Marina Tsvetaeva- the Essential Poetry Read online

* * *

  GYPSY WEDDING

  Dirt flies

  From beneath hooves.

  Before my face

  Is a shawl — like a shield.

  Have a good time, matchmakers,

  Without the young pair!

  Hey, take us away from this trouble spot,

  Shaggy steed!

  * * *

  Father and mother

  Didn’t give us our freedom,

  Our wedding bed is —

  The entire field for us.

  * * *

  Drunk without wine, sated without bread,

  This is a gypsy wedding rushing by!

  * * *

  Glass’s filled,

  Glass’s empty.

  The guitar‘s rumble, the moon and dirt.

  To the right and left the waist swayed.

  The gypsy man — like a prince!

  The prince — like a gypsy!

  Hey, sir, be careful, it burns!

  This is a gypsy wedding drinking!

  * * *

  There on a pile

  Of shawls and fur coats,

  The ringing and rustling

  Of steel and lips.

  Spurs jingled,

  A coin necklace clinked as an answer.

  Beneath someone’s arm silk

  Whistled.

  * * *

  Someone begins to howl like a wolf,

  Someone is snoring like a bull.

  — This is a gypsy wedding asleep.

  June 5, 1917

  From CRAFT

  (1923)

  THE NOVICE

  Tell me — what are you meditating about?

  Into the rain — beneath a single cape,

  Into the night — beneath a single cape, then

  Into a coffin — beneath a single cape.

  * * *

  1

  To be your fair-haired little boy,

  — O, across all the ages! —

  To follow behind your dusty purple

  Wearing the coarse cape of a novice.

  * * *

  Through all the human dregs to catch

  Your life-giving sigh

  With the soul, living by your breath

  Like the blowing of a cape by — a gust of wind.

  * * *

  More victorious than King David

  To move the mob aside with my shoulder.

  From all insults, from all earthly offense

  To serve you as your cape.

  * * *

  To be among sleeping novices

  The one who does not sleep in sleep.

  At the first stone raised by the mob

  To be no longer a cape — but a shield!

  (O, this line of verse is not interrupted on purpose!

  The knife has become too sharp!)

  And — smiling with inspiration — to be the first

  To ascend onto your pyre.

  April 15, 1921

  * * *

  2

  There is a certain hour15...

  Tiutchev

  There is a certain hour — that’s like a cast-off burden:

  When we curb the arrogance within us.

  The hour of apprenticeship that in every life

  Is triumphantly inescapable.

  * * *

  A lofty hour, when laying down weapons

  To the feet of the one pointed out to us — by God’s finger,

  We exchange the purple of the Warrior

  For camel hair on the ocean sand.

  * * *

  O, this hour, which like the Voice lifts us

  to our deed — from the willfulness of days!

  O this hour, when we stoop over

  From our burden like a ripe ear of wheat.

  * * *

  And the grain has grown, and a blithe hour has struck,

  And the seeds have craved millstones.

  The law! The law! The yoke after which I lusted

  When I was yet in the earthen womb.

  The time of apprenticeship! But visible and knowable to us

  Is another light, — another dawn has broken through.

  Coming after it you are blessed —

  You — the supreme hour of loneliness!

  April 15, 1921

  * * *

  3

  The sun of the Evening is – kinder

  Than the sun at noon.

  The sun is exceedingly cruel —

  It doesn’t warm at mid-day.

  * * *

  The sun approaching night

  Is more aloof and meek.

  Made wiser, it no longer wants

  To beam into our eyes.

  * * *

  With its queen-like — anxiety-causing —

  Simplicity,

  The Evening Sun is dearer

  To the singer of songs!

  * * *

  Crucified by the darkness

  Every evening,

  The sun of the Evening does not bow down

  To the throng.

  * * *

  Overthrown from the throne

  Don’t forget — Phoebus!

  The overthrown — does not look down —

  But into the sky!

  O, don’t taper off on the neighboring

  Bell tower!

  I want to be your final

  Bell tower.

  April 16, 1921

  * * *

  6

  All the splendor

  Of trumpets is — just the babbling

  Of grass — before Him.

