Selected Poems Quotes

“And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we who never let each other sleep above it.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“Somewhere in the night a
human being is drowning.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“At the skin, my blood calls out to
your heart, my whole sky craves
an island of tenderness.
My rivers tilt towards you.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“I opened my veins. Unstoppably
life spurts out with no remedy.
Now I set out bowls and plates.
Every bowl will be shallow.
Every plate will be small.

And overflowing their rims,
into the black earth, to nourish
the rushes unstoppably
without cure, gushes
poetry ...”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“I have two enemies in all the world,
Two twins, inseparably fused:
The hunger of the hungry and the fullness of the full.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“What shall I do, singer and first-born, in a
world where the deepest black is grey,
and inspiration is kept in a thermos?
with all this immensity
in a measured world? ”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“The eclipses of poets are not foretold in the calendar.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“I know wherever you are, there are poems.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Bride of Ice: New Selected Poems

“I am only a shell where the ocean is still sounding.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“An Attempt at Jealousy"

How is your life with an ordinary
woman? without the god inside her?
The queen supplanted—

How do you breathe now?
Flinch, waking up?
What do you do, poor man?

How’s your life with a tourist
on Earth? Her rib (do you love her?)
is it to your liking?

How do you live with cheap goods: is the market rising?
How’s kissing plaster-dust?

Are you bored with her new body?
How’s it going, with an earthly woman,
with no sixth sense?

Are you happy?
No? In a shallow pit—how is your life,
my beloved? Hard as mine
with another man?”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“For my country has taken so little care
of me that even the sharpest spy could
go over my whole spirit and would
detect no native stain there.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“For the way of the comets is the poet's way.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“And tears are water, blood is water,
a woman always washes in blood and tears.
Love is a step-mother, and no mother:
then expect no justice or mercy from her.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“У меня в Москве — купола горят!
У меня в Москве — колокола звонят!
И гробницы в ряд у меня стоят, —
В них царицы спят, и цари.

И не знаешь ты, что зарёй в Кремле
Легче дышится — чем на всей земле!
И не знаешь ты, что зарёй в Кремле
Я молюсь тебе — до зари!

И проходишь ты над своей Невой
О ту пору, как над рекой-Москвой
Я стою с опущенной головой,
И слипаются фонари.

Всей бессонницей я тебя люблю,
Всей бессонницей я тебе внемлю —
О ту пору, как по всему Кремлю
Просыпаются звонари…

Но моя река — да с твоей рекой,
Но моя рука — да с твоей рукой
Не сойдутся, Радость моя, доколь
Не догонит заря — зари.

7 мая 1916

At home in Moscow - where the domes are burning,
at home in Moscow - in the sound of bells,
where I live the tombs - in their rows are standing
and in them Tsaritsas - are asleep and tsars.

And you don't know how - at dawn the Kremlin is
the easiest place to - breathe in the whole wide earth
and you don't know when - dawn reaches the Kremlin
I pray to you until - the next day comes

and I go with you - by your river Neva
even while beside - the Moscow river
I am standing here - with my head lowered
and the line of street lights - sticks fast together.

With my insomnia - I love you wholly.
With my insomnia - I listen for you,
just at the hour throughout - the Kremlin, men
who ring the bells - begin to waken,

Still my river - and your river
still my hand - and your hand
will never join, or not until
one dawn catches up another dawning.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“Teasing and tempting and playing
We loved like children, us both
But somebody, hiding a smile,
Set up the ungentle nets -
And here we are at the harbor,
Not seeing the wished-for abodes,
But knowing that I will be yours
In the heart, without words, until death.

You told me of all things - so early!
I guessed them so late! In our hearts
A wound is eternal, a silent
Question exists in our eyes,
The desert on earth is so endless,
The heaven, so high, has no stars,
Revealed is the tender secret,
And frost rules for centuries.

I will talk to shades! O my dear,
To forget you I do not have might,
Your visage can't move under shadow
Of eyelids gone over my eyes...
It's darkening... Shutters have closed,
On all things descending is night...
I love you, one ghostly-eternal,
And only you - and always!”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Antología. 100 poemas

“I paid not for my sins, but someone else’s.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems: Marina Tsvetaeva

“Whistle out your boyish
pain, your heart squeezed in your hand.
My indifferent and crazy creature—
now set free—goodbye!”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“United as the left hand and the right Your soul and mine are fixed together, tight. We’re warm and blissful, neighbouring Like a left-sided and right-sided wing. But then a storm comes – and a gaping cleft Is made between the right wing and the left.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems: Marina Tsvetaeva

“she shut herself up in her room and wrote poetry. This started at a very early age, and it tended to isolate her quite considerably from the rest of the family.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems: Marina Tsvetaeva

“Idealism, particularly idealism of a cultural or artistic kind, has become such a rare phenomenon in the contemporary world that it may often be hard for us to feel our way into the spiritual background of much of the art, music, and literature that burst upon an unsuspecting European public in the last years of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th. It has become fashionable to suppose that what we have come to term variously “modern art”, “modern music”, or simply “modernism” took its origins in some collective artistic rejection of the styles and norms of the past, and in an adoption of a sceptical and anti-idealistic world view. While it is true that the “iconoclastic” movements of expressionism, futurism, dada, and early surrealism relied for much of their public impact on shock-tactics and a philosophy of ‘making it new’, a close study of their artistic programmes shows that their primary concern was less the destruction of the past than the reinterpretation of both past and present in terms of a visionary future, a hoped-for world in which the artist, like some divinely inspired child, would endow mankind with a new innocence, exorcising from it the demons of war, revolution, technology, and social organisation. Such a transformed humanity would be a worthy successor to the mankind of previous ages”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems: Marina Tsvetaeva

“Посвящаю эти строки
Тем, кто мне устроит гроб.
Приоткроют мой высокий,
Ненавистный лоб.
Измененная без нужды,
С венчиком на лбу,-
Собственному сердцу чуждой
Буду я в гробу.
Не увидят на лице:
"Все мне слышно! Все мне видно!
Мне в гробу еще обидно
Быть как все".
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Идешь, на меня похожий,
Глаза устремляя вниз.
Я их опускала – тоже!
Прохожий, остановись!
[...]
Не думай, что здесь – могила,
Что я появлюсь, грозя...
Я слишком сама любила
Смеяться, когда нельзя!
И кровь приливала к коже,
И кудри мои вились...
Я тоже была, прохожий!
Прохожий, остановись!
[...]
Но только не стой угрюмо,
Главу опустив на грудь.
Легко обо мне подумай,
Легко обо мне забудь.
Как луч тебя освещает!
Ты весь в золотой пыли...
- И пусть тебя не смущает
Мой голос из-под земли.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“I will win you away from every earth, from every sky, For the woods are my place of birth, and the place to die, For while standing on earth, I touch it with but one foot, For I’ll sing your worth as nobody could or would. I will win you from every time and from every night, From all banners that throb and shine, from all swords held tight, I’ll drive dogs outside, hurl the keys into dark and fog, For in the mortal night I’m a more faithful dog.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems: Marina Tsvetaeva

“In a world where all Are bent-backed and asweat I know one alone Can equal my strength. In a world where so much Is left to desire I know one alone Can equal my power. In a world where all Is ivy, decaying, I know one alone – You – are equal in being To me.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems: Marina Tsvetaeva

“As I love to
kiss hands, and
to name everything, I
love to open
doors!”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems

“Take my sad thanks for this: you do not cause
my sickness. And I don't cause yours”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, Selected Poems