Remembrance, By Alexander Pushkin

L.A. Times Archives

March 21, 1999 12 AM PT

When the loud day for men who sow and reap

Grows still, and on the silence of the town

The unsubstantial veils of night and sleep,

The meed of the day’s labour, settle down,

Then for me in the stillness of the night

The wasting, watchful hours drag on their course,

And in the idle darkness comes the bite

Of all the burning serpents of remorse;

Dreams seethe; and fretful infelicities

Are swarming in my over-burdened soul,

And Memory before my wakeful eyes

With noiseless hand unwinds her lengthy scroll.

Then, as with loathing I peruse the years,

I tremble, and I curse my natal day,

Wail bitterly, and bitterly shed tears,

But cannot wash the woeful script away.

--TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY MAURICE BARING

From “World Poetry,” edited by Katharine Washburn, John S. Major and Clifton Fadiman (W.W. Norton: 1,338 pp., $45)