We Shall Meet Again in Petersburg Osip Mandelshtam

Osip Mandelstam

Forty-Four More Poems

Osip Mandelstam 1891-1938

'Osip Mandelstam 1891-1938'
Post of the USSR, designer Yu. Artsimenev / Почта СССР, художник Ю. Арцименев
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'The audio, deadened, cautious'
'From the puddle of lite, suddenly,'
'The freshly cut ears'
'More sluggish the snowy hive,'
'Ears stretch sensitive sails,'
'Like a sudden cloud's shadow,'
'From a swamp, evil, viscid,'
'How deadening the horses get,'
'Light sheds its meagre ray'
'A troubled sigh of leaves'
'I hate the starlight,'
The Casino
'Poisoned grain: wearied air.'
Akhmatova
'Horses' hooves clattering there,'
'By candlelight it's sweetness to dream'
'Not crediting the miracle of re-nascency,'
'The stream of gold honey pouring viscous,'
'Nonetheless far abroad are Spring'due south'
'When Psyche-Life goes down to the darkness,'
'Because I could not keep hold of your arms,'
'Stamping on the tender meadow, I leapt'
'We shall meet again in Petersburg,'
'In the yard, I was washing, at dark – '
'Exhaustion's rosy foam on his fleshy lips,'
Self-Portrait
'I was simply bound childishly to the earth of ability,'
'For the time to come ages' resounding celebrity,'
'We live, not sensing our own land beneath us,'
Black Globe (Chernozem)
'Today makes no sense to me,'
'I shall perform a smoky rite:'
'Like a belated gift,'
'I'1000 still alive: I'm still not alone,'
'Oh, sluggish, asthmatic spaciousness'
'Don't compare: the living are incomparable:'
'Like feminine silver, information technology's forged hither,'
'Hearing, hearing early on water ice'
'Gaps of the curved bays, jetsam, nighttime-blues,'
'Armed with a wasp'due south narrow sight,'
'I'thou sinking down, down, downward,'
'I lift this greenness to my lips,'
'A Greek flute's theta and iota –'
'Potters fabricated its power, this azure island – '
Alphabetize by First Line

'The sound, muffled, cautious'

The audio, muffled, cautious:

of tree's fruit, falling,

among endless singing

silent forest depths…

'From the pool of low-cal, of a sudden,'

From the puddle of light, suddenly,

you slipped out in a thin shawl –

we disturbed no i at all,

roused not a servant from slumber…

'The freshly cutting ears'

The freshly cutting ears

of wheat lie in level rows:

slim, trembling fingers press close

to slender quivering fingers.

'More sluggish the snowy hive,'

More sluggish the snowy hive,

clearer the window'due south crystal,

on a chair, a turquoise veil,

thrown there, carelessly, lies.

A tissue, self-intoxicated,

equally if it never felt winter's

touch, experiencing summer'due south,

by its own delicacy, caressed:

and, if in icy diamonds

frost is eternally streaming,

hither – it'due south dragonflies flickering,

bluish-eyed, living, and gone.

'Ears stretch sensitive sails,'

Ears stretch sensitive sails,

dilated eyes lose fire,

over the silence swims

the night-birds' soundless choir.

I'm poor equally things natural,

as simple every bit the heaven,

my liberty spectral

as the night-birds' weep.

I see the moon, un-breathing,

a heaven dead every bit canvas:

your world, strange and sickening,

I welcome, Emptiness!

'Like a sudden deject's shadow,'

Like a sudden deject'south shadow,

a sea-company swoops past

rippling past with a sigh,

along the embarrassed coast.

An enormous sail lifts austerely,

deathly-white, and the wave

shrinks back – not yet dauntless

plenty to hug the shore so nearly:

and the boat, rustling the waves,

like leaves…

'From a swamp, evil, pasty,'

From a swamp, evil, viscous,

a rustling reed, I rose to low-cal,

passionate, tender, languorous,

breathing forbidden life.

