S. A. Yesenin is known as a poet who sang the beauty of Russian nature and love for a woman. Like no one else, the theme of love sounds very bright, bewitching and, in most cases, sad. The peculiarity of love is that it shows two sides of feelings: happiness and the following sadness and disappointment. The loving poet dedicated poems to many women, each of them was unique for him, so each poem sounds special.
Objects of love poems
The peculiarity of Yesenin’s love lyrics cannot be understood without learning about the women to whom the poet dedicated his poems. Yesenin had a reputation not only as a riotous hooligan, but also as a Don Juan, who had many women. Of course, a poetic nature cannot live without love, and that’s what Yesenin was. In his own poems, he admitted that not a single woman loved him, and he, too, was in love more than once. One of the poet’s first bright hobbies was Anna Sardanovskaya. Then 15-year-old Seryozha fell in love and dreamed that, having reached a certain age, he would marry her. It was about Anna’s house that the poet said: “Low house with blue shutters, I will never forget you.”
It should be said that it was not always possible to accurately determine from the poet’s lyrics which woman became the addressee. For example, the heroine of the poem "Anna Snegina" has three prototypes at once: Anna Sardanovskaya, Lydia Kashina, Olga Sno. Yesenin had very vivid memories of his first steps in the literary field associated with the name of the latter. The poet visited the salon of this writer, where he participated in debates and arguments, gradually getting used to the metropolitan life of writers.
One cannot help but say something about the poet’s wife. Her image became important not only when creating love poems. The poem "Inonia" was also dedicated to her. Yesenin’s poem “Letter from Mother” says about Zinaida: “I easily gave my wife to another.” It is Reich who is the lyrical heroine of the poem “To Kachalov’s Dog.”
Perhaps the most striking and contradictory feeling in the poet’s life is his love for Still not everyone can understand what attracted the very young, fair-haired handsome man to the already mature woman Isadora. The result of the relationship with the famous dancer was the tavern cycle.” “I was looking for happiness in this woman, but I accidentally found death,” the poet exclaims.
Poetry Analysis
Already in the very first verses, the main feature of Yesenin’s love lyrics is revealed: love for any person is a tragedy. An example is the poem “Tanyusha was good.” The light style emphasizes the daring young life, but its ending contradicts the sound of the verse. Tanyusha kills herself because of unhappy love. Of course, the poet’s early lyrics are, first of all, a hymn to the Motherland. Most of the works of this period are dedicated to Rus', the countryside, and animals. But in later years Yesenin realized himself as a true singer of love.
Poems of the 20s
Surprisingly, the theme of love became one of the main ones precisely during the period when the poet began to call himself a hooligan. In the cycle of poems “The Love of a Hooligan” one can clearly hear the motives of the fleeting nature of love, its fragility, but at the same time the feeling is described as a very bright moment in life, for which a person is ready to do anything. In some texts, Yesenin uses vulgar, rude language, even sometimes obscene. Despite this, they are full of feeling, deep pain, in them you can hear the cry of a soul thirsting for love, lost and entangled in everyday routine (“Harmonic Rash,” “Sing, Sing”).
Analysis of the poem "A blue fire swept up"
This text clearly demonstrates such a feature of Yesenin’s love lyrics as the use of vivid metaphors and epithets. The poet expresses regret that he spent a lot of time on carousing and scandals, forgetting about what is most important in life. Yesenin utters the following thought: he would even renounce poetry if only he could touch a gentle hand and hair “in autumn color.” Perhaps none of the poets could so touchingly describe the feelings of a daring hooligan. The poem demonstrates all the important features of Yesenin’s love lyrics (an essay on this topic must necessarily contain his analysis), one of which is vitality. First of all, it is due to autobiography. Each feeling described was experienced by the poet himself.
"Let others drink you"
The poem is filled with noble sadness for the past. The author expresses sympathy for everything that happened before and for everything that never happened. The peculiarity of Yesenin’s love lyrics is that love is always sad. The poet focuses on the fact that in human life everything happens differently than in dreams. This is due to human stupidity, the desire for petty values, and carelessness. In this text, the poet confesses to his lyrical heroine: only she alone could be his true friend and wife, but they both did not save themselves for each other.
