The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 21. “…a kiss resounds through the silence…”

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“…a kiss resounds through the silence…”

Lermontov is considered Russia's greatest Romantic Era poet, second only behind Pushkin. The following excerpt is the conclusion of a poem he composed while still a cadet at a military school.

But then the dark of night envelopes our school,

Cleron has finally made his usual nightly rounds,

And no more music's heard from our old school piano . . .

At last the final candle next to Beloven's bed

Has gone out. Now it is the moon that sheds pale light

Onto white beds and onto lacquered hardwood floors.

But suddenly rustling, a weak noise, and two light shadows

Glide over all the way to your desired cover;

They've entered . . . and a kiss resounds through the silence,

And a reddening cock has risen like a hungry tiger;

Now it is being groped by an immodest hand,

While lips are pressed against the lips, and words are heard,

“Oh be with me, I'm yours, oh dear friend, please hold

Me stronger, I am melting, I'm on fire . . . ” And one

Cannot recount all the impassioned words. But here

The shirt is being pulled up, and one of them has bared

His satin ass and thighs, and the admiring cock

Is towering and trembling over the plump ass.

Now they get closer . . . And in just a moment they . . .

But here it's time to close the curtain over the picture;

It's time, so that the inexorable fate would not

Transform its praise into [judgmental] reproach.

—Mikhail Lermontov,[i]

1834

[Vitaly Chernetsky]