A SELECTION OF POEMS BY MARINA TSVETAEVA

TO OTHER POETS
Translated by Don Mager

For Anna Akhmatova

3
4

For Akhmatova

5
6

Variant stanza nine:

Variant stanza nine: Golden mouthed Anna of all the Rus . . .

21
22

Poems to Osip Mandelshtam

Untitled: !
Untitled: Neither has taken from the other!

23
24

Untitled: . . .
Untitled: To my gathered loved ones going their way . . .

25
26

Untitled: Untitled: . . .
Untitled: You throw back your head because . . .

27
28

Untitled: ?
Untitled: From where does this tenderness come?

29
30

Untitled: . . . .
Untitled: Downfall by woman. That sign . . .

31
32

Untitled: . . .
Untitled: A strange malady would come upon him . . .

33
34

Verses to Moscow

35
36

C
Verses to Blok

39
40

To Maiakovskii

63
64

1|Page


For Akhmatova

65
66

Us Two

69
70

Fragment of Lines to Akhmatova

75
76

Untitled to Pasternak: : , . . .
Untitled to Pasternak: Timestanding still: versts, miles . . .

77
78

Untitled poem on Esenin: . . .

Untitled: Brother whose songs sang sadness . . .

79
80

A New Years

81
82

To Maiakovskii

93
94

2|Page


,
.

, .

.
,
.
,
?

.

!


,
, ,
,
.
11 1915
( 1.1, 234-235)

3|Page

For Anna Akhmatova

A narrow, un-Russian stature
Bends over folio sheets.
A loose Turkish shawl
Drapes down like a cloak.
You transmit a single
Intermittent black line.
Youre cold in both your
Sultry gaiety and your gloom.
Your whole lifetremblingly
Is completebut then whos she?
Foreheadovercastdark
Like demon in her youth.
Teasingly and worldly
You coax and play attrifles!
Then strive to transform your heart
Into unarmed verse.
Starting at sleepy-eyed dawn,
Exactly at each quarter hour,
I fall in love with you,
Anna Akhmatova.
11 February 1915

4|Page


1
, , !
, !
,
, .
: !
:
! ,
, .
,
, !
, ,
.
,
. . .
,
! .
19 1916
2
,
!

.
,
!
, ,
!

5|Page

For Akhmatova
1
O, Muse of weeping, O, most lovely muse!
O you, the white nights mad and lurking shadow!
You spread a blackened blizzard over Rus,
Your wailing pierces through us like an arrow.
We shy away with awed and muffled: Ah!
A hundred thousandloyal oathsAnn
Akhmatov ! That namea towering sigh
That sinks into the depths where all names die.
And we wear crowns because with you we tread
The earth you treadour skyyour sky too!
Already deathless, they accept deaths bed
Whose deadly fates have joined in pain with you.
From peels and hails that ring from my burning domes, 1
Where the shining Savior is glorified by the blind . . .
I bestow on you my bell-towering town,
In which, my heart Akhmatova! is twined.
19 June 1916
2
With head enveloped I stand,
So much for human scheming!
With head enveloped I chant
At dawn, I chant at evening.
A fierce waveAhhas borne
Me up its creston high!
I chant, among us, of one,
Like the moon, lone to the sky!

, ,
.

Tsvetaeva in her early poems often refers to the domes and bells of Moscow, the city of her
childhood.

6|Page

,
.

,
, ,
.
, !
.
, , ,
,
, , !
,

.
22 1916
3

.
, ! ,
!
?
. . .
,
.

.

-.
,
.

!
==========

Of oneat my heart, flown down

7|Page

Like a raven from cloudsto pierce me.

Hook-nosed with mortal scorn
Hook-nosedmortal with mercy.
Of onewho spreads out her night
Over my scarlet Kremlin,
Who stolelike a noosemy throat
With a bountiful excess of singing.
Ah, I rejoice! Dawns glow
Has flamed more purelynever.
Ah, I rejoice, to bestow
It on you, and to leaveas the beggar
Who tookO depth, O darkness!
Upon my breathyour voice
And named you, I, the first,
Tsarskoe Selo Muse.
22 June 1916
3
At resteyelashes
One last surging effort
O sweet body! Ashes
Of the lightest bird!
Made howin days of mist?
To wait, to sing . . .
So much breathreleased
The bodyso small a thing.
It sleeps in sweeter spells
Than other peoples.
Something of angels,
Something of eagles.
It sleeps, while choirs lure it
Into Edens garden.
Of songs, he has no sate,
The sleeping demon!
==========
, , . ,
8|Page

 .
, ,
.
,


.
23 1916
4
,
.
,
.

!
,
.

,

.
,
:

.

,
!

9|Page

Hours, years, ages. No more

Our rooms, our us.
Gravestones, overgrown,
Remember even less.
Long the brooms unused,
Long the drought of praise
Tsarskoe Selos Muse
Has nettles for her cross.
23 June 1916
4
The childs nameLion. 2
The mothersAnn .
In his nameanger,
In the motherscalm. 3
His hair is red.
A tulip head!
So then, hosanna
The wee Tsars come.
God grant hima sigh
And his mothers smile,
The keenness of eye
To search for pearls.
God, lavish and tend upon
Him utmost care:
Inscrutablecant compare
Him to otherstsars son.
Infant red haired lion
You bear, with eyes of green,
Bequeathalfearsome!

2
3

Akhmatovas only son was named Lev, the Russian word for lion.
In Hebrew, the name Anna means paradise.

10 | P a g e



!
24 1916
5
!
.

.
,
,

.

,

- . . .

.

.
25 1916
6
! ,
. .

.
!
!

11 | P a g e

Northern and Southern Sea4

Strung on a rosary,5
Black pearls6in the cup of your palm.
24 June 1916
5
Many companions orbit about you!
To none are you second place.
You sow your charm to rule their youth
Your bitter and lofty grace.
Recall that day, the ports wild ships,
With a bully of a southern wind,
The Caspians roarbetween your lips,
A rose, like a birds small wing.
Recall the gypsy girl who gave
A stone, well set and polished
The gypsy girl whose words deceive
How fame would likely unfold . . .
And at the top of the lofty riggings
Was a boy in a navy blouse.
Recall the booming of the sea, the calling
Out of the wounded Muse.
25 June 1916
6
You are no laggard! Ithe convict,
Youthe guard. A single fate.
We move into the singular void
And pay an equal roadside toll.
And yet my conscience is at ease!
And yet my eyes can clearly see!
4

Akhmatovas childhood summers were spent at Sevastopol on the Black Sea in the south;
Petersburg (Leningrad) through the Gulf of Finland is a North Sea port city.
5
Akhmatovas second book (Rosary) was published in 1914.
6
Although Gumilev is not mentioned in Tsvetaevas cycle of poem to Akhmatova, celebration of
their son, Lev, brings the father to mind. In a clever blending of both parents in Levs bequeathal, this
poem's final image combines a reference to the mothers volume Rosary (1913) and the fathers volume
Pearls (1916).

12 | P a g e

- , ,
!
26 1916
7
,
,
,
,
, ,
! !

, .

, .

.
,

, ,
.
26 1916
8
,
.

.
,

, ,
-,

13 | P a g e

Release me, guard, a moment please

Play truant with that lone pine tree!
26 June 1916
7
You, who thwart dust-piles
On catafalques and cribs,
Who inflame winds to hurl
Blizzards upwards in drifts,
Fevers, verses, war,
Black-arts-master! Serf-whips!
Ive heard dread lions roar,
Heard prophets chariots.
I hear the fervent voices
And one thats doggd and bleak.
I see the crimson sails
And oneamong themblack.
Whether your course is set
By oceanairwith breast
Bared to the sun, I wait
The verdict, deadly, just.
26 June 1916
8
At the bazaar people shouted,
Steam hissed from the bakery.
I remember the lipsscarlet
Of a street singerskinny.
Dark flowered scarfyour head,
May you be blessedwith eyes
Cast down, you stand in the crowd
Of pilgrims at Saint Sergius. 7

The Russian text translates Serge-Trinity. Saint Sergius of Radonezh (1314-1392) established a
monastery and school in Radonezh near Moscow named Trinity. It helped Russian economic recovery
from the Mongol invasions by providing education for the sons of nobility and his diplomatic missions
helped unify the various princes under a Great Prince Dmitry Donskoi of Moscow. He is regarded as the
Saint Protector of Russia.

14 | P a g e

 ,
,

,
27 1916
9

,
,
.
, ,
, ,

.

!
! !

