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Poetry

A lone white sail shows for an instant
Where gleams the sea, an azure streak.
What left it in its homeland distant?
In alien parts what does it seek? 
The billows play, the mast bends, creaking,
The wind, impatient, moans and sighs...
It is not joy that it is seeking,
Nor is it happiness it flies.

The blue waves dance, they dance and tremble,
The sun's bright rays caress the seas.
And yet for storm it begs, the rebel,
As if in storm lurked calm and peace!..

1832 Translated by Irina Zheleznova 

THE CLIFF 

By a cliff a golden cloud once lingered;
On his breast it slept, but, rising early,
Off it gaily rushed across the pearly
Blue of sky, a tiny thing and winged.

Still, a trace it left upon the stony
Giant's heart, and plunged in thought and weeping
Slow and tortured tears, he stands there, keeping
Vigil o'er the gloomy waste and lonely.

1841 Translated by Irina Zheleznova 

I like you well, o trusty dagger mine,
My comrade wrought of cool Damascus steel!
Forged were you by the Georgian with revenge in mind,
By the Circassian free - for war were you made keen.

A lily-white hand it was gave you to me -
You were affection's keepsake, its last gift...
Not blood, but pearl-like tears born of the agony
Of bitter parting down your blade ran swift.

Her dark eyes rested, full of secret pain,
Of sadness and of mystery, upon
My face, and like yourself when lit by flickering flame,
Now clouded and turned dull, now glowed and shone.

O dagger, love's mute pledge, you will my true
Friend stay, and an example set to me, a wanderer:
For faithful, yes, and firm of soul like you
I'll be - like you that tempered was by fire.

1838 Translated by Irina Zheleznova 

THE DREAM

In Daghestan, no cloud its hot sun cloaking,
A bullet in my side, I lay without
Movement or sound, my wound still fresh and smoking
And drop by drop my lifeblood trickling out.

Stretched on the sand I lay, and darkly round me
The jutting hills hung motionless... Upon
Their tops the sun poured full; its bright rays found me
And burnt me, too - but I slept soundly on.

I dreamt about my homeland and a merry
And glittering feast where all was noise and glee
And where young wives, flower-garlanded, in airy
And lightsome talk indulged and spoke of me.

But there was one who sat there pensive, buried
In thought remote: alone she waxed not gay.
By sorrowful dreams her youthful soul was carried,
Why, only Heaven knew, far, far away.

'Twas Daghestan's bright vale that she did dream of - 
A man lay there whom she had known of old.
A black wound in his side gaped, and a stream of
Blood from it came that, slowing, fast turned cold.

1841 Translated by Irina Zheleznova 

***
1
Lone's the mist-cloaked road before me lying;
On and on it winds and draws me far.
Night is still, all earthly sounds are dying;
Nature lists to God; star speaks to star.
2
Clothed in dark is earth and wrapt in slumber,
And the skies are full of majesty.
Why, then, does reflection, drear and sombre,
Plague my heart and slay felicity?
3
I await no boons of fate, regretting
Not the past, for that is buried deep.
Ah, to find true freedom, true forgetting
In the calm of everlasting sleep!
4
Yet I dread the cold and clammy fingers
And the leaden, icy sleep of death.
Would that life within me, dormant, lingered
And I felt its warm and balmy breath;
5
Would that love's own voice, my ear caressing,
Night and day sang dulcet song to me,
And an ancient oak, my slumber blessing,
Swayed above my head eternally.

1841 Translated by Irina Zheleznova