The Poem of The End

The Poem of the End (with "The" in the title) is a major poem by the White Russian symbolist poet Marina Tsvetaeva. Written in Prague in 1924, the poem details the end of a passionate affair with Konstantin Boeslavovich Rozdevitch, a former military officer. Each of the sections deals with the crossing of a bridge and the symbolism is echoed relentlessly throughout the poem; the mood is unremittingly tense and foreboding.

Lovers for the most
part are without hope: passion
also is just
a bridge, a means of connection

(from the Elaine Feinstein translation).

The happy lot
Of lovers without hope:
Bridge, you are like passion:
A convention: pure transition.

(from the Nina Kossman translation)

Famous quotes containing the words the end and/or poem:

    I’m the end of the line; absurd and appalling as it may seem, serious New York theater has died in my lifetime.
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    A poem should be palpable and mute
    As a globed fruit,
    Dumb
    As old medallions to the thumb,
    Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982)