Boiling up over the years,
A fury that drives on crazy,
Fury with the champions of freedom,
Fury with the adherents of the yoke,
Fury with the dregs and the toffs —
Different-colored specimens
Of the same «worldly wisdom»,
With the world and with my native land.
Fury? Indifference rather,
Toward life, eternity, fate.
Something catlike or birdlike
Which quite put out
The paragons of propriety,
Well-behaved A and B,
Seated on a chimney.
Накипевшая за годы
Злость, сводящая с ума,
Злость к поборникам свободы,
Злость к ревнителям ярма,
Злость к хамью и джентльменам —
Разномастным специменам
Той же «мудрости земной»,
К миру и стране родной.
Злость? Вернее, безразличье
К жизни, к вечности, к судьбе.
Нечто кошкино иль птичье,
Отчего не по себе
Верным рыцарям приличья,
Благонравным А и Б,
Что уселись на трубе.
«There's a season alight with its own, strange shimmer / Of misted sun, most tenderly warm. / People call it / Indian summer / And it rivals the spring itself in charm. Already the flying gossamer's clinging / Lightly, warily round the face... / How full is ...»
«In sheepskin coats of homely peasant cut / From villages far south of the Oka / They came, three strangers. Each had left his hut / To put his case about the way things are. All Russia tossed, distraught by war and famine / With everything confused, disturbed, displaced. / She roared and ...»
«The sparse, untidy, ginger-coloured curls / In meagre whisps about her head lie scattered; / Her little blouse is faded, old and tattered. / She looks a freak among the boys and girls / Playing around her, poor, misshapen creature / With crooked teeth and sharp, ungainly features. / Not ...»
«Shall I live always / Sitting at home? / Wasting my youth here, / Never to roam? And by the window / Shall I always stay, / The far road watching / By night and by day? Are the hawk's pinions / Unfettered never? / Is ev'ry journey / Barred him for ever? To foreign peoples / Fe...»