Mikhail Lermontov

No, not with you I fell in love so fast,
And not for me your beauty is succeeding;
I love in you my suffering preceding,
And youth of mine, that perished in the past.

And when sometimes my look is long and hard,
And penetrates your eyes of high perfection;
I'm busy with a secret conversation,
But not to you I send my words of heart.

To my youth's girl, my word of soul flies,
In features yours, I seek for other dears,
In lips alive -- the lips, so mute for years,
In eyes -- the flame of the extinguished eyes.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, May, 1998
Edited by Dmitry Karshtedt, May, 2001