Poems Read online

  and we live as people did under Catherine;​

  hold church services at home, wait for harvest.​

  Two days have passed, two days’ separation;​

  a guest comes riding along a golden wheatfield.​

  In the parlor he kisses my grandmother’s hand,​

  and on the steep staircase he kisses my lips.

  Summer 1917

  14

  The mysterious spring still lay under a spell,​

  the transparent wind stalked over the mountains,​

  and the deep lake kept on being blue,—​

  a temple of the Baptist not made by hands.

  You were frightened by our first meeting,​

  but I already prayed for the second, and now​

  the evening is hot, the way it was then. . . .

  How close the sun has come to the mountain.

  You are not with me, but this is no separation:​

  to me each instant is—triumphant news.

  I know there is such anguish in you​

  that you cannot say a single word.

  Spring 1917

  15

  I hear the always-sad voice of the oriole​

  and I salute the passing of delectable summer.​

  With the hissing of a snake the scythe cuts down​

  the stalks, one pressed hard against another.

  And the hitched-up skirts of the slender reapers​

  fly in the wind like holiday flags. Now if only​

  we had the cheerful ring of harness bells,​

  a lingering glance through dusty eyelashes.

  I don’t expect caresses or flattering love-talk,

  I sense unavoidable darkness coming near,​

  but come and see the Paradise where together,​

  blissful and innocent, we once lived.

  1917

  16

  You are an apostate: for a green island​

  you give away your native land,​

  our songs and our icons​

  and the pine tree over the quiet lake.

  Why is it, you dashing man from Yaroslav,​

  if you still have your wits​

  why are you gaping at the beautiful red-heads​

  and the luxurious houses?

  You might as well be sacrilegious and swagger,​

  finish off your orthodox soul,​

  stay where you are in the royal capital​

  and begin to love your freedom in earnest.

  How does it happen that you come to moan​

  under my small high window?

  You know yourself that waves won’t drown you​

  and mortal combat leaves you without a scratch.

  It’s true that neither the sea nor battles​

  frighten those who have renounced Paradise.​

  That’s why at the hour of prayer​

  you asked to be remembered.

  1917

  Slepnevo

  Later Poems

  17

  Wild honey has the scent of freedom,​

  dust—of a ray of sun,​

  a girl’s mouth—of a violet,​

  and gold—has no perfume.

  Watery—the mignonette,​

  and like an apple—love,​

  but we have found out forever​

  that blood smells only of blood.

  18

  It is not with the lyre of someone in love​

  that I go seducing people.

  The rattle of the leper​

  is what sings in my hands.

  19

  Tale of the Black Ring

  1

  Presents were rare things

  coming from my grandmother, a Tartar;

  and she was bitterly angry

  when I was baptized.

  But she turned kind before she died

  and for the first time pitied me,

  sighing: “Oh the years!

  and here my young granddaughter!”

  Forgiving my peculiar ways

  she left her black ring to me.

  She said: “It becomes her,

  with this things will be better for her.”

  2

  I said to my friends:

  “There is plenty of grief, so little joy.”

  And I left, covering my face;

  I lost the ring.

  My friends said:

  “We looked everywhere for the ring,​

  on the sandy shore,

  and among pines near the small clearing.”​

  One more daring than the rest​

  caught up with me on the tree-lined drive​

  and tried to convince me​

  to wait for the close of day.

  The advice astonished meand I grew angry with my friend​

  because his eyes were full of sympathy:

  “And what do I need you for?

  You can only laugh,​

  boast in front of the others​

  and bring flowers.”

  I told them all to go away.

  3

  Coming into my cheerful room

  I called out like a bird of prey,

  fell back on the bed

  to remember for the hundredth time

  how I sat at supper

  and looked into dark eyes,

  ate nothing, drank nothing

  at the oak table,

  how under the regular pattern of the tablecloth

  I held out the black ring,

  how he looked into my face,

  stood up and stepped out onto the porch.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  They won’t come to me with what they have found!​

  Far over the swiftly moving boat​

  the sails turned white,​

  the sky flushed pink.

