Osip Mandelstam. Tristia (tranlsation by Ilya Shambat)
———————————————————————————————- © Copyright Osip Mandelstam © Copyright english translation by Ilya Shambat (ilya_shambat@yahoo.com)
Date: 30 Jan 2001 Origin: "Kamen. Tristia" ———————————————————————————————-
I have a body - what with it to do, So one and so my own? I wish I knew.
That I can breathe for quiet joy and live, To whom am I, for this, my thanks to give?
I am the gardener and flower one, In darkness of the world I'm not alone.
On glass of the eternal one can see The signs of breath and of the warmth of me.
Impressed on it is vision of the wise Unrecognizeable from recent times.
Be washed away the momentary mire - The miracle of light will not expire.
x x x
She has not taken her first sigh - She is the word and music both - And thus of all that's made of growth A timeless and eternal tie.
Tenderly heave the breasts of sea But like a madman day will roam O'er pallid blossoms of sea foam In vase of lapis lazuli.
My lips acquire at time of birth The ghastly silence of conception Like notes of crystalline perfection Free of the violence of earth
Remain as foam, O Venus dreaming, And words to music do return And heart, at heart's own shame do burn, Fused with the basis of all being!
x x x
An inexpressible despair Two giant pupils opened wide, A vase of flowers rose beside And threw her crystals into air
The room was filled three meters deep With dreaminess - hello sweet balm!
That such a liliputian realm Could have consumed so much ! ! of sleep.
A bit of wine a bit of cake - A bit of sunny May despite - And thinnest fingers snowy white, Alive at last, have snapped awake.
x x x
A snowmound cleaner than the air, Crystal more see-through than the glass A turquoise brooch adorned with brass Carelessly tossed upon a chair.
A cloth made drunk of her own glow Caressed by tenderness of light Experienced the summer bright As though it were the winter snow.
And if through diamonds made of ice Frosts of eternities were streaming Here is the flutter of the dreaming Fast-living blue-eyed dragonflies.
x x x
Blackened wind weaves patterns hollow Under barely breathing leaves And a trembling little swallow In dark skies a circle weaves.
Quietly argue in the heart Dear, dying, mine despite, The impending dusk apart Of an ebbing ray of l! ! ight.
And above the woods of dusk Has arisen copper moon;
Why so little song, I ask, And such silence in the lone?
x x x
Why is the soul so lyrical And so few are the names I love And the ready rhythm but a miracle Like Aquillon from above?
He will raise clouds of dust in a hurry He will leaf through the paper stack And he will not come back — or maybe As another he will come back?
Winds of Orpheus are enfolding - You will leave for the sea and sky - And, the world not created holding, I forgot the superfluous "I".
In a make-believe grove I have wandered And into an azure cave delved..
Am I really real, I ponder, And death will claim my true self?
x x x
Perhaps you not need me not this minute, Night; from sea foams of the world - A shell without a pearl within it - Upon your shores I have been hurled.
With mists the ocean you embellish And speechlessly you sing as well;
But you will love, and you will cherish The pretense of a useless shell.
On ocean sands you lie next to her In misty haze you dress her well And with tight roping you tie to her An oversized and brazen bell.
And then the seashell, fragile, empty, Just like a heart that beats in vain You fill with sea foam's whispers plenty, With fog with wind and with light rain.
x x x
Sight of you, so tormented and broken, In the fog I knew not to descry.
"Goodness me" by error I had spoken Thinking not to say this in reply.
Name of god, just like a songbird screaming, Took a flight right out of my chest.
Straight ahead the fog is densely steaming And behind me is an empty nest.
x x x
Cold proportions in a damp forest Sow white light on a summer day In my heart I am carr! ! ying sadness A bird grayer than gray.
What to do with a bird that is wounded?
She went silent, then died as well.
From a fogged-over belltower Someone has stolen the bell.
And here stands the silent Muted and orphaned height Like a tower white and empty In foggy and quiet night.
Morning so endlessly tender Semi-daylight and semi-sleep Oblivion is incessant Thoughts endlessly creep..
x x x
The dusk of autumn — just like rusted metal Holds tight the flesh and eats through it like air;
That falls like all temptation and Cresus's capital Before the razor blade of your despair,
My God! Like by a dancing snake I'm falling Exhausted, and before her I am meek;
My soul's salvation I am not extolling The reason or the muse I do not seek.
Enough untying with my wits or essence A finely woven yarn of smart replies There are no words for laments and confessions, Heavy and shallow is my cup of lies.
Why do you breathe? On stones you will be dancing, Sick python you, then curling in a ball;
Next moment swing and twist as if romancing, And instantly in expiration fall.
And uselessly the day of execution, Agape at all the sound and all the sight, I listen as has fearlessly come completion, The screech of metal and the wind's dark might!
x x x
Today is an ominous day: Grasshoppers singing is down And shadow of rocks far away Is darker than funeral gown.
There's jingle of shimmering beams And screams of crows grown wise, I dream terrible dreams Moment past moment flies.
Move skeins of events apart Break through a tectonic plate An anthem of rage impart The copper of secret hate!
The pendulum on the clock Of souls is strict, swinging o'er, And zealously sounds the knock Of fate on forbidden door.
x x x
I feel a fear that I cannot defy In presence of the secretive above.
Like swallow I am happy in the sky And loftiness of towers I love
It seems as though the ancient overpass Over abyss on bending beams that groan I hear. A snowball grows and gathers mass, Eternity sounds on the hours of stone!
