Sleep on a Summer’s Night
(Five Verses)
2
All morning from nine to two
A vexed spirit from the ozone rides
About the garden among snakes and rosemary
And the exhausted oleanders.
The white balcony turns blue.
Asleep — deserted by the muse — on all sides.
Hoary raspberry stalks stand and beyond them
Lies the violet ground of his preludes.
Who was whispering at supper?
Who gave a parting wave to the roses?
Once again Chopin sends out a dispatch,
A ballade that pines for reply.
All summer she is with diphtheria
And is not getting any better.
Now, is it the black keys or the blood
That after awhile make us turn from her?
A touch of a hand —
And half the universe — is alone,
And the fields out there are glowing
And breath is stifled by tobacco.
Сон в летнюю ночь
Пять стихотворений
2
Все утро с девяти до двух
Из сада шел томящий дух
Озона, змей и розмарина,
И олеандры разморило.
Синеет белый мезонин.
На мызе — сон, кругом — безлюдье.
Седой малинник, а за ним
Лиловый грунт его прелюдий.
Кому ужонок прошипел?
Кому прощально машет розан?
Опять депешею Шопен
К балладе страждущей отозван.
Когда ее не излечить,
Все лето будет в дифтерите.
Сейчас ли, черные ключи,
Иль позже кровь нам отворить ей?
Прикосновение руки —
И полвселенной — в изоляции,
И там плантации пылятся
И душно дышат табаки.
«Willow tree, why do you bend your branches / Down to the water / And with leaves a-tremble / Like thirsty mouths / Try to catch the running stream? Useless for every leaf to strain / And flutter above the stream, / The waters rush and plash along their way, / Gaily sparkling in the su...»
«For a long time I stood without moving / Peering at the distant stars, – / Between those stars and me / Unbidden, there grew a bond. I thought... but what, I recall not; / I heard a mysterious choir, / The stars, they silently trembled, / I’ve loved them from that moment on...»
«Oh, if it’s true that in the night / When living men are sleeping, / And from the sky the pale moonlight / Slides over the gravestones, / Oh, if it’s only true that at that time / The silent graves open, / I call the shade of Leila and wait for her: / To me, my dear, come here to m...»
«The moon's cold gold, / The perfume of the oleander and gillyflowers. / It's pleasant to wander in such calmness / Of a blue gentle land. Faraway there's Baghdad, / Where Scheherazada lived and sang. / But now she needs nothing, / An ancient rung garden has rung away. The faraway lands...»