!
27 1916
10

!
, ,
, , .
,
.

15 | P a g e

Pray for me, my beauty

Unhappy, almost satanic.
Our Lady of the Khlysty,
You stand as a woodland relic.
27 June 1916
98
Golden mouthed Anna of all the Rus
Redeemer of the word,to her,
O wind, please carry from here my voice
For my sigh weighs down with care.
O burning sky, recite the tale
Of eyes that are blackened with pain,
Of a bow to the peacefulness of the soil
Amid fields golden with grain.
You of the stormy summits
Weighing down once more!
You! Nameless presence!
Carry my love to her,
Golden mouthed Anna of all the Rus
27 June 1916
10
Above the waving oats, on a long narrow line 9
Nowadays, the voicea thousand at one time.
And the small bells passingholy, holy, holy
Speak together, lord, with one voice only.
I stand and listen and crush an ear of bursting grain,
And the voice from the darkened dome holds me enchained.
==========
8

The Russian text in Kemballs translation includes an additional stanza between numbers two and
three not included in the text (Tsvetaeva, Milestones, 142). This variant is included
at the end of Magers translation of poem number 13. Kemballs Russian is from Biblioteka pota,
bolshaia seriia (Marina Tsvtaeva, Stikotvoreniia I Pomy, edited by E. B. Korkina (Leningrad, 1990).
9
This is a telephone line stretched above the field of oats.

16 | P a g e


, .
, ,
, !
,
!
1 1916
11
,
!
, !
!
, ,
,
, , ,
, .
2 1916
1210
,
, ,
,
.
, ,
,
? , ,
!
2 1916

10

Kemball translates this lyric but does not include it as part of the cycle For Akhmatova
(Tsvetaeva, Milestones, 148-9).

17 | P a g e

==========
Its not that gently floating willow frond
I clutch with reverence,it is your hand.
To all in anguish, the acclaim at your entrance is
A worldly woman, but for meheavenly cross!
To your lone nights, I make my holy bows,
And from your eyes I see all icons gaze!
1 July 1916
11
From me you block the high sun,
And grab up stars in your hand!
Ah, if onlydoor wide open!
I could burst in like the wind!
And babble in a raging tantrum,
And suddenly start to pout,
And like a child, whose forgiven,
Sob, and then get quiet.
2 July 1916
12
Hands are given meto reach out, both of them, to everyone,
I withhold neither; lipsare given to embrace names;
Eyesnot seeing the high eyebrows above them, are givengently
To see the surprise of loveand to see what is not loveeven more gently.
And here are those bells that are more somber than Moscows,
Tolling without interruption in the breast over and over and over
They tollwho knows? not I,it may be,or must besomehow,
That it is not given to me to stay in Russia very much longer.
2 July 1916

18 | P a g e

<13>

,

............
,
?
, ,
, , .
, ! !
.
,
, .

,

.
,
.
:
, , ?
28 1916
( 1i, 303-310)

19 | P a g e

<13>11
And what if I tuck my hair under
My cloakand, like a loaded axel,
Plod along in the vesper hour
Blue and cold ............
Where now has the path of beauty
Gonewhere does it now reside?
No, pretty one, I still want to see
A tsarina, a tsarevich, a Petersburg.
Well. May God save you! You!
We deserve to have to cast our eyes down.
So bow down to my River ev ,
As if by rote, to a tsarevich, tsarina.
So here among the porches
One porch, in a glow of dust, burns.
And hereamong the facesis a face,
With hook-nose and hair like wings.
We ought be climbing these stairs, you and I,
Placing our treads down step upon step.
Clandestine glanceseye to eye:
Or ought we be asking for berriesripe?
28 June 1916

11

Tsvetaeva, Milestones, does not include this poem in the cycle For Akhmatova.

20 | P a g e

Variant stanza nine

9

,
,
.
, ,
, ,

.
, ,
,

.

!
! !

!
27 1916
(Biblioteka pota, bolshaia seriia
(Marina Tsvetaeva, Stikotvoreniia I
Pomy, edited by E. B. Korkina
(Leningrad, 1990), qtd. in Tsvetaeva,
Milestones, 142)

21 | P a g e

Variant stanza nine

9
Golden mouthed Anna of all the Rus
Redeemer of the word,to her.
O wind, please carry from here my voice
For my sigh weighs down with care.
O burning sky, recite the tale
Of eyes that are blackened now with pain,
Of a bow to the peacefulness of soil
Amid fields golden with grain.
You, green-water forest brook,
Recite the tale of how today
I looked in youand in that look
Saw her bow plainly in my bow.
You of the stormy summits
Weighing down once more!
You! Nameless presence!
Carry my love to her,
Golden mouthed Anna of all the Rus
27 June 1916

22 | P a g e

Untitled
!
, .

.
, ,
.
, ,
!
:
, !
, ,
?

. . .

.
12 1916
( 1i 252)

23 | P a g e

Untitled
Neither has taken from the other!
Separation for me is sweet.
I kiss youacross a hundred12
Disconnected miles.
I know, our giftsunequal,
My voice, foremostquiet.
To you, young Derzhavin, 13
My verses are uncouth!
With dread I sign the cross on your flight:
Soar, young eagle. Soar!
Bearing the sun, you did not squint,
Is my young gaze so dire?
As tenderly and restlessly as me
None has peered after you . . .
I kiss youacross a hundred
Disconnected years.
12 February 1916

12

In this first poem to Mandelshtam, Tsvetaeva uses the formal you, whereas all the poems to
him that follow, she uses the familiar forms.
13

Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816) is generally recognized as Russias greatest 18th

century poeta prosodic experimenter who moved beyond the metrical and syntactical rules of the time.

24 | P a g e

Untitled
,

-,
- .

.
, , ,
, , !
, ,
!
, ,
, , .
, ,
.
,
!
, , ,
.
,
!
17 1916
( 1i 253)

25 | P a g e

Untitled
To my gathered loved ones going their way
I sing them songs to remember me by
Thus, somehow I have received
What you to yourself first gave.
The path you follow is turning green
I follow along as far as the crossroad.
To you, tireless like the wind, I sing,
To you, like a road that is hard!
I have no tears for the blue-gray clouds,
As if theyd dressed in festive fluff!
In the ravine, snake, dont wound,
Robber dont hurl your deadly knife.
You, beautiful passer-by,
Appearing to them, a happy bride.
Raise your voice on their behalf,
To confer protection from heavens Lord!
Forest bonfire, flame to the sky
And fend off beasts crouched in their lair.
Mother of God in heaven on high
Remember mine who are passing there!
17 February 1916

26 | P a g e

Untitled

, .

!

,

.

, ,

. . .
.
.
,
.
,
.
,
- . . .
,
. . .
,
!
18 1916
( 1i 253-4)

27 | P a g e

Untitled
You throw back your head because
Youre a proud man and a fibber.
What a merry traveling buddy
February has brought me this year!
Chased by ragamuffins
And slowly exhaling smoke,
Through my native city
Like solemn foreigners, we walk.
Whose careful hands have smoothed
Your eyelashes, handsome man,
And along what thorny paths
And laurel-wreathed versts have you gone . . .
I wont ask. The longing in my soul
Has overcome my daydreams.
In you, a heaven-sent boy
Just ten yearsI see only that.
Lingering along the river,
The beads of lamplight alarm us.
I accompany you to the square
Which witnessed the sight of boy-tsars . . .
Whistling away a boys pain,
And clutching your heart by fistfuls . . .
My blood-cold one, my frantic one,
My emancipated serffarewell!
18 February 1916

28 | P a g e

Untitled
?

,
.
,
?

.

,
!
.
,
,
, ,
?
18 1916
( 1i 254-5)

29 | P a g e

Untitled
From where does this tenderness come?
Not the firstthese curls
That Ive smoothed down, and lips
Ive known darker than yours.
Stars arose and were extinguished,
From where does this tenderness come?
Eyes arose and were extinguished
Before these eyes of mine.
Yet Ive not heard such chanting,
Before, the dark nights crown,
Evero tenderness!
Singer on these breasts of mine.
From where does this tenderness come,
And what do I do with it, my boyish,
Impish singer, passing through,
With eyelashesnot too long?
18 April 1916

30 | P a g e

Untitled
.
, .
! ! !
.

