Alexander Blok
Artist

In summer-heat or in wintertime glistening,
Days when you marry, or triumph, or die,
I would dispel deathly boredom by listening
For a soft peal yet unheard in the sky.

There it approaches, and coldly I wait for it,
Wait to get hold of it, leave it for dead.
While my attention is strained ahead straight for it,
It pulls a nearly invisible thread.

Wind from the sea? or are singing-birds calling there
From Paradise? Does Time stop and stay fast?
Or is the May’s apple-blossom a-falling there
In snowy rain? Does an angel fly past?

Time is prolonged. Every wonder it cherishes;
Light, tumult, motion around me appear.
Wildly the future reflects all that perishes,
Nothing is present or pitiful here.

Finally, force inconceivable filling it,
Strains a new soul from its birth to the day, —
Curses, as thunder, attack the soul, killing it
Reason, creative, subdues it, — to slay.

Then in a shivering cage I shut wearily
That happy bird who once flew about merrily.
This was the bird that would take death from me,
This was the bird that would set the soul free.

There is the cage. Heavy, iron I fashioned it.
Golden it gleams in the sun’s setting fire.
There is the bird for you. Once so impassioned it
Swings on the hoop as it sings to the wire.

Clipped are its wings; all by heart now it sings to me —
Say, would you listen and stand by the door?
Singing may please you, — but weariness clings to me.
Once more I wait, and know boredom once more.

Translated by Cecil Maurice Bowra