Boris Pasternak

My love, the smell of gossip-stories,
Like one of burnt wood, fills the land.
And you’re Wordbook of secret glory,
In which I sink as in quicksand.  

And fame’s the earthly mighty traction.
Oh, if I were more righteous born!
Still, I’ll go in the speech of nation – 
Her son, but not a vagabond.

Now, not the poets’ generation,
All country-tracks, field-lines and widths 
Rhymes Lermontov and summer sessions,
And Pushkin and the snow and gees.

And I’d like, that in future chronicles,
After we’re dead and gone in past, 
More closely than hearts with auricles,    
They’ll rhyme forever both of us,

That we, with agreement of linking,
Should cloud someone’s ears and eyes
With all that we are pulling, drinking,
And will be – by the mouths of grass.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, May, 2001