Now is my time. I bear no love for spring:
the floods, the mud, the stink - I feel unhealthy,
my blood ferments, longing chokes heart and mind.
Better harsh winter; then I can feel happy,
I love the snows, and then beneath the moon
the freedom of a sleigh ride, gliding swiftly,
a fresh-faced girl, wrapped in sable furs,
giving your hand a timid, passionate squeeze.

And what a joy to race across the mirror
of frozen ponds with sharp steel on your feet!
And the excitement of those winter parties...!
But there's a limit; the snow goes on for weeks
and months, even a bear at length would suffer
from boredom. After all, we can't devote
a life to sleigh rides with these young Armidas
or moping by the stove behind sealed windows.

Ah! gorgeous summer, I would love you, but
the heat, the dust, the flies, and the mosquitoes!
You torture us; our souls, once rich, grow flat,
we suffer like the barren fields, drought-stricken,
just longing for some freshness, for a glass -
that one thought fills our minds. We miss old winter,
and having seen her off with cakes and wine,
with ice and ice-cream we recall her reign.

People have harsh words for these days of autumn,
but, reader, they are dear to me, I love
their unassuming light, their quiet beauty.
Autumn attracts me like a neglected girl
among her sisters. And, to be quite honest,
she is the only one that warms my heart.
She has her good points; whimsically dreaming
and free from vanity, I find her charms appealing.

How can I put it? She perhaps appeals
as sometimes a young sufferer from consumption
catches my eye. Unseen, her death awaits,
and without protest, quietly she sickens;
she cannot sense the yawning of the grave,
but life fades from the lips that still are smiling;
a rosy hue still plays around her eyes,
today she is alive, tomorrow dies.

A mournful time of year! Its sad enchantment
flatters my vision with a parting grace -
I love the sumptuous glow of fading nature,
the forests clad in crimson and in gold,
the shady coolness and the wind's dull roaring,
the heavens all shrouded in a billowing mist
and the rare gleams of sun, the early hoarfrosts,
and distant grey-beard winter's gloomy portents.

Each autumn's coming makes me bloom anew;
my health is well served by the cold of Russia;
I feel a new love for the old routines,
sleep has its turn, and after it comes hunger;
the blood runs light and cheerful through the veins,
desires flock in - happy again, and youthful,
I'm full of life again - my organism
is like that ( pardon my prosaicism).

Tossing his mane, my steed carries his rider
over the open flatlands, and beneath
his glistening hooves he rouses up the echoes
in frozen valleys and cracks the ringing ice.
But then the short day fades, a fire blazes
in the forgotten hearth, now casting a bright flame,
now crumbling slowly, while I sit there reading
or give my drifting thoughts their hour of freedom.

And I forget the world, in blissful peace
I am sweetly lulled by my imagination,
and poetry awakens in me then;
my soul, hard pressed by lyric agitation,
trembles, resounds and seeks as if in sleep
to surface finally in free expression -
and I receive a host of guests unseen,
old-time acquaintances, fruits of my dreams,

And in my head thoughts spring into existence,
and rhymes dance out to meet them, and the hand
stretches toward the pen, the pen to paper,
and verse comes unimpeded pouring out.
So a ship, motionless in motionless water,
lies dreaming, then suddenly the sailors race
and climb aloft, wind swells the sails, the vessel
moves slowly out, bow cutting through billows,

and sails away. Where shall we sail to ...?

September's here! The sun each morning wakes
                  a little later, its rays are colder,
and in the shaky mirror of the lake
                  it glitters tremulous and golden.
Grey vapour shrouds the hilltops, and the dew
                  drenches the flat lands by the river;
The twisted oak twigs show a yellow hue,
                  and the red leaves of aspen shiver;
The birds no longer overflow with life,
the forests and the skies have lost their voice.

September's here! The evening of the year
                  is now upon us. Frost at morning
already spreads its silver filigree
                  over the fields and hills, and stormy
Aeolus will awaken from his sleep,
                  driving the flying dust before him,
the wood will toss and roar, its falling leaves
                  will strew the swampy valley bottom,
and clouds will rise to fill the heavenly dome,
and waters will grow dark in froth and foam.

Farewell, farewell, you brilliant summer skies!
                  Farewell, farewell to nature's splendour!
The waters gleaming in their golden scales,
                  the woods with their enchanted murmur!
Oh happy dream of transient summer joys!
                  The woodmen's axes are disturbing
the echoes in the emaciated groves,
                  and all too soon the frozen river
will be a mirror for the misty oaks
and hills in their white covering of snow.

