Welcoming Hærfæst (Harvest/Fall) - 2014

‘Taking an Autumn Road’

By Vladimir Solovyov

Day fades.  Above the exhausted, withered earth

The clouds, immobile, hang.  Under the golden foliage

Of autumn that now bids farewell

One can discern both birches and lime trees.

Dreams gently sorrowful embrace the soul;

The infinite horizons stand there frozen.

And, reconciled, the heart does not long for

The sumptuously brilliant, noisy spring.

And it is as if the earth, in settling to its rest,

Has been immersed within a wordless prayer

And a pale-winged swarm of wordless spirits,

Invisible, from heaven on high descends.

(Autumn 1886)

Works Cited

Solovyov, Vladimir.  ‘Taking an Autumn Road’.  The Religious Poetry of Vladimir Solovyov.  Jakim, ed.  Jakim and Magnus, trans.  San Rafael, Ca.: Semantron Press, 2008.  p. 32.