I should have seen the sign: “Fresh paint”,
But useless to advise
The careless soul, and memory's stained
With cheeks, calves, hands, lips, eyes.
More than all failure, all success,
I loved you, for your skill
In whitening the yellowed world
As white cosmetics will.
Listen, my dark, my friend: by God,
All will grow white somehow,
Whiter than madness or lamp shades
Or bandage on a brow.
«Не трогать, свежевыкрашен», —
Душа не береглась,
И память - в пятнах икр и щек,
И рук, и губ, и глаз.
Я больше всех удач и бед
За то тебя любил,
Что пожелтелый белый свет
С тобой — белей белил.
И мгла моя, мой друг, божусь,
Он станет как-нибудь
Белей, чем бред, чем абажур,
Чем белый бинт на лбу!
«My soul is borne out on the wind. / Through the opaqueness of her earthly case she glitters like a sword. / She is free; she rides her body as the whirlwind the storm. / She is free from the death of the flesh. / / Her passage is brief as the lightning, / As the flash of the outgoing se...»
«In fields hopeless and dumb / Droops the pale-bladed grain; / It is dozing and numb / Amid dreams that are vain... / With a high sudden hum / The field tosses its mane: / "Unto us Christ is come!" / The wild news shakes the plain. / Like a wind-beaten drum / Shouts the quivering gr...»
«My insatiable memory is like / A melting asphalt roadway: / I remember all who have passed along it, / Every movement of their life... / The tracks of iron wheels, of teeth, / The rusty tracks of injury and anguish. / Nearby the sweet birdlike prints / Of a dead daughter's little shoes...»
«Where firs by snow all silvered stand, / Where palms grow in the golden south, / From home to home, from land to land, / His words pass on from mouth to mouth. On shores both near and far away, / By more than one new generation / In all five continents, today / His name is held in vener...»