Fyodor Tyutchev
Predestination

Through love, through loves, as legends state it
Two kindred souls seek fusion true
Forever more to be related;
Ideal communion –destined, fated.
But fate locks them in combat too.

And in this combat one soul’s fires
Always burns with love more pure.
It suffers more, to more aspires,
But in the end that soul expires,
That’s its fate, predestined, sure.

Translated by Lydia Razran Stone