The Promise Lyrics
for your dear homeland far away.
I can’t forget how, broken-hearted,
I wept and wept with you that day.
My hands, ice-cold and void of feeling,
strove to detain you forcibly;
with choking cries I kept appealing
“Stay on – prolong my agony!”
You firmly, though, cut short my anguished
kisses and disengaged my hand.
You urged: “This land where you’ve been banished–
now leave it for a brighter land;
and there I’ll greet you,” you kept saying,
“where skies are ever blue and clear,
where shady olive boughs are swaying.
We’ll kiss then once again, my dear.”
But there, alas, where sunlight dances
from clear blue skies across the deep,
and where the olives spread their branches –
there you now sleep a lasting sleep.
Your pain, your loveliness too fleeting,
are gone now to the grave below...
but where’s your promised kiss of greeting?
For that I wait still: that you owe.
About
Alexander Pushkin was a Russian poet of two hundred years ago. Banished by the government to southern Russia, he met a girl from Italy called Amalia. They had an intense affair, but she grew ill with consumption and was sent back home for medical treatment. They hoped to meet again in Italy, but Pushkin was never allowed to leave Russia. A year after her return home Amalia died, still only 22. Later, when Pushkin heard the news, he was unable to assimilate her loss and wrote her this poem. (Roger Clarke)
Roger Clarke graduated in Classics at Cambridge University and has travelled widely in Europe, including Russia and Ukraine. He has translated works of Latin, French, and Russian literature and has a particular interest in Pushkin. He is series editor for OneWorld Classics’ new Pushkin in English project, the aim of which is to publish in paperback English translations of all Pushkin’s works.
Clarke’s new translation of Pushkin’s Love Poems is available from IPG here.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
