Vladimir Nabokov
The Shooting

On certain nights when down I lie,
To Russia sails away my bed,
To Russia where I’m led to die,
To the gully to be shot I’m led.

I come to in my darkened lair
To see a watch and matches in a pile,
And, trained on me from that same chair,
The garish, gloomy digits of a dial.

In vain I struggle to avert my gaze
And shield my chest and head;
I can’t escape the dull, matte blaze
About to strike me dead.

The steady ticking of the clock
Becalms my fuddled mind;
My palmy exile, solid as a rock,
Obscures the doom I left behind.

But how to quench my heart’s desire
To be in Russia, to be free
To see the stars when they shout, “Fire!”
In the gully with a Mayday tree.

Translated by Eugene Ehren