ANDREW STANILAND
THE PERENNIAL POETRY (2011)
Smashwords
edition
copyright Andrew Staniland 2011,
2012
www.andrewstaniland.co.uk
Bodhisattva And The Jungle Games
Geographical And Cultural Factors In The Evolution Of The Romance Languages
The Invisible Communication Of Love Through The Eyes
Cavalcando l'altr'ier per un cammino
Amore e 'l cor gentil sono una cosa
Io mi senti' svegliar dentro a lo core
He Compares The Blue Of His Beloved’s Eyes
Captain Shit And The Sugar Daddy
Baby Dee Sings A Song For Anne Marie
Stiller Freund der vielen Fernen
I say to you that you are beautiful
In the new photo of the honey hour
That you upload, chez B aux Batignolles,
And we are at an age, or of a mind,
Where email is the m.o. of romance,
With words for wine and flowers,
So beauty is discussed, if not defined,
And what it means in England and in France.
The worst of beauty, what rule it obeys
By being spotless in its youngest years
And why it is affronted by its praise,
Is that it is the seeing soul’s conceit,
Unconscious of its own Platonic essence,
Or is a vain veneer,
Silicon sacs and gels, not soft, not sweet,
The death mask of an aging adolescence.
The bodily aplomb that does enhance
Or alter nature is a work of art,
Like a French garden’s formal elegance,
Its fountains, statues, rose beds, box-cut trees,
A classically cultivated style,
That is as sleek and smart
As the mesdames in Rue de Rivoli’s
Arcades, their perfumes, their pink petal smiles.
An English garden, though, is more your style,
A sleepy, sensual insouciance,
Through tousled hair, fit for a Francophile,
Like the long grass, the wild-thyme-scented woods
That are artistic landscapes too, sublime,
The Parc des Buttes Chaumont’s
Romantic climbs, its crag of faun-like gods,
A grotto sculpted in the quarried lime.
The best of beauty is more modest too,
For you, a woman by Vermeer, at home,
Reading a letter in a window’s blue,
For me, a blush of bliss that suns a cheek
As subtly as an evening aureole
After a mantra’s Om,
That is, to test the terms of our critique,
The eloquence of an enlightened soul.
1.
Astrée, the shepherdess, and the loose-linen nymphs
Who rule the rustic realm, though not of godly lymph,
Are real Rohmeriennes, their quibbles and their qualms,
The heady heartlessness of their anarchic charm.
2.
The river’s drowning roar, the call of lark and thrush,
The wind that ripples robes like an Old Master’s brush,
Its melody of leaves, and May’s light, mild and clear,
Are the film’s act of faith in life as it appears.
3.
The groves where Céladon inscribes the laws of love
Show how an old man’s art, at best, is as naive
As adolescent ardour, shyly in suspense,
Confusing courtesy, an oath and its offence.
4.
The jeu de corps he plays, in a druid maiden’s dress,
Allows him to befriend the sheepish shepherdess,
And Astrée’s naked breast, her nipple’s simple spire,
Are an avowal of the true love of desire.
Je vous donne des œufs
I give these eggs to you. An egg, in your cupped hands,
Is like a little sky, that sees its scenery
Of fire and air and earth, the serum of the sea,
And that, not seeing out, sees in and understands.
Its skin is like the air, and the wan albumen
Is like an ancient sea from which life will aspire,
The yellow of the yolk is like an eye of fire,
Its shell the grit of earth that grounds it from the hen,
And both the sky and eggs are white as sheets of verse.
In giving you an egg, I give a universe,
Which is a perfect gift, if you now give it grace.
But, perfect though it be, no egg can equal you,
So unlike all, so far beyond a quill’s coarse trace
That only words of gods are able to be true.
Je vous donne des œufs. L'œuf en sa forme ronde
Semble au Ciel, qui peut tout en ses bras enfermer,
Le feu, l'air et la terre, et l'humeur de la mer,
Et sans estre comprins comprend tout en ce monde.
La taye semble à l'air, et la glère féconde
Semble à la mer qui fait toutes choses germer :
L'aubin ressemble au feu qui peut tout animer,
La coque en pesanteur comme la terre abonde,
Et le ciel et les œufs de blancheur sont couvers.
Je vous donne (en donnant un œuf) tout l'Univers :
Divin est le présent, s'il vous est agréable.
Mais bien qu'il soit parfait, il ne peut égaler
Vostre perfection qui n'a point de semblable,
Dont les Dieux seulement sont dignes de parler.
Pierre de Ronsard
When you are very old, your hair as white as lime,
One evening, by the fire, as you thread through your days
And read aloud the verse that I wrote in your praise,
Will you say, “Andrew loved me in my beauty’s prime”?
The sound will stir the ear of some young drowsy nurse,
Who, feet up on a desk, half-hopes to hear a beep,
But hears instead the beat, the soul’s song, in her sleep,
Of your immortal name in my immortal verse.
I will be in the earth, a ghost amongst the ghosts,
Under the myrtle trees, where all the old ghosts boast,
And you will be a crone who, crouching in her chair,
Regrets, regrets, regrets that love was scorned by pride.
So say to me today, so life is not denied,
That I may pluck the rose while it still scents the air.
Quand vous serez bien vieille, au soir, à la chandelle,
Assise auprès du feu, dévidant et filant,
Direz, chantant mes vers, en vous émerveillant :
Ronsard me célébrait du temps que j’étais belle.
Lors, vous n’aurez servante oyant telle nouvelle,
Déjà sous le labeur à demi sommeillant,
Qui au bruit de mon nom ne s’aille réveillant,
Bénissant votre nom de louange immortelle.
Je serai sous la terre et fantôme sans os :
Par les ombres myrteux je prendrai mon repos :
Vous serez au foyer une vieille accroupie,
Regrettant mon amour et votre fier dédain.
Vivez, si m’en croyez, n’attendez à demain :
Cueillez dès aujourd’hui les roses de la vie.
Pierre de Ronsard
Although the human soul, in Plato’s rule of time,
Is primary and pure, a song of heaven’s sigh,
It is the human body that attracts the eye,
Without whose work the soul is senselessly sublime,