TWO MOODS FROM THE HILLI.YOUTHI love to watch the world from here, for allThe numberless living portraits that are drawnUpon the mind. Far over is the sea,Fronting the sand, a few great yellow dunes,A salt marsh stumbling after, rank and green,With brackish gullies wandering in between,All this from the hill.And more: a clump of dwarfed and twisted cedars,Sentinels over the marsh, and bright with the sunA field of daises wandering in the windAs though a hidden serpent glided through,A broken wall, a new-plowed field, and thenThe dusty road and the abodes of menSurrounding the hill.How small the enclosure is wherein there livesEach phase and passion of life, the distant sailDips in the limpid bosom of the sea,From that far place to where in state the turfRaises a throne for me upon the hill,Each little love and lust of a living thingCan thus be compassed in a rainbow ringAnd seen from the hill.II.AGEWhy did I build my cottage on a hillFacing the sea? Why did I plan each terraced lawn to slopeDown to the deep blue billowy breast of hope,Surging and sweeping,laughing and leaping,Tumbling its garments of foam upon the shore,Rustling the sands that know my step no more,I should have found a valley, deep and still,To shelter me.There flows the river, and it seems asleepSo far away,Yet I remember whip of wave and roarOf wind that rose and smote against the oar,Smote and retreated,Proud but defeated,While I rejoiced and rowed into the brine,Drawing on wet and heavy-straining lineThe great cod quivering from the deepAs counterplay.What is the solace of these hills and valesThat rise and fall?What is there glorious in the greenwood glen,Or twittering thrush or wing of darting wren?Give me the gusty,Raucous and rustyCall of the sea gull in the echoing sky,The wild shriek of the winds that cannot die,Give me the life that follows the bending sails,Or none at all!ERNEST BENSHIMOL
I love to watch the world from here, for allThe numberless living portraits that are drawnUpon the mind. Far over is the sea,Fronting the sand, a few great yellow dunes,A salt marsh stumbling after, rank and green,With brackish gullies wandering in between,All this from the hill.And more: a clump of dwarfed and twisted cedars,Sentinels over the marsh, and bright with the sunA field of daises wandering in the windAs though a hidden serpent glided through,A broken wall, a new-plowed field, and thenThe dusty road and the abodes of menSurrounding the hill.How small the enclosure is wherein there livesEach phase and passion of life, the distant sailDips in the limpid bosom of the sea,From that far place to where in state the turfRaises a throne for me upon the hill,Each little love and lust of a living thingCan thus be compassed in a rainbow ringAnd seen from the hill.
Why did I build my cottage on a hillFacing the sea? Why did I plan each terraced lawn to slopeDown to the deep blue billowy breast of hope,Surging and sweeping,laughing and leaping,Tumbling its garments of foam upon the shore,Rustling the sands that know my step no more,I should have found a valley, deep and still,To shelter me.There flows the river, and it seems asleepSo far away,Yet I remember whip of wave and roarOf wind that rose and smote against the oar,Smote and retreated,Proud but defeated,While I rejoiced and rowed into the brine,Drawing on wet and heavy-straining lineThe great cod quivering from the deepAs counterplay.What is the solace of these hills and valesThat rise and fall?What is there glorious in the greenwood glen,Or twittering thrush or wing of darting wren?Give me the gusty,Raucous and rustyCall of the sea gull in the echoing sky,The wild shriek of the winds that cannot die,Give me the life that follows the bending sails,Or none at all!
ERNEST BENSHIMOL