Speaking In Tongues
Guided by Voices

NIKOLAY GUMILEV

Translated by Andrey Kneller





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We're all, saints and robbers,
From the altars and pens
We're all -- funny mummers
On the stage, in God's hands.


On the throne, God resides
And laughs, observing the stage,
His robe sparkles with lights --
Of the stars' frolicsome rage.


How cozy it is and how free
In the pre-heavenly worlds,
Lady Maria, with glee,
Reads the libretto, the words:-


Hamlet? - should be more dramatic
Cain? -- he should be more coarse
Audience harks the ecstatic,
Music of angels' gold horns.


God, bending over, is prying,
In the play he seems to be captured. --
Pity, if Cain stands there crying,
Hamlet shall find his rapture!


That's not how it goes by the plot!
To safe the pain and disjunction
To oblivious titan, the spot
He handed to guide the production.


Like a mount, the pain soon arose,
In a guileful web there it laid
And lashed with a whip all of those
Fatigued by their act in the play.


More frequent become the beheadings
And the worry quickly grows greater, --
What if this feast is unending
In the theater of God the Creator?!