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Sergei Esenin — Fifteen Poems (1913–1914)
Description
Fifteen lyrics by Sergei Esenin from 1913–1914, the years when the eighteen-year-old village poet was becoming a published voice: a white birch standing in sleepy silence under snow like silver, a suicide's farewell confession, a princess offered the corals of a poet's tears, spring herself drunk beneath the spells of merriment, a storm weeping at the window, children begging their grandmother for one more tale of Ivan the Fool, and the bylina of the little swan, who spreads her white wings over her cygnets and gives her life for them. The set closes in 1914 with the reeds rustling over the backwater, the white chiming of Trinity morning over the birches, and a farewell hidden inside a love song to his native land.
The fifteen poems, in order: Sad… The Heart's Torments (Грустно… Душевные муки); You Wept in the Evening Silence (Ты плакала в вечерней тишине); The Birch (Берёза); I Placed by Your Bedside (Я положил к твоей постели); Confession of a Suicide (Исповедь самоубийцы); To My Princess (Моей царевне); Spells (Чары); The Storm (Буря); You Left and Will Not Return to Me (Ты ушла и ко мне не вернёшься); Grandmother's Tales (Бабушкины сказки); The Little Swan (Лебёдушка); The Queen (Королева); The Reeds Rustled over the Backwater (Зашумели над затоном тростники); Trinity Morning, the Morning Canon (Троицыно утро, утренний канон); Beloved Land! My Heart Dreams (Край любимый! Сердцу снятся). By Sergei Esenin, in new English verse translations made for this show, read aloud over a gentle instrumental bed.
Esenin.
Intermission: "upload-8" — instrumental.
KacheliTV — Russian classics, read aloud.