Cecilia, you're breaking my Hart...

Poem by Heinrich Hart - translated here for a performance of Strauss's setting.


Cäcilie—Cecilia

If you but knew
What it is to dream of burning kisses,
Of wandering and resting with the beloved,
Eye turned to eye,
And cuddling and caressing -
If you but knew,
You would incline your heart to me!


If you but knew
What it is to feel dread on lonely nights,
Surrounded by storm,
While no gentle voice
Comforts your strife-weary soul -
If you but knew,
You would come to me.

If you but knew
What it is to live engulfed
By God’s world-creating breath,
To float up borne by light to blessed heights -
If you only knew,
You would spend your life with me!

Two of the Four Last Songs

Beim Schlafengehen - On Going to Sleep 

by Hermann Hesse

Now that the day has made me weary,
My dearest longings shall be welcomed
Like a tired child by the starry night.

Hands, leave off all your doing.
Brow, forget all your thinking.

All of my thoughts want now to sink in slumber.
And the soul unguarded
Will fly soaring into freedom
In the magic sphere of night
Deeply and thousandfold to live.

Nun der Tag mich müd gemacht, 

soll mein sehnliches Verlangen

freundlich die gestirnte Nacht
wie ein müdes Kind empfangen.
Hände, laßt von allem Tun,
Stirn, vergiß du alles Denken,
alle meine Sinne nun
wollen sich in Schlummer senken.
Und die Seele unbewacht
will in freien Flügen schweben,
um im Zauberkreis der Nacht
tief und tausendfach zu leben.

In Evening Red

  by Joseph von Eichendorf

We have journeyed through despair
And gladness hand in hand;
From wand’ring now we rest
Above the silent land.

The valleys curl inwards,
The air darkens.
Two larks ascend dreaming
In the breeze.

Draw close and leave them to sing -
Soon it will be time to sleep -
So that we don’t get lost
In this solitude.

Oh wide, quiet peace!
So deep in evening red.
We are weary of wandering.
Is this perhaps death?

Im Abendrot
Wir sind durch Not und Freude
gegangen Hand in Hand;
vom Wandern ruhen wir
nun überm stillen Land.
Rings sich die Täler neigen,
es dunkelt schon die Luft,
zwei Lerchen nur noch steigen
nachträumend in den Duft.
Tritt her und laß sie schwirren,
bald ist es Schlafenszeit,
daß wir uns nicht verirren
in dieser Einsamkeit.
O weiter, stiller Friede!
So tief im Abendrot.
Wie sind wir wandermüde–
Ist dies etwa der Tod?

one more Petrov

One more from Valeri Petrov, translation again mine:

The carkey

Late last night as I parked the car at home,
I dropped the carkey in the dark,

This morning I went out around seven to find the,
And looked perplexed at the pavement in front of the house -

Toothy little leaves had covered the whole area by the car
And each of them looked like a little copper key!

And it's plenty cold, smoke curling out of chimneys,
But between the rows of houses the skies are blue,

And without realizing it, I've already gone into the park
And the car is far away and dim in the darkness,

And it's bright and quiet, with that smell of Fall
The moist smell of decay, yet pleasant and fresh!

And I feel how my life has passed through me
In a fast torrent, a kaleidoscopic spinning.

Valeri Petrov, in memoriam

Two Lads

I saw two young buddies
In front of a shop with two electric guitars.
The guitars had strings and buttons,
The lads were in jeans with pockets.
The guitars were glossy black,
The lads were entirely enthralled
And stood transfixed
In front of the counter,
Their cheeks sucked in in anticipation and fright:
That the two guitars
Would be theirs at some point;
That no other will manage
To get them first!
And over here, from the lads,
And over there, from the guitars,
There flowed a dialog without words
And it was so sad - so sad that
We, busy with purchases of beds and bedspreads,
Judged them harshly: "what delinquents!"
And don't see how they, having taken up their guitars,
With bandanas and bright shirts,
Float through the roof and fly towards heaven,
Higher, higher, up there somewhere,
Where Armstrong the god says to them with his raspy voice:
"Come on! Where you been? Can't manage without you!"

-Valeri Petrov, in memoriam. Translation mine.

Roman Kisyov: "They said..."

They said:
A poet doesn't feed a household

They said:
A poet can feed
Only the worms

O, no -
The poet feeds the pigeons
The poet feeds the eagles
The poet feeds the angels
The poet feeds the hearts
    of people still hungry
For Truth and Light.
With but five verses
The poet can feed the multitudes.

Roman Kisyov





Казаха:
поет къща не храни

Казаха:
Поетът може само
Червейте да нахрани

О не -
Поетът гълъбите храни
Поетът орлите храни
Поетът ангелите храни
Поетът сърцата храни -
    сърцата на хората
Който все още са гладни
За Истина и Светлина
Поетът може с пет стиха
Хиляди да нахрани

Роман Кисьов

Pirinski poems

from the Bulgarian of Z. Pavlov Pirinski


I loved you,
you loved me more.
I loved you,
you loved me not.
I needed you,
you ran from me.

Go, enjoy the peaks and abysses.
For you I was too level land.



 ---------------------------------

"Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger 

in water and cool my tongue" - Luke 16:24

The angels' tender touch
The water's cool caress -
these are the devils' most cunning torments.
Man can acclimate to anything
but momentary mercy.


----------------------------------

A secret grief
sleeps fitfully, hibernates erratically
in its chosen cave
waking now and then
to stretch, sigh, yawn, and defecate
to scratch its back against
the cavern's jutting stones
to look bleary-eyed out
at the pale morning light
and gauge the day -
to sniff the chill air with expectant malice
deciding whether today
   or tomorrow
      or perhaps next month
         to slouch towards Bethlehem -
to disdain the present
and turn in place a few times,
curling its dense bulk into an opaque ball,
and to sleep once more, furiously sleep
till tomorrow's expectant dawn.

Rupchev: Moving

It's a winter morning.  These people are moving house today,
the truck is waiting, its driver calmly frowning
and they load up their life, couch, and extending table;
the new place is on the other side of town.
They lived here sixteen years and four months,
with the walnut bedroom set, the children's cots;
they barely got the three-section wardrobe out,
hopefully the door at the new place will be taller.
They are quiet in the snow, the rope slips and twists,
then they load the desk, the refrigerator, the two buffets,
the lampshade, wall-hanging, pots with two dry ficuses -
and love, bound up tightly in blue bundles.
Finally and at last it's loaded -
two boxes with pictures and valued shells
and the twice-glued teapot from the wedding,
and the inherited rug eaten away by footsteps.
So the driver zips up his jacket,
and the kids wait on the corner with a radio
and the wife wrings her hands and sobs a bit,
and gets in up top with her husband, and they set off.