By the early sunrise seized,
I sing of love aloud,
In the garden, on my knees
Weeding goosefoot out.
I tear it out and I hurl —
Pardon this offense.
I see a little barefoot girl
Crying by the fence.
Voice of sorrow rings and swells,
Filling me with dread,
Stronger grows the tepid smell
Of the weed now dead.
Stone, not bread, will be my prize
To accept with poise,
Up above me, just the skies,
And with me, your voice.
Я на солнечном восходе
Про любовь пою,
На коленях в огороде
Лебеду полю.
Вырываю и бросаю —
Пусть простит меня.
Вижу, девочка босая
Плачет у плетня.
Страшно мне от звонких воплей
Голоса беды,
Всё сильнее запах тёплый
Мёртвой лебеды.
Будет камень вместо хлеба
Мне наградой злой.
Надо мною только небо,
А со мною голос твой.
«To Lydia Zinoviev-Annibal For days on end we sailed the river Ocean / To meet the day; our sails are stretched and sure / Our course, resistless land propels our motion; / The voice of waves grows weary and obscure, The orb of day goes blind and burns carnationred; / at last, night falls, ...»
«Your love is like the Milky Way / Whose stellar dew inside me glimmers. / In dreams, its hidden torment shimmers / Like diamonds rippling in the waves. You are, like astral fluid, bitter, / The light of tears that pierces graves. / I am the skyline that obeys / The dawn, its blind and u...»
«The barren slope of the meandering valley / Is overgrown with hoary, wiry grass. / Spurge shows up white. Eroded beds of clay / Reveal the sparkling lead and shale and mica. The water-worn and slaty walls sprout capers; / A crevice clasps the olive’s withered trunk; / Above the hill, th...»
«A sacred wood was here. The messenger of gods / Would let his winged foot fall lightly on these glades. / The onetime site of cities kept no trace of their ruin. / In flocks, sheep creep along the bronze inclines. The slopes are woodless. In the green twilight, the mountains / Form a jagged...»