Anthology of the Northern Wind

A poetry collection recording the deeds of successive Lightkeepers. Most of its contents were lost in earlier calamities; the fragments that can be gathered now are only a small part of the original.

— Silvester Petrovich Solovy —

VI

"…

If you will hear this dying old man's shame,

then let me thank you for your kindness.

Yet how shall the heart's tracks be poured out in words?

Cries of regret do no good for tomorrow either.

I once believed the princes' clever speech as well,

and let promises thin as gauze cover my eyes.

Only at farewell can we see more clearly—

all the hopes that fell empty and the painful regrets.

Why must the graveyard make my heart sick with sorrow,

when my dearest friends, my homeland, and my kin

already sleep through long nights with none to mourn them?

In white frost and the cold silence of clear water,

grief and pain will naturally sink into sleep as well.

What of it? Fantasy and prayer are both in vain;

only so that tears may not fall for emptiness

do I swear this oath within my heart.

Even for one instant, even for one moment,

let this heart that still beats and burns—

this passion that gnaws and scorches my soul—

be cast into a brief lamp, lighting this paradise.

Have you ever seen a dream brighter than gold?

Do you still remember how to hate, how to love?

Evening clouds vanish in the sinking dusk;

the lingering wind always scatters the light smoke;

years run on without cease; the old days never turn back.

Perhaps you still remember; perhaps you have forgotten—

but you know someone must always light the lamp,

even on snow plains, even in border villages.

…"

VIII

Washing the frost-pale moonlight,

the valiant warrior walks toward a foreign land.

Countless souls lie buried deep in old ruins;

countless heroes perish in the mist.

Black tides of beasts race across the wasteland,

trampling every living hope.

The nightingale forges the first beam of light on the mountain peak,

and forbids that never-sated delirium.

Biting cold winds come in gusts; calamity sinks into black light.

He glimpses a still dawn, an eternal yesterday;

fate flows in the wind, past the living and the dead;

the long night's lyre is fragrant as spring flowers that pass;

parting heaven's snow-curtain, the nightingale offers song to the sun.

A generation like thunder,

a generation like pine and cypress,

a generation like the sea tide,

a generation like the wild wind—

their names inherited by the years.

…

— Sergei Semyonovich Mayakov —

III

An unequal death-struggle, a desperate death-struggle:

on one side, boundless black giant waves;

on the other, this old and failing man,

and the blade gripped tight in his hand.

The voice in the mist said to him thus:

You blind, rash, venomous man—

do you care nothing for the comrades who trusted you?

You, Mayakov, arrogant madman,

only for your malicious glory

would you have young lads die,

have their mothers never see their sons again,

have their sons never see their fathers again.

Pity the orphan you pretended to adopt—

he must taste a father's loss once more.

Why not send a signal for help?

Why let the lighthouse sink utterly?

Why strip your followers of hope

and have them meet death in despair?

An old man who knows not heaven's height nor earth's depth!

They all died for your ambition;

no one will gather their bones for burial.

Dear one, Mayakov, yield—

for peace, let them find salvation.

He looked darkly toward the sea

and polished the axe in his hand.