Samuel Beckett was from Dublin but moved to France. Enueg II added today, 3 October 2023. He was a playwright, novelist and poet. He wrote some brilliant and prolific poetry in both English and in French. He was a kind man. I used to be (and still am) fascinated by his poems and I did my MA on the English-language poetry of Beckett. Here's to Samuel Beckett, 1906-1989. This page is in your honour Sam.
I hope the visitor enjoys reading this personal selection of beautiful poetry in English by Samuel Beckett:
DA TAGTE ES
redeem the surrogate goodbyes
the sheet astream in your hand
who have no more for the land
and the glass unmisted above your eyes
CALVARY BY NIGHT
the water
the waste of water
in the womb of water
an pansy leaps
rocket of bloom flare flower of night wilt for me
on the breasts of the water it has closed it has made
an act of floral presence on the water
the tranquil act of its cycle on the waste
from the sprouting forth
to the re-enwombing
untroubled bow of petalline sweet-smellingness
kingfisher abated
drowned for me
lamb of insustenance mine
till the clamour of a blue bloom
beat on the walls of the womb of
the waste of
the water
ENUEG II
for Harry my brother and Evan
world world world world
and the face grave
cloud against the evening
de morituris nihil nisi
and the face crumbling shyly
too late to darken the sky
blushing away into the evening
shuddering away like a gaffe
veronica mundi
veronica munda
give us a wipe for the love of Jesus
sweating like Judas
tired of dying
tired of policemen
feet in marmalade
perspiring profusely
heart in marmalade
smoke more fruit
the old heart the old heart
breaking outside congress
doch I assure thee
lying on O'Connell Bridge
goggling at the tulips of the evening
the green tulips
shining round the corner like an anthrax
shining on Guinness's barges
the overtone the face
too late to brighten the sky
doch doch I assure thee
HOME OLGA
J might be made sit up for a jade of hope (and exile, don't you know)
And Jesus and Jesuits juggernauted in the haemorrhoidal isle,
Modo et forma anal maiden, giggling to death in stomacho.
E for the erythrite of love and silence and the sweet noo style,
Swoops and loops of love and silence in the eye of the sun and view of the mew,
Juvante Jah and a Jain or two and the tip of a friendly yiddophile.
O for an opal of faith and cunning winking adieu, adieu, adieu;
Yesterday shall be to-morrow, riddle me that my rapparee;
Che sarà sarà che fu, there's more than Homer knows how to spew,
Exempli gratia: ecce himself and the pickthank agnus -- e.o.o.e.
GNOME
Spend the years of learning squandering
Courage for the years of wandering
Through the world politely turning
From the loutishness of learning.
CASCANDO
1
why not merely the despaired of
occasion of
wordshed
is it not better abort than be barren
the hours after you are gone are so leaden
they will always start dragging too soon
the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want
bringing up the bones the old loves
sockets filled once with eyes like yours
all always is it better too soon than never
the black want splashing their faces
saying again nine days never floated the loved
nor nine months
nor nine lives
2
saying again
if you do not teach me I shall not learn
saying again there is a last
even of last times
last times of begging
last times of loving
of knowing not knowing pretending
a last even of last times of saying
if you do not love me I shall not be loved
if I do not love you I shall not love
the churn of stale words in the heart again
love love love thud of the old plunger
pestling the unalterable
whey of words
terrified again
of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you
of knowing not knowing pretending
pretending
I and all the others that will love you
if they love you
3
unless they love you
LADY LOVE
She is standing on my lids
And her hair is in my hair
She has the colour of my eye
She has the body of my hand
In my shade she is engulfed
As a stone against the sky
She will never close her eyes
And she does not let me sleep
And her dreams in the bright day
Make the suns evaporate
Make me laugh cry and laugh
Speak when I have nothing to say
OUT OF SIGHT IN THE DIRECTION OF MY BODY
All the trees all their boughs all their leaves
The grass at the base the rocks the massed houses
Afar the sea that thine eye washes
Those images of one day and the next
The vices the virtues that are so imperfect
The transparence of men that pass in the streets of hazard
The women that pass in a fume from thy dour questing
The fixed ideas virgin-lipped leaden-hearted
The vices the virtues that are so imperfect
The eyes consenting resembling the eyes thou didst vanquish
The confusion of the bodies the lassitudes the ardours
The imitation of the words the attitudes the ideas
The vices the virtues that are so imperfect
Love, is man unfinished.
SCARCELY DISFIGURED
Farewell sadness
Greeting sadness
Thou art inscribed in the lines of the ceiling
Thou art inscribed in the eyes that I love
Thou art not altogether want
For the poorest lips denounce thee
Smiling
Greeting sadness
Love of the bodies that are lovable
Mightiness of love that lovable
Starts up as a bodiless beast
Head of hope defeated
Sadness countenance of beauty
SECOND NATURE
In honour of the dumb the blind the deaf
Shouldering the great black stone
The things of time passing simply away
But then for the others knowing things by their names
The sear of every metamorphosis
The unbroken chain of dawns in the brain
The implacable cries shattering words
Furrowing the mouth furrowing the eyes
Where furious colours dispel the mists of vigil
Set up love against life that the dead dream of
The low-living share the others are slaves
Of love as some are slaves of freedom
SCENE
At the hour when the first symptoms of mental viduity make themselves felt
A negro is to be seen always the same negro
In a most thoroughfare ostensibly swanking a red tie
He always sports the same beige hat
He has the features of spite he looks at no one
And no one looks at him
I love neither roads nor mountains nor forests
Bridges leave me cold
I do not see their arches as eyes I am not in the habit of walking on brows
I am in the habit of walking in quarters where there are the most women
And then I am interested only in women
The negro also for at the hour when boredom and fatigue
Daunt and detach me from desires
From myself
Then I meet him always
I am detached he is spiteful
His tie is certainly wrought iron with a coat of red-lead
False forge fire
But whether or not he is there out of spite
It is certain that I only notice him for want of something better to do
The shadows are yoked to an obvious determination to see nothing
But forth from its nest the evening staggers
What is that signal those signals those alarums
It is the last astonishment of the evening
The women departing slip off their chemises of light
All of a single sudden not a soul remains
When we are gone the light is alone
*
The carmine loft has nooks of jade
And jasper if the eye shuns nacre
The mouth is the mouth of the blood the elder
Cranes its neck for the milk of the blade
A flint has cowed the tempestuous night
Risk infant trips up daring
Stones on the stubble birds on the tiles
Fire in the harvests in the breasts
Playing with the pollen of the breath of the night
Hewn at the hands of the winds the water
Catches up her skirts and the scrolls of wave
Set the spark of dawn aflame
And in her black bodice a corpse seduces
The scarabs of the grass and of the dead boughs
*
In a so thoroughfare
UNIVERSE-SOLITUDE
1
A woman every night
Journeys secretly.
2
Villages of weariness
Where the arms of girls are bare
As jets of water
Where their youth increasing in them
Laughs and laughs and laughs on tiptoe
Villages of weariness
Where everybody is the same.
3
To see the eyes that cloister you
And the laughter that receives you.
4
I want to kiss thee I do kiss thee
I want to leave thee thou art tired
But when our strengths are at the ebb
Thou puttest on an armour more perilous than an arm.
5
The body and the profane honours
Incredible conspiracy
Of the angles soft as wings.
But the hand caressing me
It is my laughter that unclasps it
It is my throat that clings to it
That ends it
Incredible conspiracy
Of the discoveries and surprises.
6
Phantom of thy nudity
Phantom child of thy simplicity
Child victor carnal sleep
Of unreal liberties.
7
It is the breath the yestersun
Joining thy lips
And it is the caress the fresh caress
To scour the frail seas of thy shame
To fashion them in gloom
It is the mirrors of jasmine
The problem of calm.
8
Disarmed
She knows of no enemy.
9
She stretches herself
That she may feel less alone.
10
I admired descending upon thee
Time in the chariot of space
Our memories transported me
Much room is denied thee
For ever with me.
11
Rending her kisses and her fears
She wakes in the night
To wonder at all that has replaced her.
CONFECTIONS
1
Simplicity yea even to write
To-day at least the hand is there
2
It is meet to scrutinize
The iniquisitive
When one is weary
3
The violence of sea-winds
Ships old faces
A permanent abode
Weapons to defend one
A shot one only
Stupefaction of the father
Dead this long time
4
All these people eat
They are gluttonous they are happy
The more they laugh the more they eat
5
Above the hat-wear
A regiment of ospreys gallops past
It is a regiment of foot-wear
All the disillusioned fetishists and their complete collections
Off to the devil
6
Cataclysms of gold well-gotten
And of silver ill-gotten
7
The birds perfume the woods
The rocks their great nocturnal lakes
8
Play at profile and win
Let a bird abide in its wings
9
Rapt
I dwell in this thorn and my claw alights
On the sweet breasts of poverty and crime
10
Why are they made to run
They are not made to run
Arriving underdue
Departing overdue
What a road back
When slowness takes a hand
Proofs of the contrary
And futility
11
Gold-filings a treasure a platinum
Puddle deep in a horrible valley
Whose denizens have lost their hands
It takes the players out of themselves
12
The drawing-room with its black tongue licks its master
Embalms him performs the office of eternity
13
The Beresina forded by a sandy jug-dugged woman
14
He takes her in his arms
Bright gleams for a second playing
On the shoulder-blades the shoulders and the breasts
Then hidden by a cloud
She carries her hand to her heart
She pales she quakes
Whose then was the cry
But he if he still lives
He shall be rediscovered
In a strange town
15
The blood flowing on the flags
Furnishes me with sandals
I sit on a chair in the middle of the street
I observe the little Creole girls
Coming out of school smoking pipes
16
Do not see reality as I am
17
All life even as an agate has poured itself
Into the seams of my countenance and cast
A death-mask of unrivalled beauty
18
The black trees the white trees
Are younger than nature
In order to recover this freak of birth one must
Age
19
Fatal sun of the quick
One cannot keep thy heart
ELLES VIENNENT
they come
different and the same
with each it is different and the same
with each the absence of love is different
with each the absence of love is the same
DIEPPE
again the last ebb
the dead shingle
the turning then the steps
towards the lights of old
SAINT-LÔ
Vire will wind in other shadows
unborn through the bright ways tremble
and the old mind ghost-forsaken
sink into its havoc
MY WAY IS IN THE SAND FLOWING
my way is in the sand flowing
between the shingle and the dune
the summer rain rains on my life
on me my life harrying fleeing
to its beginning to its end
my peace is there in the receding mist
when I may cease from treading these long shifting thresholds
and live the space of a door
that opens and shuts
WHAT WOULD I DO WITHOUT THIS WORLD
what would I do without this world faceless incurious
where to be lasts but an instant where every instant
spills in the void the ignorance of having been
without this wave where in the end
body and shadow together are engulfed
what would I do without this silence where the murmurs die
the pantings the frenzies towards succour towards love
without this sky that soars
above its ballast dust
what would I do what I did yesterday and the day before
peering out of my deadlight looking for another
wandering like me eddying far from all the living
in a convulsive space
among the voices voiceless
that throng my hiddenness
SLEEP TILL DEATH
sleep till death
healeth
come ease
this life disease
THE DOWNS
the downs
summer days on the downs
hand in hand
one loving
one loved
back at night
the hut
no thought
thoughtless on
under the sun
hand in hand
one loving
the other loved
thoughtless back
night
on till the cliff
the edge
hand in hand
gazing down
the foam
no further
the edge
the foam
no speech
speechless on
under the sun
hand in hand
till the edge
speechless back
the hut
night
the bridge
winter night
wind
snow
gazing down
the flood
foaming on
black flood foaming on
no thought
gazing down
meaningless flood
foaming on
winter night
wind
snow
no meaning
light
from the banks
lamplight
to light the foam
the snow
faintly lit
the foam
the snow
