"Osip Mandelstam. Tristia (tranlsation by Ilya Shambat) (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Like opera singers peasant men are walking.

Into the fog a row of birds is flying:
Self-loving! ! , modest march can't wait.
That goof Onegin, poverty decrying
Is breathing gasoline and cursing fate.



x x x

Foreigner sits in a stifling tavern.
In the hour when all seems dead,
Leaving behind the dullard drunkards
I walk out and clear my head.

Courage of the midnight women
And the crazy stars' cold might,
And a tramp is begging money
For a room to spend the night.

Who, please tell me, in this moment
With the grape my mind will dull,
If the dock is work of Peter
Copper horseman, granite skull.

I hear signals from the fortress
I feel warmth drift from the sea.
Shots of cannon through the cellars
Have been ringing probably.

And much deeper than the ringing
Of that inflamed head on me
Are the stars, stark conversation,
And a Nieva westerly.



x x x

On Sunday walk near Protestant cathedral
I came across a funeral in motion
The absent-minded passerby I noticed
Put all of them in a severe commotion

The foreign language did not reach my ear
And only a thin whiplash shone like new
And then the thoroughfare on holiday
Reflected lazy horseshoes in rear view.