Andrey Bely’s poem “On the Mountains” about a hunchback and pineapples on a cliff

Mountains in bridal wreaths.
I am in raptures and young.
On my mountain-tops
there is a purifying cold.
Here, up to my crag,
a white-haired hunchback has dragged himself.
He has brought me as a gift
pineapples from the subterranean hothouses.
He danced in crimson-bright,
glorifying the azure.
With his beard he whirled up
the vortex of blizzard-silver storms.
He bawled
in a deep bass.
He launched into the heavens
a pineapple.
And, having described an arc,
lighting up the countryside,
the pineapple fell, shining,
into the unknown,
radiating golden dew
in pillars of chervonets gold.
Down below they said:
"This is the disc of the flame-glowing sun…"
Ringing, they came crashing down,
they washed the crags,
the golden fountains of fire,
the dew of crystal
turned scarlet.
I poured wine into goblets
and, creeping up from the side,
drenched the hunchback
with a light-foaming stream.

Literal translation

"In the Mountains" by Andrei Bely

Illustration: Caspar David Friedrich, "The Giant Mountains", 1810, collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts