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Home  »  Modern Russian Poetry  »  Fyodor Sologub (Pseudonym of Fyodor Teternikov) (b. 1863)

Deutsch and Yarmolinsky, comps. Modern Russian Poetry. 1921.

“When, Heaving on the Stormy Waters”

Fyodor Sologub (Pseudonym of Fyodor Teternikov) (b. 1863)

WHEN, heaving on the stormy waters,

I felt my ship begin to sink,

I prayed, “Oh, Father Satan, save me,

Forgive me at death’s utter brink!

“If you will save my soul embittered

From perishing before its hour,

The days to come, the nights that follow

I vow to vice, I pledge to power.”

The Devil forthwith snatched and flung me

Into a boat; the sides were frail,

But on the bench the oars were lying

And in the bow an old gray sail.

And landward once again I carried

My outcast soul, bereft of kin,

Upon its sickly vicious sojourn

My body and its gift of sin.

And I am faithful, Father Satan,

Unto my evil hour’s vow,

When from my drowning ship you saved me

And when I prayed you guide the prow.

To you descend my praises, Father,

No day from bitter blame exempt.

O’er worlds my blasphemy shall tower;

And I shall tempt—and I shall tempt.