For all the foolishness I’ve said,
The punishment is heavy,
I could receive a pea of lead
From the secretary.*
____
* Joseph Stalin: (December 18, 1878 — March 5, 1953) was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953.
За такую скоморошину,
Откровенно говоря,
Мне свинцовую горошину
Ждать бы от секретаря.
«To Z. N. Gippius Enough’s enough: don’t wait, don’t hope; / My wretched people scatter! / Fall into space and shatter, / Year upon tormented year. Beggarly, will-less age. / Permit me, oh my motherland. / To sob in your damp fatuous freedom / To weep amid your empty steppes: — ...»
«Don’t weep for me — I’ll live on / as a happy beggar, a convict with goodwill, / as a southerner frozen in the north, / as a consumptive and ill-tempered Petershurger / in the malarial south I’ll live on. Don’t weep for me — I’ll live on / as that lame girl who came out on t...»
«Along my street, these steady steps resound / Year after year: my friends are slowly leaving. / The all-absorbing lightlessness around / Finds ease in seeing me alone and grieving. Sad, unattended are my friends’ affairs; / Their homes are dull; no song or music sounding; / Degas’ y...»
«And in conclusion I will say, / Farewell, don’t pledge your love in vanity. / My mind’s away, or on its way / Towards the higher loss of sanity. How loved was I? — You toyed with my / Mortality — that does not matter. / How loved was I? — You made me die, / But you could mak...»