria de Lourdes Guimarães

Poemas

2006, ed. Relógio d'Água

pintura de Paulo Damião