Page:Modern Russian Poetry.djvu/91

Rh

Austere the music of my songs: The echo of sad utterance fills them, A bitter breath, far-wafted, chills them; And is my back not bent to thongs?

The mists of day on darkness fall; The vainly promised land I follow Upon a road the shadows swallow; The world rears round me like a wall.

At times from that far land the vain Faint voice will sound like distant thunder. Can long abeyance of a wonder Obliterate the long bleak pain?