ROMANIAN ASTROHUMANISM (XIII)

STAR VERSE

Foreword, selection and English translations from the Romanian
by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
Design (including the constellation Cassiopeia photo)
by Gabriel Ivanescu

 

.


We live on a small planet, which orbits around a star.
A small star surrounded by an unimaginable number of stars,
which have given so much inspiration to the poets of our world.
Here is a collection of remarkable star verses by
Romanian great poets, written before the Second World War,
and chosen for sentimental, aesthetic and philosophic satisfactions
of the readers:
 


The stars loving each other,
The sky loving the Earth…
-Ion Budai-Deleanu (1760-1763)-

I don’t care if I am in war with the stars, sun and moon
When you are with me, my merciful love…
-Alecu Vacarescu (1769-1798)-

From the sky, eternal stars shine over our darkness…
-Gheorghe Asachi (1788-1869)-

Look, the universal and vast sacrifice, without borders.
The whole world is a temple, and the Earth is the altar.
The sky with shining stars is the cover…
-Ion Heliade-Radulescu (1802-1872)-

In stars, like in worlds of light,
There are souls - angels that I sing and adore…
-Grigore Alexandrescu (1810-1885)-

Why do you believe in poetry,
In sacred harmony
Of heavenly canopy,
When the clear night
Smiles, crowned by
Stars that you love?
-Vasile Alecsandri (1821-1990)-

Golden stars over the calm sea
Appear neat, my sweet infinity!
-Dimitrie Bolintineanu (1825-1872)

Colonies of golden stars from the heavenly hive
Gush as white rivers, and scatter the infinite…
-Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889)-

Even if today, between people, there are only pathetic neuroses,
The sky is still full of stars, and the field is still full of roses…
-Alexandru Macedonski (1854-1920)-

From the beginning of the world, the suns
Stay so solidary …
-George Cosbuc (1866-1918)-

Living transiently on Earth
Today you are too far from stars -
But you soul, there is no word
To abandon them…
-Stefan Octavian Iosif (1875-1913)-

A sweet harmony will fall from stars,
And the sky’s father, full of soft-heartedness,
Will shout from beams: “Excelsior!”
-Iuliu Cezar Savescu (1876-1903)-

The flag of the night, spread with stars,
Housed my facts…
-Tudor Arghezi (1880-1967)-

You so clean beam lowering from stars
To lighten the night of my solitude…
-Octavian Goga (1881-1938)-

Look, the whisper of happiness
Which drives moments and moves suns…
-Panait Cerna (1881-1913)-

We shall start burdened with stars,
Lightening alone the road - fire spirals
In astral sparkles…
-Victor Eftimiu (1889-1972)-

The tree of the nights
Blossomed stars…
-Ion Pillat (1891-1945)-

During the night, all the stellar gold
And all the flowering of fluid reflexes…
-Ion Barbu (1895-1961)-

Oh stars, not even you have a target on your road,
but maybe that’s why you conquer immensity!
-Lucian Blaga (1895-1961)-

Abstract nights,
Exact stars.
-Dan Botta (1907-1958)-

Death looks for me down here,
But my eyes go to stars.
-Dimitrie Stelaru (1917-1971)-

.

Before the end, some verses
by two poets with extremely tragic destinies:

Oh my body which vegetally ties me to the shore!
Oh my thought - a collapse of stars and metal!
-Benjamin Fundoianu (alias Benjamin Fondane, 1898-1944;
he was a Romanian-Jewish avant-garde poet
who emigrated in France,
where he was arrested and killed by Nazis
in Auschwitz-Birkenau)-

Even stars in heavens are yoked into constellations…
-Vasile Voiculescu (1884-1963;
he was a doctor imprisoned by communists,
and this approached his death)-

It is my duty to hope that now they are living in a better world,
among the stars.

.

And finally, some verses
which could crown this collection:

-two by a Romanian poet remarked between the two World Wars:

I don’t find my peace in books,
But in the Gospel of stars…

-Mihail Celarianu-

-and, again, two by the greatest Romanian literary personality
in the XXth century:

From a shoulder to another,
I silently carry my star as a burden.

-Lucian Blaga-

.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

-Florin Sindrilaru, “Excelsior - an Anthology of
Romanian Poetry”, Minerva, Bucharest, 1982
-Al. Dima, “Cosmic Vision in Romanian Poetry”,
Junimea, Iasi (Romania), 1982
-Ion Holban, “Sun, Moon, Evening Star”,
Hyperion, Chisinau (Moldavian Republic), 1991
-various Romanian poetry anthologies


© 2007 SARM
(Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy)