I know the stars by their names,
Aldebaran, Altair,
And I know the path they take
Up heaven’s broad blue stair.
I know the secrets of men
By the look of their eyes,
Their gray thoughts, their strange thoughts
Have made me sad and wise.
But your eyes are dark to me
Though they seem to call and call,
I cannot tell if you love me
Or do not love me at all.
I know many things,
But the years come and go,
I shall die not knowing
The thing I long to know.
Regina Spektor sings this beautiful poem in russian at the end of her song “Apres Moi”. Listen to the song and read the lyrics here: http://www.madgirlslovesongs.com/regina-spektor-apres-moi/
February. Get ink, shed tears.
Write of it, sob your heart out, sing,
While torrential slush that roars
Burns in the blackness of the spring.
Go hire a buggy. For six grivnas,
Race through the noice of bells and wheels
To where the ink and all you grieving
Are muffled when the rainshower falls.
To where, like pears burnt black as charcoal,
A myriad rooks, plucked from the trees,
Fall down into the puddles, hurl
Dry sadness deep into the eyes.
Below, the wet black earth shows through,
With sudden cries the wind is pitted,
The more haphazard, the more true
The poetry that sobs its heart out.
1912. By Boris Pasternak. Translated by Alex Miller.
Oh, I have sown my love so wide
That he will find it everywhere;
It will awake him in the night,
It will enfold him in the air.
I set my shadow in his sight
And I have winged it with desire,
That it may be a cloud by day,
And in the night a shaft of fire.
My window-pane is starred with frost,
The world is bitter cold to-night,
The moon is cruel, and the wind
Is like a two-edged sword to smite.
God pity all the homeless ones,
The beggars pacing to and fro,
God pity all the poor to-night
Who walk the lamp-lit streets of snow.
My room is like a bit of June,
Warm and close-curtained fold on fold,
But somewhere, like a homeless child,
My heart is crying in the cold.
Next time some misguided person rambles on about how much they miss the “Old Days” because women were quiet, modest, and covered up… remind them of that time in August 1892 when Princess Pauline von Metternich and Countess Anastasia Kielmannsegg dueled topless to settle a matter of honour.
The princess argued with the Countess Anastasia Kielmansegg over the flower arrangements at Vienna Musical and Theatrical Exhibition. In 1892, honour demanded the two women settle their dispute with swords.
At their sides they had their seconds, Princess Schwarzenberg and Countess Kinsky.
The reason this duel was topless was because the woman presiding over the duel, Baroness Lubinska, was a MD who had seen wartime wounds, and she was worried about infection if a piece of silk fabric were to become embedded in the wound.
Pauline received a small cut to the nose, and Anastasia was stabbed in the bicep.
I
O mother, I am sick of love,
I cannot laugh nor lift my head,
My bitter dreams have broken me,
I would my love were dead.
“Drink of the draught I brew for thee,
Thou shalt have quiet in its stead.”
II
Where is the silver in the rain,
Where is the music in the sea,
Where is the bird that sang all day
To break my heart with melody?
“The night thou badst Love fly away,
He hid them all from thee.”
I sat with chill December
Beside the evening fire.
“And what do you remember,”
I ventured to inquire,
“Of seasons long forsaken?”
He answered in amaze,
“My age you have mistaken;
I’ve lived but thirty days.”
Ruthless winter’s rude career
Comes to close the parting year;
Fleecy flakes of snow descend,
Boreal winds the welkin rend.
Reflect, oh man! and well remember
That dull old age is dark December;
For soon the year of life is gone,
When hoary hairs like snow come on.
Open your hearts ere I am gone,
And hear my old, old story;
For I am the month that first looked down
On the beautiful Babe of glory.
You never must call me lone and drear
Because no birds are singing;
Open your hearts, and you shall hear
The song of the angels ringing.
Open your hearts, and hear the feet
Of the star-led Wise Men, olden;
Bring out your treasures of incense sweet;
Lay down your offerings golden.
You say you look, but you see no sight
Of the wonderful Babe I’m telling;
You say they have carried him off, by night,
From Bethlehem’s lowly dwelling.
Open your hearts and seek the door
Where the alway poor are staying;
For this is the story, for evermore
The Master’s voice is saying:
Inasmuch as ye do it unto them.
The poor, the weak, and the stranger,
Ye do it to Jesus of Bethlehem—
Dear Babe of the star-lit manger!
Child of the grand old winter,
December floateth by;
And the ground without is bare and white
As the moon in the cloudless sky.
The wind blows cold and dreary,
Across the whitened plain;
And we see the oaks with their branches bare,
Through the frost on the window pane.
But within where the yule-log’s burning,
Each heart is happy and gay;
For the loving Prince of earth and Heaven,
Was born on Christmas day.
Then hail! grand old December,
We welcome you once more!
For the memory sweet of a night you bring,
That came in the days of yore.
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