English translations of 5 Стихотворений (5 Stikhotvorenij) = 5 Poems, opus 33

Are you asleep, brother?
The night has cooled.
Into the cold,
Silvery shimmer,
Have sunk the tops,
of giant,
blue mountains.
It’s clear and quiet.
And one can hear, with a rumble,
rolling into an abyss,
A loose boulder.
And one can see,
Under the clouds,
Walking on a remote,
bare cliff,
a small wild goat.
Are you asleep, brother?
Thicker and thicker,
Turns the color of the midnight sky,
Brighter and brighter,
The planets burn.
Menacingly,
Glimmers in the darkness,
The sword of Orion.
Arise, brother!
From the castle ,
Of an invisible lute,
the airy singing,
Was brought and carried away by fresh wind.
Arise, brother!
In response,
The piercingly-sharp
Sound of the copper horn
Thrice rang out in the mountains.
And thrice,
The eagles woke in their nests.

The light of the rising stars – all night long,
When the sky is bright without moonshine,
And dark despite the lack of clouds,
Is captured in your wonderful eyes.
I am lost in front of them and cannot understand,
Cannot convey in meaningful words,
Those thrills, unknown to the heart.
I sometimes believe that it would be my happiness
To read love in your eyes.
But sometimes I feel frightened by them,
Like on a dark night, next to a buried treasure.
What does your mysterious glance express,
When your eyes both look and don’t look
From under heavy eyelashes?
Isn’t it like two stars, two heavenly wanderers,
Unaware of those whose dreams flow after them,
The stars burn without heat, but... they lure.

Emptying my mind, and heart, and memory,
I kiss you deliberately, passionately,
I kiss you for the sake of her who made me
Hide my passions – I was shy and silent,
And for the sake of her who burnt me without fire,
And was laughing, and torturing me endlessly,
And for the sake of her whose love would have been my shield,
Yet now she is murdered, and sleeps under the sepulchral cross.
Everything that caught fire in my heart, for them,
Now, as it is guttering out, let it be extinguished in your embrace.

What is she to me? She isn’t my wife, or lover,
Or my own daughter!
Why then her accursed lot
Refuses to let me sleep all night?

It won’t let me sleep because I dream
Of my youth in a stuffy prison.
I see vaults..a window behind bars,
A cot in the dank twilight.

From the cot, feverishly torrid, her eyes
Look, without thoughts or tears,
From the cot, there hang almost to the floor,
Dark locks of her heavy hair.

Her lips do not move, nor do her pale
Hands on her chest,
They are lightly pressed to her heart, without trembling,
And without hopes ahead.

[What is she to me? She isn’t my wife, or lover,
Or my own daughter!
Why then her accursed lot
Refuses to let me sleep all night?]

A heavy vault presses down upon me,
A big chain is clanking around me,
Now, blown by the wind,
Everything burns all around me.
I stand, leaning my head on the wall,
I hear, like a sick man in a dream,
When he sleeps, with his eyes open,
There’s thunder rolling in the world.

A flying wind outside my window,
Stirs the nettles,
A thick raincloud,
The wind carries over to the drowsy fields.
And God’s stars refuse
To cast a glance into my dungeon,
There is only the reflection of lightening on the wall,
As it sparkles in the window.

This beam of light comforts me,
As, in an impetuous blaze,
It breaks free from the cloud.
I cannot wait for God’s thunder
To shatter my fetters,
To open all doors ajar,
And knock down the guards
Of my hopeless prison.

Then I’ll go, I’ll go again,
I’ll go ramble in the thick woods,
Following a meandering road through fields,
Jostling in the bustling cities...