Mikhail Lermontov

My home is always there,in the heaven's vault,
      Where one just hears lyre's sounds,
All with a spark of life have here their resort,
      A bard has, too, a space around.

It gets the farthest stars by edges of his roof,
      And from a wall to one another
There is a path whose measure can be proved
      Not by a look, but by a soul, rather.

A sense of basic truth in every soul nests -
      The seed that's sacred and eternal:
In flesh of time it always can embrace
      Space, endless, and the century's kernel.


And mighty God has built for this exclusive sense
      My home of the light and wonders,
And only here I'm doomed to sufferings at length,
      And only here - to calmness.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, October, 2000
Edited by Dmitry Karshtedt, May, 2001