, .
,
.
, ,
?.
,
.
! !
!
,
! !
17 1916
( 1i 258-9)

31 | P a g e

Untitled
Downfall by woman. That sign,
Young man, is the one on your palm.
Vale of tears! Pray! Beware! Your enemy
Watches at midnight.
There is no escaping either from the gift
Of heavenly song, nor from the arrogant twist of lips.
Here, you who are of heaven
Are loved.
Ah, your head is thrown back,
Eyes half closedwhat?hiding.
Ah, your head will be thrown back
So differently.
They will take youeager! head-strong! with bare hands
Your cries will ring all night to the horizon!
They will rumple your wings to all four winds,
Seraphim! Eaglet!
17 March 1916

32 | P a g e

Untitled
,
.
,
,
.

,
.

.
,
.
,
,
.
20 1916
( 1i 259)

33 | P a g e

Untitled
A strange malady would come upon him,
And for him our trepidations would be sweet,
He would stand and look up at the entire sky
And see neither stars nor the first light of dawn,
An eagle-keen eyea young lad.
And dozing offtoward him fly eagles
Screeching with their wings loudly flapping,
And they lead him into a downpour of squabbles.
But solitaryon the most prominent crag
He preens his tousled curls with his beak.
As his heavy-lidded eyes slowly shut,
Half-coherent lipsclosed into sleep
And he could not hear the night visitor,
And he could not see how a golden-eyed bird
Was sharpening its eagle-eyed beak.
20 March 1916

34 | P a g e


2

, , .
,
.
,
.

.

, , .

.
,
,

,
, . . .
, .
31 1916

35 | P a g e

Verses to Moscow14
2
From my handsa town not made by hands,
Accept, my strange, my splendid brother:
Its churchesforty times fortyall,
Above which flocks of pigeons hover.
And the flower laden Saviors Gate15
Where the Orthodox pass with heads bare.
Andrefuge from harmthe Starry Chapel16
Where they kiss the well-worn floor.
The five churches in their perfect circle, 17
Accept, my timeless and inspired friend.
And to the Unexpected Joy in the garden18
I guide my alien guest by the hand.
The gold dome tinged in red will glisten,
The bells that never sleep will peel,
And from the scarlet clouds to you
Will spread Our Ladys protective veil.
And when you rise, a wondrous strength . . .
Youll not repent your loving me.
31 March 1916
3

.
,
14

When Tsvetaeva put together a sequence of nine poems entitled Verses to Moscow, dated 31
March through 16 August 1916, she included two that had originally been written to Mandelshtam.
15
One of the gates leading into the Moscow Kremlin in which hangs the icon of the Savior ot
Formed by Human Hands.
16
The Iverskaya Chapel contains one of Moscows most revered treasures, the Icon of the Our Lady
of Iversk. The inside of the dome is blue decorated with gold stars.
17
Inside the Kremlin fortress in Moscow are five medieval cathedrals.
18
In the Kremlin park the Church of the Annunciation houses an icon of the Holy Virgin known as
Unexpected Joy.

36 | P a g e

 !
, !
, !
, !
!
,
, .

.
,
,

.
31 1916
( 1i 269-70)

37 | P a g e

3
The squares bustle us away
At the bases of the night towers.
At night were suddenly afraid
Of the shouts of the young soldiers.
Kisses, love, on fire!
Boom, oh heart, boom loud!
Oh, this brutish roar!
Oh, this reckless blood!
My mouth is on fire,
Not for nothinglook.
A candle starts to flare
In Iverskayas chest.19
Light a candle at once,
Stop being impish,
So with you what occurs
Is notthat which I wish.
31 March 1916

19

The casket of the Icon of Our Lady of Iversk (see previous note).

38 | P a g e

C
1
,
,
,
.
, ,
,
, ,
, .

.

.
, !
,
,
.
, , . . .
.
15 1916
2
,
,

?

,
.

39 | P a g e

Verses to Blok20
1
Your namea bird in the hand,
Your nameice chip on the tongue,
Just one movement of the lips,
Your namefour lettersjust.
In flight, the catching of a ball,
In the mouth, a small silver bell,
A stone, flung in a quiet pond,
Your name is like such a sob.
In lightly clacking hooves at night
Your name rumbles a sonorous pitch.
And it calls to us in our craniums
The reverberant snap of a cocked gun
Your nameah, no chance!
Your namea kiss on eyes,
On soft lids, still and cold,
Your namea kiss in snow.
From an ice blue spring, a sip . . .
In you name isdeep sleep.
15 April 1916
2
Soft gentle wraith,
Knight without reproof,
Who has called you
Into my young life?
In the blue-gray haze
Your frame appears
Robed in a chasuble of snow.

20

Verses to Blok falls in two sections. Poems 1 9 were written between 1916 and 1920, before
Blok died. Poems 10-17 register Tsvetaevas response to his death. In the 1921 book, Milestones II, she
assembled them in their current sequence. Because of the chorological design of Us 4 Plus 4, I spilt them
in to two sections. Tsvetaeva never met Blok; the encounters described in the poems are in her
imagination.

40 | P a g e


,
,
.

.

.

.
,
,
.

,

,
,

.
!
, .
:
, , !
.
1 1916
3
,
,
,
.

,
,
.
41 | P a g e

It is not the wind that drives

Me through the city again
This third evening,
I sense, ah, my opponent.
Blue-eyed this
Singer of snow
Has bewitched me.
Beneath my feet
The snow-swan spreads feathers
Feathers that have soared,
In snow now droop.
Walking on feathers
Thus, to the door I move,
Beyond which isdeath.
He sings to me
Beyond the blue window,
He sings to me,
A small distant bell.
Long the swans cry
Lasts, calling
calling.
Dear wraith!
I know you are only my dream.
I pray, amen, one boon:
Melt, amen, away!
Amen.
1 May 1916
3
You pass on into the West of the Sun.
You see on into the evening light.
You pass on into the West of the Sun,
And a snowstorm fills each footprint.
Outside my windowemotionless
You pass on into the snowy hush,
God-endowed in the splendidness
Of my souls radiant quietness.
42 | P a g e

 !
.
, ,
.
,
.

.
, ,
,
,
.
,
,

.
2 1916
4
,
,
.
.
,
,

.
2 1916
5
!
!
,
, .

43 | P a g e

Your path is firm. In your soul

I dont want my burial!
In your hand, kiss-brushed and pale,
I have hammered no nail.
I do not hail you by name,
My hands fold not in prayer.
Your bless d waxy continence
I adorebut from afar.
From standing in the snows grace,
I sink to my knees in the snow,
And through your blessed name kiss
The falling evening snow.
There your stately steps pass
Into sepulchral quiet,
The light of quietglory blessed
My souls almighty rest.
2 May 1916
4
Beastits lair,
Pilgrimits lane,
Deadits bier,
Eachits own.
Womanto entr nce
Tsarto reign,
Meto praise
Yourname.
2 May 1916
5
My place is Moscowthe domes burn!
My place is Moscowbells resound!
And tombs in rows in my place stand,
And in them sleep tsarinas and tsars.

44 | P a g e

 ,
!
,
!

, -
,
.
,

,
. . .
,

, ,
.
7 1916
6
!
.
, .
!

.

, .

!

-! !
,
!
,
!

45 | P a g e

And you dont knowat dawn in the Kremlin21

How much easier breaththan in all the land!
And you dont know that at dawn in the Kremlin
I pray to youuntil dawns last star.
I pass along your Neva with you
Even as beside the Moskva
Alone I stand and my head is bowed,
While streetlamps are a string in the dark.
In all my sleeplessness I love you,
In all my sleeplessness I listen for you
While Kremlin bell ringers, it is true,
Sleep soundly still at this hour . . .
But yet my riverand your river,
But yet my handand your hand,
Will join together, my Joy, never
Till dawn catches upto dawn.
7 May 1916
6
They thoughthuman!
So soughtto kill him.
Now deadfor all time.
Weep for the dead angel.
At the sunset of the day
He sang how lovely, dusk.
Three wax tapers play
Like fragile hypocrites.
Beams shoot from him
Blazing strings across snow.
Three wax candles
Light-bearer! Sun-like glow!
O look at him, how
Eyelids sink to the dark!
O look at him, how
Wings are weak and broke!
21

The cathedrals and fortress that make up the Moscow Kremlin became the Soviet seat of
government in 1919. The word at the time this was written had none of the negative connotations it came
to have later.

46 | P a g e

 ,
. . .

.
9 1916
7

, ,

, .
, , !
,
,
.

.

