Afanasy Fet
To the Stars that have gone out

Curious eyes of those blue skyey spaces.
Tell me how long shall your glimmer inspire me?
Long shall I feel, that in night’s holy places
Nothing is nobler or fairer to fire me.

Quenched in some era forgotten, you may be
Nothing at all, though you still flame afar there;
— This dead man’s songs to you flying, shall they be
The ghost of a sign to the ghost of a star there?

Translated by O. Elton