To our fortune or misfortune,
Simple is the truth:
One shall not revisit porches
Left behind in youth.
Even if we find our mecca
Perfectly alright,
We won't hear the sought-for echo,
Neither you nor I.
I would travels to the former
Once for all forbid.
And, my brother, do not stir me,
Let me rest a bit.
Lest - who'd hinder me? — like lightning
I would take a dive
On a felt-boot into nineteen
Forty four or five.
In that year, I have an inkling,
There, where — holy my! —
Will remain my mom unwrinkled,
And my dad alive.
По несчастью или к счастью,
Истина проста:
Никогда не возвращайся
В прежние места.
Даже если пепелище
Выглядит вполне,
Не найти того, что ищем,
Ни тебе, ни мне.
Путешествие в обратно
Я бы запретил,
Я прошу тебя, как брата,
Душу не мути.
А не то рвану по следу —
Кто меня вернет? —
И на валенках уеду
В сорок пятый год.
В сорок пятом угадаю,
Там, где — боже мой! —
Будет мама молодая
И отец живой.
«That girl there, little more than a child, / Neither blushes, nor yet casts down her eyes, / But, as she draws nearer, / Observes me with a dark, inscrutable stare. / Had I the fancy for it, / I’d spend the rest of my days in Settignano; / I’d sit by the wind-torn stone of Septimus S...»
«Panmongolism! The word’s barbaric, / Yet still falls sweetly on my ear, / As if it were a mighty portent / Of God’s great destiny for man. When, in Byzantium’s corruption, / The sacred altars’ fire grew cold, / And the Messiah was abjured / By priest and people, prince and tsar,...»
«Forgotten, cold, my dust will fall asleep / while you are entering your life's sweet May. / One moment then, with magnanimity, / read through these verses that once came to me. And with a maiden's keen and thoughtful heart / you'll understand my words' wild ecstasy, / and why it was I oft...»
«I always s like the northern birches: / Their view, so downcast and grave, / The fever, which poor souls scorches, / Cools like the mute speech of a grave. But yet, the willow, which branches, / With their long leaves, cast in a flood, / Is closer to a dream, that scourges, / And longe...»