Deutsch and Yarmolinsky, comps. Modern Russian Poetry. 1921.
When, Heaving on the Stormy WatersFyodor Sologub (Pseudonym of Fyodor Teternikov) (b. 1863)
W
I felt my ship begin to sink,
I prayed, “Oh, Father Satan, save me,
Forgive me at death’s utter brink!
From perishing before its hour,
The days to come, the nights that follow
I vow to vice, I pledge to power.”
Into a boat; the sides were frail,
But on the bench the oars were lying
And in the bow an old gray sail.
My outcast soul, bereft of kin,
Upon its sickly vicious sojourn
My body and its gift of sin.
Unto my evil hour’s vow,
When from my drowning ship you saved me
And when I prayed you guide the prow.
No day from bitter blame exempt.
O’er worlds my blasphemy shall tower;
And I shall tempt—and I shall tempt.