dots-menu
×

Home  »  Modern Russian Poetry  »  Vyacheslav Ivanov (b. 1866)

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

Funeral

Vyacheslav Ivanov (b. 1866)

OF funerals, the saddest

Is love’s that dies unanswered.

The soul has two to bury:

The soul of the beloved

And its own other selfhood.

And a third enters, living,

The funeral flame that wraps them;

His wings a yoke has weighted:

Him the wise lips of lovers

Call in their kisses, Eros,

And gods: the Resurrector.