Silentium Quotes

“Life is overwhelming life,
Sound is melting, bit by bit,
Something’s off, I feel deprived,
With no time to harp on it.
Life was better, was it not?
No comparing, anyway,
How you rustled once, my blood, -
How you’re rustling today.
It appears that one must pay
For the movement of the lips,
And the tree-tops freely sway
As the axe awaits, eclipsed.”
― Osip Mandelstam, Silentium: Poetry of Osip Mandelstam

“And like unoccupied heart’s home,
You’ll fill the fragile shell,
With wind, with whispers of the foam,
And fog, and rain as well…”
― Osip Mandelstam, Silentium: Poetry of Osip Mandelstam

“I want you now so awfully, No longer jealous-green, I bring myself as offering Up to the guillotine.”
― Osip Mandelstam, Silentium: Poetry of Osip Mandelstam

“I breathed in forbidden life.”
― Osip Mandelstam, Silentium: Poetry of Osip Mandelstam

“O, may my lips someday attain
The primal muteness that I’ve sought -
That’s like a flawless crystal note,
Its purity - from birth sustained.”
― Osip Mandelstam, Silentium: Poetry of Osip Mandelstam

“A word does not suppress This dryness spreading through, Dense air is emptiness For me without you.”
― Osip Mandelstam, Silentium: Poetry of Osip Mandelstam

“The careful muffled sound of fruit
That plummets, broken from a tree,
Amid the constant melody
Of the deep silence of the wood…”
― Osip Mandelstam, Silentium: Poetry of Osip Mandelstam