And no one always notices

my cold, marshy shelter,

where short autumnal minutes,

greet me with their whisper.

I delight in cruel injury

and in a life, like a dream,

I envy everyone secretly,

I secretly love everything.

'How tiresome the horses go,'

How ho-hum the horses go,

how dim the lantern'south gleam!

These strangers surely know

where they're taking me.

I'm confident in their care,

I'm common cold: slumber, my want:

Catapulted at the corner

Towards the starry burn down.

A head nodding feverishly

a strange hand, tender, icy,

and outlines of nighttime fir trees,

there – unseen by me.

'Light sheds its meagre ray'

Light sheds its meagre ray,

coldly in the damp wood.

I carry Sorrow, a grey

bird, sluggish, in my chest.

What to practise with the wounded bird?

Solid, restrained, the silence:

the bells, out of the misted

bell-tower, have been stolen.

And the heights stand up,

similar a white empty turret,

mute and orphaned,

of mistiness and serenity.

Morning, endless tenderness,

part real, part dreaming –

unrelieved drowsiness –

misted thoughts shifting.

'A troubled sigh of leaves'

A troubled sigh of leaves

a black wind rustling by,

a flickering swallow draws

a circle on the darkened sky.

At that place'south tranquillity contention

in my tender dying heart

between deepening twilight

and daylight burning out.

Over dark-filled woods,

a copper moon's presence.

Why and then little music,

and and then much silence?

'I detest the starlight,'

I hate the starlight'southward

monotonous spectrum.

Hail, ancient delirium –

belfry'due south arrowed heights!

Exist lace, exist stone,

exist a cobweb spell:

pierce the empty zone

with the finest needle.

My turn will arrive –

I sense the wing's sweep.

Yes – simply where will my alive

arrows of mind leap?

Or I'll return, my motion

and fourth dimension worked through:

there – I couldn't love,

and here – I'm afraid to…

The Casino

I don't worship premeditated joys,

sometimes Nature's a greyness blotch,

when, slightly tipsy, I'm destined

to the colours poverty employs.

The anchor scrapes sea-depths,

wind toys with a ruffled cloud,

my spirit, lifeless equally a shroud,

hangs above the infernal abyss.

But I love the casino on the dunes,

its misted window's endless views,

crumpled material, the light's thin cover:

and, surrounded by greenish water,

with the wine in its glass, like a rose,

I love to trace the gulls' winged tremor.

'Poisoned grain: exhausted air.'

Poisoned grain: exhausted air.

Such difficult ills to cure!

Joseph, sold into Egypt,

couldn't be saddened more!

Bedouin, on horseback, shut

their eyes: their star-lit faces,

extract past images, plucked

from the day'southward vague traces,

that hardly need discovering:

he lost his quiver in the sand,

he traded a horse – happenings

on happenings hazily disband:

and if it's sung, truly,

wholeheartedly – what lingers

fades out at final: leaves simply

the space, stars, the vocalist!

Notation: Osip is the Russian equivalent of Joseph.

Akhmatova

She turned right round, O sorrow,

towards indifferent onlookers.

Turned stone, from her shoulders

a shawl, quasi-classical, flowed.

Ominous vox – drunk with pain –

ascension from heart's depths in that location:

similar this – as indignant Phaedra –

Rachel once held the phase.

Annotation: A retentiveness of a verse recital in January 1914. Rachel (1820-1858), the French classical actress, caused a European sensation with her estimation of Racine'southward Phèdre.

'Horses' hooves clattering in that location,'

Horses' hooves clattering in that location,

in a crude, and simple century:

the yardmen in heavy furs,

on wooden benches, sleepy.

A knocking at the fe gate

stirs the royally-lazy doorman:

whose wolfish yawns charge per unit

with those of the Scythians!

When, Ovid, with senescent beloved

mixed snowfall and Rome, and sang

of ox-wagons on the movement

in the march of barbarians.

Note: Ovid was exiled to Tomis (modern Constantza), in the Black Bounding main region, by Augustus.

