T. Carmi: She Is Asleep (From Hebrew)

She Is Asleep
T. Carmi
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me recite the original Hebrew

"I sleep, but my heart waketh; Hark! my beloved knocketh"
�Song of Songs 5:2

She is asleep; but her hand is awake,
More than the surgeon's palm in operation, 
To breathing, to the odors, to pulsation,
To murmurings that hidden dirges make.

She is asleep; but her ear still takes in
The clinkings of cool metal, the unsteady
Eyelids that fall too heavy. Ever ready
For silence of a sudden, and chagrin....

She is asleep; but watch her eye will keep
On you, on heedless spring, on autumn's thresh,
The dead to be, the breath of all that lives.
Oh may she rest in dream. She is asleep. 

But her hand will cut trusty as the knives

Till sundown in the raw and living flesh.




The Original:

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Romanization:

Hi ye�ena; aval yada ?eyra

Yoter mikaf-yado �el hamnat�a?

Lar�a? velad�fek velar�a?

Ler�?a� hakina hamsutara.

Hi ye�ena; aval ozna pku?a

Leki� mat�xet kerira vanid

?Af?af kaved. Hi ?aruxa tamid

 Ledimiyat-pit'om velamvuxa.

Hi ye�ena; aval bexa ?eyna,

Bef�?az ha'aviv uva�al�xet

Bamet haba uveni�mat-kol-?ay...

�alom la?aloma. Hi ye�ena.

Aval yada ha'emuna ?ot�xet

?Ad bo ha��me� babasar ha?ay