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
The poet was right: once again –
lantern, side-street, drugstore,
silence, the Neva and its granite…
A monument to our century’s
first years, there he stands, as when,
waving goodbye to Pushkin House,
he drank a mortal weariness –
as if such peace
were more than he deserved.
by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova)
(1960)
translation by Robert Chandler
Fun Fact: This poem is an homage to Alexander Blok, whose last poem is addressed to Pushkin House in St Petersburg.
Original Russian Cyrillic version:
Он прав — опять фонарь, аптека,
Нева, безмолвие, гранит…
Как памятник началу века,
Там этот человек стоит —
Когда он Пушкинскому Дому,
Прощаясь, помахал рукой
И принял смертную истому
Как незаслуженный покой.
I want to visit the roses
In that lonely
Park where the statues remember me young
And I remember them under the water
Of the Neva. In the fragrant quiet
Between the limes of Tsarskoye I hear
A creak of masts. And the swan swims
Still, admiring its lovely
Double. And a hundred thousand steps,
Friend and enemy, enemy and friend,
Sleep. Endless is the procession of shades
Between granite vase and palace door.
There my white nights
Whisper of someone’s discreet exalted
Love. And everything is mother-
Of-pearl and jasper,
But the light’s source is a secret.
by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova)
(July, 1959, Leningrad)
from Седьмая книга (The Seventh Book)
translation by D. M. Thomas
Fun facts: The Summer Garden (Летний сад) occupies an island between the Fontanka, Moika, and the Swan Canal in Saint Petersburg (a.k.a. Leningrad), Russia and shares its name with the adjacent Summer Palace of Peter the Great.
Akhmatova recites her poem:
The text in the original Russian Cyrillic:
Летний сад
Я к розам хочу, в тот единственный сад,
Где лучшая в мире стоит из оград,
Где статуи помнят меня молодой,
А я их под невскою помню водой.
В душистой тиши между царственных лип
Мне мачт корабельных мерещится скрип.
И лебедь, как прежде, плывет сквозь века,
Любуясь красой своего двойника.
И замертво спят сотни тысяч шагов
Врагов и друзей, друзей и врагов.
А шествию теней не видно конца
От вазы гранитной до двери дворца.
Там шепчутся белые ночи мои
О чьей-то высокой и тайной любви.
И все перламутром и яшмой горит,
Но света источник таинственно скрыт.
Spring exultation, nightingales, the moon
on southern seas – they make my poor head spin
with boredom. More than that. I disappear.
The real me lives elsewhere. Far to the north.
Berlin, poor Russian Paris, filthy Nice –
a dream from which I soon will find release.
Petersburg. Winter, Gumilyov and I
walk by an ice-bound Neva, bright with snow.
The river Lethe. Side by side, we walk
and talk as poets did, so long ago.
by Георгий Владимирович Иванов (Georgii Vladimirovich Ivanov)
(1958)
translated by Robert Chandler
Fun Fact: Gumilyov of course refers to the poet Nikolay Stepanovich Gumilyov (Николай Степанович Гумилёв) who was executed by the Petrograd Cheka in 1921. Neva to the river Neva which runs through St Petersburg (also known as Petrograd or Leningrad) while Lethe is one of the five rivers running through Hades, the underworld populated by the dead, in Greek mythology.
Some things succeed, and some things fail;
everything’s nonsense that passes away…
But even so this reddish-brown grass
which grows by a gate in the fence will last.
… If Russian speech has the power to go
back to the land where the Neva flows –
from Paris I send these muddled words,
though even to me they sound absurd.
by Георгий Владимирович Иванов (Georgii Vladimirovich Ivanov)
(1950)
by Stephen Capus
Do you forgive me these November days?
In canals around the Neva fires fragment.
Scant is tragic autumn’s finery.
by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova)
November 1913, St Petersburg
from Четки (Rosary, Beads)
translation by D. M. Thomas
For O. A. Kuzmin-Karavaev
‘If we could only reach the shore,
My dear!’ – ‘Sh! Be quiet!’…
And we started down the stairs,
Hardly breathing, searching for keys.
Past the house where we had once
Danced and drunk wine,
Past the Senate’s white columns
To where it was dark, dark.
‘What are you doing? You’re mad!’ –
‘Not mad. In love with you!
This wind is wide and billowing,
Gaily it will take the ship!
Throat tight with horror,
The canoe took us in the gloom…
The tang of an ocean cable
Burnt my trembling nostrils.
‘Tell me – if you know youself:
Am I asleep? Is this a dream? …’
Only the oars splashed evenly
Along the heavy Neva wave.
But the black sky grew lighter,
Someone called to us from a bridge.
With both hands I seized the chain
Of the cross on my breast.
Powerless, I was lifted in your arms
Like a young girl on to the deck
Of the white yacht, to meet the light
Of incorruptible day.
– by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova) (Summer, 1914)
– from Белая стая (White Flock, 1917) translation by D. M. Thomas
