I would like to introduce my lovely classmates to my native Russian poetry and ask to translate to Turkish if it is possible.I thank you all who is gonna participate in this.

The Sail

A lone white sail shows for an instant
Where gleams the sea, an azure streak.
What left it in its homeland distant?
In alien parts what does it seek?

The billow play, the mast bends creaking,
The wind, impatient, moans and sighs...
It is not joy that it is seeking,
Nor is it happiness it flies.

The blue wave dance, they dance and tremble,
The sun's bright ray caress the seas.
And yet for storm it begs, the rebel,
As if in storm lurked calm and peace!..

1832. By Michail Lermontov.
Translated by Irina Zhelez

Born in Moscow in a noble family, M.Lermontov spent his youth in Tarakhany, his grandmother's estate in the province of Penza. In 1828, Lermontov was sent to Moscow University's boarding school for young gentlemen and in 1830 he entered the university itself. Shortly afterwards, as a result of a clash with the reactionary teaching staff, Lermontov was obliged to leave the university and entered the St. Petersburg School of Ensigns of the Guards and the Cavalry Cadets. He completed his studies there in 1834 and was given a comission in the Hussar Regiment of the Imperial Guard. In 1837 the poet exiled to the Caucasus for having written his poem on Pushkin's death, which he blamed on the ruling circles of Russia under Nicolas I. The works he wrote after his return from exile together with his independent behaviour earned the dislike and enmity of the court and he was exiled to Caucasus a second time. As a result of intrigues by officers of the gendarmerrie, or secret police, he was provoked into a personal quarrel with an old schoolfellow, Major Martynov, and this led to the duel on 15 July 1841 in which the poet was killed. He was not quite twenty-seven.

Aleksandr Blok

The Stranger

The restaurants on hot spring evenings
Lie under a dense and savage air.
Foul drafts and hoots from dunken revelers
Contaminate the thoroughfare.
Above the dusty lanes of suburbia
Above the tedium of bungalows
A pretzel sign begilds a bakery
And children screech fortissimo.

And every evening beyond the barriers
Gentlemen of practiced wit and charm
Go strolling beside the drainage ditches --
A tilted derby and a lady at the arm.

The squeak of oarlocks comes over the lake water
A woman's shriek assaults the ear
While above, in the sky, inured to everything,
The moon looks on with a mindless leer.

And every evening my one companion
Sits here, reflected in my glass.
Like me, he has drunk of bitter mysteries.
Like me, he is broken, dulled, downcast.


The sleepy lackeys stand beside tables
Waiting for the night to pass
And tipplers with the eyes of rabbits
Cry out: "In vino veritas!"

And every evening (or am I imagining?)
Exactly at the appointed time
A girl's slim figure, silk raimented,
Glides past the window's mist and grime.

And slowly passing throught the revelers,
Unaccompanied, always alone,
Exuding mists and secret fragrances,
She sits at the table that is her own.

Something ancient, something legendary
Surrounds her presence in the room,
Her narrow hand, her silk, her bracelets,
Her hat, the rings, the ostrich plume.

Entranced by her presence, near and enigmatic,
I gaze through the dark of her lowered veil
And I behold an enchanted shoreline
And enchanted distances, far and pale.

I am made a guardian of the higher mysteries,
Someone's sun is entrusted to my control.
Tart wine has pierced the last convolution
of my labyrinthine soul.

And now the drooping plumes of ostriches
Asway in my brain droop slowly lower
And two eyes, limpid, blue, and fathomless
Are blooming on a distant shore.

Inside my soul a treasure is buried.
The key is mine and only mine.
How right you are, you drunken monster!
I know: the truth is in the wine.

1906

Translated by George M. Young, Jr.

Aleksandr Blok was born in St. Petersburg into an aristocratic family of Russian and German descent. His father, A.L. Blok, was a scholar and professor of law at Warsaw University, his mother, Aleksandra Beketova, was a translator and the daughter of the rector of the University of St. Petersburg. The parents divorced when Blok was a small child and he spent his childhood with his grandfather, Andrei Beketov, whose country estate of Shakhmatovo he inherited in 1902. At the University of St. Petersburg Blok studied law, without success, but then in 1906, he received his degree in philology.
Blok started to write poetry seriously at the age of seventeen.
Blok died in Petrograd on August 7, 1921, of heart failure brought on by malnutrition.

Thanks for this wanderful poems, dear Bliss, and thanks for wonderful idea to introduce our classmates to great russian poetry.

I'm going to join you, this time posting "The Dream", one of Lermontov's last poems, featured in his posthumous diary, prophetic of the poet's own death.


The Dream

In noon's heat, in a dale of Dagestan
With lead inside my breast, stirless I lay;
The deep wound still smoked on; my blood
Kept trickling drop by drop away.

On the dale's sand alone I lay. The cliffs
Crowded around in ledges steep,
And the sun scorched their tawny tops
And scorched me -- but I slept death's sleep.

And in a dream I saw an evening feast
That in my native land with bright lights shone;
Among young women crowned with flowers,
A merry talk concerning me went on.

But in the merry talk not joining,
One of them sat there lost in thought,
And in a melancholy dream
Her young soul was immersed -- God knows by what.

And of a dale in Dagestan she dreamt;
In that dale lay the corpse of one she knew;
Within his breast a smoking wound shewed black,
And blood coursed in a stream that colder grew.

1841.
Translated by V. Nabokov

O, Thank you , Dear Slavica for joining me,I am glad that sombody is interested in my idea.I wish everyone can join us and write about their own poetry.In fact I mentioned earlier, this is big international family and it would be great to learn about others too.
I look forward to see poems from many nationalities.
Best wishes to all.

here's my (Polish)contribution by our Nobel prize winner Czeslaw Milosz:

Song on the End of the World


On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A Fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through fields under their umbrellas
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet,
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world there will be,
No other end of the world there will be.

