Zinaida Gippius
Freedom

I can’t submit myself to man.
Who’d choose to be a slave?
We judge each other all life long —
and then? A lonely grave.

I can’t submit myself to God,
because I love Him so.
For God has set me on this road —
where else am I to go?

I tear the nets that bind mankind —
happiness, sadness, dreams.
We aren’t slaves — we are Divine —
His children, free as He.

I only plead, in the name of the Son,
with God, the Creator of Being,
«Father, for ever may they remain
as one — Your will and mine!»

Translated by Boris Dralyuk