Love’s Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The fountains mingle with the river

And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In one another’s being mingle –

Why not I with thine?

 

See the mountain’s kiss high heaven

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

If it disdain’d its brother:

 

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea –

What are all these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me?

 

by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822)

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Winter Sky by Innokenty Annensky

Down and away flew the melting snow;

cheeks burned red and glistened.

I had not thought the moon was so small

or the clouds so smokily distant.

 

Asking for nothing, I’ll go away,

for my number is up, for ever.

I had not thought the moon was so fair

or so feaful up in heaven.

 

Midnight is near. I’m no one, no one’s,

worn out by the spectre of life,

marvelling at the moonbeam’s smoke

in my treacherous fatherland.

 

by Иннокентий Фёдорович Анненский (Innokenty Fyodorovich Annensky)

translated by Peter France