Снег идет (Snow Is Falling) by Boris Pasternak

Snow is falling, snow is falling.
Reaching for the storm’s white stars,
Petals of geraniums stretch
Beyond the window bars.

Snow is falling, all is chaos,
Everything is in the air,
The angle of the crossroads,
The steps of the back stair.

Snow is falling, not like flakes
But as if the firmament
In a coat with many patches
Were making its descent.

As if, from the upper landing,
Looking like a lunatic,
Creeping, playing hide-and-seek,
The sky stole from the attic.

Because life does not wait,
Turn, and you find Christmas here.
And a moment after that
It’s suddenly New Year.

Snow is falling, thickly, thickly,
Keeping step, stride for stride,
No less quickly, nonchalantly,
Is that time, perhaps,
Passing in the street outside?

And perhaps year follows year
Like the snowflakes falling
Or the words that follow here?

Snow is falling, snow is falling,
Snow is falling, all is chaos:
The whitened ones who pass,
The angle of the crossroads,
The dazed plants by the glass.

By Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к
(Boris Leonidovich Pasternak)
(1957)
from Когда разгуляется (When The Weather Clears)
translated by Jon Stallworthy and Peter France

Pasternak’s poem read by the actor Александр Феклистов (Aleksandr Vasilyevich Feklistov).

Снег идет

Снег идет, снег идет.
К белым звездочкам в буране
Тянутся цветы герани
За оконный переплет.

Снег идет, и всё в смятеньи,
Всё пускается в полет, –
Черной лестницы ступени,
Перекрестка поворот.

Снег идет, снег идет,
Словно падают не хлопья,
А в заплатанном салопе
Сходит наземь небосвод.

Словно с видом чудака,
С верхней лестничной площадки,
Крадучись, играя в прятки,
Сходит небо с чердака.

Потому что жизнь не ждет.
Не оглянешься — и святки.
Только промежуток краткий,
Смотришь, там и новый год.

Снег идет, густой-густой.
В ногу с ним, стопами теми,
В том же темпе, с ленью той
Или с той же быстротой,

Может быть, проходит время?
Может быть, за годом год
Следуют, как снег идет,
Или как слова в поэме?

Снег идет, снег идет,
Снег идет, и всё в смятеньи:
Убеленный пешеход,
Удивленные растенья,
Перекрестка поворот.

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Берегись… (Beware) by Marina Tsvetaeva

But for two, even mornings’
Joy is too small.
As you draw inside
Turn your face to the wall

(For the Spirit’s a pilgrim,
Walks alone its way),
Let your hearing drop
To the primal clay.

Adam, listen hard
Over the sources,
Hear what rivers’ veins
Are telling their shores.

You are the way and the end,
The path and the house.
By two no new lands
Can be opened out.

To the brows’ lofty camp
You are bridge and breach.
(God is a despot,
Jealous of each).

Adam, listen hard
Over the source,
Hear what rivers’ veins
Are telling their shores:

‘Beware of your servant:
When the proud trump plays
Don’t appear in our Father’s house
Fettered, a slave.

Beware of your wife:
Casting off mortal things,
When the naked trump sounds
Don’t appear wearing rings.’

Adam, listen hard
Over the source,
Hear what rivers’ veins
Are telling their shore:

‘Beware. Don’t build towers
On closeness and kin.
(Far more firm than her
In our hearts is Him.)

Don’t be tempted be eagles.
King David still cries
To this day for his son
Who fell into the skies.’

Adam, listen hard
Above the source,
Hear what rivers’ veins
Are telling their shores:

‘Beware of graves,
More ravenous than whores.
The dead rot, they are gone,
Beware sepulchures.

From yesterday’s truths
Remain filth and stench.
Give up to the winds
Your earthly ash.’

Adam, listen hard
Over the source,
Hear what rivers’ veins
Are telling their shores:

‘Beware.’

by Marina Tsvetaeva
(8 August 1922)
by David McDuff

Берегись…

Но тесна вдвоём
Даже радость утр.
Оттолкнувшись лбом
И подавшись внутрь,

(Ибо странник — Дух,
И идёт один),
До начальных глин
Потупляя слух —

Над источником,
Слушай-слушай, Адам,
Что́ проточные
Жилы рек — берегам:

— Ты и путь и цель,
Ты и след и дом.
Никаких земель
Не открыть вдвоём.

В горний лагерь лбов
Ты и мост и взрыв.
(Самовластен — Бог
И меж всех ревнив).

