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.
«We are everywhere. We are nowhere. We walk / And the winter wind blows at us. / In churches both at dusk and during the day / It sings and blows out the candles. And it often seems that in the distance, / At dark walls or at a corner / Where we sang and passed, / There still sings and w...»
«I knew you were dreaming of me, / that’s why I couldn’t get to sleep. / The murky lamp hazed blue / and showed me the road. You saw the Tsaritsa’s garden, / the intricate white palace, / the black tracery of the fences / by the echoing stone steps. You walked, not knowing the wa...»
«I will return as grass in spring, / I'll try to reach you, germinating, / As buds reach forward to the green / When they are waiting to awaken. To start the blossoming anew / One morning, secretly and shyly, / Already sparkling with the dew, / That dries away if sun is shining. The sun...»
«How many birch trees did you see in this world? / It’s likely — just two, maybe three, / All trimmed with the silver of first winter cold / Or dressed in the green veil of spring Or, maybe, in summer you’d come back at home, / And sunlight would fill all your place, / And through op...»