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:
- When I Watch the Living Meet poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- In A Vacant House by Philip Levine
- Dead Orchard by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Низами Гянджеви – О милый друг, давно пленен я
- Омар Хайям – Ну, допустим, что будет тебе и почет
- Benlomond by Thomas Campbell
- They Thought Her Crazy by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Как просто было в юности
- Love is Reckless by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Harvest moon by Yosa Buson
- Why Feed The Early Signs Of Boredom? poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Sea-Wife by Rudyard Kipling
- The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance poem – Ezra Pound poems
- A Lesson In Vengeance by Sylvia Plath
- Владимир Луговской – Звезда (Я знаю ты любишь меня)
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
- dance of life by Raj Arumugam
- Daddy, daddy, I can’t go to school by Raj Arumugam
- complete text of the discovery of Kama Sutra by Raj Arumugam
- come, sun rays by Raj Arumugam
- come on in, baby by Raj Arumugam
- Come home, sweetheart by Raj Arumugam
- Colbert Report: Australia by Raj Arumugam
- an evening’s music by Raj Arumugam
- ah poor moon by Raj Arumugam
- ah, happy crow by Raj Arumugam
- absent-mindedness; or I Dream of Spices by Raj Arumugam
- a walk in the forest by Raj Arumugam
- a maiden’s broken heart by Raj Arumugam
- a laugh song by Raj Arumugam
- a gentle day by Raj Arumugam
- a delicate beauty along the shore by Raj Arumugam
- Virtuous Love by Rajendra Ojha
- Tidy by Ralph Angel
- The Unsound Utterance by Raju Baruah
- The Storm by Rainbow Reed
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.