WB Yeats

Je suis une fan absolue de Yeats et de sa poesie donc je voulais partager la chose ^^.

William Butler Yeats est un écrivain irlandais du début du XXème siècle. Né à Dublin, il a même reçu le Prix Nobel de la Littérature en 1923. Ses écrits sont toujours empreints de légendes celtiques et de mélancolie irlandaise .

L'une de mes poesies favorites c'est Mad as the mist and snow.


VO


Mad as the mist and snow.

Bolt and bar the shutter,
For the foul winds blow:
Our minds are at their best this night,
And I seem to know
That everything outside us is
Mad as the mist and snow.

Horace there by Homer stands,
Plato stands below,
And here is Tully's open page.
How many years ago
Were you and I unlettered lads
Mad as the mist and snow?

You ask what makes me sigh, old friend,
What makes me shudder so?
I shudder and I sigh to think
That even Cicero
And many-minded Homer were
Mad as the mist and snow.


VF

Fou comme brume mêlée de neige


Verrouille bien le volet,
Puisque les vents se déchainent.
Nous voyons vraiment clair ce soir
Et j'ai l'impression que je sais
Que tout là dehors est fou
Comme brume mêlée de neige.

Horace ici, prés d'Homère,
Sétale, et Platon dessous
Prés d'un Cicéron grand ouvert.
Que de temps depuis que tout deux
Nous étions ignares, et fous
Comme brume mêlée de neige!

Vous me demandez, mon ami,
Pourquoi je soupire et frissonne?
C'est de comprendre que même Cicéron, et Homère qui
En savait tant, furent fous
Comme brume mêlée de neige.

Y'en pas mal d'autres de merveilleux (tout d'ailleurs). J'ai mis celui-ci parce qu'il était court et que je l'affectionne particulierment . Si vous avez l'occasion lisez vraiment les Quarante-cinq poèmes et la Résurrection de Yeats dans la collèction Poche Poesie Gallimard (on a la vf et la vo comme ça). C'est un pur enchantement .

Loreena McKennitt a mis un de ses poèmes en musique "Cé hé mise le unlaight" ou "The two trees". Cette chanson est absolument magnifique...

Citation :

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with merry light;
The surety of its hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night;
The shaking of its leafy head
Has given the waves their melody.
And made my lips and music wed,
Murmuring a wizard song for thee,
There the Loves a circle go,
The flaming circle of our days,
Gyring, spiring to and fro
In those great ignorant leafy ways;
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the winged sandals dart
Thine eyes grow full of tender care;
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.

Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile,
Lift up before us when they pass,
Or only gaze a little while;
For there a fatal image grows
That the stormy night receives,
Roots half hidden under snows,
Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
For all things turn to bareness
In the dim glass the demons hold,
The glass of outer weariness,
Made when God slept in times of old.
There, through the broken branches, go
The ravens of unresting thought;
Flying, crying, to and fro,
Cruel claw and hungry throat,
Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
And shake their ragged wings: alas!
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
Gaze no more in the bitter glass.
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the winged sandals dart,
Thine eyes grow full of tender care;
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.