my translations of favorite Polish poems

A Smile by Antoni Słonimski

How good it was, to lie among the brambles,
At noon, with books, in garden’s soothing shade
How good it’s now, with engine’s teasing gambols
To flee through Paris, onwards, unafraid

How good it was, to watch the globe’s slow turning
And hold the world in one familiar room
How good it’s now, to quench the wild heart’s yearning
With breathing steppe under the night sky bloom

How good it was, to live and let things be
In ma’s old house, where all the things felt near
How good it’s now, to sail across the sea
And land with ease upon the sunlit pier

How good it was to circle in a restless glide
The fragrant secrets in the crystal ball
How good it’s now, to have that choice inside
To end it with the pistol’s final call