It's past. The sun passed seawards with the year,

Last night, last witness of my sinful year.

O God (whose thousand years are as a day)

I would unclothe my ragged soul today

From all the muddied garments of my years

(The forty year and seven you’ve allowed)

Taxing your patience with my sinner's prayer.

Grant me new garments, cleaner than I’ve known:

Though, in this first renewal, blood and flesh

May stretch the clothing, as their nature strains;

Your hand shall shape me for these garment's wear.

O guard my steps to the eternal land,

Your Israelite in this world's wilderness,

And may my life these new clothes never spoil.

The first great web is woven, the court described enough,

Time now to flee to Hofwijk. Who knows the thread of life

How short, how strong it is? The loudest sounding string

Will often break the first, in life and on the lute,

Being tuned too high, too taut, abraded by the times.

Such tension I have known, but safely have endured it,

It comes down to attrition. And this has two signs

(I were a fool denying it): my years and my grey hairs.

When the stretched lutestring frays, abraded, split and worn,

It shows that it is ready, quite suddenly, to go.

Who knows if the sudden hour of your going forth, my soul,

Lies not before you now? And if it should please God

To take me, would my house outlive my days unsung,

Be outdone by my Tempe? Would I stint my own,

Who have so often lent my pen to others’ work?

Justly I’d be accused of negligence, when dead,

With justice would my epitaph begin, ‘Here lies

A man who thought it would suffice to plant and dig,

Who followed farmer's arts and never took the time

To ornament his own creation with a song.’

My death I can't postpone simply by living long,

But, if I live a while, I will prevent that charge:

That which I plant I’ll sing, and rhyme all that I grow,

Before my voice grows hoarse, before my pen grows old.

I’d make the stranger see and make the Dutchman read

Hofwijk as it stands now, the Hofwijk that shall be.

So frail are human works, paper outlasts them all,

Time wears the shrub and stone: in time it will be said,

‘Here once his Hofwijk stood, now rubble, weeds and spoil.’

And then shall Hofwijk stand, still flowering in its pride

If any words that come, my reader, from my hand

Have ever braved the years and conquered ruinous time.

Ick will u Hofwijck doen aenschouwen, of 't te nacht,

Gelijck als duijvels-brood, te voorschijn waer gebracht.

Jae meer, ick will het u, en mij oock, doen betreden

Als waer ons gisteren een’ gansche eew geleden

’Kwill met kinds kinderen goed deelen voor mijn’ dood,

Als waer ick Grootevaer en twee drij mael soo groot.

Translation falls as short of untranslated verse

As shadows of the substance: shadows are of night.

But your discrimination's power should not condemn them;

They’re noble women all, the daughters of the light.

And shadows are awry, like the face seen in the moon:

These poems are so too: but, if I dare to say it,

Like to the strengthless shadow on the earth extended

Some traces of the substance still can be discerned.

And shadows strengthless are, and darkling in our sight

As are these poems too: only to common eyes

Which cannot see beyond weak darkness of the shadow:

What shadow dares to bar the day from Tessel's eyes?

And shadows all are cold, but tepid at their warmest:

These poems are so too: their cold's but surface chill

With hidden fire within, like the cold breast of the lover,

The peppercorn is cold until you bite its fire.

And shadows nothings are, like dreams in the full day,

These poems are so too: but nothings bodied forth,

Know what fed my dream, which I digested into dreams:

I’d swallowed pith and all, before I dreamed and saw.

Come, cool Tesselschade, once my guest for solid fare,

See where my shame may lead; I dare to taunt your coldness,

Now, of your tolerance, I bid you dine with me

On cold, deformity, shades, nothings, dark.

Hoe lijvigh en hoe recht, hoe witt, hoe heet, hoe swaer

Waer 't Engelsche gerecht, als uw vernuft kon dalen

Tot overzeesch gekoock in Nederland te halen,

En all dit laff gedroom een Tesselschaduw waer!

