CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE POEMS OF YURII ZHIVAGO
HAMLET
The stir is over. I step forth on the boards.
Leaning against an upright at the entrance,
I strain to make the far-off echo yield
A cue to the events that may come in my day.
Night and its murk transfix and pin me,
Staring through thousands of binoculars.
If Thou he willing, Abba, Father,
Remove this cup from me.
I cherish this, Thy rigorous conception,
And I consent to play this part therein;
But another play is running at this moment,
So, for the present, release me from the cast.
And yet, the order of the acts has been schemed and plotted,
And nothing can avert the final curtain’s fall.
I stand alone. All else is swamped by Pharisaism.
To live life to the end is not a childish task.
MARCH
The sun is hotter than the top ledge in a steam bath;
The ravine, crazed, is rampaging below.
Spring—that corn-fed, husky milkmaid—
Is busy at her chores with never a letup.
The snow is wasting (pernicious anemia—
See those branching veinlets of impotent blue?)
Yet in the cowbarn life is burbling, steaming,
And the tines of pitchforks simply glow with health.
These days—these days, and these nights also!
With eavesdrop thrumming its tattoos at noon,
With icicles (cachectic!) hanging on to gables,
And with the chattering of rills that never sleep!
All doors are flung open—in stable and in cowbarn;
Pigeons peck at oats fallen in the snow;
And the culprit of all this and its life-begetter—
The pile of manure—is pungent with ozone.
HOLY WEEK
The murk of night still prevails.
It is yet so early in this world
That the sky even now flaunts its countless stars,
And each star is radiant as the day.
And if the earth could really have its way
It would sleep through all of Eastertide
To the droning of the Psalms as a lullaby.
The murk of night still prevails.
The Creation’s hour is yet so early
The square extends like eternity
From one corner to the other,
And there is still a millennium
Until the dawn and warmth come.
The earth is stark-naked yet:
It hasn’t got a stitch to wear of nights
To ring the bells, or to chime in
Of its own accord, with choirs singing.
From Maundy Thursday right up to
The very eve of Easter the waters gnaw
At riverbanks, and are busy weaving
Their currents, whirlpools, and eddies.
The forest, too, is stripped, exposed,
And all through Passiontide
The trunks of pines stand in a throng
Like worshippers aligned in prayer.
While in the town, not too far off,
The trees stand mother-naked too,
As if about to enter church
And peering within its gratings.
Their gaze is overcome with awe,
Nor is their panic hard to fathom:
The gardens leave their boundary walls,
The laws that govern the earth are shaken—
A god is being interred.
They see a glow about the altar screen,
And the black pall, and tapers in a row,
And faces all in tears. ...
And a procession suddenly emerges
Bearing the Cross and Shroud,
And comes toward them. Two birches
Guarding the portals have to step aside
And yield the right of way.
The procession makes a circuit of the church grounds,
Walking along the very curb of the pavement,
And brings in from the street within the portals
The spring, and all the murmurings of spring,
And air that has about it the tang of consecrated wafers
And of the heady fumes of spring.
And March scoops up the snow on the porch
And scatters it like alms among the halt and lame—
As though a man had carried out the Ark,
And opened it, and distributed all it held.
The singing lasts until the glow of dawn.
The voices, having sobbed their fill,
Are more subdued. Their chanting of the Psalms and Gospels
Floats out more and more faintly
Until it reaches wastelands under lonely lamps.
And when the midnight comes
All creatures and all flesh will fall silent
On hearing spring put forth its rumor
That just as soon as there is better weather
Death itself can be overcome
Through the power of the Resurrection.
WHITE NIGHT
I have visions of a remote time:
A house on the Petersburg side of the Neva;
You, the daughter of a none-too-well-off landed proprietress
(The land being out in the steppes),
Are taking courses—and were born in Kursk.
You are a darling; you have admirers.
This night you and I
Have made ourselves cozy on your window sill;
We are looking down from this skyscraper of yours.
The street lamps are just like butterflies of gas.
The morning has flicked us with its first chill.
That which I am telling you is so much like
The far-off vistas now plunged in sleep.
You and I are in the grasp
Of precisely that timid devotion to a mystery
Which holds St. Petersburg, spread like a panorama
Beyond the unencompassable Neva.
There, far, far among thick-wooded landmarks,
On this night, so vernal and so white,
The nightingales roll and trill their paeans,
Filling with rumbling the city’s wooded limits.
Their frenzied trilling surges.
The song of each tiny, dull-hued singer
Stirs rapture and awakens unrest
Deep within each ensorcelled grove.
