The wizard’s gifts were only stone,
the River Neva’s yellow brown,
and empty squares like desert wastes
for executions staged at dawn.
by Иннокентий Фёдорович Анненский (Innokenty Fyodorovich Annensky)
(date unknown)
translated by Robert Chandler
Tag: execution
Epigram about Stalin [extract] by Osip Mandelstam
Horseshoe-heavy, he hurls his decrees low and high:
In the groin, in the forehead, the eyebrow, the eye.
Executions are what he likes best.
Broad is the highlander’s chest.
by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам (Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam. His surname is commonly latinised as Mandelstam)
(Autumn, 1933)
translated by Alexandra Berlina
Interesting additon: In the Autumn of 1933 Mandelstam composed an epigram about Stalin, which he performed at seven small gatherings in Moscow, which ends with the above lines. Mandelstam was arrested six months later but instead of being executed (by being shot) he was exiled to the Northern Urals. Why was this considering ‘executions’ are what [Stalin] loves best’? A cruel irony or possibly that this relative leniency was due to Stalin taking a personal interest in Mandelstam’s case and being concerned about his own place in Russian literary history? After Mandelstam’s attempted suicide the usual sentence was commuted to one of being banished from the largest cities in Russia. Mandelstam and his wife, Nadezhda, settled in Voronezh where he went on to write the three Voronezh Notebooks. In May 1938 he was arrested again and sentenced to five years in the Gulag. He died in a transit camp near Vladivostok on 27 December 1938.
Montrose by R. S. Thomas
It is said that he went gaily to that scaffold,
dressed magnificently as a bridegroom,
his lace lying on him like white frost
in the windless morning of his courage.
His red blood was the water of life,
changed to wine at the wedding banquet;
the bride Scotland, the spirit dependent on
such for the consummation of her marrriage.
by R. S. Thomas
from Laboratories of the Spirit (1975)
Fun fact: This poem is about James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, a Scottish nobleman, poet and soldier, who initially joined the Covenanters in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, but subsequently supported King Charles I as the English Civil War developed. From 1644 to 1646, and again in 1650, he fought in the civil war in Scotland on behalf of the King and is generally referred to in Scotland as simply “the Great Montrose”. His spectacular victories, which took his opponents by surprise, are remembered in military history for their tactical brilliance
‘The Fifth Act Of The Drama…’ by Anna Akhmatova
The fifth act of the drama
Blows in the wind of autumn,
Each flower-bed in the park seems
A fresh grave, we have finished
The funeral-feast, and there’s nothing
To do. Why then do I linger
As if I am expecting
A miracle? It’s the way a feeble
Hand can hold fast to a heavy
Boat for a long time by the pier
As one is saying goodbye
To the person who’s left standing.
by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova) (1921?)
from Седьмая книга (The Seventh Book)
translation by D. M. Thomas
Fun fact: Though the poem is dated as being written in the 1940s it is more likely it was written just after, her husband Nikolay Stepanovich Gumilyov‘s execution in 1921.
‘The Souls Of Those I Love…’ by Anna Akhmatova
The souls of those I love are on high stars.
How good that there is no-one left to lose
And one can weep. Tsarskoye Selo’s
Air was made to repeat songs.
By the river bank the silver willow
Touches the bright September waters.
Rising from the past, my shadow
Comes silently to meet me.
So many lyres, hung on branches, here,
But there seems a place even for my lyre.
And this shower, drenched with sun and rare,
Is consolation and good news.
by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova) (1921?)
from Седьмая книга (The Seventh Book)
Fun fact: Though the poem is dated as being written in the 1940s it is more likely it was written just after her husband Nikolay Stepanovich Gumilyov‘s execution in 1921.
Rambling At The Bridge Head 
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