My favourite symbolist poet
George Bacovia (1881-1957) was a Romanian symbolist poet. He was a poet, writer and painter. He initially belonged to the local Symbolist movement, later his poetry came to be seen as a precursor of Romanian Modernism.
As a symbolist poet, Bacovia is renowned for the poetry volume Plumb, published in 1916. The volume contains 50 poems.
My favourite poems are December and Autumn Waltz.
December
See how December snows …
Look there by the window, my dear –
Tell them to bring in more embers,
Then I can hear the fire roar.
Push the armchair up the stove
And then we’ll hear, by the chimney,
The storm, or my days – it’s the same –
I must learn their symphony.
Tell them also to bring in the tea,
And come closer yourself too, –
Read me something about the poles,
Let it snow … let the snow bury us.
How warm it is here in your home,
Which to me is totally sacred, –
See how December snows …
Don’t laugh … go on reading aloud.
It’s day and what darkness there is …
We need a lamp fetched, would you ask –
Look, the snow is as high as the fence,
And the door handle’s caught by the frost.
I’m not going home today …
In front and behind there’s a flood,
See how December snows …
Don’t laugh … go on reading aloud.
Autumn Waltz
At windows, autumn plays a funeral march
In monotone, a waltz of mourning … – Come,
Let’s waltz, my darling, through the living-room
To the tune of autumn’s mortuary dirge.
Listen, as the music clearly sounds
Across the stately, antique, solemn park, –
From sorrow-laden wooden instruments
At windows, autumn plays a funeral march.
Now as the waltz sighs, softly whispering,
O let me clasp you to me now … – And come,
Let’s waltz, my darling, giggling as we turn
To the tune of autumn’s mortuary dirge.
