Arthur O' Shaughnessy
Arthur William Edgar O' Shaughnessy (marzo 14, 1844 hasta enero 30, 1881) fue un poeta británico de origen irlandés, nacido en Londres.
A la edad de diecisiete años, en junio de 1861, Arthur O'Shaughnessy recibió el cargo de escribiente en la biblioteca del Museo Británico, a través de la influencia de Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. Dos años más tarde, a la edad de diecinueve años, se convirtió en un herpetólogo en el museo zoológico. Sin embargo, su verdadera pasión era la literatura. Publicó su primer libro de poesía, Epic of Women, en 1870, dos años más tarde por Lays of France en 1872, y luego Music and Moonlight en 1874. Cuando tenía treinta años se casó y no produjo más volúmenes de poesía en los últimos siete años de su vida. Su último volumen, Songs of a Worker, se publicó póstumamente en 1881.
Con mucho, la más notable de las obras son las líneas iniciales de la Oda de su libro Music and Moonlight (1874):
Ode
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample a kingdom down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
A breath of our inspiration
Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming—
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.
They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising;
They had no divine foreshowing
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man's soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man's heart.
And therefore to-day is thrilling
With a past day's late fulfilling;
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,
Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.
But we, with our dreaming and singing,
Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing:
O men! it must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,
A little apart from ye.
For we are afar with the dawning
And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry—
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God's future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.
Great hail! we cry to the comers
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things that we dreamed not before:
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.
Dentro de la literatura, y especialmente dentro de ese género fantástico que llamamos mitología, y en ocasiones religión, existen innumerables lugares de trascendencia, casi para cualquier cosa que podamos imaginar: las almas de los piadosos conocerán cielo cristiano, o el Olimpo griego, el Tir-Na-Nog celta, los Elíseos romanos, o el Valhala escandinavo. Las almas impías conocerán el Hades, el Tártaro, el Sheol o el frío Helheim; incluso los animales y vegetales tienen su lugar de reposo final en las distintas mitologías. Pero el único sitio de descanso pensado para las lágrimas hay que buscarlo, naturalmente, en la poesía.
El poeta Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy ha soñado con ese extraño país; donde la pena y la desdicha no son castigos, y donde la tristeza encuentra el único lugar donde es bienvenida. Probablemente, ustedes ya hayan visitado esta lejana tierra, pues todos alguna vez hemos sido transportados allí en las alas del infortunio. Hoy les pido que me acompañen nuevamente, dejando de lado el infortunio, y viajando sólo de la mano de la poesía; hasta aquella remota Fuente, en la que descansan todas nuestras lágrimas.
La Fuente de las Lágrimas
Atravesando desiertos y montañas,
lejos en el País del Dolor,
durante mañanas, días y noches,
o acaso durante meses y años;
con el corazón palpitando desgarrado,
el cuerpo sediento y abrumado,
ciertamente llegarás hasta tu destino,
en La Fuente de las Lágrimas.
Solemne y pacífico es aquel lugar,
sólo para el llanto lastimoso y el suspirar,
para los que en vida o muerte arriban,
junto con sus miedos y fantasías.
Sombríos cipreses adornan el lugar,
con máscaras que velan todos los rostros,
y de aquellas brumosas penumbras
brota cálida y hermosa, La Fuente de las Lágrimas.
Así flota y flota, en una danza
tan gentil como encantadora,
susurrando apenas su melodía armoniosa;
para aquel que debió sufrir y oír
(como tú, seguramente) en pesaroso silencio.
Arrodíllate allí y conoce a tu corazón roto,
y derrama la emoción tanto tiempo contenida,
allí, en La Fuente de las Lágrimas.
Porque crece y crece, como si al rozar
sus celestiales alturas uno pensase
si alguna de sus melodías pueden hundirse
en los oídos con más ternura.
Sí, venerable y bendita parece la Fuente
alcanzada tras el desierto y la montaña.
Allí caerás al fin en un profundo llanto,
y lavarás con lágrimas la tristeza de tu rostro.
¡Entonces el asombro! Mientras yaces allí por un tiempo,
y te debates entre la vida y la muerte,
abandonando la tierra que intentabas
alcanzar con tus miedos y esperanza,
el mundo se alzará y descenderá sobre tí.
Hombres fuertes no permanecerán para cuidarte,
ni se preguntarán porqué razón
tu camino es más duro que el de ellos.
Y mientras allí descansas, tus mejillas
no rechazarán las húmedas hojas,
ni te importará secar tus cabellos mojados,
o contemplar cómo el frío mundo amanece.
Tal vez, en aquel silencio que te rodea,
sientas que toda la Angustia finalmente te ha alcanzado.
Sí, hasta las nubes que sobre tí se pasean
quizás ayuden a vaciar tu alma de toda Pena.
Entonces puedes sentir, cuando una perdida hoja acaricie
tu rostro, que se trata de un beso que alguien ha enviado,
o soñar al menos que en algún sitio eres extrañado,
y que ese anhelo hasta tí llega, si eso te alegra.
O la humilde canción de un pájaro, desmayado y roto,
pueda pasar por una sensible palabra hablada,
mientras a tu alrededor se precipita
aquella Fuente que ahoga la vida en Lágrimas.
Y el llanto fluirá, cada vez más rápido,
confundiendo y derribando toda resistencia,
rodando abajo hasta que toda la desolación pasada,
bajo el peso de los años quede sepultada;
hasta que cubra cada hebra de tu desdicha,
y te dejen sin historia y sin mañana.
