“Call me a sinner,Mock me maliciously:I was your insomnia,I was your grief.”

“You will hear thunder and remember me, And think: she wanted storms. The rim Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson, And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.”

“Though you are three times more beautiful than angels,Though you are the sister of the river willows,I will kill you with my singing,Without spilling your blood on the ground.Not touching you with my hand,Not giving you one glance, I will stop loving you,But with your unimaginable groansI will finally slake my thirst.From her, who wandered the earth before me,Crueler than ice, more fiery than flame,From her, who still exists in the ether—From her you will set me free.”

“You invented me. There is no such earthly being,Such an earthly being there could never be.A doctor cannot cure, a poet cannot comfort—A shadowy apparition haunts you night and day.We met in an unbelievable year,When the world's strength was at an ebb,Everything withered by adversity,And only the graves were fresh. Without streetlights, the Neva's waves were black as pitch,Thick night enclosed me like a wall ...That's when my voice called out to you!Why it did—I still don't understand.And you came to me, as if guided by a starThat tragic autumn, steppingInto that irrevocably ruined house,From whence had flown a flock of burnt verse.”

“Forgive me, that I manage badly,Manage badly but live gloriously,That I leave traces of myself in my songs,That I appeared to you in waking dreams.”

“Let my heiress have full rights,Live in my house, sing songs that I composed.Yet how slowly my strength ebbs,How the tortured breast craves air.The love of my friends, my enemies' rancorAnd the yellow roses in my bushy garden,And a lover's burning tenderness—all thisI bestow upon you, messenger of dawn.Also the glory for which I was born,For which my star, like some whirlwind, soaredAnd now falls. Look, its fallingProphesies your power, love and inspiration.Preserving my generous bequest,You will live long and worthily.Thus it will be. You see, I am content,Be happy, but remember me.”

“Your voice is wild and simple.You are untranslatableInto any one tongue.”