Ever since St. Agrafena’s day,
He has kept my crimson shawl.
He gloats like King David, enthralled.
His frosty cell has walls of gray,
And no one talks to him at all.
I’ll go to his door and stand in his way,
“Return my shawl to me!” I’ll say.
Со дня Купальницы-Аграфены
Малиновый платок хранит.
Молчит, а ликует, как царь Давид.
В морозной келье белы стены,
И с ним никто не говорит.
Приду и стану на порог,
Скажу: «Отдай мне мой платок!»
«A well, and the cherry trees swaying / Where bare girlish feet trod the fruit; / Nearby the damp imprint betraying / The stamp of a heavy nailed boot. Stilled now is the place of their meeting, / But nothing the silence avails: / In my brain passion's echo repeating / Their whispers—t...»
«Oh, the ricks, the ricks, / In the meadows lying, / The eye cannot count / You, for all its trying. Oh, the ricks, the ricks, / In the green morasses, / What do you guard: / You heaped, heavy masses? Pray, behold us, good sir: / We were once bright flowers; / But the sharp scythe f...»
«Believe me not, dear, when in hours of anguish / I say my love for thee exists no more. / At ebb of tide, think not the sea is faithless; / It will return with love unto the shore. E'en now I pine for thee with old-time passion, / And place my freedom in thy hands once more. / Already, wi...»
«Dost thou know, my native country, / Any house or corner lone / Where thy Tiller and thy Sower, / Russia's peasant, does not moan? In the fields, along the highways, / In the cells and dungeons black, / In the mines in iron fetters, / By the side of barn and stack; 'Neath the carts, hi...»