Mikhail Lermontov (1814-41), is one of Russia's best-known poets, dying tragically young, like Keats, at the age of 26.
He traced his ancestry to Scotland. Now, on his bicentenary, a collection of his poems have been translated into English and Scots. The sample below may suggest echoes of Byron's She Walks in Beauty. (After Lermontov, edited by Peter France and Robyn Marsack, Carcanet in association with the Scottish Poetry Library, £12.95.)
SHE DOES NOT WITH DISDAINFUL BEAUTY
She does not with disdainful beauty
Seek to entice the lively young,
Nor does she lead, scornful and haughty,
Admirers in a sighing throng.
Nor is her figure truly divine,
Nor does her breast curve like a wave;
No one would fall to the ground, enshrine
Her in his heart, become her slave.
And yet and yet her every movement,
Feature, and utterance and smile
Are redolent of life, so brilliant,
Simple, and so free from guile.
While her voice pierces the spirit
Like a warm touch of days gone by;
And the heart loves yet suffers to hear it,
As though it might that love deny.
Translated by Anna Crowe
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