Gavrila Derzhavin
God

O You who has no bounds in space,
Who fills all matter with His being,
Eternal in the ebb of time, whose face
Is faceless yet whose Trinity’s all-seeing.
A spirit unitary and omnipresent,
A mystery to all — from king to peasant —
Who steers the world and seals its lot,
Who permeates life with His laws,
Of no fixed place, of no first cause,
You are the One whom we call God.

The wisest sage can strive to measure
The oceans’ depth and cosmic rays,
And count the planets at his pleasure,
But who can quantify Your grace?
The greatest minds of the world,
Born of Your dazzling light, O Lord,
Fail to explain Your sacred decrees;
A thought that dares to ape Your glory
Evanesces like some ancient story,
Turning before You into mere debris.

From the abyss of all eternity
You spawned the genesis of chaos,
Bestowed the seal of Your paternity
On the abyss itself and named it Deus.
The origin of all and of Yourself the maker,
You are of life the giver, arbiter, and taker.
Through You all objects course and flow;
You are the first word and the last,
The future, present, and the past,
The source of Your own wondrous glow.

You hold the chain that links all things,
Where the beginning meets the end;
You arm each life with fledgling wings,
By death another winged pair You lend.
Below You spread myriads of solar globes,
Dark declensions and sidereal slopes;
At Your feet shines a mute astral choir,
Resplendent like white garlands of snow
That on frosty days lie high and low,
Gleaming in pristine, wintry attire.

Luculent, life-giving cosmic bodies
Drift through an infinite expanse,
Obeying laws that man so vainly studies,
Your laws of which no mortal can make sense.
Those luminous celestial fireflies
And fire-emitting, blinding skies
Dissolve in Your relentless gaze;
Along with mountains of crystal caves
And mighty ranges of supernal naves,
They disappear like nights before bright days.

For You all surfaces are nothing
But tiny droplets in the sea;
The universe is but a farthing —
What, then, to say of worthless me?
This giant maelstrom of spheres,
So distant they appear in light-years —
If I can be so bold as to compare —
Are next to You a speck, a spot,
While I am just a lowly dot,
Who’s of his nothingness aware.

His nothingness! And yet through me You shine
Like beads reflecting beams of sunshine’s fire,
With a nobility majestic and divine
You fill me — and I Your godliness acquire.
My nothingness! And yet my life takes wing,
Unsated, thirsty. Into the empyrean I fling
Myself to look for You through cosmic mist,
And contemplate, and freely roam,
And think, and wonder in the gloam:
I am alive — and therefore, You exist.

For You exist! This is a fact of nature,
A fact my heart and mind corroborate,
A fact that is beyond all peradventure;
Nothingness cannot, then, be my fate.
Placed in the bosom of the universe,
A particle, an atom with its own force,
I’m in the omphalos of earthly essence;
A central link among Your creatures
That joins all spirits of divine features
With live beings of a clear naissance.

I am the link between all firmaments,
The ultimate hypostasis of all material,
The heart of life and all its elements,
The cradle of what is godly and ethereal.
My body wastes and turns to ashes,
My mind takes charge of lightning flashes;
I’m king and slave, both God and worm —
A miracle, in short! Yet though my lineage
Is as unclear as is the author’s image,
I couldn’t have authored my own form.

I am a creature of Your blueprint,
A workpiece of Your wise design,
A proof of Your life-giving footprint;
Your soul conditions that of mine.
Your truth presents a great demand:
That I the deathly chasm transcend,
And that my soul become immortal
And don the fusty garb of death,
So when I draw my final breath,
You will re-open your Edenic portal.

Inexplicable, inscrutable, sublime!
My imagination cannot trace,
Conjuring You in space and time,
The radiant shadow of Your face.
But as we owe You hymns and praise,
We must our mortal bodies raise
And seek You in a hidden latitude,
Casting our eyes upon the sky,
Praying for Your realm to draw nigh,
While spilling tears of gratitude.

Translated by Eugene Ehren