Verses, Violet Jacob

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by Violet Jacob · 1863–1946

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Verses by Violet Jacob is a collection of lyric and narrative poems written in the early 20th century. The book ranges across love, nature, memory, death, and travel, often shifting between northern landscapes and the sensuous “East.” Its likely topic is the transience of life and feeling, seen through seasons, journeys, and haunting recollections. The poems move from intimate love songs and moonlit serenades to ballads of fatal passion and revenant lovers, as in the medieval drama of The Mill-house and the ghostly The Ballad of Hakon. Nature pieces linger over spring light, owls and nightjars, ploughlands, and late-winter hedgerows, while elegies reckon with loss and courage before death (The Soul, Revenant, Winter and Spring, With Military Honours). A strong travel strain contrasts homestead and open road (Beyond the Walls; “Come on, come up, ye rovers”), and the book’s center of gravity widens in the Egyptian and Indian poems: quiet mango-topes at noon, furnace nights before the monsoon, opium fields at sundown, the muezzin’s call, graves beneath banyans, and the distant pull of temples. Scottish pieces (Airlie Kirk, The Lowland Ploughman) and three poems for children add tenderness and homely detail. Throughout, musical cadence, vivid imagery, and a recurring moonlit glamour bind themes of longing, faith, and the inexorable passing of time.

Summary generated automatically by Project Gutenberg.

Read time
46 min
Words
10,200
Chapters
51
Paragraphs
429
Price
Free
  • English poetry -- Scottish authors
VersesTHE MILL-HOUSE

Here in the winding coil of waterways,

Aquí, en la espiral sinuosa de los canales,

Apart among the trees, where no feet pass,

Apartada entre los árboles, por donde no pasan pies,

And little woodland rabbits on the grass

Y los pequeños conejos del bosque sobre la hierba

Sit lightly cropping through the Autumn days,

Se sientan ligeros picoteando a través de los días de otoño,

The troubling world, with all its weary moods,

El mundo inquietante, con todos sus cansados estados de ánimo,

Is far away outside the circling woods.

Está muy lejos fuera de los bosques circundantes.

A golden rain of leaf is on the beech

Una lluvia dorada de hojas cae sobre el haya

And red and gold the maze of branches glow

Y rojo y dorado brillan los entrelazados de ramas

To drop their wealth upon the grass below,

Para dejar caer su riqueza sobre la hierba de abajo,

As golden silence falls on golden speech;

Mientras el silencio dorado cae sobre el discurso dorado;

In long, wet flats, wherein the heron feeds,

En largas y húmedas planicies, donde se alimenta la garza,

A golden sky is mirrored through the reeds.

Un cielo dorado se refleja a través de las cañas.

No voices come to still that other voice

No llegan voces para apaciguar esa otra voz

Which breathes along the labyrinth of trees

Que sopla a lo largo del laberinto de árboles

To tell the tired soul to dwell at ease

Para decir al alma cansada que habite con tranquilidad

Among the best-loved visions of its choice:

Entre las visiones más amadas de su elección:

‘Sleep in these groves,’ it says, ‘by spirits trod,

‘Duerme en estos bosques’, dice, ‘hollados por espíritus,

While thine heart waketh to the sound of God.’

Mientras tu corazón vigila al sonido de Dios.’

About the author

Violet Jacob1863–1946

Violet Jacob was a Scottish writer and poet born in 1863 at the House of Dun in Montrose.

The Violet Jacob page, and where to start →

Questions about Verses

Can I read Verses in English with Spanish side by side online?

Yes, free. Paralelo shows the English original with a Spanish machine translation beside it, aligned phrase by phrase: hover or tap a phrase and its counterpart lights up in the other column. Anyone can read a passage; a free account opens the whole book.

What level do I need to read Verses here?

There is no set level. Verses runs to 10,200 words in 51 chapters, and the translation sits beside it, aligned phrase by phrase, so you can start below the level the original would need on its own and lean on the translation only where you stumble.

Is Verses really free to read?

Yes. The text is in the public domain, and the translation and alignment are ours to give. A free account opens the whole book; the paid tier is for unlimited explanations.

Can I read Verses in another language?

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How long does Verses take to read?

About 46 min at a normal pace, longer if you stop to look at the alignment, which is rather the point.

Book details

Original language
English
Translation
Spanish, machine translation
Source text
Project Gutenberg #78110
Licence
Public domain worldwide

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