A Selection of Sergei Yesenin Poems Translated by Anton Yakovlev
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
Translator’s Note: This selection contains a range of poems spanning his full literary career, from 1910 when he was 15 years old, to the last year of his life (1925).
As you will see, many of the poems are untitled, not unusually for Russian poems, and marked with standard three asterisks (and identified by first line in tables of contents, conversation or scholarship). I've included the years of composition under each poem since that might help add some historic context (which of course includes World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917).
* * *
High water has licked
The silt with smoke.
The moon has dropped
Its yellow reins.
Paddling a punt,
I bump into banks.
Red haystacks by the fence rails
Look like churches.
With mournful cawing
In the silence of marshes
The black grouse
Is calling for vespers.
In blue gloom the grove
Shrouds the destitution…
Secretly I will pray
For your future.
<1910>
* * *
Is it my fault that I’m a poet
Of heavy suffering and bitter fate?
After all, it wasn’t my choice—
It’s just the way I came into the world.
Is it my fault that I don’t cherish life,
That I love and simultaneously hate everyone,
And know things about myself I don’t yet see—
That is my gift from the muse.
I know there is no happiness in life,
Life is lunacy, the dream of a sick soul,
And I know my gloomy tunes bore everyone,
But it’s not my fault—that’s the kind of poet I am.
<1911—1912>
The Birch
The white birch
Under my window
Wrapped herself in snow
As though in silver.
Like snow borders
On fluffy branches,
White fringes of tassels
Have blossomed.
And the birch stands
In listless silence,
And the snowflakes burn
In the golden fire.
And the dawn, lazily
Walking around,
Sprinkles t he branches
With new silver.
<1913>
* * *
Out came the Lord to test humanity’s love,
Walked out into a field in the guise of a beggar.
An old man sitting on a stump in an oak grove
Was chewing a dry crumpet with his toothless mouth.
The old man saw the beggar walking
Down the path with an iron cane
And thought, “What a poor, sick fellow—
I bet it’s hunger that’s making him teeter.”
The Lord walked up to him, hiding his sorrow and pain,
Thinking he couldn’t awaken anyone’s heart...
And the old man extended his hand,
“Here, chew on this... you’ll feel a little stronger.”
<1914>
* * *
In the land of yellow nettle
And dried-out wattle
Village huts, like orphans,
Cling to willows.
In the fields, behind the ravine’s blue thicket,
Among green lakes,
The sand road stretches up to
The Siberian Mountains.
Lost somewhere in Mordva and Chuda,
Russia knows no fear,
And the people, the people in shackles
Walk down that road.
All of them are murderers or thieves,
As ordained by fate.
I’ve fallen in love with their sad eyes
And their hollow cheeks.
There is so much evil and joy in killers.
Their hearts are simple.
But their blue mouths grin
On their blackened faces.
In secret, I cherish one dream:
That I’m pure of heart.
But I too will knife someone to death
One whistling autumn.
And on a windy route,
Perhaps on this very same sand,
They will lead me, rope on my neck,
To fall in love with anguish.
And when I smile, in passing,
Stretching my chest,
The bad weather will lick the road of my life
With its tongue.
<1915>
* * *
I’m tired of living in my native land,
Yearning for the vast fields of buckwheat.
I’ll leave my shack
To be a vagrant and a thief.
I’ll walk the white curls of the day
To look for some wretched lodging.
And, seeing me, my best friend
Will sharpen his boot knife.
The yellow road is entwined
With the spring and the meadow sun,
And the one whose name I cherish
Will chase me from her threshold.
Again I will come back to the house of my birth,
Console myself with someone else’s joy,
And, some green evening, hang myself
On my sleeve under the window.
The grizzled willows by the wicker fence
Will drop their heads a bit more tenderly.
They will bury me, unwashed,
To the sound of barking dogs.
And the moon will swim on and on,
Dropping its oars into lakes...
And Russia will go on living,
Dancing and weeping by the fence.
<1916>
* * *
Swimming in the blue dust,
The moon butts a cloud with its horn.
This night, no one will guess
Why the herons screamed.
This night, she ran through the reeds
To the green backwater.
Her white hand swept her tousled hair
Over her tunic.
She ran up, glanced at the quick spring
And sat down on the stump in pain.
In her eyes, the daisies wilted
The way a swamp light goes out.
At dawn, through the spiraling fog,
She swam away and vanished in the distance...
And the moon, swimming in the blue dust,
Nodded to her from behind the hill.
<1916>
* * *
Your pensive sigh is calling me
To warm light, to my native threshold
Where grandmother and grandfather sit on the porch
Awaiting their spirited sunflower-aged grandson.
Their grandson is slim and white as a birch,
With honey hair and velvet hands.
Except, o my friend, I see from his blue eyes—
They’re only dreaming of his worldly life.
The bright Virgin in the icon corner
Beams joy into their darkness.
With a quiet smile on her thin lips
She holds their grandson in her arms.
