Down By The Carib Sea (James Weldon Johnson)

 

Dolce far niente

 

 
Caribbean Sea door Dmitry Spiros, 2013

 

Down By The Carib Sea

I
Sunrise in the Tropics

Sol, Sol, mighty lord of the tropic zone,
Here I wait with the trembling stars
To see thee once more take thy throne.

There the patient palm tree watching
Waits to say, ‘Good morn’ to thee,
And a throb of expectation
Pulses through the earth and me.

Now, o’er nature falls a hush,
Look! the East is all a-blush;
And a growing crimson crest
Dims the late stars in the west;
Now, a flood of golden light
Sweeps acress the silver night,
Swift the pale moon fades away
Before the light-girt King of Day,
See! the miracle is done!
Once more behold! The Sun!

II
Los Cigarillos

This is the land of the dark-eyed
gente,

Of the
dolce far niente,

Where we dream away
Both the night and day,
At night-time in sleep our dreams we invoke,
Our dreams come by day through the redolent smoke,
As it lazily curls,
And slowly unfurls
From our lips,
And the tips
Of our fragrant cigarillos.
For life in the tropics is only a joke,
So we pass it in dreams, and we pass it in smoke,
Smoke — smoke — smoke.

Tropical constitutions
Call for occasional revolutions;
But after that’s through,
Why there’s nothing to do
But smoke — smoke;
For life in the tropics is only a joke,
So we pass it in dreams, and we pass it in smoke,
Smoke — smoke — smoke.

 

 
James Weldon Johnson (17 juni 1871 – 26 juni 1938)

 

Zie voor de schrijvers van de 4^e juni ook mijn blog van 4 juni 2015 deel 1 en ook deel 2.