Osip Mandelshtam
Read only what children would read...

Read only what children would read,
and dream what children think matters;
once the great things lie scattered,
shake off grief and rise to your feet.

Existence exhausts me to death —
oh nothing it owns is of worth.
But I love this desolate earth:
I’ve never known any place else.

In that distant garden, I’d rock
on a wooden swing. I recall
how the spruces were dark and tall
in the delirium of the fog.

Translated by Alistair Noon