Eduard Bagritsky
My Honied Languor

My honied languor comes of silence and of dreams
And boredom long-drawn-out  and songs that gauchely yearn;
The cocks embroidered on white towels give me joy,
I like the soot that clings to icons old and stern.

To the hot buzz of flies day after day goes by,
And a meek piety on each its blessings lays;
Beneath low ceilings quails are mumbling sleepily;
The smell of raspberry jam pervades the holidays.

At night the billowing soft goose-down wearies me,
The stuffy icon-lamp blinking is sad to view,
And as he cranes his neck the gay embroidered bird
Commences his long chant of cock-a-doodle-doo.

Here you have granted me a modest refuge, Lord,
Beneath a blissful roof  where turmoil cannot grow,
Where dotted days like jam that from a teaspoon drips
In heavy drops  perpetually flow, flow, flow.

Translated by Babette Deutsch