A.Pushkin, One Talk Of A Bookseller To Poet - Transl. (Rus.) Poem by Lyudmila Purgina

One talk of a bookseller with Poet
by Alexander Pushkin

A bookseller

Your verses must be only playing,
For you - just only sit,
And everywhere the glory's spreading
Her pleasant news about this.
The poem, say, is quite ready,
The new fruit of of the thoughts in mind.
And so, are you eager taking
Decision, how much I'll pay?
Give it your own price, I'm waiting,
The verses of the favorite today
We shall exchange for roubles pile,
Without a delay your sheets...
Why do you sigh and so so deep?
Can I have interest?


Poet

I was, indeed,
So far away in my recalling
The days, when I was filled with hopes,
A poet, without any care,
I wrote not for mere payment,
But only by inspiration.
I've seen again the stone shelters,
A dark asylum of a hermit,
Where I on the fantastic feast
My Muse invited, and at least
There my voice was much more sweet,
And the bright apparitions circled
And flied over my head; for certain,
They were the beautifullest flyers,
When night was all my dreams inspiring! ...

All were disturbing mind, so soft:
A meadow blooming, a moon glaring,
In old chapel the noise of storm,
And old woman's tale mysterious.

I think, that one of evils should
Have been effecting on my soul,
On my behaviour; he followed
Me, flying behind shoulder
And whispered the amazing sounds,
And I felt ill in head, so heavy,
By lovely dreams it was inspired,
And gathering in rows, they
Produced the rhymes, ringing as bells.
In harmony of this the only foe
Was a noise of forest, or a whirl of wind,
Or a living tune of oriole,
Or the night's deaf roar of the sea,
Or the fine whisper of the river.
Then, in the soundless of

Then in the silence of my work
I was not ready with the people
To share my delight from gifts
Of my Muse, and at that time I really
Didn't even try haggle and sell them shamefully.

I was the stingy keeper of them all:
And that is like the lover, mute
In his pride, keeps from the crowd
The gifts of loving woman new,
Being superstitious to impact.


A bookseller

But glory was for You a substitution
Of pleasure of Your secret dreams:
You were sold out quickly, truly,
But a huge mass of authors keep
The dusty piles of their poems and proze
On bookshelves, seeking for a reader,
Who once will estimate the chosen.


Poet

Those are blessed, who hided in themselves
The highest creatures of their souls
From other peoples, as from graves,
And were not anxious of glory!
Those are blessed, who were inside them mute,
And did not wear thorny wreaths on heads,
Forgotten by the peoples rude,
Without any name forever left!
What's glory? A deceptive dream,
A hope's dream in a reader's whisper?
Or it may be the percecution of the people,
Who are ignoramus and foolish even?


A bookseller

Lord Byron had the same opinion;
Zhukovsky said such words a lot;
But world has learned them quiet quickly,
And their sweety works were sold.
And, say, Your fate is rare, rather,
And worth to have an envy deep,
The poet makes execution, crowns;
And villains with the lightnings kills
With the eternal bows of the rhymes;
And heroes by him are well consoled;
And as Korinna of the Kifer throne
He raises up his lovely girl.
All praises seem to him as mere toll;
But hearts of women seek for glory:
Write for them, their ears're going
To listen to the flattery of Anacreon;
In youth we like the pretty roses,
Which're dearer than laurels of Gelicon.

(to be continued)