The Roman orator was speaking
as citizens started to fight:
УI rose late, and while I was walking
was chased and captured by RomeТs nightФ.
So be it! But making your farewells, you saw
in grandeur and with awe,
RomeТs bloody star go down.
Blessed is he who visits this life
at its fateful moments of strife:
the all-wise sent him an invitation
to speak with them at their celebrations.
HeТs the witness of high affairs,
knows their councils, sits on them,
and a living god while there,
has drunk immortality with them.
Оратор римский говорил
Средь бурь гражданских и тревоги:
«Я поздно встал — и на дороге
Застигнут ночью Рима был!»
Так!.. Но, прощаясь с римской славой,
С Капитолийской высоты
Во всем величье видел ты
Закат звезды ее кровавый!..
Счастлив, кто посетил сей мир
В его минуты роковые!
Его призвали всеблагие[6]
Как собеседника на пир.
Он их высоких зрелищ зритель,
Он в их совет допущен был —
И заживо, как небожитель,
Из чаши их бессмертье пил!
«1 I am the voice that cries in the wilderness / Of the swarming crowds in the spasms of cities / In whirlpools of the streets and railway stations / The least inhabited of all the deserts on earth. 2 I was told: / — Go to the market places — / The time has come, / To...»
«Mother, blind, stares in the window; / Answering spring her wrinkles laugh. / But her heart is dedicated to ache, / With growing pain it beats in the sun. We need neither light nor beauty! / We need no blessings from outside! / How my son in his distant exile / Counts the deathly hours ...»
«I mouthed to the rain to drizzle. / The dust had wrapped itself up. / I tied on my feet grass sandals, / And hooked on a walking crutch. And along this stretch of road / I rolled off into the distance, / Crossing my stick-like legs, / Having rescued my sadness.»
«I fell in love with you on amber day, / When new-born laziness was bleeding / In radiant gleam of azure ray / From every grateful branch proceeding. Your trunk grew white, as white as drunken daze / Of lake-land waters foaming. / And jolly Lel, with mocking plays, / Yo...»