He who compared himself to the eye of a horse,
Peers, looks, sees, recognizes,
And instantly puddles shine, ice
Pines away, like a melting of diamonds.
Backyards drowse in lilac haze. Branch —
Line platforms, logs, clouds, leaves...
The engine’s whistle, watermelon’s crunch,
A timid hand in a fragrant kid glove. He’s
Ringing, thundering, grinding, up to his breast
In breakers… and suddenly is quiet... This means
He is tiptoeing over pine needles, feaful lest
He should startle space awake from its light sleep.
It means he counts the grains in the empty ears,
And it means he has come back
From another funeral, back to Darya’s
Gorge, the tombstone, cursed and black.
And burns again, the Moscow tedium,
In the distance death’s sleigh-bell rings...
Who has got lost two steps from home,
Where the snow is waist-deep, an end to everything?
Because he compared smoke with Laocoön,
Made songs out of graveyard thistles,
Because he filled the world with a sound no-one
Has heard before, in a new space of mirrored
Verses, he has been rewarded with a form
Of eternal childhood, with the stars’ vigilant love,
The whole earth has been passed down to him,
And he has shared it with everyone.
Он, сам себя сравнивший с конским глазом,
Косится, смотрит, видит, узнает,
И вот уже расплавленным алмазом
Сияют лужи, изнывает лед.
В лиловой мгле покоятся задворки,
Платформы, бревна, листья, облака.
Свист паровоза, хруст арбузной корки,
В душистой лайке робкая рука.
Звенит, гремит, скрежещет, бьет прибоем
И вдруг притихнет — это значит, он
Пугливо пробирается по хвоям,
Чтоб не спугнуть пространства чуткий сон.
И это значит, он считает зерна
В пустых колосьях, это значит, он
К плите дарьяльской, проклятой и черной,
Опять пришел с каких-то похорон.
И снова жжет московская истома,
Звенит вдали смертельный бубенец...
Кто заблудился в двух шагах от дома,
Где снег по пояс и всему конец?
За то, что дым сравнил с Лаокооном,
Кладбищенский воспел чертополох,
За то, что мир наполнил новым звоном
В пространстве новом отраженных строф, —
Он награжден каким-то вечным детством,
Той щедростью и зоркостью светил,
И вся земля была его наследством,
А он ее со всеми разделил.
«To Z. N. Gippius Enough’s enough: don’t wait, don’t hope; / My wretched people scatter! / Fall into space and shatter, / Year upon tormented year. Beggarly, will-less age. / Permit me, oh my motherland. / To sob in your damp fatuous freedom / To weep amid your empty steppes: — ...»
«Don’t weep for me — I’ll live on / as a happy beggar, a convict with goodwill, / as a southerner frozen in the north, / as a consumptive and ill-tempered Petershurger / in the malarial south I’ll live on. Don’t weep for me — I’ll live on / as that lame girl who came out on t...»
«Along my street, these steady steps resound / Year after year: my friends are slowly leaving. / The all-absorbing lightlessness around / Finds ease in seeing me alone and grieving. Sad, unattended are my friends’ affairs; / Their homes are dull; no song or music sounding; / Degas’ y...»
«And in conclusion I will say, / Farewell, don’t pledge your love in vanity. / My mind’s away, or on its way / Towards the higher loss of sanity. How loved was I? — You toyed with my / Mortality — that does not matter. / How loved was I? — You made me die, / But you could mak...»