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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