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When, after destroying the sketches
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| ← Overcoming the firmness of nature | Octets (VI) ~ When, after destroying the sketches… written by Osip Mandelstam | And Schubert on the water → |
| From Moscow Notebooks. See also Poems. Translated from Russian by Dmitri Smirnov. In Russian: Когда, уничтожив набросок. |
VI
When, after destroying the sketches,
You thoroughly hold in your mind
A period with no dull footnotes
United in its inner shade, —
And it just on its own power
Is floating with eyes snapped shut, —
It relates to the paper exactly
Like cupola to the empty skies.
January 1933, Moscow
© Dmitri Smirnov, translation. Can be reproduced if non-commercial.
