Alexander Blok
The Artist

In the heat of summer, and snow-dark winter,
on days of funerals, festival, marriage,
I wait for a faint, inaudible ringing
to relieve my deadly boredom.

It’s here — it rises. With cold concentration,
I wait to know it, skewer it, kill it.
And, as I wait, intently,
it spins a finest thread before me.

A wind from the sea? Or miraculous birds
singing in Heaven’s leaves? Time still?
White blossom spilt from the May-time
apple trees? An angel goes past?

An hour carries the weight of the earth.
Sound, motion and light expand.
The past sees itself in the future’s glass.
There is no Now. And pity? — None.

And at the dawn of a new soul’s birth,
of unknown powers, a curse —
that strikes the soul like lightning,
creative reason conquers — and kills.

And I closed in its chilly cage
the ethereal, free, gentle bird,
that wanted to take away death,
and flew down to save the soul.

Here is my cage — solid steel,
gleaming gold with the sunset fire.
Here is the bird — once all happiness,
on its swing now, singing near the glass.

Wings clipped, its songs learnt by heart.
You like to stand under my window?
Pleased with the songs? But, tired of suffering,
I wait for the new — and I feel the boredom.

Translated by A. S. Kline