Alexander Blok, age 23, 1903. Russian Symbolist poet married the daughter of Dimitri Mendeleev (creator of the periodic table), joined the Revolution, and later became disillusioned by it.
Night, street and streetlight, drugstore,
The purposeless, half-dim, drab light.
For all the use live on a quarter century—
Nothing will change. There’s no way out.
You’ll die—and start all over, live twice,
Everything repeats itself, just as it was:
Night, the canal’s rippled icy surface,
The drugstore, the street, and streetlight.
