And if the song is sung truly

From The Selected Poems of Osip Mandlestam (NYRB edition translated by Clarence Brown and W.S. Merwin, no.54 of the selection from Stone):

Poison in the bread, the air drunk dry.
Hard to doctor the wounds.
Joseph sold into Egypt
greived no more bitterly for home.

Bedouins under the stars
close their eyes, sitting their horses,
and improvise songs
out of the troubles of the day.

No lack of subject:
one lost a quiver in the sand,
one bartered away a stallion …
the mist of events drifts away.

And if the song is sung truly,
from the whole heart, everything
at last vanishes: nothing is left
but space, the stars, the singer.