Wrung-out insomnias,
Pooled wax at the base
Of a guttering candle,
The morning’s first sound
Of a hundred white bells.
Warm sills under Chernigov moons.
Bees and clover, darkness and dust,
Suffocating heat.
Владимиру Нарбуту
Это — выжимки безсонниц,
Это — свеч кривых нагар,
Это — сотен белых звонниц
Первый утренний удар…
Это — тёплый подоконник
Под черниговской луной,
Это — пчёлы, это — донник,
Это — пыль, и мрак, и зной.
«On a hay rick in lands of South, / I lay, while facing skies of night, / The choir of stars, alive and couth, / Was trembling, spread at every side. The earth, mute as a dream half-hidden, / Was fast receding into space, / And I, as if the first in Eden, / Alone met the black night...»
«To sighs of morning air, that froze, — / (With her lips opened for a say), / How curiously has smiled the rose / On a September fleeting day! And how has she ever dared / To greet, with air of springy queens, / The single blue-tit, in the bare / Shrubs fleshing in the orb of wings; ...»
«A whispering, timid breathing, / A nightingale’s warbling, / The silver and the flux / Of a drowsy stream, / / Night light, night shadows, / Shadows endlessly, / A series of magical changes / Of a dear face, / / The purple of a rose in smoky clouds / A sheen of amber, / A...»
«Bad weather — autumn — smoke. / Smoking — nothing helps. / If only I could read — but my reading / Creeps along so listlessly. / / The grey day crawls on lazily, / And on the wall / The clock ticks unbearably / In its tireless language. / / My heart gradually grows cold...»