In the state there is the law
Citizens cannot ignore.
In the anti-state the sheep
Have a private rule they keep.
Under rule of law the folk
Serve what gives them food and drink
But rebellion has no book
And revolt no pen and ink.
When rebellion goes to press
When revolt takes up a pen
It has donned official dress
Nourishes the sons of men
Codifies its rights and wrongs
Rids the aged of their qualms.
Revolutionary songs
Are replaced by hymns and psalms.
У государства есть закон,
Который гражданам знаком.
У антигосударства —
Не знает правил паства.
Держава, подданных держа,
Диктует им порядки.
Но нет чернил у мятежа,
У бунта нет тетрадки.
Когда берет бумагу бунт,
Когда перо хватает,
Уже одет он и обут
И юношей питает,
Отраду старцам подает,
Уже чеканит гривны,
Бунтарских песен не поет,
Предпочитает гимны.
Остыв, как старая звезда,
Он вышел на орбиту
Во имя быта и труда
И в честь труда и быта.
«2 And just having searched in the past, you’ll unlock / The gloves so long as to elbow, / The Petersburg night, in the theatre’s box / That smell, suffocating and mellow, / And winds from the bay. And not far — what a shock! — / Between lines, void passionate clamor, / Will ...»
«(From the "Middle Night Poems") / / She was o’er us like a star o’er an ocean, / Seeking the last, decuman wave with beams, / You gave her name of woe and commotion, / And ne’er — of gladness of our sacred dreams. At day, she circled over us — a swallow; / A smile — she ...»
«2 And now, I am ready to make step in / The world, all gain but paying different rent… / For me, this ship too has the privet cabin, / The wind in sails, the heaviest under heaven / Moment to say ‘Farewell’ to Motherland.»
«And Pushkin's exile had begun right here, / And Lermontov's expulsion had been "canceled." / There is the easy grasses' scent on highland. / And only once it chanced to me to see it — / Near the lake, where shades of plane-trees hover, / In that doom hour before the evening thrusts, — ...»