Her dry lips were tightly closed up.
Three thousand candles swayed.
Thus Princess Eudoxia lay atop
The scented, sapphire brocade.
A tearless mother, bowing down,
Prayed to her for her blind son,
And a voiceless hysteric thrashed about
Lapping for air on the run.
And he, who arrived from the south,
A hunchbacked old man with dark eyes,
Clenched the wall of the stairway, worn out,
Like the door into paradise.
Плотно сомкнуты губы сухие,
Жарко пламя трех тысяч свечей.
Так лежала княжна Евдокия
На душистой сапфирной парче.
И, согнувшись, бесслезно молилась
Ей о слепеньком мальчике мать,
И кликуша без голоса билась,
Воздух силясь губами поймать.
А пришедший из южного края
Черноглазый, горбатый старик,
Словно к двери небесного рая,
К потемневшей ступеньке приник.
«I should have seen the sign: “Fresh paint”, / But useless to advise / The careless soul, and memory's stained / With cheeks, calves, hands, lips, eyes. More than all failure, all success, / I loved you, for your skill / In whitening the yellowed world / As white cosmetics will. Lis...»
«To fly off, a ripe pear in a storm. / With one leaf clinging on as it must. / Mad devotion! It quitted the branch! / It will choke with its throat full of dust! A ripe pear, more aslant than the wind. / What devotion! “You'll bray me? You're brash!" / Look! In beauty the thunder-spent s...»
«9 The piano, aquiver, will lick the foam from its lips. / The frenzy will wrench you, fell you, and you, undone. / Will whisper: “Darling!" “No," I shall cry, “what’s this? / In the presence of music!" Of nearness there is none Like twilight’s, with the chords tossed into the firep...»
«Here the trace of enigma's strange fingernail shows. / "It is late. Let me sleep, and at dawn I’ll reread / And then all will be clear. Till they wake me, there’s none / Who can move the beloved as I move her, indeed!” How I moved you! You bent to the brass of my lips / As an audience...»