(it's been awhile since the last Poetry Thread, so, 'tis time)
FOUL WAYS IN SPRING
by Boris Pasternak
The sunset blaze was burning down.
Along a muddy forest ride,
A horseman jogged towards a farm
On a Ural mountainside.
The horse was in a lather
And the horseshoes' splashing clatter
Was echoed back along the track
By streams' torrential chatter.
But when the rider dropped the reins
And went at walking pace,
The spring thaw-water galloped by
And bellowed in his face.
There was laughter, there was crying,
Flint splintered stones and loam,
And tree-stumps torn up by the roots
Collapsed in dizzy foam.
Against the blaze of sunset,
That charred far branches as it fell,
A nightingale was raging
Insistent as a tocsin bell.
And where the willow by the gulley
Bent down and trailed her widow's veil,
He played his flute of seven oaks
Like the Robber Nightingale.
What did his ardent song foretell?
Catastrophe or mad desire?
At whom, from coverts under cover,
Did he direct his rapid fire?
It seemed the Demon of the Woods,
Emerging from some hiding hole
Of convicts on the run, would meet
A partisan patrol.
The earth and sky, the field and forest
Were listening for this rare strain
Combining measured portions
Of madness, happiness, and pain.
-- © 1948 by Boris Pasternak