(c) Samuel Beckett 1906-1989 with some translations from Paul Éluard 1895-1952
redeem the surrogate goodbyes
the sheet astream in your hand
who have no more for the land
and the glass unmisted above your eyes
CALVARY BY NIGHT
the water
the waste of water
in the womb of water
an pansy leaps
rocket of bloom flare flower of night wilt for me
on the breasts of the water it has closed it has made
an act of floral presence on the water
the tranquil act of its cycle on the waste
from the sprouting forth
to the re-enwombing
untroubled bow of petalline sweet-smellingness
kingfisher abated
drowned for me
lamb of insustenance mine
till the clamour of a blue bloom
beat on the walls of the womb of
the waste of
the water
ENUEG II
for Harry my brother and Evan
world world world world
and the face grave
cloud against the evening
de morituris nihil nisi
and the face crumbling shyly
too late to darken the sky
blushing away into the evening
shuddering away like a gaffe
veronica mundi
veronica munda
give us a wipe for the love of Jesus
sweating like Judas
tired of dying
tired of policemen
feet in marmalade
perspiring profusely
heart in marmalade
smoke more fruit
the old heart the old heart
breaking outside congress
doch I assure thee
lying on O'Connell Bridge
goggling at the tulips of the evening
the green tulips
shining round the corner like an anthrax
shining on Guinness's barges
the overtone the face
too late to brighten the sky
doch doch I assure thee
HOME OLGA
J might be made sit up for a jade of hope (and exile, don't you know)
And Jesus and Jesuits juggernauted in the haemorrhoidal isle,
Modo et forma anal maiden, giggling to death in stomacho.
E for the erythrite of love and silence and the sweet noo style,
Swoops and loops of love and silence in the eye of the sun and view of the mew,
Juvante Jah and a Jain or two and the tip of a friendly yiddophile.
O for an opal of faith and cunning winking adieu, adieu, adieu;
Yesterday shall be to-morrow, riddle me that my rapparee;
Che sarà sarà che fu, there's more than Homer knows how to spew,
Exempli gratia: ecce himself and the pickthank agnus -- e.o.o.e.
GNOME
Spend the years of learning squandering
Courage for the years of wandering
Through the world politely turning
From the loutishness of learning.
CASCANDO
1
why not merely the despaired of
occasion of
wordshed
is it not better abort than be barren
the hours after you are gone are so leaden
they will always start dragging too soon
the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want
bringing up the bones the old loves
sockets filled once with eyes like yours
all always is it better too soon than never
the black want splashing their faces
saying again nine days never floated the loved
nor nine months
nor nine lives
2
saying again
if you do not teach me I shall not learn
saying again there is a last
even of last times
last times of begging
last times of loving
of knowing not knowing pretending
a last even of last times of saying
if you do not love me I shall not be loved
if I do not love you I shall not love
the churn of stale words in the heart again
love love love thud of the old plunger
pestling the unalterable
whey of words
terrified again
of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you
of knowing not knowing pretending
pretending
I and all the others that will love you
if they love you
3
unless they love you
LADY LOVE
She is standing on my lids
And her hair is in my hair
She has the colour of my eye
She has the body of my hand
In my shade she is engulfed
As a stone against the sky
She will never close her eyes
And she does not let me sleep
And her dreams in the bright day
Make the suns evaporate
Make me laugh cry and laugh
Speak when I have nothing to say
OUT OF SIGHT IN THE DIRECTION OF MY BODY
All the trees all their boughs all their leaves
The grass at the base the rocks the massed houses
Afar the sea that thine eye washes
Those images of one day and the next
The vices the virtues that are so imperfect
The transparence of men that pass in the streets of hazard
The women that pass in a fume from thy dour questing
The fixed ideas virgin-lipped leaden-hearted
The vices the virtues that are so imperfect
The eyes consenting resembling the eyes thou didst vanquish
The confusion of the bodies the lassitudes the ardours
The imitation of the words the attitudes the ideas
The vices the virtues that are so imperfect
Love, is man unfinished.
