Boris Pasternak

Who is to be sound and lavished, 
Who – dead and be railed against – 
Is known in our ‘parish’
To our supreme sycophants.

And perhaps none would have sensation -- 
Is Pushkin respected or not,
Were it not for their dissertations,
Shed light on the ‘what is just what’.

But Blok, as we all apprehend it,  
Is different matter to us:
He wasn’t from high Sinai descended,
Didn’t foster all us as his sons.

He’s great out systems and lessons,
Without any program – esteemed,
Hasn’t been artificially fashioned,
And none has pressed us to love him. 


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, May, 2001