'By candlelight it's sugariness to dream'

By candlelight it'due south sweet to dream

of unprecedented Liberty.

In the night, weeping, Loyalty:

cries: 'Once more, stay with me.

I'll but place a crown

on your head, that's all,

and then, loving, you may bow

to Freedom, equally to Law…'

'I'm wedded to Freedom,

equally to Constabulary, that's why

I never shall remove

this crown, so calorie-free.'

Though we're lost, in space,

doomed to die, should we

regret our act of faith,

our lovely continuance?

'Not crediting the miracle of re-nativity,'

For Marina Tsvetayeva

Not crediting the miracle of re-birth,

we strolled through the cemetery.

– You know, everywhere the world

still recalls those hills to me,

……………………………………

where Russian federation halts abruptly

in a higher place a black, and empty sea.

The broad fields sloping downwardly

from monastic hillsides, sheer.

I'd no wish to travel south

from spacious Vladimir,

merely to stay in that shadowy

village, filled with god's fools,

with a veiled and misty

nun – spelt disaster, too.

I kiss your sunburnt elbow

and then a wax-like bear witness

of brow, still stake below

a strand of shadowy gold.

I kiss the bracelet's circle

of white left on your wrist:

ardent summers' miracles

are worked thus in Tauris.

How presently you lot ran, concealment,

to the Saviour'due south meagre icon,

and couldn't be torn from kissing:

yet in Moscow, ever the proud one!

And for us, merely a proper noun remains –

miraculous audio for years to come.

Take from me, these grains,

of sand, I cascade from my palm.

Note: Tauris: the Crimea. Sand: verse, memories, time.

'The stream of golden dearest pouring viscid,'

The stream of gilded honey poured, so viscous,

slow from the bottle, our hostess had time to murmur:

'Here, in pitiful Tauris, where fate has brought usa,

we shan't exist too bored' – glancing over her shoulder.

Everywhere the Bacchic rite, as if all were only

dogs and watchmen – become, and you lot'll run into nothing –

the days like heavy barrels rolling by quietly:

far off, hut-jump voices – no response or pregnant.

Later tea we entered the huge brown garden,

dark blinds lowered like eyelids over windows,

past white columns to inspect the grapes then

glassy air sluicing the sleepy mountain slopes.

I said: 'The vines live on here in aboriginal wars,

and curly-haired horsemen fight in leafy rows,

the science of Hellas in stony Tauris – these are

the noble gold acres, the rusty furrows.'

Well, similar a spinning wheel, silence in the white room,

smelling of vinegar, paint, new wine in the cellar.

Recall the wife loved by all, in the Greek home,

how long she spent weaving? – Not Helen – that other.

Gilt Fleece, where are you Golden Fleece?

The journey: a roar of ocean'south heavy waves.

Leaving his ship, its canvas worn by the seas,

Odysseus returned, filled with fourth dimension and space.

Note: The Argonauts sailed into the Black Body of water to seek the Golden Fleece. Mandelstam weaves in the wandering Odysseus returning to Penelope, and the Crimean worship of Bacchus/Dionysus (as witnessed by the Maenads' murder of Orpheus).

'Notwithstanding far abroad are Spring's'

Notwithstanding far away are Jump'south

transparent-grey asphodels.

For a while waves seething,

sand rustling to itself.

Simply like Persephone my spirit

enters insubstantial circles:

sweet sunburnt arms don't fit

in the kingdom of lost mortals.

Why do nosotros trust the weight

of a funeral urn to some vessel,

on amethyst water celebrate

a black rose festival?

My spirit aspires at that place

beyond Meganom's misty cape:

and later on the burial, from there

will come – a sail's dark shape!

How swift the storm clouds flow

in their shadowy cavalcade,

where black rose-flakes blow

beneath a wind-tossed moon.

Bird of death and mourning,

Memory, trails its huge

funereal flag, veiling

the stern of cypress-wood.

