The lazy artist-boor is blacking
The genius's picture with his stuff,
Without any sense a-making
His low drawing above.
But alien paints, in stride of years,
Are falling down as a dust,
The genius's masterpiece appears
With former brilliance to us.
Like this, the darkly apparitions
Are leaving off my tortured heart,
And it again revives the visions
Of virgin days I left behind.
Художник-варвар кистью сонной
Картину гения чернит
И свой рисунок беззаконный
Над ней бессмысленно чертит.
Но краски чуждые, с летами,
Спадают ветхой чешуёй;
Созданье гения пред нами
Выходит с прежней красотой.
Так исчезают заблужденья
С измученной души моей,
И возникают в ней виденья
Первоначальных, чистых дней.
«And once more the autumn blasts like Tamerlane, / There is silence in the streets of Arbat. / Beyond the little station or beyond the haze / The impassable road is dark. So here it is, the latest one! And the rage / Subsides. It's as if the world had gone deaf... / A mighty, evangelical o...»
«The one people once called / King in jest, God in fact, / Who was killed, and whose implement of torture / Was heated by the warmth of my breast... / The disciples of Christ tasted death, / And the old gossips, and the soldiers, / And the procurator from Rome — all gone. / There, whe...»
«Oh, to hell with this storm, damn this snow and hail – / pounding on the rooftop, driving in white nails! / But me – I’m not frightened, and I know my fate: / my wastrel heart has nailed me to you – nailed us tight! »
«There are such easy ways / to leave this life, / to burn to an end / without pain or thought, / but a Russian poet / has no such luck. / A bullet is more likely / to show his winged soul / the way to Heaven; / or else the shaggy paw / of voiceless terror will squeeze / the life...»