Poetry
Boris Pasternak 1890 (Moscow) – 1960 (Peredelkino)
Yes, I shall swear by you, my verse,
I shall wheeze out, before I swoon:
You're not a tenor's shape and voice,
You're summer travelling third class,
You are a suburb, not a tune.
You're a street as close as May,
You're a battlefield at night,
Where clouds groan loudly in dismay
And scatter, when dismissed, in fright.
And, splitting in the railway's lace-
That's outskirts, not refrain and home-
They crawl back to their native place
Without a song, as if struck dumb.
The shower's offshoots stick in clusters
Till break of day, and all the time
They scribble on the roofs acrostics
And bubble up rhyme after rhyme.
All poetry is what you make it.
And even when the truism's not worth
The rhyme, the flow of verse is scared.
The notebook's open-so flow forth!
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 07, 2023
- 44 sec read
- 141 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABXXB CDCD EXEX XFAF XXXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 748 |
Words | 139 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Translation
Find a translation for this poem in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Poetry" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 Oct. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/4529/poetry>.
Discuss the poem Poetry with the community...
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In