When you were reading those tormented lines
In which the heart's resonant flame sends out glowing streams
And passion's fatal torrents rear up, —
Didn't you recall a single thing?
I can't believe it! That night on the steppe
When, in the midnight mist a premature dawn,
Transparent, lovely as a miracle,
Broke in the distance before you
And your unwilling eye was to this beauty drawn
To that majestic glow beyond the realm of darkness, —
How could it be that nothing whispered to you then:
A man has perished in that fire!
Когда читала ты мучительные строки,
Где сердца звучный пыл сиянье льёт кругом
И страсти роковой вздымаются потоки, —
Не вспомнила ль о чём?
Я верить не хочу! Когда в степи, как диво,
В полночной темноте безвременно горя,
Вдали перед тобой прозрачно и красиво
Вставала вдруг заря.
И в эту красоту невольно взор тянуло,
В тот величавый блеск за тёмный весь предел, —
Ужель ничто тебе в то время не шепнуло:
«Там человек сгорел!»
«Night, streets, the lantern, the drugstore, / The meaningless and dusky light. / A quarter of the century more — / All fall the same into your sight! You died — as it was before — / You have the former way to start: / The streets, the lantern, the drugstore, / Swell of the canal ...»
«The river stretched. It flows, idly grieves, / And washes both banks. / In steppe, above light clay of cliffs / Rinks mourn in ranks. O Russia! Dear wife! With clearness and pain / We see the lengthy way! / It sent an arrow of ancient Tartar reign — / In breast it lay. The way throug...»
«Your sweetheart forever leaving, / Friend, you swear me to love!.. / And in lands of boring living / To preserve the pledge above!.. Outside our Denmark, happy, / Your dark shores lay in grief... / And the tide, enraged and gabby, / Washes tears on a reef... Dressed not in the silk ...»
«Don't call. Without any summons / I'll reach the shrine. / And droop my head in even silence / To your feet fine. I will your orders shyly listen / And will remain / To catch our meetings, short and instant, / And wish again. I fell before your passions' power, / Before its wave, / ...»