Воздушный город (The Aerial City) by Afanasy Fet

At the peep o day in the lift forgether

bonnie cloods like a steepled toun,

wi mony a dome like a bubble o gowd

and white roofs and white waas blinterin doun.

 

O yon is my ain white city –

or I came to the earth I bade there!

abune the derk warld quhile it sleeps

in the reid lift skinklan fair.

 

But it hauds awa to the North,

sails saftly, saftly, and high –

and a voice is fain that I’d join it –

but gies me nae wings to try.

 

by Афанасий Афанасьевич Фет (Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet)

a.k.a. Шеншин (Shenshin)

(1846)

translated by Hugh MacDiarmid

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Fun fact: MacDiarmid translation of Fey’s poem into a Scottish brogue. Here is a brief glossary to aid those not familiar with it.

waas blinterin = walls gleaming

or … bade = Before… lived there

quhile = while

reid skinlan = red sky glittering

For those wanting a more straight forward English translation Воздушный город (The Aerial City) by Afanasy Fet a.k.a. Shenshin

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March Saw Winter Gain In Strength by Maria Petrovykh

March saw winter gain in strength –

bitter cold and unrelenting storms.

In reckless fury, blinding spite,

the wind blew only from the north.

 

No hint of spring. Gripped by inertia,

the heart slips all too close to places

of no return: no self, no words,

mere apathy and voicelessness.

 

Who can bring back our sight, our hearing?

Who can retrace the way to hearth

and home now that all trace of home

is gone, wiped from the earth?

 

by Мария Сергеевна Петровых (Maria Sergeyevna Petrovykh)

(1955)

translated by Robert Chandler and Irina Mashinski

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the final line could be considered a sceptical response to Khrushchev’s Thaw during the, relatively, liberal period after Stalin’s death.

Also it is quite timely considering the current UK weather where ‘the Beast for the East’ and Storm Emma are double teaming the British Isles.