And rustlings unfold

the bygone years' sad fan,

where an amulet was darkly closed,

with a shudder, in the sand.

My spirit aspires there

beyond Meganom'south misty cape:

and after the burying, from there

will come – a sail'due south dark shape!

Notation: Cape Meganom, in the Crimea, juts into the Black Sea. Mandelstam weaves in an element from the myth of Theseus, who displayed a blackness sail in mistake equally he returned to Athens, causing his father to spring to his death. Persephone is the goddess of the underworld. The amulet is cached honey, poetry, memory, equally are the rose-flakes of his mother's funeral. There may likewise be a reference hither to an amulet with a Hebrew inscription given to Pushkin, who was exiled to the Crimea like Ovid. See Pushkin'southward poem 'The Talisman'.

'When Psyche-Life goes downwards to the darkness,'

When Psyche-Life goes downwardly to the darkness,

through translucent leaves, chasing Persephone,

a blind consume, with Stygian tenderness

and a green twig, hurls itself at her feet.

A crowd of ghosts rush to meet this shade,

greeting their new companion with sadness,

wringing their weak hands before her face up,

bewildered, but with a shy trustfulness.

One holds out a mirror, another a phial of scent –

the soul's feminine you see – truly loves trinkets,

and transparent voices, with their dry out plaintiveness,

like a fine rain, sprinkle the leafless forest.

Unsure how to begin, among all these tender

cries, she doesn't recognise the transparent copse,

and breathes on the mirror, slow to hand over,

her lozenge of copper, the misted crossing's fee.

'Because I could not proceed hold of your arms,'

Because I could non proceed hold of your arms,

because I relinquished your lips, briny, tender,

I must wait in the dense acropolis for dawn.

How I loathe these aboriginal, weeping timbers!

The Achaeans ready the Horse in the dark,

their toothed saws cut deep, into the walls,

nothing can repose the claret'southward dry talk,

for you there'south no name, image, sound at all.

How could I call up you'd return, how could I dare!

Why, before it was time, did I break from yous?

The cock's not crowed, the gloom's still there,

the hot axe, within, has however not cut through.

Resin oozes from the walls, a transparent tear,

and the town can sense its own wooden ribs,

but blood, storming, has rushed the ladders,

thrice the men have been chosen from faithless lips.

Where's dear Troy, the royal, the maidenly house?

Priam'southward tall nest for starlings will exist shattered.

And the arrows fall in dry wooden showers,

springing, hazel shoots, out of bare globe.

The last pinpricked stars painlessly fading,

the greyness swallow, morning time, taps at the window,

and sluggish solar day, an ox on harbinger, waking

stirs from long slumber, shaggy from its pillow.

Note: For the coming together of Helen and Odysseus in Troy, and her calls to the Greek warriors subconscious in the Horse, see Odyssey Iv: 235-289.

'Stamping on the tender meadow, I leapt'

Stamping on the tender meadow, I leapt

into the choir of shadows, with a melody

of a name: the thin mist of sound notwithstanding left

melting, at that moment, into retentiveness.

At showtime I thought the name was – Seraph,

and I fought shy of such a weightless torso:

Yet merged with information technology, when a few days had passed,

dissolving into that dear shadow, readily.

Once again wild fruit falls from the apple tree,

and before me a secret image glows,

and curses itself, and blasphemes,

and swallows jealousy'due south hot coals.

But happiness rolls by, a golden hoop,

performing someone else's bidding,

and you chase the Bound's mildness, also,

air the palm of your hand goes cutting.

And we don't leave, it's so arranged,

these spell-bound circles.

They lie there, tightly swaddled,

Earth'southward vibrant virginal hills.

'We shall see again in Petersburg,'

We shall meet over again in Petersburg,

as though there nosotros'd cached the lord's day,

and for the kickoff time, speak the discussion

the sacred, the meaningless i.

In black velvet of the Soviet night,

in the velvet of earth'southward emptiness,

flowers notwithstanding bloom everlasting, bright,

women sing, love eyes are blessed.

