Do not speak of the north and its sadness
And a dread and malevolent fate.
Surely this is a festive occasion:
You and I, we are parting today.
Never mind that the moon will not haunt us,
And the dawn you and I will not meet.
I will shower you with gifts, my beloved,
Of a kind that have never been seen.
Take my wavering, dancing reflection
In the shimmery glass of a stream;
Take my gaze that the great, swooning stars
As they fall from the heavens arrests;
Take my voice, take its spent, broken echo,
Once so summery, youthful and fresh....
Take my gifts: they will help you to listen
Without pain to the gossiping birds
In the wet of a Moscow October,
And will turn autumn's gloom to the languor
And the sweetness of May.... O, my angel,
Think of me, think of me till the first
Flakes of snow start to waltz in the air....
Не стращай меня грозной судьбой
И великою северной скукой.
Нынче праздник наш первый с тобой,
И зовут этот праздник — разлукой.
Ничего, что не встретим зарю,
Что луна не блуждала над нами,
Я сегодня тебя одарю
Небывалыми в мире дарами:
Отраженьем моим на воде
В час, как речке вечерней не спится.
Взглядом тем, что падучей звезде
Не помог в небеса возвратиться,
Эхом голоса, что изнемог,
А тогда был и свежий, и летний, —
Чтоб ты слышать без трепета мог
Воронья подмосковного сплетни,
Чтобы сырость октябрьского дня
Стала слаще, чем майская нега...
Вспоминай же, мой ангел, меня,
Вспоминай хоть до первого снега.
«y noon heat in a dale in Dagestan, / A bullet in my breast, my body lay; / Deep was the wound and steaming even yet, / My blood was dripping drop by drop away. I lay alone upon the valley sands. / Clustered above my head, the cliffs were steep, / Their tawny summits scorched under the sun...»
«My damask dagger with a soul of steel, / I love you! Comrade chill and bright, / Forged by a brooding Georgian for revenge. / A free Circassian honed you for the fight. A lily-hand brought you to me in parting, / A keepsake of a time too brief / And then for once not blood flowed down you...»
«Here where barbarians knelt in Roman court / Stands the basilica: original / As joyous Adam, stretching nerves, the tall / Groined archway bunches muscle as for sport. But things outside betray the secret plan: / A pact of arch and buttress here forestalls / The heavy mass from flattening...»
«Distant, the stars indifferently glimmered, / illumining the winding of the Road. / Out past a turn there stood the Mount of Olives, / and at its foot the river Kedron flowed. The meadow broke off halfway from the end. / Reaching beyond, the Milky Way was there. / The silver-ashen olive t...»