Deutsch and Yarmolinsky, comps. Modern Russian Poetry. 1921.
The TrystValery Brusov (b. 1873)
(Trans. Avrahm Yarmolinsky)
I
In the days of yore you loved me, as dark Isis loved Osiris, sister, friend and worshiped queen!
And the pyramid its shadow on our evening trysts would lean.
And the hour when, lights extinguished, and the sacred dances broken,—each to each was sudden mate;
Our caresses, burning whispers, ardors that we could not sate.
Did your ear not catch the anthems, mingling with the crash of cymbals, and the people’s answering refrain?
Did you not repeat in rapture that our love awoke again?
Casting off its ancient ashes, flames again our hungry passion, flames and kindles you and me,—
As of old, by Nile’s slow waters, in the land beyond the sea.