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DER YIDDISH-VINKL June 2, 2006

Joan Braman returns to the Vinkl with another translation of an English classic into Yiddish. This time, the poet is John Keats.

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket

The poetry of earth is never dead:

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,

And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;

That is the Grasshopper’s — he takes the lead

In summer luxury, he has never done

With his delights; for when tired out with fun

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

On a lone winter evening, when the frost

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills

The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,

And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,

The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

Der Shpringer un di Gril

Di poezye fun natur shtarbt keynmol nit

Ven fun heyser zun di ale feygl shvindlen.

Un behaltn zikh in beymer, es yogt a shtim.

Fun ployt tsu ployt in di felder nay geshnitn;

Funem bal-simkhe, der shpringer, er firt on

Dem zumer voylgeyn — un hert nit oyf zayn lid;

Nor ven fun freyen zikh er vert shoyn mid,

Er rut zikh op a vayl in grinem land.

Di poezye fun natur iz on an ek;

Oyf a vinter ovnt,ven der frost makht sholem

Un shtil di velt, m’hert vi epes klingt

A tshiriken aroys fun pripitshik;

S’is dos kol fun gril, un s’dukht mir, halb-farkholemt

Az in di grine berg der shpringer shpringt.

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