Centre for Romanian Studies

Poetry in Translation (CC): Muriel STUART (1885 – 1967), SCOTLAND, “Obsession”, “Obsesie”

Muriel STUART

Obsession
Muriel Stuart
(1885-1967)

I will not have roses in my room again,
Nor listen to sonnets of Michael Angelo
To-night nor any night, nor fret my brain
With all the trouble of things that I should know.
I will be as other women–come and go
Careless and free, my own self sure and sane,
As I was once … then suddenly you were there
With your old power … roses were everywhere
And I was listening to Michael Angelo.

Obsesie
Muriel Stuart
(1885-1967)

M-am săturat de trandafiri în glastră
Sau să aud vre-un vers de Michel Angel,
Când zi de zi într-una mă apasă
Povara grijilor de ori ce fel.
Căci vreau să fiu cum sunt alte femei,
Destinsă şi de griji neîntinată,
Cum am mai fost… dar vai, din chiar senin,
Cu vechiul farmec, tu ai apărut …
Şi iarăşi trandafiri am pus în glastră
Iar Michel Ange-l iau de la-nceput.

(Rendered in Romanian by Constantin ROMAN, London,
© 2013 Copyright Constantin ROMAN)

SHORT BIO:
Muriel Stuart (1885, Norbury, South London — 18 December 1967). She was born Muriel Stuart Irwin, the daughter of a Scottish barrister. She was a poet, particularly concerned with the topic of sexual politics, though she first wrote poems about World War I. She later gave up poetry writing; her last work was published in the 1930s.
She was hailed by Hugh MacDiarmid as “the best woman poet of the Scottish Renaissance. Thomas Hardy described her poetry as “Superlatively good”. Her most famous poem “In the Orchard” is entirely dialogs and in no kind of verse form, which makes it innovative for its time. She does use rhyme: a mixture of half-rhyme and rhyming couplets (a,b,a,b form). Other famous poems of hers are “The Seed Shop”, “The Fools” and “Man and his Makers”.