Osip Mandelstam: “Notre Dame”

NOTRE DAME

Where a Roman judge framed laws for alien folk
A basilica stands, original, exulting,
Each nerve stretched taut along the light cross vaulting,
Each muscle flexing, like Adam when he first woke.

If you look from outside you grasp the hidden plan:
Strong saddle-girth arches watchfully forestall
The ponderous mass from shattering the wall
And hold in check the bold vault’s battering ram.

A primal labyrinth, a wood past men’s understanding,
The Gothic spirit’s rational abyss,
Brute strength of Egypt and a Christian meekness,
Thin reed beside oak and the plumb line everywhere king.

Stronghold of Notre Dame, the more my attentive eyes
Studied your gigantic ribs and frame
Then the more often this reflection came:
From cruel weight, I too will someday make beauty rise.

–Osip Mandelstam

Translation by Robert Tracy

Photo credit: Inside Notre Dame by BiLK_Thorn

Boris Pasternak: “Venice”

Venice

The clatter of a cloudy pane
Awoke me in the small hours.
It hung in a gondola rank
And vacancy weighed on the oars.

The trident of hushed guitars
Was hanging like Scorpio’s stars
Above a marine horizon
Untouched by the smoking sun.

In the domain of the zodiac
The chord was a lonely sound.
Untroubled below by the trident,
The port moved its mists around.

At some time the earth had split off,
Capsized palaces gone to wrack.
A fortress loomed up like a planet;
Like a planet, houses spun back.

And the secret of life without root
I understood as the day surfaced:
My dreams and my eyes had more room
To grope on their own through the mist.

And like the foam of mad blossom
And like the foam of rabid lips
Among glimmering shadows broke loose
The chord that knew no fingertips.

–Boris Pasternak (1914)

Translation by Jon Stallworthy and Peter France

Photo credit: venice 5 mins later by Ron Layters.