Sir Patrick Spens
Anon

The king sits in Dumferling toune,
      Drinking the blude-reid wine:
‘O whar will I get a guid sailor,
      To sail this schip of mine?’

( Up and spak an eldern knicht )

Diffugere Nives
Horace, trans A.E. Housman

The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws
      And grasses in the mead renew their birth,
The river to the river-bed withdraws,
      And altered is the fashion of the earth.

( The Nymphs and Graces three put off their fear )

The Seven
Anon (Akkadian), trans Jerome Rothenberg

They are 7 in number, just 7
In the terrible depths they are 7
Bow down, in the sky they are 7

( In the terrible depths, the dark houses )

To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough, November, 1785
Robert Burns

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

( I'm truly sorry man's dominion, )

Today’s poem, Jonson’s Hymn To Cynthia reminded me of a section in the introduction to John Brough’s Poems From The Sanskrit in which he demonstrates the difficulties of translation by ‘translating’ this same poem into various other English versions:

( Extract here )

At The Round Earth's Imagined Corners
John DonneAt the round earth's imagined corners, blow ( Read more... )

I fear this post could be entitled In Which I Hopelessly Muddle Thorny Ethical Problems With Narrative Tropes. On the other hand, there are bullet points! They don't make anything clearer, but still ( Read more... )

from The Wanderer
trans Michael Alexander

A wise man may grasp how ghastly it shall be
when all this world's wealth standeth waste,
even as now, in many places, over the earth
walls stand, wind beaten,
hung with hoar-frost; ruined habitations.
( The wine-halls crumble; their wielders lie )

Beauty, Sweet Love (Sonnet XLII)
Samuel Daniel       Beauty, sweet love, is like the morning dew ( Read more... )

Absence
Matthew Arnold

In this fair stranger's eyes of grey
Thine eyes, my love! I see.
I shiver; for the passing day
( Had borne me far from thee. )