Robert W Service, courtesy of Anne Service Longepe
Robert William Service
(Preston, Inglaterra. 16 de enero de 1874 – 11 de septiembre de 1958) fue un poeta y escritor, algunas veces denominado "el bardo del Yukón". Es famoso por sus obras sobre el norte de Canadá, incluyendo sus poemas "The Shooting of Dan McGrew", "The Law of the Yukon" y "The Cremation of Sam McGee".
Además de sus trabajos sobre el Yukón, Service también escribió poesía recreada en lugares tan diversos como Sudáfrica, Afganistán y Nueva Zelanda. Su literatura tiene una perspectiva desde el Imperio británico.
Service nació en una familia escocesa que vivía en Preston, Inglaterra. Fue educado en Escocia en la Hillhead High School en Glasgow. Se trasladó a Canadá a la edad de 21 años cuando renunció a su trabajo en un banco de Glasgow y viajó a la isla de Vancouver, en la Columbia Británica, con su traje de Buffalo Bill y sueños de convertirse en un cowboy. Se dejó llevar por todo el oeste de América del Norte, tomando y renunciando a una serie de trabajos. Contratado por el Canadian Bank of Commerce, trabajó en varias de sus sucursales antes de ser enviado a la sucursal de Whitehorse en el Territorio de Yukón en 1904, seis años después de la Fiebre del oro de Klondike.
Inspirado por la gran belleza de la vida salvaje en Yukón, Service comenzó a escribir poesía sobre las cosas que veía. Las conversaciones con los locales lo llevaron a escribir sobre las cosas que había observado, muchas de las cuales no sucedieron en realidad. No se asentó en Dawson City hasta 1908, llegando a Klondike diez años después de la fiebre de oro, pero su nombre como escritor ya era famoso.
Murió a los 84 años de un ataque cardíaco en Lancieux (Francia) el 11 de septiembre de 1958. Dejó una obra de más de mil poemas, y seisnovelas, que celebran la vida de aventuras de este artista de las rimas.
Obras
The Songs of a Sourdough (Publicado en Estados Unidos como The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses) (1907)
Ballads of a Cheechako (1909)
The Trail of Ninety-Eight, A Northland Romance (1910)
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone (1912)
The Pretender. A story of the Latin quarter (1914)
The Song of the Wage Slave (1915)
The Rhymes of a Red-cross Man (1916)
Ballads of a Bohemian (1921)
The Poisoned Paradise (1922)
The Roughneck, A Tale of Tahiti (1923)
The Master of the Microbe (1926)
The House of Fear, A Novel (1927)
Why Not Grow Young? or Living for Longevity (1928)
Bar-Room Ballads (1940)
Ploughman of the Moon, An Adventure Into Memory (1945)
The Ordinary Man
The Ballad of the Ice-Worm Cocktail
Bob Smart's Dream
The March of the Dead
Carols of an Old Codger
Trail of Ninety-Eight
The call of the wild8
The Cremation of Sam McGee
The Shooting of Dan McGrue
Los Hombres que no encajan
Hay una raza de hombres que no encaja
una raza que no puede quedarse
Ellos rompen los corazones a todo el mundo
y vagan por el mundo a voluntad
Recorren el campo, evitan la inundación
suben las crestas de las montañas.
Suya es la maldición de la sangre gitana
y no saben cómo descansar.
Si sólo fueran directo llegarían muy lejos
Son fuertes, valientes y sensatos
pero siempre están cansados de las cosas que hay
y necesitan lo extraño y novedoso
Dicen: "Si encontrara mi propio surco
¡Qué marca profunda la que haría!"
Entonces cortan y cambian, y cada nuevo movimiento
es solamente un nuevo error
Y cada uno olvida, se desnuda y corre
con un paso brillante e irregular
son los estables, tranquilos, lentos
quienes ganan en la raza de toda la vida
y cada uno olvida que en su juventud huyó
olvida que lo más importante ya pasó
hasta que se pare un dia, con una esperanza ya muerta
En el resplandor de la verdad al final
Ha fallado, ha fallado, ha perdido su oportunidad
sólo ha hecho las cosas a la mitad
la vida ha sido una buena broma en él
y ahora es el tiempo de reir
ja ja! Él es uno de la legión perdida
nunca lo destinaron para ganar
él es una piedra rodante, un dolor en el hueso
Es un hombre que nunca encajará
Traducciones Blog de Don Aldemar
http://alijunakai.blogspot.com.es/2007_04_01_archive.html
The men who don't Fit in
There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.
And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.
He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.
Los espacios vacíos
¿Has visto alguna vez la desnuda grandeza
donde no hay nada más que contemplar,
música y decorados sin igual,
montañas escalando al cielo gigantescas?
(…)
¿Has borrado las huellas que tus botas dejaron,
has osado adentrarte en lo lejano
y abrazado el tesoro al final del camino?
¿Has marcado en el mapa los espacios vacíos?
[fragmentos del poema The Call of the Wild,
Versión de Andrés Neuman]
La cabaña del poeta Robert Service
Robert William Service (16 de enero de 1874 – 11 de septiembre de 1958) fue un poeta y escritor, algunas veces denominado "el bardo del Yukón". Es famoso por sus obras sobre el norte de Canadá, incluyendo sus poemas "The Shooting of Dan McGrew", "The Law of the Yukon" y "The Cremation of Sam McGee".
Además de sus trabajos sobre el Yukón, Service también escribió poesía recreada en lugares tan diversos como Sudáfrica, Afganistán y Nueva Zelanda. Su literatura tiene una perspectiva desde el Imperio británico.
Robert Service and his cabin at Dawson City
Cabaña de Robert Service en Dawson City
El modesto interior de la cabaña de Robert Service
The Cremation of Sam McGee
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."
On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."
Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."
A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."
Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.
And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.
I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.
And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario