Robert Waterhouse propose un poème de circonstance, inédit, de George Mayer-Marton (1897-1960), en anglais.
Growing Old
by George Mayer-Marton
Let me see:
is anything amiss?
Have I grown too old
for dreaming of new work and love?
Or have I merely aged
like one of those forgotten hillside woods,
unfenced and unencaged,
pathless with many a fallen tree
and felled ones, grey like slate,
studded with leafcrowned stumps,
aureolate in the gathering autumn-cold?
I am no longer forest-dense enough
for hiding maze-born myths,
but through the thinning foliage
more light may penetrate
deep down to the nameless roots.
George Mayer-Marton (1897-1960) was a Hungarian-born artist and art teacher who moved to London from Vienna with his wife Grete in September 1938 following the Anschluss. In September 1940 their North London studio-home was fire-bombed during an early Blitz raid. They had taken shelter, but most of the work Mayer-Marton brought with him was destroyed and Grete never fully recovered from the incident. George went on to work for the Arts Council and in 1953 became a senior lecturer at Liverpool College of Art. This poem, dating from the late 1950s, was written in English, a language George barely spoke in 1938. He was also an accomplished violinist.
