Tag Archives: Lyric Poem

“Nightfall on the Tisza River” by Géza Gárdonyi [w/ Audio]

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Up comes the Moon on the river,
 Trees and grass quietly quiver.
 Near Szeged a wooded island,
 Od fishing barque, tied to the land.

By the moonlight, on this barque, old,
 Sat a fisherman I am told,
 Played a tune as well as he might,
 Played it well, well into the night.

On the Tisza, velvet darkness,
 Starry sky, the stars numberless,
 Spread a shroud studded with diamonds
 Radiating starry light fronds.

May have been this very spot, hark!
 Right under this rickety barque,
 In the very depths of the deep
 An ancient king's sleeping his sleep.

His coffin is gold and silver,
Of iron is made its cover.
 Up the river is glistening,
 Down the ancient king, listening.

Translation by Frank Veszely in: Hungarian Poetry: One Thousand Years. 2023. Friesen Press: Altona, MB, Canada.

“I’ll be the tree…” by Sándor Petőfi [w/ Audio]

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I'll be the tree, if you'll be its flower;
 I'll be the flower, if you'll be the dew;
 I'll be the dew, if you'll be the sunshine
 That glistens as it unites we two.

If you, My Love, should become the Heavens,
  I'd be reborn as a star on high.
 Even if you turned into Hell, itself,
  I'd be damned, and I'd gladly fry.

The Original Poem in Hungarian:

Fa leszek, ha fának vagy virága.
Ha harmat vagy: én virág leszek.
Harmat leszek, ha te napsugár vagy...
Csak, hogy lényink egyesüljenek.

Ha, leányka, te vagy a mennyország:
Akkor én csillagá változom.
Ha, leányka, te vagy a pokol: (hogy
Egyesüljünk) én elkárhozom.

“The Secret Sits” by Robert Frost [w/ Audio]

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We dance round in a ring and suppose,
 But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

“To Helen” by Edgar Allan Poe [w/ Audio]

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Helen, thy beauty is to me
   Like those Nicéan barks of yore,
 That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
   The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
   To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
   Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
 Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
   To the glory that was Greece,
   And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
   How statue-like I see thee stand,
 The agate lamp within thy hand!
   Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
   Are Holy-Land!

“Soft Snow” by William Blake [w/ Audio]

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I walked abroad in a snowy day:
 I ask'd the soft snow with me to play:
 She play'd & she melted in all her prime,
 And the winter call'd it a dreadful crime.

“A Divine Image” by William Blake [w/ Audio]

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Cruelty has a Human Heart,
 And Jealousy a Human Face;
 Terror the Human Form Divine,
 And Secrecy the Human Dress.

The Human Dress is forged Iron,
 The Human Form a fiery Forge,
 The Human Face a Furnace seal'd,
 The Human Heart its hungry Gorge.

“The Past” by Ralph Waldo Emerson [w/ Audio]

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The debt is paid,
 The verdict said,
 The Furies laid,
 The plague is stayed,
 All fortunes made;
 Turn the key and bolt the door,
 Sweet is death forevermore.
 Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin,
 Nor murdering hate, can enter in.
 All is now secure and fast;
 Not the gods can shake the Past;
 Flies-to the adamantine door
 Bolted down forevermore.
 None can re-enter there, --
 No thief so politic,
 No Satan with a royal trick
 Steal in by window, chink, or hole,
 To bind or unbind, add what lacked,
 Insert a leaf, or forge a name,
 New-face or finish what is packed,
 Alter or mend eternal Fact.

“To a Marsh Hawk in Spring” by Henry David Thoreau [w/ Audio]

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There is health in thy gray wing,
 Health of nature's furnishing.
 Say, thou modern-winged antique,
 Was thy mistress ever sick?
 In each heaving of thy wing
 Thou dost health and leisure bring,
 Thou dost waive disease and pain
 And resume new life again.

“Difference” by Stephen Vincent Benét [w/ Audio]

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My mind's a map. A mad sea-captain drew
   it
 Under a flowing moon until he knew it;
 Winds with brass trumpets, puffy-cheeked
   as jugs,
 And states bright-patterned like Arabian 
   rugs.
 "Here there be tygers." "Here we buried
   Jim."
 Here is the strait where eyeless fishes swim
 About their buried idol, drowned so cold
 He weeps away his eyes in salt and gold.
 A country like the dark side of the moon,
 A cider-apple country, harsh and boon,
 A country savage as a chestnut-rind,
 A land of hungry sorcerers. 
                                           Your mind?

--Your mind is water through an April
   night,
 A cherry-branch, plume-feathery with its
   white,
 A lavender as fragrant as your words,
 A room where Peace and Honor talk like
   birds,
 Sewing bright coins upon the tragic cloth
 Of heavy Fate, and Mockery, like a moth,
 Flutters and beats about those lovely
   things.
 You are the soul, enchanted with its 
   wings,
 The single voice that raises up the dead
 To shake the pride of angels.
                                              I have said.

BOOKS:  木兰辞 [Ballad of Mulan] by Anonymous

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The Ballad of Mulan: 木兰辞 (Simplified Chinese Characters with Pinyin)The Ballad of Mulan: 木兰辞 by Song Nan Zhang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Available online at YellowBridge

This is a short lyric poem (15-1/2 quatrain, or 62 lines) that tells the story of a young woman who disguises herself as a man and joins the military to fill a slot that would otherwise have required her aged and infirm father to serve. The tiny poem packs in ten-plus years, during which Hua Mulan serves with great distinction and then returns home to take care of her parents. It’s a well-known tale that emphasizes the importance of filial piety and sacrifice. Though outside of China (as well as Taiwan and other Chinese cultural enclaves,) many may know it from the Disney version which has been panned for ditching the Confucian values and replacing them with ones that were thought would resonate better with a Western audience.

The poem is mostly arranged in quatrains of five-character lines with alternate line rhymes.

It’s a quick read and there is no room for the detailed tales of heroism that are depicted in adaptations.

If one is looking for a culturally insightful telling of the story of Hua Mulan, this is the right place to look. I’d highly recommend reading it.

View all my reviews