When It Clears Up
The lake is like a giant saucer;
Beyond-a gathering of clouds;
Like stern and dazzling mountain-ranges
Their massif the horizon crowds.
And with the light that swiftly changes,
The landscape never stays the same.
One moment clad in sooty shadows,
The next-the woods are all aflame.
When, after days of rainy weather,
The heavy curtain is withdrawn,
How festive is the sky, burst open!
How full of triumph is the lawn!
The wind dies down, the distance lightens,
And sunshine spreads upon the grass;
The steaming foliage is translucent
Like figures in stained-window glass.
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poem by Boris Pasternak
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About These Poems
On winter pavements I will pound
Them down with glistening glass and sun,
Will let the ceiling hear their sound,
Damp corners-read them, one by one.
The attic will repeat my themes
And bow to winter with my lines,
And send leapfrogging to the beams
Bad luck and oddities and signs.
Snow will not monthly sweep and fall
And cover up beginnings, ends.
One day I'll suddenly recall:
The sun exists! Will see new trends,
Will see-the world is not the same;
Then, Christmas jackdaw-like will blink
And with a frosty day explain
What we, my love and I, should think.
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poem by Boris Pasternak
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The spring-it had simply been you
The spring-it had simply been you,
And so, to a certain extent,
The summer; but autumn-this scandalous blue
Of wallpaper? Rubbish and felt?
They lead an old horse to the knacker's yard.
His wistful, short-breathing nostrils
Are listening: wet camomile and moss,
Or maybe a whiff of horsemeat.
Imbibe with your lips and the blaze of your eyes
The transparent days' tear-stained vagueness,
Like the drift of an empty bottle of scent,
Its nostalgic lingering fragrance.
To sleep, not to argue. Despairingly
To sleep. Not to open the window
Where last summer, in frenzy, July
Was burning and glowing like jasper,
And melting the glass, and was pairing
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poem by Boris Pasternak
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Three Variants
1
When in front of you hangs the day with its
Smallest detail-fine or crude-
The intensely hot cracking squirrel-sounds
Do not cease in the resinous wood.
The high line of pine-trees stands asleep,
Drinking in and storing strength,
And the wood is peeling and drip by drip
Is shedding freckled sweat.
2
From miles of calm the garden sickens,
The stupor of the angered glen
Is more alarming than an evil
Wild storm, a frightful hurricane.
The garden's mouth is dry, and smells of
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poem by Boris Pasternak
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In the Wood
Blurred by a lilac heat, the meadows:
in the wood, cathedral shadows swirled.
What on earth was left for them to kiss? So
like wax, soft in the fingers, theirs, the world.
There’s a dream – you do not sleep, you only
dream you long for sleep: someone’s dozing,
two black suns are beating under eyelids,
burning eyelashes, while he’s slumbering.
Sunbeams play. Iridescent beetles flow by,
dragon-flies’ glass skims over his cheek.
With tiny scintillations, the wood’s alive,
like those the clockmakers’ tweezers seek.
It seems he slept to the tick of figures,
while in acid, amber ether, over his head,
the hands of a carefully tested clock quiver,
regulated precisely by tremors of heat.
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poem by Boris Pasternak
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Spring Shower
Winked to the birdcherry, gulped amid tears,
Splashed over carriages' varnish, trees' tremble.
Full moon. The musicians are picking their way
To the theatre. More and more people assemble.
Puddles on stone. Like a throat overfilled
With tears are the roses, deep with wet scalding
Diamonds. Showers of gladness thrill,
Eyelashes, stormclouds, and roses enfolding.
The moon for the first time is casting in plaster
An epic poem uncast till today:
The cordons, the flutter of dresses, the speaker
And people enraptured and carried away.
Whose is the heart whose whole blood shot to glory
Drained from the cheeks? We are held in his grip.
The hands of Kerensky are squeezing together
Into a bunch our aortas and lips.
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poem by Boris Pasternak
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Meeting
The snow will dust the roadway,
And load the roofs still more.
I'll stretch my legs a little:
You're there outside the door.
Autumn, not winter coat,
Hat-none, galoshes-none.
You struggle with excitement
Out there all on your own.
Far, far into the darkness
Fences and trees withdraw.
You stand there on the corner,
Under the falling snow.
The water trickles down from
The kerchief that you wear
Into your sleeves, while dewdrops
Shine sparkling in your hair.
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poem by Boris Pasternak
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In everything I seek to grasp...
In everything I seek to grasp
The fundamental:
The daily choice, the daily task,
The sentimental.
To plumb the essence of the past,
The first foundations,
The crux, the roots, the inmost hearts,
The explanations.
And, puzzling out the weave of fate,
Events observer,
To live, feel, love and meditate
And to discover.
Oh, if my skill did but suffice
After a fashion,
In eight lines I'd anatomize
The parts of passion.
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poem by Boris Pasternak
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The Linden Avenue
A house of unimagined beauty
Is set in parkland, cool and dark;
Gates with an arch; then meadows, hillocks,
And oats and woods beyond the park.
Here, with their crowns each other hiding,
Enormous linden trees engage
In dusky, quiet celebration
Of their two hundred years of age.
And underneath their vaulted branches,
Across the regularly drawn
Symmetric avenues, grow flowers
In flower-beds upon a lawn.
Beneath the trees, on sandy pathways,
Not one bright spot relieves the dark,
Save-like an opening in a tunnel-
The distant entrance of the park.
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poem by Boris Pasternak
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To Anna Akhmatova
I think I can call on words
that will last: you are there.
But if I can’t, no matter –
I’ll persist, I won’t care.
I hear the muttering of wet roofs,
pale eclogues from stones and kerb.
From the opening lines, that city,
is alive in each sound, each word.
You can’t leave town though it’s spring,
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poem by Boris Pasternak
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