Marina Tsvetaeva
I’ll be late to our fixed...

I’ll be late to our fixed
Appointment. Having stopped spring
In time, into the bargain — I’ll be grey.
You’ve fixated too much on this!

I’ll walk for years — and never falter
In my Ophelia’s taste for bitter rue!
I’ll walk through hills — and hayricks,
I’ll walk through souls — and arms.

How long we live on this earth! This thicket —
Of blood! and every drop — a backwater.
But always at the edge of the brook
The face of Ophelia in its bitter grasses.

She, who hoped to taste passion, only
Swallowed silt! — Lies like a sheaf on the gravel!
I have loved you sublimely:
I have buried myself in the sky!

Translated by Mary Jane White