Jealousy

by Alexander Pushkin

Damp day's light is quenched: damp night's darkness
Stretches over the sky its leaden garment.
Like a ghost, from behind the pine wood
Foggy moon has risen . . .
All brings upon my soul darkness grievous.
Far, far away rises the shining moon,
There the earth is filled with evening warmth
There the sea moveth with luxuriant wave
Under the heavens blue . . .
Now is the time. On the hillside now she walks
To the shore washed by noisy waves.
There, under the billowed cliffs
Alone she sits now melancholy . . .
Alone . . . none before her weeping, grieves not,
Her knees none kisses in ecstasy.
Alone . . . to lips of none she is yielding
Her shoulders, nor moist lips, nor snow-white fingers.
None is worthy of her heavenly love.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Is it not so? Thou art alone . . . Thou weepest . . .
And I at peace?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
But if . . .

1823

Translators Notes:
The translation being literal, I have been able to retain even the punctuation of Pushkin, and especially his dots, of which he makes such frequent use. They are part of his art; they express by what they withhold. I call especial attention to these, as Pushkin is as powerful in what he indicates as in what he shows, in what he suggests as in what he actually says. The finest example of the highest poetry of his silence (indicated by his dots) is the poem I have entitled " Jealousy," The poet is melted with tenderness at the thought of his beloved all alone, far-off, weeping. The fiendish doubt suddenly overpowers him, that after all, perhaps his beloved is at that moment not alone, weeping for him, but in the arms of another: -- One must be all vibration in order to appreciate the matchless power of the dots here. The poem here ends. I know not the like of this in all literature.