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Alexander Pushkin: "What's in my name for you?" (From Russian)

"What's in my name for you?
By Alexander Pushkin
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me recite the original Russian

What�s in my name for you? What good?
It will but die as the sad sound
of a wave that's splashed its last aground,
a cry out in the toneless wood.

Lifeless its marks will lie among
these album pages: the design
of someone's epitaphic line
in some unfathomable tongue.

What's in it then? Lost to the past
in new emotions' wild infection,
upon your soul it will not cast
the tender rays of recollection.

But on a silent day of rue
pronounce it with a sigh of pain
and say "One memory is true!
There beats one heart where I remain!�


The Original:


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??? ?????, ??? ??? ?????????
?????, ?????????? ? ????? ???????,  
??? ???? ?????? ? ???? ??????.

??? ?? ???????? ??????
??????? ??????? ????, ????????
????? ??????? ??????????
?? ?????????? ?????.

??? ? ???? ??????? ?????
? ????????? ????? ? ????????,
????? ???? ?? ???? ???
???????????? ??????, ??????.

?? ? ???? ??????, ? ??????,
????????? ??? ??????;
?????: ???? ?????? ??? ???,
???? ? ???? ??????, ??? ???? ?�   

Cto v �meni teb� moj�m?
On� umr�t, kak �um pec�ljnyj
Voln�, plesn�v�ej v b�reg d�ljnyj,
Kak zvuk nocn�j v les� gluh�m.

On� na p�mjatnom listk�
Ost�vit m�rtvyj sled, pod�bnyj
Uz�ru n�dpisi nadgr�bnoj
na neponj�tnom jazyk�.

Cto v n�m? Zab�toje davn�
V voln�njah n�vyh i mjat�nyh,
Tvoj�j du�� ne dast on�
Vospomin�nij c�styh, n�nyh.

No v denj pec�li v ti�in�,
Proiznes� jeg� tosk�ja;
Ska��: jestj p�mjatj �bo mne,
Jestj v m�re s�rdce gde �iv� ja...

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