Before me, memory — in silence — / Unfurls its long scroll: / And, reading my life with revulsion, / I tremble, I curse…

Dear friend, don’t you see / That all that is visible to us / Is but the glimmer, but the shade / Of things invisible to the eyes?

When, in a difficult moment of life, / Sadness oppresses my heart, / I keep repeating, from memory, / A certain wondrous prayer.

In the depths of the Siberian mines, / Preserve your proud endurance; / Your mournful labor will not be in vain, / Nor the lofty strivings of your thoughts.

We are two steeds, whose bridles grip / A single hand; a single spur propels us; / We are the two eyes of a single gaze, / The two beating wings of a single dream.

To us was granted dominion over four elements; / But the free human being has created a fifth./ Is not the supremacy of space itself refuted / By this chastely constructed Ark?

These poor villages, / This spare nature — / Native land of enduring patience, / O land of the Russian people!

But whither do you sail? For what, if not for Helen? / What’s Troy to you alone, O bold Achaean swords?

Do you not see? Having packed for departure, / Faith stands before you for the last time: / She has yet to step across the threshold, / But her home already stands empty and bare…

For parable-like is the course of ages: / Millennia may catch fire as they flow. / In tribute to their terrifying greatness, / Through torments, to my grave I meekly go…

It was then that some malignant spirit / Began to visit me in secret. / Sad were our encounters…

Shine — always, / shine — everywhere, / until the last days’ dregs are drained…

In midday heat, in a valley of Dagestan, / With lead in my breast, I lay motionless; / The deep wound was still smoking, / Drop by drop my blood was being spent.

He once had a vision / Unfathomable to the mind, / And profound was the impression / It cut into his heart.

I no longer expect anything from life, / Nor do I regret the past in the least. / I seek freedom and repose! / I’d fain forget myself, and fall asleep!

With what delight I’d listen to the waves, / And stare, full of joy, / Into the empty heavens; / And strong, free would I be, / Like a whirlwind plowing the fields, / Shredding the forests…

I’ve come to you to say hello, / To tell you that the sun has risen, / That, with its hot light, / It has begun to flicker through the leaves…

He bore a young soul in his embrace, / Bound for a world of sorrow and tears; / And in that young soul the sound of his song / Remained — without words, but alive…

I recall a wondrous moment: / You appeared before me / Like a fleeting vision, / Like a spirit of pure beauty…

The river of time, in rushing onward, / Will bear away all the deeds of men, / And drown in oblivion’s abyss, / Peoples, kingdoms, and kings.