The Silver Age of Russian Poetry

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Andrei Belyi

More selections from Gold in Azure

Andrei Bely

The Golden Fleece

Turning gold, the ether grows translucent,
And between the sea and this sun quiver tongues of gold.
Everywhere golden coins gleam
among splashes of yearning.

Cliff fronts rose
In a fluttering sun-veil.
The sun settled. A cry
full of the screams of albatrosses:

"Children of the sun, once again passionless cold!
It set
golden , ancient fortune --
the golden fleece!"

There is no gleaming golden coin.
The lights of day fade.
But everywhere together with the sun
is the blinding purple of fire.

2

The slope of the sky is embraced with fire...
And there the Argonauts blow the flying horn
to us...
Hark, hark...
Enough suffering!
Put on the armor
of the sun-veil!

The ancient Argonaut
summons to follow,
he calls
on a golden
horn:
"To the sun, to the sun, those who love freedom,
We shall whirl away into the blue
ether!.."

The ancient Argonaut summons to the sun festival,
trumpeting
on the world growing gold.

All the sky is rubies.
The sun-sphere has fallen asleep.
All the sky is rubies
above us.
On the mountainous heights
our Argo
our Argo,
preparing to fly, began to beat
golden wings.

The earth flies away...
The wine
of the world
blazes
with fire
again:
the golden
fleece,
sparkling,
emerges
to shine
like a burning globe.

And, embraced with brilliance,
our winged Argo
overtakes the luminous day ,
a torch once again burning. Again it overtakes
its golden
fleece...

*

Sunsets

Distance -- without end. Oats whisper,
lazily sway.
And the heart once again waits impatiently
for the same daydreams.
Clouds are hidden
in pale, wine-gold sorrow
and, having created a fringe with her arc of fire,
burning silver,
the red-gold sun set...
And sacred emotion flies again
along the yellow cornfields,
whispering like the oats:
"Soul, submit: the day has ended
in the middle of a golden feast.
And on the fields of foggy bygone days
a shadow is cast.
The tired world falls into peaceful sleep,
and ahead
nobody will long await the spring.
And you, do not wait either.
There is nothing... And there will be nothing...
And you will die...
The world will disappear, and God will forget it.
Why do you wait?"
Clouds are hidden
In the mirror-like flame-radiant distance
and, having created a fringe with her arc of fire
burning crimson,
the enormous sphere, bowing, burns above the cornfield
rose crimson.
A shadow is cast. Oats rustle,
lazily sway.

2

I was walking home bent and tired,
my head down.
I discerned a far-off, cherished call
from the back of time.
I heard: "Your sorrow is passing by,
whirling away like a dream."
I looked into the distance -- a web
of gold and radiant threads was stretched
in the azure-blue
I heard:
"And time rolls up like a scroll...
And everything -- is asleep...
For clear, pure tears, for spiritual happiness,
for everyday life,
my fallen son, my half-son,
I call you..."
So I stood -- happy, meek.
From the clouds of dust
above the distance of cornfields rise a golden
amber ray.

3

Breaking loose, an ear bows.
The smell of cool evening.
In the distance a fading voice
sadly summons difficult times.

It summons anxiously, indistinctly
to the place where a castle in the sky,
and puffs of gliding cloud
float eastwards above a cornfield.

A sunset striped with crimson
fades in the distance beyond the mountains.
The golden ocean crashes around us
in the drunken radiance.

And the world, burning low, feasts,
and the world glorifies the Father,
and the wind caresses, kisses.
Kisses me endlessly.

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last modified: August 8th, 1999
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