Translation of Poem by Fyodor Tyutchev, Ф.И.Тютчев, "Сияет солнце, воды блещут," "Sunshine sparkles, water shimmers"

 

Fyodor Tyutchev

(1803-1873)

 

Сияет солнце, воды блещут,

На всем улыбка, жизнь во всем,

Деревья радостно трепещут,

Купаясь в небе голубом.

 

Поют деревья, блещут воды,

Любовью воздух растворен,

И мир, цветущий мир природы,

Избытком жизни упоен.

 

Но и в избытке упоенья

Нет упоения сильней

Одной улыбки умиленья

Измученной души твоей...

 

July 28, 1852

 

Ф.И.Тютчев. Полное собрание стихотворений.
Ленинград, "Советский писатель", 1957.

 

d

Literal Translation

The sun is shining, the waters gleaming,

There’s a smile on everything, life is in everything,

The trees [leaves]are joyfully trembling,

As they bathe in the azure sky.

 

Waters gleam, trees sing,

The air is suffused with love,

And the world, the blossoming world of nature,

Is ecstatic with a surfeit of life.

 

But in this surfeit of rapture

There is no rapture stronger

Than the tenderness of a single smile

Of your tormented soul…

 

d

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

Sunshine sparkles, water shimmers,

Life’s suffused with honeydew; 

Leaves on trees in quavers, glimmers,

Frisk, exult in skies of blue.

 

Waters shimmer, treetops sing,

The very air with love is rife;

Nature blooming welcomes spring, 

Its plethora of carefree life. 

 

But in this glut of sheer rank bliss

No bliss can best my heart console

Than one soft smile of tenderness

From deep inside your harried soul.

 

(For Jacquelyn Teresa Bowie on her 75th birthday, Dec. 7, 2021)