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:
- The Boa Constrictor Song by Shel Silverstein
- In Spring, Santa Barbara by Sara Teasdale
- Told by Philip Levine
- Вероника Тушнова – Я стою у открытой двери
- Lament Two Brothers Slain Each Other039s Hand
- Галина Гампер – Здесь сегодня все пошло с молотка
- Passing Time by Maya Angelou
- MANY NAMESAKES by Satish Verma
- Sonnet LII by William Shakespeare
- Astrophel and Stella: XXXIII by Sir Philip Sidney
- a_faded_postcard_is_a_tanka_daydream.html
- Night At The Marina by Shreekumar Varma
- Two Songs From A Play by William Butler Yeats
- The Pact by Sharon Olds
- INTO THE LAIR by Satish Verma
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
- Владимир Степанов – Хлопотунья
- Владимир Степанов – Воробей
- Владимир Степанов – Волнушки
- Владимир Степанов – Весёлый транспорт
- Владимир Степанов – В лесу осиновом
- Владимир Степанов – Утёнок (Буква У)
- Владимир Степанов – Угадай-ка, это кто?
- Владимир Степанов – Тула-город мастеров
- Владимир Степанов – Телефон (Буква Т)
- Владимир Степанов – Суворовец
- Владимир Степанов – Следом за летом осень
- Владимир Степанов – Синичка в электричке
- Владимир Степанов – Шарик (Буква Ш)
- Владимир Степанов – Рукавицы для лисицы
- Владимир Степанов – Робот (Буква Р)
- Владимир Степанов – Рассказ оружейника
- Владимир Степанов – Про меня и муравья
- Владимир Степанов – Праздник сентября
- Владимир Степанов – Потемнели ветви
- Владимир Степанов – Подберёзовик и подосиновик
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.