Don’t believe in war, my boy,
don’t believe, it’s quite depressing,
it’s as depressing, boy,
as a pair of boots that pinch.
Those swift romantic steeds of yours,
they are good for nothing here;
you’re as exposed as an open palm,
and the bullets’ only target.
Не верь войне, мальчишка,
не верь: она грустна.
Она грустна, мальчишка,
как сапоги, тесна.
Твои лихие кони
смогут ничего:
ты весь — как на ладони,
все пули — в одного.
«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! / ...»