  * * *

  All the splendor

  Of storms is — just the chattering

  Of birds before — You.

  * * *

  All the grandeur

  Of wings is — just the trembling

  Of eyelids before — You.

  April 23, 1921

  * * *

  THE LEADER’S RETURN

  The horse’s lame,

  The sword’s rusty.

  Who’s this?

  The leader of throngs.

  * * *

  A stride is — an hour,

  A sigh is — a century,

  The gaze is — down,

  All is — there.

  * * *

  An enemy. — A friend.

  Thorns. — Laurels.

  All is — a dream...

  — He. — The horse.

  * * *

  The horse is — lame.

  The sword is — rusty.

  His cape is — ancient.

  His stance is — straight.

  July 16, 1921

  From AFTER RUSSIA

  (1928)

  *

  There is an hour for those words.

  From auditory stupors

  Life taps out

  Its lofty laws.

  * * *

  Perhaps — from the shoulder,

  Pressed out by the brow.

  Perhaps — from a ray

  Unseen during the day.

  Dust into a useless string —

  An arm-waving leap onto a sheet.16

  A tribute to your fear

  And to your dust.

  * * *

  The hour of ardent arbitrariness

  And the quietest requests.

  The hour of landless brotherhoods

  And worldwide orphanedness.

  June 11, 1922

  * * *

  *

  Nocturnal whispers: a hand

  Strewing silks.

  Nocturnal whispers: lips

  Smoothing silks.

  Settling scores

  * * *

  Of all the daily jealousies —

  and the flaring up

  Of all antiquities — clenching jaws —

  And the argument

  Quieted —

  In a rustle...

  * * *

  And a leaf

  Into a window...

  And the first bird’s whistle.<
br />
  “So clear!” And a sigh.

  * * *

  Wrong one. Gone.

  I left.

  And the shudder

  Of a shoulder.

  * * *

  Nothing.

  Futility.

  The end.

  No trace.

  * * *

  And into this vanity of vanities

  This sword: the dawn.

  June 17, 1922

  * * *

  THE BALCONY

  Ah, from an open precipice —

  Down into dust and tar!

  The shortweight of earthly love

  To salt with a tear — for how long?

  A balcony. The tar of wicked kisses

  Through salty downpours.

  And the sigh of unreceding hate:

  To be breathed out into a line of verse!

  * * *

  Squeezed into the hand like a lump —

  What: a heart or a cambric

  Rag? For these lotions

  There is a name: the Jordan.17

  * * *

  Yes, for this battle with love

  Is wild and cruel hearted.

  Having soared up from a granite brow —

  To be breathed out into death.

  June 30, 1922

  * * *

  TREES18

  8

  Someone rides — to mortal victory.

  Trees have — the gestures of tragedies.

  Judea’s — sacrificial dance!

  Trees have — the trembling of mysteries.

  * * *

  This is — a conspiracy against the age:

  Against weight, counting, time, fractions.

  Behold — a curtain torn to shreds:

  Trees have the gestures of tombstones...

  * * *

  Someone rides. The sky is — like an entryway.

  The trees have — the gestures of jubilations.

  May 7, 1923

  * * *

  9

  With what inspiration,

  With what truths,

  About what do you rustle?

  Floods of leaves?

  With which frantic Sibyl’s

  Mysteries —

  About what do you rustle,

  About what do you rave?

  What is your wafting about?

  But I know you cure

  The hurt of Time —

  With the cold of Eternity.

  * * *

  But like a young genius

  Rising up — you discredit

  The lie of beholding

  With God’s invisible finger.

  * * *

  So that anew, as once before,

  The earth would appear to us,

  So that beneath eyelids

  Intentions can be fulfilled!

  So that you do not boast

  With the coins of miracles.

  So that beneath eyelids

  Mysteries come true.

  * * *

  Away from permanence!

  Away from hurriedness!

  Into the current! Into auguries

  With indirect speech...

  * * *

  Is it foliage — like leaves?

  Is it the Sibyl who has moaned herself out?

  ...Leafy avalanches,

  Leafy ruins...

  May 9, 1923

  *

  These are ashes of treasures:

  Of losses, of hurts.

