Sergey Dobrenkov

Hellish waves have embraced me
To the depths of my soul.
The abyss takes me away.
My soul has become thin and weak.
...

No star. No light. No candle burns.
The heart, once warm, is cold and still.
To rock, to lifeless stone it turns —
A tomb, shut fast, in night as chill.
...

Save me, my Saviour, by Thy Grace alone,
Not by the deeds my sinful hands have done.
Thou willest me to save: Thou knowest well
The way to rescue me from death and hell.
...

Longing for faith, my soul beneath the veil in grief did pine,
Till Thou didst teach that Grace alone bestows this gift divine.
Nor can repentance bear its fruit, nor contrite tears impart,
Except Thou cast perfect brokenness into the sinner's heart.
...

Part of my inheritance I did receive,
Though unworthy was I that gift to conceive;
Younger in mind, and wilful in thought,
I went to a distant land and squandered what I brought.
...

Foreword

The preludes are set in a particular order, that from them a poem of its own kind might arise, possessed of its own unfolding tale. This cycle is not for the many. One must be not a poet merely, but a musician besides — or, at the least, a connoisseur possessed of a fine and discerning feeling for the classical art. Yet even this does not suffice. To feel the whole emotional fullness of each of the four-and-twenty tonalities is given to but few among professional musicians, and not even to every composer. Absolute pitch is not, here, the chief necessity — though it is not unwelcome — so much as one particular species thereof: the pitch of timbre, whereby every note is apprehended not by its height alone, but by its very colour. Yet neither is this indispensable. What matters most of all is this: that upon the sounding of even the tonic triad in a given key, one should hear within it emotional shades wholly its own — shades scarcely to be found among the like feelings called forth by that selfsame chord in any other key.
...

To the soul that is proud, dark demons appear,
Whispering lies—that it's holy and pure,
Or they plunge it in deep despair,
Saying salvation will never be there.
...

For thousands of years since their fall from Grace,
The desperate demons learned to twist the straight,
To steal the unripe in the darks embrace—
What lacks Gods root, what bears no Graces weight.
...

You thought you owned the night,
But the night owns you.
A shadow dancing in a borrowed light,
A ghost in rewound time,
...

Blessed love can never be despair,
For the Creator knows the heart's hidden prayer—
Even words the lips refuse to bear.
...

If your voice holds no flame, just the echo of night,
A hollow refrain with no spark to ignite,
Then let the stillness rise, let the quiet remain—
For a word without fire is a breath without name...
...

The key turned in the lock—a familiar sound…
The door sighed… just as we once sighed
Over lines of old and bitter rhymes profound,
So, gift, oh gift this loneliness till dawn's light,
...

On the inaccessible peak,
There must be flowers—
Soft as whispers, bright as stars,
Untouched by earthly hours.
...

Embers dance, beneath my breath,
Where the heart is crowned.
Time becomes a flame…
Let old be cast down.
...

Where the river stops breathing,
Where the ice keeps strange names,
I stand between «was» and «will be»,
I am silence.
...

On the verge of waking and of sleep,
Where does my dreaming fancy stray?
Into what chasms, bottomless and deep,
What starry wanderings far away?
...

Breath turns to crystal
In the empty air
My fingers aren't mine anymore
Time slipping away
...

Through gaping chasms and depths untold,
Thou leadest me into Thy light;
Each grief I bear, each loss I hold,
Makes stronger still my faith's pure might.
...

Break me up to starlight
Tear apart these walls
Break me up to starlight
'Till nothing else recalls
...

A moment past, I felt the weight, the ache, the cold;
And now, outside myself, my own dead form behold -
Unmoving and unbreathing, face all bloodless, white,
Bearing the stamp of death. O miserable sight!
...