One poem by Osip Mandelshtam

Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam, 1891-1938, was one of the finest Russian poets of the 20th Century. His wife, Nadezhda Mandelshtam, was herself a writer of note. Mandelshtam served as a leader in the Acmeist circle of poets who brought Russian poetry down to earth in sharp contrast with the mysticism of the Symbolists.      

THE LAST SUPPER     

                                                                        

Supper’s sky adorned the icon wall.    
Scar-light wounds spread all over,
the brightest so deep and startling
13 sacred faces pushed forth.

Here rises my night sky in a shower of stars.
I stand before this vision in boyish awe,    
spine chills so cold entranced eyes ache ice shards,
and wall-beating firmaments baptize shawls. 

Beneath each battering-ram strike
celestial rain of headless haloes descends.
New wounds for the same mural delight--   
the mist of unfinished eternity.