Innokenty Annensky
My Anguish

Let vain excitement’s shrine be covered with new grasses.
And let the waxen hand be in the grave forgot.
Naught but confusion will be all my life that passes
With you, it seems, and anguished longing all my lot

No, not for those alas I to whom, so undeserving,
I did in jealous care and passion once belong.
Oh calm of lovers’ strength, even in grief not swerving.
Oh woman’s tenderness so enviably strong!

Since this is so, why should confusion round me gather?
No, love is radiant; it is as crystal — air...
Mine, being Unlove, shivers like a horse in lather:
She gives a poisoned feast, a feast with swindling fare.

In garlands of azaleas that fade and wither
She sought a song... She saw not her first line arise.
Before they tied her little children’s limbs together
And broke their hands in pieces and made blind their eyes.

She has no sex. On all alike her lips are playing;
She’s a dissembler, and she has a vicious taste.
She spends the livelong day an empty cradle swaying —
Sweet Jesus! in the corner see her image placed!

I made her, — yet she is a vision, not delusion!
I love her not at all, — and she is near to me;
She is herself confused, and she is my confusion.
Always delighted, yet my anguished longing she!

Translated by Cecil Maurice Bowra