Translation of Poem by Boris Pasternak, Борис Пастернак, "Единственные дни," THE DAYS OF ONE AND ONLY

 

Борис Пастернак
(1890-1960)

                                                                Единственные дни
На протяженье многих зим
Я помню дни солнцеворота,
И каждый был неповторим
И повторялся вновь без счета.
 
И целая их череда
Составилась мало-помалу —
Тех дней единственных, когда
Нам кажется, что время стало.
 
Я помню их наперечет:
Зима подходит к середине,
Дороги мокнут, с крыш течет
И солнце греется на льдине.
 
И любящие, как во сне,
Друг к другу тянутся поспешней,
И на деревьях в вышине
Потеют от тепла скворешни.
 
И полусонным стрелкам лень
Ворочаться на циферблате,
И дольше века длится день,
И не кончается объятье.
 
1959 г.

d

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

                                                  The Days Of One and Only

Over the course of winters galore
In memory the solar days tend all to blend,
Yet each one was always unique, evermore,
But repeated, for all that, anew without end.
 
And taken as a whole their sequence
Came little by little to make up, comprise
The days one and only when in sheer obsequence,
Time, so it seemed, had stood still in surprise.
 
I recall equinoxes in March, every one:
As winter approaches its midpoint brief doze,
The roofs dripping water, the wet roadways dun, 
The sun goes sunbathing on frigid ice-floes.
 
And as if in a dreamscape all lovers and spouses
Are quicker to reach out and touch one another,
And up in the trees, even higher than houses,
Dovecotes are sweating in warmth-suffused smother.
 
And lethargy hampers the hands on the clock,
Half-asleep, they neglect to click through by and by,  
So that one day lasts longer than igneous rock,
And embraces go on for all ever and aye. 

 

d

 

Translator’s Note

 In the first stanza I use the generic term “solar days” for the four principal days that mark important changes in the solar calendar: winter solstice and summer solstice, fall equinox and spring equinox. Pasternak here uses the word солнцеворот, which I associate most commonly with the winter solstice, but, later on in the poem, descriptions of what the weather is doing (the dovecotes sweating in warmth, roofs dripping water, the sun sunbathing on ice-floes) suggest the spring equinox (always around March 21). The internet informs me that this year (2026) the spring (vernal) equinox in the Northern Hemisphere occurred on March 20 at 10:46 a.m. ET.