Gumilyov, "Ужас"

A gothic piece ("Horror") from this Russian poet.  You can find the original here.

Long, long I walked the corridors,
A circling, wordless enemy;
Niched statues gazed at my rogue course,
And pierced my soul with enmity.

In sullen sleep all things grew dumb,
And grey obscure its strangeness kept; 
As if an evil pendulum
Were measure of my lonely step.
 
And there where deeper gloom arose,
My burning eyes went cold with fear:
A figure, hardly seen but close,
In crowding columns’ shade appeared.

To it I went, but then withdrew,
A beast in horrified escape:
A vile hyena’s head did spew
Upon a girl’s soft comely shape.

Its snout leered forth in bloody blade,
Its eyes evinced an empty cast,
'Twas then I heard base whispers fade:
"Here have you come, all mine at last!"

And fearful moments passed in dread,
And darkness swam around my bones,
And countless mirrors rose instead
In palest horror’s deadly moans.

Borges, "Los espejos"

A work ("Mirrors") by this Argentine man of letters.  You can read the original here.

Not only crystal brings me fear,       
Impenetrable shadow's sight,                        
All mirrors end and start in fright,           
The unreal space reflected near.

Before the glass-like water's hoax:             
Another blue, the deepest sky;                 
At times sliced through by motion's lie:     
Inverted birds or ripple's coax.

Before the silent surface black,             
Untrammeled smoothness in soft sheets,                 
Dreamlike warm whiteness then repeats     
Of marble pale and faintest rose.

And now so many years have past      
Of roaming by the fickle moon;           
I ask myself what chance assumed    
That mirrors would leave me aghast.

Mirrors of metal, mirrors in masks,        
Mahogany, which in the mists                 
In reddish dusk through smoke persists,
This face which answers and which asks,

Unending, fatal, sleepless faces,
Fulfiller of an ancient pact, 
They multiply within the act
A world awash in selfsame traces.

Expanding this vain, doubtful sky  
Within their web at dizzying height,      
Their fog will sometimes cloud the night        
The breath of someone yet to die.

The crystal waits.  And if there hangs    
A mirror in my room's four walls,              
I'm not alone, my double calls:           
His fate held tight in dawn's white fangs.

And once occurred, all things are cleft                          
From crystal boxes but made for show;                  
Where fictive rabbis long ago                    
Read verse and prose from right to left.

And Claudius, an evening's king,             
A king in dream – at least until                
An actor wore his guilty frill,                    
A silent art, a portrait's sting.

How strange it is that mirrors live,                    
And that we dream! Strange that our days    
Each feed on the deceptive haze                               
Reflected in that deepest grid.

And God, I've come to think, might coat                   
Our architecture with hope's sheen,                            
And light this ebony unseen                             
With crystal lands in thoughts remote.

And God has armed the night with dreams               
And mirror forms in countless waves,                       
So that man's mind thinks we are shades, 
Reflections vain.  Hence come our screams.

Baudelaire, "Les chats"

A work ("Cats") by this French poet.  You can read the original here.

The fervent rake, the austere sage,                    
Both grow enamored, as years pass,                          
With cats' soft force in proud home's cage,                      
Like they, oft cold in sloth's morass.                       

With knowledge carnal and of book,                        
They seek the silent shadow's gloom,  
Where Erebus their thralldom took             
For messengers of coming doom.    

And when asleep, their noblesse beams          
As Sphinxes stretched in lonesome night,       
Who seem to rest in endless dreams;   

And magic sparks caress their spine,              
And mystic pupils are gilded bright                                
With obscure hints of pelage fine.

Rimbaud, "Les corbeaux"

A work ("The ravens") by this French poet.  You can read the original here. 

When prairies, Lord, breathe but cold words,
And ravaged hamlets sleep in peace,            
And angelus bells hang unheard,   
Upon unflowered, waning leas, 
Let fall from your grey monstrous skies                 
That dear and tasty raven flesh.

Strange army of malicious cries,             
The frigid winds attack your nests!
Along the yellowed rivers' roll  
Upon the Calvary's broad bend,
Above the gullies and the holes,          
Disperse and rally, foe or friend!

Upon the fields of France they feed,
Where sleep the dead of yesteryear, 
And thousands swirl in wintry greed                        
So that each passer-by may fear!    
Be now the herald of our yoke,              
Our black funereal bird of harm!

O holy saints atop the oak,     
Lost masts amidst the evening charm,
Leave warblers of the month of May                          
To those led on by woods' retreat, 
Bestride the grass they aim to stay         
A sad and futureless defeat.

Akhmatova, "Не тайны и не печали"

A work ("No secrets and no sadness came") by this Russian poet. You can read the original here.

No secrets and no sadness came,  
Nor wisest will of destiny; 
Encounters always left the same 
Harsh print of battle's enmity. 

This morning yet I guessed the hour,   
That minute when you would return;
And my contorted hands did burn  
In prickly, faint fear of your power. 

The tablecloth, so bright in hue, 
Was crumpled by dry fingers mine;
And it was then that I first knew 
How baleful was this earth divine.