Original
Своенравность
Мне нравится быть умным,Всех понимать и даже знать,Со всех смеяться смехом лунным,Но в виде этого не подавать.
Мне нравится…, но нравилось б мне больше,Когда столь умных встречал я чаще,Чтоб иногда всерьез поговорить О истине вселенной, и мысль оцарить.
Translation
Willfulness
I like to be clever,to understand them all, and even know,to laugh at all of them with a lunar laugh,and never let it show.
I like it…, but I'd like it moreif I met such clever ones more often,to talk in earnest now and then about the truth of the universe — and enthrone a thought.
About the poem
Eight lines of self-portrait. The speaker likes being clever, understanding everyone, laughing “with a lunar laugh” and letting nothing show — and would like it more if he met clever people more often, to talk seriously “about the truth of the universe” and, in a verb of his own coinage, to “crown a thought.” The vanity is admitted and the loneliness behind it is the point. The poem’s confidence is deliberately edged with loneliness. Intelligence becomes both pride and barrier: to see through others is satisfying until there is no equal mind nearby. The “lunar laugh” makes self-possession feel theatrical, as if the speaker knows the mask is part of the problem.