E um livro para oferecer: Poemas de Robert Frost, na edição Sterling

Depois da prenda de Natal em CD, a prenda em livro: o mais bonito que este ano folheei foi uma selecção de poemas de Robert Frost editada pela Sterling, New York (2017), com ilustrações (xilografias) de Thomas W. Nason. É dos tais livros que dá gosto ter nas mãos e percorrer devagarinho.

A Patch of Old Snow

There's a patch of old snow in a corner
         That I should have guessed
Was a blow-away paper the rain
         Had brought to rest.

It is speckled with grime as if
         Small print overspread it,
The news of a day I've fogotten
         If I ever read it.

The Telephone

"When I was just as far as I could walk
From here to-day,
There was an hour
All still
When leaning with my head against a flower
I heard you talk.
Don’t say I didn’t, for I heard you say—
You spoke from that flower on the window sill—
Do you remember what it was you said?"

“First tell me what it was you thought you heard.”

“Having found the flower and driven a bee away,
I leaned my head,
And holding by the stalk,
I listened and I thought I caught the word —
What was it? Did you call me by my name?
Or did you say —
Someone said ‘Come’ — I heard it as I bowed.”

“I may have thought as much, but not aloud.”

“Well, so I came.”

A Time to Talk

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.

             Quando um amigo me chama da estrada
             E abranda o passo em modo convivial de montar,
             Não me fico quieto, passeando o olhar
             Por todas as colinas de terra não lavrada,
             Nem grito de onde estou, É comigo ?
             Não, e não porque há um tempo para se falar.
             Enterro a sachola na terra amolecida,
             Lâmina para cima, cinco pés de altura bem medida,
             E marcho: sigo até à vedação empedrada
             Para uma visita de amigo.
                                                                  [tradução minha]

The Road Not Taken

(...)
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Bom Natal e um Ano Novo com excelentes leituras!