Long Modern english Poems
Long Modern english Poems. Below are the most popular long Modern english by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Modern english poems by poem length and keyword.
These are modern English translations of the "Xenia" epigrams written in collaboration by the German poets Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, plus an elegy Goethe wrote for Schiller...
These are selected XENIA epigrams with all translations by Michael R. Burch...
#2 - Verse versus Kiss
She says an epigram’s too terse
to reveal her tender heart in verse ...
but really, darling, ain’t the thrill
of a kiss much shorter still?
#5 - Criticism
Why don’t I openly criticize the man? Because he’s a friend;
thus I reproach him in silence, as I do my own heart.
#11 - Highest Holiness
What is holiest? This heart-felt love
binding spirits together, now and forever.
#12 - Love versus Desire
You love what you have, and desire what you lack
because a rich nature expands, while a poor one retracts.
#19 - Nymph and Satyr
As shy as the trembling doe your horn frightens from the woods,
she flees the huntsman, fainting, uncertain of love.
#20 - Desire
What stirs the virgin’s heaving breasts to sighs?
What causes your bold gaze to brim with tears?
#23 - The Apex I
Everywhere women yield to men, but only at the apex
do the manliest men surrender to femininity.
#24 - The Apex II
What do we mean by the highest? The crystalline clarity of triumph
as it shines from the brow of a woman, from the brow of a goddess.
#25 -Human Life
Young sailors brave the sea beneath ten thousand sails
while old men drift ashore on any bark that avails.
#35 - Dead Ahead
What’s the hardest thing of all to do?
To see clearly with your own eyes what’s ahead of you.
#36 - Unexpected Consequence
Friends, before you utter the deepest, starkest truth, please pause,
because straight away people will blame you for its cause.
#41 - Earth versus Heaven
By doing good, you nurture humanity;
but by creating beauty, you scatter the seeds of divinity.
Keyword/Tags: Goethe, Schiller, German, Germany, translation, modern English translations, epitaph, epigram, love, kiss, friendship, desire, holy, holiness, earth, heaven, beauty, god, divinity, nature, spirit
WALDERE: MODERN ENGLISH TRANSLATION
“Waldere” is an ancient Old English (i.e., Anglo-Saxon) poem that recounts the exploits of Walter of Aquitaine, a legendary king of the Visigoths. In the poem Waldere and Hildeguth or Hildegyth flee the court of Attila the Hun, where they were being held hostage, for Aquitaine. The poem mentions names that appear in “Deor’s Lament,” such as Theodric, Widia and Beadohild. Unfortunately, only 63 lines of “Waldere” survived, in two fragments of around 30 lines each.
Waldere Excerpt
Old English poem circa 1000 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Thus Hildeguth spoke, heartening him:
“Surely the work of Wayland shall never fail,
the savage sword Mimming, when held by a man
who bolsters its blade. Felled, the fiercest fighters
lie broken, bleeding profusely from terrible wounds,
lords and aethelings laid low on the battlefield,
heirs of grim war-graves.
Son of Aelfhere, right hand of Attila,
best and boldest of his warlords,
don’t let your heart faint, nor your courage wilt.
The time has come to summon all your daring,
to gain glory or give up living for a long doom.”
…
Keywords/Tags: Waldere, translation, Hildeguth, Wayland, sword Mimming, man, men, fighters, war, battle, battlefield, grave, graves, Attila the Hun, heart, courage, time, glory, life, living, death, doom
Day Blood (Old English)
By R.A
Day blood, thou shalt to run into
thy building.
Building of habbeth, twas once brilling
with life, now of extirpation.
Day blood, thou shalt to under hood.
One’s question of the rain was thy andwyrdan,
haust acwellan, thy rain.
thy rain is bealuhygdig.
thy life is black.
Day blood, thou shalt to under hood.
Thy place of bodian, of bletsian, and broga.
haust acwellan, thy rain.
with life, now of extirpation.
Cirice, place of cringan.
Day blood, thou shalt to under hood.
Thy cunnan of red rain, shalt thrive.
Building of habbeth, twas once brilling
with life, now of extirpation.
haust acwellan, thy rain
thy rain is bealuhygdig.
thy life is black.
Day blood, thou shalt to under hood.
Day Blood (Modern English)
By R.A
Day of blood, you shall run
into your building.
The building, which once shone brightly
with life, is now a ruin.
Day of blood, you must hide away.
The question of the rain was answered:
harvest is dead, the rain has killed it.
The rain is malicious,
your life is dark.
Day of blood, you must hide away.
