Yesterday was my last Russian class - they don't run over the summer, disappointingly, although I may be able to work out some individual classes for June and July. On Monday we're coming in for an event celebrating Pushkin's birthday, and we're each going to recite a poem. Natalia, my teacher, had originally offered me this one, and then changed her mind as she remembered someone else was doing it. But I still think it's wonderful.

К ***

Я помню чудное мгновенье,
Передо мной явилась ты,
Как мимолётное виденье,
Как гений чистый красоты.

В томленьях грусти безнадежной,
В тревогах шумной суеты,
Звучал мне долго голос нежный
И снились милые черты.

Шли годы. Бурь порыв мятежный
Рассеял прежние мечты,
И я забыл твои голос нежный,
Твои небесные черты.

В глуши, во мраке заточенья
Тянулись тихо дни мои
Без божества, без вдохновенья,
Без слёз, без жизни, без любви.

Душе настало пробужденье:
И вот опять явилась ты,
Как мимолётное виденье,
Как гений чистой красоты.

И сердце бьётся в упоение,
И для него воскресли вновь
И божество, и вдохновенье,
И жизнь, и слёзы, и любовь.

And in English, translation into unrhymed tetrameter by Dmitri Smirnov:

To ***

I keep in mind that magic moment:
When you appeared before my eyes
Like ghost, like fleeting apparition,
Like genius of the purest grace.

In torturous hopeless melancholy,
In vanity and noisy fuss
I’ve always heard your tender voice
I saw your features in my dreams.

Years passed away, and blasts of tempests
Have scattered all my previous dreams,
And I forgot your tender voice,
And holy features of your face.

In wilderness, in gloomy capture
My lonely days were slowly drawn:
I had not faith, no inspiration,
No tears, no life, no tender love.

But time has come, my soul awakened,
And you again appeared to me
Like ghost, like fleeting apparition,
Like genius of the purest grace.

My heart again pulsates in rapture,
And everything arouse again:
My former faith, and inspiration,
And tears, and life, and tender love.