The Gods As They Are, On Their Planets - The Poet's Press

AUTUMN
A Fragment by Alexander Pushkin, 1833
A new English paraphrase
“To the drowsy intellect, all things are possible…”
Derzhavin
I
October! It comes at last. The grove shakes
from naked boughs the last reluctant leaves.
The road is iced with autumn’s chilling breath —
I hear the brook behind the turning mill,
but the pond is still; a neighbor with dogs
tramps to the distant fields — his hounds disturb
the peace of forest, his horse’s hoof-falls
knock down and trample the winter wheat.
II
My season now! Spring is a bore to me.
The dull thaw: mud everywhere thick and vile —
Spring dizzies me, as my mind obsesses
daydreaming, my blood in giddy ferment.
Winter’s austerity is what I need,
white snows beneath a whiter moon — what joy
to glide airily in a speeding sleigh
with one whose clasping fingers burn like fire!
III
The fun of it, skating steel-shod on ice,
tracing a pattern on the river’s face!
The air aglow with winter’s festivals!
But even Winter palls — no one can love
six months of snowfall — even the cave bear
in his drowsy den would say “Enough, now!”
Sleigh-rides with jolly youths grow tedious,
and we grow quarrelsome cooped in all day.
IV
You, peach-fuzz Summer — you I could cherish,
except for heat and dust, and biting flies.
These bring dullness. The sated heart wears down.
Our inspiration is a dried-up creek.
Iced tea is not enough; we turn to drink,
we rue the Winter hag, whose funeral
served up wine and blini. What little chill
we get comes from the freezer, sweet and cold.
We spoon out ices, and we think of snow.
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