William Carlos Williams 가 특히 좋아한 자작시 "The Descent"

Stephen Crane 의 시를 포스팅하면서, 연전에 읽은, 시인들의

'favorite' 자작시 한 편씩을 모은 시선집과 거기 실린 William

Carlos Williams 의 "The Descent"를 떠올렸다. (그 시선집*을

계속 갖고 있었어야 했다.) 그가 그 시를 꼽은 까닭을 좀 더

잘 알 것 같다. 시 "The Descent"가 새삼 더 부드럽고 친밀하게

읽힌다.

 

덧붙임(1/16/2022): 아래는 1982년에 출판된 그 시선집 표지다.

 

 

 

The Descent

William Carlos Williams

 

 

The descent beckons
        as the ascent beckoned
                Memory is a kind
of accomplishment
        a sort of renewal
                even
an initiation, since the spaces it opens are new places
        inhabited by hordes
                heretofore unrealized
of new kinds—
        since their movements
                are toward new objectives
(even though formerly they were abandoned)

No defeat is made up entirely of defeat—since
the world it opens is always a place
        formerly
                unsuspected. A
world lost
        a world unsuspected
                beckons to new places
and no whiteness (lost) is so white as the memory
of whiteness

With evening, love wakens
        though its shadows
                which are alive by reason
of the sun shining—
        grow sleepy now and drop away
                from desire

Love without shadows stirs now
        beginning to awaken
                as night
advances

The descent
        made up of despairs
                and without accomplishment
realizes a new awakening:
        which is a reversal
of despair
        For what we cannot accomplish, what
is denied to love
        what we have lost in the anticipation—
                a descent follows
endless and indestructible

 

 

 

Max Slevogt, View from Godramstein toward Frankweiler

 

 

먼 산의 위용에 감탄하면서

부드러운 동네 뒷산을 오르내림은

그 또한 얼마나 즐거운 일인가