IX

 

Eta ori bere mintzoa— samur, barnekoa,

Argiro gizonezkoa.—Maitez urtzen entzutean.

 

Ingeles mintzo oiek, ezin esan

Neurriak erakusteko nolako doñukoak diran.

Beste txorientzat zozoan abestia dan bezela,

Orrela ingeles mintzoak beste izkerentzat;

“o’s” garbi, borobil oiek—”I’s” ixurki, bikañak

Belarrietan sabbath ezkilak bezela durrunkatzen.

 

Ala ere mintzo oiek gorrotatu ditut, nere ustez

Asmo ausartia zekartenean,

Laterri guztiaren menperatzea

Itz-ebaki zuzen eta garbi orretan balego bezela.

 

Urte asko igaro ta, gogoratzen zait

Illunabarrean, bi gizonek, eta batek ziona

Claridge’n—Korotilo Zuri, txamarrak

Bond Street edo Savile Row’n egiñak—

Ain lasai, ain bere usteko, ain ongi-ikasiak—

Apain jantzitako sasijainko gazteak auxe zioten:

“Ez ote zure leenbiziko ikustaldia Laterri Alkartuetara”?

                                                                               “Oi, ez,

Orain bi urte Canadara joan nintzan.”

Ene Jainko, pentsa nuen, entzun ez al dute

Aske izan nairik jatorrizko kolonitarrak izan giñala,

Zori etsia saiatu genula, borroka egin eta irabazi

Washington izeneko nagusi baten azpian?

 

Norberak ez du erritasuna galtzen, aidanez,

Ni ingelesa nintzan urte askotandik.

 

 

 

IX

And what a voice he had—gentle, profound, / Clear masculine!—I melted at the sound. / Oh, English voices, are there any words / Those tones to tell, those cadences to teach! / As song of thrushes is to other birds, / So English voices are to other speech; / Those pure round ‘o’s ’—those lovely liquid ‘l’s’ / Ring in the ears like sound of Sabbath bells. // Yet i have loathed those voices when the sense / Of what they said seemed to me insolence, / As if the dominance of the whole nation / Lay in that clear correct enunciation. // Many years later, i remember when / One evening i overheard two men / In Claridge’s—white waistcoats, coats I know / Were built in Bond Street or in Savile Row— / So calm, so confident, so finely bred— / Young gods in tails—and this is what they said: / ‘Not your first visit to the States?’ / ‘Oh, no, / I’d been in Canada two years ago.’ / Good God, I thought, have they not heard that we / Were those queer colonists who would be free, / Who took our desperate chance, and fought and won / Under a colonist called Washington? // One does not lose one’s birthright, it appears. / I had been English then for many years.