Thought, yet more thought! Poor artist of the word,
thought’s priest! For you there can be no forgetting;
it’s all here, here are people and the world
and death and life and truth without a veil.
Ah! Chisel, cello, brush, happy the man
drawn to you by his senses, going no further.
He can drink freely at the world’s great feast!
But in your presence, thought, in your sharp rays,
before your unsheathed sword, our life grows pale.
by Евгений Абрамович Баратынский (Yevgeny Abramovich Baratynsky)
(1840)
translated by Peter France