With heavy anguish, hopeless straining,
The bonds of love I would remove.
Oh, to be loosed from their enchaining!
Oh, freedom, only not to love!
The soul that shame and fear are scourging
Crawls through a mist of dust and blood.
From dust, great God, my spirit purging,
Oh, spare me from love's bitter flood!
Is pity's wall alone unshaken?
I pray to God, I cry in vain,
More weary, by all hope forsaken;
Resistless love grows great again.
There is no freedom, unforgiven,
We live as slaves, by life consumed;
We perish, tortured, bound and driven,
Promised to death, and to love — doomed.
С усильем тяжким и бесплодным
Я цепь любви хочу разбить.
О, если б вновь мне быть свободным,
О, если б мог я не любить!
Душа полна стыда и страха,
Влачится в прахе и крови,
Очисти душу мне от праха,
Избавь, о Боже, от любви!
Ужель непобедима жалость?
Напрасно Бога я молю:
Всё безнадежнее усталость,
Всё бесконечнее люблю.
И нет свободы, нет прощенья.
Мы все рабами рождены,
Мы все на смерть и на мученья
И на любовь обречены.
«I am riveted to the tavern counter. / Long past drunk, I don't give a damn. / A sleigh has stolen my happiness / Away into the silvery smoke... It flew off in a sleigh, is buried deep / In the snows of time, in the reaches of years... / And it only sifts over my soul, / Like a silvery m...»
«My fingers slipped out of your hands. / You’re walking away with a frown. / Look how the birch trees have strewn / red leaves with the rain of their blood. Pale autumn, cold autumn has spread / itself over us, reaching up high. / A barren plain stretching around us / breathes a cloud ...»
«To Z. N. Gippius Enough’s enough: don’t wait, don’t hope; / My wretched people scatter! / Fall into space and shatter, / Year upon tormented year. Beggarly, will-less age. / Permit me, oh my motherland. / To sob in your damp fatuous freedom / To weep amid your empty steppes: — ...»
«He loved these three things / White peacocks, evening songs, / And worn-out maps of America. / No crying of children, / No raspberry tea, / No women's hysterics… / I was married to him.»