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Published in the almanac Pcrekrestki (Philadelphia), no. 5, 1981, p. 37. Козельск: the city of Kozel'sk, Kaluga Region; many of its ancient churches built in the 17th-19th centuries were destroyed after the Russian revolution. Оптина Пустыня: Optina-Vvedenskaia-Makarieva Hermitage with Optina-Troitskii Monastery nearby, founded in the 15th century.
Published in the almanac Perekrestki (Philadelphia), no. 5, 1981, p. 38.
With a notation in the manuscript: «Первый набросок — to work on».
With a notation in the manuscript: «Отрывки и начала».
Variant in the last line in the manuscript: «об исчезнувших вдаль неделях…».
Западные горы: the Western Hills, mountains in the vicinity of Beijing. Тан-чжэ-сы: see note on poem 276.
With a notation in the manuscript: «Отрывки и начала».
Variant in last stanza in the manuscript: «Небесные не дремлют также силы./Пусть люди говорят: «Не дремлет порог». / Я осенила знаменьем креста / И тех, что милы нам и что не милы.»
With a notation in the manuscript: «Это о мексиканцах».
Published in the almanac Vstrechi (Philadelphia), 1985, p. 79.
Published in the almanac Vstrechi (Philadelphia), 1985, p. 79. Саранки was a local Russian name for the wild tiger lilies that grow in the hills of North-F.ast China.
Two other manuscripts of this poem are dated 11 September 1985 and 19 November 1986. One has the notation: «Для Тани Здоренко.» Г. Здоренко: Tat'iana Zdorenko, nee Chernosvitova, wife of Pavel Zdorenko, a graduate of the Harbin Commercial Schools.
Гаолян: gaoliang (Chinese), sorghum. Желтая река: the Muanghe River
Published in the almanac Vstrechi (Philadelphia), 1988, p. 101
Published in the almanac Vstrechi (Philadelphia), 1988, p. 102.
Published in the almanac Vstrechi (Philadelphia), 1988, p. 103.
Variant in (he last lines in the manuscript: «Зато всегда / пока еще живу, / я помню и люблю Неву.»
Variant in the third line of the last stanza in the manuscript: «Нередко солнце мимоходом.»
Св. Николаевский собор: St. Nicholas cathedral in Harbin, built in the center of the administrative part of the city in 1899–1901, during the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway. It was completely destroyed in August 1966 during the Cultural Revolution in China.
Frances Johnson was a classmate at the North China American School in Tongzhou. Rupert Brooke (1887–1915), an English poet, died during the First World War; The Collected Works of Rupert Brooke was published posthumously in 1915.
Published in NCA 1922 the student annual of the Noilh China American School in Tongzhou. The stink-bug is a grayish-brown beetle in Сhina, which emits a very unpleasant smell when squashed.
Variant in the fourth line of the first stanza in the manuscript: «and hill and meadows from my solitudes.» The manuscript indicates that Mary Vezey planned to include another stanza between the first and the second stanzas; only one line was written in brackets: «In our tall forests we had stately firs.»
The Norma Jean to whom this poem is dedicated has not been identified; perhaps it was Marilyn Monroe, whose real name was Norma Jeane Morrison.
Variant in the last stanza in the manuscript: «But in her tower / high-walled, / the knight's young daughter /enthralled /forgetful of the hour/ silently watches/ the silver splotches / upon the water.»
Po Chii-i: Bo Juyi in contemporary transcription (772–846), a Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty
Variant in the third line of the fourth stanza in the manuscript: «cry loudly.»
English variant of the Russian poem «Жена Лота»; see poem 377.
Kwan-Yin: Guanyin in contemporary transcription, the Chinese goddess of mercy, literally «the one who listens to sounds», i.e., to requests and supplications.
Moika Street is in St. Petersburg. Variants in the manuscript: in the second line «an oldster — he had loads of books», in the third line «and knew so many people. Yet», and in the eighth line «We'd grasp each other just like that».
Por V.V. see nole on poem 54. Variants in (he manuscript: in the first line of (he first stanza «You turned from the road and w ent away. I said goodbye to you, but that was for now"; in the first line of the third stanza «Or on some bridge as I cross a golden strait"; in the fourth and fifth lines of the third stanza «I will suddenly see / a glimpse of your face rushing toward me». Temple of Horrors: a temple in Shanghai. Corraterie: see note on poem 393.
