Pavel Antokolsky

In that dark night, when all was slept around,
And voices silenced in the schools and temples,
Not a ripe apple, a formula fell dawn
From havens’ branches on the working table.

And came a day. His dry and precise Latin
On gravitation of the havens things
Was rolling out with the jerky rattling.
He proved to people all his logic links.

And wiped his lips and brow, high and fair, 
By a heavy wig that’s like a horse’s tail…
But by that time the rector took the chair
And launched his speech as if a slow tale.

About the merciful creator of the cosmos,
Whose plan is always opened for us…
Of hundred years, gray, bold as a knee, and coarse,
He speared Newton with his hand and eyes.

But suddenly, with a grin, so wide and so ardent,
On his old face, he asked in a kindly voice:  
“Whether the fruits of autumnal your garden
Are runaways of the magnetic force?

But what a wind, oh, gracious God of ours,
Had driven you beyond the havens spheres?”
“I THOUHT…” – It was the shortest of the answers –
“I thought, sir. I have simply used to this.”


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, December, 2000