| Deutsch and Yarmolinsky, comps. Modern Russian Poetry. 1921. | | | | “I Seek for Rhythmic Whisperings” | | By Zinaida Hippius (Mme. Dmitry Merezhkovsky) (b. 1869) |
| | | I SEEK for rhythmic whisperings | |
| Where noises bandy— | |
| For life I listen wistfully | |
| In footless banter. | |
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| I cast wide nets and tentative | 5 |
| In lakes of sorrow. | |
| I go toward final tenderness | |
| By pathways sordid. | |
| |
| I look for dewdrops glistering | |
| In falsehood’s gardens. | 10 |
| I save truth’s globules glistening, | |
| From dust-heaps garnered. | |
| |
| I fain would fathom fortitude | |
| Through years of wormwood— | |
| And pierce the mortal fortalice, | 15 |
| Yet live, a worldling. | |
| |
| My cup, through ways impassable, | |
| To bear, untainted; | |
| By tenebrous bleak passages | |
| To joy attaining. | 20 | | | |
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