I don’t remember the word I wished to say. <br />The blind swallow returns to the hall of shadow, <br />on shorn wings, with the translucent ones to play. <br />The song of night is sung without memory, though. <br /> <br />No birds. No blossoms on the dried flowers. <br />The manes of night’s horses are translucent. <br />An empty boat drifts on the naked river. <br />Lost among grasshoppers the word’s quiescent. <br /> <br />It swells slowly like a shrine, or a canvas sheet, <br />hurling itself down, mad, like Antigone, <br />or falls, now, a dead swallow at our feet. <br />with a twig of greenness, and a Stygian sympathy. <br /> <br />O, to bring back the diffidence of the intuitive caress, <br />and the full delight of recognition. <br />I am so fearful of the sobs of The Muses, <br />the mist, the bell-sounds, perdition. <br /> <br />Mortal creatures can love and recognise: sound may <br />pour out, for them, through their fingers, and overflow: <br />I don’t remember the word I wished to say, <br />and a fleshless thought returns to the house of shadow. <br /> <br />The translucent one speaks in another guise, <br />always the swallow, dear one, Antigone.... <br />on the lips the burning of black ice, <br />and Stygian sounds in the memory.<br /><br />Osip Mandelstam<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-don-t-remember-the-word-i-wished-to-say/
