Eu sou

Eu sou, mas o que eu sou quem cuida ou sabe?
Em meus amigos um lembrar perdido.
Gastar as minhas mágoas a mim cabe -
erguem-se e passam num revoar esquecido,
sombras de amor que a própria ânsia esmaga -
mas sou, e vivo - como névoa vaga


lançada ao nada de uma vácua lida,
ao vivo mar dos sonhos acordados,
onde não há qualquer senso da vida,
mas o naufrágio só dos bens passados.
Até os mais caros, meu amor mais fundo,
estranhos me são, ou mais que todo o mundo.


Anseio terras que ninguém pisou,
onde mulher nunca sorriu nem chora,
e onde me unir ao Deus que me criou,
para dormir como na infância outrora -
sem que nenhum cuidado seja meu:
erva por baixo, e acima o curvo céu.


John Clare
(in «Poesia de 26 Séculos»
Antologia, tradução, prefáio
e notas de Jorge de Sena,
Edições ASA, 2001)


I am

I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes;
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss’d

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that’s dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod—
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept—
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,—
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.


John Clare

Early Nightingale

When first we hear the shy-come nightingales,
They seem to mutter o’er their songs in fear,
And, climb we e’er so soft the spinney rails,
All stops as if no bird was anywhere.
The kindled bushes with the young leaves thin
Let curious eyes to search a long way in,
Until impatience cannot see or hear
The hidden music; gets but little way
Upon the path - when up the songs begin,
Full loud a moment and then low again.
But when a day or two confirms her stay
Boldly she sings and loud for half the day;
And soon the village brings the woodman’s tale
Of having heard the new-come nightingale.


John Clare
(1793 - 1864 / Northamptonshire / England)

'Is there another world for this frail dust'

Is there another world for this frail dust
To warm with life and be itself again?
Something about me daily speaks there must,
And why should instinct nourish hopes in vain?
'Tis nature's prophesy that such will be,
And everything seems struggling to explain
The close sealed volume of its mystery.
Time wandering onward keeps its usual pace
As seeming anxious of eternity,
To meet that calm and find a resting place.
E'en the small violet feels a future power
And waits each year renewing blooms to bring,
And surely man is no inferior flower
To die unworthy of a second spring?


John Clare
Poems selected from Poems by John Clare, ed. Arthur Symons (London: Henry Frowe, 1908) and from The Rural Muse; Poems by John Clare, (London: Whittaker & co., 1835).

What is Life?

And what is Life? An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still-repeated dream.
Its length? A minute's pause, a moment's thought.
And Happiness? A bubble on the stream,
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.

And what is Hope? The puffing gale of morn,
That of its charms divests the dewy lawn,
And robs each flow'ret of its gem -and dies;
A cobweb, hiding disappointment's thorn,
Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise.

And what is Death? Is still the cause unfound?
That dark mysterious name of horrid sound?
A long and lingering sleep the weary crave.
And Peace? Where can its happiness abound?
Nowhere at all, save heaven and the grave.

Then what is Life? When stripped of its disguise,
A thing to be desired it cannot be;
Since everything that meets our foolish eyes
Gives proof sufficient of its vanity.
'Tis but a trial all must undergo,
To teach unthankful mortals how to prize
That happiness vain man's denied to know,
Until he's called to claim it in the skies.


John Clare
(1793 - 1864 / Northamptonshire / England)