From: IN THE INMOST HOUR OF THE SOUL. Selected Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva.
Translated from the Russian by Nina Kossman (Humana Press, 1989), 107 pp.
ISBN#: 0-89603-137-3


    MARINA TSVETAEVA (1892-1941)

  You, rushing past on your streets
  To some dubious magic you've tasted,
  If only you knew how much heat,
  How much lifeblood I've already wasted,

  How much heroic passion I threw
  At a random shadow or rustling...
  How each time my heart flamed anew
  And spent its powder for nothing.

  Oh, trains flying into the night,
  Making off with the sleep of the station...
  But I know nevertheless that you might
  Never answer--if you heard it--the question:

  Why are my words so strong and so sharp
  To my cigaret's perpetual smolder.
  How much gloom and imperiling dark
  In the light-haired head on my shoulders.

     1913

  __________________________________________________________

 After a sleepless night my body grows weaker,
 Becomes sweet and no one's - no longer mine.
 In the slow veins arrows still flicker,
 And like a seraph, I smile at passers-by.

 After a sleepless night my arms grow languid;
 Friend or foe, my indifference is complete.
 A full rainbow unfolds from a chance sound
 And the scent of Florence stuns in a frozen street.

 My lips lighten tenderly, shadows golden
 Round my sunken eyes. It is the night that lit
 This luminous face. And when the dark night's over,
 Only our eyes stay darkened, that is all.

  19 July 1916
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   I'm not an impostor, for I came home.
   I am not a maid: I do not ask for bread.
   I am your passion, your Sunday rest,
   Your seventh day, your seventh heaven.

   There, on earth, they gave me nothing
   And hung millstones around my neck.
   --Don't you recognize me, beloved?
   I am your swallow: Psyche.

    April  1918
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  Words are inscribed in the black sky,
  And the beautiful eyes go blind...
  And the deathbed is no longer terrible,
  And the lovebed is no longer sweet.

  Sweat from writing--sweat from ploughing.
  We know another ardor:
  Weightless fire dancing round the curls--
  The breeze of inspiration.

   14 May 1918
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  I am. You shall be. Between us is a chasm.
  I drink. You thirst. All talk is futile.
  Ten years--a hundred thousand years
  Part us. God does not build bridges.

  Be--That is my commandment. Let me pass
  And not disturb your growth with my breath.
  I am. You shall be. In ten years' time
  You'll say: I am--I'll say: I was.

  24 May 1918
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Poems grow like stars and like roses--
Like beauty not meant for home.
And to the wreaths and the apotheosis
The same answer: Where are they from?

We sleep--and then, as through the cobbles--
The heavens' guest and its four petals loom.
O, world, take note! A sleeping bard discovers
The law of star, the formula of bloom.

1 August 1918
__________________________________________________________

Find yourself trusting women
Who have not adjusted miracle with number.
I know that Venus is the result of handwork;
A craftswoman, I know my craft.

From the high solemnity of mutenesses
To the complete debasement of the soul:
The whole divine stircase -- from:
Now I'm breathing -- to: now you do not.

 18 June 1922
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THE SIBYL

The sibyl: burnt out; the sibyl: charred.
All the birds are dead but god is alive.

The sibyl: emptied out; the sibyl: a drought.
All veins have withered: the jealous groom.

The sibyl: dropped out; the sibyl: the crater
Of fate and destruction--the tree among maids.

Like a regal tree in the naked woods--
At first, the fire howled just like a tree.

Then, from under its lids--taking off, unaware,
Like rivers gone dry, the god took flight.

He sensed the waste of an outside search,
And his voice and his heart fell into me.

The sibyl: the oracle; the sibyl: the vault.
Thus, the Annunciation came true in that exact

Unaging hour; thus, in gray-haired grass
Her mortal maidenhood became the cave

For the marvellous voice...
                        thus, becoming a starstorm--
The sibyl: dropped out of life.

 5 August 1922
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      TREES

        VII

She who slept dreamlessly
Winced and stood up.
Like a seeing rock
In the strict gradation of a psalm --

Hosts of awakening bodies:
Arms!--Arms!--Arms!
Like an army in a shower of arrows
When it's ripe for torture.

Scrolls of chasubles sheer as meshes
Falling apart like dust.
hands covering groins
Of virgins and, lash-like,

Shameless hands of old men...
The bird of a youngster's hand...
Cavalry at the horn of Judgment!
The gray-bearded take-off

Standing up waist-high
From under the burial shrouds:
We are a migration! A legion!
A whole nation

Of spectres! -- Mercy or damnation!
See! Be! Recollect!
...A handfull of trees running up
The hill, at nightfall.

12 October 1922
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  OPHELIA--IN DEFENSE OF THE QUEEN

  Prince Hamlet! You've had your share of grubbing
  Worm-eaten coffins! Here are roses, look!
  Think of her who, for the sake of a moment,
  Now counts each day that remains.

  Prince Hamlet! You've had your share of shaming
  The womb of the Queen! It's not for a virgin
  To judge passions! No guilt is heavier than Phaedra's.
  Still, she is sung by the poets.

  And will be! While you, with your mixture of lime
  And decay...Go tattle it to dead bones,
  Prince Hamlet! It's not in your power
  To judge impassioned blood.

  But if... Then beware! Through the floor slabs--
  Into your chamber--to my heart's content--
  I will rise to the defense of my Queen,
  I, your immortal love.

