Džon Kler

JA SAM

Ja sam – a šta sam ja niko ne zna nit mari;

Znanci me ostaviše kô spomen kad mine:
Ja sam onaj koji sâm svoje patnje vari –
Svaku što dođe i u zaborav porine,
Kao senke ludog ljubavnog grča namah,
A i dalje ja sam, živ – kao odbačen dah.

U ništavnosti sam prezira i galame,

U živom moru snova za buđenja razna,
Gde nema traga živom ni radosti same,
Životnoga truda tek olupina prazna;
Čak i najdraži koje sam voleo jako
Tuđi su mi – tuđi više neg drugi svako.

Za vidikom žudim prvi da kročim nogom

Gde žena nit smešila se nit plakala je,
Tamo da se sretnem sa tvorcem svojim, Bogom,
I zaspim slatko kao detence nekad pre,
Miran i neuznemiravan ležah kadgod,
A trava beše dole – gore nebeski svod.

I Am!
BY JOHN CLARE
I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes—
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,

Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod

A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie
The grass below—above the vaulted sky.