Vladimir Nabokov discussion

I love two poems by Vladimir Nabokov written in English:

LINES WRITTEN IN OREGON

Esmeralda! Now we rest
Here, in the bewitched and blest
Mountain forest of the West.

Here the very air is stranger.
Damzel, anchoret, and ranger
Share the woodland’s dream and danger.

And to think I deemed you dead!
(In a dungeon, it was said;
Tortured, strangled); but instead –

Blue birds from the bluest fable,
Bear and hare in coats of sable,
Peacock moth on picnic table.

Huddled road-signs softly speak
Of Lake Merlin, Castle Creek,
And (obliterated) Peak.

Do you recognize that clover?
Dandelions, l’or du pauvre?
(Europe, nonetheless, is over).

Up the turf, along the burn,
Latin lilies climb and turn
Into Gothic fir and fern.

Cornfields have befouled the prairies
But these canyon’s laugh! And there is
Still the forest with its fairies.

And I rest where I awoke
In the sea shade – l’ombre glauque –
Of a legendary oak.

Where the woods get ever dimmer,
Where the Phantom Orchids glimmer –
Esmeralda, immer, immer.

1953

RESTORATION

To think that any fool may tear
by chance the web of when and where.
O window in the dark! To think
that every brain is on the brink
of nameless bliss no brain can bear,

unless there be no great surprise –
as when you learn to levitate
and, hardly trying, realize –
alone, in bright room – that weight
is but your shadow, and you rise.

My little daughter wakes in tears.
She fancies that her bed is drawn
into a dimness which appears
to be the deep of all her fears
but which, in point of fact, is dawn.

I know a poet who can strip
a William Tell or Golden Pip
in one uninterrupted peel
miraculously to reveal,
revolving on his fingertip,

a snowball. So I would unrobe,
turn inside out, pry open, probe
all matter, everything you see,
the skyline and its saddest tree,
the whole inexplicable globe,

to find the true, the ardent core
as doctors of old pictures do
when, rubbing out a distant door
or sooty curtain, they restore
the jewel of a bluish view.

1952

Lara - I enjoyed these two! About the only thing I don't have of Nabokov is a book of his own poems.

Donald wrote: "Lara - I enjoyed these two! About the only thing I don't have of Nabokov is a book of his own poems." You don't have a book of Nabokov's own poems written in English?

So glad that people love his poetry. This is one more his poem written in English:

The Poplar

Before this house a poplar grows
Well versed in dowsing, I suppose,
But how it sighs! And every night
A boy in black, a girl in white
Beyond the brightness of my bed
Appear, and not a word is said.
On coated chair and coatless chair
They sit, one here, the other there.
I do not care to make scene:
I read a glossy magazine.
He props upon his slender knee
A dwarfed and potted poplar tree.
And she--she seems to hold a dim
Hand mirror with an ivory rim
Framing a lawn, and her, and me
Under the prototypic tree,
Before the pillared porch, last seen
In July, nineteen seventeen.
This is the silver lining of
Pathetic fallacies: the sough
Of Populus that taps at last
Not water but the author’s past.
And note: nothing is ever said.
I read a magazine in bed
Or the Home Book of Verse; and note:
This is my shirt, that is my coat.
But frailer seers I am told
Get up to rearrange a fold.

(1952)

Thanks for the additional poem, Lara, I enjoyed it.
I should be purchasing a book of his poems soon.

Donald wrote: "Thanks for the additional poem, Lara, I enjoyed it.
I should be purchasing a book of his poems soon."

In this regard, I'd like to ask you, as soon as you have the book of his poems, tell me about the following poem, whose last lines I am afraid I've confused (because of a possible misprint in the book), whether it's written down correctly or not:

Rain

How mobile is the bed on these
nights of gesticulating trees
when the rain clatters fast,
the tin-toy rain with dapper hoof
trotting upon an endless roof,
travelling into the past.

Upon old roads the steeds of rain
slip and slow down and speed again
through many a tangled year;
but they can never reach the last
dip at the bottom of the past
because the sun is there.

(1956)

OK, I might be able to check that later today - You can't find it on the internet?

I found this link on the Internet that actually has Nabokov reading the poem. It looks like you got it right.

http://piony.livejournal.com/374488.html

Donald wrote: "I found this link on the Internet that actually has Nabokov reading the poem. It looks like you got it right.

http://piony.livejournal.com/374488.html"

no,I could not, having not much time for a careful search. Apropos, what if the user copied the poem from one of my old blog postings? :) Personally I want to be sure.

I checked the poem you posted with the one that I found and they were identical!

I got a copy of "Poems and Problems" from the Library and began reading them. So far I liked, "The Mother." Some of the exile poems were interesting also. On Amazon,there are no cheap copies, just collector's items. I did see that in May of 2012 there will be a new release of Nabokov's Poems:

http://www.amazon.com/Selected-Poems-...

Donald wrote: "I got a copy of "Poems and Problems" ..."
More about the Poet.
Opera Montezuma (1755), by Carl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759), with the libretto written in French by Graun's patron, Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/201...
As Vladimir Nabokov said about one of his paternal grandsires, in the interview on the German TV, 1971, “…his wife, grandmother of my grandmother […] was a granddaughter of the composer Carl Heinrich Graun.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Hei...

Lara: Thanks for posting the interesting information on a Nabokov relative! Very interesting!

Donald: The book is yet more interesting : Speak, Memory

Lara - I must have forgotten that part, I read "Speak memory" years ago. May read it again in the near future.