Fedor Sologub

What are our villages, destitute,
Or the whole of time and of space?
Father’s mansions exist in a multitude, -
We don’t know their name, and their place.

But, while waiting for joys behind earthly skies, 
Beside which life is only a dream,
I renounce the sweetness, beguiling us,
I repulse the distress of time streams. 

Cruel torments, decline, degradation, 
You have brought me a garland of death.
And the promise of our resurrection
Will be never fulfilled on the earth. 


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, January, 2001