Над источником
Слушай-слушай, Адам,
Что́ проточные
Жилы рек — берегам:

— Берегись слуги,
Дабы в отчий дом
В гордый час трубы
Не предстать рабом.

Берегись жёны,
Дабы, сбросив прах,
В голый час трубы
Не предстать в перстнях.

Над источником
Слушай-слушай, Адам,
Что́ проточные
Жилы рек — берегам:

— Берегись! Не строй
На родстве высот.
(Ибо крепче — той
В нашем сердце — тот).

Говорю, не льстись
На орла, — скорбит
Об упавшем ввысь
По сей день — Давид!

Над источником
Слушай-слушай, Адам,
Что́ проточные
Жилы рек — берегам:

— Берегись могил:
Голодней блудниц!
Мёртвый был и сгнил:
Берегись гробниц!

От вчерашних правд
В доме — смрад и хлам.
Даже самый прах
Подари ветрам!

Над источником
Слушай-слушай, Адам,
Что́ проточные
Жилы рек — берегам:

— Берегись…

Осень (Autumn) by Boris Pasternak

I have let my household disperse,
My dear ones have long been apart,
And a familiar loneliness
Fills all of nature and all my heart.

Here I am with you in the lodge.
No one walks through the woods these days.
As in the old song, undergrowth
Has almost hidden the forest ways.

Forlornly, the timber walls
Look down on the two of us here.
We did not promise to leap obstacles,
We shall fall at last in the clear.

We shall sit down from one till three,
You with embroidery, I deep
In a book, and at dawn shall not see
When we kiss each other to sleep.

More richly and more recklessly,
Leaves, leaves, give tongue and whirl away,
Fill yesterday’s cup of bitterness
With the sadness of today.

Impulse, enchantment, beauty!
Let’s dissolve in September wind
And enter the rustle of autumn!
Be still, or go out of your mind!

As the coppice lets slip its leaves,
You let your dress slip rustling down
And throw yourself into my arms
In your silk-tasselled dressing gown.

You are my joy on the brink
Of disaster, when life becomes
A plague, and beauty is daring,
And draws us into each other’s arms.

By Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к
(Boris Leonidovich Pasternak)
(c.1947 or 1949)
from Доктор Живаго
(Doctor Zhivago – where it is presented as the work of the titular character)
translated by Jon Stallworthy and Peter France

Осень

Я дал разъехаться домашним,
Все близкие давно в разброде,
И одиночеством всегдашним
Полно всё в сердце и природе.

И вот я здесь с тобой в сторожке.
В лесу безлюдно и пустынно.
Как в песне, стежки и дорожки
Позаросли наполовину.

Теперь на нас одних с печалью
Глядят бревенчатые стены.
Мы брать преград не обещали,
Мы будем гибнуть откровенно.

Мы сядем в час и встанем в третьем,
Я с книгою, ты с вышиваньем,
И на рассвете не заметим,
Как целоваться перестанем.

Еще пышней и бесшабашней
Шумите, осыпайтесь, листья,
И чашу горечи вчерашней
Сегодняшней тоской превысьте.

Привязанность, влеченье, прелесть!
Рассеемся в сентябрьском шуме!
Заройся вся в осенний шелест!
Замри или ополоумей!

Ты так же сбрасываешь платье,
Как роща сбрасывает листья,
Когда ты падаешь в объятье
В халате с шелковою кистью.

Ты — благо гибельного шага,
Когда житье тошней недуга,
А корень красоты — отвага,
И это тянет нас друг к другу.

Последнею усталостью устав (Filled with the final weariness…) by Boris Slutsky

Filled with the final weariness
Seized with the exhaustion before dying
His big hands limply spread
A soldier lies.
He could lie differently –
Could lie beside his wife, in his own bed,
Not tearing at the mosses drenched with blood.
But could he? Could he?
No, he could not.
The Ministry sent him his call-up notice,
Officers were with him, marched beside him.
The court-martial’s typewriters clattered in the rear.
But even without them, could he?
Hardly.
Without a call-up, he’d have gone himself.
And not from fear: from conscience, and for honor.
Weltering in his blood, the soldier lying
Has no complaint, and no thought of complaining.

by Борис Абрамович Слуцкий
(Boris Abramovich Slutsky)
translated by J. R. Rowland

Последнею усталостью устав

Последнею усталостью устав,
Предсмертным умиранием охвачен,
Большие руки вяло распластав,
Лежит солдат.
Он мог лежать иначе,
Он мог лежать с женой в своей постели,
Он мог не рвать намокший кровью мох,
Он мог…
Да мог ли? Будто? Неужели?
Нет, он не мог.
Ему военкомат повестки слал.
С ним рядом офицеры шли, шагали.
В тылу стучал машинкой трибунал.
А если б не стучал, он мог?
Едва ли.
Он без повесток, он бы сам пошел.
И не за страх — за совесть и за почесть.
Лежит солдат — в крови лежит, в большой,
А жаловаться ни на что не хочет.