Night, like a barefooted pilgrim woman,
Is creeping close to the fences as she makes her way there,
And the tracks of our murmurs, which she has eavesdropped,
Trail after her from our window sill.
Amid echoes of these overheard murmurs
The boughs of the apple and cherry trees
Bedeck themselves in whitish blossoms
In the gardens with their rough-hewn palings.
And the trees, themselves white as specters,
Come out on the road jostling and thronging,
Just as if they were waving their farewells
To the white night which has witnessed so very many things.
BAD ROADS IN SPRING
The flames of sunset were smoldering out.
A horseman headed for a remote farmstead in the Urals
Was plodding over a spring-mired trail
In a thick pine forest.
The horse’s inwards heaved. In answer
To the swish and clink of its shod hoofs
The swirling whirlpools loosed their echoes
Over the road, in pursuit.
But when the horseman, dropping reins,
Would slow his mount down to a walk,
The spring freshets would roll very close to him
All of their roaring, all their din.
Someone was laughing, someone wept;
Stones ground to dust against the flints,
And loosened and uprooted tree-stumps
Went tumbling into churning pools.
A nightingale raged in frantic song
Like a church bell pealing forth a tocsin;
He sang among branches interlaced and darkling
Against the sunset’s conflagration.
Where a willow leant over a hollow
Like a widow burying her mate
The bird was whistling on seven oaks,
As Robber Nightingale did in days of old.
Against what evil, against what forlorn love
Was this predestined fervor meant?
Against whom had the singer fired
This charge of small shot in the woods?
It seemed that he would emerge like a wood demon
From the camp of the escaping convicts
To meet the outposts of the partisans,
Whether on foot or horse.
The earth and sky, the field and forest
Hearkened to catch each unique note,
These measured doles of sheerest madness,
Of pain, of happiness, of anguish.
EXPLANATION
Life has returned with just as little reason
As on a time it so oddly snapped.
I am on the same ancient thoroughfare
That I was on that summer, on that day and hour.
The same people, and their cares are the same,
And the sunset’s red fire has not yet grown cold:
It was just the same when that deathly evening
Quickly nailed it against a white wall.
Women in worn and sleazy cottons
Go tap-tapping along (just as they did then)
And night (just as it did then) will crucify them
Under the tin roofs of their garret rooms.
There, one of them, with her feet dragging,
Slowly emerges upon her threshold
And, climbing out of her semibasement,
Goes eater-corner across the yard.
I am again brushing up on excuses
And (once again) nothing means much to me.
Now my fair neighbor, having skirted the back yard,
Leaves us alone, all alone by ourselves.
Keep back your tears. And do not twist
Your swollen lips. And don’t pucker them,
For that would merely break the scab
That was formed by the enfevered spring.
Remove your hand—don’t keep it on my breast:
We are merely wires—and the current’s on.
Once more—watch out!—we will be thrown together,
And this time not by chance.
The years will pass and you will marry.
You will forget the hardships you endured.
To be a woman is a great adventure;
To drive men mad is a heroic thing.
For my part, all my life long
I have stood like a devoted slave
In reverence and awe before the miracle
Of woman’s hands, her back, her shoulders, and her sculptured throat.
And yet, no matter how the night
May chain me within its ring of longing,
The pull of separation is still stronger
And I have a beckoning passion for the clean break.
SUMMER IN TOWN
Conversation in murmured tones.
With an impatient gesture
She upsweeps her hair—the whole sheaf of it—
From the nape of her neck.
As she peers out from under her heavy comb
She is a woman in a helmet.
Her head, braids and all,
Is thrown back.
Outside, the sultry night
Threatens to turn inclement.
Pedestrians, shuffling their feet,
Hasten homeward.
You can hear abrupt thunderings
And their grating echoes,
While the gusts of wind
Are making the curtains sway.
Not a word breaks the silence.
The air is as sticky as it was before
And, as before, lightnings go rummaging,
Rummaging, rummaging all over the sky.
And when the morning comes
Sunshot and sultry
And once more starts drying the puddles
Left on the street by last night’s downpour,
The fragrant lindens,
Ages old but still in full blossom,
Have a glum look about them
Because they haven’t slept themselves out.
WIND
I have died, but you are still among the living.
And the wind, keening and complaining,
Makes the country house and the forest rock—
Not each pine by itself
But all the trees as one,
Together with the illimitable distance;
It makes them rock as the hulls of sailboats
Rock on the mirrorous waters of a boat-basin.
And this the wind does not out of bravado
Or in a senseless rage,
But so that in its desolation
It may find words to fashion a lullaby for you.
