Мария Визи - A moongate in my wall: собрание стихотворений

Reader of books, I also tried to find
my heaven in the knowledge which obeys,
I always loved them, — strange ways that wind
where neither hope nor reminiscence stays.

Into new chapters eagerly to roam,
upon the stream of many lines to ride,
and watch the growing waves and splashing foam,
and listen to the roar of rising tide!

But after dusk.. how horrible the shade
behind the shelf and icon in the night,
and, like a moon that shimmers on the glade,
the pendulum — immovable and bright!

His eyes are hidden underground lakes,
forgotten kingly halls, with floors untrod,
upon his brow the highest shame makes
its mark, and he will never speak of God.

His lips — they are a purple wound that's made
by poisoned daggers. Early silent grown
and overcast with melancholy shade,
they ever summon to a joy unknown.

His hands are full-moon marble, they are such
on which damnation will forever last,
for they have crucified and used to touch
young sorceresses in the ages past

His fate is in the centuries that lapse
to be the dream of people who would slay,
and of the poets; at his birth, perhaps,
a bloody comet melted, far away.

Within his soul — age-old offences live,
within his soul unnamed sorrow's tarry,
his reminiscences he would not give
for all the flowers of Cyprid or of Mary.

His wrath is not a sacrilegious wrath,
and tender hue his silken cheeks maintain.
And he can smile, and he can also laugh,
but weep… he cannot ever weep again.

The eagle flew ahead and toward the height,
through starry gateways to the Powers' Throne,
and full of beauty was his kingly flight,
and in the sun his brown feathers shone.

Where had he lived? Perhaps it was a King
who kept him chained, a prisoner, till now,
and he had cried to greet the maiden-spring,
that loved a prince with melancholy brow.

Or maybe in a wizard's gloomy den
when he was looking out the narrow door
the height above enchanted him and then
turned to a sun what was a heart before.

What matters that? The perfect azure heights
unfolded, ever luring him ahead
and ever on he flew, three days and nights
till in his bliss he smothered and was dead.

(…)
Rays of the planets pierced the heavens through
magnificent, divinely frozen rays,
but, never knowing perish, on he flew
and watched those planets with a lifeless gaze.

And more than once worlds tumbled, making room
for more, and the archangel's trumpet came,
and yet alone the eagle's gorgeous tomb
did never fall a victim of the game.

I

Above the city night is soaring, till
each sound grows softer, duller every chord.
And you, my soul, are keeping silence still,
have mercy for the souls of marble, Lord.

And to this speech my soul did answer give
(as though a harp was singing in the skies):
«Why was I ever made to come and live
within this hum an frame, which I despise?

I hastened towards a glory new and rich,
leaving my home; I must have been insane,
for me this earth is now a ball, to which
the prisoner is fastened with a chain.

And, oh, this love, how I have grown to hate
this illness, of which none on earth are free,
which ever darkens with its shade the fate
of worlds so wondrous, although strange to me.

And if there is one thing that keeps me sealed
to shining planets and to days of old,
that thing is grief, my only trusted shield,
that thing is sorrow, full of scorn, and cold».

II
The clouds were covered with a greenish rust,
the golden sunset turned into gray,
and i addressed my body: «Now you must
reply to all the soul has had to say!»

And to my speech my body answered so —
a common body, but with blood aflame:
«The meaning of this life I do not know,
though I have heard that «love» can be its name.
(…)
A woman, too, I love…but when 1 kiss
her lowered eyes, it is a strange thing,
and I am drunk, and overcome with bliss,
as in a storm, or drinking from a spring.

And yet for all I want or take today,
for all my dreams, and all my joys and sorrow
as well befits a man, I will repay
with that sure peril which will come tomorrow.»

III
And when the word of God was set aflame
as Big Dipper in the darkness blue,
the body and the soul before me canie,
and asked of me: «Who, questioner, are you?»

I lowered at the impudent my eyes,
and slowly condescended to reply:
«Pray, answer, do you think a dog is wise
that howls when the moon is bright on high?

Then can it be for you to question me,
to whom all time since worlds began to flower,
until the day that they will cease to be
is but the smallest fraction of an hour?

Me, who, like lgdrazil, the tree, does grow
through Universes seven times seven,
whose eyes regard as equal dust below
the meadows of the earth and those of Heaven?
I am who sleeps…

It's yes and no. A star on high
burns bright a hundred thousand years.
The star burns bright. The years go by,
and so an era disappears.

There is no joy. The world is still
and sad, and through the icy sting
of the ethereal spaces, spring,
carrying roses in her hand,
flies to the sad and silent land.

The land of Hafiz calls me back, to rove
where my Gulnara's gaze shone green and bright,
and tentwise over her and me above
was spread the sapphire chasuble of night.

And memory, deprived of all these things,
looks everywhere for landmarks of that vale
where waits the lute, forsaken, and where sings
to ageless rose, an ageless nightingale.

I am filled with a sadness by whispering grass —
it will wither, and roses will die and decay,
and your own precious body will also, alas,
be changed into flowers, and turned into clay.

All memory of us will vanish. And then
skilled fingers will fashion a beautiful thing,
a pitcher of clay, which will live once again
and be filled to its wide golden throat at spring.

And someone, perhaps, by the well where they meet
embracing each other, with sunset aglow,
will drop that dear clay, which will slip to her feet
and ring as it breaks into fragments below.

At times when the spotted moon
with torn and ragged clouds is strewn;
at times when in the city stream
the isle of dead its last does dream,
and every leaf on every tree
is full of spring impurity,
— then, hiding in the twilight thick,
a man will make his step more quick,
and hasten from that road and past
where crosses come to life and stare,
and on one's breath a shadow cast
from rocky height that rise up there…
— There by the cemetery wall,
you stood with me, — do you recall?
And fresher than a mountain stream
the April kiss to us did seem.

From my childhood, you were always near me—
in a woman's tender first embrace,
in the floor that bore my infant footsteps,
in the first warm sunlight on my face.

After that, you always walked beside me,
gave me Paris in the month of May,
Andalusian gardens, Roman sunrise,
— speaking Russian all along my way.

Then, I thought — not knowing you were with me —
that it was myself I used to hear;
there was too much noise and too much gladness
drowning out all else in my young ear.
It is only now, when all is quiet,
that I have been able to divine
finally, the voice — in all the stillness —
which I long ago mistook for mine.
Now I know: if ever I was worthy
in this life, from very early youth;
if at any time my earthly falsehood
had in any way resembled truth;

if I kissed a woman without wounding,
felt a flower, and it never died,
— it was all because you leaned to touch me,
all because you never left my side.

And of all the things you did, the wisest
was that all day long till night would fall
you were always able to protect me
from myself, most dangerous of all.

Hot as a bonfire is the summer noon,
but in this wood relief awaits you still,
the morning freshness will not leave it soon,
and it is all suffused with early chill.

Stay for a while. Sit in the nut-grove bower
upon this hidden moss-grown stump, and hear,
while drinking in the languor of the hour,
the wondrous tale unfolding for your ear.

A leaf is wafted to the mossy ground;
fragrant, the little mushrooms upward reach;
a sigh, a rustle, whisperings… the sound,
insatiable, of creation's speech.