THE URALS FOR THE FIRST TIME

by Boris Pasternak in 1916
W
	ITHOUT obstetrician, in darkness, unconscious, O
	...The towering Urals, hands clawing the night,
...........Yelled out in travail and fainting away,
...........Blinded by agony, gave birth to light.
...........In thunder, the masses and bronzes of mountains,
...........Accidentally struck, avalanched down.
...........The train went on panting. And somewhere this made
...........The spectres of firs go shyly to ground.
...........The smoke-haze at dawn was a soporific,
...........Administered slyly – to mountain and factory –
...........By men lighting stoves, by sulphurous dragons,
...........As thieves slip a drug in a traveller’s tea.
...........They came to in fire. From the crimson horizon
...........Down to their timberline destination,
...........Asians were skiing with crowns for the pines
...........And summoning them to their coronation.
...........And the pines, shaggy monarchs, in order of precedence
...........Rising up, stepped out, row on row
...........On to a damascened cloth-of-gold carpet
...........Spread with the orange of crusted snow.
	Shaggy was disturbed by the spectres and sulphurous dragons, but was quite illuminated by the soporifics that were there. Velma was dubious, and Fred and Daphne were a bit concerned by the obstetrics....