When, in that final week,
He was entering Jerusalem
They thundered Hosannas,
And greeted Him with branches.
Now the days are ominous and grim,
Hearts are no longer stirred by love,
Eyebrows are knit in contempt.
And now the epilogue, the end.
With all their leaden weight
The heavens laid on the courtyards.
Pharisees looked for proof against Him,
Yet wheedled Him like foxes.
And the dark forces of the Temple
Gave Him to rogues for judgment,
And as fervently as they praised
They cursed Him now.
The rabble from the neighborhood
Was peering through the gates,
They jostled in wait for the outcome,
And bustled about, back and forth.
And a whisper crept round there,
As did rumors from every side.
He recalled the flight to Egypt
And His childhood, but now as in a dream.
He recalled the majestic slope
In the desert, and the heights
From which Satan had tempted Him
With all the kingdoms of the world.
And the wedding feast at Cana,
The guests amazed by miracle.
And the sea on which, in a fog,
He'd walked to the boat as on dry land.
And the gathering of poor in a hovel,
And His going down to a cellar with a candle
Which suddenly, in fright, went out
As the resurrected man was standing up. . . .
Boris Pasternak, trans. from Russian by Nina Kossman
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