Pushkin, "Предчувствие"

A work ("Premonition") by this Russian poet.  You can read the original here.

Above me met the clouds anew, 
In silence breeding envious woe. 
That hour will torture me, I know, 
If I a threat therein construe. 
Does second sight betoken fate? 
Should I embrace this vast design
With patience and tenacious brine,
My prideful youth's far-flung estate?

Fatigued am I of restless life, 
Indifferent to the roaring storm: 
Perhaps I can be saved and borne 
To safest pier away from strife ...
Yet premonitions of our end, 
A thankless and most dreaded chime, 
Lead me to hurry one last time, 
And squeeze, my angel, your white hand.

Serene and gentle angel mine,
Forgive me now and speak but soft:
So sad's your tender gaze aloft
That you must hold or fast decline.
Your memories my own shall glaze, 
And fill my weary soul with force,
With pride, with inspiration's course,
And bravery of younger days.

Bely, "Меланхолия"

A work ("Melancholy") by this Russian poet.  You can read the original here.

An empty bistro by first glow,                                      
Makes whispers and soft organs mate.                     
Smooth leather mats that fairies know,                                      
Show lackeys rumbling with their plates                     

Between the cabinets. Like shade                         
I wander through the smoky webs.              
Soon golden day will launch its raid                       
On window panes as dreamtime ebbs,                      

And cut off cinder in its fist,                 
Aflame in mirrors, diamond-bright...             
Gas lanterns fill with fiery mist                
And pierce each window with warm light.                           

Above the city and the streets,                       
Black cinder clouds from earth-mounts rise.
Beyond our ken, our senses meet                        
Unanswered arias' demise.                         

I lived and died in yearning pure,                      
My tears unseen upon my face.                           
The ceiling waxed in light demure                        
As garlands of ethereal lace                                     

Stretched past our eyes.  And for a time  
All seemed burned hot by tawny light.           
By mirror's glare my double rhymed;           
My silhouette with endless night.                 

He nears, and nods to me alone;                                 
In torture I cannot escape;                          
Then breaches depths of mirrored gloam                  
His hands aflail at life's mad cape.

Vallejo, "París, Octubre 1936"

A work ("Paris, October 1936") by this Peruvian poet.  You can read the original here.

From all this only I shall be departing.  
From this lone bench, and from my two socks' tracks, 
From my great state, my actions, and my acts,
From my own number clove apart by parting, 
From all this only I shall be departing.

From the Champs-Élysées, or turning down  
The curious little alley of the Moon,  
My death will go and leave my cradle's swoon,  
My human likeness lost amidst a crowd,  
Will also turn, dispatching as allowed,   
One shadow at a time, as if in tune.   

From everything my distance I defend, 
All things remain to forge my alibi:  
My shoe, its eyelet, and its muddy lie,  
Till the duplicitous soft elbow bend 
Of my own shirt, all buttoned to the end.  

Novalis, "Wer einsam sitzt in seiner Kammer"

A work ("Who sits forlorn within his room") by this German poet.  You can read the original here.

Who sits forlorn within his room,
And cries such grave and bitter tears,
So will this region then appear
Besmirched by misery and gloom. 

Who, thinking of times long ago,
Too deep inspects the bleak abyss,
In which from every side persists
Sweet pain that draws him down below,  

It is as if wild treasures lay 
Beneath in heaps for him alone;
And he with breathless breast forayed  
Against their castle ramparts' stone.  

Repulsed and fearful he espies   
His future trapped in dryest dunes; 
Alone, unwell, he roves and swoons, 
And seeks himself in tumult's eye.

I cry and fall into his arms:
I, too, was once like you, it seems.
But I learned much from wicked harm, 
E'en how to find eternal peace.  

You need for comfort, as I too,
A heart that's loved, endured and died; 
Who joyfully put pain aside, 
To perish variedly for you.  

He died, and yet still every day, 
You sense his love, you sense his face; 
Consoled but by thoughts gone astray 
Of him once more in your embrace.   

With him arrives new blood, new life,
In your decaying pile of bone;
And if your heart was his alone, 
So is yours his, bereft of strife.  

What you have loved he will provide;  
What you have lost he since has found: 
Forever will remain so bound, 
What his firm hands choose not to hide.

Pasternak, "Во всем мне хочется дойти"

A work ("In everything I want to grasp") by the Russian poet more immediately associated with this famous novel.  The original of the poem is here.

In everything I want to grasp
The essence underneath the nerve;
In work and on my chosen path
The languor that my heartstrings serve.

The essence of the days long past,
What are their purpose and design?
Which principles, which roots will last,
What core within the ball of twine?

And all the while to hold this string
Of life’s events and sundry fates:
To live, to love, to feel, to think,
To enter new and uncrossed gates.

If I could but elucidate
My passion whole or just in part;
Then I’d describe in lines of eight,
What sparks reside within my heart.

Outlaws and sins would be my stars,
Pursuits and flights their lone resort;
And happenstance beguiled by scars
Would hasten palms and elbows forth.

Its law I would uncover bare
And show its source, its wellspring pure;
Its name I would repeat and wear
Upon my sleeve and soul demure.

And verse would grow in gardens mine,
A quiv’ring vein in every patch;
And there would bloom a linden line
Of single file and common back.

This verse would bear a rosy scent
And breaths of mint, and meadowed gaps;
And hay and sedge would too be lent
To scenes beneath my thunder claps.

So did Chopin infuse his staves
With wondrous life in greenest green;
Etudes of parks, of groves, of graves,
Estates which lived behind his sheen.

Both pain and joyous play arise
In all victories achieved;
A bowstring taut before our eyes,
Released in triumph unretrieved.