Vyacheslav Ivanov (b. 1866)

NOW the golden leafage is beggared.

Shining through the porches of autumn,

Shows the cool blue stillness of heaven.

Lo, the thin-trunked grove is transcended:

Carved in stone, a columned cathedral.

Smoke-scrolls wind about the frail friezes;

Flung above the doors is a curtain—

Open-work: like nets of God’s fishers

That the catch has slipped through and broken,

Like thy tatters, sacred and lovely,

At the entrance of a white temple,

Oh thou golden mendicant music!