We've had a string of father/daughter poems, beginning with Schnackenberg's, Doyle's and Stallings' fishing poems on an adjacent thread. Now we have Po's and Mandolin's fine poems over on the Ball and Chain (Seasoned) board, along with Weldon Kees' extraordianry poem posted there. Alan asked me to post this great Wilbur translation about a living and a stillborn daughter.
Song
Never take her away,
The daughter whom you gave me,
The gentle, moist, untroubled
Small daughter whom you gave me;
O let her heavenly babbling
Beset me and enslave me.
Don't take her; let her stay,
Beset my heart, and win me,
That I may put away
The firstborn child within me,
That cold, petrific, dry
Daughter whom death once gave,
Whose life is a long cry
For milk she may not have,
And who, in the night-time, calls me
In the saddest voice that can be
Father, Father, and tells me
Of the love she feels for me.
Don't let her go away,
Her whom you gave--my daughter--
Lest I should come to favor
That wilder one, that other
Who does not leave me ever.
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