¿Pues quién entre los mortales puede someter
a la gran Fuente de las Lágrimas?
Pero la Angustia y las Lágrimas se encuentran y juntan,
y el sonido que emiten crece como el trueno.
¿En qué oscuro abismo, me pregunto,
descansa la pena de todos nuestros años?
Pues sólo la Eternidad parece llevar
la cuenta del gran Lamento humano.
Tal vez Dios, el Hacedor y Padre,
haya creado un sitio para nuestras perdidas lágrimas.
El poema La Fuente de las Lágrimas fue traducido por El Espejo Gótico.
Fallen Flowers
One of the workers of the world
Living toiled and toiling died;
But others worked and the world went on,
And was not changed when he was gone,
A strong arm stricken, a wide sail furled;
And only a few men sighed.
One of the heroes of the world
Fought to conquer, then fought to fail,
And fell down slain in his blood-stained mail,
And over his form they stept;
His cause was lost and his banner furled;
And only a woman wept.
One of the singers among mankind
Sang healing songs from an o'erwrought heart
But ere men listened the grass and wind
Were wasting the rest unsung like a wave;
And now of his fame that will ne'er depart
He has never heard in his grave.
One of the women who only love
Loved and grieved and faded away:
Ah me! are these gone to the God above,
What more of each can I say?
They are human flowers that flower and fall,
This is the song and the end of them all.
SONG OF A FELLOW-WORKER
I found a fellow-worker when I deemed I toiled alone:
My toil was fashioning thought and sound, and his was hewing stone;
I worked in the palace of my brain, he in the common street,
And it seemed his toil was great and hard, while mine was great and sweet.
I said, O fellow-worker, yea, for I am a worker too.
The heart nigh fails me many a day, but how is it with you?
For while I toil great tears of joy will sometimes fill my eyes.
And when I form my perfect work it lives and never dies.
I carve the marble of pure thought until the thought takes form,
Until it gleams before my soul and makes the world grow warm;
Until there comes the glorious voice and words that seem divine,
And the music reaches all men's hearts and draws them into mine.
And yet for days it seems my heart shall blossom never more,
And the burden of my loneliness lies on me very sore:
Therefore, O hewer of the stones that pave base human ways.
How canst thou bear the years till death, made of such thankless days?
Then he replied: Ere sunrise, when the pale lips of the day
Sent forth an earnest thrill of breath at warmth of the first ray,
A great thought rose within me, how, while men asleep had lain.
The thousand labours of the world had grown up once again.
The sun grew on the world, and on my soul the thought grew too —
A great appalling sun, to light my soul the long day through.
I felt the world's whole burden for a moment, then began
With man's gigantic strength to do the labour of one man.
I went forth hastily, and lo! I met a hundred men.
The worker with the chisel and the worker with the pen, —
The restless toilers after good, who sow and never reap.
And one who maketh music for their souls that may not sleep.
Each passed me with a dauntless look, and my undaunted eyes
Were almost softened as they passed with tears that strove to rise
At sight of all those labours, and because that every one,
Ay, the greatest, would be greater if my little were undone.
They passed me, having faith in me, and in our several ways.
Together we began to-day as on the other days:
I felt their mighty hands at work, and, as the day wore through.
Perhaps they felt that even I was helping somewhat too:
Perhaps they felt, as with those hands they lifted mightily
The burden once more laid upon the world so heavily.
That while they nobly held it as each man can do and bear.
It did not wholly fall my side as though no man were there.
And so we toil together many a day from morn till night,
I in the lower depths of life, they on the lovely height;
For though the common stones are mine, and they have lofty cares,
Their work begins where this leaves off, and mine is part of theirs.
And 'tis not wholly mine or theirs I think of through the day,
But the great eternal thing we make together, I and they;
Far in the sunset I behold a city that man owns,
Made fair with all their nobler toil, built of my common stones.
Then noonward, as the task grows light with all the labour done.
The single thought of all the day becomes a joyous one;
For, rising in my heart at last where it has lain so long,
It thrills up seeking for a voice, and grows almost a song.
But when the evening comes, indeed, the words have taken wing.
The thought sings in me still, but I am all too tired to sing;
Therefore, O you my friend, who serve the world with minstrelsy,
Among our fellow-workers' songs make that one song for me.
St. John Baptist (1870)
Related Portals.related portals: Christian poetry.
I think he had not heard of the far towns;
Nor of the deeds of men, nor of kings' crowns;
Before the thought of God took hold of him,
As he was sitting dreaming in the calm
Of one first noon, upon the desert's rim,
Beneath the tall fair shadows of the palm,
All overcome with some strange inward balm.
He numbered not the changes of the year,
The days, the nights, and he forgot all fear
Of death: each day he thought there should have been
A shining ladder set for him to climb
Athwart some opening in the heavens, e'en
To God's eternity, and see, sublime —
His face whose shadow passing fills all time.
But he walked through the ancient wilderness.
O, there the prints of feet were numberless
And holy all about him I And quite plain
He saw each spot an angel silver-shod
Had lit upon; where Jacob too had lain
The place seemed fresh, — and, bright and lately trod,
A long track showed where Enoch walked with God.
And often, while the sacred darkness trailed
Along the mountains smitten and unveiled
By rending lightnings, — over all the noise
Of thunders and the earth that quaked and bowed
From its foundations — he could hear the voice
Of great Elias prophesying loud
To Him whose face was covered by a cloud.
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