The Gypsies





By 





Aleksandr
Pushkin




The Gypsies in the noisy throng Stray Bessarabia around. Today over the river,
long, They’re lodging in their tents, worn out. Like freedom their
night-resting is – And peaceful sleep the heavens under. Between the wagons’
tired wheels, Covered with rugs, long-used in wonders, A fire’s flamed. A
family’s  Preparing, round it, a dinner; A horse is gazing in the fields,
Is sleeping, free, a teamed bear-thriller. Amidst the steppes all well lives:
The peaceful tasks of families, Ready by morning for a travel, And songs of
wives, and children’ weeps, And ringing of a mobile anvil. But now, over the
Gipsy camp, The dozing silence is prevailing, And heard is, in the sleeping
steppe, Just a dog’s barking and steed’s neighing. Extinguished is each single
light, All’s peaceful now. The moon is shining, Alone in the heaven height, And
at the quiet camp is lighting. Just one old man’s not sleeping, yet, Sitting by
ambers in his tent, Warmed with their last heat – fast by-passing – He’s
looking at the fields’ extent, Covered by clamps of the steam, rising. His
daughter, youthful one and light, Went for a walk in a field, empty. She’s used
to freedom, full and zesty, She will come back, but there’s a night... And soon
the crescent, still a-ruling, Will leave the distant clouds’ set – Zemphira’s
absent, and is cooling A dinner the old man prepared. But there is she. Through
the steppe, lone, A youth is following her steps; For the old gipsy he’s
unknown “My father,” the young maiden says, “We have a guest. I’ve found him,
missing, In a desert that mound behind And called for our camp for a night, He
wants to be like us – the Gipsy; He’s prosecuted by a law.   I’ll be
his friend, the true and fair – His name’s Aleko – and therefore He vowed to
follow me everywhere.”