Oh terrible, beloved! A poet's loving

Oh terrible, beloved! A poet's loving
Is a restless god's passionate rage,
And chaos out into the world comes creeping,
As in the ancient fossil age.

His eyes weep him mist by the ton,
Enveloped in tears he is mammoth-like,
Out of fashion. He knows it must not be done.
Ages have passed-he does not know why.

He sees wedding parties all around,
Drunken unions celebrated unaware,
Common frogspawn found in every pond
Ritually adorned as precious caviare.

Like some Watteau pearl, how cleverly
A snuffbox embraces all life's matter,
And vengeance is wreaked on him, probably
Because, where they distort and flatter,

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Earth

Spring bursts violently
into Moscow houses.
Moths flutter about
crawl on summer hats,
and furs hide secretly.

Pots of wallflowers and stock
stand, in the window, just,
of wooden second storeys,
the rooms breathe liberty,
the smell of attics is dust.

The street is friends
with the bleary glass,
and white night and sunset
at one, by the river, pass.

In the passage you’ll know
what’s going on below
and April’s casual flow

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Sultrier Dawn

All morning high up on the eaves
Above your window
A dove kept cooing.
Like shirtsleeves The boughs seemed frayed.
It drizzled. Clouds came low to raid
The dusty marketplace.
My anguish on a peddlar's tray
They rocked;
I was afraid.
I begged the clouds that they should stop.
It seemed that they could hear me.
Dawn was as grey as in the shrub
Grey prisoners' angry murmur.

I pleaded with them to bring near
The hour when I would hear
Tidbits of shattered songs
And your wash-basin's roar and splash
Like mountain torrents' headlong rush,
The heat of cheek and brow

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Night

The night proceeds and dwindling
Prepares the day's rebirth.
An airman is ascending
Above the sleeping earth.

And almost disappearing
In cloud, a tiny spark,
He now is like a cross-stitch,
A midget laundry-mark.

Beneath him are strange cities,
And heavy traffic-lanes,
And night-clubs, barracks, stokers,
And railways, stations, trains.

The shadow of his wing-span
Falls heavy on the cloud.
Celestial bodies wander
Around him in a crowd.

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Spasskoe

In Spasskoe, unforgettable September sheds its leaves.
Isn’t it time to close up the summer-house?
Echo traps the thudding of axe-blows in the trees,
and, past the fence, barters a herd-boy’s shout.

Last night the marsh by the park shivered, too.
The moment the sun rises it vanishes.
The bluebell can’t drink the rheumatic dew,
and a dirty lilac stain soils the birches.

The wood’s downcast. It wants to sleep, as well,
under the snow, in the deep quiet of the bear’s den.
The park, gaping, framed by tree-trunks stands still,
in neat obituary-columns, its edges blackened.

Has the birch copse stopped fading, staining,
its shade more watery still, and growing thin?
And again, you’re, fifteen – it’s still complaining –

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Music

The block of flats loomed towerlike.
Two sweating athletes, human telpher,
Were carrying up narrow stairs,
As though a bell onto a belfry,

As to a stony tableland
The tables of the law, with caution,
A huge and heavy concert-grand,
Above the city's restless ocean.

At last it stands on solid ground,
While deep below the din and clatter
Are damped, as though the town were drowned-
Sunk to the bottom of a legend.

The tenant of the topmost flat
Looks down on earth over the railings,
As if he held it in his hand,
Its lawful ruler, never failing.

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Bad Days

When Passion week started and Jesus
Came down to the city, that day
Hosannahs burst out at his entry
And palm leaves were strewn in his way.

But days grow more stern and more stormy.
No love can men's hardness unbend;
Their brows are contemptuously frowning,
And now comes the postscript, the end.

Grey, leaden and heavy, the heavens
Were pressing on treetops and roofs.
The Pharisees, fawning like foxes,
Were secretly searching for proofs.

The lords of the Temple let scoundrels
Pass judgement, and those who at first
Had fervently followed and hailed him,
Now all just as zealously cursed.

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Autumn

I have allowed my family to scatter,
All those who were my dearest to depart,
And once again an age-long loneliness
Comes in to fill all nature and my heart.

Alone this cottage shelters me and you:
The wood is an unpeopled wilderness
And ways and footpaths wear, as in the song.
Weeds almost overgrowing each recess;

And where we sit together by ourselves
The log walls gaze upon us mournfully.
We gave no promise to leap obstacles,
We shall yet face our end with honesty.

At one we'll sit, at three again we'll rise,
My book with me, your sewing in your hand,
Nor with the dawning shall we realize
When all our kissing shall have had an end.

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Walts With a Tear in It

Ah, how I love it in these first few days,
Fresh from the forest and out of the snow,
Awkwardness obvious still in every bough,
When every silver thread lazily sways
And every cone begins slowly to glow
In candlelight—and the white sheet below
Hides its sore stump from our eyes.

It will not bat an eye if you heap gold
And jewels on it-this shyest of fays
In blue enamel and tinfoil enfolded
Creeps in your heart of hearts—and there it stays.
Ah, how I love it all in these first days,
All golden finery and silver shades!

All in the making-stars, flags, lanterns, flares,
There are no chocolates yet in bonbonnieres.
Even the candles are no candles—they
Look more like dull sticks of makeup by day.
This is an actress still lighting stage fright

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sometime at a concert hall, in recollection...

Sometime at a concert hall, in recollection,
A Brahms intermezzo will wound me-I'll start,
Remember that summer, the flowerbed garden,
The walks and the bathing, the tryst of six hearts,

The awkward, shy artist, with steep, dreamlike forehead,
Her smile, into which one would dive for a while,
A smile, as good-natured and bright as a river,
Her artist's appearance, her forehead, her smile.

They'll play me some Brahms-I will shudder, surrender,
And in retrospection the sounds will evoke
That faraway summer, the hoard of provisions,
My son and my brother, the garden, the oak.

The artist would stuff in her overall pockets
Her pencils, and objects with fanciful names,
Or would, inadvertently dropping her palette,
Turn much of the grass into colourful stains.

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!