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Все проклянут и память обо мне.

Всё. Нет, не все: созданье есть одно

Способное любить – хоть не меня;

До этих пор не верит мне оно,

Однако сердце, полное огня

Не увлечётся мненьем, и моё

Пророчество припомнит ум её,

И взор, теперь весёлый и живой,

Напрасной отуманится слезой.

Кровавая меня могила ждёт,

Могила без молитв и без креста,

На диком берегу ревущих вод

И под туманным небом; пустота

Кругом. Лишь чужестранец молодой,

Невольным сожаленьем и молвой

И любопытством приведён сюда,

Сидеть на камне станет иногда.

И скажет: отчего не понял свет

Великого, и как он не нашёл

Себе друзей, и как любви привет

К нему надежду снова не привёл?

Он был её достоин. И печаль

Его встревожит, он посмотрит вдаль,

Увидит облака с лазурью волн,

И белый парус, и бегучий чёлн.

И мой курган! – любимые мечты

Мои подобны этим. Сладость есть

Во всём, что не сбылось, – есть красоты

В таких картинах; только перенесть

Их на бумагу трудно: мысль сильна,

Когда размером слов не стеснена,

Когда свободна, как игра детей,

Как арфы звук в молчании ночей!

11th JUNE 1831

Eternal soul, since childhood I recall,

In search of the miraculous sublime,

Not light itself, but light’s delusions all

In which I dwelt for minutes at a time;

And torments filled those moments, as it seems;

I’d occupy such enigmatic dreams

Amongst those instants; but, like peace,

The dream within could never find release.

How often, summoned by some ghost refrain,

I lived another age, another chance;

Forgot the world. And, time and time again,

When starting from a heavy-hearted trance,

I wept; but all those restless visions,

Held by flesh and viewed through rents and scissions,

Did not seem like creatures who could dwell

On earth. All in them was holy – or from hell.

In simple prose, a man cannot describe

Internal strife. But I hear other tones

Sufficiently resounding to imbibe

Ambrosia. I feel – this bag of bones –

Exalted passions, yet still undeclared;

Struck dumb; but now I am prepared

To sacrifice myself for something good –

Though its shadow flee into the wood.

Fame and glory, what are they but lies?

Yet in them is something that compels

The willing victim to the sacrifice.

My days are a continuum of hells;

Lacking purpose, but yet faced by choice;

Still, I believe it! This compelling voice –

A summons to eternity; each breath,

Relinquishing all earthly gifts to death.

And, for the eternal, there’s no grave.

When I’m ashes, these outlandish dreams,

Though still paradoxical, are brave

And blessed by angels; seems

You won’t die with me; and my love

Will carry you to spaces up above;

To your name, my legend will be linked,

For, after death, our souls are indistinct.

For the dead, there’s peace at least; a son

Shall worship what his father once despised.

This is how the race of life is run:

In order that each force be neutralised.

A person, whether yet advanced in years –

Mere blossom to be scattered; and all fears

Are equally contemptible. A womb

Is just a staging post towards a tomb.

So, with the formation of a soul –

By a river, facing the abyss,

Watching as the rapid waves cajole

The blue into the white with noisesome hiss.

And, above that foaming, turbid tide,

I stood and listened, dazed, preoccupied,

Lost amidst the unremitting din

That scattered all the restless thoughts within.

There was I content. If I could only

Forget the unforgettable! Her glance –

Source of all distress! Why I am lonely!

Known by her across the wide expanse

Of time, and destined here to love

Her, and her alone. To God above

I pray for torments new, yet these elide

That ghost that still continues to reside.

No one cares for me, not then or now;

Burdensome to others and a devil;

Anguish divagates upon my brow;

I am cold and proud and even evil

Like the crowd; but is it of her art

To daringly transpierce into my heart?

Could she even know its rightful name –

Since there are fire and shadow all the same?

Across the sky, a dark cloud brings a chill,

But in its heart it hides a deadly fire,

Which, bursting forth, attenuates to nil

All that it meets; with swift desire,

Flashes and is covered once again.

And who can such phenomena explain?

And who has eyes to peer into the dark?

Why try? They disappear without a mark.

Harrowing my entrails, bittersweet,

My journey’s end, at which extremity

The soul’s condemned to wander and to meet

Its kindred spirits; and where to be free.

But who has loved me, who my plaintive voice

Has heard and understood – and felt my joys?

I see that love, for me, is like a taint,

Which, from the weaker, could not bear restraint.

Many lovers do not trust the world

And so are happy; others feel desire

Engendered in their blood and outwards swirled

In brain disorder or creative fire.

Love, of all the passions, most divine;

Yet, a thing I never could define!

Seems a love can take but one sure course:

At fever pitch with all my psychic force!

But I could not be weaned from such deceptions;

My unimpassioned heart would throb in vain.

To its beat, amongst the lacerations,

Pipes there still love’s long-revered refrain;

As from dreary ruins springs a birch –

Youthful, spry, beguiling from her perch –

Like a ray of hope, she greens the rones

And titivates the melancholy stones.

And, for her fate, the nameless interloper

Mourns. Poor defenceless devotee!

Under sultry blasts and lack of hope

She wilts and withers, my tenacious tree;

But, from her spot, she will not be effaced

As whirlwinds surge, she’s sturdy at its base;

For, only in a broken heart, desire

Can burn with potent, everlasting fire.

The proud soul does not tire or yield to gloom

But bears its heavy load with resignation;

To its fate it will not yet succumb,

But still persists; in breath, its vindication.

Dueling with the Absolute, it fails;

But, may, in losing, and by such travails,

Inspire a thousand vassals to rebel.

Such a soul’s in heaven – or in hell.

I have always loved the empty places

Where the wind caresses naked hills,

Where the kite, ascending airy spaces,

Essence of the speckled steppe distils.

Here the skittish herd no yoke constrains,

And, frolicking, above the mottled plains,

The raptor rushes straight out of the blue,

Hoving between clouds and into view.

Colossus-like, eternity bestrides

Impermanence to strike the mind of man.

The boundless ocean of the steppe elides

Description, turning blue across its span,

Sounding universal harmony, and this,

For us, is suffering or bliss:

All becomes transparent, but this weight

Will count when we present ourselves to fate.

Who has ever sat among the peaks

In that hour when day holds precious light,

Gazed westwards, where the bright planet leaps

Into the sky, while shades of looming night

Gather in the east, the scarps, ravines, beams

Glinting all around the tops of loftiest extremes,

And where the weird crown of cloud ignites

After the storm, the rays glancing in the heights;

For him, a heavy heart, of former years

Full,