Boris Pasternak
In the Wood

A lilac heat was heavy on the meadow,
High in the wood cathedral's darkness swelled.
What in the world was left still for their kisses?
It was all theirs, soft wax in fingers held.

Such is the dream — you do not sleep, but only
Dream that you thirst for sleep, that someone lies
Asleep, and through his dream beneath his eyelids
Two black suns sear the lashes of his eyes.

Rays flowed, and with the ebbing flowed the beetles:
Upon his cheeks the dragon - flies' gloss stirs.
The wood was full of careful scintillations
As under pincers at the clockmaker's.

It seemed he slumbered to the tick of figures,
While in harsh amber high above they set
Their nicely tested clocks up in the ether
And regulate and move them to the heat.

They shift them round about, and shake the needles.
Scatter shadow, and swing, and bore a place
For darkness like a mast erected upward
In day’s decline upon its blue clock-face.

It seems that ancient happiness flits over;
It seems sleep’s setting holds the woodland close.
Those who are happy do not watch clocks ticking.
But sleep, it seems, is all this couple does.

Translated by Cecil Maurice Bowra