| Deutsch and Yarmolinsky, comps. Modern Russian Poetry. 1921. | | | | The Curse of Love | | By Dmitry Merezhkovsky (b. 1865) |
| | | WITH heavy anguish, hopeless straining, | |
| The bonds of love I would remove. | |
| Oh, to be loosed from their enchaining! | |
| Oh, freedom, only not to love! | |
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| The soul that shame and fear are scourging | 5 |
| Crawls through a mist of dust and blood. | |
| From dust, great God, my spirit purging, | |
| Oh, spare me from love’s bitter flood! | |
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| Is pity’s wall alone unshaken? | |
| I pray to God, I cry in vain, | 10 |
| More weary, by all hope forsaken; | |
| Resistless love grows great again. | |
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| There is no freedom, unforgiven, | |
| We live as slaves, by life consumed; | |
| We perish, tortured, bound and driven, | 15 |
| Promised to death, and to love—doomed. | | | | |
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