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A P R I L 2 0 0 0
Long and Hazy the Evening
Poem ("Vecher dymchat i dolog," "Nepravil'nye yamby")
Written in Ithaca, September 1953.
Published in Novyy Zhurnal 46 (1956). Translated by DN.
LONG and hazy the evening,
and I stand, as in prayer,
a young entomologist,
with some honeysuckle near.
How I crave, unexpected,
Midst those flowers to glimpse,
With proboscis projected,
a heavenly sphinx!
A quick throb -- and I see it.
At an angel I hit,
and a demon's entangled
in the haze of my net.
[Stikhi 288]
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Copyright © 2000 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; April 2000; Nabokov's Butterflies, Long and Hazy the Evening - 00.04;
Volume 285, No. 4; page 74.
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