Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Woland]

Here's a Russian poem by Sologub, a favorite of mine. The title translates as We Sought Our Daughter:

Искали дочь

Печаль в груди была остра,
Безумна ночь, �
И мы блуждали до утра,
Искали дочь.

Нам запомнилась навеки
Жутких улиц тишина,
Хрупкий снег, немые реки,
Дым костров, штыки, луна.

Чернели тени на огне
Ночных костров.
Звучали в мертвой тишине
Шаги врагов.

Там, где били и рубили,
У застав и у палат,
Что-то чутко сторожили
Цепи хмурые солдат.

Всю ночь мерещилась нам дочь,
Ещё жива,
И нам нашептывала ночь
Её слова.

По участкам, по больницам
(Где пускали, где и нет)
Мы склоняли к многим лицам
Тусклых свеч неровный свет.

Бросали груды страшных тел
В подвал сырой.
Туда пустить нас не хотел
Городовой.

Скорби пламенной язык ли,
Деньги ль дверь открыли нам, �
Рано утром мы проникли
В тьму, к поверженным телам.

Ступени скользкие вели
В сырую мглу, �
Под грудой тел мы дочь нашли
Там, на полу.

I really can't translate this adequately. Sologub's language is plain and delicate at the same time. Very difficult. The poem is about parents searching all night for their daughter in St. Petersburg in the aftermath of the suppression of the 1905 uprising, and finding her body in the morning.

[Guri Guy]

This is my favourite poem. It is by William Butler Yeats ^^

Sailing to Byzantium


That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.