| Deutsch and Yarmolinsky, comps. Modern Russian Poetry. 1921. | | | | “When, Heaving on the Stormy Waters” | | By Fyodor Sologub (Pseudonym of Fyodor Teternikov) (b. 1863) |
| | | WHEN, heaving on the stormy waters, | |
| I felt my ship begin to sink, | |
| I prayed, “Oh, Father Satan, save me, | |
| Forgive me at death’s utter brink! | |
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| “If you will save my soul embittered | 5 |
| From perishing before its hour, | |
| The days to come, the nights that follow | |
| I vow to vice, I pledge to power.” | |
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| The Devil forthwith snatched and flung me | |
| Into a boat; the sides were frail, | 10 |
| But on the bench the oars were lying | |
| And in the bow an old gray sail. | |
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| And landward once again I carried | |
| My outcast soul, bereft of kin, | |
| Upon its sickly vicious sojourn | 15 |
| My body and its gift of sin. | |
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| And I am faithful, Father Satan, | |
| Unto my evil hour’s vow, | |
| When from my drowning ship you saved me | |
| And when I prayed you guide the prow. | 20 |
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| To you descend my praises, Father, | |
| No day from bitter blame exempt. | |
| O’er worlds my blasphemy shall tower; | |
| And I shall tempt—and I shall tempt. | | | | |
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