The Artist Poem by Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok

In summer, hot, and winter, snow-clad,
In days you bury, wed, or feast at home,
I wait for easy, never ever heard
Ringing - to free myself of devastating boredom.

It has arisen! With attention, strong,
I wait - to understand, pin down, and kill that.
Before my waiting, such resolved and long,
It stretches thin and faintly seemed a thread.

Is it a sea wind? Are the Eden's birds,
Singing midst leaves? Is time detained here, quit?
Or, may be, apple-trees of spring have fully lost
Their snowy veil. Is this the angel's flight?

Time passes by, it's bearing the world.
Light, sounds, movement - immensely expand,
The fervent past looks at the future, bold.
There's no present. And the pitiful is dead.

And on the threshold of the birth, at last,
Of a new soul, of unknown strengths,
A curse strikes down soul, like sky blasts:
Creative reason put it to its death.

And I shut up in a cage, such small and cold,
The airy, kind and free of fetters bird,
The bird that flew to take away my death,
The bird that flew to save my soul's breath.

Here is my cage - a steel and heavy net,
It seems the golden in the sunset's eve,
Here is my bird - once gay, and now sad,
Swinging and singing by the window grieve.

Its wing are cut, its songs are learnt by heart.
Have any wish to be here detained?
You like these songs. But I, after my plight,
Wait for the new, and feel boredom again.