Sweetness And Tenderness

Sweetness and tenderness -- like sisters alike are your marks -
The wasp and the bee suckle honey then flutter as one -
Life ends, beach sand chills overnight, and the heaven gets dark,
And carried away on black litter is yesterday's sun.

Ah, tender rosebush, delicate emanation!
To know what you are is far harder than mountain to climb!
I have but one problem remaining in this incarnation:
To raise from the shoulders of man filthy burden of time!

I drink turbid air just like water with mildew diluted:
A visage appears in the sun, heart of darkness and clots:
Two roses that once were of earth but by man were polluted
Sweetness and tenderness, bound up in double knots!

By Osip Mandelshtam

Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat

https://sites.google.com/site/ibshambat