Romanian Astrohumanism (XIII)

ROMANIAN ASTROHUMANISM (XIII)

STAR VERSE

Foreword, selection and English translations from the Romanian
by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
Design (including the constellation Cassiopeia photo)
by Gabriel Ivanescu

We live on a small planet, which orbits around a star.
A small star surrounded by an unimaginable number of stars,
which have given so much inspiration to the poets of our world.
Here is a collection of remarkable star verses by
Romanian great poets, written before the Second World War,
and chosen for sentimental, aesthetic and philosophic satisfactions
of the readers:

The stars loving each other,
The sky loving the Earth…
-Ion Budai-Deleanu (1760-1763)-

I don’t care if I am in war with the stars, sun and moon
When you are with me, my merciful love…
-Alecu Vacarescu (1769-1798)-

From the sky, eternal stars shine over our darkness…
-Gheorghe Asachi (1788-1869)-

Look, the universal and vast sacrifice, without borders.
The whole world is a temple, and the Earth is the altar.
The sky with shining stars is the cover…
-Ion Heliade-Radulescu (1802-1872)-

In stars, like in worlds of light,
There are souls - angels that I sing and adore…
-Grigore Alexandrescu (1810-1885)-

Why do you believe in poetry,
In sacred harmony
Of heavenly canopy,
When the clear night
Smiles, crowned by
Stars that you love?
-Vasile Alecsandri (1821-1990)-

Golden stars over the calm sea
Appear neat, my sweet infinity!
-Dimitrie Bolintineanu (1825-1872)

Colonies of golden stars from the heavenly hive
Gush as white rivers, and scatter the infinite…
-Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889)-

Even if today, between people, there are only pathetic neuroses,
The sky is still full of stars, and the field is still full of roses…
-Alexandru Macedonski (1854-1920)-

From the beginning of the world, the suns
Stay so solidary …
-George Cosbuc (1866-1918)-

Living transiently on Earth
Today you are too far from stars -
But you soul, there is no word
To abandon them…
-Stefan Octavian Iosif (1875-1913)-

A sweet harmony will fall from stars,
And the sky’s father, full of soft-heartedness,
Will shout from beams: “Excelsior!”
-Iuliu Cezar Savescu (1876-1903)-

The flag of the night, spread with stars,
Housed my facts…
-Tudor Arghezi (1880-1967)-

You so clean beam lowering from stars
To lighten the night of my solitude…
-Octavian Goga (1881-1938)-

Look, the whisper of happiness
Which drives moments and moves suns…
-Panait Cerna (1881-1913)-

We shall start burdened with stars,
Lightening alone the road - fire spirals
In astral sparkles…
-Victor Eftimiu (1889-1972)-

The tree of the nights
Blossomed stars…
-Ion Pillat (1891-1945)-

During the night, all the stellar gold
And all the flowering of fluid reflexes…
-Ion Barbu (1895-1961)-

Oh stars, not even you have a target on your road,
but maybe that’s why you conquer immensity!
-Lucian Blaga (1895-1961)-

Abstract nights,
Exact stars.
-Dan Botta (1907-1958)-

Death looks for me down here,
But my eyes go to stars.
-Dimitrie Stelaru (1917-1971)-

.

Before the end, some verses
by two poets with extremely tragic destinies:

Oh my body which vegetally ties me to the shore!
Oh my thought - a collapse of stars and metal!
-Benjamin Fundoianu (alias Benjamin Fondane, 1898-1944;
he was a Romanian-Jewish avant-garde poet
who emigrated in France,
where he was arrested and killed by Nazis
in Auschwitz-Birkenau)-

Even stars in heavens are yoked into constellations…
-Vasile Voiculescu (1884-1963;
he was a doctor imprisoned by communists,
and this approached his death)-

It is my duty to hope that now they are living in a better world,
among the stars.

.

And finally, some verses
which could crown this collection:

-two by a Romanian poet remarked between the two World Wars:

I don’t find my peace in books,
But in the Gospel of stars…
-Mihail Celarianu-

-and, again, two by the greatest Romanian literary personality
in the XXth century:

From a shoulder to another,
I silently carry my star as a burden.
-Lucian Blaga-

.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

-Florin Sindrilaru, “Excelsior - an Anthology of
Romanian Poetry”, Minerva, Bucharest, 1982
-Al. Dima, “Cosmic Vision in Romanian Poetry”,
Junimea, Iasi (Romania), 1982
-Ion Holban, “Sun, Moon, Evening Star”,
Hyperion, Chisinau (Moldavian Republic), 1991
-various Romanian poetry anthologies