I walk and think of various things,
For myself weave a funeral wreath,
And in this hideous world I am
A stylishly solitary man.
But suddenly I hear: war, ideas,
The last trump, the twentieth century...
And growing cold, I then recall —
I am a human being no more.
Spasmic jerking or an idiot,
Useless freak of nature —
"Up with...", yells the patriot,
"Down with...", comes the rebel's roar.
Иду — и думаю о разном.
Плету на гроб себе венок,
И в этом мире безобразном
Благообразно одинок.
Но слышу вдруг: война, идея,
Последний бой, двадцатый век.
И вспоминаю, холодея,
Что я уже не человек,
А судорога идиота,
Природой созданная зря, —
«Ур-ра!» из пасти патриота,
«Долой!» из глотки бунтаря.
«Take from my open hands for your delight / A bit of honey and a bit of sun / As willed to us the bees of Proserpina. Not to untie again an unmoored boat, / And not to know a shadow shod in fur, / Nor yet to conquer fear of dreary lifetime: To us remain but kisses in the night, / Fuzzy an...»
«Brothers, let's celebrate the dusk of liberty, / Let's celebrate this great and dusky Yule. / In boiling waters of the night like sea / The heavy wood has been submerged and pulls / In these dead years you rise above me / O sun, to judge us all and rule. Let's celebrate the fated burden, ...»
«On fearsome height stands wandering fire / But does star glimmer thus, or are eyes lying? / Transparent star, wandering fire / Your brother, Petropole, is dying. On fearsome height the earthly dreams all burn / And a green star is flying. / Oh, if you be a star — brother of earth and he...»
«I have forgot the word that I had meant to say. / To palace of the shades flies a blind swallow / Upon clipped wings with shadows to play. / Night's song is in oblivion sung below. Immortelle does not bloom. I cannot hear bird's song. / Transparent are the mantles of night's horse herd / ...»