Thursday 7 July 2011

john crowe ransom

Blue Girls

Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward
Under the towers of your seminary,
Go listen to your teachers old and contrary
Without believing a word.

Tie the white fillets then about your hair
And think no more of what will come to pass
Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass
And chattering on the air.

Practise your beauty, blue girls, before it fail;
And I will cry with my loud lips and publish
Beauty which all our power shall never establish,
It is so frail.

For I could tell you a story which is true;
I know a woman with a terrible tongue,
Blear eyes fallen from blue,
All her perfections tarnished – yet it is not long
Since she was lovelier than any of you.

3 comments:

Roxana said...

haha, a modern take on Ronsard, n'est-ce pas? :-)

Les Amours de Marie: VI


I’m sending you some flowers, that my hand

Picked just now from all this blossoming,

That, if they’d not been gathered this evening,

Tomorrow would be scattered on the ground.



Take this for an example, one that’s sound,

That your beauty, in all its flowering

Will fall, in a moment, quickly withering,

And like the flowers will no more be found.



Time goes by, my lady: time goes by,

Ah! It’s not time but we ourselves who pass,

And soon beneath the silent tomb we lie:



And after death there’ll be no news, alas,

Of these desires of which we are so full:

So love me now, while you are beautiful.

swiss said...

yes, i agree. and thatis lovely!

la fille said...

Marvellous words!