Cycle "Persian motives"
This is a real gem of love poetry. Beautiful oriental style, special musicality and vivid images - these are the features of Yesenin’s love lyrics in this cycle. One of the most striking works is “You are my Shagane, Shagane.” It is unusual due to its composition. The first lines of the verse sound like a refrain and are repeated in the last stanza. But the main feature is that each stanza is built according to the principle of a ring composition.
This text most clearly embodies the features of Yesenin’s love lyrics. An essay on literature written on this topic must certainly include consideration of the means of artistic expression, because here the poet achieved stunning beauty precisely thanks to unusual turns of speech. How strange and at the same time powerful the line “I’m ready to tell you the field” sounds. The abundance of epithets allows the author to express love for his native country and longing for it.
"I asked the money changer today..."
In this I managed to express my attitude towards such a mysterious feeling as love directly. The lyrical hero learns from the Persian money changer that love cannot be expressed in any words, it can only be expressed by touches, glances and kisses. Again an unusual composition. The first line is repeated in each stanza, creating a special rhythm.
Features of Yesenin's love lyrics (briefly)
Let's consider the main features of the poet's love poems:
- Love as an obsession, a disease, a description of a feeling that destroys a person - these are the features of Yesenin’s love lyrics. And Mayakovsky, and some other poets of that time. At the beginning of the 20th century, this view of this feeling was very relevant among writers.
- A feeling of love can momentarily pull a person out of everyday routine, but, unfortunately, it does not last forever. And after that, only pleasant, but at the same time painful memories remain, pinching the chest.
- Use of vivid poetic images (comparisons, metaphors and epithets). By the way, these are the features of the love lyrics of Yesenin, Blok, Mayakovsky and other poets of the Silver Age, who were looking for a new verse, a new form and word.
These are the features of Yesenin’s love lyrics. A short essay should reflect all three points, and they must be supported by specific examples. This is easy to do, because almost every poem touches on this topic in one way or another. As material for creating a work on the topic “Features of Yesenin’s love lyrics” (essay or essay), you can take such memorable texts as “Dear hands - a pair of swans”, “Letter to a woman”, “To Kachalov’s dog”, “Never have I been on the Bosphorus."
Green hair...
Green hairstyle,
Girlish breasts,
O thin birch tree,
Why did you look into the pond?
What does the wind whisper to you?
What is the sand ringing about?
Or do you want to braid branches
Are you a moon comb?
Open up, tell me the secret
of your woody thoughts,
I fell in love with sad
Your pre-autumn noise.
And the birch tree answered me:
O curious friend,
Tonight is starry
Here the shepherd shed tears.
The moon cast shadows
The greenery shone.
For bare knees
He hugged me.
And so, taking a deep breath,
He said to the sound of branches:
Goodbye my dove
Until new cranes.
There was a blue fire...
A blue fire began to sweep,
Forgotten relatives.
I was all like a neglected garden,
He was averse to women and potions.
I stopped liking drinking and dancing
And lose your life without looking back.
I just want to look at you
See the eye of a golden-brown pool,
And so that, not loving the past,
You couldn't leave for someone else.
Gentle gait, light waist,
If you knew with a persistent heart,
How can a bully love?
How he knows how to be submissive.
I would forget the taverns forever
And I would have given up writing poetry.
Just touch your hand subtly
And your hair is the color of autumn.
I would follow you forever
Whether in your own or in someone else's...
For the first time I sang about love,
For the first time I refuse to make a scandal.
This is stupid happiness...
This is stupid happiness
With white windows to the garden!
Along the pond as a red swan
The sunset floats quietly.
Hello, golden calm,
With the shadow of a birch tree in the water!
A flock of jackdaws on the roof
Serves the evening star.
Somewhere beyond the garden timidly,
Where viburnum blooms
Tender girl in white
Sings a tender song.
Spreads with a blue cassock
The night chill from the field...
Silly, sweet happiness,
Fresh rosy cheeks!
The scarlet light of dawn was woven on the lake...
The scarlet light of dawn was woven on the lake.
On the forest, wood grouse are crying with ringing sounds.
An oriole is crying somewhere, burying itself in a hollow.
Only I don’t cry - my soul is light.
I know that in the evening you will leave the ring of roads,
Let's sit in the fresh haystacks under a nearby haystack.
I'll kiss you when you're drunk, I'll fade away like a flower,
There is no gossip for those who are intoxicated with joy.
You yourself, under the caresses, will throw off the silk veil,
I’ll carry you drunk into the bushes until the morning.
