Nikolay Gumilev

It was not only once, it will go this way,
In our fight, which is deaf and destroying: 
As it happened before, you rebuffed me today – 
To return, like a slave, by the morning.

Therefore, don’t be stressed, my inimical friend, 
My friend - enemy, caught by black laces, 
If the moans of love will be moans of pain
And the kisses will leave bloody traces.   


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, May, 2000
Edited by Dmitry Karshtedt, December, 2000