Ancient city is as if dead,Strange's my coming here.Vladimir has raised a black crossOver the river.Noisy elm trees, noisy lindensIn the gardens dark,Raised to God, the needle-bearingStars' bright diamond sparks.Sacrificial and gloriousWay, I am ending here,With me is but you, my equal,And my love so dear.

I will quietly in the churchyardSleep on wooden boards in the sun,On the Sunday as guest to motherYou will come, my dear one --Through the river over the mountainCan't catch up to grown onesFrom afar, the sharp-eyed fellow,This my cross you'll recognize.I know, dear one, very littleCan you now recall of me:Did not scold you, did not fawn you,Did not hold the cup to thee.

With pride your spirit is darkenedFor this you won't know the world at all.You say that this faith is a dreamAnd mirage is this capital.You say that my country is sinful,Your country is godless, I scream.May the guilt still lie upon us --We can correct and redeem.Around you are water and flowersWhy seek a beggar and sinner, my dear?I know that you're sick very badly:You seek death and the end you fear.

With pride your spirit is darkenedFor this you won't know world at all.You say that this faith is a dreamAnd mirage is this capital.You say that my country is sinful,Your country is godless, I scream.May the guilt still lie upon us --We can correct and redeem.Around you are water and flowersWhy seek a beggar and sinner, my dear?I know that you're sick very badly:You seek death and the end you fear.

The early chills are most pleasant to me.Torment releases me when I come there.Mysterious, dark places of habitation --Are storehouses of labor and prayer.The calm and confident lovingI can't surmount in this side of mine:A drop of Novgorod blood inside meIs like a piece of ice in foamy wine.And this can not in any way be corrected,She has not been melted by great heat,And what ever I began to glory --You, quiet one, shine before me yet.

I don't know if you're alive or dead.Can you on earth be sought,or only when the sunsets fadebe mourned secretly in my thought?All is for you: the daily prayer,the sleepless heat at night,and of my verses, the whiteflock, and of my eyes, the blue fire.No-one was more cherished, no-one tortured me more, noteven the one who betrayed me to torture,not even the one who caressed me and forgot.

He loved three things alone:White peacocks, evensong,old maps of America.He hated children crying,and raspberry jam with his tea,and womanish hysteria....And then he married me.1911

The Last ToastI drink to our demolished hose,to all this wickedness,to you, our loneliness together,I raise my glass - And to the dead-cold eyes,the lie that has betrayed us,the coarse, brutal world, the factthat God has not saved us.1934

MuseWhen at night I wait for her to come,Life, it seems, hangs by a single strand.What are glory, youth, freedom, in comparisonwith the dear welcome guest, a flute in hand?She enters now. Pushing her veil aside,she stares through me with her attentiveness.I question her: 'And were you Dante's guide,dictating the Inferno?' She answers: 'Yes.