The futile trembling of futile wings,I am with you to he end, in any case.That’s why you so fervently loveMe in my weakness and in my sin;That’s why you impulsively gaveMe the best of your sons;That’s why you never even askedMe for any word of himAnd blackened my forever-deserted homeWith fumes of praise.And they say…
The world has no more miracles. Don’t breakMy heart, song, but be still: you are the last.Not long ago you took your morning flightWith all a swallow’s free accomplishment.Now that you are a hungry beggar-woman,Don’t go knocking at the stranger’s gate.
I am not able and don’t want to miss this:It is my torture and my utter gladness.I think, that he whose look will be directedInto my eyes, at once will see it whole.He will become more thoughtful and dejectedThan someone, hearing a story of a dole.I knew: the gods turned once, in their madness,Men into…
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:‘It’s not too late, you can still look backat the red towers of your native Sodom,the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,at the empty windows set in the tall housewhere sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed.’A single glance: a sudden dart of painstitching her eyes before she…
comes back again in every road and tree –that winter night of diamantine splendour.Steam is pouring out of yellow stables,the Moika river’s sinking under snow,the moonlight’s misted as it is in fables,and where we are heading – I don’t know.There are icebergs on the Marsovo Pole.The Lebyazh’ya’s crazed with crystal art…..Whose soul can compare with…
(From the ‘In the Fortieth Year’)1940The twenty-fourth drama of ShakespeareTime’s writing with its indifferent hand.We, selves, the guests of the awful Feast here,Better would read Hamlet, Caesar, and LearOver the river, in heavy lead clad;Better – to bear, with singing and torches,Juliet, the dove, to her family’s graves,Peep into windows of Macbeth’s castle godless,Tremble with…
Oh, how strongly grabs usThe secret plot of fate.They differently shot us:Each creature has its lot,Each has its order, robust, —A wolf is always shot.In freedom, wolves are grown,But deal with them is short:In grass, in ice, in snow, —A wolf is always shot.Don’t cry, oh, friend my dear,If, in the hot or cold,From tracks…
A dish of oysters spread on iceSmelled like the ocean, fresh and sharp.He told me: ‘I’m a faithful friend!’-And lightly touched my dress.How different from embracesThe touch of those two hands.That’s how one strokes a cat or birdOr looks at slender lady riders…Just laughter in his quiet eyes,Beneath his light gold lashes.And the despondent voices…
I pulled the glove from my left handMistakenly onto my right.It seemed there were so many steps,But I knew there were only three!Amidst the maples an autumn whisperPleaded: ‘Die with me!I’m led astray by evilFate, so black and so untrue.’I answered: ‘I, too, dear one!I, too, will die with you…’This is a song of the…
And that I’d plead and weepAnd throw myself under the hooves of a bay mare,Or that I’d ask the sorcerersFor some magic potion made from roots and send you a terrible gift:My precious perfumed handkerchief.Damn you! I will not grant your cursed soulVicarious tears or a single glance.And I swear to you by the garden…