Viipuri: also known as Vyborg, a city and port in the Gulf of Finland, the «eastern capital» of Finland, seized by the Soviet Union in 1940.
Variant in the last, line of the second stanza in the manuscript: «that we reach out to grasp».
With notation on the manuscript of the cycle «My China»: «Some time years ago, probably in the 60s.»
Yalu: a river.
With a notation in the manuscript: «kai-meng-de' is Chinese for 'gatekeeper.»
Variant in the second line of the last stanza in the manuscript: «swiftly dividing the rushes with the sharp prow of your boat.» Sun-Hwa-kiang: Songhuajiang in the contemporary transcription, the Sungari River; see note on poem 327.
For the Western Hills see note on poem 471. «Have you had your rice?» i.e., «Have you eaten?» is a traditional polite enquiry in China.
For Po Chu — yi see note on poem 527. The epigraph is taken from Bo Juyi's poem «Night Stop at Rongyang».
Om mani pad me kum: a meditation mantra.
Lake Hanka is a lake in the maritime Far East, on the border of Russia and China.
Mai Mai Cheng: the Chinese city of Maimaicheng and the adjacent Russian city of Kiаikhtа were centres of Sino-Russian trade in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Maxwell Bodenheim, Мита and Myself (1918).
Abbie Huston Evans, Fuel of Crystal (1961); Vezey gave the poem the draft title «Ниша (Убежище) от взрыва, — Концерт».
Edna St. Vincent Millay, A Few Figs from Thistles (1921).
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascense and Other Poems (1917)
Edna St. Vincent Millay, A Fatal Interview (1931). Variants in the manuscript: in the eleventh line «или в нужде и мраке, что гнетет», and «в нужде без проблеска, в бессильи от забот»; in the twelfth line «твою любовь продам за облегченье»; in the thirteenth line «иль память о тебе — за хлеб и свет».
Carl Sandburg, Chicago Poems (1916).
R.L. Stevenson, Songs of Travel.
William Wordsworth, «Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood» (1897), part V and part of part IX.
Published in the journal Kharbinskie kommercheskie uchilishcha Kit. Vost. zhel. dor., no. 9, 1969, p. 31, with a misprint in the poet's surname.
With the notation «из сборника Время разлук (Нью-Йорк. 1971)».
No dates are available for Andreeva's life. This poem is from Rubezh, Harbin, no. 26, 1930; it received second prize in (he poetry competition organized by the Harbin literary circle of young poets «Churaevka» in the early 1930s
Translation of the second stanza. Variant in the last line: «the very longest way!»
Variant in the eighth line in the manuscript: "with a tawny brown hand, and does not dare."
Mary Vezey's "(??)" in the eighth line presumably indicates a search for a better word.
Blok supplemented the published poem with a note: «Эпитафия сочинена Полицианом и вырезана на могильной плите в Сполотском соборе по повелению Лаврентия Великолепного». Fra Filippo Lippi (са. 1406–1469) was an Italian painter of the early Renaissance.
Variant in the fifth line of the second stanza in the manuscript: «could have you come to visit me».
Андрей Блох (ок. 1896 — после 1930) Данные о поэте и переводчике крайне скудны: известно, что в начале 20-х годов он служил во французском Иностранном легионе; печатался во множестве периодических изданий (преимущественно выходивших в Латвии на русском языке между 1922 и 1930 годами). Автор двух поэтических сборников — «Стихотворения» (1927) и «Поэмы и стихи» (1929); оба изданы в Париже.
From the collection Жемчуга (1910; 1918).
From the collection Жемчуга (1910; 1918).
Unfinished translation from the collection Огненный столп (1921). Variant in the last line second stanza of part three in the manuscript: «that bays the moon when it is bright on high». Igdrazil: a gigantic ash-tree, which in ancient Spain symbolized the universe
From the collection Прикосновенье, Munich, 1959.
From the collection Навстречу небу, Frankfurt-on-Maine, 1952.
From the collection След жизни, Frankfurt-on-Maine, 1950.
From the collection Разрозненная тайна, Munich, 1965. Variant in the first line of the first stanza in the manuscript: «Oh, yes, it's good! Not in the present.»
From the collection Навстречу небу, Frankfurt-on-Maine, 1952.
From the collection След жизни, Frankfurt-on-Maine, 1950.
From the collection След жизни, Frankfurt-on-Maine, 1950.
First part of a poem from the collection ,Неуловимый спутник, Frankfurt-on-Maine, 1956
