Ballad About False Beacons

We’ve been bewitched by countless lies,

by azure images of ice,

by false promises of open sky and sea,

and rescued by a God we don’t believe.

Like coppers rattling from a beggar’s plate

guiding lights have fallen on our days

and burned and died.

                     We’ve pressed our ship

a pilgrimage of nights toward such lights

as, always elusive, lured and tricked

the keel upon the rocks and ripped

the helmhold from the hand and lashed

the beggared palm to scraps.

Ice tightens at the bow and breath.

To dock, to drop the anchor to its rest,

to drift (a dream!) on waters quieted

and calmed. We can’t. We’re after a mirage.

(The whiskered walrus brays; the sea salt thaws.

Again, we’re off!)

Raised on powdered milk, we’ll have no faith

in beacons any longer, nor mistake

real for fake, or waking for a dream.

Beacons can’t be trusted. Trust instead

the will of your own hand and head.

Again the captain waves his glass,

sights a beacon, turns and cries

"Helmsman! There’s a beacon. Are you blind?"

But Helmsman, with the truer eye

thinks mutiny and grumbles,

                            "A mirage."

Conversation with an American Writer

"You have courage,"

                    they tell me.

It's not true.

               I was never courageous.

I simply felt it unbecoming

to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.

I've shaken no foundations.

I simply mocked at pretense

                            and inflation.

Wrote articles.

                Scribbled no denunciations.

And tried to speak all

                       on my mind.

Yes,

     I defended men of talent,

branding the hacks,

                    the would-be writers.

But this, in general, we should always do;

and yet they keep stressing my courage.

Oh, our descendants will burn with bitter shame

to remember, when punishing vile acts,

that most peculiar

                   time,

                         when

plain honesty

              was labeled "courage"...

Translated by George Reavey

Lies

Lying to the young is wrong.

Proving to them that lies are true is wrong.

Telling them

            that God’s in his heaven

and all’s well with the world

                             is wrong.

They know what you mean.

                        They are people too.

Tell them the difficulties

                          can’t be counted,

and let them see

                not only

                        what will be

but see

       with clarity

                   these present times.

Say obstacles exist they must encounter,

sorrow comes,

             hardship happens.

The hell with it.

                 Who never knew

the price of happiness

                      will not be happy.

Forgive no error

                you recognize,

it will repeat itself,

                      a hundredfold

and afterward

             our pupils

will not forgive in us

                      what we forgave.

1952