Konstantin Balmont
Like the Night

She came towards me, silent like the moonlit night,
With violet-hooded eyes, like inky night was gazing,
Where soft the gentle dewdrops grass-tipped quivered blazing,
She came towards me – perfectly arrayed, just right,
And soft, she breathed, as the insinuating night.

The secret deepness she had probed with glance’s fleeting,
Where wordless mirror showed my other ego’s trace
And she was like my shadow, I was like her face,
And silent was our desert place’s furtive meeting,
Where burned the boundless constellations’ secret fleeting.

Translated by Rupert Moreton