The Steppe
How lovely those journeys into quiet!
Boundless the steppe, like a seascape,
ants rustle, and the feather-grass sighs,
mosquitoes go whining through space.
The hayricks line up with the clouds,
volcano after volcano, they fade.
Grown silent, damp, the boundless steppe,
you drift, you’re buffeted, you sway.
The mist overtakes us, washes, a sea,
and burrs are clinging to stockings, today
it’s lovely to tramp the steppe’s shore,
you drift, you’re buffeted, you sway.
Is that a rick in the mist? Who knows?
Is that one ours? Yes, it’s found.
There! Yes, that’s it all right, though.
The rick, and the mist, and the steppe all round.
And the Milky Way slants towards Kerch,
like a path that cattle have stamped on.
Go past the houses, you’ll lose your breath,
on every side, broad, broad horizons.
Shadowy midnight stands by the way,
strewn with stars, that touch every verst,
and you can’t cross it, beyond the fence,
without trampling the universe.
When did the stars sweep down so low,
midnight sink so deep in tall grass,
and drenched muslin, afraid, aglow,
long for a dénouement at last?
Let the steppe judge, and night decide.
When, if not in the Beginning,
did Mosquitoes whine, Ants ride,
and Burrs go clinging to stockings?
Close them, my darling! Or go blind!
The whole steppe’s as before the Fall:
All, drowned in peace, like a parachute,
like a heaving vision, All.
poem by Boris Pasternak
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On the Field of Kulicovo
The river stretched. It flows, idly grieves,
And washes both banks.
In steppe, above light clay of cliffs
Rinks mourn in ranks.
O Russia! Dear wife! With clearness and pain
We see the lengthy way!
It sent an arrow of ancient Tartar reign -
In breast it lay.
The way through steppes and an incessant plight,
Through your, o Russia, lot!
And alien dark and dark of night
I fear not.
Let be the night. We'll ride and light in gloom
Camp-fires late.
The holy flag will flash in fume,
And Khan's steel blade ...
And endless battle! We only dream of peace
Through blood and dust ...
The mare of steppes flies on and flees,
And tramples the grass ...
There's no end! The miles and cliffs flash past
Stop crazy flood!
The frightened clouds go fast,
Sun sets in blood!
Sun sets in blood! Blood streams from heart away!
O cry, my heart ...
There's no peace! Through steppe the bay
Prolongs the flight!
poem by Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok
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When You Were Reading Those Tormented Lines
When you were reading those tormented lines
In which the heart's resonant flame sends out glowing streams
And passion's fatal torrents rear up,-
Didn't you recall a single thing?
I can't believe it! That night on the steppe
When, in the midnight mist a premature dawn,
Transparent, lovely as a miracle,
Broke in the distance before you
And your unwilling eye was to this beauty drawn
To that majestic glow beyond the realm of darkness,-
How could it be that nothing whispered to you then:
A man has perished in that fire!
poem by Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet
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‘My sister – Life’s overflowing today’
My sister – Life’s overflowing today,
spring rain shattering itself like glass,
but people with monocles still complain,
and sting, politely, like snakes in the grass.
The elders have their logic of course,
certainly yours is foolish, no doubt:
that eyes and lawns glow lilac in storms,
and sweet perfume blows from the south.
That in May, when traveling you see
the timetable on the Kamyshin line,
the Bible’s penned no less magnificently,
while in reading it you’re mesmerised.
That sunset has only to show a village,
girls crowding the track as we flee,
and I find that it’s not my stop today,
the sun offering its sympathy.
With three splashes the bell swims by,
‘Sorry, not here’: its apology’s far.
Burning night seeps under the blind,
the steppe plunges, from step to star.
