Marina Tsvetaeva
Poems to Blok. 9. Like a weak ray through black gloom of the hells...

Like a weak ray through black gloom of the hells —
Thus is your voice against exploding cannonballs.

And in the thunder, just like some seraph
Announces in a voice tone-deaf —

Somewhere from foggy mornings long ago —
How he did love us blind and nameless so —

For sin — apostasy, for coat of blue...
For how, Russia, he did not stop loving you,

And more tender than all — into the most deep
Night vanished he to do the wicked deeds!

And how with a lost finger near the temple
He draws and draws... and about this simply,

What days await us, how God will tell lies,
How you will call the sun — and it won't rise!

Thus, one on one with the prisoner
(Or child speaks in his slumber?)

Before us came — on the wide square —
The holy heart of Blok, Alexander.

Translated by Ilya Shambat