Внутри горы бездействует кумир… (Deep in the mountain the idol rests) by Osip Mandelstam

Deep in the mountain the idol rests
in sweet repose, infinite and blest,
the fat of necklaces dripping from his neck
protects his dreams of flood tide and of slack.
 
As a boy, he buddied with a peacock,
they gave him rainbow of India to eat
and milk in a pink clay dish,
and didn't stint the cochineal.

Bone put to bed, locked in a knot,
shoulders, arms and knees made flesh,
he smiles with his own dead-silent lips,
thinks with his bone, feels with his brow,
and struggles to recall his human countenance...


by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам (Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam.)
His surname is commonly latinised as Mandelstam)
from the first of the Voronezh Notebooks
(10-26 December 1936)
translated by Andrew Davis 

Interesting information: The poem recounts certain Buddhist imagery, such as the peacock, from accounts of the life of Siddhartha Gautama a.k.a. Gautama Buddha.The female of the cochineal insect species is crushed to make red pigment for food colouring amongst other uses.

Beneath is the original Russian Cyrillic verison of the poem. I couldn’t find a recital of it on Youtube but feel free to add one in the comments please if you know of one:

Внутри горы бездействует кумир…  

Внутри горы бездействует кумир 
В покоях бережных, безбрежных и счастливых, 
А с шеи каплет ожерелий жир, 
Оберегая сна приливы и отливы. 

Когда он мальчик был и с ним играл павлин, 
Его индийской радугой кормили, 
Давали молока из розоватых глин 
И не жалели кошенили. 

Кость усыпленная завязана узлом, 
Очеловечены колени, руки, плечи, 
Он улыбается своим тишайшим ртом, 
Он мыслит костию и чувствует челом 
И вспомнить силится свой облик человечий.  

Tiger Bay by Idris Davies

I watched the coloured seamen in the morning mist,

Slouching along the damp brown street,

Cursing and laughing in the dismal dawn.

The sea had grumbled through the night,

Small yellow lights had flickered far and near,

Huge chains clattered on the ice-cold quays,

And daylight had seemed a hundred years away…

But slowly the long cold night retreated

Behind the cranes and masts and funnels,

The sea-signals wailed beyond the harbour

And seabirds came suddenly out of the mist.

And six coloured seamen came slouching along

With the laughter of the Levant in their eyes

And contempt in their tapering hands.

Their coffee was waiting in some smoke-laden den,

With smooth yellow dice on the unswept table,

And behind the dirty green window

No lazy dream of Africa or Arabia or India,

Nor any dreary dockland morning

Would mar one minute for them.

 

by Idris Davies

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Fun fact: Tiger Bay (Welsh: Bae Teigr) was the local name for an area of Cardiff which covered Butetown and Cardiff Docks. It was rebranded as Cardiff Bay, following the building of the Cardiff Barrage, which dams the tidal rivers, Ely and Taff, to create a body of water. The development of the Cardiff Docks played a major part in Cardiff’s development by being the means of exporting coal from the South Wales Valleys to the rest of the world, helping to power the Industrial Age. The coal mining industry helped fund the growth of Cardiff to become the capital city of Wales and contributed towards making the docks owner, The 3rd Marquess of Bute, the richest man in the world at the time