Josep Carner

الكاتالوينية

Anna Crowe

الانجليزية

Els pollancs de França

Pollancs de la França devora els camins,
pollancs de les prades, pollancs dels jardins,
s’acosten, s’allunyen per cada costat,
n’hi ha que travessen o fan un quadrat.

És Déu qui els amoixa i és Déu qui els empeny:
tots duen un ordre, tots tenen un seny.
Cloent les quintanes hi serven tresors,
fent via amb qui passa li donen esforç.

Un d’alt s’encimbella, primer dels primers;
dos, febles, s’atansen i proven el bes.
D’obscura fontana tres miren el clot:
adoren la menta i el seu brumerot.

I tots, com la boira lleugers en el vent,
fan dolça la terra i el cel més atent
-la terra solcada d’ombreig benestant
i el cel, amb sos núvols de borra brillant-.
Triomf de l’altura, plaer d’un racó,
ells són sentinelles en tot horitzó.

I fins si la França fos tota pecat,
encar vetllarien l’honor del passat,
emblemes on frisen les velles virtuts,
més alts que les llances dels dies perduts.

I, amics graciosos del Somni Diví,
cada un serva un àngel que l’home traí,
i en rengs que s’adiuen com versos rimats
van junts a la missa i a fer de soldats.

© Raimon Bergós lawyer’s office
من: Poesia
الإنتاج المسموع: Biblioteca Nacional de Catalunya

The Poplars of France

All along highways the poplars of France,
poplars in meadows or among garden-plants,
all around they recede or else they come near,
with some of them crossing, some making a square.

God gives them a pat, or a shove from behind:
they all march in order, they all have a mind.
Enclosing the fields, their treasures they tend,
making way for the traveller and lending their strength.

A tall one soars skyward and takes pride of place,
two weaker ones lean as they try to embrace.
Gazing down at a dark hidden spring there are three:
its mint they adore, and its bumblebee.

And all of them, light as the mist in the wind,
will sweeten the earth, make the heavens more kind –
the soil with its furrows of shady well-being,
the sky with its clouds of bright down, ever fleeing.
The triumph of tallness, delight of a corner,
along the horizon they stand, guards of honour.

And even if France by sin was disgraced,
still they’d watch over the honour of the past,
emblems of virtues of old in a frieze,
and taller than lances of those ancient days.

And, gracious companions of the Divine Mind,
each one serves an angel betrayed by mankind,
and in ranks that pair up like rhyming verse,
they march off to mass, as though they were soldiers.

Translated by Anna Crowe.