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Untitled [Whence cometh such tender rapture?]

Whence cometh such tender rapture?
Those curls--they are not the first ones
I've smoothened, and I've already
Known lips--that were darker than yours.

The stars have risen and faded,
--Whence cometh such tender rapture?--
And eyes have risen and faded 
In face of these eyes of mine

I'd never yet hearkened unto
Such songs in the depths of darkness,
--Whence cometh such tender rapture?--
My head on the bard's own breast

Whence cometh such tender rapture?
And what's to be done with it, artful
Young vagabound, passing minstrel
With lashes--too long to say.

18 February 1916

Credit: 

English translation, translator's introduction and translator's notes copyright © 2003 by Northwestern University Press. Reprinted by permission of Northwestern University Press. All rights reserved.

Author: 

Marina Tsvetaeva

  • Read more about Marina Tsvetaeva
Date Published: 
2003

Source URL: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/untitled-whence-cometh-such-tender-rapture