‘It’s February. Weeping take ink’ by Boris Pasternak

 It's February. Weeping take ink.
 Find words in a sobbing rush
 For February, while black spring
 Burns through the rumbling slush.
 
 
 And take a cab. Ride for a rouble
 Through wheel racket and bell's throbbing
 To where the downpour makes more din
 Than the sound of ink and sobbing;
 
 
 Where rooks in thousands, like charred pears
 Windfallen from their branching skies,
 Drop into puddles and bring down
 Desolution into deep eyes.
 
 
 Thawed patches underneath show black,
 The wind is furrowed with cries, and then,
 The more suddenly the more surely,
 Verses sob from the pen.
 
 
 By  Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к
 (Boris Leonidovich Pasternak)
 (1912)
 translated by Jon Stallworthy and Peter France 

Advertisement