Hamlet

The murmurs ebb; onto the stage I enter.
I am trying, standing in the door,
To discover in the distant echoes
What the coming years may hold in store.

The nocturnal darkness with a thousand
Binoculars is focused onto me.
Take away this cup, O Abba Father,
Everything is possible to Thee.

I am fond of this Thy stubborn project,
And to play my part I am content.
But another drama is in progress,
And, this once, O let me be exempt.

But the plan of action is determined,
And the end irrevocably sealed.
I am alone; all round me drowns in falsehood:
Life is not a walk across a field.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Ploughing Time

What is the matter with the landscape?
Familiar landmarks are not there.
Ploughed fields, like squares upon a chessboard,
Today are scattered everywhere.

The newly-harrowed vast expanses
So evenly are spread about,
As though the valley had been spring-cleaned
Or else the mountains flattened out.

And that same day, in one endeavour,
Outside the furrows every tree
Bursts into leaf, light-green and downy,
And stretches skyward, tall and free.

No speck of dust on the new maples,
And colours nowhere are as clean
As is the light-grey of the ploughland
And as the silver-birch's green.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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I grew. Foul weather, dreams, forebodings...

I grew. Foul weather, dreams, forebodings
Were bearing me - a Ganymede -
Away from earth; distress was growing
Like wings - to spread, to hold, to lead.

I grew. The veil of woven sunsets
At dusk would cling to me and swell.
With wine in glasses we would gather
To celebrate a sad farewell,

And yet the eagle's clasp already
Refreshes forearms' heated strain.
The days have gone, when, love, you floated
Above me, harbinger of pain.

Do we not share the sky, the flying?
Now, like a swan, his death-song done,
Rejoice! In triumph, with the eagle
Shoulder to shoulder, we are one.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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You are disappointed? You thought...

You are disappointed? You thought that in peace we
Would part to the sound of a requiem, a swan-song?
You counted on grief, with your pupils dilated,
Their invincibility trying in tears on?

At the mass from the vaults then the murals had crumbled,
By the play on the lips of Sebastian shaken…
But tonight to my hatred all seems drawn-out dawdling,
What a pity there is not a whip for my hatred!

In darkness, collecting its wits instantaneously,
It knew without thinking: it would plough it over-
That it's time; that a suicide would be superfluous;
That this too would have been of a tortoise-like slowness.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Here a riddle has drawn a strange nailmark

Here a riddle has drawn a strange nailmark. To sleep now!
I'll reread, understand with the light of the sun,
But until I am wakened, to touch the beloved
As I do has been given to none.

How I touched you! So touched were you even by the copper
Of my lips, as an audience is touched by a play,
And the kiss was like summer; it lingered and lingered,
Only later the thunderstorm came.

And I drank in long draughts, like the birds, half-unconscious.
The stars trickle slowly through the throat to the crop,
While the nightingales roll up their eyes in a shudder
From the firmament draining the night drop by drop.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Definition of Creative Art

With shirt wide open at the collar,
Maned as Beethoven's bust, it stands;
Our conscience, dreams, the night and love,
Are as chessmen covered by its hands.

And one black king upon the board:
In sadness and in rage, forthright
It brings the day of doom.-Against
The pawn it brings the mounted knight.

In gardens where from icy spheres
The stars lean tender, linger near,
Tristan still sings, like a nightingale
On Isolde's vine, with trembling fear.

The gardens, ponds, and fences, made pure
By burning tears, and the whole great span,
Creation-are only burst of passion
Hoarded in the hearts of men.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Definition of Poetry

It's a whistle blown ripe in a trice,
It's the cracking of ice in a gale,
It's a night that turns green leaves to ice,
It's a duel of two nightingales.

It is sweet-peas run gloriously wild,
It's the world's twinking tears in the pod,
It is Figaro like hot hail hurled
From the flutes on the wet flower bed.

It is all that the night hopes to find
On the bottom of deep bathing pools,
It's the star carried to the fish-pond
In your hands, wet and trembling and cool.

This close air is as flat as the boards
In the pond. The sky's flat on its face.
It would be fun if these stars guffawed-
But the universe is a dull place.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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How few are we. Probably three...

How few are we. Probably three
In all-coallike, burning, infernal
Beneath the grey bark of the tree
Of wisdom, and clouds, and eternal
Debate on verse, transport, the part
The army will play-and on art.

We used to be human. We're eras,
We're trains, in a caravan ripping
Through woods, to the sighing and fears
Of engines, and groans of the sleepers.
We'll rush in, and circle in the throes
Of being, like a whirlwind of crows.

A miss! Much too late you will see it.
Thus galloping wind in the morning
In passing a straw pile will buffet-
The blow will live on as a warning
To riotous tree-tops, and mingle
With their wrangles over the shingles.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Winter Sky

Ice-chips plucked whole from the smoke,

the past week’s stars all frozen in flight,

Head over heels the skater’s club goes,

clinking its rink with the peal of night.

Step slow, slower, slow-er, skater,

pride carving its trace as you race by.

each turn’s a constellation cut there,

scratched by a skate in Norway’s sky.

The air is fettered in frozen iron.

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Fiat

Dawn will set candles guttering.
It will light up and loose the swifts.
With this reminder I'll burst in:
Let life be just as fresh as this!

Dawn's like a gunshot in the dark.
A bang-and flying burning bits
Of wadding go out, spark by spark.
Let life be just as fresh as this.

Another guest outside's the wind.
At night, it huddled close to us.
It's shivering-at dawn, it rained.
Let life be just as fresh as this.

It's so ridiculous and vain!
Why did it want to guard this place?
It saw the 'No admittance' sign.
Let life be just as fresh as this.

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
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