White churches stand tall and there’s resonant, glistening ice,
And the cornflower-blue is abloom in my son’s precious gaze.
Nights strung with diamonds hang high on the ancient town’s heights,
More yellow than linden-flower honey the sickle-moon’s rays.
Dry blizzards blow in from the fields past the faraway river,
And people, like angels, rejoice in the Lord’s Holy Day.
They’ve tidied the parlor, lit icon lamps, flames all aquiver;
They’ve placed the Good Book on a table of oak, and they pray.
There dour-faced memory, forthrightness now apt to abhor,
Did open her sanctum sanctorum and bowed low to me;
But I ventured not in, and I slammed shut the hideous door,
While the town was suffused with the bells of Nativity’s glee.
Там белые церкви и звонкий, светящийся лёд,
Там милого сына цветут васильковые очи.
Над городом древним алмазные русские ночи
И серп поднебесный желтее чем липовый мёд.
Там вьюги сухие взлетают с заречных полей,
И люди, как ангелы, Божьему празднику рады,
Прибрали светлицу, зажгли у киота лампады,
И Книга Благая лежит на дубовом столе.
Там строгая память, такая скупая теперь,
Свои терема мне открыла с глубоким поклоном;
Но я не вошла, я захлопнула страшную дверь;
И город был полон весёлым рождественским звоном.
«As Moscow’s left behind, the peasant spirit’s cleaner; / The water has more blue; the sky is almost close. / With rare devotion sounds the forest concertina; / The player’s forelock drops to touch the low-pitch rows. His fingers dance in line, move fleetly taking chances, / And midst ...»
«Pencil’s wish is plainly accurate: / All it wants to know is truth. / Truth, eternal and immaculate, / Is the calling it pursues, Built as if to function lastingly, / Helped by neither drug nor graft, / Proper as a gent, and masterly / As an expert in one's craft. Profit’s hand wil...»
«While braggarts walk the earth — I say it’s great, / We should be thanking heavens for our fate. / The skies are blue, the clouds are swirling! / We are no advocates of burgling. / To get a braggart use no knife: / But give his bragging a high-five — / And you possess his life. Wh...»
«I store an image in my soul, the portrait of a fair lady. / Her eyes are turned upon some other, better days. / No one’s dispensable in there, and years are careless of the fading, / And long ago, they cleared each other’s guilty ways. Today, the honorable choir’s still glorifying her ...»