Selected Poetry (Penguin) Page 8

By my talisman.

  ‘Nor will there arise for you

  Eastern riches from it,

  Nor will it subdue for you

  20Followers of the Prophet;

  Nor will it from this sad South

  Bear you home again,

  Back to your loved one in the North,

  Will my talisman.

  ‘When, however, treacherous eyes

  Cast their spell on you,

  Or when lips, as daylight dies,

  Kiss you, being untrue –

  Then, dear love, from heart’s betrayal,

  30Oblivion or pain,

  It shall save you and not fail,

  This my talisman!’

  1827

  Recollection

  When all the sounds of mortal day recede,

  And lucid shade

  Settles upon the quiet city squares

  And toil is paid,

  Then the hours of agonising vigil

  Drag on for me:

  I feel the gnawing of the heart’s remorse

  More painfully;

  Images jostle and seethe; oppressive thoughts

  10Flock to my mind;

  The long and silent scroll of recollection

  I watch unwind;

  I curse and shudder with repugnance as

  I read my days,

  Lament with bitter tears, but those sad lines

  I’ll not erase.

  1828

  Thou and You

  She makes a slip in her address,

  For vacant you says heartfelt thou;

  My soul is lit with love, and how

  I dream of happiness!

  I stand before her lost in thought,

  I cannot take my eyes from her;

  I say to her: ‘How nice you are!’ –

  ‘I love thee!’ in my heart.

  1828

  My beauty, sing to me no more

  Sad Georgian songs:

  They bring to me

  Another life, a distant shore.

  Alas! Your cruel melodies

  Bring back to me

  The steppe, at night –

  Far off, beneath the moon, a face.

  The dear but fated spectre fades

  10At sight of you;

  But when you sing –

  Again it is before my gaze.

  My beauty, sing to me no more

  Sad Georgian songs:

  They bring to me

  Another life, a distant shore.

  1828

  Portrait

  She of passion, she of storm,

  She of incandescent soul

  May be seen amongst you all,

  Wives of the north, from time to time,

  Scorning all accepted limit

  To the utmost of her powers,

  Moving like a lawless comet

  Through the fixed familiar stars.

  1828

  The Drowned Man

  Home came the children in a hurry,

  Calling their father as they ran:

  ‘Daddy! Daddy! Look what we’ve caught!

  Come and see! A real dead man!’

  ‘Fibbing little devils yous!’

  Growled the father. ‘Mercy me!

  Who would have them if they chose?

  I’ll give you dead men – just you see!

  ‘Who’s to answer to the law?

  10Never get them off your back …

  I must go and see though. Wife,

  Give me my coat: I’ll have a look …

  Where, then?’ – ‘Daddy, over there!’

  Where a fishing-net is spread,

  Wet still, on the river bank,

  Lies a man indeed, quite dead.

  What an ugly, ghastly sight,

  Swollen up and greyish blue:

  Some poor wretch who brought his soul

  20Rest from sins he’ll never rue?

  Some unsteady roisterer?

  Fisher-boatman who capsized?

  Some unguarded travelling merchant

  Robbers savagely surprised?

  No concern of his; the peasant

  Took the body by the legs,

  Looked about him hurriedly,

  Dragged it to the water’s edge,

  Grabbed an oar, and to the waves

  30Sent the dead man with one toss;

  Back downstream he floated off

  Towards a decent grave or cross.

  Long did the dead man ride the waves,

  Turning and turning in the foam

  Just as if a living person;

  Then our peasant turned for home.

  ‘Now you pups! You come with me!

  Each of you will get a bun –

  Mind though, and a thrashing too,

  40Anyone who wags his tongue!’

  All night long the river roared,

  Never did the storm let up;

  Nearly all the spill was spent

  In that smoky family hut,

  On his plank-bed on the stove

  Long had the weary peasant lain;

  Through the storm another sound –

  Knocking at the window – came.

  ‘Who’s there?’ ‘Master, let me in!’

  50‘What can it be that brings you here?

  Dead of night – you wandering Cain –

  Must be Devil’s work I fear!

  Should I help the likes of you?

  No room here to sleep or sup.’

  And unwillingly the peasant

  Slowly pulled the shutter up.

  Moonlight comes – what does he see?

  Standing there a naked figure:

  Down his beard the water streams,

  60In his gaze is fixed-eyed rigour,

  All about him is quite numb,

  Hands hang limply at his side,

  Into his blue and bloated body

  Small black crayfish dig and hide.

  Recognising him, the peasant

  Slams the window firmly shut;

  He is shaken to the core.

  Whispers he: ‘Why aren’t you dead!’

