Igor Severyanin (Pseud. of Igor Lotarev)

Aquarelle

AN APPLE-TREE in Spring shakes me,—to see it grow,

Its branches whitely weighted with unmelting snow.

So might a hunch-backed girl stand, beautiful and dumb,

As trembling, the tree stands, and strikes my genius numb….

It looks into the wide, pale shallows, mirror-clear,

Seeking to shed the dews that stain it like a tear;

And stilled with horror, groans like a rude, rusty cart,

Seeing the dismal hunch mocked by the pool’s bright art.

When steely sleep alights upon the silent lake

For the bent apple-tree, as for a sick girl’s sake,

I come to offer tenderness the boughs would miss,

I press upon the petal-perfumed tree a kiss.

Then trustingly, with tears, the tree confides her care

To me, and brushes with a touch my back-blown hair.

Her boughs encircle me, her little twigs enlace,

And I lift up my lips to kiss her flowering face.