Nikolay Gumilev

He, who builds the skyscraper, falls dawn,
It'll be awful, impetuous flight,
In the deep of a well, in the ground,
He will curse his unusual plight.

A destroyer, of course, will be thrown,
Thrown under the falling blocks' rain
Left by God in the darkness, alone,
He will curse his unusual pain.

He who left for a cave and a lantern,
Or for river's back-water, forlorn,
Will be met by the eyes of a painter...
And will curse just a day he was born.

You couldn't hide from your fate for a moment,
Fate is written in depths of the earth,
But, shut up: it's a marvelous warrant
To chose out your kind of the death.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver
January, 2000