Winking, blinking, sweetly somewhere,
my love, a fata-morgana, sleeps yet,
while, like my heart, splashed on platforms there,
the carriage throws window-light over the steppe.
poem by Boris Pasternak
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Tell me what you read, and I will tell you who you are.
aphorism by Valeriu Butulescu from The Steppe of Memory, translated by Dan Costinaş
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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After a while, the coat of rust becomes protective.
aphorism by Valeriu Butulescu from The Steppe of Memory, translated by Dan Costinaş
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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He has murdered me. From his point of view.
aphorism by Valeriu Butulescu from The Steppe of Memory, translated by Dan Costinaş
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Poverty is the best anti-theft solution.
aphorism by Valeriu Butulescu from The Steppe of Memory, translated by Dan Costinaş
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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The Pharaohs' arrogance sleeps in the pyramids for five millennia.
aphorism by Valeriu Butulescu from The Steppe of Memory, translated by Dan Costinaş
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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I Bless You, Forests
I bless you, forests, valleys, fields, mountains, waters,
I bless freedom and blue skies.
I bless my staff and my humble rags.
And the steppe from beginning to end,
And the sun's light, and night's darkness,
And the path I walk, pauper that I am,
And, in the field every blade of grass,
and every star in the sky!
O! if only I could encompass all life,
And join my soul with yours.
O! if only I could embrace you all,
Enemies, friends and brothers, and all nature,
And enfold all nature in my arms!
poem by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy
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A tussie-mussie where the flowers are voluntarily embraced by own initiative.
aphorism by Valeriu Butulescu from The Steppe of Memory (Stepa memoriei), translated by Dan Costinaş
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Oh terrible, beloved! A poet's loving
Oh terrible, beloved! A poet's loving
Is a restless god's passionate rage,
And chaos out into the world comes creeping,
As in the ancient fossil age.
His eyes weep him mist by the ton,
Enveloped in tears he is mammoth-like,
Out of fashion. He knows it must not be done.
Ages have passed-he does not know why.
He sees wedding parties all around,
Drunken unions celebrated unaware,
Common frogspawn found in every pond
Ritually adorned as precious caviare.
Like some Watteau pearl, how cleverly
A snuffbox embraces all life's matter,
And vengeance is wreaked on him, probably
Because, where they distort and flatter,
Where simpering comfort lies and fawns,
Where they rub idle shoulders, crawl like drones,
He will raise your sister from the ground,
Use her like a bacchante from the Grecian urns,
And pour into his kiss the Andes' melting,
And morning in the steppe, under the sway
Of dusted stars, as night's pallid bleating
Bustles about the village on its way.
And the botanical vestry's dense blackness,
And all the ravine's age-old breath,
Waft over the ennui of the stuffed mattress,
And the forest's ancient chaos spurts forth
poem by Boris Pasternak
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Sonnet IV: Not in this chamber
Not in this chamber only at my birth--
When the long hours of that mysterious night
Were over, and the morning was in sight--
I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth
I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;
And never shall one room contain me quite
Who in so many rooms first saw the light,
Child of all mothers, native of the earth.
So is no warmth for me at any fire
To-day, when the world's fire has burned so low;
I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,
At that cold hearth which one time roared so strong,
And straighten back in weariness, and long
To gather up my little gods and go.
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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Never
I wake. Yes, it's a coffin lid.-With effort
I reach my hands out and I call
For help. Yes, I recall the tortures
Of dying.-Yes, this is no dream!-
And without effort, like a spider web
I push aside my casket's rotting wood
And stand. How bright the winter light appears
In the crypt's doorway! Can I doubt it?-
I see the snow. The crypt's without a door.
It's time to head for home. How stunned they'll be!
I know this park, I cannot lose my way.
But oh how different it looks now!
I hurry. Snowdrifts. Frigid boughs
Of dead trees poke deep into the sky,
There are no tracks or sounds. It's still.
The realm of death in an enchanted world.
And here's my home. But what decay!
I'm shocked by this heartbreaking sight.
The village sleeps beneath a snowy blanket,
There is no path in all the boundless steppe.
Yes, there it is: upon a far-off hill
I see the ancient belfry of the church.
A frozen traveler in the whirling snow,
It stands out clear against the cloudless span.
No winter birds or midges dot the snow.
