Osip Mandelstam - Russian Poetry

Stone

4

To read only children's books,
to have only children's thoughts,
to strew far away all grown-up things,
to rise from a deep sadness.

I am mortally weary of life,
from it I will accept nothing,
but I love my poor earth
because I have seen no other.

In a far-off garden I swung myself
on a simple wooden swing,
and the tall dark fir trees
I remember in an obscure fever.


trns. by David McDuff

Transtromer

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