If all who have begged help
From me in this world,
All the holy innocents,
Broken wives, and cripples,
The imprisoned, the suicidal —
If they had sent me one kopeck
I should have become ‘richer
Than all Egypt’...
But they did not send me kopecks,
Instead they shared with me their strength,
And so nothing in the world
Is stronger than I,
And I can bear anything, even this.
Если б все, кто помощи душевной
У меня просил на этом свете, —
Все юродивые и немые,
Брошенные жены и калеки,
Каторжники и самоубийцы, —
Мне прислали по одной копейке,
Стала б я «богаче всех в Египте»,
Как говаривал Кузмин покойный...
Но они не слали мне копейки,
А со мной своей делились силой,
И я стала всех сильней на свете —
Так что даже это мне не трудно.
«Convicts row their galley along / over the sea in a sweltering crew / covering the chain-clang with a snarling song / about their home — Peru. About Peru, the llower of the planet / full of dances, birds and love, / where blossoms crown the green pomegranate / and baobabs reach to the...»
«Beat the squares with the tramp of rebels! / Higher, ranges of haughty heads! / We’ll wash the world with a second deluge, / Now’s the hour whose coming it dreads. Too slow, the wagon of years, / The oxen of days — too glum. / Our god is the god of speed, / Our heart — our battl...»
«High / in the sky / sailed clouds. / Just four of them — / none of your crowds. / From the first to the third / they looked men, / ...»
«Hoofs plod / seeming to sing, / Grab. / Rib. / Grub. / Rob. / Ice-shod, / wind a-swing, / the street skidded. / On the roadway a cob / toppled, / and immediately, / loafer after loafer, / sweeping the Kuznetsky / with trousers bell-bottomous, / came mobbing. / Laughte...»