Graeme Davis - Nine Poems of Valery Bryusov

Nine Poems of Valery Bryusov translated by Graeme Davis Part one in the series Selected Poems of the Russian Symbolists: Bryusov, Akhmatova and Mandelstam

The superb artistry of the poems of Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov (1873-1924) shines through even in translation. His poems offer a striking perspective on the world, and this English translation of a few of them is offered to make him accessible to a generation of readers more familiar with Kindle than dusty library shelves. While Bryusovs academic fame is now assured, there appear to be few people actually reading what he wrote. He scarcely features even on the reading list of many Russian literature degree courses. The literary movement to which Bryusov belongs and which he brought to Russia is Symbolism. The French Symbolist movement finds its origin in Charles Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal (1857) though it is nearly two decades later that The Symbolist Manifesto (1886) gave the movement its name.

Symbolism reacts against what it sees as a literary tradition of naturalism and realism, presenting instead an affirmation of spirituality. Scenes from art and from nature are not described for their own sake but for what they symbolise. Bryusov developed a version of Symbolism in Russia. He presents the poet as a superman, someone able to see that which others cannot. The first three poems in this collection reflect directly on the poetic process, and they are disturbing. The poet is perceived as detached from the everyday world, an extreme individualist loving himself and having sympathy for no-one, someone who worships art.

The poet is to transcend the passion of love and the pain of crucifixion, seeking Christ-like a crown of thorns, and so he produces poems like chiselled diamonds. Like Richard Wagner, one of his inspirations, Bryusov produces art of the highest quality, yet this art must be set against a doubtful personal morality. Bryusov presents scenes of Moscow and the Russia he knew. The surface image he presents is transcended by his message. Thus while he writes of three drunk women, of the city and of a Russian railway journey, the reader perceives his meaning beyond the surface description.

O pale youth with burning gaze, Now I give unto you three testaments. O pale youth with burning gaze, Now I give unto you three testaments.

Accept the first of these: do not live in the present, Only in the future the province of the poet. Remember now the second: have sympathy with no-one, Love yourself unlimitedly. Preserve this third: bow-down before art, Only to it, without reflecting, without aim. O pale youth with disturbed gaze! If you will accept my three testaments, In silence I shall fall as a vanquished warrior, Knowing that I shall leave a poet in the world.

You must be proud as a banner, You must be sharp as a sword, Your cheeks, like Dantes, Must be scorched by a subterranean fire. Be a cold witness to everything, And turn your gaze on everything, Let your virtue be A readiness to mount the pyre.

Perhaps everything in life is but material For brightly singing verses, And you from your carefree childhood Seek for combinations of words. In the minutes of loving embrace Force yourself to be passionless, And in the hour of merciless crucifixion Glorify your frenzied pain. In the dreams of morning and the abyss of evening Seize hold of Fates whispered message, And remember, from time immemorial, The poets cherished crown has been one of thorns.

There are subtle but potent affinities Between the outline and the scent of a flower. So the diamond is invisible until It comes to life in the cut and polished stone. So do images of fleeting fancy Drifting like the clouds in the sky Become hard as stone and thereafter live for centuries In a chiselled and finished phrase.

And it is my wish that all my fancies Which have reached the realm of words and light May find for themselves the desired lines. May my friend, on opening a volume of the poets verses Find delight both in the loveliness of a sonnet And in the letter of its tranquil beauty.

Three women, dirty, drunk, Embracing one another, walk along and stagger. The misty belfries tremble, The crosses on the churches bow down. Having heard their incoherent speech, Resembling hoarse songs, The idle cab-drivers laugh, And passers-by rudely step to one side. Ruling imperiously above the world below, Thrusting your lights up to the horizon, You are remorselessly surrounded by a stockade Of factory chimneys. Ruling imperiously above the world below, Thrusting your lights up to the horizon, You are remorselessly surrounded by a stockade Of factory chimneys.

Made of steel, brick and glass, Wound about with a network of wires, You are an untiring sorcerer, You are an unweakening magnet. Like a dragon, predatory and wingless Sitting there, you are a guardian of the years, And through your iron veins Gas streams and water flows. Your immense belly Is not sated by the booty of the centuries, Within it Malice unceasingly grumbles, never falling silent, And in it Poverty menacingly groans. You, cunning one; you, persistent one; You have erected palaces of gold, You have set up festive temples For statues, for pictures and for books. But you unsubmissive one, You are calling a hoard down to storm your palace, And you are sending leaders to a sinister meeting: Madness, Pride and Need. And in that night when in crystalline halls Fiery Debauch stands laughing, And the poison of passionate moments Foams in the goblets tenderly You are bending the back of grim slaves, In order that these ecstatic machines, Which turn round with ease, Should forge sharp blades.

O crafty serpent with magical gaze! In a gust of blind fury You yourself with your fatal passion Are raising a knife above your own head.

We travelled far, without aim, somewhere or other, Somewhere far away forging onward without returning Fleetingly the bushes flashed passed, Birch trees rose up before us, the fields fled behind us, The bridges rattled harshly beneath us. We travelled for a long time. We encountered rain, And for a long time it hammered at the window panes, Grimly foretelling sadness But we slipped away beyond the area of the storm, And to purest azure we rushed away into the distance! Where are you, O coming Huns, Who hang over the world like a storm cloud! I hear the trample of your iron hooves Over the yet undiscovered Pamirs. Come down from your dark home-grounds In a drunken hoard To wake up our decaying body, With a wave of blood. You slaves of freedom, Come and set up your tents by our palaces as once you did before, Come and churn up a merry field of corn In the place of a throne room.

Pile up the books on bonfires, Dance in their joyful light, Come and perform foul deeds in the temple You are innocent of everything, like children. We wise-men and poets Who protect hidden truth, We will go away carrying our lighted lamps Into the catacombs, the deserts and the caves. And what beneath this flying storm And beneath this thunder-storm of dust Will playful fate preserve Of our cherished creations? Maybe everything will perish without trace, Everything that was known to us. But you who come to destroy me I greet with a hymn of welcome.

I know that within the enemys camp A sharp-shooting bow has been bent, In the morning mist I hear The bow-strings sonorous twang. A cloud of smoke has risen above the victim, Gay is the choirs song, But unerringly strikes down A pollos arrow.Next page