Osip Mandelstam

"The last star-pricks are dying out painlessly
As morning, a grey swallow, raps at the window.
And lethargic day like an ox woken in straw
Stirs from long sleep across the rough haycocks.

When the moon takes a walk along urban avenues,
And slowly lights the impenetrable town,
And darkness swells, full of melancholy and bronze,
And wax songs are smashed by the harshness of time;

And the cuckoo is weeping in its stone tower,
And the ashen one alights to reap lifeless worlds,
And quietly scattering huge spokes of shadow
Strews yellowing straw across the floorboards"...

(Tristia, 121) 1920