  These are ashes before which

  Granite turns — to dust.

  * * *

  A dove bare and bright

  Not part of a pair.

  Solomon’s ashes above

  The great earthly vanity.

  * * *

  And the threatening chalk

  Of sunsetless time.

  It means God entered my doors —

  After the house burned down!

  * * *

  Not stifled in rubbish,

  Master of my dreams and days,

  The spirit like a steep flame

  Arises from premature grays!19

  * * *

  It is not you who betrayed me, years,

  Behind my back!

  This grayness is the victory

  Of immortal powers.

  September 27, 1922

  * * *

  OPHELIA TO HAMLET

  Like Hamlet — laced up — tightly,

  In the nimbus of dissuasion and knowledge,

  Pale — to the last atom...

  (From the edition of the year one thousand and what?)

  With insolence and shallowness — don’t touch!

  (A teenager’s attic stores!)

  You have already lain — on this breast

  Like some weighty chronicle,

  * * *

  Male virgin! Misogynist! Who prefers embracing

  The foolish one... Did you think at least

  Once about what — has been picked

  In the flower bed of madness...

  * * *

  Roses?... But of course this is — hush! — The future!

  We tear them — and new ones grow! Did the roses

  Betray even once? The lovers —

  Did they betray even once? Have they gone?

  * * *

  Having performed (having smelled sweetly) you will drown...

  — It never was! — But we will rise in memory

  At the hour when above the stream’s chronicle,

  Like Hamlet — all laced up — you will rise...

  February 28, 1923

  * * *

  OPHELIA — IN DEFENSE OF THE QUEEN

  Prince Hamlet! Stop stirring up

  The wormy sediments... Gaze at the roses!

  Think of the one, who for the sake of just a single day —

  Counts her last days.

  * * *

  Prince Hamlet! Stop discrediting

  The queen’s womb... It’s not for male virgins — to judge

  Passion. Phaedra’s guilt is — grave.

  Yet they sing of her till this day.

  * * *

  And will continue to be! — But You, with your mixture of lime

  And decay... Talk spitefully with the bones,

  Prince Hamlet! With Your reason you cannot

  Judge impassioned blood.20

  * * *

  But if... Then beware!... Through gravestones

  Upward — into the bed chamber — to the heart’s content!

  I stand to the defense of my queen —

  I, Your immortal passion.

  February 28, 1923

  * * *

  WIRES21

  Des Herzens Woge schäumte nicht so schön

  empor, und würde Geist, wenn nicht der alte

  stumme Fels, das Schicksal, ihr entgegenstände.22

  * * *

  1

  In a row of singing pillars,

  Supporting the Empyrean,23

  I send to you my share

  Of the dale’s dust.

  Along the alley

  Of sighs — with a wire to a pole —

  A telegraphic: I lo — o — ve...

  * * *

  I plead... (a standard blank form

  Won’t fit it! It is simpler by wires!)

  These are pillars, on them Atlas

  Lowered a race track

  Of Olympian gods...

  Along the pillars

  A telegraphic fa — are — well...

  * * *

  Do you hear? This is the last straining24

  Of a lost voice: fa — are — well...25

  These are riggings above a sea of fields,

  The quiet Atlantic path:

  * * *

  Higher, higher — and we mer — ged

  In Ariadne’s:26 re — turn,

  * * *

  Turn around!.. The melancholy call

  Of charity hospitals: I won’t get out!

>   In the farewells of steel wires

  Are the voices of Hades

  * * *

  Moving away... Conjuring

  The distance: pi — ty...

  Pity me! (In this chorus will you notice

  It?) In the death rattle

  Of obstinate passions is

  The breath of Eurydice:

  * * *

  Through mounds — and — ditches

  Eurydice’s: a — a — las,

  Don’t lea —

  March 17, 1923

  * * *

  6.

  The hour when kings and gifts

  Travel to one another above.

  (The hour, when I walk from the mountain):

  The mountains begin to understand.

  * * *

  Intentions heaped up into a circle.

  Fates moved together: I won’t betray you!

  (The hour when I don’t see hands)

  * * *

  Souls begin to see.

  March 25, 1923

  * * *