The
Nobel Prize
I'm caught like a beast in a
trap,
Somewhere
there's freedom, people, light,
but the hunt
is after me,
and there's no
way out.
The dark
forest and the pool bank,
a log of a
felled fir tree,
My way is
completely cut off,
I am resigned
to my fate.
What came over
me,
am I dirty and
evil?
I made the
whole world cry
about the
beauty of my land.
The ring of
hunters tightens . . .
My guilt hurts
another -
I have lost my
right hand,
my heart's
friend is not with me.
I wish that
right hand of mine
would wipe my
tears,
when the
noose is round my neck
and the
hour of death is close.
0 Lord, you
created the swift swallow
that burns in the dawn, twitters, flies
and swoops -
why did you inspire your appetite
into a dozen condemned men?
How shall I
quench my thirst? How can I force the terrible morning
to turn
red, when there is nothing
but the idol
and the fate of the red guard
in this
terrible morning - or?
We forgot the
original inspired yellow dawn
after
all this redness.
What are you?
What skies have you crossed over to?
You are
not here in these Russian skies.
The Soul
my
soul, comforter
of all
around me,
you have
become the burial vault
for those
tortured alive.
You slap myrrh
on their bodies
when you
dedicate poems to them.
You mourn them
with a weeping
lyre.
In our
murderous times
you are
funeral urn
preserving
their ashes
for conscience
and for terror's sake.
Their combined
tortures
bowed you to
the ground.
You smell of
the dust of corpses
in Egyptian
tombs.
My soul, frail
vessel,
you ground
everything you saw,
like a mill
and turned
and mixed them
it all in.
Boris Pasternak
The Nobel Prize
I'm caught
like a beast in a
trap,
Somewhere
there's freedom, people, light,
but the hunt
is after me,
and there's no
way out.
Giải thưởng Nobel
Tôi, giống con con thú sập bẫy
Ở đâu đó, có tự do, có con người, có ánh sáng,
nhưng cuộc săn theo sát nút
và chẳng có đường thoát.
The Soul
my soul,
comforter
of all around
me,
you have
become the burial vault
for those
tortured alive.
Linh hồn
linh hồn của ta ơi,
mi an ủi, vỗ về mọi thứ quanh ta,
mi trở thành hầm mộ
cho tất cả những kẻ bị tra tấn, vưỡn còn sống.