Crabbe: La riba

Blake 1809

"Sol havia de viure cada dia; esperava

la tardana marea a certes hores;

i repetidament, segons les hores, veia

la línia d'aiguamolls, l'arbre amb malura,

l'aigua només, si era alta la marea,

i en la marea baixa el fang mullat a mitges;

quitrà cremat de sol a les fustes inflant-se

i estaques de la riba en desiguals rengleres;

munts d'embullada jonça, que flota a poc a poc

quan l'aigua llisca vora el bot immòbil.

Si en dia xafogós passava la marea

minvant entre fangoses ribes altes

que s'inflen als costats in es veia a sota,

lent, el corrent ombrívol i càlid en silenci,

ancorat allí, Pere dels homes s'amagava

i, acotant el cap, veia la marea mandrosa

lliscar pel llefiscós canal de mica en mica,

on les anguiles joves, deixant rutes profundes

per la platja calenta, juguen en l'aigua soma;

on els oberts mariscos, abandonats al fang,

llisquen per lents passatges cap al corrent que minva.

Sense esperança, trist, mirava el rastre

dels crancs, que de costat fan giragonses;

o bé, melangiós, escoltava el crit aspre

de gavines pescant o de l'ànec feréstec;

quan vindrien ocells de mar a l'aiguamoll

i si la garsa, entre els seus joncs cridaire,

faria com un clam en la salada sèquia.

D'aquestes tristes coses nodria el pensament

i, si el canal obrien, solia deturar-se

on l'aigua prime, tota presonera,

lliscava amb un so amarg, monòton, que entristia;

on tot el que venia als ulls i a les orelles

us encongia el cor amb tristesa i basarda..."

George Crabbe (1754-1832)

(traducció de Marià Manent a "Poesia anglesa i nord-americana", Editorial Alpha, 1955)

Text original (que forma part del poema The Borough. Letter XXII: Peter Grimes, publicat el 1810. El 1941, durant un viatge a Califòrnia, Benjamin Britten creà a partir d'aquest poema la seva òpera Peter Grimes):

"Thus by himself compell'd to live each day,

To wait for certain hours the tide's delay;

At the same times the same dull views to see,

The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree;

The water only, when the tides were high,

When low, the mud half-cover'd and half-dry;

The sun-burnt tar that blisters on the planks,

And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks;

Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float,

As the tide rolls by the impeded boat.

When tides were neap, and, in the sultry day,

Through the tall bounding mud-banks made their way,

Which on each side rose swelling, and below

The dark warm flood ran silently and slow;

There anchoring, Peter chose from man to hide,

There hang his head, and view the lazy tide

In its hot slimy channel slowly glide;

Where the small eels that left the deeper way

For the warm shore, within the shallows play;

Where gaping mussels, left upon the mud,

Slope their slow passage to the fallen flood;--

Here dull and hopeless he'd lie down and trace

How sidelong crabs had scrawl'd their crooked race;

Or sadly listen to the tuneless cry

Of fishing gull or clanging golden-eye;

What time the sea-birds to the marsh would come,

And the loud bittern, from the bulrush home,

Gave from the salt-ditch side the bellowing boom:

He nursed the feelings these dull scenes produce,

And loved to stop beside the opening sluice;

Where the small stream, confined in narrow bound,

Ran with a dull, unvaried, sadd'ning sound;

Where all, presented to the eye or ear,

Oppress'd the soul with misery, grief, and fear."