[First published in 1838 titled “Keats’s Last Sonnet” in the 1848 edition of Keats’s “Literary Remains” and thus throughout the 19^th c; now known as Bright Star. In the summer of 1818 Keats remarked that the scenery of the lake country “refine[s] one’s sensual vision into a sort of north star which can never cease to be open lidded and stedfast over the wonders of the great Power”; sometime before summer 1819 he drafted this sonnet, and in early autumn 1820 wrote it out again, with some variants, in the volume of Shakespeare’s poems he took to Italy. The opening line of this Shakespearean sonnet chimes with Caesar’s heroic declaration:  “I am constant as the Northern Star, / Of whose true-fixed and resting quality / There is no fellow in the firmament” (Julius Caesar 3.1.58-62).]

BRIGHT star, would I were steadfast as thou art–

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

Of pure ablution  round earth’s human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors–

No–yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever–or else swoon to death.

by Katie Ford

We love the stories of flood and the few

told to prepare in advance by their god.

In that story, the saved are

always us, meaning:

whoever holds the book.

From Colosseum (Graywolf), copyright 2008 Katie Ford

Sonya Posmentier writes:

I’ve chosen this poem from Katie Ford’s Colosseum in honor of hurricane season. Ford’s book is one of a few recent poetry collections responding to Hurricane Katrina—see also, Ray McDaniel’s Saltwater Empire and Patricia Smith’s Blood Dazzler. In different ways, these books all engage the question of whose experience is this, or whose story is this to tell. Ford’s beautifully compressed poem seems to ask not only about who gets to tell the story, but who gets to read it. The poem binds the speaker-poet and the reader into an empowered “We.”

What does the conclusion of the poem suggest about the power of holding “the book”? It’s hard not to picture Prospero, here. Is this about literacy–either in a literal sense or in some broader cultural sense?

What do you think about Ford’s turn to the universal, on the one hand (“stories of flood”) and, on the other, to the particular biblical story implied by the title? What does it mean to contextualize Katrina in this way?

by Julian Tuwim

(“Litania” by Julian Tuwim has been selected for Poetry@Princeton by David Bellos of the Department of French and Italian. Professor Bellos has provided the original Polish, a translation, and his own adaptation. We invite comments about the poem itself and in relation to questions of translation and adaptation. Such questions will also be taken up at the Translation Symposium on April 15th.)

Modlę się, Boże, żarliwie,
Modlę się, Boże, serdecznie:
Za krzywdę upokorzonych,
Za drżenie oczekujących,
Za wieczny niepowrót zmarłych,
Za konających bezsilność,
Za smutek niezrozumianych,
Za beznadziejnie proszących,
Za obrażonych, wyśmianych,
Za głupich, złych i maluczkich,
Za tych, co biegną zdyszani
Do najbliższego doktora,
Za tych, co z miasta wracają
Z bijącym sercem do domu,
Za potrąconych grubiańsko,
Za wygwizdanych w teatrze,
Za nudnych, brzydkich, niezdarnych,
Za słabych, bitych, gnębionych,
Za tych, co usnąć nie mogą,
Za tych, co śmierci się boją,
Za czekających w aptekach
I za spóźnionych na pociąg,
– ZA WSZYSTKICH MIESZKAŃCÓW ŚWIATA,
Za ich kłopoty, frasunki,
Troski, przykrości, zmartwienia,
Za niepokoje i bóle,
Tęsknoty, niepowodzenia,
Za każde drgnienie najmniejsze,
Co nie jest szczęściem, radością,
Która niech ludziom tym wiecznie
Przyświeca jeno życzliwie –
Modlę się, Boże, serdecznie,
Modlę się, Boże, żarliwie!

Litany

By Julian Tuwim

My Lord my prayer goes forth
My Lord my heart sings out:
To the hurt of the humiliated
To those who await and who tremble
To the eternal departure of those whom death has embraced
To those who perish all helpless
To the sorrow of the misunderstood
To those who petition in vain
To the ridiculed, the insulted
To the stupid, the wicked, small-hearted
To those who run, lose their breath
Seeking the doctor’s cold touch
To those who return to their homes
With their hearts beating aquiver
To the jostled, insulted
To those booed off the stage
To the boring, the ugly, the awkward
To the weak, the trampled, the tortured
To those whom slumber eludes
To those whom the pharmacists expect
To those whose trains have departed
TO ALL THOSE WHO INHABIT OUR WORLD
To all their troubles and worries
Their aches, their hurts, their distress
To their unease and their pain
Their longings, their failures
To every tremor, the slightest,
Which their misfortunes foretells
Let eternal happiness shine upon them
My Lord my heart sings out
My Lord, my prayer goes forth

Translated by Agnieszka Gerwel and Michal Wilk

O Lord
To thee I sing from the heart
To thee I pray from the soul
For those who have been hurt and humbled
For those who only wait and quake
For those who will never return
For those who perish alone without help
For the sorrowfully misunderstood
For those in the queue with hopeless claims
For the scorned and the insulted
For the stupid, the wicked and the mean
For those who run out of breath on their way to the doctor’s
And come back home with a pounding heart
For the harried and hassled
For actors booed off stage
For the boring, the ugly and ham-fisted
For the weak, the trampled and the tortured
For those who cannot sleep
For those who fear death
For regulars at the pharmacy
For those who missed their train
FOR ALL WHO LIVE ON THIS PLANET
On their worries and troubles
On their distress and disarray
On their aches and their pains
On their failures and aspirations
On the slightest quiver stirred in them
By the shadow of their misfortune
Let happiness shine for ever and a day
I pray thee
O Lord

Julian Tuwim
Adapted by David Bellos