1 <br /> <br />The meaning of somber and barren <br />Venetian life is clear to me: <br />Now she looks into a decrepit blue glass <br />With a cool smile. <br /> <br />2 <br /> <br />Refined air. Blue veins of skin. <br />White snow. Green brocade. <br />They are all placed on cypress stretchers, <br />Taken warm and drowsy from a cape. <br /> <br />3 <br /> <br />And the candles burn, burn in baskets, <br />As if a pigeon had flown into the shrine. <br />At the theater and the solemn council, <br />A man is dying. <br /> <br />4 <br /> <br />Because there is no salvation from love and fear, <br />Saturn's ring is heavier than platinum, <br />The block draped with black velvet, <br />And a beautiful face. <br /> <br />5 <br /> <br />Your headdress is heavy, Venezia, <br />In the cypress mirror frame. <br />Your air is faceted. In the bedroom, <br />The blue mountains of decrepit glass dissolve. <br /> <br />6 <br /> <br />Only in her hands are the rose and the hourglass -- <br />Green Adriatic, forgive me. <br />Why are you silent, Venetienne, <br />How can I escape this solemn death. <br /> <br />7 <br /> <br />Black Hesper glimmers in the mirror. <br />Everything passes, the truth is dark. <br />A man is born, a pearl dies. <br />And Susannah has to wait for the elders.<br /><br />Osip Emilevich Mandelstam<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/venetian-life/