When would it be! But it is not my role To dance on faded leaves and scream and hiss And sadness sings in me without control - I feel an avalanche in heaven's bliss!
And in the bell tower you can find my soul But music will not save from the Abyss!
x x x
No, not the moon, luminous clock face Shines from the sky, and what is my disgrace, That I can feel the weak star's pallid force?
And loathsome to me is Batyushkov's rhyme: They asked him here once what was the time Eternity, he told them in response.
x x x
I cannot stand the rays Of banal stars at night Greetings, my madness old, Gun tower's searing height.
Become a whirling stone A cobweb become instead: The empty heaven's chest Wound with a thinning thread.
My time will come as well Spreading the wings as I ought But whereverfrom comes Arrow of living thought?
Exhausting my way or my time I'll be back again here;
There I could not love, Here to love I fear.
x x x
I take no joy in the pleasures of the strife And nature is a graying dot today And only in light drunkenness I may Experience the colors of my life.
The wind is playing with a cloud immersed An anchor falls to bottom of the sea And breathless like a canvas under me Soul overhangs abysses of the cursed.
But I adore casino on the sea The foggy window swinging avidly On rippling cloth a ray of sun shines through Surrounded by water green and blue
When like a rose a glass of wine is full I see the flapping wings of a seagull!
x x x
Let's head to village of the Tsar Where drunken, swept by wind and free Young men are smiling right at me Riding on horseback high and far.
Let's head to village of the Tsar!
Parks, castles, stables in a row And on the trees are lumps of snow And to the shouts — "be well, hotshots"
The sounds "be well" ring back like shots - Parks, castles, stables in a row.
One-story houses wide and far Where generals of single mind Shorten their lifetimes going blind Reading Dumas and "Nieva": Mansions — not houses — wide and far.
Train whistles. Riding in, a knight, In glass pavilions full of light A sword behind him sternly dragging Officer leaves the cabin, ragging: I do not doubt this is a knight!
And man is coming home yet — Into the realm of etiquette, A fear-instilling chariot A grey-haired fraulein on the spot Knows, man is coming home yet...
x x x
All day long the autumn's dampened air In confoundment and angst I have inhaled.
I would like a supper - and the stars are In a blackened purse and gold and pale!
And as with a yellow fog o'ergrown, I descend into a tiny hole;
Nowhere such a restaurant have I known Nor such company can I recall.
Petty bureaucrats, Japanese dealers, Theologians of a foreign trust..
On the porch a man is feeling dollars And they all are drunken to the last.
Be so kind to me, and change my money.
I am asking him persistently — Only do not give me paper money, I can't stand the crumpled bills of three.
What to do with all this drunken crowd?
How have I lucked in here, I enjoin?
If I have the right, I ask out loud, Won't you change for me my golden coin?
x x x
It's dawn, sirens are wailing, Seven a.m.
You that appear like Verlen, Wake up old man!
Eyes childish, angling, Green fire makes ash;
Upon the neck is hanging A colored sash.
He curses, mutters, mumbles Words lost within;
He wants to make confession But first to sin.
A disappointed worker A bitter one The eye, beat up in melee, Shines like the sun.
Thus having followed Sabbath, He drags his feet: Happy privation stares From every street.
At home, flying with curse words And white with rage, A harsh wife meets and screams at The drunken sage.
x x x
Above the federal buildings' yellow gown A hazy flurry circles far and wide Within the sled the coachman sits down And with broad gesture hides his coat inside.
Ships fall asleep. And in the evening, rocking, Thick cabin windows fill to brim with light.
And monstrously — just like a fortress docking — Russia is breathing heavily at night.
On the Nieva stand hundred embassies;
Admiralty, the sun, and silence glare.
The state's tight shackle harshly on us sits, Poor like an uncouth bodice made of hair.
Hard is the journey of the Northern snob - Eugene Onegin's well-clichи'd despair;
On Senate square are mounds of fallen snow A bonfire's smoke, and chill of steel made bare.
The ducks are sipping water, and the gulls In waving folds of sea are gently lurking Where, selling lumps of beef or tender rolls, Like opera singers peasant men are walking.
Into the fog a row of birds is flying: Self-loving! ! , modest march can't wait.
That goof Onegin, poverty decrying Is breathing gasoline and cursing fate.
x x x
Foreigner sits in a stifling tavern.
In the hour when all seems dead, Leaving behind the dullard drunkards I walk out and clear my head.
Courage of the midnight women And the crazy stars' cold might, And a tramp is begging money For a room to spend the night.
Who, please tell me, in this moment With the grape my mind will dull, If the dock is work of Peter Copper horseman, granite skull.
I hear signals from the fortress I feel warmth drift from the sea.
Shots of cannon through the cellars Have been ringing probably.
And much deeper than the ringing Of that inflamed head on me Are the stars, stark conversation, And a Nieva westerly.
x x x
On Sunday walk near Protestant cathedral I came across a funeral in motion The absent-minded passerby I noticed Put all of them in a severe commotion
The foreign language did not reach my ear And only a thin whiplash shone like new And then the thoroughfare on holiday Reflected lazy horseshoes in rear view.
And in elastic darkness of the chariot Where sadness, hypocrite, hid her face, Wordless and tearless, lost for hellos A vase of autumn roses interlaced.
Foreigners followed in a black procession And tear-drenched dames were walking in their stead Blushed cheeks under a brooch, and with direction The horseman ruled above them: Straight ahead!
Whoever you have been, deceased Lutheran, Lightly they buried you and lightly sang.
