Analysis of I and You

I and You

Yes, I know, I am an outlier,
I have come from an alien place,
And guitar is not exactly my taste,
But I like a savage tune of zurna.

I read my poems not in concert halls and salons
To dinner jackets, velvet dresses –
I read my poems to the dragons,
To roaring waterfalls and cloudy heavens.

I love – like Arab in the desert
Who falls on water  and satiates his thirst,
And not like a painted knight
Who watches the stars and sighs.

And I will NOT DIE in my bed,
Attended by solicitor and doctors,
But in a random wild crack,
Overgrown with ferns and fossils,

My way of paradise is not the one
So neat and orthodox and open to everyone,
My paradise will wake me up with screams
Of damned brethren, of whores and rascals!

(Nikolay Gumilyov, 1918
Translation by Svetlana Rakhimova, 2013)