M.Tsvetaeva, The Meeting With Pushkin - Translation (Rus.) Poem by Lyudmila Purgina

The meeting with Pushkin
by Marina Tsvetaeva

I'm going up the white road,
The dusty, ringing, steep road.
And my light feet are not exhausted
To be on top above the top.

To the left side - the ridge of Ayu-Dag,
The dark-blue chasm - around.
And I recollect the curly wizard
Of this lyrical site.

I imagine him on the road and grotto...
The swarthy hand at his forehead...
- As the glass at the crossroad
The bullock cart has jingled... -

The smell - as from childhood - of some smoke
Or of some ancient trible...
That's the charm of old Crimea
And of the Puskin's nice times.

Pushkin! - You should have learned from the first sight
Who is on your way.
And you should have shined all, to walk up
You shouldn't have offered me your hand.

And haven't been leaned on his swarthy arm,
I would have been talking by the way
About how I were despising the science
And rejecting the leader then;

How I were in fond of the names and banners,
The hairs and voices,
The old wines and the old thrones there,
- And the every met dog! -

The half-smiles as the answers to questions,
And the young kings...
How I were liking the fire of sigarette
In the velvet thickets of alleys,

The comedians and the tamburin's ringing,
The silver and gold,
The inimitable name: Marina,
Byron and bolero,

The amulets, cards, candles and bottles,
The flavour of nomads and fur coats,
And the lying speeches, piercing the inner soul,
Of lips, charming so.

Those words: never and forever,
After the wheel - a rut...
The swarthy hands and the blue rivers there, -
Ah, - and to your Mariula! -

The crackle of drum - the uniform of sovereign -
The windows of palaces and coaches,
The groves in the shining jaws of chimney-corner,
The red stars of rockets...

And the eternal heart and service
To him only, to King!
The heart self and reflection in mirror... -
Oh, how I do love...

All is over... - And I were not speaking then,
I would have been looking down then...
And You would have been silent, so sad, and sweetly
Embracing the thin cypress.

We would have kept silence for a while - would you? -
Looking somewhere at our feet,
Where the fire flash far in view
In one tiny saklya appeared
(* - saklya is the name of house of the muslim people)
And then - because from the worser sorrow
Is only one step - no more - to play real! -
We would have bursted in laughing
And run hand in hand downhill.


1 oct 1913