I thought my heart had lost the power
Of suffering love’s gentle pain:
I said, "The past, the fleeting hour
Comes not again, comes not again.
«They’ve gone, the raptures and the longing.
The flattering dreams that shone so bright. . . .»
But as I spoke, they came back thronging.
Called up by Beauty’s sovran might.
Я думал, сердце позабыло
Способность лёгкую страдать,
Я говорил: тому, что было,
Уж не бывать! уж не бывать!
Прошли восторги, и печали,
И легковерные мечты…
Но вот опять затрепетали
Пред мощной властью красоты.
«One still within his lot of years, / O my fate, O sacred one! / I am no wolf, no murderer, / And I honor you, the faithful guardian. Your face has furrowed features but / Your mind’s not dull to the whirl of life. / You, Laërtes, father, I salute, / Ruminative in your homeland’s st...»
«"There lived on earth a humble knight…"1 / / This little book a poet / Gave me in the corridors / Of Gosizdat.2 / The book is torn and tattered, / The poet long since dead. It was said that in his visage / There was something of a bird / And of Egypt-so they said. / He had a be...»
«Don’t let your worldly soul get lazy! / Lest it sit twiddling its thumbs / Your soul must work like it's a navvy / Day after day, night after night! / / Make so it go from door to door, / Drag it from one top onto another / Along a path - all ruts and holes, / Over a pass with s...»
«Came a rush of whistling, / birds descended from the sky. / Like rustling leaves / they would not fly. And like a giant wing above me / I watched the swan-storm grow. / The cloud was some enormous bird / that trailed twilight on the place below. Mysterious feathery shadows / drifting...»