AND BELY AND BLOK...
And Bely and Blok, Esenin and Kliuev:
Russia, Russia, Russia of mine!
...There stands Kyiv tormented a hundredfold,
and I, crucified two hundred times.
Yonder everywhere is: the sun! – they’re singing: Messiah! –
The mists, the valleys, a swampy road...
Ukraine will raise its own Moses—
it has to be!
It can’t be like this forever, I sense it, I know.
To laughter and storms, to the thunder of revolts,
from all my nerves into the steppe I send:
poet, arise!
And the black earth rises up, staring me in the eye,
and distorts its face into bloody laughter.
Poet, to love your homeland isn’t a crime
when you do it for the good of all!
1919