Wild wind batters
Window-panes,
And hinged shutters
Rudely strains.
Hour of Mass on Easter mom,
Bells far distant, bells forlorn,
Deafness, darkness everywhere;
Only guest, a wind in scorn
Batters on the barrier.
Through the window — void and black;
In the darkness footsteps crack.
There the ice-bound flood breaks free.
There a Bride awaits for me.
How to vile sleep not surrender?
How drive off that guest from here?
Not give up my love so tender
To the cursfcd stranger’s care?
How not throw the world away?
Not despair of everything,
If my only guest’s a wind,
Nothing but a wild black wind
On my household battering?
Why, wind, batter
Window-pane?
And hinged shutter
Rudely strain?
Дикий ветер
Стёкла гнёт,
Ставни с петель
Буйно рвёт.
Час заутрени пасхальной,
Звон далёкий, звон печальный,
Глухота и чернота.
Только ветер, гость нахальный,
Потрясает ворота.
За окном черно и пусто,
Ночь полна шагов и хруста,
Там река ломает лёд,
Там меня невеста ждёт…
Как мне скинуть злую дрёму,
Как мне гостя отогнать?
Как мне милую — чужому,
Проклято́му не отдать?
Как не бросить всё на свете,
Не отчаяться во всём,
Если в гости ходит ветер,
Только дикий чёрный ветер,
Сотрясающий мой дом?
Что ж ты, ветер,
Стёкла гнёшь?
Ставни с петель
Дико рвёшь?
«The forties, fateful, / warring, frontline, / with funeral notices, / clattering trains. / The hum of the rails. / All is cold, high and barren. / Their houses have burned — / they’re heading east. / That’s me at the station / in my scruffy wool cap. / The star’s not stan...»
«How bare the countryside! What dearth / How stark the hamlets’ desolation... / Long-suffering country of my birth, / poor homeland of the Russian nation. Never will the stranger’s gaze / look deeper to perceive or guess / what hidden light there is that plays / and shimmers through...»
«Oh don’t look back / at that ice / at that dark; / there, waiting greedily / for you is a look / that will demand an answer. I looked back today. And suddenly, / I saw him — alive and with living eyes, / looking at me out of the ice, / my ...»
«The air is split into black branches, / like old glass. / Pray to Our Lady of Autumn! / The windows of autumn’s chapel, / smashed by a hurtling bullet, / are wrinkling. / A tree was burning, / a bright spill in the golden air. / It bends; it bows down. / Autumn’s flint and stee...»