.
13 1916
8
,
,
, ,
,
, ,
- ,
, ,
, : .
18 1916

47 | P a g e

The black reader recites

To peasants with idle hands . . .
The singer lies deceased
And Sunday is hallowed with hymns.
9 May 1916
7
Must bebeyond that grove
Is the village where once I lived,
Must besimply that love
Is easier than I surmised.
Hey, idols, may you perish!
Half raised, and rising, the lashs,
And crying out sting,
while the small bells sing.
In the grain, lean and frail,
Stands poleafter pole.
To the sky, a wires full length22
Sings and sings of death.
13 May 1916
8
And around a listless nag, horseflies in clouds,
And wind swelling red local calico by the yard,
And the whistling of quail, and the vast open skies,
And waves of grain, and waves of bell-ringing chimes,
And rumors of Germans getting on ones nerves.
And yellowiest yellowpast blue grovesa cross,
And its sweet glow spreading its aureole over all,
And your name resounding everywhere like: angel.
18 May 1916

22

This is a telephone line stretched above the field of grain. Tsvetaeva uses the image in a similar
way in For Akhmatova (1916) poem number 10.

48 | P a g e

9

.
, ,
,
-
, ,
, . . .
,
!
, .

, . . . ,
, ,
. . .
,
( ?).
!
.
9 1920

49 | P a g e

9
Like a weak streak of light through the bleak dark of hell
Such is your voice beneath the boom of bursting shells.
And in the thunder he may, like one of the seraphim,
With a muted voice, send forth a warning alarm,
From somewhere in the immemorial mists of dawn
How he loved us who lack sight and any name,
Cloaked in our blue capes of guilecapes of sin . . .
Loved usmore softlymore profoundlythan
Any other, in the sinking of the nightmore ardently!
And he adores you, Russia, adores you endlessly.
And along his templedistractedly he passed,
And again passed, his fingers . . . Telling about
What days await us, about how God will deceive us,
About how standing and calling the sunit will not rise . . .
Speaking as a prisoner to someone face-to-face
(Or more like a child talking in his sleep perhaps?).
It appeared to usabove the broad square and park!
The living sacred heart of Alexander Blok.
9 May 1920

50 | P a g e

10
,
,

.
: , ,
, .
,,
!
15 1921
11
:
, ,
,
.
,
, , , ,
, , , ,

, ,
, ,
,
.


, ,
, ........., .
, ,
, .
15 1921

51 | P a g e

10
Hes therelookweary from foreign lands,
A chief without a band.
Therehe drinks from mountain rapids with his hand
A prince without homeland.
There, he has it all: princedom and body guard,
Mother and bread.
Your heritage is beautiful, a friend who took possession
Of it, without friends.
15 August 1921
11
You are left to us: a monk,
A charming handsome lover,
A handwritten prayer book,
A box with cypress cover.
Whollyunionof woman
Them, swallows, us, crowned
For us here, gold, there, gray,
Whollyunionwith son
You have left, whollyfirst born,
Gone away, shunned
Pilgrim, staff in hand,
Strangerfrom us too soon.
Whollywefor the brief inscription
On a cross among Smolensk graves23
Seek, wholly, in head-bent line,
Wholly, , and dont believe.
Whollyheir, whollyson,
Whollyfirstlast born.
15 August 1921

23

The cathedral and cemetery in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) where Blok was buried.

52 | P a g e

12
!
!
:
.
,
,
,
!
, , !
: !
, : !
, !
,
. !
; !
!
15 1921
13

.
, ?
,
.

.
, ?
, . . .
: !

53 | P a g e

12
Never were his friendshis tribulation!
Never were his servantshis tribulation!
In his face it obviously was:
A realm unlike my worlds daily ways.
A snowstorm whipped grain and stuff around,
Shoulders stooped from weight of folded wings,
And singing cut through pauses, sealed with zeal
As lost upon the wind was the swans soul!
Stoop still, stoop still, coppery and hard!
Wings having learned softly to flutter: soar!
Lips having learned crystalline words: reply!
Not having learned, yet, what it is: to die!
Dawn drinks, sea drinkssatiety
Of utter debauch. They make no funeral!
Their commandment is simply forever: be!
And the grain reaches up to feed his soul!
15 August 1921
1324

And over the plains

A swan cries.
Really, knows not the mother her son?
Beyond the far cloudsit is hefor miles,
Who finallyit is heis gone.
And over the plains
A snowstorm drives.
Really, knows not the maiden her lover?
Equally blood on chasubleon wing . . .
It is he, turning gray: So live!

24

This poem is somewhat obscure. Tsvetaeva met Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Nolle-Kogan not long
before Bloks death. She visited her apartment in Moscow a few times. Nolle-Kogan believed her infant
was Bloks illegitimate son as did many others at the time. Only later was it established that he was not the
father, but at the time Tsvetaeva addressed this poem to Nolle-Kogan (as well as number 15) she saw her as
the mother to the great poets son and heir (Schweitzer 178).

54 | P a g e


.
!
--.
. .
15 25 1921
14

.

.
. .
.
==========
, !
,
. . .
, ,

.
:
.
15 25 1921
15
, ,
.
,
, ?
,
. . .

?
55 | P a g e

And over the accursed

Subsiding the blast,
A saintly soul is takenhosanna!
A convicts warmth of bed, new-found.
Stepson and mother at home. Amen.
Between 15 and 25 August 1921
14
It did not break through the ribs
With fractured folded wings.
It did not pierce through the chest
Like a firing squad. Whose slug
Stays in. The wings do not mend.
Deformed it has gone away.
==========
Tough like a tough crown of thorns!
But the deaddo not thrill to the crowds,
To coy women with swans down muffs . . .
Freezing the faded sunset,
Solitary and mute, he passes,
The voiceless, eyeless statues.
Quite simply the soul lived on:
With fractured folded wings.
1525
With neither cry nor words,
Like a roofer who from a roof falls.
But has he again come perhaps,
Now lying in a cradle?
It burns and does not dwindle
A lamp for weeks on end . . .
As if it were somehow mortal,
Who is rocking the cradle?
25

As with number 13, this poem is addressed to Nolle-Kogan.

56 | P a g e

 !
!
, ,
?
!


.

.
--,
?
! !
!
, ,
?
,
.
,
.
,
!
,
?!
! !
! !
, ,
?
,
, .
,
, .

.

!

57 | P a g e

What blessed heaviness!

Prophetic singing in bulrushes!
O, who can tell me, please,
Who is lying in the cradle?
For now, no answer!
With simple zeal in mind
I will make a great detour,
I will settle for the Russian land.
Is he passing from end to end
Throughout the midnight land
With his mouth already cold
And more bluish than lead?
Clutch him! Ever more tightly!
Love him and love him only!
O, who can tell me softly,
Who is lying in the cradle?
Asleep beneath the cradles hood
Of muslin, like pearly grain.
Neither laurel nor blackthorn
His cap shelters him from shades.
Not a bed curtain but a bird
With two white wings has found you!
Does born anew then cause
The sweep of snowstorms too?!
Tug at him! Higher!
Hold him! Dont let him go!
O, whose breath can tell me,
Who is lying in the cradle?
And it may be false, my effort
For nothingmy trouble for naught.
It may be, like the land all about,
You will sleep through trumpets.
As your broad forehead droops
Once more I see tiredness
It can never again lift up
To the blast of trumpets!

58 | P a g e

 ,
, .
,
.
22 1921
16
, ,
, .
:
.
:
.
,
.



?
,
,

?
25 1921
17
, !
.

.

, .
,
.

59 | P a g e

Hold on to and trust in

Silence of rust and marble.
I am the watcher who looks down
On one lying in a cradle.
22 November 1921
16
Like sleep, or a drunk,
Unaware, unprepared.
Time gone blank:
A sleepless stare.
Vacant eyes:
Dead and lustrous.
Dreamers, riders
Vacant glass.
Was it not you
Who endured her rustling dress
Returning through
The winding ravine of Hades?26
Was this not
The slow floating head
On sleepy Hebrus
Full of silvery sound?
25 November 1921
17
Thus, Lord. I have gone
To the church joined in prayer.
The love I sing is no chance thing
The motherlands early hour.
The box shows not rust and scars
On granite floor, knees may bleed.
All bow to hero, saint and tsar,
And allto the singerwho is dead.
26

Tsvetaeva equates Blok with the archetype of poet, Orpheus; but she conflates two distinct
episodes in the Orpheus myths: (1) his attempt to rescue his young bride, Eurydice, from Hades, in which
she was to follow him without his looking back, and, (2) after the Maenads tore his body apart, his singing
severed heads journey down the Hebrus River to sea, latter to come ashore on the island of Lesbos.

