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Poems to Louise H.

by Bill Bowler

And Still You, My Distant Vision
by Appolon Grigoryev


And still you, my distant vision,
in your original, girlish innocence
before my spirit’s eyes stood mute,
reproachful and sadly angry now,

when I had finished my hallowed task.
Like lightning you flashed in the barren wasteland
to my sick soul... Like a pure stream
you flowed suddenly through the mire of my heart,

sacred harmony pressed into my hearing,
shaken in his soul was the follower of Baal.
And all to which I had forcibly been deaf,

ran along the rusted strings of my heart
and was carried off — “whither my fallen spirit
will not reach” — to the dwelling of the ideal.

Apollon Grigoryev text

Copyright © 2009 by Bill Bowler

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