I drink the gall of skies in autumn, tuberoses' <br />Sweet bitterness in your betrayals burning stream; <br />I drink the gall of nights, of crowded parties' noises, <br />Of sobbing virgin verse, and of a throbbing dream. <br /> <br />We fiends of studious fight a battle everlasting <br />Against our daily bread - can't stand the sober mood. <br />The troubled wind of nights is merely a toastmaster <br />Whose toasts, as like as not, will do no one much good. <br /> <br />Heredity and death are our guests at table. <br />A quiet dawn will paint bright-red the tops of trees. <br />An anapaest, like mice, will on the bread-plate scrabble, <br />And Cinderella will rush in to change her dress. <br /> <br />The floors have all been swept, and everything is dainty, <br />And like a child's sweet kiss, breathes quietly my verse, <br />And Cinderella flees-by cab on days of plenty, <br />And on shanks' pony when the last small coin is lost.<br /><br />Boris Pasternak<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/feasts/
