Modern Russian Poetry/Cimmerian Twilight II

1566593Modern Russian Poetry — Cimmerian Twilight IIMaximilian Voloshin

CIMMERIAN TWILIGHT II

Here stood a sacred forest. Here the messenger
Wing-footed went, his touch upon the dumb glades leaving . . .
Upon the site of cities, nor stones, nor ruins heaving:
Now on burnt slopes but sheep in scattered patches stir.
The mountain peaks: cut crowns! Across each bitten spur
The clear green twilight flows, mysteriously grieving.
By whose dim longing stung, what is my soul retrieving?
Who knows the road of gods? The dawns and dusks that blur?
In its sonorous caves the rubble, churned, is sounding;
Lifting its weighty crests, the troubled sea is pounding
Upon the sandy dunes, upon the ringing shore.
The heavy nights pass on in tears through starry spaces . . .
The outcast gods command, whom men invoke no more,
And ineluctably they show dark, alien faces.

 This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.

Original:

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1932, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 91 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse

Translation:

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.


This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse