A poem by Alexander Pushkin – Pouchkine, Pooshkin (1799-1837), in English translation
Children running into izba,
Calling father, dripping sweat:
“Daddy, daddy! come — there is a
Deadman caught inside our net.”
“Fancy, fancy fabrication…”
Grumbled off their weary Pa,
“Have these imps imagination!
Deadman, really! ya-ha-ha…
“Well… the court may come to bother –
What’ll I say before the judge?
Hey you brats, go have your mother
Bring my coat; I better trudge…
Show me, where?” — “Right there, Dad, farther!”
On the sand where netting ropes
Lay spread out, the peasant father
Saw the veritable corpse.
Badly mangled, ugly, frightening,
Blue and swollen on each side…
Has he fished in storm and lightning,
Or committed suicide?
Could this be a careless drunkard,
Or a mermaid-seeking monk,
Or a merchandizer, conquered
By some bandits, robbed and sunk?
To the peasant, what’s it matter!
Quick: he grabs the dead man’s hair,
Drags his body to the water,
Looks around: nobody’s there:
Good… relieved of the concern he
Shoves his paddle at a loss,
While the stiff resumes his journey
Down the stream for grave and cross.
Long the dead man as one living
Rocked on waves amid the foam…
Surly as he watched him leaving,
Soon our peasant headed home.
“Come you pups! let’s go, don’t scatter.
Each of you will get his bun.
But remember: just you chatter —
And I’ll whip you, every one.”
Dark and stormy it was turning.
High the river ran in gloom.
Now the torch has finished burning
In the peasant’s smoky room.
Kids asleep, the wife aslumber,
He lies listening to the rain…
Bang! he hears a sudden comer
Knocking on the window-pane.
“What the…” — “Let me in there, master!”
“Damn, you found the time to roam!
Well, what is it, your disaster?
Let you in? It’s dark at home,
Dark and crowded… What a pest you are!
Where’d I put you in my cot…”
Slowly, with a lazy gesture,
He lifts up the pane and; what?
Through the clouds, the moon was showing…
Well? the naked man was there,
Down his hair the water flowing,
Wide his eyes, unmoved the stare;
Numb the dreadful-looking body,
Arms were hanging feeble, thin;
Crabs and cancers, black and bloody,
Sucked into the swollen skin.
As the peasant slammed the shutter
(Recognized his visitant)
Horror-struck he could but mutter
“Blast you!” and began to pant.
He was shuddering, awful chaos
All night through stirred in his brain,
While the knocking shook the house
By the gates and at the pane.
People tell a dreadful rumor:
Every year the peasant, say,
Waiting in the worst of humor
For his visitor that day;
As the rainstorm is increasing,
Nightfall brings a hurricane –
And the drowned man knocks, unceasing,
By the gates and at the pane.
translated by: Genia Gurarie
email: egurarie@princeton.edu
Copyright ©:
Genia Gurarie
A few random poems:
- Recessional (A Victorian Ode) by Rudyard Kipling
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 41. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- Love Has Nothing to Do with the Five Senses by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
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- Spring – The First Pastoral ; or Damon poem – Alexander Pope
- Robert Burns: Clarinda, Mistress Of My Soul:
- Sonet 56 by William Alexander
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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
- This Moment, Yearning and Thoughtful. by Walt Whitman
- This Dust was Once the Man. by Walt Whitman
- This Day, O Soul. by Walt Whitman
- This Compost. by Walt Whitman
- Think of the Soul. by Walt Whitman
- Thick-Sprinkled Bunting. by Walt Whitman
- These, I, Singing in Spring. by Walt Whitman
- There was a Child went Forth. by Walt Whitman
- The Wound-Dresser by Walt Whitman
- That Shadow, my Likeness. by Walt Whitman
- That Music Always Round Me. by Walt Whitman
- Tests. by Walt Whitman
- Tears. by Walt Whitman
- Still, though the One I Sing. by Walt Whitman
- States! by Walt Whitman
- Starting from Paumanok. by Walt Whitman
- Spontaneous Me. by Walt Whitman
- Spirit whose Work is Done. by Walt Whitman
- Spirit That Form’d This Scene. by Walt Whitman
- Sparkles from The Wheel. by Walt Whitman
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
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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.