Frost - “Alone I stare into the frost’s white face”
Frost is used to evoke a chilly, forlorn ambiance: “Alone I stare into the frost’s white face./It’s going nowhere, and I—from nowhere.” Osip Mandelstam confronts voluminous frost while he is unaccompanied. The frost amplifies Mandelstam’s solitude because it is palpable that it is not going to shrink soon.
Starched Poverty - “Alone I stare into the frost’s white face”
Mandelstam observes, “Meanwhile the sun squints at this starched poverty—”The ‘starched poverty” alludes to Mandelstam’s stiff skin which is deficient of warmth. The sun is not adequately strong to amend the rigidity.
Time - “Poems: 140 1 January 1924”
Time is equated to an old man: “Whoever kisses time’s ancient nodding head/will remember later, like a loving son,/how the old man lay down to sleep/in the drift of wheat outside the window.” The emblematic old man befits time for it is antique and sublime. Time’s ‘nodding head’ signifies its unrelenting advance. The old man’s status of oldness is ascribed to the ephemerality of time.
Twilight - “ Stone: 103 The Twilight of Freedom”
Mandelstam declares, “Let us praise the twilight of freedom, brothers,/the great year of twilight!” The twilight signposts the advent of congenial freedom. The twilight heralds a considerable autonomy that permits a commemoration by all brothers.
