De Engelse dichter Andrew Marvell werd geboren in Winestead, Yorkshire op 31 maart 1621 in Londen. Zie ook alle tags voor Andrew Marvell op dit blog.
The Character Of Holland (Fragment)
Yet still his claim the Injur’d Ocean laid,
And oft at Leap-frog ore their Steeples plaid:
As if on purpose it on Land had come
To shew them what’s their Mare Liberum.
A daily deluge over them does boyl;
The Earth and Water play at Level-coyl;
The Fish oft-times the Burger dispossest,
And sat not as a Meat but as a Guest;
And oft the Tritons and the Sea-Nymphs saw
Whole sholes of Dutch serv’d up for Cabillan;
Or as they over the new Level rang’d
For pickled Herring, pickled Heeren chang’d.
Nature, it seem’d, asham’d of her mistake,
Would throw their land away at Duck and Drake.
Therefore Necessity, that first made Kings,
Something like Government among them brings.
For as with Pygmees who best kills the Crane,
Among the hungry he that treasures Grain,
Among the blind the one-ey’d blinkard reigns,
So rules among the drowned he that draines.
Not who first see the rising Sun commands,
But who could first discern the rising Lands.
Who best could know to pump an Earth so leak
Him they their Lord and Country’s Father speak.
To make a Bank was a great Plot of State;
Invent a Shov’l and be a Magistrate.
Hence some small Dyke-grave unperceiv’d invades
The Pow’r, and grows as ’twere a King of Spades.
But for less envy some Joynt States endures,
Who look like a Commission of the Sewers.
For these Half-anders, half wet, and half dry,
Nor bear strict service, nor pure Liberty.
Andrew Marvell (31 maart 1621 – 16 augustus 1678)
Portret, toegeschreven aan Godfrey Kneller
De Engelse schrijver en essayist John Fowles werd geboren in Leigh-on-Sea (Essex) op 31 maart 1926. Zie ook alle tags voor John Fowles op dit blog.
Uit: The Journals
“5 November 1949
Guy Fawkes night. A great crowd of people, vaguely contented at shaking off the discipline of the world as it is. The undergraduates form the largest part, for the most part just watching, with a few active spirits shouting, calling, singing, making speeches. A certain air of forcedness about all these crowds. Fireworks shooting up, and people exploding away from them when they land. The police and the proctors standing ineffectively. Buses moving slowly, cars being rocked and thumped. Many climb up the scaffolding around the Martyr’s Memorial,1 then a vague move is made to the Taj Mahal restaurant where there is a man climbing up, men shouting, and a solid mass of people. Water out of the windows.
Basically one cannot help feeling contempt for all this canaille, noisily and offensively drunk yet not doing anything positive. Most of them posturing in a ridiculous manner. A good many girls, who seem the most genuinely excited.
To a certain extent there is a vast good will that can be sensed; roughly everyone is together and enjoying themselves, with the police and the proctors symbolizing all kinds of emotion and, ultimately, the determinism in life. GH and BB both enjoy themselves, and look for some means to manifest their lawlessness. I have absolutely no desire to do anything else but watch, wanting to be everywhere and see everything, observing people’s faces. Roger Hendry2 is like me but not so finely ‘set’, for he has to pretend to a certain lawlessness which isn’t innate in him at all.
Too many of the faces are vacuous and want filling.
The sight of the girl in green, about whom I wrote the Hospital story, with a thick well set-up young man, is distressing. Above all the sight of the moon, nearly full, in a clear night sky, not particularly cold, after a dull, rainy day. I wanted very much to see one of the people who climbed the Memorial fall down to his death. The indrawn breath and sudden laugh would have been most effective”.
John Fowles (31 maart 1926 – 5 november 2005)
De Engelse dichter, schrijver en vertaler Edward FitzGerald werd geboren in Woodbridge, Suffolk, op 31 maart 1809. Zie ook alle tags voor Edward FitzGerald op dit blog.
Uit: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
III
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted–“Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more.”
IV
Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.
VI
And David’s Lips are lock’t; but in divine
High piping Pehleví, with “Wine! Wine! Wine!
Red Wine!”–the Nightingale cries to the Rose
That yellow Cheek of hers to’ incarnadine.
Vertaald door Edward FitzGerald
Edward FitzGerald (31 maart 1809 – 14 juni 1883)
Illustratie door Edmund Dulac uit de Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
De Schotse dichter, schrijver en journalist Andrew Lang werd geboren op 31 maart 1844 in Selkirk. Zie ook alle tags voor Andrew Lang op dit blog.
Spring
Now the bright crocus flames, and now
The slim narcissus takes the rain,
And, straying o’er the mountain’s brow,
The daffodilies bud again.
The thousand blossoms wax and wane
On wold, and heath, and fragrant bough,
But fairer than the flowers art thou,
Than any growth of hill or plain.
Ye gardens, cast your leafy crown,
That my Love’s feet may tread it down,
Like lilies on the lilies set:
My Love, whose lips are softer far
Than drowsy poppy petals are,
And sweeter than the violet!
In Ithaca
‘Tis thought Odysseus when the strife was o’er
With all the waves and wars, a weary while,
Grew restless in his disenchanted isle,
And still would watch the sunset, from the shore,
Go down the ways of gold, and evermore
His sad heart followed after, mile on mile,
Back to the Goddess of the magic wile,
Calypso, and the love that was of yore.
Thou too, thy haven gained, must turn thee yet
To look across the sad and stormy space,
Years of a youth as bitter as the sea,
Ah, with a heavy heart, and eyelids wet,
Because, within a fair forsaken place
The life that might have been is lost to thee.
Andrew Lang (31 maart 1844 – 20 juli 1912)
Andrew Lang aan het werk. Ets door J. F. Jungling, 1894
De Franse schrijver, dichter en journalist Robert Brasillach werd geboren in Perpignan op 31 maart 1909. Zie ook alle tags voor Robert Brasillach op dit blog.
PSAUME I
L’ouvrage de méchants demeure périssable,
Les idoles d’argent qu’ils se sont élevées
S’écrouleront un jour sur leur base de sable
Et la nuit tombera sur leurs formes rêvées.
O Seigneur, nous qu’ils ont enfermés sous ces portes.
Nous qu’ils ont verrouillés derrière ces verrous,
Nous pour qui les soldats de ces murailles fortes
Font dans les corridors sonner leurs pas à clous,
O Seigneur, vous savez que couchés sur la paille
Ou sur le dur ciment des prisons sans hublot,
Nous avons su garder en nous, vaille que vaille,
L’espoir sans défaillance envers des jours plus beaux.
Nous avons rassemblé les anciennes tendresses,
Nous avons dessiné sur le plâtre des murs
Les magiques portraits de nos saintes jeunesses
Et nos coeurs sans remords savent qu’ils restent purs.
La sottise au dehors dans le sang rouge baigne,
Et l’ennemi déjà s’imagine immortel,
Mais lui seul croit encore au long temps de son règne
Et nos barreaux, Seigneur, ne cachent pas le ciel.
Robert Brasillach (31 maart 1909 – 6 februari 1945)