Clouds. (An Experiment in Russian Dactyls.)
Cloudlets ethereal wandering ceaselessly,
Floating in pearly chains over the azure deep;
Maybe, as even I, suffering banishment,2
Leaving your own dear North, southward perforce you sweep.
What is compelling you? Destiny’s ordinance?
Envy invisible? Open iniquity?
Maybe deeds criminal heavily press on you;
Maybe the slander of friendship’s obliquity.
No! you are simply aweary of fruitless fields;
Strangers to passions and strangers to punishment.
Frigid eternally, free everlastingly,
You have no country, and cannot know banishment!
Footnotes
2 Lermontof was banished from St. Petersburg to the Caucasus.