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