Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov Poems

Sailless and without a rudder,
On the ocean of the air--
Float the choirs of stars harmonious,
'Mid the mists eternal there;
...

With sadness I survey our present generation!
Their future seems so empty, dark, and cold,
Weighed down beneath a load of knowing hesitation,
...

I love my native land with such perverse affection!
My better judgement has no standing here.
Not glory, won in bloody action,
...

Clouds in the skies above, heavenly wanderers,
Long strings of snowy pearls stretched over azure plains!
...

By gates of an abode, blessed,
A man stood, asking for donation,
A beggar, cruelly oppressed
By hunger, thirst and deprivation.
...

Slumber sweet, my fairest baby,
Slumber calmly, sleep—­
Peaceful moonbeams light thy chamber,
In thy cradle creep;
...

No, I'm not Byron; I am, yet,
Another choice for the sacred dole,
Like him - a persecuted soul,
But only of the Russian set.
...

At life's most testing moment, when
the grieving heart's replete,
a prayer that is most potent then
I call up and repeat.
...

Forever you, the unwashed Russia!
The land of slaves, the land of lords:
And you, the blue-uniformed ushers,
...

In high noon's heat in a Caucasian valley
I lay quite still, a bullet in my breast;
The smoke still rose from my deep wound,
As drop by drop my blood flowed out.
...