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Alexander Pushkin
7

THREE SPRINGS[1]

Three springs in life's unbroken joyless desert
Mysteriously issue from the sands:
The spring of youth, uneven and rebellious,
Bears swift its sparkling stream through sunny lands;
Life's exiles drink the wave of inspiration
That swells the limpid fount of Castaly;
But 'tis the deep, cold wellspring of oblivion
That slakes most sweetly thirst and ecstasy.

  1. Tr. by Avrahm Yarmolinsky.