Brodsky, Joseph - Selected Poems (Penguin, 1973)
Brodsky, Joseph - Selected Poems (Penguin, 1973)
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Penguin Modem European Poets
Advisory Editor: A. Alvarez
� Penguin Books
PenguinBooksLtd,Harmondsworth,
Middlesex, England
PenguinBooks Inc., 71 ro Ambas.sador Road,
Baltimore,Maryland2r2o7, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,
Victoria, Australia
ForewordbyW. H. Auden 9
Introduction 13
ANoWontheTrans/ation 25
Part 1
AChri.lfmasBal/ad 29
Sonud: ThemonthofJanuaryhasflown past 31
Exhamtion now is a more frequent guest 32
You're coming home again.Whatdoesthatmean? 33
Sonnet: Great-hearted He<;tor has been speared to death 34
The tenant fmdshis new house wholly strange 35
That evening, sprawling by an open fire 36
The fire, as you can hear, is dying down 3S
Elegy.o
f rJohn Donne 39
Somtet: Onccmorcwe'reliving by theBayofNaples 46
Parl2
'
""''
Quilt-jacketed, a tr ee-surgeon 75
WagonTrain 76
Sadly andTenderly 77
SpringSeason ofMuddy Roods 79
In villagesGod doesnot liveonly 81
Thedaysglideovcrme 82
The trees in my window, in my wooden-framed window I!]
Now thati'vewalkd mysdfoiffrom the world 84
Evening Bs
l)anuory1965 86
The Candlestick 87
On Washerwoman Bridge 89
September the First 90
The Fountain 91
Almost anE/egy 93
Vcrses inApri/ 94-
A WinterEveuing in Yalta 96
Part4
VmesontheDeathrfT.S.Eliot 99
T o o CertainPoetess 103
ALeiter in a Bottle 106
Einem a/tenAnhitekteninRom 116
TwoHmminanEmptyTank 121
FromThcSchoo/Anthology:A/bertFrolov 127
AHallintheDesert I3I
Adieu, Mademoiselle Vhonique 134-
Parts
6
PootAetatern Nostram 149
Nature ,'vf.orte I6o
NmuDimittis 165
Ody»eustoTeleuuuhus 168
7
Foreword
9
Mars has movedcloserto palms and cacti,
andimyselfwouldn'thurtahouscfly, . •
u
His poems are a-political, perhaps defiantly so, which may
explain why he has, so far, failed to win official approval,
for I can find nothing in them which the sternest censor
could call 'subversive' or 'immoral '. The only lines which
could conceivably be called 'political ' are these:
W. H. AUDEN
Introduction
,,
- in both Polish and English -novels, poetry, mythology,
philosophy. It was in Polish translation that Brodsky first
read Faulkner and Kafka. He also read such contemporary
Polish poets as Zbigniew Herbert and Czeslaw Milosz, both
of whom he admires enormously. He considers Milosz,
whom he is currently translating into Russian, one of the
major poets of the twentieth century.
Brodsky had begun to studyEnglish in the fifth grade and
continued through the eighth, but with meagre results. The
language was taught in a formal and theoretical way -like
Latin or Sanskrit- by incompetent teachers using inadequate
texts. A decade later, during his period of exile (1964-5), he
returned to the serious study ofEnglish.Equipped only with
a paperback anthology ofEnglish and American poetry and
,,
Ourfarewell'sthe morefinal
since we both are aware
that we'11 not meet i n Heaven
or be neighbors in Hell.
(Stanzas, 1968)
The separation of father and son is poignantly expressed in
Odysseus to Telemachus(r972):
... T elemachus, dear boy I
To a wandercr the faces of all islands
resemble one another . . .
I can't remember how the war came out;
even how old you arc� I can't remember.
,,
Man's garment gapes with holes. It can be torn,
byhim who will, atthisedgcorat that.
It falls to shreds and is made whole again .
. . . Andonlythefarsky,
in darkness, bringsthehealing necdle home.
God would have 'called' the poet only if his creative work
had been completed. But that was not Eliot's case; his time
had simply run out.
The poet's immortality is secured not by civilization but
by nature. Addressing Eliot directly, Brodsky declares:
And he adds:
Ifyou' re not recalled bystone,
puffball drift will make you known.
,,
mid-1960s. The church is alive and the neighborhood dogs,
at least, are faithful to its memory; for them 'the church
still stands'. But the machines that batter down the church's
walls arc wholly insensitive to the miracle of its life;
"
generally knovm to be lame. The specific reference is to the
second of the Mary Ma_�dalenr poems in the Dr Zhivago
cycle. Mary Magdalene, speaking directly to Christ,
declares:
Men can
return to where they have done evil deeds,
GEORGE L. KLINE
A Note on the Translation
,,
Nation, New Leader, New York Review of Books, Observer
Review, Partisan Review, Russian Literature TriQuarterly,
Russian Review, Saturday R1•view, Third Hour, TriQuarterly,
Uuicorn]oumal, and Works andDays.
In anguisb unaccountable
the steady ship that burn� at dark,
the srnallshy streetlamp ofthe night,
floats out of Alexander Park
in the exhaustion of dull bricks,
like a pale-yellow, tiny rose,
it drifts along, past lovers' heads
and walkers' fcct.I
In anguish unaccountable
sleep-walkers, drunkards, float like bees.
A stranger sadly snaps a shot
of the metropolis by night;
a cab with squeamish passengers
jolts loudly to Ordynka Street,2
and dead men stand in close embrace
with private homes.
In anguish unaccountable
a melancholy poet swims
along the town. Des ide a shop
for kerosene, a porter stands,
round-faced and sad. A bdics' man,
now old. lopes down a dingy street.
A midnight wedding party sways
in anguish unaccountable.
,,
a yellowed melancholy stair.
A fragile beauty swims alone
from New Ycar's Eve to Saturday,l
exchanging love for bitterness,
unable to explain her grief.
1962
I. Alexander Park lies next to the Kremlin on the side opposite the
Lenin Mausoleum. Since its outer edge is below street level, its
streetlights (which arc shaped somewhat like ship's lanterns), though
above the heads of people walking in the park itself, are below the
feet of pedestrians on the sidewalk outside the park.
2. During several extended visits to Moscow the poetess Anna
30
Sonnet
,,
Exhaustion now is a more frequent guest,
and yet I speak less often of it now.
