A sweet-voiced bird's been caught.
They squeeze it in a vice-like grip.
The poor thing squeaks and warbles not
But they insist: «O, birdie, sing!»
Поймали птичку голосисту
И ну сжимать ее рукой.
Пищит бедняжка вместо свисту,
А ей твердят: «Пой, птичка, пой!»
«We live, but feel no land at our feet, / nor ten steps off any whisper of speech. / Where half a conversation finds enough lips, / it’s the Kremlin-Climber our thoughts are with. / His weighty fingers as greasy as worms, / true as a dumbbell tumble his words. / His laughing moustache i...»
«Read only what children would read, / and dream what children think matters; / once the great things lie scattered, / shake off grief and rise to your feet. Existence exhausts me to death — / oh nothing it owns is of worth. / But I love this desolate earth: / I’ve never known any pl...»
«Against the pale-blue enamel / that April makes conceivable, / the branches of birch trees will stand / and gradually ripen to evening. Their pattern is sharp and complete, / that stiffened gauze is fine, / like a drawing that somebody’s neatly / traced out on a plate of china. Some ...»
«No moon but a clock-face. How’s it a sin / that while it dazzles my eyes I examine / the muted stars’ milky light? Poet Batyushkov, son to a parson, / how he’d spout on. “What’s the time?” they’d ask him. / “Eternity”, he replied.»