HOPBINES
We seek shelter from inclement weather
Under a willow entwined with ivy.
A raincape is thrown over our shoulders.
My arms are tightly encircled about you.
Sorry—I erred. The shrubs in these thickets
Are not ivy-grown but covered with hopbines.
Well, we’ll do better if we take this raincape
And spread it out wide for a rug beneath us.
FALSE SUMMER
The leaves of the currants are coarse and woolly.
The house shakes with laughter, the windowpanes ring.
There’s great chopping within it, and pickling, while pepper
And cloves are put in to lend tang to the brine.
The grove, like a cavorting clown, casts this hubbub
As far as that field with its rather steep slope
Where the sun-scorched hazels are blazing with color
As if they’d been seared by the heat of a fire.
Here the road dips to a gravelly gully;
Here among the ancient and gnarled river-snags
One can feel sorry for even that rag-picking crone Autumn
Who has swept all of her queer treasure-trove down here.
And also because all Creation is simpler
Than some of our crafty philosophers think.
And because the grove seems to be plunged under water,
And because for all things there’s a predestined end.
And because there’s no sense for one’s eyes to be blinking
When all they behold has been scorched by the sun,
And the fine ashes of Autumn (its white gossamer)
Float in at the windows with each vagrant breeze.
There’s a hole in the fence; it leads from the garden
To a path that gets lost where the birches grow thick.
The house hums with laughter and housewifely bustling—
That bustling and laughter also come from afar.
WEDDING
Guests came until dawn
To the bride’s house for the celebration,
Cutting right across the yard,
Bringing their own music.
After midnight until seven
Not a murmur came
From behind the felt-lined door
Of the master’s bedroom.
But at dawn (the sleepiest time
When one could sleep forever)
The accordion struck up,
Once again, at leaving.
The harmonica played too
Like a hurdy-gurdy;
Clapping hands and clicking beads
Helped the charivari.
And again, again, again
Sped by guests carousing
All the ribald catches burst
Right into the bedroom,
While one wench, as white as snow,
To the calls and whistles
Once more did her peahen dance
Gliding, with hips swinging,
Head tossed high
And right hand waving,
Dancing fast on cobbles—
Just a peahen, peahen!
Suddenly the din and doings
And rings-around-a-rosy—
Vanished as if hell had yawned
Or water had engulfed them.
Noisily the barnyard woke
And sounds of daily chores
Mingled with the noisy talk
And the peals of laughter.
Up into the boundless skies
Rose whirlwinds of gray patches:
Flocks of pigeons taking off
In fast flight from dovecotes.
Just as if some drowsy soul
Bestirred himself to set loose
Birds with wishes for long life
To overtake the wedding.
For life, too, is only an instant,
Only the dissolving of ourselves
In the selves of all others
As if bestowing a gift—
Only wedding noises
Soaring in through a window;
Only a song, only a dream,
Only a gray pigeon.
AUTUMN
I have let all the members of my household go their ways;
All those close to me have long since scattered.
And everything—within the heart and throughout nature
Is filled with the loneliness of always.
And now I am here with you in the forester’s hut.
The forest is unpeopled and deserted.
Its trails and paths are (as the old song has it)
Half overgrown with grass and weeds.
We are the only ones now
For the walls of logs to regard in melancholy.
We made no promises to storm barricades;
We shall go down to perdition openly.
We will take our seats at one: at three we will leave our seats—
I with a book, you with your needlework.
And when day breaks we shall not notice
At what time we had done with our kissing.
Be noisy, leaves, as you flutter down—
Still more flamboyantly, with more abandon!
And raise the level of the gall of yesterday
Within the cup, by adding to it today’s yearning.
Attachment, craving, splendor of beauty. ...
Let us scatter like smoke in this September soughing.
Bury all of yourself, my dearest, in this autumnal rustling;
Swoon, or go half insane!
You shed your coverings in much the same fashion
As this grove sheds its leaves,
Whenever you fall into my embraces
In your dressing gown with its silken tassels.
You are the blessing in a stride toward perdition,
When living sickens more than sickness does itself;
The root of beauty is audacity,
And that is what draws us to each other.
FAIRY TALES
Once upon a time
In a faery realm
A knight was urging his steed
Over a steppe of burdocks.
He was most eager
To take part in battle,
Yet he could see through the dust
A forest looming ahead.
A nagging foreboding
Gnawed at his doughty heart.
(Shun the water hole—
Tighten saddle-girth!)
But the knight, unheeding,
Put spurs to his steed
And at full tilt rode
Up the wooded knoll.
Then, from this burial mound,
He rode into a dry river bed.
