Hark! 'tis the twanging horn! O'er yonder bridge,
That with its wearisome but needful length
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright,
-William Cowper,
The Task: from Book 4: The Winter Evening,
1785
|
Duality
(North Cascades)
|
For ever sep'rate, yet for ever near! Remembrance and reflection how allied; What thin partitions sense from thought divide: And middle natures, how they long to join, Yet never pass th' insuperable line! -Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man in Four Epistles,1733 |
|
Meeting
(Acadia)
|
Great joy was at their meeting, and at sight Of that stupendous bridge his joy increas'd. Long he admiring stood, till Sin, his fair Enchanting daughter, thus the silence broke: -John Milton, Paradise Lost: Book X, 1674 |
|
Artist's Joke
(Acadia)
|
Life is a bridge upon which humanity walks Forward lies the future, behind us, the past Once in a while you can observe someone Who, seems melancholy It only means that this someone Has taken the time to observe That nothing awaits further on On this endless bridge. Once in a while you can observe someone Who, seems content It only means that this someone Has closed their eyes, momentarily forgetting The endless journey ahead. Once in a while you might hear a joke ‘Tis told by the artist Who alone has stopped walking And noticed the world below Full of beauty, untouched and unknown A joke to the average man Who can only see the road ahead. -Octavian Ion, Artist's Joke, 1996 |
|
Phantasies on a Stream
(Acadia)
|
And others came . . . Desires and Adorations, Winged Persuasions and veil'd Destinies, Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies; And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, Came in slow pomp; the moving pomp might seem Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream. -Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, 1821 |
|
The Two Springs
(Niagara)
Dedicated to the memory of a special friend...
| Les Deux Printemps |
The Two Springs |
| Ses yeux sont deux printemps | Her eyes like two springs |
| Qui me font sourire et ça me fait rire | Make me smile, and make me laugh |
| Ses joues sont des torrents | Her cheeks like torrents |
| Les miennes s'y baignent mais encore pire | Mine swimming in hers, but worst |
| Son coeur est une fête | Her heart like a celebration |
| Le mien ne veut plus en sortir | Mine doesn't want to get out |
| Elle est la plus belle saison de ma vie | She's the most beautiful season of my life |
| La plus belle saison de ma vie |
The most beautiful season of my life |
| -Daniel Bélanger, Quatre saison dans le Désordre |
-Marilyn St-Louis, Translation |
|
Farewell, too little, and too lately known, Whom I began to think and call my own; For sure our souls were near allied, and thine Cast in the same poetic mold with mine. One common note on either lyre did strike, And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike. -John Dryden, To the Memory of Mr. Oldham |
| À Une Passante |
In Passing |
| Moi, je buvais, crispé comme un extravagant, | And trembling like a fool, I drank from eyes |
| Dans son oeil, ciel livide où germe l'ouragan, | as ashen as the clouds before a gale |
| La douceur qui fascine et le plaisir qui tue. | the grace that beckons and the joy that kills. |
| Un éclair... puis la nuit! - Fugitive beauté | Ligthening . . . then darkness! Lovely fugitive |
| Dont le regard m'a fait soudainement renaître, | whose glance has brought me back to life! But where |
| Ne te verrai-je plus que dans l'éternité? | is life - not this side of eternity? |
| Ailleurs, bien loin d'ici! trop tard! jamais peut-être! | Elsewhere! Too far, too late, or never at all! |
| Car j'ignore où tu fuis, tu ne sais où je vais, | Of me you know nothing, I nothing of you - you |
| O toi que j'eusse aimé, ô toi qui le savais! |
whom I might have loved and who knew that too! |
| -Charles Baudelaire | -Richard Howard, Translation |
