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:
- Cain and Abel by Rudyard Kipling
- Elixer Vitæ poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Dreadful Has Already Happened by Mark Strand
- Владимир Высоцкий – Схвати судьбу за горло, словно посох
- Block City by Robert Louis Stevenson
- The Sanctuary by Sara Teasdale
- Song—The Birks of Aberfeldy by Robert Burns
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Ты холодна
- Ojira To Her Lover
- Olney Hymn 63: Not Of Works by William Cowper
- Иван Киуру – Песня моряка
- Зинаида Александрова – В гости к бабушке
- The Widow at Windsor by Rudyard Kipling
- Nimrod in September by Siegfried Sassoon
- Юрий Коринец – О стиральной машине
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
- Николай Глазков – Дремота обрела права
- Николай Глазков – Дождь
- Николай Глазков – Должны мы все свой пай нести
- Николай Глазков – Девятое мая
- Николай Глазков – Давно хотел сложить стихи
- Николай Глазков – Чтоб улыбалось счастье
- Николай Глазков – Что ни год, идёт вперёд
- Николай Глазков – Чингисхан, Батый, Аттила
- Николай Глазков – Четыре времени года
- Николай Глазков – Бывают в нашей жизни величины
- Николай Глазков – Быть хочешь постоянно пьяным
- Николай Глазков – Была зима
- Николай Глазков – Богатырское распутье
- Николай Глазков – Без поражений нет побед
- Николай Глазков – Баллада о трактористе и ритуальном камне
- Николай Глазков – Бабье лето
- Николай Глазков – А минувшее все непонятнее ребусов
- Николай Глазков – 9-е мая
- Николай Гербель – Зной
- Николай Гербель – Введение к поэме
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.