Alexander Pushkin
October 19

The forest drops its garb in crimson rich;
The frosted field is silvery and faded;
Reluctant daylight shows and, soon dissuaded,
Conceals itself behind a nearby ridge.
Keep burning, fireplace, and warm the lonely rover,
And you, my wine, a friend of autumn chills,
Fill up my chest with pleasureful hangover,
A short oblivion of long endured ills.

I’m sad: no friend of mine is by my side
With whom I’d drown in wine the separation,
Whose hand I’d shake in hearty animation
And wish a life of mischievous delight.
I drink alone; my fancy to no purpose
Calls up the ones who are my lifelong mates;
There’s nobody approaching — none will surface;
There’s not one dear lad my soul awaits.

I drink alone while on the Neva shore
My friends salute me as they get together…
And yet how many does the feasting gather?
Who else is not this time accounted for?
Which ones betrayed the fascinating custom?
Who chose the heartless upper crust to woo?
Whose voice is silent at the brothers’ summon?
Who did not come? Who does not feast with you?

He did not come, our curly-headed bard;
His eyes were fire, his strings so sweet and fertile:
Beneath fair Italy’s lush crowns of myrtle
He sleeps in peace; no friendly chisel carved
The tombstone where the Russian soul is buried
With proper words in his God-given tongue,
So that a foreign land’s salute, if arid,
Might greet one day a North’s wayfaring son.

I wonder if with friends you sit at ease,
Of someone’s foreign skies, you, restless lover,
Or yet over the sultry tropic hover,
Or pass on timeless ice of northern seas.
God speed!.. Out the Lyceum door, your mindset
Had made you climb a ship to distant shores;
The sea became your pathway from the outset,
O best-loved child of ocean waves and storms!

You did preserve in your wayfaring fate
The primal ways of years we spent together:
Lyceum noise and capers free of tether
Were in your dreams amidst the waves irate;
You stretched your hand to us across the ocean;
You had just us embedded in your soul
And rued the day that doom had slyly chosen
Our lengthy separation as a goal!

Our union, friends, is glorious by right!
It’s like the soul unbroken and eternal;
Unswerving, free and blithe, our bond fraternal
Was blessed by genial muses to be tight.
Wherever bitter fate would send us trailing
Or blissful hope accompany to roam,
We’re still the same and deem the whole world alien;
Tsar’s Village is our country and our home.

My road, beset by storms from end to end,
Had kept me in the clutches of misfortune
Until I rested, in complete exhaustion,
On some new friendship’s lap my tender head…
With pleas of heartfelt turbulence and sadness,
With trusting hope of those initial years,
I gave my soul to other friends in gladness,
But bitter were their unfraternal cheers.

And now it’s here, in this forsaken nook,
The cold abode that only blizzards favor,
Sweet pleasure was in store for me to savor:
The three of you, my soul’s dear friends, I took
Into my arms. The banished poet’s domicile
Was where you first, my Pu’shchin, led the way.
You brightened up a mournful day of exile;
You made it a Lyceum good old day.

You, Gorchako’v, most lucky from the start;
I praise you highly: fortune’s chilling glitter
Has failed to force your footloose heart to dither —
Unchanged for friends and honor is your heart.
Harsh fate laid different paths that took us worldwide;
We entered life and parted on our ways,
But then we happened, by a country curbside,
To meet and share a brotherly embrace.

When wrathful fate was causing me distress,
I felt no kinship like a homeless orphan;
In storm I’d hang my weary head and often
Would call you, seer of maids from Permessus.
Indeed you came, sloth’s favored son, high-minded;
Your voice, my De’lvig, rang to animate
The heart’s old fervor, longtime unrequited,
And with that happy thought I blessed my fate.

A singing spirit graced our tender age;
We felt a wondrous ardor of no limits;
From tender age two muses paid us visits,
And sweet with their caress was our exchange.
And yet I chose applause and adulation —
You proudly sang for muses and the soul;
I spent my gift like life in aberration —
A genius schooled serenely was your goal.

The ministry of muses brooks no fuss;
All things of beauty must display their grandeur,
But youth will slyly lead astray in rapture
To where rambunctious dreams encompass us…
We come to senses — too late! In dejection
We look behind: no footprints to peruse.
Say, Wil’helm, much like us in retrospection,
O, brother mine by destiny and muse.

It’s time, it’s time! The worthless world is bent
On torturing our souls. Let’s cast illusion
And hide our lives in shadows of seclusion!
I’m waiting for you, my belated friend —
Do come! With magic of your blazing story
Bring legends of the heart again to life;
Let’s talk of days the Caucasus was stormy,
Of Schiller, and of glory, and of love.

It’s time I closed… But may your feast renew!
I sense our happy meeting with conviction,
And bear in mind the poet’s best prediction:
A year flies by and I am back with you;
I’ll get the wish for which my soul so hungered;
A year flies by — I’ll show before your eyes!
So many tears there will be, greetings uttered,
So many cups will point toward the skies!

Now fill the first one, friends, up to the brim!
And drink it all in honor of our union!
Do bless, triumphant muse, our free communion,
Do bless: long live the dearest Lyceum!
To guardians of our fragile youth, each mentor,
To all by now deceased or living still,
Let’s raise a thankful cup and drink to render
The tribute due to them and bear no ill.

Still fuller cups, the fullest cups so far!
Drink bottoms up again, drink every droplet!
Now guess to whom, my lads, you lift a goblet…
Hurray, our Tsar! Let’s drink it to the Tsar.
He’s just a man and to the moment servile;
He’s prey to talk and doubt, by passions ruled;
Let us forgive him for the wrongful exile:
He captured Paris; he founded our school.

Enjoy the feast, my friends, while we are here!
Alas, each counting proves our circle thinner;
Some sleep in graves, some in oblivion linger;
The fate looks on; we fade; days disappear.
Invisibly we stoop, and, growing colder,
We head to our beginnings — each his own…
Which one of us as he, in age far older,
Will celebrate Lyceum Day alone?

My hapless friend! To future breeds of humans
An awkward guest, a stranger in the land,
He’ll think of us and days of our reunions
And shield his eyes with an unsteady hand…
May he be pleased, if somewhat disconcerted,
Over a drink, as through this day he’ll fare,
The way that I, your wrongly banished hermit,
Has spent this day without much grief or care. 

Translated by Yuri Menis