"The Prisoner" by Aleksander Pushkin - A Free Translation by Alexandra Ranieri

The Prisoner

by Aleksander Pushkin

Translated by Alexandra Ranieri

I sit behind bars in the damp of the jail,
A young eagle weaned ’neath captivity’s veil,
My pining companion, still beating his wings,
His blood-oozing prey to the window he brings,

He pecks, and he stops, and he looks to the glass,
As though through one mind our separate thoughts pass.
He calls to me now by his screech and his eye
Both striving to utter: “Come, let us fly!

“We’re alike free-born birds—my brother, it’s time!
There, where ’neath storm-clouds the peaks shed their grime,
There, where the shore takes the sea’s bluest dye,
There, where the wind walks alone...but for I…!”