I take it you want the poem? I have typed it out for you:
Autumn
A Fragment
What does not enter then my drowsy mind? (Derzhavin)
October’s come – the grove’s already shaking
The last leaves from the naked branches; cold
Has breathed, the road’s becoming frozen, still
The stream runs, babbling, beyond the mill
But on the pond the ice has taken hold;
My neighbour swiftly with his pack is making
For hunting-grounds where winter crops are flattened,
And sleeping woods are stirred by baying hounds.
This is my time: I don’t like spring; its slush
And stench – the boring thaw. Spring sickens me;
My blood is in ferment, my mind and feelings
Are trapped by longings. I like stern winter better,
I love her snows: how smoothly, rapidly and freely
The sleigh glides when you’re with a friend, and she
Is warm and fresh beneath her sable fur,
Pressing your hand … moonlit, she’s trembling, flushed!
How thrilling to be gliding over the bland
Faces of rivers, steel-shod, those level mirrors!
And think of winter festivals’ brilliant stir!
But there is a limit; Aprils, and Junes, of snow –
Why, even the bear holding out in his ice-cave
Is growing tired of it. You can’t for a whole year
Sleigh-ride with young witches, or sit behind
The double windows, moping by the stove.
Summer, you beauty, I would be in love
With you, if it were not for heat, dust, flies,
Mosquitos. You torment us till we cannot think;
We are suffering from drought, like pastures;
There’s nothing to us but the lust to drink
And refresh ourselves, and we miss winter, the old mother;
We who said goodbye to her with wine and pancakes
Now commemorate her with ice-cream and ice.
Ordinarily the days of late autumn are abused,
But I, dear reader, love her for her quiet beauty
That glows so modestly, I love her as one loves
A child unloved in its own family. To speak truth,
Of all the seasons of the year I welcome her alone.
There is much in her that is good, and I,
Who am not a vainglorious lover, have found
In my wayward fantasy something special in her.
How can I explain this? She pleases me
As sometimes, perhaps, you have been drawn to
A consumptive girl. Condemned to death, the waif
- Poor girl – declines, fades uncomplainingly,
Without resentment; a smile on her vanished lips.
She is inattentive to the waiting grave;
On her face a crimson colour’s playing.
She is alive today – tomorrow, not.
Dejected season! Enchantment to the eyes!
Your elegiac beauty and your mourning
Colours are dear to me: the sumptuous
Fading of the woods in purple and gold,
The wind and the fresh breeze in tree-tops, skies
Covered with rolling mists,
The tentative sun-ray, the first frost,
The grey winter’s distant warnings.
And with every autumn I come into bloom
Afresh; the Russian cold is healthy for me;
I love again the daily air we breathe;
Sleep comes in its proper time, and so does hunger;
Lightly, joyously beats my heart, desires seethe,
Once more I’m full of life, happier, younger,
- Such is my organism (if I may be
Prosaic for a moment in a poem).
A horse is brought; the rider on its back
Clings fast to the flying mane,
And resonantly under its blistering hooves
The frozen valley echoes, the ice cracks.
But the short day fades, and fire burns again
In the forgotten grate, now flaring brightly,
Now smouldering. In front of it I read,
Or relish ideas, rolled around in my mind.
I forget the world; and in the sweet
Silence I’m calmed by my imagination
Sweetly, and poetry wakes in me; my soul,
Gripped by a lyrical excitement, trembles,
Resounds, as in a dream,
And seeks release at last in free expression –
And thronging towards me invisible are creation’s
Familiar friends I did not think to meet.
Thoughts whirl audaciously in the mind,
Airy rhymes are running forth to meet them,
Fingers cry out for a pen, the pen for paper,
A moment – lines and verses freely flow.
So a ship slumbers in the stirless vapour,
But hark: sailors leap out, all hands are swarming
Up and down the masts, sails fill with wind;
The monster’s moving and it cleaves the deep.
It sails. Where shall we sail? …
(1833)
2006-06-28 11:38:21
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answer #2
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answered by Sybaris 7
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