184 words
Translated by Leo Yankevich
High noon in Dagestan, I lay marooned
In blistering heat, a bullet in my breast.
Smoke still rose in the valley from my wound
As drop-by-drop I watched blood flowing west.
I lay upon the loam of that strange land,
Cliffs closing in, the sun soon touching peaks,
Reaching past the mountain with its hand
To burn my dreaming brow and death-pale cheeks.
I dreamt I saw the flaming orb’s bright glare
Feasting on poppies in my native parts,
And braided girls with flowers in their hair,
Recalling me with soft hands on their hearts.
But in the oaken table’s hazy gleam
I saw another girl with half-crazed eyes.
She sat as if a captive in a dream,
Her stare the shade or shroud of starless skies.
She dreamt of that strange place in Dagestan,
Of smoke ascending over the black breast
Of a strange but somehow familiar man
As drop-by-drop he watched blood flowing west.
After the Russian of Mikhail Lermontov (1814–1841), from Leo Yankevich’s Journey Late at Night: Poems and Translations, forthcoming from Counter-Currents
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4 comments
What a poem. Also, it probably takes no mean talent to translate a poem and make it rhyme. I looked up a couple of other translations and I don’t see any reference to blood flowing “west”, though.
Agreed. A truly lovely poem. I didn’t look up other translations but the west has always symbolized death. (the dying sun)
Great poem, but the Nabokov translation is the best, imo.
GREAT POST! THANK YOU, COUNTER-CURRENTS!
I dare to add, Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov had Scottish roots, and ugly intrigues against him [turned to be deadly] from Freemasons` end [reminds Edgar Poe` fate, I guess] depicted very well in LERMONTOV movie [1986] by our remarkable patriotic actor and movie-maker Nikolai Petrovich Burlyayev
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Burlyayev
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