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World Poetry Translation Project


Submit Human Translation | Discuss Poem | Post Poetry | Listen McGill Live

For A Coming Extinction

by W.S. Merwin

Gray whale
Now that we are sinding you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing

I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying
When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks
Empty of you
Tell him that we were made
On another day

The bewilderment will diminish like an echo
Winding along your inner mountains
Unheard by us
And find its way out
Leaving behind it the future
Dead
And ours

When you will not see again
The whale calves trying the light
Consider what you will find in the black garden
And its court
The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas
The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless
And fore-ordaining as stars
Our sacrifices
Join your work to theirs
Tell him
That it is we who are important


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

  Poems by W.S. Merwin
  1. Air
  2. Any Time
  3. Before The Flood
  4. Beggars And Kings
  5. December Night
  6. For A Coming Extinction
  7. For The Anniversary Of My Death
  8. Green Fields
  9. It Is March
  10. My Friends
  11. Some Last Questions
  12. Term
  13. The Burnt Child
  14. The River Of Bees
  15. The Ships Are Made Ready In Silence
  16. The Source
  17. The Speed Of Light
  18. Unknown Bird
  19. Vehicles
  20. Whenever I Go There
  21. When You Go Away
  22. Wish
  23. Yesterday
 
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPRSTVWY[ALL] 
  W.H. Auden 
  W.S. Merwin 
  Wallace Stevens 
  Walt Whitman 
  Walter Savage Landor 
  Wang Wei 
  Weldon Kees 
  Wendell Berry 
  Wilfred Owen 
  William Barnes 
  William Blake 
  William Butler Yeats 
  William Carlos Williams 
  William Collins 
  William Cowper 
  William Drummond 
  William Ernest Henley 
  William Lisle Bowles 
  William Shakespeare 
  William Stafford 
  William Wordsworth 
  Wislawa Szymborska 
   

Volunteers needed to translate poetry into different languages. Please help us correct the translation of these poems. We currently have 79,663 translations and are trying to create the largest and most accurate database of world poetry translations. We have started with machine translations which are very inaccurate. Please translate your favorite poem on this site. You will be given credit for your translation and a link to your site if desired. COPYRIGHT NOTICE: These poems have been gathered and submitted by many of people, and from many sources. Most have no copyright. However, some may may have copyrights. We have tried to collect poems that appear on many external sites where the author seems to want to disseminate. If you are an author and do not want your poetry translated into other languages then send a removal request and it will be promptly removed.
 



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