0, deeds of my domestic handicraft,
warm from the workshop of my rowdy soul,
1g6o
,,
You're coming home again. What does that mean?
Can there be anyone here who still needs you,
who would still want to count you as his friend?
You're home, you've bought sweet wine to drink with
supper,
J.B.-3 33
Sonnet
34
The tenant fmds his new house wholly strange.
His quick glance trips on unfamiliar objects
whose shadows f1t him so imperfectly
that they themselves are quite distressed about it.
But this house cannot stand its emptiness.
The lock alone- it seems somehow ungallant
is slow to recognize tltc tenant's touch
and ofe f rs brief resistance in the darkness.
This present tenant is not like the old-
who moved a chest of drawers in, and a table,
thinking that he would never have to leave;
and yet he did: his dose oflife proved fatal.
There's nothing, it would seem, that makes them one:
appearance, character, or psydtic trauma.
And yet what's usually called ' a home'
is the one thing that these two have in common.
"
Then(qht-blackskyshone brighter than his legs;
he could not drift into dissolving dark1
,,
The whites ofhis two eyes struck like twin blows,
Their pupils were more terrifying still,
37
The fire, as you can hear, is dying down.
The shadows in the corners have been shifting.
It'snow too late to shake a fist at them
or yell at them to stop what they are doing.
This legion does not listen to commands.
It now has dosed its ranks and forms a circle.
In silence it advances from the walls,
and I am suddenly atitsdead center.
The bursts of darkness, like black question marks,
are mounting higher steadily and higher.
The dark drifts down more densely from above,
engulfs my chin, and crumples my white paper.
The dock hands have completely disappeared.
One cannot see them, and one cannot hear them.
There's nothing left but bright spots in one's eyes
in eyes that now seem frozen and unmoving.
The fire has died. As you can hear, it's dead.
The bitter smoke swirls, clinging to the ceiling.
But this bright spot is stamped upon one's eyes.
Or rather it is stamped upon the darkness.
,,
Elegy for John Donne
39
not soon. Alljails and locks have lapsed in sleep.
The iron weights in the fish-shop arc asleep.
The carcasses ofpigs sleep too. Backyards
and houses. Watch-dogs in their chains lie cold.
In cellars sleeping cats hold up their ears.
Mice sleep, and men. And London soundly sleeps.
A schooner nods at anchor. The salt sea
talks in its sleep with snows beneath her hull,
and melts into the distant sleeping sky.
John Donne has sunk in sleep, with him the sea.
Chalk cliffs now tower in sleep above the sands.
This island sleeps, embraced by lonely dreams,
and every garden now is triple-barred.
Pines, maples, birches, firs, and spruce-all sleep.
On mountain slopes steep mountain-streams and paths
now sleep. Foxes and wolves. Bears in their dens.
The snow drifts high at burrow-entrances.
All the birds sleep. 111eir songs are heard no more.
Noris the craw's hoarse caw. At night the owl's
dark hollow laugh is quenched. The open fields
ofEnglandnow are stilled. A clear star flames.
The mice are penitent. All creatures sleep.
The dead lie calmly in their graves and dream.
The living, in the oceans of their gowns,
sleep-eachalone-within their beds. Or two
by two. Hills, woods, and rivers sleep. All birds
and beasts now sleep-nature alive and dead.
But still the snow spins white from the black sky.
There, high above men's heads, all arc asleep.
11Ie angels sleep. Saints-to their saintly shame
have quite forgotten this our anxious world.
Dark Hell-fires sleep, and glorious Paradise.
No onegoes forthfromhome at this bleak hour.
Even God has gone to sleep. Earth is estranged.
40
Eyes do notsee, and ears perceive no sound.
The Devilsleeps. Harsh enmityhas fallen
asleepwith him on snowy English fields.
All horsemenslecp.1 And the Archangel, with
his trumpet. Horses, softlyswaying, sleep.
And all the d1eruhim, in one greathost
embracing, doze beneath St Paul'shigh dome.
John Donne has sunk in sleep. His verses sleep.
His images, his rhymes, and his strong lines
fade out ofview. Anxiety and sin,
alike grown slack, sleep in his syllables.
And each verse whispers to its next ofkin,
'Move on a bit.' But each stands so remote
from Heaven's Gates, so poor, so pure and dense,
that all seems one. All are asleep. The vault
austere ofiambs soars in sleep. Like guards,
the trochees stand and nod to left and right.
The vision ofLethean waters sleeps.
The poet's fame sleeps soundly at its side.
All trials, all sufferings, are sunk insleep.
And vices sleep. Good lies in Evil's arms.
The prophets sleep. The bleaching snow seeks out,
through endless space, the last unwhitenedspot.
All things have lapsed in sleep. The swarms ofbooks,
the streams ofwords, cloaked in oblivion's ice,
sleep soundly. Every speech, each speech's truth,
is sleeping. Linked chains, sleeping, scarcely clank.
All soundly sleep : the saints, the Devil, God.
Their wicked and their faithful servants. Snow
alone sifts, rustling, on the darkened roads.
And there are no more sounds in all the world.
.,
There someone stands, disclosed to winter's blast,
and weeps. There someone stands in the dense gloom.
His voice is thin. His voice is needle-thin,
yet without thread. And he in solitude
swims through the falling snow -cloaked in cold mist
that stitches night to dawn. The lofty dawn.
'Whose sobs are those? My angel, is it you?
Do you await my coming, there alone
beneath the snow?Walking-without my love
in darknesshome?Do you cry in the gloom?'
No answer.- ' Is it you, o cherubim,
whose muted tears put me in mind
of some sepulchral choir? Have you resolved
to quit my sleeping church? Is it not you?'
No answer.- 'Is it you, o Paul?Yourvoice
most certainly is coarsened by stern speech.
Have you not bowed your grey head in the gloom
to weep?' But only silence makes reply.
'Is that the Hand which looms up everywhere
to shield a grieving glance in the deep dark?
Is it not thou, Lord ? No, mythought runs wild.
And yet how lofty is the voice that weeps.'
No answer. Silence.- 'Gabriel, have you
not blown your trumpet to the roar ofhounds?
