Last Love
O, how in our waning days
We love more tenderly and more obsessively. . .
Shine on, shine on, the parting rays
Of our last love, our setting sun!
Shadow's embraced the heavens,
A glow still wanders in the West,-
Hold back, hold back, o dying day,
Prolong, prolong enchantment.
The blood may thin within our veins,
But in our hearts some tenderness still reigns. . .
O you, our final love!
You are both paradise and bane.
poem by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev
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Just as the ocean cradles our earth's orb...
Just as the ocean cradles our earth's orb,
This earthly life's by dreams surrounded;
Night falls, against the shore
The waters beat in roaring waves.
This is its voice: it beckons us and calls . . .
The magic bark is stirring in its mooring;
The tide swells up and sweeps us rapidly away
Into the fathomless dark waves.
The heavenly vault, ablaze with glorious stars,
Gazes inscrutably out of the depths
And we sail on, surrounded on all sides
By the abyss in flames.
poem by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev
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She sat upon the floor...
She sat upon the floor
Looking through a pile of letters,
She took them up and tossed them
Like so many cold ashes.
She took the familiar pages
And gazed at them strangely,
The way souls look from above
At their discarded bodies . . .
O, how much life was in them,
Life irrevocably lived!
O, how many bitter moments,
How much love and joy now dead! . . .
I stood silently aside
Ready to fall on my knees,
And I grew terribly sad,
As if in the presence of a dear ghost.
poem by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev
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Don't say he loves me as before...
Don't say he loves me as before,
That, as before, he treasures me...
no! He callously destroys my life,
Although I see the knife shake in his hand.
In anger, weeping, yearning, indignation,
Obsessed and wounded in my soul,
I have no life - I struggle...for him alone I live -
But what a life!.. O, what a bitter life it is!
How stingily he measures out the air for me...
Less generous than to a mortal foe...
Oh, drawing breath is difficult and painful,
I can still breathe, but I can live no more.
poem by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev
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As In The Globe Embraced By Ocean
As is the globe embraced by ocean, so
Embraced is earthly life by dreams and fancies.
Night comes unsought, and at the shore's defences
The breakers strike blow after blow.
Their call is loud: they plead and onward urge us...
A magic boat waits in the harbour - we
Are by the tide borne off that round us surges
Into the seas' infinity.
From out the depths the sky stares, strange and boundless,
By blazing stars in all their glory lit,
And we sail on, the vastness all around us
A fathomless and fiery pit.
poem by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev
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There Is A Spell In Autumn
There is a spell in autumn early,
One all too brief, of an enchantment rare:
The nights are radiant and pearly,
The days, pellucid, crystal-clear.
Where played the sickle and fell the corn, a mellow,
A warm and breathless stillness reigns supreme;
Spanning the brown and idle furrow,
A dainty thread of cobweb gleams.
The birds have flown, we hear no more their clamour,
But winter's angry winds not soon will start to blow -
Upon the empty fields there pours the azure glow
Of skies that have not lost the warmth of summer.
poem by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev
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Cicero
The Roman orator spoke out
'midst civil war and strife:
'Too long I slumbered, and Rome's night
Has overtaken me upon my journey!'
True! But in parting with Rom's glory
From the Capitoline heights
You watched in all its grandeur
The setting of her bloody sun! . . .
Blessed are they who sojourned here
In this world's fateful hours-
For they were summoned by the angels
As guests to a great feast;
They witnessed spectacles majestic,
Were brought into the inner circle,
And, while there, drank immortal life
From heav'n's own chalice!
poem by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev
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Autumn Evening
There is a wistful charm, a tenderness,
Mysterious and soft, in autumn's even:
The trees in weird and brilliant garments dress,
The gory leaves to whispered talk are given;
Above the sad and orphaned earth the skies
Lie veiled and bleak, the sun's departure mourning,
And gusty winds with sudden anger rise,
Of pending storms the grim and chilly warning...
Fatigue, decline, and - over all - the worn
And wasting spirit's smile, doomed soon to vanish,
That lights a sufferer's face and that is born
Of modesty, the godlike pride of anguish.
poem by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev
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When Life Is But A Round Of Crushing Care
When life is but a round of crushing care
And, a great heap of stones, lies heavy on us,
There suddenly, God knows how, why, upon us
A joyous mood descends... Of balmy air
A breath comes from the past and, o'er us drifting,
Invades the heart, its fearful burden lifting.
At times with autumn's coming is it so,
When empty lie the fields, when bare the groves are,
And paler turn the skies - and of a sudden, over
The darkened earth a damp wind starts to blow.
A fallen leaf it chases with elation
And to our hearts of spring brings a sensation.
poem by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev
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My Love For You, Sweet Earth
My love for you, sweet Earth, my mother,
I cannot hide - I do not crave
The phantom pleasures of that other,
That spectral world beyond the grave.
O spring, the blessedness of Eden
Compared to yours as nothing is!
Love's joys you bring us all unbidden,
And golden dreams, and light, and bliss.
What rapture to drink in the balmy,
Warm air of spring, to languor wed,
And watch the clouds drift slowly, calmly
High in the blueness overhead;
To wander happily and idly
Across a field and past a stream,
To catch the scent of blooming lilac
Or chance upon a radiant dream!..
poem by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev
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