The clatter of a cloudy pane <br />Awoke me in the small hours. <br />It hung in a gondola rank <br />And vacancy weighed on the oars. <br /> <br />The trident of hushed guitars <br />Was hanging like Scorpio’s stars <br />Above a marine horizon <br />Untouched by the smoking sun. <br /> <br />In the domain of the zodiac <br />The chord was a lonely sound. <br />Untroubled below by the trident, <br />The port moved its mists around. <br /> <br />At some time the earth had split off, <br />Capsized palaces gone to wrack. <br />A fortress loomed up like a planet; <br />Like a planet, houses spun back. <br /> <br />And the secret of life without root <br />I understood as the day surfaced: <br />My dreams and my eyes had more room <br />To grope on their own through the mist. <br /> <br />And like the foam of mad blossom <br />And like the foam of rabid lips <br />Among glimmering shadows broke loose <br />The chord that knew no fingertips.<br /><br />Boris Pasternak<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/venice-10/