60 | P a g e

 ,
,
,
.
, , !
?
.
.
2 1921
( 1i, 288-299)

61 | P a g e

The ice on the Dnieper is breaking up,

Do not disturb the coffins planks,
With the thousand voices of its flood.
Russia, Passover is swims toward you,
Thus, let hearts weep and praise!
Let them wail for youthousands
Which? human love and cries.
Oneafter anotherin jubilant choirs!
2 December 1921

62 | P a g e


,
,
-
, !
,
.
, :
, !

, ,

, .
, !
,

.
18 1921
( 2, 54-5)

63 | P a g e

To Maiakovskii
Surpassing cross and trumpet
Christened in fire and smoke,
Archangel-of-the-heavy-foot
Vladimir of the virile years!
You are carter and you are horse,
You are parish and you are law court.
You sighed and spat in his palm:
Hold tight, draught-horse of fame!
Singer of main street miracles
Virile, proud, vulgar,
Who choseunwieldya stone
Instead of a diamonds allure.
Virile, thunderer on cobbles!
You yawned, played your trump
Struck the shaft againwith
Archangel-cart-driver wings!
18 September 1921

64 | P a g e



?
!
!
,
. . .

.
,
?
,
!

, ,

.

,
( -!)
.
!
!
,
!
- (
!)
,
. . .
.
,

65 | P a g e

For Akhmatova
Whose lashes today27
Do you weather?
My black-scarfed-lady!
Black-arts-master!
Your days are midnight,
Your century, a gypsy band . . .
Era of workers, all of it,
You take in your hand.
When its an easy task,
Are you a comrade-worker?
My shirker of dirty work,
Black arts master!
Neither tears, nor fame
Can a grave, requite,
Life stays the same
An astonishment.
Others stayed to look
Around the low wall,
(Arrogance, a hawk!)
And let time stall.
Your brothers are lofty!
Distance unmeasured!
My clear-eyed-lady,
Black arts master!
From pain (asked for
Wonder of wonders!)
Hawklike, its arrow,
Dovecot, its terror . . .
You knowhow with two
Featherlets to write it,
27

This may be a distant allusion to Akhmatova famous untitled poem of 1911 with the first lines
, / (My husband flogged me with a
decorated, / Doubled-up belt.)a small dramatic monologue about an adulterous wife who endures her
husbands punishments and continues to await her lover (Akhmatova,
1.85). The startling opening image caused early readers to believe the poem was autobiographical. Were
Tsvetaeva one of these readers, in a poem written shortly after knowledge of Gumilevs execution had
spread, she might well be alluding to the young Akhmatovas poem about flogging. Tsvetaeva placing a
similar image startlingly at the beginning of her poem suggests a connection.

66 | P a g e

,
:

!
!
!
29 1921
( 2, 79-80)

67 | P a g e

Knowand your velocity

Exceeds us who read it:
Your wings are shoddy
O cobblestone walker!
My black-scarfed-lady!
Black-arts-master!
29 December 1921

68 | P a g e


1
:
.
, .
.
,
.

?
. .
.
,

, , ,
( !)

!
, :
, .

.
.
? , !
. . . !
!

, :
: :
.
30 1924

69 | P a g e

Us Two28
1
Surely the seven spheres rhyme:
In isolatedtrembling orbits.
Homer, you were blind.
Nightwas a hills upper-brow.
Nightwas your rhapsodes tunic.
Nightacross eyesa curtain.
Isolated could you not see
Helen along with Achilles?
Helen. Achilles. 29
Assonance, their names sound.
And, yes, assonance is
Bulwark against the chaos
Of the world, and of isolations
Pay back (form out of harmony!)
Enflamed adulterous woman
Was paid backin Troys flames!
Rhapsode, you were blind:
Your treasures scattered like junk.
Rhymesin that world
Did match up. Up in smoke
This one strewsjunk. Why
Need rhyme? Helen, of old!
. . . Sighed for better husband!
Amid the delights of Sparta!
Myrtle saplings rustle best
In the dream of a giraffe:
Helen: Achilles:
Asymmetrical pair.

28

30 June 1924

Addressed to Pasternak during the period of their passionate correspondence, Tsvetaeva does not
acknowledge him directly until line 12 of the second poem. While she live abroad, between 1922 and 1935
they exchanged letters; the letters of the mid-1920s are the most intense.
29
The asymmetrical rhyme between Helen and Achilles, in part, was her role in starting the war
between Sparta and Troy and his role in ending it. In Russian their names have mirrored assonance:
Yelyena, Acheelyes. The first half of their names mirror the same assonance pattern: Tsvyeta-yeva,
Pastyerrnak.

70 | P a g e

2
,
.
,
.

! .
, ,
.
!
!
!
!

:
:
:
.

!
! ,
!
,
: .
, . . .
.....................................
.
3 1924

71 | P a g e

2
Fated so that strength to strength
Might in the seventh sphere be joined.
So intersected Brunhilde, Siegfried,30
The language of marriage and sword.
He brother-bonded with his enemy
Water buffalo! rockupon rock.
Lying nuptially, naively
Hed slipped awaywhile she slept.
Separate! yet still the marriage bed
Separate! yet clenched like a fist
Separate! with double edged words
At last and separatethus are we wed!
As you age, the regrets persist:
The Amazon-lion he crushed
Missed opportunity: Thetis
Son, with Ares daughter31: Achilles
With Penthasalia.
He remembersin defeat
Her look! a whipped riders
Look! Olympus not hers yet, her
Liquid lookhaughtyhe remembers.
Therefore and hence he is one
With envy: I, snatched from the multitude,
Am wed. No judgment, just peerwith peer . . .
.....................................
So as time unfoldsit is we.
3 July 1924

30

In Richard Wagners cycle of four operas, The Ring of the Nibelungs, Siegfried the human warrior
and Brunhilde the warrior daughter of the chief God fall in love, but due to a potion and disguise contrived
by an presumed friend, he forgets who she is, is betrothed to another woman, and takes Brunhilde as a
captive to marry his new brides brotherhis presumed friend.
31
Achilles was son of Thetis, one of the Nereids or sea nymphs. Ares was the Greek god of war.
Penthasalia was Queen of the Amazons who joined the Trojan War on the side of Troy and was killed in
battle by Achilles.

72 | P a g e

3
,
,

.
,
,

.
,
,
:

.
3 1924
( 2, 35-8)

73 | P a g e

3
In a world where everyone
Stoops and sweats,
I knowyou alone
Are alike in strength.
In a world where so many
Go wanting,
I knowyou alone
Are alike in power.
In a world covered over
With ivy and mold,
I know: you alone
Are a match
To me.
3 July 1924

74 | P a g e


. . .
!

.
,
.

.
12 1921
( 2, 54)

75 | P a g e

Fragment of Lines to Akhmatova

. . . But my proud Polish32 billowing waves
Crashed! With the golden-streaked crests
Of my versesas one whod volunteered
To join in the assemblage beneath your tent.
As I watched the midnight collision,
I kept volunteer vigil on the flock
Of up-to-now conversing stars
With a single-minded thread or thought.
12 September 1921

32

Tsvetaevas maternal grandmother descended from Polish nobility. At various times she connects
herself by allusion to the Polish Marina Mniszek, daughter of a Polish nobleman who married the False
Dmitry, Otryopov, a monk. In 1601, during the reign of Tsar Boris Godunov, Otryopov claimed to be
Prince Dmitry, the son of Ivan IV supposed to have murdered in 1591 in the monastery in Uglich. Marina
entered Moscow with Dmitry in 1605 when the boyers proclaimed him Tsar. The couple was removed
from the throne in 1610 and fled. The events are retold in Pushkins tragedy Boris Godunov and the opera
by Mussorgsky based on it.

76 | P a g e

Untitled
: , . . .
, ,

.
: , . . .
, ,
, ,
,
. . .
,
. . .
.
: , . . .
.

.
, ?!
!
25 1925
( 2, 258)

77 | P a g e

Untitled to Pasternak
Timestanding still: versts, miles . . .33
Ittimesowed usrooted us,
Caused us to quiet our speaking
At two different ends of the earth.
Timestanding still: versts, far . . .
Unstuck us, unsoldered us,
Spread out our crucified two arms
So we did not see howthey fused
An alloy of our visions and tendons . . .
Not contentious, not dismissive,
We lie layered . . .
Ditch and dyke.
Settled apart like eagleConspirators: versts, far . . .
Not overturnednot lost.
Through ghettos of earths magnitude
They shoved us along like orphans.
Isnt it now already, wellMarch?!
Which trumps uslike a deck of cards!
25 March 1925

33

See note to Tsvetaevas untitled poem beginning You throw back your head because . . .

