After plodding year after year
through towns in an alien land,
we have ground enough to despair —
and despair is where we must end.
For despair is our final refuge —
as if, midwinter, we had come
from Vespers in a nearby church,
through Russian snow, to our home.
За столько лет такого маянья
По городам чужой земли
Есть от чего прийти в отчаянье,
И мы в отчаянье пришли.
— В отчаянье, в приют последний,
Как будто мы пришли зимой
С вечерни в церковке соседней,
По снегу русскому, домой.
«First to sharpen the ax-flint they bent, / On the green they had gathered, unpent, / They had gathered beneath the green tent. / There where whitens a pale tree-trunk, naked, / There where whitens a pale linden trunk. / By the linden tree, by the young linden, / By the linden tree, by th...»
«Upon an amber day I loved you first, / When, summoned by the radiant azure, / From every grateful twig there burst / Sweet indolence in dripping measure. Your whitely shining body gleamed as white / As heady foam on lakes unfolding, / Gay laughing Lei drew ou...»
«Among the glaucous waves that kiss gold Tauris' beaches / I saw a Nereid, as dawn flushed heaven's reaches. / I barely dared to breathe, hid in the olive trees, / While the young demigoddess rose above the seas; / Her young, her swan-white breast above the waters lifting, / From her soft h...»
«With freedom's seed the desert sowing, / I walked before the morning star; / From pure and guiltless fingers throwing— / Where slavish plows had left a scar— / The fecund seed, the procreator; / Oh vain and sad disseminator, / I learned then what lost labors are.... Graze if you wil...»