MADAME D'ALBERT'S LAUGH

"YES! that fair neck, too beautiful by half,
Those eyes, that voice, that bloom, all do her honor;
Yet, after all, that little giddy laugh
Is what, in my mind, sits the best upon her.

Good God! 'twould make the very streets and ways,
Through which she passes, burst into a pleasure!
Did melancholy come to mar my days
And kill me in the lap of too much leisure,
No spell were wanting, from the dead to raise me,
But only that sweet laugh wherewith she slays me. "
by: Clement Marot (1495-1544)


"To an Unborn Mole
Little mole
In your hole,
Darkness hide.
Why reside
In this cell?
Leave your shell
With a kick.
Axe and pick
Soon you'll raise.
Through long days
Don't stay pent,
Resident,
Hid away.
End your stay;
You shall mine
Stone divine,
Gems and ore.
All this - more! -
Awaits you.
Join we who
Delve and dig
(Zag and zig);
We're your kin,
All born in
Tunnels deep.
We will keep
Whole your soul,
Little mole. "
by Clément Marot ; October, 1537

"The Night
The river quietly dreams. Dark forest stands still.
Crake doesn’t scream.And nightingales don’t trill.
It’s a night of silence.The rill hardly makes a sound,
While moon’s brilliance Silvers everything around.
Silver shines the river. Silver shines the rill.
Silver shines and shivers Dewy grass on the hill.
Night. Just silence. All nature sleeps, safe and sound,
While moon’s brilliance Silvers everything around."

In Russian:
Ночь
Тихо дремлет река. Темный бор не шумит.
Соловей не поет, И дергач не кричит.
Ночь. Вокруг тишина. Ручеек лишь журчит.
Своим блеском луна Все вокруг серебрит.
Серебрится река. Серебрится ручей.
Серебрится трава Орошенных степей.
Ночь. Вокруг тиши на.
В природе все спит. Своим блеском луна
Все вокруг серебрит.
By Серге́й Алекса́ндрович Есе́нин
Sergei Aleksandrovich Yesenin

Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks
"All those men were there inside, when she came in totally naked. They had been drinking: they began to spit. Newly come from the river, she knew nothing.
She was a mermaid who had lost her way.
The insults flowed down her gleaming flesh.
Obscenities drowned her golden breasts.
Not knowing tears, she did not weep tears.
Not knowing clothes, she did not have clothes.
They blackened her with burnt corks and cigarette stubs, and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor.
She did not speak because she had no speech.
Her eyes were the colour of distant love,
her twin arms were made of white topaz.
Her lips moved, silent, in a coral light,
and suddenly she went out by that door.
Entering the river she was cleaned,
shining like a white stone in the rain,
and without looking back she swam again
swam towards emptiness, swam towards death. "
by Pablo Neruda


"XXXIV (You are the daughter of the sea)
You are the daughter of the sea, oregano's first cousin. Swimmer, your body is pure as the water;
cook, your blood is quick as the soil.
Everything you do is full of flowers, rich with the earth.
Your eyes go out toward the water, and the waves rise;
your hands go out to the earth and the seeds swell;
you know the deep essence of water and the earth,
conjoined in you like a formula for clay.
Naiad: cut your body into turquoise pieces,
they will bloom resurrected in the kitchen.
This is how you become everything that lives.
And so at last, you sleep, in the circle of my arms
that push back the shadows so that you can rest--
vegetables, seaweed, herbs: the foam of your dreams."
by Pablo Neruda