Here is the long-bided hour: the labor of years is accomplished.
Why should this sadness unplumbed secretly weigh on my heart?
Is it, my work being done, I stand like a laborer, useless,
One who has taken his pay, alien to unwonted tasks?
Is it the work I regret, the silent companion of midnight,
Friend of the golden-haired Dawn, friend of the gods of the hearth?
Миг вожделенный настал: окончен мой труд многолетний.
Что ж непонятная грусть тайно тревожит меня?
Или, свой подвиг свершив, я стою, как подёнщик ненужный,
Плату приявший свою, чуждый работе другой?
Или жаль мне труда, молчаливого спутника ночи,
Друга Авроры златой, друга пенатов святых?
«Poor poet, was that really you, / addressing the moon in rhyme? / My eyes were dulled so long ago / by love, by cards and wine. The moon climbs through the window frame. / White light, so white it blinds you... / I bet on the Queen of Spades, / but I played the Ace of Diamonds.»
«Grant me years of sickness and fever; / make me sleepless for months at a time. / Take away my child and my lover / and the mysterious gift of rhyme. / As the air grows ever more sultry, / this is the prayer I recite: / and may the storm cloud over my country / be shot through with ray...»
«“You are with me once more, Autumn my friend!” / Annensky Let any, who will, still bask in the south / On the paradisal sand, / It’s northerly here — and this year of the north / Autumn will be my friend. I’ll live, in a dream, in a stranger’s house / Where perhaps I have di...»
«So again we triumph! / Again we do not come! / Our speeches silent, / Our words, dumb. / Our eyes that have not met / Again, are lost; / And only tears forget / The grip of frost. / A wild-rose bush near Moscow / Knows something of / This pain that will be called / Immortal lov...»