  1917-1936

  20

  On the Road

  Though this land is not my own​

  I will never forget it,​

  or the waters of its ocean,​

  fresh and delicately icy.

  Sand on the bottom is whiter than chalk,​

  and the air drunk, like wine.

  Late sun lays bare

  the rosy limbs of the pine trees.

  And the sun goes down in waves of ether

  in such a way that I can’t tell

  if the day is ending, or the world,

  or if the secret of secrets is within me again.

  1964

  Notes

  “The memory of sun weakens in my heart” . . . from Evening. Line 15: Literally, “Maybe! This night will manage to come/winter.”

  “Evening hours at the desk” . . . from Rosary. Line 3: Literally, “The mimosa smells of Nice and warmth.”

  “I know, I know the skis” ... from Rosary.

  Line 6: Literally, “removed by silence.”

  Line 8: Holes in the ice made by fishermen . . .

  “The Guest” . . . from Rosary.

  Line 13: Literally, “And his eyes gazing dimly...”

  Lines 17 and 18: Literally, “Oh I know his bliss is to know (with stress, by force) and passionately . . .”

  “There is a sacred, secret line” . . . from White Flock.

  Line 1: Literally, “. . . in inloveness” . . . “being in love.”

  Line 3: Literally, “... even if lips blend ...”

  Line 5: Literally, “.. . friendship is impotent...”

  Line 8: Literally, “.. . the slow languor of carnal passion.”

  “Like a white stone in a deep well” . . . from White Flock.

  “Everything promised him to me . . from White Flock.

  Line 10: Literally, “. . . that he would be friends with me.”

  Line 12: Literally, . . along the hot, stony path.”

  “Twenty-first. Night. Monday ...” from Plantain.

  Line 3: “... who knows why”—literally, “. . . what
did he have to do that for?”

  Line 8: Literally, “. . . they sing love songs.”

  “There is a certain hour every day” . . . from Plantain.

  Line 3: Here translated as melancholy; in the Russian, toska: melancholy, yearning, boredom, sweet sadness, all at once. What is more, toska has a feminine gender. So she pulses like blood, she’s warm like a sigh, etc., thereby making “sisters” of the speaker and the melancholy to which she addresses herself.

  “We walk along the hard crest. ..” from Plantain.

  In Russian the verb “walk” is delayed until line 4, and is coupled with an adjective meaning “soft” or “tender.”

  Line 8: Literally, “.. . the tinkling of your spurs.”

  “All day the crowd rushes...” from Plantain.

  Lines 1 and 2: Literally, “And the whole day, turning frightened of its own gasps, in deadly agitation the crowd rushes.”

  “The mysterious spring . ..” from Plantain.

  Line 8: Literally, “... how low the sun stands over the mountain.”

  “You are an apostate ...” from Plantain.

  Line 17: Literally, “Yes, neither the sea nor battles . . .”

  “Wild honey has the scent of freedom . . from Struve, Vol. 2,​

  p. 137. Poems of Various Years.

  Line 4: Literally, .. and gold—of nothing.”

  Lines 5 and 6: Literally, “Of water smells the mignonette,/and of apple—love.” It seemed important to keep the abstractions— freedom and love—in parallel positions within their stanzas. I couldn’t bring myself to say “Of water smells the mignonette ...”—that’s not English. So I left out the verb and invented “watery.”

  “It is not with the lyre of someone in love . . .” from Struve, Vol. 2, p. 139.

  “Tale of the Black Ring . ..” from Struve, Vol. 1, p. 180.

  For Akhmatova the gift of the ring was synonymous with the gift of song.

  Line 3: Grandmother was Muslim and baptism was foreign to her belief.

  Line 27: Literally, . his eyes are tender.”

  “On the Road” from Odd Number: Verses 1907—1964 (Struve, Yol. 1, p. 336.)

  Lines 7 and 8: Literally, “and the pink body of pines/is naked in the sunset hour.”