Aleksandr Pushkin

My beauty, do not sing for me
The songs of Georgia, of grievance:
My thoughts immediately flee
To another life and shores in distance.

They bring to me -- your cruel tunes --
Alas, the sad and clear vision:
The steppe, the night -- under the moon,
The poor and very distant virgin.

While seeing you, I could forget
The image so sad and fair,
But, look, you sing -- and it is set
Again before my eyes in air.

My beauty, do not sing for me
The songs of Georgia, of grievance:
My thoughts immediately flee
To another life and shores in distance.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, November, 2000
Edited by Dmitry Karshtedt, August, 2000