A.Blok, Ravenna - Translation (Rus.) Poem by Lyudmila Purgina

All that is fickle, all occasional
You'd buried in the centuries.
As a nice child you, Ravenna,
Sleep at the eternity's light hands.

The slaves through the Rome gates don't carry
Today mosaics.And the gilding
Is burning down among spaces
And walls of the basilicas chilly.

From the slow kissing of a moisture
The rough stone arches go tender
In tombs, where the sarcophaguses old
Keep rests of the holy monks and empresses.

And silent are the grave halls, shady
And cool is their coverlet,
In order that the gaze of Gally,
When she wakes up, won't burn the grave.

War battles, insults - all the traces
Of blood were sweeped out, erased,
In order that the Plakid's passions
Of ages gone were not exclaimed.

So far the sea has gone, the roses
Have put cordons at the ground bank,
In order that the sleeping Theodorix
Won't dream about the life's gales.

And the grape deserts, people, houses -
All seem to be the coffins now.
Only the copper of the titles
In Latin sings a hymn as a trumpet.

Only in silent gazes there
Of girls of Ravenna you find
The grief of sea irrevocable,
In a timid row passing by.

Only at night, bending over the vallies
And counting the future centuries in front,
The eagle's profile of the Dante's shadow
Sings song about my New life.

May - june 1909