Lorinc Szabo
Even if...?
I am joyful that I love you this way,
in this hot and painful way: I exist
to watch over you: I don’t even call you,
yet you are here: your troublingly lovely
dream eyes watch over my destiny,
and as old landscapes or years light up,
you light up, and I feel: you feel in your heart
the penitent tenderness of my heart.
This very joyfulness now, this very pain,
this unites us; and most (oh, immensely,
totally!) when across your lovely face
runs a smile, slightly mocking, but fully
knowing, trusting, and starts its provocation:
“This way, even if I were still alive?”
Lo´rinc Szabó (1900-1957) was a notable lyric poet and a translator of Englishlanguage poets, including Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson. The poems here are from his sonnet sequence, The Twenty-sixth Year, written between 1950 and 1956 to commemorate the suicide in 1950 of the woman who had been his lover for twenty-five years.
George Held, born in 1935, teaches English at Queens College, City University of New York. He co-edits The Ledge, and has published two chapbooks, Winged (1995) and Salamander Love and Others (1998). A collection of his poems, Beyond Renewal, is due to appear, and he is completing a collection of sonnets, After Shakespeare .
Katherine Mayer is a member of the Hungarian minority in Komárno, Slovakia, where she teaches high-school English. She has published a children’s book in English, Dusty (London, 1996).
George Held, born in 1935, teaches English at Queens College, City University of New York. He co-edits The Ledge, and has published two chapbooks, Winged (1995) and Salamander Love and Others (1998). A collection of his poems, Beyond Renewal, is due to appear, and he is completing a collection of sonnets, After Shakespeare .
Katherine Mayer is a member of the Hungarian minority in Komárno, Slovakia, where she teaches high-school English. She has published a children’s book in English, Dusty (London, 1996).
Translated by George Held, Katherine Mayer
Page(s) 178
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