Centre for Romanian Studies

Poetry in Translation (CCCIX), Charles Hubert SISSON (1914 –2003), ENGLAND, “Finale”, “Final”

Finale
Charles Hubert SISSON
(1914 –2003)

Nothing means anything now:
I am alone
— My mind a vacant space,
My heart of stone.

A tuneless thing I am,
A broken lyre.
I cannot even boast
A flameless fire.

There is the work I did
— Paper and ink —
I have no part in it:
There is no link

Between the man who wrote
— And more, was once alive,
And this relic for whom
The end does not arrive.

Although the life has gone
There is no corpse to show:
When others find it, I
Alone shall never know.

* * * * *

Final
Charles Hubert SISSON
(1914 –2003)

Nimic nu mai contează
Singur sunt
Memoria’m pierdut
Viaţa să-nfrunt.

Pian dezacordat,
Lira stricată –
Nici nu mai pot visa
C-aşi fi la vatră.

Pe raft e tot ce-am scris,
Volum peste volum –
Dar nu îmi aparţin.
Credeţi-mă ce spun.

Căci intre scriitorul
Ce-am fost căndva sa fiu
Nu-i nici o legatură
Cu un cadavru viu.

Cănd viaţa s-ar fi scurs,
Absent la înhumare,
N’o să-mi găsească trupul,
Căci rost nu îşi mai are.

Rendered in Romanian by Constantin ROMAN, London
© 2014 Copyright Constantin ROMAN, London

* * * * *

SHORT BIO: C. H. Sisson (1914-2003) was a noted poet, novelist, essayist and translator. His poetry can be traced back from Hulme to Eliot, Pound, Ford Madox Ford and Wyndham Lewis.
Sisson served in the British Army during World War II in India and joined the Ministry of Labour in 1936. His inside knowledge caused him to become a ‘severe critic’ of the Civil Service, which also happened to have inspired George Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Truth’ encapsulated in his novel ‘1984’. Sisson’s stance caused much controversy at the time. This is specially acknowledged in the author’s own ‘Epitaf’. published in ‘The London Zoo’:

‘Here lies a civil servant. He was civil
To everyone, and servant to the devil’.

Only months before he died, at the age of 89, C.H. Sisson was appointed a Companion of Honour for his services to Literature: it took a long time for the Establishment to forgive the poets ‘misdemeanor’…

(abridged and modified from Wikipedia)