EVGENY BARATYNSKY: "You're Useless, Days..."

"You're Useless, Days..."

1840
You’re useless, days! The earthly world will never
     Change its used games!
We know them all, and our future, clever,
     Predicts the same.

And not in vain you seethed and tossed in hurry
     To live and grow,
Before the body, you engraved your fit, so starry,
     My frenzied soul!    

And having closed long ago the narrow circuit 
     Of worldly sense,
You drowse under breathe of dreams, recurrent;
     But the body, else

Observes the day’s dawn, aimlessly supplanting
     Again the night, 
The fruitless evening, dully plunging, –
     The day’s end, blunt.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, January, 2001