Valery Bryusov
The Coming Huns

Oh, where are you, Huns, who are coming?
As a cloud you swell over us here.
I can hear iron footsteps a-drumming
On the yet undiscovered Pamir.

From your camps in the mist let the gathered
Hordes drunkenly fall in a flood;
Give new life to our bodies withered
With your free and fiery blood.

Obeying your unfettered spirit,
Set your tents as of old at our door.
And let the glad ploughland inherit
The hall where the throne stood before.

Pile up books for a conflagration
And dance in the gladdening light.
In the church do abomination, —
You are blameless as babes in men’s sight.

And we who are wise men and singers.
Who protect hidden truth from the grave.
Will carry a flame that still lingers
In catacomb, desert and cave.

And what, when the hurricane’s raving
In the murderous thunderstorm,
Will the gamester Chance be saving
From the secret shapes that we form?

Past tracking, may be, it will perish
What alone of the living we knew;
But the death that you bring me I cherish,
And my hymns give a welcome to you!

Translated by Cecil Maurice Bowra