The metropolis is arched in that location similar a lynx,

the bridge-patrol stands its ground,

an angry motor dissects the mist

crying out with a cuckoo's sound.

I don't need a laissez passer for this night,

I have no fear of the baby-sit:

I'll pray in the Soviet night.

for the sacred meaningless discussion.

Amid the theatre's soft rustling

I hear a girl's startled: 'Ah!' –

and Cypris holds everlasting

roses, clasped in her soft arms.

Bored, past a fire nosotros warm ourselves,

perchance the centuries will pass,

and beloved hands, women'southward, blest,

will gather up the weightless ash.

Somewhere sweet Orphean choirs sound,

nighttime the dear pupils of their optics,

and programmes, fluttering to the basis,

fall towards the stalls, like doves in flight.

You might equally well blow out our candles then:

in the black velvet of globe's emptiness

women'due south shoulders, rounded, blest, notwithstanding sing,

but the night sun will non shine here, a guest.

Note: Cypris is probably a reference to Venus the goddess of Honey, named Cypris after her island of Republic of cyprus, who appears in Massenet's 1906 opera, Ariane (Ariadne), which involves the story of Theseus, Phaedra, and Ariadne who goes to Persephone's realm to beg for Phaedra's life. All these are strong motifs for Mandelstam. The blackness sun also refers to Pushkin's burying past night, he representing the buried, suppressed and silent discussion of the exile, representing pure Russia. Orpheus was the legendary poet, Orphean implies both melodious similar his singing, and hush-hush, arcane, like the Orphic rites.

'In the yard, I was washing, at night – '

In the one thousand, I was washing, at night –

Harsh stars were fiercely shining.

Like salt on an axe, rays of starlight,

the rain-barrel freezing, brimming.

The gates are shut with a padlock,

and earth'due south dour, in all conscience –

you'd scarce discover anything more basic,

more pure, than truth's clean canvass.

the common cold water grows blacker,

like table salt, a star melts in the barrel,

death grows purer, trouble saltier,

globe more truthful, more than terrible.

'Exhaustion's rosy foam on his fleshy lips,'

Exhaustion's rosy foam on his fleshy lips,

the balderdash paws furiously at the greenish breakers:

he snorts: no oarsman – a sensualist,

his spine unused to burdens, hard labour.

Now and then, a dolphin leaps in an arc,

and a prickly sea-urchin comes into view,

tender Europa, hold him, forever, in your arms –

what yoke could be more desirable, too?

Bitterly she witnesses that mighty splashing,

the bloated sea around seethes in the deep,

terrified by the water'southward oily gleaming,

she'd like to slip downward from that hairy steep.

Oh, it's the crepitate of rowlocks she'd prefer,

the lap of a wide deck, a flock of sheep,

and flickering fish beyond a tall stern –

only the oar-less oarsman swims further out to sea!

Self-Portrait

A hint of wing in the lifted

head. But the glaze's flapping.

In the airtight eyes, artillery' tranquillity,

there'south nervous energy hiding.

Here's one who flies and sings,

and the word, in flames, hammered,

until congenital clumsiness,

by inborn rhythm'south conquered.

'I was merely bound childishly to the world of power,'

I was simply leap childishly to the world of power,

I dreaded oysters, viewed guardsmen with suspicion –

and don't owe a particle of my spirit to it, either,

however much I hurt myself trying to be someone.

I never stood nether a bank'south Egyptian portico,

frowning with impaired importance, in a beaver mitre,

never, for me, to the crackle of hundred rouble notes,

did a gipsy girl trip the light fantastic toe, by the lemon-coloured Neva.

Sensing future executions, I fled from the roar

of revolutionary events, to the Black Sea nymphs,

ah, with the beauties of those times – those tender

European ladies – the defoliation, stress, grief I glimpsed!

Merely why does the city, to this mean solar day, nonetheless retain

its ancient rights over my thoughts and feelings?

