Alexander Pushkin

 

Signs

by Alexander Pushkin

To thee I rode: living dreams then
Behind me winding in playful crowd;
My sportive trot my shoulder over
The moon upon my right was chasing.

From thee I rode: other dreams now. . . .
My loving soul now sad was,
And the moon at left my side
Companion mine now sad was.

To dreaming thus in quiet ever
Singers we are given over;
Marks thus of superstition
Soul's feeling with are in accord!

1829

Translators Notes:
Of the more-than-Egyptian number of plagues with which poor Pushkin's soul was afflicted, superstition was one. He believed in signs, and sometimes gave up a journey when a hare ran across his road. Owing to this superstition he once gave up a trip to St. Petersburg, which probably would have cost him his life, had he made it. For on hearing of the December rebellion, in which many of his friends took part, he started for the capital, but the hare . . .

Source:

Poems
Copyright 1888
Translator: Translated from the Russian, By Ivan Panin
Cupples And Hurd, 94 Boylston Street, Boston