Boris Pasternak

Stalwart good-shot, very careful hunter,  
Ghost with a gun on the souls’ wide flood!
Don’t take me last to have finished your hundred,
And do not crumble me to senses for food.

Let me to rise over death, I am scorning,
Dress me in ice and purple-willow in night,
Flush me from green of a lake at the morning,
Level a gun at me, shoot me in flight!

For the grandeur of this ringing partaking,
Oh you, neglected by me through my life,
I kiss your hands with my countless thanking – 
Hands of my land, shyness, friendship and love.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, May, 2001