  Seized with dark imaginings,

  70Fearing all night for his fate,

  Till the dawn he hears the knocking

  At the window and the gate.

  This dread tale is passed around:

  Doomed, that peasant will await

  Year by year his visitor

  That same hour, on that same date;

  When a storm has raged all night,

  When the storm does not abate,

  Then the dead man comes and knocks,

  80At the window and the gate.

  1828

  The Upas Tree

  In a bare and barren land

  Scorched and blistered by the sun

  The upas tree, dread sentinel,

  Stands, shunned by all, alone.

  Nature on the thirsty plain

  Begot it on a day of wrath

  And fed with poison the deep roots

  And the dead green of every branch.

  Through its bark the poison trickles,

  10It melts beneath the midday sun,

  And when night comes, it cools and sets

  Into translucent sticky gum.

  No birds fly there, no tiger comes

  To where it grows, only the black

  Storm races to the tree of death

  And, filled with poison, hastens back.

  And should a passing cloud by chance

  Water its thick mass of leaves,

  Down to the hot sand runs the rain

  20And poisons everything that lives.

  But once a man’s all-powerful glance

  Dispatched a man to find the tree:

  And he obediently set forth,

  And back he came at dawn next day.

  He bore the deadly upas gum

  Upon a branch with shrivelled leaves,

  And on his pallid countenance

  Ran sweat in cold and ceaseless st
reams;

  He brought the poison back and, weakened,

  30Lay down on matting in a tent,

  And there he died, the wretched slave

  Before the mighty potentate.

  And with that gum the ruler smeared

  His ready arrows; on command

  They dealt out death and devastation

  To men in every neighbouring land.

  1828

  Translated by Peter France and Antony Wood

  Raven flies to raven,

  Raven cries to raven:

  Raven, can you say

  What we shall eat today?

  Raven to the other:

  We shall get our supper;

  By a willow on the plain

  Lies a knight new-slain.

  The slayer and the cause

  10Only his goshawk knows,

  And his raven mare

  And his lady fair.

  The hawk is in the air,

  The foe sits on the mare,

  Fair lady awaits her dear one,

  The living, not the dead one.

  1828

  The Poet and the Crowd

  Procul este, profani.

  The poet sang; his careless hand

  Upon the lyre of inspiration.

  The people, cold and arrogant,

  Gave ear without initiation,

  Heard but didn’t understand.

  Thus the empty-headed throng:

  ‘What is the meaning of his song?

  What useful lesson does he teach us?

  To what high purpose does he lead us?

  10And why does he arouse the heart

  Only to plunge us into pain –

  Some evil sorcerer for his sport?

  Free as the wind his song is, but

  What does wind bring? Where’s the gain?’

  POET

  Enough, you stupid, senseless people,

  Day-labourers, slaves of need and care!

  This grumbling all the time – how feeble!

  You’re worms of earth, not sons of the air,

  You seek what’s useful everywhere;

  20You judge the Apollo Belvedere

  By weight, to you that’s all that’s real,

  Not that divinity in marble!

  To you the cooking pot’s the marvel,

  The means by which you get your meal.

  MOB

  Well, if you are the heavens’ elect,

  Show us your gifts to full effect.

  The gods’ ambassador, your arts

  Should put to rights your brothers’ hearts.

  We are perfidious and half-hearted,

  30Ungrateful, shameless and malicious,

  On top of that we’re stony-hearted,

  Slanderers, slaves and idiots, each of us;

  All the vices make their den

  In us. But we’re your fellow men,

  We can obey stern lessons – teach us.

  POET

  Be off with you! A peaceful poet –

  What business can he have with you?

  Back to your stony vices – to it!

  The lyre can’t reach the likes of you!

  40You are repugnant to my soul.

  You’ve long enjoyed the just deserts

  Of your stupidity and gall:

  The axe, the dungeon and the birch.

  Away with you, you mindless crew!

  On every busy avenue

  There’s rubbish to be cleared, a task

  For priests, if they forgot their calling,

  Their sacrificing and their kneeling –

  But would they take your brooms, I ask?

  50Not for worldly agitation,

  Not for wars, nor gainful share

  Are poets born – but inspiration,

  And sweet harmonious sounds, and prayer.

  1828

  A Flower

  In some old book I’ve found, forgotten

  A dried and scentless flower;

  And in the grip of curious fancy

  I linger past the hour.

  Where did it grow? And when? What season?

  Who picked it with such care?

  Did a friend or stranger pick it?

  And why was it placed here?

  In memory of a sweet encounter,

  10In sad last parting mood,

  A record of some expedition

  In rural solitude?

