Silentium!

Fyodor Tyutchev
Silentium!
  • Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal
  • the way you dream, the things you feel.
  • Deep in your spirit let them rise
  • akin to stars in crystal skies
  • that set before the night is blurred:
  • delight in them and speak no word.

  • How can a heart expression find?
  • How should another know your mind?
  • Will he discern what quickens you?
  • A thought, once uttered, is untrue.
  • Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred:
  • drink at the source and speak no word.

  • Live in your inner self alone
  • within your soul a world has grown,
  • the magic of veiled thoughts that might
  • be blinded by the outer light,
  • drowned in the noise of day, unheard…
  • take in their song and speak no word.

Source: Three Russian Poets, trans. Vladimir Nabokov (1944)

Original (1830) public domain; English translation © the Vladimir Nabokov estate

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