Aleksandr Blok

All on the earth will die – and youth and mother,
Wife will betray you, leave once faithful friend,
But you learn to enjoy the bliss another – 
Look in a mirror of the polar land.

Get on your bark, sail to the distant Pole
In walls of ice – and bit by bit forget
How they loved there, perished, fought, gained goal…
Forget your passions’ ever painful set.

And let your soul, tiered all to bear,
Come used to shudder of the slow colds –
Such that it will not crave for something here,
When once from there the dazzling lighting bolts.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, July, 2002