European Elegies/Winter/Sleeplessness
28.SLEEPLESSNESS
I cannot rest. Around me lieCold darkness and uneasy sleep.Only the clock's dull accents keepTheir vigil's cadenced dignity.But still a sense of whispered things,Or mice in their meek scamperings,Comes haunting the husht hours of night—What art thou, spirit of affright?Whisper incessant, wearisome,Art thou my guilt? Or art thou comeWith by-gone grief my heart to smite?Speak! Tell me thy mysterious will!Mean'st thou my past or future ill?For my pale spirit waits, unstrung,The strange demands of thy dark tongue.
From the Russian of Alexandr Sergeevich Pushkin.