Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941)

In Paris


Starlit houses, and sky below,
Earth dazed in the nearness.
The same secret longing though
In Paris, so vast and joyous.

The evening boulevards noisy,
The last ray of light dies,
Couples, paired round me,
Fierce lips, insolent eyes.

I’m alone. It’s sweet to rest
My head on a chestnut tree.
As in far Moscow, my breast
Throbs to Rostand’s poetry.

Paris at night, painful strangeness,
Dear the heart’s ancient folly!
I’m going back to violets, sadness,
A portrait of someone kind to me.

There that gaze, pensive, a brother,
There that mild profile, on the wall.
Rostand, L’Aiglon that martyr,
And Sarah – in dream I find them all!

In Paris, so vast and joyous,
I dream of clouds and grass,
Laughter, shadows, ominous,
And the pain that will not pass.



Paris, June 1909.