ANGEL AND DEMON

Night in that forlorn cathedral, 'mong the hazy yellow flickers

Of the waxen tapers burning, close to altars - almost spent –

While the vault of the cathedral rises dark, magnificent,

Hard to pierce by eyesight reddened with the weary light of wickers,

In the chancel, now deserted, by the buttress of the wall,

There's an angel of a maiden who upon the steps has knelt;

From the icon of the altar, where a reddish ray has dwelt,

Blandly stares the Holy Virgin - pallid, veiled by sorrow's pall.

There's a torchlight standing stately on a pillar of grey stone:

Shining drops of pitch-black rosin sizzle, dripping to the ground,

Coronets of withered flowers spend their scent with rustling sound

And the maiden's secret prayer rises in a murmured drone.

Hidden in the deepest darkness, leaning on a marble cross,

Wrapped up in a thick black shadow, like a demon He keeps watch.

He puts out his hands and lays them where the cross-arms form a crotch;

Deep his eyes in sockets sunken, deep the lines his forehead cross;

Heavily his chin is resting on the icy stony shoulder,

While the cross-arm of white marble hides beneath his night-black hair.

Just the votive light of sadness, with its timid pink-white flare,

Sometimes casts a ray which gently passes on his face grown colder.

She - an angel plunged in prayer; He - a fiend with dreams which fleet;

She - a heart of gold, unblemished; He- a reckless apostate;

He, enwrapped in fatal shadows, on the cross leans, obstinate;

She, dispirited and holy, watches at Madonna's feet.

Bold and lofty walls around them, which their pure marble raise -

Spotless as the snows of winter, smooth as mountain lakelet water –

Now reflect the maiden's shadow, close as is a mother's daughter;

Like the maiden is her shadow: with her it has knelt and prays.

What is that you could be lacking, you, fair child with all your splendour,

With your face as white as marble, hands as delicate as wax,

Veils - diaphanous white vapours rising to the starry tracks,

Shadowed by your candid lashes, innocence stares clear and tender -

What d'you need to make an angel? Only long, star-spangled wings.

Oh, but look! Above your shadow, what is spreading inch by inch?

Shadows of two wings a-quiver from its shoulders do not flinch –

Wings of shadow all a-tremble, rising to the heaven's rings.

No, the shadow's not the maiden's: it's her angel, open-eyed;

Tis his immaterial being by the marble I can sense.

Lo, his sacred spirit hovers o'er her life of innocence:

With the maiden he is praying, he is kneeling by her side.

Nonetheless, if that's her shadow, She's an angel and no doubt,

Though her spotless snow-white winglets to the world remain unseen;

Walls which have been consecrated by mankind's pleas, long and keen -

Seeing her thin wings of legend - start to herald them about.

"I'm in love with you!" the demon would have cried out of his dark,

But the magic winged shadow his lips managed to appease;

Not in love, but deep in prayer, he is bending now his knees:

Spellbound by her sweet, shy whispers, to the latter he'd oft hark.

She?- A monarch's fair-haired daughter, by a star-tiara graced –

Passes carefree - king and angel, in a feminine attire.

He?-The spark that rouses peoples to revolt's destructive fire

And will seed seditious thinking in the hearts laid sorely waste.

Separated by life's billows, they are sadly disunited

By some centuries of thinking, by a nation, history;

Though it seldom happens, sometimes they do meet, and then you see

How their eyes just drink each other with the passion love has lighted.

Her big eyes as blue as azure, gently sweet and soft, though smart,

Deeply penetrate the tempest of his own, so heavy-browed!

Over his emaciation, lightly fleets a reddish cloud.

They're in love - and what a pity that they are so far apart!

Grace a pale king came as wooer and the crown of his old

Laden with past strength and glories, at her feet would fain have thrown,

Had she only set her slippers on the carpets of the throne,

Being in his fist besceptered her own small and tap'ring hand.

No, however! Hardly opened, stubbornly her lips stayed mute;

Mute, the heart within her bosom kept her hand drawn shyly

Love unspoken was her secret: his face - set, demoniac –

Day by day obsessed the maiden and her dreams would I persecute.

Oft she saw him move the people with ideas bold, unkind;

"Oh, how strong he is!" she'd whisper with some awe – though not unpleasant;

With the glory of his reason he brings to revolt the present

At what was amassed by ages and by every mighty mind.

Mounting on some stone or rostrum he flared up and spoke in rage,

Wrapping up in fighting banners. Hard-set, deep-creased, deiform,

His brow looked like nightly darkness shaken by a mighty storm,

His eyes sparkled, shot our lightnings, his words roused the villeinage.

Struggling hard in death's harsh clutches, sweating on a pauper's bed,

Lies the youth. The flimsy flicker of a dim and stingy lamp

In the sickly air is sizzling. - No one cares about the tramp

Or can make his fate less cruel; there is none to stroke his head.

Oh! But all that bitter thinking struck the world's ways as a whole,

And the laws laid down and written, order vested and protected

By the Lord's decrees and scepter - all is nowadays directed

At his heart which ceases throbbing, trying to suppress his soul!

Oh, to die bereft of hoping! Who could know the bitterness

Hiding in such words as poison? - Feeling shorn of freedom, small;

Seeing major aspirations soon reduced to nought at all,

While the world is ruled by evils, which your strength can not repress,

Seeing that when you withstood them just a wasted life you've earned

And, when your bell tolls, you notice you have crossed the world in vain:

Such a death is hell embodied. Other tears, more bitter pain

One could hardly e'er imagine. Then you feel to nought you've turned.

Such despondent, gloomy thinking does not let him die in peace.

Think how his career started! How much love of right and good

He had brought along and cherished - and sincerest brotherhood!

His reward? The venom gnawing at his soul without surcease.

Yet, among the mists and hazes laying on his eyes a cover,

Comes an angel's silver shadow, nobly rising from abysses;

On his bed it sits down gently and it showers loving kisses

O'er his eyes - by weeping blinded, which the gloomy mists uncover...

It is She! There's deep contentment, yet unfelt, without a par,

In his eyes as he beholds her: She looks fine in her emotion:

His last hour compensates him for his life full of commotion;

Darling" - sounds his dying whisper - "I can guess just who you are!"

“This earth's course I've always followed, Life and my own times, the nation,

With my mutinous ideas, fighting e'en the open sky

It forbore to damn the demon: to his side it caused to hie

This archangel to appease me and... 'tis love, the consolation!"

Translated by Andrei Bantas

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