Poets Translate Poets: A Hudson Review Anthology by Paula Deitz Page A

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    More than boys at play, it is pedants as inane.
    I declare, with either near, one or the other,

    God knows which infl icts the more pain.
    Marianne Moore, 1954
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    Vic tor Hugo (1802–85)
    So Boaz Slept
    Boaz lay down in weariness and pain;
    He’d spent long hours laboring on his land
    And smoothed his blanket with a dusty hand
    To sleep among his heaps of garnered grain.
    More fi elds of wheat stood ready to be mowed;
    Th
    ough wealthy, he was not an unjust man.
    Down his mill-race unclouded waters ran,
    And in his forge no hellish irons glowed.
    His beard shone silver like a brook in spring.
    His sheaves were thick, but bundled without greed,
    And when, at harvest, gleaners came in need,
    He said, “Leave some ears for their gathering.”
    On righteous paths his feet were known to dwell,
    And goodness cloaked him like a robe of white;
    His grain poured forth for all whose hungry plight
    Touched him, like water from a public well.
    Honest with workers, loyal to his kin,
    He honored thrift no less than charity;
    Th
    e women watched old Boaz wistfully
    And saw more in him than in younger men.
    An old man sees his source with clearer sight;
    Soon passing from this world of troubled days,
    He holds eternity within his gaze.
    A young man’s eyes fl ash fi re; an old man’s, light.

    So Boaz slept beneath the moon’s faint glow.
    Among the great stones massed outside his mill,
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    His reapers lay together, dark and still,
    In that mild evening age on age ago.
    Judges still ruled the tribes of Abram’s blood.
    Th
    e Hebrews, wandering in their land of birth,
    Saw footprints left by giants in the earth
    Soft and damp from the still-remembered fl ood.

    Like Jacob, or like Judith, Boaz too
    Lay fast asleep upon his humble bed;
    Th
    e gates of heaven, far above his head,
    Half opened, and a dream came passing through.
    And from his loins a great oak, fl ourishing,
    Stirred Boaz in his dream, and, gazing down,
    He saw a race ascending it; a king
    Sang at the roots; a god died in its crown.
    Th
    en Boaz murmured with a heartfelt sigh:
    How can it pass that I should bear this tree
    When eighty years and more have fl ed from me?
    I have no son, nor wife to get one by.
    Th
    e woman, Lord, with whom I shared this bed
    Has gone forever, sharing one with Th
    ee;
    Yet still we two remain together, she
    Half-living in my thoughts, and I half-dead.
    Shall I conceive a nation sprung from me,
    A tree arising from this ancient dust?
    Only when I was younger could I trust
    Th
    at day could wring from night such victory.
    For now I tremble like a winter bough;
    Alone and widowed, I am dry and old,
    And, as night falls, I bend against the cold
    As to the trough the plow-ox dips his brow.
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    Th
    us Boaz mourned. Th
    e cedar does not feel
    Th
    e rose that clings to it; his dream was sweet
    Yet painful to him; and it was so real
    He did not sense the woman at his feet.

    So Boaz slept, while Ruth, the Moabite,
    Laid herself at his feet with naked breast,
    Hoping he would not wholly waken, lest
    He fi nd her there, unknown in the pale light.
    But Boaz did not know that she was there,
    Nor did Ruth know what God required of her.
    Th
    e breath of night caused asphodels to stir,
    And all Galgala teemed with perfumed air.
    Darkness deepened—nuptial, august, sublime.
    Perhaps an angel watched them, hovering
    Above them with a barely beating wing;
    Blue shadows brushed their eyes from time to time.
    Th
    e breath of Boaz soft ened like the tones
    Sung by stream water when it fl ows across
    A gentle bed of pebbles thick with moss
    While lilies bloom among the hilltop stones.
    So Boaz slept, and Ruth awakened fi