Why did I stand alone with open eyes
while horsemen saddled their swift steeds? Yet each
thing sleeps. Enveloped in huge gloom, the Hounds
of Heaven race in packs. 0 Gabriel,
do you not sob, encompassed about
by winter dark, alone, with your great horn?'
43
And, sensing that all things are far away,
he'll wheel his horse back quickly toward the woods.
Andinstantly, reins, sledge, night,his poor mount,
himself- will melt into a Scriptural dream.
But here I stand and weep. The road is gone.
I am condemned to live among these stones.
I cannot fly up in my body's flesh;
such flight at best will come to me through death
in the wet earth,when I've forgotten you,
my world, forgotten you once and for all.
I'll follow, in the torment ofdesire,
to stitch this parting up with my own flesh.
But listen ! While with weeping I disturb
your rest, the busy snow whirls through the dark,
not melting, as it stitches up this hurt -
its needles flying backand forth, back, forth!
It is not I who sob. It's you,John Donne :
yotl lie alone. Your pam in cupboards sleep,
while snow builds drifts upon your sleeping house
while snow sifts down to earth from highest Heaven.'
44
awaits its end, baring its fangs to snarl
thatcarnallove is but a poet's duty
spirituallove the essence ofa priest.
Whatever millstone these swift waters turn
will grind the same coarse grain in this one world.
For though our life may be a thing to share,
who is there in this world to share our death?
Man's garment gapes with holes. It can be tom,
by him who will, at this edge or at that.
It falls to shreds and is made whole again.
Once more it's rent. And only the far sky,
in darkness, brings the healing needle home.
Sleep,Jolm Donne, sleep. Sleep soundly, do not fret
your soul. As foryour coat, it's tom ; all limp
ithangs. But see, there from the clouds will shine
that Star which made your world endure till now.
"
Sonnet
To G. P.
46
Part 2
ToM. B.
J.B.-.j. 49
Enigma for an Angel
ToM. B.
so
slowly revolves, like a wind1 turning.
The two nets move at steady pace
fromcmpty depths up to the surface;
they hope that the revolving cross
will pull them in and cast them elsewhere.
,,
to lift thejasmine veil that blocks
the open face ofthe blank gateway.z
The nets arc all hauled in. A screech
piped by a hoopoc-bird has headed
offwonld-be thieves. On the dark beach
the walker, wordless still, has faded.
,,
A Slice of Honeymoon
ToM. B.
Never, neverforget:
how the waves lashedthe docks,
and the wind pressed upward
like submerged life-buoys.
53
ToM. B.
54
A Prophecy
"
imprinted on its wrinkled little face,
shall never be forgot, Our alphabet's
first sound is but the lengthening ofa sigh
and thus may be affirmed for future time.
side of the dam. The latter serves as a barrier not against the sea but
against the mainland, with it� threat ofatomic devastation.
;2, The V-shapcd area on chest and collarbone� shielded from the
,,
New Stanzas to Augusta'
ToM. B.
II
Buried alive here,
I wade through twilight stubble.
My boots churn up thc fidd
(Thursday blusters above my head),
but the cut stalks stand erect,
feeling almost no pain.
Switches ofpussywillow
plunge a pinkish headland
into the swamp where the gt1ard has been lifted,
muttering solUething as they upset
a nest ofshrikes.
57
without memories, with only an inner noise,
kicking my bootsolcs against the rocks.
I bend down over a dark stream,
and recoil in shock.
<V
v
The water mutters ahead ofme,
and the frost reaches out for the slit ofmy moutl1.
With more than a slit one cannot breathe:
but is this a face, or tl1e scene
ofa landslide?
My laugh is twisted;
it brings terror to the bmshwood path
that cuts across the twilight swamp.
A gust ofrain atomizes tlw darkness.
My shadow runs, like a thing alive,
from these reddened eyelids, galloping
on waveback under pines and weeping willows.
It loses itselfamong its shadowy doubles
as I could never do,
58
V<
Beat and slosh. Chew into the rotted bridge.
The swampy soil around the country dmrchyard
sucks the blue color from the wooden crosses.
But even the leaves ofgrass
cannot give this swamp a tinge ofblue.
Trample the oat bins,
rage through the still-thick foliage.
Penetrate to the root depths
ancl rouse all the dead men, all the ghosts,
there, in the earth, and here, in my heart.
Let them escape, cutting corners as they run,
acro;s the stubble, into the emptied villages ;
let them wave their scarecrow hats to greet
arriving autumn days - abrupt like landed birds.
VB
Here on the hills, under empty skies,
among roads which end in forests,
life steps back from itself
and stares astonished at its own
hissing and roaring forms.
Roots cling, wheezing, to your boots,
and no lights show in the whole village.
Here I wander in a no-man's land
and take a lease on non-existence.
Wind tears the warmth out ofmy hands.
A tree-hollow douses me with water;
mud tw1sts the ribbon ofthe footpath.
VIII
It's as though I'm not really here,
but somewhere on the sidelines, somewhere overboard,
The stubble swells and points straight up
59
likea corpse's beard;
on the shrike's nest that lies inthe grass
a riot ofants boils with indignation.
'X
Pollux, dear friend. All merges to a stain.
No groan shall be wrenched from my lips.
Here I stand, my coat thrown open,
letting the world flow into my eyes
through a sieve ofincomprehension.
I'm nearly deaf, o God. I'm nearly blind.
I hear no words, and the moon burns steadily
at no more than twenty watts. I will not set
my course across the sky between the stars
and raindrops. The woods will echo
not with my songs, but only with my coughs.
X
Septembcrnow. And night. My only
company a candle. But a shadow
peers over my shoulder at these papers,
swarming among the torn-up roots.
6o
An apparition ofyou rustle'S
among the shadows, gurgling in the water,
smiling starlike in the open doorway,
X>
The light fadesout above myhead,
The water covers up my tracks.
xn
Euterpe, is it you?Where am I?
What's this beneath me: water, grass,
the offshoot ofa lyre ofheathcr-boughs,
curved to a horseshoe shape, that seems
to promise happiness. But neither you
nor your Calliope
knows how to change the pace
ofa man's life -slowing from run to walk
without breaking the rhythm ofhis breath.
1. Thi� poem was written during the first year of Brodsky's exile
in a remote northern region ofRussia: the province of Arkhangelsk.
