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

The impending dusk apart
Of an ebbing ray of l! ! ight.

And above the woods of dusk
Has arisen copper moon;
Why so little song, I ask,
And such silence in the lone?



x x x

Why is the soul so lyrical
And so few are the names I love
And the ready rhythm but a miracle
Like Aquillon from above?

He will raise clouds of dust in a hurry
He will leaf through the paper stack
And he will not come back -- or maybe
As another he will come back?

Winds of Orpheus are enfolding -
You will leave for the sea and sky -
And, the world not created holding,
I forgot the superfluous "I".

In a make-believe grove I have wandered
And into an azure cave delved..
Am I really real, I ponder,
And death will claim my true self?



x x x

Perhaps you not need me not this minute,
Night; from sea foams of the world -
A shell without a pearl within it -
Upon your shores I have been hurled.
With mists the ocean you embellish
And speechlessly you sing as well;
But you will love, and you will cherish
The pretense of a useless shell.

On ocean sands you lie next to her
In misty haze you dress her well
And with tight roping you tie to her
An oversized and brazen bell.