White founts falling in the Courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And
called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.Pero tanimientres m’aconorto con un poemeta breu que Chesterton escrivió poco dimpuesas d’estar acullito en a Ilésia católica:
O CONVERSO
Dimpués d’un inte quan burnié a
mia capeça
E o mundo cambió de raso e se
levantó,
E salié an que a viella endrecera
blanca hi brilava,
Facié os camins e sintié o que
dicivan toz os hombres,
Selvas de luengas, como fuellas d’agüerro
no caitas,
Sin estar no pas de mal amar sino
estránias e ligeras;
Viellos enigmas e nuevos credos,
no á penar de
Sino tovament, igual como hombres
que fan a rialleta per es muertos.
Os sábios tienen cien mapas que
dar
Que atraçan como un árbol o universo
suyo arrocegato,
Fan traquetiar a raçon á traviés de muitos porgadors
Que guardan l’arena e dixar
marchar l’oro;
E totas estas cosas menos que
polvo ta yo hi son
perque me dicen Laçaro e vivo.
THE CONVERT
After one moment when I bowed my head/ And the whole world turned over and came upright,/ And I came out where the old road shone white,/ Walked the ways and heard what all men said,/ Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,/ Being not unlovable but strange and light;/ Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite/ But softly, as men smile about the dead.// The sages have a hundred maps to give/ That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,/ They rattle reason out through many a sieve/ That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:/ And all these things are less than dust to me/ Because my name is Lazarus and I live.//
After one moment when I bowed my head/ And the whole world turned over and came upright,/ And I came out where the old road shone white,/ Walked the ways and heard what all men said,/ Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,/ Being not unlovable but strange and light;/ Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite/ But softly, as men smile about the dead.// The sages have a hundred maps to give/ That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,/ They rattle reason out through many a sieve/ That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:/ And all these things are less than dust to me/ Because my name is Lazarus and I live.//