[Plants and planets] (tr. by John Montague)

ROBERT MARTEAU

(PLANTS AND PLANETS]

Plants and planets

Obey the same heaven;

As beasts and men

Are nourished by the same sun;

And the metal in the mine

Warms minute stars,

Sulphurous flowers so delicate

They live in every corpuscule.

Dwarves and giants are

Powder and dust thrown far

Without fall or check whirl

To the four cornerless, angleless

Worlds, peopled with angels,

But others say not at all.

Their worlds seem

Fired from a cannon,

Fired by whom by chance,

This expanding consequence,

The fruit of some grapeshot

Without any intelligence.

Translated by John Montague

Structure

23 lines · 8 stanzas