Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Remembrance
Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), "Remembrance," tr. Maurice Baring, Have You Anything to Declare? A Note Book with Commentaries (1936; rpt. London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1951), p. 244:
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When the loud day for men who sow and reap
Grows still, and on the silence of the town
The unsubstantial veils of night and sleep,
The meed of the day's labour, settle down,
Then for me in the stillness of the night
The wasting, watchful hours drag on their course,
And in the idle darkness comes the bite
Of all the burning serpents of remorse;
Dreams seethe; and fretful infelicities
Are swarming in my over-burdened soul,
And Memory before my wakeful eyes
With noiseless hand unwinds her lengthy scroll.
Then, as with loathing I peruse the years,
I tremble, and I curse my natal day,
Wail bitterly, and bitterly shed tears,
But cannot wash the woeful script away.