78 | P a g e

Untitled

.

!
? ?
.
==========
: ,
: .

: , .
(
!) .
-
.
1926
( 2, 262)

79 | P a g e

Untitled about Esenin

Brother whose songs sang sadness34
I am jealous of you.
Even so let it now be fulfilled
To die in a solitary room!
How many years left to me? a century?
This my daily quandary.
==========
No pity: those who little lived,
No bitterness: little gave.
Many lived in our day lived
One: gave allwho song, gave.
Must live (nothing new
To die!) despite veins slit.
For some reason there is
Despite the hooks weight.
Early January 1926

34

Tsvetaeva sent this poem in a letter Pasternak dated 19 July 1925 although it was written as an
immediate response to Esenins suicide and misquotes lines 10-11 of his Farewell, old chap, farewell.
With her own suicide by hanging in mind, the last line is unnervingsome have said prophetic.

80 | P a g e


!

,
() ,
.
,
,
,
. . . ,

.
, ?
, .
(
). .
. ?
? . ( .
.) ?
? . . . . .
: . : .
. ( .)
? , , .
? .
: . : , .
! ( !)
, , . . ?
. . . . .
,
- .
, -

81 | P a g e

A ew Years35
Happy new yearworldborderroof!
First letter to you in your new . . .
streets of gold, nonsense
(goldno, cud) . . . place of rings, of chimes 36
like Aeolian harps free, aloft.
First letter to you from yesterday
from where I wear myself away
at home, to you now only
a star . . . laws of return and departure
make the beloved who loves you
an imagined never-was.
Shall I tell how I learned of yours?
ot from earths quagmires or snow-slides.
A man arriveddear(but my beloveds
you). Some deplorable news. In Today
and The News. Will you (he to me) write something?37
Where? In the mountain. (Fir cones on boughs
in the window. Bed sheets.) Havent seen the papers yet?
The articles there? No. But . . . Spare me.
Aloud: Too hard. To myself: Im no Christ-seller.
In a sanatorium. (A rented paradise.)
What day? Yesterday, day before, dont recall.
Be at the Alcazar? Not now.38
Aloud: with family. To myself: Im no Judas.
While it impends! (Happy tomorrow!) .
Want me to tell what I did when I first it . . ?
Oops . . . Foot in mouth. Old habit.
Long ago I put life and death in quotes
like well-woven clichs.
I did nothing, but something

35

Tsvetaevas reply to Rilkes elegy to her is cast as a letter. The title ew Years is an
incomplete adjectival construction with a missing noun such as greeting, letter, wish, etc. It is typical of
the impulsive and breathlessly broken syntax of her mature style. It was dated 7 February 1927 so the idea
of a new years letter is a dramatic fiction. Rilke died on 29 December 1926. During the day on the 31 st
friends came to where she was staying in the Paris suburb of Bellevue to invite her to a ew Years Eve
party and mentioned he had died. The poems fiction is that instead of the party, she spent much of the
night writing this letter to him; so even though the poem was not written on ew Years Day, it reflects her
experience of loss on that day.
36
Tsvetaeva spoofs the gold clich d view of heaven for a natural view with cud (ruminating
cows) and wind chimes instead of the stereotypical harps.
37
(The News) and (Today) were popular migr daily newspapers published in
France.
38
Alcazar was a Paris caf and cabaret.

82 | P a g e

,
!
?

? ,
, , ,
?
? ,

. :

. !
,
!
,
(, :

!)
, ,
:

, , ,
, ( )
! ,
, ,
: - -.
:
, -
Nest?39 ,
: .
?
.
, , Du Lieber40,

39

40

(.).
(.).

83 | P a g e

without shadow or echo

did occur!
Nowhow did you travel?
How was torn and not to pieces
your heart? How on Orlov race horses 41
that even, you said, lagged behind,
took your breath awayor just took?
Lightly? Thus you leveled out
height and depth on Russian eagle racers.
By blood were linked to this world:
you went to Russiasaw that world
still in this one. Thats one cure for desertion!
I pronounce life and death with a grin,
half hiddenyou touch it with your own!
I pronounce life and death with a footnote,
starred (my notion of night:
instead of a cerebral hemisphere
a starry one!)
Dont forget, dear friend,
what follows: if German script
starts to replace Russian
its not because as is said it passes
as common to all dead (and beggars)
without a blink! but because in that world,
our worldat thirteen in Novodevichye42
I learned the: omni- not uni-lingual. 43
Here, not without sadness, I ask:
is it true you ask how in Russian
to say nest? Taken as a whole of all gnezdy
the only rhyme: zvezdy.44
Do I stray? But theres no such
thingas to stray from you.
Each Du Lieber thought, my love, leads45
41

Walter Arndts note to his translation in Letters Summer 1926 reads: Meaning race horses from
Count Orlovs famous stables. His name is the same as the Russian word of eagle, . Evidently
Rilke had come upon this artless pun (223). If we keep in mind that Tsvetaeva wrote the poem after
Rilkes death and that its address to him is only a fiction, the artless pun may be hers not his. In his
letters to her there is no mention of his having seen Orlovs horses during hit Russian trips at the turn of the
century. Similar word plays later in the poem imply she has invented and quoted a Rilke-voice in
counterpoint with the poems epistolary-voice, hers.
42
The convent school Tsvetaeva attended.
43
Tsvetaeva means the language of poetry which transcends specific national languagesa point
she elaborated at length in her letters to Rilke; he was poet, his work poetry, not a German writing German
poetry.
44
A footnote in the Russian text identifies the German word nest (exact cognate in English) as the
Russian (gnezda, pl. gnezdy). Again she plays with the fictional Rilke-voice to create and insider
reference. (zvezda, pl. zvezdy) is star.

84 | P a g e


(
, !)
, , : .
,
?
, , ?
,

(,
) ,
!
, ,
( )
, ,

, ,

:
.

( )
- (?)


.

.


! -,
,
,
.
.
. :
.

. . .

45

The Russian text has Du Lieber in German so that German and Russian words for you love or
beloved () are next to each other.

85 | P a g e

its syllables to youas surely sure it is

(Germans more akin to me than Russian is,
but angels most) whatever place
where you are not, is not: except the grave.
All it was not and all it is,
Is it possible no one asks after me?46
In that scenery, Rainer, how does it feel? 47
Excellently, absolutely, completely
the first seeing of the universe
(excepting of course the seeing of
a poet) out to the lastplanet,
yours alone and nowand whole!
Not poet from dust, not breath from body
(separateoffending both)
but you from you, you from the very you,
not better even for the seed of Zeus48
Castoryou with you, neither
parting nor meetingconfrontation
innerly: of meeting and parting,
you, the first.
How with your own hand
you scanned (with stains on itblack)
from you out so many (how many?) miles
of endless and beginning-less
height above the flat crystalline
Mediterraneanand otherbasins.
All it was not and all it will be
for me out to the end of the suburbs.
All as it was and all as it is now
like writing a letter after a week
without one!but where else to scan-towards,
with elbows leaning on the theatre box ledge,
from thisif not at thatfrom thatworld
where but at the long-suffering this.
I live in Bellevue. From nests and twigs 49
of a village. Quoting the guide book:
Bellevue. Fortress with excellent view 50
of Parischief hold of the Chimera of Gaul
of Parisat least of the nearer environs . . .
46

The fictional Rilke voice interrupts with a casual question as if in a note sent from the afterlife.
In Rilkes Elegy For Marina Tsvetaeva-Efrom (item 45), he addresses her by name Marina
eight times. Direct address is exceptional for Rilke. Tsvetaeva follows suit with repeated addresses to
Rainer. She also used direct address in both the Blok and Maiakovskii memorial poems.
48
Zeussupreme god of the Greek pantheon and father of the twins Castor and Pollux.
49
Recalls the bilingual play on nest (German) and a (Russian) earlier in the poem.
50
Another bilingual pun. Bellevue means beautiful view.
47

86 | P a g e

 ,
() ,
( ) , ,
!
. . .
. ,
? ?
. ? , ?

