# Sergei Yesenin's best-known lines (with the poem)

"I do not regret, I do not call, I do not weep", "Are you still alive, my old woman?" and "Great things are seen from a distance": the lines by Sergei Yesenin that Russians know by heart, from "The Birch Tree" (1913) to "Goodbye, my friend, goodbye", with title and year.

- 2 votes · 15 items
- Feb 5, 2024 · Софья Смирнова
- https://even.best/en/l/5175/sergei-yesenin-s-best-known-lines-with-the-poem

## Top 15

1. **Face to face / you cannot see a face. / Great things are seen from a distance.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Poem "Letter to a Woman", 1924.
2. **The golden grove has fallen silent, / with its merry birch-tree tongue.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Poem "The golden grove has stopped talking…", 1924.
3. **I do not regret, I do not call, I do not weep: / everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "I do not regret, I do not call, I do not weep…", 1921.
4. **Are you still alive, my old woman? / I am alive too. Greetings to you, greetings!** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Letter to My Mother", 1924.
5. **If the holy host should cry: / "Leave Rus, come live in paradise!" / I will say: "I need no paradise, / give me my homeland."** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Hail, Rus, my native land…", 1914.
6. **The white birch tree / beneath my window / has covered itself in snow / as if in silver.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "The Birch Tree", 1913.
7. **Shagane, my Shagane! / Is it because I am from the north…** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Shagane, my Shagane!", 1924.
8. **My fallen maple, my frozen maple, / why do you stand stooping in the white blizzard?** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "My fallen maple…", 1925.
9. **Only one amusement is left to me: / fingers in my mouth and a cheerful whistle.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Only one amusement is left to me…", 1923.
10. **Though another has drunk you dry, / I still have, I still have / the glassy smoke of your hair / and the autumn weariness of your eyes.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Though you were drunk by another…", 1923.
11. **If I had not been a poet, / I would probably have been a swindler and a thief.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Every living thing is marked…", 1922.
12. **So few roads travelled, / so many mistakes made.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "It makes me sad to look at you…", 1923.
13. **And I was obscene and made scandals / so as to burn more brightly.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Only one amusement is left to me…", 1923.
14. **Goodbye, my friend, goodbye. / My dear, you are in my heart.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Goodbye, my friend, goodbye…", 1925.
15. **In this life there is nothing new in dying, / but living, of course, is no newer.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Goodbye, my friend, goodbye…", 1925.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.