Its insolence, with fire and frost, has grown again:

self-satisfied, condemned, frivolous, united nations-ageing!

Mayhap I saw in some pic book, in the nursery,

Lady Godiva, with a mane of straggling ginger,

and then I nonetheless proceed repeating to myself, secretly,

Lady Godiva, bye…I don't remember, Godiva…

'For the future ages' resounding glory,'

For the future ages' resounding glory,

for their noble race of human beings,

I was deprived of my cup at the feast,

my own honour, and joyous things.

Our wolfish era runs at my shoulder,

but there'southward no wolf's blood in me,

better to crush me similar a hat deeper

into a Siberian fur's hot sleeve –

so I'll see no cowardice, no filthy mire,

no claret-drenched bones on the wheel,

so that blueish polar foxes may shine

all dark, in primal dazzler, for me.

Accept me into the nighttime, where the Yenisey

flows, where pines reach the starlight,

because there'southward no wolf's blood in me,

and only an equal shall take my life.

Note: The world'southward 6th largest river in terms of discharge, the Yenisey runs from south to north beyond the great area of key Siberia.

'We live, not sensing our ain country below us,'

We live, non sensing our own state beneath united states of america,

ten steps abroad they evaporate, our speeches,

but where enough meet for half-conversation,

the Kremlin mount human being'due south our occupation.

They're like slimy worms, his fatty fingers,

his words, every bit solid as weights of measure.

In his cockroach moustaches there's a beam

of laughter, while below his top boots gleam.

Round him a mob of thin-necked henchmen,

he toys at that place with the slavery of half-men.

Whoever whimpers, whoever warbles a notation,

Whoever miaows, he alone prods and probes.

He forges prescript after decree, like horseshoes –

in groins, foreheads, in eyes, and eyebrows.

Wherever an execution'due south happening though –

in that location'due south raspberry, and the Georgian'south giant torso.

Note: This anti-Stalin poem led to the poet's arrest in 1934.

Black Earth (Chernozem)

Too weighty, besides blackness, all that's piled up,

all that'southward heaped, shrinks, what'due south well-aired,

all of it crumbles, all shaping a chorus –

moist clods for my oxen, my earth!

In days of spring ploughing – blackness, well-nigh blue,

and for peaceful work the solid ground –

a g heaps of furrowed oral communication –

something unbounded within its leap!

However the earth's – a blunder, the barrel of a tool:

you can't move it by falling down at its feet:

it sharpens the hearing, a mildewed flute,

your ears with that absurd dawn clarinet meet.

How pleasing the rich layers to the blade,

how silent the steppe, in April's ploughing…

Well: live long, black world: exist firm, clear-eyed –

here at that place'southward a black-voiced silence working.

'Today makes no sense to me,'

Today makes no sense to me,

yellow-mouthed it exists –

dockyard gates stare at me

through anchors and mist.

Irksome, tedious, in faded channels,

a boxing-convoy slides by,

while narrow pencil-box canals

bear witness blacker under sheets of ice.

'I shall perform a smoky rite:'

I shall perform a smoky rite:

disgraced, I see, in the opal here

a seaside summertime'south strawberries –

cornelians split into two halves

agates, antlike, their brothers,

merely a pebble from deep waters,

a simple soldier's dearer to me,

that no i wants – grey, wild.

Note: Opala in Russian is 'disgrace'.

'Like a belated gift,'

Like a belated gift,

Winter'due south palpable to me:

and I'm in love with

it's first uncertain sweep.

It's terror'south beautiful,

similar the start of what's dreadful:

even the ravens fearful

of its leafless circumvolve.

But most intense, fragile –

is its bulging blueness:

half-formed ice, that fills

the river, lulling, sleepless…

'I'thousand still alive: I'k still not alone,'

I'thousand still alive: I'1000 still non solitary,

with a beggar-woman beside me

I have delight in the huge empty zone,

the haze, the blizzards, and the freeze.

