MIKHAIL LERMONTOV: To Naryshkin

To Naryshkin

All pity you: you’re so tired!
You didn’t want at all to dance –
And spent all night in dancing mire!
Wasn’t it so good to stop at last?
But if men rightly could distinguish       
Your mind and goodness of your words, -- 
I swear by timelessness of gods –  
Mazurkas will be quite extinguished.  


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, November, 2000
Edited by Dmitry Karshtedt, June, 2001