Why did you pollute the water,
with vileness adulterate my bread?
Why did you make the final freedom
into a den of thieves instead?
Was it because I did not mock
the bitter fate of friends?
Was it because I’d not betrayed
my piteous native land?
So be it. There can be no poet
without a butcher and a butcher’s block.
Weeping we go, with guttering candle,
garbed in penitential smock.
Зачем вы отравили воду
И с грязью мой смешали хлеб?
Зачем последнюю свободу
Вы превращаете в вертеп?
За то, что я не издевалась
Над горькой гибелью друзей?
За то, что я верна осталась
Печальной родине моей?
Пусть так. Без палача и плахи
Поэту на земле не быть.
Нам покаянные рубахи,
Нам со свечой идти и выть.
«An evening smoke appeared above the city, / Into the distance, docilely went the train cars, / Suddenly, a streak, more limpid than an anemone / In one of the windows, a half-child’s countenance. On the eyelids, a shadow. With a crown’s likeness / Lay the curls… I stifled a scream. / ...»
«I do not know you and do not want / Our meeting to wipe away illusion / With a face like this in worse abysses / One is still faithful to the starlight. / / Everyone marked by fate / Has their face closed. / You, a page in a book still unread / And never you can turn a slave. / ...»
«A mouth like blood, green eyes, / And a smile, haggardly evil... / Oh, there’s no hiding it, I see: / You’re the pale moon’s beloved. Even in daytime, over you did not weaken / The night legends of distant childhood, / That is why you are no one’s from birth, / That is why you h...»
«— “In your soul there is ebb and flow!” / You said yourself, you understood it on your own! / Oh, how you, disbelieving the hours, / Could judge me for a moment’s happiness? What shall the impending minute bring? / Whose distant image shall surface out of sleep? / A happy day, and...»