I found a book in the library today in which Hungarian poems are translated into English. First i thought it was a good idea to chose poems or pharagraphs from them... but it wasn`t so easy. Here is a few I finally chose... Maybe u will like, maybe not.. anyway... enjoy
I know not what...
"I know not what to strangers this dear landscape might mean,
to me it is my birthplace, this tiny spot of green:
ringed now with fire, it was, once, my childhood rocking me:
I grew there as a fragile branch from the parent tree,
O may my body sink back to that life-giving soil.
This land is home to me: for if a bush should kneel
before my feet I know its name just as its flower,
I know who walks the road, whither and at what hour,
I know what it might mean if reddening pain should fall
dripping some summer dusk down the lintel or the wall.
.... "
Raindrops
".....
My reputation will as surely pass
As living breath must fade on a cold glass,
A speck of dust above a desert place,
Time holds it, then it`s lost without a trace."
End of September
"Below in the valley the flowers are resplendent,
Outside by the window the poplars still glow,
But see where the winter, already ascendant,
Has covered the far distant hilltops with snow.
My heart is still bathed in the fierce sun of passion,
All spring is in bloom there, by spring breezes tossed,
But look how my hair turns hoary and ashen,
Its raven black touched by the premature frost.
..."
Question at night
"As twilight softly turns to sombre brown,
you see a velvet-silky eiderdown
spread slowloy by an otherworldly nurse
to tuck in tight the sleepy universe
so caringly, that not a periwinkle
that butterflies remain perfectly painted,
their double wings so delicatley decked
and not a single rose petal has fainted
wrapped in the shades that comfort and protect,
in sombre soft repose they meditate,
unconscious of the velvet-silky weight
...."
and a full length poem:
Without hope
"Man comes at last to a vast stretch
of sandy, dull, waterlogged plain,
looks round in wonder, the poor wretch,
nods sagely and knows hope is vain
I too am genuinely trying
to look round unconcernedly.
An axehead, a silvery sighing,
Shudders across the poplar tree.
My heart is perched on nothing`s branch,
a small, dumb, shivering event:
the gentle stars jostle and bunch
and gaze on in astonishment."