William Wordsworth: Lucia

«… ¿Crees, en el mundo infinito
de estos seres que hablan sin verbo,
que nada vendrá por sí mismo
y que siempre buscar debemos?…»
WW

Mi recuerdo al poeta de la «Oda a la inmortalidad»,  en el aniversario de su muerte.

«Lucia»

(Fragmentos)

VIVÍA en las regiones solitarias,
por donde nace el Dove,
una doncella a quien nadie alababa
y a quien querían pocos:

violeta junto a una musgosa piedra,
medio oculta al viandante,
bella como un lucero, cuando brilla,
muy solo, en el espacio.

Ignorada vivió, y pocos supieron
la muerte de Lucía;
mas ella está en la tumba, y para mí
ya todo ¡qué distinto!

* * *

Selló el sueño mi espíritu
y miedo no sentía:
ella me parecía corno algo que no siente
el roce de los años.

No tiene movimiento ya, ni fuerza,
no oye ni ve nada;
mezclada con el curso diario de la tierra,
con las rocas, las piedras y los árboles.

William Wordsworth

Traducción de Màrie Montand

Poema original completo en inglés:

«Lucy»

TRANGE fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover’s ear alone,
What once to me befell.

When she I loved look’d every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon.

Upon the moon I fix’d my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.

And now we reach’d the orchard-plot;
And, as we climb’d the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot
Came near and nearer still.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature’s gentlest boon!
And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.

My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopp’d:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropp’d.

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a lover’s head!
‘O mercy!’ to myself I cried,
‘If Lucy should be dead!’

II.

HE dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and oh,
The difference to me!

III.

TRAVELL’D among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

‘Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.

Among the mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;
And she I cherish’d turn’d her wheel
Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings show’d, thy nights conceal’d,
The bowers where Lucy play’d;
And thine too is the last green field
That Lucy’s eyes survey’d.

IV.

HREE years she grew in sun and shower;
Then Nature said, ‘A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own.

‘Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse; and with me
The girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power
To kindle or restrain.

‘She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.

‘The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;
Nor shall she fail to see
Even in the motions of the storm
Grace that shall mould the maiden’s form
By silent sympathy.

‘The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.

‘And vital feelings of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell;
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live
Here in this happy dell.’

Thus Nature spake — The work was done —
How soon my Lucy’s race was run!
She died, and left to me
This heath, this calm and quiet scene;
The memory of what has been,
And never more will be.

V.

SLUMBER did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seem’d a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Roll’d round in earth’s diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth nació en Cockermouth, el Cumberland, Inglaterra, el 7 de abril de 1770.
Fue uno de los más importantes poetas románticos ingleses.
Su obra influyó de modo determinante en el paisaje literario del siglo XIX. Fue el poeta laureado de Inglaterra desde 1843 hasta su muerte en 1850.
Murio en Rydal Monte, el 23 de abril de 1850.

También de William Wordsworth en este blog:

«William Wordsworth: Ella vagó por caminos nunca hollados»: AQUÍ

«William Wordsworth: Erraba solitario como una nube»: AQUÍ

«William Wordsworth: Oda a la inmortalidad»: AQUÍ 

«William Wordsworth: Vivía en las regiones solitarias»: AQUÍ 

» William Wordsworth: Cielo tras la borrasca»: AQUÍ

Sus obras más importantes:

Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (Baladas líricas, 1798).
Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems (Baladas líricas, 1800).
Poems, in Two Volumes (Poemas, en dos volúmenes, 1807)
Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1803), en la que destaca The Solitary Reaper.
Elegiac Stanzas, suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, painted by Sir George Beaumont (1805)
The Excursion (La excursión, 1814)
The Recluse, con su Prospectus
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. In Series (1821), en la que destacan Mutability e Inside of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge
The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet’s Mind: Advertisement (1850, póstumo)