When something essential from one poetic tradition resurfaces in another it isn't translation but genealogy, transformation not of text but of context. In that process, the primary poem is implicit. The main subject of Blok's poem Dvenadcat' ('Twelve') is revolution; the main subtext is damnation, as evoked in Dante's Inferno. Here is Blok on the left and Dante on the right. My comments and summaries are in square brackets. Verse translation is an exercise for poets on their off days; the specimens below are to be read as such. (Here I add that web page design is an exercise for translators in their off days; the layout has gone to hell. I'll put Blok in bold and Dante in italics.)

… the poem was written in that exceptional and always brief moment when the cyclone of revolution produces a storm on every sea - the seas of nature, life, art; - on the sea of human life there is a certain little backwater … called politics; and at that time, there was a storm in that teacup also. Black evening.White snow.Wind, wind!No one can keep on his feet.Wind, wind- on all God's world! Freedom, freedomHey, hey, with no Cross! I came to a place where every light was mute,Which roars like a sea in tempest beaten by conflicting winds.The hellish storm that never restsClutches and drives the spirits,And torments them with whirling and smiting.When they come before its ruinous forceThere are cries, moans and lamentation,And there they blaspheme the power of God.
[Twelve soldiers march through the snow and ice where the citizens are floundering.][Blok said that those who saw Dvenadcat' as a political poem were "up to their ears in political mud"]. [A squad of ten devils accompanies Dante and Virgil past the litigious wheeler-dealers who are submerged in boiling tar.]

[One of the twelve Red Guards says to another,"Whatever did the gold iconostasisSave you from?" The mistaken object of worship becomes a target of blasphemy.] [One devil throws a newly-arrived sinner into the tar and says, "You won't find the Holy Face here" The Holy Face (il Santo Volto) was of course the face of Christ, but specifically a Byzantine crucifix in Lucca cathedral. The icon, instead of focusing attention on Christ, becomes the object of attention.
The wind is on the town,The snow flutters,Twelve men walk.Black slings on rifles,Around them - fires, fires, fires..Roll-up cigarette between the teeth, cap aslant,All that's missing is the prison arrows on the jacket!Freedom, freedomHey hey, with no cross!Tra ta ta!It's cold, comrades, it's cold! [According to Kornej Cukovskij, Blok once told him he saw angels' wings on the Red Guards. … fallen angels, one presumes.] [The leader of the troop of devils issues orders:]'Come forward, Alichino and Calcabrina,'He continued, 'And you, Cagnazzo,And let Barbariccia lead the ten.Let also Libicocco come, and Draghignazzo,Ciriatto with the tusks, and Graffiacane,And Farfarello, and mad Rubicante.Cast about the boiling pitch.Let these ones be safe as far as the next ridge,That goes unbroken right across the dens.'[And Dante says to Virgil:]'Oh master, what is this?'I said. 'If you know the way let us go alone, without escort,For I do not want one.If you are as wary as usual,Do you not see how they are gringing their teethAnd threatening mischief for us with their brows?' [This is the only place in Dante's Inferno that features traditional winged and wicked devils.]
And a mangy dog with its tail between its legsPresses its wiry coat up against him Clear off, you mangy dog,I'll tickle you with my bayonet!Old world, like a mangy dog, Disappear! I'll hit you! [One of the devils hooks a devil out of the boiling tar:]And Graffiacane, who was nearest to him,Hooked his tarry locks and drew him up,So that to me he looked like an otter." "O Rubicante, see that you putYour claws into him, enough to skin him! "They lowered their hooks, and one said,'Shall I touch him on the rump?'And others answered, 'Yes, see that you notch it for him'."

Well I'll scratch my pate, I'll scratch it a bit. And with my knifeI'll slash and slash!Fly away, bourgeois, like a sparrow!I'll drink your blood.. [The sinner (in hell for profiteering from public office, a bourgeois crime if ever there was one), says:]Oh no, see that one grinding his teethI would say more, but I am afraidThat he is getting ready to scratch my scurf.

If Blok had been wanting to make us think of Dante, surely it would have been simpler to call his poem "The Eighth Circle" - "Twelve" isn't much of a title - and maybe set it in terza rima? But then he wasn't playing literary games. Russia was going through hell and Christ only knew to what end. "Twelve" was a witness account and a confession of faith. Faith without hope, which was right enough: he had three years to go, and they were misery, hunger and pain. The country fared no better. His work will survive, for we'll need it. Now: source text in the middle, Blok to the left and Dante to the right. The theme of the descent into hell, like the Nativity scenes, was more for artists than for theologians - and more for painters than for poets; the full force of the idea is felt not in the central text below, but in Orthodox icons of the resurrection and especially in the 12th century fresco in St Saviour in Chora, Istanbul).
Up ahead - with a bloody flag,Unseen beyond the blizzard,Untouched by the bullets,With a gentle step above the blizzard,A pearly sprinking of snow,In a white crown of roses, - Up ahead is Jesus Christ. And lo, suddenly Hell did quake, and the gates of death and the locks were broken small, and the bars of iron broken, and fell to the ground...And behold, the Lord Jesus Christ coming in the glory of the light of the height, in meekness, great and yet humble...Then all the saints of God besought the Lord that he would leave the sign of victory - even of the holy cross - in hell... And so it was done...
There is a double coming into being of mortal things and a double passing away... And these things never cease from continual shifting, at one time all coming together, through Love, into one, at another each borne apart from the others through strife... [Virgil to Dante:]The deep, foul valley trembled on every side,So that I thought the universeFelt love by which, as some believe,The world has more than once been turned to Chaos.