The block of flats loomed towerlike.
Two sweating athletes, human telpher,
Were carrying up narrow stairs,
As though a bell onto a belfry,
As to a stony tableland
The tables of the law, with caution,
A huge and heavy concert-grand,
Above the city’s restless ocean.
At last it stands on solid ground,
While deep below the din and clatter
Are damped, as though the town were drowned-
Sunk to the bottom of a legend.
The tenant of the topmost flat
Looks down on earth over the railings,
As if he held it in his hand,
Its lawful ruler, never failing.
Back in the drawing room he starts
To play-not someone else’s music,
But his own thought, a new chorale,
The stir of leaves, Hosannas booming.
Improvisations sweep and peal,
Bring night, flames, fire barrels rolling,
Trees under downpour, rumbling wheels,
Life of the streets, fate of the lonely…
Thus Chopin would, at night, instead
Of the outgrown, naive and artless,
Write down on the black fretwork stand
His soaring dream, his new departures.
Or, overtaking in their flight
The world by many generations,
Valkyries shake the city roofs
By thunderous reverberations.
Or through the lovers’ tragic fate,
Amidst infernal crash and thunder,
Tchaikovsky harrowed us to tears,
And rent the concert hall asunder.
(Boris Pasternak)
More Poetry from Boris Pasternak:
Boris Pasternak Poems based on Topics: Night, World, Nature, Life, Dreams, Mind, Fate & Destiny, Cities, Fire, Thought & Thinking, Drawing & Painting- The Wind(Four fragments concerning Blok) (Boris Pasternak Poems)
- Black spring! Pick up your pen, and weeping... (Boris Pasternak Poems)
- Fairy Tale (Boris Pasternak Poems)
- 1918 (Boris Pasternak Poems)
- Wet Paint (Boris Pasternak Poems)
- From A Poem (Boris Pasternak Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Life Poems, World Poems, Night Poems, Mind Poems, Nature Poems, Dreams Poems, Fire Poems, Thought & Thinking Poems, Fate & Destiny Poems, Law & Regulation Poems, Cities PoemsBased on Keywords: downpour, naive, reverberations, athletes, chopin, harrowed, fretwork, departures, damped, valkyries, tableland