Buds will swell just as in the past,
Sprouts of green will spurt and rage,
but your backbone has been smashed,
my grand and pitiful age.
And so, with a meaningless smile,
you glance back, cruel and weak,
like a beast once quick and agile,
at the prints of your own feet.
by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам (Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam. His surname is commonly latinised as Mandelstam)
(1925)
translated by Robert Chandler
Lord, give them freedom who are weak,
and sanctify the people’s ways,
grant them their justice which they seek,
and bless their labouring days.
May freedom, but a seed at first,
untrammelled rise to flower and spread.
For knowledge let the people thirst,
and light the path ahead.
Lord, set your chosen followers free,
release them from their ancient bands,
entrust the flag of liberty
at last, to Russian hands.
by Николай Алексеевич Некрасов (Nikolay Alexeyevich Nekrasov)
(1866)
translated by Frances Cornford and Esther Polianowsky Salaman
Recital in the original Russian:
Original Russian Cyrillic text:
Господь! твори добро народу!
Благослови народный труд,
Упрочь народную свободу,
Упрочь народу правый суд!
Чтобы благие начинанья
Могли свободно возрасти,
разлей в народе жажду знанья
И к знанью укажи пути!
И от ярма порабощенья
Твоих избранников спаси,
Которым знамя просвещенья,
Господь! ты вверишь на Руси…
and one said
speak to us of love
and the preacher opened
his mouth and the word God
fell out so they tried
again speak to us
of God then but the preacher
was silent reaching
his arms out but the little
children the ones with
big bellies and bow
legs that were like
a razor shell
were too weak to come
by R. S. Thomas
from H’m (1972)
Words lying empty, without breathing –
that don’t know why they exist at all.
Words with no goal, words with no meaning,
that shelter no one from the cold
and haven’t fed a single soul.
Words of impotence – of the weak!
Words that don’t dare, too shy to speak.
They give no heat, they shed no light,
but, with an orphan’s grief, go mute,
not knowing they are mutilated.
by Мария Сергеевна Петровых (Maria Sergeyevna Petrovykh)
(1970s)
translated by Boris Dralyuk
Snow keeps falling night and day –
some god, now turned more strict,
is sweeping out from his domain
scraps of his old manuscripts.
Sheaves of ballads, songs and odes,
all that now seems bland or weak –
he sweeps it down from his high clouds,
caught up now by newer work.
by Варлам Тихонович Шаламов (Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov)
(1950 – or at least the incident which inspired the poem occurred then)
translated by Robert Chandler
Rambling At The Bridge Head 