A place of preaching, of blessings, and terror.
Harvest is dead, the rain has killed it.
With life now destroyed,
the church is a place of despair.
Day of blood, you must hide away.
The knowledge of the red rain shall persist.
The building, which once shone brightly
with life, is now a ruin.
Harvest is dead, the rain has killed it.
The rain is malicious,
your life is dark.
Day of blood, you must hide away.
23h
Reply
Went a shrewd shaver t' moaning monk
ñ a dark day's hurled hay tactic ton.
''f felon feast b' a callous cod thrown,
sate h', robed 'n gaunt grief, girdle ''f gloom 'n' throe.
"Go to, why wrapped in throbbing thoughts?
Why thy instinct with jeff joy fought?
Anon come a nocturnal nymph
t' bruise his breath - gullible gores t' dig."
Ergo rerouted moaning monk
gaunt grief, throbbing throe 'n' callous con.
"Send not this sinner's breath astray.
Address the nymph, I'll return t' pray."
Whence, quit moaning monk his voyage;
Sly shaver tamed his keen knowledge.
'20:07:31:20:41
Note:
a) of moaning monk.
b) Written apace with the Modern English lexis:
i) cod - man
ii) Jeff (circus) - a rope
iii)Ergo - then
iv) Whence (literary) - then
c) The following are used with no syllabic consequences:
i) t' - to
ii) ñ - no
iii) ''f - of
iv) b' - by
v) h' - he
vi) 'n - in
vii) 'n' - and
viii) t' - to
The Watergaw
by Hugh MacDiarmid
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
One wet forenight in the sheep-shearing season
I saw the uncanniest thing—
a watergaw with its wavering light
shining beyond the wild downpour of rain ...
and I thought of the last wild look that you gave
when you knew you were destined for the grave.
There was no light in the skylark's nest
that night—no—nor any in mine;
but now often I've thought of that foolish light
and of these irrational hearts of men ...
and I think that, perhaps, at last I ken
what your look meant then.
Hugh MacDiarmid wrote "The Watergaw" in a Scots dialect. I have translated or "modernized" the poem into modern English to make it easier to read and understand.
Keywords/Tags: Scotland, Scot, Scottish, Scots dialect, night, nightfall, rain, grave, death, death of a friend, light, lights, watergaw, heart, heartache, heartbroken, broken heart, heart song
Miraji translations into modern English
I'm obsessed with this thought:
does God possess mercy?
—Miraji, translation by Michael R. Burch
Come, see this dance, the immaculate dance of the devadasi!
—Miraji, translation by Michael R. Burch
Excerpts from “Going, Going ...”
by Miraji
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Each unfolding vista,
each companion’s kindnesses,
every woman’s subtle sorceries,
everything that transiently lies within our power
quickly dissolves
and we are left with only a cupped flame, flickering ...
Should we call that “passion”?
The moon scrapes the horizon
and who can measure a star’s breadth?
The time allotted a life, if we calculate it,
is really only a fleeting breath ...
1.
Echoes of an ancient prophecy:
after my life has come and gone,
perhaps someone
hearing my voice drifting
on the breeze of some future spring
will chase after my songs
like dandelions.
—Miraji, translation by Michael R. Burch
2.
Echoes of an ancient prophecy:
after my life has come and gone,
perhaps someone
hearing my voice drifting
through some distant future spring
will pluck my songs
like dandelions.
—Miraji, translation by Michael R. Burch
3.
Echoes of an ancient prophecy:
when my life has come and gone,
and when I’m dead and done,
perhaps someone
hearing me sing
in a distant spring
will echo my songs
the whole world over.
—Miraji, translation by Michael R. Burch
If I understand things correctly, Miraji wrote the lines above after translating a verse by Sappho in which she said that her poems would be remembered in the future. I suspect both poets and both prophecies were correct!
Call me a dreamer,
Maybe even a misfit believer
I guess sometimes my head gets to far in the clouded atmosphere
So far, to far...I think of things nobody might ever truly hear
I'm not exactly normal
Son of God reborn in flesh,
In America where the eagles gather to their nest
(Luke 17:37).
Long wavy hair just like they depicted, absent fear
Welcome to my teenage years
Welcome to one of the mansions, my very dorm
Got the scars to prove it,
And a scroll to stay beyond self proclaimed norms
Some might say I rode in on a white horse,
Right out of dream
Perhaps a fairy tale dimensional beam..
Hence" Walking statue dream"
My faults I think..