Next, skirting a meadow,
He crossed over a mountain.
He veered into a hollow
And, by a forest trail,
Came upon a spoor,
Found a water hole.
Deaf to any warning,
Unheeding his inner call,
He led his steed down from a rise
To drench him at the stream.
By the stream a cave yawned,
Before the cave was a ford;
Flaming brimstone seemed
To light the cavern’s mouth.
From behind the crimson smoke
That screened everything from sight
A far-off cry came echoing
Through the towering pines.
The knight, startled,
Dashed off straight ahead,
Racing through the ravine
In answer to this cry for help.
And the knight beheld
A dread dragon’s head,
And its scales and tail—
And gripped his lance hard.
Flaming at its maw,
The dragon scattered light like seed.
Its spine was wound in a triple coil
Around a maid.
The great serpent’s neck
Flicked like the tip of a whip
Over the white shoulders
Of his fair captive.
For that country’s custom
Gave up to this forest monster
A beautiful young creature
As its prey.
The people of that region
Paid this tribute to save
Their wretched huts and hovels
From the great worm’s wrath.
Its body bound her arms
And was wound about her throat:
It had accepted this sacrifice
To torture as it willed.
With his eyes turned up to heaven
The knight implored its aid
And ready to give battle
Aimed his lance at full tilt.
Tightly closed eyelids.
Towering heights. And clouds.
Waters. Fords. And rivers.
Years. And countless ages.
The knight in dented helmet
Lies unhorsed in the battle.
His faithful steed’s hoofs trample
The life out of the serpent.
Steed and dragon carcass
Lie together on the sand.
The knight lies there unconscious.
The maid is in a swoon.
The noontide vault of heaven
Is radiant and blue.
Who is this maid? A princess?
Bred to the land? Or to the purple born?
Tears from excess of joy
Course down her cheeks in streams.
Then her soul is overcome
By sleep and oblivion.
He feels he is recovering,
Then cannot stir a limb—
So great his loss of blood,
So much his strength is spent.
Yet both their hearts are beating.
By turns he and she
Strain to come to,
Only to sleep again.
Tightly closed eyelids.
Towering heights. And clouds.
Waters. Fords. And rivers.
Years. And countless ages.
AUGUST
The sun, keeping its promise without deception,
Had penetrated early in the morning,
Tracing a saffron streak obliquely
From the window curtains to the divan.
The same sun splashed with sultry ocher
The woods near by, the hamlet’s houses,
My bed, my dampened pillow
And the watt’s angle near the bookshelf.
I have recalled the very reason
For the slight dampness of my pillow.
I had dreamt that all of you were trailing
Through the woods, coming to see me off.
There was a crowd of you, yet you were straggling. Suddenly
Someone recalled: according to the Old Style
It was the sixth of August—
The Lord’s Transfiguration.
On this day, usually, a light without a flame
Issues from Mount Tabor, and Autumn,
Refulgent as an oriflamme,
Draws all eyes by its many glories.
And you traversed the stunted, beggared,
Denuded, quaking scrubwood of the alders
And entered the cemetery coppice
Of flaring red and ornate as a ginger bunny.
The sky was pompously playing neighbor
To the unstirring treetops, while the distance
Was clamorous with the exchange
Of long-drawn clarion calls of roosters.
Death stood like a state surveyor
Within God’s acre in this forest, scanning
My lifeless face, as if in thought
How best to dig my grave to proper measure.
All of you heard (not inwardly but with your sense of hearing)
The calm voice of someone close beside you.
That voice had been mine once, a fatidic voice.
It sounded now, untouched by death’s corruption:
“Farewell to Transfiguration’s azure
And to the Second Coming’s gold!
Abate, with a last womanly caress,
The bitterness to me of this predestined hour.
Farewell to years of timelessness.
Let us part now, you who threw
Your woman’s gauntlet to an abyss of degradations:
I am the arena of your ordeal.
Farewell, broad sweep of outspread wings,
Farewell to willfulness of soaring,
And to the image of the world through words made manifest,
And to creativity, and to working wonders.”
WINTER NIGHT
It snowed and snowed, the whole world over,
Snow swept the world from end to end.
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned.
As during summer midges swarm
To beat their wings against a flame,
Out in the yard the snowflakes swarmed
To beat against the windowpane.
The blizzard sculptured on the glass
Designs of arrows and of whorls.
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned.
Distorted shadows fell
Upon the lighted ceiling:
Shadows of crossed arms, of crossed legs—
Of crossed destiny.
Two tiny shoes fell to the floor
And thudded.
