A Poem by Mihai Eminescu Translated by Delia Radu

GLIDE MOON SIDEWAYS

Glide moon sideways
Sweetly pierce the deeps
The forested steeps 
With icy rays

The bird extends
Its wings in wide movements
As it counts the moments
Till the flight ends

Daunting is the ship 
As she shakes her sails
Where ghosts of past gales
Hold a tight grip

Black fort walls
Loom mid woods of fir tree
Where streams flow over scree
Countless lone falls
…………………………..
Ring out loud horn
Long notes from shore to shore
From hill to hill you roar
That I return

And beech leaf you
Help me remember 
The doina its tender
Tune sing out too

Elder flute glisten
With tears play sad doinas
Fiery tunes thunderous
Angel listen
…………………………………
Glide moon sideways
Sweetly stab the boughs
And the leafy downs 
With your cold rays

Frail ford flower
Like dawn’s dispersing light
And blossoms dropping bright
Stars fall and cower
……………………………..
Cornel flower
Blow your tiny brass horn
To see me reborn
Ring out with power

Flower denizen
Of woods where young women 
Fill their days with singing
In unison

Flower of bowers
Let longing animate
Us let this be our great
Secret just ours

Flowers grow they
Thrive you reign over broad
Walls over solitudes lord
Flesh and bones of clay

(Written circa 1879; published in 1958 in the fifth volume of the Perpessicius Edition)

The Romanian orginal text



LUNĂ CE TRECI

Lună ce treci
Codri şi undele
Dulce pătrunde-le
Cu raze reci

Paserea sus
Tinde aripele
Numără clipele
Unde s-a dus

Aprigul vas
Tremură pânzele
Vântul într-însele
Tot a rămas

Negre cetăţi
Dintre păduri de brad
Unde izvoare cad
Singurătăţi
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sunet de corn
Treci [tu] din mal în mal
Spune din deal în deal
Că mă întorn

Frunză de fag
Doina cântându-mi-o
Reamintindu-mi-o
Sună cu drag

Fluier de soc
Doină de plângere
Ascultă îngere
Sună cu foc
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Lună ce treci
Crengile, frunzele
Dulce pătrunze-le
Razele-ţi reci

Floare de vad
Asemenea zorilor
Căderii florilor
Stelele cad
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Floare de corn
Dulce vestindu-mă
Întinerindu-mă
Sună din corn

Floare-n păduri
Unde copilele
Uitându-şi zilele
Cântă din guri

Floare prin foi
Dorul anime-ne
Nu-l ştie nimene
Noi amândoi

Florile cresc
Eşti al cetăţilor
Singurătăţilor
Domn pământesc

Mihai Eminescu is often regarded as Europe’s last great Romantic writer, though some critics prefer to focus on the pre-modernist chords of his poetry. Born in 1850 in Moldova, still part of the Ottoman Empire at that time, he studied in the Germano-Romanian cultural centre of Cernauti (now Chernovtsy, Ukraine), Vienna and Berlin, where he was strongly influenced by German philosophy (notably by Schopenhauer), Western literature and German translations of ancient Indian texts. Most of his literary work came to a halt in 1883, when he experienced bouts of mental illness that would allow him to write and publish rarely. After 1883, he spent most of the rest of his life in sanatoria in or near Vienna, Odessa, Iasi, or Bucharest, where he died in 1889. Eminescu modernised and transformed Romanian literature profoundly.

Delia Radu is a writer, journalist and translator. Born and educated in Bucharest, she’s lived and worked in London since 1999. Her literary work was published in Litro, Cardinal Points Literary Journal, La Piccioletta Barca, Circumference, Mantis and Acumen. Her journalistic work features on BBC News and BBC Sounds.

18 August 2026