Bored And Sad

It's boring and sad, and there's no one around
In times of my spirit's travail...
Desires!...What use is our vain and eternal desire?..
While years pass on by - all the best years!

To love...but love whom?.. a short love is vexing,
And permanent love's just a myth.
Perhaps look within? - The past's left no trace:
All trivial, joys and distress...

What good are the passions? For sooner or later
Their sweet sickness ends when reason speaks up;
And life, if surveyed with cold-blooded regard,-
Is stupid and empty - a joke...

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov

I Go Out On The Road Alone

Alone I set out on the road;
The flinty path is sparkling in the mist;
The night is still. The desert harks to God,
And star with star converses.

The vault is overwhelmed with solemn wonder
The earth in cobalt aura sleeps. . .
Why do I feel so pained and troubled?
What do I harbor: hope, regrets?

I see no hope in years to come,
Have no regrets for things gone by.
All that I seek is peace and freedom!
To lose myself and sleep!

But not the frozen slumber of the grave...
I'd like eternal sleep to leave
My life force dozing in my breast
Gently with my breath to rise and fall;

By night and day, my hearing would be soothed
By voices sweet, singing to me of love.
And over me, forever green,
A dark oak tree would bend and rustle.

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov

From Demon

Sailless and without a rudder,
On the ocean of the air--
Float the choirs of stars harmonious,
'Mid the mists eternal there;
Fleecy flocks of clouds elusive
Drift across immensity,
Leaving ne'er a track behind them,
Following their destiny.
Hour of parting, hour of meeting
They know not,--nor grief, nor rest--
Theirs no longing for the future,
Theirs no sorrow for the past.
By thy day of anguish broken,
Think of them and calm thy woe--
Be indifferent as they are
To the pangs of earth below!

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov