Go back to the tainted lap, Leah, <br />Whence you came, <br />Because to the sun of Ilion <br />You preferred yellow twilight. <br /> <br />Go, no one will touch you, <br />Let the incestuous daughter <br />Drop her head on her father's breast <br />In the dead of night. <br /> <br />But the fatal change <br />Must be fulfilled in you; <br />You shall be Leah -- not Helen -- <br />Thus not betrothed, <br /> <br />For it is harder for a king's blood <br />To flow in the veins than another's -- <br />No, you will love a Jew, <br />You will vanish in him, and <br />God help you.<br /><br />Osip Emilevich Mandelstam<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/go-back-to-the-tainted-lap-leah/
