Here you will find the Poem Venetian Life of poet Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
1 The meaning of somber and barren Venetian life is clear to me: Now she looks into a decrepit blue glass With a cool smile. 2 Refined air. Blue veins of skin. White snow. Green brocade. They are all placed on cypress stretchers, Taken warm and drowsy from a cape. 3 And the candles burn, burn in baskets, As if a pigeon had flown into the shrine. At the theater and the solemn council, A man is dying. 4 Because there is no salvation from love and fear, Saturn's ring is heavier than platinum, The block draped with black velvet, And a beautiful face. 5 Your headdress is heavy, Venezia, In the cypress mirror frame. Your air is faceted. In the bedroom, The blue mountains of decrepit glass dissolve. 6 Only in her hands are the rose and the hourglass -- Green Adriatic, forgive me. Why are you silent, Venetienne, How can I escape this solemn death. 7 Black Hesper glimmers in the mirror. Everything passes, the truth is dark. A man is born, a pearl dies. And Susannah has to wait for the elders.
