Original
Тоска
Тоска...без краю без конца...тоска...Тоска по солнцу и по небесам.Тоска, что молча прокричит в груди,Оставив радость позади.
Тоска по беззаботным детским дням,По разноцветным ярким снам,По лужам, по которым пробежалИ дискомфорта не узнал.
Тоска как всадник обуздалаМои мысли и предалаИм серо-смысловой оттенок,Напоминая, что уже я не ребенок.
Translation
Melancholy
Longing… without edge, without end… longing…Longing for the sun and for the skies.Longing that silently cries out in the chest,leaving joy behind.
Longing for the carefree days of childhood,for the bright, many-coloured dreams,for the puddles that I ran throughwithout ever knowing discomfort.
Longing, like a rider, has bridledmy thoughts, and given thema grey shade of meaning,reminding me that I'm no longer a child.
About the poem
The Russian word toska — an ache without object, famously untranslatable — is repeated until it becomes a sound. It is longing for the sun and the skies, and above all for childhood: “bright multicoloured dreams,” puddles run through without discomfort. Then the image that carries the poem: melancholy “like a horseman” has bridled the speaker’s thoughts and given them “a grey-semantic tint” — a coined adjective — “reminding me that I am no longer a child.” Nostalgia, diagnosed. Childhood is the hidden destination of the poem. The repeated toska begins as diffuse longing for weather and sky, then gradually reveals a more specific loss: the world once felt larger, warmer and less divided. Nostalgia becomes a longing for a former mode of perception.