<1917>
* * *
Here it is, silly happiness
With white windows that look into the garden.
The sunset quietly swims
In the pond like a red swan.
Hello, golden quiet
With your shadow of a birch in the water.
A flock of crows on the roof
Holds vespers for a star.
Somewhere past the garden, timidly,
Out where the guelder-rose blooms,
A tender girl in white
Sings a tender song.
In a bluish fog, the night cool
Sweeps from the field.
Silly, sweet happiness.
Fresh blush of cheeks.
<1918>
* * *
Country, o my country!
Autumnal rainy tin.
The shivering streetlight reflects
Its lipless head in a black puddle.
No, it’s best not to look,
Or else I’ll see something worse.
I’ll just keep squinting my eyes
At all this rusted haze.
It’s warmer this way and less painful.
Look: between the skeletons of houses
A bell tower, like a miller, carries
The copper bagfuls of bells.
If you’re hungry, you will be nourished.
If you’re miserable, you’ll find joy.
Just don’t look at me too openly,
My unknown earthly brother.
As I thought, so I did. But alas!
It’s the same every time!
Looks like my body is too used to
Feeling this shivering cold.
Well, so what! There are many others,
I’m not the only one alive in the world!
As for the street light, one moment it blinks,
The next moment it laughs with its lipless head.
Only my heart, under shabby clothes,
Whispers to me, who has visited solid ground:
“My friend, my friend, the eyes that have seen
Can only be shut by death.”
<1921>
* * *
Don’t torment me with your icy demeanor
And don’t ask me how old I am.
I’ve got a severe falling sickness;
My soul is a yellow skeleton.
There was a time when, hailing from outskirts,
In a smoke of my boyish dreams,
I imagined riches and fame,
And being loved by all.
Yes! I’m rich, I’m rich beyond words.
I had a top hat; now I don’t.
All I’ve got left is one shirtfront
And a worn-out pair of fashionable shoes.
And my fame is no worse:
From Moscow to Paris
My name inspires horror
Like a loud swearword painted on a fence.
As to love—isn’t it funny?
You kiss me, but lips feel like tin.
I know, my feeling is overripe
And yours won’t be able to bloom.
Oh well, I’m too young to brood,
And if I’m sad—what of it?
Fresh grass that covers the hills
Rustles with more gold than your braids.
I’d love to go back to that place
Where, listening to rustling golden grass,
I could sink forever into oblivion
In the smoke of my boyish dreams.
But this time I’d dream of something new,
Something earth or grass can’t understand,
Something no heart can express in words
And no human being could name.
<1923>
* * *
A blue May. An eventide warmth.
The ring at the gate makes no sound.
Sticky smell wafts from the sagebrush.
The cherry tree sleeps in a white gown.
Through the wooden wings of the window,
The whimsical moon is weaving
The lace patterns of the fine curtains
And the window frames onto the floor.
Our living room might be small,
But it’s clean. I’m here at my leisure...
This night I’m enjoying my life
Like a pleasant thought of a friend.
The garden blazes like a frothy fire,
And the moon, straining all its powers,
Would like everyone to tremble
From the piercing word “darling.”
In this blossoming, in this smoothness,
Hearing the merry harmonica of May,
I’m the only one who wishes for nothing,
Who accepts everything as is.
I accept it—come and appear,
Everything that brings pain and relief...
Peace be with you, life that has rumbled by.
Peace be with you, light-blue chill.
<1925>
The Last Poet of the Village, a book of Anton Yakovlev's translations of selected poems by Sergei Yesenin, was published in 2019 by Sensitive Skin Books (https://sensitiveskinmagazine.com/books/the-last-poet-of-the-village). Yakovlev's most recent poetry chapbook Chronos Dines Alone (SurVision Books, 2018) won the James Tate Poetry Prize. He also the author of Ordinary Impalers (Kelsay Books, 2017) and two prior chapbooks: The Ghost of Grant Wood (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and Neptune Court (The Operating System, 2015). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Hopkins Review, Prelude, Measure, Narrative Northeast, and elsewhere. Born in Moscow, Russia, he is a graduate of Harvard University and the education director at Bowery Poetry Club.
One of the most important Russian poets of all time, Sergei Yesenin (1895-1925) was a founding member of the short-lived but influential Imaginist movement, which stood in contrast to Futurism and was related to Imagism in English. Originally from the village of Konstantinovo, Ryazan Province, Yesenin spent most of his adult life in Petrograd (later Leningrad, now St. Petersburg), but most of his poetry continued to focus on nature and traditional rural life. In 1922 he married the American dancer Isadora Duncan, but their marriage was short-lived. Though he initially supported the Bolshevik regime, the poet became disenchanted with it, recognizing the encroaching and destructive effects of Soviet industrialization on the peasant population. According to the official account, on the night of December 27, 1925, he hanged himself after writing his final poem in his own blood, though many experts, relatives, and friends of the poet have disputed the official narrative.
