These are Michael R. Burch's modern English translations of the ancient Japanese poems of Ono no Komachi, who wrote tanka (also known as waka) and was renowned for the beauty of her verse as well as for her physical beauty. Komachi is best known today for her pensive, melancholic and erotic love poems. Her bio follows the poems.
If fields of autumn flowers
can shed their blossoms, shameless,
why can’t I also frolic here —
as fearless, wild and blameless?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I had thought to pluck
the flower of forgetfulness
......
The Best Medieval Poems in Modern English Translations by Michael R. Burch
These are modern English translations of Middle English poems and Old English/Anglo-Saxon poems by Anonymous, John Audelay, Caedmon, Charles d'Orleans, Geoffrey Chaucer, William Cornish, Deor, William Dunbar, Gildas, Godric of Finchale, King Henry VIII, Robert Henryson, William Herebert, Thomas Hoccleve, William Langland, Layamon, John Lydgate, The Pearl Poet, Thomas Phillipps, Richard of Caistre, Richard Rolle, James Ryman, John Skelton, William of Shoreham and Winfred aka St. Boniface. There are also modernizations of late Medieval poems by Thomas Campion, Sir Thomas Wyatt and Johann Angelus Silesius.
Some of the oldest English poems are among the most beautiful, including "Merciless Beauty" by Geoffrey Chaucer, "Sweet Rose of Virtue" by William Dunbar, and "Oft in My Thought" by Charles d'Orleans. All completely free here.
How Long the Night
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD)
......
These are modern English translations of poems written in German by Bertolt Brecht, who fled Nazi Germany along with Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and many other German intellectuals. Thus Bertolt Brecht was writing from bitter real-life experience.
The Burning of the Books
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
......
The Best Medieval Poems in Modern English Translations by Michael R. Burch
These are modern English translations of Middle English poems and Old English/Anglo-Saxon poems by Anonymous, John Audelay, Caedmon, Charles d'Orleans, Geoffrey Chaucer, William Cornish, Deor, William Dunbar, Gildas, Godric of Finchale, King Henry VIII, Robert Henryson, William Herebert, Thomas Hoccleve, William Langland, Layamon, John Lydgate, The Pearl Poet, Thomas Phillipps, Richard of Caistre, Richard Rolle, James Ryman, John Skelton, William of Shoreham and Winfred aka St. Boniface. There are also modernizations of late Medieval poems by Thomas Campion, Sir Thomas Wyatt and Johann Angelus Silesius.
Some of the oldest English poems are among the most beautiful, including "Merciless Beauty" by Geoffrey Chaucer, "Sweet Rose of Virtue" by William Dunbar, and "Oft in My Thought" by Charles d'Orleans. All completely free here.
How Long the Night
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD)
......
These are modern English translations of poems written in German by Bertolt Brecht, who fled Nazi Germany along with Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and many other German intellectuals. Thus Bertolt Brecht was writing from bitter real-life experience.
The Burning of the Books
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
......
These are Michael R. Burch's modern English translations of the ancient Japanese poems of Ono no Komachi, who wrote tanka (also known as waka) and was renowned for the beauty of her verse as well as for her physical beauty. Komachi is best known today for her pensive, melancholic and erotic love poems. Her bio follows the poems.
If fields of autumn flowers
can shed their blossoms, shameless,
why can’t I also frolic here —
as fearless, wild and blameless?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I had thought to pluck
the flower of forgetfulness
......