Nikolay Gumilev
Polite with life of hard modernity...

Polite with life of hard modernity:
Between us two, there is a border,
As all, that makes life's proud grins guaranteed
Is my sole bliss, a cure from boredom.

My triumph, glory, deeds, so wonderful —
Lost talk, today by fate embezzled,
Ring through my soul, like copper thunderbolts,
Like words of God heard in a desert.

Unwelcome always in my lively home,
Calm days kept coming, like an illness:
I swore to be an arrow, being thrown,
By hands of Nimrod or Achilles.

But no, I'm not a star of tragedies!
An iron idol, frowning finely:
Dry irony has been my strategy
Among cheap toys, made out of china.

Recalling heads, hair curled and elegant,
At idol's feet, that bowed humbly,
Priests' pagan prayers, nice and eloquent,
And thunderstorms in forests, tumbling,

And then he sees, while laughing grievously:
A herdsman plays his reed, so restless.
On swings that will not move, mischievously,
There sits a lady, fine-breasted.

Translated by Dmitriy Belyanin