Konstantin Balmont
Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont (Russian: Константи́н Дми́триевич Ба́льмонт) (15 June [O.S. 3 June] 1867 — December 23, 1942) was a Russian symbolist poet, translator, one of the major figures of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry.
Biography
Balmont was born into a noble family near Vladimir. In 1886, he entered the Moscow University, but was excluded the next year. He started poetic activity in the end of the 1890s, and became famous in 1905 after having published several compilations of poems. In the end of 1905, he illegally left Russia for Paris, traveled extensively, and returned to Moscow only in 1916. He accepted the February Revolution enthusiastically, but was against the October Revolution of 1917, and left Russia for Germany, and subsequently for France in 1920. He spent the last twenty years of his life in emigration and in poverty. He died in 1942 in Noisy-le-Grand, a suburb of Paris.
Cultural references
Many Russian composers set Balmont's poetry to music: Mikhail Gnessin, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maximilian Steinberg, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Taneyev, and Sergei Vassilenko.
One of his best known works is his free Russian translation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Bells, which formed the basis of Rachmaninoff's choral symphony of the same name, Op. 35.
Barque of Yearning
for Prince A. I. Urusov Evening. Seashore. A sighing wind. Majestic waves roar. A storm is near. A black barque, Stranger to charm, batters the shore. Stranger to the pure charms of joy, A barque of yearning, a barque of trouble Quits the shore to battle the storm, Searching for a palace of bright dreams. It flies along the shore, it flies along the sea, Surrendering to the will of the waves. A matte moon observes it, A moon full of bitter sorrow. The evening is dead. The night blackens. The sea rumbles. The gloom deepens. The barque of yearning is seized by darkness. The storm howls in the watery depths. 1894