Sins are forgiven for poetry.
Great sins for great poetry.
Even mortal sins are forgiven
when I write poetry with my whole soul.
But if people don’t forgive me while I’m still alive
Later they’ll smite oblivion from me.
Even though they’re evil-doers
let them remember [me]
for something good
not just for any old thing.
I ask the person who has knowledge and knows:
strike, but do not forget.
Kill, but do not forget.
Грехи прощают за стихи.
Грехи большие —
за стихи большие.
Прощают даже смертные грехи,
когда стихи пишу от всей души я.
А ежели при жизни не простят,
потом забвение с меня скостят.
Пусть даже лихо деют —
вспоминают
пускай добром,
не чем-нибудь.
Прошу того, кто ведает и знает:
ударь, но не забудь.
Убей, но не забудь.
«Do you recall the cry / Of gray Melchizedek as he prepared to die? / Man, he exclaimed, is born a slave; a slave / He must descend into the grave / And Death will hardly tell him why / He haunts the magic vale of tears, / Suffers and weeps, endures and disappears.»
«To M. L. Lozinsky Nearing mysterious mountain tops, / I can’t defeat the fear I feel; / content with every swallow aloft, / I love how the bells rise into a peal. I’m an ancient walker. A chasm reveals / a sagging bridge I approach and cross; / I think I can hear the snow uncongeal, ...»
«Hagia Sophia, where the Lord ordained / that the emperors and nations should halt, / that dome of yours hangs on a chain / from the heavens, observers report. The centuries followed Justinian’s lead / when, for the sake of gods that were foreign, / Ephesian Diana allowed him to steal / ...»
«Hagia Sophia, the Lord commanded / That nations and kings should stop here! / For your cupola, in the words of eye-witness, / As on a chain, is suspended from the heaven. Justinian set an example for all ages, / When Diana of Ephesus permitted / To steal for alien Gods / One hundred and...»