Pity the poor translator

A friend recently sent me this poem on the trials of the elderly gray translator. I'd not come across it before and can only say that it just reinforces my feeling that I should steer clear of ever trying to translate poetry. Mind you I wonder if being sent this was a gentle hint I should make an apointment to get my highlights re-done! Ah well, at least I haven't torn all of my hair out yet looking for the right word.

Pity the Elderly Gray Translator, by Vladimir Nabokov

Pity the elderly gray translator

Who lends to beauty his hollow voice

And - choosing sometimes a second-rater -

Mimes the song-fellow of this choice.

To sacred sense for the sake of meter

His is seldom traitor as traitors go,

But pity him when he quakes with Peter

And waits for the terza rima to crow.

It is not the head of the verse line that'll

Cause him trouble, nor is it the spine:

What he really minds is the cursed rattle

That must be found for the tail of the line.

Some words by nature are sort of singlish,

Others have harems of rimes. The word

"Elephant," for example, walks alone in English

But its Slavic equivalent goes about in a herd.

"Woman" is another famous poser

For none can seriously contemplate

An American president or a German composer

In a viable context with the word for mate.

Since rime is a national repercussion

(And a local holiday), how bizarre

That "skies-eyes" should twin in French and Russian:

"Cieux-yeux," "nebesa-glaza."

Such boons are irrelevant. Sooner or later

The gentle person, the mime sublime,

The incorruptible translator

Is betrayed by lady rime.

And the poem from the Persian

And the sonnet spun in Spain

Perish in the person's version

And the person dies insane.