To Boris Pilnyak

Ah, don't I know that, groping in the gloom,
Night would not find its way out of the dark?
Am I monster who the millions' doom
Would shrug away for a few hundreds' luck?

Am I not measured by the Five-Year Plan?
Its falls and rises, aren't they also mine?
What shall I do, though, with my heartbeat, and
With things whose sluggishness boggles the mind?

In highest councils, in those spheres where reign
The highest passions and the strongest will,
The poet's post has been set up in vain:
It's dangerous-unless it's left unfilled.