Peschiera

Omdat een mens niet altijd moet wachten tot het dag van de poëzie is!

What voice did on my spirit fall,
Peschiera! When thy bridge I cross’d?
“‘Tis better to have fought and lost
Than never to have fought at all!”

The tricolour — a trampled rag
Lies, dirt and dust; the lines I track
By sentry boxes, yellow-black,
Lead up to no Italian flag.

I see the Croat soldier stand
Upon the grass of your redoubts;
The eagle with his black wings flouts
The breadth and beauty of your land.

Yet not in vain, although in vain,
O men of Brescia! on the day
Of loss past hope I heard you say
Your welcome to the noble pain.

You said — “Since so it is, goodbye,
Sweet life! High hope! But whatsoe’er
May be, or must, no tongue shall dare
To tell — the Lombard fear’d to die.”

You said (O not in vain you said) —
“Haste, brothers! Haste, while yet we may,
The hours ebb fast of this one day
When blood may yet be nobly shed.”

Ah! Not for idle hatred, not
For honour, fame, nor self-applause,
But for the glory of the Cause
You did what will not be forgot.

And though the stranger stand, ’tis true, —
By force and fortune’s right he stands :
By fortune, which is in God’s hands;
And strength, which yet shall spring in you.

This voice did on my spirit fall,
Peschiera! When thy bridge I cross’d;
“Tis better to have fought and lost
Than never to have fought at all.”

      — Arthur Hugh Clough, 1849

2 reacties op “Peschiera”

  1. Wegens tijdsgebrek bij eerste lezing enkel de twee laatste zinnetjes gelezen, en die spreken mij zeker aan. Bij een volgende pauze dan de twee zinnetjes daarvoor..en zo voort.

  2. Ah, schoon, schoon, uit de tijd dat mannen nog mannen waren en zelfs mannelijke poëten, mannelijke poëten waren…

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