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.
«Earth-dweller, fifty years of age, / Like all men, both happy and unhappy, / One day I left this world and found / Myself in a silent place. / There, man scarcely existed, the last / Shreds of habit clinging to him, / And he no longer desired anything, / He had no name, no style or tit...»
«The swallow chatters brightly, / Fanning its wings with skill. / It challenges every breeze, / But conserves its forces well. / It hovers high, it hovers low, / Catches a fly as it weaves, / And rests up till morning / In its but under the eaves. In astonishment I follow, / Soar int...»
«I touched the leaves of the eucalyptus / and the firm plumes of the agave, / The sweet grass of Adzharia / Sang me its evening song. / In white dress the magnolia / Inclined its hazy form, / And the blue-blue sea of Georgia / Sang wildly by the shore. But amidst the savage splendou...»
«In a strange house, in a far away land, / her portrait hangs on the wall; / she herself is dying like a beggar woman, / lying on straw, in pain that can’t be told. But here she looks as she always did look — / she is young, rich and draped / in the luxurious green cloak / in which s...»