Innokenty Annensky
Anguish of white stone

(In Simferopol in Summer)

The stones faint with lassitude,
People are drenched with light;
Is there a sight more disgustingly
Familiar than a city’s in summer?

In its ready-made stencil it
Is a pattern on crockery...
And is it not all the same to you
Whether stones are there or people?

Struck into the white
Stones by pale-faced
Poverty, this stupor was
A cradle to me, a prison.

If it does not flash
Dismally and fumily, then,
Oppressing you, it closes you
Up, and you go away so eagerly

Into the lilacness of reflections
From heights palely boundless
On two chains of bouquets
Beside snow-white paving stones.

Thus, tired of the pattern,
I sink through a dream in
The china’s white gloss
With a border round its edge.

Translated by R. H. Morrison