I wandered, parched in mind and heart,
Across the desert, gloomy, grim...
And where the roadways meet and part
I faced the six-winged seraphim.
With gentle pinions, soft as sleep,
He brushed my eyelids. Wide and deep
My vision grew, prophetic-sighted,
Keen as an eagle, fierce, affrighted!
And then he touched my trembling ear:
What din, what clanging did I hear...
Sensing the shuddering of the sky,
Dim shapes that glide beneath the deeps,
The flight of angels, heaven-high,
The growing vine that buds and creeps.
Close to my mouth his fingers lay -
The cunning tongue he tore away
(So foolish, idle, full of lies)
Then his right hand, all bloody-red
Implanted in my speechless head
The sting that arms the serpent wise!
Last, with a sword he sliced apart
My breast, drew out the flaming heart,
And in the space where once it beat
He thrust a coal - 0 flaming heat!
I lay exhausted - like the slain -
Till God commanded: "Rise again!
See, Prophet! Hear, and understand!
Obey! The word, which you proclaim,
In wanderings far, by sea and land
Shall set the human heart aflame."

8 September (1826)

Pushkin wrote the date of 8th September at the foot of this poem as it was the day on which Tsar Nicholas I ended Pushkin's exile, which had begun in May, 1820