1
In a shady ring my eyes
She surrounded—insomnia.
With a shady wreath insomnia
Did my eyes bind.
At night—the same!
To idols don’t pray.
Idol-worshipper—I’ll give
Your secret away.
To you—day’s not enough,
Fire of sun above!
You pale-faced one, wear
My rings’ pair!
You screamed—and proclaimed
The wreath of shade.
Enough—did you—call me?
Enough—did you—sleep with me?
People bow to you.
Light in face you’ll lie.
I’ll be reader to you,
I, insomnia:
Sleep, soothed,
Sleep, rewarded one,
Sleep, wreathed,
Woman.
That—you would sleep—easy,
I will sing—to thee:
“Never-silent one,
Go to sleep, my girl,
You the sleepless one,
Sleep, my little pearl.”
And to whom we didn’t write letters so,
And to whom we did not vow …
Sleep.
Here now parted are
The inseparable.
Here released from arms
Are your little arms.
Here you’re tormented,
My dear tormentess.
Sleep’s—holy.
All—sleep.
Wreath’s—gone.
2
As I love to
kiss hands, and
to name everything, I
love to open
doors!
Wide—into the night!
Pressing my head
as I listen to some
heavy step grow softer
or the wind shaking
the sleepy and sleepless
woods.
Ah, night
small rivers of water rise
and bend towards—sleep.
(I am nearly sleeping.)
Somewhere in the night a
human being is drowning.
3
In my enormous city it is—night,
as from my sleeping house I go—out,
and people think perhaps Tm a daughter or wife
but in my mind is one thought only: night.
The July wind now sweeps a way for—me.
From somewhere, some window, music though—faint.
The wind can blow until the dawn—today,
in through the fine walls of the breast rib-cage.
Black poplars, windows, filled with—light.
Music from high buildings, in my hand a flower.
Look at my steps—following—nobody.
Look at my shadow, nothing’s here of me.
The lights—are like threads of golden beads
in my mouth is the taste of the night—leaf.
Liberate me from the bonds of—day,
my friends, understand: I’m nothing but your dream.
5
Now as a guest from heaven, I
visit your country:
I have seen the vigil of the forests
and sleep in the fields.
Somewhere in the night horseshoes
have tom up the grass, and
there are cows breathing heavily in
a sleepy cowshed.
Now let me tell you sadly and
with tenderness of the
goose-watch man awake, and
the sleeping geese,
of hands immersed in dog’s wool,
grey hair—a grey dog—
and how towards six
the dawn is beginning.
6
Tonight—I am alone in the night,
a homeless and sleepless nun!
Tonight I hold all the keys to this
the only capital city
and lack of sleep guides me on my path.
You are so lovely, my dusky Kremlin!
Tonight I put my lips to the breast
of the whole round and warring earth.
Now I feel hair—like fur—standing on end:
the stifling wind blows straight into my soul.
Tonight I feel compassion for everyone,
those who are pitied, along with those who are kissed.
7
In the pine-tree, tenderly tenderly,
finely finely: something hissed.
It is a child with black
eyes that I see in my sleep.
From the fair pine-trees hot
resin drips, and in this
splendid night there are
saw-teeth going over my heart.
8
Black as—the centre of an eye, the centre, a blackness
that sucks at light. I love your vigilance
Night, first mother of songs, give me the voice to sing of you
in those fingers lies the bridle of the four winds.
Crying out, offering words of homage to you, I am
only a shell where the ocean is still sounding.
But I have looked too long into human eyes.
Reduce me now to ashes—Night, like a black sun.
9
Who sleeps at night? No one is sleeping.
In the cradle a child is screaming.
An old man sits over his death, and anyone
young enough talks to his love, breathes
into her lips, looks into her eyes.
Once asleep—who knows if we’ll wake again?
We have time, we have time, we have time to sleep!
From house to house the sharp-eyed
watchman goes with his pink lantern
and over the pillow scatters the rattle
of his loud clapper, rumbling.
Don’t sleep! Be firm! Listen, the alternative
is—everlasting sleep. Your—everlasting house!
10
Here’s another window
with more sleepless people!
Perhaps—drinking wine or
perhaps only sitting,
or maybe two lovers are
unable to part hands.
Every house has
a window like this.
A window at night: cries
of meeting or leaving.
Perhaps—there are many lights,
perhaps—only three candles.
But there is no peace in
my mind anywhere, for
in my house also, these
things are beginning:
Pray for the wakeful house,
friend, and the lit window.