Ivan Bunin
There is no end to misty rain...

There is no end to misty rain.
The forest’s firs their heads are shaking:
“O God above!” – The drunk refrain
Of forest’s sodden crown awaking.

By lodge’s window in the dark
The baby sits. Her spoon she clatters.
Her mother snores on oven’s ark.
In doorway lowing calf calm shatters.

The lodge is grieving, buzzes fly…
Why’s forest filled with song of bunting,
Why grow the mushrooms, don’t blooms die,
And why glows grass like grass snake hunting?

And why beneath rain’s steady drum
As all the world and gate lodge languish
Does child with large head idly strum
The windowsill with spoonful’s anguish?

As if struck dumb the heifer lows,
With mournful stoop the fir tree wheedles
With intercessing emerald needles
“Oh God! Oh God! God surely knows!”

Translated by Rupert Moreton