At times there comes a strange smell wafting;
From whence its source I cannot say.
But I relive what’s been dark often,
A kind of smoldering foggy day.
Like then, once more I climb up sadly
The run-down porch at evening
And once again unlatch the creaking
Bolt turning on the rusty ring.
And see the narrow rooms before me,
Where every floorboard squeaks and purrs,
Where the mildewed, damp wallpaper
In the corners slightly stirs,
The dull pendulum dimly swinging
Listens as evil speeches bite,
And for so long someone’s been praying
And crying hard throughout the night.
Порой повеет запах странный, —
Его причины не понять, —
Давно померкший, день туманный
Переживается опять.
Как встарь, опять печально всходишь
На обветшалое крыльцо,
Засов скрипучий вновь отводишь,
Вращая ржавое кольцо, —
И видишь тесные покои,
Где половицы чуть скрипят,
Где отсырелые обои
В углах тихонько шелестят,
Где скучный маятник маячит,
Внимая скучным, злым речам,
Где кто-то молится да плачет,
Так долго плачет по ночам.
«I have no use for regimental odes, / Or the impassioned elegiac hoax. / I make my verses quite beside the point / Made by the just, plain folks. / I wish you knew the kind of garbage heap / Wild verses grow on, paying shame no heed, / Like dandelions yellowing a fence, / Like burdock a...»
«They're not my kind who left the land / To enemies and plundering. / I do not heed their vulgar praise. / My songs are not for them to sing. But I ever do I grieve for exiles, / Like inmates, like the nearly dead. / Dark is the road you wander, rovers, / As wormwood fills your foreign ...»
«Night. Streetlamp. Street. The chemist's store. / A world in dingy, sleazy light. / Survive a quarter century more, / Nothing will change. Can't leave tonight. You'll die- and start the whole thing over. / The same old story will repeat: / Night. Icy rippling of the river. / Streetlamp...»
«We are two tree-trunks lightning struck alight, / Two flames of midnight woodland by the sea. / We are two meteors soaring through the night, / The two-tipped arrow of one destiny, We are two steeds whose rein a single right / Hand holds. One spur pricks them to harmony. / We are the two ...»