Ingeborg Bachmann ,"Do not decree faith on this race"

Verordnet diesem Geschlecht keinen Glauben
[Do not decree faith on this race]

Do not decree faith on this race,
stars, ships and smoke are enough;
it is concerned with things, determines
stars and mathematical infinity,
and a trait, call it trait of love,
emerges more purely from it all.

The heavens hang limp, and stars come loose
from the juncture with moon and night.

(translated by Johannes Beilharz)

Dylan Thomas, "Do not go gentle into that good night"

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyWiE1vNSxU&feature=related)

Dylan Thomas, "In My Craft Or Sullen Art"

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIoXV-HXobo

"Imperfectly signified" by Petros Golitsis