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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