Osip Mandelshtam
In Petersburg...

(November 25th, 1920) (For O. Arbenina)

In Petersburg once more we’ll be united,
Like in a place where we’ve entombed the sun.
And that meaningless bless’d word, recited
For the first time, from our mouths will run.
And beneath the Soviet night’s black velvet,
In the velvet of a worldwide void,
Dearest eyes of blesséd wives keep singing,
And the deathless flowers sprout and sprout.

A wild cat, this capital, starts hunching
At the bridgehead posts a small patrol.
Nothing passes, but some evil motor, launching
Through the darkness with a cuckoo’s bawl.
But the midnight watchmen I don’t fear!
Through this darkness bring no curfew pass!
In this Soviet Night, I’ll say a prayer
For that word that’s meaningless and bless’d!

Now I hear some faint theatric rustling,
And a female-sounding sigh of “Ahh!” —
And of deathless roses heaping massives
Fill up Cypric Aphrodite’s arms.
By a fire we’re warming out of boredom…
It may be that centuries would pass
And the blesséd wives would gather all these
Fading ashes with their darling hands.

Somewhere run red garden-beds of pit rows;
Lodges, with their wardrobes whipped up plush.
And the wind-up officer is hardly made for
Earthen holy-thous and souls of ash...
So, go on now — if you must — snuff out our candles!
In black velvet of the worldwide void,
Shoulders, bent, of blesséd wives keep singing;
But you’ll miss that sun which shines at night.

Translated by Aleksey Calvin Tsukanov