I am sorry it is winter now

I am sorry it is winter now,
And you can't hear mosquitoes in the house,
But you reminded yourself
Of the frivolous straw.

The dragonflies hover in the blue sky,
And fashion twirls like a swallow;
A basket on the head,
Or a bombastic ode?

I don't presume to give advice
And useless excuses,
But the taste of whipped cream
And the smell of oranges is forever.

You define everything without thinking,
And things are the worse for it.
What can you do? The most sensitive mind
Is put wholly on the surface.

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poem by Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
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The Decembrist

'To this the pagan senate bears witness:
-- THESE DEEDS SHALL NEVER DIE! -- '
He lit his pipe and wrapped his cloak around
While some play chess nearby.

He traded his ambitious dream
For a godforsaken Siberian plot
And an elegant pipe at his venomous lips,
Which uttered truth in a mournful world.

When the German oaks first rustled,
Europe wept in her snare.
Black horses in quadrigae reared
on each triumphant turn.

Once, the blue punch glowed in our glasses.
With the broad noises of the samovar,
A friend from across the Rhine spoke
In muted tones -- a freedom-loving guitar.

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poem by Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
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How hard for me, the splendor of this crown and robe

-- How hard for me, the splendor of this crown and robe,
amidst my shame --

-- In stony Troezen will be an infamous calamity,
the royal staircase will grow red with disgrace,
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
and for the mother in love,
the black sun will rise.

-- O, if hate would boil in my breast --
but see, the admission itself
has fallen from my lips.

-- Phedre burns in a black flame
in broad daylight.
The funeral torch fumes

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poem by Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
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Not believing in the Resurrection

I

Not believing in the Resurrection,
we strolled in the cemetery.
-- You know, the earth everywhere
reminds me of those hills
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
where Russia breaks off
above the black, deaf sea.

II

The broad meadow runs away
from the monastery's slopes.
I really didn't want to go so far
south of Vladimir's expanse,
but to stay in this wooded, dark,
and holy foolish place with such a dizzy nun
means disaster is in store.

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poem by Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
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Brothers, let us glorify freedom’s twilight

Brothers, let us glorify freedom’s twilight –
the great, darkening year.
Into the seething waters of the night
heavy forests of nets disappear.
O Sun, judge, people, your light
is rising over sombre years

Let us glorify the deadly weight
the people’s leader lifts with tears.
Let us glorify the dark burden of fate,
power’s unbearable yoke of fears.
How your ship is sinking, straight,
he who has a heart, Time, hears.

We have bound swallows
into battle legions - and we,
we cannot see the sun: nature’s boughs
are living, twittering, moving, totally:
through the nets –the thick twilight - now
we cannot see the sun, and Earth floats free.

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poem by Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
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Beneath a veil of milky white

Beneath a veil of milky white
Stands Isaac's like a hoary dovecote,
The crozier irritates the grey silences,
The heart understands the airy rite.

The wandering specter of the centennial requiem,
The grand bearing of the shroud
And in a decrepit seine, the Gennesarian gloom
Of the Lenten Week.

The Old Testament smoke on warm altars,
And the final, orphaned cry of the priest,
A regal, humble man: clean snow on his shoulders,
And the savage purple mantles.

The eternal cathedrals of Sofia and Peter,
Storehouses of air and light, the possessions
Of the universal granary
And the threshing barn of the New Testament.

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poem by Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
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Meganom

1

Still far the asphodels,
grey-transparent Spring.
Meanwhile, the sand rustles,
the wave foams.
But here, like Persephone,
my soul joins the gentle circle,
and in the realm of the dead,
there were no seductive, sunburnt arms.

2

Why do we trust the boat
with the heaviness of the funerary urn,
and conclude the festival of black roses
over amethystine water?
My soul rushes there,
to the cloudy cape of Meganom,
and from there the black sail will return

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poem by Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
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The Age

My beast, my age, who will try
to look you in the eye,
and weld the vertebrae
of century to century,
with blood? Creating blood
pours out of mortal things:
only the parasitic shudder,
when the new world sings.

As long as it still has life,
the creature lifts its bone,
and, along the secret line
of the spine, waves foam.
Once more life’s crown,
like a lamb, is sacrificed,
cartilage under the knife -
the age of the new-born.

To free life from jail,
and begin a new absolute,

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poem by Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
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Venetian Life

1

The meaning of somber and barren
Venetian life is clear to me:
Now she looks into a decrepit blue glass
With a cool smile.

2

Refined air. Blue veins of skin.
White snow. Green brocade.
They are all placed on cypress stretchers,
Taken warm and drowsy from a cape.

3

And the candles burn, burn in baskets,
As if a pigeon had flown into the shrine.
At the theater and the solemn council,
A man is dying.

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poem by Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
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A phantom scene barely glimmers

1

A phantom scene barely glimmers,
The soft choirs of shades,
Melpomene has lashed the windows of her room with satin.
Wagons stand in the black gypsy-camp.
The frost crackles outside.
Everything is dishevelled -- people and objects,
The burning snow crunches.

2

Piece by piece, the servants take down
Piles of bearskin coats.
In the rumple flits a butterfly,
A rose is muffled in the fur.
Gnats and boxes of colorful raimie,
The slight heat of the theater.
On the street the lamps flicker,
And the heavy steam belches.

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poem by Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
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