Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov: The reed

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov

(Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов 1814 – 1841)

 

The reed

 

A fisherman sat humming

Beside a stream one day

And watched the wind of morning

The reeds and grasses sway.

He cut a reed, and, making

A hole in it or two,

To one end held a finger

And in the other blew.

 

The reed to life was wakened,

It spoke up with a sigh.

Was’t voice of wind or maiden,

Its gentle voice and shy?

"0 fisherman," it begged him,

"Do not torment me so.

0 fisherman, I pray you,

Hear out my tale of woe.

 

"A fair and lovely maiden

But motherless I was.

I bloomed, but bloomed unwanted,

By no one loved, alas!

My father he remarried

And took a witch to wife.

I called on death to claim me

So wretched was my life.

 

"The witch she had a dearly

Beloved son, had she,

A worthless rogue and scapegrace

Who fooled young maids was he.

I went with him one evening

To walk beside the stream

And watch its waters mirror

The sun’s last dying gleam.

 

"My love in vain he begged forþ

Him and his pleas i spurned.

Gold coins to me he offeredþ

In ire from him I turned.

Then with his knife he struck me.

He struck me in the breast.

A grave he dug and put me

There on the bank to rest.

 

"And o’er my grave soon after

There grew a slender reed,

And in it live the sorrows

That made my young heart bleed.

0 fisherman, pray leave me,

Do not disturb my sleep.

Alack, you cannot help me

And have not learnt to weep!…"

 

 

Mikhail Lermontov poetry

kempis.nl poetry magazine

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