Ivan Bunin - In the Mountains

The poetry is dark.  I can’t find words to tell
How moved I was by this wild solitary slant.
The empty stony dale,  the hills that sheeps infest,
The shepherd’s smoky fire, the bitterness of scent !   


My heart was strangely glad and tortured seeing this,
It said: “Come back, come back, it’s there you need to rest!”
The distant smoke puffed sweet into my yearning breast,
With envy and regret, I go past mountain crest.


The poetry's not what the world would call it,
It’s in the heritage that I forever hold.
The greater heritage, the greater is the poet.


I tell myself when sensed the dark forgotten trace
Of what my ancestor had known in ancient days:
- All souls are one, and timeless is their pace.


1916/2012


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