Чертовы качели (The Devil’s Swing) by Fyodor Sologub

Beneath a shaggy fir tree,
Above a noisy stream
The devil’s swing is swinging
Pushed by his hairy hand.

He swings the swing while laughing,
Swing high, swing low,
Swing high, swing low,
The board is bent and creaking,
Against a heavy branch.

The swaying board is rushing
With long and drawn-out creaks;
With hand on hip, the devil
Is laughing with a wheeze.

I clutch, I swoon, I’m swinging,
Swing high, swing low,
Swing high, swing low,
I’m clinging and I’m dangling,
And from the devil trying
To turn my languid gaze.

Above the dusky fir tree
The azure sky guffaws:
“You’re caught upon the swings, love,
The devil take you, swing!”

Beneath the shaggy fir tree
The screeching throng whirls around:
“You’re caught upon the swings, love,
The devil take you, swing!”

The devil will not slacken
The swift board’s pace, I know,
Until his hand unseats me
With a ferocious blow.

Until the jute, while twisting,
Is frayed through till it breaks,
Until my ground beneath me
Turns upward to my face.

I’ll fly above the fir tree
And fall flat on the ground.
So swing the swing, you devil,
Go higher, higher… oh!

.

by Фёдор Сологуб (Fyodor Sologub)
a.k.a. Фёдор Кузьмич Тетерников (Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov)
(14 July 1907)
Translated by April FitzLyon

The poem recited by Ekatrina Sorokova

Beneath is the original Russian version of the poem in Cyrillic.

Чертовы качели

В тени косматой ели,
Над шумною рекой
Качает черт качели
Мохнатою рукой.

Качает и смеется,
Вперед, назад,
Вперед, назад,
Доска скрипит и гнется,
О сук тяжелый трется
Натянутый канат.

Снует с протяжным скрипом
Шатучая доска,
И черт хохочет с хрипом,
Хватаясь за бока.

Держусь, томлюсь, качаюсь,
Вперед, назад,
Вперед, назад,
Хватаюсь и мотаюсь,
И отвести стараюсь
От черта томный взгляд.

Над верхом темной ели
Хохочет голубой:
– Попался на качели,
Качайся, черт с тобой!-

В тени косматой ели
Визжат, кружась гурьбой:
– Попался на качели,
Качайся, черт с тобой!-

Я знаю, черт не бросит
Стремительной доски,
Пока меня не скосит
Грозящий взмах руки,

Пока не перетрется,
Крутяся, конопля,
Пока не подвернется
Ко мне моя земля.

Взлечу я выше ели,
И лбом о землю трах!
Качай же, черт, качели,
Все выше, выше… ах!

‘To read only children’s tales…’ by Osip Mandelstam

To read only children’s tales

and look through a child’s eye;

to rise from grief and wave

big things goodbye.

 

Life has tired me to death;

life has no more to offer.

But I love my poor earth

since I know no other.

 

I swung in a faraway garden

on a plain plank swing;

I remember tall dark firs

in a feverish blur.

 

by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам (Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam. His surname is commonly latinised as Mandelstam)

(1908)

translated by Robert Chandler

‘Let Any, Who Will, Still Bask In The South…’ by Anna Akhmatova

“You are with me once more, Autumn my friend!”

Annensky

 

Let any, who will, still bask in the south

On the paradisal sand,

It’s northerly here – and this year of the north

Autumn will be my friend.

 

I’ll live, in a dream, in a stranger’s house

Where perhaps I have died,

Where the mirrors keep something mysterious

To themselves in the evening light.

 

I shall walk between black fir-trees,

Where the wind is at one with the heath,

And a dull splinter of the moon will glint

Like an old knife with jagged teeth.

 

Our last, blissful unmeeting I shall bring

To sustain me here –

The cold, pure, light flame of conquering

What I was destined for.

 

by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova) (1957)

from Седьмая книга (The Seventh Book)

translation by D. M. Thomas