Translations by Jamey Gambrell. Most of the poems are untitled.
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16 Mountain summits: Mikhail Lermontov, translation from
Goethe Insomnia. Homer. Taut sails: Osip Mandelstam, "Insomnia"
17 Spikenard, cinnamon, and aloe: Alexander Pushkin O spring without end or borders!: Alexander Blok
25 Hiccup, Hiccup: based on Russian folk nonsense rhymes
27 On the black sky-words are inscribed: Marina Tsvetaeva
32 Life, you're but a mouse's scurry: Alexander Pushkin
33 The reed pipe sings upon the bridge: Alexander Blok
In the district where no feet have passed: Boris Pasternak
39 From the dawn a luxurious cold: Yakov Polonsky
63 Winter shows its anger still: Fyodor Tiutchev
76 The heart of a beauty!: Verdi, "La donna e mobile," from Rigoletto
86 Not because she shines so bright: Innokenty Annensky
87 The flame's ablaze, it doesn't smoke: Bulat Okudzhava
I want to be bold, I want to be a scoffer: Konstantin Balmont
88 No, I do not hold that stormy pleasure dear!: Alexander
Pushkin You lie in silence, heeding ne'er a sound: Alexander Pushkin
134 But the hand behind your back is stronger: Natalya Krandievskaya
189 O tender specter, happy chance: Natalya Krandievskaya
190 O city! O wind! O snowstorms and blizzards!: Alexander Blok
But is the world not all alike?: Natalya Krandievskaya
202 Bright thoughts ascend: Alexander Blok
206 From the threshold of the gate: Bulat Okudzhava
208 February! Grab the inks and cry!: Boris Pasternak
216 Oh, the moment, oh, the bitter fight: Alexei Khvostenko
223 Our eyes were glued to the tribune: anonymous Soviet poem, c. 1970s
231 Steppe and nothing else: Russian folk song
233 And where is that clearest of fires: Bulat Okudzhava
234 The lamplighter should have lit them, but sleeps: Bulat Okudzhava
241 Beneath a canopy of fetid thatch: Natalya Krandievskaya
242 In the stony cracks between the tiles: Nikolai Zabolotsky Life, you're but a mouse's scurry: Alexander Pushkin Neither fire nor darkened huts: Alexander Pushkin
245 O world, roll up into a single block: Nikolai Zabolotsky
246 Joy, thou beauteous godly lightning: Schiller, from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
254 The trepidation of life, of all the centuries and races:
Maximilian Voloshin He who draws the darkest lot of chance: Alexander Blok What kind of East do you favor?: Vladimir Solovyov Is all quiet among our fair people?: Alexander Blok
255 Man suits all elements, every season: Alexander Pushkin
274 My steppe is burned, the grass is felled: Alexander Blok
275 O joyless, painless moment!: Natalya Krandievskaya