Innokenty Annensky
Of all the things which tempt me, I’ll remember...

Of all the things which tempt me, I’ll remember
No, not your body - rippling like a spring,
And not your crimson smile with its wet shimmer
But that cold serpent of your suffering.

So in a ballroom - banal, many-colored,
Sometimes when spirit-stirring waltzes play,
I conjure in my dream Parsifal’s music,
The Shadow, Death on the King’s mask that day.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Leave me. Boredom makes up my bed already.
What’s paradise which everyone dreams fair?
What if these dirty depths are painful striving
To gain the Beauty which shines somewhere there?

Translated by Vladimir Markov and Merrill Sparks