And let the wood grouse cry with the bells,
There is a cheerful melancholy in the red of the dawn.
Foolish heart, don't beat!
Foolish heart, don't beat!
We are all deceived by happiness,
The beggar only asks for participation...
Foolish heart, don't beat.
Month yellow spell
They pour over the chestnuts into the clearing.
Lale leaning on his shalwars,
I will hide under the veil.
Foolish heart, don't beat.
We are all like children at times.
We often laugh and cry:
We fell into the world
Joys and failures.
Foolish heart, don't beat.
I have seen many countries.
I looked for happiness everywhere
Only the desired destiny
I won't search anymore.
Foolish heart, don't beat.
Life hasn't completely deceived me.
Let's drink in new strength.
Heart, at least you could fall asleep
Here, on my darling's lap.
Life hasn't completely deceived me.
Maybe he'll mark us too
Rock that flows like an avalanche,
And love will be answered
The song of a nightingale.
Foolish heart, don't beat.
Blue jacket
Blue eyes...
Blue jacket.
Blue eyes.
I didn’t tell any sweet truth.
Darling asked:
Is the snowstorm blowing?
I wish I could light the stove and make the bed.
I answered dear:
Today from above
Someone is showering white flowers.
Light the stove, make the bed,
There is a blizzard in my heart without you.
The day has passed, the line has diminished...
The day has passed, the line has diminished,
I moved towards leaving again.
With a light wave of a white finger
Secrets of the years I cut the water.
In the blue stream of my destiny
Cold scale foam beats,
And puts the seal of silent captivity
A new fold in the wrinkled lip.
Every day I become a stranger
Both for herself and for whom she ordered life.
Somewhere in an open field, near the boundary,
I tore my shadow from my body.
She left undressed
Taking my curved shoulders.
Somewhere she is now far away
And she hugged the other one tenderly.
Maybe leaning towards him,
She completely forgot about me
And, staring into the ghostly darkness,
The folds of the lips and mouth have changed.
But lives by the sound of previous years,
What, like an echo, wanders beyond the mountains.
I kiss with blue lips
A portrait embossed in black shadow.
Honey, let's sit next to each other...
Honey, let's sit next to each other
Let's look into each other's eyes.
I want under the gentle gaze
Listen to the sensual blizzard.
This is autumn gold
This strand of whitish hair -
Everything appeared as the salvation of the Restless Rake.
I left my land a long time ago,
Where meadows and thickets bloom.
In urban and bitter glory
I wanted to live lost.
I wanted my heart to be quieter
I remembered the garden and summer,
Where to the music of frogs
I raised myself as a poet.
It's like autumn there now...
Maple and linden in the windows of the rooms,
Throwing away the branches with my paws,
They are looking for those they remember.
They have been gone for a long time.
A month in a simple graveyard
Marks rays on crosses,
That we too will come to visit them,
That we too, having overcome anxiety,
Let's go under these bushes.
All the wavy roads
Only joy flows to the living.
Darling, sit next to me
Let's look into each other's eyes.
I want under the gentle gaze
Listen to the sensual blizzard.
Play, play, little girl...
Come out to the outskirts, beauty, to meet the groom.
The heart glows with cornflowers, the turquoise burns in it.
I play the tag about blue eyes.
Don’t let the dawn weave your pattern in the streams of the lake,
Your scarf, decorated with embroidery, flashed over the slope.
Play, play, Talyanochka, raspberry furs.
Let the beauty listen to the groom's quips.
Dear hands - a pair of swans...
Dear hands - a pair of swans -
They dive into the gold of my hair.
Everything in this world is made of people
The song of love is sung and repeated.
I sang too once far away
And now I sing about the same thing again,
That's why he breathes deeply
A word imbued with tenderness.
If you love your soul to the bottom,
The heart will become a block of gold.
Only the Tehran moon
It will not warm the songs with warmth.
I don't know how to live my life:
Will I burn out in the caresses of my dear Steps, or will I tremblingly push in my old age?
About past song courage?
Everything has its own gait:
What is pleasing to the ear, what is pleasing to the eye.
If a Persian composes a bad song,
This means he is never from Shiraz.
About me and for these songs
Say this among people:
He would sing more tenderly and wonderfully,
Yes, a couple of swans were killed.
In the blue evening, in the moonlit evening...
In the blue evening, in the moonlit evening
I was once handsome and young.
Unstoppable, unique
Everything flew by. far... past...