The eye was fogged as by a decent tear And with reserve above you church bells rang.
And then I thought: I need not proselytyze.
We are not prophets, not preachers if I may, We don't like heaven, hell we do not fear, We shine like candles in the middle of the day.
x x x
1.
Hagia Sofia — here has stopped and stared The Lord the Judge of people and the tsars!
Your dome, as an eyewitness once described it, As if by chains is hanging from the stars.
2.
To all a shining light — age of Justinian, When to steal off for foreign gods unseen Dedicated Diana the Ephesian These seven hundred marble columns green.
3.
To what aspired your generous creator, When high in spirit and in reason both, He laid his instruments upon the ground And pointed them directions east and north?
4.
The temple shines, in the world's aura bathing, And forty windows — triumph of the light;
On sails under the dome the four archangels Finest of all and basking in delight.
5.
This building will outlast people and ages So wise and spherical and nobly built And incandescent weeping of the angels Will not corrode away the darkened gilt.
x x x
1.
Where Roman magistrate judges the foreign man Basilica stands joyful and the first;
Like Adam once, spreading his nerves to heaven, A light and cross-shaped bridge with muscles bursts.
2.
But will reveal itself the hidden plan!
Here might of granite arches took good care That loaded massive walls were good to stand And ram-like daring overpass stood bare.
3.
A desert labyrinth, uncharted forest, A mindful chasm across the gothic soul, Egyptian might and Christian modesty Oak and kingdom to adorn the hall.
4.
But what is more important, Notre Dame, Your monstrous ribs I studied to impart And oft I thought: from harshness and from blame
Someday I will also make fine art.
x x x
"How luxury of these silverware and lace Is loathsome to me in my disgrace In the stone Tresene A famous sorrow will be Stairs in the king's name Will grow red from shame Black sun will rise above A mother in love"
"Oh if the hatred only in my chest had boiled"
"But recognition from my lips recoiled"
"Ethedra burns with a black flame in broad daylight A funeral torch burns in broad daylight Fear your mother, Hippolitus, Ethedra the night guards you in broad daylight"
"With black love I blotched the sun's face Death will pour my ash from a white vase."
"We fear, we do not dare Help relieve the king's despair.
Hearbroken with Theseus, Night attacked him too We, with a funeral song Send the dead along Passion sleepless and wild Will have the black sun reviled."
x x x
1
A word of peace, rejected, stands At start of an accursed era;
There's light inside a darkened cavern And ether of the foreign lands;
Ether, of which we just could not, Of which to breathe we did not want;
With voice of goats, deep and gaunt, Priests are singing, hairy lot.
2
While goatlings and steer both On foggy pastures were delaying And friendly eagles were relaying From shoulders of the sleepy rocks German fed eagles on the rock An Englishman a lion revered And Gallic stallion appeared From out the mantle of a cock.
3
And now behold, the wild sage Has grasped the steeple of Heracles, And then the soil was rid of sparkles, Black and ungrateful like old age.
I'll take a dry stick in my palms And wring from it a spark of fire, Let into stream of night expire The beasts aroused by my charms.
4
The cock, the lion, the brown-thin! !
Eagle and the tender bear — We'll build a cage before the war And warm with fire the animal skin.
And wine of time I also sing The source of the Italian fable As in the pre-aryan cradle Tongues Slavic and Germanic ring.
5
You aren't too lazy, Italy, To shake the chariots of Rome, With gargling of domestic fowl From bird-coop having flown free?
And you, the neighbor, don't play rough: The eagle here sits mean and hyped What if for you and all your type A heavy stone is not enough?
6
In animal-coop the beasts now reign, We will get calmer for much longer, And in its fullness will gush Volga, As lighter water flows through Rhine.
And a wise man from days of yore To foreigner will pay his honor Like demi-god, in whirling fervor, Dancing with river on her shore!
x x x
In multitude of choir polyhymnal All tender churches sing in their own voice And ! ! in stone arches of Uspenskaya cathedral My eyebrows in still higher arch rejoice.
And from the pedestral of the archangel I watch the city at a wondrous height In Acropolis sadness has deranged me For Russian name and Russian beauty's sight.
That we of wind-town dream it is no wonder, Where pigeons reign upon the hot blue beams Where blackness sings Orthodox churches' wonder, Florence in Moscow so tender seems
And the five-headed Moscow cathedrals With soul Italian and Russian both Remind me of Aurora's reappearance With Russian surname and draped in fur clothes.
x x x
Upon a horse-sleigh laid to brim with straw And covered barely with hides and birch, We rode around the lumbering Moscow From Sparrow Hills to a familiar church.
On Uglich street the kids are playing babki And from a stove exudes bread's sweet smell Through street without a hat they take me Three candles burn in tower near a bell.
Not just three candles burned, but three encounters, One of them God himself had known Forth did not happen — and the Rome still further - And never did he love the ancient Rome.
The sled was diving into blackened snowdunes And from the darkness people poured like weeds.
Thin peasant men and hateful-looking women Right at the gate were separating seeds.
The distance, wet, had blackened with birds' trails, And hands tied down inside the sleigh grew tired.
They drive the prince — the body numbs and pales - And then they set the orange straw on fire.
x x x
I
When, little straw, you lie in giant bedroom And, sleepless, wait, that solemn, true and high, Heavy and calm — what could be more despairing — Forever on you will descend the sky -
A whistling straw, a dry straw, a straw empty, You drank death to the brim and made it raw.
