My night — I think of you obsessively,
My day — indifferent: let it be!
I turned and smiled at my destiny
That brought me only misery.
The fumes of yesterday are dire,
The flames that burn me will not die,
It seems to me, this blazing fire
Will not become a sunlit sky.
Shall I endure without conceding,
And curse you for not being there?..
You’re far away. You’ll never see me
Imprisoned in my awful snare.
Ночь моя — бред о тебе,
День — равнодушное: пусть!
Я улыбнулась судьбе,
Мне посылающей грусть.
Тяжек вчерашний угар,
Скоро ли я догорю,
Кажется, этот пожар
Не превратится в зарю.
Долго ль мне бится в огне,
Дальнего тайно кляня?..
В страшной моей западне
Ты не увидишь меня.
«It drizzled, but not even grasses / Would bend within the bag of storm; / Dust only gulped its rain in pellets, / The iron roof — in powder form. The village did not hope for healing. / Deep as a swoon the poppies yearned / Among the rye in inflammation, / And God in fever tossed and ...»
«Black spring! Pick up your pen, and weeping, / Of February, in sobs and ink, / Write poems, while the slush in thunder / Is burning in the black of spring. Through clanking wheels, through church bells ringing / A hired cab will take you where / The town has ended, where the showers ...»
«The Lord has rewarded me / With a light-filled and iron heart. / With a gift of singing, a tearful gift. The Lord has protected me / With a white flag. / The Lord has passed me by / With the carnal flame. Hold higher the flag! / The Lord above us! / Heavier than stone — / The...»
«I said, and another heard, / Whispered to a third, who understood, / And the fourth, taking his oak staff, / Went into the night — to a heroic deed. / The world made a song of it, and with that / Song on my lips — O life! — I meet my death.»