Osip Mandelshtam
Golden Coin

All day long the autumn's dampened air
In confoundment and angst I have inhaled.
I would like a supper — and the stars are
In a blackened purse and gold and pale!

And as with a yellow fog o'ergrown,
I descend into a tiny hole;
Nowhere such a restaurant have I known
Nor such company can I recall.

Petty bureaucrats, Japanese dealers,
Theologians of a foreign trust..
On the porch a man is feeling dollars
And they all are drunken to the last.

Be so kind to me, and change my money.
I am asking him persistently —
Only do not give me paper money,
I can't stand the crumpled bills of three.

What to do with all this drunken crowd?
How have I lucked in here, I enjoin?
If I have the right, I ask out loud,
Won't you change for me my golden coin?

Translated by Ilya Shambat