Konstantin Balmont

Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont (Russian: Константин Дмитриевич Бальмонт) (June 15, 1867—December 24, 1942) was a Russian symbolist poet, translator, one of the major figures of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry.

Biography
He was born ito a noble family near Vladimir. In 1886 he entered the Moscow University, but was excluded the next year. He started poetic activity in the end of 1890s, and became famous in 1905 after having published several compilations of poems. In the end of 1905 he illegally left Russia for Paris, traveled extensively, and returned to Moscow only in 1916. He accepted enthusiastically the February Revolution, but was against the October Revolution of 1917, and left Russia for Germany, and subsequently for France in 1920. He spent the last 20 years of his life in emigration and in poverty. He died in 1942 in Noisy-le-Grand, a suburb of Paris.

Barque of Yearning
for Prince A. I. Urusov

Evening. Seashore. A sighing wind.
Majestic waves roar.
A storm is near. A black barque,
Stranger to charm, batters the shore.

Stranger to the pure charms of joy,
A barque of yearning, a barque of trouble
Quits the shore to battle the storm,
Searching for a palace of bright dreams.

It flies along the shore, it flies along the sea,
Surrendering to the will of the waves.
A matte moon observes it,
A moon full of bitter sorrow.

The evening is dead. The night blackens.
The sea rumbles. The gloom deepens.
The barque of yearning is seized by darkness.
The storm howls in the watery depths.

1894