And now the villagers will find the time
                  to gather in their hard-earned harvest;
Hay in the valley is stacked up into piles,
                  and in the corn the sickle dances.
Over the furrows, once the grain is cleared,
                  sheaves in stooks stand high and gleaming,
or else they trundle past the empty field
                  on loaded carts wearily creaking.
The golden summits of the shining ricks
rise up around the peasants' huddled shacks.

The village people celebrate the day!
                  The barns steam merrily, the chatter
of chains awakes the mill-stones from their sleep,
                  and noisily they turn and clatter.
Let the cold come! the farmer has saved up
                  supplies to last him through the winter:
his hut is warm, the bread, the salt, the cup
                  of beer make welcome all who enter;
without a care his family now can eat
the blessed fruit of work in summer's heat.

And you, a labourer in the field of life,
                  when you too move into your autumn
and see the blessings of your earthly time
                  spread out abundantly before you;
when the rich acres ploughed by work and cares
                  display the profits of your labours,
rewarding you for all the weary years
                  and you can reap the precious harvest,
gathering the grain of long-considered thought,
tasting the fullness of our human lot, -

will you be rich like the farmer with his spade?
                  In hope, like him, the seed you scattered,
and you too bathed in golden dreams that showed
                  your rich rewards far in the future...
Now you behold that day; greet it with pride
                  and count your painful acquisitions!
Alas, your passions, your dreams, your arduous road
                  are buried in scorn, and your condition
is the soul's irresistible disgrace,
the sting of disappointment on your face!

Your day has risen; now you can clearly see
                  the arrogance, the gullibility
of youth, and you have plumbed the yawning sea
                  of people's madness and hypocrisy.
You, once enthusiasm's faithful friend,
                  ardently seeking fellow-feeling,
a king of brilliant vapours - in the end
                  you contemplate a sterile thicket
alone with misery; its mortal groan
is barely muffled by your haughty soul.

But if your indignation's potent cry,
                  or if a howl of urgent longing
should rise out of the heart's dark misery,
                  solemn and wild amid the thronging
young boys and girls at their capricious games,
                  their bones would shake in fear, the infant
would drop its toys and in the midst of play
                  set up a roar of pain, all gladness
would vanish from its face; humanity
would perish long before death set it free.

Be open-handed then; invite them all
                  to join the feast, the whole clanjamfry!
Let them all take their places in the hall
                  around the gold-encrusted table!
What tasty titbits you can offer them!
                  What a display of dishes gleaming
so variously! But they all taste the same
                  and like the grave they make us tremble;
sit there alone, perform the funeral rites
for your soul's worldly, transient delights.

Whatever illumination in years to come
                  may take possession of your fancy,
whatever the last vortex of your thoughts
                  and feelings may one day give birth to -
let your triumphant and sarcastic mind
                  suppress your heart's vain tremors
and bridle the unprofitable wind
                  of late laments. Then see the treasure
you will receive, the greatest gift of life,
experience, which binds the soul in ice.

Or else, in a life-giving surge of grief,
                  casting aside all earthly visions,
seeing their boundaries, and not far off,
                  a golden land beyond the darkness,
a place of redress, with a heart renewed
                  dreaming dreams of benediction,
and hearing those tumultous voices tuned
                  to hymns of reconciliation,
like harps whose over-lofty harmony
is unintelligible to your human ear, -

before a vindicated Providence
                  you will bow down, humble and thankful,
with an unbounded hope and with the sense
                  that you have reached some understanding -
but know, you never will communicate
                  your vision to your fellow-mortals;
their frivolous souls will not appreciate
                  true knowledge in society's bustle;
knowledge of mountain peaks or of the deeps
is not for earth, earth has no place for it.

The hurricane goes hurtling through the void,
                  the forest raises up its voice in anger,
the ocean foams and rages and its mad
                  breakers explode against the shingle;
so sometimes the dull rabble's idle minds
                  are woken from their torpid slumber
by the crude voice of commonplace, that finds
                  a sonorous echo in their blether,
but there will be no echo for the word
that dominates the passions of the world.

What if a star from heaven disappears
                  into the chasm of nothing, missing
its way, and never finds its place again;
                  another one replaces it unheeding.
One star the less is nothing to the earth,
                  our people are too hard of hearing
to spot the distant howling of its death
                  or see the brightness of a star appearing
new born amid the sisters of the sky
and greeting them with rapturous melody!

Winter draws on, and over the bare earth
                  impotence stretches with a shiver,
yet furrows overflow with golden ears,
                  and all the cornfields gaily glitter.
Life and death, want and wealth lie side by side -
                  all the variety of the year that's vanished
is equalised beneath a snowy shroud
                  that hides it in indifferent sameness -
thus all things lie before your eyes henceforth,
but you will reap no harvest from the earth.