Paradise with the Donkeys

Richard Wilbur, a great poet in his own right, also has a reputation as an exceptional translator of non-English poetry. What follows is one I enjoy, originally written by French poet Francis Jammes (1868-1938). I cannot read French, so I don’t know if Wilbur improved on the original or not. Either way, this version is very fine.

 (The photograph is of Jammes, n.d.)

A Prayer to Go to Paradise with the Donkeys

            to Máire and Jack

When I must come to you, O my God, I pray

It be some dusty-roaded holiday,

And even as in my travels here below,

I beg to choose by what road I shall go

To Paradise, where the clear stars shine by day.

I’ll take my walking-stick and go my way,

And to my friends the donkeys I shall say,

“I am Francis Jammes, and I’m going to Paradise,

For there is no hell in the land of the loving God.”

And I’ll say to them: “Come, sweet friends of the blue skies,

Poor creatures who with a flap of the ears or a nod

Of the head shake off the buffets, the bees, the flies . . .”

Let me come with these donkeys, Lord, into your land,

These beasts who bow their heads so gently, and stand

With their small feet joined together in a fashion

Utterly gentle, asking your compassion.

I shall arrive, followed by their thousands of ears,

Followed by those with baskets at their flanks,

By those who lug the carts of mountebanks

Or loads of feather-dusters and kitchen-wares,

By those with humps of battered water-cans,

By bottle-shaped she-asses who halt and stumble,

By those tricked out in little pantaloons

To cover their wet, blue galls where flies assemble

In whirling swarms, making a drunken hum.

Dear God, let it be with these donkeys that I come,

And let it be that angels lead us in peace

To leafy streams where cherries tremble in air,

Sleek as the laughing flesh of girls; and there

In that haven of souls let it be that, leaning above

Your divine waters, I shall resemble these donkeys,

Whose humble and sweet poverty will appear

Clear in the clearness of your eternal love.