Boris Pasternak

I dreamed of autumn through the glass half-lightened,
Of friends and you in their joyful band,
And, like a falcon, which took blood in fighting,
Heart was descending on your gentle hand.

But time did go, grew older, failed to hear, 
And only slightly silvering the frames,
Sunrise was catapulting bloody tears
Of late September on the glasses’ panes.

But time did go, grew older. And the crumbled,
Like ice, was thawing and breaking sofa’s silk.
And suddenly you stopped and stayed the silent,
And dream, like echo of a bell, did sink. 

I waked. The dawn was, like the autumn, blackened, 
The passed by wind was carrying far away, 
Like a straw rain running behind a hay-cart,   
The crag of birches running the sky’s gray.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, May, 2001