Rubies

Of
Sullys

Translations of Sully Prudhomme

From November 4th 5th, 2015

Le vase bris

Le vase o meurt cette verveine

D'un coup d'ventail fut fl ;
Le coup dut effleurer peine :
Aucun bruit ne l'a rvl.
Mais la lgre meurtrissure,
Mordant le cristal chaque jour,
D'une marche invisible et sre
En a fait lentement le tour.
Son eau frache a fui goutte goutte,
Le suc des fleurs s'est puis ;
Personne encore ne s'en doute ;
N'y touchez pas, il est bris.
Souvent aussi la main qu'on aime,
Effleurant le coeur, le meurtrit ;
Puis le coeur se fend de lui-mme,
La fleur de son amour prit ;
Toujours intact aux yeux du monde,
Il sent crotre et pleurer tout bas
Sa blessure fine et profonde ;
Il est bris, n'y touchez pas.

The Brazen Vase

The vase where died this vervain

Range of flowers had been cracked;
The din of duty fanned the pains,
That no din or ding had ever fracked.
But That crack, fine and profound,
Scarred the crystal from days of yore,
Of advance invincible and sound
In having so gently tore.
His water so fresh had seeped drip for drop,
The succor of his flowers now craven;
People in disbelief doubt and stop,
Touch him not, he is brazen.
Often in kind the hand of Love maims
Spating1 the heart, salting the wound;
Since his heart founded by himself names,
The flower of his Love: the doomed;
Always intact in the eyes of the sound
He has swelled and is cried in knots
His wound is fine and profound;
He is brazen, touch him not !

Soupir

1 Spate- to flood, inundate, rush or well up.

Ne jamais la voir ni l'entendre,

Ne jamais tout haut la nommer,
Mais, fidle, toujours l'attendre,
Toujours l'aimer.

Ouvrir les bras et, las d'attendre,

Sur le nant les refermer,
Mais encor, toujours les lui tendre,
Toujours l'aimer.

Ah ! Ne pouvoir que les lui tendre,

Et dans les pleurs se consumer,
Mais ces pleurs toujours les rpandre,
Toujours l'aimer.

Ne jamais la voir ni l'entendre,

Ne jamais tout haut la nommer,
Mais d'un amour toujours plus tendre
Toujours l'aimer.

Sigh!!!
Never forever the view, neither the intention,
Never forever the all haughty namer,
But faithful all day in attention
The all-day Lover.

Opening those arms and, at a loss for attentions,

Over the void they rebound,
But evermore everyday they are his intensions,
The all-day Lover.

Ah! May they not knot his intensity

And in their tears be consumers,
But those tears all day their reciprocity,
With an all-day Lover.

Never forever The View, neither the contender,

Never forever the all haughty namer,
But of one Love every day more tender
That all-day Lover.

Roses
Je rve, et la ple rose
Dans les plaines perle sans bruit,
Sur le duvet des fleurs pose
Par la main frache de la nuit.
D'o viennent ces tremblantes gouttes ?
Il ne pleut pas, le temps est clair ;
C'est qu'avant de se former, toutes,
Elles taient dj dans l'air.
D'o viennent mes pleurs ? Toute flamme,
Ce soir, est douce au fond des cieux ;
C'est que je les avais dans l'me
Avant de les sentir aux yeux.
On a dans l'me une tendresse
O tremblent toutes les douleurs,
Et c'est parfois une caresse
Qui trouble, et fait germer les pleurs

Rose-Frost
I dream and the pale rose-frost
In the prairies pearls without fret,
On the divulet of Roses abreast across
By the cold hand of night.

From where come these quivering drops?

His crying stops, his time is right
It is from before formation crops
They were already flying bedight.

From where come my tears? All aflame?

This eve, its eiderdown soft on cloud nine;
It is this I should have in soul-name
Before the drop of the dime.

Having in the soul some tenderness

Where strident are all fears,
And it is sometimes one caress
Whos trouble and fate germinate all tears.

La Mmoire
I.
Mmoire, qui joins l'heure
La chane des temps rvolus,
Je t'admire, trange demeure
Des formes qui n'existent plus !

En vain tombrent les grands hommes

Aux fronts pensifs ou belliqueux :
Ils se lvent quand tu les nommes,
Et nous conversons avec eux ;

Et, si tu permets ce colloque

Avec les plus altiers esprits,
Tu permets aussi qu'on voque
Les curs humbles qu'on a chris.

Le prsent n'est qu'un feu de joie

Qui s'croule peine amass,
Mais tu peux faire qu'il flamboie
Des mille ftes du pass ;

Le prsent n'est qu'un cri d'angoisse

Qui s'teint peine pouss,
Mais tu peux faire qu'il s'accroisse
Ce tous les sanglots du pass ;

L'tre des morts n'est plus visible,

Mais tu donnes au trpass
Une vie incomprhensible,
Prsent que tu fais d'un pass !