A lifeless straw broke dear and yet so tender: No, not Salome, no, it was but a straw.
In sleepless hour all objects grow in scale As if in numbers few — it is so quiet — In mirror pillows flash, a little pale, And in round haze the bed reflects at night.
No, not a straw in atlas of great power, In giant room over Nieva's black streams, Twelve months are singing of the dying hour, And pale blue ice storm through the air steams.
The breath of triumphing December rises As if heavy Nieva were in the room.
No, not a straw, not that which the man despises: I've learned you, blessed words, Ligeia, doom.
II
I‘ve learned you, blessed words, that man despises, Ligeia, Seraphita, Straw, Lenore, In giant bedroom heavy Nieva rises And blue blood gushes from the granite floor.
Over Nieva December shines white light.
Twelve months are singing of the dying hour.
No, not a straw in atlas of great power, Instills a slow and tortuous respite.
There lives in me December's own Ligeia Whose love sleeps in sarcophagus and burns, And you, my little straw, perhaps Salome, Were killed by pity and will not return.
x x x
"I lost a little brooche I used for grooming On shores of the Nieva, I know not where.
I pity a majestic Roman woman" - You uttered this to me in near despair
But what's the point, you gorgeous Georgian lady, Of shaking coffin's ashes from the sky?
One fluffy snowflake, its beauty fading, Melted upon the lashes of your eye.
And then you bowed the neck so short and tender.
There is no brooche — no Roman lady more.
I pity the dark-bodied Tinotina — A Rome for girls upon the Nieva's shore.
x x x
Hellenes were readying for war Over a gorgeous island Salamin.
Overtaken fully by the foe From Athens' harbor it was seen.
And now the friends and islanders Fill our ships with their toil.
Englishmen did not crave Sweetness of Europe's soil.
O Europe, you, the new Hellene, Guard Pereas and Acropolis.
We don't need presents from the island, A forest of unwelcome ships.
x x x
I
I'm feeling chilly. The transparent spring Dresses Petropolis in greenish down But, like a jellyfish, Nieva's blue waves Revulse me slightly and bid me calm down.
Upon the shores of this great northern river The automobiles with headlights head out far Dragonflies soar and steely-winged bugs shiver, Above us mingle golden heads of stars.
But not one star will murder probably The heavy emerald waters of the sea.
II
In the Petropolis of shades we will expire
Prosepina reigns above us in her power With every breath partaking dying air, Closer to death with every passing hour.
The goddess of the sea, mighty Athena, Do please take off the giant stone attire.
In the Petropolis of shades we will expire.
In this place reigns not you, but Proserpina.
x x x
1
In Sunday marvel disbelieving We walked through cemetery stones The land all over as you know Reminds me of these hills at dawn Where Russia tears itself free Over a black and deafening sea.
2
From monastery mount Meadow runs long and still.
I wish not head south From wilds of Vladimir.
But in this darkened, wooden And ugly country rubble To stay with drunken nun Means only trouble.
3
I kiss the suntanned elbow And waxen forehead skin.
I know — under tanned yellow - It still is white and thin.
I kiss the place where bracelet Has left a stripe of pale.
Taurida's flaming summer Creates such miracle.
4
How soon did you grow tanner And came to mass to bow You kissed the cross forever Grew proud in Moscow To us remains but naming: Until the end Take from my palms forever The holy sand.
x x x
This night has gone beyond redemption And it is daylight where you dream.
Today the black sun has arisen Over Jerusalem.
Sun that is yellow is still scarier.
Goodnight, goodnight, Jews have interred my mother's remnants In the temple of the light And without a divine blessing And without a priest's eye Judeans in a light temple Sang her ashes to the sky.
And then over my mother Voices of Israelites rung I awoke inside my cradle, Shining with a blacker sun.
x x x
"To this the Senate serves as witness - Such actions do not die"
Smoked a cigar and tucked his gown, Chess players nearby.
Honorable sleep he changed for wood From deep Siberian wilds unbroken And a forgotten taste at poisoned lips The truth of bitter world thus having spoken.
For first time German oaks rustled leaves And in the shadows Europe weeps and begs And on triumphant angles of the curve Black stallions also stood upon hind legs.
It happened that in glasses blue wax burned And with the sound much like a samovar A girlfriend spoke quietly in turn, The freedom-loving Rheinian guitar.
The living voices still scream and cry About the citizen's sweet liberty But victims do not wish the open sky But rather work and constancy.
All has been mixed, and nobody can hear That it is getting colder every day All has been mixed, and it is sweet to hear: Russia, Lethe, and Lorelei.
x x x
1
So far away is daffodils' Transparent-graying spring While in this minute's presence Sand rustles, and wave rings But here my soul has entered Persephone's light charms In kingdom of the dead there are No tanned and gorgeous arms
2
Why do we trust the boat With coffin urn's dead weight And over amethyst waters Black roses celebrate My soul strives through ether Beyond Cape Meganom Black sail returns from there Carrying funeral gloom.
3
How fast the clouds are running Unlighted and so soon And black rose leaves are flying Under this windy moon And bird of death and weeping, Drags in a mourning stern Huge flag of reminiscence Behind a cypress stern.
4
The fan of summers opens With sadness in my hand When with a dark weeping Amulet is buried in the sand My soul aims to that country Beyond Cape Meganom And black sail is returning Carrying funeral gloom.
x x x
When on the squares in silence We slowly lose our minds Cruel winter offers to us The cold and clean rhine wine It gives in silver bucket The Valhalla's white wine And of a northern man It shiningly reminds.
