Speak to me, my love! Tell me in words what you sang.
The night is dark. The stars are lost in clouds. The wind is sighing through the leaves. I will let loose my hair. My blue cloak will cling round me like night. I will clasp your head to my bosom; and there in the sweet loneliness murmur on your heart. I will shut my eyes and listen. I will not look in your face. When your words are ended, we will sit still and silent. Only the trees will whisper in the dark. The night will pale. The day will dawn. We shall look at each other's eyes and go on our different paths.
Speak to me, my love! Tell me in words what you sang.
I thought I should mourn for you and set your solitary image in my heart wrought in a golden song.
But ah, my evil fortune
Time is short.
Youth wanes year after year; the spring days are fugitive; the frail flowers die for nothing, and the wise man warns me that life is but a dewdrop on the lotus leaf.
Should I neglect all this to gaze after one who has turned her back on me?
That would be rude and foolish!
For time is short.
Then, come, my rainy nights with pattering feet; smile, my golden autumn; come, careless April, scattering your kisses abroad.
You come, and you, and you also!
My loves, you know we are mortals.
Is it wise to break one's heart for the one who takes her heart away?
For time is short.
It is sweet to sit in a corner to muse and write in rhymes that you are all my world.
It is heroic to hug one's sorrow and determine not to be consoled.
But a fresh face peeps across my door and raise its eyes to my eyes.
I cannot but wipe away my tears and change the tune of my song.
For time is short.
A beautiful verse indeed. One of my favorite. You can also listen to my amateurish recitation of this verse by clicking this player. Forgive me my silly pronunciation or whatever. Just.. enjoy it!
I wrote this from a messy life,
when age is a secret number,
yet it cannot be hidden any longer.
Can this poem make you cry?
But, hey, how dare I, to say that life is messy?
We may not be who we were before,
an unripe love to adore,
a careless care, with a blushed flush,
emotion in a letter to say the least
jammed between a chapter,
of Pancasila Moral Studies.
Yes, surely we are no more Marys and Billys
who folded our school shirt's sleeves,
and run truant to the matinees,
at a theatre screening teenish romance,
with titles that had a limited vocab
of 'love', 'campus', or something like that.
So I wrote this poem from a memory no longer reachable.
A get-you theory that had gone feeble. Because of that, would you cry?
***
I wrote this from a life - hmmm is there a better word than - messy?
We have swallowed the age pill - and that means we have a skill in deceiving how we feel.
Like, when invited to attend a reunion party.
Auch, how many decades had it been
a school skirt as your second skin?
that which you had stealthily shortened
from its official length as written
on a student rulebook you were given?
Hey, how do you now call a lover
who can never be? Laugh as if nothing is amiss - laughing at your own silly anxiety - when he asked the question,"do you remember our first kiss?"
"That wasn't a kiss," you dismissed, "it wasn't!"
That's it, I wrote this from a memory that so want to - though impossible - be forgotten, and so want to - though infallible - be repeated, so is there any use for a question so dry:
...can this poem make you cry?
***
We may now want to run from that love.
But, even if we try, can then life not be
hmmm - why have I lost my dictionary,
each time I want to write there's only - messy?
Actually, I should ask no more at a good bye, whether this poem made you cry.
***A beautiful poem by Hasan Aspahani. Wonderfully translated by Gilda Sagrado. You can read the original text in Bahasa Indonesia here.
There was a woman, and she was wise;
woefully wise was she;
She was old, so old,
yet her years all told were but a score and three;
And she knew by heart, from finish to start,
the Book of Iniquity.
There is no hope for such as I on earth,
nor yet in Heaven;
Unloved I live, unloved I die,
unpitied, unforgiven;
A loathèd jade, I ply my trade,
unhallowed and unshriven.
I paint my cheeks, for they are white,
and cheeks of chalk men hate;
Mine eyes with wine I make them shine,
that man may seek and sate;
With overhead a lamp of red I sit me down and wait
Until they come, the nightly scum,
with drunken eyes aflame;
Your sweethearts, sons, ye scornful ones;
tis I who know their shame.
The gods, ye see, are brutes to me
and so I play my game.
For life is not the thing we thought,
and not the thing we plan;
And Woman in a bitter world
must do the best she can;
Must yield the stroke, and bear the yoke,
and serve the will of man;
Must serve his need
and ever feed the flame of his desire,
Though be she loved for love alone,
or be she loved for hire;
For every man since life began
is tainted with the mire.
__And though you know he love you so
__and set you on love’s throne;
__Yet let your eyes but mock his sighs,
__and let your heart be stone,
__Lest you be left (as I was left) attainted and alone.
__From love’s close kiss to hell’s abyss
__is one sheer flight, I trow,
__And wedding ring and bridal bell
__are will-o’-wisps of woe,
__And ’tis not wise to love too well,
__and this all women know.
__Wherefore, the wolf-pack having gorged
__upon the lamb, their prey;
__With siren smile and serpent guile,
__I make the wolf-pack pay;
__With velvet paws and flensing claws,
__a tigress roused to slay.
__One who in youth sought truest truth
__and found a devil’s lies;
__A symbol of the sin of man,
__a human sacrifice.
__Yet shall I blame on man the shame?
__Could it be otherwise?
Was I not born to walk in scorn
where others walk in pride?
The Maker marred, and, evil-starred,
I drift upon His tide;
And He alone shall judge His own,
so I His judgment bide.
Fate has written a tragedy;
its name is “The Human Heart.”
The Theatre is the House of Life,
Woman the mummer’s part;
The Devil enters the prompter’s box
and the play is ready to start.
**Sajak yang sangat sangat bagus - The Harpy olehRobert W. Service 1874-1958. Dideklamasikan dengan sedikit pengubahsuaian oleh yang lara minati, yang tersohor Steve Von Till melalui video di atas, which i found very deep and interesting. Sajak yang bagus, pendeklamasi yang bagus dengan suara yang bagus, memberi nilai tambah dan meninggalkan kesan yang bukan kecil. Tidak percaya? Maka nikmatilah.
I long to speak the deepest words I have to say to you but I dare not – for fear you should laugh That is why I laugh at myself and shatter my secret in jest I make light of my pain, afraid you should do so.
I long to tell you the truest words I have to say to you but I dare not – being afraid that you should not believe them That is why I disguise them in untruth, saying the contrary of what I mean I make my pain appear absurd, afraid that you should do so.
I long to use the most precious words I have for you but I dare not – fearing I should not be paid with like value That is why I give you hard names and boast of my callous strength I hurt you, for fear you should never know any pain.
I long to sit silent by you, but I dare not – lest my heart come out at my lips That is why I prattle and chatter lightly and hide my heart behind words I rudely handle my pain, for fear you should do so.
I long to go away from your side but I dare not – for fear my cowardice should become known to you That is why I hold my head high and carelessly come into your presence Constant thrusts from your eyes keep my pain fresh for ever.