Ah, when our last years come in sight,
love’s onset can turn out to be less ominous
if finally we get it right
and of a dominatrix are the dominus.
Inspired by Alan Myers’s translation of the first stanza of Tyutchev “Last Love” (1852-1854) , taken from his “Denisieva Cycle, ” dedicated toa woman twenty-three years younger than the poet, with who he carried on an illicit love affair until she died of tuberculosis, and cited by Alexander Nemser in a review of “Verses and Versions: Centuries of Russian Poetry, ” translated by Vladimir Nabokov, edited by Brian Boyd and Stanislav Shvabrin (TNR, March 4,2009) :
Ah, when our last years come in sight,
How sweet, how ominous love's onset...
Shine on, shine on, departing light,
As love's last gleaming fades to sunset.
2/21/09
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem