Ah, don't I know that, groping in the gloom, <br />Night would not find its way out of the dark? <br />Am I monster who the millions' doom <br />Would shrug away for a few hundreds' luck? <br /> <br />Am I not measured by the Five-Year Plan? <br />Its falls and rises, aren't they also mine? <br />What shall I do, though, with my heartbeat, and <br />With things whose sluggishness boggles the mind? <br /> <br />In highest councils, in those spheres where reign <br />The highest passions and the strongest will, <br />The poet's post has been set up in vain: <br />It's dangerous-unless it's left unfilled.<br /><br />Boris Pasternak<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-boris-pilnyak/
