All in the Moscow is flooded with the verses,
Pierced through with awful spears of the rhymes.
Let we abide with them on different courses,
Let the full silence crowns over us,
Let muteness would be the secret symbol
Of them with you, though always seemed – with me,
But you unite self in a marriage, single,
With virgin silence, bitterest to be, –
That one, which eats the granite under ground,
And makes the future circle wholly filled,
And, in the night, suppressing loud sound,
Predicts your perish through your own ear.
Все в Москве пропитано стихами,
Рифмами проколото насквозь.
Пусть безмолвие царит над нами,
Пусть мы с рифмой поселимся врозь,
Пусть молчанье будет тайным знаком
Тех, кто с вами, а казался мной,
Вы же соединитесь тайным браком
С девственной горчайшей тишиной,
Что во тьме гранит подземный точит
И волшебный замыкает круг,
А в ночи над ухом смерть пророчит,
Заглушая самый громкий звук.
«In brambles, deep in huge marshes, / near a tin river, / in shaggy log cabins, dark, dark, / there are strange muzhiks.* Sometimes one comes out, there where no roads go / where feather-grass* scatters, / and he listens to Stribog* scream, and / he senses an old story, a true story. A ...»
«Valentine to the tavern students boasts / Of his sister’s charms and face, / While on Margarita’s left hand / A costly ring is placed. At Margarita’s, a casket lies / With rings for fingers and ears. / While in ivy, hid beneath her window, / The red caped trickster sneers. At Gre...»
«Did I murder my father, murder my mother, / in some other life ? / Yes, oh immortal, eternal God, yes! or how / could I deserve this disgrace of suffering? I lead a life as peaceful as death, / everything I do belongs to someone else, nothing / to me—except a languid, worthless, / dis...»
«The tip of willow tree was blackened, / For rooks protruded from its crown, / In azure sky-dale there they slackened – / The sheepish clouds grazed on its down. / And you, with gaze of resignation, / Announced: “I am in love with you.” / Like sea was grass’s oscillation, / At o...»