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:
- The Gardener XIII: I Asked Nothing by Rabindranath Tagore
- Владимир Корнилов – Жизнь
- Family Caregivers Have Promises to Keep
- Омар Хайям – Будь все добро мое кирпич один, в кружало
- Song Of Jasoda
- Late Moon by Philip Levine
- Владимир Костров – У них в делах анархия и жуть
- Наталья Шевченко – Привилегия
- English Poetry. Charles Wesley. Hark! A Voice Divides the Sky. Чарльз Уэсли.
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 99. Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- The Perfect Sacrifice by William Cowper
- Fairy Tale by Robert Desnos
- Summer We Called Home by Vinita Agrawal
- Mary’s Son by Rudyard Kipling
- Limitations by Siegfried Sassoon
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
- Алексей Жемчужников – Верста на старой дороге
- Алексей Жемчужников – В Европе
- Алексей Жемчужников – Уже давно иду я, утомленный
- Алексей Жемчужников – Умные политики
- Алексей Жемчужников – Ты прав
- Алексей Жемчужников – Так прочен в сердце и в мозгу
- Алексей Жемчужников – Столковались
- Алексей Жемчужников – Старик
- Алексей Жемчужников – Современному гражданину
- Алексей Жемчужников – Сословные речи
- Алексей Жемчужников – Сняла с меня судьба
- Алексей Жемчужников – Сказка о живых мертвецах
- Алексей Жемчужников – Себе
- Алексей Жемчужников – Раскаяние
- Алексей Жемчужников – Радостные куплеты
- Алексей Жемчужников – Привет весны
- Алексей Жемчужников – Примирение
- Алексей Жемчужников – Причина разногласия
- Алексей Жемчужников – Прелюдия к прощальным песням
- Алексей Жемчужников – Полевые цветы
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.