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| NIGHTFALL |
The evening sea bade the sunset farewell,
The surf sang a hymn to the forthcoming night,
An unearthly calm merged with silence on earth.
And Someone was lighting the stars in the dark,
And Someone was walking on waves as on ground,
Unseen, and unheard, and ethereal as air.
The swelling waves heeded the bodiless Spirit,
The cliffs in their deep granite dreams were all ear.
The evening sea seemed as though it were praying,
As though it appealed to the heavens from earth,
And in that immensity all that once happened
Revealed itself now in the silence of night.
The winds, and the waves, and the nocturnal cliffs,
As though merged together in one single swell,
Gazed deep into space beyond all earthly bounds,
Where the fathomless mystery of ages began,
Where the robes of the Lord shone with myriads of stars,
And the temple all glittered in bright starlit glory,
Where heaven and sea sang their eternal song,
And wave upon wave crashed its way to the shore.
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- V.N. Utrenev
Translated by Natalia Sheniloff |
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THE STARS |
At the hour of midnight, near a stream,
Lift thine eyes and watch the starry sky:
Myriads of miracles take place
In that vastly distant world on high.
The eternal candles of the night
Are unseen amid the glare of day,
Giant pillars of unquenched fire
Move so stately and so far away.
In the quiet hour of midnight calm,
Chasing the deceit of sleep away,
Let thy soul gaze deeply at the words
Of the fishermen from Galilee,
And within the confines of this book
The eternal shall unfold before thee,
The celestial firmament of heaven
In its boundlessness and radiant beauty.
- A. S. Khomyakov (1804-1860)
Translated by Natalia Sheniloff
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ON A VIOLET
With all my heart I love this modest flower -
How much its merely being says to me!
In early spring a fresh bouquet of violets
Invigorates and warmly comforts me.
While walking through the garden, in
the grass
These nearly unseen flowers I espy -
I stand and ponder, and I dare not pluck:
Of whom dost thou remind so
poignantly?
And I remember people with a soul
As genuinely humble as a violet’s,
They’re barely seen, they’re pitiful at times,
But all shine brightly in the eyes of God.
- A. Korovay-Metelitsky
Translated by Natalia Sheniloff
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| SPRINGTIME |
With the chant of paschal prayers
And a pealing of the bells,
Spring comes bursting in upon us
From its distant southern lairs.
And today in our garden,
In a shy, secluded spot,
I saw lilies of the valley
Kiss a white-winged pale moth.
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- K.M. Fofanov (1862 – 1911)
Translated by Natalia Sheniloff
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CELESTIAL MUSIC
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Out of eternity
Music was heard,
And into infinity
Straightaway flowed,
All chaos along with it
Taking away.
In the chasm like a whirlwind
The stars began swirling,
Their every ray singing
Like musical strings,
And life, being stirred
By this divine vibration,
Shows only to him
Its true inspiration,
Who is sometimes attune
To this music celestial,
Whose mind is wide open,
Whose heart is aflame.
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- Ya. P. Polonskiy (1819 – 1898)
Translated by Natalia Sheniloff
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* * *
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When yellowing wheat stands shimmering in the breeze,
Which rustles through the freshly-scented woods,
And in the garden hides the crimson plum
Beneath the sweet shade of the greening leaf;
When dew-sprinkled lilies of the field.
In rosy eve or in the golden hour of dawn,
From ’neath the bushes nod their silver heads
In pleasant greeting, as I wander by;
When icy brooks along the gorges run,
Immersing all my thoughts into a dream,
And murmur in my ear mysterious tales
Of peaceful lands from whence they spring:
Then is my soul’s anxiety becalmed,
My frowning brow is eased and set at rest,
And happiness seems possible on earth,
And in the open heavens I see God…
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- Mikhail Lermontov
Translated by Natalia Sheniloff |
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BLESSINGS ON YOU
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Forests and fields, blessings on you!
Blessings on hills, on vales and rills,
On freedom and on skies of blue!
Blessings upon my pilgrim’s staff,
Blessings on this bedraggled sack,
And on the vastness of the steppes,
The sun’s bright light, the dark of night,
The narrow, lonely, winding track
Beneath this beggar’s steps!
I bless each grass-blade ‘neath the sun
And every star above.
O, if my soul could be but one
With all of you within my love,
And I could lock in my embrace,
All friends, all foes, my brothers all
And everything on this earth’s face!
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- Count A.K. Tolstoy
Translated by Kosara Gavrilovic. |
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IN WINTER
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The quietude |
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Of mute and tranquil wilderness! |
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The brilliance |
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Of meadows blanketed by snow! |
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The purity |
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Of limpid waters turned to ice! |
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The loveliness |
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Of groves and forests iced with rime! |
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How exquisite |
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The magic sights of wintertime! |
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Sleep, oh my soul, |
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As sleep the snowdrifts, ponds and birch… |
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Oh, learn to fathom |
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Nature’s stern serenity, |
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Wherein reside |
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All bliss and earth’s felicity. |
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Brighter than snow |
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May all thy dreams and visions be, |
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And purer than ice |
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Thy heart’s impassioned aspirations. |
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Let winter teach thee, |
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By its exquisite paucity, |
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To clothe thyself |
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In spirit’s beauty incorporeal. |
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- K. R.
(Grand-Duke Konstantin Romanov)
Poem translated by Kosara Gavrilovic
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THE FOREST MONASTICS
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Deep in the forest I recall one night.
A lonely skete gleamed like the Milky Way,
A single bell’s ringing rose through the mist
And marked the passing of the dying day.
Beneath the benediction of the bell,
The pines, erect and tall, motionless stayed.
Before the ancient icons of the saints
The forest elders stood there long and prayed.
In that vast sea of forest peace, remain
The monks like forms of other-worldly life.
There is no grief, no groans of human pain,
No age-long enmities, no hurt, no strife.
All that is left behind, outside the Pale –
The agony of years, all gone to waste,
The tears. Abandoned also was the trail
Of days whose very trace is here erased.
And when again the sun sends forth its rays,
Into God’s Garden, which no eye can see,
This forest turns. A myriad-voiced praise
Is raised and with the incense of each tree
Sent to the Sun of all Eternity.
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- V. Utrenev.
Translated by Kosara Gavrilovic.
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TWILIGHT
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The gloaming has already deepened,
But in the sky, above the weary earth,
The crimson gleam of sunlight glitters,
Reflected on the golden domes;
And summoning to dreams and prayer
All those who orphaned are and poor,
The crosses on the high bell towers
Continue shining here and there,
As though the sun’s delay in resting
On every church’s golden dome
Strives to remind us of the One
Who promised us the resurrection.
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| Petrograd. February 1917. |
| Translated by Natalia Sheniloff |
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