Osip Emilevich Mandelstam Poems

My beast, my age, who will try
to look you in the eye,
and weld the vertebrae
of century to century,
...

1

I want to serve you
On an equal footing with others;
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I can’t sleep. Homer, and the taut white sails.
I could the list of ships read only to a half:
The long-long breed, the train of flying cranes
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When on the squares and in solitary silence
We slowly go out of our minds,
Brutal winter will offer us
Cold and clear Rhine wine.
...

I am sorry it is winter now,
And you can't hear mosquitoes in the house,
But you reminded yourself
Of the frivolous straw.

The dragonflies hove ...
...

We went out of our minds with the easy life,
Wine from morning on, hungover by evening,
How can I keep this idle gaiety,
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In Petersburg we'll meet again,
As though we'd buried the sun there,
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Every church sings its own soft part
In the polyphony of a girl's choir,
And in the stone arches of the Assumption
I make out high, arched brows.
...
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1

A phantom scene barely glimmers,
The soft choirs of shades,
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To read only children's books,
To have only childish thoughts,
To throw everything grown-up away,
To rise from deep sadness.
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