< Modern Russian Poetry

NOMADS OF BEAUTY

"You are artists, Nomads of Beauty."
—"Flamings."

For you—ancestral acres,
And, choked, the graveyard waits.
For us, the free forsakers,—
The camp that Beauty fates.

For us—the daily treason,
The tents we daily flee,
Mocked by each dawning season
Of our captivity.

Believe the dimmer distance,
All curtains: magic veils,
All Springtides' green persistence,
Whole heaven's vasty gales!

Oh, vagrant artists, shepherd
Your droves of dreams unbound;
And sow, although you jeopard
The soon-abandoned ground.

And from your open spaces
Rush down, a whirling horde,
Where slaves tamed to the traces
Adore their overlord.

Trample their Edens, plow them,
Oh, Attila, with scars.
And grow—to Beauty vow them—
Your steppe flowers like stars.

 This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
Original:

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1927.


The author died in 1949, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

 
Translation:

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1927. It may be copyrighted outside the U.S. (see Help:Public domain).

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