But northern rocks are rougher On joy they don't insist And northern wilds are fonder Of amber, fire and feast.
They dream of Southern air And magic foreign sky And still the stubborn girlfriend Won't even give a try.
x x x
Among the priests a young Levite As morning sentinel for long remained Judean night grew denser over him And ruined temple stood in bitter pain He spoke: The yellow of the sky is menace Run, Jews, over Euphrates it is night.
And old men thought: We should not take the blame here.
This joy of Judea, this black and yellow light.
He was with us, as on the riveshore We draped the Saturday in precious linen And with a seven-branched candelabra lit Jerusalem's night and essence of nonbeing.
x x x
1
A river of golden honey from bottle was pouring So long and so thick that the hostess muttered and shook: Here, in sad Taurida, where it does not get boring, We came to through fortune — and over the neck gave a look.
2
Bacchus's services everywhere, as if in the whole weathered world There were dogs and janitors only. Walk— and no one will notice.
And like heavy barrels the days, calm and temperate, rolled.
From far in the mountains a voice: "You won't answer, or know this."
3
We entered a giant brown hall when the teas had been done, With eyelids like curtains the windows were sealed over We walked past white columns to look at the grapes in the sun Where with air like glass strands the sleepy mountains did shower.
4
I spoke: Line of grape, like an ancient battlefield lives Where curly-haired horsemen battle in circular order The stony Taurida remembers the science of Greece Red rows ten men each with bright golden cover sealed over.
5
And in a white room, silence stands like a hiding wall, Smells are of vinegar, paint, and fresh wine from down under.
Remember, in a Greek house the wife is beloved by all, Not Helen but — for as long as she wove - another.
6
Golden fleece, where are you, golden fleece — All day long as the storm were rising the heavy sea waves And leaving the ship, having labored the canvas at seas, Odysseus coming back home, full of time, full of space.
x x x
The wooden organ did not roar this evening.
The cradle song of Schubert to us sang The windmill blew and in the hurricane's singing Laughing blue-eyed intoxication rang.
The world of ancient song is green and brown, The world of ancient song, young for all age, Where nightingale elms' towering crowns The forest rocks with fierce and beastly rage And night's return, so terrible and mighty, That song is wild and deep just like black wine This poltergeist is but a visage empty That, thoughtless, knocks upon the windowpane.
x x x
Your fabulous enunciation, Like whistling of a bird of prey, Creates a true representation Of silken eyelids, I dare say.
"What" — and the head has fallen "Why" — I am asking you And far away the leaves are calling: We live upon this planet too.
So let them say that love is flighty - Flightier hundred times is death.
The soul is striving still and mighty, Our lips fly toward it with each breath.
And in your whisper, so much silk, And so much air, and so much light, That as if blinded we both drink The sunless brew of windy night.
x x x
The essence of farewell I have extracted From hatless laments of the nighttime hour As steer chew cud, and waiting grows protracted, And city vigil is in final hour - And I recall the rooster night that year When lost in doleful journey for too long Into the void the tear-drenched eyes did peer And woman's cry mingled with muse's song.
Who yet again can say farewell, unknowing What longing waits for us and what despair, What good is it to judge the rooster's crowing When fire has scorched the Acropolis bare;
And on the somewhere dan of some new lifetime, While in the shade the steer still calmly stall, Why does the rooster, herald of new lifetime, Flap his flamboyant wings on city wall?
And yet I love the way fate weaves this gown: The shuttle runs, the spindle turns anew, And straight ahead, look now, for like swan's down The barefoot Delia is flying right at you!
Oh, of a life is but a shoddy structure When tongue is starved so utterly for light!
All was before, all will repeat then rupture And only recognition brings despite.
Thus it will be: A figurine, transparent, Stands on a porcelain that's clean and wide, And like a snow-white pelt of winter ferret A girl leans over wax and looks inside.
Ours not is to divine the Greek Erebus: Wax is to her what bronze is to her mate.
Our dice falls only in the field of battle;
With divination women seal their fate.
x x x
1
Upon Pieria's great stone cascades The muses were conducting their first choir That just like bees, the blind musicians made Gift of Ionian honey from their lyres.
And a young woman's convex forehead Beamed emanations from the heaven once That the archipelago's tender coffins Would open for the far-off great-grand-sons.
2
The springtime stomps across Ellada's meadows The rainbow-booted Sappho runs along Cicadas ring as if with tiny hammers And interweave like tendrils with sweet song.
The carpenter has built a giant tower, For wedding day he suffocated hens And for the shoes the clumsy cobbler Has tore to pieces all the five steer skins.
3
Unhurried and unkempt is turtoise-lyre Like legless creature barely crawling past She lies under the sunshine of Epirus, The golden stomach warming not-too-fast Well, who in such a shape will care for her, Who'll turn her over while she sleeps at night?
In dreams she is awaiting for Terpander Having foreseen the drying fingers' flight.
4
Cold dew is feeding oaks with gentle ease The grass without grooming speaks her view, Honeycomb falls to the delight of bees Oh, holy isles, exactly where are you, Where broken bread is never eaten, Where there is only honey, wine and milk, The fiddle's labor does not turn the heaven, And languorously turns the fortune's wheel.
x x x
1
Let's head to other places, other science, Where dinner is kebab and cornish hen, Where a placard showing breeches in defiance Gives knowledge of the tastes of local men.
A man's tuxedo — headless striving, fearless, The flying barber's screaming violin And mesmerizing iron — is appearance Of heaven's laundries and the heavy grin.