I understand: the earth has long lain chill
And dead. For whom do I conserve
The breath within my chest? To whom did death
Return me? What's my mind
Connected to? And what's its final purpose?
Where shall I go if there is no one to embrace?
And time has lost itself in space?
O, Death, return! And hasten to assume
The fatal burden of this final life.
And you, stiff corpse of earth take flight
And bear my corpse on the eternal path!
poem by Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet
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Catafractos
Coal - dark nomadic eyes, under an icy sky,
a steppe robust stallion of wild breed canters,
a blowing Boreas wind, a whipping drizzle,
form of a winter tundra's frost, white embrace..
Form to oblate his destiny on own volition,
only exception maybe, his higher challenge,
to overpass his fortified scold ambition,
to master in a Gods forsaken earth's edge.
A cavalry paid mercenary, a Pontian Scyth,
warrior of Byzantine deathly squadrons,
his aptitude close to Charon's duel myth,
a great honor is to be war-slain by sword!
Two wolves run by his side, ready to clash,
howl to infinity, Orthodox Crucifix contrite,
their obstinacy will redeem his sword's slash,
astute dark Charon will be a visitor to invite.
A Catafraktos, his Acritas rank embossed,
to challenge of the expiation, Olympus offers,
to those who heard the call, in white frost,
where glory in extend relies on deathly embers.
Her spirit glow, a swarm of corax, will foresee
not an ambiguous destiny, but one he knows,
his mortal corpus, her guidance gild, to repartee,
to a cluster of Olympian Galaxy, in deathly vows.
A steppe advent in her dreams, his life slayed
a destiny where all gallantry gathers above,
to meet the precognition told, by a Pythian maid,
where her icy messages, became his love.
poem by Giorgio Veneto
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Sonnet 04: Not In This Chamber Only At My Birth
Not in this chamber only at my birth—
When the long hours of that mysterious night
Were over, and the morning was in sight—
I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth
I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;
And never shall one room contain me quite
Who in so many rooms first saw the light,
Child of all mothers, native of the earth.
So is no warmth for me at any fire
To-day, when the world's fire has burned so low;
I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,
At that cold hearth which one time roared so strong,
And straighten back in weariness, and long
To gather up my little gods and go.
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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The Leaf
A little oak leaf tore off from its branch
Was driven o'er the steppe by a cruel gale;
Dried up and withered from the cold, the heat and sorrow
It finally alit by the Black Sea shore.
A young plane tree stands by the Black Sea shore;
A whispering wind strokes her green boughs;
On her green boughs sway heavenly birds
Singing the praises and fame of the queen of the sea.
The traveler lit at the soaring tree's roots;
Anguished he pled for a moment's shelter,
And these were his words: "I am but a poor oak leaf,
Matured before my time in a grim homeland.
For ages I've wandered without a goal, all alone
Without shade I withered, without repose, faded.
Would you welcome this stranger among your emerald leaves,
I know many stories of wonder and wisdom."
"But why do I need you?" the young tree replies, -
"You are dusty and yellow - ill-suited to my wholesome young sons.
You've seen many things - but what use do I have for your tales?
The heavenly birds have long wearied my ears.
O traveler! Be on your way. You are a stranger to me!
Beloved by the sun, I bloom and shine for him;
My boughs are spread in the heavenly fields,
The cool sea refreshes and washes my roots."
poem by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov
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Artesian Well
In the feathergrass steppe
Sources lie buried,
The thirsty sun knows
Life isn't raspberries.
In barren haymeadows
A child tarries,
Walnut crosier
Outstretched, gold-eyed,
The bracing treasure,
Slender, streams.
They bubble deep,
Both song and splashes, -
In the live coppice
An April peal.
More wondrous than God's lightning bolts,
The artesian well fills
The sham spays' dry dugs
With love's hypogean milk.
poem by Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin
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By Life Tormented
By life tormented, and by cunning hope,
When my soul surrenders in its battle with them,
Day and night I press my eyelids closed
And sometimes I'm vouchsafed peculiar visions.
