Boris Pasternak
I hang inside the writer’s utensil...

Sleep on a Summer’s Night
(Five Verses)

4

I hang inside the writer’s utensil
A large lustrous violet drop.

Beneath the house — an enigmatic trench.
A hundredth part of the hard air
Is kindled by a puff of sizzling coke,
And scarcely has the merest daybreak been cut off
When again the pink-hued night
Is enclosed in paradox, like she is.

And she whispers: before the morning comes
Bring to a close these parched and bleached
Uncertainties with the sharp echoes
Of balls in a bowling alley.

The wind outside, the serge cloth and the sludge,
And the reach of the echoes from the gate
Of the nail-factory, show through plain tears,
And as daybreak shreds the boardwalk,

Streaks take custody of the dawn.
I cling inside the writer’s utensil,
Thick acerbic violet lead. 

Translated by Don Mager