Boris Pasternak
The Girl

By a cliff a golden cloud once lingered;
On his breast it slept...

From the swing, from the garden, helter-skelter,
A twig runs up to the glass.
Enormous, close, with a drop of emerald
At the tip of the cluster cast.

The garden is clouded, lost in confusion,
In staggering, teeming fuss.
The dear one, as big as the garden, a sister
By nature-a second glass!

But then this twig is brought in a tumbler
And put by the looking-glass;
Which wonders:-Who is it that blurs my vision,
From the dull, from the prison-class?

Translated by Lydia Pasternak Slater