• Thomas Hardy: The Darkling Thrush
• Robert frost: stopping by woods on a snowy evening
• Wallce Stevens: the snow man
• Wallace Stevens: Not Ideas about the thing but the thing itself
• Louis MacNeice: Snow

Thomas Hardy (1840 –1928)

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate                             kreupelbosje
When Frost was spectre-gray,                         spookachtig grijs
And Winter’s dregs made desolate                   overblijfselen
The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky             geklitte winde
Like strings of broken lyres,                            snaren, lieren
And all mankind that haunted nigh                   in de buurt
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seem’d to be            uiterlijkheden
The Century’s corpse outleant,                       uit het lood geslagen
His crypt the cloudy canopy,                           gewelf
The wind his death-lament.                            treurzang

The ancient pulse of germ and birth                kiem
Was shrunken hard and dry,                          gekrompen
And every spirit upon earth
Seem'd fervourless as I.                               uitgeblust

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead                             onbeschutte twijgen
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;                                            eindeloos

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,           lijster, vel over been
In blast-beruffled plume,                              door storm verwaaide
Had chosen thus to fling his soul                   werpen
Upon the growing gloom.                              duisternis

So little cause for carollings                         jubelen
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things                   aardse
Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through      trilde
His happy good-night air                               aria
Some blessèd Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.                                    Waar ik geen weet van had

Robert Frost (1874 – 1963)

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer               vreemd
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep                het razen
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

The Snow man

One must have a mind for winter
To regard the frost and the boughs              aanschouwen, takken
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;            pijnbomen

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,      jeneverbes, ruig door
The spruces rough in the distant glitter         sparrenhout

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place         kale

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

(1923)

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

Not Ideas about the Thing but the Thing Itself

At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside            broodmager
Seemed like a sound in his mind.

He knew that he heard it,
A bird's cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow . . . gehavende vederbos
It would have been outside.

It was not from the vast ventriloquism             buikspreken
Of sleep's faded papier-mache . . .                  vervaagde
The sun was coming from outside.

That scrawny cry-It was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.           Koorzanger, voorging
It was part of the colossal sun,

Surrounded by its choral rings,                       geluid vh koor
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.

(1954)

Louis MacNeice (1907 1963)

Snow

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was           erker
Spawning snow and pink rose against it                                      kuitschieten
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:                                     parallel
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion                                          meervoudig, schil
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel                                         mandarijn
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes --                             kwaadaardig
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands--
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.