The Loves of Franz Kafka - Nahum N. Glatzer
"What is love?", asked Gustav Janouch.
"This is quite simple," Franz Kafka explained. "Love is everything that
enhances, widens, and enriches our life, in its heights and depths.
Love has few problems as a motorcar. The only problems are the driver,
the passengers, and the road."
Late in his life, in 1922, Kafka made the sad confession that he had
never known the words "I love you" but "only the expectant stillness
that should have been broken by my 'I love you'--that is all that I
have known, nothing more."
Jim Phillips
I Hope
Somewhere
Someone
is
thinking
of me
at least
i hope
198?
Alexander Pushkin (2 translations)
I Loved You
I loved--maybe I love you,
Still, but forget
This love that pressed
At you--no tears, just laugh.
I loved you in silence, hopeless,
True, jealous, and afraid--I loved you,
Oh how I loved you! May God give you
A lover like me again, some day.
I Loved You Once
I loved you once, nor can this heart be quiet;
For it would seem that love still lingers here;
But do not you be further troubled by it;
I would in no wise hurt you, oh, my dear.
I loved you without hope, a mute offender;
What jealous pangs, what shy dispairs I knew!
A love as deep as this, as true, as tender,
God grant another may yet offer you.
1829
Margaret Atwood
Variation on the Word Sleep
I would watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head
and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you from grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in
I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.
1981
Dorothy Parker
A Certain Lady
Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head,
And drink your rushing words with eagar lips,
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And you believe, so well I know my part,
That I am gay as morning, light as snow,
And all the straining things within my heart
You'll never know.
Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet,
And you bring tales of fresh adventurings--
Of ladies delicately indescreet,
Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things.
And you are pleased with me, and strive anew
To sing me sagas of your late delights.
Thus do you want me--marveling, gay, and true--
Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights.
And when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go ...
And what goes on, my love, while you're away,
You'll never know.
1937
Dorothy Parker
Comment
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Rumania.
1926
Sir Thomas Wyatt
They Flee From Me
They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot stalking my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range
Busily seeking with a continual change.
Thanked be fortune, it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And when she caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithal sweetly did me kiss,
And softly said, "Dear heart, how like you this?"
It was no dream; I lay broad waking.
But all is turned through my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also to use new fangledness.
But since that I am so kindly am served,
I would fain know what she hath deserved.
1557
Par Lagerkvist (trans and orig)
Evening Land
I wanted to know
but was only allowed to ask,
I wanted light
but was only allowed to burn.
I demanded the ineffable
but was only allowed to live.
I complained,
but nobody understood what I meant.
Aftonland
Jag ville veta
men fick bara fraga,
jag ville ljus
men fick bara brinna.
Jag begarde det oerhorda
och fick bara leva.
Jag beklagade mig.
Men ingen forstod vad jag mente.
Emily Dickinson
If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.
If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put then each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.
If only centuries delayed,
I'd count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen's land.
If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine, should be,
I'd toss it yonder, like a rind,
And taste eternity.
But now, uncertain of the length
Of time's uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.
Edwin Markham
The Third Wonder
'Two things,' said Kant, 'fill me with breathless awe;
The starry heavens and moral law.'
I know a thing more awful and obscure--
The long, long patience of the plundered poor.
1932