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:
- Константин Бальмонт – Далеким близким
- Motionless Body
- Николай Некрасов – Вчера, сегодня
- Individuality
- Sonnet CXXXI by William Shakespeare
- Icicles round a Tree in Dumfriesshire by Ruth Padel
- The Defunct Drugstore by Robert Lloyd Jaffe
- Владимир Орлов – Кому что снится?
- My angel’s face by Vinko Kalinić
- Владимир Высоцкий – Вова испугался
- Atlantis by W H Auden
- Владимир Высоцкий – Свет потушите, вырубите звук
- Владимир Маяковский – Стихи о Фоме
- Had I a cave by Robert Burns
- Memory
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 Языков – Вот яблоки так яблоки, на славу
- Николай Языков – Воспоминание
- Николай Языков – Водопад
- Николай Языков – Виленскому (Не робко пей, товарищ мой)
- Николай Языков – Весна
- Николай Языков – Вечер (Прохладен воздух был)
- Николай Языков – Валдайский узник
- Николай Языков – В. М. Княжевичу (Простите мне простое «ты»)
- Николай Языков – В альбом Ш. К. Фон-дер-Борг (Доверчивый, простосердечной)
- Николай Языков – В. А. Елагину (Светло блестит на глади неба ясной)
- Николай Языков – Услад
- Николай Языков – Тригорское
- Николай Языков – Странный случай
- Николай Языков – Стансы (В час, как деву молодую)
- Николай Языков – Сомнение
- Николай Языков – Сказка о пастухе и диком вепре
- Николай Языков – Сержант Сурмин
- Николай Языков – С. П. Шевыреву (Тебе хвала, и честь, и слава)
- Николай Языков – Романс (Угрюм стоит дремучий лес)
- Николай Языков – Романс (Красой небесною прекрасна)
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.