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Blue blood

A poem by Vladimir Mann · translated by Geoff Fousert

Оригинал: «Голубая кровь» →

I
O youthful wanderer, in daylight’s flame,
you chased your dream through deserts grim and wide,
on crusade paths to win a cooling stream,
a blue-born spring where hidden truths reside.
Not passion’s fire, nor blush of mortal glow,
but veins as pale and pure as morning’s breath
turned back your road toward peaks of wiser snow,
and led your steps beyond the realm of death.

II
You roamed among the palaces of stone
where marble shone and pride was carved in white,
yet found but ruby blood in halls alone
and memory’s cold shadow in their light.
In gardens heavy with an unknown ache,
and bells that groaned with nameless, distant tone,
your gaze rose skyward, seeking heaven’s wake,
and soon your path became the open sea.

III
Within the capital of yellow khans,
the birthplace of all tyrants’ ancient reign,
where Himalayas whisper endless time
and gold gives birth to careless joy and gain,
where cunning walks with pleasure side by side
and peace itself seems born of sweet disguise,
there followed worlds of contradiction’s tide -
yet still one truth endured before your eyes:
the colour of all blood is ever red.

IV
Across the harsh Atlantic’s shadowed span,
toward another chapter yet unknown,
through fires of native dances on the sand,
through painted cloth and rhythms overthrown,
in northern winds and Latin storms of fire,
in passion’s whirl and drunkenness of loss -
even there you found no sign, no higher choir,
no tremor of that blue blood you once sought.

V
For always, everywhere, it is the same -
only the blood of earth within our veins;
the world is wild, unruled by noble claim,
and order sings in fragile, human strains.
Blue blood flows only in the gods above,
within their code - the sixth eternal law.

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