A candle on a nightstand shed wax tears
Upon a dress.
All things vanished within
The snowy murk—white, hoary.
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned.
A corner draft fluttered the flame
And the white fever of temptation
Upswept its angel wings that cast
A cruciform shadow.
It snowed hard throughout the month
Of February, and almost constantly
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned.
PARTING
The man is staring across the threshold
And cannot recognize his home.
Her going had been like a flight.
Havoc has left its traces everywhere.
Chaos prevails in all the rooms.
He cannot judge the devastation
Because his eyes are blurred with tears,
Because his head is pounding.
Ever since morning his ears have been ringing.
Is he awake or having a bad dream?
And why do thoughts about the sea
Persist in coming to his mind?
When one no longer sees the day
Because of hoarfrost on the panes
The hopelessness of grief redoubles
Its likeness to the sea’s vast desert.
He drew her every trait to him
Even as the sea draws near it
Each of the many littorals
Throughout the stretch of its incoming tide.
Even as reeds go down beneath
The rough seas following a storm
So every line of her had gone
To the bottom of his soul.
In years of hardships, in the days
Of an unthinkable existence
She had been cast up from the depths
By a high wave of destiny.
Amid innumerable perils,
Avoiding every reef and shoal
The wave had borne her on and on
And brought her close.
And now, this flight of hers.
Perhaps It had been forced upon her.
This parting will consume them both
And grief gnaw clean their bones.
His eyes take in the whole scene.
At the moment of her going
She had upset the contents of
Every compartment in her dresser.
He paces aimlessly and till dark comes
Keeps putting back inside a drawer
The scattered scraps of cloth,
The crumpled sample patterns.
And having run into his hand
A needle left in some unfinished sewing
He suddenly sees all of her.
And falls to sobbing. Softly.
ENCOUNTER
The snow will bury roads,
Will cover the roofs deeply.
If I step out to stretch my legs
I will see you from the door.
Alone, in a fall coat,
No hat and no snow boots;
You are trying to be calm,
Nibbling your snow-wet lips.
The distant trees and fences
Recede into the murk.
You stand at the corner
Alone in the midst of the falling snow.
Water runs down your scarf,
Inside your sleeves, your collar,
And melted snow sparkles
In dewdrops on your hair.
And a flaxen strand of it
Lights up your face, your scarf,
Your bravely erect figure,
That wretched coat of yours.
Snow melts upon your lashes.
Sadness is in your eyes.
And all of you seems fashioned
Out of a single piece.
It is as if your image
Were being etched forever
With burin and strong acid
Upon my very heart.
Nor can your submissive features
Ever be burnished off.
And so, what does it matter
If the world is stonyhearted?
And so, this night is doubling itself
With all its murk and snow
And I cannot draw a line
Dividing you and me.
For who are we, and where from,
If after all these years
Gossip alone still lives on
While we no longer live?
STAR OF THE NATIVITY
It was wintertime.
The wind blew from the plain
And the infant was cold
In the cave on the slope of a knoll.
The breath of an ox served to warm Him.
The cattle were huddling
Within the cave.
Warmth hovered in a mist over the manger.
Up on a cliff shepherds shook from their sheepskins
The straws from their pallets
And stray grains of millet
And sleepily stared into the midnight distance.
Far off were fields covered over with snow,
And a graveyard, and gravestones and fences,
A cart with its shafts deep in a snowdrift
And, over the graveyard, a star-studded sky.
And seemingly near yet unseen until then,
Its light more timorous than that of a tallow-dip
Set in the window of some watchman’s hut,
A star glimmered over the road to Bethlehem.
Now it looked like a hayrick blazing
Off to one side from heaven and God;
Like the reflection of an arsonous fire,
Like a farmstead in flames on a threshing floor burning.
It reared in the sky like a fiery stack
Of straw, of hay,
In the midst of a Creation startled, astounded
By this new Star.
An increasing redness that was like a portent
Was glowing above it.
And three stargazers heeded, and hasted
To answer the call of these unwonted lights.
Gift-laden camels plodded behind them,
And comparisoned asses, each one smaller and smaller,
Were daintily, cautiously descending a hill.
And all of the things that were to come after
Sprang up in the distance as a strange prevision:
All the thoughts of the ages, all the dreams, all the worlds,
All the future of galleries and of museums,
All the pranks of goblins, all the works of the workers of miracles,
All the yule trees on earth, all the dreams of small children,
All the warm glow of tremulous candles, all chains,
All the magnificence of brightly hued tinsel. ...
(Ever more cruel, more raging, the wind blew from the plain.)
