Jag har tidigare citerat rader ur Walt Whitman's vackra "Out of the cradle endlessly rocking". I kväll får ni den inledande strofen i sin helhet.
Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
(From Leaves of grass : comprehensive reader's edition : including the annexes, the prefaces ... / Walt Whitman ; ed. by Harold W. Blodgett and Sculley Bradley. New York : New York U.P., 1965.)
Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d alone, bare-headed, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease,
From the myriad thence-arous’d words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither—ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man—yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them—but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.
***
Vi fortsätter med första versen av en kär vaggsång.
Lullaby, vers 1, by Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973)
(From Tell me the truth about love : ten poems. London : Faber and Faber, 1994.)
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm:
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
***
Slutligen några visdomsord från nobelpristagaren Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941).
Baby's world, by Rabindranath Tagore
(From The Crescent Moon. London and New York: Macmillan and Company, 1913.)
I wish I could take a quiet corner in the heart of my baby's very own world.
I know it has stars that talk to him, and a sky that stoops down to his face to amuse him with its silly clouds and rainbows.
Those who make believe to be dumb, and look as if they never could move, come creeping to his window with their stories and with trays crowded with bright toys.
I wish I could travel by the road that crosses baby's mind, and out beyond all bounds;
Where messengers run errands for no cause between the kingdoms of kings of no history;
Where Reason makes kites of her laws and flies them, and Truth sets Fact free from its fetters.
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