Original
Секрет
Надо трудитсяНе смотря ни на что,И этот трудПринесет тебе все.
Надо работать над собою,Над внутренним и внешним,Над телом и над душою,Чтоб оставаться успешным.
Ведь не тот успешен,Кто добиваясь успехаОставался грешен,А слава – его потеха.
Translation
Secret
One must work —no matter what;and this workwill bring you everything.
One must work upon oneself:on the inner and the outer,on the body and the soul,so as to stay successful.
For not he is successfulwho, in achieving success,stayed a sinner,and fame — was his amusement.
About the poem
The secret is labour. “You must work no matter what, and this work will bring you everything” — on yourself, “the inner and the outer, the body and the soul.” Not he is successful who reached success and “remained sinful, and fame is his amusement,” but he who works. The first stanza returns at the end in the third person, closing the ring. Read with SUCCESS IS NO SIN from the first section: there ambition was defended; here its price is named. Its plainness is almost programmatic. After so many poems about fate, society and feeling, success is reduced to sustained work on body and soul. The poem treats labour as a private discipline before it becomes a public result, shifting responsibility back toward the self.