I had a dream: I slept, and I imagined
That I was dead and lost in reverie at that;
And lovingly, that reverie by kind of magic
Had given rise to hope in my depressing heart.
What kind of joy I want, I don't know, really.
There rings the bell, — and all is clarified;
My soul lit up, I understand now clearly,
That happiness is in those sounds all right.
Those sounds are clearer, more transparent,
More joyful than all sounds of the world.
I feel that to those sounds I am carried
To distant cemetery, my last abode.
I feel delight and torment, down and out,
I want to rise and breathe as I look back,
And on the wave of the exultant sound
I'd whirl away and drown in the dark.
Мне снился сон, что сплю я непробудно,
Что умер я и в грезы погружен;
И на меня ласкательно и чудно
Надежды тень навеял этот сон.
Я счастья жду, какого - сам не знаю.
Вдруг колокол — и все уяснено;
И, просияв душой, я понимаю,
Что счастье в этих звуках. — Вот оно!
И звуки те прозрачнее, и чище,
И радостней всех голосов земли;
И чувствую — на дальнее кладбище
Меня под них, качая, понесли.
В груди восторг и сдавленная мука,
Хочу привстать, хоть раз еще вздохнуть
И, на волне ликующего звука
Умчатся вдаль, во мраке потонуть.
«I live like a cuckoo in a clock, / I'm not jealous of the forest birds. / They wind me up — and I cuckoo. / You know — such a fate / I could only wish / For someone I hate.»
«What heavy, dark delirium! / The turbid moonlight on these peaks! / To have touched the violin so many years / And in the light not recognize its strings! Who needs us? Who has lit up / Two yellow faces, both so melancholy... / Then suddenly the bow felt / Someone take them up and someo...»
«It happened in Vallen-Koski1, / The rain descended from somber clouds, / And planks of wood, yellow and sodden, / Plunged over the mournful rocks. After such a cold night we were yawning, / Tears stood in our eyes: / To divert ourselves, for the fourth time, / We threw a doll into the w...»
«Outside, the music is steeped / In such ineffable sadness. / The ice-packed oysters on the dish / Have the sharp, fresh tang of sea. He said to me: "I really am / A true friend!" — and he touched my dress. / How unlike a caress it was, / The touch of those hands. This is how cats or ...»