,,
The title refers to Byron's 'Stanzas to Augusta' (which Pastemakhad
translated into Russian} : in both cases an exiled poet addresses a loved
woman who remains behind- in Byron's case, his sister; in Brodsky's,
'M. B.', towhomthispoemis dcdicatcd,
:z.. It was once the enstom in Finland to cut off the hand ofa con
victed thief.
,,
To Lycomedes on Scyros
6)
our hearthfrres, Bacchus in a vacant lot
embracing Ariadne in the dark.
••
Refusing to catalogue all ofone's woes
is a very broad gesture in pedants !
Contracting all space to the size ofthose spots
where I've crawled in the pam ofexistence,
as a tailor who's drunk and 1s raging toward death
sews a patch on a nobleman's g;muent-
so I cast my long spell on your fast-movinglife
from the seamy side ofyour horizons !
J.B.-5 6s
than what your own eyes can discover,
Behind you each blade ofthe downtrodden grass
springs up like a nondescript rooster.
The circles will widen, like loops ofa gaze
that rolls after you while miles reduce you.
66
Stanzas'
n
And whichever is guilty,
when the LastJudgement sounds,
will receive no sttch welcome
as the innocent one.
Our farewell'� the more fmal
since we both arc aware
that we'llnot meet in Heaven
or be neighbors in Hell.
m
As a plough cuts thehumus,
the fact we've both been
in the right cuts between us
more completely than sin.
We arc careless, not guilty
when we knock a glass down.
What's the good, once it's broken,
weeping over spilt wine?
<V
v
Swoon, then, to o'crflowing,
drain yourselftill you're dry.
We two halves share the volume,
not the strength, ofthe wine.
But my world will not end if
in future we share
only those jagged edges
where we've broken apart.
"
No man stands as a stranger.
But the threshold ofshame
is defined by our feelings
at the' Nevcr agam'.
T1ws, we mourn, yet we bury,
and resume our concerns,
cutting death at its center
like two clear synonyms.
vn
That wecan't be together
anywhere in d1is realm
makes it one variation
on a vast cosmic theme.
Our own land envies glory
yet ityields to no power
on the far side ofLethe
inits naked and poor,
VIII
"
March 1968
69
Aeneas and Dido
1969
70
Postscriptum
September 1967
Part 3
Quilt-jacketed, a tree-surgeon
hopped, thrush-like, from a ladder-step
to a high limb, throwing a bridge
twixt bipeds : ' feather-less ' and ' -ed '.
18}anuary 1964
Wagon Train
77
I. The scene is the 'special ' psychiatric prison hospital in Leningrad
in which Brodsky spent a brief period undergoing psychiatric ex
amination prior to his trial, which began in February 1964.
2. Literally, 'in February'.
J. TheconstellationPilces.
Spring Season of Muddy Roads
79
My horse's snout touches
his life-vest.
Above my dapple-gray's
splashed withers
eight giant cranes are fly
ing northward.
8o
In villages God docs not live only
in icon corners, as the scoffers claim,
but plainly, everywhere He sanctifies
.
,,
ToM. B.
October 1964
,,
Now that I've walled myselfofffrom the world,
I'd like to wall myselfofffrom myself.
Not fences ofhewn poles, but mirror glass,
it seems to me, will best accomplish this.
I'll study the dark features ofmyf.1ee :
my bristly beard, the blotches on my chin.
Perhaps there is no better kind ofwall
than a three-faced mirror for this parted pair.l
This mirror shows, in twilight from the door,
huge starlings at the edge ofthe ploughland,
and lakes like breaches in the wall, yet crowned
with frr-tree teeth.
Behold, the world beyond
creeps through these lakes- these breaches in our world
indeed, through everypuddle opening.
Or else this world crawls through them to the sky.
Jg66
l. The ' parted pair' is the poet and his own reflection, from which
he has been' separated' by his mirror.
Evening
1965
J.l!.--6 ss
1 January 1965'
1g6s
86
The Candlestick
1968
88
On Washerwoman Bridge'
,,
September the First
,,
building a net or a cage, high in the air, for a lion's family,
using neither knots nor nails.
There is a
drizzle of
warm ram.
No chill touches the throats of the shadows,
or the lion's throat.
You will be neither loved nor forgotten.
And, if you were a monster, a company of monsters
will resurrect you, at a late hour, out of the earth,
Rain and snow
will make known
your escape.
Not being subject to chest colds,
you will return to this world to spend the night.
For no loneliness is deeper than the memory of miracles.
Thus, former inmates return to their prisons,
and doves to the Ark.
December 1967
Autumn 1968
93
Verses in April
Apri/ 1969
94
1. The Fontanka is one of the two major river� in Leningrad,
"
A Winter Evening in Yalta
]a1111ary 1969
I. Yalta is a sununerrcsort, not a v..-i.nterresort, despite its l"i']atively
mild dimate. Thus in january its many restaurants wuuld be 'nearly
elllpty'.
Part 4
Verses on the Death of T. S. Eliot'
"
Winged angels nested warmly on their shelves.
A Catholic,l he lived till Christmas Day.
But, as the sea, whose tide has climbed and roared.
slamming the seawall, draws its warring waves
down and away,sohe, in haste, withdrew
from his own high and solemn victory.
n
Wbere are you, Magi, youwho read men's souls?
Come now and hold his halo high for him.
Two grieving figures gaze upon the ground.
They >mg. How very similar their songs !
Arc they then maidens? One cannot be sure:
pain and not passion has defined theirsex.
One seems an Adam, turning halfaway,
but,judging byhisflow ofhair, an Eve . • •
>OO
Ill
Apollo, fling your garland down.
let it be this poet's crown,
pledge ofimmortality,
i n a world where mortals be.
12]auuary 1965
I. Brodsky was in exile in the Soviet Far North when Eliot died on
4]auuary 1965, and did not karn of Eliot's death uatil a week later.
He completed this poem withm twent}-four hours of rc,eiving the
news. The literary model for the poem is, of course, W. H. Audeu's
'In Memory ofW. B. Ycats{d.Jan. 1939)'.
2. Since the Russian wordssmert(' death')andporziya ('poetry') are
both feminine in gender and are referred to by the same pronoun,
ona (litnally, ' she '), the cormcctiou bct\\"ecn death and poetry in the
second and third stanzas is clearer and more explicit in the original
thau it can be made in translation.
