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[1930s]

605. Николай Гумилев (1886–1921). Орел

The eagle flew ahead and toward the height, through starry gateways to the Powers' Throne, and full of beauty was his kingly flight, and in the sun his brown feathers shone. Where had he lived? Perhaps it was a King who kept him chained, a prisoner, till now, and he had cried to greet the maiden-spring, that loved a prince with melancholy brow. Or maybe in a wizard's gloomy den when he was looking out the narrow door the height above enchanted him and then turned to a sun what was a heart before. What matters that? The perfect azure heights unfolded, ever luring him ahead and ever on he flew, three days and nights till in his bliss he smothered and was dead. (…) Rays of the planets pierced the heavens through magnificent, divinely frozen rays, but, never knowing perish, on he flew and watched those planets with a lifeless gaze. And more than once worlds tumbled, making room for more, and the archangel's trumpet came, and yet alone the eagle's gorgeous tomb did never fall a victim of the game.

16 July [1930]

606. Николай Гумилев (1886–1921). Душа и тело

I Above the city night is soaring, till each sound grows softer, duller every chord. And you, my soul, are keeping silence still, have mercy for the souls of marble, Lord. And to this speech my soul did answer give (as though a harp was singing in the skies): «Why was I ever made to come and live within this hum an frame, which I despise? I hastened towards a glory new and rich, leaving my home; I must have been insane, for me this earth is now a ball, to which the prisoner is fastened with a chain. And, oh, this love, how I have grown to hate this illness, of which none on earth are free, which ever darkens with its shade the fate of worlds so wondrous, although strange to me. And if there is one thing that keeps me sealed to shining planets and to days of old, that thing is grief, my only trusted shield, that thing is sorrow, full of scorn, and cold». II The clouds were covered with a greenish rust, the golden sunset turned into gray, and i addressed my body: «Now you must reply to all the soul has had to say!» And to my speech my body answered so — a common body, but with blood aflame: «The meaning of this life I do not know, though I have heard that «love» can be its name. (…) A woman, too, I love…but when 1 kiss her lowered eyes, it is a strange thing, and I am drunk, and overcome with bliss, as in a storm, or drinking from a spring. And yet for all I want or take today, for all my dreams, and all my joys and sorrow as well befits a man, I will repay with that sure peril which will come tomorrow.» III And when the word of God was set aflame as Big Dipper in the darkness blue, the body and the soul before me canie, and asked of me: «Who, questioner, are you?» I lowered at the impudent my eyes, and slowly condescended to reply: «Pray, answer, do you think a dog is wise that howls when the moon is bright on high? Then can it be for you to question me, to whom all time since worlds began to flower, until the day that they will cease to be is but the smallest fraction of an hour? Me, who, like lgdrazil, the tree, does grow through Universes seven times seven, whose eyes regard as equal dust below the meadows of the earth and those of Heaven? I am who sleeps…