Hugo, "Hier au soir"

A poem ("Yesterday, in the evening") by this French man of letters.  You can read the original here.

Breathe, evening wind of yesterday's lost truth, 
Which brought us scents of flowers' last bloom phase;
Night fell with birds asleep in shaded maze. 
The fragrant Spring has nothing on your youth;
The stars shone bright, but far less than your gaze. 

My voice kept low.  It was the solemn hour  
When souls their gentlest hymns so love to sing.
As night is pure so are you beauty's power; 
To gilded stars: on night the heavens shower! 
And to your eyes: sweet love upon us bring!

Akhmatova, "О тебе воспоминаю я редко"

A work ("You I recall but rarely") by this Russian poet.  You can read the original here.
 
You I recall but rarely,
Your fate I shan't pursue,
Yet my soul's slate's swept barely
Of phatic words with you.

Your red house, willfully passed,
Your red house dusks the river.
I know I have trespassed
Before your calm sun's shiver.

Though you as prostrate nurse
Did not avow love's reign;
Though you in flaxen verse
Did not extend my pain;

A future spell is cast.
Were evening fully blue,
I would foresee at last
Eventful words with you. 

Mandelshtam, "Вечер нежный. Сумрак важный."

An early work ("Twilight thick and evening soft") by this Russian man of letters.  You can find the original here.

 

Twilight thick and evening soft,
Roars and swells move fast apace;
Humid wind, a veil aloft
Of the sun to mask our face.

All is hushed, all mixed and lost,
Waves rock drunk upon the shore;
And blind joy our mind accosts,
Our heart heavier than before.

Chaos darkens in mute cling,
Air wafts drunkenly and dumbs;
Massive is the choir that hums:
Flutes and lutes and timbrels sing.

Akhmatova, "Бесшумно ходили по дому"

A work ("So still was each step through the home") by this poet. You can read the original here.

So still was each step through the home,
So pale were the faces in hue;
Despondent, they led me alone
To someone they claimed I once knew.

His first words: “Thank God you are here!”
More pensive, he stopped, then he said:
“So long now has my time drawn near,
For you but I waited instead.

“To frenzy will you then alarm me?
All your words a safe place shall store.
So say now, will you not forgive me?”
And I said: “It’s not like before.”

Blue shades by the walls seemed to hover,
From floorboard to ceiling, each inch.
And on the soft silken bed cover
A hand lay, a dried fruit or finch.

His profile, flung back and so preying,   
Turned suddenly heavy and coarse,
With no hint of what he was saying
From dark lips, so chapped in remorse.

And then came one spasm, his last,
Those blue eyes of his understood:
“You’re smart to have ceded the past,
Not always were you quite this good.”

His face then grew younger in love;
Anew I caught sight of those years.
And I said, “O God, Lord above
Redeem him, your slave, from his fears.”

Rilke, "In einem fremden Park"

A work ("In an unfamiliar park") by this Austrian poet.  You can read the original here.

Two paths exist, but neither ends.
Yet, in your thoughts, one may well lead
On further, as if you misstepped,
If caught within a rondel's cleft,
Alone again, that stone to read: 
The Baroness below subtends
Our Brite Sophie. Now caress
These fingers years long past, long gone:
Why does this pain not evanesce?

Like that first time you won't go on, 
Expectant on this elm-bound square, 
So moist and dark, where no one treads. 

What counter-urge has made you dare, 
To search among the sunny beds, 
As if they named a rosebush bloom?  

What sounds recur as you stand here? 
Why do you see, flickering near,  
The moths now lost where tall phlox loom?