Illustrations. Osip Mandelshtam. Poems

Cover

Golden Coin
All day long the autumn's dampened air
In confoundment and angst I have inhaled.
I would like a supper — and the stars are
In a blackened purse and gold and pale!..

Venetian Life
To me the meaning of Venetian life is clear
Bleary though it be and fruitless;
Here she stares with smile instilling fear
Through the dirty bluish window glass.

Thinning air, blue veins through skin of arm...

Like a snake hiding in myself,
Like ivy twinning around myself,
I am raising above myself.

I want myself , I fly to myself,
Splashing with my dark wings
Outspreading over the water;

And, like a frightened eagle
Who returned, and didn’t find...

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 am the flower, and the gardener as well,
and am not solitary, in earth’s cell...

Into the circling choral dance of shadows that trampled the soft meadow,
I merged with my melodious name,
But everything melted away and only a faint sound
Has remained in my misty memory.

At first I thought my name seraphic...