Aren’t you the one who lights soul’s fire?
Uncovers all that it has hidden?
And did you not the song inspire
That mad and random comes unbidden?
Have faith! I’ll give you back this life
When you unveil another chantry
To poet burdened by his strife,
From dark to light construct a gantry!
Oh carry me to distant land,
A country that is still uncharted,
I’ll scan horizon’s limits and
Declare — «O God! Now life has started!»
Не ты ли душу оживишь?
Не ты ли ей откроешь тайны?
Не ты ли песни окрылишь,
Что так безумны, так случайны?..
О, верь! Я жизнь тебе отдам,
Когда бессчастному поэту
Откроешь двери в новый храм,
Укажешь путь из мрака к свету!..
Не ты ли в дальнюю страну,
В страну неведомую ныне,
Введешь меня — я вдаль взгляну
И вскрикну: «Бог! Конец пустыне!»
«It's February. Weeping take ink. / Find words in a sobbing rush / For February, while black spring / Burns through the rumbling slush. And take a cab. Ride for a rouble / Through wheel racket and bell's throbbing / To where the downpour makes more din / Than the sound of ink and sobbing...»
«Dreadful! It drips and it listens — / whether it's all alone in the world / crushing a twig like lace at the window, / or is someone watching? Palpable, though, is the pressure / of porous earth's taut swellings, / and far off, audible as in August, / midnight ripens in fields. No, n...»
«The terrible! — After each drop, it stays / All ears: is it sole still, trying / To squeeze the branches like wrinkled lace, / Or is a witness prying? But, choking out loud from the heavy weight / Of swelling, the spongy soil widens, / And heard far away, as in August late, / The ...»
«At twilight the swifts have no way / Of stemming the cool blue cascade. / It bursts from clamouring throats, / A torrent that cannot be stayed. At twilight the swifts have no way / Of holding back, high overhead, / Their clarion shouting: Oh, triumph, / Look, look, how the earth has fle...»