Whispers, timid breathing,
trills of a nightingale,
the silver and the shiver
of a sleepy rill.
Pale light and nighttime shadows,
shadows without end,
all the magic transformations
of eyes and lips and brows.
In smoky clouds, a rose’s purple,
the shine of amber beads,
and the kisses, and the tears,
and the dawn, the dawn!
by Афанасий Афанасьевич Фет (Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet)
a.k.a. Шеншин (Shenshin)
(1850)
translated by Boris Dralyuk
The sower walks down the even furrows;
his fathers all furrowed the path he follows.
The young seed glitters gold in his hand,
but it must fall into the black ground.
There, amid the tunnels of the blind worm,
it will die on its due day – and grow again.
So now my soul treads the path of the grain –
down into darkness – and spring’s return.
And you, my people, and you, my native land,
you will die and live, when the dark months end,
for we have been granted only this one truth:
whatever lives must follow the grain’s path.
by Владислав Фелицианович Ходасевич (Vladislav Felitsianovich Khodasevich)
(1917)
translated by Robert Chandler
We have scratched our names in the London dust,
Sung sometimes like the Jews of Babylon
Under the dusty trees of Hyde Park Corner,
Almost believing in a Jesus of Cardigan
Or a Moses on the mountains of Merioneth;
We have dreamed by the Thames of Towy and Dee,
And whistled in dairy shops in the morning,
Whistled of Harlech and Aberdovey.
We have grown sentimental in London
Over things that we smiled at in Wales.
Sometimes in Woolwich we have seen the mining valleys
More beautiful than we ever saw them with our eyes.
We have carried our accents into Westminster
As soldiers carry rifles into the wars;
We have carried our idioms into Piccadilly,
Food for the critics on Saturday night.
We have played dominoes in Lambeth with Alfred the Great,
And lifted a glass with Henry VIII
In the tavern under the railway bridge
On Friday nights in winter;
And we have argued with Chaucer down the Old Kent Road
On the englynion of the Eisteddfod.
We have also shivered by the Thames in the night
And know that the frost has no racial distinctions.
by Idris Davies
I, a butterfly that has flown
into the room of human life,
must leave the handwriting of my dust
like a prisoner’s signature
over the stern windows,
across fate’s strict panes.
The wallpaper of human life
is grey and sad.
And there is the windows’
transparent ‘No’.
I have worn away my deep-blue morning glow,
my patterns of dots,
my wing’s light-blue storm, first freshness.
The powder’s gone, the wings have faded
and turned transparent and hard.
Jaded, I beat
against the window of mankind.
From the other side knock eternal numbers,
summoning me to the motherland,
asking one single number
to return to all numbers.
by Велимир Хлебников (Velimir Khlebnikov)
a.k.a. Виктор Владимирович Хлебников (Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov)
(1921)
translated by Robert Chandler
Fun fact: Khlebnikov possibly reflecting on Zhuangzi’s famous quote:
They laid this stone trap
for him, enticing him with candles,
as though he would come like some huge moth
out of the darkness to beat there.
Ah, he had burned himself
before in the human flame
and escaped, leaving the reason
torn. He will not come any more
to our lure. Why, then, do I kneel still
striking my prayers on a stone
heart? Is it in hope one
of them will ignite yet and throw
on its illuminated walls the shadow
of someone greater than I can understand?
by R. S. Thomas
from Frequencies (1978)
Rambling At The Bridge Head 
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