A thousand ages in thy sight

Are like an evening gone;

Short as the watch that ends the night

Before the rising sun.

But strength still goes out from your thorns,

and from your abysses the sound of music.

Your shadows lie on my heart like roses

and your nights are like strong wine.

Into the distance disappear the mounds of human heads.

I dwindle–go unnoticed now.

But in affectionate books, in children's games,

I will rise from the dead to say: the sun!

–Opis Mandelstam