Innokenty Annensky
Rain

Now at last the blue-gray cover is
Ripped open-it certainly cannot
Always hang idly, and with a clang a
Cold net has lashed the asphalt city...

Lashed and begun to swing...
Itself silvery bright, it has
Spilled on the brocades around like
Holy oil in a sacrilegist’s hand.

And in a moment what was in love with
The azure, full of shy silences —
All is thumping with dark foam and
Is insolently knocking at the window.

It buries itself in a sandy pit,
Runs and storms among the downpipes;
Now it gushes with piteous tears,
Now it shines as a double rainbow.

. . . . .

Oh, no! Without your transformations,
Congeal into something single!
Do you not wish to wrap May
Coquettishly in an autumn reverie?

Or perhaps to turn into Me, one of
The obstinate cripples, and to
Convince everyone that even the First
Age of Ovid has not been completed?

Out of the heart, nothing we have, they
Say, goes behind the Imatra of the
Years, and the poet if he wishes can
Find happiness even in wet asphalt.

Translated by R. H. Morrison