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

When, little straw, you lie in giant bedroom
And, sleepless, wait, that solemn, true and high,
Heavy and calm -- what could be more despairing --
Forever on you will descend the sky -

A whistling straw, a dry straw, a straw empty,
You drank death to the brim and made it raw.
A lifeless straw broke dear and yet so tender:
No, not Salome, no, it was but a straw.

In sleepless hour all objects grow in scale
As if in numbers few -- it is so quiet --
In mirror pillows flash, a little pale,
And in round haze the bed reflects at night.

No, not a straw in atlas of great power,
In giant room over Nieva's black streams,
Twelve months are singing of the dying hour,
And pale blue ice storm through the air steams.

The breath of triumphing December rises
As if heavy Nieva were in the room.
No, not a straw, not that which the man despises:
I've learned you, blessed words, Ligeia, doom.


II
IСve learned you, blessed words, that man despises,
Ligeia, Seraphita, Straw, Lenore,
In giant bedroom heavy Nieva rises
And blue blood gushes from the granite floor.

Over Nieva December shines white light.
Twelve months are singing of the dying hour.
No, not a straw in atlas of great power,
Instills a slow and tortuous respite.

There lives in me December's own Ligeia
Whose love sleeps in sarcophagus and burns,
And you, my little straw, perhaps Salome,
Were killed by pity and will not return.



x x x

"I lost a little brooche I used for grooming
On shores of the Nieva, I know not where.
I pity a majestic Roman woman" -
You uttered this to me in near despair