Aleksandr Pushkin

I'm sitting by bars in the damp blackened cell --
The juvenile eagle, who's bred by the jail,
My mournful friend, with his wings stretching wide,
Is picking at bloody food right by my side.

He’s picking and looking at me through the bars,
Like having a thought that is common to us,
Like calling to me with a glance and a sight,
And wanting to say, "Let us fly outside!

We're free proud birds; it is time for the friends
To fly to the white of the rock in a haze,
To fly to the blue of the sea and the sky,
Where evenly dwell only tempests ... and I!"


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, November, 1999
Edited by Dmitry Karshtedt, February, 2000