World Poetry Translation Project

Please Join My Facebook Page by CLICKING HERE Diccussions, translations and positive people at our Facebook Page A Far Cry From Africa by Derek Walcott A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt Of Africa, Kikuyu, quick as flies, Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt. Corpses are scattered through a paradise. Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries: "Waste no compassion on these separate dead!" Statistics justify and scholars seize The salients of colonial policy. What is that to the white child hacked in bed? To savages, expendable as Jews? Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break In a white dust of ibises whose cries Have wheeled since civilizations dawn >From the parched river or beast-teeming plain. The violence of beast on beast is read As natural law, but upright man Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain. Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum, While he calls courage still that native dread Of the white peace contracted by the dead. Again brutish necessity wipes its hands Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again A waste of our compassion, as with Spain, The gorilla wrestles with the superman. I who am poisoned with the blood of both, Where shall I turn, divided to the vein? I who have cursed The drunken officer of British rule, how choose Between this Africa and the English tongue I love? Betray them both, or give back what they give? How can I face such slaughter and be cool? How can I turn from Africa and live? Please Join My Facebook Page by CLICKING HERE

Translations for this Poem  English  Spanish  French  German  Italian  Portuguese  Korean  Russian  Chinese  Japanese

Poems by Derek Walcott The Sea Is History In The Virgins Forest Of Europe Midsummer Tobago After The Storm Parang The Star-Apple Kingdom The Schooner Flight Blues Koening Of The River Coral The Saddhu Of Couva A Far Cry From Africa Egypt Tobago Love After Love Sabbaths WI A Citys Death By Fire Pentecost RTSL 1917-1977 Codicil Dark August

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D.H. Lawrence	Dame Edith Sitwell	Dante Alighieri
David Berman	David Ignatow	David Lehman
Delmore Schwartz	Denise Levertov	Derek Walcott
Diane Wakoski	Don Patterson	Donald Hall
Donald Justice	Dorothy Parker	Dylan Thomas

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