Ilya Selvinsky
Prelude

Here is my quiet, pacific harbour,
My writing-table’s sheltering shore...

Life has left ashes of my ardour
In many a strenuous private war.
I’ve learnt to fall, get up, go on,
And take the rough in with the smooth,
J loved, and felt like baying at the moon
And hatred gnawed me like a tooth.
Arrayed in foolish Quixote’s armour
I’ve fought false values as my foes —
Then sought out my pacific harbour,
A quiet refuge for my woes.

Tick-took, tick-tock, the seconds’ flight
Is marked by the slow minute hand
The quarto-sheets are virgin white
The pens
                are dozing
                                 in their stand.
How peacefully the seconds run.
Pacifically, I take my pen...
It is as though
                       I’d raised
                                      a gun:
The flames, the visions come again!

The gale blows lusty as before,
Again, it’s “all hands to the mast!”

Beyond my writing table’s shore
The Ocean lies — Pacific. Vast.

Translated by Avril Pyman