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!»
«at Pushkino, Akulov Hill, / Rumyantsev s dacha, / 27 versts from Moscow / by Yaroslavl railway. The sunset blazed like sixty suns. / July was under way. / The heat was dense, / the heat was tense, / upon that summer’s day. / The slope near Pushkino swelled up / into Akulov Hill,...»
«This is to you, / well-fed baritones, / from Adam / to the present day / shaking the dives called theatres with the groans / of Romeo and Juliet or some such child’s play. To you, / maitres painters / fattening like ponies, / guzzling and guffawing salt of the earth, / secluded ...»
«Spanish stone / rose in cliff and wall / dazzling white, / jagged as saw-teeth. / Till twelve / the steamer / stood swallowing coal / and...»
«The steamer hove in, / hooted, / roared, / and, / runaway convict, / they've chained’er. / 700 / ...»