BRILLANTE ES EL ANILLO DE LAS PALABRAS
Cuando el hombre adecuado las reúne
Bellas las canciones proferidas
cuando el cantor las dice
Todavía son entonadas y dichas
como sobre alas son transmitidas
Después de muerto el cantor
y enterrado el poeta
Humildes como descansa el cantor
en el campo de brezo
las canciones de su hechura reúnen
a los jóvenes juntos
y cuando el oeste se vuelve rojo
con los tizones del ocaso
el amante permanece y canta
y su pareja recuerda
RLS (Bright is the Ring of Words)
EL TEMPLO DE LA LAVANDA DEL BOSQUE
Un ramo perfumado de lavanda
tú, querido niño, me diste,
Creció, dijiste, por el lecho de la rosa roja,
y bajo el árbol del jazmín.
Era dulce, ay dulce, por muchas cosas,
Pero (más dulce que todas) con el aroma
de largos años y sonrisas y lágrimas
fue para mí fragante
Lady Caroline Blanche Elisabeth Lindsay (The Temple of the Wood Lavender)
"Surely joy is the condition of life" HDT
"Mi libro Der Geist der Hoffnung comienza con un verso de Paul Celan. Me gustaría cerrar mi conferencia con este verso: "Una estrella/tiene todavía luz./Nada,/nada está perdido." (La tonalidad del pensamiento)
To the sick, indeed, nature is sick, but to the well, a fountain of health. To him who contemplates a trait of natural beauty no harm nor disappointment can come. The doctrines of despair, of spiritual or political tyranny or servitude, were never taught by such as shared the serenity of nature. Surely good courage will not flag here on the Atlantic border, as long as we are flanked by the Fur Countries. There is enough in that sound to cheer one under any circumstances. The spruce, the hemlock, and the pine will not countenance despair. Methinks some creeds in vestries and churches do forget the hunter wrapped in furs by the Great Slave Lake, and that the Esquimaux sledges are drawn by dogs, and in the twilight of the northern night, the hunter does not give over to follow the seal and walrus on the ice. They are of sick and diseased imaginations who would toll the world's knell so soon. Cannot these sedentary sects do better than prepare the shrouds and write the epitaphs of those other busy living men? The practical faith of all men belies the preacher's consolation. What is any man's discourse to me, if I am not sensible of something in it as steady and cheery as the creak of crickets? In it the woods must be relieved against the sky. Men tire me when I am not constantly greeted and refreshed as by the flux of sparkling streams. Surely joy is the condition of life. Think of the young fry that leap in ponds, the myriads of insects ushered into being on a summer evening, the incessant note of the hyla with which the woods ring in the spring, the nonchalance of the butterfly carrying accident and change painted in a thousand hues upon its wings, or the brook minnow stoutly stemming the current, the lustre of whose scales worn bright by the attrition is reflected upon the bank.
We fancy that this din of religion, literature, and philosophy, which is heard in pulpits, lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through the universe, and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the earth's axle; but if a man sleep soundly, he will forget it all between sunset and dawn. It is the three-inch swing of a pendulum in a cupboard, which the great pulse of nature vibrates by and through each instant. When we lift our eyelids and open our ears, it disappears with smoke and rattle like the cars on a railroad. When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature, I am reminded, by the serene and retired spirit in which it requires to be contemplated, of the inexpressible privacy of a life,--how silent and unambitious it is. The beauty there is in mosses must be considered from the holiest, quietest nook. What an admirable training is science for the more active warfare of life. Indeed, the unchallenged bravery, which these studies imply, is far more impressive than the trumpeted valor of the warrior. I am pleased to learn that Thales was up and stirring by night not unfrequently, as his astronomical discoveries prove. Linnaeus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his "comb" and "spare shirt," "leathern breeches" and "gauze cap to keep off gnats," with as much complacency as Bonaparte a park of artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the man is admirable. His eye is to take in fish, flower, and bird, quadruped and biped. Science is always brave, for to know, is to know good; doubt and danger quail before her eye. What the coward overlooks in his hurry, she calmly scrutinizes, breaking ground like a pioneer for the array of arts that follow in her train.
