Mikhail Lermontov
A Prophecy

A year will come — of Russia’s blackest dread;
then will the crown fall from the royal head,
the throne of tsars will perish in the mud,
the food of many will be death and blood;
both wife and babe will vainly seek the law:
it will not shield the victims any more;
the putrid, rotting plague will mow and cut
and boldly walk the road from hut to hut;
in people’s sight its pallid face will float,
and hunger’s hand will clutch them by the throat;
a scarlet sea will send its bloody surge;
a mighty man will suddenly emerge:
you’ll recognize the man, you’ll feel
that he has come to use a knife of steel;
oh, dreadful day! Your call, your groan, your prayer
will only make him laugh at your despair;
and everything in his forbidding sight —
his brow, his cloak — will fill the land with fright.

Translated by Anatoly Liberman