Words’ ease and freshness — is it less
For us than for an artist — vision,
For actors — voice and hand precision,
For beauties — beauty and finesse?
The gift you have is not from earth,
Don’t try to save it for yourself:
We are condemned — we know this well —
To squander all and not preserve.
Go forth alone and cure the blind,
In times of doubt, you will see
Your students’ scorn and mockery
And the indifference of mankind.
Нам свежесть слов и чувства простоту
Терять не то ль, что живописцу — зренье
Или актеру — голос и движенье,
А женщине прекрасной — красоту?
Но не пытайся для себя хранить
Тебе дарованное небесами:
Осуждены — и это знаем сами —
Мы расточать, а не копить.
Иди один и исцеляй слепых,
Чтобы узнать в тяжелый час сомненья
Учеников злорадное глумленье
И равнодушие толпы.
«All harmony, all wondrous fairness, / Aloof from passions and the world, / She rests with tranquil unawareness / In her triumphant beauty furled. When, all about her, eyes hold muster, / Nor friends, nor rivals can be found, / Our other beauties' pallid round / Extinguished wholly by he...»
«Not long did youth's vain hopes delude us, / Its dreams of love and prideful fame. / They briefly, fleetingly pursued us, / Then passed like mist and no more came. / But still we chafe, our hearts afire, / Under the yoke of tyranny, / And, heedful of our country's plea, / Her true deli...»
«Of love, of hope, of quiet glory / Not long I nursed the self-deceit, / Vanished are adolescent dallies / Like a dream, like the morning mist; / But still desire burns within us; / Beneath the press of fateful power / With impatient soul / We hark the native country's summons. / We b...»
«On hills of Georgia lies the covering of night; / Aragva streams in front of me. / Such sadness and such ease; my melancholy's light, / My melancholy's full of thee, / Of thee, of only thee... No anxiousness, no pain / Unsettles my despondency; / My heart again on fire, it burns and love...»