To read only children’s tales
and look through a child’s eye;
to rise from grief and wave
big things goodbye.
Life has tired me to death;
life has no more to offer.
But I love my poor earth
since I know no other.
I swung in a faraway garden
on a plain plank swing;
I remember tall dark firs
in a feverish blur.
by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам (Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam. His surname is commonly latinised as Mandelstam)
(1908)
translated by Robert Chandler
“You are with me once more, Autumn my friend!”
Annensky
Let any, who will, still bask in the south
On the paradisal sand,
It’s northerly here – and this year of the north
Autumn will be my friend.
I’ll live, in a dream, in a stranger’s house
Where perhaps I have died,
Where the mirrors keep something mysterious
To themselves in the evening light.
I shall walk between black fir-trees,
Where the wind is at one with the heath,
And a dull splinter of the moon will glint
Like an old knife with jagged teeth.
Our last, blissful unmeeting I shall bring
To sustain me here –
The cold, pure, light flame of conquering
What I was destined for.
by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova) (1957)
from Седьмая книга (The Seventh Book)
translation by D. M. Thomas
