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Born
in
Moscow
, the daughter of Professor Ivan Tsvetaev, the art
historian who founded the Pushkin Museum of Art in
Moscow Tsvetaeva finished school in 1908 and went to
Paris
where she attended lectures on literary history at the
Sorbonne. Her first poems were printed when she was
sixteen. Her first book - "An Evening Album" -
which came out in 1912, was praised by the critics,
including Valery Bryusov. Tsvetaeva emigrated in 1922.
She lived at first in
Berlin
and later moved to
Prague
and to
Paris
. Self-willed and proud, she eventually came to disagree
more and more sharply with the ultra-reactionary emigre
circles. She lived in dire poverty and suffered from
homesickness. Her poems at that time were full of
contempt and hatred for the rising wave of fascism in
Europe
. In 1939 she returned to the
Soviet Union
with her family but was not accepted by the new regime.
She was forced to suicide by the unbearing circumstances
that she was surrounded with by the communists.
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Still
yesterday he met my gaze,
But
now his eyes are darting shiftly!
Till
birdsong at first light he stayed,-
Now larks
are crows, met with hostility!
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Like
an infanticide in court
I
stand detested, shy, confronting you.
Yet
still I ask, when I am brought
To
Hell: "O my dear love, what have I done to
you?"
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So
I am stupid, you are wise,
You
live, I lie dumb stricken, numb to you.
O
how the woman in me cries:
"O
my dear love, what have I done to you?"
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I
asked the chair, I asked the bed:
"Why
should I bear the pain, the misery?"
"He
wants to torture you" they said,
"To
kiss another. Where's the mystery?"
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The
ships of lovers-lost set sail,
A
white road takes the lover shunning you...
Across
the world a long-drawn wail:
"O
my dear love, what have I done to you?"
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He
taught me living -- at furnace heat,
In
icy steppe he left me suddenly.
"That
is what you, dear, did to me!
O
my dear love, what have I done to you?"
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There
only yesterday he kneeled.
He
called me his "
Cathay
" admiringly.
Then
spread his palm out -- to reveal
A
rusty kopek, a life derisory.
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Now
all is plain -- don't contradict!
I
see again - I'm not your partner.
A
heart that love leaves derelict
Is
fair terrain for Death-the-Gardener.
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Why
shake the tree? Ripe apples fall
To
earth themself and never trouble you...
Forgive
me now, forgive me all
That
I, dear love, have ever done to you!
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