The Russian bard since ancient times
Has yearned for countries strange and distant,
And most of all Caucasian climes
Have strangely lured with mist insistent.
Here Pushkin, flamed with passion, wrote
With outcast's lonely sad complaining:
"Do not, my beauty, single note
Of Georgian song sing, sadness feigning."
And Lermontov, in jolly screed,
Of Azamat he has related,
Who in exchange for Kazbich-steed
Instead of gold his sister traded.
His face was sad, of jaundiced hue
Just like the fevered rivers' yellow,
As bard and officer he drew
His gun, and felled was by his fellow.
And Griboyedov's buried here,
Our tribute to the Shah of Persia,
Beneath the mountain lay his bier,
He sleeps to dirge of horn and zither.
And circumstance now finds me here,
Arrived I did, not knowing reason:
Perhaps for home to shed a tear,
Or fathom when's my mortal season.
Whatever! Thinking now I'm found
Of all my great departed forebears.
For healed they were by guttural sound
Of all your vales and savage waters.
They from their foes were running here,
From comrades too they swift departed,
They wanted footsteps' sound to hear
And see from heights ways yet uncharted.
To flee from woes I've made my choice,
I've said farewell to artsy clusters,
Because matured has poet's voice,
Now great and epic themes it musters.
For Russian ardour's sweet to me.
There's Mayakovsky and his gaggle -
But quite the greatest one is he -
He sings of Mossel'prom's new haggle.
Karelian deacon Klyuev, proud,
His lines are like a padded jacket,
I read them yesterday aloud -
And caged canary ceased its racket.
I have no words for others' lure,
But under frigid sun they've ripened.
They lack the knowledge, that's for sure,
To sully page in quest for stipend.
Forgive me that I, Caucasus,
To you so casually have spoken,
Instruct my Russian verse to ooze
As dogwood juice from berry woken.
So when to Moscow I return,
I might contrive in loveliest verses
Then to forget grief's needless burn
And all bohemian friendship's curses.
Alone again I then might quote,
At end old Russia not disdaining:
"Do not, my beauty, single note
Of Georgian song sing, sadness feigning."