To... (Kern)
I still recall the wondrous moment
When you appeared before my eyes,
Just like a fleeting apparition,
Just like pure beauty's distillation.
When'er I languished in the throes of hopeless grief
Amid the troubles of life's vanity,
Your sweet voice lingered on in me,
Your dear face came to me in dreams.
Years passed. The raging, gusty storms
Dispersed my former reveries,
And I forgot your tender voice,
Your features so divine.
In exile, in confinement's gloom,
My uneventful days wore on,
Bereft of awe and inspiration
Bereft of tears, of life, of love.
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poem by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
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Day's Rain Is Done
Day's rain is done. The rainy mist of night
Spreads on the sky, leaden apparel wearing,
And through the pine-trees, like a ghost appearing,
The moon comes up with hidden light.
All in my soul drags me to dark surrender.
There, far away, rises the moon in splendour.
There all the air is drunk with evening heat,
There move the waters in a sumptuous heat,
And overhead the azure skies...
It is the hour. From high hills she has gone
To sea-shores flooding in the waves' loud cries;
There, where the holy cliffs arise,
Now she sits melancholy and alone...
Alone... Before her none is weeping, fretting,
None, on his knees, is kissing her, forgetting;
Alone... To no one's lips is she betraying
Her shoulders, her wet lips, her snow-white bosom.
No one is worthy of her heavenly love.
'Tis true?... Alone... You weep... I do not move.
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poem by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
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The Vision
I remember a marvellous instant,
Unto me bending down from above,
Thy radiant vision appearing
As an angel of beauty and love.
'Mid the torments of desperate sadness,
In the torture of bondage and sighs,
To me rang thy voice so beloved--
And I dreamed thy miraculous eyes.
But the years rolled along--and life's tempests
My illusions, my youth overcame,
I forgot that sweet voice full of music--
And thy glance like a heavenly flame.
In the covert and grief of my exile,
The days stretched unchanged in their flight,
Bereft inspiration or power,
Bereft both of love and of light.
To my soul now approaches awakening,
To me thou art come from above,
As a radiant and wonderful vision--
As an angel of beauty and love.
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poem by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
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The Memorial
Beyond compare the monument I have erected,
And to this spirit column well-worn the people's path,--
Its head defiant will out-soar that famous pillar
The Emperor Alexander hath!
I shall not vanish wholly,--No! but young forever
My spirit will live on, within my lyre will ring,
And men within this world shall hold me in remembrance
While yet one Singer lives to sing.
My glory shall in future fly through distant Russia,
Each race in its own tongue shall name me far and wide,
The Slav, the Finn, the Kalmyk, all shall know me--
The Tungoose in his reindeer hide.
Among my people I shall be long loved and cherished,
Because their noblest instincts I have e'er inflamed,
In evil hours I lit their hearts with fires of freedom,
And never for their pleasures blamed.
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poem by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
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The Talisman
Where the sea forever dances
Over lonely cliff and dune,
Where sweet twilight's vapor glances
In a warmer-glowing moon,
Where with the seraglio's graces
Daylong toys the Mussulman,
An enchantress 'mid embraces
Handed me a talisman.
'Mid embraces I was bidden:
"Guard this talisman of mine:
In it secret power is hidden!
Love himself has made it thine.
Neither death nor ills nor aging,
My beloved, does it ban,
Nor in gales and tempest raging
Can avail my talisman.
Never will it help thee gather
Treasures of the Orient coast,
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poem by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
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Winter Evening
The storm wind covers the sky
Whirling the fleecy snow drifts,
Now it howls like a wolf,
Now it is crying, like a lost child,
Now rustling the decayed thatch
On our tumbledown roof,
Now, like a delayed traveller,
Knocking on our window pane.
Our wretched little cottage
Is gloomy and dark.
Why do you sit all silent
Hugging the window, old gran?
Has the howling of the storm
Wearied you, at last, dear friend?
Or are you dozing fitfully
Under the spinning wheel's humming?
Let us drink, dearest friend
To my poor wasted youth.
Let us drink from grief - Where's the glass?
Our hearts at least will be lightened.
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poem by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
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The Prophet
Longing for spiritual springs,
I dragged myself through desert sands ...
An angel with three pairs of wings
Arrived to me at cross of lands;
With fingers so light and slim
He touched my eyes as in a dream:
And opened my prophetic eyes
Like eyes of eagle in surprise.
He touched my ears in movement, single,
And they were filled with noise and jingle:
I heard a shuddering of heavens,
And angels' flight on azure heights
And creatures' crawl in long sea nights,
And rustle of vines in distant valleys.
And he bent down to my chin,
And he tore off my tongue of sin,
In cheat and idle talks aroused,
And with his hand in bloody specks
He put the sting of wizard snakes
Into my deadly stoned mouth.
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poem by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
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A Winter Evening
Sable clouds by tempest driven,
Snowflakes whirling in the gales,
Hark--it sounds like grim wolves howling,
Hark--now like a child it wails!
Creeping through the rustling straw thatch,
Rattling on the mortared walls,
Like some weary wanderer knocking--
On the lowly pane it falls.
Fearsome darkness fills the kitchen,
Drear and lonely our retreat,
Speak a word and break the silence,
Dearest little Mother, sweet!
Has the moaning of the tempest
Closed thine eyelids wearily?
Has the spinning wheel's soft whirring
Hummed a cradle song to thee?
Sweetheart of my youthful Springtime,
Thou true-souled companion dear--
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poem by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
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Thoughts
If I walk the noisy streets,
Or enter a many thronged church,
Or sit among the wild young generation,
I give way to my thoughts.
I say to myself: the years are fleeting,
And however many there seem to be,
We must all go under the eternal vault,
And someone?s hour is already at hand.
When I look at a solitary oak
I think: the patriarch of the woods.
It will outlive my forgotten age
As it outlived that of my grandfathers?.
If I dandle a young infant,
Immediately I think: farewell!
I will yield my place to you,
For I must fade while your flower blooms.
Each day, and every hour
I habitually follow in my thoughts,
Trying to guess from their number
The year which brings my death.
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poem by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
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The Caucas
The Caucas lies before my feet! I stand where
Glaciers gleam, beside a precipice rock-ribbed;
An eagle that has soared from off some distant cliff,
Lawless as I, sweeps through the radiant air!
Here I see streams at their sources up-welling,
The grim avalanches unrolling and swelling!
The soft cloudy convoys are stretched forth below,
Tattered by thronging mad torrents descending;
Beneath them the naked rocks downward are bending,
Still deeper, the wild shrubs and sparse herbage grow;
But yonder the forests stand verdant in flora
And birds are a'twitter in choiring chorus.
Yonder, cliff-nested-are dwellings of mortals,
There pasture the lambs in sweet blossoming meadows--
There couch the herds in the cool deepening shadows--
There roar the Aragua's blue sparkling waters,
And lurketh the bandit safe hid in lone caverns,
Where Terek, wild sporting, is cutting the azure!
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poem by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
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