  If he and she could still be living,

  Where might they live now?

  Or have they also long since faded,

  Like this nameless flower?

  1828

  City of splendour, city of poor,

  Spirit of grace and servitude,

  Heaven’s vault of palest lime,

  Boredom, granite, bitter cold –

  Still I miss you rather, for

  Down your streets from time to time

  One may spy a tiny foot,

  One may glimpse a lock of gold.

  1828

  Signs

  I rode to you: and lively dreams

  Played around me joyfully;

  And on the right of me the moon

  Stayed beside me eagerly.

  I rode away: now other dreams …

  I was lovesick and forlorn;

  And on the left of me the moon

  Stayed beside me mournfully.

  We give ourselves, we poets, whole

  10And all the time to silent dreaming;

  So the signs of superstition

  Chime with the movements of our soul.

  1829

  Once there lived a humble knight,

  Scarce of word and pure of soul,

  Pale and sad of countenance,

  Spirit resolute and bold.

  One unfading single vision,

  Passing insight of mankind,

  One unchanging single image

  Rested in his heart and mind.

  On a journey to Geneva,

  10By the road, beneath a cross,

  He had seen the Virgin Mary,

  Mother of Lord Jesus Christ.

  From that time, his soul aflame,

  Never had he looked on woman,

  Nor to any single one

  Said a word until the tomb.

  From that time the iron visor

  Went unlifted from his face;

  From his neck the scarf he plucked,

  20Set a rosary in its place.

  Never was he seen to pray

  To the Father, to the Son,

  Never to the Holy Spirit –

  Strange and rare this paladin.

  At the Holy Mother’s image

  Nights in vigil he would pass,

  Eyes of sorrow fixed upon her;

  Silently the tears would course.

  He was filled with faith and love,

  30Faithful to his soul’s ideal

  Blazoned Ave, Mater Dei

  In his blood upon his shield.

  While the other paladins

  On the Palestinian plains

  Would confront the trembling foe

  Calling out their ladies’ names,

  ‘Lumen coelum, sancta Rosa!’

  Louder than them all he cried,

  And in threatening fervour scattered

  40Mussulmen on every side.

  Home once more in his demesne,

  There he lived a life confined,

  Still enraptured, still despondent,

  Then with no last rites he died.

  At the moment of his passing

  One of Satan’s spirits came,

  He would drag the waiting soul

  To the Evil One’s domain.

  Never, said the spirit, had he

  50Prayed to God or kept a fast,

  All too much he’d courted Mary,

  Earthly mother of the Christ.

  Whereupon the Immaculata

  Pleaded steadfastly for him;

  Into the Eternal Kingdom

  She r
eceived her paladin.

  1829

  The mists of night enfold the Georgian hills;

  Aragva sounds below.

  I feel serene and sad, light-hearted sadness,

  A sadness full of you,

  Of you, and only you … My melancholy

  Nothing can shake or move;

  My heart begins to burn and love again –

  Because it cannot not love.

  1829

  From Hafiz

  (A camp on the Euphrates)

  Do not be beguiled by glory,

  My unblemished boy! –

  Horsemen from the Karabakh

  In the bloody fray!

  Death, I swear, shall never claim you:

  Azrael, seeing your beauty

  Bright among a thousand swords,

  Shall neglect his duty!

  Nonetheless, I greatly fear,

  10Should you go to war

  Grace, and shame, and shy allure

  Shall be yours no more!

  1829

  The drums of reveille sound …

  Dante’s lines are stilled,

  The tattered book falls to the ground –

  The spirit flies back.

  Familiar, lively sound,

  In the place where I quietly grew

  So long ago

  How often you used to resound.

  1829

  The Monastery on Mount Kazbek

  Soaring from your family chain,

  Great Kazbek, your imperial tent

  Shines with a never-fading sheen.

  Over all summits, scarcely seen

  Beyond the clouds, your monastery

  Floats ark-like in the firmament.

  I yearn for you, far sanctuary!

  This valley I would bid farewell

  For your high freedom, if I could,

  10Up in a cloud-surrounded cell,

  Keep companionship with God! …

  1829

  2nd November

  Winter. The country. What to do? I see

  A servant with my morning cup of tea;

  ‘Cold still?’ I ask him. ‘Has the storm died down?

  Any fresh snow? Off with the eiderdown

  And saddle up, or better for this sinner

  To sit and read old magazines till dinner?’

  There is fresh snow. We rise at once – to horse!

  It’s dawn, and at the trot we set our course

  With crops in hand; the pack behind us bays;

  10We watch the shining snow with steady gaze