Innokenty Annensky
Träumerei

Is this mingled shadows.
    Only shadows, on a moonlit night of May?
Is this specks of light, or lilac’s flowers
Turned pale there, falling
        On your knees? Was it in
Waking hours, and was it you that I loved
        Madly and unquestioningly
In the languorous shadows of May?
    Falling down before the lilac’s flowers
On a moonlit night, on a moonlit night of May,
Did I kiss your knees.
Unclasping and pressing them,
In the languorous shadows, in the languorous
Shadows of May? Or was the garden only a fancy
Of the moonlit night, of the moonlit night of May?
Or am I myself only a speechless shadow?
Or are you too my suffering.
        Dear one,
Because we are not meeting on a moonlit
Night, on a moonlit night of May?...

Translated by R. H. Morrison