The Lost Tram
I walked an unfamiliar street
And suddenly heard a raven's cry,
And the sound of a lute, and distant thunder,-
In front of me a tram was flying.
How I jumped onto its foot board,
Was a mystery to me,
Even in daylight it left behind
A fiery trail in the air.
It rushed like a dark, winged storm,
And was lost in the abyss of time...
Tram-driver, stop,
Stop the tram now.
Too late. We had already turned the corner,
We tore through a forest of palms,
Over the Neva, the Nile, the Seine
We thundered across three bridges.
And slipping by the window frame,
A poor old man threw us an inquisitive glance-
The very same old man, of course,
Who had died in Beirut a year ago.
Where am I? So languid and troubled
The beat of my heart responds:
'Do you see the station where you can buy
A ticket to the India of the soul?'
A sign...Blood-filled letters
Announce: 'Zelennaya,'-I know that here
Instead of cabbages and rutabagas
The heads of the dead are for sale.
In a red shirt, with a face like an udder,
The executioner cuts my head off, too,
It lies together with the others
Here, in a slippery box, at the very bottom.
And in a side street a board fence,
A house three windows wide, a gray lawn...
Tram-driver, stop,
Stop the tram now.
Mashenka, you lived here and sang,
You wove me, your betrothed, a carpet,
Where are your voice and body now,
Is it possible that you are dead?
[...] Read more
poem by Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
Added by Poetry Lover
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