Maer ‘tzuyderlicker soet van Roomens schaduw-tael

Besitt uw besigh hert: Jerusalem langs Roomen

Op Tassos Lauwer-koets met Nederlandsche toomen

Te voeren daer ghij woont, bewoont v altemael.

(Hoe langsaem loopt die huer! Wanneer will 't besigh hert

Geleggen van die draght, en 't machtighe bekeeren

Dat Circe niet en kost, den Alckemaerder leeren,

Daer door de Schaduw ‘tlijf, en ‘tlijf de schaduw werdt?)

Soo viel mijn’ taeck Noord-west: die gaf mij uw bevel.

Myn’ onmacht beefde’r voor, en ‘tkon mijn’ hand ontroeren,

En, meend’ ick, ‘twas soo soet als qualick uijt te voeren;

Maer, ‘tQualick, dat ghij wilt, werdt van uw willen, Wel.

You have a treasure, gazer, and a golden one:

Transmuted gold from lowly bronze.

A brazen treasure, made by Dürer's divine hand.

Generous Nature guards him, under kindly stars.

All who gaze, wonder, seeing divine re-creation:

The thing itself living anew, through artist's skill.

Fixing changing things into the durable picture

Where time's tooth cannot spoil them nor Jove's anger.

We gaze at the marvel, Dürer's achievement enduring,

Made by the gentlest man, under the fostering sky.

Prosper, master! We’ll never escape you:

Now all of creation is caught in your pictures.

This is my puppy's grave:

No more than this be said,

I’d wish (and were it so, the world were none the worse)

My little dog alive, all this world's great ones dead.

The sky is clear of rain: let us praise Him ever,

So wrathful and so mild,

Who works his wonders out:

Distilling from the heavens

Instead of wasting storm and salt flood's overflow

Our consolation: still, dry water, sweet and white.

On the chalk-white strand of Britain,

Where the sun to southwards burns,

To which shores our Flemish lowlands

Were connected, long ago

(If we may believe the theories

Of deep scholars of our days,

Who are looking to the cradle

Of the world before the flood):

At the foot of those chalk-cliffs which

Stand against the gnawing waves

Of the driving northern breakers

In their brackish ebb and flow,

And their light-foot springing waters,

And their rippling assault –

There a shepherd-boy of Holland

Sadly lay, by grief brought low.

Love's conceits their youthful burden

Never laid upon his soul,

Of a thousand youthful hearts, his

Heart alone remained his own

And that eye was not created,

(Or at least was not yet found)

That his own eye would gaze into,

Before Heaven ordained the hour.

Sharper grief than lover's grieving,

Pleasurable melancholy,

Cut his breathing into sighing

And disolved his eyes in tears.

Those whose grief is sensual weeping

Love to flaunt their lovers’ woes,

Shows and follies do not join with

Silent grieving and real pain.

Klachten van verijlde koppen,

Stenens-kunst, verweende sangh,

Tranen van gemaeckte droppen

Soecken allesins ‘tgedrangh:

Hij was rijckelick te vreden

Met de tuijghen die hij vond,

Van sijn’ ongeveijnsde reden;

Son en hemel, zee en grond.

Ebbe, seijd’ hij (’tgingh van ebbe)

Dubbeldaeghse water-beurt,

Die ick lieff en liever hebbe

Om de kielen die ghij beurt

Met de Westelijcke vlaghen

Naer de deuren vanden Rhijn,

Die nu zes mael zestich daghen

Mijnes onbevaren zijn;

Als ghij daer mijn’ overburen

Naeste reijs genaken sult,

En haer’ bancken overschuren

Die de droochte nu vermult;

Seght hun, Ebb’, op mijn bevelen

Hoe 't haer balling-borgher gaet,

Hoeder in sijn’ vochte schelen

Stadich 't volle springh-Tij staet.