Quelle existence ai-je rendue

mon pre en me souvenant ?
Quelle est donc en moi l'tendue
O s'agite ce revenant ?

Un sort diffrent nous spare :

Comment peux-tu nous runir,
travers le mur qui nous barre
Le pass comme l'avenir ?

Qui des deux force la barrire ?

Me rejoint-il, ou vais-je lui ?
Je ne peux pas vivre en arrire,
Il ne peut revivre aujourd'hui !

II.
souvenir, l'me renonce,
Effraye, te concevoir ;
Mais, jusqu'o ton regard s'enfonce,
Au chaos des ans j'irai voir ;
Parmi les gisantes ruines,
Les bibles au feuillet noirci,
Je m'instruirai des origines,
Des pas que j'ai faits jusqu'ici.

Devant moi la vie inquite

Marche en levant sa lampe d'or,
Et j'avance en tournant la tte
Le long d'un sombre corridor.
D'o vient cette folle ? o va-t-elle ?
Son tremblant et ple flambeau
N'claire ma route ternelle
Que du berceau vide au tombeau.

Mais j'tais autrefois ! Mon tre

Ne peut commencer ni finir.
Ce que j'tais avant de natre,
N'en sais-tu rien, souvenir ?

Rassemble bien toutes tes forces

Et demande aux ges confus

Combien j'ai dpouill d'corces

Et combien de soleils j'ai vus !

Ah ! tu t'obstines te taire,
Ton il rveur, clos demi,
Ne suit point par del la terre
Ma racine dans l'infini.

Cherchant en vain mes destines,

Mon origine qui me fuit,
De la chane de mes annes
Je sens les deux bouts dans la nuit.

L'histoire, passante oublieuse,

Ne m'a pas appris d'o je sors,
Et la terre silencieuse
N'a jamais dit o vont les morts.

Memory Estuary
I
Oh memory, who joins the hour
The chain of twirling lore,
I admire you, demure in power
Of forms which exist no more!
In vain fall the greatest men
In brows of mean estate or in belly-ache:

They rise whence you name them

And we convert for their sake;

And should you permit colloquials

With those more altered spirits,
You permit all-the-same their equivocals
Their Harts humbled where their Deer sits.

The present is neither their paradigm

Whos scurrilous pains amass,
You may fare well if he be the flamboyant kind
For a thousand feasts of his class;

The present isnt for crying in agony

Whos faded pains pout and shout,
But you may fare well if he has misogyny2
For all his phylogeny3 in passing out;

The being of the dead is no more visible,

But you give in your trespassing
One life incomprehensible,
As a present you made for your passing!

What existence have I round-about made

Having my father in me relevant?
What is then in my broad range
Which excites this Revenant? 2015

2 Misogyny- contempt, reproach, or loathing of women.

3 Phylogeny- A phylogenic tree or genetic inheritance. Also a double entendre from
Philogyny (Love, admiration and general beneficence towards women).

A sort sorted, we then spar yare

How much we might reunite,
And climb the wall which we once barred
The passed day like a future night?

Whos reinforced the barrier?

Shall he conjoin with me or shall I see him?
I may not live on historys area,
He may not revive: Carpe Diem4!
II
O souvenir, soul of Renan Luce5,
Affrighted, from your conception;
Just as your regards break loose,
In the chaos of epochs I shall have perception;
Among the pitted ruins
Those books where darkness rears,
Im instrumental by origins,
For not having made it here.
Before me this life of disconcertion
Walking levitated by lamp, by door,
And as I start to turn my head, in vision
Is the length of a Capitol Corridor (ACE)6.
Where went this folly? Where has it gone from me?
His flicker and pale cast flame
Declares my route (root) eternally
From vim of cradle to void of grave.
4 Carpe Diem- Latin translating as Seize the Day!
5 Renan Luce born 5 March 1980 a French singer and song writer of such hits as
Les Voisines and La Lettre and who appeared with Elodie Frg on French
television performing Bang Bang (originally by Nancy Sinatra)
6 A.C.E. is a California rail line; its acronym is short for Altamont Corridor Express
a.k.a. Capitol Corridor.

But I had been again! My being

Might never commence to the end.
That I might have had nurturing,
Know you not that, oh souvenirs friend?
Resemble well all your forces dark
And inquiry to the queries of an epoch confused;
How much I have stripped the bark
And how much of the sun I have suffused!
Ah you abstain from your silent dearth!
Your dream eye is clothed as Moores Demi7,
May make zero point to the Earth
My reason in din of infinity.
Theyve searched in vain my destinies,
Mine origin within me fights,
The long grey line of festivities;
I sense the double bout in the night.
History passes obliquely
I never appraised where I will go,
And Earth sounding silently
I have never said where the dead go.

7 Demi Guynes professionally known as Demi Moore born November 11, 1962 is an
American actress, filmmaker, former song writer and model. Here she is being
remembered for her film The Seventh Sign 1988 Columbia Tri-Star Pictures