Boris Pasternak
August

As it had promised, no cheating,
The sun at dawn sneaked in and entered,
Its slanting beam of saffron slipping
Across the floor toward the center.

It clothed in warmth of ochre lighting
The grove, the roofs, the village square,
My bed, my pillow, dampened slightly,
Part of the wall behind the chair.

And I recalled it — why my pillow case
Was wet — I got it plain and luminous.
I’d had a dream. You walked in slow pace.
You headed to my own funeral.

You walked through woods in groups and single file.
And someone made an observation,
That it was August Sixth Old Style —
Our Lord’s Transfiguration.

It used to be the day when transparent
And flameless light from Tabor Mount
Descends, and as an omen, apparent,
The Autumn comes to the foreground.

You went through alders — poor naked trees,
Pathetic, beggarly and shivering, —
Toward the older wood of cemetery,
All red and shining as a gingerbread.

The crowns quietened, and, solemnly,
Next to the solemn sky they rose.
The distance resonated drawlingly
With melancholic roosters' crows.

And in the middle of the wooded space
Was standing Death. As a surveyor,
She looked intently into my dead face
To plan my grave inside the graveyard.

There was a sound of soft voice beside,
Sensed physically in perfection.
It was my former voice that prophesied,
Untouched, as yet, by putrefaction:

«Farewell, the gold and azure airiness,
The Second Saviour's light and colour.
Let woman’s last caress and tenderness
Ease sorrows of my fatal hour.

Farewell, the age of dark despair.
Farewell, my love, — to wreck and ruin
You threw a gage, you gave a dare.
I am your battlefield, oh, Woman.

Farewell, the freedom of a soaring bird,
The spreading wings of inspiration,
The wondrous world that shows through a Word,
The wonder-making of creation.»

Translated by Natasha Gotskaya