Russian Poems

Yesenin

"And in a drunken stupor, shameless and uncontrite, I embrace a little birch, like someone else's bride."

"He who has loved cannot love again, consumed by flames, he cannot be relit."

"Yet nothing in my past regret
Neither the years of futile waste,
Nor my soul's high lilac-time."

"I'm as tender as before..."

"In life it's been my lot to suffer
Loss too early and weariness."

"And don't teach me to pray.  What need?
There is no going back to then."

"They lay me in a Russian shirt
To die beneath an icon's face."

"I'd have been a thief and a cheat
If I'd not turned out a poet."

"Ashamed I once believed in God,
I'm bitter I no longer do."

"Here on earth I wished to marry
The white rose and the black toad."

"If devils roosted in my soul
It means that angels live there too."

"I do not regret, complain, or weep,
All passes, like smoke off the white apple trees.
Autumn's gold has me in its withering grip.
I shall never be young again."