The barber’s flying violin…
Osip Mandelstam
Theodosia colour of twilight is violet. It’s light
Of the nice café near the sea, belongs to Aivazovsky.
Demonized seagulls with breaks cry their delirium. White
Foamy waves represent the shards of china ware, white porcelain.
In Crimean Cimmeria it’s right, I say, to drink these
Red wines slowly; we pay for them the blue-yellow hryvnias.
Dear soul, climb the stanzas of poets each swallow with,
Poets were found here, composed so wonderful rhythms.
More exact – they have hidden the breathful grief into a word,
Heated stones, Crimean so beautiful bright coloured prairies,
Chebureks life, a musical violin of barber… What
Else could I recollect? Well, which else skilled connections and ties?
Crotcheteer and brother of shams strolled along this same street,
The most light drunkard, the sailor of the terrestrial visions –
Silent dreamer Grinevsky – to very hell of sun, to wit:
It was Galery-street, ten, where only four steps. Old regions…
He walked here and saw the same thick bushes. I could see him.
And the violet colour, which maybe’s most calm in the world, look…
Oh, my glass, we will drink for the letters-works, pour wine to brim,
Need to need, let us drink for the wind, understanding high music,
For the random life and for the port, which counts money, and more,
For the empty café of became white – acacias bloom – Caffa,
For plum sea: jelly-fish and actinia, iodine, anemones,
The piratical treasures with yellow gold, pearls, agraffes!
The barber’s flying violin…
Osip Mandelstam