A poem by Alexander Pushkin – Pouchkine, Pooshkin (1799-1837), in English translation
Storm-clouds hurtle, storm-clouds hover;
Flying snow is set alight
By the moon whose form they cover;
Blurred the heavens, blurred the night.
On and on our coach advances,
Little bell goes din-din-din…
Round are vast, unknown expanses;
Terror, terror is within.
— Faster, coachman! “Can’t, sir, sorry:
Horses, sir, are nearly dead.
I am blinded, all is blurry,
All snowed up; can’t see ahead.
Sir, I tell you on the level:
We have strayed, we’ve lost the trail.
What can WE do, when a devil
Drives us, whirls us round the vale?
“There, look, there he’s playing, jolly!
Huffing, puffing in my course;
There, you see, into the gully
Pushing the hysteric horse;
Now in front of me his figure
Looms up as a queer mile-mark —
Coming closer, growing bigger,
Sparking, melting in the dark.”
Storm-clouds hurtle, storm-clouds hover;
Flying snow is set alight
By the moon whose form they cover;
Blurred the heavens, blurred the night.
We can’t whirl so any longer!
Suddenly, the bell has ceased,
Horses halted… — Hey, what’s wrong there?
“Who can tell! — a stump? a beast?..”
Blizzard’s raging, blizzard’s crying,
Horses panting, seized by fear;
Far away his shape is flying;
Still in haze the eyeballs glare;
Horses pull us back in motion,
Little bell goes din-din-din…
I behold a strange commotion:
Evil spirits gather in —
Sundry, ugly devils, whirling
In the moonlight’s milky haze:
Swaying, flittering and swirling
Like the leaves in autumn days…
What a crowd! Where are they carried?
What’s the plaintive song I hear?
Is a goblin being buried,
Or a sorceress married there?
Storm-clouds hurtle, storm-clouds hover;
Flying snow is set alight
By the moon whose form they cover;
Blurred the heavens, blurred the night.
Swarms of devils come to rally,
Hurtle in the boundless height;
Howling fills the whitening valley,
Plaintive screeching rends my heart…
translated by: Genia Gurarie
email: egurarie@princeton.edu
Copyright ©:
Genia Gurarie
A few random poems:
- Song—Bessy and her Spinnin Wheel by Robert Burns
- Forbidden Fruit by Michael Lally
- Олег Григорьев – Зашли мы к Сизову с приятелем
- Sonnet CXLVIII by William Shakespeare
- come, sun rays by Raj Arumugam
- Ash Wednesday by T. S. Eliot
- Epigram to Miss Jean Scott by Robert Burns
- How Much Earth by Philip Levine
- Disabled by Wilfred Owen
- A Virginal poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Scots Prologue for Mr. Sutherland by Robert Burns
- I Sing the Body Electric. by Walt Whitman
- Song to the Evening Star by Thomas Campbell
- Near Avalon by William Morris
- Омар Хайям – Мой друг, о завтрашнем заботиться не след
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Fireflies in the Garden by Robert Frost
- Fire and Ice by Robert Frost
- Evening in a Sugar Orchard by Robert Frost
- Dust of Snow by Robert Frost
- Dust in the Eyes by Robert Frost
- Devotion by Robert Frost
- Design by Robert Frost
- Desert Places by Robert Frost
- Come In by Robert Frost
- Christmas Trees by Robert Frost
- But Outer Space by Robert Frost
- Brown’s Descent by Robert Frost
- Bond and Free by Robert Frost
- Blue-Butterfly Day by Robert Frost
- Bereft by Robert Frost
- Atmosphere by Robert Frost
- Asking For Roses by Robert Frost
- An Old Man’s Winter Night by Robert Frost
- An Encounter by Robert Frost
- An Empty Threat by Robert Frost
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Alexander Pushkin (1799-1937) was a Russian poet, playwright and prose writer, founder of the realistic trend in Russian literature, literary critic and theorist of literature, historian, publicist, journalist; one of the most important cultural figures in Russia in the first third of the 19th century.