The heart has grown cold and the eyes have faded...
Blue happiness! Moonlit nights!
Letter to a woman
Do you remember,
You all remember, of course,
How I stood
Approaching the wall
You walked around the room excitedly
And something sharp was thrown at my face.
You said: It's time for us to part,
What tormented you
My crazy life
That it's time for you to get down to business,
And my lot is
Roll further down.
Darling!
You didn't love me.
You didn’t know that in the crowd of people
I was like a horse driven into soap,
Spurred by a brave rider.
You didn’t know that I was in complete smoke,
In a life torn apart by a storm
That's why I'm tormented because I don't understand -
Where does the fate of events take us?
Face to face
You can't see the face.
Big things can be seen from a distance.
When the sea surface boils -
The ship is in poor condition.
Earth is a ship!
But someone suddenly
For a new life, new glory
In the thick of storms and blizzards
He directed her majestically.
Well, which of us is the biggest on deck?
Didn’t fall, vomit or swear?
There are few of them, with an experienced soul,
Who remained strong in pitching.
Then I too, to the wild noise,
But maturely knowing the work,
He went down into the ship's hold,
So as not to watch people vomit.
That hold was -
Russian pub.
And I leaned over the glass,
So that, without suffering for anyone,
Ruin yourself
In a drunken stupor.
Darling!
I tormented you
You were sad
In the eyes of the tired:
What am I showing off to you?
Wasted himself in scandals.
But you didn't know
What's in the smoke,
In a life torn apart by a storm
That's why I'm suffering
What I don't understand
Where does the fate of events take us...
Now the years have passed.
I'm at a different age.
And I feel and think differently.
And I say over festive wine:
Praise and glory to the helmsman!
Today I
In the shock of tender feelings.
I remembered your sad tiredness.
And now
I'm rushing to tell you,
What I was like
And what happened to me!
Darling!
I'm pleased to say:
I avoided falling off the cliff.
Now in the Soviet side
I am the fiercest travel companion.
I am not who I was then.
I wouldn't torture you
As it was before.
For the banner of liberty
And good work
I'm ready to go even to the English Channel.
Forgive me...
I know: you are not the same -
Do you live
With a serious, intelligent husband;
That you don’t need our toil,
And I myself to you
Not needed one bit.
Live like this
How the star guides you
Under the tabernacle of the renewed canopy.
With greetings,
always remembering you
Your friend Sergei Yesenin.
Well, kiss me, kiss me...
Well, kiss me, kiss me,
Even to the point of bleeding, even to pain.
At odds with cold will
Boiling water of heart streams.
Overturned mug
Among the merry ones is not for us.
Understand, my friend,
They only live once on earth!
Look around with a calm gaze,
Look: damp in the darkness
The month is like a yellow raven
It circles and soars above the ground.
Well, kiss me!
That's how I want it.
Decay sang a song to me too.
Apparently he sensed my death
The one who soars on high.
Fading Power!
Die like that!
Until the end of my sweetheart's lips
I would like to kiss.
So that all the time in blue slumbers,
Without being ashamed and without hiding,
In the gentle rustle of bird cherry trees
It was heard: “I am yours.”
And so that the light over the full mug
It didn’t go out with a light foam -
Drink and sing, my friend:
They only live once on earth!
Flowers say goodbye to me...
Flowers tell me goodbye
Heads bowing lower,
What I won't see forever
Her face and her father's land.
Darling, well, well!
Well!
I saw them and I saw the land,
And this deathly trembling
I accept it like a new affection.
And because I realized
All my life, passing by with a smile, -
I speak for every moment
That everything in the world is repeatable.
Does it really matter if someone else comes?
The sadness of the departed will not be swallowed up,
Abandoned and dear
The one who comes will compose a better song.
And, listening to the song in silence,
Beloved with another beloved,
Maybe he'll remember me
Like a unique flower.
I remember, my love, I remember...
I remember, darling, I remember
The shine of your hair.
It’s not happy and it’s not easy for me
I had to leave you.
I remember autumn nights
Birch rustle of shadows,
Even if the days were shorter then,
The moon shone longer for us.
I remember you told me:
Blue years will pass,
And you will forget, my dear,
With the other me forever.
Today the linden tree is in bloom
I reminded my feelings again,
How tenderly then I poured
Flowers on a curly strand.
And the heart, not preparing to cool down,
And sadly loving another.
