Молчание (Silentium) by Osip Mandelstam

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

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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!

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The View From The Window by R. S. Thomas

Like a painting it is set before one,

But less brittle, ageless; these colours

Are renewed daily with variations

Of light and distance that no painter

Achieves or suggests. Then there is movement,

Change, as slowly the cloud bruises

Are healed by sunlight, or snow caps

A black mood; but gold at evening

To cheer the heart. All through history

The great brush has not rested,

Nor the paint dried; yet what eye,

Looking coolly, or, as we now,

Through the tears’ lenses, ever saw

This work and it was not finished?

 

by R. S. Thomas

from Poetry For Supper (1958)