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.
«I thought I already knew about insomnia, / All its abysses and trails, / But this is like clattering horses / Under a trumpet’s wild shriek. / I step foot into empty houses, / Into someone else’s domestic life. / All is still except for the white shades / Afloat in foreign mirrors....»
«But I warn you / That I am alive for the last time. / Neither as sparrow, nor maple. / Nor reed, nor star, / Nor spring water, / Nor bells in a tower — / I will not embarrass people / By visiting in strange dreams / With unquenchable moans.»
«“A sensuous, beckoning shadow / lingered Near Alexandria’s lush halls.” — Pushkin / / She’s already kissed her cold Antony, on his dead lips. / She’s already kneeled down in front of Augustus and cried. / Now she is betrayed by the servants: victorious trumpets / Sound unde...»
«Alexandria’s palaces / Covered with sweet shadows. / Pushkin She has already kissed Antony’s dead lips, / Already wept on her knees before Augustus… / And her servants have betrayed her. Trumpets / Cry below Roman eagles, the gloom of dusk. Noble and stately, stammering with confus...»