SCARCELY DISFIGURED
Farewell sadness
Greeting sadness
Thou art inscribed in the lines of the ceiling
Thou art inscribed in the eyes that I love
Thou art not altogether want
For the poorest lips denounce thee
Smiling
Greeting sadness
Love of the bodies that are lovable
Mightiness of love that lovable
Starts up as a bodiless beast
Head of hope defeated
Sadness countenance of beauty
SECOND NATURE
In honour of the dumb the blind the deaf
Shouldering the great black stone
The things of time passing simply away
But then for the others knowing things by their names
The sear of every metamorphosis
The unbroken chain of dawns in the brain
The implacable cries shattering words
Furrowing the mouth furrowing the eyes
Where furious colours dispel the mists of vigil
Set up love against life that the dead dream of
The low-living share the others are slaves
Of love as some are slaves of freedom
SCENE
At the hour when the first symptoms of mental viduity make themselves felt
A negro is to be seen always the same negro
In a most thoroughfare ostensibly swanking a red tie
He always sports the same beige hat
He has the features of spite he looks at no one
And no one looks at him
I love neither roads nor mountains nor forests
Bridges leave me cold
I do not see their arches as eyes I am not in the habit of walking on brows
I am in the habit of walking in quarters where there are the most women
And then I am interested only in women
The negro also for at the hour when boredom and fatigue
Daunt and detach me from desires
From myself
Then I meet him always
I am detached he is spiteful
His tie is certainly wrought iron with a coat of red-lead
False forge fire
But whether or not he is there out of spite
It is certain that I only notice him for want of something better to do
The shadows are yoked to an obvious determination to see nothing
But forth from its nest the evening staggers
What is that signal those signals those alarums
It is the last astonishment of the evening
The women departing slip off their chemises of light
All of a single sudden not a soul remains
When we are gone the light is alone
*
The carmine loft has nooks of jade
And jasper if the eye shuns nacre
The mouth is the mouth of the blood the elder
Cranes its neck for the milk of the blade
A flint has cowed the tempestuous night
Risk infant trips up daring
Stones on the stubble birds on the tiles
Fire in the harvests in the breasts
Playing with the pollen of the breath of the night
Hewn at the hands of the winds the water
Catches up her skirts and the scrolls of wave
Set the spark of dawn aflame
And in her black bodice a corpse seduces
The scarabs of the grass and of the dead boughs
*
In a so thoroughfare
UNIVERSE-SOLITUDE
1
A woman every night
Journeys secretly.
2
Villages of weariness
Where the arms of girls are bare
As jets of water
Where their youth increasing in them
Laughs and laughs and laughs on tiptoe
Villages of weariness
Where everybody is the same.
3
To see the eyes that cloister you
And the laughter that receives you.
4
I want to kiss thee I do kiss thee
I want to leave thee thou art tired
But when our strengths are at the ebb
Thou puttest on an armour more perilous than an arm.
5
The body and the profane honours
Incredible conspiracy
Of the angles soft as wings.
But the hand caressing me
It is my laughter that unclasps it
It is my throat that clings to it
That ends it
Incredible conspiracy
Of the discoveries and surprises.
6
Phantom of thy nudity
Phantom child of thy simplicity
Child victor carnal sleep
Of unreal liberties.
7
It is the breath the yestersun
Joining thy lips
And it is the caress the fresh caress
To scour the frail seas of thy shame
To fashion them in gloom
It is the mirrors of jasmine
The problem of calm.
8
Disarmed
She knows of no enemy.
9
She stretches herself
That she may feel less alone.
10
I admired descending upon thee
Time in the chariot of space
Our memories transported me
Much room is denied thee
For ever with me.
11
Rending her kisses and her fears
She wakes in the night
To wonder at all that has replaced her.
