Soft Sound

When in a town beside the sea

on a cloudy night, you’re bored

and open up the window, see

how far-off whispered sounds are poured.

Distinguish as you listen close

the ocean’s sound, upon land breathing,

to protect by night all those

who listen to it with soul heeding.

You cannot hear the sea all day,

but now the day departs unasked,

like a glass that clinks away

sitting on its shelf of glass.

And now in sleepless monotone

let your window be unfurled,

and with the sea you are alone

in the vast and peaceful world.

Not the sea—beneath night’s dome

I hear a new reverberation:

the quietude that is of home,

its pulsing and its respiration.

I hear the shades of all the voices

dear to me, and cut-off all,

and melodies of Pushkin’s verses,

and a pine wood I recall.

Restfulness and bliss are there,

a blessing on the banished one.

But this soft sound’s all too rare

till the hurlyburly’s done.

Yet at midnight still and lone

you listen on in sleeplessness

to your country, making moan,

in the deepest deathlessness.

Vladimir Nabokov
tr. after V.N.