The Sixth Sense

    by Nikolai Gumilev (1886-1921)

How pleased we are by the entrancing wine
And by the bread that’s waiting in the oven,
And by the woman who can pacify
Our agonies in the delights of loving.

But with the sunset’s color of a rose
Above the cool horizon of the sky--
What do we do with that divine repose?
With the poetic and immortal lines?

We cannot eat, we cannot drink, nor kiss it,
The moment irrevocably races,
We wring our hands but always miss it, miss it,
Confined forever to our empty chases.

Like a little boy, abandoning his play,
Who spies at times upon a young girl bathing,
Who knows nothing of the lovers’ games,
Yet still tormented by some secret craving.

Or like the times when in the primal woods
A slimy creature powerlessly moaned,
Dimly aware of the wings that would
Upon its shoulders gradually grow.

So ages pass--O how soon, dear Lord?
Under the scalpel of the changing art and nature
Our spirit groans, our flesh contorts
During the sixth sense organ’s natal rapture.
 

                                     --translated by Alexander Shaumyan