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...
«How many of earth’s oceans I’ve sailed, oceans / ancient, gay, foam-covered; / how many matchless nights and days / have gone guiding caravans across the steppes... How we laughed, then, / my Muse and I, free... / Rhymes flew together like birds, / so many — I don’t dare remembe...»
«In that magic forest, towering trees / Unexpectedly come forward from the haze. Out of the earth, roots spring from other roots, / Like the arms of the dwellers of burial vaults. Under the cover of the blazing autumn leaves / Lonesome giants, trolls, and lions used to live. Here sailors ...»
«White trunks / were stark, suddenly, against the haze, Roots wound up out of the ground / like corpses’ arms. The leaves’ bright fire / hid giants, dwarves, lions; Fishermen saw in the sand / the print of a six-fingered hand. No French noble, no knight of the Round Table, / ever wa...»
«In brambles, deep in huge marshes, / near a tin river, / in shaggy log cabins, dark, dark, / there are strange muzhiks.* Sometimes one comes out, there where no roads go / where feather-grass* scatters, / and he listens to Stribog* scream, and / he senses an old story, a true story. A ...»