Я памятник себе воздвиг нерукотворный... [Ya pamyatnik sebe vozdvig nerukotvornyi...] [English translation]

Exegi monumentum1

A monument I’ve made to me, yet haven’t built it;

The people’s path to it ain’t going to get grassed;

Its rebel head is higher than that gilded

Column of Alex, in contrast.

No, I won’t die in full, my soul inside the lyre

Will outlive my ash, it will escape decay;

The only requisite for fame required –

A living poet on the Earth must stay.

About me they will speak all o’er the Russian country,

And every tongue in it will say my name:

Both prideful Slavic tribes and Finns, and yet uncultured

Tungus; and Kalmyks, not yet tame.

And I will be so vastly favoured by the nation

For my evoking gracious feelings by the lyre,

For my extolling—in my cruel times—Liberation,

For my conciliating triers.

Oh muse, please, be obedient to God’s will;

Immune to slander, and with no hope of the crown,

You should accept high praise as well as rot’s filth;

And don’t you argue with a clown.

1. The epigraph is a quote from Horace's Ode 3.30 (I have built a monument...).