Alexander Pushkin
The upas tree

In the niggard, sickly desert,
Where the earth is baked to stone,
Stands the upas, a stern sentry,
In the universe alone.

On a day of wrath did Nature,
Mother to those thirsty plains,
Bear it, saturate with poison,
Dead green leafage, roots and veins.

Through its bark the poison oozes,
Molten in noon's heat and rich,
Hardening as dusk advances
To a thick, transparent pitch.

Not a bird flies toward those branches,
Not a tiger nears; a black
Gust may briefly burst upon it:
Blight will follow in its track.

If a vagrant cloud should shower
The thick foliage where it stands,
From those boughs a rain of poison
Pours into the burning sands.

But a man a man commanded
By one look to seek that tree;
He returned, he bore the poison,
As he went, submissively.

Back he brought the mortal poison,
Withered was the branch he bore,
From his brow of deathy pallor
The chill sweat streamed evermore.

Back he brought itdrooped, and sickened,
Falling on a bed of bast;
To his mighty master faithful,
The poor slave soon breathed his last.

And the prince with that dread poison
Steeped his passive arrows well,
And sent ravage to his neighbors
And sped ruin far and fell.

Translated by Babette Deutsch