Osip Mandelstam

Quando sai para os céus a lua citadina,

    E a noite prenhe de cobre e mágoa cresce,
    E de lua a cidade espessa se ilumina,
    E a cera canora ao tempo rude cede,

E na sua torre de pedra o cuco chora,

    E a pobre ceifeira – no mundo dessangrado –
    Ajeita de leves agulhas da sombra enorme
    E as lança, palha amarela, no sobrado…

    1920

The Sky is pregnant with the Future

  Once more the cacophony of war

   on the ancient plateaux of the world,
   and the propeller’s blade glistens
   like the sharpened bone of a tapir.
   The equation of the wing and death,
   having flown from the feasts
   of algebra, remembers the measure
   of other ebony toys,
   the hostile night, the enemy breeding-ground
   of short creatures, web-footed,
   and the young force of gravity:
   here began the power of the few.

So, prepare to live in the time

   where there is no wolf, no tapir
   and the heavens are pregnant with the future –
   with the wheat of the sated ether.
   For today the conquerors
   went round the cemeteries of floght,
   they broke the dragonfly wings
   and executed with little hammers.

Let’s listen to the sermon if thunder

   like the grandchildren of Sebastian Bach,
   and let us place organ wings
   in the east and in the west!
   Let’s throw the apple of the storm
   onto the table for the feasting earthlings
   and let us place on a glass dish
   a cloud in the middle of victuals.
   Let’s cover all anew
   with the damasked tablecloth of space,
   talking things through, rejoicing,
   giving food one to the other.
   At the round Court of Peace
   the blood will turn to ive at dawn,
   in the deep, pregnant future
   a huge honey-bee is buzzing.

And you, flying in timelessness

   under the whip of war, for the power of the few –
   if you only had the honour of mammals,
   if you only had the conscience of the flipper-footed!
   And the more sad, the more bitter it is for us
   that bird-people are worse than beasts
   and that unwillingly we have more trust in
   carrion-crows and kites.
   Like a hat of Alpine cold,
   year in and year out, in the heat and summer
   the cold palms of war
   are on the high forehead of humanity.
   And you, deep and sated,
   having become pregnant with the azure,
   scaled, many-eyed,
   the alpha and omega of the storm,
   to you – alien and eyebrowless –
   from generation to generation
   always a lofty and new
   surprise is communicated.

1923, 1929

Translation by Richard McCane          

 

CAMINHEIRO

Sinto é um medo, um medo insuperável

    Defronte das alturas misteriosas.
    E dizer que me agradam andorinhas
    No céu e do campanário o alto voo!

    Caminheiro de outrora, cá me iludo
    Pensando ouvir à borda do abismo
    A pedra a ceder, a bola de neve,
    O relógio batendo eternidade.

    Se assim fosse! Mas não sou o peregrino
    Que vem dos fólios antigos desbotados,
    E o que em mim real canta é esta angústia:
    Certo – desce uma avalancha das montanhas!
    E toda a minha alma está nos sinos,
    Só que a música não salva dos abismos!