: .
, ,
, , .
, !
, , ,
. (


, !)
, ,

? :
, :
.
.
,
!
?
! ! !
( ).
(
? ! -!
!
! !
!
, , ,
, , :
.
,
,
.
,
(
!) ,

87 | P a g e

with elbows leaning over the scarlet ledge,

How you mixed up seems proper (who)
(perhaps me) is proper from that limitless height
of our Bellevues and Belvederes!
Reconsidering. The details. In haste.
ew Years almost here. For what, across the table
and with whom to clink glasses? What? froth spilling
togetherthen a cloth rag. Well thenwhats for me here?
With this internal, out of place at some
ew Years blast, rhyme: Rainerforever
dead. For you with your eyes just now setting,
well then, life is life, death is death.
Well thenin darkness, drinks will be found!
Not life, not deatha thirdnew
place. For it, can I (at house 27,
straws spread for the removal from
26what joy to end and start with you!) 51
across the table with boundless eyes
clink a silent glass with your glass,
sip to sip? Nonot in a tavern: have you
heard I to you, flowing to the rhyme word:
third.
Across the table I spot your cross.
How many placesout in the country and how
many fences! to whom is it waving
if not usthat bush? Place isnamely ours
and no one elses! Every leaf! Every branch!
A yours-with-me place (yours-with-yourselfs).
(To that gathering need I say
with you Id even go? to what places! and what months!
and weeks! and rain-drenched suburbs
without people! and mornings! and all those
nightingales not yet started up!
Its true, I see badly from down here,
its true, you see better from up there:
and nothing was sent by me with you.
To the point that, so clean and so simple,
to carry that nothing high on our
shoulders there is no need.
That nothing, except do I wait in line
looking for (not true Im looking

51

Reference to a custom where straw was placed in the street to silence the wheels of a wagon
brought to remove a dead body from a house.

88 | P a g e

 ?
:
-
-
! , : , ,

: !
?

,
, !

, , , !

, , , !

: ,
, !
, !
:
? ?
?
, ,
?
,
? ?

. ( - . . .)
, , ?
?
?
?
?
:
!
,
( )?
, !

89 | P a g e

for the end) something to join

with me in line?
That old refrain:
nothing, although other than a something,
is some otherif only distantlya shadows
shadow! A nothing which: at that hour, that day,
that houseeven that death-sentence-in-the-stocks
gift of memory: is that mouth!
Or is this being too fastidious?
For all that, this world is the only one
thats ours, as we are but our own
reflections, could but this world be that!
To the undeveloped outlying areas
to new places, Rainer, new worlds, Rainer!
to farthest visible promontories
to new seeing, Rainer, new hearing, Rainer!
Everything was a hindrance
to you: mentor and friend,
to the new sound, an echo!
To the new echo, a sound!
Often on the school bench I wondered:
what mountains are like there? And the rivers?
Without tourists is the landscape fine?
Im not mistaken, Rainerparadisemountainous,52
Strangeis it not? ot a widows lore
not the one paradise, but is there not another paradise
above it? Terraces? I envision the Tatras53
paradise may be more amphitheatreish. (And then someone lets down the curtain . . .)
Im not mistaken, Rainer, isnt God a flourishing
baobab tree? Not some Sun Louis King 54
Is God along? Is there above him not another
God?
How goes the writing in your new place?
You are thereverse is too: but you and verse
the same! How easily goes the writing
without table for elbow, forehead for hand
(cupped just so)?
News please, the usual code!
52

Tsvetaeva puns on Rainer in Russian, and the Russian word for paradise .
The Tatras mountain chain lies between Slovakia and Poland.
54
Louis XIV (1638-1715) of France was knows as Le Roi Soleil (The Sun King). At seventy-two
years, three months, and eighteen days, his reign was the longest of any European monarch.
53

90 | P a g e

, ?


?
: .

.
! !
, .
-
, , !
.
, !
, . . .
, !
, .
Rarogna

.
Bellevue, 7 1927
( , 3i.132-136)

91 | P a g e

Rainer, are you enjoying new rhymes?

For how fitting is it that words are with
rhymewhatnot just wordsentire new lines
rhymingwith death?
A language theres no
way to learn. Entire lines new with sound
and sense.
Till we meet! To our acquaintance!
Meetbut I knowwe wont eat.
In the self-same and unknown land
at the whole sea, Rainer, with the whole me!
Lets not drift apartso scribble a note.
With the new onomatopoeias, Rainer!
From the stairway of heaven Blessing comes down . . .
with a new shaking of hands, Rainer!
I raise my palm to stay the flooding.
Beyond the Rhone and beyond Rarogne 55
beyond our obvious and unbroken separation
RainerMariaRilkefrom your hand.
Bellevue, 7 February 1927

55

The Rhone River rises in the Swiss Alps, runs into and out of Lake Geneva and through France to
the Mediterranean Sea. The town of Rarogne or Raron in the canton of Valais (Wallis) in southern
Switzerland is where Rilke is buried.

92 | P a g e


1

,
, , :
!
2

, !
.

.
. , ,
,
?
, , ,
:
? -.
, ,
. . .
--!
,


(.)

93 | P a g e

To Maiakovskii
1
So earths edges would not vanish
You, for some sad uncle,
Were the infant Volodimir:
For the world, Volodya!56
2
Literature57at its core, its not,
Herenot in its bloods
Pulse! Each seventh day
It comes out. The pastonce a century
Comes back. Passing the vanguard
Of the future. Capital,
Is he still in your news
Stillthe lead story?
See how it is, my dear, with us
HereCherovMilyukov:58
Vladimir Mayakovsky?
Its said, a bass who went about
In an odd shirt. . .
Oh, blood-of-your-blood!
Must your foremost blood-fighter
In time resign himself
To the second page
(Izvestiyaat that)59?

56

An old form of the name Vladimir was Volodimir which means to own the world (Karlinksy
and Appel, 102). Volodya is a common diminutive for Vladimir, used by many of Mayakovskys friends.
57
A weekly literary migr gazette.
58
V. M. Cherov (1873-1952) organizer and party theorist who immigrated to Paris. P. N. Milyukov
(1859-1943) one of the founders and editor of Russian migr newspaper in Paris Latest News (
2, 517).
59
The leading Soviet daily newspaper.

94 | P a g e

3
,
, ,
, ,
.
( ,
24 1920 .)
, ,
,



.
,
.
,

, , ,


,
:
, :
,
, , .

( )
. . .
, :
- !
.

95 | P a g e

3
In the city, in an ordinary dark suit, in a
sturdy coffin, in boots re-soled with iron
tips, we lie down the supreme poet of the
revolution.
(The Daily Gazette, 24 April 1920) 60
In boots re-soled with iron tips, 61
In boots, in which he took the mount
Without detours without shortcuts
He made his journey
Exhausted he reached the dark blue
That followed the twenty year climb.
The mountthe proletarian Sinai,
The lawful lawgiverhim.
In bootsof striding two-line verses,
Where domesticity did not break in
In bootswhose essence was increases,
He bore the mounttook itcursedsang.
In boots, with, without imperfections,
He passed through the unplowed October,
In bootslike deep-water divers:
No, plain-spoken infantrymans:
In the boots of the grand campaign,
With, Id guess, Dombass studs.
The mount, his sad peoples pain,
His one-hundred (edition Gosizdat)62
-fifty-million . . . That family
Was his; that year, his:
Its said hes nothing in factories
ow! Mount-Peoples-Painhis.

60

The date in the edition is in error. Maiakovskii was buried in April 1930.
Whether this is Tsvetaevas or the editors error is not determined.
61
This phrase, quoted in the newspaper article of his funeral, refers to a line in his epic proletarian
propaganda poem 150,000,000 published in 1919.
62
The State Publishing House, Gosizdat, published the poem 150,000,000..

96 | P a g e

 -

: !
.
4
.

.
- , ,
?
,
!
?
.

, !
, -
!

, , !

.
,
!
! -
: -.

97 | P a g e

It was in those(of his Rolls Royses

Rumors still aboundhe who charged,
In death, the young pioneers: On guard!) 63
bootsnow the true witnesses.
4
Loves boat smashed against existence.64
For such a ringleader
No one would even offer
A kopek. Comrade, what
Glossary lists your boat?
Slumped in your boats bottom
In love stillhow scandalous!
Razincan you match him?65
He coped better with existence.
What a novel curethe way it
Gushes forth from your faucet!
Old chap, youre not proletarian
Nowordinary gentleman!
To God and our mother you shout,
And leave usbloodno new dawn!
Your social class at the end
Completely turned inside out.
Like a bourgeois at Tosca
Who shoots himselffrom boredom!
Chap! Not a Maiakovskii
Performance: Shakovskoyan. 66

63

The Pioneers was an organization that trained young people in communist ideals and its slogan
was On guard!
64
Tsvetaeva quotes from Mayakovskys suicide letter and poem which had been published in
Russian newspapers.
65
Stenka Razin (Stepan Timofeyevich Razin, d.1671) led a major Cossack and peasant rebellion in
1670-1671. As a hero of the people he was a popular subject for soviet movies, paintings, poems, and
musical compositions.
66
The reference is to the princely family Shakhovsky as representatives of the aristocracy
(Schweitzer 291).

