#and once again i'm destroyed by one of mandelstam's poems

[lagren0uille]

Еще не умер ты, еще ты не один...

You aren’t yet dead, and you are not as yet alone, As long as with your beggared lover By joy of wide expanses of the plains you’re thrown As dark and cold and blizzards cover.

In lavish destitution and in mighty dearth Then live in peace and consolation. For blessed then the days and nights on earth And sinless is sweet occupation.

Unhappy he, who shadow-like is scared By yelp, who’s by the wind prostrated, And poor is he, whom death has scarcely spared, Whom shadow-begging leaves unsated.

Osip Mandelstam, January 15-16, 1937. Translation by Rupert Moreton and original version here.

#poetry #and once again i'm destroyed by one of mandelstam's poems #words written in the belly of the beast #and there shall be no night there #russian and soviet literature