I don’t remember the word I wished to say

The blind swallow returns to the hall of shadow,

on shorn wings, with the translucent ones to play.

The song of night is sung without memory, though.

No birds. No blossoms on the dried flowers.

The manes of night’s horses are translucent.

An empty boat drifts on the naked river.

Lost among grasshoppers the word’s quiescent.

It swells slowly like a shrine, or a canvas sheet,

hurling itself down, mad, like Antigone,

or falls, now, a dead swallow at our feet.

with a twig of greenness, and a Stygian sympathy.

O, to bring back the diffidence of the intuitive caress,

and the full delight of recognition.

I am so fearful of the sobs of The Muses,

the mist, the bell-sounds, perdition.

Mortal creatures can love and recognise: sound may

pour out, for them, through their fingers, and overflow:

I don’t remember the word I wished to say,

and a fleshless thought returns to the house of shadow.

The translucent one speaks in another guise,

always the swallow, dear one, Antigone….

on the lips the burning of black ice,

and Stygian sounds in the memory.

Osip Mandelstam

Translated by A. S. Kline

link

adrianomaini:

“Il mondo è mutato, la mia poesia è mutata. Una goccia di sangue caduta tra questi versi rimarrà viva su di essi, indelebile come l’amore.”
Pablo Neruda

 ”The world has changed, and my poetry has changed. One drop of blood falling on these lines will remain alive in them, indelible like love. …”