Alexander Blok - Last Parting Words

Pain is slowly departing,
Wasn’t meant for endlessness.
There’s an end in rebel’s moaning,
Wicked sorrow, wicked worrying -
Silence, lastly, will  suppress.

You have closed your eyelids, tired,
You don’t wait – all unawares,
Here it comes  - with  crystal sounding
She refills the hope you're lacking,
She encircles with a grace.

Do you hear, through pain of tortures,
As a friend, your old good friend,
Soothed the heart with gentle touches
Of a tender violin?
As if coming of a dream?

This is – painless form of  Eden,
This is  - dearest loving one.
Lie down on a death-bed, smiling,
Silently accede to ending,
Halting Being’s vicious run.

Stretch yourself without wishes,
Smile forever and arrest,
So that last time you distinguish,
Sleepily, as in a mist,
People, cities, their haste…

Let the sounds, hardly noticed,
Of this earthly musicness,
Hover lightly,  ever luring,
Over world’s last sleeping bed,
Into new world’s otherness…

Flattery, fame and fraud, and fortune –
Will no more be causing pain ..
Human mindlessness will never 
Be allowed to entertain,
Never torture you again…

And again – deceit and fortune,
Gold, and flattery and fame -
Human mindlessness enormous,
Hopeless, endless, superlative,
So…Is this the truly end?

No, there’s still  the woods, the orchards,
Country lanes, and country roads,
Russian ceaseless rowdy forests,
Russian foggy meadowlands,
Our murmurings in oats…

And when all shall disappear,
What has been our earthly pains,
She, whom you loved, oh, so dear,
With the loving hand will steer
To Elysian distant plains.


2023-24
Krakow


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Александр Блок
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