Osip Mandelshtam
For the rattling valour of future centuries...

For the rattling valour of future centuries,
For the highborn tribe of people,
I am deprived of the cups on the pyres of my fathers,
Of their pleasures, of their marks of esteem.

Like a wolfhound the century leaps on my shoulders,
But my skin is not the skin of a wolf.
Stuff me rather like a cap into the sleeve
Of a yellow sheepskin coat from Siberian steppes —

So that I see neither cowards, nor shallow dirt,
Nor the bloody bones on the wheel,
So that the blue foxes in their primitive beauty
All night long may shine at me.

Carry me off into the night where the Yenisei flows,
Where a pine tree reaches up to a star,
For my skin is not the skin of a wolf
And my mouth is not twisted with falsehood.

Translated by Peter Russell