The gloom of quotidian existence deepens,
As after a bright flash of autumn lightning,
And only in the sky, like a call from the heart,
The stars' golden eyelashes sparkle.
And the flames of infinity are so transparent,
And the entire abyss of ether is so close,
That I gaze direct from time into eternity
And recognize your flame, universal sun.
Motionless, encircled by fiery roses,
The living altar of the cosmos smolders
And in its smoke, as in creative slumber,
All forces quiver, eternity's a dream.
And all that rushes through the abyss of ether,
And every ray, embodied or ethereal,-
Is but your reflection, O universal sun,
It is but a dream, but a fleeting dream.
Through the worldly breath of these reveries
I fly like smoke, involuntarily disperse,
And in this vision, in this delirium,
I can live with ease and breathe without pain.
In the darkness and still of a mysterious night
I see a fond and welcoming spark,
From the chorus of spheres, familiar eyes
Shine upon a grave forgotten in the steppe.
The grass has faded, the desert is grim,
A lonely tomb dreams an orphan's dream,
And only in the sky, like an eternal idea,
The stars' golden eyelashes sparkle.
And I dream you've risen from the dead,
Unchanged since you departed the earth,
And I dream a dream: we both are young,
And you've looked at me as you did back then.
poem by Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet
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Pontian Scyth
Coal - dark nomadic eyes, under an icy sky,
a steppe robust stallion wild breed canters,
a sigil of Boreas wind, a whipping drizzle,
form of a gray tundra frost, white embrace..
Never obilated his destiny on own volition,
only exception maybe, his higher challenge,
to overpass his fortified scold ambition,
to master in a Gods forsaken earth's edge.
Army paid mercenary, a Pontian Scyth,
warrior of Byzantine deathly squadrons,
his aptitude close to Charon's brilliant myth,
a great honor is to be war-slain by sword!
Two wolves run to his side, ready to clash,
howl to infinity, Orthodox Crucifix contrite,
their obstinacy will redeem his sword's slash,
astute dark Charon will be a visitor to invite.
A Catafraktos, his Acritas rank embossed,
to challenge of the expiation, Olympus offers,
to those who heard the call, in white frost,
where glory in extend relies on deathly embers.
Her spirit glow, a swarm of corax, will foresee
not an ambiguous destiny, but one he knows,
his mortal form, her guidance gild, to repartee,
a cluster of Olympian Galaxy, in deathly vows.
A steppe advent in her dreams, his life slayed
a destiny where all gallantry gathers above,
to meet the precognition told, by a Pythian maid,
where her icy messages, became his love.
Boreas = Northern wind
astute = keen
Catafractos = the nights of Byzantine Empire
Acritas = Guards of the Byzantine border line.
Fought the enemy, sometimes alone, against many.
Pontian - Pontus = The coastal line around Caspian Sea.
repartee = cleverness in reply
Corax = Crow, the sacred bird of Apollo.
Pythian maid= The priestess of Delphi, temple of Apollo
.
poem by Giorgio Veneto
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Native Land
I love my native land with such perverse affection!
My better judgement has no standing here.
Not glory, won in bloody action,
nor yet that calm demeanour, trusting and austere,
nor yet age-hallowed rites or handed-down traditions;
not one can stir my soul to gratifying visions.
And yet I love - a mystery to me -
her dreary steppelands wrapped in icy silence,
her boundless, swaying, forest-mantled highlands,
the flood waters in springtime, ample as the sea;
I love to jolt along a narrow country byway
and, slowly peering through the darkness up ahead
while sighing for a lodging, glimpse across the highway
the mournful trembling fires of villages outspread.
I love the smoke of stubble blazing,
heaped wagons on the steppe at night,
a hill mid yellow cornfields raising,
a pair of birch trees silver-bright.
With pleasure few have yet discovered,
a laden granary I see,
a hut with straw thatch neatly covered,
carved window shutters swinging free.
On feast nights with the dew descending,
I'll watch till midnight, never fear
the dance, the stamps and whistles blending
with mumbling rustics full of beer.
poem by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov
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