But I warn you
That I am alive for the last time.
Neither as sparrow, nor maple.
Nor reed, nor star,
Nor spring water,
Nor bells in a tower —
I will not embarrass people
By visiting in strange dreams
With unquenchable moans.
Но я предупреждаю вас,
Что я живу в последний раз.
Ни ласточкой, ни кленом,
Ни тростником и ни звездой,
Ни родниковою водой,
Ни колокольным звоном —
Не буду я людей смущать
И сны чужие навещать
Неутоленным стоном.
«After a sleepless night my body grows weaker, / Becomes sweet and no one’s — no longer mine. / In the slow veins the arrows still flicker, / And like a seraph, I smile at passers-by. After a sleepless night my arms grow languid; / Friend or foe, my indifference is complete. / A full r...»
«It's dreadful! It drips and it listens: / Does nobody else in the world / Press branches, like lace, in a window' / Or is there...a witness? The ground is so swollen and smothered, / Too spongy, too heavy to breathe / But listen — far off, as in August — / How midnight grows ripe in...»
«Goldfinch, friend, I'll cock my head — / let's check the world out, just me and you: / this winter's day pricks like chaff; / does it sting your eyes too? Boat-tailed, feathers yellow-black, / sopped in colour beneath your beak, / do you get, you goldfinch you, / just how you flaunt i...»
«I can’t submit myself to man. / Who’d choose to be a slave? / We judge each other all life long — / and then? A lonely grave. I can’t submit myself to God, / because I love Him so. / For God has set me on this road — / where else am I to go? I tear the nets that bind mankind ...»