Like a favorite story,
On the other hand, he remembers you.
I'm sad to see you...
It makes me sad to look at you
What a pain, what a pity!
Know, only willow copper
We stayed with you in September.
Someone else's lips were torn apart
Your warmth and trembling body.
It's like it's drizzling rain
From a soul that is a little deadened.
Well! I'm not afraid of him.
A different joy was revealed to me.
After all, there's nothing left
As soon as yellow decay and dampness.
After all, I didn’t save myself either
For a quiet life, for smiles.
So few roads have been traveled
So many mistakes have been made.
Funny life, funny discord.
So it was and so it will be after.
The garden is dotted like a cemetery
There are gnawed bones in birch trees.
That's how we will bloom too
And let's make some noise like guests of the garden...
If there are no flowers in the middle of winter,
So there is no need to be sad about them.
Yesenin's poems about love. Deep, sincere, soulful.
Sergei Yesenin's poems about love are imbued with a note of bitterness and hopelessness, they contain all the weight of love. The main direction of the poems of his entire life is love for a woman. And most often this is unhappy love. Get into the spirit of “Yesenin’s” poems with us!
Yesenin's poems about love
I remember, my love, I remember...
I remember, darling, I remember
The shine of your hair...
It’s not happy and it’s not easy for me
I had to leave you.
I remember autumn nights
Birch rustle of shadows...
Even if the days were shorter then,
The moon shone longer for us.
I remember you told me:
“Blue years will pass,
And you will forget, my dear,
With the other one forever."
Today the linden tree is in bloom
I reminded my feelings again,
How tenderly then I poured
Flowers on a curly strand.
And the heart, without preparing to cool down
And loving another sadly,
Like a favorite story
On the other hand, he remembers you.
1925
****
Flowers say goodbye to me...
Flowers tell me goodbye
Heads bowing lower,
What I won't see forever
Her face and her father's land.
Darling, well, well! Well!
I saw them and I saw the land,
And this deathly trembling
I accept it like a new affection.
And because I realized
All my life, passing by with a smile, -
I speak for every moment
That everything in the world is repeatable.
Does it really matter if someone else comes?
The sadness of the departed will not be swallowed up,
Abandoned and dear
The one who comes will compose a better song.
And, listening to the song in silence,
Beloved with another beloved,
Maybe he'll remember me
Like a unique flower.
****
You don’t love me, you don’t regret me...
You don't love me, you don't regret me,
Am I not a little handsome?
Without looking in the face, you are thrilled with passion,
He placed his hands on my shoulders.
Young, with a sensual grin,
I am neither gentle nor rude with you.
Tell me how many people have you caressed?
How many hands do you remember? How many lips?
I know they passed by like shadows
Without touching your fire,
You sat on the knees of many,
And now you're sitting here with me.
Let your eyes be half closed
And you're thinking about someone else
I don’t really love you very much myself,
Drowning in the distant dear.
Don't call this ardor fate
A frivolous hot-tempered connection, -
How I met you by chance,
I smile, calmly walking away.
Yes, and you will go your own way
Sprinkle joyless days
Just don’t touch those who haven’t been kissed,
Just don’t lure those who haven’t been burned.
And when with another in the alley
You'll walk by chatting about love
Maybe I'll go for a walk
And we will meet again with you.
Turning your shoulders closer to the other
And leaning down a little,
You will tell me quietly: “Good evening!”
I will answer: “Good evening, miss.”
And nothing will disturb the soul,
And nothing will make her tremble, -
He who loved cannot love,
You can't set fire to someone who's burned out.
****
It's a dark night, I can't sleep...
It's a dark night, I can't sleep,
I’ll go out to the river and onto the meadow.
The lightning lightning loosened
There is a belt in foam jets.
There is a candle birch tree on the hill
In lunar feathers of silver.
Come out, my heart,
Listen to the songs of the guslar!
I'll fall in love, I'll take a look
For girlish beauty,
And I’ll go dance to the harp,
So I'll rip off your veil.
Into the dark mansion, into the green forest,
On silk flowers,
I'll take you down the slopes
Until the poppy dawn.
1911
****
Well, kiss me, kiss me...
Well, kiss me, kiss me,
Even to the point of bleeding, even to pain.
At odds with cold will
Boiling water of heart streams.
Overturned mug
Among the merry ones is not for us.
Understand, my friend,
They only live once on earth!
