Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius

Translation by Alyssa Gillespie​

There

​

I’m in Charon’s boat with an uncaring oarsman.

The onerous water is viscous as tin.

Above voiceless Styx is a nebulous dankness.

The vault of the heavens is made of dark stone.

Here’s Lethe. I don’t hear the babble of Lethe.

The strokes of the spreading oars noiselessly dip.

Our lackluster, flickering lantern illumines

The heavenly stone with a deep, purple glint.

The water is murky, by languor constrained…

Aroused by our light, and alarmed by our shades,

A slow-witted owl, two bats, and a vampire

Who's legless and grizzled, of delicate wing

All follow our vessel in soundless foreboding…

Nor faster nor softer, our boat glides along.

The vampire caressed me with vaporous wingtips...

I mindlessly watch the obedient flock,

And everything here seems so queerly unmeaning:

My heart, here as there, back on earth, is a blank.

Remember how sometimes we longed for the finish,

And waited, had faith in the promise of endings…

But death, it turns out, is the same empty chore,

I'm equally bored now as I was before.

No pain, and no peace, and no fear, and no gladness,

Nor even oblivion Lethe bestows…

Above voiceless Styx is a nebulous dankness,

And scarlet reflections roam over the stones.