Modern Russian Poetry/Inevitability
INEVITABILITY
If you kept faith, or not, does it avail?
If I was faithful or unfaithful to you?
Our eyes that would look elsewhere flinch and fail,
Yet not my will has power to undo you.
Once more I tremble, so once more you pale,
As the forebodings of old pain break through you.
The moments pour with noise of torrents streaming:
Above us passion's lifted blade is gleaming.
Whoever made us, lips and lit eyes drinking
Of lips and eyes, be it or God or Fate,
Is it not one? Within the circle shrinking
We stand to hear the spell reverberate!
We bend with happiness and fear,—and sinking,
We fall: two anchors on the sea-floor grate.
Fancy, nor chance, nor passion overpowers
Us, whom the ineluctable devours.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929. The longest-living author of this work died in 1924, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 99 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
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| Translation: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
