Sparrow Hills

"The breast beneath a kiss, as if beneath a water-jug!
Not always, indeed, not continually does summer gush forth.
Nor night after night do we raise
The low roar of accordions from the dust, as we tramp and drag along.

I have heard of old age. Fearful prophecies!
Not a single breaker will raise its hands to the stars.
So it is said. You do no believe it. No face upon the meadows,
No heart among the ponds, no god in the pine grove.

Then cleave your soul asunder! Make the whole day today foam up!
This is the world's noonday. Where are your eyes?
See, on the heights thoughts have been beaten into a white foam
Of woodpeckers, clouds and fir-cones, heat, and pine-needles.

Here the rails of the city trolleys have come to an end.
Farther up, pine-trees serve. Farther up, the others cannot go.
Farther up, it is Sunday. Tearing off the branches,
People will run through the clearings, slipping on the grass.

Sifting noon and Whitsunday and promenade,
The woods ask us to believe that the world is always so.
That it is laid out so in groves, so inspired with meadowland,
So shed on us, on chintz, from the clouds."




Translation not mine. I'm not crazy about it, and will probably do my own at some point, but my God is this a beautiful poem. I now know the framing text I'm going to use for my Pretentious As Butt novel - these lines -

"Not always, indeed, not continually does summer gush forth."
"...no god in the pine grove."
and
"The woods ask us to believe that the world is always so."

- hit some of my themes really hard. Plus this thing is so gorgeous that it'll elevate my poop-on-paper.

GOD FUCK I LOVE YOU BORIS PASTERNAK ♥