Happy Birthday today to Henry David Thoreau and to Pablo Neruda.

I am embarrassed to admit that I was not familiar with Pablo Neruda. In a search, I learned to my greater embarrassment that he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.

Here is an example of his work:

SADDEST POEM
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.


Happy Birthday Messrs. Thoreau and Neruda

For anyone interested, here is the original of the poem posted by Mme G.:

PUEDO escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

Escribir, por ejemplo: "La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos".

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.

Oir la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.

Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos
árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.

De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis
brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.

It is beautiful in any language

And a tribute to Thoreau on his birthday:

Henry David Thoreau

From Walden
Walden is Thoreau’s best known book. He spent 10 years writing and re-writing it.

"Remember thy creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played. Grow wild according to thy nature, like these sedges and brakes, which will never become English hay. Let the thunder rumble; what if it threaten ruin to farmers' crops? That is not its errand to thee. Take shelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds. Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not. Through want of enterprize and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs."

Wow I think announcing writers’ b’days as Jr has started here is super-cool. I read Neruda’s lovely poem posted by Galatea and it's so lovely, and I read the translated version aloud and had to adore and giggle at how the words sounded [b/c I don’t know that language.. Spanish?.. but it was fun to read (too), as gizmogram wrote!]. And I also liked Flutterbug's quote.

And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

Enjoy the land, but own it not.
-Whoa that’s something. Happy b’day you two!

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Some Henry David thoreau quotes:

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can let alone."

"Be true to your work, your word, and your friend."

"Men are born to succeed, not to fail."

"The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till the other is ready, and it may be along time before they get off."

"I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."

"I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will."

"To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, an they who edit and read it are old women over their tea."

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

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Some Pablo Neruda quotes:

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way that this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep."

"I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests."

"Now, on the road to freedom, I was pausing for a moment near Temuco and could hear the voice of the water that had taught me to sing."

"The books that help you most are those which make you think that most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty."

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A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.
~Dave Barry, Dave Barry turns 50 (Crown)

I wish I could understand all the languages of the world. Poetry loses its original beauty somewhat, when it's translated (even if it's accurate). : pouts :

Ah well... happy birthday to two fantastic writers!

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Poetry loses its original beauty somewhat, when it's translated (even if it's accurate). ~Sanya

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I agree. As far as translations are concerned, I prefer self-translated works to the ones translated by someone other than the author. I find it hard to confidently appreciate a writer if I’m reading a translation; one cannot be fully sure (say in a poem) whether a particular combination of words (and thus ideas) came from the author’s mind or not. Of course, translations would be more or less accurate, but they wouldn’t be the same.. if you get what I mean.

I dislike even minor discrepancies as far as originality is concerned. In case of edited modifications I like a note mentioning that, but I think in most books, apart from those proper literary ones (that would mention even a word that the poet changed since the first publication), sadly don't mention that.
When my cousin (living in USA) had brought Harry potter part 1 with her, we had been coincidentally reading that same book and compared some parts, there were minor changes like in mine the title was “…the Philosopher’s Stone” and in hers it was “…the Sorcerer’s Stone”, plus minor changes [‘football’ and ‘soccer’] in the few parts we compared. I might be the only one but meh I dislike any such stupid changes!