Arseny Tarkovsky
A poet at the beginning of the 20th century

Each of your verses is a boil of poison
Like a life that has been burned by sin.
I breathe your verses although I should not,
It’s forbidden to breathe them in.

You are a mad poor little boy
Who brought a farewell noise of bells
From some white funeral to spoil
The banqueting of friends.

Forgive me – I will, like in a fog,
Nestle myself against your cloak
And in its black and worn out cloth
I will uncover such a chill,

Such an unbearable return
Of my once lethal youth
That Tsusima’ s fatal battle noise
Is no more dreadful than your muse.

Then I raise my arms in veneration
And set my path toward your magnet
And there, on earth, in its last torment
My soul below laments…

Translated by Sofiya Yuzefpolskaya-Tsilosani and George Rueckert