I <br /> <br />When you are trying to sleep, Solominka, <br />In your enormous bedroom, and are waiting, <br />Sleepless, for the high and weighty ceiling to come down <br />With quiet, heavy sorrow on your keen eyelids, <br /> <br />Sonorous Solomka, or seasoned Solominka, <br />You've drunk down all death, grown tender and <br />Been broken, my dear Solomka, no more alive -- <br />Not Salome, no, it is Solominka. <br /> <br />In hours of insomnia, objects are heavier <br />As if fewer of them -- such a stillness -- <br />The cushions glitter in the mirror, whitening a bit, <br />And the bed is reflected in the round pool. <br /> <br />No, it is not Solomka in her solemn satin <br />In a huge room above the black Neva. <br />For twelve months they sing of the final hour, <br />And the pale blue ice waves in the air. <br /> <br />Solemn December sends out its breath <br />As if the great Neva were in the room. <br />No, not Solominka, Ligeia, dying -- <br />I have learned you, glorious words. <br /> <br /> <br />II <br /> <br />I have learned you, blessed words: <br />-- Lenore, Solominka, Ligeia, Seraphita -- <br />In the enormous room, the great Neva, <br />And from the granite, the blue blood flows. <br /> <br />Solemn December shines above the Neva. <br />For twelve months they sing of the final hour. <br />No, not Solominka in her satin <br />Savoring a slow, oppressive rest. <br /> <br />In my blood lives December's Ligeia, <br />Whose blissful love sleeps in a sarcophagus, <br />And which, solominka, perhaps Salome, <br />Was killed by pity, and shall never return.<br /><br />Osip Emilevich Mandelstam<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/straw-2/
