XXVIII. Le Serpent Qui Danse
   

By Charles Baudelaire
(Translation provided below)

Que j’aime voir, chère indolente,
          De ton corps se beau,
Comme une étoffe vacillante,
          Miroiter la peau!

Sur ta chevelure profonde
          Aux âcres parfums,
Mer odorante et vagabonde
          Aux flots bleus et bruns,

Comme un navire qui s’éveille
          Au vent du matin,
Mon âme rêveuse appareille
          Pour un ciel lointain.

Tes yeux, où rien ne se révèle 
          De doux ni d’amer,
Sont deux bijoux froids où se mêle
          L’or avec le fer.

A te voir marcher en cadence,
          Belle d’abandon,
On dirait un serpent qui danse
          Au bout d’un bâton.

Sous le fardeau de ta pareses 
          Ta tête d’enfant
Se balance avec la mollesse
          D’un jeune éléphant,

Et ton corps se penche et s’allonge
          Comme un fin vaisseau
Qui roule bord sur bord et plonge
          Ses vergues dans l’eau.

Comme un flot grossi par la fonte
          Des glaciers grondants,
Quand l’eau de ta bouche remonte
          Au bord de tes dents,

Je crois boire un vin de Bohême,
          Amer et vainqueur,
Un ciel liquid quie parsème
          D’étoiles mon coeur!
     

XXVIII.  The Dancing Serpent
 

Translated by Hank Edson

How I love to see, my languid one,
          Over ample and thin
Like silk or oil rest in the sun
          The sheen of your naked skin!

Upon the deep and dark of your hair
          Sweet with pungent perfume—
This sea fragrant and free of care,
          Waves cresting lightly plumed—

As a ship dreamily awakens
          At morning to the wind,
My soul gets set to be taken
          Somewhere it’s never been.

Your eyes, which neither hate nor love
          Are ever found to hold,
Are two cold jewels which are made of
          Iron mixed with gold.

The rhythm of your walk is spent
          Woman in abandon
So much you seem a dancing serpent
          With only curves to stand on.

Under the weight of your idleness,
          Your head is gently bent
Bobbing with the slow listlessness
          Of a young elephant.

And your body leans out stretching
          Like a vessel thin and brave
That rolls from side to side, fetching
          Its yardarms from the waves.

Like a sea-swollen sparkling bay
          Of a grinding glacier’s melt,
When the water of your mouth’s bouquet
          Past your teeth is spilt,

I believe I drink some gypsy wine
          Bitter and triumphant
That sprinkles my heart with stars that shine
          A light of pure intoxicant.

Yevtushenko Sings
of the Day-After-Tomorrow*

Adapted by Hank Edson

Adam and Eve lived independently,

Independently, Noah built the ark,

But the Devil’s compulsive industry

And his army—spoke to parties after dark.
 

So politics passed into every apple—

The serpent’s pride and inventions of war

Were but seeds to sting the hungry people,

Worms to devour their nourishing core.
 

Thus, politics grew into garden police,

And assigned the separate countries—officers.

Then enslaved each soul to endless increase,
Spilling themselves into large party coffers.
 

But where do the people with no party stand?

Where send the lost and broken family

Caught between Maidanek and Magadan—

Where is escape between Auschwitz and My Lai?
 

One day our great-great grandchildren will tire

Of all these savage parties come and gone,

Will choose their freedom by setting fire

These mad empty doctrines—our Babylon.
 

When the world’s garden admits each heart

As a miracle made independent of plan,

There will be no victims pressed to their part

And love will exist between woman and man.
   

*This poem is an adaptation of the translation by William Jay Smith and Svetlana Kluge of Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s “Monologue of Day-After-Tomorrow’s Man.” 

  
Eclipse
  

By John Denver

The sun is slowly fadin’ in the western sky
Sometimes it takes forever for the day to end
Sometimes it takes a lifetime
Sometimes I think I’ll never see the sun again

There’s a heavy smog between me and my mountains
It’s enough to make a grown man sit and cry
It’s enough to make you wonder
It’s enough to make the world roll up and die

I think it’s kind of interesting the way things get to be
The way that people work with their machines
Serenity’s a long time comin’ to me
In fact I don’t believe I know what it means

In the east a shaded moon is hangin’ lazily
I do believe I saw the old man smile
I do believe I did
I do believe he’s been laughin’ all the while

I think it’s kind of interesting the way things get to be
The way that people work with their machines
Serenity’s a long time comin’ to me
In fact I don’t believe I know what it means any more

The sun is slowly fadin’ in the western sky
Sometimes it takes forever the day to end
Sometimes it takes a lifetime
Sometimes I think I’ll never see the sun again
Sun again

  
OZYMANDIAS
  

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

    
The Earth Laughs and the Earth Cries

By Hank Edson

The Earth laughs and the Earth cries
Beneath the hoards of crazy people:
“The United States of America, Russia, China, Japan, Iran—
What crazy names they have given me!
Oh, it would be a wonderful laugh
If it were only a novel or on a map.
But look how they build these heavy walls to patrol
And then do nothing but steal from each other.
And while they are building their cities
By cheating my infinite spirit,
They forget they are made of my dust.
They know not that they belong to me
Much more than I belong to them.
My nature is pure of division,
Perfect in every way. Oh, Man,
Accept my superiority,
Confess your ignorant intentions,
And allow my merciful nature
To bring grace to each craving heart—
A balance that may survive!”