The saplings of the green-tipped birch
Draw my foot from bondage:
Let no boy know your secret!
Oak saplings in the grove
Draw my foot from its chain:
Tell no secret to a maid!
The leafy saplings in the oak
Draw my foot from prison:
Tell no babbler a secret!
Briar shoots with berries on –
Neither a blackbird on her nest,
Nor a liar, are ever still.
by Anonymous
12th century
O lovely demon, half-divine!
Hemlock and hydromel and gall,
Honey and aconite and wine
Mingle to make thatmouth of thine-
Thy mouth I love: but most of all
It is thy tears that I desire-
Thy tears, like fountain-drops that fall
In garden red,Satanical;
Or like the tears of mist and fire,
Wept by the moon, that wizards use
to secret runes when they require
Some silver philtre,sweet and dire.
By Clark Ashton Smith
My hero bares his nerves along my wrist
That rules from wrist to shoulder,
Unpacks the head that, like a sleepy ghost,
Leans on my mortal ruler,
The proud spine spurning turn and twist.
And these poor nerves so wired to the skull
Ache on the lovelorn paper
I hug to love with my unruly scrawl
That utters all love hunger
And tells the page the empty ill.
My hero bares my side and sees his heart
Tread; like a naked Venus,
The beach of flesh, and wind her bloodred plait;
Stripping my loin of promise,
He promises a secret heat.
He holds the wire from this box of nerves
Praising the mortal error
Of birth and death, the two sad knaves of thieves,
And the hunger’s emperor;
He pulls that chain, the cistern moves.
by Dylan Thomas
from 18 Poems
Fun fact: People speculate that this poem is about teenage mastrubation in the solitude of the toilet ever on the verge of being discovered. Meanwhile others think it’s about his writing pen… well up until the latter half.
Everything here will outlive me,
Even the houses of the stare
And this air I breathe, the spring air,
Ending its flight across the sea.
Unearthly invincibility…
The voice of eternity is calling,
And the light moon’s light is falling
Over the blossoming cherry-tree.
It doesn’t seem a difficult road,
White, in the chalice of emerald,
Where it’s leading I won’t say…
There between the trunks, a streak
Of light reminds one of the walk
By the pond at Tsarkoye.
by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova)
(1958, Komarovo)
from Седьмая книга (The Seventh Book)
translation by D. M. Thomas
Fun Facts: Here is a blog account, with photos, of the walk along the shores of the great pond in Tsarskoye.
Akhmatova reciting her poem:
Original Russian cyrillic version of the poem:
Приморский сонет
Здесь все меня переживет,
Все, даже ветхие скворешни
И этот воздух, воздух вешний,
Морской свершивший перелет.
И голос вечности зовет
С неодолимостью нездешней,
И над цветущею черешней
Сиянье легкий месяц льет.
И кажется такой нетрудной,
Белея в чаще изумрудной,
Дорога не скажу куда…
Там средь стволов еще светлее,
И все похоже на аллею
У царскосельского пруда.
1958
Комарово
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.
Rambling At The Bridge Head 
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