‘Like a brazier’s bronze cinders,’
Like a brazier’s bronze cinders,
the sleepy garden’s beetles flowing.
Level with me, and my candle,
a flowering world is hanging.
As if into unprecedented faith,
I cross into this night,
where the poplar’s beaten grey
veils the moon’s rim from sight.
Where the pond’s an open secret,
where apple-trees whisper of waves,
where the garden hanging on piles,
holds the sky before its face.
poem by Boris Pasternak
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It has always been assumed that the most important things in the Gospels are the ethical maxims and commandments. But for me the most important thing is that Christ speaks in parables taken from life, that He explains the truth in terms of everyday reality. The idea that underlies this is that communion between mortals is immortal, and that the whole of life is symbolic because it is meaningful.
quote by Boris Pasternak
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The garden scatters burnt-up beetles...
The garden scatters burnt-up beetles
Like brazen ash, from braziers burst.
I witness, by my lighted candle,
A newly blossomed universe.
And like a not yet known religion
I enter this unheard of night,
In which the shabbily-grey poplar
Has curtained off the lunar light.
The pond is a presented secret.
Oh, whispers of the appletree!
The garden hangs-a pile construction,
And holds the sky in front of me.
poem by Boris Pasternak
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Wind
I am no more but you live on,
And the wind, whining and complaining,
Is shaking house and forest, straining
Not single fir trees one by one
But the whole wood, all trees together,
With all the distance far and wide,
Like sail-less yachts in stormy weather
When moored within a bay they lie.
And this not out of wanton pride
Or fury bent on aimless wronging,
But to provide a lullaby
For you with words of grief and longing,
poem by Boris Pasternak
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Swifts (2)
At twilight the swifts have no power,
to hold back that pale blue coolness.
It bursts from throats, a clamour
an outpour that can’t grow less.
The swifts have no way, high
up there, overhead, of restraining
their clarion cries: ‘O, triumph,
see, see, how the earth’s receding!’
Like steam from a boiling kettle,
the furious flow rushes by –
‘See, see – no space for the earth
between the ravine and the sky.’
poem by Boris Pasternak
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Imitators
A boat came in; the cliff was baked;
The noisy boat-chain fell and clanked on
The sand-an iron rattle-snake,
A rattling rust among the plankton.
And two got out; and from the cliff
I felt like calling down, 'Forgive me,
But would you kindly throw yourselves
Apart or else into the river?
Your miming is without a fault-
Of course the seeker finds the fancied-
But stop this playing with the boat!
Your model on the cliff resents it.'
poem by Boris Pasternak
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I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats — any kind of threat, whether of jail or of retribution after death — then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer in the circus with his whip, not the prophet who sacrificed himself. … What has for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but an inward music: the irresistible power of unarmed truth, the powerful attraction of its example.
quote by Boris Pasternak
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The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune. Our nervous system isn't just a fiction, it's part of our physical body, and our souls exists in space and is inside us, like the teeth in the mouth. It can't forever be violated with impunity.
quote by Boris Pasternak
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The patient watches
The patient watches. Six days long
In frenzy blizzards rave relentlessly,
Roll over rooftops, roar along,
Brace, rage, and fall, collapsing senselessly.
In snowstorms Christmas is consumed.
He dreams: they came and lifted someone.
He starts: 'Whom? Me?' There was a call,
A tolling bell… Not New Year's summons?
Far, in the Kremlin, booms Ivan,
Dives, drowns, resounds in swaying motion.
He sleeps. When great, a blizzard can
Be called Pacific, as the Ocean.
poem by Boris Pasternak
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Crossed Oars
My boat throbbed in the drowsy depths,
willows bowed, kissing collarbones,
elbows and rowlocks – oh wait, yes,
all of this might happen to anyone!
Isn’t it all just trivial…a singing.
Isn’t its meaning – the lilac petals on
water, camomile’s sensuous sinking
lip on lip, into starry extinction!
Isn’t its meaning – clasping the sky,
arms embracing mighty Hercules,
isn’t its meaning – for endless lives,
squandering on nightingales your glory!
poem by Boris Pasternak
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