‘No one will be in the house’ by Boris Pasternak

 No one will be in the house
 But twilight. Just the same
 Winter day in the gap
 The gathered curtains frame.
 
 Only swiftly beating wings
 Of white flakes as they fall.
 Only roofs and snow, and but
 For roofs and snow – no one at all.
 
 And frost again will start too sketch.
 And I again will find despairs
 Of last year whirling me back
 To another winter's affairs.
 
 And they again will sting me
 With last year's guilt, the same,
 Unexpiated. Lack of wood
 Will cramp the window-frame.
 
 Then suddenly the curtain
 Will shudder at the door
 And you will come in, like the future,
 Making no sound on the floor.
 
 And you will stand there wearing
 Something white, no lace, no braid,
 Something made from the fabric
 From which snowflakes are made.


 by  Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к
 (Boris Leonidovich Pasternak)
 (1931)
 translated by Jon Stallworthy and Peter France 

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Prayer before Sleep 28 March 1931 at Seven O’Clock in the Evening by Daniil Kharms

‘Lord, in broad daylight

apathy overcame me.

Allow me to lie down and fall asleep Lord,

and while I sleep fill me Lord

with your strength.

There is much I want to know,

but neither books nor people

will tell me this.

May You alone Lord enlighten me

by means of my verses.

Wake me strong for the battle with meaning,

swift in the arrangement of words

and zealous to praise the name of God

for ever and ever.

 

by Даниил Иванович Хармс (Daniil Ivanovich Kharms)

a.k.a. Даниил Иванович Ювачёв (Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachov)

(date unknown)

translated by Robert Chandler

‘After Midnight Clean Out Of Your Hands’ by Osip Mandelstam

After midnight, clean out of your hands,

the heart seizes a sliver of silence.

It lives on the quiet, it’s longing to play;

like it or not, there’s nothing quite like it.

 

Like it or not, it can never be grasped;

so why shiver, like a child off the street,

if after midnight the heart holds a feast,

silently savouring a silvery mouse?

 

by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам (Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam. His surname is commonly latinised as Mandelstam)

(1931)

translated by Robert Chandler

‘Help me, O Lord, through this night’ by Osip Mandelstam

Help me, O Lord, through this night.

I fear for life, your slave.

To live in Peter’s city is to sleep in a grave.

 

by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам (Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam. His surname is commonly latinised as Mandelstam)

(1931)

translated by Robert Chandler

They’ve Cut A Hole In The Deep by Sofia Parnok

They’ve cut a hole in the deep

dence blue of the ice:

a breathing space for big fish and little,

water for bringers of buckets,

a way out for a weary traveller

if she and life turn out after all

to be travelling different roads

and she has nowhere to go.

 

by София Яковлевна Парнок (Sophia Yakovlena Parnok) (1931)

translated by Robert Chandler