'Hösten' av Pushkin

Dagens Dikt är ett känt verk av Aleksandr Sergejevitj Pusjkin, 1799-1837, rysk nationalskald och grundläggare av det ryska litteraturspråket. Hur vackert han beskriver denna årstid och sina känslor!  

Autumn

October's here already; the grove already is shaking from bare branches its last leaves; the breath of autumn begins to ice the roadway, the stream still rushes gurgling past the mill, but the mill pond is frozen; my sporting neighbour hurries off with his pack to the far fields. The winter corn suffers his boisterous pleasure, his yelping hounds disturb the forest's slumber.   Now is my time. I bear no love for spring: the floods, the mud, the stink - I feel unhealthy, my blood ferments, longing chokes heart and mind. Better harsh winter; then I can feel happy, I love the snows, and then beneath the moon the freedom of a sleigh ride, gliding swiftly, a fresh-faced girl, wrapped in sable furs, giving your hand a timid, passionate squeeze. And what a joy to race across the mirror of frozen ponds with sharp steel on your feet! And the excitement of those winter parties...! But there's a limit; the snow goes on for weeks and months, even a bear at length would suffer from boredom. After all, we can't devote a life to sleigh rides with these young Armidas or moping by the stove behind sealed windows. Ah! gorgeous summer, I would love you, but the heat, the dust, the flies, and the mosquitoes! You torture us; our souls, once rich, grow flat, we suffer like the barren fields, drought-stricken, just longing for some freshness, for a glass - that one thought fills our minds. We miss old winter, and having seen her off with cakes and wine, with ice and ice-cream we recall her reign. People have harsh words for these days of autumn, but, reader, they are dear to me, I love their unassuming light, their quiet beauty. Autumn attracts me like a neglected girl among her sisters. And, to be quite honest, she is the only one that warms my heart. She has her good points; whimsically dreaming and free from vanity, I find her charms appealing. How can I put it? She perhaps appeals as sometimes a young sufferer from consumption catches my eye. Unseen, her death awaits, and without protest, quietly she sickens; she cannot sense the yawning of the grave, but life fades from the lips that still are smiling; a rosy hue still plays around her eyes, today she is alive, tomorrow dies. A mournful time of year! Its sad enchantment flatters my vision with a parting grace - I love the sumptuous glow of fading nature, the forests clad in crimson and in gold, the shady coolness and the wind's dull roaring, the heavens all shrouded in a billowing mist and the rare gleams of sun, the early hoarfrosts, and distant grey-beard winter's gloomy portents. Each autumn's coming makes me bloom anew; my health is well served by the cold of Russia; I feel a new love for the old routines, sleep has its turn, and after it comes hunger; the blood runs light and cheerful through the veins, desires flock in - happy again, and youthful, I'm full of life again - my organism is like that ( pardon my prosaicism). Tossing his mane, my steed carries his rider over the open flatlands, and beneath his glistening hooves he rouses up the echoes in frozen valleys and cracks the ringing ice. But then the short day fades, a fire blazes in the forgotten hearth, now casting a bright flame, now crumbling slowly, while I sit there reading or give my drifting thoughts their hour of freedom. And I forget the world, in blissful peace I am sweetly lulled by my imagination, and poetry awakens in me then; my soul, hard pressed by lyric agitation, trembles, resounds and seeks as if in sleep to surface finally in free expression - and I receive a host of guests unseen, old-time acquaintances, fruits of my dreams, And in my head thoughts spring into existence, and rhymes dance out to meet them, and the hand stretches toward the pen, the pen to paper, and verse comes unimpeded pouring out. So a ship, motionless in motionless water, lies dreaming, then suddenly the sailors race and climb aloft, wind swells the sails, the vessel moves slowly out, bow cutting through billows, and sails away. Where shall we sail to ...?