Afanasy Fet

I have come to you with greeting, to tell you that the sun has risen, and that its hot light has started to quiver in the leaves;

to tell you that the whole forest is awake in its every branch and full of the thirst of spring, and that every bird within it has stirred;

to tell you that I have come again with the same passion which filled me yesterday, and that my soul is as ready as before to serve happiness and you;

to tell you that a breath of joy comes to me from everywhere, and that I do not know what I shall sing; I only know that a song is ripening.

By Afanasy Fet, from The Penguin Book of Russian Verse, introduced and edited by Dimitri Obolensky, with plain prose translations of each poem. Penguin Books (1962).

Portrait of Fet by Ilya Repin.


Recently Acquired:
Don Juan, by George Gordon, Lord Byron, illustrated by Hugo Steiner-Prag, Heritage Press, New York (1943).

Update:
In the Forum, an accident here leads to a brutal revision here.