My master — he disliked me from the start.
He never knew me, never saw or heard me,
but all the same he feared me like the plague
and hated me with all his dreary heart.
When I bowed my head before him,
it seemed to him I hid a smile.
When he made me cry, he thought
my tears were crocodile.
And all my life I worked my heart out for him,
each night I lay down late, and got up early.
I loved him and was wounded for his sake.
But nothing I could do would ever take.
I took his portrait everywhere I went,
I hung it up in every but and tent,
I looked and looked, and kept on looking,
and slowly, as the years went past,
his hatred hurt me less and less.
And nowadays it hardly seems to matter:
the age-old truth is men like me
are always hated by their master.
А мой хозяин не любил меня —
Не знал меня, не слышал и не видел,
А всё-таки боялся, как огня,
И сумрачно, угрюмо ненавидел.
Когда меня он плакать заставлял,
Ему казалось: я притворно плачу.
Когда пред ним я голову склонял,
Ему казалось: я усмешку прячу.
А я всю жизнь работал на него,
Ложился поздно, поднимался рано,
Любил его. И за него был ранен.
Но мне не помогало ничего.
А я возил с собой его портрет.
В землянке вешал и в палатке вешал —
Смотрел, смотрел, не уставал смотреть.
И с каждым годом мне всё реже, реже
Обидною казалась нелюбовь.
И ныне настроенья мне не губит
Тот явный факт, что испокон веков
Таких, как я, хозяева не любят.
«The cry of stations: don't go! / Of terminals: take pity! / And that of the brief stops: / Not exactly Dante's / Benediction: / "Abandon hope!" / And that of the engines. Whose iron shuddered / Like the thunder of an ocean wave. / At the tiny ticket-window, / It crossed my mind ...»
«Blanch — faced / Guardian of the age-old lapping — / Knight, knight, / Keeping watch on the river. (O could I find peace / In it from arms and mouths?!) / Sen — ti — nel / Set at your post of partings. The oaths, the rings... / Yes, like stones into the river / How many —...»
«If not a bayonet — then a tusk, a snowbank, a squall, — / On the hour, another train — to Immortality! / I came and knew one thing: it's just another stop. / And not worth unpacking. Upon everyone, everything — my indifferent eyes, / Come to rest — on the immemorial. / O how n...»
«How is your life with another, — / Simpler, is it? — One stroke of an oar!— / And as easily as some coastline / Your memory of me Recedes, like a floating island / (In the sky — not the water!) / Souls, souls! should be your sisters, / Not your mistress—es! How is your life w...»