And cursing each other with brute
Passion, white-hot all through,
Neither one of us understood
How small the earth was for two,
That memory torments with spite,
Afflicting the most strong-hearted,
That one learns to plead in the night:
Where has my friend departed?
And as the choir voices rise,
Happy and menacing, that instant,
The same two stern and certain eyes
Survey the soul, persistent.
И когда друг друга проклинали
В страсти, раскалённой добела,
Оба мы ещё не понимали,
Как земля для двух людей мала,
И что память яростная мучит,
Пытка сильных — огненный недуг! —
И в ночи́ бездонной сердце учит
Спрашивать: о, где ушедший друг?
А когда, сквозь волны фимиама,
Хор гремит, ликуя и грозя,
Смотрят в душу строго и упрямо
Те же неизбежные глаза.
«From a Wayfarer's Letters V And this I solemnly declare: / That I have lived no worthless year, / Nor trodden any road for naught, / Nor closed any mind to any thought, / Nor closed my ears to any news, / Nor given gifts where none were due. / Neither do I my Love regret, / Deceived ...»
«There's a season alight with its own, strange shimmer / Of misted sun, most tenderly warm. / People call it / Indian summer / And it rivals the spring itself in charm. Already the flying gossamer's clinging / Lightly, warily round the face... / How full is ...»
«In sheepskin coats of homely peasant cut / From villages far south of the Oka / They came, three strangers. Each had left his hut / To put his case about the way things are. All Russia tossed, distraught by war and famine / With everything confused, disturbed, displaced. / She roared and ...»
«The sparse, untidy, ginger-coloured curls / In meagre whisps about her head lie scattered; / Her little blouse is faded, old and tattered. / She looks a freak among the boys and girls / Playing around her, poor, misshapen creature / With crooked teeth and sharp, ungainly features. / Not ...»