J. Eliot was an Anglican Catholic; it would be natural for aRnssian
poet to reliT to him, as Brodsky docs, simply as katolik ('a Catholic').
4. The rdcreucc is to Horace's ode Exegi 1!101111!11('1!/um aerr prren
niPis ('I hav� raised a mouumcnt more lasting thJn bronze') (Hook 1!1,
Ode 30). The first two words appear as the epigraph to a celebrated
poem by Pushkiu; it is in Pu<hkin's poem rather than Hr>racc's that
the 'bladci of grass' arc said to prCitrvc the poet's memory: the feet
of pilgrims vi.>iting the poet's grave wear a path through the sur
roundmg grass.
To Certain Poetess
a
"'
None then can doubt God's presence or His power.
One 'poet' sits preparing memoranda.
Another sighs, muffling a murmur. And a
third, follov..'Illg l wcll-rcllcarscd agenda,
plucks lines from other poets like spring flowers.
September 1965
J.B.-1
A Letter in a Bottle
w6
with music andalumand iodine,
chasing a trope to antiquity,
surelywouldnowtake a modern line.
"'
Icebergs are silently swimming South.
My colors flutter against the gale.
Mice scurry noiselessly toward the prow.
Gurgling, the seawashes through my hull.
My heart is pounding; the whirling snow
muffles till springtime the mailcoach blast.
dropping the horn's pitch from Ia to do,
hiding the crow's nest from my tired glance.
The stern melts away, but the snowdrifts grow.
Ice chandeliers hang as though from trees.
The view's panoramic, the heavens show
three hundred sixty, and more, degrees.
The stars are aflame and the ice agleam.
My ship as it rolls makes ajangling noise.
The figurehead's eyes pour out lachrymose streams
eyes which havecoWlted a billion waves.
w8
I'll wage war at cards with the stableman.
And you'll mark the score once again with the pen
that once I had used to write love poems.)
109
Count Leo Tolstoy, yourhigh Excellency,
who loved to tread grass with your bony feet,
you too I must leave now. Youtoo wereright.
Adieu, Albert Einstein, most learned man,
I've not yet inspected what your mind spanned.
but I've built a hut in the space-time whole:
time is a wave and curved space-a whale.
no
to the whitecaps ofseventy lines gone by
(to make the connection with shepherds' crooks),6
I'm taking my station again on deck.
All that I see nowis my ship's bow.
The figurehead's mouth is concealed by snow.
Her delicate breast is a white snowbank.
This frail floating coffm will soon be sunk.
A; I head for the bottom, there to remain,
I'd like to have one matter perfectly plain
(�ince I'll not travel a homeward line) :
whereareyoutakingme, vector mine?
"'
you seek, like an astronaut far out in space,
for life that has already ceased to exist.
The neck ofthe bottle contains pure grief.
The label will bring you back to yourself
(you'll know it by heart once you've read it through).
The bottom is where I'll be waiting for you,
(washed out)
What couplets may bring me I must pay back
in days orinhourson my lonelytrack
forinstance, these days in the snov.rywaste.
It's death alone, madam, that can't be repaid.
(washed out)
What did the sorrowful bullfinch chirp
to the cat that had climbed to the poor bird's perch?
He said, without shifting his eyes from his foe's,
'I thought thatyou never would come. Alas ! '
1965
"4
I. The Russian wordnos means both 'nose' and 'bow' (ofa ship).
:z. Cesium is used in Soviet rocket fuel.
3. The reference is to Orpheus and also to Arion.
4. The Russian cruiser Admiral Apraksin - named for Count F. M.
Apraksin (r661-1728), chiefofthe Admiralty under Peter the Great
ra.n aground in the Gulf of Finland in 1900. Professor Alexander S.
Popov {r859-19o6), whohad developed wireless telegraphy at about
the same time as Marconi (1895-6), established radio communication
with the disabled vessel from a point rome thirty miles distant.
5· The original has 'Boyle-Mariotte' rather th:.m 'Robert Boyle'.
In Russia the law of gases - which Anglo-Americans call 'Boyle's
Jaw' and Frenchmen 'Mariotte's law' - is called 'the law ofBoyle
Mariotte' {Boilya-Mariotta zakon). Brodsky is making a playful
reference to the CO!llllion blunder among Russian schoolboys, who
take 'Boyle-Mariotte' as a single hyphenated name.
6. The Russian word for 'whitecap' is barashka, literally, 'lamb';
hence the 'connection' with shepherds, which is lost in Englisii.
Brodsky is also al.luding to Rabelais' punning phrase: Revenons J nos
moutons. (The word barashka does not actually occur in the earlier
passage.)
7· A Russian town located on the main road between Leningrad
and Moscow; here a symbol for the remote provinces. Since many of
Torzhok's 1treets are unpaved, thus either dusty or muddy, there are
more dirty boots a!llong its inhabitants than people to clean them;
hence the ' dcaningofboots' is a 'rite'.
8. This is a reference to Dag HammarskjOld (1905-61), secretary-
general of the United Nations from 1953 until his death.
9. Literally, 'yellow tigers', i.e., the Chinese Communists.
ro. The reference is to' flying �aucers' (unidentified flying objects).
rr. The allusion to Feuerbach is ironical; Brodsky is well aware
that Feul"tbach was a materialist and reductionist, who denied any
form oflifeaftcrdeath.
12. In response to Cardinal Ch:l.tillon's inquiry about his health,
the dyil1g Rabelais wrote: ', . . je vais quCrir WI grand peut-i:tre.'
"'
Einem a/ten Architekten in Rom'
n6
,.
v
Twilight of early morning. River mist.
The windswept butts of cigarettes are circling
the trash bin. A young archeologist
pours shards into the hood ofhis striped parka.
It's drizzling. In the midst ofvacant lots,
among vast ruined buildings powdered over
with broken stone, astonished, you behold
a modest bust of Field Marshal Suvorov.2
V<
The noisy banquet of the bombing planes
is still. March rain scrubs soot-flakes from the portals.
Rudders of wrecked planesjut up here and there.
Tall plumes of broken walls now seem immortal.
And ifone were to dig here-I would guess-
these battered homes, like haylofts under needles,
would give good grounds for finding happiness
beneath a quaternary shroud of fragments.
vn
A maple tree fiam1ts its first sticky leaves.
