The Paris Review

Bring Me In Under Your Wing
Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Odessa, early 20th c.

Bring me in under your wing,
    be sister for me, and mother,
the place of you, rest for my head,
    a nest for my unwanted prayers.

At the hour of mercy, at dusk,
    we'll talk of my secret pain:
They say, there's youth in the world—
    What happened to mine?

And another thing, a clue:
    my being was seared in a flame.
They say there's love all around—
    What do they mean?

The stars betrayed me–there
    was a dream, which also has passed.
Now in the world I have nothing,
    not a thing.

Bring me in under your wing,
    be sister for me, and mother,
the place of you, rest for my head,
    a nest for my unwanted prayers.

—Translated from Hebrew by Peter Cole