Saturday Rave: The Cloud by Alexandr Pushkin

 Alexandr Pushkin is Russian literature's founding poet, and he is  generally reckoned by Russians to be their greatest poet, too.

Now, what kind of poems would you expect from a Russian poet who lived from 1799 to 1837, thus dying young (as a result of a duel with his wife's alleged lover) in a time of revolution and therefore being just about as Romantic as it is possible to be?

Well, probably not a hopeful one like this:

The last cloud of a scattered a tempest,

You fly alone in azure, the prettiest thing.

Alone you bring in woeful shade,

Alone you sadden a day that should be glad.

 

Not long ago you stormed the skies. Mighty,

And entwined with potent lightning,

You were the womb of divine thunder,

And quenched with rain the thirsty earth.

 

Enough, now: vanish! You cannot last forever.

The earth is refreshed and the tempest has fled,

And now the wind, fondling the leaves of the trees

With pleasure, is banishing you from the blissful sky.  

Word To Use Today: tempest. This word comes through French from the Latin tempestās, storm, from tempus, which means time.