Deutsch and Yarmolinsky, comps. Modern Russian Poetry. 1921. | | The Surf | By Yurgis Baltrushaitis (b. 1873) |
| THE DAYS wild ocean sings and thunders, | |
And beats against the fatal shore, | |
This breaker with dumb sorrow sunders, | |
And these like laughing victors roar, | |
Their sheenthe joy of vernal wonders, | 5 |
Their sheenvast winters shining hoar. | |
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In wrath triumphant forward-swinging, | |
The lifted billow calls, and fails, | |
A joyous giant, shouting, singing, | |
Its voice the voice of sounding gales, | 10 |
Its glory in the sunlight flinging | |
Whose noonday glow it holds and hails. | |
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Across the sea, now lightly foaming, | |
Another rears, that stirs the deep, | |
And floods the shore with silence, gloaming; | 15 |
Morose and slow it seems to creep | |
Like one who drops, worn out with roaming, | |
From his bent back a fatal heap. | |
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Each moment new, with changing power, | |
The surf is thundering, alone. | 20 |
Now idle, now it seems to lower, | |
Hymning a Silence all unknown, | |
Like a dark heart asleep,for hour | |
On hour in restless monotone. | | | |
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