The patient watches

The patient watches. Six days long
In frenzy blizzards rave relentlessly,
Roll over rooftops, roar along,
Brace, rage, and fall, collapsing senselessly.

In snowstorms Christmas is consumed.
He dreams: they came and lifted someone.
He starts: 'Whom? Me?' There was a call,
A tolling bell… Not New Year's summons?

Far, in the Kremlin, booms Ivan,
Dives, drowns, resounds in swaying motion.
He sleeps. When great, a blizzard can
Be called Pacific, as the Ocean.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Crossed Oars

My boat throbbed in the drowsy depths,
willows bowed, kissing collarbones,
elbows and rowlocks – oh wait, yes,
all of this might happen to anyone!

Isn’t it all just trivial…a singing.
Isn’t its meaning – the lilac petals on
water, camomile’s sensuous sinking
lip on lip, into starry extinction!

Isn’t its meaning – clasping the sky,
arms embracing mighty Hercules,
isn’t its meaning – for endless lives,
squandering on nightingales your glory!

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Nostalgia

To give this book a dedication
The desert sickened,
And lions roared, and dawns of tigers
Took hold of Kipling.

A dried-up well of dreadful longing
Was gaping, yawning.
They swayed and shivered, rubbing shoulders,
Sleek-skinned and tawny.

Since then continuing forever
Their sway in scansion,
They stroll in mist through dewy meadows
Dreamt up by Ganges.

Creeping at dawn in pits and hollows
Cold sunrays fumble.
Funereal, incense-laden dampness
Pervades the jungle.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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A tall, strapping shot, you, considerate hunter...

A tall, strapping shot, you, considerate hunter,
Phantom with gun at the flood of my soul,
Do not destroy me now as a traitor,
As fodder for feeling, crumbled up small!

Grant me destruction rising and soaring,
Dress me at night in the willow and ice.
Start me, I pray, from the reeds in the morning,
Finish me off with one shot in my flight,

And for this lofty and resonant parting
Thank you. Forgive me, I kiss you, oh hands
Of my neglected, my disregarded
Homeland, my diffidence, family, friends.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Storm, Momentary, Forever

Then summer said goodbye
to the station. Lifting its cap,
the thunder took souvenirs,
hundreds of shots on the fly.

The lilac went black. And that
instant, gathering whole armfuls
of lightning, the far clearing lit
the white station-master’s shack.

And when the whole roof ran
with a fierce torrent of malice,
and, like charcoal onto a sketch,
the rain crashed down on the fence,
consciousness started to flash,
here, it seems, flooding in play
even the corners of mind
where it’s always bright as day.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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The shiv'ring piano, foaming at the mouth

The shiv'ring piano, foaming at the mouth,
Will wrench you by its ravings, discompose you.
'My darling,' you will murmur. 'No!' I'll shout.
'To music?!' Yet can two be ever closer

Than in the dusk, while tossing vibrant chords
Into the fireplace, like journals, tome by tome?
Oh, understanding wonderful, just nod,
And you will know I do not claim to own

Your soul and body. You may go where'er
You want. To others. Werther has been written
Already. Death these days is in the air.
One opens up one's veins much like a window.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Thunderstorm, Instantaneous Forever

After this the halt and summer
Parted company; and taking
Off his cap at night the thunder
Took a hundred blinding stills.

Lilac clusters faded; plucking
Off an armful of new lightnings,
From the field he tried to throw them
At the mansion in the hills.

And when waves of evil laughter
Rolled along the iron roofing
And, like charcoal on a drawing,
Showers thundered on the fence,

Then the crumbling mind began to
Blink; it seemed it would be floodlit
Even in those distant comers
Where the light is now intense.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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To Boris Pilnyak

Ah, don't I know that, groping in the gloom,
Night would not find its way out of the dark?
Am I monster who the millions' doom
Would shrug away for a few hundreds' luck?

Am I not measured by the Five-Year Plan?
Its falls and rises, aren't they also mine?
What shall I do, though, with my heartbeat, and
With things whose sluggishness boggles the mind?

In highest councils, in those spheres where reign
The highest passions and the strongest will,
The poet's post has been set up in vain:
It's dangerous-unless it's left unfilled.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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With Oars at Rest

A boat is beating in the breast of the lake.
Willows hang over, tickling and kissing
Neckline and knuckles and rowlocks-O wait,
This could have happened to anyone, listen!

This could be used in a song, to beguile.
This then would mean-the ashes of lilac,
Richness of dew-drenched and crushed camomile,
Bartering lips for a start after twilight.

This is-embracing the firmament; strong
Hercules holding it, clasping still fonder.
This then would mean-whole centuries long
Fortunes for nightingales' singing to squander.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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The Girl

By a cliff a golden cloud once lingered;
On his breast it slept…

From the swing, from the garden, helter-skelter,
A twig runs up to the glass.
Enormous, close, with a drop of emerald
At the tip of the cluster cast.

The garden is clouded, lost in confusion,
In staggering, teeming fuss.
The dear one, as big as the garden, a sister
By nature-a second glass!

But then this twig is brought in a tumbler
And put by the looking-glass;
Which wonders:-Who is it that blurs my vision,
From the dull, from the prison-class?

poem by Boris Pasternak
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