By Nikolay Gumilev

I walked along unfamiliar boulevards,
Suddenly hearing the cackling of crows,
Ringing of lutes, noise of far-away thunders, 
And right before me a streetcar arose.

But how I leapt onto stairs of its entrance
Was an enigma; this I couldn't say.
While in the air a bright burnishing pathway
It would trace even in light of the day.

It rushed a blizzard that's wingéd and darkened,
And it got lost in the void of all time...
Streetcar conductor, hey, why don't you stop it,
Hey, can't you stop the streetcar now?

But it's too late. For we passed by the wall; Then,
We leapt beside a small grove of palms,
Over the Nile, through the Seine, over Neva, 
Over three bridges we roared along. 

And, having flashed in the car window's framing, 
Threw us a gaze of long-suffering orbs
A poor old man and, oh yes, it's same one
Who died in Beirut a full year ago. 

Where am I? Feeling so trapped and so anxious,
I hear my heart in response jabber on:
See that train station, one could've bought there
Tickets to Indias of the soul. 

Signpost... And lettering, poured out of blood drops,
Voices out: here - in this green space - I know,
Instead of cabbages, instead of turnips,
Heads of dead people are bought and sold. 

In his red shirt, with a face like an udder,
Butcher has severed my head, like the rest, 
And in a slippery box, by the others,
Right at the bottom my head has been placed.

And in an alley by wooden-planked fencing,
I see that house with three windows, grey lawns...
Streetcar conductor, oh, why don't you stop here;
Hey, stop it now! Why, I have to get off! 

Masha my darling, you lived and you sang here, 
Weaving a rug for the groom, for me;
Where is your voice now and where is your body,
It cannot be that you died, cannot be! 

Oh, how you moaned in your hallway's bright entrance
While, with a braid over-powdered and plumed, 
I went to get introduced to the Empress,
So that I never again met with you. 

I understand now: that all of our freedoms, 
Only from there, are a light beating through;
People and shades are amassed by the entrance
Into a garden of planets, a zoo. 

Suddenly wind - blowing sweet, well-acquainted -  
Over the bridge and right towards me shoots,
Under a steel glove, the palm of a rider
And flies a pair of his horse's hooves. 

Serving as Orthodox world's righteous castle,
Isaac's cathedral, in heavens embossed. 
There I would pray for the health of my Masha
And for myself sing a Requiem dirge. 

Still, unto aeons the heart keeps its gloom and
It's hard to breath and it pains to survive...
Sweet darling Masha, but I never knew that
One ever loved, ever anguished this much!