... All rosy-cheeked apples, all the blown-glass gold globes.
Part of the pond was screened by alders
But, beyond rook nests among the treetops,
Part could be seen clearly from the brink of the cliff.
The shepherds could mark well the camels and asses
Threading their way at the edge of the milldam.
“Let us go with all others and worship the miracle,”
Said they, and muffled their sheepskins about them.
Plowing through snow made their bodies feel warm.
Tracks of bare feet, glinting like mica,
Led over the bright plain and beyond the inn’s hut,
And the dogs sighting these tracks by the Stars’ light
Growled at them as if at a candle-end’s flame.
The frosty night was like a fairy tale,
And some beings from the snow-crushed mountain ridge
Were mingling constantly, unseen, with all the others.
The dogs were wavering, looking back in terror,
And, in dire foreboding, cringed close to a young shepherd.
Through the same countryside, over the same highway
Some angels walked among the throng of mortals.
Their incorporeality made them invisible
Yet each step they took left the print of a foot.
Day was breaking. The trunks of the cedars stood out.
A horde of men milled by the stone at the cave’s mouth.
“Who are you?” Mary asked them.
“We are from a shepherd tribe, and envoys of heaven.
We have come to sing praises to both of you.”
“You cannot all enter. Bide a while here.”
In the gloom before dawn, gray as cold ashes,
The drovers and shepherds stamped to keep warm.
Those come on foot bickered with those who came mounted.
Near the hollowed-out log that served as a water trough
The camels bellowed, the gray asses kicked out.
Day was breaking. Dawn swept the last of the stars
Off heaven’s vault as if they were ash motes.
And Mary, out of all the countless multitude, allowed
Only the Magi to enter the cleft in the crag.
He slept, all refulgent, in the manger of oakwood,
Like a moonbeam within a deep-hollowed tree.
In lieu of sheepskins His body was warmed
By the lips of an ass and the nostrils of an ox.
The Magi stood in shadow (the byre seemed in twilight);
They spoke in whispers, groping for words.
Suddenly one, in deeper shadow, touched another
To move him aside from the manger, a little to the left.
The other turned: like a guest about to enter,
The Star of the Nativity was gazing upon the Maid.
DAWN
You were the be-all in my destiny.
Then came the war, the devastation,
And for a long, long time there was
No word from you, not even a sign,
And after many, many years
I find again your voice disturbs me.
All night I read your testament—
And found my consciousness returning.
I’m drawn to people, to be one of a crowd,
To share their morning animation.
I’m ready to smash everything to smithereens
And make all kneel in schoolboy penance.
And so I dash down all the stairs
As if this were my first sortie
Into these streets and their deep snow
And pavements that long since died out.
Each way I turn I see awakenings, lights, comfort.
Men gulp their tea, they hurry to catch trolleys.
Within the space of a few minutes
You’d never recognize the town.
The blizzard weaves its nets in gateways
Out of the thickly falling flakes.
And all, to get to work in time,
Dash madly, hardly taking breakfast.
I feel for all these people
As if I’d been within their hides;
I feel I’m melting, even as the snow melts,
I feel I glower, even as the morning glowers.
The nameless ones are part of me.
Children also, the trees, and stay-at-homes.
All these are victors over me—
And therein lies my sole victory.
MIRACLE
He was on His way from Bethany to Jerusalem,
Languishing under the sadness of premonitions.
The slope’s prickly scrubwood had been scorched by the sun;
No smoke rose from a near-by hut.
The air was hot; the reeds did not stir
And the calm of the Dead Sea was unbroken.
And, knowing a bitterness that rivalled the bitterness of the sea,
Accompanied only by a small band of clouds,
He went on along the dusty road
Intent on reaching a certain religious school.
He was on His way to attend a gathering of disciples.
And so deeply was He plunged in His thoughts
That the countryside sent forth an odor of wormwood.
A stillness fell over all things. He stood alone
In the midst of it all. And all the region lay prostrate
As if in a swoon. All things became confused:
The sultriness and the desert,
And lizards, and wellsprings and streams.
A fig tree rose up a short distance ahead—
Utterly fruitless, putting forth only branches and leaves.
And He said unto it: “Of what use art thou?
What joy have I from thee, standing there petrified?
I am enhungered and athirst, yet thou art all barren
And coming upon thee is of less joy than stumbling on granite.
Oh, how thou dost offend, how void of any gift!
Remain, then, even as thou art until the end of time.”
A shudder at the condemnation ran through the tree
Even as a spark of lightning runs down a rod.
The fig tree was instantly consumed to ashes.
