Pushkin Translations

These are my modern English translations of poems by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

I Loved You
by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I loved you ... perhaps I love you still ...
perhaps for a while such emotions may remain.
But please don’t let my feelings trouble you;
I do not wish to cause you further pain.

"I didn't know"

God, I am thankful for Jesus Christ,
and I am now reborn by his light!
But I didn’t know my spirit laid perishing in the night.

I am thankful you provide me with physical food,
but I didn’t know my spirit starved for spiritual food.

I am thankful for eyes which see your glorious creations,
but I didn’t know my soul was attacked by unseen situations.

I am thankful you gave me a brain to think,
but I didn’t know my soul was ill with ignorance.

With Such Alacrity

by

With such alacrity
Eager to get the job done
Willing and able to learn
Always on the run
Forging ahead in the distance
Taking things one day at a time
Managing the time wisely
In order to keep things in line

beautiful day

Beautiful day,
hold me tight.
Show me birds
in high blue flight.
Show me bare branches
once clothed in green.
Show me fields of
waves serene.
Help me look beyond
things i can touch.
To see God's eyes,
I love so much.

Rick

Translation of Petrarch's Rima, Sonnet 134

I FIND no peace, and all my war is done;
I fear and hope; I burn and freeze like ice;
I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise;
And nought I have, and all the world I seize on;
That looseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison
And holdeth me not, yet can I 'scape nowise;
Nor letteth me live nor die at my device, [by my own choice]
And yet of death it giveth none occasion.
Withouten eyen, I see; and without tongue I plain; [lament]
I desire to perish, and yet I ask health;


Tommy Corrigan

You talk of riders on the flat, of nerve and pluck and pace --
Not one in fifty has the nerve to ride a steeplechase.
It's right enough, while horses pull and take their faces strong,
To rush a flier to the front and bring the field along;
Bur what about the last half-mile, with horses blown and beat --
When every jump means all you know to keep him on his feet.
When any slip means sudden death -- with wife and child to keep --
It needs some nerve to draw the whip and flog him at the leap --


Two Wishes XI

In the silence of the night Death descended from God toward the earth. He hovered above a city and pierced the dwellings with his eyes. He say the spirits floating on wings of dreams, and the people who were surrendered to the Slumber.

When the moon fell below the horizon and the city became black, Death walked silently among the houses -- careful to touch nothing -- until he reached a palace. He entered through the bolted gates undisturbed, and stood by the rich man's bed; and as Death touched his forehead, the sleeper's eyes opened, showing great fright.


Two Portraits

You say, as one who shapes a life,
That you will never be a wife,

And, laughing lightly, ask my aid
To paint your future as a maid.

This is the portrait; and I take
The softest colors for your sake:

The springtime of your soul is dead,
And forty years have bent your head;

The lines are firmer round your mouth,
But still its smile is like the South.

Your eyes, grown deeper, are not sad,
Yet never more than gravely glad;

And the old charm still lurks within


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