Wednesday, June 6, 2012

love sonnet XIII

 
"Give me a place to stand," Archimedes said,
    "and I can move the world." Paradoxical, clever,
his remark which first explained the use of the lever
   was an academic joke. But if that dead

sage could return to life, he would find a clear
  demonstration of his idea, which is not
  pure theory after all.  That putative spot
        exists in the love I feel for you, my dear.

What could be more immovable or stronger?
What becomes more and more secure, the longer
       it is battered by inconstancy and the stress

we find in our lives? Here is that fine fixed point
   from which to move a world that is out of joint,
as he could have done, had he known a love like this.

        -Jean de Sponde   (16th century)

 

            - David R. Slavitt  -  trans.

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