Sergey Esenin
Letter to a Woman

You remember,
Of course, you remember
How I stood
With my back to the wall
While you paced the room in a temper
And many a sharp word
Let fall.

You said:
It was high time we parted,
My mad life
Was torturing you.
You’d work to do and had to start on it,
While I’d slide on down
To my doom.

Beloved!
You did not love me,
Didn’t know: in the milling crowd
I was like a horse driven to fury
By spurs, and foaming at the mouth.

You didn’t know:
In the thick smoke,
In the turmoil of life swiftly spreading
What tortured me was I did not know
Where our ship of fate was heading...

Face to face
You can’t see the features.
You need distance to see what is great.
When the ocean surface is seething
The ship’s in a pitiful state.

The earth is a ship!
But suddenly someone
Determined new horizons should be won,
Headed straight for the raging hurricane,
Steered the ship unswervingly on.

And was there a man among us on deck
Who did not stumble, start swearing and puke?
Few were the men of experience
Who stood their ground when all heaven shook.

Then did I too
In the terrible din,
Though knowing well what I was doing,
Go down into the hold of the ship
Not to witness the passengers spewing.

The ship’s hold was
A Russian tavern
And over a glass I bent low
So, by the sight of woe not saddened,
I could go to the dogs
In a drunken glow.

Beloved!
I caused you heartache and pain.
Weary-eyed
On my antics you gazed,
Seeing me time and time and again
Wasting my talent on wild escapades.

But you didn’t know:
In the thick smoke,
In the turmoil of life that was spreading
What tortured me was
I did not know
Where our ship of fate was heading...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Many years have passed.
I’m a different age.
In a different way I’m thinking, feeling.
When toasts are poured I rise and say:
“Praise be to the man who’s steering!”

Today by tender feelings impelled
Your grieving weariness I remembered
And now
I’m hastening to tell you
What I was then And am at present!

Beloved!
I’ve glad news of success:
I’ve not slipped down that slope so hazardous.
Now in the land of the Soviets
I am the keenest fellow-traveller.

I’m not the same chap
I was then.
You’ll have no cause, as before,
To cavil.
I’d gladly bear the freedom flag
Of labour right to the English Channel.

Forgive me...
You too have changed, I know —
You have a husband
Who’s serious, clever;
You don’t need our old imbroglio
And you’re better off
Without me altogether.

Live
As your own star has decreed,
To new destinations your way wending.
Greetings
From one who shall ever esteem
Your memory,
                      Sergei Esenin.

Translated by Peter Tempest