And copper and worn my farthing
Is fit only for a beggar’s pouch.
This is not the good deed —
So, I’ll give my soul to him.
And if the soul is not coin,
But a golden star —
I’ll fling a sliver of light
There where the world has need.
А медный и стертый мой грошик
Нищему только в суму.
Не то, что поступок хороший, —
Так — душу отдам ему.
А если душа не монета,
А золотая звезда, —
Швырну я осколок света
Туда же, где в свете нужда.
«At my cheerless table / I a-musing sit: / How is one to be / In the world alone? / I, a stalwart youth, / Have no wife, no mate; / I, a stalwart youth, / Want a loving friend. / Want a harrow, share; / Want a kindly hearth; / Want a barn well-stocked, / And a good plo...»
«Pull, my gray one, pull now! / Turning o’er the black clods, / Mother-earth will burnish / White the iron ploughshare. / / Blushing dawn, the fair one, / Lo! on the bright horizon; / From the waking woodland / Comes the sun in glory. / / Joyous rolls the ploughland! / ...»
«When from thy shame, degrading, dark, I drew / Thy fallen spirit out with words of flame; / And thou, with wringing hands, in anguish deep, / Didst curse the sin that compassed thee about; / When thou didst lash thy conscience, late and dull, / With story of thy past, confessing all ...»
«“Well, wife, how are you? How are you, my little ones? / Ah, for a good drink of ale! Such a frost!” — / “Lately the last drop you drained with the constable, / Hast thou forgotten it?” — “Well, nothing lost! / / I shall, poor sinner, get warm soon without it. / But first ...»