The Prophets
There are the modern prophets here,
Though altars totally are felt,
Their eyes are very deep and clear –
In them, the flame of future set.
For them, the calls of fame are alien,
They’re pressed by mass and depth of words,
All they are frightened, pale and sullen
In tombs of stony abodes.
And sometimes in the fits of sadness,
A prophet, just repelled by us,
Rise up to skies his look of greatness –
The look of clear and beaming eyes.
He says that he’s in bonds of madness,
But that his soul’s a light for us,
That he has seen in depths of sadness
The shining face of Jesus Christ.
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poem by Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
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Giraffe
Today, I see, your glance is especially sad
And your arms, embracing your knees, especially thin.
Listen: far, far away on the Lake of Chad
Wanders a gentle giraffe.
He is endowed with slender grace and bliss,
And his hide adorned with a magical design
Which the moonlight alone, shattering and rocking
On the wide wet of the lake, dares to rival.
From afar he resembles the colored sails of a ship,
And his gait is smooth as the joyful flight of a bird.
I know that the earth will witness many wonders,
When, at sunset, he hides in a marble grotto.
I could tell merry tales of mysterious lands
Of a black maiden, a young chief's passion,
But you have too long inhaled the heavy mist,
You will believe in nothing but the rain.
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poem by Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
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The Word
In the days when the God eternal
Was declining face to the new world,
By the Word they stopped the sun’s inferno,
And destroyed the towns by the Word.
And an eagle was falling at the ground,
Stars were backing to the moon in fright,
If, as made from orange flames a cloud,
Word was sailing in the heaven’s height.
Figures were involved in low action,
As the tamed, domesticated herd,
Just because all set of comprehension
From the clever figure could be learned.
The white-bearded patriarch, wish found
Good and evil by his own hands,
Deciding not to use the sacred sound,
Drew a figure by a cane in sands.
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poem by Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
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Theater
All of us - righteous and sinners,
Born in prison, raised at the altar,
All of us are funny actors
In the theater of the Creator.
The Lord sits on His throne,
Merrily follows the show.
Brightly on His sumptuous gown
Sparkles and golden stars glow.
Oh, how easy and pleasant
Is the empyrean staging!
Mary the Virgin is content,
Finds the libretto engaging:
- Hamlet? He has to be pallid.
Cain? He should be audacious…
Audience takes in angelic
Shiny victorious trumpets.
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poem by Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
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The Sixth Sense
Fine is the wine that is in love with us,
The goodly bread we wait for from the oven,
And woman whom we have possessed, at last,
After we've suffered under yoke her own.
But what to do if a red sunset freezes
Above a sky that's drowning in cold,
Where there is silence and unearthly peace,
What can one do with the immortal ode?
You can't eat it, or drink, or even kiss ...
The moment fled, and next one now hovers,
And we wring hands, but yet once more miss -
We are condemned to miss and miss it over.
Just as a boy, forgetting games and friends,
Sometimes beholds the girls bath in a river
And, knowing nothing of the loving trends,
Is yet tormented by a hidden fever;
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poem by Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
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Forest
In that magic forest, towering trees
Unexpectedly come forward from the haze.
Out of the earth, roots spring from other roots,
Like the arms of the dwellers of burial vaults.
Under the cover of the blazing autumn leaves
Lonesome giants, trolls, and lions used to live.
Here sailors saw the tracks in golden sand
Left behind by a six-fingered human hand.
Peers of France and Arthurian valiant knights
Never set on this forbidden place their sights.
Nor the bushes ever hid a pirates’ lair,
Nor a hermit ever made his lodging there…
Only once, they saw in a lurid tempest’s light -
Cat-headed woman softly stepped into the night;
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poem by Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
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Only Serpents
Only serpents let their skin be fallen
And a soul - all grown up and old.
We, alas, change an eternal soul,
Leaving body in eternal hold.
Oh, remembrance, power, she-giant,
You direct a horse-life with a bridle,
You will tell me all these men about,
Who had had my body before I'd.
The first one was ugly, thin and tragic,
Loving darkness of the garden lane,
Falling Leaf, the child of gloomy magic,
Whose one word could fully stop the rain.
Second one - he liked the wind from South,
Every noise for him was strings' accord,
He believed that life is just his spouse,
And the rag under his feet - the world.
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poem by Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
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Only Serpents
Only serpents let their skin be fallen
And a soul -- all grown up and old.
We, alas, change an eternal soul,
Leaving body in eternal hold.
Oh, remembrance, power, she-giant,
You direct a horse-life with a bridle,
You will tell me all these men about,
Who had had my body before I'd.
The first one was ugly, thin and tragic,
Loving darkness of the garden lane,
Falling Leaf, the child of gloomy magic,
Whose one word could fully stop the rain.
Second one -- he liked the wind from South,
Every noise for him was strings' accord,
He believed that life is just his spouse,
And the rag under his feet -- the world.
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poem by Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
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The Lost Tram
I walked an unfamiliar street
And suddenly heard a raven's cry,
And the sound of a lute, and distant thunder,-
In front of me a tram was flying.
How I jumped onto its foot board,
Was a mystery to me,
Even in daylight it left behind
A fiery trail in the air.
It rushed like a dark, winged storm,
And was lost in the abyss of time...
Tram-driver, stop,
Stop the tram now.
Too late. We had already turned the corner,
We tore through a forest of palms,
Over the Neva, the Nile, the Seine
We thundered across three bridges.
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poem by Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
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