In beautiful poverty, luxurious distress,

living alone – consoled, and quietly –

these days, these nights, are blessed,

and innocent labour echoes sweetly.

Unhappy he, whom, like his shade,

barking scares, the air current scythes through,

and poor the ane, half-alive, who'southward made

to beg for mercy from a shadow.

'Oh, sluggish, asthmatic spaciousness'

Oh, sluggish, asthmatic spaciousness –

I'm full of it, to the point of rebellion! –

the view's wide open up, catching its jiff –

there's a blindfold needed hither for my vision!

I'd rather have put up with layered leaves

of sand forth the Kama's toothed shores,

I'd have clung at that place to its shy sleeves,

its bends, its precipices, and pores.

A second, an age – I'd have been working

envying outfalls from every rapid there,

listening to the growth of fibrous rings

beneath the surface of the flowing timber.

'Don't compare: the living are incomparable:'

Don't compare: the living are incomparable:

with a kind of tender dread I consented

to the flatness of the plains, and the circle

of the heavens made me experience afflicted.

I appealed to my servant, the air,

waiting for service, for letters,

prepared for a journey, swam the arc

of neverhoped-for-started voyages.

I'k ready to go – where there's more sky –

only pure longing at present won't ready me gratis

from the still-youthful hills of Voronezh,

to those, articulate, and wholly-human, of Tuscany.

Note: Mandelstam was exiled temporarily to Voronezh in 1933.

'Like feminine silver, it'due south forged here,'

Like feminine silverish, it's forged hither,

what fought with oxides and alloys,

and it's placidity work that silvers

the plough's iron, the poet's voice.

'Hearing, hearing early ice'

Hearing, hearing early on water ice

rustling under bridges,

I call up, swimming joyous

tipsy, in above my head.

From callous stairs, squares,

angular palazzos, gripped

by his own Florence, Alighieri

sang more fully,

from exhausted lips.

So too my shade picks

at granite grains, by nighttime

it sees a row of blocks

that seemed houses in the lite.

or my shade yawns aloud,

and twiddles its thumbs,

or makes noises in the oversupply,

by wine and heaven made warm,

and feeds the bitter bread

to importunate swans…

Note. Dante was exiled from Florence. He complained of the bitter gustation of another man's bread, and of how hard it was to climb and descend some other man'due south stair (see: Paradiso Canto XVII). His shade picked its way through the underworld in his Divine Comedy.

'Gaps of the curved trophy, jetsam, dark-blues,'

Gaps of the curved bays, jetsam, dark-blue,

and the boring sail extended into a cloud –

barely knowing your worth, notwithstanding parted from you:

bounding main-weed's fake-pilus longer than organ fugues –

smelling there of long-standing falsehoods.

My mind's tipsy with an iron tenderness,

and rust gently gnaws at the sloping footing…

Why under my head is there this conflicting sand?

You – guttural Urals, broad-shouldered Volga,

flat-lands circular – here are all my rights – y'all,

with all my lungs, I must exhale more of you!

'Armed with a wasp'due south narrow sight,'

Armed with a wasp's narrow sight,

sucking the centrality of globe, the centrality of earth,

I smell all: the more comes to light,

and I acquire it all, I acquire it by eye.

I don't paint, and I don't sing,

I don't scrape a blackness-voiced bow here,

I only strike at life with my sting,

and beloved to envy sly waspish power.

Oh, if summer's heat, air's sting,

would just brand me, from death

from sleep someday escaping,

feel the axis of earth, the centrality of world…

'I'm sinking down, downward, down,'

I'm sinking downward, down, down,

plunged deep in a fortress, a den of lions,

under this leavening downpour of sound –

more than the Pentateuch, stronger than lions.

How close, close, your summons nears –

a demand similar childbirth, of the offset-built-in –

a thread, made of Oceanian pearls,

the meek baskets of Tahitian women.

Mother of songs, fabricated to chasten us,

approach, deep-voiced resonant vocalist!

All our rich daughters' sugariness-shy faces,

fundamental Mother, aren't worth your pinkie.

