Mikhail Lermontov
Agreement

Let idle crowds defame, disdainful,
Your love they cannot know nor guess,
And then through scorn and prejudice
Deny your bonds of tenderness.

No slave unto the world’s opinion,
I do not kneel before the great;
Like you, I think their cause unworthy
My heart’s devotion or my hate.

Like you, I share their noisy pleasures.
Yet known them not as souls apart:
I take alike the wise and foolish
And keep the mandate of my heart.

Alike, or do not prize their world.
Their happiness, their ways. We say
We never can betray each other,
Nor strangers you or me betray.

So brief the time for meeting now
As friends when we must part again,
And so unreal our happiness,
We part with little grief or pain.

Translated by Eugene Mark Kayden