98 | P a g e


, !
,
.
- ,
:
- .
- .
,
. . .
!

.
5
,
.

.
,
, .
,
.
(, :
, ! !
?
, ?)
,
.
(
.)
! !
!

.

99 | P a g e

With a service cap over your brow

Somy boy, its good-bye now!
A great-grandson ending it all
Like his forefathers did before.
Like so-and-sos for roll-call by name
We will go onpreys to your shame:
The Soviet Russian Werther.67
That venerable Russian gesture.
Whats in the pastwhat comes next,
Whats now . . .
My rival. so fond!
There are no love boats left
Beneath the rising new moon.
5
Shotin the depth of your soul
As if youre your own rival,
A botched God-wrestler
Who downs his own temple.
With time run out to miss,
The mark wasa dead hit.
In your heart was already was
In your footprints alreadyyour feet.
(Dawns crack, people gather:
Well, mishap! o, land mine!
Do you meansure fire heart stopper?
You mean with us its the same?)
Shotstraight to the mark
Like a sideshow bullseye.
(Othersjust hit the left ear
And end up in a womans bed).
What a fine chap! And broken!
All for the sake of a woman
And just thinkeven the famous Helen
Was scabby, mangy and wanton.

67

Johann Wolfgang Goethes immensely popular novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) set
the trend of romantic melancholy and suicide.

100 | P a g e

 , ,
:

-, .

.
:
- !
6

,

.
,
. . .
, !
, !
? .
? .
? .
? .
?
.

101 | P a g e

But it seems with us for whom life

Goes on abroad, its easier:
Those on the right here are
Simply enflamedone voice.
For right wingerswith their
Bright lancestrue to your boss,
You shot your leftist side.
Well, it hit the very Center!
6
I will fling up
Igneous hued grain,
And from an abyss of light
He will appear, a red flame.68
Soviet grandees, your honors,
Before this august Tribunal . . .
Fit in mind and body, Seryozha!69
Fit in mind and body, Volodya!
Tired out? A bit.
General situation? No, private.
Used a gun? An old custom.
Did it fire? Superbly.
So what age are you now?
Just pass for the common type.

68

The epigraph comes from the novel Petersburg (published in 1913-14) by Andrei Belyi (18801934), a leading poet of the Russian Symbolist movement. One of the main characters, the elderly Senator
Appolon Apollonovich Ableukov has a habit of recalling snatches of poetry as an aspect of his stream of
consciousness. They majority of these are from Pushkin, often with minor errors or misrememberings.
Chapter 5 includes these four linesperhaps the only time the lines are by Belyi, not Pushkin. As Maguire
and Malmstad in their notes to the novel This verse fragmentwith pigments (krski) changed to
grains (zrna)appeared as the epigraph . . . to Tsvetaevas poem (335). The situation in the novel has
not even a remote connection to Tsvetaevas post-mortem interrogation of Esenin and Mayakovsky, so her
choice of epigraph, so at variance with the explicit and prosaic ones earlier in the cycle, is hard to explain.
Like Ableukov, however, she to changes or misremembers the exact lines. Maguire and Malmstads
translation reads:
Fiery pigements, ever bright,
I shall cast upon my hand;
Red as fire may he stand
In vast chasm of the light. (151)
69

Seryozha is diminutive for Sergei and refers to Sergei Esenin, whose suicide in 1928 is compared
to Mayakovskys.

102 | P a g e

. . . , !
. . . , !
,

-
:
. . . -
!
- ?
- .
.
?
, .
, .

.

? .
.
.
, ?
, .

?
?
: .
,
,
,
.
,
.

103 | P a g e

. . . He does, Seryozha!
. . . He does, Volodya!
And remember your deep
Bass words of abuse
From the stage me
Drowned out: Alright
Indeed . . . But look
At your smashed up love boat!
Was it really thanks to a skirt?
Worse still, was it vodka?
Was he swollen with erysipelas
At the time and drunken too?
He was, Seryozha!
He was, Volodya!
Howevernot with a razor
Well worn and well washed.
Well then was it bits
Of buckshot? A trickle.
Arrived here with provisions.
And a nicely dealt hand.
Candidate, Seryozha?
No, candidate, Volodya.
And is this Russia
Our mother? No that was
Then? The USSR70
When it was new: Just built.
A father sires,
Vermin gnaws,
Publisher edits,
Writer scribbles.
A newly built bridge,
Washed out, underwater.

70

USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) was the Communist name for the country. One of the
republics was Russia, which was also the name of the Tsarist empire.

104 | P a g e

 , !
, .
?
, , !
,

.
.

.
,
?
, ?
, !
. . .

?
!
? :

. ?
.
( ,
. . .)
, .
, .

105 | P a g e

Old story, Seryozha!

Old story, Volodya!
Are there flocks of poets still?
People, you know, grow hard!
They entwine our heads
With laurel as if were already
Were dead. They paint the old
ROSTA71 with tomorrows lacquer.
But no longer make rounds
With a certain Pasternaker.
Do you want to doctor up
Their aridity?
Candidate, Seryozha?
Yes candidate, Volodya.
And yet everyone gives you honor . . .
And what of our warm hearted
Esteemed Alexanich?72
Gone with the angels! Fyodor
Kuzmich? His wifes in the canal73
And hes still looking for her
Red cheeks. Nikolai Gumilev?74
In the East.
(In bloody bast boots,
Up on a plain old cart . . .)
Always the same, Seryozha!
Always the same, Volodya!

71

ROSTA (Russian Telegraph Agency). In 1919 in an act of solidarity with the Revolution,
Mayakovsky renounced writing lyric poetry and worked tirelessly for a time designing posters and writing
advertising slogans and jingles for ROSTA, which had become a state agency. His renunciation of lyric
poetry did not last long.
72
Alexanich is a nickname for Alexander Blok.
73
Fyodor Kuzmich Sologub (1863-1927) was a major Symbolist poet and novelist. In 1920 he
sought permission to emigrate but was denied; the strain of life during the post-Revolution years led his
wife, Anastasia, to drown herself in 1921. His depression after her death led him to a hermitic life.
74
Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev (1886-1921) was the leader of the Acmeist movement, poet and
critic. He was Akhmatovas first husband and father of her only child. They separated around 1915 and
divorced in 1918. He was among the first Bolshevik executions probably on August 25, 1921 in
Berngardovka east of Petrograd, due to doubtful allegations of complicity in the Tagantsev conspiracy.

106 | P a g e

 ,
, -
,
,
.
,
, - ,

!


, !
, !
7
,
.
, , .
, 1930
( 2, 273-80)

107 | P a g e

And I clasp as before,

Volodya, my dear friend,
Again your reaching hand,
Volodya, even if the handis
No more.
Theyre all gone,
Dear brother, Seryozha,
But with fake grenades
We brought down their reign!
And then we dissolved them
Into our Sunrise
Let it pass, Seryozha!
Let it pass, Volodya!
7
Many churches were razed. Many
Treasures were sacked. Lord, hear my plea:
He who once maligned you, rest his soul. 75
Savoy, August 1930

75

Tsvetaeva refers to the Bolshevik destruction of churches and monasteries as well as to

Mayakovskis public atheism.

108 | P a g e

References:
, . . [Akhmatova, Anna
Andreevna. Complete Works in Eight Volumes.] Ed. T. A. Gorkova. Moscow:
Ellis-Lak [ ], 1998-2005.
Pasternak, Boris, Marina Tsvetaeva and Rainer Maria Rilke. Letters Summer 1926. Ed.
Yevgeny Pasternak, Yelena Pasternak and Konstantin M. Azadovsky. Trans.
Margaret Wettlin and Walter Arndt. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, Jovanovich,
1985.
Schweitzer, Viktoria. Tsvetaeva. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972.
Tsvetaeva, Marina. Milestones: A Bilingual Edition. Trans. by Robin Kemball.
Evanston, Il.: Northwestern U., Press, 2003.
, . . : , 1997. [Tsvetaeva, Marina.
Collected Works. [Seven volumes] Moscow: Terra, 1997.]

109 | P a g e