Give me comfortless seasons of sickness,
Visitations of wrath and of wrong
On my house; Lord, take child and companion,
And destroy the sweet power of song.
Thus I pray at each matins, each vespers,
After these many wearying days,
That the storm-cloud which broods over Russia
May be changed to a nimbus ablaze.
Дай мне горькие годы недуга,
Задыханья, бессонницу, жар,
Отыми и ребёнка, и друга,
И таинственный песенный дар —
Так молюсь за Твоей литургией
После стольких томительных дней,
Чтобы туча над тёмной Россией
Стала облаком в славе лучей.
«He who has kissed time on its tormented temple / With filial tenderness will subsequently / Recollect how time took to its bed in a snowbank / The color of wheat beyond the window. / He who had raised the century’s inflamed eyelids — / Two giant apples swollen with sleep — / Will c...»
«Skyscrapers, and the sky below, / It nears the earth in misty layers. / The same covert and secret woe / Persists in vast and happy Paris. The evening boulevards are loud, / The sunset’s final glimmer dies. / And there are couples all around, / And trembling lips and daring eyes. I...»
«I need a miracle, Christ, My Lord! / Here, now, before the sun can rise! / O, let me pass on, while the world / Is like a book before my eyes. No, You are fair and will not judge: / "It’s not your time, and so live on." / For You have given me too much! / I long to take all roads — ...»
«For the first time, in the Strauss waltz / We discerned your quiet, haunting calling. / Now, we’re strangers to the living souls, / And we find the racing clocks consoling, Just like you, we hail the setting sun, / Get intoxicated with the nearing end. / We are rich with all that you ha...»