Sad night creeps
across an earth beset
neither by thought nor threat
but by joyless, sluggish sleep.
Lightning brightens the scowls,
winking intermittently
like deaf-mute ghouls
debating heatedly.
A sign has been agreed:
the sky's alight. A sudden surge
snaps from the murk with sudden speed
and fields and distant woods emerge.
Then again they're under shrouds.
You sense it all go darkly still up there,
and if in camera some high affair
they'd ratified above the clouds.
Ночное небо так угрюмо,
Заволокло со всех сторон.
То не угроза и не дума,
То вялый, безотрадный сон.
Одни зарницы огневые,
Воспламеняясь чередой,
Как демоны глухонемые,
Ведут беседу меж собой.
Как по условленному знаку,
Вдруг неба вспыхнет полоса,
И быстро выступят из мраку
Поля и дальние леса.
И вот опять все потемнело,
Все стихло в чуткой темноте —
Как бы таинственное дело
Решалось там — на высоте.
«She lay beside the bridge. The German troops had reckoned / To cheapen her by this. Instead, her nakedness / Was like an ancient statue’s unadorned perfection, / Was like unspotted Nature’s loveliness and grace. / We covered her and carried her. The bridge, unsteady, / Appeared to palp...»
«Where people have dined you find refuse and tin, / Pans, broken glass, a bed, lilac in a pot. / And high in the rafters above it all, / Rocks an empty cradle. / Iron and bricks, squares and disks, / A vague jumble of things, / And wherever you step, / All the odds and ends of others’...»
«I am the trumpet blown by Time; / I have to call — they may believe. / But who will know the truth sublime / That even brass can weep and grieve? He forced my lips that had been dumb / To howl with prophecy and fright: / I made from boredom — martyrdom; / The tragic eve — from sim...»
«What use are words and quill pens / When on my heart this rock weighs heavy? / A convict dragging his restraints, / I carry someone else’s memory. / I used to live in cities grand / And love the company of the living, / But now I must dig up graves / In fields and valleys of oblivion...»