Eduard Bagritsky
About Pushkin

And Pushkin crumples into blueish brittle
Snow’s blanket. And he knows this is the end…
The cruel bullet’s sting is true and it’ll
Take poet’s lifeblood with its flighted trend.
The bloodied shirt… The fur cape now abandoned.
The sledge’s runners’ rattles seem to cough.
The forest and the snow and journey’s boredom,
And now the burdened sledge speeds off, speeds off…
And Pushkin dozes. He again remembers
All that by lover cannot be dismissed –
His Goncharova’s spreading curls, like embers,
The silent, honey-eyes that he has kissed.
Chance wind will not dispel the poet’s craving,
In lonely pine trees’ needles freezes land…
…Towards the rebel poet’s heart the raving
Tsar Nicholas directs the wretch’s hand!
Gendarme is here! He’s tracking needles’ bleeding –
His finger on the trigger, stubborn-faced,
His pupils, unintelligent, receding
Peruse where Frenchman’s slender pistol’s placed…
And how can I, who’ve studied all that’s needed
For writing verse and firing rifles well,
Leave call to vengeance for spilt blood unheeded,
Or not reward the singing killers’ yell?
For Pushkin in Crimea I’ve sought vengeance,
I’ve carried Pushkin over Urals’ heights,
With Pushkin I have staggered through the trenches,
A hungry barefoot host to lice’s bites.
And, uncontrolled, my heart has then pulsated,
And in it carefree flame’s begun to flare,
And as machine guns’ fire has screamed, elated,
I’ve feasted on beloved Pushkin’s fare!
And so the years still chart their course unswerving,
And in my heart there swells a burst of song…
…Spring blooms – and Pushkin, now avenged, deserving,
Still sweetly freedom loves as all along.

Translated by Rupert Moreton