Vyacheslav Ivanov
The Road to Emmaus

Now has the third day’s red sail come
To haven on its westering way;
In the soul — Golgotha, the tomb.
Dispute, and riot, and dismay.

And craftily, the cruel night
Stands everywhere on sentinel,
And though the warming sun is bright,
It has not strength the dark to quell.

Death, the inexorable, gapes;
The heart is stifled in the grave...
Somewhere are white and shining shapes,
Gold on the gloom, wrath on the wave!

And frenzied women, pale with tears,
Proclaim good tidings — but of what?
From crushing and denying fears
The lulling mist lets nothing out.

Someone, a stranger, on the road.
Stopping to speak to us, proclaims
A sacrificed and a dead God...
And the heart breathes again, and flames.

Translated by Cecil Maurice Bowra