I know the price of my poems.
I’m sorry for them, that’s all.
But the glory of the verse of others
I experience as betrayal.
Through digressions, repetitions,
Without colours and almost without words,
One single vision,
Like the moon through the clouds.
Now it shows, now it’s gone,
Now it fogs up slightly
And sheds quiet light
And brings inevitable reconciliation
With the tongue’s helplessness.
Стихам своим я знаю цену.
Мне жаль их, только и всего.
Но ощущаю как измену
Иных поэзий торжество.
Сквозь умаленья, повторенья,
Без красок и почти без слов,
Одно, единое виденье,
Как месяц из - за облаков,
То промелькнет, то исчезает,
То затуманится слегка, —
И тихим светом озаряет,
И непреложно примиряет
С беспомощностью языка.
«You aren’t yet dead, and you are not as yet alone, / As long as with your beggared lover / By joy of wide expanses of the plains you’re thrown / As dark and cold and blizzards cover. In lavish destitution and in mighty dearth / Then live in peace and consolation. / For blessed then th...»
«The drifting smoke was melting in the frosty air, / And I, oppressed by freedom’s sadness, lingering there, / Wished only to ascend to cold and quiet singing, / To disappear for ever, but my fate was bringing Me down the snowy street upon the evening hour / Where dog was barking at the su...»
«We’re unable to live, for this country’s absurd, / At ten paces’ remove are our voices unheard, / But opinion, when muttered, half-spoken, / Kremlin highlander’s spectre’s awoken. / Podgy fingers he has that are meaty like worms, / But his speech is deliberate, its measure confir...»
«When red October’s dim time-server for us made / A yoke of bloodshed and of malice, / And armoured car, aggressive, then enforced blockade / And loomed an apish gunner, callous — And “Crucify Kerensky!” irate soldier brayed, / And angry mob on cue applauded: / Then Pilate let them...»