In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

✦ 55 ✦ Sparrow Hills These kisses on your breast—like water from a pitcher! For summer can’t forever gush at such a peak, Nor can we, night on night, evoke the music’s roar By dragging through the dust and stamping with our feet. I’ve heard about old age. Their prophecies are dreadful! That not a single wave will stretch an arm to stars. They say—you won’t believe it. . . . Meadows have no face, The ponds no beating heart, the woods no god at all. So shake your soul today! Be all unfurled and flowing. The world is at its noon. Have you got eyes to see? Then look—the heights are seething, swirling in a foam Of clouds and cones and needles, orioles and heat. And here the city trolley tracks come screeching to a halt. Beyond, the pines hold service. Trolleys may not pass. Beyond the line it’s Sunday. Tearing off its twigs, The clearing capers madly, tumbling in the grass. And sifting noon and Whitsunday, rambles and parades, The grove entreats believing: the world was ever thus. Conceived this way by thickets, instilled this way in glades, And poured from clouds, as promised, on calico and us. Sparrow Hills: a section of Moscow within a bend of the Moscow River. Later called Lenin Hills, and the site of Moscow University. The area in 1917 was still semirural and undeveloped. ...

Share