This web site doesn't display advertising. Please consider making a donation.
Up out of an evil clinging pool
Free texts and images.
| ← | Up out of an evil clinging pool… written by Osip Mandelstam | → |
| From Stone. See also Poems. Translated from Russian by Rosamund Bartlett and Gerard McBurney. Из омута злого и вязкого… |
* * *
Up out of an evil clinging pool
I grew, whispering like a reed,
Breathing the forbidden life
Passionately, languidly and tenderly.
And I bend over back into the cold refuge of the swamp,
Marked by no-one,
Met by the welcoming rustle
Of the brief autumnal moments.
I'm happy with this cruel affront
And in this dream-like life
I envy every other secretly
And am secretly in love with each.
1910
© Rosamund Bartlett & Gerard McBurney, translation. Can be reproduced if non-commercial.
