Not the snake fangs, but the stinging
Heartache emptied out my veins.
A quiet girl, I call love, singing
Birdlike in the whitened plains.
The other road closed long ago,
My prince — in a fortress, up high,
Will I betray him? — I don’t know!
But my life on this earth is a lie.
I won’t forget how he bid me farewell
I didn’t cry; I knew it was fate.
To visit his dreams, I’m casting new spells
But my spells are in vain, I’m afraid.
Does he sleep so serenely, locked in,
All because I’m barred and locked out,
Or is the bright-eyed tender Sirin
Already singing to him from a cloud?
Хорони, хорони меня, ветер!
Родные мои не пришли,
Надо мною блуждающий вечер
И дыханье тихой земли.
Я была, как и ты, свободной,
Но я слишком хотела жить.
Видишь, ветер, мой труп холодный,
И некому руки сложить.
Закрой эту черную рану
Покровом вечерней тьмы
И вели голубому туману
Надо мною читать псалмы.
Чтобы мне легко, одинокой,
Отойти к последнему сну,
Прошуми высокой осокой
Про весну, про мою весну.
«I can’t submit myself to man. / Who’d choose to be a slave? / We judge each other all life long — / and then? A lonely grave. I can’t submit myself to God, / because I love Him so. / For God has set me on this road — / where else am I to go? I tear the nets that bind mankind ...»
«No, I will never make my peace. / There’s truth in all my curses. / I won’t forgive, won’t throw myself / into the iron embraces. Like everyone, I’ll die, I’ll kill — / ruin myself, like everyone — / but I refuse to stain my soul / by justifying what goes on. When death i...»
«For many days along the river Ocean / With open sail, towards the blurry East / To predetermined land we are in motion, / The singing waves get tired in the mist. The eye of ending day is peeping crimson / And now far away we see the sight / Of sleeping land. And shading to horizon / Th...»
«The scarlet of the dawn has woven on the lake. / In the pine forest the wood grouse are crying with ringing. There is an oriole crying somewhere, having hidden in the hollow. / But only I cannot cry — it is light on my soul. I know, by evening you'll come out by the ring of roads, / We'll ...»