Mikhail Muravyov

Mikhail Nikitich Muravyov (1757–1807) was a poet and teacher who served as tutor to the future Alexander I and later as a curator of Moscow University. His gentle, personal verse looked forward to the sentimental school of Karamzin and Zhukovsky.

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.