Look around with a calm gaze,
Look: damp in the darkness
The month is like a yellow raven
It circles and soars above the ground.
Well, kiss me! That's how I want it.
Decay sang a song to me too.
Apparently he sensed my death
The one who soars on high.
Fading Power!
Die like that!
Until the end of my sweetheart's lips
I would like to kiss.
So that all the time in blue slumbers,
Without being ashamed and without hiding,
In the gentle rustle of bird cherry trees
It was heard: “I am yours.”
And so that the light over the full mug
It didn’t go out with a light foam -
Drink and sing, my friend:
They only live once on earth!
1925
****
Don't look at me reproachfully...
Don't look at me reproachfully
I have no contempt for you,
But I love your pack with drag
And your crafty meekness.
Yes, you seem prostrate to me,
And, perhaps, I'm glad to see
Like a fox pretending to be dead
Catches crows and crows.
Well, then, look, I’m not chickening out.
Just how would your ardor not go out?
To my cold soul
We've come across these more than once.
It's not you I love, darling,
You are just an echo, just a shadow.
I dream of another in your face,
Whose eyes are dove.
Don't let her look meek
And, perhaps, it looks cold,
But she walks majestically
It shook my soul to the core.
You can hardly fog one like this,
And if you don’t want to go, yes you will,
Well, you don’t even lie in your heart
A lie infused with affection.
But still, despising you,
I will shyly open myself forever:
If there were no hell and heaven,
The man himself would have invented them.
If you liked Yesenin's poems about love, share them with your friends and loved ones. Have a good mood and sincere happy love!
Sergey Yesenin
Poems about love
Ekaterina Markova. "I love someone else..."
The light is so mysterious
As if for the only one -
The one in which the same light
And which does not exist in the world.
S. Yesenin
It is difficult to find poems by Sergei Yesenin that are not about love. Love is Yesenin’s worldview. He came into the world to love, pity and cry over every calf, broken birch tree, village strangled by the steel roads of cities...
His love for the Earth, which gave birth to each tree, is sensual. Under the sky, hugging the earth, a birch tree lifts its skirt... The comprehensiveness of the erotic feeling, reaching the point of religiosity... Yesenin is alien to pantheism, he is an Orthodox peasant, only his Christianity is in the free wind of the Ryazan region, something else. He turns his right cheek to a blizzard, a hurricane. Pity is poured out in his work, pity for every dog...
Yesenin has much fewer poems addressed to women. In these verses, Sergei Yesenin seems to be overpowering his nature. In the village it is not customary, deeply, historically not customary, to show your feelings... From the bride to the wife - the distance is like from heaven to earth.
He could not, for example, like Blok, call Rus' his wife, for a peasant ear - this is almost blasphemous in relation to the Motherland...
Don't look at me reproachfully
I have no contempt for you,
But I love your dreamy gaze
And your crafty meekness.
Yes, you seem prostrate to me,
And, perhaps, I'm glad to see
Like a fox pretending to be dead
Catches crows and crows.
Well, then, look, I’m not chickening out.
Just how would your ardor not go out?
To my cold soul
We've come across these more than once.
It's not you I love, darling,
You are just an echo, just a shadow...
Yesenin compares a woman with a cunning fox; a fox is closer and more understandable to him than a woman. In the village everything is clear, here is a girl-bride, her life is short, like early spring. But here is the mother of the family, quickly losing her youthful features in the constant care of the house. The bride is virginity in the most sacred sense of the word. Mariengof writes in his book: “Zinaida (Reich, mother of Yesenin’s two children. - EAT.) told him that he was her first. And she lied. This - like a peasant, because of his dark blood, not because of his thoughts - Yesenin could never forgive her. Tragically, doomedly, he could not... Every time Yesenin remembered Zinaida, a spasm convulsed his face, his eyes turned purple, his hands clenched into a fist: “Why did you lie, you reptile!”
In the city, especially at the beginning of the 20th century, and even in a bohemian environment, people remain brides almost for the rest of their lives. Alluring, looking for a groom, but a bride rather from the evil one...
Yesenin’s poetic house is expanded to the universe, where “stars pour into your ears... water is a symbol of purification and baptism in the name of a new day.”
Yesenin’s muse remembers “the secret of the ancient fathers to wipe themselves with leaves... the debt of life according to the sun”, “the attitude towards eternity as a parental hearth” - this is the blessing of life for Yesenin. This is his “hut Liturgy.”
