Bad Days Poem by Boris Pasternak

Bad Days

Rating: 2.9


When Passion week started and Jesus
Came down to the city, that day
Hosannahs burst out at his entry
And palm leaves were strewn in his way.

But days grow more stern and more stormy.
No love can men's hardness unbend;
Their brows are contemptuously frowning,
And now comes the postscript, the end.

Grey, leaden and heavy, the heavens
Were pressing on treetops and roofs.
The Pharisees, fawning like foxes,
Were secretly searching for proofs.

The lords of the Temple let scoundrels
Pass judgement, and those who at first
Had fervently followed and hailed him,
Now all just as zealously cursed.

The crowd on the neighbouring sector
Was looking inside through the gate.
They jostled, intent on the outcome,
Bewildered and willing to wait.

And whispers and rumours were creeping,
Repeating the dominant theme.
The flight into Egypt, his childhood
Already seemed faint as a dream.

And Jesus remembered the desert,
The days in the wilderness spent,
The tempting with power by Satan,
That lofty, majestic descent.

He thought of the wedding at Cana,
The feast and the miracles; and
How once he had walked on the waters
Through mist to a boat, as on land;

The beggarly crowd in a hovel,
The cellar to which he was led;
How, started, the candle-flame guttered,
When Lazarus rose from the dead…

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Susan Williams 19 February 2018

I do not know why I was startled that this was written by Pasternak- I best review his prose work and look for clues to his spirituality

1 0 Reply
Practicing Poetess 19 February 2018

I thought that it ended too abruptly- - Quite honestly, I was expecting more. But, altogether an excellent write! Well done, Mister Pasternak!

2 0 Reply
Kumarmani Mahakul 19 February 2018

Beautiful poem with nice collocation.

1 0 Reply
Bernard F. Asuncion 19 February 2018

Such a biblical write by Boris Pasternak👍👍👍

2 0 Reply
M Asim Nehal 04 February 2016

How once he had walked on the waters Through mist to a boat, as on land; Superb one

2 0 Reply
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