Osip Mandelshtam
The Decembrist

«The arguments of freedom shall not die:
The Roman senate testifies to this...»
Lighting his clumsy pipe, he wraps his robe
About him, while the men continue playing chess.

He has exchanged his proud bedeviled dream
For a clearing in Siberia (deaf, lost)
And for this curved chibouk in his bitter lips
Which truth, in a world of sadness, dared to cross.

Remember when the German oaks first rustled
And Europe wept, wept in their spreading shade?
Black chariots with four wild horses reared
On each triumphant turn the procession made.

There was a time when blue punch flamed our glasses.
With wide and gracious sound the samovar
And the friend across the Rhine of freedom
And romance spoke softly. Ah, deceptive harp!

And the voices, lively still, are agitating
For the sweet liberty of citizenship,
But now blind skies do not demand their martyrs —
Toil, constancy, a surer harvest reaps.

The flame is dying fast, the night grows cold,
Reason and right have shifted, gone awry.
And it is sweet to whisper to oneself:
Russia, Lethe, Lorelei...

Translated by Rose Styron