Hoe sijn’ sorghen altijdt wacker,

Hoe sijn’ suchten altijdt vers

's Vaderlandts bebloeijden acker

Overwandelen van verrs;

Hoe sijn’ rusteloose nachten

Mijmeringhen sonder end,

Knoopen zijn van werr-gedachten,

Schilderijen van ellend:

Empty heads are always moaning,

Artful mourning, sensual song,

Facile, fabricated tear-drops,

These an audience require;

But the shepherd was contented

With the auditors he found,

For his unfeigned lamentation:

Sun and sky and sea and strand.

If the moon is grey, rain comes; if rosy, wind will rise;

What of a bright white moon?

You have named all; what remains:

Let the white moon bring peace.

In her snow-cold arms, half-asleep, half-awake he was lying.

‘Sleep,’ said the lover, ‘all of us cannot do all things.’

Shrouding her burning fire, feigning a snowy indifference,

‘Sleep, love,’ she answered, ‘we cannot all command all things.

If you cannot in flesh, spend the price of your night in cold money,

Pay what is offered: that is what we ask of all men.’

If I should see a glass with diamond-point engraving,

When I its substance ponder, on its nature think,

This is the most precise of names that I can give it:

Translucent, hard, black, brittle paper with white ink.

The Titan sun calls forth the gods to battle,

Drawing up the waters from the earth.

A great urn rains from the god, gods laugh:

Shines not this day more joyfully?

How good is God! Here I am still,

Free from complaint and free from moan,

As had I from a short death risen.

Would I had risen too from sin,

My constant death in life. O Lord,

Crown this your favour with yet more:

And let my self not sleep too long.

Once for three days your friend did sleep

And stank the fourth day when he rose.

How stands it with my flesh corrupt,

And with my fouler soul within?

They stink alike to every sense,

Offend your nose as well as mine;

And so, my Lord, it cannot be

But that this spark of life afresh

Was given me to spend by you.

So my two eyes are not closed;

You make me open one of them:

I dream not, for I see my dreams

Come before my open eyes,

And tell them through to you, my Lord,

And throw them down before your feet

Like the foul rags of those limbs which

Have moved to combat against you,

Yes, against me, who should know better

Yet always of Eve's apple eats.

But now as you do see me yawn,

You have no need to cry as loud

As ‘Lazarus come leave your tomb’;

I know that which he did not know,

I know that you have come to me,

And do not even clutch the hem

Of your all-holy, holiest robe:

It heals me that I trust and know

Hoe Ghij, gezeghen door de wolcken

Ter saligheid van alle volcken,

Voor alle volcken van dijn’ Kerck

Getreden zijt in ‘tbloedigh werck,

En hebt de wyn-pers self getreden;

Met wonderwercken en met reden

De Kieckens van dijn’ eighen’ renn

Vergadert, daer ick een af ben:

Ghij hebt van dijn’ verdoolde schaepen

De Cudde t’samen komen raepen,

En van die Schaepen ben ick een;

Dat weet ick uyt dijn’ eighen’ re’en.

Dat weten kond ick niet bereicken,

Hadt ghij de hand niet willen reicken,

Om mij te slepen uyt den nacht

Van myn’ onkunde sonder macht.

Hebt medelyden met den Weter,

En, dien ghij wel deedt, doet hem beter:

Gedooght niet dat in wetenschap

Mijn wanckelend Geloove slapp’.

God's handiwork, which I can visit, own and see:

I need no copy of it from a human hand.

However, there's one part of painter's art can please me:

That piece which lays its hand to slow the wheel of time,

And places the grandfather of my father's sire

Now in my sight, as if he lived today or yesterday

And allows the children of my grandchildren to inherit

The countenance that goes with me to death and to decay.

Is painter's skill not more the master than is time?

Yes, it preserves in oil these perishable things.

My boys, regarding our shadows from under the shade of the lime tree,

Learn the true value of things from the clearness of water.

If all that man's business amounts to is mist, smoke and a shadow,

Which has more substance now: the thing or its watery reflection?