1913: As though, in night's terrible mirror Man, raving, denied his image And tried to disappear, -

3

In Petersburg we'll gather again,

Around the grave where we buried the sun. 

MANDELSTAM

Petersburg, 1913. Lyrical interlude: last recollection

in Tsarskoye Selo. A wind, reminiscent or prophetic,

mutters:

Bonfires cooked the geese of Christmas,

Carriages toppled from bridges,

The whole funereal city swam

On a blind assignation

            Down the Neva or against it  

- Only away, away from its graves.

All its arches were throbbing black molars,

The Summer Garden's vane was crowing

Thinly, a bright moon turned a colder

Silver over the silver age.

Since, along all roads and

Towards all thresholds, slowly

A shadow advanced, the wind

Was ripping posters off the

            Walls, smoke whirled in cossack       

Dances on the roofs,

Lilac breathed a graveyard smell, and

The city, demented and dostoyevsky,

Wrapped itself in its fog.

Peter, old genius, old assassin,

Stared again out of blankness,

Beat an execution drum ...

And always, something not thunder

Under the profligate frost, a rumble

Of war before it began.

But then it was heard so faintly

It scarcely touched the ear, as flakes to

The Neva's drifts it drowned.

As though, in night's terrible mirror

Man, raving, denied his image

And tried to disappear, -

While along the embankment of history,

Not the calendar - the existing

Twentieth century drew near ..

And now to go home, swiftly,

Through the Cameron gallery,

To the icy mysterious park,

Where the waterfalls are silent,

Where I must make all nine glad

As once I was dear to you.

Beyond the park, beyond the island,

Can it be that our eyes won't

Meet with their clear former gaze?

Won't you really ever whisper

To me again that word which

kills

death

And is my life's one clue?