‘There Is Deep Meaning In A Parting’ by Fyodor Tyutchev

There is deep meaning in a parting:

fleeting love, eternal love –

love’s but a dream, a dream’s but a moment…

Today, tomorrow – awakening is imminent.

And you wake up, at last.

 

by Фёдор Иванович Тютчев (Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev)

(1851)

translated by Irina Mashinski

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Fun Fact: Counted amongst the admirers of Tyutchev‘s works were Dostoevsky and Tolstoy along with Nekrasov and Fet then later Osip Mandelstam who, in a passage approved by Shalamov, believed that a Russian poet should not have copy of Tyutchev in his personal library – he should know all of Tyutchev off by heart.

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The Sunlight On The Garden by Louis MacNeice

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

 

by Louis MacNeice (1907 – 1963)