Here is reward for all my sins,
This triumph and disgrace:
A poem suddenly begins
From nothing, from no place.
The words come magically half-dressed,
Wearing haphazard clothes,
Like roses falling on my chest...
— And you, toss me a rose!
No, throw it past that cloud that towers.
A rhyme shines there and runs
To touch and transform mortal flowers
Into eternal ones.
В награду за мои грехи,
Позор и торжество,
Вдруг появляются стихи —
Вот так… Из ничего.
Все кое-как и как-нибудь,
Волшебно на авось:
Как розы падают на грудь…
— И ты мне розу брось!
Нет, лучше брось за облака —
Там рифма заблестит,
Коснется тленного цветка
И в вечный превратит.
«y noon heat in a dale in Dagestan, / A bullet in my breast, my body lay; / Deep was the wound and steaming even yet, / My blood was dripping drop by drop away. I lay alone upon the valley sands. / Clustered above my head, the cliffs were steep, / Their tawny summits scorched under the sun...»
«My damask dagger with a soul of steel, / I love you! Comrade chill and bright, / Forged by a brooding Georgian for revenge. / A free Circassian honed you for the fight. A lily-hand brought you to me in parting, / A keepsake of a time too brief / And then for once not blood flowed down you...»
«Here where barbarians knelt in Roman court / Stands the basilica: original / As joyous Adam, stretching nerves, the tall / Groined archway bunches muscle as for sport. But things outside betray the secret plan: / A pact of arch and buttress here forestalls / The heavy mass from flattening...»
«Distant, the stars indifferently glimmered, / illumining the winding of the Road. / Out past a turn there stood the Mount of Olives, / and at its foot the river Kedron flowed. The meadow broke off halfway from the end. / Reaching beyond, the Milky Way was there. / The silver-ashen olive t...»