I grew. Foul weather, dreams, forebodings...

I grew. Foul weather, dreams, forebodings
Were bearing me - a Ganymede -
Away from earth; distress was growing
Like wings - to spread, to hold, to lead.

I grew. The veil of woven sunsets
At dusk would cling to me and swell.
With wine in glasses we would gather
To celebrate a sad farewell,

And yet the eagle's clasp already
Refreshes forearms' heated strain.
The days have gone, when, love, you floated
Above me, harbinger of pain.

Do we not share the sky, the flying?
Now, like a swan, his death-song done,
Rejoice! In triumph, with the eagle
Shoulder to shoulder, we are one.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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You are disappointed? You thought...

You are disappointed? You thought that in peace we
Would part to the sound of a requiem, a swan-song?
You counted on grief, with your pupils dilated,
Their invincibility trying in tears on?

At the mass from the vaults then the murals had crumbled,
By the play on the lips of Sebastian shaken…
But tonight to my hatred all seems drawn-out dawdling,
What a pity there is not a whip for my hatred!

In darkness, collecting its wits instantaneously,
It knew without thinking: it would plough it over-
That it's time; that a suicide would be superfluous;
That this too would have been of a tortoise-like slowness.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Here a riddle has drawn a strange nailmark

Here a riddle has drawn a strange nailmark. To sleep now!
I'll reread, understand with the light of the sun,
But until I am wakened, to touch the beloved
As I do has been given to none.

How I touched you! So touched were you even by the copper
Of my lips, as an audience is touched by a play,
And the kiss was like summer; it lingered and lingered,
Only later the thunderstorm came.

And I drank in long draughts, like the birds, half-unconscious.
The stars trickle slowly through the throat to the crop,
While the nightingales roll up their eyes in a shudder
From the firmament draining the night drop by drop.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Definition of Creative Art

With shirt wide open at the collar,
Maned as Beethoven's bust, it stands;
Our conscience, dreams, the night and love,
Are as chessmen covered by its hands.

And one black king upon the board:
In sadness and in rage, forthright
It brings the day of doom.-Against
The pawn it brings the mounted knight.

In gardens where from icy spheres
The stars lean tender, linger near,
Tristan still sings, like a nightingale
On Isolde's vine, with trembling fear.

The gardens, ponds, and fences, made pure
By burning tears, and the whole great span,
Creation-are only burst of passion
Hoarded in the hearts of men.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Definition of Poetry

It's a whistle blown ripe in a trice,
It's the cracking of ice in a gale,
It's a night that turns green leaves to ice,
It's a duel of two nightingales.

It is sweet-peas run gloriously wild,
It's the world's twinking tears in the pod,
It is Figaro like hot hail hurled
From the flutes on the wet flower bed.

It is all that the night hopes to find
On the bottom of deep bathing pools,
It's the star carried to the fish-pond
In your hands, wet and trembling and cool.

This close air is as flat as the boards
In the pond. The sky's flat on its face.
It would be fun if these stars guffawed-
But the universe is a dull place.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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How few are we. Probably three...

How few are we. Probably three
In all-coallike, burning, infernal
Beneath the grey bark of the tree
Of wisdom, and clouds, and eternal
Debate on verse, transport, the part
The army will play-and on art.

We used to be human. We're eras,
We're trains, in a caravan ripping
Through woods, to the sighing and fears
Of engines, and groans of the sleepers.
We'll rush in, and circle in the throes
Of being, like a whirlwind of crows.

A miss! Much too late you will see it.
Thus galloping wind in the morning
In passing a straw pile will buffet-
The blow will live on as a warning
To riotous tree-tops, and mingle
With their wrangles over the shingles.

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Winter Sky

Ice-chips plucked whole from the smoke,

the past week’s stars all frozen in flight,

Head over heels the skater’s club goes,

clinking its rink with the peal of night.

Step slow, slower, slow-er, skater,

pride carving its trace as you race by.

each turn’s a constellation cut there,

scratched by a skate in Norway’s sky.

The air is fettered in frozen iron.

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Fiat

Dawn will set candles guttering.
It will light up and loose the swifts.
With this reminder I'll burst in:
Let life be just as fresh as this!

Dawn's like a gunshot in the dark.
A bang-and flying burning bits
Of wadding go out, spark by spark.
Let life be just as fresh as this.

Another guest outside's the wind.
At night, it huddled close to us.
It's shivering-at dawn, it rained.
Let life be just as fresh as this.

It's so ridiculous and vain!
Why did it want to guard this place?
It saw the 'No admittance' sign.
Let life be just as fresh as this.

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Unique Days

How I remember solstice days
Through many winters long completed!
Each unrepeatable, unique,
And each one countless times repeated.

Of all these days, these only days,
When one rejoiced in the impression
That time had stopped, there grew in years
An unforgettable succession.

Each one of them I can evoke.
The year is to midwinter moving,
The roofs are dripping, roads are soaked,
And on the ice the sun is brooding.

Then lovers hastily are drawn
To one another, vague and dreaming,
And in the heat, upon a tree
The sweating nesting-box is steaming.

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Soul

My mournful soul, you, sorrowing
For all my friends around,
You have become the burial vault
Of all those hounded down.

Devoting to their memory
A verse, embalming them,
In torment, broken, lovingly
Lamenting over them,

In this our mean and selfish time,
For conscience and for quest
You stand-a columbarium
To lay their souls to rest.

The sum of all their agonies
Has bowed you to the ground.
You smell of dust, of death's decay,
Of morgue and burial mound.

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
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