After Plodding Year After Year by Georgy Ivanov

After plodding year after year

through towns in an alien land,

we have ground enough to despair –

and despair is where we must end.

 

For despair is our final refuge –

as if, midwinter, we had come

from Vespers in a nearby church,

through Russian snow, to our home.

 

by Георгий Владимирович Иванов (Georgii Vladimirovich Ivanov)

(1958)

by Robert Chandler

No More Europe, No More America by Georgy Ivanov

No more Europe, no more America.

The end of Tsarskoye, of Moscow, too.

A fit of nuclear hysteria –

life atomized into a radiant blue.

 

Transparent, all-forgiving haze will stretch

over the seas. And he who could have done

something yet chose not to, will be left

in the expanse of pre-eternity, alone.

 

by Георгий Владимирович Иванов (Georgii Vladimirovich Ivanov)

(1953)

by Robert Chandler