DROWSY BIRDS
by Mihai Eminescu
Drowsy birds at even gliding,
Round about their nests alight,
In among the branches hiding . . .
Dear, good night!
Silence through the forest creeping,
Lullaby the river sighs;
In the garden flowers sleeping. . .
Shut your eyes!
Glides the swan among the rushes
To its rest where moonlight gleams,
And the angels' whisper hushes. . .
Peaceful dreams!
O'er the sky stars without number,
On the earth a silver light;
All is harmony and slumber . . .
Dear, good night!
English version by Corneliu M. Popescu
Moonlight
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
As a pale phantom with a lamp
Ascends some ruined haunted stair,
So glides the moon along the damp
Mysterious chambers of the air.
Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed,
As if this phantom, full of pain,
Were by the crumbling walls concealed,
And at the windows seen again.
Until at last, serene and proud
In all the splendour of her light,
She walks the terraces of cloud,
Supreme as Empress of the Night.
I look, but recognize no more
Objects familiar to my view;
The very pathway to my door
Is an enchanted avenue.
All things are changed. One mass of shade,
The elm-trees drop their curtains down;
By palace, park, and colonnade
I walk as in a foreign town.
The very ground beneath my feet
Is clothed with a diviner air;
White marble paves the silent street
And glimmers in the empty square.
Illusion! Underneath there lies
The common life of everyday;
Only the spirit glorifies
With its own tints the sober grey.
In vain we look, in vain uplift
Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind;
We see but what we have the gift
Of seeing; what we bring we find.
In my sky at Twilight
by Pablo Neruda
In my sky at twilight you are like a cloud
and your form and colour are the way I love them.
You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips
and in your life my infinite dreams live.The lamp of my soul dyes your feet,
the sour wine is sweeter on your lips,
oh reaper of my evening song,
how solitary dreams believe you to be mine!You are mine, mine, I go shouting it to the afternoon's
wind, and the wind hauls on my widowed voice.
Huntress of the depth of my eyes, your plunder
stills your nocturnal regard as though it were water.You are taken in the net of my music, my love,
and my nets of music are wide as the sky.
My soul is born on the shore of your eyes of mourning.
In your eyes of mourning the land of dreams begin.
LA LUNA ASOMA
Cuando sale la luna
se pierden las campanas
y aparecen las sendas
impenetrables.
Cuando sale la luna,
el mar cubre la tierra
y el corazón se siente
isla en el infinito.
Nadie come naranjas
bajo la luna llena.
Es preciso comer
fruta verde y helada.
Cuando sale la luna
de cien rostros iguales,
la moneda de plata
solloza en el bolsillo.Federico García Lorca