And this is my Serbian contribution:

WARNING

Listen, I'll tell you my secret:
Never leave me alone
when music plays.

It could seem to me
that some eyes gray
are so deep and soft--
the eyes that are actually plain.

It could seem to me
that I dive into the sound
and I could give my hands
to anyone around.

It could seem to me
se easy, so gay
to love someone
for only one day.

Or, I could tell someone
my dearest,
magically growing secret
how much I love you.

Oh, never leave me alone
when music plays.
It could seem to me that again,
somewhere in a forest,
my tears flow through a new well.

It could seem to me that a black butterfly
makes patterns on heavy water--
those that no one feels free to tell.

It could seem to me that, somewhere in the dark zone,
someone sings and touches my heart
with a bittter flower--right where the incurable wound stays.
Oh, never leave me alone,
never alone
when music plays.

Desanka Maksimović
Translated by: Dragana Konstantinović

Dear Slavica and Daydreamer,
Thank you for the poems.They are wonderful.
And this is for both of you.I know you like Visotskiy.

VLADIMIR VISOTSKIY
(1938-198


A song about a friend

If your friend just became a man,
Not a friend, not a foe,- just so,
If you really can't tell from the start,
If he's strong in his heart, -
To the peaks take this man - don't fret!
Do not leave him alone, on his own,
Let him share the same view with you-
Then you'll know if he's true.
If the guy on the peak got weak,
If he lost all his care - got scared,
Took a step on the frost - got lost,
Tripped and screamed in exhaust, -
Then the one you held close is false,
Do not bother to yell- expel, -
We can't take such aboard, and in short
We don't sing of his sort.
If the guy didn't whine nor pine,
He was dull and upset, but went,
When you slipped from the cliff,
He heaved, holding you in his grip;
If he walked right along, seemed strong,
On the top stood like he belonged, -
Then, whenever the chances are slim
You can count on him!

Translated by Andrey Kneller

Unknown Land by A.Pushkin

Thou distant land, land unknown to met
Not of my will have I come to thee,
Nor was it my steed that brought me here.
I've been led to thee by my recklessness,
By my courage and youth and my love for drink.

(An Old Song from "the captain's doughter",translated by Natalie Duddington)

Bilinmeyen Ãœlke

Ey güzel ülke
Ey uzak ülke
Ey bilmediğim ülke
Ne kendi isteğimle geldim sana
Ne de soylu bir atın sırtında
Beni, bu yiğit delikanlıyı
Gençliğin ateşi sürükledi sana
Bir de başımdaki şarap dumanları

(translated by ? )

Hello Cyrano,
Thank you for the poem, especially for turkish translation.
Pushkin is one of my favourites.
Here is my favourite poem, although I love them all. They all are very close to my soul.Sometimes feel like I used to live in that era.

To... (Kern)
Alexander Pushkin

I still recall the wondrous moment
When you appeared before my eyes,
Just like a fleeting apparition,
Just like pure beauty's distillation.

When'er I languished in the throes of hopeless grief
Amid the troubles of life's vanity,
Your sweet voice lingered on in me,
Your dear face came to me in dreams.

Years passed. The raging, gusty storms
Dispersed my former reveries,
And I forgot your tender voice,
Your features so divine.

In exile, in confinement's gloom,
My uneventful days wore on,
Bereft of awe and inspiration
Bereft of tears, of life, of love.

My soul awakened once again:
And once again you came to me,
Just like a fleeting apparition
Just like pure beauty's distillation.

My heart again resounds in rapture,
Within it once again arise
Feelings of awe and inspiration,
Of life itself, of tears, and love.


Aleksandr Pushkin(1799-1837) was born in Moscow. On his father's side he was descended from an ancient noble family and on his mother's side he was a great-great-grandson of a Abyssinian, Gannibal, who served under Peter the Great. In his childhood the future poet was entrusted to nursemaids, French tutors, and governesses. He learned Russian from household serfs and from his nanny, Arina Rodionovna. Pushkin started to write poems from an early age. His first published poem was written when he was only 14.

Hello Bliss,

The poems I am about to post here are for all poetry-lovers and for you.

Goodbye, My Friend, Goodby

Good-bye, my friend, good-bye.
My dear one, you are in my breast.
This predestined parting
Promises a meeting ahead.

Good-bye, my friend, without hand, without word
No sorrow and no sadness in the brow.
In this life, dying is nothing new,
But living, of course, isn't novel either.

(Sergey YESENIN,Translated by Geoffrey Hurley)


AYRILIK ŞİİRİ

HoşÃ§akal, dostum, hoşÃ§akal, mutluluklar.
Sevgili dostum, yüreğimde yaşayacak anın,
Sonunda ayrılık yazgısı olsa da insanın.
HoşÃ§akal dediğimiz gibi buluşmak da var.

HoşÃ§akal, dostum, el sıkışmadan, suskunlukla
Sakın üzülme, nedir bu gözlerindeki hüzün?
Şu yaşamda yeni bir şey değil ki ölüm,
Ama pek öyle yeni sayılmaz yaşamak da.

(Çeviren: Ataol Behramoğlu)

And below is Mayakovsky's poem written as a reply to Yesenin's poem. (I couldn't find its English translation.)

To Sergey Yesenin

(.....)
Alışılmış deyimiyle
Siz
Bir başka dünyaya göçüp gittimiz!
Hayır Yesenin
Bu
Şaka değil,
Boğazımda
Düğümlenen acıdır
Kahkaha değil...

Bu dünyada ölmek güç bir şey değil,
Bir hayat kurmaktır
Asıl güç olan...

Mayakovski