Aleksandr Blok

Flaming signs of the mystery grow 
On the wall, that is solid and grim,
And the tulips of purple and gold
All the night hang o’er me in my dream.

I hide self in the caves’ dark and coldness,
Loose remembrance of miracles, past, 
At a sunrise, the vast bluish monsters
Look at me from the heaven’s bright glass. 

I run back to the past’s early edges;
Full of fear, I close my eyes,
On the cooling book’s whitening pages,
Gold of maiden’s plait fatally lies.

The sky’s firmament’s lower here
The black dream strongly squeezes my breast.
My life’s fatal end’s utterly near –   
And a war and a fire come next.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, March, 2002