DER YIDDISH-VINKL April 7, 2006
Readers of Der Vinkl need no introduction to Joan Braman, whose clever translations of English classics into Yiddish have graced our column often. She is with us again, in a translation of a sonnet by John Keats.
Bright Star
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art —
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors —
No — yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath
And so live ever — or else swoon to death.
Shterndl
Shterndl, volt ikh fest geven vi du —
Nor nit vi du in himlisher eynzamkayt
Heylik un mit an eybiker geduld.
Un farefnte oygn vos zeen fun der vaytns;
Nit kukndik oyf di vasern vos fleysn
Un reynikn di erd fun breg tsu breg.
Oder oyf di hoykhe berg un breyte plenen,
Vos mit nay-gefalener shney vern badekt —
Neyn — ober nokh fest un umbaytevdik,
Tsu lign vakhik oyf mayn shensters brust,
Vi a shifl fun di khvalkhelekh gevigt,
Dos harts tzerudert fun a zisn umruh,
Nokh, nokh ir shtiln otem nor tsu hern,
Un azoy oyf eybik leb, anit — nifter vern.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
