[Who crumples the laurel at Delphi] (tr. by John Montague)

ROBERT MARTEAU

[I CONSENT THAT EVERYTHING VANISHES]

I consent that everything vanishes

If the fount arises which surges

In spray: joy where the current gushes

Even if no trace of us remains

After the tracks shall have passed

Even if nowhere a remnant

Remains like a furrow left

Beneath the sown meadow

Behold the field aloft

The pathway our planets trace

The coveted milk so many crumbs

Which no hand gathers up there.

[WHO CRUMPLES THE LAUREL AT DELPHI]

Who crumples the laurel at Delphi

Chews it and spits the poem

Is no more than the shadow of his self

Who walks and hobbles a drunken worker

Of the eleventh hour the one sounding

The ultimate call for the gift

And the duty in one single thistle

Offered to one who receives and gives

May also from Orpheus in Argos

Come the voice of empurpled stains

On the sea whose waters

Subject to fear roll to chaos

The song the flesh and the bones

Din so akin to silence

That no one knows the science

For certain of where the echos pound.

Structure

31 lines · 5 stanzas