Additional information: Бори́с Абра́мович Слу́цкий (Boris Slutsky) (7 May 1919 in Slovyansk, Ukraine – 23 February 1986 in Tula) was a Soviet poet of the Russian language.

Slutsky’s father was a white-collar worker and his mother a teacher. He went to school in Kharkov and from 1937 he studied in Moscow, first in law school and then at the Gorky Literary Institute. During World War II he made friends with many of the poets who were to die in the war and was himself severely wounded. Though he published some poetry in 1941, he did not publish again until after Stalin’s death in 1953. Ilya Ehrenburg wrote an article in 1956 adovicating that a collection of Slutsky’s work be published. He created a sensation by quoting many unknown poems. Discussings Slutsky’s poetry, Mikhail Svetlov said, “Of one thing I am sure – here is a poet who writes better than we all do.”

Slutsky’s first collection, Pamiat’ (Memory) (1957), immediately established his reputation as a poet. His most celebrated poems are “Kelnskaia iama” (The Pit of Cologne) and “Loshadi v okeane” (Horses in the Sea). His poems “Bog” (God) and “Khozain” (The Boss) sharply criticized Stalin even before the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956.

Slutsky’s poetry is deliberately coarse, prosaic, and always distinctive. He evoked many imitators and much ridicule, but he also taught many of the postwar generation of poets. During the scandalous attacks on Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago in 1959, Slutsky unexpectedly came out against Pasternak. It was a crucial error. Many of his admirers turned their backs on him, but, more important, he never forgave himself. When he died, he left so much poetry unpublished that almost every month for several years new poems appeared in magazines and newspapers.

Biographical information about Slutsky, p.689, ‘Twentieth Century Russian Poetry’ (1993), compiled by Yevgeny Yevtushenko (ed. Albert C. Todd and Max Hayward) , published by Fourth Estate Limited by arrangement with Doubleday of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc. (transcribed as found in the original text).

‘Твой зрачок в небесной корке’ (‘Let it be blessed’) by Osip Mandelstam

The reserve of weak,
sensitive eyelashes protects
your pupil in its heavenly rind,
as it looks into the distance and down.

Let it be blessed
and live long in its homeland –
cast the surprise pool
of your eye to catch me!

Already it looks willingly
at the ephemeral ages –
bright, rainbowed, fleshless,
still pleading.

by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам
(Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam)
(His surname is commonly Latinised as Mandelstam)
(2 January 1937)
from the second Voronezh Notebook
translated by Richard and Elizabeth McKane

‘Твой зрачок в небесной корке’

Твой зрачок в небесной корке,
Обращенный вдаль и ниц,
Защищают оговорки
Слабых, чующих ресниц.

Будет он обожествленный
Долго жить в родной стране —
Омут ока удивленный,—
Кинь его вдогонку мне.

Он глядит уже охотно
В мимолетные века —
Светлый, радужный, бесплотный,
Умоляющий пока.

Additional information: The translators chose to use the first line of the second stanza as a title for the unnamed piece rather than the first line of the first stanza as most would do with untitled poems for reference purposes. Hence the discrepancy in the title of this post between the Russian and English. Aside from this they numbered this poem as the seventeenth entry in the second of Mandelstam’s Voronezh Notebooks but I don’t know if that is a officially recognised convention when referring to the unnamed pieces in the three notebooks (as you might use regarding, for example, Shakespeare’s sonnets).

The notebooks were written while he was in exile, accompanied by his wife Nadezhda in the southwestern Russian city of Voronezh, which was a reprieve of sorts after he had been arrested during the repression of the 1930s. Mandelstam and his wife chose Voronezh, possibly, partly, because the name appealed to him. In April 1935, he wrote a four line poem that included the pun – Voronezh – blazh‘, Voronezh – voron, nozh meaning ‘Voronezh is a whim, Voronezh – a raven, a knife.’

The apartment building he resided in during his exile, located on Friedrich Engels Street next to the Orlyonok Park, was recently given special status.