English translations of 7 Стихотворений (7 Stikhotvorenij) = 7 Poems, opus 34

A nightingale sings in the stillness of the garden,
Lights are extinguished beyond the pond.
The night is still. Maybe, you aren’t happy
That there are just two of us here?

I, myself would want to leave you,
But I am sorry to leave that bench,
Where you love to indulge in your dreams,
and listen to the nightingale.

Rest easy! I will talk neither of
how I could have loved you,
nor of how my heart ached,
I won’t talk of that.

My words are troubling, unsettling,
it’s more enjoyable listening to the nightingale,
Because the nightingale cannot
err, cannot suffer, in love.

But even he fell silent in the dead of night,
He flew away, a happy one, to rest.
Wish me a good night, too,
Until we meet again.

Wish me to not notice the night,
And to wake up a different person in heaven,
Where I can meet you with dignity,
With a nightingale’s song on my lips.

Do not my passions
Stir up a storm?
To wrestle with the storm,
Is it in my power?

The storm has swept past,
And with rain and hail,
The storm cloud has spilled
Over the green garden.

Oh Lord! On the leaves,
Of a rose that dropped its leaves,
Sparkling, like diamonds,
Aren’t those my tears?

Or, maybe Nature,
Like a heart in life,
Has its own smile,
And its own worries?

As my idle gaze was gliding over
the motley crowd at the ball,
As I was tormented by evil boredom,
I met a masked woman by the colonnade

Holding out her child-like hand,
She squeezed mine, quite deliberately
My face was burning hot,
But I did not recognize my sweetheart.

From under the pink silk mask,
Two little eyes, like starlets, were beaming warmly,
And her gaze arrested on me,
Speaking both of love and reproach.

At last she quietly said:
“I've been looking for you everywhere, forever”
The quivering sound of her voice changed,
And I recognized the tremble of her dear hands.

Oh, in the name of artless love
Do not remove this soulless mask,
I am afraid, my dearest friend, as I am in love,
At this moment, I fear for you.

In the motley crowd of the ball
Let slander pass unnoticed,
And may the words of ingenuous love
Not be overheard by foul gossip.

As I was languishing amid the soft rustling of the wheat fields
And the azure of the sky;
I loved not, [while] delighting in the grain field,
either the dark clouds or the tempests.

But a storm cloud came with hail,
It rumbled – it thundered in the twilight;
And I, like an ear of wheat, now
Am nailed to the damp ground,

Am nailed to the damp ground – and am frozen,
Cold and numb.
And now, does it really matter whether it’s the sun
Or a cloud that hovers over me in the sky?

“Kiss me
My bosom is burning,
I still love..
Lean over to me.”
Thus, in the parting hour,
Now babbling, now silent,
Was your quiet voice,
As if it was melting,
in the depth of the soul,
of your expiring soul.
I dared not to breathe,
Into your face,
Like a dead man, I stared--
I strained my ears,
But -- alas! my friend,
Your last breath
could not finish the tale,
of your love for me.
And I don’t know,
how my life
will end
Nor where I will ever hear the end of that tale,
of your love for me!

Do you remember the glimmer of moonlight,
the rustling of the sea over the rock,
the trembling of drowsy leaves,
and the rattle of cicadas
behind the garden’s hedge?

Through the twilight, in the highland garden,
We were walking; the laurels were blooming,
a grotto loomed behind the grapevine,
and a pool under the waterfall
brimming, was reverberating.

Do you remember the freshness of the air,
The smell of roses, the swirling streams,
the whole of Nature’s charm,
and the involuntary meeting of lips,
into an unbidden kiss?

This is the music of Nature,
this is the music of the soul,
I heard it some other years,
After tempests and storms,
I heard it clearly in the stillness of air.

I listened--and my heart grew warmer,
by the Southern warmth in the air,
it was easier to sing and believe,
I listened, and I wanted this music
to permeate everything.

My heart is like a spring, my song like a wave,
disappearing into the distance, overflowing,
In the storm, my song is dark, like a cloud,
At daybreak, it is reflected in the rising sun,

But if suddenly the sparks of unexpected love blaze up,
Or grief piles up in my heart--
Into the womb of my song my tears will pour,
and the wave will hurriedly carry them away.