A beauty’s tempting eyes
Will do no harm by glancing;
Since youth we fantasize
Of loving and romancing.
My friends, you must agree,
My friends, you must agree,
Although it’s not all sugar,
It simply has to be.
Move on, my destiny!
If not — oh well, whatever;
My friends, you must agree
With destiny’s endeavor.
My friends, you must agree,
My friends, you must agree,
Although it’s not all sugar,
It simply has to be.
Somewhere it waits for me,
The ultimate defying;
My friends, you must agree,
No life is without dying.
My friends, you must agree,
My friends, you must agree,
Though life is not all sugar,
Our life just has to be.
Красотки томный взор
не повредит здоровью.
Мы бредим с юных пор:
любовь, любви, любовью.
Не правда ли, друзья,
Не правда ли, друзья,
с ней, может быть, несладко,
а без нее нельзя.
Вперед, судьба моя!
А нет, так бог с тобою.
Не правда ли, друзья:
судьба, судьбы, судьбою?
Не правда ли, друзья,
не правда ли, друзья,
с ней, может быть, несладко,
а без нее нельзя?
Он где-то ждет меня,
мой главный поединок.
Не правда ли, друзья,
нет жизни без поминок?
Не правда ли, друзья,
не правда ли, друзья,
жить, может быть, несладко,
да вот не жить нельзя.
«Sleep on a Summer’s Night / (Five Verses) 5 Drink and write, with a kerosene lamp, / Watching for patrols’ revving motors / In the street, with beer mug in hand / As you sip the July night away. The green-eyed thirsty giant! / Pickles spill over the poplar-wood table, / Petty hood...»
«Days spread out with distinct somberness. / The disconsolate brook flows along / In front of my entry hall porch door / Outside my window’s unblocked view. Outside the fence along the road / The public garden flows from its bank. / Sprawling down, like beasts from a lair, / Tumultuous...»
«Fame is unsightly, when one is alive. / It does nothing to raise one up. / One must not establish archives / Nor tremble over one’s manuscripts. The aim of creation — self-reflection, / Not hoopla, not grand success. / To be a parable on any old tongue / Is infamy and nothingness. ...»
«It is not seemly to be famous: / Celebrity does not exalt; / There is no need to hoard your writings / And to preserve them in a vault. / / To give your all-this is creation, / And not-to deafen and eclipse. / How shameful, when you have no meaning, / To be on everybody's lips! / ...»