Poem of the Day: ‘A Winter Evening’

Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837) is the foundation of Russian literature. No matter the place of Gogol, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy; the poets Akhmatova, Mayakovsky, Mandelstam. They all rest on Pushkin, building on the stones that he laid down.It would be wrong to say that Pushkin is unknown to English readers. The verse novel “Eugene Onegin” is often named by critics. Such short stories as “The Queen of Spades” and “The Shot” get mentioned, along with the dramas “The Stone Guest” and “Mozart and Salieri.” But these are, in truth, more often gestured at than read.Interestingly, however, his 1825 poem “A Winter Evening” has been translated into English at least ten times, including today’s Poem of the Day: a translation by Emily Dickinson’s niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi (1866–1943), in her 1910 book “Russian Lyrics and Cossack Songs.” Bianchi was not the poet her aunt was, but she was competent at rhyme and meter, with the languages to undertake this small bit of Pushkin — having learned Russian during her brief and bad marriage to a Russian imperial horse guard she met in Bohemia in 1902.In Pushkin’s Russian, the four eight-line stanzas are rhymed ababcdcd, but Bianchi simplifies by skipping the a and c rhymes, while keeping the four-beat trochaic lines of Pushkin’s tetrameter. In the old American classic, John Greenleaf Whittier’s 1866 “Snow-Bound” (a Poem of the Day last winter), the answer to the season’s snow is companionship and reading. For the Russian Pushkin, the answer is also companionship — and alcohol: “Thou true-souled companion dear, / Let us drink!” Sure, “Fearsome darkness fills the kitchen, / Drear and lonely our retreat,” but “Wine will fill our hearts with cheer.”A Winter Eveningby Alexander PushkinSable clouds by tempest driven,Snowflakes whirling in the gales,Hark — it sounds like grim wolves howling,Hark — now like a child it wails!Creeping through the rustling straw thatch,Rattling on the mortared walls,Like some weary wanderer knocking —On the lowly pane it falls.Fearsome darkness fills the kitchen,Drear and lonely our retreat,Speak a word and break the silence,Dearest little Mother, sweet!Has the moaning of the tempestClosed thine eyelids wearily?Has the spinning wheel’s soft whirringHummed a cradle song to thee?Sweetheart of my youthful Springtime,Thou true-souled companion dear —Let us drink! Away with sadness!Wine will fill our hearts with cheer.Sing the song how free and carelessBirds live in a distant land —Sing the song of maids at morningMeeting by the brook’s clear strand!Sable clouds by tempest driven,Snowflakes whirling in the gales,Hark — it sounds like grim wolves howling,Hark — now like a child it wails!Sweetheart of my youthful Springtime,Thou true-souled companion dear,Let us drink! Away with sadness!Wine will fill our hearts with cheer!___________________________________________With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems are drawn from the deep traditions of English verse: the great work of the past and the living poets who keep those traditions alive. The goal is always to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘A Winter Evening’

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