Deutsch and Yarmolinsky, comps. Modern Russian Poetry. 1921.
PsycheZinaida Hippius (Mme. Dmitry Merezhkovsky) (b. 1869)
A
It is as drab as dust, as earthly dust.
I perish of a nearness inescapable;
Its fatal coils about my limbs are thrust.
And as a serpent cold against my heart,
Its branching scales are poisoned arrows sticking me;
Worse than their bite: repulsion’s horrid smart.
But it is flaccid, clumsy, still and numb.
Thus sluggishly sucking the very life in me,
A torpid dragon, dreadful, deaf, and dumb.
And clings caressingly, its purpose whole.
And this dead thing, this loathsome black impurity,
This horror that I shrink from—is my soul.