Sergey Esenin
Shine, my star, don’t fall...

Shine, my star, don’t fall,
Shed your cold rays.
After all, a living heart doesn’t beat
Behind a cemetery fence.

You glow with August and wheat
And fill the shadows of fields
With such a tearful trembling
Of herons that never flew away.

And, raising my head ever higher,
From beyond the grove or the hill,
I once again hear someone’s song
About my homeland and home.

And the golden autumn,
Diminishing the sap in the birches,
Cries its foliage onto sand
For all those I loved and abandoned.

I know, I know. Soon, very soon,
Not through mine or anyone’s fault,
I too will have to lie
Under the low mournful fence.

The gentle flame will burn out,
And my heart will turn to ash.
My friends will put up a gray stone
With a cheerful inscription in verse.

But, taking in the funeral sadness,
This is what I would write for myself:
He loved his land and this earth
The way a drunk loves a pub.

Translated by Anton Yakovlev