As Psyche-Life goes down to the shades <br />In a translucent forest in Persephone's tracks, <br />A blind swallow falls at her feet <br />With Stygian tenderness and a green branch. <br /> <br />The shades flock to meet the fugitive, <br />Welcome their new visitor with laments, <br />Wring their feeble hands before her <br />Bewildered and in timid hope. <br /> <br />One holds a mirror, another a phial of perfume -- <br />The soul is a woman, fond of trifles <br />And the leafless forest is sprinkled with fine rain of <br />Laments, dry transparent voices. <br /> <br />And in the gentle confusion, not knowing what to begin, <br />The soul does not recognize the spectral wood, <br />Breathes on the mirror, and hesitates to give <br />The copper coin from the misty crossing.<br /><br />Osip Emilevich Mandelstam<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/as-psyche-life-goes-down-to-the-shades/
