Mikhail Lomonosov

Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (1711–1765) was born near Kholmogory in the far north of Russia, the son of a fisherman. He studied in Moscow and in Germany, became a professor at the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences, took part in founding Moscow University (1755), and worked as both scientist and poet. He helped fix the rules of Russian versification and the literary language, and his solemn odes made him the leading Russian poet of the mid-eighteenth century.

The versions here are by John Bowring, from his Specimens of the Russian Poets (Part the First, 1821; Part the Second, 1823), one of the first English anthologies of Russian verse. They are free, rhymed versions, and should be read as period translations rather than as literal renderings.