Yet time'south still unbounded for me.

And I've followed the universe'south

rapture, like an organ, sotto-voce,

accompanying a woman'due south vocalization.

'I lift this greenness to my lips,'

I lift this greenness to my lips,

this sticky promise of leaves,

this alienation of promise, Earth –

mother of snowdrops, maples, oak-trees.

Bowing to the humblest root,

see, how I'm blinded, dazed,

this explosion, to i's eyes

isn't the splendour also great?

Frogs, croaking, couple in spheres,

like corpuscles of mercury,

twigs turn into branches,

and mist's a milky fantasy.

'A Greek flute'due south theta and iota –'

A Greek flute'southward theta and iota –

as if words weren't enough for the ear –

un-carved, and unaccountable,

ripened, toiled, crossed the frontier.

Impossible to exit it behind:

clenched teeth tin can't deny information technology,

the tongue can't prod it into line,

the lips can't dissipate it.

The flautist knows no peace –

information technology seems to him he's alone,

that he formed his native sea

from lilac clay, long ago.

With distinct, ambitious murmur,

relentless remembering lips, he

hastens to gather the sounds,

cherish them, neatly, stingily.

After we're unable to repeat him,

clods of clay in the palms of the sea,

and when I'm filled with the bounding main,

my measure tin can only be disease.

And my lips are unable to sing,

there is murder likewise at the root.

Involuntarily, waning, waning,

I diminish the ability of the flute.

'Potters made its power, this azure isle – '

Potters made its power, this azure isle –

green Crete. And baked their offerings

in sounding world. Can't y'all recognise,

underground, the beat of dolphins' fins?

And it's easy to recall the body of water

in clay made joyful by firing,

while the pot's common cold mastery,

cools the flame of sea, and seeing.

Give me back my labour, azure island,

vanishing Crete, that work of mine,

and from the breasts of the fertile

goddess, fill the jars with wine.

Long ages earlier Odysseus,

all this existed, and was sung,

before food and drink, for u.s.,

were 'my' or 'mine' on the natural language.

But renew, and smoothen for me,

the ox-eyed sky'south starriness,

and the flying fish – fortuity,

and the bounding main, maxim – 'Yes'.

Alphabetize past First Line

The sound, muffled, cautious:
From the pool of low-cal, suddenly,
The freshly cut ears
More sluggish the snowy hive,
Ears stretch sensitive sails,
Like a sudden deject's shadow,
From a swamp, evil, viscous,
How slow the horses go,
Light sheds its meagre ray,
A troubled sigh of leaves
I hate the starlight's
I don't worship premeditated joys,
Poisoned grain: exhausted air.
She turned correct round, O sorrow,
Horses' hooves clattering at that place,
By candlelight information technology's sugariness to dream
Non crediting the miracle of re-birth,
The stream of gold honey poured, and so glutinous,
Withal far away are Spring's
When Psyche-Life goes down to the darkness,
Considering I could not keep hold of your artillery,
Stamping on the tender meadow, I leapt
Nosotros shall meet over again in Petersburg,
In the g, I was washing, at nighttime –
Exhaustion's rosy cream on his fleshy lips,
A hint of wing in the lifted
I was only bound childishly to the globe of power,
For the future ages' resounding glory,
Nosotros alive, not sensing our ain country below us,
Also weighty, too black, all that'south piled up,
Today makes no sense to me,
I shall perform a smoky rite:
Like a belated gift,
I'm yet alive: I'm even so non lone,
Oh, sluggish, asthmatic spaciousness –
Don't compare: the living are incomparable:
Like feminine argent, it's forged here,
Hearing, hearing early ice
Gaps of the curved trophy, jetsam, dark-blue,
Armed with a wasp'south narrow sight,
I'm sinking down, down, down,
I lift this greenness to my lips,
A Greek flute's theta and iota –
Potters fabricated its power, this azure isle –

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Source: https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Russian/MoreMandelstam.php