Comments
Loading Dream Comments...
You must be logged in to write a comment - Log In
    
    
                                
                                
                                    Artist
                                        Osip Mandelshtam
                                        
                                        Our relief came delivered by wind:
                                        Streaming dragonflies flew into view —
                                        Wild arpeggios — Assyrian wings —
                                        Crankshaft dusk overtaking the blue.
                                        
                                        Heaven’s bottommost layer grew grim
                                        With a military thunderstorm —
                                        Speedy six-armed projectiles — more dim
                                        Webby forest of mica than swarm.
                                        
                                        In a blind spot of blue, in a nook,
                                        There unfailingly trembles a faint
                                        Fatal star in the brightness of noon
                                        As a hint at the thickening night.
                                        
                                        In a mass of maimed wings as in scales,
                                        Barely limping ahead of the swarm,
                                        How victoriously Azrael
                                        Takes the sky by the towering arm.
                                        
                                        (1922)
                                        Translated from the Russian by Philip Nikolayev