Power saws are whining in the Gothic church.
Rooksl cough in the deserted city playgrolllld.
"'
Park benches gleam with rain. A nanny-goat
behind a fence stares at that distant spot
where the first green has spread across the farmyard.
VIII
IX
But ifyou areno apparition, if
you are living flesh, then take a note from nature.
And, having made a sketch ofthis terrain,
find for your soul a wholly different structure.
Throw out dull bricks, throw out cement and stone,
battered to dust - by what ? - a winged propeller.
And lend the soul that open, airy look
remembered from your classroom's model atom.
X
And let an empty space begin to gape
among your feelings. After languorous sorrow
let fear explode, followed by cresting rage.
It's possible in this atomic epoch,
when cliffs tremble like reeds, for us to save
both hearts and walls- ifwe will reinforce them
with that same power that now portends their death.
I trembled when I heard the words, 'My darling'.
n8
X<
You may compare, or weigh in the mind's eye,
true love, and passion, and the listlessness
that follows pain. An astronaut who streaks
toward Mars longs suddenly to walk on earth,
But a caressremote from loving arms,
when miles take you aback, stabs at your brain
harder thankisses : separation's sky
is solider than any ceilinged shelter.
xn
Cheep, che ep-chirecp. Cheep-cheep. You look above
and out ofsorrow or, it may be, habit
you glimpse a KOnigsberg among the twigs.
And why shouldn't a bird be called a KOnigs
berg, a Caucasus, a Rome?-When all
around us there are only bricks and broken
stones ; no objects, only words. And yet-
nolips. The only sound we hear is twittering.
XIII
You will forgive my words their clumsiness.
That starling, fmding them a provocation,
draws even with me: cheep, ich Iiebe dich,
and then leaves me behind: che ep-ch e ep, ich sterbr.
Putskctchbookand binoculars away
and turn your dry back on the weathercock.
Close your umbrella, as a rook would dose
its wings. Itshandle-tailreveals the capon.
X<V
The harness traces stand in shreds . . . Where is
the horse? . . . The clatter ofhis hooves has died . , •
"'
looping through ruins, coasting fast. Two long
breech-straps trail out behind it . . . There are wheel-tracks
in the sand. The bushes buzz with ambushes . . .
Russian armies under Catherine the Grcat. In the late 1940s the Soviet
authorities placed a small statue of Suvorov on a large pedestal near
the palace of the Elector (KHr/i'irst) of KOnigsberg which had previ
ously held a large statue ofthe Elector himsel£
J. In Russia the rouk (gri1Ch) is considered a symbol of springtime.
uo
Two Hours in an Empty Tank
'Demon, J ambored• • .'
Pushkinl
I
I am an anti-fascist anti-Faust.
Ichliebe life, but chaos I adore.
Ich bin prepared, genosseoffizicren,
demzeitzum Faust quite briefly to spaziercn.2
II
In old Krakowhe mourned his vaterland,
not being swayed by Polish propaganda,
and sought the bright stone ofphilosophers,
doubting the depth ofhis abilities.
Hesnatched up handkerchiefs that women dropped.
He warmed to questions ofsexology.
He starred on the department's polo team.
J.E.-8
then won his laurels as Licentiate,
and sang in seminar of dinosaurs.
Ill
A new moon glimmers in the ragged douds.
A man stoops over a huge folio volume.
A crease deepens between his bushy brows.
His eyes show demon glints of arabesque.
His trembling fmgers hold a soft lead pencil.
The Arab delegate,Meph-ibn-Stophcl,
peers from a corner at the Faustian profile.
..
Ich Iiebe cleamess.Ja. Ich Iiebe neatness.
Ich bin to beg you not to call it weakness.
Do you sugchest dat he lufft flower-girlss?
Ich untcrshtant dat das ist ganze urchent.
But this arrangement macht der grosse minus.
Die teutschne sprache,3 macht der grosse cosine:
andnein, one'sheart can't be conswned athome.
"'
note in recital. Kunst needs feeling's truth.
v
There is a mystic lore; £1itl1; and the Lord.
They differ and yet have some points in common.
The flesh saved some men; others it destroyed.
Men who lack faith are both blind and inhuman.
God, then, looks down. And men look up. But each
has a peculiar interest ofhis own.
While God's being is natural, mere man
has limitations which, I trust, are plain.
VI
Fraulein, pray tell, was ist das inkubus?
Inkubus, das ist cine kleine globus.
Noch grosser dichtcr Goethe framed a rebus.
Und, hocus-pocus, vicious heron flocks
rose from the fog ofWcimar to purloin
the key from his deep pocket. Eckermann's
sharp eye was not enough to save us then.
And now, matrosen, we are on the rocks.
September 1965
"'
I. The epigraph is from Pushkin's poem,A Scenefrom Faust.
2. The 'German' in this poem reproduces the fractured and un
grammatical speech ofSoviet soldiers who served in Germany during
the Second World War, spiced by an occasional Yiddish expression.
In the original text the scattered 'German' words and phrases are
printed in the Cyrillic (Russian) alphabet, which makes them seem
even more grotesque. In this trauslation theyare lcftunitalicize d i n an
attempt to produce something like the effectofthe original.
J. An old form of the expression die deutsche Sprache ('the German
language').
4. Mann 'spoiled his subscription list' by publishing Dr Faustus, a
work so disap pointin g (in Brodsky's view) that it caused many
readers wh<.' had signed up for Mann's complete works (in Russian
translation) to cancel their subsL-riptions.
5. Gounod 'embarrassed' the singer who had to take the part of
Margareta in his opera Faust; she would have preferred a better role,
6. This line is a slight variation on a line iu Krylov's fable, The
Raven and thr Fox: I v serdtse /stels vsegda otyshchet ugolok ('And the
flatterer always finds a corner i n the heart'}.
7. The Walter is a kind of Gennan pistol, something like the
Luger.
8. The Rus�ian phrase poemoi boishe, chelovekom � nitsshe contains a
neologizing pun. The word nitsshe is formed by adding the Russian
comparati v e ending � she to the Polish word nil('nothing ');it is also
a Russian f
orm ofthe name 'Nietzsche'.
u6
From The School Anthology :
Albert Frolov'
Albert Frolov loved silence as a boy.
