Tyranny itself seduced you.
Its sword has mown you like reeds.
The Law is incorruptibly impartial.
The LawТs infallible in word and deed.
Disloyalty is shunned by our people.
TheyТll scorn your names. Abuse will heap.
Your sons will never know your exploit,
hidden in time, a rotten carcass buried deep!
Victims of foolish notions!
Perhaps you had a youthful vision!
Perhaps you thought you saw
your thin blood trickling,
covering the ice-caps
as if alone it could thaw
that age-old polar face.
Why, it would scarce have time to sparkle
when up thereТd gust a breath of iron winter
to murder every tiny trace!
Декабристам
Вас развратило Самовластье,
И меч его вас поразил, —
И в неподкупном беспристрастье
Сей приговор Закон скрепил.
Народ, чуждаясь вероломства,
Поносит ваши имена —
И ваша память от потомства,
Как труп в земле, схоронена.
О жертвы мысли безрассудной,
Вы уповали, может быть,
Что станет вашей крови скудной,
Чтоб вечный полюс растопить!
Едва, дымясь, она сверкнула,
На вековой громаде льдов,
Зима железная дохнула —
И не осталось и следов.
«17 Thus, O the Lord! And this my prayer / Accept for temple's confirmation. / I sing not pleasures of my love — / I sing the wound of my nation. Not nasty person's rusty trunk — / Granite, with people's knees rubbed coarse. / Hero and tsar given to all, / To all — a singer — ...»
«Shout for joy! There is no Tsar. / Shout for joy! There is no Russia. / Shout for joy! For God is dead. All there is, is icy star, / All there is, is dawning’s yellow, / As the years in millions thread. Shout for joy! There is no one, / Shout for joy! There’s nothing spun, / It’s...»
«1 O muse of weeping, the most beautiful muse! / O you the child of white night, ever mad and fierce! / A black snowstorm over Russia you send / And your cries our hearts like flying arrows pierce. And we tumble down and a deaf "Oh" — / A hundred thousand people your name are calling: / ...»
«2 What are people's wiles to me? Holding / My head I stand, / On late dawn I sing / Holding my head. Ah, I have been raised on the crest / Of a wave wrathful and mad! / I sing you, that you are alone among us, / Like moon overhead! That, having flown like a raven on the heart, / Pie...»