Question by mystic_aura: Does anyone know a really good Russian poet?
Does anyone happen to know a really good Russian poet, like the equivalent of the German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke? If possible, it’d be nice if you could include one of the works (poem) of this poet – translated in english. Thank you!
Early answers:
Answer by Dondi
Я
Answer by pauliexixi
Boris Pasternak:
“The Writer”
Blizzards were blowing everywhere
Throughout the land.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.
As midgets in the summer fly
Towards a flame,
The snowflakes from the yard swarmed to
The window pane.
And, on the glass, bright snowy rings
And arrows formed.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.
And on the white illumined ceiling
Shadow were cast,
As arms and legs and destinies
Fatefully crossed.
Two slippers fell on to the floor
With a light sound,
And waxen tears dripped from the candle
On to a gown.
No object in the misty whiteness
Could be discerned.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.
A mild draught coming from the corner
Blew on the candle,
Seduction’s heat raised two wings crosswise
As might an angel.
It snowed and snowed that February
All through the land.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.
Answer by Skytale
To wake up at dawn
from joy’s stranglehold
and look through the cabin window
at the green waves,
or on deck in foul weather
wrapped in a fluffy coat
listen to the engine’s beat.
Not to think about anything,
but sensing the meeting
with him, who has become my star,
and grow younger each hour
from the salt spray and wind. – ANNA AKHMATOVA
…
There I was
twenty-one.
The black, stifling honey
was sweet to the lips.
The twigs tore
my white silk dress,
the nightingale sang unceasingly
on the crooked pine.
At a given call
he came out of hiding,
like a wild wood-spirit,
but more tender than a sister.
Run over the plain,
swim across the river,
then afterwards,
I will not say leave me. – ANNA AKHMATOVA
WAITING
My love will come
will fling open her arms and fold me in them,
will understand my fears, observe my changes.
In from the pouring dark, from the pitch night
without stopping to bang the taxi door
she’ll run upstairs through the decaying porch
burning with love and love’s happiness,
she’ll run dripping upstairs, she won’t knock,
will take my head in her hands,
and when she drops her overcoat on a chair,
it will slide to the floor in a blue heap.
– YEVGENY ALEXANDROVICH YEVTUSHENKO
THE WIND
This is the end of me, but you live on.
The wind, crying and complaining,
Rocks the house and the forest,
Not each pine-tree separately
But all the trees together
With the whole boundless distance,
Like the hulls of sailing-ships
Riding at anchor in a bay.
It shakes them not out of mischief,
And not in aimless fury,
But to find for you, out of its grief,
The words of a lullaby.
– BORIS PASTERNAK (from ‘Doctor Zhivago’)
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