Why, pretty gal, are you hexing about
With eyes and shoulders, in turn?
Thus you'll excite even me, no doubt,
Though, I don't feel concern.
Yet, for this dangerous game men stay ready,
Many you will captivate
Until you turn from a passionate lady
Into good mother and mate.
And after all ups and downs of th' roam,
Losses, wins, odds of the game,
You'll reappear, Aphrodite, from pink foam,
As you are now, the same.
Милая девушка, что ты колдуешь
Черным зрачком и плечом?
Так и меня ты, пожалуй, взволнуешь,
Только — я здесь ни при чем.
Знаю, что этой игрою опасной
Будешь ты многих пленять,
Что превратишься из женщины страстной
В умную нежную мать.
Но, испытавши судьбы перемены, —
Сколько блаженств и потерь! —
Вновь ты родишься из розовой пены
Точно такой, как теперь.
«Yesterday at six / I stopped by Hay Square; / They were whipping a woman, / A young peasant, there. Not a sound from her breast, / Just the lash, playing, whistled... / And I said to my Muse: / "Look! It's your sister!"»
«What a night! How pure the air, / How silvery the slumbering leaf, / How black the shadow of the bankside willows, / How serenely the bay sleeps, / How still it is — nowhere a wave's sigh — / How full the breast is with silence! Midnight light, you're the same as day: / Except the ...»
«Like a bright sun a bonfire flares up in the forest, / And, contracting, the juniper creaks; / Like a crowded choir of drunken giants, / The fir-grove, reddened, sways. I forgot to think about the cold night, — / I was warmed to the very bone and heart; / My troubles wavered then vanish...»
«A whisper, timid breathing. / A nightingale's trill, / The silver and the rocking / Of a drowsy rill. Night's light, night's shades, / Shades without cease, / A series of magic changes / In a dear face, In smoky clouds a rose's purple...»