2
Here women grow old in stockings, yet Think of strange apparel, it so seems, And admirals in angular berets Look like the Queen Sheherezada's dreams.
There is some grape, sun gleams from far away And a fresh wind relentlessly blows sterner.
Swimming is hard, but stars remain the same In the vicinity of Baghdad and of Smirna.
x x x
1
In crystal swampland there is such a violence!
Beyond, Sienian mountains stand sky-clad, Gothic cathedrals of the rocks gone mad Hang in the air, where there is fur and silence.
2
From hanging staircases of the kings and prophets Organ descends, filled with the holy ghost, Barking of German shepherds, fierce and lost, The shepherds' mutton and the judges' outfits
3
Here earth is motionless, and in her castle I drink the Christianity's dear cold air I trust in truth and in the psalmist's prayer, In keys and fence of churches of Apostle.
4
Which line could have passed on the Crystal vase Fastened within an ether of high notes: Like song of Palestine the goodwill floats From Christian Mountain through a transfixed space.
x x x
Nature is Rome, and is reflected there.
We see images of citizen's parades Like in blue circus, in transparent air, On forum of the fields and forest's collonades.
Nature is that same Rome, and once more We do not need to worry Gods in guilt, From bestial entrails to divine of war, To pray that slaves be quiet and stones be built.
x x x
Only children's books to read, Only children's thoughts to debate, To spread far all that is great, From deep sadness to rise and heed.
I am deadly tired of life, I won't take from her any more, But I love this earth so poor, For another has not arrived.
In a far-away garden green-blue On a simple swing I swung free And high and dark fur tree I remember in foggy spew.
x x x
Return into the lap of incest From where you have descended, Leah, That yellow dusk you have preferred To golden sun of Ilion.
Go forward, not a hand will touch you, To father's chest, when night is dead, And let the night the incest-maker Let drop your head.
But fateful change that lasts forever Will take place in you all the same.
You will be Leah and not Helen - Not, not because this is your name - And not because it is much harder Within the veins to pour king's blood - No, you will love a Judean Vanish in him — and be with God.
x x x
Behold, this air, made drunk with haze Upon the Kremlin's blackened square Men swing rickety "world" in craze, Elms smell of fear.
From wax cathedral statues wrung, A forest of belltowers alone, Like robbers without tongue Vanished in grottoes made of stone.
And in print-strewn cathedrals, Where it is dark and cold Like in tender muddy amphoras Russian wine plays unsold.
The marvelously round Uspenskiy, Wonder in heaven's arches And then the green Blagoveshenskiy, And, it seems, suddenly lurches.
Archangelsky and Resurrection Shine through like hand And everywhere is the hidden burning Fire hidden in sand.
x x x
1
In Petersburg again we come together, As if Sun inside there we interred And that for the first time and forever We pronounced the blessed, thoughtless word.
In black velvet of a Soviet even, In black velvet global emptiness, Sing the darling eyes of blessed women, And deathless flowers blossom and caress.
2
Like wildcat capital arches her back Upon the bridge patrol stands in a line An angry motor rushes through the dark And like a cookoo-bird begins to whine.
I do not need a pass through night deferred I do not fear the nightly watchmen;
For the blessed, thoughtless word I will make prayer on a Soviet even.
3
The light theaterical whisper sounds A women's sighing and a gentle charm And deathless roses in giant mound Lying upon Cyprida's gentle arm.
From boredom we are warming at a campfire, Centuries will pass by without a harm, And the light ashes gather and inspire The happy blessed women's dear arms.
4
Here is a garden row that is red banner, The chiffon rings luxuriously glow Windup doll of army officer Not for black souls and for monks gone low.
Well then, put out our candles with your finger, Black velvet of world emptiness in one The blessed women's shoulders are singing And you will never notice the night sun.
x x x
On a pearl shuttle you spin A thread of silk so fragile Come forth, you fingers agile, Lesson in spells begin.
Movements of arms about Their ebbs and flows in flight Upon some sunny fright You cast a spell, no doubt When a wide hand on fire Like silk grows still and fades Or else she runs toward shades Or morphs into pink fire.
x x x
We have gone mad from endless jubilation Wine in the morning, hangover at night.
Your blush, oh drunken plague without respite, How to contain the needless celebration?
A ceremony of the shaking hand is tortuous Kisses around the street run through the night When river streams grow heavy with respite And headlights burn like torches.
As for a fairy wolf we wait for death That I will die at first I most fear, For I possess a mouth that's red with fear And hair that falls upon the eyes like sheathe.
x x x
Fever glimmers through time Hours-grasshoppers are churning, And dry stove whispers - Red silk is burning.
Why to whet with teeth of mice Bottom of a life worn thin;
Shuttle tied to a device, Swallow and daughter spin.
On the roof the rain speaks clear — Here black silk is burning, This the cherry tree will hear And forgive, to bottom of the sea returning.
Because I'm helpless here And the innocent are being killed I am in a nightingale fever And the heart is warm still.
x x x
Destroyed by fire My life turned dry Not stone but tree now I sing to sky.
It is both light and rough;
From single piece Come fisher's oars And oak pith.
Nail tight the overpass With hammers swing free Ring wooden heaven Where this is easy.
x x x
Of hunchbacked Tiflis dreaming Cesandry is in flow On bridge with people teeming Capital carpet-gleaming And Kura screams below.
Over Kura there are perfumes Where there is wine and pliv, Blushing flask of the perfume Is now ready to receive Having already served the room.