If at that point but a moment of free choice had been granted
To the leaves, the branches, to the trunk and roots
The laws of nature might have contrived to intervene.
But a miracle is a miracle—and miracle is God.
When we are in confusion, then in the midst of our straggling
It overtakes us and, on the instant, confounds us.
EARTH
High-handed spring barges right into
The stateliest Moscow houses.
Moths flutter out when one opens closets
And start crawling over summer headgear.
Furs are put away in trunks.
The ledges of high wooden garrets
Put forth their vernal flowerpots
Of gillyflowers and wallflowers;
Rooms flaunt a free-and-easy air
And attics smell of dust.
Streets are on hail-fellow-well-met terms
With each and every purblind window.
White night and sunset, by the river,
Just can’t, somehow, pass each other.
And you can hear inside the hallway
What’s going on out in the open,
Or overhear the eavesdrop talking
By chance with April (which month has
Thousands and thousands of true stories
That have to do with mankind’s woes).
Dawnglows and evenglows congeal on fences,
Dawdling and shirking at their tasks.
The selfsame blend of fire and eeriness
Prevails outside and in snug dwelling.
Everywhere the air is not its own self.
The selfsame pussywillow twigs interlace,
The selfsame white buds beget their swellings,
Whether on window sill or at crossroads,
Whether in the street or in a workshop.
Why, then, does the distance weep in a mist
And humus have so sharp an odor?
For that’s just what my calling’s for—
To keep the vistas from being bored,
To keep the land beyond the city
From pining by its lonely self.
That is the reason my friends gather
To be with me in early spring
And why our evenings serve as farewells
And our little feasts as testaments,
So that the secret stream of sorrow
May impart some warmth to the chill of being.
EVIL DAYS
When He was entering Jerusalem
During that last week
He was hailed with thunderous hosannas;
The people ran in His wake, waving palm branches.
Yet the days were becoming ever more ominous, more grim.
There wax no stirring the hearts of men through love:
Their eyebrows knit in disdain.
And now, the epilogue. Finis.
The heavens lay heavy over the houses,
Crushing with all of their leaden weight.
The Pharisees were seeking evidence against Him,
Yet cringed before Him like foxes.
Then the dark forces of the Temple
Gave Him up to be judged by the offscourings.
And, with the same fervor with which they once sang His praises,
Men now reviled Him.
The rabble from the vicinity
Was peering in at the gateway.
They kept jostling as they bided the outcome,
Surging, receding.
The neighborhood crawled with sly whispers
And rumors crept in from all sides.
He recalled the flight into Egypt and His childhood
But recalled them now as if in a dream.
He remembered the majestic cliffside in the wilderness
And that exceeding high mountain
Whereon Satan had tempted Him,
Offering Him all the kingdoms of the world.
And the marriage feast at Cana
And the guests in great admiration over the miracle.
And the sea on which, in a mist,
He had walked to the boat as if over dry land.
And the gathering of the poor in a hovel
And His going down into a cellar by the light of a taper
Which had suddenly gone out in affright
When the man risen from the dead was trying to get to his feet.
MAGDALENE
I
As soon as night comes my demon springs up out of the ground.
That is the price I pay for my past.
They come, those memories of vice,
And fall to gnawing at my heart.
Those memories of days when I, a slave
To the whims and quirks of males,
Was but a demoniac fool and the street was all my shelter.
A few scant moments still remain
And then a silence as of the grave will fall.
But before they pass I, having reached
The very limit of my life,
Am shattering that life at Thy feet
As if it were an alabaster vessel.
Oh, where would I now be,
My Master and my Saviour,
If eternity were not awaiting me
Of nights, standing by my bed
Like a new visitor enticed
Into the net of my profession?
But still, I would have Thee expound for me the meaning
Of sin, and death, and hell and brimstone fire—
When I, before the eyes of all, have grown into one
With Thee, even as scion and tree,
Because my yearning is beyond all measure.
When, Jesus, I embrace Thy feet
As I support them on my knees
It may be that I am learning to embrace
The squared beam of the Cross
And, bereft of my senses, am straining for Thy body
As I prepare Thee for Thy interment.
II
People are tidying up before the holiday.
Aloof from all this bustle, I am anointing
Thy most immaculate feet
With myrrh from a small bowl.
I grope for and cannot find Thy sandals.
I can see naught because of my tears.
Strands of my loosened hair have fallen
Like a pall over my eyes.
I have set Thy feet upon my lap,
I have poured my tears over them, Jesus;
I have entwined them with the string of beads from around my neck,
I have buried them in my hair, as in the folds of a burnous.
