Boris Pasternak
In the Hospital

They stood almost blocking the pavement and stores,
As if scanning the wares in a show window’s glare;
The stretcher slid though past the ambulance doors,
The medics jumped in; they drove into the square.

And passing by sidewalks, by courtyards and gapers,
Through tumult and chaos of streets in the night,
The rescue squad’s headlights massaged the soft vapors,
Dove into opaqueness devoid of all light.

Policemen and faces, a bleak alleyway
Flashed by all agleam as the vehicle sped;
Clutching an atropine phial and a spray,
The EMT tech scanned the roof overhead.

Rain fell as they bore him to ER reception,
Where a querulous drain dripped and slurred.
Line after line in his dim apperception,
On forms for admittance the scribbled words blurred.

They gave him a cot by the entryway rooms,
For the wing was jam-packed with the ill.
An iodine reek blew about noxious fumes;
A breeze from the street touched the window and sill.

One smidgen of garden, a portion of sky
Were posed in the window-frame square.
The just-arrived patient trained keen avid eye
On ward floors and white coats and stair.

But the soft reverie of his mind unattended
Was jolted by inquiries the duty nurse made.
Her head-shaking mien and her glum look portended:
A sad end to this mess you’re not apt to evade.

Then he gazed out with gratitude flooding his soul
At the wall that was gleaming beyond window’s frame.
On that wall, as if sparks from bituminous coal,
Did the lights of the city their message declaim.

In sunset’s reflection a far gate glowed red,
The blaze of a maple tree smoldered, and now
A long gnarly branch of that tree tossed its head,
Then sent to the sick man a low farewell bow.

“O Lord (thought the patient), “how perfect thy ways,
Thy people, and walls and the scope of thy breath;
The beds and the parquet, the warmth of thy gaze,
And the black of the city on the night of my death.

“A sleeping-draught dosage I’ve taken for rest,
And I clutch at my handkerchief, weep;
O God, all the tears of emotions distressed
Are blinding my eyes while thy soft face I seek.

“Faint glimmers on walls make the air radiate,
Illumining beds and the ward tossed adrift;
How sweet is the thought that my self and my fate,
All my heartbeats and days are Thy own precious gift.

“As I fade into death in this hospital bed
I can sense Thy warm touch while life lingers;
Like a filigreed ring, with a promise unsaid,
Blessed hands hold me tight in smooth fingers.”

Translated by U. R. Bowie