The Hermit Poem by Peter Mamara

by M. Eminescu (1850-1889)

The hall is fully decorated with white-like-snow fabric,
Stitched with leaves and dark red roses.
And the floorboard shine like polished gold
— Beneath flicking lights.
Candles of wax, white like refined sugar were in the hall.
Melt diamond is on every candle.
There is silver in the hall.
The air looks white like snow, with rays softened by mirrors.

Sweet girls like angels, they're virgins,
Walk through the hall and hold wreaths of flowers.
Oh, my sweet readers: the word angel,
Excuses everyone of long descriptions…
The same way she had excused me this time
To portray the treasures of the Earth:
Those pure, pretty and young, women,
Who have vane minds and have no heart.

Why should I depict the gentle coquette?
Her eighteen birthday had just past.
She sends timid glances in a sly way,
When to a blockhead who looks at her wickedly,
When to a pest with a mind that is crazy,
Who is also a punter, is ugly, greedy and creepy…
Or to a general of a tall stature,
That yells, is foolish and wild: like a water buffalo.

Should I sing how in a body of an angel,
The urge, sows by mistake a deformed soul?
So I can feel the pulse of poet Byron's irony,
Or the writer, who wrote Marion de Lorme…
Should I describe romantic nights?
It's a lull the waters send out. It sends to sleep even the angels.
And scattered stars of gold orbit sweetly — dipped in blue.

Should I debunk the heart of the woman
Who is preoccupied by blue nights full of love?
Oh, her passions have the making of a spark.
These die the moment she feels them.
Close your eye, because God forbid,
You may look with intent at its spark.
There is conflict in your heart.
In a flash, the passion shall ignite its thinning out.

To what travels? What? Am I not in the room
— On the spot to where they carried you?
In the ballroom, on a soft, flowery carpet,
Where thousands of flowers exude their scent?
Under the drape's sheltering shade,
That by the exposure to the marvellous crystal
Of the outsized mirrors, they let go of you?
When you wanted to observe how they form groups?

And on a soft sofa behind a drape,
Lazily sits an angel of a darling.
A red carnation is in her black hair.
With her lively blue eyes that move smoothly
And her white coat made from the best fabric,
Wraps in the middle a soft slim waist that bends.
She wants to have a lie down
— Beneath a pleasantly moving fan.

An angel, yes! Her white like snow wings simply hang low
On her revealing shoulders
Making her an angel like she ought to be.
How good it is that you believe she's an angel?
Who would have guessed until now,
That a cruel demon with filthy heart is seated there?
But poor me, with the word angel,
I shall spare myself of describing the devil.
(1873)

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