My husband beat me with the plating
Of a belt he bent in two.
With a candle, I keep waiting
On the windowsill for you.
It is dawning. Smoke is weaving,
Rising up above the forge.
O, for me, a captive grieving,
You, again, did not emerge.
It’s for you such fate I bear,
Filled with torment and ordeal,
Did you fall for someone fair?
Does a redhead now appeal?
How to mask such ringing moaning!
Heart is stifled, drunk with dread,
As the thin rays of the morning
Graze the still unrumpled bed.
Муж хлестал меня узорчатым,
Вдвое сложенным ремнём.
Для тебя в окошке створчатом
Я всю ночь сижу с огнём.
Рассветает. И над кузницей
Подымается дымок.
Ах, со мной, печальной узницей,
Ты опять побыть не мог.
Для тебя я долю хмурую,
Долю-муку приняла.
Или любишь белокурую,
Или рыжая мила?
Как мне скрыть вас, стоны звонкие!
В сердце темный, душный хмель,
А лучи ложатся тонкие
На несмятую постель.
«In the breeze, on a bough that is asking / If it’s time for the birds to sing, / Like a sparrow soaked with the showers. / My lilac blossom, you swing. The raindrop’s a heavy button, / And the garden in spate appears. / Bespattered and wet and sprinkled / As with millions of blue te...»
«“Enough ! for beauty is not needed. / The sordid world’s not worth a song. / Grow dim, O Tasso’s lamp ! Unheeded / Lie, Homer, friend for centuries long! “And revolution is not needed; / Its armies dissipate and fade. / It has one crown for which it pleaded, / It has one liberty...»
«Wild wind batters / Window-panes, / And hinged shutters / Rudely strains. Hour of Mass on Easter mom, / Bells far distant, bells forlorn, / Deafness, darkness everywhere; / Only guest, a wind in scorn / Batters on the barrier. Through the window — void and black; / In the darknes...»
«O’er sleepy fields a vulture broods, / In circle upon circle sweeping. / Watching the meadow solitudes. / A mother in her hut is weeping: / “Take bread, my son, take breast, and grow; / Obey, take up thy cross, and go.” Centuries pass. Loud blares the war, / Rebellion rising, haml...»