ALEXANDER BLOK (1880-1921) is the greatest Russian poet after Pushkin and perhaps the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language. This volume consists of translations of three collections of Bloks verse: Ante Lucem (1898-1900), Verses about the Beautiful Lady (1901-1902), and Crossroads (1902-1904). These poems describe Bloks visions of Sophia, the Beautiful Lady, who appeared to him at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Sophia is the mysterious feminine principle behind all creation; Blok calls her the Mysterious Maiden, the Empress of the Universe,...