Monday, December 10, 2007

New Year poems?

A friend writes:

"I very much want to print a New Year’s card with some lines of verse that evoke something suitably literary and exquisite and “seasonal”—these, interpreted in any number of ways, but maybe creation, beginnings, cycles, etc., but open to other possibilities."

Does anyone have any good suggestions for New Year's poems? She has already used Bishop's translation of Paz's "January First."

And I already suggested Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Symbols are selected from the years'
Slow rounding of four seasons' coasts
--Dylan Thomas, "Here in This Spring"

swiss said...

okay so maybe it's not the new year in the sense you meant but i'm just done reading donne's nocturnall on s lucies day and i think it fits the bill

Ruth said...

Does anyone know which Rilke volume these lines are from? Also, an excellent English translation of the poem?

"Hast Du vergessen, daß Du mein Page bist für diesen Tag? Verlässest Du mich?
Wo gehst Du hin?
Dein weißes Kleid gibt mir Dein Recht -."

Andrew Shields said...

Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke

Don't know about which translation to recommend.