Deutsch and Yarmolinsky, comps. Modern Russian Poetry. 1921.
With My Fancy I GraspedKonstantin Balmont (b. 1867)
(Trans. Avrahm Yarmolinsky and Cecil Cowdrey)
W
At the vague shadows straying where the daylight had fled;
I ascended a tower, and the stairway was swaying,
And the stairway was swaying underneath my light tread.
Ever clearer were rounded dreaming hilltops aglow;
And from Heaven to Earth twilight voices resounded,
Twilight voices resounded from above and below.
Strange horizons defining, did the summits appear;
And my eyes as I looked were caressed by their shining,
Were caressed by their shining, their farewell, sad and clear.
Earth in darkness lay dreaming, like a slumbering star,
While the smoldering sun, his dim embers still gleaming,
His dim embers still gleaming, shone for me from afar.
The vague shadows far straying, where the daylight had fled;
Ever higher I rose, and the stairway was swaying,
And the stairway was swaying underneath my light tread.