  23 February 1923

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 The hour when the kings on high
 Bear gifts each to each
 (The hour I descend the mountain):
 The mountain begins to see.

 Plots densely crowd the circle.
 Fates draw together: no escape.
 The hour I don't see my hands:

 The souls begin to see.


  25 March 1923
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  As patiently as stone is crushed,
  As patiently as death is expected,
  As patiently as tidings ripen,
  As patiently as revenge is cherished,

  I will wait for you (fingers writhing,
  Like a consort awaiting his Empress,)
  As patiently as rhyme is expected,
  As patiently as hands are gnawed.

  I will wait for you (eyes downward,
  Teeth biting lips, numb, like a rock.)
  As patiently as pleasure is drawn out,
  As patiently as pearls are strung.

  The creak of the sled, the echoing creak
  Of the door, the roar of the taiga winds.
  The imperial decree has come down;
  A new reign dawns--the king is here.

  Welcome,
  Unearthly home it is,
  But mine.

  27 March 1923
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  TO STEAL BY...

  Perhaps, the best victory
  Over time and gravity
  Is to pass without a trace,
  Without having even cast a shadow

  On the walls...
            To reject it all
  Perhaps; to erase one's image from the mirrors;
  Like Lermontov in the Caucasus,
  To steal by without disturbing the rocks?

  Perhaps, it would be more fun
  Not to touch an organ echo
  With the finger of Sebastian Bach;
  To dissolve, without leaving dust

  For the urn?
        Perhaps, to lie
  One's way out; to get discharged from latitudes;
  To steal through Time as through an ocean,
  Leaving its waters unstirred...

  14 May 1923

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    THE HOUR OF THE SOUL

              2

In the inmost hour of the soul,
In the inmost one--of the night...
(The gigantic stride of the soul,
Of the soul in the night)

That hour, soul, reign
Over the worlds you desire.
To rule is the lot of the soul:
Soul, reign.

Cover the lips with rust; snow lightly
Upon the lashes...
(The Atlantic sigh of the soul,
Of the soul in the night...)

That hour, soul, darken
The eyes in which you will rise
Like a Vega...make bitter
The sweetest fruit, soul.

Make bitter: darken:
Grow: reign.

 8 August 1923
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Reciprocity, do not obstruct
The Castalian flow.
Nonpresence: the greater substance
Lying behond the eye;

Beyond speech, beyond sight,
Like a prolonged la note
Stretching out miles of distance
Between the temptation and the lips.

Blessed are the lontgitudes,
The latitudes of Lethe and zones!
Furthering into you with distance
As with the whole note; stretching out

Into you like a moan;
Striking against you like an echo
Into the chest of granite:
Do not see, do not hear, do not exist--

I've no need for white
Upon black--the chalk of the blackboard!
Nearly beyond the confines
Of soul, beyond the limits of pain--

...The last card of my verbal arrogance
Has been dealt.
Distance, you are now nothing but
A blank wall to me.

4 August 1923
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From this mountain as from
A roof of the world that descends to Heaven,
Friend, I love you above
Measures, feelings.

I'll hide you in a storm cloud, away
From witnesses. I'll devour you with ash.
...From this mountain as from the red
Walls of Troy.

Passion: praising the dead,
Shame to the ones still living.
This is how Priam the King
Looked at the battlefield.

All foundations are down.
Fire? Aura? Blood?
This is how Olympus
Looked down at Troy.

No, from the cool niche
A virgin stretches out her arm...
Friend, I love you from above.
Hear me and -- rise.

 30 August 1923
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THE BAPTISM

He did not overwarm the water
In the vat, but chilled it,
That priest who baptized me
In the flat-bottomed wedding ladle.

He did not oversweeten the wine --
(The soul shouldn't meddle with drink!)
The priest who baptized me
For this difficult marriage,

That priest who wedded me.
(when she was burned, the dancer understood
It was your juice, Anchar tree,
She tasted from the

Ladle...)
 --For the eternal ardor
In the poets' pitchstone oven
He baptized me, who dipped me
Into the icy river

Water. For the superhuman
Feats, not essayed by women
He baptized me, who dipped
Into unsweetened misfortune,

That unalloyed wine.
When I choke with it -- remind him!
What fire can scorch me now?
All passions are as tepid

Water. He was three times right,
That priest who sheared me
What poison can stop me now?
All poisons are as broth-like

Water. What's fate for me
--With its ancestral fears--
If the tears streaming down
My cheeks are sweet water?

And you, who baptized me
With Saul's frenzied water
(Thus, Saul, raising his crutch,
Stopped the forgetful people) --

Go and beg your Lord
For forgiveness.

  1 January 1925.
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A soldier -- into a trench,
A head of hair -- into grayness.
Sky! I blend with you, sea-like.
On every syllable
As at a secret look,
I turn,
I preen.

A Scythian -- into a skirmish,
A whip -- into wild dance.
Sea! I brave into you, sky-like.
In every poem
As at a secret catcall
I stop,
I listen.

Every line cries:"Stop!"
A fortune in every period.
Eye! I melt into you, light-like;
Go loose. Like a guitar
Anguish,
I reshift myself,
I reshape myself.

Marriage is not in swan's down
But in swan's feather!
There are different marriages, disjointed ones!
At the sight of a dash
Like at a secret sign,
Eyebrows twtch
Mistrusting what?

Away from the thin soup of glory
My spirit grew strong!
And my treasury is full!
Like the bread of the Lord,
Under your touch,
I grind myself anew,
I break myself in half.

 22 January 1925.