His mother was a postal clerk, whose portion
was rubber stamps. As for Albert's old man,
he died to save the Finn's autonomy,2
baving secured timely perpetuation
ofthe family name, but not knowing his son.
"7
from bottoms ofdeep wells. Hiswife resigned,
without washing his socks. His mother stayed
and tried to care for him. He started drinlcing,
then took to drugs-whatever he could find.
"'
Itwas the New Year holiday. Palm boughs
were festooned with resplendent fake pine needles.
A swarm oftipsy Georgians circled past
my table, singing ' Tbiliso ' .3 The pulse
oflifethrobs everywhere ; in this place also.
I'dheard the solo, now I raised my face
"'
Was heaJason?Hardly. AJob, then,
refusing to blame Heaven, simply blending
into the night- matter of life and death.
A strip of shore, the rustle ofunseen
palm trees, and from the East the pungent odor
ofwet seaweed- then suddenly a lurch,
,,,
the wall a dead and soulless thing and thus,
to a degree, like its ownself. And in
the universe ofdead and soulless things
resistance is regarded as bad form.
Next came the dump trucks, then the bulldozers , ••
,,,
I'd swear by nothing but this relay race
this race ofall the generations who
have sniffed, and who will snift the ancient smells.
1g66
I
Ifl end my days in the shelter ofdove-wings,
which well may be, since war's meat-grinder
is now the prerogative ofsmall nations,
since, after manifold combinations,
Mars has moved closer to palms and cacti,
and I myselfwouldn't hurt a housefly,
not even in summer, its houseflown heyday
in short, ifl do not die from a bullet,
ifl die, pajama'd, on my own pillow,
since theland ofmy birth is a major power-
II
In
In manners and morals tills cotmts as progress.
In some twentyyears I shall fetch the armchairI
that you sat on, facing me, on Good Friday
when, for Christ's body, the cross'storments
at last were ended; you sat and folded
134
your arms-on that fifth day of Holy Week-looking
like some new Napoleon exiled onElba.
Palm fronds glowed goldenateverycrossing.
You laid down your arms on your grass-green garment,
avoiding the open-armed riskof passion.
IV
A pose such as yours, though not so intended,
is a mos t fttting symbol of our existence,
This is not, byany means, inunobility.
It's an apotheosis of men as objects,
replacing submissiveness with mere quiet.
This is a new kind of Christian teaching:
one has a duty to guard and cherish
those who consider themselves dead objects,
who won't even wake from their deathlike numbness
at d1efmal sounding of Gabriel's trumpet.
v
It's a habit with prophets to be unhealthy.
Most seers arc cripples. To put it briefly:
no more than old Calchas am I a seer.
To prophesy is to sniffa flower-
a cactus or violet-tl1rough helmet metal.
VI
'"
which comes fromthe Greeks, is again in fashion.
At the present time it's the strong who perish,
while the tribes ofthe weakmultiply both wholesale
and retail. Take this as my up-to-daring,
my subtle postscnptum to Darwin's teaching
(an hypothesis already stiffand cracking) ;
consider this the new lawofthejungle.
vn
lnsome twentyyears, for to call to mind what
is absent is easier than to make it
good by supplying a thing that'snovel
-the absence oflawis much worse than your absence
! shall stare my fill like some modern Gogo!,
never glancing back, having no misgivings.,
as tl1e magic lantern ofChrist's own passion,
at the sound ofdrops from the dripping faucet,
lights up the back ofthe empty armchair
as though it were meant for a movie screening.
VIII
In our past there is greatness-but prose in our future.
For one asks no more from an empty armchair
than one would from you who once sat upon it
as calm as the waters ofLago di Garda,2
crossing your arms, asI've already written.
The total ofall oftoday' s embraces
gives far less oflovethan the outstretched arms of
Christ on the cross. This lame poet's3 finding
looms before me in HolyWeek, sixty-seven,
blocking my leap to the nineteen-nineties.
'X
Ifthat dove lays no egg and thus fails to save me,
so that I'm left alone in this labyrinthine
, ,,
retreat, without help frommy Ariadne
(for death can have variants, and it's valor
in men to foreknowthem), ala�, my fate is
to be worthy ofbeing denounced and sentenced
to a term ina work-camp, and dysentery-
but ifonly it isn't a lie they've told me,
and old Lazarus rose from the dead in truth, then
I too shall rise, rushing for that armchair.
X
Butrushing isstupidand sinful. Vale!
That is, there is no place to rush to. Surely
so sturdy an armchair can't be disabled.
Here in theEast we use chairs and tables
for three generations, not counting losses
from fire and from theft. But the wont ofallis
the thought that the chair might be dumped together
with others in storage. Ifthis should ever
take place, I would carve on its back a picture
ofa delicate dove, with her mate besideher.
X<
XIIT
The eagle ofRussia without it> crown is
no more than a crow. And a muttered groan is
all that remains ofits once-proud screaming.
This is old age in eagles ; the voice offeeling
has turned to an echo or shade ofpower.
And love songs are pitched but a little lower.
For love, dearly, is an imperial passion,
and youarconcwhom-to hcr great good fortune
Russia must address in imperial accents.
XIV
The armchair is quietly drinking warnmess
from the anteroom. Water drips from the faucet,
drop by drop, as it splashes into the washstand.
An alarm clock cltirps modest!y near the nightlamp.
The flat empty walls share an even lighting
with flowers by the window, whose shadows are trying
to push the room out through the window's structure.
All this taken together is- now- a picture
ofthe distant and near, ofthe deep and shallow,
before we existed. - And what will follow.
,,,
XV
I wish you goodnight. MayI, too, sleep soundly.
Won't you bid a goodnight to my nativecmmtry
for settling accountswith me-from that distance
where, by the massing ofmiles, or simple
miracle, you have been changed to only
a postal addre%.s The trees near my window
murmur; roofsilhouettes mark day's ending.
h1 one's motionless body the mind sometimes opens
dampers in the hand, like stovepipe dampers.
I start. Then my pen pursues you.
XV'
My pen cannot reachyou. You're cloud-like, fleeting.
The shape ofa girl, for each man, is surely
his soul's shape-you, Muse, can confirm this richly
implying love's source but, alas, love's ruin,
for soul-; have no bodies. Which means that you are
still farther away. And my pen can't reach you.