Thick Cahetian red wine It is pleasure to drink There it's cold, there divine Drink in pleasure, drink two times: You don't need alone to drink.
In the tiniests of flasks You will find comrade in bliss Teliani if you will ask Float in fog, and in a cask, You will swim to Tiflis.
x x x
For 20 years an American woman Must be off to far-away Egypt Forswearing the Titanic's guidance She sleeps on bottom of the crypt.
In America trumpets sing loud And pipes rise of ruddy steel towers And then give away to chilly cloud Lips that have been dusted over with tar.
In the Louvre stands daughter of the ocean Beautiful like poplar in her bliss She ground sugar into dust with motion, And like a squirrel climbs Acropolis.
Understanding not a single sentence She is reading Faustus on the train.
It's a pity that Ludovik's presence On the throne no more remains.
x x x
Sweetness and tenderness — like sisters alike are your marks - The wasp and the bee suckle honey then flutter as one - Life ends, beach sand chills overnight, and heaven gets dark, And carried away on black litter is yesterday's sun.
Ah, tender rosebush, delicate emanation!
To know what you are is far harder than mountain to climb!
I have but one problem remaining in this incarnation: To lift from the shoulders of man ghastly burden of time!
I drink turbid air just like water with mildew diluted: A visage appears in the sun, heart of darkness and clots: Two roses that once were of earth but by man were polluted Sweetness and tenderness, bound up in double knots!
x x x
1
Equally with all others I want to serve you, Drying from jealousy My lips turned blue.
Word does not slake A mouth dry from despair Without you I am breathless In fetid air.
2.
I am no longer jealous But yet I want you, dear, I carry me like sacrifice To executioner, And no I will not call you Not love not glee;
The wild and foreign blood Runs now through me.
3
Wait for one moment And this I will tell you: Not joy, but torment I find in you.
And, like a sacrilege, Bitten in frenzy Your tender cherry mouth Calls to me.
4
Return to me at last, love, It's awful without you Never more strongly Have I felt you.
And in the midnight hour, Asleep, awake, I call your name out loud Even as I shake.
x x x
1
A wraithful scene is glimmering Weak choirs of shades remain With silk has draped Melpomene Her temple's windowpanes In yard the frost bites dearly Black chariots stand in row People and objects are both curly Street crackles with hot snow.
2
Bit by bit the servants pick apart The abandoned heap of bear furs A butterfly flies over and departs, Plants of roses are draped in furs There are cups of fashionable color From the theater light sweat streams On the street there is a gleam of covers And in clouds rises heavy steam.
3
Horsemen have grown tired of their voices And the night is black as if with coal.
Do not worry, darling Eurydice, That our winter is unearthly cold.
Sweeter than the song of the Italians Is the sound of my tongue to me, For the sounds of harps from foreign countries Clamor in it with great mystery.
4
Of the smoke reeks the poor mutton With the mounds of snow the street is ringed From a blissful songlike semitone Flying right at us is the deathless spring.
That the aria would sound forever:
"To green meadows you will return"
And to our feet falls a living sparrow On the snow that is so hot, it burns.
x x x
1
Luminous is meaning of the dreary And Venetian life that's lived in vain Here she looks at me with a smile chilly Through the bluish windowpane.
2
Thinning air, blue veins through skin of arm A green brocade and the white snow From the coat they take out sleepy and warm And on the cypress ambulance lay low.
3
And inside the buckets candles burn As if pigeon flew into the shrine, And a man is dying in his turn In the theater and on night divine.
4
May no rescue come from foe or lover, More than platinum the Saturn's ring weighs down.
Face is beautiful. Under black velvet cover Stone of executioner stands alone.
5
Heavy, Venice, is your dress and belt, There are mirrors in the cypress frames Air is faceted. In bedroom mountains melt, Of a blue dark glass nothing remains.
6
In the fingers of bottle or roses Green, my dear, is Adriatic sea, Why are you so quiet, Venetian hostess, From luxurious death how do I get free?
7
The black Hesper flashes in the mirror, All will pass. The truth is dark and dour.
Man is born. The pearl dies, barely clearer.
Susanna the elders must conjure.
x x x
It is a pity that the winter falls Mosquitoes aren't around But you allowed me to recall Light-headed straw that's lying on the ground.
Dragonflies fly across the blue Like swallow, circles the mode - Is there a basket over you Or pompous ode?
To advise I do not care Excuses mean little.
The taste of cream is forever And smell of orange peel.
You push at random from behind Nothing gets worse What to do: the most tender mind Can fit the universe.
And you attempt with angry spoon The yolk to stir.
It will get white, it will succumb And still, a little more..
Everything teases, sings in you Like roulade from Italy.
And a little cherry mouth Asks for dry grape from me.
So do not attempt to be smart as that In you there is minute There is a shadow of your hat, Venetian ball within it.
x x x
Here's cornucopia, just like a golden sun, A gorgeous moment in the air lingers If but to hold the world like apple in one's fingers - Here will be heard only the Grecian tongue.
Triumphant zenith service to god's will, Light in round cupolas grows in July, That with full chest timelessly we would sigh Of endless meadow where the time stands still.
And like eternal noon stands Eucharist - All drink the cups, all play and sing aloud, Before the eyes of all the cup of god Pours with a gaiety that can't desist.
x x x
When Psyche that is life descends After Persephone into transparent woods below With a green branch and Stygian tenderness Beneath her feet falls a blind swallow.
