Modern Russian Poetry/"With My Fancy I Grasped"
"WITH MY FANCY I GRASPED"[1]
With my fancy I grasped at the vague shadows straying,
At the vague shadows straying where the daylight had
fled;
I ascended a tower, and the stairway was swaying,
And the stairway was swaying underneath my light tread.
And the higher I climbed, ever clearer were rounded,
Ever clearer were rounded dreaming hilltops aglow;
And from Heaven to Earth twilight voices resounded,
Twilight voices resounded from above and below.
And the higher I rose, strange horizons defining,
Strange horizons defining, did the summits appear;
And my eyes as I looked were caressed by their shining,
Were caressed by their shining, their farewell, sad and
clear.
Now the night had appeared; Earth in darkness lay
dreaming,
Earth in darkness lay dreaming, like a slumbering star,
While the smoldering sun, his dim embers still gleaming,
His dim embers still gleaming, shone for me from afar.
I had learned to ensnare the vague shadows far straying,
The vague shadows far straying, where the daylight had
fled;
Ever higher I rose, and the stairway was swaying,
And the stairway was swaying underneath my light tread.
- ↑ Tr. by Avrahm Yarmolinsky and Cecil Cowdrey.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929. The longest-living author of this work died in 1942, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 81 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
|---|---|
| Translation: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
