You will think about her as about your first bride,
To the point of tears in your dreams.
We did not inhale her fragrance together,
And you did not bring her to me.
She was brought to me
By that winged ruler of gods and muses,
When the peals of the first thunder
Glorified our terrible union.
That union that is called separation
And is torment to the hundredth power,
That is the purest and blackest of all.
Ты о ней как о первой невесте
Будешь думать во сне и до слез...
Мы ее не вдыхали вместе,
И не ты мне ее принес.
Мне принес ее тот крылатый
Повелитель богов и муз,
Когда первого грома раскаты
Прославляли наш страшный союз.
Тот союз, что зовут разлукой,
И какою-то сотою мукой,
Что всех чище и всех черней.
«After plodding year after year / through towns in an alien land, / we have ground enough to despair — / and despair is where we must end. For despair is our final refuge — / as if, midwinter, we had come / from Vespers in a nearby church, / through Russian snow, to our home.»
«Bring visions when you ring my bell / or all the loveliness of hell, / of God, if you belong to that band. / But little acts of meaning well — / just leave them outside on the hat stand. On this small pea in endless space / be shining angel or be demon. / But not mere man, though, for...»
«Through the closed nursery doors, the sugar angel / stares through the chink to see / the children playing at the Christmas party, / the brightly candled tree. Nana is making up the crackling fire, / a blaze for Christmas Day. / Only the sugar angel — he is German — / wastes, warm a...»
«I had a bird in my hand / but my bird has flown. / I held a bird in my hand / but am now all alone. My small bird has left me / full of anger and rage; / my blue bird has left me / alone in a cage.»