All morning high up on the eaves <br />Above your window <br />A dove kept cooing. <br />Like shirtsleeves The boughs seemed frayed. <br />It drizzled. Clouds came low to raid <br />The dusty marketplace. <br />My anguish on a peddlar's tray <br />They rocked; <br />I was afraid. <br />I begged the clouds that they should stop. <br />It seemed that they could hear me. <br />Dawn was as grey as in the shrub <br />Grey prisoners' angry murmur. <br /> <br />I pleaded with them to bring near <br />The hour when I would hear <br />Tidbits of shattered songs <br />And your wash-basin's roar and splash <br />Like mountain torrents' headlong rush, <br />The heat of cheek and brow <br />On glass as hot as ice and on <br />The pier-glass table flow. <br />My plea could not be heard on high <br />Because the clouds <br />Talked much too loud <br />Behind their flag in powdered quiet <br />Wet like a heavy army coat, <br />Like threshed sheaves' dusty rub-a-dub <br />Or like a quarrel in the shrub. <br /> <br />I pleaded with them- <br />Don't torment me! <br />I can't sleep. <br />But-it was drizzling; dragging feet, <br />The clouds marched down the dusty street <br />Like recruits from the village in the morning. <br />They dragged themselves along <br />An hour or an age, <br />Like prisoners of war, <br />Or like the dying wheeze: <br />'Nurse please, <br />Some water.'<br /><br />Boris Pasternak<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-sultrier-dawn/
