Yevgeny Baratynsky
Of what use are you, days? There can be nothing...

Of what use are you, days? There can be nothing
        New for the mind to greet;
The world is full of things and all familiar,
        And time can but repeat.

Not vainly did you strive in your impatience,
        O frantic soul, to gain
Your full development before the body,
        Which cannot slip its chain.

Since you have long since locked the sorry circle
        Of sights beneath the moon,
You drowse, fanned by recurrent dreams; the body,
        Accorded no such boon,

Must stupidly watch dawn arrive, relieving
        The night for naught, and mark
A barren dusk, crown of a day that's empty,
        Drop down into the dark.

Translated by Babette Deutsch