Behind the lake the moon’s not stirred
And seems to be a window through
Into a silent, well-lit house,
Where something unpleasant has occurred.
Has the master been brought home dead,
The mistress run off with a lover,
Or has a little girl gone missing,
And her shoes found by the creek-bed…
We can’t see. But feel some awful thing,
And we don’t want to talk.
Doleful, the cry of eagle-owls, and hot
In the garden the wind is blustering.
За озером луна остановилась
И кажется отворенным окном
В притихший, ярко освещенный дом,
Где что-то нехорошее случилось.
Хозяина ли мертвым привезли,
Хозяйка ли с любовником сбежала,
Иль маленькая девочка пропала
И башмачок у заводи нашли...
С земли не видно. Страшную беду
Почувствовав, мы сразу замолчали.
Заупокойно филины кричали,
И душный ветер буйствовал в саду.
«Every second of our time together / We exulted, as if it were epiphany, / We two alone in the world. Lighter / And braver than a bird’s wing, / You flew down the stairs / Like dizziness, skipping half of them, / Through wet lilacs into your realm / On the other side of the mirror. ...»
«Here, a house once stood. Inside, some old man / lived with a child. And now the house is gone. A hundred kilo bomb — the earth, blacker than black. / A home, now none. That’s war; what can be done? On a heap of gray rags, a samovar gleams. / A dresser, nearby a horse. Above the horse, ...»
«The gun battery was over there, behind that hill. / We cannot hear it, but its thunder remains still, / around us, the corpses lie beneath the snow, / and in the icy air, their arms are still flailing. / Who would dare to trample this field now? / Today, the dead ones rise again. Now they...»
«I bid farewell to everything I was, / everything I despised, disliked, and loved. And now, a new life begins, / I bid farewell to yesterday’s skin. About me, I no longer need any news. / I bid goodbye — right to the marrow. At last, I look down on what I was, / see my separate soul, n...»