The falling is the constant mate of fear,
And feel of emptiness is the feel of fright.
Who throws us the stones from the height --
And stones here refuse the dust to bear?
Once, striding in a monk’s unbending mode,
You pierced the yard from rim to other rim;
The cobble-stones and the coarse dream --
Have thirst for death and sadness of the broad-
Let Gothic shelter be in ruins turned
Where ceiling serves as a deceptive fable,
And in the heath the gaily logs don’t burn!
A few here for eternity were born;
But if your mind has only instant label
Your lot is awful and your home unstable!
Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-falling-is-the-constant-mate-of-fear/
