In black memory you’ll find, fumbling,
A glove to the elbow that unlocks
A Petersburg night. And a crumbling
Air of sweetness in the murky box.
A wind from the gulf. And, there, between
The lines of a stormy page,
Blok, smiling scornfully, holds the scene,
The tragic tenor of the age.
by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova)
(1960)
from Седьмая книга (The Seventh Book)
translation by D. M. Thomas
Fun fact: ‘Blok’ here of course refers to the Russian lyrical poet Alexander Blok who had died in 1921.
Flies, like black thoughts, have not quit me all day…
A. N. Apukhtin (1840 – 93)
I’ve grown weary of sleeplessness, dreams.
Locks of hair hang over my eyes:
I would like, with the poison of rhymes,
to drug thoughts I cannot abide.
I would like to unravel these knots…
Or is the whole thing a mistake?
In late autumn the flies are such pests –
their cold wings so horribly sticky.
Fly-thoughts crawl about, as in dreams,
they cover the paper in black…
Oh, how dead, and how dreadful they seem…
Tear them up, burn them up – quick!
by Иннокентий Фёдорович Анненский (Innokenty Fyodorovich Annensky)
(1904)
translated by Boris Dralyuk
Part Black Sea merchant, part milord,
a half-baked sage and halfwit fool,
a semi-scoundrel – but there’s hope
his scoundrelhood may soon be full.
by Александр Сергеевич Пушкин (Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin)
a.k.a. Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin
(1824)
translated by Robert Chandler
Fun fact: The subject of this epigram poem is Count Mikhail Vorontsov (1782-1856) the Governor General of ‘New Russia and of Bessarabia’, which consisted of most of southern Russia. Vorontsov was Pushkin’s boss during much of his southern exile.
She has yet to be born:
she is music and word,
and she eternally bonds
all life in this world.
The sea breathes gently;
the day glitters wildly.
A bowl of dazed azure
sways pale foam-lilac.
May I too reach back
to that ancient silence,
like a note of crystal
pure from its source.
Stay, Aphrodite, as foam.
Return, word, to music.
Heart, be shy of heart,
fused with life’s root.
by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам (Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam. His surname is commonly latinised as Mandelstam)
(1910)
translated by Robert Chandler and Boris Dralyuk
Fun fact: This is Mandelstam’s variation on Tyutchev’s earlier poem ‘Silentium‘.
Recital in the original Russian:
Russian cyrillic version:
Она еще не родилась,
Она и музыка и слово,
И потому всего живого
Ненарушаемая связь.
Спокойно дышат моря груди,
Но, как безумный, светел день,
И пены бледная сирень
В черно-лазоревом сосуде.
Да обретут мои уста
Первоначальную немоту,
Как кристаллическую ноту,
Что от рождения чиста!
Останься пеной, Афродита,
И, слово, в музыку вернись,
И, сердце, сердца устыдись,
С первоосновой жизни слито!
Rambling At The Bridge Head 
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