List of relaxing things to do on a Sunday afternoon: napping, snacking, taking a walk, watching telly, translating Russian poems... Last night I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and started translating one of my favourite poems. This one was written by Sergey Yesenin in 1923, and it describes the feeling of homesickness quite well.
The translation is mine, so you’ll have to excuse any odd not-so-English-sounding phrases I have managed to squeeze into the poem. If you want to read more of his poems (with English translations) you can visit this site!
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This street is familiar to me,
and so is this little house.
Above the window the blue straw wires
have toppled down.
During years of severe disasters,
years of violent, mad force,
I remembered my childhood in the village,
I remembered the blue colour of the countryside.
I did not seek fame, nor peace,
for I know the vanity of glory.
And now that I close my eyes,
I only see my childhood home.
I see the garden covered in blue speckles,
silently August lies down at the fence.
The hubbub and the twitter from the birds
are held in the lindens’ green palms.
I loved this wooden house,
in the logs the menacing might heated up,
Our stove, seemingly wild and strange,
howled in the rainy night.
A loud voice, a sonorous wail,
as if mourning someone dead, alive.
What did he see, that brick-red camel,
in the roaring rain?
Apparently he saw distant countries,
other dreams and blossoming times,
the golden sands of Afghanistan
and the translucent mists of Bukhara.
Oh, I too know these lands -
my journeys took me there more than once.
Now I would only like to return
closer to my native land.
But this gentle slumber has faded,
all has vanished into blue smoke.
Peace to you, fields of straw,
Peace to you, wooden house!
And the original looks like this:
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