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“A Ballad” by Nikolai Gumilev 🇷🇺 (15 Apr 1886 – 26 Aug 1921)
Translated from the Russian by Alexander Bondar
My friend, Lucifer gave five horses to me,
And a radiant ruby-stone beautiful ring,
So that I could go down to marvelous caves,
And could see there heaven’s celestial face.
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Snorted horses, and zealous, they hoofed, and they begged
To race over and over the space of the earth,
I believed that the sun rose exactly for me,
Shining crazy like ruby of that golden ring.
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Wandered endlessly during the days and the nights
Under sun in the day and the night full of stars,
I was laughing at horses so eager to race
And the light of the ring as a heavenly grace.
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There’s madness and snow at the heights of my mind
But I’ve hurried the horses with furious cries
So that they reach these heights in the violent run
And a virgin with sad face I saw having come.
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And a music of string her quite voice produced
There question and answer were mixed and reduced
To the touches of shades of her heir all strewn,
So I gave ruby-ring to that virgin or Lune.
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Mocking, laughing at me, having me in contempt,
Broken open the gates for a wasted attempt
To the darkness, He gave me the horse number six
Lucifer named Despair this horse as a gift.