Afanasy Fet
Reverie

I had a dream: I slept, and I imagined
That I was dead and lost in reverie at that;
And lovingly, that reverie by kind of magic
Had given rise to hope in my depressing heart.

What kind of joy I want, I don't know, really.
There rings the bell, — and all is clarified;
My soul lit up, I understand now clearly,
That happiness is in those sounds all right.

Those sounds are clearer, more transparent,
More joyful than all sounds of the world.
I feel that to those sounds I am carried
To distant cemetery, my last abode.

I feel delight and torment, down and out,
I want to rise and breathe as I look back,
And on the wave of the exultant sound
I'd whirl away and drown in the dark.

Translated by Alec Vagapov