April 3rd, 2009
Poem: Osip Mandelstam, “From the half-darkened hall”
I just love this little whisper of a poem. It has the bare richness of my favorite Chinese poems (Ch’en Yu Yi, Su T’ung Po, Wang Wei), but an earthy mysticism that’s very Mandelstam. This was included in his first book, Stone, in 1913. I’ve included the Russian original… I did the translation, and my Russian is supremely rusty.
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From the half-darkened hall, suddenly
You came in a light shawl
We disturbed no one
We did not wake the sleeping servants.
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Из полутемной залы, вдруг,
Ты выскользнула в легкой шали -
Мы никому не помешали,
Мы не будили спящих слуг…
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