Innokenty Annensky
That and This

Night does not melt. Night is like
Stone, only ice melts, weeping,
And a flame spreads through one’s
Body on its fantastic flight.

But the ice-pack on one’s head
Mutters in vain while melting:
In reckoning, it does not remember
That there are only two pillows.

And that one must lie down in
The charcoal-fumy blue fog of
The pyre if the lantern’s ray on
The axe’s glancing is disgusting...

But until the dawn the heart is flooded
With comforting drowsiness; it will
Forgive them everything... if this
Is only This, and not That.

Translated by R. H. Morrison