Once we all used to abide
together with God, side by side,
He didn't dwell in the sky,
we'd see him from time to time
alive, on the mausoleum.
He was much more clever and evil
than that other God, the old one,
known to the world as Jehovah,
whom he overthrew with a crash
and reduced to a heap of ash,
then subsequently restored
and recruited to serve the cause.
For once we all used to abide
together with God, side by side.
One day as I wandered around in
the Arbat, I met God on parade
with five limousines and surrounded
by guards wearing mousy grey
overcoats, hunched in dread.
It was early and late — overhead
the grey light of morning was showing
as he grazed with his cruel, all-knowing
eyes through the hearts of men,
unmasking deviants and traitors.
For we lived in an era when
God himself was our neighbour.
Мы все ходили под богом.
У бога под самым боком.
Он жил не в небесной дали,
Его иногда видали
Живого. На мавзолее.
Он был умнее и злее
Того — иного, другого,
По имени Иегова,
Которого он низринул,
Извел, пережег на уголь,
А после из бездны вынул
И дал ему стол и угол.
Мы все ходили под богом.
У бога под самым боком.
Однажды я шел Арбатом.
Бог ехал в пяти машинах.
От страха почти горбата,
В своих пальтишках мышиных
Рядом дрожала охрана.
Было поздно и рано.
Серело. Брезжило утро.
Он глянул жестоко, мудро
Своим всевидящим оком,
Всепроницающим взглядом.
Мы все ходили под богом.
С богом почти что рядом.
«Just in front of my window / Stands a birch-tree white / All covered with snow / Glimmering silver bright. The snow on its branches / Sparkles all around / Pretty tassels dangling. / Silence. Not a sound. And the birch-tree slumbers / Standing all alone. / And the snow glimmers / ...»
«The angel was flying through sky in midnight, / And softly he sang in his flight; / And clouds, and stars, and the moon in a throng / Hearkened to that holy song. / He sang of the garden of God's paradise, / Of innocent ghosts in its shade; / He sang of the God, and his vivacious praise ...»
«Beside a blessed mansion's gate / There stood a beggar with a staff, / A poor, half-dead, dried out by fate / Of hardships, pain he'd had enough. For just a bread-piece was his pray / Of tortures, anguish was his sight / Some man a stone came up to lay / Into his hand reached outright. ...»
«By a loophole, I sit in my prison, / Could see the blue of the heaven from there, / I feel sharp pain and a shame at the vision / Of heedless birds, freely playing in air. On my dry lips, I’ve not any prayers, / Nor any songs, that have ever to fly on, / But I remember the ancient batt...»