Sergey Esenin
The Rowan Tree Fire

The golden grove has whispered its last
Happy birchen syllables: all’s said.
And now the mournful cranes fly past,
No longer lamenting their dead.

Why should they? We are but passers through,
We pass by, call, then take our leave.
The broad moon on its pale blue pool,
The field of hemp, these only grieve.

I stand alone on this bare plain,
The wind-borne cranes fly farther yet;
I think of happy boyhood days,
Yet nothing in my past regret —

Neither the years of futile waste,
Nor my soul’s high lilac-time.
That rowan bonfire burning there
Succeeds in keeping no one warm.

The rowan berries do not burn,
The grass does not yellow and die.
As silently as in their turn
The trees shed leaves, I shed these lines.

And if time with his sweeping wind
Rake all up in a useless pile,
Say this at least, the golden grove
Lisped out its last in lovely style.

Translated by Geoffrey Thurley