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 Emilevich Mandelstam<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-don-t-remember-the-word-i-wished-to-say-2/