Are falling in love to easily
And persistently studying art constantly
Sometimes falling in hate with those that envy
Because I want you to see, I'm not your enemy
As I matured, I learned not to be so bitter,
(I was once I child starved of spiritual dinner)
Put aside what was done, to be a learner and liver
'il stop the world and melt with you'
" I made a pilgrimage to save this Human's race"
-modern English
As lightning strikes from east to west
So it is the love that beats within this Chest
I have the key
And unlock the best,
Il take the love and give you my rest
Because whenever I'm with you
I fall in bliss
I melt with you
Yamaguchi Seishi haiku modern English translations
Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt.
—Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Ceaseless chaos—
ice floes clash
in the Soya straits.
—Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Having crossed the sea,
winter winds can never return.
—Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
(The haiku above was written in October 1944 as Kamikaze pilots were flying out to sea.)
Banish the snow
for the human torpedo
now lies exploded.
—Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
The sky hangs low
over Karafuto,
as white as the spawning herring.
—Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Green bottle flies
buzzing carrion—
did they just materialize?
—Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Finally
the cicadas stopped shrilling—
summer gale.
—Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
As grief becomes unbearable
someone snaps a nearby branch.
—Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
As grief reaches its breaking point
someone snaps a nearby branch.
—Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Trapped in the spider’s web
the firefly’s bulb
blinks out forever.
—Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Trapped in the spider’s web
the firefly’s light
is swiftly consumed.
—Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Keywords/Tags: Haiku, Translation, Japan, Japanese, Nature, Season, Seasons, Animal, Animals, Grass, Train, Locomotive, Ice, Sea, Winter, Wind, Snow, Autumn, Fall, Grief, Branch, Spider, Firefly, Light, Flies, Fish, Herring, Cicada, Cicadas, Turbulence, Rough Seas, Storms, War, WWII, World War II
MODERN ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF MEDIEVAL ENGLISH POEMS
Inordinate Love
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I shall say what inordinate love is:
The ferocity and singleness of mind,
An inextinguishable burning devoid of bliss,
A great hunger, too insatiable to decline,
A dulcet ill, an evil sweetness, blind,
A right wonderful, sugared, sweet error,
Without any rest, contrary to kind,
Without quiet, a riot of useless labor.
Unkindness Has Killed Me
anonymous Middle English poem, 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Grievous is my sorrow:
Both evening and morrow;
Unto myself alone
Thus do I moan,
That unkindness has killed me
And put me to this pain.
Alas! what remedy
That I cannot refrain?
The spring under a thorn
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
At a wellspring, under a thorn,
the remedy for an ill was born.
There stood beside a maid
Full of love bound,
And whoso seeks true love,
In her it will be found.
A lover left alone with his thoughts
anonymous Middle English poem, circa later 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Continuance
of remembrance,
without ending,
causes me penance
and great grievance,
for your parting.
You are so deeply
engraved in my heart,
God only knows
that always before me
I ever see you
in thoughts covert.
Though I do not explain
my woeful pain,
I bear it still,
although it seems vain
to speak against
Fortune’s will.
Keywords/Tags: Middle English, translation, Medieval English, love, mind, bliss, burning, hunger, desire, sorrow, pain, spring, lover, thoughts, heart
Jesus is the great high priest
who ministers before God's throne
on behalf of the elected redeemed
being the believer's chief cornerstone
The priests in the past stood daily
offering sacrifices for sin forever
but these failed to deal with sin
only the perfect high priest could deliver
Jesus made Himself the perfect sacrifice
by one offering His own are sanctified
what a picture this conveys His grace
this Jesus gave Himself as He died
This great high priest makes intercession
for those He redeemed by His blood
so those can draw near with a true heart
full of faith like a great flood
What a privilege we have been given
to have such a great high priest
Jesus our saviour is seated at God's hand
eternally on our case never to cease
(Hebrews 10:8-18
Modern English Version
8 Previously when He said, “You did not desire sacrifices and offerings. You have had no pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin,” which are offered in accordance with the law, 9 then He said, “See, I have come to do Your will, O God.” He takes away the first that He may establish the second. 10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 But every priest stands daily ministering and repetitively offering the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. 13 Since that time He has been waiting for His enemies to be made His footstool. 14 For by one offering He has forever perfected those who are sanctified.
15 The Holy Spirit also witnesses to us about this. For after saying,
16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put My laws into their hearts,
and in their minds I will write them,”
17 then He adds,
“Their sins and lawless deeds
will I remember no more.”
18 Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.
21 and since we have a High Priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse them from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us firmly hold the profession of our faith without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.)