Aleksandr Blok

We waited commonly for sleep or even death.
The instances were wearisome as ages.
But suddenly the wind's refreshing breath 
Touched through the window the Holy Bible's pages:

An old man goes there - who's now all white-haired -
With rapid steps and merry eyes, alone, 
He smiles to us, and often calls with hand,
And leaves us with a gait, that is well-known.  

And suddenly we all, who watched the old man's track,
Well recognized just him who now lay before us,
And turning in a sudden rapture back,
Beheld a corpse with eyes forever closed ...

And it was good for us the soul's way to trace,
And, in the leaving one, to find the glee it's forming.
The time had come. Recall and love in grace,
And celebrate another house-warming! 
    

© Copyright, 1996
Translated from Russian by Yevgeny Bonver, January 1996