Lermontov: Dagger (From Russian)

I've worked on this translation on and off since I was maybe 13 and began translating poems. It was one of the earliest I attempted, and of course I've revised it a lot ever since. Here we have Lermontov at his most Romantic in the capital-R sense. If you've consumed a lot of Byron recently, this may push your high Romanticism levels higher than what doctors normally recommend. The Russian title of this poem kinžal just means "dagger." But it is hard not to think that the dagger envisioned by this poem is in fact the Caucasian khanjali. 

Dagger
By Mikhail Lermontov
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

My dagger with a pith of damask steel
I love you! Comrade chill and bright,
A brooding Georgian forged you for revenge.
A free Circassian tempered you to fight.

Her lily-hand brought you to me in parting,
A keepsake of what cannot be again,
And then — for once — not blood flowed down your edge
But a light tear: a pearl of pain.

Fixated onto mine her two black eyes,
Filled with a sad mysterious dream
Like your raw steel put to the quavering fire, 
Went dim one instant — then agleam.

You are love's wordless pledge, my gift companion,
Fit model to the wanderer in the end.
So I'll not waver, I will steel my mettle
Like you, like you, my damask friend.

Recording of me reading the original

A. Z. Foreman · "Dagger" by M. Y. Lermontov, read in Russian and in English

The Original:

Кинжал
М. Ю. Лермонтов

Люблю тебя, булатный мой кинжал,
Товарищ светлый и холодный.
Задумчивый грузин на месть тебя ковал,
На грозный бой точил черкес свободный.

Лилейная рука тебя мне поднесла
В знак памяти, в минуту расставанья,
И в первый раз не кровь вдоль по тебе текла,
Но светлая слеза — жемчужина страданья.

И черные глаза, остановясь на мне,
Исполненны таинственной печали,
Как сталь твоя при трепетном огне,
То вдруг тускнели, — то сверкали.

Ты дан мне в спутники, любви залог немой,
И страннику в тебе пример не бесполезный:
Да, я не изменюсь и буду тверд душой,
Как ты, как ты, мой друг железный.