Amid the virgin maples and the weeping birches
Upon those arrogant pines to gaze I cannot brook;
The flocks of my sweet living daydreams they disturb,
Hateful to me their sober look.
Amid the gathering of their reborn neighbours
It's they alone that stir not, whisper not, nor sigh,
And they, immutable, remind the joyous springtime
Of the bleak winter days gone by.
And when the forest shall the last dry leaf let fall
And silently await the spring's new life again,
They, breathing fear to other generations, shall
In all their beauty cold remain.
Средь клёнов девственных и плачущих берёз
Я видеть не могу надменных этих сосен;
Они смущают рой живых и сладких грёз,
И трезвый вид мне их несносен.
В кругу воскреснувших соседей лишь оне
Не знают трепета, не шепчут, не вздыхают
И, неизменные, ликующей весне
Пору́ зимы напоминают.
Когда уронит лес последний лист сухой
И, смолкнув, станет ждать весны и возрожденья, —
Они останутся холодною красой
Пугать иные поколенья.
«In the land of yellow nettle / And dried-out wattle / Village huts, like orphans, / Cling to willows. / / In the fields, behind the ravine’s blue thicket, / Among green lakes, / The sand road stretches up to / The Siberian Mountains. / / Lost somewhere in Mordva and Chuda, / ...»
«I’m tired of living in my native land, / Yearning for the vast fields of buckwheat. / I’ll leave my shack / To be a vagrant and a thief. / / I’ll walk the white curls of the day / To look for some wretched lodging. / And, seeing me, my best friend / Will sharpen his boot knife...»
«Swimming in the blue dust, / The moon butts a cloud with its horn. / This night, no one will guess / Why the herons screamed. / This night, she ran through the reeds / To the green backwater. / Her white hand swept her tousled hair / Over her tunic. / She ran up, glanced at the quick...»
«Your pensive sigh is calling me / To warm light, to my native threshold / / Where grandmother and grandfather sit on the porch / Awaiting their spirited sunflower-aged grandson. / / Their grandson is slim and white as a birch, / With honey hair and velvet hands. / / Except, o my...»