Nature

by Osip Emilevich Mandelstam

* * *

Nature's the same as Rome, was reflected in it.

We see images of its civic might

In the clear air, as in the sky-blue circus,

In the forum of fields, the colonnade of the grove.

Nature is the same as Rome, again it seems

We have no reason to trouble the gods.

We've got the viscera of the sacrifices

To tell the fortunes of war, and slaves

To keep the silence, and stones with which to build. 

* * *

O heavens, heavens, see you in my dreams!

It is impossible -- you had become so blind,

And day was burned as if a page -- to rims:

Some smoke and ashes, one could later find. 

Twilight Of Freedom

Let us glorify, brothers, the twilight of freedom --

The great twilight year.

A weighty forest of nets is lowered

Into the bubbling waters of night.

You are rising into desolate years,

O sun, judge, people.

Let us glorify the fateful burden,

Which the nation's chief takes up in tears.

Let us glorify the twilight burden of power,

Its unbearable weight.

Whoever has the heart should hear, time,

How your ship is sinking.

We tied the swallows into battle legions

And so, the sun's obscured; all of nature

Warbles, whirls, lives;

The dense twilight through the nets

The sun's obscured, and the land sets sail.

But still, let us try: an enormous, awkward,

Screeching turn of the wheel.

The land is sailing. Take courage, men!

Dividing the ocean, like a plow,

We will recall even in Lethe's frost,

That our land cost ten heavens.