Aleksander Blok:Behind the Hills My Resilient Armor Rang
Behind the hills my resilient armor rang
And a spear was lost in the darkness.
And my helmet does not shine — though golden, feathered —
Everything, all I held on this Earth.
The morning will rise, its outstretched arms will find me,
Where I gazed into the inkblack sky.
The sungods, mocking, flex their bows,
They will spill over me rain clouds of arrows.
If the nearing morning prophecies my ruin,
How could your voice be silent?
I feel, there, under the hills, on a twisting mountain path,
Your face crackling with lighting rage!
You will return, will fling your midnight spear
Into a cheerful sungod’s chest.
I will see your eyes in serpents’ coils,
I will hear your voice: “Let go.”
You are in your indigo shawl above me,
With a forked and curing tongue — serpent…
We will learn of you, what previously we felt,
Under the unfaithful shimmer of the spear!
The City
The city to the red margin
Turned its dead countenance,
Its graystone body
Doused with the sun’s blood.
The walls of its factories, its windowpanes,
A soilginger overcoat,
A fluttering curl —
Everything is filled with sunset.
Sparkling manes shining
With gold, as embers, horses,
Furious marvels tearing along
Greedybreasted and cloudychested,
A red janitor splashes the fair weather
With drunkcrimson water,
The blazing hips of the prostitutes
In the square are dancing,
And on the belltower
In a booming dance and a copper bellow
The bell shows its vast
Bloodstained tongue.
I Foresee YouAnd you will shake off the grave dream
Of worldly awareness, longing and loving.
— Vladimir Solovyov.
I foresee You. Years pass by —
All in one appearance I foresee You.
The whole horizon is aflame — and unbearably bright,
I wait speechlessly, longing and loving.
The whole horizon is aflame, and Your appearance nears.
But terrifyingly to me: You will change Your aspect,
And brazenly rouse suspicion,
Changing in the end Your worldly shape.
O, how I fall — both mournfully and basely,
Not having conquered my mortal dreams!
So bright the horizon! And radiance close.
But I am trembling: You will change Your form.
Velimir Khlebnikov:There, Where the Waxwings Lived
There, where the waxwings lived,
Where the firs rocked softly,
They all flew, flew away
As a flock of light moments.
Where the firs rustled gently,
Where the crowers sang screams,
They flew, flew away
As a flock of slight moments.
In a tangle of feral shadows,
Where, like a cloud of old days,
They twirled, jingled,
A flock of light moments!
A flock of slight moments!
You are a crooner and seducer,
Intoxicate me, play my strings,
You penetrate the heart, in waves!
Well then, clear crowers,
Glory to light times!
I Swam Across the Sudak Bay
I swam across the Sudak Bay. I sat upon a savage horse.
And to the people I exclaimed:
Russia is gone, it stands no more,
Divisions sliced, as Poland was.
And they were horrified.
So I said, that modern Russia’s heart hangs in suspension like a bat.
And they were remorseful. And so I yelled:
Oh, laugh, laughniks!
Oh laugh, laughniks!
I said: Down with the Hapsburgs! The bridle of Hohenzellorn!
This I wrote with an aquiline quill. Silksoft, golden, it meanders ‘round a coarse-grained rod.
I walked along the shore of a splendid lake, in lapti and a sky-blue shirt.
I was splendid myself.
I held an antique copper flail with perfect bumps.
I held a pipe of two thin reeds and sawed-off horn.
I was photographed with a skull in my hand.
I saw sea snakes in Petrovsk.
In the Urals I transferred tide from Caspian to Kara Sea.
I spoke: high Kazbek’s snow’s eternal, but to me the fresh brocade of the autumn Urals is sweet.
In the Grebensky mountains I came upon stingray teeth and silver shells at the height of a pharaonic chariot’s wheel.
Daredevil’s Dream
Why did I crumple
The wing and body
Of a butterfly in flight?
The village mourns
Over her grave.