What an evening! Streamlets run.
Banks are breaking,
Nightingales in set of sun
Music making.
Moonbeams from on high invade,
Flood the fallows;
In the gully willows’ shade,
Gleam of shallows.
There’s an old leak in the weir.
Planks are failing;
Dangerously lean you here
On the railing.
So to new life everything
Spring delivers;
Every field and copse must sing
As it quivers.
Like these choirs, we shall be dumb,
Cease from singing;
But our children then will come,
Carols ringing.
Not they only, — grandsons too
With a chorus;
With the spring to earth will flow
Tunes sonorous.
Что за вечер! А ручей
Так и рвется.
Как зарей-то соловей
Раздается!
Месяц светом с высоты
Обдал нивы,
А в овраге блеск воды,
Тень да ивы.
Знать, давно в плотине течь:
Доски гнилы, —
А нельзя здесь не прилечь
На перилы.
Так-то всё весной живет!
В роще, в поле
Всё трепещет и поет
Поневоле.
Мы замолкнем, что в кустах
Хоры эти, —
Придут с песнью на устах
Наши дети;
А не дети, так пройдут
С песнью внуки:
К ним с весною низойдут
Те же звуки.
«Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita. “I, I, I”. What a word! It’s unfair! / Is this man I? Is this not a fake? / Could his mother love him anywhere — / Grayish-yellow, gray in his hair, / And such witty and wise as a snake? Can it be that the boy who liked dances / In the summer ...»
«Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita. I, I, I. What a ridiculous word! / Is that character there I? / Can mother really have loved such a person, / Yellow-grey, with greying hair, / And worldly-wise as a serpent? Can the boy who at Ostankino each summer / Used to dance at country balls be...»
«“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita.” / ['Midway upon the journey of my life...' — Dante] I, I, I… What a barbarous word. / He is I? There must be some mistake! / Was it him that my mother adored — / This wild character, half-silver-haired, / Jaundice-faced and as wise as a s...»
«When, pained with spiritual thirst, / I trudged across a gloomy desert, / I came upon a six-winged seraph / Who stood before me on my path. / With digits light as sleep he touched / My eye pupils, and those enlarged, / Like a she-eagle's in a fright, / Filling up with prophetic sight. ...»