Still I have not died, and still am not alone, <br />while with my beggarwoman friend <br />I take my pleasure from the grandeur of the plain <br />and from its gloom, its hunger and its hurricanes. <br /> <br />In splendid poverty, luxurious beggardom <br />I live alone - both peaceful and resigned - <br />blessed are those days and nights <br />and blameless is the sweetly sounding work. <br /> <br />Unhappy the man who like his shadow <br />quivers at a bark, is scythed down by the wind, <br />and poor the man who, half alive himself, <br />from a shadow begs for charity.<br /><br />Osip Emilevich Mandelstam<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/still-i-have-not-died-and-still-am-not-alone/
