Russia, my life! are we tied to one fate for us?
Tsar! yes, Siberia! Ermak I and jail!
Does no repentance, no parting await for us?
To my free soul can your darkness avail?
What do you know? Faith in God were you treasuring?
What do you wait for your singing to say?
Chud has done follies, and Merya, measuring
Marches and roads ev’ry mile of the way.
Boats, yes, and towns upon rivers they hew for you.
— Where are the shrines of the Emperor’s Town?
Hawks and wild swans on the steppes rose and flew for you...
Out of the steppes a black mist settles down.
Over the White Sea and over the Black again,
Black when the nights are and white are the days,
Wildly, dumb faces’ reflections come back again,
Eyes of the Tartars with flames are ablaze.
Gentle and lasting the sky’s red is gleaming then
Night upon night over armies below...
Why do you charm me so, mirage of dreaming, then?
Why do you play with my free spirit so?
Русь моя, жизнь моя, вместе ль нам маяться?
Царь, да Сибирь, да Ермак, да тюрьма!
Эх, не пора ль разлучиться, раскаяться…
Вольному сердцу на что твоя тьма?
Знала ли что? Или в Бога ты верила?
Что́ там услышишь из песен твоих?
Чудь начуди́ла, да Меря намерила
Гатей, дорог да столбов верстовых…
Лодки да грады по рекам рубила ты,
Но до Царьградских святынь не дошла…
Со́колов, ле́бедей в степь распустила ты —
Кинулась из степи чёрная мгла…
За́ море Черное, за́ море Белое
В чёрные ночи и в белые дни
Дико глядится лицо онемелое,
Очи татарские мечут огни…
Тихое, долгое, красное зарево
Каждую ночь над стано́вьем твоим…
Что же маячишь ты, сонное марево?
Вольным играешься духом моим?
«I happened upon a devillet / with the body of a child. / Thin and scrawny like a gnat; / his face was sharp, and shy, and old. His body trembled in the rain; / his fur was dark and ruffled. / It was a sorry sight; I feared / this devillet might snuff it. “Love! Love!” I hear all ro...»
«In your long jackets, broad-brimmed hats, / with notebooks of your poems, / you disintegrated long ago in dust / like fallen lilac blossom. Yours is a country free of ready forms, / where all is mingled, fractured, dislocated, / where there’s no sky — only a grave mound — / and th...»
«They’ve cut a hole in the deep / dense blue of the ice: / a breathing space for big fish and little, / water for bringers of buckets, / a way out for a weary traveler / if she and life turn out after all / to be traveling different roads / and she has nowhere to go.»
«I pardon all your sins — / but two I can’t abide: / You read poems in silence / and kiss aloud. So sin, blossom, be merry — / but take my advice: / a kiss, my darling, is not for the ear, / and music is not for the eyes.»