So give meyour ha.11d as we part. That's better
than nothing. Our parting is solemn, lofty,
since it is forever. The zither's silent.
Foreveris not a word, but a number
'39
3· The reference is to the soxond ofthe Mary Magdalene poems in
Pasternak's Dr Zhivago cyde. Pasternak is called a 'lame poet'
because he walked with a slight limp, a fact which he attempted to
conceal.
4· The Russian term for 'holy relics(ofthe saints) ' ismoshchi, which
is related etymologically to moshch ('power').
5· The reference is to Mlle VCrouique's address in Paris.
Part 5
From Gorbunov and Gorchakov'
n
GORBUNOV AND GORCHAKOV
'"
A man's soul does not feel the lack ofspace.'
'You thinknot?What about dead organisms?'
'I think that a man's soul, while it still lives,
takes on the features ofmortality.'
'"
'Words seem almost to image holy things.'2
'Ifobjects could be hung up on some cross, then . . •
lg68
' 4'
Post Aetatem Nostram'
To Andrei Sergcycv
'
n
THE PALACE
'49
The barefoot Governor, with his own fists,
bloodies the soft nose ofthe local King
because ofthethree pigeons baked in dough
(when the meat-pie was cut, theyhad flown out
and then fallen like stones on the great table).
The holiday is ruined, and perhaps
the Governor's career as well.
m
A barber whose beloved boyhas left him
stares at his own reflection in the mirror;
missing the absent boy, he quite forgets
the lathered face ofhis lone customer.
' I don't supposc he will come back again.'
'50
Meantime, the customer is calmly dozing,
dreaming Greek dreams- ofgods, cithara-players,
athletic contests in gynmasiLuns where
sharp smell ofsweat tickles the nostrils.
Swooping
down from the ceiling, a hugehousefly circles
the room and, landing on the sleeper's cheeks,
sinks into thewhitelather -like those poor
pcltasts (in Xenophon) into the snowdrifts
ofArmenia -and slowly crawl<;,
past ledges ;md ravines, up toward the summit,
avoids the crater-mouth, and manages
to gain the very tip ofthe Greek's nose.
lV
After wet holidays the night is dry.
Like a starved horse, the flapping flag at the gate
grinds wind between itsjagged teeth. The lab
yrinthine, empty streets are bathed in moonlight;
the monster must be sleeping soundly.2
,,,
But the moon-rippled road flows on,
A black felucca prowls across it, cat-like,
dissolving in the dark, to let us know
that, really, there's no sensein venturing
beyond this point.
v
In a ' Messagctothe Rulcrs' which is posted
on large billboards a well-known local bard,J
seething with indignation, boldly calls
for prompt removal ofthe Emperor'slikeness
(in the very next line ofhis appeal)
from every copper coin.
, ,,
The Greek
slips down from the flat rock, his rolling eyes
like two bright silver drachmas, imaging
anew pair ofDioscuri.4
.,
vn
THE TOWER
j.B.-IO "'
alighthouse, and a flagpole for theflag
ofstate. Inside there is a roomy prison.
VIII
, ,.
Arrayed on the wide marble steps that lead
up to the palace's whitecolonnade,
a group ofdark-skinned local chiefs in gaudy,
crumpled robes await their King's approach-
<X
'"
X
THE EMPEROR
,,,
the contrast -with our past Imperial speed !
And how can one not sigh for those past times
when things went much more smoothly,
much more smoothly?
XI
XII
"'
'0, Thalassa!'9
But in this wicked world
one must not stand, in moonlight, on a high
divide, unless one wants to be a target.
The Greek, heaving the sack onto his back,
began his slow descent into the depths
ofthe great continent ; what rose to meet him
2o October 1970
'"
Nature Morte
VerrJ Ia morte e avrJ i tuoi occh/,
Cesare Pavese
I
People and things crowd in.
Eyes can be bruised and hurt
by people as well as things.
Better to live in the dark.
II
It's time. I shall now begin,
It makes no difference with what.
Open mouth. Itis better to speak.
although lean also be mute.
My blood isverycold
itscold is more withering
than iced-to-the-bottom streams.
People are not my thing.
Ihatethelook ofthem.
Grafted to life's great tree,
ead1faee is f1rnlly stuck
and cannot be torn free.
IV
Things are more pleasant. Their
outsides arc neither good
nor evil. And their insides
revealneither good nor bad.
Everything'sdark within
it. Dustmop or bishop's stole
can't touch the dust ofthings.
Things themselves, as a rule,
VI
Lately I often sleep
during the daytime. My
death. it would seem, is now
trying and testing me,
VH
Summing their angles up
as a surprise to us,
,,,
things drop away from man's
world - a world made with words.
VIII
A tree. Its shadow, and
earth, pierced by clinging roots.
Interlaced monograms.
Clay and a clutch ofrocks.
<X
"'
Death willcomeand will find
a body whose silent peace
will reflect death's approach
like any woman's face.
1971
,,,
Nunc Dimittis'
,,,
and carry thy truth to idolatrous tribes;
bringIsrael, thy people, its Glory in time.'
Then Simeon paused. A thicksilence engulfed them,
and only his echoingwords grazed the rafters,
'"
The stride ofhis old legs was audibly f1rm.
He slowed his step slightly when Anna began
to speak, far behind him. But she was not calling
to him; she had started to bless God and praise Him.
16February 1972z
I. This poem - titled in the original Sretcn'e ('The Presentation [in
the Temple]') - is based on the account in Luke ii: 22-36, which
13rodsky c<.msidcrs the point oftransition from the Old Testament m
the New. Simeon's speech in the fifth and sixth stanzas is the Nunc
dimittis ('Now lettest thou thy servant depart . . . ') found in most
Chnstian liturgies.
2. The date February 16 (on the New Calendar; or February 3 , on
the Old) is the Feast Day of Saints Simeon and Anna, and hence the
Name Day of Anna Akhmatova - a point which llrodsky wishes ro
emphasize.
,,,
Odysseus to Telemachus
Mydear Telemachus,
The Trojan War
is over now; I don't recallwho won it.
The Greeks, no doubt, for only they would leave
so many dead so far from their own homeland.
But still, my homeward way has proved too long.
While we were killing time there, old Poseidon,
it almost seems, stretched and extended space.
'"