Yesenin’s soul does not accept another perception, alien to his world order, and will not come to terms with it. His rebellion is in self-destruction, a rebellion not just against the steel cavalry, this rebellion is against the destroyed universe created by his ancestors...
Where the cabbage beds are
The sunrise pours red water,
Little maple baby to the uterus
The green udder sucks.
Poems of 1910, written at the age of 15, Yesenin remained like this until the grave... He could not live an adult pragmatic life, according to Yesenin, for the soul it is a coffin. His curses against women come from great love, from the unattainable Image created in his early youth by the imagination of the poet...
Rash, harmonica. Boredom... boredom...
The accordionist's fingers flow like a wave.
Drink with me, you lousy bitch
Drink with me.
They loved you, they abused you -
Unbearable.
Why are you looking at those blue splashes like that?
Do you want Ali in the face?
I'd like to have you stuffed in the garden,
Scare the crows.
Tormented me to the bone
From all sides.
Rash, harmonica. Rash, my frequent one.
Drink, otter, drink.
I’d rather have that busty one over there -
She's dumber...
But here is the end of the poem, -
To your pack of dogs
It's time to catch a cold.
Darling, I'm crying
Sorry Sorry…
In the deeply alien, where only the accordion is pure, which becomes animated, the poet, seeing the holy feminine nature, says: “Darling, I’m crying...”
If you travel back in time and space, you remember the famous scene with Marlon Brando in the film “Last Tango in Paris”, where the hero sends curses into the coffin of his beloved but unfaithful wife...
Yesenin has a scandal - almost always a Lament, that same people's Lament, with a capital letter...
As a child, he experienced his first love (it was Anna Sardanovskaya), like Goethe's Werther - tragically, he got drunk on vinegar essence, but got scared and drank a lot of milk... Anna is the daughter of relatives of a Constantine priest who came for the summer. For two summers, the girl was infatuated with the poetic Sergei with the candy-like appearance of Lelya, they were already considered the bride and groom, and on the third, she grew taller than the peasant boy and fell in love with another...
During these years it was written:
The scarlet light of dawn was woven on the lake.
On the forest, wood grouse are crying with ringing sounds.
An oriole is crying somewhere, burying itself in a hollow.
Only I don’t cry – my soul is light.
I know that in the evening you will leave the ring of roads,
Let's sit in the fresh haystacks under a nearby haystack.
I'll kiss you when you're drunk, I'll fade away like a flower,
There is no gossip for those drunk with joy...
Love is too painful... Sergei Yesenin, it seems, decided to drown out the very possibility of falling in love - this pain was not combined with the desire to become a famous poet...
In Moscow, he became acquainted with the unloved, but remarkably sensitive and cultured young lady Anna Izryadnova, a son was born... Yesenin despised himself for his lack of love, for a certain calculation in these relationships, which did not fit into his concept of honor... “My self is a disgrace to the individual. I was exhausted, I lied and, one might even say with success, I buried or sold my soul to the devil - and all for talent. If I catch and possess the talent I have planned, then the most vile and insignificant person will have it - me... If I am a genius, then at the same time I will be a filthy person...” - he writes to his friend Maria Balzamova. The signature in the letter is “scoundrel Sergei Yesenin.”
The soul needed repentance... The city, decorated with half-empty, ridiculed churches, could only provide a bohemian environment and revelations in “Stray Dog”...
With the restlessness of a connecting rod bear, awakened from a wonderful dream of merging with nature, he destroyed other people's lives, the lives of women who loved him. His hasty marriage to Zinaida Reich, whom he eventually left with two children, left him in lifelong confusion and bewilderment... His passion for Isadora Duncan, associated with the exoticism of the relationship. At an age, the world-famous dancer already had maternal feelings for him...
Something similar to first love manifested itself for the actress Augusta Miklashevskaya, but she was saved, apparently, by Yesenin’s platonism of love...
Yesenin’s love lyrics are collective, they are dedicated to some other, unmet woman...
Lydia Kashina, the neighbor's daughter of a moneybag, married with two children, is considered the prototype of Anna Snegina. But in the poem the features of Anna Sardanovskaya and others shine through... Yesenin did not meet on earth among women his own, like the creator of Ecclesiastes...
