47

POEMS

The first three poems appeared in La Flèche No. 2, November 15, 1930, under the heading “Modern Russian Poems,” and they were signed “ by M. de N.” The fourth, which is actually poetic prose, is from La Flèche No. 6, March 15, 1931, and Naglowska signed it with one of her pseudonyms, “Hanoum.” The prose piece is closely related to the first of the three poems and takes several lines directly from it.

Snow

The snow falls gently,
gently, you don’t hear it at all.
These are kisses that fall
like steps.

Your soul leaves delicately, delicately,
you never see a sign.
These are tears one can divine
in the light.

The snow melts, the soul frays,
no one is aware.
Tell me, is there
a heavenly rest?

Facades

There are days when I would like to see you,
 for sometimes the nights are cold
and a sad rain begins to fall
against the stones of the facades.

Then I think of your lover and you
and I would like to love her easily,
to be near you sometimes,
and maybe touch you lightly.

Diamonds

Come, tell me your pain,
but be immobile and serene.
I love complaints in vain:
diamonds, too, are vain.

Graze my heart with somber,
vague, and fluid dreads.
I love those white remains:
diamonds, too, are cold.

Play funereal chords
and sing a dirge tonight.
Bard reddened in the Hèbre:^*31
diamonds, too, are bright.

The Silent Fall

You slide . . . a little every day . . . every day a little more . . . into depression, into darkness.

Snow forms in your soul, delicate, invisible at first, invisible a long time, then, little by little it glazes, more and more, and falls.

It’s the fall, the silent fall of all that radiated in you at the dawn of life.

The dawn of life! Do you remember? Those bursts of laughter, those joyful frolics, the leaps, and above all, above all, the loves? Do you remember still?

Snow fell then, too, but not in you.

It was outdoors, in the form of subtle flakes, and you, you took them for stars. In you the snow was a scintillation of stars. Stars of gold, stars of silver, stars of emerald.

Why have you let it enter into you, into your sanctuary, into your soul?

Why have you let this cold crystal your dreams, your images, your wishes?

It was fine down there, under the jumbled night sky, forming a cascade of light butterflies falling upon the rigid houses, on the town squares where cross the long, long roads that are never quieted.

It was fine there, in the transparent atmosphere, cruelly cold, strident in its silence.

In you, in you, then, there was no snow, and you loved, you knew how to love.

Now, your soul leaves, delicately, delicately^*32—you can hardly see—because you have let in the poisoned kisses of the harsh mother, of this Nature that wants to destroy in order to create, to destroy to amuse itself, to destroy for enjoyment, for that is life.

You were not able to resist, nor to open your eyes in time.

One divined tears in the light,^*33 bitter, salty tears, but you, you hardly saw them.

Why, why couldn’t you divine them?

The snow melts now as your soul frays.^†6

Oh! Did the atrocious misery of this spectacle not make you want to die?

To die to be reborn. For there is nothing left for you but that.

One knows nothing, you say, one knows nothing about whether there is a heavenly rest^‡4 as promised for the great ones, for the small ones too, perhaps.

. . . You don’t know anything about it!

Yes, my friend, that is the source of your misery, this fall in your soul of snow that melts and drowns you.

Raise your head, my friend.
Rouse your courage.
Listen again to this:
The snow was a flood of stars, it became ice and
   water; rouse it, send it back . . . roses will
    decorate you then . . . perhaps.