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.
«Do you remember, Mary, / A house of bygone times, / And round a pond that slumbered / The immemorial limes? The overgrown old garden. / The silent walks and trees, / The lengthy row of portraits / Beneath the hall’s high frieze? Do you remember, Mary, / The sky at eventime, / The...»
«Outside it is blowing and raining, / And all are asleep long ago; / I look with a sigh through the window / At the ghost of a garden I know. The sky is but darkness, and darkness. / Not a star, not a glimmer of light. / And the old Manor House is so mournful / While it blows and it rain...»
«Through the slush and the ruts of the highway. / By the side of the dam of the stream. / Where the fishermen’s nets are a-drying, / The carriage jogs on, and I dream. I dream, and I look at the highway. / At the sky that is sullen and grey, / At the lake with its shelving reaches, / A...»
«The sun on the steppes is sinking, / And gold is the distant grass. / The convicts’ fetters are clinking / On the dusty road as they pass. They march, with heads closely shaven. / With heavy steps onward go. / Grief on their brows engraven / And doubt in their hearts below. They marc...»