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“The Clouds” by Mikhail Lermontov 🇷🇺 (15 Oct 181427 Jul 1841)
Translated from the Russian by Dmitri Smirnov
Clouds in the sky, you are ceaselessly wandering,
As pearly chains in the azure steppes glimmering,
Exiled as I have been, constantly hurrying
From native North into South you are quickening.
What drives you there: the command of your destiny?
Some secret jealousy? Or open wickedness?
Or crimes hang heavy on you or some mutiny?
Or your friends’ calumny is cruel and poisonous?
No, you were bored to death with these fields’ fruitlessness
With all these passions and alien misery,
Ice cold eternally, in steady idleness
You have no homeland and suffer no outlawry.