LAST DAYS
P. POLIVANOV
Year after year monotonously creeps;
Year after weary year more callous grown,
My life in semi-stupor drags along
Behind the prison’s gloomy wall of stone.
The mind, depressed by long imprisonment,
Has grown inert, and sleeps in idleness;
The heart is numbed and irresponsive now;
Feeling is dulled, grown wonted to distress.
Indifferent, without anger, without pain,
Into the viewless future now I gaze;
My hands hang down in utter apathy;
Nor grief nor passion stirs me in these days.
’Tis dull to live thus idly; ’tis a shame
Beneath an ignominious yoke to dwell—
To vegetate in body and in soul,
In stupor dumb, within a prison cell.
My over-burdened heart has no desire,
No strength in it, to linger longer here.
Eternal darkness, oh, enwrap me soon!
Vaults of my grave, draw nearer and more near!
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