Osip Mandelshtam

Of no use to you, night, I’m lost

In you: a shell without a pearl

Cast from the ocean of the world

And washed up on your starry coast.

With an indifference in the waves,

You coldly heave your singing sighs,

Yet you will grow to love the lies

Told by a seashell of no use.

Lying down with it on the sand,

You’ll clothe it with your airy veil

And tie it with a lasting bond

To the great bell of ocean swell.

You’ll fill the brittle seashell’s walls –

A ghost heart, an abandoned home –

With spray and fog, with rainy squalls

And softer whispers of your foam.

1911

Translated by Philip Nikolayev