Clear Voices

Clear Voices
A Personal Selection of Twenty-five Poems
translated from the
Russian
A.S. Kline
ã 2002 All Rights Reserved
Contents
Translator's Note.
Aleksándr Sumarókov (1718-1777)

Gavriíl Derzhávin (1743-1816)
Vasíly Zhukóvsky (1783-1852)

Konstantín Bátyushkov (1787-1855)
Aleksándr Púshkin (1799-1837)

Fëdor Tyútchev (1803-1873)
Mikhaíl Lérmontov (1814-1841)

Count Alekséy Tolstoy (1817-1875)
Innokénty Ánnensky
(1856-1909)
Konstantín Bál´mont (1867-1943)
Aleksándr Blok
(1880-1921)
Marína Tsvetáeva (1892-1941)
Anna Akhmátova
(1889-1966)
Osip Mandel´shtám (1891-1938)
Translator's Note
I was conscious, in producing this little personal
selection of Russian poetry, of the way in which all the poets come to
take on the voice of the translator, and their special individuality is lost.
It is a problem translation always has. I would encourage the reader to
sample as many different translators' versions of these poets as possible,
to try and realise the individual flavour of each poet for her or himself.
If there is any theme in this selection, it is I suppose the nature of the
Russian spirit, its clarity, and uncompromising passion, and its
triumphant survival, often against the odds.
Aleksándr Sumarókov (1718-1777)
In vain I hide my heart's fierce pain,
In vain pretend to inner calm.
I
can't be calm a single hour,
I can't no matter how I try.
My heart by
sighs, my eyes by tears,
reveal the secret misery.
You make all my
efforts vain,
you, who stole my liberty!
Bringing a savage fate to
me,
you troubled my spirit's peace,
you changed my freedom to a
jail,
you turned my delight to sorrow.
And secretly, to my bitterest

hurt,
perhaps you sigh for some other woman,
perhaps devoured by
a useless passion,
as I for you, you suffer too for her.
I long to see
you: when I do I'm mad,
anxious, lest my eyes give me away:
I'm
troubled in your presence, in your absence
I'm sad that you can't
know how I love.
Shame tries to drive desire from my heart
while
love in turn tries to drive out shame.
And in this fierce conflict
thought is clouded,
the heart is torn, it suffers, and it burns.
So I
fling myself from torment to torment.
I want to show my heart,
ashamed to do it,
I don't know what I want, oh, that's true,
what I do
know is I'm filled with sorrow.
I know my mind's held prisoner by
you,
wherever I am it conjures your dear image:
I know, consumed
by the cruellest passion,
there's no way to forget you on this earth.
Gavriíl Derzhávin (1743-1816)
Nightingale in Dream
I was sleeping on a high hill,
nightingale, I heard you calling,
my
soul itself could hear it,
in the very depths of sleep:
now sounding,
now re-sounding,
now sorrowing, now laughing,
floating, from the
distance, to my ear:
while I lay there with Callisto,
songs, sighs,
cries, and trilling,
thrilled me in the very depths of sleep.
If, after
death, I lie there
in a sleep that's dull, unending,
and, ah, these
songs no longer
travel to my ear:
if I cannot hear the sound then

of that happiness or laughter,
of dancing, or of glory, or of joy -

then it's life on earth I'll cling to,
kiss my darling one, and kiss her,

as I listen to the distant nightingale.
Vasíly Zhukóvsky (1783-1852)
19th March 1823
You stood there
in silence,
your sad gaze
full of feeling.
It
brought to mind
the past I loved…
your last gaze
on earth for me.

You vanished,
silent angel:
your grave,
celestial peace!
All
earth's memories
are there,
all the thoughts
of heaven, sacred.

Heavenly stars,
silent night! …

Konstantín Bátyushkov (1787-1855)
My Spirit
O memory of the heart! You are stronger
than the sad memories of
reason.
And often from a far-off country,
you bewitch me with your
sweetness.
I remember the loved voice sounding.
I remember the
eyes of azure.
I remember the careless
curling strands of golden
hair.
My shepherdess, without a rival,
I remember her simplicity of
dress,
the unforgotten, the dear image
that stays beside me
everywhere.
My guardian spirit - granted me by love
to bring me
solace in separation:
do I sleep? Bending over my pillow,
it will
ease my saddened rest.
Aleksándr Púshkin (1799-1837)
Prologue to 'Ruslan and Lyudmilla'
There's a green oak by the bay,
on the oak a chain of gold:
a learned
cat, night and day,
walks round on that chain of old:
to the right - it
spins a song,
to the left - a tale of wrong.
Marvels there: the
wood-sprite rides,
in the leaves a mermaid hides:
on deep paths of
mystery
unknown creatures leave their spore:
huts on hen's legs you
can see,
with no window and no door.
Wood and valley
vision-brimming:
there at dawn the waves come washing
over
sands and silent shore,
and thirty noble knights appear
one by one,
from waters clear,
attended there by their tutor:
a king's son passing
by
takes a fierce king prisoner:
a wizard carries through the sky
a
knight, past all the people there,
over forests, seas they fly:
a
princess in a prison pines,

whom a brown wolf serves with pride:
A
mortar, Baba Yaga inside,
takes that old witch for a ride.
King
Kaschey grows ill with gold.
It's Russia! - Russian scents unfold!

And I was there and I drank mead,
I saw the green oak by the sea,
I
sat there while the learned cat
told its stories - here's one that
I

remember, and I'll unfurl,
a story now for all the world…
It's Time
It's time, my friend: it's time! The heart wants rest -
the
days slip by, the