Aleksandr Blok

The faithless shadows of day are running
And high and clear is the call of bells,
Steps of the church are blazed as with the lightning,
Their stones are alive and wait for your light steps.

You'll here pass and touch the chilly stone,
That's dressed in awful sanity of span,
And let the flower of spring be thrown
Here, in this dark, before the eyes of saint.

The rose shadows in misty darkness grow,
And high and clear is the call of bells,
The darkness lays on steps, such old and low --
I'm set in light -- I wait for dear steps.   


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, December, 1994
Edited by Dmitry Karshtedt, February, 2001