Osip Mandelshtam
Petersburg Lines

To N. Gumilev

Above the yellow of the government buildings
the murky snowstorm has whirled for a long time
and the jurist settles down again in his sleigh,
with a broad gesture drawing his overcoat tighter.

The ships are hibernating. In the heat of the sun
the thick cabin glass has caught fire.
Leviathan, a battleship in dock,
Russia heavily rests.

And above the Neva stands the half-world’s embassy,
the Admiralty, sun and silence.
And the state’s tough purple
is as threadbare as a coarse hairshirt.

Heavy is the burden of the northern dandy —
Onegin’s ancient anguish;
on the Senate Square the billow of a snowdrift,
smoke of a bonfire and cold of a bayonet...

The wherries have lifted water and all day
the gulls have visited the hemp warehouse
where only operatic peasants stroll
selling honeyed drinks and rolls.

The file of motor traffic flies into the mist;
odd-man-out Evgeny, touchy,
mild pedestrian, ashamed of his poverty
breathes in gasoline fumes and curses fate.

Translated by David McDuff