CONFECTIONS
1
Simplicity yea even to write
To-day at least the hand is there
2
It is meet to scrutinize
The iniquisitive
When one is weary
3
The violence of sea-winds
Ships old faces
A permanent abode
Weapons to defend one
A shot one only
Stupefaction of the father
Dead this long time
4
All these people eat
They are gluttonous they are happy
The more they laugh the more they eat
5
Above the hat-wear
A regiment of ospreys gallops past
It is a regiment of foot-wear
All the disillusioned fetishists and their complete collections
Off to the devil
6
Cataclysms of gold well-gotten
And of silver ill-gotten
7
The birds perfume the woods
The rocks their great nocturnal lakes
8
Play at profile and win
Let a bird abide in its wings
9
Rapt
I dwell in this thorn and my claw alights
On the sweet breasts of poverty and crime
10
Why are they made to run
They are not made to run
Arriving underdue
Departing overdue
What a road back
When slowness takes a hand
Proofs of the contrary
And futility
11
Gold-filings a treasure a platinum
Puddle deep in a horrible valley
Whose denizens have lost their hands
It takes the players out of themselves
12
The drawing-room with its black tongue licks its master
Embalms him performs the office of eternity
13
The Beresina forded by a sandy jug-dugged woman
14
He takes her in his arms
Bright gleams for a second playing
On the shoulder-blades the shoulders and the breasts
Then hidden by a cloud
She carries her hand to her heart
She pales she quakes
Whose then was the cry
But he if he still lives
He shall be rediscovered
In a strange town
15
The blood flowing on the flags
Furnishes me with sandals
I sit on a chair in the middle of the street
I observe the little Creole girls
Coming out of school smoking pipes
16
Do not see reality as I am
17
All life even as an agate has poured itself
Into the seams of my countenance and cast
A death-mask of unrivalled beauty
18
The black trees the white trees
Are younger than nature
In order to recover this freak of birth one must
Age
19
Fatal sun of the quick
One cannot keep thy heart
ELLES VIENNENT
they come
different and the same
with each it is different and the same
with each the absence of love is different
with each the absence of love is the same
DIEPPE
again the last ebb
the dead shingle
the turning then the steps
towards the lights of old
SAINT-LÔ
Vire will wind in other shadows
unborn through the bright ways tremble
and the old mind ghost-forsaken
sink into its havoc
MY WAY IS IN THE SAND FLOWING
my way is in the sand flowing
between the shingle and the dune
the summer rain rains on my life
on me my life harrying fleeing
to its beginning to its end
my peace is there in the receding mist
when I may cease from treading these long shifting thresholds
and live the space of a door
that opens and shuts
WHAT WOULD I DO WITHOUT THIS WORLD
what would I do without this world faceless incurious
where to be lasts but an instant where every instant
spills in the void the ignorance of having been
without this wave where in the end
body and shadow together are engulfed
what would I do without this silence where the murmurs die
the pantings the frenzies towards succour towards love
without this sky that soars
above its ballast dust
what would I do what I did yesterday and the day before
peering out of my deadlight looking for another
wandering like me eddying far from all the living
in a convulsive space
among the voices voiceless
that throng my hiddenness
SLEEP TILL DEATH
sleep till death
healeth
come ease
this life disease
THE DOWNS
the downs
summer days on the downs
hand in hand
one loving
one loved
back at night
the hut
no thought
thoughtless on
under the sun
hand in hand
one loving
the other loved
thoughtless back
night
on till the cliff
the edge
hand in hand
gazing down
the foam
no further
the edge
the foam
no speech
speechless on
under the sun
hand in hand
till the edge
speechless back
the hut
night
the bridge
winter night
wind
snow
gazing down
the flood
foaming on
black flood foaming on
no thought
gazing down
meaningless flood
foaming on
winter night
wind
snow
no meaning
light
from the banks
lamplight
to light the foam
the snow
faintly lit
the foam
the snow
(c) Samuel Beckett 1906-1989 with some translations from Paul Éluard 1895-1952
For Harry
