Russian Poems in Translation

Katerina Kireeva, Lucas Moiseyev, and Masha Oreshko
Carnegie Mellon University – Russian Studies

Любовью дорожить умейте
Степан Щипачев

Любовью дорожить умейте,
С годами дорожить вдвойне.
Любовь не вздохи на скамейке
И не прогулки при луне.
Все будет: слякоть и пороша.
Ведь вместе надо жизнь прожить.
Любовь с хорошей песней схожа,
А песню не легко сложить.

Learn to treasure love you find
Stepan Shipachev
Translation by Masha Oreshko

Learn to treasure love you find,
With years treasure it even more.
Love is more than heartfelt sighs,
Or walks along a moonlit shore.
There will be slush and powdered snow,
Together you must live a life.
Love’s not unlike a well-formed song,
And songs are not easy to write.

Как грустно и все же как хочется жить
Георгий Иванов

Как грустно и все же как хочется жить,
А в воздухе пахнет весной.
И вновь мы готовы за счастье платить,
Какою угодно ценой.

И люди кричат, экипажи летят,
Сверкает огнями Конкорд –
И розовый, нежный, парижский закат
Широкою тенью простерт.

How melancholy, and yet how addicting is life
Gеоrge Ivanov
Translation by Masha Oreshko

How melancholy, and yet how addicting is life,
With sweet scents of spring in the air.
Once more for happiness we’ll pay any price
No matter how steep or unfair.

And people are shouting, carriages flying,
The flash of a Concord up high–
While blushing, the gentle Parisian dusk
Suffuses the evening sky.

Акробат
Вячеслав Ходасевич

От крыши до крыши протянут канат.
Легко и спокойно идет акробат.

В руках его – палка, он весь – как весы,
А зрители снизу задрали носы.

Толкаются, шепчут: «Сейчас упадет!» -
И каждый чего–то взволнованно ждет.

Направо – старушка глядит из окна,
Налево – гуляка с бокалом вина.

Но небо прозрачно, и прочен канат.
Легко и спокойно идет акробат.

А если, сорвавшись, фигляр упадет
И, охнув, закрестится лживый народ, –

Поэт, проходи с безучастным лицом:
Ты сам не таким ли живешь ремеслом?

Acrobat
Viacheslav Khodasevich
Translation by Katerina Kireeva

Stretches the tightrope from roof to roof,
Strolls across it the acrobat, calm and aloof.

With a pole in his hands, he’s a scale in the skies
Not one onlooker has averted their eyes.

They shuffle and mumble, “The fall is so great”
The spectators, mouths gaping, anxiously wait.

To the right an old woman hangs clothes on a line
To the left a reveler loses himself in a bottle of wine

The tightrope is strong and the sky is clear
The chasm is threatening but he moves lacking fear.

If by chance, losing his balance, the madman should fall,
They all cross their hearts and time slows to a crawl.

You poet, passing by with a passionless face,
Do you not live by much the same fate?

Borodino
By Mikhail Lermontov
Translation by Lucas Moiseyev

Now tell me, uncle, how’s it granted,
That Moscow scorched in flame supplanted,
Is handed to the French?
And yet there still raged many battles,
And of their greatness, speech still rattles!
No wonder all Russia remembers,
Of Borodino day.

- And oh yes there were chaps in our time,
Unlike the current tribe, not in its prime:
True heroes - unlike you!
They were dealt out a terrible lot:
Not many returned from the battles fought…
Had it not been by the Lord’s will wrought,
They’d never lose Moscow.

For long in silence we retreated,
Bored and waiting for battles heated,
The old men groaned and fussed:
“What are we then, off to winter dorms?
The commanders dare not set new norms
That we should tear foreign uniforms
O’er Russian bayonets?”

And then we found a great big meadow:
With plenty room to roam and bellow!
There we built our redoubt.
On high alert and with our ears strained!
The morning sunlight on cannons rained
Forrest trees, like blue tops, spun and craned -
And Frenchmen ran about.

I rammed a round into the cannon
And thought: I’ll treat our friends to gammon!
Stay still now, dear missiuer!
Why sit about, let’s go to battle;
We march on through walls without prattle,
We’ll go ahead as if we’re chattel
For our Motherland!

Two days were we locked in firefight.
Tell me, what point is there in this mad plight?
We awaited the third day.
And soon I started hearing speeches:
“Let’s turn the buckshot on those leeches!”
And so on the great battle’s reaches,
Fell the black pall of night.

I lay down by the gun for a nap,
And through till dawn I could hear the yap,
The cheering of the French.
But all was quiet in our rough camp:
One cleaned his shako, dusty and damp,
One honed an edge, grumbling by a lamp,
And biting his mustache.

No sooner had the morn’ sun risen,
All began to stir, quake, and glisten,
Formations of men flashed.
Our colonel, one born having great zeal:
Servant of Tsars, soldiers’ father real…
A shame he was struck down by sharp steel,
He sleeps now in raw Earth.

And he told us, with his eyes gleaming:
“Is not Moscow behind us, dreaming?
Then by Moscow we’ll die,
Just as our brothers had their blood spilled!"
We have promised we too would be killed,
And thus we would hold our oaths fulfilled
On Borodino day.

Now that was a day! And through thick smoke
The Frenchmen attacked in one great stroke,
Falling on our redoubt.
The Lancers with their badges streaking,
Dragoons with ponytails reeking,
They all came before us shrieking,
Not a one had stayed out.

You’d never see such a vicious fight!
Banners swaying like shadows took flight,
Through the smoke blazed the flame,
Damask blades slashed, and the buckshot rang,
But soon the foe’s hand felt fatigue’s pang,
And the musket balls began to prang
Against the piling dead.

The foe learned quite a fair bit that day,
How true Russians fight in battle’s fray,
In hand to hand combat!..
The great earth quaked - and so did our chests,
Both man and horse mixed in violent nests,
And gun volleys fell upon hill crests
And sang with a great howl…

And then dusk fell. We all were ready
To fight anew in the morn’ steady
And to stand ‘till the end…
And then we heard the drumrolls shake out -
The heathens turned and began to rout.
To count the wounded we set about,
We counted our dead friends.

- Oh yes there were good lads in our time,
A mighty tribe truly in its prime:
True heroes - unlike you.
They were dealt out a terrible lot:
Not many returned from the battles fought…
Had it not been by God’s own will wrought,
We’d never lose Moscow