Skald-harp, long ago your poet-master
left you to oblivion in this dusty room,
but as soon as the moon, enchanting the gloom,
splashes a ray in your corner,
then your strings perform a magic tune,
like troubled souls in delirious swoon.
When it breathes on you, what life swirls
in your heart as you recall past days?
Memories of nights when voluptuous girls
told old stories, sang sweet lays,
or when, in these gardens still fair and green,
seeking trysts, their light feet tripped unseen?
О арфа скальда! Долго ты спала
В тени, в пыли забытого угла;
Но лишь луны, очаровавшей мглу,
Лазурный свет блеснул в твоем углу,
Вдруг чудный звон затрепетал в струне,
Как бред души, встревоженной во сне.
Какой он жизнью на тебя дохнул?
Иль старину тебе он вспомянул —
Как по ночам здесь сладострастных дев
Давно минувший вторился напев,
Иль в сих цветущих и поднесь садах
Их легких ног скользил незримый шаг?
«Shagane, you are my Shagane! / Maybe because I'm from the North, / I'm ready to tell you everything, / About the waving rye under the moon, / My Shagane, Shagane. Maybe because I'm from the North, / That the moon is a hundred times bigger there, / No matter how she could be beautiful, /...»
«You said that Sa'adi / Kissed only on the breasts. / Wait for God sake, / I'll learn one day! You sang 'Behind the Yefrat / The roses are better than mortal girls'. / If I were rich, / I would make another tune. I'd cut these roses, / For there is only one joy for me — / That the...»
«I've never been to the Bosphorus, / You don't ask me about it. / In your eyes I saw the sea, / Flaming with blue fire. I didn't go to Baghdad with the caravan, / I didn't take silk and henna. / Bend with your beautiful body, / Let me rest on my knees. Or is it again so, that no matter ...»
«The evening light of the saffron land, / Quietly are the roses running along the fields. / Sing a song to me dear, / The one that Khayyam sang to you. / Quietly are the roses running along the fields. With the moonlight is Shiraz alighted, / The fly hive of stars is dancing. / I don't l...»