Innokenty Annensky
Man

Sonnet

I am set up for thirty years so as to
Live painfully breaking up the rays
From ghostly planets into “yes” and
“No,” into “ah!” and “baa.”

So as to live worrying and grieving
Over what is already not there...
And I should certainly be a poet
If I could invent myself.

In work there are perhaps some blunders,
Or is there a trick in the mechanism?
But my immortal spirit would be not spirit

Now — it would be God... When it was not
“Seize it!” and not “Soho!” and not
“All gone now” after “Sore! Sore!”

Translated by R. H. Morrison