The boy said me: “how painful it is!”
And I feel guilty somehow.
Not long ago, he was living in bliss
And knew no sadness till now.
But at this moment he surely knows sorrow
No less than the wise and the old.
It seems that his eyes have begun to grow narrow,
And their once blinding light is now cold.
I know: that his pain will soon be too much,
The pain of first love is intense.
So helpless and feverish was his touch
As he was stroking my hands.
Мальчик сказал мне: «Как это больно!»
И мальчика очень жаль…
Ещё так недавно он был довольным
И только слыхал про печаль.
А теперь он знает всё не хуже
Мудрых и старых вас.
Потускнели и, кажется, стали у́же
Зрачки ослепительных глаз.
Я знаю: он с болью своей не сладит,
С горькой болью первой любви.
Как безпомощно, жадно и жарко гладит
Холодные руки мои.
«A magic landscape, / My heart's delight: / A full moon’s brightness, / A plain sheer white, The high sky lighted, / The snow’s pure ray, / And far-off gliding, / A lonely sleigh.»
«I come again with greetings new, / To tell you day is well begun; / To say the leaves are fresh with dew / And dappled in the early sun; To tell you how the forest stirs / In every branch of every brake, / And what an April thirst is hers, / With every whistling bird awake; To say, as ...»
«The embers sink to ashes. In the dusk / A small transparent flame is wavering; / Thus on a scarlet poppy will a moth / Flutter an azure wing. Drawn by a train of motley images, / The tired gaze is charmed, while all unclear, / Faces that alter as they flash and fade, / From the gray ash...»
«I know what fainting means, the heady sweetness / When the pain stops and dark comes in its stead; / And so quite fearlessly I can await you, / You night without a dawn, eternal bed. Your hand may touch my head, and from life’s records / You may expunge me, but I testify, / Before that ...»