Osip Mandelstam

Insomnia. Homer. Taut canvas

Insomnia. Homer. Taut canvas. Half the catalogue of ships is mine: That flight of cranes, long stretched-out line, That once rose, out of Hellas. To an alien land, like a phalanx of cranes –

Rome

Rome is but nature’s twin, which has reflected Rome. We see its civic might, the signs of its decorum In the transparent air, the firmament’s blue dome, The colonnades of groves and in the

The Age

My age, my beast, is there anyone Who can peer into your eyes And with his own blood fuse Two centuries’ worth of vertebrae? The creating blood gushes From the throat of earthly things,

This night is irredeemable

This night is irredeemable. Where you are, it is still bright. At the gates of Jerusalem, A black sun is alight. The yellow sun is hurting, Sleep, baby, sleep. The Jews in the Temple’s

Silentium

She has not yet been born: She is music and word, And therefore the untorn, Fabric of what is stirred. Silent the ocean breathes. Madly day’s glitter roams. Spray of pale lilac foams, In

From a fearful height, a wandering light, But does a star glitter like this, crying? Transparent star, wandering light Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. From a fearful height, earthly dreams are alight, And a

This

This is what I most want Unpursued, alone To reach beyond the light That I am furthest from. And for you to shine there- No other happiness- And learn, from starlight, What its fire

I don't remember the word I wished to say

I don’t remember the word I wished to say. The blind swallow returns to the hall of shadow, On shorn wings, with the translucent ones to play. The song of night is sung without

Brothers, let us glorify freedom's twilight

Brothers, let us glorify freedom’s twilight – The great, darkening year. Into the seething waters of the night Heavy forests of nets disappear. O Sun, judge, people, your light Is rising over sombre years

Tristia

I have studied the Science of departures, In night’s sorrows, when a woman’s hair falls down. The oxen chew, there’s the waiting, pure, In the last hours of vigil in the town, And I

A flame is in my blood

A flame is in my blood Burning dry life, to the bone. I do not sing of stone, Now, I sing of wood. It is light and coarse: Made of a single spar, The

What shall I do with this body they gave me

What shall I do with this body they gave me, So much my own, so intimate with me? For being alive, for the joy of calm breath, Tell me, who should I bless? I

Sisters

Sisters – Heaviness and Tenderness – you look the same. Wasps and bees both suck the heavy rose. Man dies, and the hot sand cools again. Carried off on a black stretcher, yesterday’s sun