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No Meio do Caminho
(Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Brasil)
No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra
Tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho
Tinha uma pedra
No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra.
Nunca me esquecerei desse acontecimento
Na vida de minhas retinas tão fatigadas.
Nunca me esquecerei que no meio do caminho
Tinha uma pedra
Tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho
No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra.
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In the Middle of the Road
(Translated by Elizabeth Bishop)
In the middle of the road there was a stone
there was a stone in the middle of the road
there was a stone
in the middle of the road there was a stone.
Never should I forget this event
in the life of my fatigued retinas.
Never should I forget that in the middle of the road
there was a stone
there was a stone in the middle of the road
in the middle of the road there was a stone.
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Les Promesses d'un visage
(Baudelaire, France)
J'aime, ô pâle beauté, tes sourcils surbaissés,
D'où semblent couler des ténèbres;
Tes yeux, quoique très-noirs, m'inspirent des pensers
Qui ne sont pas du tout funèbres.
Tes yeux, qui sont d'accord avec tes noirs cheveux,
Avec ta crinière élastique,
Tes yeux, languissamment, me disent: «Si tu veux,
Amant de la muse plastique,
Suivre l'espoir qu'en toi nous avons excité,
Et tous les goûts que tu professes,
Tu pourras constater notre véracité
Depuis le nombril jusqu'aux fesses;
Tu trouveras au bout de deux beaux seins bien lourds,
Deux larges médailles de bronze,
Et sous un ventre uni, doux comme du velours,
Bistré comme la peau d'un bonze,
Une riche toison qui, vraiment, est la soeur
De cette énorme chevelure,
Souple et frisée, et qui t'égale en épaisseur,
Nuit sans étoiles, Nuit obscure!
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The Promises of a Face
(Translated by Geoffrey Wagner)
I love your elliptical eyebrows, my pale beauty,
From which darkness seems to flow;
Although so black, your eyes suggest to me
Thoughts in no way funereal.
Your eyes, in harmony with your black hair,
With your buoyant mane,
Your swooning eyes now tell me: "If you wish,
O lover of the plastic muse,
To follow the hope we have excited in you,
And all the fancies you profess,
You will be able to prove our truthfulness
From the navel to the buttocks;
You will find at the tips of two heavy breasts
Two slack bronze medallions,
And under a smooth belly, soft as velvet,
Swarthy as the skin of a Buddhist,
A rich fleece, which truly is the sister
Of this huge head of hair,
Compliant and curly, its thickness equals
Black night, night without stars!"
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At Thirty
(Lynda Hull, New Jersey, USA)
Whole years I knew only nights: automats
& damp streets, the Lower East Side steep
with narrow rooms where sleepers turn beneath
alien skies. I ran when doorways spoke
rife with smoke & zippers. But it was only the heart's
racketing flywheel stuttering I want, I want
until exhaustion, until I was a guest in the yoke
of my body by the last margin of land where the river
mingles with the sea & far off daylight whitens,
a rending & yielding I must kneel before, as
barges loose glittering mineral freight
& behind me façades gleam with pigeons
folding iridescent wings. Their voices echo
in my voice naming what is lost, what remains.
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