Osip Mandelshtam
To read only children’s books...

To read only children’s books,
to have only children’s thoughts,
to strew far away all grown-up things,
to rise from a deep sadness.

I am mortally weary of life,
from it I will accept nothing,
but I love my poor earth
because I have seen no other.

In a far-off garden I swung myself
on a simple wooden swing,
and the tall dark fir trees
I remember in an obscure fever.

Translated by David McDuff