Ghosts crowd the fugitive and hurry To meet the new arrival with a prayer They twist their withered weakened arms before her With misunderstanding and with near despair.
Souls are like women and their trifles love: Some hold a mirror, some perfumes that fizzle: There's leafless wood of voices from above Dry lamentations fall in drops, like drizzle.
In light stampede not knowing where to start Soul does not recognize transparent woods, Breathes into mirror and tarries to impart The copper pan and in it, foggy moods.
x x x
Take from my open hands for your delight A bit of honey and a bit of sun As willed to us the bees of Proserpina.
Not to untie again an unmoored boat, And not to know a shadow shod in fur, Nor yet to conquer fear of dreary lifetime: To us remain but kisses in the night, Fuzzy and shivering like little bees That fall and die as they depart the hive.
They shimmer in transparent nigthtime breeze, Their home is haunted forest of Taigetos, They feast on mint, and honeycomb, and spacetime.
Take then my wild gift for your delight, A simple wreath of withered little bees That died as they changed honey into sun.
x x x
1
Brothers, let's celebrate the dusk of liberty, The great and dusky year this Yule.
In boiling waters of the night like sea The heavy wood has been submerged and pulls.
In dead years you arise over me O sun, the people's judge and rule.
2
Let's celebrate the fated burden, Which people's leader takes in tears.
Let's celebrate the dusky burden Its load is unbearable and dear.
In whom there is a heart, time's burden While your ship sinks, you will hear.
3
In battle legions we have bound The swallows, and now Sun is unseen, and nature all around Chirps, sparkles, grows Across dense net of dusk unbound I cannot see the sun, and the earth flows.
4
But we will try: A giant, clumsy, Fiddle-like turning of the wheel.
Earth flows. Get strong, men, don't be lazy As with a plow the ocean's heel We will remember in Lethean frenzy That earth has cost us ten heavens still.
x x x
1
On fearsome height stands wandering fire But is this glimmer of the stars espying?
Transparent star, wandering fire Your brother, Petropole, is dying.
2
On fearsome height the earth's dreams burn and shatter And a green star is flying.
Oh, if you are a star — brother of earth and water — Your brother, Petropole, is dying.
3
A monstrous ship upon a fearsome height Wings outspread, is flying.
Green star, you, in a gorgeous plight, Your brother, Petropole, is dying.
4
Transparent spring upon Nieva grown black Has broken. Wax of immortality melts as if crying.
Oh, if you are a star — Petropole, your dock, Your brother, Petropole, is dying.
x x x
1
I have forgot the word that I had meant to say.
To palace of the shades returns blind swallow Upon clipped wings with shadows to play.
Night's song is in oblivion sung below.
2
Immortelle does not bloom. I cannot hear bird's song.
Transparent are the mantles of night's horse herd In a dry river empty shuttle swims along No hearing among grasshoppers of the lost word.
3
Slowly the curtain grows, or temple yet, Suddenly Antigone seems mad and lurches Like a blind swallow falls toward my feet With Stygian tenderness and with green branches.
4
O, if but to return the shame of see-through hands And convex joy of dawning recognition, I am afraid of weeping Aonids Of fog, of ringing and of gaping apparition.
5
And to the mortal power is to love and seek For them the sound through hands will pour But I forgot the word that I had meant to speak And fruitless thought returns to palace dour
6
Not of the same the shadow speaks in turn The girlfriend, Antigone, the swallow..
And on the lips, like a black ice, burns Memory of Stygian ringing from below.
x x x
For this that your arms I could not more tightly keep - For this that your tender saltwater lips I've foresaken - As much as abhorrent to me is this ruin half-asleep - I must in Acropolis wait till the city awakens.
The Aegeans ready the horse in the darkness profound, With sharp-toothed blades into cracks they invade and rupture Dry rustle of blood in the ears simply would not die down Of you not a whisper remains, not a sight, not a sculpture.
How could I have thought you'd return to me, how did I dare?
Why did I abandon so early without a warning?
The rooster had not sang his song, nor the hills been laid bare, And into the woodwork the axe had not torn yet this morning.
With transparent tears on the walls have appeared drops of sap And city is feeling its forested ribcage with fire Through valves blood has rushed into life and then turned on the tap And three times to men have the mermaids called out of the mire.
Where is my dear Troy, where's the palace, the women's hall?
The tall starling-coop of King Priam is lying in shatters And like a dry rain wooden arrows continue to fall And different rain like a nutgrove arises in tatters.
The sting of last starfleck shall painlessly flicker away, And morning will tap on the windowpane like a gray swallow, And slowly the day, like a steer once awakened in hay, Will rustle awake on sharp steps, and the light will follow.
x x x
Under a coxcomb of a milky white Isaac has built a graying pigeon cage Distaff mutters from gray quiet And grade of air the heart can barely gauge.
There's wandering ghost of masses for the dead Much wide sack cloth they carry out And in shoddy drag-net of the darkness in its stead Seven great cardinals tarry.
Upon warm altars smoke glows And a priest exudes a liquid cry Kingly peacemaker: there is clean snow On the shoulders, and a wild porphyry.
Sophie's and Peter's Grand Cathedrals that withstood Centuries; warehouses of light and air Grain hangars of the universal good And corn-kilns of new testament appear.
In the harsh troubled year, not to your side The spirit drags across world's steps in peace Wolf's trail of disaster reaches high and wide He will not change over centuries.
.
Free is the slave that once has conquered fear And beyond measure one has kept, through grief, In deep cornbins, in chilly granaries