Alexander Blok
Ravenna

All that is fragile, all that is transient,
you have buried in the centuries.
Like a child you sleep, Ravenna,
in the drowsy arms of eternity.

Slaves no longer bring mosaics
through the arches built by Rome.
On the walls of cool basilicas
golden fire is dying down.

The rough sepulchral vault has softened
to the moisture’s lingering kiss,
where a green film coats the graves
of monks and empresses.

The burial vaults are silent,
their doorways dark and cold,
lest black-eyed Galla’s holy gaze
wakes, and burns through stone.

The bloodstained track of war and hurt
erased, all memory gone,
lest Placidia’s voice, stirred to life,
sings the passion of times long done.

The sea’s receded, and the roses
cling round the rampart’s stone,
lest Theodoric dream life’s storms
as he sleeps soundly in his tomb.

And the vine-set wastes, the houses,
and the people — all are tombs.
Only noble Latin, cut in bronze,
sounds like music from the stones.

Only in the intense quiet gaze
of Ravenna’s girls, regret
for the sea that will not return
still shyly flickers on, as yet.

Only at night, bent over the valleys,
taking stock of the centuries to be,
Dante’s spirit, with aquiline profile,
sings of the New Life to me.

Translated by A. S. Kline