Вилијам Батлер Јејтс: ГРОФИЦА КЕТЛИН

Вилијам Батлер Јејтс: Песма срећног пастира (фрагмент)

Песма срећног пастира (фрагмент) 
The Song of the Happy Shepherd

Од свих дела пролазних на овом свету,
Уз напуклу песму с усана Крона
Што покрај нас суморне плесове плету,
Постојана је само реч, баш она.
Где је сад краљ што битку поведе клету,
Тај презирач речи? – Божјег му трона,
Где је сад краљ што битку поведе клету?
На пуке речи сад слава му спаде,
Као што муцави школарац вели
Док чита причу што учитељ му даде:
Древни краљеви мртви су сви;
Можда сад земљом лута, ноћ и дан,
Само реч та, пламена, изненадна,
И на трен зазвони кроз пространства хладна
Да поремети вечити сан.

Вилијам Батлер Јејтс

Фотографије: Мирослав Б. Душанић

W. B. YEATS: THE RELIGION OF A SAILOR

Sara Dušanić

THE RELIGION OF A SAILOR
 

A sea captain when he stands upon the bridge, or looks out from his deck-house, thinks much about God and about the world. Away in the valley yonder among the corn and the poppies men may well forget all things except the warmth of the sun upon the face, and the kind shadow under the hedge; but he who journeys through storm and darkness must needs think and think. One July a couple of years ago I took my supper with a Captain Moran on board the S.S. Margaret, that had put into a western river from I know not where. I found him a man of many notions all flavoured with his personality, as is the way with sailors. He talked in his queer sea manner of God and the world, and up through all his words broke the hard energy of his calling.
 

"Sur," said he, "did you ever hear tell of the sea captain's prayer?"
 

"No," said I; "what is it?"
 

"It is," he replied, "'O Lord, give me a stiff upper lip.'"

"And what does that mean?"
 

"It means," he said, "that when they come to me some night and wake me up, and say, 'Captain, we're going down,' that I won't make a fool o' meself. Why, sur, we war in mid Atlantic, and I standin' on the bridge, when the third mate comes up to me looking mortial bad. Says he, 'Captain, all's up with us.' Says I, 'Didn't you know when you joined that a certain percentage go down every year?' 'Yes, sur,' says he; and says I, 'Arn't you paid to go down?' 'Yes, sur,' says he; and says I, 'Then go down like a man, and be damned to you!"'

W. B. YEATS

William Butler Yeats: Sailing To Byzantium

* 13 June 1865 † 28 January 1939

Sailing To Byzantium

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
 
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire

As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,

And be the singing-masters of my soul.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire

And fastened to a dying animal

It knows not what it is; and gather me

Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,

But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

Or set upon a golden bough to sing

To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

William Butler Yeats