La bataille de Mobile Bay se rejouera sur le terrain de l’amour sous toutes ses formes, du désir et du plaisir sans limites, contre l’esclavage de la peur et de la souffrance. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Droit devant, vers la victoire
Sonnet II, by Eric Stenbock
I have chosen the following love poem from Stenbock’s second collection Myrtle, Rue and Cypress. The Latin subtitle is inspired by the starting verse of the Canticle of Canticles of Solomon in the Bible: “Osculetur me osculo oris sui quia meliora sunt ubera tua vino,” which translates as “Let her kiss me with the kiss of her mouth; for thy breasts are better than wine.” The first two verses indeed follow it, replacing “breasts” by “love” (since the beloved was probably a boy). CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Katie Carr, by Aleister Crowley
I present today my last selection from the collection Rosa Mundi, and other love-songs, the ninth poem in it. The poet remembers courting a young peasant girl, “too happy to be loved,” who kissed him “frank and straight.”
Here ‘Rossett Ghyll’ designates a pass in Cumberland (according to the editor). CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Elegy, by Brooke Boothby
In 1796, Brooke Boothby published Sorrows. Sacred to the Memory of Penelope, a collection of poems in memory of his deceased daughter Penelope. The collection consists of 24 numbered sonnets, two longer poems both called Elegy, and a final 12-verse poem called Stanzas. In two previous posts I transcribed 7 of the 24 sonnets. Now I reproduce one of its two elegies. In this sad poem, Boothby longs to die and to have his body deposited by a friend into Penelope’s tomb, so that his ashes can mix with hers. Then, being rid of his body, he imagines his daughter greeting him in heaven, taking him by the hand and crowning him with a wreath of flowers. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
… À rien, par Minou Drouet
Voici un poème étrange et triste, évoquant l’inutilité de la vie, paru dans le deuxième recueil de Minou, Le Pêcheur de lune. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
May Queen Ode, by Edgar Allan Poe
About April 1836, Harriet Virginia Scott, a schoolgirl in Richmond, asked Edgar Allan Poe to compose a poem for her to recite to the Queen of the May. He complied by writing four or five stanzas. About eighty years later (between 1911 and 1917), she remembered one of them and sent it to J. H. Whitty, who published it in the second edition of Complete Poems (1917). CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Ivresse d’amour
Buvons l’amour, sans modération, dans une coupe en forme de fleur. Enivrons-nous à sa fontaine, douce offrande de la demoiselle. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
More sonnets by Brooke Boothby
In a previous post, I copied 3 sonnets from Sorrows. Sacred to the Memory of Penelope, the collection of poems written by Brooke Boothby in memory of his daughter Penelope, who died one month before her sixth birthday. Here I transcribe three more sonnets (and correct another). CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Aux quatre vents, par Minou Drouet
Extrait de son deuxième recueil de vers, un joli petit poème, où la petite fille laisse libre cours à son imagination… CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Mary, by Aleister Crowley
A beautiful love poem, the eleventh from the collection Rosa Mundi, and other love-songs. Here ‘darkmans’ means ‘night’ and is an old English canting word (according to the editor). CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…