The wondrous moment of our meeting…
I well remember you appear
Before me like a vision fleeting,
A beauty’s angel pure and clear.
In hopeless ennui surrounding
The worldly bustle, to my ear
For long your tender voice kept sounding,
For long in dreams came features dear.
Time passed. Unruly storms confounded
Old dreams, and I from year to year
Forgot how tender you had sounded,
Your heavenly features once so dear.
My backwoods days dragged slow and quiet —
Dull fence around, dark vault above —
Devoid of God and uninspired,
Devoid of tears, of fire, of love.
Sleep from my soul began retreating,
And here you once again appear
Before me like a vision fleeting,
A beauty’s angel pure and clear.
In ecstasy the heart is beating,
Old joys for it anew revive;
Inspired and God-filled, it is greeting
The fire, and tears, and love alive.
Я помню чудное мгновенье:
Передо мной явилась ты,
Как мимолетное виденье,
Как гений чистой красоты.
В томленьях грусти безнадежной,
В тревогах шумной суеты,
Звучал мне долго голос нежный
И снились милые черты.
Шли годы. Бурь порыв мятежный
Рассеял прежние мечты,
И я забыл твой голос нежный,
Твои небесные черты.
В глуши, во мраке заточенья
Тянулись тихо дни мои
Без божества, без вдохновенья,
Без слез, без жизни, без любви.
Душе настало пробужденье:
И вот опять явилась ты,
Как мимолетное виденье,
Как гений чистой красоты.
И сердце бьется в упоенье,
И для него воскресли вновь
И божество, и вдохновенье,
И жизнь, и слезы, и любовь.
«Sonnet You are equally ready consorts in the / Service of flattery or reverie; should / One call you you, or call you / Thou, Second Paeon, Fourth Paeon? As on coins, your once bright / Features are eroded, and you / Pour out mossy lines of a / Gravestone, like icing on cakes. You are...»
«Sonnet I am set up for thirty years so as to / Live painfully breaking up the rays / From ghostly planets into “yes” and / “No,” into “ah!” and “baa.” So as to live worrying and grieving / Over what is already not there... / And I should certainly be a poet / If I could...»
«I love the fading of an echo after / The furious troika in the forest; / After scintillating, impetuous / Laughter I like a spell of weariness. On a winter morning I love over me the / Lilac-colored outpouring of semi-darkness. / And, where the sun was burning in spring. / Only the pink...»
«The forest is misted in sparklings, / In the shadows faces are changing. / Into the skies’ blue hermitage / Chimings are departing to pray... Chimings, take me! My heart / Is so weak and orphaned... / Dust from the day’s sparkling teases / With the possibility of peace... What does...»