Nikolay Gumilev

Birth of the word is by agony molded,
Through earthly life it is quietly going, 
It is a stranger, which drinks from the golden           
Pitcher the drops of the savages’ mourning.

Go to Nature! The Nature is hostile,
All here is frightening, all is in fullness,
There are the trumpets here, singing the docile 
Psalms to the Lord, apathetic and useless.

Death? But before you must weight with exactness,         
This tale of poets, and be very clever – 
You won’t be sorry for light and life’s greatness
But – for a thought which is reigning forever.

There is the way that is high and severe:
Bitterly cry with the winds, wild and bitter,
Live with the beggars in dens of a bear,                     
Frame the dark dreams in a mold of the meter.


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