Poems by Varlam Shalamov
1949
1950
1952
1954
1955
- Alive not by bread alone...
- All that is human slips away...
- And so I keep going...
- Our court nightingale...
- Purple Honey
- They say we plough shallow...
«I have ceased and desisted from smiling / The frosty wind chills lips — say so long / To one hope of which will be lesser, / Instead there will be one more song. / And this song, without my volition, / I will give out for laughter and parable, / For this that the silence of love / I...»
«They're on the way, the words of love and freedom, / They're flying faster than the moment flies / And I am in stage fright before singing — / My lips have grown colder than ice. But soon that place, where, leaning to the windows / The tender birches make dry rustling sound, / The voice...»
«Oh, this was a cold day / In Peter's wonderful town! / The shadow grew dense, and the sundown / Like purple fire lay. Let him not want my eyes fair / Prophetic and never-changing / All life long verse he'll be catching — / My conceited lips' empty prayer.»
«This way I prayed: "Slake the dumb thirst / Of singing with a sweet libation!" / But to the earthling of the earth / There can be no liberation. / Like smoke from sacrifice, that it could not / Fly Strength- and Glory-ward — alas — / But only clouded at the feet / And, as if prayin...»