I see the future in such detail
As if Thou hast made it stand still.
At this moment I can foretell events
With the fatidical clairvoyance of the Sybils.
The veil will fall on the morrow within the Temple.
We will be huddled in a knot off to one side.
And the earth will rock underfoot—
Out of pity for me, perhaps.
The ranks of the guard will realign
And the mounted soldiers will start dispersing.
Just as a waterspout in a storm strains upward
So will that Cross be straining to reach the sky.
I shall prostrate myself on the earth at the foot of the crucifix.
I shall make my heart stop its beating, I shall bite my lips.
Thou hast spread Thy arms to embrace far too many,
Flinging Thy hands out till they reach the ends of the crossbeam.
For whom in this world is all this breadth,
So much agony and such power?
Are there so many souls and lives in this universe—
So many settlements, and rivers and groves?
Yet three days such as this shall pass
And they shall thrust me into such a void
That during this brief interval of time
I shall, even before the Resurrection, attain my full stature.
GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE
The turn in the road was illumined
By the indifferent glimmer of the remote stars.
The road led around the Mount of Olives;
Below, in its valley, the Brook Kedron ran.
Halfway, the small meadow dipped in a sharp break;
Beyond it began the great Milky Way,
While the silver-gray olives still strained forward
As if to stride onward upon empty air.
Furthest away was someone’s garden plot.
He left His disciples outside the stone fence
Saying, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death;
Tarry ye here, and watch with me.”
He had rejected without resistance
Dominion over all things and the power to work miracles,
As though these had been His only on loan
And now was as all mortals are, even as we.
Night’s distance seemed the very brink
Of annihilation, of nonexistence.
The universe’s span was void of any life;
The garden only was a coign of being.
And peering into these black abysses—
Void, without end and without beginning—
His brow sweating blood, He pleaded with His Father
That this cup of death might pass from Him.
Having eased His mortal anguish through prayer,
He left the garden. Beyond its wall His disciples,
Overcome with sleep, sprawled on the ground
In the wayside feathergrass.
He awakened them: “God hath granted you to live
During my days on earth, and yet you lie there sprawling.
Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man
Shall betray Himself into the hands of sinners.”
He had scarcely spoken when, coming from none knew where,
A throng of slaves sprang up, a host of vagrant men
With swords and torches, and at their head stood Judas
With the perfidious kiss writhing on his lips.
Peter drew sword and thrust the cutthroats back
And struck a man and smote off his ear.
Whereon he heard, “No metal can resolve dissension.
Put up thy sword again into his place.
Thinkest thou my Father would not send
Sky-darkening hosts of winged legions to my succor?
And without harming even a hair of mine
My enemies would scatter, leaving no trace behind.
But now the book of life has reached a page
Which is more precious than are all the holies.
That which was written now must be fulfilled.
Fulfilled be it, then. Amen.
Seest thou, the passing of the ages is like a parable
And in its passing it may burst to flame.
In the name, then, of its awesome majesty
I shall, in voluntary torments, descend into my grave.
I shall descend into my grave. And on the third day rise again.
And, even as rafts float down a river,
So shall the centuries drift, trailing like a caravan,
Coming for judgment, out of the dark, to me.”
THE END.
[1] Cabmen: The Russian expression here is likhachi—fashionable cab drivers who had an unsavory reputation as a class.
[2] A priest who was thought to be a revolutionary leader but also was suspected of being an agent provocateur.
[3] A writer of the period who was an exceptional stylist.
[4] A superstitious Russian custom: before a move or a journey people sit down a few moments for luck.
[5] Hors d’oeuvres, including various kinds of cold meat and fish.
[6] Fires are lit at crossroads in very cold weather.
[7] Askold, one of the founders of the Russian state, was buried in Kiev.
[8] Oleg, another Prince of Kiev, was killed by a snake that came out of the skull of his favorite horse.
[9] Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl, author of a Dictionary of the Living Russian Tongue.
[10] Period of interregnum and civil war in the seventeenth century.
[11] Character in Dostoievsky’s The Possessed.
[12] A student taking the Bestuzhev university courses for women. Many of the students were left-wing.
[13] Kerenkas: paper money introduced by the Kerensky government and still in circulation at that time.
[14] Stormy petrels: The reference is to the sailors in the Potemkin mutiny and is also an allusion to Gorky’s story of that name.
[15] Left-wing idealists who devoted themselves to work among the people.
[16] Greens: Anarchistic elements, chiefly peasants, who fought both Reds and Whites.
[17] Oprichniki—security troops of Ivan the Terrible.
[18] Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, head of the Secret Police, 1936-38.