The dull air is moist and resounding

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The dull air is moist and resounding… (1911)
by Osip Mandelstam, translated by Dmitri Smirnov
Osip Mandelstam242039The dull air is moist and resounding…1911Dmitri Smirnov

 * * *

The dull air is moist and resounding;
In the forest it is good and no danger.
Once again I will bear obediently
My light cross of solitary walks.

And once again a reproach to my heartless fatherland
Will fly up like a wild duck,
It is a gloomy life I take part in
Where every single one is alone!

A shot has rung out. Now over the drowsy lake
The ducks' wings are heavy.
And the pine trunks are stupefied
By their double, reflected existence.

The sky, dull with a strange shine…
A worldwide, misty pain…
Oh, let me also be misty in this way,
And let me not to love you.

1911

 This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.

Original:

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1938, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 85 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse

Translation:

This work is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

The Terms of use of the Wikimedia Foundation require that GFDL-licensed text imported after November 2008 must also be dual-licensed with another compatible license. "Content available only under GFDL is not permissible" (§7.4). This does not apply to non-text media.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse