Do not fret, do not cry, do not tax...

Do not fret, do not cry, do not tax
Your last strength, and your heart do not torture.
You're alive, you're inside me, intact,
As a buttress, a friend, an adventure.

I've no fear of standing exposed
As a fraud in my faith in the future.
It's not life, not a union of souls
We are breaking off, but a hoax mutual.

From straw mattresses' sick wretchedness
To the fresh air of wide open spaces!
It's my brother and hand. It's addressed
Like a letter, to you, crisp and bracing.

Like an envelope, tear it across,
With Horizon begin correspondence,
Give your speech the sheer Alpian force,
Overcome the sick sense of forlornness.

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poem by Boris Pasternak
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Spring (Fragment 3)

Is it only dirt you notice?
Does the thaw not catch your glance?
As a dapple-grey fine stallion
Does it not through ditches dance?

Is it only birds that chatter
In the blueness of the skies,
Sipping through the straws of sunrays
Lemon liturgies on ice?

Only look, and you will see it:
From the rooftops to the ground
Moscow, all day long, like Kitezh
Lies, in light-blue water drowned.

Why are all the roofs transparent
And the colours crystal-bright?
Bricks like rushes gently swaying,
Mornings rush into the night.

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poem by Boris Pasternak
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Winter Night

It snowed and snowed ,the whole world over,
Snow swept the world from end to end.
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned.

As during summer midges swarm
To beat their wings against a flame
Out in the yard the snowflakes swarmed
To beat against the window pane

The blizzard sculptured on the glass
Designs of arrows and of whorls.
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned.

Distorted shadows fell
Upon the lighted ceiling:
Shadows of crossed arms,of crossed legs-
Of crossed destiny.

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poem by Boris Pasternak
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Eve

By water's edge, quiet willows stand,
And from the steep bank, high noon flings
White fleecy clouds into the pond
As if they were a fisher's seines.

The firmament sinks like a net,
A crowd of sunburnt bathers dive
With yells into the pond, and head
For this elusive netlike sky.

Some women from the water rise
Under the scanty willows' lee,
And stepping on the sand, wring dry
Their bathing costumes hurriedly.

The coils of fabric twist and slide
Like water-snakes, and nimbly roll,
As if the dripping garments hide
Beguiling serpents in their folds.

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poem by Boris Pasternak
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I would go home again—to rooms...

I would go home again—to rooms
With sadness large at eventide,
Go in, take off my overcoat,
And in the light of streets outside

Take cheer. I'll pass the thin partitions
Right through; yes, like a beam I'll pass,
As image blends into an image,
As one mass splits another mass.

Let all abiding mooted problems
Deep rooted in our fortunes seem
To some a sedentary habit;
But still at home I brood and dream.

Again the trees and houses breathe
Their old refrain and fragrant air.
Again to right and left old winter
Sets up her household everywhere.

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poem by Boris Pasternak
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‘My sister – Life’s overflowing today’

My sister – Life’s overflowing today,
spring rain shattering itself like glass,
but people with monocles still complain,
and sting, politely, like snakes in the grass.

The elders have their logic of course,
certainly yours is foolish, no doubt:
that eyes and lawns glow lilac in storms,
and sweet perfume blows from the south.

That in May, when traveling you see
the timetable on the Kamyshin line,
the Bible’s penned no less magnificently,
while in reading it you’re mesmerised.

That sunset has only to show a village,
girls crowding the track as we flee,
and I find that it’s not my stop today,
the sun offering its sympathy.

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poem by Boris Pasternak
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July

A ghost is roaming through the building,
And shadows in the attic browse;
Persistently intent on mischief
A goblin roams about the house.

He gets into your way, he fusses,
You hear his footsteps overhead,
He tears the napkin off the table
And creeps in slippers to the bed.

With feet unwiped he rushes headlong
On gusts of draught into the hall
And whirls the curtain, like a dancer,
Towards the ceiling, up the wall.

Who is this silly mischief-maker,
This phantom and this double-face?
He is our guest, our summer lodger,
Who spends with us his holidays.

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poem by Boris Pasternak
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Things of great worth shall come to pass...

Things of great worth shall come to pass
By true foreknowledge and in fact,—
Names worthier than mine in fame
And words which earned me men's esteem.

Here breakers roar across the bay;
Wave follows wave unchangeably,
Their tracks, like letters traced in sand,
Erased by ebbing lines of foam.

So yet you're here at this resort.
I should have found you in this hall
At five, instead of vain small talk
I shared and wagging of my tongue.

I would have warned you, one so fair,
Mature, a woman brave and calm,
About the death in life-and bounds
No higher than the ant's low life.

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poem by Boris Pasternak
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Snow Is Falling

Snow is falling: snow is falling.
Geranium flowers reach
for the blizzard’s small white stars
past the window’s edge.

Snow is falling, all is lost,
the whole world’s streaming past:
the flight of steps on the back stairs,
the corner where roads cross.

Snow is falling: snow is falling,
not snowflakes stealing down,
Sky parachutes to earth instead,
in his worn dressing gown.

As if he’s playing hide-and-seek,
across the upper landings,
a mad thing, slowly sneaks,
Sky creeps down from the attic.

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poem by Boris Pasternak
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Mary Magdalene I

As soon as night descends, we meet.
Remorse my memories releases.
The demons of the past compete,
And draw and tear my heart to pieces,
Sin, vice and madness and deceit,
When I was slave of men's caprices
And when my dwelling was the street.

The deathly silence is not far;
A few more moments only matter,
Which the Inevitable bar.
But at the edge, before they scatter,
In front of Thee my life I shatter,
As though an alabaster jar.

O what might not have been my fate
By now, my Teacher and my Saviour,
Did not eternity await
Me at the table, as a late
New victim of my past behaviour!

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poem by Boris Pasternak
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