"To read only children's books"

To read only children's books,
to cherish only children's thoughts,
to disperse far everything large,
to rise out of profound sadness.

I am mortally tired of life,
I get nothing out of it,
but I love my poor land 

because I've not seen any other.

I swung in a far-off garden 

on a plain wooden swing,

and remember in misty delirium 

the tall, dark spruces.

--- Osip Mandelstam, tr. R. H. Morrison