Rural Retreat Poem by Richard Minne

It is an old hotel. There one rests among the beasts.
And in the guest book, all decked out with Elzevirs,


is still preserved the fame of many a foreigner
returning from some eastern pilgrimage.


It is an old hotel. After the chase the hunters
would spend the evening there and drink among the antlers


of deer, while servants and hounds for their reward
in the warm barn would find their bed and board.


It is an old hotel. There infidelity and shame,
one night, sought quiet under a borrowed name.


It's a conch-shell, this place, said someone,… music too.
And a tourist looked for answer to his neighbour.


It's a calm gentleman in woolly mittens
who goes after little fish in placid streams


to pass the time. He has no great taste for speech.
He thinks: ‘These peas are sweet as butter'. Says nothing. Eats.


And he calls for a round of aged wine.
I think, he laughs, we'll all agree that's fine!


It is an old hotel. Rain beats against the windows.
The guests are mute. Indeed their eyes would close,


their hands and minds too, save for the maiden there,
soft as the lamp borne through the dusky air.


The carter, ‘neath the trees unharnessing his mare,
gives her good day and tells how he did fare


in seven words. Each noon he comes again,
though rheumatism knifes his back with pain.


Just like the persistent lawyer's clerk: almost a gent.
He greets the lassie, then he sits down silent.


Were his mother with us still, she'd shake her head:
- Romijn, you'll be a bridegroom, praise the Lord…


It is an old hotel. The rain beats on the windows.
The world's such a sad place. Now our two eyes can close.

Translated by Tanis Guest