We shall meet again, in Petersburg,
as though we had buried the sun there,
and then we shall pronounce for the first time
the blessed word with no meaning.
In the Soviet night, in the velvet dark,
in the black velvet Void, the loved eyes
of the blessed women are still singing,
flowers are blooming that will never die.
The capital hunches like a wild cat,
a patrol is stationed on the bridge,
a single car rushes past in the dark,
snarling, hooting like a cuckoo.
For this night I need no pass.
I’m not afraid of the sentries.
I will pray in the Soviet night
for the blessed word with no meaning.
A rustling, as in a theater,
and a girl suddenly crying out,
and the arms of Cypris are weighed down
with roses that will never fall.
For something to do we warm ourselves at a bonfire,
maybe the ages will die away
and the loved hands of the blessed women
will brush the light ashes together.
Somewhere audiences of red flowers exist,
and the fat sofas of the loges,
and a clockwork officer
looking down on the world.
Never mind if our candles go out
in the velvet, in the black Void. The bowed shoulders
of the blessed women are still singing.
You’ll never notice the night’s sun.
"We shall meet again, in Petersburg" is a beautiful poem by Osip Mandelstam written in 1920. One of Russia's (then Soviet Union's) gifted poets who was exiled under Stalin's government during the repression of the 1930s.
What draws me to this poem is the sense of emotion that Mandelstam evokes so effortlessly. It begins with a promise - to meet again in Petersburg and pronounce the blessed word. What the word is, Mandelstam makes no mention. There's a certain sadness associated with this promise. A desperate hope and a longing for his hometown.
He describes Petersburg using a dichotomy - a place that's beautiful but also not. A place that is velvet dark, and void, but one where flowers bloom, and blessed women sing. An area once bubbling and bustling with life, now tainted with tyranny. The flowers represent the beauty of the place and the velvet dark its current state.
He hopes that it will change by saying that "the flowers will never die," implying that the dark is temporary and will eventually give way to flowers. This thought is resonated at the end when he says that even if the candles go out, the blessed women will still sing, and the night's sun will go unnoticed.
