from LATIN ELEGIES
Elegy
O rose, thy color is sorrow.
The hair trembles.
In this sun-drenched noontime, a breeze flutters.
A starry ring trembles in the wind.
My heart also trembles to an invisible star.
Kalos tethnake meliktas.1
Red lilies, tamarisk, blue violets, Aetnean smoke:
Asteria’s island waves must adorn the altar.
This sunny neck, this summer sleep,
This Ptolemy breathes among summer flowers and grass.
His dream blows a note that bends as it touches the sound
Echoing from the Triton’s shell.
Eyelids trembling with dream,
The spirit breathes in the golden climate.
O season of mists and mellowing fruit, return again to summer
And cast marigolds wet with frosty stars on lips
Numbed by slumberous eternity and dolphin murmurings.
His silent yearning, like a silent gem,
Silently plays the pipe from the Dorian Sea.
The sound of his pipe is a silent gem.
His thought is a silent gem.
His sleep is a silent gem.
Leaving Albion and the raucous Hibernian Sea,
He still lives in this Dorian Sea.
This morning, I mourn this sea.
1. Transliterated Greek for “The beautiful singer has died,” referring to Keats.
“O rose, thy color is sorrow”
An interesting line. Quite a contrast to Persian/Middle Eastern poetry on roses and nightingales.
Ishmael Zechariah