Osip Mandelshtam
Of no use to you, night, I’m lost...

Of no use to you, night, I’m lost
In you: a shell without a pearl
Cast from the ocean of the world
And washed up on your starry coast.

With an indifference in the waves,
You coldly heave your singing sighs,
Yet you will grow to love the lies
Told by a seashell of no use.

Lying down with it on the sand,
You’ll clothe it with your airy veil
And tie it with a lasting bond
To the great bell of ocean swell.

You’ll fill the brittle seashell’s walls —
A ghost heart, an abandoned home —
With spray and fog, with rainy squalls
And softer whispers of your foam.

Translated by Philip Nikolayev