translating poetry, on a lighter note

[ja tu]

Hi Jules,
 
How do you like this translation?:
 Печальных слов нет наипаче,
Чем эти: «Быть могло иначе.»
 
Sincerely,
 
Ivan.
  
 

> 

________________________________
From: Jules Levin <ameliede at EARTHLINK.NET>
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU 
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2012 8:24 PM
Subject: [SEELANGS] translating poetry, on a lighter note

In contemplating some recent issues of literary translation, a couplet of my long-ago youth popped into my head:
John Greenleaf Whittier's "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these--it might have been."  In my youth poetry was still a popular art form in America; newspapers published verse every day, and workingmen like my father memorized long "manly" poems--Robert Service, etc.   This was not great poetry of course.  Anyway, I wondered how one would translate "it might have been" into Russian poetic language.  If I wanted to produce the thought in a normal conversation, I would just say  Eto, mozhet byt', bylo by tak..., or some such.  But has Whittier ever been translated?  Is there a more poetic construction?  (The couplet in English does rise above a conventional spoken speech style, in my opinion.)
Jules Levin
Los Angeles 
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