By M Yu Lermontov (1831)
Tr. Clark Nida (2017)
At midnight the Angel flew over the sky,
and his singing was quiet yet strong,
and the moon, and the stars, and the gathering clouds
paid heed to that glorious song.
He sang of the joy of the purified souls
in the groves of the gardens of bliss.
Of God the Almighty he sang, and his praise
fell unstrained and unfeigned from his lips.
In his arms he conveyed a new soul, to be born
on this planet of sorrows and strife;
and the sound of his song filled the spirit so young
to the brim – not with words, but with life.
Many years in the world has it languished, that soul,
yet an echo of wonder remains –
for the dull songs of earth never quite swept away
Angel Gabriel’s heavenly strains.
Whitby Writers Group 
I have to confess I struggle to take anapests seriously since Lewis Caroll.
“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,
“And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
Do you think, at your age, it is right?”
😉
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I’m sure the great Russian nation will be duly sympathetic of your struggles to take seriously the metre of one of their best-loved poems.
Not my choice – it’s the metre of the original.
Come to that, Lewis Carroll didn’t choose the metre of “Father William” either: it’s that of Robert Southey’s somewhat sententious original, which he mercilessly took off to ingratiate himself with his young audience.
I hope I’ve been a little more respectful to Lermontov’s original. A 24-carat Russian will be able to tell you.
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