Το ερωτικό τραγούδι του Τζ. Άλφρεντ Προύφροκ, η πόλη το φθινόπωρο

Βροχερές μέρες, μετάφραση, ζεστός καφές, ψιχάλες στο τζάμι, εσύ στο τηλέφωνο, πουλόβερ, τσάι με μέλι τη νύχτα,  κίνηση, μπισκότα στο φούρνο, βιβλία, ποίηση, δουλειά, φθινόπωρο…

The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

By T.S. EliotLet us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question. . .
Oh, do not ask, «What is it?»
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo. …In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all;
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,                       50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room. ….And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,                                             90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: «I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all»
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say, «That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.»

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,                                           100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
«That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.»  

The Wild Swans at Coole

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

The trees are in their autumn beauty,

The woodland paths are dry,

Under the October twilight the water

Mirrors a still sky;

Upon the brimming water among the stones

Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me

Since I first made my count;

I saw, before I had well finished,

All suddenly mount

And scatter wheeling in great broken rings

Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

And now my heart is sore.

All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,

The first time on this shore,

The bell-beat of their wings above my head,

Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,

They paddle in the cold

Companionable streams or climb the air;

Their hearts have not grown old;

Passion or conquest, wander where they will,

Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;

Among what rushes will they build,

By what lake’s edge or pool

Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day

To find they have flown away?