James Laughlin's 'O Best of All Nights, Return and Return Again"

James Laughlin (1914-1997)

I knew very little about Laughlin except that he founded New Directions Publishing after Pound had told him ‘to do something useful’. I think this poem is a ‘version’ of a Latin poem by Propertius rather than a strict translation.

I’ve taken it from ‘World Poetry’ edited by Washburn and Major where the poem’s title is followed by:

(After the Pervigilium Veneris and Propertius’s ‘Nox Mihi Candida’.)

Centuries after the originals were created, I suspect most people might recognise the sentiment.