With freedom's seed the desert sowing,
I walked before the morning star;
From pure and guiltless fingers throwing—
Where slavish plows had left a scar—
The fecund seed, the procreator;
Oh vain and sad disseminator,
I learned then what lost labors are....
Graze if you will, you peaceful nations,
Who never rouse at honor's horn!
Should flocks heed freedom's invocations?
Their part is to be slain or shorn,
Their dower the yoke their sires have worn
Through snug and sheepish generations.
Свободы сеятель пустынный,
Я вышел рано, до звезды;
Рукою чистой и безвинной
В порабощенные бразды
Бросал живительное семя —
Но потерял я только время,
Благие мысли и труды...
Паситесь, мирные народы!
Вас не разбудит чести клич.
К чему стадам дары свободы?
Их должно резать или стричь.
Наследство их из рода в роды
Ярмо с гремушками да бич.
«The white birch / Under my window / Wrapped herself in snow / As though in silver. / / Like snow borders / On fluffy branches, / White fringes of tassels / Have blossomed. / / And the birch stands / In listless silence, / And the snowflakes burn / In the golden fire. / ...»
«Out came the Lord to test humanity’s love, / Walked out into a field in the guise of a beggar. / An old man sitting on a stump in an oak grove / Was chewing a dry crumpet with his toothless mouth. / / The old man saw the beggar walking / Down the path with an iron cane / And thought...»
«In the land of yellow nettle / And dried-out wattle / Village huts, like orphans, / Cling to willows. / / In the fields, behind the ravine’s blue thicket, / Among green lakes, / The sand road stretches up to / The Siberian Mountains. / / Lost somewhere in Mordva and Chuda, / ...»
«I’m tired of living in my native land, / Yearning for the vast fields of buckwheat. / I’ll leave my shack / To be a vagrant and a thief. / / I’ll walk the white curls of the day / To look for some wretched lodging. / And, seeing me, my best friend / Will sharpen his boot knife...»