Yesenin's love is from another dimension. This is the mystery of his unheard-of popularity. To this day, tramps spend the night at his grave and misinterpret: “And dull, as if from a handout, / When they throw a stone at her laughter, / The dog’s eyes rolled / Like golden stars into the snow...”
And how many imitators there are. In huts, in prison cells and just behind the student bench of the Literary Institute... At the heart there is a tattoo “I don’t regret, I don’t cry, I don’t cry”... Yesenin is random in the galaxy of poets, even the best. He is different, he is the granddaughter of Veles.
And to the weeping of dirges, to the censer canon,
I kept imagining a quiet, uninhibited ringing.
Sergei Yesenin is one of the most famous Russian poets of the “Silver Age”, and strangely one of the most misunderstood. People usually love him for his tavern cycle, but many forget that Yesenin was capable of much more. The same poems by Yesenin about love can be colored with rural flavor, and urban melancholy, and oriental exoticism, but they remain just as piercing.
Having gained first popularity with his “village” poems about nature and quiet rural life, the poet later embarked on the most daring experiments. He sang of social change and the frenzy of night drinking, admired technological progress and foresaw totalitarian nightmares. But all this time he did not forget one of the main, eternal themes of poetry - love.
Yesenin himself was not only a theorist of love. He was married three times - to the actress Zinaida Reich, to the ballerina Isadora Duncan and to Sofia Tolstoy, the granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy. In addition, he had many different affairs on the side. Among his loves were platonic ones, and children were born from other novels. And the poet gave himself completely to each of his feelings, in return receiving an influx of inspiration from him. Yes, Yesenin understood love!
His love lyrics are surprisingly different from other poems. In other works of Sergei Yesenin, one can clearly hear his era - the beginning of the 20th century, when the “iron cavalry” comes to replace the foal, menacing shadows rise over the world, and desperate night Moscow is enjoying its tavern days. These poems are clearly tied to their time. But Yesenin’s love lyrics have been cleared of reference to the era. It is beyond centuries and epochs, it is eternal. Such poems were timely both during the poet’s lifetime and now, almost a century later.
Reading Yesenin’s poems about love, you always feel his nature. The poet is honest, admitting things that one would not normally say out loud, and this makes his poems convincing.
The most famous love poems
Sergei Yesenin rarely bothered to give his poems separate titles. That's why we call most of them by the first line. “You don’t love me, you don’t feel sorry for me,” “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye,” “There’s a blue fire…” and so on. For some poems it is even possible to determine to whom they were dedicated.
Much more often in Yesenin’s love poems, love is unhappy. It is either past, unrequited, or hopeless due to external reasons. Even the divided feeling that Yesenin writes about bears the imprint of past suffering. “Darling, let’s sit next to each other,” “Flowers tell me goodbye,” many other poems talk about separation, past or future, inevitable.
The poet’s lyrical hero himself not only suffers from unhappy love, but also causes suffering himself. He can openly admit that he loves someone other than the one who loves him. He can do wrong and admit it to himself - and the reader.
The “Persian Cycle” stands out separately in the poet’s work. Although he seems noticeably happier, with a more southern heat, it's worth reading deeper to realize that Persian moments of happiness are fleeting, and all the characters know it. However, this ephemeral happiness is also fully experienced and overwhelms both the lyrical hero and the reader. “They live only once on earth,” the poet invites his companion to understand.
Even when his hero - a bully and a rake - seems to be ready to change and “refuse to make trouble” for the sake of love, it’s not really possible to trust him. You see: this hero is prone to impulse, to emotional loud words, to deception, which he himself believes in. But I wish, how I wish, that, having sung about love for the first time, the hero never dropped that note!
His voice sounds much more honest in the cynical “Sing, sing…”. Understanding the destructiveness of fatal passion, the hardened character still gives himself over to love for the one who “drove the bully crazy.” And this duality makes Yesenin’s hero much more alive than in the template verses of less gifted authors.
Of course, Yesenin is not limited to love lyrics alone. He has the melancholy anguish of “Tavern Moscow”, and the epic “Pantocrator”, and the allegorical mysticism of “The Black Man”, and poignant village poetry. If you calculate what place the theme of love occupies in Yesenin’s work, then it turns out to be surprisingly small. But poems about love are what probably resonate most with Sergei Yesenin. Probably because Yesenin did not replicate love poems, but wrote them from the heart and dedicated them to specific people.
On our page you can read a complete selection of Yesenin’s poems about love, selected especially for you.
